The Philosophy of “As If”
By Steve Beckow
Hans Vaihinger, 1852-1933 Credit: Bridgman Images
My friend Len, who introduced me to Ascension in the first place, reminds me that operating “as if” is a basic component of manifestation. That’s right. Thank you for that, Len.
As I sat in the UBC Library in 1986, reading everything in the social sciences I could lay my hands on, (1) one book title fascinated me and stayed with me: The Philosophy of “As If,” by a German scholar, Hans Vaihinger, published in 1911.
I never read the book! But the idea always intrigued me and stayed with me.
There’s a profound concept in that phrase, on the use of the will in line with universal law. It may prove helpful in a time of chaos, because it’s a way of working with the outside world that provides a path through what’s going on around us.
Now, because I never got around to reading the book – it was “as if” the mere title was enough – what follows is me making it up, with apologies to Herr Vaihinger.
I never worked well with the imagination. Heaven knows why. I worked best (internally) with feelings. Ideas seemed to come and go of their own. I was always grabbing them as I thought everyone else was. But feelings was where I lived.
Vaihinger’s phrase, when I saw it in the library, got in. I’m going to stop talking about imagination and begin behaving “as if” things are the way I want them to be.
Why not? We’re doing it anyways in a hit-and-miss fashion. Why not perfect the skill?
Moreover, any spiritual teacher will tell us we’re making our world up anyways. (2)
And here’s a zinger. If we want the world to work for everyone, if we want our negotiations to be win/win, we have to include ourselves. Acting as if things are the way we’d like them to be is showing what it is we want. It’s transparency.
In the best of all possible worlds, all would be well. We’d be creating a reality we like, rather than one we dislike. And others would be doing the same. Where there was a fit, we pursue maters. Where not, we’d pass like ships in the night.
If we are God, our powers take in creation, preservation, and transformation, all achieved through the use of love. That makes sense, right? God creates, preserves, and transforms, all through the use of love? (3)
We are God (there is nothing else in the world), (4) slogging through a snowbank of 3/4D density, but we still create, preserve, and transform – lasting if through love, transitory if through hate and anger.
Let me play with “as if.” What if I operated “as if” I had all the time in the world – because, in one sense, I do. I’m eternal. You’re eternal. All of us are eternal beings. Thus, it can be said that we all have all the time in the world. (I’m re-educating myself here.)
Rather than go off after another example, let me hold on to this one and work with it. (We used to call this growthwork.)
I’m operating in the domain of will when I operate “as if” things are a certain way. They become that way for me, whether they are for the other person or not.
Flash: I just got that I can work this way with love. I can operate “as if” everyone I meet understands the love that I feel. If someone doesn’t, that situation gets identified quicker and I can tone it down or … whatever!
This is promising.
“As if” is a way to operate with the will such that, in my own little world or bubble, I’m always maximizing the chances of getting what I want; in my case, higher-dimensional, transformative love. It isn’t a guarantee. But it’s a tool in our toolbox.
Once the world feels this higher form of love, everyone will be saying the same thing as I am: Oh, it’s so wonderful! Rapturous. Blissful. Ambrosia! Brush off those superlatives.
We don’t have many words for something higher in dimension to us. But we do find that this love is what we want, what we’ve been looking for. It satisfies all our desires.
That’s why we have this silly smile on our faces.
The problem is that anyone who’s corrupt or narcissistic also uses “as if” to get their way. They can’t use love because love is not to be found in corruption. They usually act instead out of entitlement or manipulation.
They’ll go to much greater lengths to get what they want than the average decent person; they might go so far as to kill you, as the Nazis did.
I’ll bet that somewhere someone on this planet is killing someone right now and quoting scripture as they do it.
Any tool can be bent to any end. A chisel can make a fine cut in wood or kill someone. I’m not talking about a corrupt or narcissistic application of this process. I’m working in wood.
Our intentions need to be pure if we want a pure outcome. If we keep an eye on our intentions, and be transparent about them (more growthwork), we should avoid the misuse of this tool.
Whoa down there! That’s enough for one go!
Thank you, Michael, Annastara, my twin, my guides and, as always, the Mother. I apologize for going on and on. I was curious myself to see what was coming next.
Footnotes
(1) My Sociology Ph.D. adviser once said to me, “I think you only read introductions.” And he was right. I just wanted the concept. I wasn’t interested in the outworking of the details.
(2) I’m not a spiritual teacher. I have not the required level of enlightenment and I aspire to be a writer, sharing my own thoughts, not a guide. A spiritual teacher spends their time interacting with their pupils. I seek solitude and flee from email.
(3) I was able to confirm this view with the Mother and Archangel Michael.
A. Steve: I’ve read part of this quote to the Divine Mother. She’s verified it but I’ve added things to it. So I’d like to read it to you again and ask if it is correct.
Creation, preservation, and transformation = rajas, sattwa, and thamas [the gunas] = Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva [the Trimurthy] = Akar, Ukar and Makar [AUM] = inbreath, pause, and outbreath.
Archangel Michael: That is quite the expression, Sweet One, and, in that tradition and in that understanding, the answer is correct.
Steve: It is not discussed in other traditions.
AAM: No, it is not. (Archangel Michael in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Linda Dillon, April 2, 2020.)
Steve: [I’d like to] know if the gunas, the cosmic forces which are called rajas, sattwa, and thamas, are the same as the Trimurthy [Triad] of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
B. Divine Mother: Yes. We [the Divine Mother is all of these and infinitely more] are the same as that triad.
S: All right. And the Trimurthy of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva is a subset of the Universal Creative Vibration [Akar Ukar Makar or AUM] that you are at your essence. Is that correct?
DM: That is correct. It [the Trimurthy] is a way in which my beloved children can come to know me and to have that experience. It is formless, and yet it is form. It is a way of connection, and it is a way of understanding and entering into a higher vibration of being. So it helps the emergence into my energy.
S: Sort of like stair steps?
DM: That is correct. (“The Divine Mother: Come to Me as I Come to You – Part ½,” Oct. 17, 2012, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2012/10/17/the-divine-mother-come-to-me-as-i-come-to-you-part-12/.)
(4) Verily, all is [God]. (Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans., The Upanishads. Breath of the Eternal. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1957; c1948, 46.)
[There is] no other beside me. (Sri Krishna in Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944, 71.)
I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 5:22.)
At last the gnostic [knower of God] understands … that everything in immanence is nothing other than His Manifestation and Tools. (Ibn Arabi Muhyideen, Kernel of the Kernel. trans. Ismail Hakki Bursevi. Sherborne: Beshara, n.d., 7.)
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