Conversations with Orland Bishop

Unit 4: Questions…and the Beginning of Answers

After some minutes of preparatory material and reworking of concepts from the last session, Orland reveals some incredible wisdom toward the end of the second segment of this session. He emphasizes, again, that “In the realm we call Earth and cosmos, there is no finished thing. There are only beings revealing their work.” So rather than perceiving another being as a noun, a completed object that already exists, he invites us to ask, “What are you singing?” or “Show me your future.” He offers this not just as a metaphysical philosophy, but as an exercise, a practice. It starts with an idea that everything speaks. As we listen for it, it becomes true in our experience, unlocking inconceivable realms of knowledge.

Course Videos

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Audio

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Study Notes

These segments share a basic theme of how reality comes to be through human interaction. Orland and I play with it from different angles here, so I’ll just highlight one thread that might be a little harder to understand. Toward the middle of the fourth segment Orland says, “The field of collective intelligence, or collective consciousness, or super consciousness, holds all of our potentialities.” However, because we are mostly unaware of the full subtlety and extent of this engagement, we as a society have the potential to vastly expand our access to truth and our ability to create a new order.

Orland and I go on to apply this as well to capacities of the individual person. Orland delineates what is actually a quite mundane process for growing into knowledge: attentive perception of what is given, followed by investigation, followed by new understanding as more context is incorporated. And this new understanding may come with new demands, as one grapples with its implications. Thus, to sincerely ask another being, “What are you singing?” (a song in which the momentary perception is but a single chord or movement) may change the asker as much as the asked. The “you” in the question is the singer of the song that manifests as a form in time. It is not the form itself.

Discussion/Practice Suggestion

As I write these words, my country and probably most of the world are facing tumultuous times. What are you singing? I address this question first to That Which Sings the World. And then to that which sings myself. To work with this, let’s follow up from Orland’s earlier observation about the peace in conflict and contemplate the following question: What wants to be sung into existence through uncertainty and turmoil? And when you perceive it, who does it call you to be?