cheiron said:
Personally, I see them as separate beings, while in the end we all merge into Oneness, but maybe I'm wrong, it's just a working hypothesis, as one thing the ayahuasca has thought me for sure is that to hold a firm belief in an ontology is the best way to find your ontology shocked beyond belief
This is the thing with paradoxes... our semantics and rhetorical abilities collapse under the weight of a reality that is far more nuanced and infinite than we can express easily.
Even masters of language can not capture the truth in words. I feel that words are but mirrors that have to be angled properly to reflect light that exists outside of them. And as with mirrors, the angle that works to shine light in one set of eyes is not the same as that for another set of eyes.
I believe we all arise from, exist within, and are on the ultimate level, this same
Omniversal Self. However, on our egoic journey and in our various incarnations, we have a persona that is separate from others for most purposes. We intersect and overlap, but we have different skills, different knowledge, different hopes, different dreams and different goals.
Entities are no more part of us than other people are. Which is to say simultaneously completely so, and totally not.
In this light, entities are not part of our subconscious or shadows of ourselves. They have their own egos... their own intentions, and to discard this is dangerous. It is for this reason that my chief guide and most trusted ally (both in dreaming and tripping) tends to be my highest self. This is the version of me from the end of time... the highest iteration of my unique code. The final self before total reunion with SELF. No other being, regardless of how compassionate, has your exact same goals and motivations. No other being understands you as well as your future you.
I have met many high and powerful beings, and many of them are rather compassionate... Avalokiteshvara, Quan Yin, The White Buffalo Woman, Gaia. Many are not compassionate at all. They can still aid you, but they don't
care about you or your quest, as they see
through the illusion of your small selfhood and find it unworthy of taking seriously.
My Higheest Self (first encountered in Lucid Dreaming)... and other alternate higher selves tend to be more of the second variety in that they don't take my dramas and situations all that seriously. But, they love me. And, they have vested interest in me achieving... them.
So this is better than compassion IMHO.
I have met Lion Headed beings, and had one come and take me out of my body when I was sober and not even partially asleep. Later I met this same guy in a human form... didn't recognize him until he literally transformed in front of my eyes. I mentioned that he looked like Beast from Beauty & The Beast and some other people in the room said they saw that as well. We are still friends, but he is not a compassionate being per se... I think he was fulfilling an obligation to one of my incarnations perhaps.
I have a good connection with many Dragons as well... also not exactly light beings or all that compassionate... but they have been instrumental in helping me close off my blind spots and learn to close the back doors into my energy bodies.
I have read much about Metatron, though I am not sure if we have met... I don't recall being introduced to him as such, but I have encountered a lot of entities who I never got names for. I think it was Drunvalo Melchezidek's descriptions of him that interested me the most. Perhaps I will invite him to join me next time I go traipsing around the cosmos.
At any rate... people can believe what they want. I don't think that trying to imagine that beings that dwarf you, and have minds that make yours look like a toy cup that leaks... are mere "aspects" of you, is a good thing, though.
Even if you imagine that your unconscious is the giant iceberg under the sea compared to the meager top that is your normal waking mind... it is simply not big enough to contain these beings. They will forgive you for your impudence (usually) but many of them will just not hang out with you if you hold on to such beliefs. They are not even contained by the role they play with you, as you only ever see a facet of a being that has innumerable such faces. (for the most part)
If one has only had the experience of meeting rather small entities or their own shadow projections, then it is natural (or at least understandable) to assume that
all entities are of this sort. I beg to differ though. There are beings that are so vast and intelligent that your mind is not capable of imagining them. They stand as titans next to humanity, and our trying to pigeon hole them into our lame understandings is akin to a mouse thinking that a human is it's tail... or a shadow tail it has somehow... when the mouse is only vaguely aware of your finger and can't even comprehend the hand and arm it is attached to, let alone the being that wields that arm.
As a veteran of literally thousands of journeys over 35 years or so... I think it funny when people who have a handful of experiences think they can school me about what is going on in Hyperspace. This is not as arrogant as it sounds. Even one real deep journey can be infinite, and there is no comparing one set of experiences to another... it is just the feeling one gets when young people who were not even born when you began meeting entities try and influence your beliefs and question your experiences with them. It is a bit like having a Phd and having some kids from the local elementary school visit your lab and try and tell you how your machines function. Kind of cute, but also kind of annoying.