Mike's commentary · Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Preface

The "Reading Guide" and "Chapter Highlights" in this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike during his lectures. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the block quotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Guide

This chapter unpacks the preface to Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment: first it analyzes why "evolution" in the book title is placed in quotation marks and the meaning of "value fulfillment," then it introduces Wang Jiqing's general preface and the seven core ideas of the New Age movement, and it excerpts Seth's statements that consciousness is energy and that life needs no rationalization. The second half of the chapter focuses on animal consciousness, explaining that animals are already aware, carry signature imprints, have no concept of death, and form a consciousness alliance with humans. Finally, Seth responds to Jane and Rob's doubts about their identities as poet and painter, emphasizing that true artists are psychics and should trust their own impulses.

Key Points of This Chapter

• In Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, the word "evolution" is placed in quotation marks to avoid Darwinian evolution and the illusion of time; "value fulfillment" means realizing and exercising with a sense of satisfaction, and the core of the whole book is the origin of the universe.
• Wang Jiqing's general preface introduces the seven core ideas of the New Age movement: humans are part of God, you create your own reality, affirming the meaning of life, the inwardness of morality, physical and mental health as the natural state, environmental protection, and unconditional love.
• Seth points out that science does not dare admit that all energy contains consciousness, and that consciousness, energy, and matter are one and the same thing; the very existence of life is its own meaning, requiring no additional rationalization.
• Animal consciousness is already aware, possesses signature imprints, and has no death zone and no concept of death; domesticating and slaughtering pets and animals is a choice made by both sides, not one-sided plunder by humans.
• Seth told Jane and Rob that true artists are essentially psychics or mystics, that painting and writing do not conflict, and that they should trust their own impulses and not limit themselves with the labels of poet or painter.

Main Text

Hello everyone, I am Mike. Today I am beginning to share the seventh book of the Seth material, whose Chinese title is Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, published in two volumes. The English title is Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment; note that "Evolution" is in quotation marks in the title. The word "evolution" itself means development, unfolding. The purpose of the quotation marks is that Seth does not want you to associate it with evolution in the traditional sense, because in the American context, as soon as you say "Evolution," the first thing that comes to mind is Darwin's theory of evolution. Seth does not want you to carry that concept.

Also, whenever evolution and unfolding are mentioned, they are necessarily tied to time, within a certain time frame. But this book itself aims to break down your illusion of time, and he is afraid that you will keep carrying the misconception of the time illusion into it, so he added quotation marks.

Let us look at the root of this word. Evolution: "Evolue" is the root, the connecting letter T, plus the noun suffix ION. "Evolue" comes from "Evolve," because V and W are "three brothers" and can be interchanged. "Evolve" means to develop, to evolve. "Evolve" means "outward," and "Volve" in Webster's dictionary means "to turn," so "Evolve" means "to turn outward," which is called unfolding: a mass slowly rolls outward, expanding. Development is the process of unfolding. For example, bacteria slowly evolving resistance to antibiotics is this kind of unfolding evolution.

You say you cannot remember "Volve"? There is a car called Volvo, which means "rotation." This company first produced rotating bearings¹, and only later grew large enough to make cars; using the concept of rotation to make cars is very fitting. Note that this "turning" is turning forward, not turning back: "Verse" is the turning of transformation.

All right, there is also a little secret that many people have not noticed. What are the first four letters of "Evolution" in reverse? It is "Love." Turn "Love" around, and it is the first four letters of "Evolution." English has many such words that are interesting forward and backward. For example, "Life" reversed is "Evil." There are many such words in English; if you examine them carefully, they are very interesting.

Next, "value fulfillment." The word "Value" is very simple, but it is not the "value" we ordinarily understand: it is not about worth, good or bad. Here, value fulfillment is a fundamental law of the universe. "Fulfillment" can be broken down from its word structure: "Full" means filled, "Fill" means to pour in, to infuse and add; adding everything is filling to the brim, and adding "Ment" makes it a noun state, meaning "the state of being filled to the brim," generally understood as "completion." The feeling of "Fulfillment" is completion with a sense of satisfaction; it is something you want to complete. But "Complete," "Accomplish," "Finish" refer to work or tasks you have to do. Only "Fulfillment" is "what I am willing to do, what I want, and I have completed what I wanted."

The title of this book is actually a summary of its content. But I think it would be more fitting to call it The Origin of the Universe: what it truly wants to convey is in fact the origin of the universe. These three core terms summarize several key points of the origin of the universe, but for people who have not encountered the Seth material, just looking at the title gives no idea what it is about: they think it is about dream interpretation, about evolution, about feel-good spiritual talk. I generally use "unfolding" rather than "evolution," for fear that people will associate it with the theory of evolution. It is a process of unfolding: it was already that thing all along, only the form changed, and it was unfolded.

If you insist on understanding it from the perspective of evolutionary theory, then you have not fully understood it. But the book does indeed discuss the evolution of consciousness, the evolution of humanity, the evolution of life. Why? Because we stand in the three-dimensional world and always want to consider problems from a three-dimensional angle. But things at the level of the universe cannot all be loaded with time: even time and space were created by the universe, and using created things to ask the creator how it created is meaningless.

Now let us look at the beginning of the book. At the very start is the general preface written by Wang Jiqing. Wang Jiqing was the earliest translator to bring the Seth material into the Chinese-speaking world, a famous Taiwanese scholar and translator. At the age of nine, he began seriously pondering "Who am I, where do I come from, where am I going," and developed enormous doubts that lurked somewhere in his consciousness and kept troubling him. When I was in the second year of junior high, around twelve or thirteen, I also considered the overall direction and purpose of the human race as a whole, and in the end found no result. Our conclusion at the time was: the meaning of human existence is to want to find the meaning of its own existence.

In his preface he writes that he walked alone for half his life, living ardently, unwilling to let any scenery pass him by: he crossed deserts, tasted wind and sand, tramped through economies, and leisurely appreciated all kinds of beautiful scenes. Not only the beauty of the natural world, but the beauty of art, the beauty of science, the beauty of the感性 and the beauty of the intellectual: he experienced them all. But his ultimate concern, the question "Who am I, where do I come from, what am I going to do," the three soul questions of philosophy, is something no one can escape. This ultimate concern kept him uneasy, sorrowful, and fearful. All this flourishing beauty, whether of nature, of intellect, or of science, would suddenly stir in him the horror of "flowers fall, people die, and neither knows the other." If the core question is unresolved, then no matter how much beauty you experience, you will only see the scenery and feel emotion, and sorrow will rise from within, because you know that however beautiful the scenery is, it is no more than a flash in the pan, a passing cloud. You do not know where you will go in the end, nor where you came from. You are like a tourist suddenly dropped into the world, given life, experiencing a hundred or so years, and then turning to dust.

His writing is truly remarkable: in just a few words he vividly depicts a person's emotional state from age nine to middle age. Later he studied philosophy, psychology, and religion, learned Buddhism, and translated a book called The Prophet². In 1976 he began to encounter the Seth material, which broke down many of his preconceptions and answered many questions. The Seth material resolved his doubts: although the theory cannot be verified, his inner intuition kept resonating with it. Many people who study the Seth material have this feeling: you cannot prove that it is right, but in your heart you feel that what it says makes sense.

After returning to Taiwan, he modestly said that he "made an effort to translate a few" Seth books, while continuing to delve into Chinese and Western philosophy and Buddhism. At that time he still did not know about the New Age Movement. Every time he went to the United States he would immerse himself in bookstores, looking at books on psychology and the like. Once, among the paperbacks from the Rooster Press, he saw on the back cover a design of a man and a woman holding hands, with the words "New Age Series" printed below: "the pursuit of meaning, growth, and change." That was the fixed emblem of the Rooster Press's series of New Age books. He first read many books in the New Age category, and only afterward learned that there was a New Age Movement, and then understood that the Seth material had already become its model.

When discussing the New Age Movement, one cannot avoid mentioning Seth. The Seth material ran from 1963 to 1984, a full twenty-one years, and its publication continued for decades afterward; it has the most content, the broadest scope, and the most comprehensive knowledge. Many people call the Seth material the cornerstone or theoretical framework of the New Age Movement. Of course opinions differ: some believe that Conversations with God, Ramtha, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, A Course in Miracles, and others are more valuable. Every school thinks it is the core, which does not matter; their shared views are similar.

The so-called "New Age" refers to the Age of Aquarius. Western mysticism holds that we are now in a transitional period, in which humanity moves from the pursuit of the material to the pursuit of the spiritual and the psychic. Aquarius symbolizes humanitarianism, evolving from the pursuit of social, material, and technological progress to an emphasis on spiritual exploration, seeking the common ground of the human psyche that transcends race, skin color, ethnicity, nationality, and religious denomination, recognizing the common origin and equality of humanity, and reaching the vision of one world. The New Age Movement had its beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century, but truly flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. The end-of-century apocalyptic fear hung like dark clouds, with all sorts of prophecies that humanity would face extinction in 1999 or 2012. Others prophesied that the twenty-first century would be the century of the psyche.

"You create your own reality" is Seth's classic statement, and also an important consensus of the New Age; the wording differs, but the principle is the same. This point is the same as Buddhism's "consciousness-only": Dr. Yang Dingyi's Consciousness-Only³ speaks of "consciousness-only theory," meaning that consciousness created all of this. If this is everyone's consensus, a group consciousness, then in the future such a reality will certainly manifest. There is also the famous Datre material in the New Age Movement. But there is no clear rule here about what counts and what does not; these are all consensuses, with no objective organization to certify them.

Looking around the world, with the gradual opening of totalitarian states toward democracy and human rights, and everyone's attention to and action on shared concerns such as peace, disaster relief, nonviolence, and environmental protection, the influence of the New Age Movement is expanding and deepening. In Europe and America it is blossoming in myriad forms: all kinds of books, programs, and workshops abound, and all manner of psychics, hypnotists, masters, and gurus appear on the scene, with widely varying quality. After sifting the wheat from the chaff, I will simply introduce a few of the best and most beneficial ideas.

The first core idea: we are in fact part of God. Here "God" is in quotation marks; it is not the traditional God: a transcendent, external, surname-bearing, authoritarian judge. The New Age advocates All That Is, cosmic consciousness, life force, energy as the source of everything. Each system uses different terms: Christ consciousness, cosmic consciousness, All That Is, life force, energy, energy field, unified field. We are all members of it. The Mahaparinirvana Sutra⁴ says, "All sentient beings possess Buddha-nature; all sentient beings can become Buddhas": our essence is the same as the source of the universe.

We are essentially indestructible spiritual beings, formless and imageless. We are not the physical body; the body is only a vehicle, a shell, a tool to be used, a prop for experience. This All That Is is just as Zhu Xi said in his commentary on the Doctrine of the Mean⁵: "Spread out, it fills the six directions; rolled up, it is hidden in the secret." When opened, it includes all things in the universe; when gathered in, it is formless and invisible. He was using various theories to prove that this thing has existed since ancient times. Before the noumenon is manifested, before it is spread out as the phenomenal world, in timelessness and spacelessness, it is still and unmoving, an emptiness containing all things; its creativity dream-transforms into the phenomenal world. Note the word "spread": "bu" means to spread out and unfold, "shi" means to bestow. The English word closest to "spreading and bestowing" is "Fulfillment": to realize and carry out with satisfaction. Before it is spread out and unfolded, it exists in what we consider an "emptiness," but in fact everything is there: true emptiness gives rise to wondrous existence.

We are pure psyche entering the body in part, to experience physical reality. The psyche is indestructible, and the universe is a phenomenon like illusion and transformation. Lu Xiangshan said: "My mind is the universe, the universe is my mind⁶. All things stand in dense order within the square inch; when the mind is full, they issue forth." This "mind" is not the flesh-and-blood heart, but the consciousness mind, the mind of the intellect. "All things stand in dense order" means that all things have inner laws, orderly and not at all chaotic, and their inner laws of development are all within my mind, within the square inch. "When the mind is full, they issue forth": when the heart has very strong wishes, desires, and emotions, they issue forth. Originally they all exist in dense order within your mind, arranged neatly according to inner laws. All possibilities are within you; which ones issue forth depends on which direction your full heart is oriented toward.

The second characteristic: you create your reality. This is Seth's classic slogan, and another way of saying "all phenomena are created by the mind alone." We are all masters of our own destiny, not subject to the control of any external authority, whether religious authority, theoretical authority, scientific authority, or political authority. We can no longer blame heaven or others, because everything is created by ourselves. Everything outside is only a projection of the inner world; here we write, direct, and act out one drama after another of joy and sorrow, parting and reunion.

The third viewpoint: affirming the meaning of life. Other religions deny the meaning of life, saying that life is like a dream, a bubble, a shadow. The New Age acknowledges that this is illusion, but it is not nihilistic or pessimistic: this dreamlike, illusory materialized universe has meaning and value in its existence. We should immerse ourselves in it, enjoy it, feel it, and create and experience within it. This is what Buddhism calls "borrowing the false to cultivate the true": you must borrow this falsehood; you cannot want only the true. If the false is gone, you have nothing at all. The current play is precisely about borrowing the false to cultivate the true. You do not want to borrow the false to cultivate the true, you want only the true? That is the play of another soul of yours in another world, under another scenario, cultivating the true. In your present state of consciousness, you can only cultivate that true within this false environment. Seth's discussion of myths goes into great detail on this. The New Age Movement is not nihilistic or pessimistic; it regards life as a process of learning. In fact, we have nothing to learn: everything is a process of re-remembering, a process of union, called "Remembering" in English. "Re" means "again," "Member" means "a member": to become a member again, to become part of a group. You do not need to learn anything; you already knew everything long ago, only when you came here you deliberately told yourself: to play the game well, you must first forget all of this. If you do not forget, if you know that all of this is written, directed, and acted by yourself, then the game is no fun: just like Netflix's hottest series Squid Game⁷; when you watch the last episode you will understand what it means to write, direct, and act it yourself while still being immersed in it.

Life provides us with the opportunity for the psyche to directly experience physical reality. Amid intricate interpersonal relationships and the dazzling phenomenal world, we exercise creativity and imagination. The most important thing is to live in the world, to cherish such an opportunity, and to give rise to compassion. Purely intellectual thinking must be combined with life experience: pure rational thinking must be combined with lived experience, contemplative reflection, and direct feeling before it can brew into wisdom. If you study for a long time but do no practice and no application, only accumulating a pile of theory, that is meaningless; that is not wisdom. But neither can you plunge headlong into life and become overly absorbed in the drama: you must also be able to detach, to be an observer, in order to remove ego-attachment and have hope of understanding the infinite mind. The Buddhist saying "the dual operation of compassion and wisdom" is universally applicable. Compassion can be understood as emotion, experience, feeling, using a higher state to symbolize the sum of all emotions. The dual operation of compassion and wisdom means applying emotional feeling and wisdom simultaneously; using only one is biased.

The fourth characteristic: the inwardness of morality. There is no external morality, no heaven or hell, no personified god to judge you. Morality should not be a morality of rules, of external regulations, but a morality of virtue. Chapter 38 of Laozi's Tao Te Ching⁸ says this very clearly: external virtue is inferior virtue; true superior virtue has no rules at all, it is internal, arising from within. In the Seth material this is called "natural guilt," which the previous two books, The Nature of Personal Reality and Seth Speaks, discuss. Mencius said "benevolence and righteousness are internal"⁹, and Wang Yangming said "extending innate knowledge"¹⁰: what he called innate knowledge refers to the inwardness of morality, not the ordinary understanding of conscience, but because of the limitations of his era he had no other words to express it. So when reading the School of Mind, do not interpret it literally. Morality is an unconditional supreme imperative, "doing without doing for the sake of anything," needing no rules, not relying on religious precepts or the laws and regulations of state and society. The so-called innate knowledge is the inner god; everyone has their own standard within their heart, and by reflecting inwardly one can understand how to act. This is autonomous morality.

This affirms the goodness of human nature and the absence of original sin. The New Age Movement affirms that "human nature is originally good," and not only is human nature good, the entire universe is oriented toward goodness. I remember someone on QQ had a long discussion with me, saying that he could not feel that the universe is oriented toward goodness, and believed that the universe is neutral, with neither evil nor good. If you are interested, you can look at what I said in that discussion. There is no fear of permanent punishment: this is extremely shocking to Westerners raised under traditional Christian doctrine. Westerners believe that people are born with original sin, but this removes original sin. Guilt and fear are only devices invented by humans to control people, not innate. The vast net with which traditional Christianity restricted people instantly vanishes, and people can joyfully and openly be free and at ease. Be a real person, not a good person, not a right person, not the kind of person with very high social moral standards.

This is a misunderstanding many people have: they think that practitioners, people who study spirituality, should be good people, gentlemen and ladies, with higher moral standards than ordinary people, and that if they do not measure up they are unworthy of practice. That is not so. What is a practitioner? A real person is enough. Do not take off the outer garment of material pursuit only to put on the label of moral pursuit.

The fifth characteristic: physical and mental health is the natural state. People are naturally healthy in body and mind; there is no need for the things of modern medicine or health preservation. The body's natural state is health, just as in ancient Chinese medicine. The English word for illness is "Disease": not at ease. "Easy" is relaxed; "Disease" is the inability to relax, and with nominalization, it means that people who cannot be "Easy" become ill. Psychological discomfort leads to external symptoms, and only you yourself can change it; external doctors can only assist. If you can change your psychological state, the illness will be cured. Western medicine, by contrast, is a fragmented state of treating the head when the head aches and the foot when the foot aches, viewing illness from cells, molecules, and systems, treating wherever it hurts. The West is now also beginning to emphasize holism.

The sixth characteristic: emphasis on environmental protection. For the survival of humanity and to leave a beautiful space for future generations, do not blindly develop or shortsightedly abuse resources; emphasize love of life, and take up the role of coordinator and conservator of nature. The destruction of the ozone layer, the disappearance of forests, climate abnormalities, resource abuse, rampant pollution, and so on are all global impacts that require common attention, giving rise to the concept of the global village. This comes naturally, and is different from traditional environmentalism: it originates from the concept of the oneness of all things, and is as natural and spontaneous as protecting oneself.

The seventh characteristic: unconditional love. This is the foundation of everything, the premise for being able to live well and have a better life. The essence of All That Is is unconditional love, because you are part of All That Is, and living out your true nature is naturally unconditional love. If you have not reached this state, you have not lived as you originally are, and you are in a state of inner conflict. The Chinese say that Heaven, Qian, is the masculine principle of creativity, and Earth, Kun, is the feminine principle of nourishment. In Western religion, God represents the masculine will, the principle of creation, and the Holy Spirit represents the feminine love, the principle of nourishment. All things come from the interaction of yin and yang. On the one hand we come from the universe, the Milky Way, and galaxies beyond the Milky Way; on the other hand we come from the Earth: one from Heaven, one from Earth. Heaven the father, Earth the mother, the vast cosmos, and humanity in between, the child of the universe and the Earth, combining the characteristics of both attributes, a trinity: Heaven is the Holy Father, Earth is the Holy Spirit, and we are the Holy Son.

Unconditional love is not possessive love; it carries no selfish desire and no compulsion, and it is not "do unto others what you would have done unto you": that is a virtue, but it is not this. It is gentle acceptance and warm care, and it begins with loving oneself. Many people do not know how to love unconditionally, thinking that they must first learn to selflessly love others. That is not so. Unconditional love must begin with unconditionally loving yourself. If you want to go outward, you must first go inward; without learning inward unconditional love, you cannot learn outward unconditional love. Recognize your inner round and bright self-confidence: you yourself have always understood everything, and you love and respect yourself. You are love itself; you do not lack love, you do not need to seek love, you are here to give love. Everyone who comes into contact with you can feel love from you, because you yourself are already love. Expand this love outward, like sunlight shining everywhere, unconditional, undemanding, uncritical. First find the essence of love through being unconditional toward yourself, then extend it outward. This love does not fear scarcity; it will not diminish when given to others; it is inexhaustible, and giving is receiving: the more love you give others, the more love you receive. The more you refuse to give to others, treating everyone coldly and resentfully, the less love you will receive. Love is inexhaustible; giving it away only multiplies it.

In the Eastern traditions of Daoism and Buddhism one can find expressions that quietly correspond to these ideas. Westerners under the influence of Christianity have in recent years re-excavated nourishment from ancient Western mysticism and Eastern philosophy and religion, gaining remarkably profound insights. Although the New Age Movement originated in the West, it contains the core ideas of Eastern mysticism and philosophy: traditional Western philosophy is not these things; it was only after combining with the East that it produced profound insights. Sun Chunhua, Hu Yinmeng, and Wang Jiqing together founded the New Age Information Press¹¹, bringing joy and love to friends willing to receive them. The New Age does not reject any religion, nor is it affiliated with any organization or sect. With the support of Cao Youfang and Jian Zhizhong¹², Wang Jiqing served as editor-in-chief, selecting fine foreign books for readers, and inviting well-known Taiwanese authors to share their insights on life. This series is like a living spring of love, quenching the thirst of the heart: the English name of our spiritual home is Spiritual Oasis, meaning an oasis of the psyche. He said: "I deeply feel that what I want to bring to everyone is the message of love, because I was once a frightened and uneasy child, and when I realized that life is both light and love, I longed to comfort every child still in fear and unease."

Below is Wang Jiqing's preface on translating this book, which we will briefly skip; the content will all be explained later. Further below is a note written by Rob himself: excerpts Rob made from the sessions Seth delivered before and during the time Jane and Seth worked together on Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment. In one passage Seth says:

Unfortunately, science has even bound up its own most original thought, value, and mind, because they dare not deviate from certain scientific principles.

Before the start of Seth's book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Rob and Jane placed two sessions from 1979 here as a preface: one is a private session from September 13, and the other is Session 881. I will first discuss the earlier private session, because it involves animal consciousness, which happens to allow a comparison with what the Datre material says about animal consciousness.

Seth Quotes: Consciousness and Energy

Rob excerpted three passages from Seth as the opening of the preface. The first passage comes from Seth's private session on July 12, 1979:

Unfortunately, science has even bound up its own most original thought, value, and mind, because they dare not deviate from certain scientific principles.

All energy contains consciousness. That statement is basically a scientific heresy, and in many circles it is also a religious heresy. Acknowledging that simple statement would indeed change your world.

The meaning of this passage from Seth is very simple: scientists have bound up their own originality and dare not propose new theories. Consciousness and energy are originally one and the same thing; consciousness is energy, and energy is consciousness. And we know that energy equals matter, so therefore consciousness equals energy equals matter. In this way we can understand the world very well, and it becomes unified. We acknowledge that energy equals matter, which can be reached through Einstein's mass-energy equation¹³; that is no problem. So now only one step is needed: is consciousness energy? If you acknowledge that consciousness is also a kind of energy, then is consciousness also matter? Scientists absolutely dare not admit this; they would rather die than accept it, because it would shake all their foundations. So not only do they not explore it, they do not even allow research into it. Whoever raises this viewpoint is a rebel against science, a traitor to science, an idealist, and has lost the spirit of science. That is the current view in the scientific community.

So Seth says it is a pity, a great pity. Science has the brightest minds in the world; the highest IQs on Earth are all among scientists, yet they have bound themselves up. They could actually have made deeper attainments and progress in this area, but they have not, simply because they dare not admit that consciousness is also energy, and dare not admit that all energy contains consciousness.

The second passage:

Sometimes I feel as if people expect me to rationalize a condition of life, but they really do not need any such rationalization.

Many people have been expecting Seth, through various materials and various statements, to find a rationalized meaning for their existence as individual human beings: why are you alive in the world? Why did you come to this Earth? Because of such and such, therefore you should do such and such. People always want to find such a thing, such a meaning, such a reason. This statement from Seth tells you: no, you do not need it. Your existence itself is the best proof of rationalization, the most important reason for rationalization. You do not need any other reason; you do not need to say why I am still living on Earth, why I have life, what the purpose and meaning of my coming here is: asking these questions is superfluous, because your being here is itself where the meaning lies.

The third passage:

Basically, consciousness has nothing to do with size. If it really did have something to do with size, then only a sphere larger than the Earth could contain the consciousness within a single cell.

Consciousness has no size. If the consciousness inside a cell were to be stored on today's hard drives, it would require a storage space as large as the Earth.

To live physically upon the planet of your operations, to dwell fully between your twilights and your dawns. Your existence supported by the seasons and the whole operation of spontaneous order -- this is a gift, a grace, a subtle joy.

This passage is beautifully written. Setting aside the poetic and emotional expression, what he means is this: we humans live on this Earth, and with the changing of the seasons and the rhythms of the Earth itself, it nourishes us, nurtures us, and allows us to grow. This in itself is a gift from heaven. To put it more plainly, we humans on Earth must be influenced by the material laws of the Earth, but rather than saying "influenced," it is better to say we are nourished by them. The changing of the seasons is the best nourishment for people -- we have spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and this is very important. If you understand traditional Chinese medicine, you know that it places great emphasis on the seasons: what to do in spring, what to do in summer, what to do in autumn, what to do in winter -- there is a very systematic study of all this. Humanity is a part of the natural world. In Daoist terms, this is the classic description of "humanity follows the Earth" -- very beautiful language.

Jane's Poem and the Fear of Faith

While Jane was producing Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, her physical illness caused many delays. By the time this book reached its final six sessions, on October 23, 1981, Jane said:

I received the following message from Seth:

You take care of what is in front of your eyes. You are not responsible for saving the world, or for finding the answers to all problems. You are responsible, however, for taking care of that particular small corner of the universe that is your own personal one. When each person does this, the world saves itself.

This statement is very classic and very meaningful. Do not think about saving the world, saving the universe, or saving humanity. Just save yourself properly. When everyone saves themselves properly, the universe saves itself. You might ask, isn't this a very selfish act? No, it is not selfish. It is the best return you can give to the universe.

Then you might say, in that case, do I not need to do anything at all, and only need to do my own things? No, that is not it. Whatever you do -- whether you are willing to care for others, or willing to share, or willing to help others -- that is also you doing your own things well, because you are willing to do those things. What you are willing to do is to share. For example, I am willing to share the Seth material, so that is what you are willing to do. If you are willing to work on a spiritual home, then go do any work within that spiritual home -- that is taking good care of what you want to do. If you do not want to do it, then do not do it. Do not say, out of duty or morality, "I have to do this, because this represents such and such."

You do these things not for others. Do not make yourself out to be so lofty, saying "I am doing this for humanity, for the community of human civilization, for the future direction of human development." It is fine to express such sentiments once in a while, but we all need to face ourselves objectively, seriously, and honestly: you do these things because you enjoy doing them, because doing other things makes you unhappy, and doing this makes you happy. Can we be honest with ourselves? Do not always wrap yourself in a lofty reason, as if without a lofty reason you could not give yourself an explanation. No. You simply like it. Why not admit it frankly? I do these things because I like doing them, not for humanity, not for the future, not for future generations -- those are all artificially added meanings. Essentially, it is because you like it. If you did not like it, would you do it? Admit this calmly, it is very simple. There is no conflict here. Do not think there is a real conflict -- "If everyone just takes care of their own business, then we should all stop doing anything, and do nothing at all" -- no. Do not swing from one side to the other, and then back again.

Then on this day Jane wrote the following poem:

At the first light of dawn, why should I lie in bed? Worrying about my body, or worrying about the world?

Before time was recorded, dawn followed dusk; when there was no time, the Earth still turned as it should.

That is to say, when humanity had no awareness of time, this Earth and this universe still existed naturally, and dawn followed every dusk. And all the creatures of the Earth rested within the lovely framework of their time. You do not need to worry about them; all things have their own laws.

Jane said that after writing this poem she felt a kind of faith, and realized that, like many people, she had been afraid of faith itself -- and that this is the deepest fear hidden within us. This statement is very profound, and most people find it hard to understand.

Simply put, this is a feeling that everyone has. If you have not experienced it, perhaps you have not yet reached that stage. When you can truly understand that you do not need to worry about others, that you do not need to worry about all of humanity, and that you only need to take care of yourself, she also believed that this was the most important thing for her existence in this world, and the only law she should follow -- she believed this, and she had this faith. But here is the problem: when everyone only cares about themselves, there arises an inner sense of alienation from society and from the universe. When Seth -- a high-intelligence, high-dimensional being whom you have sought for a long time -- tells you that you do not need to worry about others' affairs, and that taking good care of yourself is enough, you suddenly have a feeling -- and you also believe that what he says is right -- and then you have this sensation: so the world does not need me after all; so I only need to take care of myself. At that moment, what Jane felt arises: a deepest fear. She both believed this was right, and believed it should be this way, but because of this she felt a sense of separation and alienation from the existence of the world.

What is the reason? The reason is that Jane had never established that sense of oneness with the world around her, that feeling of oneness with all things. Although her sensitivity was very acute and her experiences were very good, she had never raised her consciousness to that level, so inside she had the feeling she just described. Once you have crossed that stage, it disappears. After crossing it, there is only full joy. When you can trust that every person can take care of themselves, when you trust that every cell, every leaf, every flower, every tree, every creature in nature -- that all things can take care of themselves -- then in your heart there is only joy. But if you do not have this sense of oneness with all things, if you do not have this awareness of the integration of collective consciousness, then you will have a kind of fear, a kind of alienation. You feel that others do not need you, and you do not need them.

Private Session: Animal Consciousness

Now begins Seth's own preface to this book, which is divided into two parts: one part is a private session, and one part is Session 881. Rob and Jane used both of these as the preface to this book. Session 881 was confirmed by Seth himself, while this private session actually was not, but Rob still placed it here as part of the preface. Let us take a look.

This was a private session that began on Thursday, September 13, at 8:40 p.m. Session 881 was dictated by Jane twelve days later. Rob chose to present this private session first because in it Seth provided certain material about Jane and Rob that Rob felt applied to all of their work with Seth through the sessions and the books, and also to their individual creative lives. What he means is that this private session can actually explain how this book came to be. Those who encounter this book for the first time can understand who Seth is and how Jane came into contact with Seth. Because this book was published independently, if you suddenly bought this book in a bookstore, without any prior background you would not even know who Seth is. So Rob and Jane were very clever to place this session here. Although it is a private session, it clearly introduces the background of Seth, Rob, and Jane.

The focus of this private session is animal consciousness. This is a session in which Seth rarely spent such a long passage discussing animal consciousness. Many readers wrote letters asking them questions about animal consciousness, and Rob quoted Seth's material from Session 878 on September 10 as a partial answer. Seth said:

Our cat, one called Mitzi, had an ovary removal operation about three weeks ago, and the other little male cat, Billy, will also be neutered next year.

Anyone who has kept cats or pets knows that cats need to be spayed or neutered. Jane and Rob both felt guilty, because they had deprived the cats of their reproductive role in life, and also because they did not allow them to run freely everywhere. Rob said that earlier that day he had made a paper ball for Mitzi to play with. Mitzi's lightning-fast reflexes kept batting the paper ball around the living room, and when Jane actually entered trance and began to speak, Mitzi was playing under Jane's rocking chair.

We seem to have had a heated discussion about this issue in the group a while ago -- the issue of neutering animals and spaying cats -- and there was intense disagreement. Seth's material here provides a very good explanation for this. Seth said:

Seeing your Mitzi's antics gives me an excuse to begin today's topic: animal consciousness.

It is very interesting. Starting from animal consciousness, how does Seth lead into this book, and how does he lead into the origin of the universe? You will find it very interesting to see how he discusses this.

I want to begin simply by questioning a few ideas that are taken for granted.

Let us take a few viewpoints that we consider to be taken for granted and question them. From this angle, let us discuss animal consciousness.

It is somewhat fashionable to regard man as always a predator of nature, as a destructive will within the family of nature, or to view him as separate from nature, with nature given to him as the basis for his life.

Even now this is still the case. People are especially willing to regard humanity as the destroyer of nature, the destroyer of the Earth, the destroyer of the environment. As if saying this makes you fashionable, as if you have taken the moral high ground, as if you are not a member of humanity yourself, and you go around accusing humanity: "Look at what you humans are doing. I am an environmentalist, and you are all destroying the environment." Is this viewpoint correct? No, this viewpoint itself is wrong. Where does the problem lie? The problem is very simple -- is humanity also a product of nature? Is humanity also a part of the natural world? First admit this. Humanity is a part of the natural world, so how can you talk about one destroying the other? If humanity is destroying the natural world, then that is the natural world destroying the natural world. That does not make sense, does it?

People who hold this viewpoint have only one problem: you separate humanity from the natural world. You think humanity is humanity, and the natural world is the natural world, so humanity is destroying the natural world and slaughtering animals. Many things do not stand up to scrutiny. Once you examine them, you find where the root of the problem lies.

I am not condoning man's behavior in that regard, either.

Seth says he also does not approve of or condone that kind of behavior that destroys and pollutes the environment, but your viewpoint itself is wrong. It is not that because I say this, I seem to support those who destroy the environment. No.

There are other issues, however, and questions that are seldom asked. You ignore overall animal consciousness, and its own purposes and intents. It is true that animals are slaughtered for human consumption under the most cruel of circumstances, because then they are treated only as food.

Many people -- environmentalists and animal rights activists -- have been fighting for the living conditions of animals. You know that in America this is especially serious. There are organizations specifically for the protection of chickens, saying that the living conditions of chickens are too poor, that chickens must be given freedom, that they cannot be kept in henhouses, and that they must be returned to nature and all become free-range, and the same for cattle, and so on. This session of Seth's is actually aimed at them, using very reasonable viewpoints, and in fact it is quietly taking jabs at those people.

Buffalo no longer roam as freely as they once did, yet since civilization began, there have been thousands of species of farm-bred animals that have lived for a while.

Since human civilization began, the animals domesticated by humans -- whether for food, for plowing, for guarding the home, or for companionship -- have far outnumbered the quantity that nature would normally have produced. The animals have more or less been well cared for, for a period of time. Although what they eat is not food from nature, they eat food made by humans at fixed times, in fixed places, and in fixed amounts, and that food is much tastier than food from nature. What do cats eat in nature? They eat mice and other small animals. What do they eat at home? If you have ever kept a cat, you know: all kinds of canned food, all kinds of fish cans, all kinds of biscuits, all kinds of snacks, all kinds of filled cat food, and all kinds of cat sticks -- made in Japan, the little cat sticks that cats love the most, extremely fragrant, so fragrant that even humans find them appealing, let alone cats. The cans are all pure meat -- fish, beef, chicken -- without any impurities, and for fear that the cat might be unhealthy, no chemical additives are included. Those cat sticks are also quite expensive, one dollar per stick, and they are gone in a few bites. Buy a box of cat sticks, and dozens of sticks cost dozens of dollars. You tell me, these things are many times better than what cats could eat in nature.

Usually they would not exist were it not for man's appetite for meat -- appetite in quotes.

This is what I have explained before: if it were not for humanity's love of eating, these domesticated animals would not exist. They would not exist on this Earth, and there would be no life. You cannot say that giving them life is fine, but when it comes time to slaughter them, that is not fine, and then you jump out. Without this kind of human greed and love of eating, there would not be so many chickens, ducks, cows, sheep, and pigs being bred and raised in captivity. So we have actually created their lives, and given them this opportunity to come to this Earth.

People often consider the matter in this way, but seldom think that some form of animal consciousness chose to enter physical bodies, that those animal species were domesticated and protected by man, and that the consciousness of those animal species had anything to do with such an overall arrangement.

You rarely consider this: why did animals enter this physical world? Why did animal consciousness enter animal bodies to experience our material world? Is it right to use a human perspective to understand animal consciousness? No. Animals are more aware of this issue than humans are. Humans are not good at this, and are relatively backward. Backward in what way? Humans have a very strong sense of identification with their physical bodies, believing that their body is the entirety of their life, that life is condensed within such a body -- within just over a hundred pounds -- and that this is the whole of life. When this body dies, breaks down, becomes mutilated, or decays, life is gone. They do not know that they actually have a soul, or consciousness, or a spiritual body, and that the death of the physical body is merely a change of shell.

Animals do not care about this -- when it dies, its soul does not die. It simply takes on another small animal and comes back again. A litter produces several at once, and it comes back again. It knows that the physical body is only a shell. So do not think about this from a human perspective. Do not be so tragically sentimental here, weeping and wailing over the death of animals, not hesitating to tear off all pretense and fight and struggle with others, doing this and that for the lives of animals, putting on the appearance of a mother hen protecting her chicks, as if animals are all weak and need your protection -- none of that is true. This is a drama that humans themselves direct and perform.

You cannot say that the animals got the better of the bargain, but you can say that man and certain animal species together formed an arrangement that did, indeed, benefit both.

Do not think that these animals, after being raised or domesticated by humans, got the better end of the deal -- originally they had no life, and because of human domestication, they gained life. It is not that one side took advantage. This is an arrangement that benefits both sides.

Man is more a part of nature than he realizes. And in the larger sphere of activity, he cannot take any action with which the other members of nature do not agree for their own reasons.

Humanity itself is a part of nature, but humanity itself does not realize this. Animals die, are killed, and are placed on the dining table as your food -- this is their own choice. Do not feel pity for them. Do not say, "We killed animals, how cruel." This is a choice made by both sides, agreed upon by both sides. No one took advantage of anyone.

Here you must remember that Seth has previously given material about cellular communication. Cells communicate with one another, and there is a vast network of mutual communication that unites all species. Humans, animals, and plants are all connected, and consciousness is connected. Animals can communicate with humans, and humans can communicate with other species. He said: "How do cells communicate with one another? Communication between humans and animals is much easier than that." This communication has always been going on. Although you do not know it, that does not mean it does not exist.

In this regard, humanity cannot afford to become aware of such communication. Why? Because if you could communicate with the animal kingdom, you would not be able to eat them. Only because your entire culture is built upon animals being in a naturally subordinate position. The person who slaughters animals cannot afford to treat those animals as possessors of living consciousness -- if he truly regarded animals as having living consciousness, like people, then he could not bring himself to do it. So he treats these animals as products of nature, like wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, and the trees and flowers of the natural world. He sets himself apart, believing that he is something outside of nature, as if there were no communication between him and the animals. That makes him feel a little better -- this is the experience that makes you feel a little better.

Seth paused at 9:26 and said:

Beneath all of this there is an important unity. This unity of the consciousness of all things, connected together, is a psychic communication. It is a part of the living consciousness of the earth that dies, to ensure the continued life of all of nature.

It is dedicating itself to the continued operation of the whole of nature, offering itself. But it is a part of nature, just as the death of cells in the body is also for the better functioning of the whole body -- if cells did not die, the body could not continue to operate. It is the same principle. All of this happens naturally.

When this gift is so misunderstood -- when we say, "Oh, the death of animals is so pitiful, so regrettable, we should not let them die, we must protect them" -- this is a misunderstanding. Animals are originally willing to do this in order to maintain the continued operation of the whole of nature, yet you treat their death as a sacrifice, as abuse, as slaughter. Then you have completely corrupted this sacred gift of nature.

Basically speaking, many farmers love the animals themselves, and like their appearance. But liking animals is not particularly considered masculine enough.

We generally think that liking small animals is something for effeminate people. If a grown man likes small animals, especially in traditional Eastern society, people think he is somewhat effeminate. Therefore, in our society, if you like animals, you are not allowed to like them for their own sake. You must have some other reason, such as needing to be with animals -- you must be a farmer, or a veterinarian, or a cattle herder, or whatever. Many men like animals, but they dare not say so openly. They can only get close to animals by taking up an occupation related to animals. Seth is pointing this out.

Many animals enjoy work. For example, our cattle, horses, mules, and donkeys -- many, many animals enjoy working. They enjoy working with people. Horses enjoy their contribution to the human world.

You did not expect that, did you? You did not expect that animals are actually willing to work with people. Horses understand their riders far better than the riders understand them. Horses understand riders more; a rider's understanding of a horse is not as much as the horse's understanding of the rider. Many dogs enjoy being protectors of the family, especially when you have a large yard. Dogs are very important.

There are deep emotional connections between humans and many animal species.

You have seen the movie story of Hachiko the loyal dog, right? And there are many cases of dolphins rescuing people who fall into the water, and so on. Dolphins have emotional responses to the human world. The animals on a farm also have an emotional awareness of the overall psychological content of the farmer's life and of each member of his family -- from adults to children, the overall psychological changes. The animals know.

Consciousness, any kind of consciousness, is filled with content.

Of course. If it had no content, it would not be consciousness.

In a manner of speaking, the farmer's animals understand their midwife, who is in charge of certain of their births. The animals themselves know that food comes from the hands of these farmers. The animals themselves understand that any physical life will die, and that material possessions must return to the embrace of the mother earth from which they came.

We grow from the earth, and after death we return to the earth. This is the most natural process. As long as you are a physical life, you will certainly die. This is a normal law of nature.

The animals do not blame man at all.

You must remember this. Do not think that after we raise a few chickens and finally kill them for meat, the chickens will hate humans. That is your own idea. Animals do not hate humans at all.

If as a species you really found yourselves communicating with animals, you would have an entirely different kind of change, a culture that would indeed bring about a deeper alteration of consciousness.

If you could really speak with animals, you would find that it is not what you think.

You conveniently forget how much you have learned from all the animals. As I have mentioned in previous sessions, you learned a great deal of medical knowledge from observing animal behavior: what animals eat and what they do not eat tells you which plants you can cultivate; you learned to immerse yourselves in water to get rid of lice -- all of this was learned from animals; you learned your social behavior by observing animals.

Animals have their own territories, group behavior, and social behavior, and we also observe animals. We have learned so much from animals, to a frightening degree. You were once able to identify with animals. In a period of ancient times, we coexisted with animals and identified with them. They were once your teachers, although they did not choose your path -- the path of humans and animals diverged. The difference is that humans chose to develop ego consciousness, separating themselves from nature, taking a developmental path centered on ego consciousness; while animals have always maintained a close connection with nature, being a part of nature, without this sense of separation.

You could not have become what you are were it not for those animals.

Domesticated animals have their own reasons for choosing such a state. Do not think that domesticated animals are pitiful. You say that because they have been domesticated by humans, it is as if they are being abused, but do not forget that humans are also a part of nature.

You always separate what humans do from nature, as if the things humans make are not natural things. We made a cell phone, and we think the cell phone is not a natural thing; a computer is not a natural thing either. But are you a natural thing? Did you not use things from the natural world to make cell phones and cars? Then why are these things not natural things? You draw such a clear line between yourself and nature -- this is natural, this is unnatural, this is artificial -- but in fact all of it is natural. How could you be outside of nature?

It is natural, for example, to think that your cats -- Billy and Mitzi -- should ideally be running about in the open outdoors, because that is what wild cats would do.

Many cat owners have this mentality: "Look, cats are originally wild animals, living so happily in nature, running around, but now they are kept at home, how pitiful." They should go live in nature.

But wild cats are exploring a nature in which, in that environment, the number of natural species that would emerge would be far fewer than now. If humans did not keep cats as pets, the number of cats would be far fewer than now, and your cats would not exist.

The number of wild cats in nature is very small. Without being tamed and domesticated, they could not become human pets. Therefore, those domestic pet cats would not have appeared.

So when a house cat prefers canned food or fine cat food to mice or grasshoppers, that seems to be against nature.

We felt that this cat had lost its natural attributes, that it had been domesticated, and was even a little abnormal. For example, our cat often catches geckos or lizards, and after catching them it just plays with them, does not eat them, and even brings them home for you to play with, like a gift. For a while it caught one little lizard or gecko every day, and it did not eat them, it just played. A wild cat would certainly have eaten them. So we felt that this cat not eating wild things might be abnormal, only eating canned food and cat food?

A house cat is exploring a different kind of nature. In it, the cat's consciousness and human consciousness have a certain relationship. This relationship changes the reality of that particular kind of consciousness.

A house cat is also exploring nature. The human living environment is also a kind of nature from its point of view. Pet cats and wild cats are different in terms of consciousness, because their connection with humans is different from that of wild cats. This special connection changes the reality of its own consciousness.

Your cat in the house is in all ways as exuberant as it would be outside... They understand their relationship with your human reality far more than you think they do. They enjoy contributing to your lives, just as any wild animal enjoys being part of a group.

A house cat lives with humans and regards itself as part of the overall group of humans. It makes some contributions to humans and feels that this is as it should be. Many times when you hold the cat and play with it, and the cat is beside you, the cat is actually interacting with you and keeping you company in play — do not think that you are keeping the cat company in play; it is the cat keeping you company in play.

Their consciousness leans in a new direction. It will probe the edges of concepts and feel the opening of a different kind of awareness.

Pet cats can probe human psychology, probe human behavior, and observe the emotional changes of their owners. This is an ability wild cats do not have. Many pet cats have human-like postures and mannerisms, very cute things, because they are learning and imitating some things from humans.

In forming the same natural consciousness alliance as any other consciousness alliance.

Cats and human consciousness form an alliance, just as our human consciousness also forms such a consciousness alliance with the consciousness of all things, only we do not perceive it. But cats can perceive it very easily — it lives within this family, is a member of the family, and is making a connection with human consciousness, forming a consciousness alliance.

Datre materials: the evolution of animals

The part we discussed earlier about animal consciousness was from a private session on September 13. Below is inserted an analysis of animal consciousness from the Datre materials, because many of the things discussed in this session are controversial for many people, such as the sterilization of animals, keeping them in captivity, the relationship between pets and humans, whether animals have consciousness, and so on.

Datre is a group, a collective consciousness. It is not like Seth, a high-dimensional individual consciousness with personality; Datre is like a team of mentors, without individual personality in it. The channels who communicated with Datre were one named John and one named Aona. The Datre materials are also knowledge transmitted from a higher spiritual level. According to Datre's own account, Seth is also among them, one of their members. Datre himself said that in this world, at the time he was transmitting this material, only four people were connected with higher dimensions: one was Jane Roberts — that is, the Seth material we are studying; the second and third were Aona and John¹⁴; the fourth person was undergoing training in Europe, but progress was not particularly good, and he may have given up. According to his own account, only three people were truly making connections with higher-dimensional consciousness. When Aona was making the connection, her hair would often get burned in patches, because the energy was too strong.

This content is Part 37 of the English version. The order was lightly adjusted, and in the Chinese version it became Session 179, titled "Working with Particles and Waveforms."

Zhao Yuan asked Datre. This was a question from "Wang Da," a person who was very concerned about the condition of pets:

How will the spirituality of animals evolve? Is it moving toward the conscious awareness we know, or is there something else?

Datre said:

First of all, you must understand that the stage of animal evolution is a kind of evolution — "evolution" in quotation marks — that you cannot understand from the perspective of the physical layer.

Why the quotation marks? Because it is not the evolution we humans understand. It does not have that temporal kind of evolution. The evolution we humans understand is evolving from one form to another form, from a lower form to a higher form. Animals are not like that. Animals do not have this human concept of evolution. They simply die, then return to whichever form they choose, and enter it. Animals are already aware — "aware" in quotation marks — you can understand it as a kind of awakened state, while humans are not.

And the hologram of the physical layer in which you exist has no awareness.

Datre also speaks very directly: we humans operating according to the physical layer, and this matter itself, have no awareness. To put it simply, having no awareness means you do not know who you are. This is very difficult for us to understand.

But on the stage of evolution, different structures possess different evolution — he put quotation marks around all of it.

He put quotation marks everywhere, because none of it is the normal stage we understand. Animals are playing out their evolutionary path, and humans have chosen their own evolutionary path. The so-called "different" is also not the difference we understand. This is also hard to expand on — because the evolution of consciousness has no so-called sameness or difference. It is all a kind of evolution of consciousness, but the evolution of consciousness does not have the concept of time that we humans understand. After transcending time, the idea of still being able to evolve is not so easy to understand when we think about it from the perspective of time. So he put quotation marks around this "different" — this difference is a special difference, a difference in nature, not the ordinary difference we understand, where they follow this path and those follow that path.

Animals Have Already Reached Their Point of Awareness

Earlier we said that animals have already become aware, meaning that animals have reached that point in their evolution where they are able to carry a specific vibration. Look, it is in quotation marks -- "specific."

Why the quotation marks? He says this specific vibration, and you might think again, is it some kind of vibration different from that of humans? This vibration is the word "vibration," which is why you often see this word in spiritual texts. You might wonder, is it a vibration unlike that of us humans? No. He puts "specific" in quotation marks to say that this vibration can only be described as different, as a special, particular kind of vibration, but it is not the kind of vibration that you humans understand as being different from yours -- those two are not the same thing at all. Its nature is not a vibration in that sense, because humans have not yet reached that level of awareness, so he does not know how to explain it to you, and he is afraid you will misunderstand, so he puts quotation marks everywhere to keep you from misreading him.

This vibration is set on the "inside." "Inside" is also in quotation marks. Why put quotation marks around "inside"? You should not think that some frequency has been set within you, and that different species like cats and dogs are therefore different from one another. As if there is a vibrational frequency inside the bodies of cats and inside the bodies of dogs that makes their species different. You can understand it that way at first, but the reason he insists on putting "inside" in quotation marks is this: this inner vibration does not come from inside their bodies, it does not originate from within -- it comes from outside, it enters the animal's body from outside, it is not generated from within.

For example, on this planet -- "this planet" is also in quotation marks. Because when you try to explain higher-dimensional knowledge, every step is a pitfall; it is truly difficult to explain. Our Earth has different versions, different evolutionary versions. The version of Earth we are currently experiencing is like this, but there are other evolutionary versions of Earth, and in those versions things are different. So the word he uses is again in quotation marks.

The cat's vibrational setting enables the cat to carry a specific vibration. "Setting" is again in quotation marks, as if it were a preset vibration that gives the cat a specific vibration. We can understand it this way -- everything I am saying is to help you understand, it is not literally how things are, you must remember that -- it is like the energy frequency vibration of a cat is different from the energy frequency vibration of a dog, so what manifests is that a cat has cat-like qualities and a dog has dog-like qualities. And with this vibrational setting, every animal on your planet has a vibrational setting at work. You can understand it this way: it is as if someone set a vibrational frequency for each species, and only then can you distinguish their differences, only then can they be different things in appearance, in habits, in how you perceive them.

From here on I will not keep emphasizing these quotation marks, because there are too many, and explaining them all would be exhausting. I will just go through it directly according to my own understanding, and you can dig into the specific details on your own later.

These so-called aware animals do not have a hologram. What is a hologram? It is that kind of illusion. They have no concept of illusion; their understanding of the physical world is one step ahead of ours. We still see the illusion of the physical world; they no longer see this illusion. You have this hologram because you are not yet aware. Why can we see this physical world, and why are we still absorbed in it? Because we are not yet aware.

From this perspective, animals are higher than us. From this level, from the level of awareness -- I am only saying from this level, do not use it to compare intelligence, arithmetic, or art; that is another level. I am referring to the level of awareness, and on that level we humans are indeed not as high as animals.

When you become more and more aware, you will no longer need the hologram. One day in the future we will no longer need it. When you live in Framework 2, you will no longer need it either. When you enter what the author of Busting Loose from the Money Game¹⁵, Robert Scheinfeld, calls "Phase 2 of the Human Game," you will no longer need the hologram either. You will not need it because you find it fun, not because you depend on it and cannot live without it -- those are two completely different concepts.

When we usually play games, is that not also something similar to a hologram? The 3D video games we create, the simulated 3D or VR or AR things -- that is because we enjoy playing, not because we cannot live without them. You cannot say that if you do not eat inside the hologram, you will come out and starve to death; that will not happen. But in our real life, if you do not eat, you think you will starve to death. Why? Because you believe this hologram is real; you know the game inside is fake. That is the point.

Animals no longer need it. When we humans become aware, we will no longer need the hologram either, because in awareness you can simultaneously possess both particle and wave structures. This refers to the two properties of matter, wave-particle duality -- matter itself has both particle properties and wave properties, energy properties. According to your awareness, you can let yourself manifest in particle form, or you can operate in the form of energy waves; you can operate on both sides simultaneously. But you are not yet aware individuals in the physical layer, so you can only operate within the reality of particles. In other words, you have not yet been able to understand the state in which particles and waves are operating simultaneously. We can only operate on the particle level of the physical layer; we cannot directly manipulate energy.

This is a possible future direction of development for the physical layer -- note, it is one possible direction of future development. But is it certain to develop in this direction? Not necessarily. Because from the perspective of development, all kinds of possibilities exist. Those who begin to work with the new energies together -- if there are enough people capable of handling enough of the new energies -- will, at some point in time or before rebirth, work on this planet with particles and waveforms simultaneously, because they will have learned how to manipulate both. This is one possible direction for the development of human civilization.

How can one achieve this ability to operate on both the physical and energy levels simultaneously? It can only happen if enough people awaken, only if enough new energy comes in. This is true awareness -- operating on both the physical and energy levels simultaneously, this is true awareness.

The more you learn on this planet now, the broader your range of knowledge becomes. When you are aware, that is when you carry a signature vibration in the great universe. "Signature" is the English word "signature." This is similar to what Seth said in The Nature of Personal Reality -- he said it is as if you have a signature in the universe; you have a unique signature that you will never lose.

In this universe, no matter what reality you are in, what dimension, what level of world, you have your one unchanging identity. That identity Seth named your signature, your mark, your seal -- it is the same idea. This "signature vibration" that Datre speaks of is like a digital signature; its vibrational frequency is unique. Remember, I am speaking metaphorically here -- it is not merely a matter of frequency; it is the nature of the vibration, the quality of the vibration, something completely different from everyone else, something that belongs to you. When you are aware, you have in this universe a unique mark of your identity.

But here they do not call it an identity mark, because the moment you say "identity," you get it tangled up with the human sense of identity. In other words, what you call awareness is the ability to realize the uniqueness of the vibration of your own consciousness frequency, and the ability to perceive the integration of all these aspects of your consciousness -- that they have an overall, holistic individuality, attribute, or personality. But here you must remember, you cannot understand this matter using human concepts.

This signature vibration or signature mark that you can carry goes from one universe into another universe, from one space-time into another space-time, from one reality into another reality, and then into the next, and the next. This signature vibration that you carry with you is your basic element. "Basic element" is in quotation marks, because they do not know how to put it -- it is your essence. What is your essence? It is not the essence of you as a person; it is the unique vibrational frequency of yourself in the universe after you have become aware, after you have awakened, after you have become enlightened. It is your fundamental attribute.

No matter what reality you enter, no matter what body you change into, what appearance, what form -- whether energy state or physical state, whether with form or without form -- you are still you. It is like Sun Wukong with his seventy-two transformations: whether he turns into a flagpole, a temple, or anything else, he is still Sun Wukong. Appearance does not matter, outer form does not matter, the form of energy does not matter; that unique signature mark belonging to you already identifies your uniqueness and singularity. This point is exactly the same as what Seth says, just expressed differently.

Animals Experience While Carrying Their Signature Imprint

Animals have already reached their point of awareness. They possess a constant signature imprint. They are ahead of us humans—we humans only have this after we become aware. Animals inherently have this ability. For example, when cats came to this planet, they carried a basic signature. Here they are cats. Then when they carry this signature imprint to other planets, they become a completely different kind of creature.

When a cat is sleeping, it is basically out of body. It has gone to another time and space to play. It very likely has gone to another planet. There, it is no longer a cat. It is a creature of another outer form, but it knows who it is. It is no longer a cat, yet it still shares the same attributes as that well-behaved cat in your home—is that hard to understand? It is not easy to grasp. Then when it wakes up and plays with you, it becomes a cat again, returning to the attributes of a cat.

They always maintain a kind of biological covering or biological structure, but this does not mean they do not experience. Rather, they can only experience at the level of their particular vibrational structure. You can understand these different vibrations as different creatures—on Earth it is like this; on Sirius it may be like that; in the Andromeda constellation it may be yet another species. These different creatures are like a kind of biological covering, like in Avatar¹⁶ putting on the Avatar's skin to experience what the Avatar feels—the Avatar is just a flesh-and-blood shell. Or like the external steel mech suit in Transformers, with the person inside putting on the mech suit's outer casing and experiencing the world through that casing.

This is not to say it does not want to experience this world, not that it does not want to use its basic elements to experience—the basic elements being that vibration carrying the signature. It is that it has no other way. It can only experience at the level of this vibrational structure. Just as we humans are beings of higher-dimensional consciousness, but once you arrive at this material level on Earth, you can only experience this world through the means of the material level. So a cat can only experience this world in its furry way. It cannot experience it the way a fish does.

They move from one planet to another, accumulating a great deal of important experience. The experience on this planet is probably the greatest—this is why you have such a strong attachment to your pets, animals, fish, and birds, and keep them as pets. Because based on their experience on this planet, they have begun to display what you would call a kind of human expression.

This sentence also carries deep meaning. The experience these animals have on Earth, from a certain angle, may be the best kind of experience. Experience itself is neither good nor bad, but from the human perspective, there seems to be good and bad. So let us say it this way for now—their experience on Earth, compared to their experience on other planets, is the best kind. So they are learning from our Earth—especially pets that live with humans—they learn these human things, and then they develop some human expressions.

Have you noticed whether your pets have human expressions? Jealousy—do they get jealous? They act cute, they get angry. Small animals have extremely rich facial expressions, and their emotional range is also very rich. If you do not understand this, just look at compilations of various animals. Many animals' behaviors are becoming more and more like humans. They are very intelligent and can display many different human personalities. They can stay close to you while still maintaining their own signature imprint. It stays very close to you, imitates you, has some characteristics of your behavior, but it is always itself. It will not become human, will not turn into a person.

They also evolve, but their signature imprint does not evolve. The animal itself, as a biological existence, may evolve, but its signature imprint does not undergo evolution. So earlier, the word "evolution" must be put in quotation marks, and the word "different" must be put in quotation marks. The reason is right here—their evolution is not like the biological evolution we understand. Their signature essence does not evolve. This may be a very difficult concept to grasp, but that is how it is.

We Are a Confederation of Consciousness

You see, whether they are pets or animals, for instance those that live on land, those that live in water, or those in the sky -- the three categories of sea, land, and air -- they are all living beings. They are sentient beings formed by three different groupings, they have three different kinds of awareness, and their signature imprints distinguish them into these three categories: creatures of the sea, creatures of the land, and creatures that fly in the sky.

Even within the ocean, although they are all marine creatures, some of them interact with humans and are emotionally close, because this is a kind of exchange. Just like dolphins, they learn from you, and you also learn from them -- this is the same as what Seth just finished saying, mutual learning. We are a confederation of consciousness, people within one big family.

The same is true of birds. Don't you know that many birds can talk? Parrots and mynah birds can all speak. You teach them to speak, and the birds also learn from you. How does a bird learn to speak? Birds do not know the meaning of words; they have their own ideas about words. You think birds do not understand words, but do you think a bird understands the meaning of what it says? Of course it does. If you have ever kept a mynah bird or a parrot at home, you would know that it is not simply mechanical imitation; it understands what the words mean. This is something very interesting that you may not have thought of. So it has its own ideas about our words and our language, and its ideas may not be quite the same as ours.

That is a kind of idea that arises after the vibrations they involve correspond with other things -- their vibrations are the basic elements, the basic units, and when they arrive in the three-dimensional world and enter our physical world, they have to correspond with these things. Then within this physical world there is also the existence of humans, and humans in turn communicate and interact with birds, and then it establishes a corresponding and interactive relationship with the matter and the people in this three-dimensional world, and thus a thing of mutual learning is established. Cats and dogs are the same; they are using their own signature imprints.

Speaking of this, a while back there was a little video -- I forget whether it was on Douyin or somewhere -- that was especially funny. A person went to a zoo to see the parrots, and the zoo had issued a news release saying that all the parrots had been shut away together, no longer on public display, and visitors were no longer allowed to see them. Visitors were puzzled: why won't you let us see the parrots? The zoo said that the parrots and the people had started cursing at each other, and the cursing got worse and worse, until it was simply unbearable to hear, and in the end there was no choice but to stop letting them interact with humans anymore. Then someone posted a little video: a person went to that zoo, saw the parrot, and said to the person who came with him, "Look, this bird is really ugly." Guess what the bird said? The bird said, "You're full of crap." The bird said it very directly. Then the person was stunned -- it cursed at me? He started cursing back at the bird, and the bird did not hold back either; it cursed right back at him.

So you see, you can understand that the bird actually knows the meaning of the language itself, but its understanding of the meaning is not exactly the same as a human's. It knows that this is not a nice thing to say, but it does not consider it to be some kind of insult or something humiliating or degrading. It does not. It only knows that saying this can produce the effect and result it wants to achieve.

Animals Have No Concept of Death

Continuing with questions. Someone asked: If I end a pet's life, will that affect its spiritual evolution? If so, how? If not, why not? Many people have this concept -- is it appropriate to euthanize a pet? If an animal is already very seriously ill, will euthanizing it affect its spiritual evolution?

Datre said: Their spiritual evolution is completely different from yours. Don't have this kind of pitying, compassionate idea -- this is the same as what Seth just said. What happens here is: the thought patterns of animals are completely different from those of humans. If you treat them as people, you are thinking with your own mental patterns, not with theirs.

If a pet or an animal decides to die within a particular mode of experience, it will find a way to eliminate its body on its own -- it might run into the road and get hit by a car, or be attacked and bitten to death by a larger cat or dog, a big dog. Animals do not have the human attachment to the body. When it no longer wants to stay, when it wants to leave, it will find a way to eliminate its body. So it dies only when it wants to die. If you extend this reasoning, you can understand -- those domesticated poultry and livestock that are raised and then slaughtered, that is the result of their choice. Don't go around being pitying and compassionate like animal rights activists, saying "Oh, these poor little animals." Don't do that. Just like every person, it is all a choice of the self.

Don't worry about having caused an animal's death -- whether by euthanasia, or an accidental death during surgery, or whatever -- death will not affect its spiritual evolution, because it will simply change to another body and continue to develop. It does not think, as humans do, that once the body dies, that's it.

They are different from you. They eliminate the physical body in a different way. Because they are already aware. We humans are not aware; they are aware -- they have one unique, unchanging vibrational frequency; they have one unique, unchanging signature vibration, signature imprint. It is as if they carry an eternal memory with them, changing from one body to another, but their memory endures forever. For them, they do not think they have died; they think they have merely changed a physical body.

If one day we humans become aware -- we say this person is enlightened, that person is enlightened -- if a person is truly enlightened, he knows who he is, what he came here to do, why he came here, and he also knows where he will go after death and what he will do. He knows all of it. In that case, his physical body can be changed at will: he dies, changes to another one, reincarnates, and continues to manifest, but his memory endures forever. We call this enduring memory -- or this ability to recall who one is, why one exists in the universe, one's identity and role in the universe, and the value and meaning of one's existence -- we call this state eternal life.

So an aware being, whether animal or human, is eternal. Its physical body is merely a vehicle for its existence, or a piece of clothing, a costume -- it is just changing clothes.

They are aware, so they will not stay in the body waiting for the body to die. When it is time to die, they prepare early, and then they die all at once. They have no interest in this at all; they do not want to drag the death process out until the body finally gives out completely. When they want to die, they die all at once. If you know about cats -- kittens are like this: when a cat gets old, reaches a very advanced age, and wants to die, if it is a free-roaming cat, one day it will suddenly not come back. It will not let you see it die in front of you, and you will not know where it died. It goes very, very far away and dies outside. So when it wants to die, it has not the slightest attachment to the body; it just gets up and leaves. For example, they can take the body to the road, get hit by a car, and then they leave.

Because the death of the body is only the physical body, and what you hear from the physical structure -- the so-called cries, sounds, and pain of animals that we hear in reality -- all of that comes from emotions within the physical structure, but the entity dwelling within has long been ready and has already left. Don't think "the animal is in so much pain, the animal is suffering, the animal is so miserable," and even when you see the animal shedding tears, you think -- he said that is an extension of emotion within the physical structure. In fact, its inner soul, its entity, has already left long ago; it was already prepared to leave.

You do not understand the thought patterns of animals. By the same token, animals do not understand yours -- animals understand part of us, but there are still many animals that do not understand us. For them, the body is a vehicle for experience, nothing more. They have no concept of good or bad -- this vehicle is good, that vehicle is bad, this vehicle is pretty, that vehicle is not pretty, this vehicle is one meter eighty, that vehicle is one meter seventy -- no such concept.

Why do some animals like to sleep? Because they want to go somewhere else. When you play with them, their body is a limitation -- they must stay inside the body because they have to play with you. Once you get tired of playing with it, it lies down and sleeps. Cats often hide in a place where you cannot disturb them -- a high place, under the bed, a place where you cannot easily bother them -- and they sleep, lie down, enter dreamland, and then go elsewhere to continue playing. At that point they have freedom; without the limitation of the body, they immediately enter an out-of-body state and go play.

Pets love seeing you come home through the door. Likewise, they are also very happy to see you leave, because that allows them more freedom, letting them roam everywhere and do what they want. It also likes being with you; it waits for you to come back from work. But when you leave for work, it is also quite happy, because it can have its own time and doesn't have to play with you. If you have seen people install cameras at home and capture videos of what pets do after you leave -- there are many online -- it is absolutely hilarious. After you leave, the pet is extremely happy and plays with its own things with great delight. Then when you are about to come back, it roughly knows you are coming back soon and will get ready to greet you, crouching at the door or somewhere. It knows you are coming back; it can hear your footsteps or the sound of you entering the building. But before that, it just plays on its own.

For an animal, according to its point of awareness, it can perceive that the body is just a fun thing used for playing -- the body is for experiencing, for playing. They can jump in and out of the body to do different things. However, your awareness of the body is not like this. Do we treat the body as a fun thing? Do we think the body is just a toy, a vehicle? No. We think the body is our life -- "the body, hair, and skin are received from one's parents," sacred and inviolable. The body must be well protected; one must pay attention to it from childhood. Now young people start health preservation before they are even thirty; they must take good care of the body.

They can jump in and out of the body to do different things; we cannot. We are tightly bound to this body, not daring to leave it for a moment, having to take care of it at all times. Animals are not like this. So you and animals have completely different evolutions; there is no comparability. It is "different" -- he put it in quotation marks again -- that is, completely different, not the same thing. From a certain angle, you can regard animals as a kind of enlightened person, an enlightened being -- it knows that the physical body is not important at all; its soul is what matters. Its soul is unique. What body it changes into, when it dies -- none of this matters; these are all just different experiences.

Animals Are Always Making Decisions

Can animals decide where to go? If they cannot decide, then on what basis do they decide?

Datre says: Animals are always making decisions; no one else makes decisions for them. This is the same as with humans -- they have complete free will and decide autonomously. They decide where to go play, decide whether to die or not, decide whether to continue experiencing in this world or switch to another world to experience. These are all their own decisions; no one can decide for them. Humans are the same -- but you have not become aware that you are also like this.

The process of deciding is always yours. This "deciding" is put in quotation marks -- because it is also not the kind of deciding you understand. You might say, well then, is deciding like something premeditated, where the higher self has already decided everything? No. This deciding is not the kind of deciding humans understand; it is a decision on another level. "Always" is also put in quotation marks -- you think it is not yours, but actually it still is yours, so "always" is also put in quotation marks.

A sick animal may stay by its owner's side because the owner is sad, while the animal itself is not -- it is sick, it stays and does not leave, does not die. It actually could leave, but it does not; it stays by its owner's side because it is afraid the owner will be sad. But would the animal itself be sad? Would it say, "I am dying, I am in so much pain, I do not want to go"? No, the animal would have wanted to leave long ago, but the owner would not. Humans say: "Do not leave us. We know you are sick, but we hope you will stay one more day. We will find a doctor to make you better, to treat you."

Please give those individuals who want to leave the physical body a chance. Do not pin your guilty, guilt-ridden labels onto them. Do not pour human consciousness into animals. Do not take away their dignity -- this sentence is very interesting, meaning they have the right to leave.

When you beg those individuals who are unwilling to remain in the physical structure to stay, you take away their dignity -- whether animal or human, it is the same. Some people want euthanasia, and you do not agree; some people are gravely ill and in great pain, but want to leave, and you do not agree. Because you are all created from the same thing -- what thing? Consciousness. We are all conscious, whether animals or us.

When a person's body no longer functions, lying in the hospital, saying "I really want to be free of this," do not beg them to stay. When they are already ready to leave, do not make them stay. You will pin your guilt, your guilty labels onto them -- "You are leaving us." No, everyone leaves, and everyone also comes back to continue new experiences. Do not be sad. It is not such a big deal that he died. Everyone dies, everyone leaves, and everyone comes back. Die and come again, die and come again -- this is very normal. There is no need to cry as if heaven and earth were collapsing.

What is the correct thing to say? "If you do not want to leave, then stay." You just stay in this current body for a thousand years. You will not age, nor will you stay young -- you remain unchanged. Your body forever keeps the appearance it has now, lasting a thousand years. Please use your imagination. A thousand years is not a literary thousand years; it is a real, actual thousand years. You do not understand what a thousand years means? Let me give you an example so it is easy to grasp. A thousand years is roughly from the early Ming dynasty, possibly even earlier, the Yuan dynasty or even before. From the Tang dynasty to now is about fifteen hundred years or so¹⁷. Let us just say fifteen hundred years -- you would have lived from the era of Li Shimin all the way until now. You neither age nor stay young; you remain unchanged. Your appearance just stays like this, living from the Tang dynasty until now. Please interview yourself: how does that feel? Everyone wants immortality, right? Now I am giving you a chance at immortality. You are immortal; you can keep on not dying. What would you do?

You would laugh out loud. Laugh at what? You would not want this. Everyone does not want to die, but when you are really made to live a thousand years, you cannot take it; you go crazy, you break down. At that point you would think, the best invention in this world is death -- Seth said the same thing. You would discover that death is simply the most brilliant invention. Why? You can die and switch to another identity and come back to play. If this role of yours is never allowed to change... If you have played games, you know: from the time you were in elementary school and became aware enough to play games, you were only allowed to play one game, only allowed to play Mario, only allowed to play this one game, only this one character, only this one appearance, and you just keep playing it -- playing through middle school, through high school, through college, through college graduation, until you get married, and you still have to play eight hours a day. You play every single day, just this one character. What would happen to you? You would go crazy.

So now you know: what you yourself have not become aware of is that you yourself are the one who set the parameter of death. You yourself set how many years you will live, and you will die on your own. You yourselves set your birth, set who gives birth to you. You choose your parents, your siblings. You make decisions for all things, and you also select your death. Remember, all of this is chosen by you. Animals do the same things -- they choose where to be born, in what manner to be born, whether to be born as a stray cat or a house cat. They choose it themselves. But in their evolution, their signature imprint is already fixed. They know who they are, know what they came to experience and in what kind of physical body to experience it. They all know. But your signature imprint is open, because you have not yet become aware.

This is why we say "continue to experience." You humans are still not ready; your attributes have not yet been determined. You are still in an open state; you have not yet determined who you really are. You have not yet found your true self, so continue to experience. Do not sit there in dry contemplation -- for things you have not experienced, thinking about them here is useless. Continue to experience.

Signature Imprints Define Who You Are

Awareness also means that the universe can recognize you through your signature, but humanity has not reached that point yet. Datre said: Correct. Once you have a signature imprint, no matter where you go or what you do, you can be recognized and identified throughout the greater universe. That is how we are known -- here we have no names. Datre said: "We Datre have no names. What we mean is that names are something you have, but we do not." How did the name Datre come about? It was because he said, "Just pick any name, it does not matter what you call us, it makes no difference to us." We identify one another through our signature imprints, not through names.

Your signature imprint is like a digital signature, and it contains a great deal of information -- all the information about you as a person, that is, all your reincarnations, all your memories, all your attributes, everything about everything, all of it is in this signature. It is not a name; it is the entirety of you.

You could put it this way -- your signature imprint includes and defines what we do and what we are. In other words, your signature defines the real you, but not the names or labels you use. You put a label on a doctor, and then he is a doctor. However, in the greater universe, the signature imprint defines who you are, or what you are. It is a vibration, not a name, label, or anything like that. In other words, it is an energy, a vibration of energy. What kind of energy you are, what attributes you have, what characteristics and features your energy has -- these cannot be indicated by labels. Only the vibration of the energy itself, the nature of the energy itself, determines who you are.

It has to be this way, otherwise within this particular evolutionary process, within this mode of experience that has a beginning and an end in time, you would not be able to enter the point you want to enter. Before you become aware, you should get as much of it as you can.

What this means is that within this restrictive material world of time and space, you still have no way to enter the point you want to enter -- that is, the point where you can freely explore and experience throughout the greater universe. If you have not yet reached the point of awareness, then you cannot reach that point. So what do you do before that? You go and experience, experience as much as you can, gain as many of those feelings as you can. You do not need to think, "When will I reach that point?" There is no need for that. Just experience what you have right now. When you reach that point, you will naturally reach it. If you cannot reach it, then just go and experience. Do not whine and complain, saying, "I do not want this experience, I just want to enter that awareness, enter that state of enlightenment" -- no. When you reach it, you naturally reach it. If you have not reached it, no amount of crying or wailing will help. When your inner frequency has not reached that level, it is meaningless.

This does not mean that everyone will become aware upon rebirth -- it is not that once you die and come back, you will be aware. Many people think, "Won't I know everything once I die? When I die and come back to life, won't I understand everything?" Datre said it is not like that, it will not happen. Because there are still many people beginning their evolutionary process, but this timeline is already nearing its end. When you enter another planet, you will have another timeline. In any case, the ultimate goal in this universe is to become aware and to come out into the greater universe.

The "here" and the basic part here -- pay attention to this -- this is the basic goal in our current Earth environment, in this time and space: to come out from within it, to come out from within this Earth, to come out from the three-dimensional experience, to enter the greater universe, to find your own signature vibration, or to live it out, and to let the greater universe recognize who you are. This is the basic goal on Earth, in this present world.

Allowing Separation

Continuing with the questions: How can the essential relationship between pets and humans be maintained forever on a spiritual and psychic level? The person asking this question is also quite foolish -- he still always wants to maintain a long-term relationship with his pet. He says since the physical body cannot be maintained, can he maintain a relationship with his pet on a spiritual and psychic level?

Datre said: Impossible, impossible. They said it so many times -- "Allow, allow, allow" -- they were already impatient. Even the higher-dimensional consciousness was impatient. Why do you humans always want to ask such foolish questions? Why do you always want to maintain a long-term relationship with certain things?

They already said it is impossible, I have said it many, many times. Allow -- allow what? Allow separation, allow you to experience yours and him to experience his. Why must you be bound together? Why is it that after having a relationship with someone, having some feelings, you must continue it forever, for all eternity, for life after life? If not in this life, then in the next; if not in the next life, then for three lives and three lifetimes.

Do not try to maintain a long-term spiritual and psychic relationship with your pet. If you wish, you may keep that memory -- that is fine -- but do not attach yourself to that memory. The animal will not attach itself to you; it is you attaching yourself to yourself. When you miss the animal every day, it is not the animal attaching itself to you; it is you attaching yourself to yourself every day.

Datre speaks very directly, and most people cannot take it. The biggest difference between Datre and Seth is that Datre actually does not have much emotion in it. Many of the collective members who channeled in the Datre material -- those consciousness entities, those beings -- many of them have never existed in physical form, many have never been to Earth. So when you ask them many questions, they will explain to you, but these beings have no physical experience, no experience of being human, and have never existed in this physical world of Earth, so they lack a kind of emotion toward Earth and toward humanity. This is one of the biggest differences between it and the Seth material -- once you read enough, you can discover that -- it has that kind of feeling. It is not that it does not love humanity; it does love, but it is not that kind of love.

The animal knows it was a wonderful experience, and then it leaves. You see, this is one of the difficult points -- if all the individuals on this planet could be aware that it was a great experience, they could end it and begin another experience. If all the individuals on this planet -- mainly humans -- if every person understood that we are only here to experience, if every person understood this principle, then all of humanity could end this experience and begin another new experience.

Why cannot humans begin anew? Because they set limitations for themselves -- setting how long your physical bodies can last, these are your own limitations. Why can you begin a new experience? Because you set a timeline for death yourself -- for example, living to ninety and then dying, humans can never live past one hundred twenty-five, and so on, setting many time limitations. When you created time, you already created all of this -- when you marked out a time scale for this physical world, you already set up how many sunrises and sunsets in this physical world, on this Earth, before you will die. This is all set by you.

This is why some individuals, at the point of their death, do not encounter a terrible accident, but instead let themselves lie down, enter into sleep, and then die -- this is the simplest way. When the body relaxes, you can conveniently leave. This is the way many ancient people died, and also the way many spiritual practitioners died.

Sadhguru once had an interview, which you can find on YouTube. Sadhguru was once with a master who, although very wise, did not know how to leave. Sadhguru explained to him how to leave, how to leave when you want to leave. While he was explaining, Sadhguru's wife happened to be nearby listening, and she listened very attentively. After listening, they left. Then his wife said to Sadhguru: "If possible, I would also like to leave the way he did." Sadhguru thought she was just saying it, and did not take it seriously. Then that master -- the one Sadhguru had explained it to -- left at around eighty-something years old, around January 23rd. Then Sadhguru's wife, within just over ten days, maybe less than twenty days, also left, using that same method.

How did they leave? They meditated. When meditating, they all sat there without speaking; once meditation began, they did not speak or move. But his wife that day was especially strange -- she got up and went to the bathroom. Sadhguru was quite angry, because everyone knew the basic rule -- once you sit down to meditate, you do not get up and walk around. But his wife got up and walked around. He did not want to say anything at the time, but he was still unhappy in his heart: Why did you have to get up and go to the bathroom? Then his wife came back from the bathroom, chanted only three mantras -- I forget what they were -- said three, tilted her head, and died.

Before this, Sadhguru had discussed with his wife for a long time, saying: "Do not leave. The child is still young, only six years old. Can you wait a few more years, until the child grows up, and then leave?" His wife said: "You cannot bear to let me go now, and later you still will not let me go. It is not that when the child grows up you will let me go -- you are fooling me. Since you said that everyone leaves when they want to leave, why do you..." You see, his wife had never studied spirituality --

The Passing of Sadhguru's Wife

Let me continue with the Sadhguru story. His wife had never studied any spiritual things either; she was the kind of person who did whatever she wanted, a very willful person. In the end, she came back from the bathroom, chanted only three mantras, tilted her head, and left -- she died. What did she go to the bathroom to do? She took off all her jewelry. You know Indian women wear a lot of jewelry -- bracelets, necklaces, and so on. Sadhguru said he had never told his wife these details, but she figured it out herself -- before a person leaves in this way, they must remove all metal jewelry, otherwise it is impossible to leave in a peaceful manner. He did not know how she knew.

This is what I want to tell you: many masters, when they die, know it, and will tell you the day they are going to leave. Some people think this is because their allotted lifespan is exhausted, their destined days are over -- no, it is because they want to leave; it is they who choose that day to leave; that time is set by themselves. Everyone can set it this way. Sometimes you set it when you come in; sometimes after you become aware, you can reset it -- you leave when you want to leave, and come when you want to come.

You often hear stories like this. Someone celebrates their eightieth birthday, and after everyone has left, they lie down in bed and pass away. In the morning, everyone asks why Grandpa and Grandma have not gotten up yet, and everything has long since ended. They said, that is it, I do not want to stay here anymore, and so they left.

This is also why some people ask, why can those people leave so easily? Because they have arranged everything, including their thinking, and said OK, that is enough, I do not want to stay anymore. Now as long as I open up, I can leave and enter the death zone, and then I will go. It is that simple. Those who understand do not struggle with death, nor do they let many people watch them leave, because they say, I have never encountered unhappiness in life, so why be sad? And so they leave, leaving behind happiness.

What he means is that they will not make others feel pain, nor will they let others watch them leave. They will leave in an especially quick way.

Animal Consciousness

Then someone asked: How can I make my pet's death meaningful? During the transition of death, can I help him? You can already sense that the people asking these questions are still not there yet; their questions are still stuck in the three-dimensional world. Datre was already a bit impatient, saying do not ask this kind of question, do not think about making the death process meaningful, or about helping them -- you do not need to.

You see, animals do not have a death zone. Humans have a death zone because humans do not have awareness. You do not exist in the situation of the death zone. Perhaps you have had enough of the death zone and decided not to experience it in the next experience. Perhaps after rebirth, you will say, we have had enough of those death things, now let us learn in another way. Then you can make the body exist as long as you want, and you can lie down, exit from the body, and enter another body.

Perhaps this is very terrifying for the vocal ones, but on this planet, some people have indeed done this -- some people live as long as they want, and some people can switch from one body to another. This has all happened on Earth. It is not an easy transition; it needs to be monitored. Because when you move from one physical structure into another physical structure, no matter how different the contents described in those books are, it is a complete new experience. Those individuals who can do it, when they enter other physical structures, there are always many different changes that occur. This is also why some books are written one way and other books are written another way. When such a mode of experience occurs, the impact of the physical structure is very great.

What he means, simply put: when a person travels in the manner of consciousness, from one time-space to another time-space, from one world to another world, if he can come back, he will write something to share. But what he shares is different for every person. He is telling you why it is different -- because everyone's energy is also different, and everyone's experience and feeling of going to different time-spaces is also different. There is no common denominator in this.

Some people have had out-of-body experiences, or died and come back, and each person's experience is not exactly the same. The reason is simple: different physical structures will produce different reactions to the same energy. Datre said, because you have not yet reached that point of awareness, you can only enter an already existing physical structure, switching from one body to another. When you do this, adjustments must be made, because you do not yet have awareness. At this point they stopped explaining again, saying this is getting too complicated, I will not go on.

What we want to say is that animals do not have a problem in this regard, because animals are already aware. Where is the point they are making? Because we humans do not have awareness, we cannot recognize our true self, that is, the existence of our own energy essence in the universe -- this is also what Buddhism calls the Dharma nature, suchness, and so on. You have not recognized your true essence; what you recognize is only this physical body, only such a shell, body after body through reincarnation. Therefore we can only move from one physical body into another physical body to experience and feel, and adjustments must be made. Because you do not have awareness, you can only experience this physical world through another physical body.

Because we do not have awareness, we cannot maintain our uniqueness, cannot maintain that unchanging, signature vibration, or signature imprint. We cannot recognize it, so we can only keep switching roles to experience, and the sense of identity keeps switching -- this life as a man, next life as a woman, this life one way, that life another way. But animals do not. Animals know; animals cannot switch into just any body, cannot switch into cat, dog, pig, bird, fish -- they all know who they are. The outer body is not important.

Animals do not mind whether they are in the body or not; they do not care at all. What is meant by being in the body is, as we humans understand it, that the animal is alive. When it is not in the body, we think the animal is dead. Actually, animals do not care at all about their life or death, nor do they care whether their own soul is in their own body. They do not care at all, because to them it is all the same; it is all the same wherever they stay and whichever vehicle they use.

In fact, among all animals, cats are the animals that stay in the body the least; cats often go out of body. This is what I can think of at present -- your cats are very independent. You say cats are very independent; yes, they are very independent, and their independence is probably more pronounced than that of other creatures on this planet. Because whenever they wish, they come and go. If a cat decides it has stayed long enough, it will choose to go to a place where it will not be disturbed and go out of body, and then when it is ready, it will come out again, come back again, never two minutes early. They do not need to, because they know what they are doing.

Simply put, cats are very psychic animals. They know what they are doing, what they are doing in what phase or what world. When a cat sleeps, it has actually already gone out of body.

There Is No Such Thing as Spirituality

At this point John said, may I add something? The person asking the question keeps using the word spirituality, implying that both humans and animals are involved in this aspect of spirituality. Spirituality is only a human label; it has nothing to do with animals. Animals do not know what you are talking about; they have no such concept.

John often supplements the Datre material, and sometimes it is a very meaningful supplement to the Datre material. Then Datre said:

Yes, in fact the word spirituality is something you put into it. Once again, I have to go further, because your concepts of good and bad -- this is where it begins -- you want to have those who want to have spirituality, always wanting to avoid the bad side. In other words, oh, this is bad, so those spiritually evolved individuals cannot have anything to do with bad.

Then John laughed. Datre said I am serious, John, do not laugh. John said I know, I know, it just feels a bit funny.

This passage is very important and will be explained later. Simply put, there is no such thing as spiritual practice, and there is no such thing as spirituality; these are all words invented by humans. Humans not only invented spiritual practice, they also invented good and bad -- good and bad are also a human judgment, a dualistic judgment. And from the very beginning it gets tied to this judgment. Once good and bad are brought in, and spirituality is combined with good, it gives people the feeling that spirituality must be something good, upward-moving, teaching people toward goodness. Then this thing that was originally neutral, without any label, gets forcibly labeled as good.

Then what does it turn people into? It makes people feel that to study spirituality they must be morally noble, must have good character, must be like a master, an eminent monk, a great virtuous one, to be worthy of studying spirituality. If they cannot achieve this, if they still have desires, still have primal desires, have done some so-called bad things in your understanding, then they feel they are not worthy of doing things related to spirituality. Do many of us have this kind of guilt? Unnecessary. This view is wrong; no one said spirituality must be tied to good.

What is spirituality? What is real is spirituality. It is not that what is good is spirituality, not that what is perfect is spirituality, not that what is complete is spirituality -- none of these. True spirituality is realness; realness is the only spirituality. But for thousands of years, people have tied these practices and religions to good, tied them to virtue and morality. So Datre specifically emphasizes this point here: do not think about problems this way, absolutely do not think about problems this way. If you think about problems this way, then you are still very far from the path of practice.

Experiencing the Setup Placed Before You

Datre continued:

Those who are truly wise will experience the setup placed before them.

Remember this sentence. In other words, to put it simply, life gives you what it gives you, and you experience it. The author of Busting Loose from the Money Game, Scheinfeld, says to live a life like doing odd jobs -- every morning when you get up, do not arrange things; things will come to you. Whatever comes to you, you take it, handle it well, and experience it. When there is nothing to do, do not go looking for things; the world will come to you.

In ancient China this was called living in the present. Do not think about what the future will be like, do not arrange things; just live in the present, which is to experience the setup placed before you. Because the real you will set up the picture placed before you. You say, I am not setting up anything, how will things proceed? You do not need to worry. The real you -- what we call the higher self or the greater self -- the real you will set up the picture for you.

You can do anything you want in the physical layer, within the picture that the real you has set up for you; all possibilities are in it.

This matter is placed before you; there is such a matter, but how you do it -- the initiative, the free will -- is entirely yours. But the question is how will you handle it? How will you view it? Reaching this point is very difficult, because you have to allow yourself to experience in order to reach that point of working simultaneously with particle energy and wave energy and all other energies.

The matter is not important; what happens is not important. What is important is how you view these matters and how you handle them. This is the point of allowing yourself to experience. At this time, when you can fully experience all possibilities in this matter, you are simultaneously operating with particle nature and wave energy nature. Energy does not only have particle nature or wave energy nature; it also has other natures, such as conceptual nature, consciousness nature, emotional nature, and so on. We will not expand on this; do not always think of it as either particle or wave.

But this does not mean that in order to experience, you have to stab someone to gain experience. That is not the setup placed before you. You say many people argue, saying, did you not say I can do anything I want? Then can I go kill someone? Stab someone? Datre directly and sharply points out: that is not the setup placed before you. For some people it is -- for some murderers, for some people seeking revenge, for some knights-errant, outlaws, bandits -- for them, this is the setup placed before them: either you die or I live. If I do not stab you, you will stab me, so I might as well strike first. Do you understand what I mean? This is their setup; it is not your setup. You only need to handle the work placed before you; do not go looking for trouble.

Respect Without Trying to Understand

Datre then said a passage:

Not long ago, in what you call the Victorian era or other eras, those single mothers were also always suppressed, because they thought they had done something bad. Then go to other countries, such as Arab or Eastern countries, or also your Norway, Sweden, Scotland, Ireland, and so on -- they all have different constructs.

It refers to thought patterns and culture and such things. It is very difficult for them to understand you, and equally difficult for you to understand them. Because this is the most basic point: do not try to use your mental patterns to understand them; observe them, and then respect them. Because the environment you were born into and the environment they were born into are completely different from yours.

I do not know if you can understand what they mean; I will explain as simply as possible: you are in a different geographical location, a different culture, a different social background. The same thing happening to you, versus happening to a person in an Islamic country, or to a woman in an ancient era, the Victorian era¹⁸, or ancient China -- it is the same event, but the result and the reaction are completely different.

Young girls nowadays, the post-00s, post-90s and later, go out every day, dress very sexily to go to nightclubs, see a handsome guy they like, and the two of them go get a room -- it is all very normal, and they live very freely, not feeling much pain. But what would happen if this kind of thing happened in a Middle Eastern country? What would happen in ancient China? What would happen in ancient Europe? The same thing happening in different eras and different cultural backgrounds is completely different. The methods they adopt, how they view it, how they handle it, are also completely different. That is their own experience; you can only respect their experience, respect their feelings. Do not try to understand them, and judging them is even more unnecessary -- judging is the lowest.

Do not say, "I will not judge, but I will try to understand him" -- do not try to understand; you cannot understand. Because your cultural and life backgrounds are different. You only need to respect them, respect their choices, respect their dignity. They are willing to experience their lives in this way; this is what Datre wants to tell you.

So these views may not be exactly the same as your usual views; higher-dimensional views always challenge the limits of our cognition and our tolerance of morality.

Now your planet has become more diversified. When they talk to you, your purpose or their inclined intention may be completely different from what you think, because you do not understand them. So this is where respect comes in -- you respect those individuals, but you do not need to understand them.

There is no such thing as true empathy in this world, because you are not him.

Politics and Religion

Datre said, to speak in more detail, there are two things you do not understand, and these are even more fundamental: politics and religion.

You are born among them; you are born into politics. If you ask people, why do you believe in this religion and not that one? Why are you a Christian and not a Buddhist? I do not want to believe in that church, and so on. Why do more people believe in Buddhism than in Christianity? Why do you not want to become a Buddhist? You should know that this comes down to, first of all, your birth background being that religion. You do not understand that even if you begin to study it, you will not understand, because in everything you enter into, there are always subtle differences.

Similarly, your politics are the same. They said I do not know how to put it, and John added Democrats and Republicans¹⁹. Why are you a Democrat and not a Republican? Datre said why are you this and not that? If you investigate it, most of the time it is because your parents are this, unless you make a decision yourself, make a decision to change.

You see, when you have to change, it means you have to think. This is why you were given a brain, which can work with beliefs.

The structure of humans is so different from the structure of animals. Animals are always in constant learning, but because their signature imprint has already been set, they have something completely different. You cannot expect an animal to think the way you humans do, because they do not have that thing. They do not think, because they do not need to think. They do not have your kind of evolution; their evolution is completely different.

Simply put, your birth environment -- you yourself chose to be born in this country, this place, this religious environment -- so naturally you will believe in this environment. You say, I chose to be born in Iran, and I still want to believe in Christianity -- is that possible? There is no such soil; you have never even heard of Christianity. This is very interesting.

You think thinking is a characteristic and feature of you humans, because you are always comparing these things, always asking why. I often tell people not to ask why; there is no meaning. But animals do not think; animals never ask why. Whatever comes, they accept it; whatever comes, they handle it. When a tiger comes, they run; when something weaker comes, they pounce and eat it. It is that simple. They do not think about why there is a tiger here, how the tiger got here.

We humans think we are very smart, always thinking, feeling that thinking is a good way to learn, something very wise. In a certain sense, yes, but this kind of thinking will take you further and further away from spiritual things. The things you think about actually have no meaning; you just assign meaning to them yourself.

Alright, let us stop here, because this thing is too complex. Even if in the rest of your life you walk on all fours, crawling, you still cannot understand animals, because you are two completely different things.

In your physical structure, you possess passions and emotions that animals cannot understand at all.

We humans have things that animals do not: passion and emotion. When animals mate, they have no passion. You have seen cats and dogs mating -- no passion; it is a periodic reproduction, nothing big. If cats and dogs are not in heat, they cannot mate. It is not like humans; humans have no heat period; humans can mate at any time. As long as humans have love, emotion, and passion, they can. Animals are periodic; when the heat period arrives, under the control of hormones in the body, they naturally enter that state. They do not think it is anything big.

However, humans are different. This is a completely different game. Humans can choose to mate like animals, but animals do not have the choice to experience passion, love, and emotion the way humans do. They are experiencing something else. This is simply a difference in the way we humans and animals choose to experience things. You cannot expect an animal whose signature imprint has already been set to think like a human. It is impossible; it does not have that thought pattern.

The Death Zone and the Departure of Pets

They do not have a death zone. The death zone is a concept from the Datre material. Only humans have a death zone.

They simply go out looking for some kittens, puppies, or baby elephants that are about to be born, and then say, ah, that one suits me, I will jump into that body. And then this is the physical layer, because that kitten or puppy is about to be born, it is a physical-layer existence, and then this animal just jumps right in and reincarnates. So they wait until the body is born somewhere, and then they jump into that body.

This is somewhat different from humans. Humans are similar, but there are some differences. What is the difference? The difference is that after humans jump in, they have no awareness. Humans forget, and it feels like a new life being born all over again, with everything from before wiped clean. Animals are not like that. Animals know that they have left one body and entered another body. This is the difference from humans.

So we hope we have answered this question. If there is a pet there that is about to die, then allow it to leave. You and this animal have enjoyed each other happily, and that is that. It is an experience. You will also bring something different to your own life -- if you experience it, observe it, respect it, and learn from it, then this is a magnificent experience.

In any case, you all operate through emotions, through the emotional body. So you must teach it, and it teaches you, and you must also teach it.

That is, you must learn from the animal, and the animal must learn from you. You teach each other. We humans have an emotional body, a physical body, a mental body, and a spiritual existence.

Let us share this Datre material up to this point, because this section specifically discusses animal consciousness and the differences between animals and us humans. For many people, this may be a completely new experience, never having imagined that animals are like this. If you do not understand this part, you can reflect on it repeatedly. It can break through many people's limitations and perceptions. We used to think we were far superior to animals, but actually that is not the case. By human standards, yes; by cosmic standards, from a certain angle, no.

Creativity and the True Artist

Then Seth shifts the topic and moves on to another issue. Seth's leaps are also quite strong. Let us look at the next question.

Before our sessions began, the two of you thought of yourselves specifically as a writer, or rather a poet, and a painter. I would like to clarify some points.

Seth says, let me first make one thing clear: the two of you feel that one of you is a painter and the other is a poet. Rob is the painter, Jane is the poet. Up until that time, you mainly identified as a poet and a painter. You identified yourselves as a poet and a painter, because those titles seemed to come closest to fitting your abilities and temperaments. Because painting and writing poetry -- Ruburt's writing set him apart from others, and your painting also set you apart -- different from ordinary people in mainstream society. One of you a painter, the other a poet; these are recognizable, tangible evidence of creativity. Your creativity was recognized through the poems and paintings you created, proving that you are a painter and a poet, so you identified with the traits and traditions that seemed to suit you best.

What Seth wants to say is this: the things you identify with are all names, titles, labels imposed on you by society. You are a painter, you are a poet, but can painter and poet represent you? No. You leaned in that direction, toward society, and to some degree you carved out your own unique position. You became a well-known painter or a well-known poet. Although painter and poet are not ordinary jobs, they can be recognized by society.

You did not know that you belong to a deeper, older, or richer tradition, a more ancient lineage. Because in your society there are no hints of it to be found.

You have a deeper and more ancient lineage, but in your society there is no longer such a position, so you cannot find it. Since our sessions began, at various times there seemed to be divisive conflicts. For example, is Ruburt a writer or a channeler? Are you a painter or not a painter, or are you now writing things? Because Rob now records everything Jane says every day and organizes it into books. So is this Rob a painter, a scribe, or an editor? He also interacts with Seth and asks questions in between. You do not really know what his identity is now; it does not seem like a painter. Does Jane seem like a poet? Jane does not seem like a poet either. What kind of poet writes only a few poems and then starts channeling Seth every day for over twenty years? That does not seem like a poet either.

He asks Rob:

What about the things you have written? Are the things you write creations? You are a painter, so why do you also write? What about the things written for our words, and the things you sometimes plan to write on your own -- what do they count as? Do they count as your creations? Can they represent you? If you are a painter, then how did you start writing like a writer? So are you a writer or a painter?

This kind of conflict only exists in a society where the whole concept of creativity is compartmentalized. It is all because your society deliberately separates creativity -- you insist on dividing it into musician, sculptor, printmaker, oil painter, pastel painter, ink painter. It is your human society that deliberately wants to divide creativity. Creativity is actually not divided; it is all called creation. How can you distinguish and say, I am such-and-such?

During this period, the creative process was seen as an inner assembly line leading to specific products.

That is, you treat the creative process -- this spontaneous, unrestricted creation -- as if it were an assembly line. Oh, you are a painter, so how many paintings do you produce each month? Now paintings are priced by square foot -- how many square feet, large pieces, small pieces, and so on. If you are a musician, how many songs, how many pieces of music, how many symphonies do you create? How many concerts does a singer hold each year, how many programs do they appear on?

Creation is clearly a very spontaneous, very natural thing without any limitations, yet your human society has turned it into something like an assembly line. Painters are asked how many works they create; writers are asked how many books they write.

One in which the essence of creativity itself was largely ignored by a society, unless its products served specific purposes.

In such a society, you basically ignore the essence of creativity itself. People do not value the essence, but instead value whether the product can achieve its purpose. Can your painting sell for money? If it can sell, then you are an excellent, recognized painter. If no one buys your painting, then you are not a painter; you are an amateur painter. Is this not our viewpoint? Our society is exactly like this.

Today, when Ruburt wrote the preface for The Nature of Personal Reality, you can look at that preface. What he said about the poet's long-forgotten abilities and role is correct. In the deepest sense of the term poet, Ruburt has always been a poet. Because a poet is not merely someone who strings sentences together, but rather uses rhythm and sound, rhyme and refrain, to form a step upon which his own consciousness can ascend, and to send out a pattern of consciousness.

Seth's logic and grammar here are exceptionally good. To put this in plain language: when Jane wrote the preface for this book, she made a statement about her own essence as a poet, and that statement was fitting. The so-called poet is not someone who writes poetic lines in words, but someone who creates patterns of consciousness at the level of consciousness, allowing himself to enter different levels and realms of consciousness, creating different patterns of consciousness in different states of consciousness. It is not about writing one poem after another in the literal sense you think of. If your consciousness does not create, then even if you write ten or twenty poems a day, it is meaningless.

When the early artists tried to copy and depict the landscapes and scenery of the earth, they hoped to understand the essence of creativity itself.

In your next book -- that is, this book, which he has not yet formally begun to write; this is still in the preface stage -- he will describe this approach. Seth means that I will tell you what the essence of creativity is. Do not confine yourselves to these social perceptions -- painter, poet, writer, whatever. You have something deeper than that, the essence of creativity.

Poetry and painting are both functional and aesthetic.

What does functional mean? It involves a certain technical skill. A painter without technical skill will not do either.

But all along, poetry and painting have primarily involved humanity's attempt to understand himself and the world.

Seth cuts straight to the heart of it: these poets and painters actually want to understand the world and understand themselves, and that is why they write poetry and paint. That is the source of their creation; that is the essence of their creation.

Art -- and here I am speaking directly of poetry and painting; let us just talk about poetry and painting for now, using art as a general term -- its original function has largely been forgotten.

What was the original function? To understand this world and to understand oneself. This is the original function of art, but it has been forgotten.

The true artist is always primarily -- what is your term -- a psychic or a mystic. His particular art is his method of understanding his own creativity, and also a method of exploring the vastness and creativity of the universe, and he is also used as a container or display case to show his knowledge to the best of his ability.

Seth means that the true artist is actually a psychic and a mystic, or a student of mysticism. Why? Because the essence of art is the desire to study oneself and the world. Poetry and painting primarily involve humanity's attempt to understand himself and the world, and the best way to understand oneself and the world is through psychic work and the study of mysticism. Therefore, psychic work and mysticism are the deeper, underlying, inner constitution of the artist -- that essence.

What he means is that what Rob and Jane are doing now is actually what a true artist does, rather than what they thought -- that only by being a painter or a poet are they creating art. But the Seth material you are now writing, the explorations of mysticism you are undertaking, the records of channeling -- these are the true artistic creations. Seth is saying this to flatter them, to reassure them, because they always had a feeling that this was not their proper work, that only writing books and creating paintings was their proper work.

It is a lineage that both of you have followed, and will follow to the end.

This is that most ancient lineage, the thing you have been doing all along, for twenty years now. It has a glorious tradition, and the two of you have done it before, not just now.

As Ruburt correctly received from me, it also involves a set of achievements that we will call psychic art, and you are also involved in it.

This is a kind of psychic art, or an achievement of spiritual art -- namely, the transmission and dissemination of this material. This is a greater artistic creation.

I want you to clearly understand, for example, that there is no conflict, and can be no conflict, between your writing and your painting.

He says to Rob, you are a painter, but now you are writing books, recording and writing books. There is no conflict; this is also artistic creation. Because in the most basic way, they represent different methods of exploring the collective source of the meaning of creativity itself. Seth is giving them reassurance again: this is also artistic creation, and moreover it is a deeper artistic creation, a different method of exploring the meaning of creativity itself and the source of creativity.

In ordinary terms, the sessions I give you are a new extension of that creativity, and again, that extension has an ancient lineage.

Seth says, the sessions I give you are all a new extension of creativity. Because you humans have not yet extended in this direction. Right now you humans have painters, poets, writers, actors, composers. He says what I am transmitting to you now is actually a deeper extension of creativity. Do not think that only painting, singing, dancing, and music are creation. What you are doing now is a deeper layer of creation.

Of course your own writing is art. It is also a method of perceiving and understanding creativity, and a method through which you yourself will learn even more. And you are uniquely equipped to develop creative understanding from a most unusual viewpoint.

He continues to flatter Rob: your abilities are very strong. You can discover your own capacity for understanding from an unusual viewpoint; this is your advantage. And through writing you have begun to learn many things, and this learning is helpful to your entire creative process.

For example, exploring your own feelings about me -- have they changed over the years? How much of me is like myself? Or how much of me is like Jane? Or how much of me is like Ruburt? Or is part of me like you? Or part like Joseph? Have your feelings about me changed? Who do I resemble more?

Realizing that you are in the position you want to be in, and realizing that your abilities do not conflict with one another, and that you do not conflict with those abilities, this will also automatically complete the development of all those abilities with a wholly new overall creativity that transcends clear definition.

These creative abilities of yours do not conflict. Painting and writing do not conflict either. On the contrary, they will enhance your overall abilities in every respect.

Trusting Your Own Impulses

Now when Ruburt began to trust himself, the armor of the physical arthritis that he himself had begun to develop loosened. The armor loosened, and creative abilities became even more available. Therefore he had new creativity, as well as the physical steps he himself took. They all happened together.

When Ruburt trusted his own affairs -- although he had not written that many poems, he believed that what he was doing was also creating, also composing -- the armor on his body loosened. What this manifested as was that the symptoms of his rheumatoid arthritis lessened, because he trusted himself. He no longer questioned whether he was a channeler, no longer questioned whether he was a role accepted by mainstream society.

Ruburt believed that the essence of the creative self must be definite, so he could only be trusted in certain areas. He believed he needed to establish strong mental and physical barriers.

What he is describing is Ruburt's inner activity: Ruburt needed something definite. He needed his essence to be definite -- you must tell me, am I a poet, a writer, or a channeler? If you define me as a poet, then the poet part of me should be trusted, and all other parts are amateur and not primary. Ruburt was that kind of person; he needed clarity. But what he was doing now could not be made clear, because being a channeler did not seem like a profession in society, and even less like a respectable profession.

So this created a barrier between his mind and his body. What does barrier mean? It means you must tell me within what scope I am operating. Am I doing my own private work, or the work of a channeler? If I am not clear, then I do not know how to move, how to act, how to proceed. Therefore he restricted himself, to counter his own spontaneity. He originally had spontaneity, wanting to do this and that, wanting to transmit the Seth material, but inwardly he restricted himself, saying you must define your own attributes. Who exactly are you? Do you not know yourself? Are you a poet or a writer, or are you planning to become a full-time channeler from now on -- he was judging himself.

He began to understand that the spontaneous and creative aspects of personality are precisely the aspects that give life, and that they can and must be trusted.

What you are experiencing in your life right now, in your present life, is creation. That is what life has given you. Do not keep thinking and distinguishing, saying poet this, social recognition that. No. Your life is creation. Every day, every minute, every second of your life is creation. Do not keep distinguishing what it is, whether it can earn money, whether it can support you. Do not think about any of that. Just peacefully go into your life and create and experience.

He now knows that he does not have to slow down, and that relaxation will lead to motion. Ruburt could barely move anymore; his joints basically could not bend. This relaxation was helpful to his body.

He did indeed receive from me the list of the main sections that your new book will cover. This book is called Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment.

This is the first time Seth formally told them that they would write this book. Of course, this book will necessarily include much material discussing the true nature of creativity, and the many ways it has been used and misused by civilization.

But you do not need to struggle in order to trust the impulses of your own life.

Do not struggle when your impulses come. Just follow them and act. Many people struggle. When an impulse comes, they suppress it. They cannot suppress it, and a few days later they feel the impulse again, because they do not trust it.

That impulse will always lead you toward your own best achievement.

That impulse is what will take you to accomplish the most important achievements of your life. Follow it. In a way that will also benefit humanity, just follow your impulse. It is not only selfish; it is also altruistic, beneficial to all of humanity. Just follow it. When you trust the impulses of your own life, you are always supported.

Tell Ruburt that you must trust your own impulses. Do whatever you want to do. Do not agonize over whether your identity is that of a writer or a channeler. Everything you do in life, whether you cook a meal, do a job, write an article, or simply pick up a child from kindergarten, is creation.

I want the two of you to understand that point in the greater light of creativity.

Understand your current affairs in terms of the deeper essence of creativity, and understand their true meaning. You have already taken the correct path, so release from your minds any lingering thoughts of conflict and doubt. Remove the residual conflicts and doubts from your minds -- I am not much of a painter, not much of a poet, what exactly are we doing -- remove all of that.

Such a position will automatically clear away all problems involving gender, roles, or any other matters.

Both of you will automatically relax the influence of such worldly things, and automatically clear away their influence. As long as you trust your own impulses, without doubt, without conflict.

The two of you are learning the essence of creativity, as very few others have ever done or could do. That will certainly make new creative frameworks possible.

You are doing something more fundamental, making an attempt at the essence of creativity. Very few people do this; very few can do it. You have been doing it all along, and the very process of doing it has already made new creative frameworks possible. What does a new creative framework mean? It means allowing a being not on this earth -- a consciousness body, an energy body -- to leave behind, through Jane's lengthy transmissions, the Seth material that we can study today. This very thing is creating a new creative framework.

And it will provide new answers to situations that cause difficulties only within smaller frameworks.

If the structure and framework of your creation is not large enough, and you only operate within a very small framework, saying I am a painter and can only express my creativity through painting; I am a poet and can only express my creativity through poetry -- that is a smaller framework. You have now entered into a higher framework of the essence of creativity. Within this framework, when you create, it will naturally resolve the difficulties you faced within the smaller framework, and will give you a new kind of answer. You will understand why this is so, and you will no longer suffer or struggle.

Then he asks, do you have any questions? Rob says no questions. Jane has made great progress recently, and I am very happy to see her like this. Then Seth says, this is a prophecy; she will get better and better. Then the session ended. Good night to you all.

The session ended at 9:16 p.m. Jane returned to a relaxed state, and her head suddenly dropped down. You see, as soon as she finished the session, her head suddenly dropped down. In fact, during the process of transmission, for a patient like her who had been bedridden for a long time, the pressure was still quite great. Jane was already very ill at this time, basically unable to walk much.

With a feeling of genuine sympathy for what Jane endured in order to transmit the Seth material to us, Seth once again gave them great encouragement here, precisely because he was afraid they might have such thoughts. The content is rather long and extensive. I suggest everyone divide it into several parts to listen to, and not listen to it all at once.

注释与核实

1. This claim could not be verified. ↩

2. Source: National Central Library of Taiwan, National New Books Information Monthly (https://isbn.ncl.edu.tw/FCKEDITOR_UploadFiles/1620958693.pdf) ↩

3. This claim could not be verified. ↩

4. Source: Wikipedia, "Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%A4%A7%E8%88%AC%E6%B6%85%E6%A7%83%E7%BB%8F_(%E5%A4%A7%E4%B9%98)) ↩

5. This claim could not be verified. ↩

6. Source: Huang Mingxi, "Lu Jiuyuan's 'Simple and Easy' Teaching Method and Its Historical Significance" (https://xbjk.ecnu.edu.cn/CN/html/201601015.htm) ↩

7. Source: Netflix, "Watch Squid Game" (https://www.netflix.com/title/81040344?src=tudum) ↩

8. Source: Chinese Text Project, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 38 (https://ctext.org/text.pl?node=11629&if=en&remap=gb&show=parallel) ↩

9. Source: Mencius, Mencius: Gaozi I (https://ctext.org/mengzi/gaozi-i/zh) ↩

10. Source: Wang Shouren, Complete Works of Wang Yangming: Record of Knowledge and Action (https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?chapter=915813&if=en) ↩

11. This claim could not be verified. ↩

12. This claim could not be verified. ↩

13. This claim could not be verified. ↩

14. Source: Aona, John, "Datre Introduction" (https://datrenet.tripod.com/intro.html) ↩

15. Source: Huaxia Publishing House, Busting Loose from the Money Game (https://www.hxph.com.cn/allBooks/3312.jhtml) ↩

16. This claim could not be verified. ↩

17. According to Mike's original words, it was "from the Tang dynasty to now, roughly fifteen hundred years or so"; upon verification, it should be "the Tang dynasty began in 618 CE and ended in 907 CE; as of 2026, it has been about 1,408 years since the founding of the Tang dynasty, so it should be roughly fourteen hundred years." (Source: Chinese Government Portal Website, "Overview of Chinese History," 2005, https://www.gov.cn/test/2005-05/24/content_436.htm) ↩

18. This claim could not be verified. ↩

19. This claim could not be verified. ↩