The "Reading Guide" and "Chapter Highlights" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This session discusses how, after early consciousness aligned itself with the earth, it formed the inner self, the body consciousness, and the ego consciousness. Seth points out that a person needs a physical body capable of operating precisely within space and time, while also needing inner knowledge that transcends space and time as support. The inner self is composed of units of consciousness; it first forms the body consciousness, and then produces an ego consciousness that is attuned to the body. The three are closely connected, though in different proportions. The body consciousness is not inferior; cells possess precognitive ability. Bodily life provides a spectrum of sensation, and suffering and joy both belong to experience. Through these fragment personalities, All That Is expands its experience within the physical world.
Chapter Highlights
- The formation of the human being requires both a physical body capable of precise operation within space and time, and the support of an inner field of knowledge that is fundamentally independent of space and time; neither can be dispensed with.
- The inner self, the body consciousness, and the ego consciousness are three closely connected systems of consciousness that operate together; their distinctions are not fixed, and the inner self represents the primary identity.
- The body consciousness is not inferior to the ego consciousness; cells perceive other cells and natural elements on the earth's surface in a precognitive manner, and the intellect is built upon this ancient inner power.
- Bodily life provides a spectrum of sensation; suffering belongs to bodily experience just as much as joy does, and those drawn to physical incarnation are tasters of sensation.
- All That Is enters space and time through units of consciousness, forms matter, and is evoked within every life and every fragment of matter, thereby expanding its experience.
Main Text
This session began at 9:08 p.m. on Wednesday, January 9, 1980.
Rob said the weather was still unreasonably warm, the ground still bare with no snow. This winter we have had very little snow, really hard to believe. They started waiting for class at 8:50. Jane felt very tired because she had just read 48 letters from readers of the Seth books that had been forwarded from the publisher at noon today; she read 25 of them. She needed a little time before class to relax and take some notes. But that pile of mail meant people were reading our books, and for that we were really grateful. During the Christmas and New Year holidays we received more Christmas cards from readers than before, and in fact we were still receiving cards. Those letters really were -- Jane said reading those letters really wore her out, but some of them were really well written. Rob said he did not have time to help her because he still had a lot of typing and transcription work; in those days Jane answered her mail by herself.
Then Seth came through. We skip the usual session formalities. Seth said directly:
In the last session we talked about these early dreamers, those early entities.
He said that in this passage I indicated that during this period belonging to the dreamers, when the structure of the consciousness aligned with the earth formed itself in this way, certain subjective actions occurred.
This session focuses on how these subjective actions happened, namely how the inner self, body consciousness, and ego consciousness were formed. From the larger background, it is saying that when a consciousness aligned itself with a physical structure such as the earth, the structure of that consciousness formed itself. Then that structure of consciousness materialized. In the process in which those early entities dreamed all of that into being in the dream state, they formed themselves -- what kind of self? A self that was already different from the previous self, a self that had begun to materialize.
He said what these so-called subjective actions were:
What was needed was a highly concentrated, precise, exact focusing upon the physical self that could operate effectively within a space-time framework.
When he began this subjective action, he needed a physical self -- a materialized self; our flesh body is a self with a materialized body. Such a physical self needed to be able to operate effectively within space and time, meaning that in this physical world it had to be able to survive, to move, and to manipulate the things of this world, such as turning the soil, planting, sowing, reaping, hunting, and so forth; this is what it means to operate effectively in space and time. Then it needed high concentration -- a highly focused attention, focused only on this physical reality; and exact alignment -- both its grasp of physical reality and its grasp of itself had to be very accurate.
That framework was formed along with physical creatures.
That is to say, we human beings -- humans with consciousness and a body -- formed together with the other creatures of the surrounding environment.
That self, however, had to be supported to some degree by a field of information and knowledge that was basically independent of space and time.
Although we formed together with other creatures, we human beings still had to depend on the support of a consciousness and knowledge that was not within our space and time in order for our human existence to be here.
An indispensable knowledge that was not allowed to make the physical focus deviate.
What kind of nature does this knowledge independent of our space and time have? First, it is indispensable; without it our human existence would not be here. Second, it cannot make our physical focus -- the material focus -- deviate too much. In other words, it comes from our inner senses, and this knowledge still cannot affect our outer senses, precise judgments of the physical world -- neither the sense of space, nor of position, nor of time may become disordered. This inner sense transcends space and time, yet it also cannot let us deviate too much.
To summarize what he said: we need two things. One is a material body, capable of precise operation in this three-dimensional world; and we also need a knowledge that lies outside this space and time. Only when these two are combined can there be the birth of us humans; neither can be missing.
He paused again for a long time, then said:
That inner information had to be connected in some way to every consciousness on the surface of the earth. Earth's creatures had to be able to react in an instant. Yet the inner mechanism that made such reactions possible was built upon calculations that could not be consciously remembered by the brain.
All animals in this world have an instant reaction to the outer environment. For example, the action of blinking -- when an insect or sand blows into your eye, your blink speed is extremely fast. This instant reaction requires the support of an inner mechanism that our brain cannot calculate. That is, when your eyes see something, or sometimes when you haven't even seen anything, you close your eyes unconsciously; this ability is an inner mechanism far beyond what your brain can compute or reason out.
He gave an example:
Within your framework of time, if you had to consciously participate in the use and participation of action -- such as speaking, or any such bodily action -- you could never move as quickly as you do now.
If every action you made had to be noticed by you, or if every action had to be directed by your brain, then you would not move as quickly as you do now.
If you first had to be aware of all the mechanisms of language, and consciously use those mechanisms before each word was spoken, you obviously could not communicate on such a physical plane.
If when you speak you still have to think about grammar, sentence structure, the meaning of each word, how to use it, whether it fits here, weighing each word... if you still had to think this way, then you could not communicate fluently with others. When we speak an unfamiliar foreign language we are often in this state -- whether it is French or Italian, if you have not trained it over a long time until it has become fluent, when you are still using the head to think about what this language means, you can never communicate smoothly with others, because you are still understanding it at the level of semantics and grammar.
Yet you had to have that knowledge, and you had to have it in a way that did not interfere with your conscious thought.
Which kind of knowledge? The kind of inner ability that allows your language to be so fluent, your actions so natural, every move of hand and foot so natural, acting without thinking. This ability must have an inner knowledge at work, and this knowledge still cannot interfere with the judgments of your conscious outer senses. The balance here is very important. It must operate without affecting your normal thought.
Basically, the self has no real divisions.
He then began to discuss the composition of our self. The self has no divisions; it is one whole. But for purposes of discussion, we have to discuss it in those terms.
First, you have an inner self -- the creative, dreaming self. The previous sessions have been saying that you have a dreaming self; within the inner world there lives an inner you.
Again, that is composed of the gestalt that formed being, and the units of consciousness that formed the gestalt of the earliest earth inhabitants, of conscious energy.
First, you have an inner self, and this inner self is composed of units of consciousness. Units of consciousness not only compose you, they also compose your surrounding environment and other creatures; the basic being of everything in the world is this unit of consciousness. This unit of consciousness can also be called conscious energy. As I explained earlier, the inner selves -- why "selves"? Because the inner self is composed of a bunch of units of consciousness, and these countless units of consciousness are what Seth calls "selves"; out there they form a dream body of their own. This is the composition of our inner self. These dream bodies do not need concrete reactions, because they are not bound by gravity, time, or space -- this is a chief characteristic of the inner self.
But when the body became concrete, when it became flesh:
The inner self formed body consciousness, so that the physical body could become more aware of itself, its environment, and its relationship with other things within that environment.
When this dream body was to become a physical body, the inner self had to attach a part of its own consciousness to this physical body, forming a body consciousness, so that the physical body could become aware of itself -- because you have to give it consciousness, otherwise it cannot recognize itself -- and of its environment, and of its relationship with other things within the environment.
But before this happened:
Body consciousness had to be brought into connection, made aware of its own inner environment.
When the body received a part of the inner self's consciousness through the inner self giving it to the body, and the body had body consciousness, what it first had to do was inwardly become aware of its own inner environment, because it came from the inner self. Your body is always the inner self joining with it, so if it was to survive and interact in the environment, it first had to perceive its inner environment.
The body was formed by electromagnetic units, with love, through all the stages of atoms, cells, organs, and so on and so forth.
Your body is formed by units of consciousness -- through atoms, cells -- with all-embracing love, layer by layer; these are electromagnetic units. Here it is simultaneous. The pattern of the body comes from the inner self; this structure and form of your body comes from the form of the inner self's dream body. Because all the units of consciousness involved in this adventure -- the units of consciousness that compose your physical body, which it calls a kind of adventure -- together formed this environment and the organization of living creatures; they are closely coordinated with one another. They not only formed your body, they also formed the environment around your body and the organization of other living creatures; they are closely cooperating.
So up to this point in our discussion:
We have a self who dwells mainly in the psychic and psychological dimension.
This self dwelling in the dimension of spirit and psyche dreamed itself into a materialized image -- that is, our body -- and finally formed a body consciousness. The core point here is: it not only formed a body, it also gave the body a consciousness. The inner self gave the body consciousness a whole pile of its own specific knowledge -- how the body should function, how cells should cooperate, how cells are born and grow, and so on. Then:
It victoriously produced a vast repository of specific achievements.
Because it gave the body this knowledge, it then had a vast repository capable of producing specific achievements -- producing one small cell after another, small tissues and organs, and so on.
Body consciousness is not unconscious. But for the purposes of what you call operation, the body has its own system of consciousness, which to some degree is separate from what you think of as your own normal consciousness.
For the convenience of you human beings' operation, body consciousness operates apart from your conscious awareness -- you don't need to think about how to breathe, how the heart beats, how to move, how the muscles function, how to speak, how to drink water, how to eat, how to sleep. It must be separate from our normal consciousness, so that it can operate beneath consciousness without disturbing your normal consciousness.
But is body consciousness then very low?
It can hardly be considered inferior to your own consciousness.
Do not think that body consciousness is lower than your consciousness, or not as high as your inner self's consciousness. Because your body consciousness represents knowledge that comes from the inner self; it is the part of the inner self's own consciousness that was assigned to the body. Therefore it is on the same level as the inner self's consciousness; there is no question of one being higher or lower than the other. From a certain angle, it is even one level higher than your ego consciousness.
As I have often said, each cell operates so well in time because, in that way of speaking, it is precognitive. The cell is aware of the position, health, and vitality of all other cells on the face of the earth.
The body operates very well, and each cell also operates very well, because from within it knows the position and operation of every cell on the surface of the earth -- inwardly they are intimately connected, closely linked, within a unified web of consciousness.
It is aware of the position of every grain of sand on every shore, and in that way of speaking, it forms a part of the earth's consciousness.
If we speak from that level, the living creatures in the environment and the elements of the natural world are all linked together; all things are interconnected -- the entire natural world, from the large to the small, from the microscopic to the macroscopic, is closely connected.
What you think of as your intelligence, so clear and precise, so logical, and at times operating so arrogantly, is because that intellect sprints on top of that tremendous coded, ancient unconscious power -- the power of immediate knowing.
You think your intelligence is very good, your reactions very fast, your logic very strong, and it even operates somewhat arrogantly, thinking itself very clever. Actually it is because it has always ridden on top of that inner, unknown, ancient, unconscious inner power -- that is, the inner consciousness. It rides on that foundation of the inner self, which is interconnected with all things, and only then do you have your intellect and your wisdom in their present state. You think it is your own, acquired through evolution, but actually it has nothing to do with evolution; it is a wisdom riding on a wisdom that transcends time and space, in another dimension, beyond this world of ours.
Seth paused -- one of many pauses -- and then continued:
In our discussion so far, there is still only one inner self and one body consciousness.
Earlier we discussed the inner self, and then we also brought out body consciousness; now there are two parts.
When body consciousness developed itself and perfected its organization, the inner self and body consciousness together uttered a kind of psychological pun.
Under the joint action of your inner consciousness and body consciousness, an ego consciousness of yours was about to be produced. Why "pun"? This word in the translation is not very good; it probably should not be "pun." In fact, it will form an ego of yours -- he then began to explain how your ego was born.
The best analogy I can think of is that, until that time, the self was like a psychological rubber band, snapping inward with tremendous force and vitality, and at the same time outward, yet without any kind of rigid psychological framework to hold a bodily posture.
He used an analogy to describe the birth of ego consciousness. Like a rubber band -- the kind for tying hair -- when you stretch it a bit and then let go, doesn't it have a certain inward tension? And when you stretch it, it also has an outward tension. This rubber band is feeling two forces at the same time: one is the force pulling it outward, and one is the force of it snapping back inward. He uses this to describe the state of your ego consciousness at birth: it is simultaneously outward and inward. It attends both to your outer physical body and to the outer environment, while at the same time it also has an inner world, and the inner world creates the outer world. While you are creating outwardly, you actually must first create inwardly. These two forces operate simultaneously. So Seth thought for a long while and came up with this very ingenious example.
At this time the posture of your body is very hard to describe in precise language, because on the one hand it expands outward -- for example, your body is growing taller and bigger, you are exploring, experiencing, eating, walking; this is outward -- while everything outward in you is generated by your inner world. Then when you turn inward, that is, when your inner self and your body consciousness combine, an ego consciousness of yours emerges.
The inner self still maintained its relationship with dream reality.
Your inner self always maintains contact with your dream reality, and also with the source of your life and the source of the universe.
At the same time, the body's orientation -- your own body's consciousness -- acquired a great bodily adventure, curiosity, and sense of wonder, just as was planned.
Therefore the inner self again placed a portion of its consciousness in a different package. In the beginning there was a body consciousness -- the inner self's consciousness joined with your physical body and poured a portion of its own consciousness into it, forming body consciousness. Body consciousness works beneath your surface consciousness, and you ordinarily cannot perceive it. That is one kind of consciousness. Under the joint action of the inner self's consciousness and body consciousness, a third kind of ego consciousness is produced.
And at this time your ego consciousness is still the inner self's consciousness poured into it. How is it poured in? It is poured into the part where your body consciousness explores, ventures, wonders, and experiences that sense of wonder at the physical level -- that is to say, the felt part that your body consciousness brings back from exploring, feeling, experiencing, and sensing in the natural world and in the physical world is your ego consciousness.
Let me say it again: your body has outer senses -- eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body -- and after they interact with the outer environment, you have a feeling and sensation, which we generally call bodily sensation. When the inner self places its attention, its inner self's consciousness, on or focuses it on this sensation -- you feel heat, cold, comfort, discomfort, pain, hunger, and so on -- when your inner self's consciousness concentrates its attention on this kind of feeling, your ego consciousness is formed. Your ego is the inner self placing its attention on your body's sensations of the outer environment.
From this you can understand: if you want to remove the ego, a simple way is to stop placing the inner self's attention on the outer bodily sensations, and then you will no longer feel the ego.
Just as the inner self once formed your body consciousness, now your inner self formed a consciousness attuned to the body, a self whose orientation of desires and intentions the inner self could not achieve alone.
It has desires and intentions based on the body. What is desire? The desire to eat enough, the desire to eat good food, the desire to eat something you have never eaten before. Then it experiences through the body -- this is your self, the birth of your ego. The inner self needs to borrow your body; he cannot do it alone, because this is based on the premise of the body.
Then everything Seth said next was fully in an emphatic rhythm; the following content he kept emphasizing:
Your inner self is too aware of its own multidimensionality.
Your inner self is very clear that it is a multidimensional existence. It transcends time and space and is not limited by them, but it can, through this body in time and space, give itself a psychological birth -- allowing the inner self to be born again in this flesh body, a three-dimensional aspect born as the ego, which is you, the part of you that you think is you.
But it is not the complete inner self, because your complete inner self is multidimensional and cannot be fully displayed in this three-dimensional dimension. In this materialized body, it is only a psychological birth of our materialized body.
The part that knows itself as a self that is a physical creature.
What is the ego? The ego is the recognition that this body is itself and is an independent creature. But what identifies with the body? It is an inner self identifying with this physical body -- it identifies this physical body as a part of the inner self, remember, a part of it, not the whole. This sense of identity is our cognition of ourselves; that is the ego.
And the part of you that is ordinarily conscious of yourself, the part that you consider your ordinarily conscious self.
Living within the framework of the seasons, amid civilizations that seem to come and go, aware within time's settings, and dazed in a brilliant moment of waking.
Our ego lives amid civilizations that seem to come and go -- civilizations constantly replacing one another -- and we also live amid the changes of the seasons, aware of our own existence within time. Remember, such a materialized self can only be aware of its own existence within time.
"In a brilliant moment of waking, dazed" -- this sentence has a real flavor. Savor it carefully: what is the brilliant waking? It is the real existence of your multidimensional inner self. Our existence in this three-dimensional world, the existence that identifies with the physical body, is to that multidimensional inner self as short as an instant -- because the true inner self has no concept of time and space, and has the endless spacious present. This life of ours, whether 100 years or 90 years, is to the inner self just an instant.
That is the spiritual self alert to the present moment.
Our essence is spiritual; he is afraid you may misunderstand, and never forgets to remind you. This self alert to the present moment:
Whose physical senses are intimately connected with light and love, sound and touch, that is the self that lives the physical life.
It is the outward-looking self -- the self that looks outward through its own body, which is what ordinary people call the self that lives an ordinary human life.
The inner self became what I call the inner ego.
You have an outer self, the outward-looking self, the self that feels the world through the body, which we generally also call the ego; and we also have an inner self, also called the inner ego. These are only names, with no substantive meaning -- do not forget, it is always one whole; we separate them only for convenience of discussion.
It looks inward into your own consciousness and your body's consciousness, the inner reality that emerges from both, the conscious psychological dimension.
Looking inward, it sees your own consciousness and your body's consciousness, and the inner reality that emerges from them -- that is the reality from which your inner self and body consciousness come. Looking further inward, it can also see the psychological dimension from which it itself emerges. There is a very deep dimension of psyche, and it is itself a multidimensional existence. Above this multidimensional existence there is an inner self, and there is an inner world. Your inner self and your inner world both emerge from that conscious multidimensional dimension of psyche; from it emerge the inner self, body consciousness, and the outer ego. That awakened dimension is All That Is.
So you are one self, but for purposes of operation, we will say that you are three: the inner self or inner ego, the body consciousness, and the consciousness of yourself as you ordinarily understand it. These portions are intimately connected; they are like three different systems of consciousness working together to form the whole.
We discuss them separately, but in their operation they all work together. The apparent division is not fixed, but constantly changing.
Seth paused for a long time at 9:57. He said please wait for us for a while, as he thought about how to phrase it.
To some degree, within the physical universe, in all species and in all particles, these three systems of consciousness operate to some extent.
All things in the world operate through these three kinds of consciousness: the inner, inner-self consciousness; the consciousness of the physical form that knows its own existence; and an ego consciousness that can be aware of the sensations and felt experience of its own physical form. These three systems are not separate; they operate as one integrated whole, only to different degrees -- some species have a stronger ego consciousness, some have a stronger inner consciousness, and some have a stronger body consciousness.
For animals, for example, their ego consciousness is weaker. Do they have it? Of course they do. If you call your little dog, does he answer? Of course he answers; he certainly has ego consciousness, but it is much weaker than in humans, and more of his being is body consciousness and inner consciousness. What about an atom, then? An atom's body consciousness is very weak, but its inner consciousness is very strong, its ego consciousness is also very strong, and its body consciousness is much weaker, because its bodily receptivity is different from the bodily receptivity of our living bodies. The three merely differ in degree; the proportion they occupy within the whole consciousness is different, but they are all operating.
In your terms, this means that the proportion of the three systems may differ, and from the human perspective this may be more or less.
But remember, this is speaking from the human perspective. Essentially it is not like this -- because it is itself a multidimensional existence; you cannot use human measures of more or less, bigger or smaller, to measure it. But there is no way around it; from the human perspective we can acknowledge that there are differences in degree, differences in amount, differences in proportion, but they are always in operation, whether we are speaking of a person, a stone, a fly, a star, a sun, or an atom, it is all the same.
The inner self represents your primary identity, your true self.
Among these three, which one can truly represent you? The inner self. The inner self is your primary identity, your true self.
Then he said very quickly after that:
The earth is a good place, but I would not want to live there.
He said he believes this is a slightly dressed-up platitude, but it is actually true. Many people say this -- "Earth is fine, but I don't want to stay here, I've had enough" -- words often on the lips of those weary of the world. But Seth is pointing at these humans:
It is true -- you are physical creatures because you really do enjoy living on this earth, you really do enjoy this condition. On the whole, you really do enjoy a particular kind of challenge, and this particular kind of perception, the knowledge and understanding that the earthly environment provides.
Even though you say you don't want to stay on earth anymore, don't want to remain within these three realms, the fact that you came here to be born proves that you do like it. Stop deceiving yourself, stop coaxing yourself by saying "I don't like it, I don't want to stay here." You came precisely to meet these challenges, precisely because you wanted to experience this particular body-based perception, precisely because you wanted to feel the knowledge and understanding provided by this limited earth -- this special environment with gravity and many physical laws restricting you.
In your terms, that environment certainly includes suffering. Just as joy has always been a characteristic of earthly experience, so is suffering, and that theme will be dealt with in this book.
Since you have come into this physical world, you will certainly experience suffering, just as you can experience joy; you can also experience sadness, pain, discomfort, hunger, all kinds of unpleasant experiences -- all of this is also what you wanted to experience.
Here, however, I will mention only one aspect, the importance of bodily sensation, whatever the sensation may be. For among other things, bodily life also provides you with a life of feeling and sensation, a spectrum, an experience that must include within its overall range all possible sensations.
The body is here precisely to experience, to feel. Whether painful or joyful, whether hungry or satisfied from eating, whether full, the body wants to experience this sensation. It is not about the thing it experiences, but about the sensation of the experience itself.
He says let us not talk about anything else for now, but just from the body's perspective: your body gives you a spectrum for feeling all kinds of sensations, a full spectrum, and it wants you to feel all sensations -- not only the ones you consider good. You feel pain, discomfort, agony -- why must you feel that? Here he tells you: because sensation is important. To you it feels like pain and difficulty, but to the body it is only a sensation, and it wants to experience this full-spectrum sensation, a complete sensation, including within its overall range the experience of all possible sensations. Your body came here precisely because it wants to feel a complete experience, not wasting a single bit, wanting to feel every experience once. From a higher perspective he tells us why there is suffering in this world.
Now as you will see, all creatures, regardless of their degree, can and do choose those sensations they will experience within their range of reality. But to some extent, all sensations will be felt.
All creatures, regardless of high or low, noble or base, can and do choose to experience as much as possible within their range of reality -- all creatures want to come and experience all sensations.
For example, later we will discuss the mental portion and the interpretation of painful stimuli. But I want to point out that those attracted to physical life are first and foremost tasters of sensation.
Those who want to come into this world in a physical body are themselves here to taste sensation. It is like us tasting dishes of various flavors: spicy food is hard for people from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region to accept, yet people from Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, and Guizhou cannot be happy without spice; you think stinky tofu smells awful, like excrement, yet many northerners, especially Beijingers, find stinky tofu incomparably fragrant, and there is also their most famous breakfast drink, douzhi, which many people cannot accept. Everyone's sensations differ; what you cannot accept in this lifetime, you may especially love in your next incarnation -- if you don't eat spicy food in this life, perhaps in the next life you will be especially good at eating it. You are a taster of sensation, and your body is like your tongue, here to taste the hundred flavors of the world.
Basically, apart from that, there are various mental distinctions between stimuli.
Apart from the various experiences and sensations, in your mind you make distinctions between stimuli -- this is good, that is bad, this is painful, that is joyful. These are your mental distinctions.
The body is innately meant to respond. You designed this physical existence and placed it in this physical world, and it is meant to respond. It is innately meant to feel life and its vitality by responding to an environment that is not itself, by facing what you may call natural pressures.
It is innately meant to respond to the outer world, the outer environment. Through the pressures of nature, it can feel life and vitality -- it has to get food, has to survive in this physical world, and this process itself allows it to experience life and vitality. You say it could do without eating or something like that and still live? It could, but then it would not experience life and vitality either. Before you became a physical body, you did not need to eat. Now that you have gone to so much trouble to transform yourself into a materialized body, it is precisely because you want to use this materialized body to experience and feel; this natural pressure is necessary, otherwise you cannot feel the vitality of life.
By responding to gravity, by contact with other bodies, by changing his own sensations, by glorying in the balance and imbalance.
Our life has always been in this state: sometimes balanced, sometimes unbalanced, sometimes at ease in our hearts, sometimes inwardly calm, sometimes unbalanced, sometimes not calm -- we are here precisely to experience this state of balance and imbalance.
Then at 10:14, he paused again for a long time and said slowly, please wait for us a moment, and went off to think again.
So body consciousness was given a super sense of its own vision, a sense of certainty of identity, an innate sense of safety, that allows it not only to operate in the physical world, but to grow.
Here he has switched his subject; he is talking about body consciousness -- what we in medicine commonly call the autonomic nervous system. Your body consciousness originally had no sense of identity in itself, but after there is an ego consciousness, this body consciousness is endowed with a sense of self, a sense of identity, a sense of certainty, a sense of existence. Although your body consciousness also has its own sense of existence, and has the functions for operating the body in the physical world, it has no sense of identity, no sense of safety. Who gives it this? Your inner self gives it this.
"A super sense" means something that transcends what body consciousness should originally feel. Body consciousness is originally only responsible for operating the body -- when it is time to speak, speak; when it is time to drink water, drink water; when it is time to eat, eat; when it is time to walk, walk; when it is time to jump, jump. But "you can walk happily," "you can eat with satisfaction" -- this happiness and satisfaction transcend what your body consciousness should feel. Your body consciousness is originally only responsible for the operation of your body's energy, for keeping the body alive in this physical world; it is like a robot's life-support system. But "eating deliciously, sleeping soundly, walking comfortably, living with flavor and richness" -- these belong to a super sense that transcends it.
You can operate and grow in the physical world. He was endowed with a sense of daring, a sense of natural power.
Your body consciousness was endowed with a sense of daring. We often say a newborn calf fears no tiger -- children are afraid of nothing; it is people who frighten them later. If no one frightens them, your body consciousness is transcendent and fearless; snakes, scorpions, to a child they are just things to pick up and play with. Why? Because there is a sense of safety supporting them from behind. They know they do not need to be afraid; this natural world has already made arrangements with them.
He was perfectly formed to fit his environment, and that environment was also most perfectly formed to sustain such a creature.
Why is he not afraid? Because he is one with nature, innately formed to fit the environment in which he lives -- the surrounding temperature, the air, all of the environment conforms to the requirements of his survival. How is this accomplished? As mentioned earlier, during the dream state there has already been extensive communication and exchange with nature: I want this kind of environment, and nature cooperates with this kind of environment. Why can't it create an environment that is neither cold nor hot, spring-like all year round? There are many environments in this world. It is precisely so that your body can have sensations; they reach a tacit understanding -- letting you feel cold, but not letting you freeze to death; letting you feel hot, but not letting you die of heat.
Entity or unit of consciousness, it is all the same.
Why is it the same? Because a unit of consciousness can turn itself into an entity, and can also become a kind of field. When it exists as a specific identity, it is an entity; when it exists as a field, it is All That Is.
Units of consciousness from the vast psychological realm of All That Is, or those ancient fragments that embraced objectivity, were fearless.
He shifts his tone; here he is still talking about the earliest times -- when our world was just beginning.
When entities or units of consciousness -- these two are themselves the ancient fragments of All That Is entering objectivity -- they themselves are fearless and without dread.
It is like what the Diamond Sutra says: people of later generations, when they read the Diamond Sutra, can be without fear and without dread1 -- when later people read the Diamond Sutra and discover that this world is ultimately empty of anything, and yet are not afraid, this is being without fear and dread, fearless and without dread.
They joyfully indulged themselves in time and space.
Why are they not afraid? Because they are an ancient fragment of All That Is; what is there for a fragment of All That Is to fear? So they simply come with joy to play in our time and space.
They created new psychological entities, opening up an area of sacred creativity that had been closed before.
They opened up a new area of creativity -- the area of creating in the physical world. Before, All That Is only created on the spiritual level; since entering our time and space, entering the physical world, it began to create in the physical world: tools, houses, civilizations, societies, cars, phones, computers -- everything is created by us, and it is also All That Is creating in a new field.
Thus to that extent, expanding the experience and vast existence of All That Is.
Because of our creation, we enrich and expand the experience of All That Is. Before that, All That Is did not have this experience -- it was abundant, but it had no experience of creating in the physical world. It dreamed its own consciousness into the physical world, and there came to be us humans. All of our creations today -- technological products, spaceships, cars, airplanes, phones, communications, networks, quantum computers -- all of this is enriching the experience and vast existence of All That Is. Materialized creation enriches All That Is's experience in another field, opening up a new field.
In thus indulging himself, since they contained within themselves their innate relationship with All That Is, they were of course not abandoned, not forsaken.
Why can they indulge so boldly, so fearlessly and without dread? Because they know that within themselves they contain their innate relationship with All That Is -- they are a fragment of All That Is. So of course they have never been forsaken; they have always been in the embrace of All That Is, and no matter how they thrash about or make trouble, it is all right.
In those terms, All That Is also became an entity, evoked in its sacred distance from every blade of grass that shoots from the soil into the air, evoked by every birth and by every moment of every creature's physical existence.
All That Is has entered the physical world; all the material things that exist around us -- a blade of grass, a flower, a leaf -- are all materialized existences of All That Is. Whatever we create -- building a house today, making a car tomorrow -- all of this is a new form of All That Is being reawakened by you in the physical world. For example, the smartphone you are using now is a new form of All That Is manifesting in our physical world, and you have awakened it.
"In its sacred distance" refers to the distance of that multidimensional world. We summon it from that place into our three-dimensional world, awakening it from every blade of grass that shoots from the soil into the air, awakening it from the birth of every life, from every single moment of every life's existence -- all of it is All That Is being awakened. Every moment of every life is a realization of All That Is's existence in the three-dimensional world.
So All That Is is immersed in your world, present in every hypothetical point. And every part that forms matter is itself the material from which it is created.
Every point in our universe is the existence of All That Is; the essence of all the materials of our physical world is All That Is.
Then he said again:
That will do, let us end here.
I now cheer for Ruburt; he has indeed made good psychological progress, which also means he has made physical progress. I want to add just a little more: my energy is often with you both in ways you do not expect.
My energy is with you both, at times when you do not expect it. He keeps saying he is encouraging and supporting you, especially Jane -- at this time Jane's body was not well, and he was boosting her spirits.
End of session, and good evening.
Then the session ended at 10:26.
The content of this session is very important. It clearly explains to us how the fragments of All That Is -- those units of consciousness -- in the ancient entities, in the dream state, step by step dreamed themselves into this world, how they formed the inner self within, formed body consciousness, and then formed ego consciousness. This process, from our human perspective of time, is how it was realized step by step. But you must remember that from the perspective of All That Is, all of this happened simultaneously, all at once; from the human perspective it is not so, it went through a long, long process.
If you are interested, you can listen to it again when you have time; it will give you tremendous inspiration, giving you a deeper understanding of yourself, of the whole universe, and of your place in the universe. You will also become fearless and without dread -- this is also the state Seth hopes you will have: with the joy of creation, feel every moment of your life, because every moment of this life is the manifestation of All That Is in our world.
注释与核实
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The Diamond Sutra, Chapter 14: "If there be those who can hear this sutra, their minds will be without fear and without dread." ↩