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 block quotes are Seth's original words (the parts Mike read aloud).
Introduction
Material action appears only after the framework of time is completed, and human beings must choose among probable actions. Free will is not unrestricted; rather, it operates within the boundaries drawn by human capacities, the neurological structure, the outer senses, and the framework of time. The characteristics and impulses of the species and of the individual concretize the range of choices, and it is precisely these limitations that allow free will to function. The story of the Garden of Eden reflects the beginning of human action and choice, while judgments of good and evil are interpretations that came only later; the inner structure of reincarnation provides latent guidance for outer action.
Key Points of This Chapter
- Physical action appears only after the framework of time is completed, and it brings with it choices and decisions between actions.
- Free will operates within all units of consciousness, but it can only function within the framework of each one's own degree and capacity.
- The characteristics, idiosyncrasies, and impulses of species and individuals concretize the range of choices, and this limitation is what allows free will to come into play.
- The story of the Garden of Eden is about humanity beginning to act and choose within the framework of time, and the judgments of good and evil were explanations that came only later.
- The inner reincarnational structure of the human being provides the knowledge and guidance needed for outer action, but the relevant memories are subsequently forgotten.
Main Text
Action Appears Within the Framework of Time
Seth said that action appears within the framework of time. This action does not refer to action in thought, but to physical action—what we want to do, where we want to go, what we want to undertake, this kind of action in the three-dimensional world. Before the framework of time was completed, this kind of action in our physical world did not exist.
In fact, an important development directly related to the beginning of your world is that only after the framework of time was completed did humanity have the concept of action. Before the framework of time, he transcended the limitations of time, and all things were done simultaneously. All things happening at once—that is not the same concept as the action we humans understand.
To put it in the most basic terms, the story of the Garden of Eden tells of humanity's sudden realization that he now had to begin acting within the framework of time. The Garden of Eden is a distorted story; what it originally intended to tell you is this: humanity was about to begin acting, was about to begin acting within the framework of time. Human experience had to be perceived through neurological structures, through our nervous system, and also acted out in our three-dimensional world.
This immediately brought about the importance of choosing between one action and another. When you are about to begin acting, you have to choose whether to do this or that, just like the apple at the very beginning of Eden—whether or not to eat the apple. And then this kind of action—for example, when God asked them: who are you, who told you to eat the apple? At that point their answers were all actions. And this made the matter of making decisions extremely important, because once there is action there is choice, and this choice makes decision-making necessary.
This framework of time is perhaps the most important one within earthly experience, and the one that most affects all living beings. For our earthly framework, the greatest influence is this time. In experience or existence outside of time, there is no necessity for making certain kinds of judgments; only within physical time is there a necessity for making judgments. Outside of time there is no necessity for making choices, because in a state outside of time, theoretically speaking, countless instructions can all be followed and realized simultaneously; countless possibilities are being practiced and realized at the same time. He does not need to choose; he can simply do every one of them.
But within the earthly framework of time, a very clear new focus is brought to experience. Once we arrive in the physical world, things are different; our focus is very clear, there is only one physical focus, only one focus of consciousness brought through our outer senses. And under the pressure of time, certain activities appear more important than others, or more pleasing, or more displeasing. This problem only exists under the premise of time.
Time is limited, so you feel that you should do some important things, meaningful things, and that meaningless things should be left undone. But when time is infinite, or when there is no concept of time, do you still have the need to make such distinctions? Suppose you could live forever, that you would live eternally—would you still care which things you like and which you dislike? Would you not want to try every one of them? Give you tens of thousands of years, hundreds of millions of years, to enjoy endlessly the things you like, and you would do them until you were sick of them. You would certainly go and try those things you have never done before, even if you do not like them, because you have not done them, they are fresh. So when time is infinite, there is no distinction between good and bad, and there is no necessity for choice.
Amid a greater profusion of possible actions, people were suddenly faced with the need to make choices, something they had never done before within the scope of their consciousness.
Humanity previously did not need to make choices, but after having a physical body he had to make choices; this was an experience he had never had before.
The Operating Range of Free Will
According to our human timeline, early humans still had a greater neurological richness, a greater surplus, not as narrowly focused on only one area as we are now. At that time our nervous system had both sides, existing in an inner world while also being able to perceive the existence of the outer world. At that time there were alternative neural pathways—not the pathways of our present outer senses; we also had another set of inner sensory pathways of perception. The outer senses rely entirely on nerves for transmission, so we might say we had two sets of sensory systems. At that time, it was more possible than now; those pathways still exist now, within us, but they have become like background phantom signals of neural activity, no longer so important, existing like background noise.
Jane paused, her eyes tightly closed, as if searching for the right words. Seth said this was difficult to explain:
But free will operates in all units of consciousness, whatever their degree, but it operates within the framework of that degree.
What Seth wanted to explain was this: why are you not yet restricted? Why have you made a choice—you must choose one action among several actions, and yet in the midst of this there seems to be absolute free will? Although those unchosen things are unavoidable, sometimes it is not that you want to choose, but that you have no choice but to choose, as if you had lost your free will.
He said that human beings possess free will, but that free will can only operate within the human degree. Human free will must operate within the range of his human capacities. You may think this is wrong—did not Seth say we are gods? Are we not All That Is? Why must we still abide by human limitations? This is perfectly normal, because you live in this physical reality, so you are subject to the limitations of physical conditions.
He has free will to make any decision he is capable of making. Being capable is the premise, so within the range of what he can do, he has complete free will. Choices are also meaningful and focused, and at the same time framed by his neurological structural network, by his outer sensory system. The framework of time gives free will its meaning, and a range within which it operates. What we are discussing now are the conscious decisions as you think of them, not those unconscious decisions or decisions in the inner world; we are talking about the kind of decisions we ordinarily speak of.
Seth also said that you can only make so many conscious decisions, otherwise you would be overwhelmed and fall into a constant dilemma of decision-making. Think about it: suppose you cast off human limitations, and you were everything in this universe, and you could do anything—you could be a car, a cell phone, become a computer chip, become an apple, become a cloud, become a gust of wind, become the sun, become the moon, become the earth, become the galaxy—at that point the problem arises: you would not know what to do, and you would be overwhelmed by such choices.
If every cellular consciousness in your body were as awake as your present consciousness and needed to make decisions, then you would inevitably be unable to do anything at all; you would spend every day directing all these cells, molecules, and atoms in their movements. In other words, that is not the kind of decision you should be making at your level; you only make the decisions appropriate to your level. Do not go managing the affairs of cells and atoms and molecules; let them manage their own affairs. Extending this upward and outward, should you not refrain from managing the affairs that All That Is should handle, and only manage well what you do? Just as a single cell managing itself well means the whole human body manages itself well; you managing yourself well means All That Is manages itself well. It is that simple; do not go beyond the framework of your range as a human being, otherwise you will not know how to act.
Species Limitations and Inner Impulses
The awakening we mentioned earlier—humanity's awakening from the physical body, identification with the body, discovering that he had awakened from the previous dream condition—suddenly faced the necessity of action. He previously did not need to perform this action, but in a world of space and time, in a world where choice becomes unavoidable, choices must be made. He had to choose from among possible actions, and from an endless variety of possible actions, choose the events he wanted to actualize concretely. This is a difficulty humanity inevitably faced upon entering the physical universe from the universe of dreams; previously there was no need to choose, but now choices must be made in everything, even which leg to step forward with first.
This is almost an impossible situation. What kind of situation is impossible? If the species had not been given its own pathways of expression and activity, making it easier for certain species to act in certain ways—each species has its own entire characteristics and inclinations, and that further defines its range of influence, within which it can exercise the rights it chooses—the species must be given a defined range of activity and a range of influence. For example, fish can only move in the sea or in water; they cannot roam the skies. That is their limitation. Without such limitations, without their own characteristics, without their own inclinations, if they could do everything, then they would not know what to do.
The units of consciousness composing each species are also given an overall inner picture of the situation of every other species, because each species is composed of units of consciousness, so it also knows the inner picture of all other species. They are further specialized by basic impulses—the inner basic impulses are unrestricted and multidimensional, but when they arrive in our physical world, they must be specialized, that is, made concrete. To put it most simply: do you want to be male or female? You say, I want to be both male and female, but in this physical world that is not possible; you can only choose one. You can choose to be male in this lifetime and female in the next, but in this one lifetime you can only choose either male or female. I use this example to show you what concretization means.
This concretization of impulses directs him toward choosing what can satisfy his own developmental potential, while also enhancing the overall interests of the consciousness of the whole world. You have an inner primal impulse to create and to experience, but in your physical world, this choice and impulse become concrete decisions about one thing after another. Every small decision in your life is guiding you to fulfill your own inner potential, and at the same time enhancing the whole world. Do not underestimate your small decisions; every decision you make is enhancing the whole world, and of course also developing your own potential.
Choice and Free Will Do Not Conflict
This does not weaken your free will. When you make choices and decisions in life, you are certainly subject to all kinds of limitations; you cannot make decisions arbitrarily, and at such times it seems like a restriction on your free will. But Seth wants to tell you: no. Just as human free will is not weakened by the fact that he must grow from a fetus into an adult, rather than the reverse. You can only grow from a child into an adult; you cannot experience going from an adult back day by day into a child, and this does not weaken your free will.
The differences among all species are also caused by this kind of organization—determined by the overall design and organization of the world at the very beginning. So the areas of choice are clearly drawn; what you can choose is clearly delineated, and you cannot go outside the circle; the areas of free activity are also clearly defined. As a human, you can only choose this; as a cat, you can only choose that. The entire gestalt of possible actions has already been somewhat focused within the differentiation of species; within each species, its possible range is defined. Within the broad category of fish, there are still many variations, still much differentiation needed, and this is provided through the inner channels of reincarnational existence. In this lifetime you are one way—for example, if you are a shark, and subconsciously you want to be a goldfish or a tropical fish, then whether as a goldfish or as a shark, you actually have within you all the inner reincarnational experience of all fish, but it is within you, not outside.
For example, every person is born with a unique individual set of specific abilities, preferences, and aversions; every person is born automatically carrying a set of their own judgments, with different personalities and different innate abilities. This can be used to organize individual action within a world, because he has his own inclinations, abilities, and preferences, so he will organize his own actions according to his own points of interest or will. In that world, countless possible roads are open, and the individual's impulses basically guide each person toward the pathways of expression and possible activities most suited to his development.
So how do we bring out all our possible potentials? There is only one thing you need to do: follow your inner impulses. Your impulses will bring out all the pathways of possible expression and possible activities. Otherwise, in practical terms, free will could hardly operate. In fact, this limitation is the very premise that truly allows you to do anything—limitation is the guarantee that allows your free will to be exercised. Without limitation, you would not know what freedom is.
Suppose there were no limitations; the individual would face so many choices that any decision would become almost impossible. In that case, basically the individual would have no particular inclination toward any action. When you have no inclination to move in any direction, would you still call that free will? What is free will? It is doing whatever I want to do. When one day you enter a state where all such possibilities can be realized for you, you will not know how to choose, and you will lose the impulse to move in any direction.
Think of the movie Absolutely Anything1—you have all the powers of the galaxy; at first you would be excited for a while, and then you would lose all impulses. The deeper meaning at the end of that movie: he gave back the super magic powers and gave them to his dog. Why did he not want them? Because if he had that power, he would not know whether the girl he liked wanted to be his girlfriend because of his superpowers, or because the girl herself liked him. In other words, when you can make anything in this world come true, you often do not know what to do.
Because right now you still think—you say, I want to be the richest person in the world, a billionaire—that is because you currently have limitations, so you have this idea. When you truly have no limitations, you will not want to do anything, because you can accomplish anything. To put it another way, you would have no motivation or impulse to do anything at all, and then where would your free will be? Being able to do anything and your free will—these two seem consistent, but in fact they are internally contradictory, and very subtly so.
The Garden of Eden and the Reincarnational Structure
By the time the story of the Garden of Eden was written into your biblical story2, the whole picture had already been viewed in terms of the concepts of good and evil. By that point in human time, when the Bible wrote out the story of the Garden of Eden, you had already simplified the choice of action into a choice between good and evil. This actually appeared much later in human development. Humanity first had action and choices of action; at that time humanity still had no concepts of good and evil, and only much later did humanity develop the concepts of good and evil.
The inner reincarnational structure of the human psyche—we know we have many reincarnations, but this is knowledge in the inner world—is very important to our physical survival. Thus they could dream of past lives and remember, for example, how to walk, how to speak; they were born with the knowledge of how to think, born with the inclination for language. They were guided by memories that were subsequently forgotten. Your experiences of many reincarnations give you guidance on how to operate in the outer world, but this memory and this guidance are subsequently forgotten by you; you do not remember that this is the case.
Within the framework of time, each individual's private purposes also appear on the larger historical stage. Do not think you are just a small individual; you are also on the historical stage, and it is not only politicians, political figures, and celebrities who are on this historical stage. Each person forms a corner of his own civilization; you form a corner of the whole of human civilization. Each person composes a small corner of civilization, and the whole of human civilization is presented in this way.
At any given time, all individuals have private and collective purposes. As an individual, we have our own thoughts, our own lives, our own purposes; as co-builders of the spiritual home, we have a collective purpose for the spiritual home; we are also members of the whole family, with a collective purpose for the whole family; we are also citizens of a nation, or members of a certain community, a certain company—you will have such a collective purpose. You all have challenges you have set, challenges you have set for yourselves, whether individual or collective, and the possible actions they will attempt to perform on the historical stage. How we want to perform on the historical stage, how we want to sing this play—that is our own decision.
End of Dictation
Seth said the dictation was over, and asked if there were any questions. Then he said: well then, I wish you both a good night, and give you both my most heartfelt blessings.
Rob thought for a long time, his mind completely blank, unable to come up with any questions, and then the session ended. Jane said that before the session she knew Seth was going to talk about the Garden of Eden, choice, and reincarnation, and she felt that this was a great deal of material, and once again, she felt he was astonishing, and he had once again made a breakthrough. When Jane looked at the time, looked at the clock, she said, my goodness, how could it be so short? Was it really that short? The session lasted about 45 minutes, and I felt as though I had been away for five centuries, for 500 years, almost enough to travel from the earth to the moon. I think I have psychological jet lag—she coined a term for herself, psychological jet lag, the difference between psychological time and real time.
She said it was a wonderful adjective. Strange indeed—sometimes when you come back, you cannot believe that only such a short time has passed, yet you cannot obtain this Seth material in any other way. You can only go that far on the level of consciousness, traveling for what felt like 500 years, when in reality only 45 minutes passed in the physical world. And if you do not go that far, you cannot receive the material Seth transmits. She would rather travel 500 years in her consciousness to receive this material; she was willing to do so—although at that time Jane still did not know what material he was transmitting, which is quite interesting.