Mike's commentary · Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Session 916

The "Introduction" and "Key Points" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike 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 chapter begins with Rob's question about the difference in wording between "invisible particles" and "units of consciousness," explaining that while terminology is important, readers should not rely excessively on categories and definitions; the same reality needs to be described from different angles and scales. It then points out that the manifest universe comes from subjective reality, that All That Is is the vast subjective psychological structure hidden behind phenomena, dispersed into units of consciousness. Finally, it emphasizes that imagination united with reasoning is the only way to understand the universe and one's own place within it.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Terminology is important, but over-reliance on terms and classifications will limit the cognition of higher-dimensional concepts; the same concept needs to be described from different angles and scales.
• The manifested universe comes from subjective reality, and All That Is is the invisible universe implied behind phenomena.
• All That Is is an extremely complex subjective psychological structure, and it disperses itself into units of consciousness, each of which contains divine attributes.
• The genetic pattern of any given species is not a closed system, but is invisibly connected and interactive with the genetic structures of other species.
• Only when imagination and the reasoning process are united can one obtain knowledge of the universe and one's own position within it that cannot be obtained in any other way.

Main Text

When you are the person you take yourself to be, you speak of a world of reason and imagination, and then of an implied universe (Session 916)

Today is May 14, 1980, Wednesday, 9:20 p.m. Right at the start, Rob brought up a point: last night, that is, May 13, while he was transcribing the previous session, he asked Jane why Seth had not called the "invisible particles" mentioned in the last session "units of consciousness," but instead used a new term.

Because in the first half of the previous session, the key point was this: we have an invisible world, and the reality we see in physical form emerges from that invisible world. Seth said there is an invisible framework, and this framework is very hard for our human understanding to grasp. To help us understand it, he introduced the concept of "invisible particles" -- within that invisible framework, what composes it are some invisible particles, and these invisible particles are everywhere, and so on. This concept, as all of us would understand it, is actually the same in nature as "units of consciousness." Because when Seth described units of consciousness, he used the same description. So Rob did not quite understand, and asked why not use "units of consciousness" to describe it?

Why Not Use the Same Term?

The theme of this chapter is "When You Are the Self You Perceive Yourself to Be," discussing the world of reason and imagination, and then an implied universe. The implied universe refers to that invisible framework, the invisible world. And at the very start of this session, Seth gets straight to the point, first making a substitution in time and space — the time you are in determines the space you are in. This is something many people find very hard to understand.

Of course, in the latter half of the previous session, Seth already explained what "the time you are in determines the space you are in" means: that time is not the time of the three-dimensional world we ordinarily understand; it refers to the intervals of your perception, or the sampling frequency, the sampling rate of your perception. The term used in the original text is "intervals of perception," which is the sampling rate of your perception. We can understand it as a kind of sequential reading of time, or a sequence of perception. This sequence determines the self that you are — where you are, who you are, how you feel, all depend on the frequency of your perception, the sampling rate of your perception. We can collectively call this "the frequency of consciousness." Wherever your frequency of consciousness is, that is who you are, and that is where you are.

This ties in with the title of this chapter: the self you think you are is the self you perceive yourself to be, which is actually the frequency of your consciousness, which is the sampling rate of your perception, which is what the Seth books call "the intervals of perception." So here, concepts like time and space no longer exist — all of this is the result of your inner psychological activity. At what frequency, at what density you perceive, what you perceive will be different, and you yourself will be different too; the self you perceive and the world you perceive will both be different.

And when discussing this concept, the term "invisible particles" confused Rob: why didn't Seth use the term "units of consciousness" that he had frequently used in previous books, and instead used a new term, "invisible particles"?

This question made Jane very uneasy. Jane said, right, this is inconsistent. From the standpoint of human logic, Seth's material should be consistent; the terms should correspond from beginning to end, and the concepts should correspond too. But why, for the same thing, did he always use "units of consciousness" before, and now switch to a new term? Is this a different concept, or a different description of the same concept?

Human beings have a primal impulse and attribute to classify and define everything; without that, they cannot understand or learn. This is the concept of reason. Our rational thinking has always been like this: first you need a precise definition, and then on the basis of that definition you unify everyone's terminology. When you say "electron," an electron must have a precise definition — what an electron is — and only then can you study the laws of electron motion, and only then can you discuss the laws of the universe. But you, Seth, one moment it's invisible particles, the next moment it's units of consciousness, the next moment it's units of meaning, units of emotional energy — the terms keep changing. How can that be acceptable?

This is what made Jane uneasy. Jane had a kind of fixation: she always wanted to be certain that what she was doing was very meaningful, and she felt that what she was transmitting should be truth, the truth of this world; otherwise, doing this would be meaningless. You can't spend decades transmitting something vague and ambiguous. So when the transmissions first began, she was half-skeptical of Seth; as the sessions deepened, she came to believe from within that Seth was transmitting the truth of this world, or material close to the truth. But in this process she also had moments of relapse, and at this point she became somewhat uneasy: since you are Seth, since you are omniscient, why are you still so vague and unclear about this concept? Rob was also a bit baffled, saying, why use a new term?

Then Rob began to make excuses for himself, and also for Seth. He said, I'm afraid Seth is repeating previous material under a new term. He speculated that Seth must have a good reason for doing so — this was his own speculation, to comfort Jane, because by then Jane was already feeling very uncomfortable. Of course, in each book of the series, there is bound to be some repetition. He said this repetition is also normal: if you read the Seth material from beginning to end, and follow my commentary from the beginning, then of course you understand; but many readers buy the books one at a time in bookstores, and may have bought only this one, without having read from the beginning, so the concepts here need to be repeated — without repetition, readers who haven't seen the earlier books wouldn't know what you're talking about.

Rob's point was that when Seth mentions invisible particles in this book, it is actually a disguised repetition of units of consciousness, intended to help readers understand better. He further explained that repetition not only provides a foundation for new material, but also makes each book complete in itself. He said, I also try to achieve the same purpose with my notes — I write notes for each book, quoting earlier content and material, precisely because I want readers not to feel that the concepts are too unfamiliar when reading this book.

However, while they were waiting for the session to begin, Jane received material from Seth — Jane often received outlines of the session before it started. In it, Seth explained very clearly the reason for using invisible particles on Monday night. Since tonight he will explain this matter, let's not say more here; let's just listen to Seth's explanation. Of course, both of them breathed a sigh of relief. Moreover, Seth didn't care about this matter at all — he didn't care at all what term was used — whether it was units of consciousness or invisible particles or whatever, he didn't care at all, and didn't think it was a big deal at all. But these two were already very tense, because they believed they were transmitting the truth of the universe, and if even the concepts were vague and unclear, what kind of truth was that? This was what the two of them were agonizing over.

So here I also want to remind all readers of one thing: what is stated most clearly is often not the truth; what can be stated clearly is often not the truth. Seth will explain below; just look at Seth's explanation and you'll understand.

Do Not Become Overly Dependent on Terminology

Seth says directly:

When Joseph read the last session, he wondered whether the invisible particles I spoke of were the same as the units of consciousness we had discussed before.

He began to wonder about this. Rob was right to ask such a question, and so is every one of my readers. When you read this and ask the same thing, that is normal; any normal human being would ask such a question.

Seth says, of course I know the importance of terminology -- from the rational standpoint, from the standpoint of scientific and logical explanation, terminology is certainly important. Without terminology, there would be no way to communicate. What would we be talking about? It would be meaningless. Seth says, I know terminology is very important. That is the first layer of meaning, and it is very clear. But this "but" is very important: but I do not want you, as readers, to become so dependent on terminology.

This is the most crucial point. Is terminology important? Yes. But becoming overly dependent on terminology is not right. Do not become so dependent on terminology that the moment you encounter something you have read before, you immediately classify it. These are all things he does not want you to do. Remember, he does not want readers to come across a concept, a familiar thing, and immediately classify it by saying: oh, this is a unit of consciousness, this is an emotional energy unit, this is Framework 1, this is All That Is. He does not want you to classify.

Why does he not want this? Let us watch him unfold it step by step below. This is one of the inertial habits of human thinking, and it is also why so much of our thinking is hard to break through -- because of these strange inertial habits: we like to name things, we like to give them labels, we like to mark them with terminology, we like to give them precise definitions (remember, this "precise" is in quotation marks), and then we like to classify. This is a bad inertial habit of human consciousness. Of course, it cannot be said to be absolutely bad; a slight degree of classification is appropriate, but you should not be overly intent on precision, refinement, and exactness. Going too far in that direction is not good. So he wants to tell you, do not become overly dependent on terminology, on classification. That is the first aspect.

On the other hand, every time I reintroduce this material, Seth says, I try to introduce it from a different angle. Take the units of consciousness, for example -- suppose they can be described and defined -- and there are millions of ways to describe and define them. That is what units of consciousness are. If there were only one definition of what units of consciousness are, then that definition would necessarily be incomplete and one-sided. Only with hundreds of definitions does one begin to approach their basic essence and attributes. A single definition is insufficient to describe this kind of higher-dimensional thing, because it is itself multi-faceted, multi-layered, and multi-dimensional. Human logic, linear thinking and logic, a single description is not enough to express it.

It is like a three-dimensional object: on a flat surface you cannot fully represent it; only by drawing several planes can you show it. For example, those of us who have studied mechanical drafting know that a single part requires three drawings to define it: the front view, the top view, and the side view. A three-dimensional object requires several two-dimensional drawings to represent it. So likewise, a higher-dimensional concept of consciousness requires our human linear consciousness, our structured logic, to take many paths before a three-dimensional consciousness, a lower-dimensional consciousness, can understand it well from its own angle. Seth says, whenever I introduce a concept -- because the things he sees are all higher-dimensional, comprehensive, seen from multiple dimensions -- I introduce it to you in as new a way as possible; I will not introduce it in only one way.

Because if I introduced it to you in only one way, you would form a fixed mental set, thinking that the thing is just like that. This is where Seth's wisdom lies; he does this deliberately. Many people do not understand why the Seth material is the way it is: first, repetitive; second, verbose; third, sometimes not rigorous. But if a person can truly understand Seth, you will be amazed at the precision and rigor of his word choice. For a beginner, however, he will wonder why the wording is so imprecise, or why the logic is not tighter. He could clearly use the very tight logic of a science student to explain the structure of the universe with total clarity -- separating out the concepts, what the particle state looks like, what the energy field state looks like, what the consciousness field actually is -- so why does he spend such enormous length going over it again and again? The concept is right here: Seth says, when I discuss the same concept from different angles and different directions, I am letting you understand it from a multi-dimensional perspective.

So, Seth says, you as readers must also understand it from different angles. In that way, you will have various different viewpoints and become familiar with certain knowledge. He says that knowledge is the knowledge he wants to convey to you. If you want to become familiar with this knowledge, you cannot look at it from a single viewpoint; you must look at it from multiple viewpoints. And these multiple viewpoints are different cognitive angles and understandings, which are what allow that true knowledge to become familiar to you.

His word choice here is extremely precise. He does not say that you will then have an accurate understanding and grasp of this knowledge; he does not say that. He says you will become familiar with this knowledge. Because with a higher-dimensional concept of knowledge, our three-dimensional cognition can never exhaust all of its possibilities. From a three-dimensional standpoint, one can never have a thorough and comprehensive understanding of a higher-dimensional knowledge or concept; one can only say, I have gained a certain understanding of it and become familiar with it. One can never say one has fully explained it, understood it, and grasped all of its facets -- impossible, because your dimension differs from it by one dimension. Here I am not referring to spatial dimensions, but to dimensions of consciousness.

The Manifested Universe Comes from Subjective Reality

Seth continued:

When you read those passages, the ones about the invisible particles, the question itself -- are these actually the units of consciousness mentioned earlier? -- as soon as you think of this question, it should have set your intellect and your intuition working together in another way.

When you think of this question, you bring two faculties into play: one is the intuitive faculty, and the other is the intellectual, rational faculty. You intuitively feel that these two are talking about the same thing -- that is the intuitive part; while rationally you are wondering, why are the concepts different? You are actually using both at the same time. Even if it is only a slight use, it is still a use. In other words, Seth said:

I hope in this chapter of the book, this part devoted specifically to this kind of subject, to stimulate your imaginations as well as your intellects.

Much of the content in this chapter is meant to tell you how to stimulate your imagination and your intellect. The theme of Chapter Eight is the world of imagination and intellect -- that is, to combine your rational faculty and your imaginative faculty in use. He said, "this question you wanted to ask itself" -- is it one kind of thing or not -- this question itself is stimulating these two parts of your faculties.

I want to emphasize once more: remember, the manifested universe comes from a subjective reality. The world we see comes from a subjective reality, and this subjective world is implicit in the very nature of our world itself. This world of ours that appears objective is generated from a subjective world, or is contained within this subjective world. And this subjective reality is our psychological state, our psyche, our inner world -- these are all subjective. And this inner subjective world is implicit -- note, the word "implicit" is used -- it cannot be seen; it is hidden within the essence of the material world. That is to say, the essence of this seemingly objective material world of ours is subjective; it is subjective reality.

Seth said:

I would like you, then, to think of those units of consciousness from an entirely different scale of events.

Why did I use "invisible particles" instead of "units of consciousness" in the last session? I wanted you to look at it from a different scale of events.

Events have scales. The movements within electrons, the movements within atomic nuclei -- those are the microscopic scale; cosmic galaxies -- that is the macroscopic scale; what we humans inhabit can be understood as a kind of intermediate scale. Looking at this world from different scales gives us different perceptions and cognitions. Seth said, when I use a different scale of events to describe the relationship between this implicit universe and your objectively manifested universe, I used a different scale of events from that of the units of consciousness to describe it, and I called them "invisible particles."

The concept itself is not important. Again I emphasize, the concept is not important; it is only meant to let you understand it from a different angle. Why call them "invisible particles"? First, particles are something humans can understand. If it were some formless energy wave or energy field, it would be very hard for our human brains -- unless you have a very specialized background in physics or electromagnetism, it is very hard for you to imagine what a field looks like. We all talk about fields, field domains, energy fields, consciousness fields, but when you actually try to use your brain to imagine what this energy field looks like, you actually have no concept of it at all. So Seth used a "particle" that you are familiar with, but to tell you that it is not a real particle, he added "invisible" -- particles that cannot be seen. It simultaneously possesses the properties of energy, because energy is invisible; and it also possesses the attributes of particles, the material attributes that you can ordinarily understand.

Why make such a combination? Because in the last session, what he mainly wanted you to know was how this invisible world, this contained world, this implicit world, or this invisible framework, manifests, and how it combines with each person's perception. How can you think that the you in the present moment is you? Your cognition of yourself is the you that you think you are. The position you occupy in this universe -- for you to be able to feel yourself, you must be able to feel your position in the universe -- these things are intimately related. For you to be aware of your own existence, it must be within a category and framework that you can understand. No matter where you think you are, or understand where you are, you always have a category of space-time framework, and only within it can you understand yourself. You are always within a category of space-time framework. If you remove this framework of space and time, with no time and no space, your existence would be another kind of state, a state that you cannot understand.

The last session talked about the relationship and transformation between time and space: there is no real time, and there is no real space; all of this is determined by the intervals of your perception. The intervals of perception determine who you are and where you are. Within this space-time positioning, your real physical existence, the thing that exists as material, is composed of these invisible particles -- you are suddenly here, suddenly there, or simultaneously here and simultaneously there; you are in all places at the same time. This was already explained very clearly in the words of the last session.

At this point, for what represents the composition of your physical body, he used "invisible particles." At this point the scale has already been enlarged from the scale of the units of consciousness. The unit of consciousness is a very small scale, several million times smaller than the smallest scale humans can now explore or theoretically infer -- the scale of the strings in superstring theory¹. If we can measure it by scale. But actually at that degree it can no longer be measured by scale. According to human understanding, the scale of the superstring is already the smallest unit of scale humans can probe, which is the Planck length. The Planck length is what humans consider the smallest unit of length². In the field of quantum mechanics, this scale is not infinitely small; when it gets small to a certain degree -- for example, 10 to the negative 35th power meters³ -- it cannot get any smaller. Why is it called quantum mechanics? It comes in discrete units; at the microscopic level, length is also segment by segment, and time is also segment by segment: time is Planck time, length is Planck length. It is no longer continuous; it becomes segment by segment, grain by grain -- this is the basic concept of quantum at the popular level. And Seth's meaning is that the units of consciousness are even smaller than the quantum scale.

And in the last session, Seth talked about how you as a person are here one moment and there another, your existence in space-time. What composes you as a person, including what composes the environment of you as a person? All of it is invisible particles. And the scale of these invisible particles is far larger than the scale of the units of consciousness. I am making an explanation here so that you understand the relationship between the units of consciousness and the invisible particles: it is only a difference in scale. Are they the same in attributes? Yes. Below he has an explanation -- no matter whether the scale is large or small, they all possess the same attributes as the units of consciousness.

But in our material world, is this the case? In the material world, when the scale of an object becomes large to a certain degree, it no longer possesses the wave form; it is a particle state, a material state. When it is small to a certain microscopic degree, it simultaneously possesses two states -- the particle state and the energy state, the wave state. We just need to have this general idea; do not be too exacting about it, because in this session Seth keeps telling you not to be too exacting, so we should not be too exacting either. Just having a general idea is enough.

All That Is: A Vast Subjective Psychological Structure

Seth says, now use your possible imagination and imagine the existence of All That Is. Try as best you can to imagine how All That Is exists -- any way you think of it is fine. You can take a few seconds to think about what All That Is is like.

All right --

A consciousness so spectacularly complex that its so-called psychological divisions are truly endless.

All That Is is a consciousness, so spectacular, so complex, that its psychological divisions have no end. That complex?

All appearances of time, and all experiences of time, must necessarily be psychological.

Then he switches topics: all appearances of time, that is, the way time presents itself, your cognition and understanding and feeling of time, your experience of time -- all of it is psychological, it must be psychological.

He gives an example:

The speed of an electron will reflect the electron's psychological dynamics.

Another shift in tone: everything is determined by psychological states. In the previous session he had already pointed out part of this, and in this session he emphasizes it again: all motion, all consciousness, all perception, all time and space, are the dynamics of your psyche. The speed of an electron is also the electron's psychological dynamics. In other words, everything in our world and universe, all of it, is a reflection of psychological activity.

So now you can connect this with Wang Yangming's philosophy of the mind⁴. Wang Yangming said "nothing exists outside the mind" -- outside the mind there is nothing, everything is within the mind -- it is the same principle. He did not know how to express it in suitable language, so he used this way of saying it. So just remember: All That Is is an extremely spectacular and complex psychological activity. You can understand it this way -- it is a consciousness, and it is also a psychological activity; consciousness is psychological activity.

At 9:32, Seth paused many times. He said:

All That Is, being the source of all realities and experience, is psychologically so complex, so multidimensional in its creativity, that it constantly surprises itself.

His creativity is too strong, so strong that even he himself is shocked, creating things that even he himself cannot imagine. This is his characteristic.

He is the invisible universe that is implied in every nook and cranny of your world.

All That Is is the invisible universe implied in every corner, every place of our world. So what is this invisible universe, this invisible structure? It is this All That Is.

Only through historical time does it become concrete to your perceptions.

All That Is has no time and no space, but through the history that we humans can understand -- according to a concept of time such as human history -- our perception can become concrete. In other words, our human perception can only perceive within such a framework of time. If you remove this thing called time, all of our perception has no container and no carrier.

Just as anyone who has studied radio knows: radio waves carry information within them. When you turn on a radio you can receive a channel, and a cell phone can make calls and receive information data, all because of the existence of these electromagnetic waves. The waves are the carrier of information; without these waves, information cannot be transmitted. Time is our carrier for events. Eating, falling in love, working, becoming the richest person in the world -- these events, one by one, can only happen on a carrier such as time. Historical time, our human cognition of time, is actually the process of our perception becoming concrete. Our perception originally has no time; past, present, and future are all overlapping together. But overlapping together means nothing to you -- it is all mixed together, which is the same as nothing at all. The infinitely large equals the infinitely small, which is nothing at all; all events are together.

It is like when we look at sunlight, this transparent light -- we see it as transparent, but actually it is multicolored. All the spectra are overlapping together, fused together, superimposed together; all the colors, all the spectra -- the seven main ones of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, and in between there are countless other colors. Nowadays human displays and cell phones can generally display 1.067 billion colors, and when these billion colors merge together what do they become? An invisible color, colorless, transparent. You see things through these rays of light, but the light itself has no color. Yet the colors that nature shows you are separated out from this colorless light -- if you pass it through a prism, the light is divided into seven colors, countless colors.

The concept of time is the same. Past, present, and future all placed together are like that unmoving emptiness; it is emptiness, the dharma nature, suchness, nothing at all. But once you place it into containers such as time and space and unfold it, it becomes one perception after another, one experience after another, one feeling after another.

So All That Is must disperse itself. If it does not disperse, it is that unmoving, unspeakable, unutterable, incomprehensible thing. It can only work by dividing itself.

On the one hand, it is a vast subjective being, existing in a simultaneous fashion.

It is a holistic psychological structure. The psychological structure is very important. Where you are in time and space, your self-cognition, are all determined by the psychological structure, including everything else -- all of it is determined by the psychological structure.

And on the other hand, it also disperses itself into the world of phenomena.

The world of phenomena is the world we can perceive, the world with happenings, with events, with things.

In all the meanings of the word divine, it is divine.

No matter how you define divine, All That Is is divine. Yet it even disperses that divinity -- it disperses its divinity into one seemingly non-divine thing after another. For example, each of us, we all feel that we are not divine, just ordinary people; we look at animals, at all things in the world, and do not feel that they are particularly divine, we think they are commonplace. This is the magical thing about All That Is: it disperses its divinity into all things in the world, making you feel as though they are not divine, when in fact every one of them is divine.

So much so that, in your terms, each unit of consciousness contains within itself those divine attributes.

Because it has broken itself apart, All That Is has turned itself into units of consciousness, existing everywhere in all things of the world, composing all things of the world. At this point, all things in the world possess its divine attributes, including the units of consciousness.

All That Is has no image, but it is within all images, whether or not those images are manifest.

All That Is is within all images. Those images that are not manifest, such as your thoughts, your consciousness, are also of All That Is, also within it -- they have no image, but thought has no image, yet it is still of All That Is.

Your thoughts are your universe, the invisible companions of your words.

What is behind the language we speak and the words we write down? It is your thought. Thought is the invisible companion of your words. You cannot see thought, but you can hear the words it speaks and see the characters it writes -- these are the manifested, visible parts. But what is inside? What forms the words, forms the language? It is his thought. You cannot see thought, but you can hear the words and see the characters.

And All That Is's vast, unstated subjectivity, in the same way, is behind all stated or manifest phenomena.

All That Is's vast, unstated (that is, inexpressible) subjectivity, in the same way, is behind all stated, manifest phenomena. Using the earlier example as a comparison: if thought is the invisible companion of language and words, then All That Is's subjective attributes, its subjective reality, are the invisible, behind-the-scenes, implied part of all phenomenal reality.

You see, he breaks it apart and crushes it fine, using all kinds of analogies to introduce to you what kind of concept All That Is is, so that you can imagine what kind of existence, what kind of attributes All That Is has. At this point, you probably have a more macroscopic, clearer, more definite concept of All That Is than before: if our physical world is like our language and words, then that which is behind our physical world is the existence of All That Is's subjective reality, that is, the implied universe, the invisible structure he spoke of.

The Species' Gene Pool: Invisible Connections

Seth says:

Basically, it is impossible for any given species to become extinct.

From the standpoint of All That Is, nothing can ever become extinct. Things may disappear for a while, may not manifest for a time within historical events -- it simply does not manifest during a particular historical period, but that does not mean it has vanished. Why? Because within this invisible framework, within All That Is, it has always existed, and exists forever.

Of course, the genetic pattern of any given species mainly resides within that species' gene stock, but that gene stock does not exist independently; rather, it is invisibly connected with the genetic structure of every other species.

Seth spoke with great enthusiasm. He said that we humans think a species has gone extinct, but in fact the species has not gone extinct. But why is it that you can no longer see this species on Earth, and its genes no longer exist? In essence, the genes of this species certainly still exist. Within that species' gene pool -- for example, the genes of dinosaurs -- they certainly exist within the gene pool of the dinosaur species; it is impossible for dinosaur genes to exist in the human gene pool. But he said you have overlooked one point: the genes of species are inwardly interconnected, and there is an invisible connection that we humans cannot see. Our genes and the genes of fish, of animals, of plants, of those species that have already disappeared -- inwardly they are intimately linked, and this is something humanity has not yet seen. You have only seen the manifested portion of genes; you have not seen the underlying portion of genes.

Between species and species, there are countless unrecognized relationships. The generations of all species interact.

We think that between species and genes there is only difference, but you have not seen their inner connections. All the generations of all species, the reproduction of each generation, are all interacting, exchanging with one another.

Obviously, the suggestion that genes verify their appearance does not proceed from a species assumed to exist alone on this planet.

As to when a certain species appears and when it disappears, it is not triggered by some other species. Here he is still refuting the viewpoint of evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory says that when a certain organism evolves to a certain degree, it produces a new species; the old species evolves into the new species, and the old genes bring about the new genes. Seth tells you this is not how it is. The production of a new species' genes is not brought about by the evolution of some other species, nor is it caused by its mutations.

Rather, it is a response to the genetic sequences acting among all species.

It is not produced by the evolution of a single species; it is a response of all species -- remember, all species -- to their genetic sequences.

How should we simply understand this? Here there is a certain concept of levels. We used to think that the biological world evolved upward from the lowest single-celled organisms, gradually becoming more complex and differentiated, in a process of evolution. But in fact it is a layered structure; every layer exists simultaneously, and each layer constitutes the foundation of the layer above it, but it is not that the lower layer comes first and then the upper layer -- they exist simultaneously. At the time I used the example of network layering to explain this concept. So among the species within this, when a species should appear and when it should not appear is determined by the sequence of the overall ecological environment. Some are inconsequential, and some are core. For example, the diversity of mammals can have many varieties, but the mammalian layer, as the existence of this layer, cannot disappear. A certain species within it may disappear, but the mammalian layer cannot disappear -- if this layer disappeared, the entire ecological environment would cease to exist. It is like in a network: if you remove the entire base station layer, then the whole mobile communications, the entire internet communications, would cease to exist.

So once again:

The genetic system is not closed, as people assume; it is open, mutually interactive, and intercommunicating.

That is because the matter that composes genes -- the basic units of consciousness that form it -- is itself endowed with a subjective acuity. All the matter of genes is composed of units of consciousness, and units of consciousness themselves are subjective existences; they themselves possess subjective acuity. Since they are subjective, they certainly are not dead, fixed, and unchanging; they certainly communicate with one another. They certainly have their own thoughts, ideas, intentions, desires, and so on, so genes also change, and are also influenced by changes in our emotions and feelings.

This also explains my earlier statement. Seth says:

I have used the generally understood phrase -- the environment and its creatures evolve together.

He put quotation marks around "evolve." Actually, "evolution" and "evolution" are the same word. Seth's meaning is that, in order to help you understand, I often say "evolution" -- but it is not that the environment selects organisms, or that organisms, in order to adapt to the environment, finally undergo "survival of the fittest," producing today's ecological environment. It is not like that; rather, the environment and species mutually influence each other. It is not that the environment decides which species can exist; they influence each other.

This is easy to understand, right? We often say that when the natural environment changes, species change. But how does the environment change? Does the change of the environment have nothing to do with these organisms, with these existing species? Of course it does. For example, what we can especially understand now is that human beings, as the existence of a biological species, have changed the environment, haven't they? According to scientists, haven't we raised the temperature of the whole world, damaged the ozone layer, and increased the concentration of carbon dioxide on Earth compared to before? All of this is the human species influencing the environment. Then does this environment in turn influence human beings? Of course it does. Between them there is always this kind of mutual relationship.

Seth paused for a long while, then said:

Your position on the scale of awareness.

Here he introduced a new concept -- "the scale of awareness," originally "scale of the awareness." How should we understand this scale? It is the degree of fineness, acuity, and granularity of your awareness. Can you be aware of the microcosmic world, or can you be aware from the microcosmic world all the way to the macrocosmic world? Or can you only be aware of the ordinary middle scale of daily life? How fine are the intervals of time that you can be aware of? This is your scale of awareness.

Let us suppose this scale can range from 10 to the negative 35th power all the way to 10 to the positive 35th power -- because he mentioned scale, I will use a size analogy that humans can understand; remember, this is only an analogy. From 10 to the negative 35th power, that is the quantum level, smaller than an atom -- the scale of an atom is 10 to the negative 16th power⁵, the atomic nucleus is roughly 10 to the negative 16th power, and the scale of quantum strings is 10 to the negative 35th power⁶ -- to 10 to the positive 35th power, which is far larger than the scale of the Milky Way galaxy, already encompassing the scale of several galaxies. That is to say, from something as small as a quantum to something as large as several galaxies, all awareness lies within your range of awareness, and every blade of grass, every tree, every movement in between, you can be aware of. This is your scale of awareness.

So what is your position on the scale of awareness? You say, right now I only pay attention to the scale of daily life, so you are probably attending to a scale range from 10 to the negative 3rd to 10 to the positive 3rd; you are at this position. If this scale of awareness is a very broad spectrum, then your position in the spectrum, which frequency you are at, which scale of awareness you are at, determines the state of your consciousness and determines the level of your cognition -- in common terms, your level of enlightenment.

Why use the term "scale of awareness"? Because it can serve as a marker, to be used in the future to evaluate to what degree a person is actually awakened, to what degree they have learned spiritually; the scale of awareness can be used as a standard of measurement.

Seth continued:

Your present position on the scale of awareness predisposes you to categorize consciousness.

To put it plainly: the present level of human consciousness is limited to categorizing consciousness, limited to naming things, defining them, and then using logical reasoning. Human consciousness is currently at this position.

So that only those with which you are familiar seem to fit the definition.

You humans like to categorize and define; this is what Daoism often calls "The name that can be named is not the eternal name; the Way that can be spoken is not the eternal Way⁷." You insist on giving it a name, insist on speaking it aloud, as if without doing so you cannot understand it -- as if only when it is spoken does it fit the definition. This is the level of human consciousness; right now it is here. You can only consider problems at this level of consciousness, so you like to define and categorize; without doing so, you feel you cannot understand it. But is it necessary? No.

Awareness and Classification: The Meaning of Observation

Learning spiritual knowledge can break these limitations. You do not necessarily have to classify, do not necessarily have to define, in order to be aware of it. Many people cannot understand the difference between "classification" and "awareness," so let me give the most down-to-earth example:

Say you eat a grape. When it enters your mouth, it has a certain flavor. And at this moment, if you have no conceptual or nominal classification — first, you do not know this is called a grape; second, you do not know what kind of flavor this is. But you can feel this flavor, whether it is sour or sweet or both sour and sweet — this is what your tongue and sense of taste can perceive. You perceived it, and that is enough. Do not go on to define it: this is called sour, this is called sweet, this is called slightly sour, this is called slightly sweet, this is called both sour and sweet and sweet and sour, this is a Mare's Milk grape, this is an American grape, this is a Kyoho grape, this is such-and-such a variety — these are all naming and classification. Does any of this help the flavor of the grape itself? It does not help at all. Whatever flavor you taste is whatever flavor it is.

But we humans just insist on classifying and naming. Without classifying and naming, we feel we cannot understand it. This is our current characteristic. So in many spiritual practices, a word "observe" is mentioned — especially in Buddhism, where it is used most often: observing with ease, observe. Why use "observe"? What is the difference between observing and looking, between observing and seeing?

Here I will offer another viewpoint: the meaning of observe is that I only observe it — that is, I only look at it, but I add no evaluation whatsoever — just as you only eat the grape, without needing to distinguish whether what I am eating is a grape or a grape variety or a plum or an apricot. You distinguish nothing at all; I simply ate this one thing, and I simply have this one feeling. The biggest difference between observing and looking is that "looking" and "seeing" themselves already include discrimination — while "observing," though it is also a form of looking, is looking without discrimination, looking without giving it a definition, without giving it a classification. This state of mind can only be experienced; it is a feeling that cannot be put into words.

So in this state, what Seth wants to tell you is this: consciousness is everywhere, in anything, on any object, and their source is all All That Is. To put it more bluntly: consciousness cannot be classified. Although you can classify consciousness, in essence consciousness has no categories, no such thing as kinds. If consciousness has no kinds, then all things in the world also have no kinds. The kinds you think exist are only what you think; in essence they have no distinctions, no kinds.

Why do we say "all things are one"? The highest cognition is not seeing the commonality among different things — that is one kind of cognition — the most core cognition is that you see their non-difference, that there is no difference. That is their essence. But you cannot see it; your scale of awareness is not in that position. It is perfectly normal that you are in this position; all humans are in the same position, and this is all normal. He is only pointing it out to tell you that the essence is without discrimination, and you should not cling to classification in your thinking.

But he immediately adds one more line:

All portions of reality have their own right to exist.

That reality refers to All That Is dispersing itself into all physical realities, and every physical reality has its own right to exist. He is saying, do not think that because they have no differences and need no classification, they should all cease to exist. To prevent you from having that view, he immediately adds: no, every existence has its right to exist.

This is the middle way. When you study something, do not go astray. Why do many people go astray as they study? Right here. You cannot say, since there is no distinction, then just leave it at that. He quickly pulls you back: consciousness has no distinctions, meaning that from the source they are one, with no difference whatsoever; but every distinction also has its right to exist — in other words, they do have distinctions. This is the non-dual gate. Both of these are correct, and both of these are also incorrect. This is its subtlety, the place that cannot be spoken. You cannot insist on whether there is or is not distinction; if you still have to pursue this question, then you have not yet reached the state of non-duality.

So he quickly tells you:

Every portion of reality has its own right to exist, and its own inner purpose.

Every one has its right, and every one has its own inner purpose, its own intention. All people and species are the same. Every person has their own right to exist and their own purpose of existence. Every person is also without distinction and is one; every person is also independently individual, with a unique necessity and meaning of existence. In the universe, the necessity, sacredness, uniqueness, and validity of every human existence are all present; at the same time they are one, and from a higher perspective they are without distinction. All of these are correct.

Imagination and Reasoning: The Only Way to Cognize the Universe

Seth shifts his focus:

Your imagination has helped you bring those implied inner components of the universe into reality.

Our imagination can bring those inner universes, invisible structures, and things that have not yet manifested into reality. We can actually imagine things that do not exist, and then go on to realize them. Clearly, your imagination is not limited by time -- of course, time cannot limit it. You can imagine past and future events; memories of the past also contain imagination, and the future is even more a matter of imagination.

Your imagination has always helped you form your civilization, art, and science.

Imagination is extremely important to the development of human civilization. And when imagination is united with your reasoning processes, they can bring you knowledge about the universe and your place within it that you could not obtain in any other way.

Finally he draws a conclusion: only when your imagination and your reasoning ability operate together can you become aware of what this universe is really about, and come to recognize your position within this universe. Apart from this method, there is no other way. If you rely purely on science, using only reasoning without imagination, it will not work -- you cannot do it. You must add imagination, working together with reasoning, before you can achieve cognition of reality, and cognition of your own position within reality.

A person who did this relatively well, and quite conspicuously, was Newton. We all know Newton; he was a scientist, whether in mathematics or physics -- including calculus, including all the things we now commonly use throughout the world, all of which operate on Newton's laws. At the microscopic level there is quantum mechanics theory, at the macroscopic level there is Einstein's unified field theory and so on, but in ordinary daily life, Newton's laws already solve all the problems.

Many people say Newton discovered universal gravitation when an apple fell on his head⁸, but that is all later fabrication and embellishment. In fact, when Newton was very young, he already had a very complete and systematic understanding of physics, mathematics, and this world. His attainments in theology and philosophy were extremely deep -- if you know Newton's biography, you should be clear about this, so I will not elaborate here. But he wrote a great many things in this area, and one day we will discuss the development of Newton as a person separately. He was always studying theology, not only in his later decades -- he studied it all along.

Let me give an example. At the time he had a good friend, also a master of physics, who was an atheist. Newton was a theist; he believed there existed someone like God, and that the universe was created by him. Newton vaguely sensed that there was such a thing -- he believed this world was subjective, that someone was creating it, someone was manipulating it behind the scenes. He did not believe this world was objective. Although the conclusions of his research were all objective, in essence he did not believe this world was objective; he believed there must be something behind the world doing the designing and manipulating.

One day, that good friend went to visit Newton. Upon entering the room, he found that the room had been transformed into an exquisite model of the solar system⁹: there was a crank handle, and when you turned it, the nine planets automatically revolved around the sun, rotating and orbiting -- a mechanical device. The good friend was utterly amazed, and said to Newton: This is incredible! You are so brilliant! You can use a mechanical device to depict the operating principles of the nine planets! Newton said: I did not make this. The man said: If you did not make it, who did? Someone must have made it! Otherwise how could it operate so exquisitely, so beautifully?

Then Newton said something particularly inspiring. He said: If you find even this device I made so amazing, and you firmly believe someone must have made it, then the real solar system is countless trillions of times more complex, precise, and exquisite than this model of mine -- so why do you not believe that this solar system was made by someone? For such a small model of mine, you believe it must have been made by someone. If I told you it formed naturally, you certainly would not believe it; you would say it is impossible -- how could nature form such a mechanical device? Yet when the solar system is displayed before us, and its operation is so exquisite and wondrous, why do you not believe it was created?

The man stood there dumbfounded on the spot. Although these words lacked strict scientific logic, they truly struck straight at the heart. He was genuinely stunned at that moment: it seemed to make sense, and although he could not say exactly what was wrong, he was actually left speechless. Newton used such a simple argument, seizing the opportunity, hoping to change his friend's understanding in some way.

Seth Also Has New Concepts

The dictation ended here, and what follows are some less important matters. Seth said congratulations, your attention was excellent, and he hoped the rest of the night would be enjoyed with this content. Rob said he enjoyed the content, and what would Seth be doing for the rest of the night?

Seth said:

I shall refresh myself by diving into some new concepts.

For Seth too there are new concepts. You should not think that because Seth knows everything in the universe, he has no new concepts. Seth said: for me too there are new concepts, and I have been diving into them from many different positions as well.

These few words are very interesting: first, the word "diving" is very important. He is not standing outside; he dives into the concept itself. Second, he dives in from different angles, not entering from one place, but entering from different places to experience it. Remember, these are all things we will study in the future. When we learn a new concept, such as All That Is, such as units of consciousness, we must definitely switch to different angles to enter it, understand it, and experience it. We cannot simply think that I have found one method, I understand it, and I think it is just like this -- never do that. We must definitely try several different angles, because Seth, as a being of higher-dimensional consciousness, personally demonstrated for us how to learn new concepts: when he gets a new concept, he dives into it, diving into it from different angles. These are of great inspiration to us in learning new concepts.

In Monday night's class, Seth once gave us an insight concerning the nature of his own reality, and now tonight he gave another hint. Jane stated that this part was particularly interesting, because Seth pointed out: in his nonphysical reality, wherever he is, he is still developing. Seth is still learning new concepts, new knowledge, not like what you understand as knowing everything. He is still learning, just as we are on earth, we are also learning. Rob added that he very much hoped that one day Seth could comment on what those new concepts he was going to explore were. They were very curious about what the new concepts were for Seth. Would Seth talk about them? He would not. Why? Because they transcend the scope of human understanding and cognition. The new concepts for Seth are like nonexistent to us humans, because the scale of your awareness is not on that level.

Rob's Note: The Significance of Repetition

All of Jane's books, as well as the notes written for the Seth books, obviously contain some repetitive material, or material built upon variations of certain important concepts, but that is unavoidable and necessary. Individuals and groups, to the extent possible within human systems of knowledge and perception, have created a world built upon very limited repetitive creations and interpretations of inner and outer data.

This passage is Rob's own explanation. He is explaining repetition. Actually, he did not fully understand: that is not repetition, but the cognition of a concept from different angles. If you understand it as repetition, you are mistaken. But at Rob's level of understanding at the time, he could only understand it as a kind of repetitive expression of units of consciousness, so he added some emphasis to repetition, saying that repetition is important. Most of our communication in daily life is also repetition -- if you type out the words spoken every day, sixty to seventy percent of them are repetitive words, with nothing new. Rob said that without repetition, we humans could not survive, and the same is true of any other species. He was emphasizing the role of repetition.

But actually he did not fully understand that this is not repetition. First, it is a matter of different scales -- invisible particles and units of consciousness are entirely different matters at different scales; second, they are explorations of one thing from different levels and angles, not a simple repetition.

Rob said that the barrage of repetitive suggestions we humans choose to endure every day is mostly negative -- we humans receive a great deal of negative knowledge and negative news every day. He often sought a balance between the positive and the negative. However, Jane and he truly believed that, generally speaking, for many reasons, we humans long ago began creating a great mass of negative thoughts and actions, to such a degree that those qualities are now prevalent in every corner and every aspect of our world's cultures.

Here the topic shifts, saying that we humans are also repeating, and what we humans repeat is often those negative things -- shootings, negativity, economic collapse, all sorts of things. Remember, these are all Rob's views -- his level of understanding at the time and his understanding of the Seth material. This does not sufficiently represent Seth's true intent; it is only Rob's own perspective. His perspective is also quite novel, and his views are quite insightful, but compared with Seth there is still a great difference in level. He discusses issues more from the angle of humans and human society, while Seth speaks more from the angle of universal laws; the two are not on the same scale.

Rob said:

As far as I know, we humans are the only animals who indulge in such behavior.

What behavior? That is, indulging in negative repetition and negative suggestions. He gave an example, saying, I cannot imagine animals doing such a thing; they have no such need -- animals do not become absorbed in negative emotions and negative beliefs the way humans do, yet humans can. This is one of the greatest differences between humans and animals.

But he also said:

I am quite sure that, in a much broader way of thinking, even negativity is creative.

From a certain angle, negativity is not so bad either; negativity is also a kind of creativity, and often in ways that cannot be understood within our worldly reality. But I do believe that Jane's work, amid many of the challenges we have created, offers more penetrating and more valuable insights. Although in essence there is no difference between the negative and the positive, he again emphasized that the Seth material transmitted by Jane is more meaningful from a creative standpoint, more meaningful than those negative things.

Finally Rob made a summary:

Once again, from the smallest to the largest scales of the world, and they are all intimately interconnected. Consciousness seeks to know itself, and to surprise itself.

This is his own cognitive understanding -- consciousness wants to know itself, and also wants to surprise itself. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is only his personal feeling, and it is also very good.

Summary

This passage is short and not particularly difficult, but it is very important. It gives a very thorough and clear exposition of how we humans deal with concepts, terms, definitions, and understanding; how to use human intelligence; and how to combine rational reasoning with imagination and intuition -- that is the only truly effective tool. This is a very, very important programmatic confirmation for all of us regarding how to use our intelligence and how to employ our human abilities. If this direction is not used correctly, we can only go farther and farther down the wrong path.

---

注释与核实

1. Source: John H. Schwarz, "Introduction to Superstring Theory—Completing Einstein's Conception of a Unified Field Theory" (https://worldscience.cn/c/1989-04-28/637326.shtml) ↩

2. According to Mike, "the Planck length is the smallest unit of length that humans consider"; upon verification, it should be "the Planck length is approximately 1.62×10^-35 meters, the base unit of length in the Planck system of units, and the scale at which existing gravitational theories are expected to break down, not a confirmed smallest unit of length." (Source: Swinburne University of Technology, "Planck Length," https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/%2A/Planck%2BLength) ↩

3. Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology, "CODATA Value: Planck length" (https://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/CCValue?plkl%7CShowFirst=planck) ↩

4. Source: Bryan Van Norden, "Wang Yangming" (https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/wang-yangming/) ↩

5. According to Mike, "the scale of an atom is 10 to the negative 16th power"; upon verification, it should be "the diameter of an atom is approximately 10^-10 meters, not 10^-16 meters." (Source: U.S. Department of Energy, "DOE Fundamentals Handbook: Chemistry, Volume 1," 1993, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2026-04/DOE-HDBK-1015-93_VOL1.pdf) ↩

6. Source: OpenStax, "College Physics: Superstrings" (https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/phy2053bc/chapter/superstrings/) ↩

7. According to Mike, "The name that can be named is not the eternal name; the way that can be spoken is not the eternal way"; upon verification, it should be "the original order in Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching is: 'The way that can be spoken is not the eternal way; the name that can be named is not the eternal name.'" (Source: Zhoukou Municipal People's Government, "Classics of Zhoukou: Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching," https://www.zhoukou.gov.cn/page_pc/zjzk/zkyx/zkwh/article52a0a1f4a7cb46a3bd05019c98f2427a.html) ↩

8. This claim could not be verified. ↩

9. This claim could not be verified. ↩