Mike's commentary · Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Session 918

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 portion Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This chapter centers on the expressive difficulties Seth faces when explaining the origin of the universe. Humans are accustomed to understanding "events" within the structure of time and space, but the birth of the universe transcends time and space, so no clues can be found from inside the universe, nor can it be grasped by reason and logic alone. Through metaphors such as phases of consciousness, the primal interval, countless bands playing simultaneously, and inner passageways, Seth illustrates that the universe and consciousness emerge from a larger reality, that events and frameworks are originally one, and that they must be approached through imagination and intuition. He also discusses ancient galactic civilizations and the periodic arising and fading of the earth, and emphasizes that every consciousness is unique.

Key Points of This Chapter

• The origin of the universe cannot be evidenced or traced from within the universe itself; the scientific path of seeking origins from the inside has inherent limitations.
• Humanity's understanding of "events" is constrained by the three elements of time and space; the birth of the universe transcends time and space, and reason and logic alone cannot truly grasp it.
• Consciousness operates through phases, rhythms, and harmonies; time is not continuous but is composed of "primordial intervals," with all possible versions existing simultaneously and influencing one another.
• Within the universe there are inner passageways akin to association; ancient galactic civilizations once existed and cross-planetary visitations occurred, and the earth has undergone multiple cycles of arising and fading.
• Seth uses metaphors and seemingly contradictory statements to loosen either-or cognition, while each consciousness remains unique and significant within the larger reality.

Main Text

Hello everyone, I am Mike. Today I will continue sharing with you Session 918 of Volume 2 of the Seth book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment.

This session began on Monday evening, June 2, 1980, at 9:15. Rob said that during the past 12 days they had not held any sessions, as each of them was busy with the publication of two books -- one was Jane's God, and the other was The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. So for these 12 days there were no sessions. This evening Jane said, I think there will be a short session, but this short session was not written for the book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment -- that was Jane's feeling, and she probably knew what Seth wanted to discuss. But after Seth came through, the material transmitted clearly sounded like dictation for this book. Let us look at its content below.

Difficulties Seth Faces

Seth gets straight to the point:

When I try to explain the origin of your world, from my side of things, there are times when the difficulties involved are almost insurmountable.

Seth says this is somewhat difficult for him, almost insurmountable. When he tries to tell us how your universe came to be, he runs into difficulties this great. Think about it: Seth has taught this more than once, he has always been a teacher, and not only does he teach in our three-dimensional world, he also teaches in other parallel universes, and he is also a consciousness existence of a very high dimension. At his very high level of consciousness, with his level of knowledge and wisdom, he still runs into difficulties this great.

There are many reasons for this difficulty, and one of the main ones is the audience he faces — that is, those of us who receive this knowledge of the origin of the universe — we have many limitations of consciousness, which leave him not knowing how to express it well, a feeling of not knowing where to begin. This is also the reason why many, many religions, when they come to this question, simply do not address it or discuss it, because if you speak, it is very easy to be directly wrong; the more you say, the more wrong you are, or the moment you open your mouth you are wrong — better not to speak at all, because the moment you speak you are wrong. Yet if you do not speak, it is very hard for you to understand. Within this there are many approaches such as "it can only be conveyed in words, not grasped by the mind," "not relying on written words," "transmitting mind to mind" — all for this same reason.

All right, let us look at some of the problems Seth encountered. Through the problems he encountered, we can also gain a deeper understanding and insight into the origin of the entire universe and the nature of the reality of the universe. First let me state clearly: this session is extremely difficult, so everyone should be mentally prepared, and you must concentrate and follow along from my angle.

You think of your universe as having certain dimensions, and you more or less want to find an explanation that is built on the idea that those dimensions make the origin possible.

He says you think that within your universe there are certain dimensions, certain levels, or certain realities, and that within such a dimension and reality the origin of your physical universe could become possible. Seth says you are looking for this thing, but you cannot find it.

Yet that origin necessarily emerges from dimensions that are greater than the dimensions of your universe's actuality. And within the reality of your universe, the larger context that would contain such a primary event cannot be supported.

That it emerges from a dimension that is certainly greater than our already actualized physical universe — that is perfectly normal. Yet within the reality of our universe, we cannot find any clues or threads of a dimension greater than this universe — you cannot see it, and it is not just that you cannot see that dimension, you cannot even see the threads and clues that such a dimension exists. If you could see them, then they would necessarily be within this universe, and what we are exploring is how this universe came to be. Everything within the range of your perception is a matter within this universe; and beyond the range of your perception there must be a reality, a dimension, and then this universe that you can perceive must have been born out of that dimension and that universe. Yet of that universe, that dimension, you cannot find a single clue in this world of ours. This is what Seth means when he says he encounters insurmountable difficulties.

The Scientific Way of Searching: Seeking the Origin from Within the Universe

Let me use a simple diagram to share with everyone what he meant in the preceding passage. Suppose this is our universe, and we are now talking about how this universe originated. The first method, the current scientific way of searching, what is it doing? It is trying to find a point, an event, within this universe, such as the Big Bang, which is one event that scientists have found. The Big Bang theory holds that our universe must have exploded out from a place called a singularity¹. This is the scientific view.

The scientists' line of thinking is to find the secret of the universe's origin from some point within the universe. At first glance it seems quite reasonable from a scientific standpoint, but the moment you think one step deeper, you will find that this is impossible, that this in itself is a paradox. You seek a larger reality from within the reality of the universe, and then the universe is born from within it, so the event itself is already problematic. The Big Bang, as an event, must necessarily straddle two sides: one side is in contact with our universe, and our universe comes from there; the other side must belong to another universe or belong to another dimension. Otherwise, how could our universe possibly be born from within its own reality? If it is born from this reality, then the reality from which it is born is also a part of our universe, and then it cannot be called the birth of this universe.

By observing the redshift phenomenon, which is a phenomenon of light, namely a shift toward the infrared end, scientists discovered that all these celestial bodies are moving outward, expanding outward, moving away from one another in a manner of mutual distancing. They then hypothesized that, if one were to draw a three-dimensional diagram, the ultimate point from which these scattered planets or galaxies emerged, they went looking for that point. The Webb Space Telescope² that NASA just launched is far more powerful than our current Hubble Space Telescope³. The Hubble telescope operates in Earth orbit, at an altitude of roughly a few hundred kilometers above the Earth⁴; whereas the Webb telescope is in solar orbit, at a location 1.5 million kilometers away from the Earth⁵, and the Moon is only 380,000 kilometers from the Earth⁶, so you can tell how far that distance is. One of its goals is that, according to scientific calculations, it can find a point as close as possibly 100 meters to the base point of the Big Bang, in order to explore the origin of this universe.

This view clearly has its limitations, and in itself it is quite unlikely.

The Second Viewpoint: The Larger Reality

The second viewpoint is that we have a larger reality, a larger dimension, and this larger dimension implies that outside the universe there should be a larger reality, from which our physical universe emerged, from which it was born as its source. But this larger dimension leaves not a single trace within our universe — you have no way, within this universe of ours, of finding any clue to this larger dimension by any means that can be described, proven, or captured. Everything you can find is within this universe; you cannot find the things of the dimension that gave birth to this universe, that created this universe. Once the things of that dimension created this universe, they became part of this universe, so you can never see the things of that other universe.

So Seth says I have encountered the greatest difficulty, which is how to explain to you the birth of your universe.

The Limitations of the Human Concept of "Events"

In essence, he is invoking a concept—our human concept of "events." Because is the birth of the universe an event? Since you used the word "birth" or the word "origin," it is an event. But our human definition of the thing called an "event" is itself very limited and imprecise. Our human understanding of events is confined to their surface, and it must take place within a structure—there must first be a structure, for example spacetime is a structure—only within a structure can an event come into being. This is a very limited understanding that we humans have of events.

The moment we think of an event, we inevitably say what time, what place, what thing happened. Without these three elements, it cannot be called an event that we humans can understand. Then you think the birth of the universe is also an event of this kind, and you use this limited concept of "event" to understand the birth of the universe—that in itself is an enormous limitation. First you have to find a framework for it—within what kind of framework, within what kind of spacetime background did this thing happen—and this itself is already wrong. The so-called birth of the universe: this universe includes time and space. In Chinese, "yuzhou": yu is infinite, inexhaustible space; zhou is infinite, inexhaustible time. If translated into English, it is spacetime, the concept of space and time as one. So under a concept of "event" that presupposes spacetime, you want to investigate how time and space came to be—isn't that a joke?

The birth of the universe must have transcended spacetime, because it gave birth to spacetime. And because it transcends spacetime, within our spacetime framework you cannot find clues to it. The reason is not that it is not there, but that as long as you use this limited spacetime perspective to think about it, to investigate it, it will inevitably escape your observation.

Seth says, so in order to make it understandable to you, I must follow these traditional terms that you use to define events. If I do not, you will not know what I am talking about. Seth says, then I must have made an adapted version of this matter using concepts based on events that you can understand—it is definitely not the way the thing originally is. Many people say, Seth, don't say it that way, just tell me the essential thing directly—you must give me the ultimate teaching. Seth actually tells you here: the ultimate account is beyond human comprehension; humans can only comprehend an account that is not ultimate. This is the limitation of human thinking. It is not that my level is insufficient; it is the limitations of human cognition, the limitations of concepts, the limitations of fixed mental patterns that constrain it.

And this session is very short, but its weight is the essence of essences. It is precisely breaking down these limitations of yours, just as the short passage I just gave has already broken down the limitations of many people.

The Larger Framework

Let us continue reading. Seth says:

While I am doing that, I am also trying to introduce you, at least intuitively, to a larger framework in which events occur across the reality that you know.

"When I am doing that," that is, he uses the ways we can understand, the concepts we use to understand events, plus his own exposition of the truth of this universe. He says "introduce" -- that is, to present it to you. This larger universe is unknown to us; within our current cognition we do not know it, but Seth knows it, and standing within this larger universe, he introduces this larger universe to us.

Here he uses the word "introduce," and he says this introduction is at least done in an intuitive way. Why can it not be done through a rational way, a logical way, a deductive way? Because at this level, the following several approaches are all very hard to make work. Although in this session he uses a great deal of reasoning, a great many analogies, a great deal of logic, and even brings out mathematics and geometry for you, none of these are enough to make you truly understand it. What can truly understand it is more your intuition -- intuition is inner knowing, inner recognition.

If the birth of our universe is assumed to be an event, then this event must span two dimensions, two dimensions of existence, or two realities; it must be cross-reality. He says:

In any case, we will begin with an issue that very likely may seem to involve contradictions.

No matter how it is spoken of, no matter who speaks of it -- whether I speak of it or the Buddha speaks of it -- as long as it touches on this theme, on the origin of the universe, he says it must involve the birth of a paradox, and it must begin within a mutually contradictory issue. The contradiction is because of the limitations of human cognition; you will feel it is contradictory, but you can only understand it through your own cognition, so you must begin from a contradiction.

The Underlying Unity of Events' Surface and Depth

Why is it contradictory? Because:

Your definition of an event is so simple that we have overlooked a larger branch -- the greater unifying force of structure and action as a whole -- and that branch once coordinated any seeming contradictions.

We humans always understand events in black-and-white terms. Your definition of an event is superficial; you only see the surface of an event. Take the event of the origin of the universe, for example: what you can understand or perceive is only 10%, and the remaining 90% is outside your range of cognition. You think that part is wrong, that it is contradictory. If you believe the origin of the universe happened this way and that this is correct, then you will inevitably reject the other way as wrong. But what you precisely overlook is that the completely opposite way from what you believe is also correct.

The education we received from childhood says: if this is correct, then the opposite, contrary side must be wrong -- you can only choose one of the two. If you tell me the universe arose from a single point, then you cannot also tell me the universe arose from every point. If you tell me the universe was produced by the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago⁷, then I cannot accept that the universe is being renewed at every moment, that at every point it can be regarded as that point of the Big Bang, each manifested from another dimension.

Let me give a simple example to make it easier to understand. You married your current husband, and you consider this event to be real -- this is the only real event. Suppose you had married your ex-boyfriend; you would consider that not a real event -- your ex-boyfriend was just a youthful memory from your college days. Fine, that is your understanding of events. Suppose I say: the event of your marrying your husband itself contains, itself proves, itself already self-evidently demonstrates -- that your marrying your first love is also a fact. You would certainly come and scold me, saying, isn't that nonsense?

The point I want to make with this example is that your understanding of the world is always black-and-white: if I married Zhang San, then I cannot possibly have married Li Si. You are even less able to imagine that you are simultaneously married to 100 men. So you say you can only perceive one present moment, that you are living married to one man, and you feel this is the fact, this is the essence of the event. When someone tells you there are another 99 men you are also simultaneously married to and living with, your state is one of collapse. Our understanding of events is just this limited.

Where does the limitation lie? We cannot see the structure behind events and the unity of their action.

This touches on a core issue. Any event is a manifestation of action; an event itself is an action. When any event and any action occurs, it necessarily occurs within a framework, within a structure. The framework and structure we humans understand is the space-time framework. What time, what place, what happened -- the three elements of an event: what, where, when. If one is missing, it cannot be called an event.

Now the problem lies here. Our traditional view holds that there is no unity between events and frameworks: events necessarily occur within the space-time framework, and the space-time framework is like an objective existence without feeling, without anything in it; whereas events are subjective -- action has a subject of action, and action is certain behavior carried out according to the subject's will. We believe subjective action occurs within an objective framework. This is the most superficial layer of events, the three elements just mentioned.

But essentially speaking, time and space are both products of consciousness, and their composition is also consciousness. The action within an event -- the subject of the action, that is, the person -- and the space-time framework in which this action occurs are originally one. Within such unity lies the relatively comprehensive cognition of the entire event. Yet we can only perceive its surface and cannot see the existence of its unity with the space-time framework.

That larger branch is that unity, that oneness -- the unity of structure and action as a whole. Here "structure" is the framework, and it also refers to the structure of the event itself. If you do not expand on it, you cannot see its underlying unity, and you will think there is a contradiction in the middle: this event either happened here or happened there; you cannot say this event both happened here and happened there. Either what happened was this one thing -- how can you say it both happened at this point and simultaneously happened at that point as well? This transcends our limitations. But in essence, if the event and the framework or structure in which it resides are a unified whole, then there is no problem, no contradiction.

To put it more bluntly: the essence of events transcends space and time. When you recognize this, when I say the universe is born at every point of the universe, when I say the universe is simultaneously born in all times, it is not contradictory. When you cling to your concepts of the space-time framework, then every sentence I said above is contradictory and absurd to the extreme. This is their essential difference, and it is also the place where Seth finds it very difficult to explain this matter clearly, where he encounters tremendous difficulty.

Let me put it even more simply: we humans always view events within a space-time framework. When you use this space-time framework viewpoint to look at the birth of the universe, you cannot truly understand how the universe was born -- because even the space-time framework itself is part of the universe. You are using the concepts of such a framework to understand how this framework itself was born, and that cannot be attained.

He says that in that branch -- the branch where the event and the framework in which it resides are unified -- it can "coordinate any seeming contradictions." He uses the word "once," "once coordinated any seeming contradictions." Why use "once"? Using "once" is from the human perspective, with a timeline. The birth of the universe seems to humans to have happened in the past. According to that point on the human timeline, the event of the universe's birth itself must be contradictory -- because this event, which is not within this space-time, crossed space-time and entered into our space-time. But what he is saying is that at that point in the once-existing past, it was not contradictory in itself. At that instant of birth, it coordinated; there was no contradiction. It is only that you feel it is contradictory, and it is your limited cognition of space-time that causes the existence of the contradiction you perceive.

Here, your imagination will have very high value. Because at this point you can only use your imagination; this thing cannot be proven or reasoned out through logical inference. You can only imagine such an event of the universe's birth that we consider contradictory but is actually not contradictory.

For they can often perceive a unity that is not apparent to the intellect.

This unity cannot be seen through intellectual analysis, but through your imagination and intuition, you can recognize that they are unified.

You have trained the intellect to deal only with evidence here and now.

The intellect only looks at what is before the eyes, only at the present moment; it has no way to transcend space and time to handle things. But your imagination is not subject to the intellect's limitations.

Consciousness Is Phase

Then he paused for a long time at 9:28. The following concepts are very important:

Consciousness has correlations, has rhythms, has harmonies. And the molecular music of your universe arises from its inexhaustible cadence of consciousness.

These concepts are very crucial. This "harmony" you can think of as a kind of chord, equivalent to human harmony; "cadence of consciousness" is the cadence of consciousness itself.

The following concepts need to be unpacked slowly. First, let us talk about "consciousness." What is the basic unit of consciousness? It is the unit of consciousness. All things in the world are composed of units of consciousness. At the level of units of consciousness, they are all identical. All units of consciousness are holographic -- a single point contains the information of the entire universe, and the universe is holographic. So units of consciousness have no distinctions; a unit of consciousness is simply a unit of consciousness.

And the unit of consciousness itself is also a field -- a consciousness field. It does not exist only in particle form; it also exists in the form of a field, in the form of energy. Each unit of consciousness is scattered bit by bit throughout the entire universe, but when any single point unfolds, it becomes a very large field -- this one point can represent the entire universe, so it is the field of the entire universe. When the universe is filled entirely with units of consciousness, from the perspective of fields, it is this field. When using the concept of a field, you cannot understand it in terms of particles.

So why use the concept of "phase" to describe consciousness? Phase, also called phase position -- these are different terms in different linguistic contexts, but in English it is all called phase.

Let me briefly explain my understanding. Those who have studied basic physics know that phase refers to something like this: for example, if we represent it with a sine wave, starting from zero it rotates 90 degrees, then to 180 degrees -- although it returns to the zero position, the direction is already reversed; continuing down to 270 degrees, then to 360 degrees it returns to the origin again. On the time axis it has gone through one cycle and returned to the origin, then begins the next cycle, repeating endlessly. What is called phase is the description of the position of each point along this curve, generally expressed in angles, such as 90 degrees, 120 degrees.

Look at this diagram. If you treat this point as the trajectory of a consciousness exploring, it has never changed -- it started from the origin, traveled along the trajectory, and returned to the origin, completing a full 360-degree circle and coming back to the origin. This is the concept of phase. In the final analysis, it is an attribute of consciousness. Consciousness always wants to create, to experience all kinds of different states of conscious existence, states of consciousness, and structures of consciousness, so this consciousness can produce countless possibilities. Each existence of consciousness, relative to the consciousness itself, is equivalent to a certain facet, a certain state, a certain position of consciousness. This is how it connects with phase.

The most central aspect of the concept of phase is multiple waveforms, not a single waveform. Only with multiple waveforms does the meaning of phase become important -- because there are also phase differences, two waves overlapping, and so on.

Simply put, our consciousness is like a state of phase. It sends out countless waves. Each consciousness -- for example, this time you incarnate as a male, next time you incarnate as a female; this time you are an emperor, that time a beggar; and even within this lifetime as an emperor, you still have many parallel worlds and probable selves. Each of these consciousnesses is a wave: some waves are beautiful, some waves are ugly; some waves are intense, with large up-and-down oscillations; some waves are very gentle, representing a very smooth life; some waves rise and fall dramatically; some waves are bottomless. But your consciousness itself does not change -- from the perspective of units of consciousness, from the perspective of the consciousness itself, consciousness has not changed; consciousness has simply chosen to experience different events and feelings, making you feel that it has formed different waves. All these waves superimposed together become the consciousness field, and all the waves are different forms of expression of this consciousness. The essence within this consciousness field is simply a consciousness; it has never changed, only the experiences are different, the events are different. But its source -- the unit of consciousness, and above the unit of consciousness is All That Is -- has never changed, its essence has never changed. But because the events it experiences are different, it manifests different waveforms, different appearances.

To use a human analogy, your current consciousness, your present life, the you of this moment, only represents one of your waveforms. The high points represent the peaks of life, the low points represent the valleys of life. Your life trajectory is like this. But you must understand that this is only one of your waves, while the real you is all these waves superimposed together -- a phase position, a phase, or overlapping together. This variation of yours -- how many kinds of waves there are -- he says is inexhaustible.

The Original Intervals

Let's continue reading:

Your position within that rhythm is very important.

What does rhythm mean? The wave I just drew is rhythm. Your position within any one of those lines is important. He paused for a long time, then again:

You exist within a kind of original interval.

Here comes another new concept -- "the original interval." He says:

But if you can, think of the word interval as having no implication of continuous time.

He is telling you not to think of something specific the moment you see the word "interval." You can understand "interval" as an expression of the non-continuity of time. We humans think of time as continuous -- from the past all the way to the future, never broken in between. But time is not continuous; the essence of time is segments, is moments, is intervals. To put this sentence simply, your existence is within an ancient framework of time, but this time is in quotation marks, not the continuous time we understand.

To put it even more plainly, what you call the existence of consciousness exists within a rhythm of consciousness, within intervals of consciousness. We humans think time is continuous, but in essence time is moment by moment, like this line -- there are parts that manifest, and there are intervals.

As for one lifetime of ours: are we not something that starts from zero, comes into being, and finally dies, and after some number of years a new cycle of life begins again? Our existence is within an interval just like that. In Buddhism this is called formation, abiding, decay, and emptiness: formation, it comes into being; abiding, it stays there, remaining in the part your consciousness can perceive; then it begins to decay, and after decay it is gone, it is empty. Formation, abiding, decay, and emptiness cycle back and forth. For different subjects, the cycles are different -- a little bug may be born in the morning and die by evening, an herbaceous plant may have a cycle of only one year, a person's cycle may be ninety years, a bacterium's cycle may be three days. The intervals and frequencies of this formation, abiding, decay, and emptiness are not the same.

Countless Bands Playing Simultaneously

Returning to his theme:

You exist in a primal interval, that is, a primal time framework, and this time has no continuity.

These frameworks are somewhat like an infinite number of bands playing simultaneously.

Remember, he says "somewhat like," not that it really is this way. You must never tell people that the universe is just like countless bands playing—you can tell them this is an example I am giving, but never tell them it really is that. It is far more complex than this; it is only like it. Second, like what? Countless bands playing simultaneously. Then a long pause:

And each note that is sounded is also played in every possible position with every other possible note, and performed together with every possible version of the entire piece being played.

This is talking about what our consciousness actually is, and the relationship between it and our universe, as well as time.

Let me go back to the diagram again to explain it to you; it might be easier. Suppose we draw this time axis vertically; suppose this is the past and this is the future. And this is your birth. Is birth an event? It is the starting point of this event. All right, let us draw this point of birth as a large plane, and draw a cross-section at this point of your birth. In the process of your birth, did many things happen? Were there also many possibilities? Let us first assume that your birth and death have no possibilities, that they are singular, then are there many possibilities in between? After you are born, every day of your life...

Let us suppose there is a time axis, from your birth to your death. Every moment on the time axis is a point of a moment. For example, going to kindergarten is a point of a moment, going to elementary school is a point of a moment, going to middle school, college, work, marriage—every moment is a point of a moment. At every point of a moment, there is a band playing. In elementary school you joined the choir, and you were singing; in middle school you joined the choir, and you were singing too. In your time axis, elementary school sings its elementary school song, middle school sings its middle school song.

But if we take all the songs you have sung, all the words you have spoken, all the things you have done in this life—take all these discs, from bottom to top or from top to bottom, compress them, accumulate them, pierce through them, punch through them—then standing at any point, you can look upward and also look downward, and you can go to every point of a moment. At this point you will understand that when I superimpose all the movements of your life together, a note at a certain point in time—for example, a sound produced in the middle school choir—will overlap with notes at other points in time.

If you have studied Photoshop, this is like stacking layers one by one and merging the layers. Those pixels overlap with one another. In terms of sound, this sound and that sound have overlapping parts, and the phases superimpose. Looking at each curve alone, it is what happens on that one cross-section; superimpose your whole life together, and these curves overlap with one another, becoming a field of your consciousness. At any single point in the middle, it is the overlap of all these points of practice.

So Seth returns to the theme of this analogy: the notes played simultaneously in all the pieces of music—they resonate together, they echo together, they harmonize, they are in consonance, they are related.

What he means is that what you call consciousness operates in this way—there is no single consciousness that says, "I am the consciousness of the first day of the second semester of fifth grade in elementary school." The consciousness of that one day is related to the consciousness at every other point in time in this life of yours.

You say, I only accept half of it. On the first day of the second semester of fifth grade, my consciousness was influenced by everything before fourth grade—I had a quarrel with a certain classmate, and when fifth grade started my relationship with this classmate was already bad—this was influenced by the past, I accept that. But you say it is related to future events, that it has something to do with my working at a certain company thirty years later—I cannot understand that.

This is normal, because of our limitations in space and time. But in fact there is an influence; it is just that this influence escapes your cognition. What is its manifested behavior? The manifested behavior is that in the second semester of fifth grade, for no apparent reason, your fondness for a certain classmate was higher than for others, and then you became good friends with him. Perhaps more than ten years later, that good friend became your close buddy, your close confidante, or even your life partner. From our human perspective, it seems as though that earlier thing happened first, and only then led to the later result. But from a larger framework, how do you know that it was not because of the fact that you two were going to get married later that caused your feeling toward him in fifth grade to be different from others? How can you be certain which influence of this event came first and which came later? If you remove this time axis—what does removing the time axis mean? It means condensing your life from birth to death together, looking at it all stacked up—how can you say who influenced whom first? They overlap with one another, and they influence each other mutually.

So the theme of this passage is: at any stage of your life, any action of any possible you—all of these are interrelated with one another. They each have their own rhythm; you sing your tune, he sings his tune—fifth grade sings its fifth-grade tune, high school sings its high-school tune—but they have parts that harmonize. This harmony is not forced; it is only where the frequencies are the same that they harmonize, and it happens naturally. There are also parts that do not harmonize; not every one needs to harmonize.

Then how do they harmonize? Let me give two events as examples. These are two things that happened in your life: one is the day you got married, and the other is something that happened in elementary school. How can these two things harmonize? Earlier we talked about correlation; here the harmony mainly refers to your emotions, your frequency. No matter in what space and time it occurs, as long as your frequency matches it, it harmonizes. As long as your emotion is on the same frequency as its emotion, it harmonizes.

Therefore, if in your life at every moment, in every present, you maintain joy, happiness, and peace, then you will harmonize with those joyful, happy, and peaceful possibilities among the countless possibilities in your life, and the movement you sing will be harmonious, happy, and joyful. If you are not, if you are sad, fearful, and worried, then you will harmonize with those sad, fearful, and worried ones. So that is why we say the present moment is very important.

Intervals and the Larger Rhythm

Then Seth said, between the notes that are played there are intervals, and those intervals in which no notes are played are also part of a vast unstated rhythm, upon which the development of the entire performed work is based.

Let us go back to the waveform diagram. A sound waveform: the upper part is what we can hear, the lower part is what we cannot hear. The inaudible part, we can call it the "interval." This simple principle we all understand: the sound we can hear is determined partly by itself, and partly by those inaudible parts -- the inaudible parts determine when it occurs. If there were no such intervals, and all the sounds were overlapped together and played at the same time, then it could not be called music anymore; there would be no melody. A melody must have rhythm.

So what he wants to tell you is this: the part you can hear is necessarily determined by the parts you cannot hear, and behind this there is a larger structure. We humans generally only pay attention to the audible part, and do not pay much attention to the inaudible part, but the audible and the inaudible together are that larger structure; both are important.

The interval in which no notes are played is also an event, an event that escapes our cognition. It is a prompt for action, and also a trigger, a catalyst for response. Is not the "pause" in cadence also rhythm? It makes the "rise" more distinct. So the interval is a turning point between events, a trigger; you can understand it as the "emptiness" in "formation, duration, decay, and emptiness" -- without this emptiness, there would be no next "formation," no next "duration."

Seth said, the universe that you state emerges from such intervals that we do not know, emerges from a primary event whose true nature is still not captured by your definitions. In some places in the book, he may say that an event you know is real, and at the same time tell you that it is not real; or that it is both myth and fact.

Why does he say this? Suppose the audible sounds above and below are your universe, and those inaudible parts that exist as intervals are that larger reality. Our universe is generated by those invisible intervals -- because there are inaudible intervals, there is audible music. This is easy to understand, right? So, the universe we can see is formed by those universes we cannot see; the world we can perceive is generated by, emerges from, those worlds that cannot be perceived.

Seth said, when he explains it in this way, he falls into paradox. He will say that something is true, and then tell you it is false; he will say that this is a myth, not the truth of reality, only a distortion of reality, and then tell you that it is reality. Both of these statements are correct. Do not fall into limitation; do not ask, "Which one is actually right? Why do you say one thing at one moment and another thing at another?" His purpose in doing this is to guide you toward some psychological understanding -- that is, inner understanding -- of events far larger than your usual judgments of true and false.

Let me say it again: he says at one moment that this is real, and at another moment that that is false, precisely in order to break the limitations of your fixed beliefs that things are either black or white, either right or wrong. You become confused, not understanding what in this world is true and what is false, and those fixed beliefs of "this is true and that is false" will collapse and loosen. When your cognitive system of black-and-white, right-and-wrong has collapsed, only then does the truth truly emerge. The more you want to investigate truth and falsehood, the more you hold a concept of what is true and what is false, the less you can know what is true and what is false. That is how magical it is.

The Role of the Imagination

Seth says, perhaps you will let your imagination act upon the general world of your world, and at least glimpse a portion of the greater wisdom that illuminates those worlds. The imagination will lead you to intuitively have a feeling for the source of the world.

He uses the word "illuminate." He says you should not always look at these events through the way of using objective facts to cognize objective facts—in other words, you should not only see those visible, so-called evidences, so-called obvious things; you should rather feel those other parts of events that cannot be seen or heard. These parts cannot be obtained by reason or facts; they can only be obtained through your imagination.

Just like the example I gave just now. Is the person you marry today influenced by some inner influence from your past that you do not know about? Suppose you married your classmate. You would think: is it because we got along well in school, so we later got married; or is it because we later got married, so we got along well in school? This can only be imagined—because there are no obvious clues or evidence. You can say it is fate, you can say that before birth the soul already chose your partner for you, you can even speak of past lives, former lives, debts and gratitude—all of that is possible. Are those parts all the results of imagination? Yes. You say, what is the point of this? Imagination is unreliable, and no matter what you say it sounds right. Yes, that is how it is.

But the magical thing is, when you use this imagination to re-examine these events, you will discover some clues you had not noticed before. Those things that did not seem like clues emerge, and the thread of events presents another kind of clear inner relationship. This feeling gives you a different cognition and experience of the source of the world—an inner feeling, not rational inference.

Units of Consciousness

Seth said that he had mentioned units of consciousness before, and that these are precisely such events. And they do indeed behave as described—he was referring to the second line, that larger event, the primary event whose reality we cannot verify in the physical world but which we can feel and imagine with our imaginative faculties.

He said that units of consciousness are also entities. If you like, you could also say that a unit of consciousness is a fragment personality of All That Is—a divine fragment of power and majesty. It is not a complete carrier of All That Is, yet it is a part of All That Is. It contains all the powers of consciousness as you know them and as you can imagine them.

In your terms, it is a concentration without substance. From a human perspective, you could regard it as a condensation of the universe—each unit of consciousness is a condensation of the universe, containing all consciousness, all the powers of consciousness, and the divine.

Besides your own universe, there are many other universes, each following its own intervals and its own music. If that symphony just now was the music of the Earth, then other planets have their own music, with different intervals and different melodies.

Inner Passages and Ancient Civilizations

Seth says that your concept of historical time blocks his explanation. In those terms, the reality of your world stretches back far further than you imagine, and your ancestors once visited other planets, just as your planet has been visited by beings from other planets.

Our human understanding of history is limited. We think this human civilization began at a certain point in history -- for example, our scientific research says it was roughly 5 million years ago⁸. Before that, we think it was barren, only nature. But Seth says that actually, before human civilization began, long, long before, there were other civilizations -- not only more advanced than our current civilization, but far surpassing it -- they were already capable of traveling across planets and across galaxies.

You could also say, they left and did not come back. Their civilization had already developed to the point where they could go live in the Milky Way or in other galaxies. Just like today's young people from rural China -- they all leave and do not come back. Our current civilization started from scratch, and then we think there was no civilization before us -- when in fact their civilization was far more developed than ours.

Some contacts intersect within space and time, and some do not. Ancient civilizations went out to explore other planets, and they may have intersected in space and time, but we do not know it; the intersections we can perceive are only those where alien civilizations came to explore Earth and intersected with our space and time. If the intersection happened in a parallel space-time, or if they visited Earth before or after human history developed, we would not be able to perceive it.

There are endless versions of life. Some look like humans, and some do not. Within the vast spectrum of existence that your reality cannot encompass, there have been galactic civilizations that formed when conditions were appropriate.

This "there have been" is very interesting. One interpretation is that they once existed and now do not; another is that they exist, but we can no longer perceive them; or they have come back again. All kinds of possibilities exist. But remember, the "there have been" spoken of here is a human time concept -- before us, there were highly developed galactic civilizations. They were not Earth civilizations; they were galactic civilizations.

If you want a rough intuitive sense of this, you can watch the Apple TV series Foundation -- of course, it is adapted from the famous science fiction novels of the 1950s and 60s⁹. It tells of a future in which humanity has already ruled the entire galaxy, and a series of events unfolds against a vast space-time backdrop: the center of the Galactic Empire is a planet called Trantor, and a scientist, through a kind of psychological calculation, predicts that this Galactic Empire, which has existed for more than twelve thousand years, will collapse in 300 years.

What Seth is telling us here is this: before the human civilization we think we know, there had already been extremely advanced galactic civilizations. Then he goes on to say that the time framework does not exist in the way you think it does -- so everything said before was only explained according to the time framework we humans imagine, but in fact it is not like that. The intervals of existence are clearly different: for a planet, intervals are measured in billions of years; for some microorganisms, survival may last only a few minutes.

In a way that is impossible to explain, there is something I can only call inner passages that run throughout the universe. Remember, he says "in a way that is impossible to explain."

Association and Memory

What are the inner passageways of the universe? He went on. He said, you know how a single association can suddenly connect you in your mind with a past event so vividly that it almost seems to be happening in the present. Do you not often associate to past things? In a certain moment, stirred by a scene, you recall something from before, lifelike, as if it were really happening. This mechanism of association is the mechanism of the universe's inner passageways.

And a memory strong enough is like a ghostly event -- I call it a ghost event. The reason you can recall it is that it is an important part of your memory. Although it happened in the past, it follows you like a shadow and can be triggered at any moment, as if it could happen at any time. So there are certain processes that function like association, providing other pathways beyond the inherent time-structure routes of the universe. And these pathways are part of the larger nature of events of which you are unaware.

What he means is, there are more things, larger events, more civilizations that actually have an influence on our civilization, but the way they influence us is like the way we recall certain past events -- through association. The human capacity for association, placed on a cosmic level, is the mechanism of the universe's inner passageways.

What is meant by the mechanism of inner passageways? Everything that exists in the universe has its own frequency and periodicity. They coexist in space and time, and they interact in space and time. Right now in mainland China's epidemic prevention there is a new term called "spatiotemporal overlap": a person is confirmed positive or is a close contact, he took a train, and you took it too, he was at one end of the car and you at the other; or you were in the same shopping mall, he on the fifth floor and you on the first, both inside during the same period of time, or you also went there within four hours after he left -- the two of you overlapped within a range of space and time, and you are defined as a close contact, and your health code turns yellow.

The point of my giving this example is this: our human life-existence is finite; there are things shorter than us and longer than us; existence has periodicity. But none of that is what matters -- what matters is that although its existence has already vanished, it still has an influence on those other events that occur. Its influence is similar to how we recall an event from childhood, and that event in turn affects our present emotions -- the same principle. It did not happen in our space and time, but it still has an influence on us.

So between existences, between consciousnesses, there is mutual interconnection; they do not necessarily have to overlap on the level of space and time. Even if they are not in the same space and time, there is still connection, because space and time themselves are limiting; they have no actual meaning.

Seth said, sometimes your species has traveled those passageways, and many of your myths represent ghostly memories of those events. What you call myths are a distorted kind of understanding of true reality -- because you once went to those experiences that are not in this space and time of yours, and then brought them back, and this experience is a kind of myth. The influence those events have on you is like the influence your past experiences have on your present state of mind and on the way you handle problems.

Returning to the Home Planet

Seth says that all existence has a rhythm, only the rhythms differ. A mountain has the mountain's rhythm, a drop of water has the drop of water's rhythm. In your terms, your species returns to its home planet to renew its roots, to refresh its heart's blood, to return to nature, and to seek comfort again in the sweet ancient heritage of morning and evening.

This statement is very interesting. Even a galactic civilization has its rhythm of existence. A civilization develops to a high degree, settles in the galaxy, explores, lives there, but because of this cyclical existence, they return to their home planet—let's say Earth—return to the mother planet. It may be entering the next cycle, it may be experiencing it as extraterrestrial visitors, or it may enter the mother planet in another form, another life form.

For example. Suppose 1.5 billion years ago there was a highly developed civilization on Earth, and they left Earth and went to other star systems. After 1.4 billion years, they came back. After returning, he renews his roots, changes to new heart's blood—because he is no longer the human of that original civilization, he has already finished exploring the entire galaxy, carrying the experiences and accumulation of that civilization, and begins a new human civilization with a new identity and a new approach. This is prehistoric civilization. This is the return of humanoid intelligence. One way is coming back in a spaceship; another is, if he wants to start a civilization process over again, he can combine his DNA, his genes, with the genes on Earth, to renew the previous roots—the so-called "renewing its roots" means this.

Seth uses a metaphorical way of saying it. What he wants to tell you is that this human civilization of ours is these people coming back. This is a rhythm, only this rhythm is relatively long, with 1.5 billion years as one cycle. It may be leaving, then returning, then leaving and returning again, and in between the Earth seems once again wild and desolate. In this way it cycles every 1.5 billion years. After returning, in this ancient environment it is already so familiar with that it could not be more familiar—Earth's sun, rising and setting—it comes to seek comfort.

Why? Actually it does not need to come back. Does this kind of thing happen? Of course it does. Let me give the simplest example: why do some people, twenty or thirty years after graduation, still want to return to their alma mater, willing to find their original classroom and sit in their original seat? People in their fifties or sixties, dragging their families along, still want to relive their youth. Similar. Returning to a familiar place, going back to the old place to seek roots, but these roots, you do not want to dig up the old roots; what you bring back are new roots. In other words, you are not seeking roots, you are planting new roots. The roots are old roots, but they already have a new meaning; the blood is different, the genes are different too. Change the genes, and once again experience in one's own old home the process of a civilization's redevelopment and gestation, in seeking comfort.

Through this matter, you can probably understand what many people cannot understand about reincarnation.

The Blinking of the Earth

Seth said that this planet has undergone many changes; it has appeared and disappeared many times. The Earth has not always been the way it is now; it appears and disappears, disappears and appears.

In some ancient legends and the history of civilizations, our planet is described this way. For example, the next time the magnetic poles reverse, when the South Pole and North Pole swap places, many people predict that this has not happened only once in history—the Earth will disappear for three days. In human terms of time, three days. During those three days, the entire Earth enters a kind of endless void or darkness, not the darkness and void as we understand them. After those three days, the Earth comes back again.

Seth said the Earth blinks on and off, like a firefly. But because of the gaps in your attention—we humans are simply incapable of observing this periodic change of the Earth, our life spans are too short—so you cannot see it. Each "on" period of course seems to last as long as several million years, but on other levels, the Earth blinks on and off just like a firefly. On the scale of human civilization, this cannot be observed.

Seth said that he did not intend, by this description, to belittle the importance of material life. He was not trying to say, "The Earth disappears once every few million years and then comes out again, so your lives are not important." He was afraid you might fall into this kind of pessimism, so he hastened to comfort you: because All That Is gives to every portion of the reality it becomes a unique existence, one that is not repeated anywhere.

All That Is created you; you are a part of All That Is, you are one of its offshoots, you are one of a kind. Even if the next life cycle of the Earth begins, and there may again be humans, or intelligent civilizations similar to humans, that too is an experiment of consciousness, and at that time there will never again be a you exactly the same as you. No matter how the cycles shift, no matter how the world changes, you, as an experiment, an exploration, an experience of consciousness by All That Is, are unique.

You are you. Whether in the long river of the universe, the long river of history, or within a larger framework of reality, your existence is irreplaceable. This very uniqueness of yours is precisely what constitutes the magic and richness of the universe—composed of the explorations of every unique All That Is.

Every spark of consciousness is endowed with a sacred heritage. There is a great deal of meaning in this: it can refer to a spark of one of your thoughts, it can refer to the experience of this one lifetime of yours, and it can also be understood from a larger perspective as a flash of consciousness, a single spark—even this one life of yours, it will never be extinguished. Not a single thought of yours will ever be extinguished, let alone your existence as a living being within this framework of time and space.

A spark that is obvious in all other corners of the universe. You say, my spark is obvious here on Earth, but is it unimportant on the larger scale of the galaxy? He tells you, it is important. From the standpoint of consciousness, if you use the human material scale, then of course you are utterly insignificant; but do not use the human material scale to consider the matter. In the world of consciousness—remember, not our material world, but the world of consciousness—an existence such as yours is so obvious, so unique. In any corner of the universe, you are the brightest one on the block, recognizable at a single glance.

You must never sell yourself short, saying, "If that is how it is, then I have no meaning at all." No, thinking that way is calculating according to the material scale. If measured by the material scale, you really are insignificant, less than a grain of sand. But fortunately, this universe is not accounted for on the material scale—the essence of the universe is consciousness. On the level of consciousness there is no concept of scale; every consciousness is uniquely important, every consciousness is incomparably glorious, vast, and brilliant. In this universe of consciousness, you are the brightest one on this street. You must have this kind of confidence in yourself. This is what Seth ultimately wanted to tell you—do not end up feeling even more downhearted just because he has given you a macrocosmic concept of the universe.

Jane's Intuition

This session responded to some questions in Ruburt's mind. The material in this session was "sneaked in" by Jane -- because when this session began, Jane said what Seth was giving did not seem to be material for this book. But it was not only material for this book, it was a very essential part of the book's material. Rob told her it was one of her best sessions.

She recalled that in her twenties, about fifteen years before the Seth material began, she had written a series of poems about humanity returning to Earth from outer space. And in this session Seth said that is really how it happened -- at least in certain probable realities. Jane said that was an old science fiction idea. This passage echoes the last sentence of this session: this session also responded in part to some questions in Ruburt's mind.

Rob's Notes

This is a note written by Rob. He says he told Jane that, in Seth's own way, Seth had already incorporated mathematical concepts into his material. Actually, in the previous few sessions when I talked about sampling rates, intervals, and perceptual intervals, including many things in this session, I did not expand on them, but a lot of what is said here involves mathematical and geometric concepts. Seth did not want to turn it into a discussion on that level, so he left it implicit -- but as long as you expand on it, it touches on very deep mathematical ideas.

Rob says he thought of the connection between Seth's discussion of probable realities and the concept of intervals (the concept of intervals is the concept of time segments) and the concept that "a line has an infinite number of points." And some definitions of infinite numbers are considered more important than others -- in mathematics, these problems of infinity are often studied, such as calculus, which has been explored since Newton¹⁰. From all of this, from the work of Euclid in geometry (the Greek mathematician active more than 300 years ago)¹¹ to modern information theory, Rob found multiple connections with Seth's concepts.

Rob says he does think that, for discussing the origin of our universe, the Seth material may be a very good starting point -- in terms of mathematical systems, Seth's concept of All That Is has no limits, and in mathematical expression that is infinity. He also asked Jane whether she thought the theorems of Euclidean geometry were inherently suited to depicting the inner depths of the psyche, or whether those theorems merely represent conscious and acquired interpretations of our visual experience.

His question is: Is Euclidean geometry suited to depicting the depths of our inner psyche? Or is it only suited to depicting the outer world? What Rob wanted to ask is -- is this geometry that seems to depict the outer world consistent with the mathematics that depicts the inner world?

Is it consistent or not? I can only tell you: it is consistent. In certain fields, our descriptions and explorations of consciousness and psychology can, on many levels, be expressed through geometry. In some related materials, whether from studies of ancient Egypt or from other ancient primitive tribes' explorations of the universe, they can all be expressed through geometry. If you cannot understand this, you can think about one thing: the pyramids in that era made use of mathematical and geometric concepts -- including how its height is a certain multiple of the distance from the Earth to the Sun¹², and so on. If you look carefully into the relevant materials, you will know there is no coincidence here.

When Rob asked Jane where she got her intuitive mathematical knowledge, Jane laughed. Rob asked her why she could depict the mathematical nature within the Seth material without using the most direct mathematical approach. Jane said that in high school she failed algebra twice before passing, and the same with geometry -- she failed twice before passing, and she did not understand most of it. The teachers taught too fast; she had not yet understood before they moved on. When she really understood what the content was, she was very excited -- but she could not keep up. She sometimes got the right answer in the wrong way, because she was slow to react, but the teachers did not approve and marked a big X, which always made her very angry. When she worked at a convenience store, she could not even calculate the price of a few pieces of candy: a pound of candy was 16 dollars, so how much were a few pieces? She often got it wrong. She joked that she did not know how many customers she had given free candy to -- because she could not calculate it correctly, so she could only give more.

Conclusion

This session is very important. Whether it is my explanation or Seth's exposition, both are examples of true reality -- they are all analogies, all approximate descriptions. It is meant more to inspire you to think about an event. It does not lie in what Seth says, nor in what I say, but in how you think and in your understanding of this world. If you can actually take out paper and pen to write and draw, sketching out your understanding of this universe and this world, that would be very important for you.

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注释与核实

1. According to Mike's original words, "The Big Bang theory holds that our universe must have exploded from a place called a singularity"; upon verification, it should be "The Big Bang theory describes the universe undergoing overall expansion from an early high-temperature, high-density state, not exploding from a place in space called a 'singularity,' nor can it be used to conclude how the universe originated." (Source: David Tong, Cosmology, https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/concepts/cosmology.pdf) ↩

2. Source: NASA, James Webb Space Telescope (https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/) ↩

3. Source: NASA, About Hubble (https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/about-hubble/) ↩

4. Source: NASA, Hubble By The Numbers (https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/hubble-by-the-numbers/) ↩

5. Source: NASA, Orbit (https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/orbit/) ↩

6. Source: NASA, Moon Facts (https://science.nasa.gov/moon/facts/) ↩

7. According to Mike's original words, "The universe was produced by the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago"; upon verification, it should be "The universe began with the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago, not 13.7 billion years ago." (Source: NASA, Universe Glossary A-G, https://science.nasa.gov/universe/glossary-3/a-g/) ↩

8. According to Mike's original words, "about 5 million years ago"; upon verification, it should be "The beginning of agriculture and the rise of the earliest civilizations occurred within about the last 12,000 years, not about 5 million years ago." (Source: Smithsonian Institution Human Origins Program, Introduction to Human Evolution, https://humanorigins.si.edu/education/introduction-human-evolution) ↩

9. Source: Vanessa Armstrong, Foundation: What to know about Apple TV+’s adaptation of Isaac Asimov's novels, 2021 (https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/foundation-what-to-know) ↩

10. According to Mike's original words, "calculus, starting with Newton"; upon verification, it should be "The basic ideas of modern calculus were independently developed by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz in the second half of the 17th century, not by Newton alone." (Source: The Open University, Introduction to differentiation: 1.4.1 Differentiation from first principles, https://www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=70390&section=3.4.1) ↩

11. According to Mike's original words, "Euclid's geometry (a Greek mathematician active more than 300 years ago)"; upon verification, it should be "Euclid was an ancient Greek mathematician active around 300 BC, that is, about 2,300 years ago, not more than 300 years ago." (Source: University of St Andrews, Euclid (325 BC - 265 BC), https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Euclid/) ↩

12. This claim could not be verified. ↩