Mike's commentary · Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Session 933

The "Introduction" and "Chapter Highlights" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the block quotes are Seth's original words (the parts Mike read aloud).

Introduction

After Jane refused to continue discussing private matters, Seth uses the Three Mile Island nuclear leak, the Tehran explosion, and the persecution of Baha'is in Iran as entry points to discuss the social aspect of dreams: dreams are an inner public forum, and personal dreams are simultaneously dreamed for the family, the community, and the world; ancient collective dreaming was similar to the modern news system. He proposes the pleasure principle, holding that humans and nature follow pleasure rather than merely satisfying needs, and that pleasure is an effect of value fulfillment; one of the main purposes of dreams is to increase pleasure. Rob's notes also touch on violence as creativity, the nature of action, and Jane's guilty self.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Dreams are a social event; the dreaming state can be seen as an inner public forum, where individual dreams are simultaneously dreamed for the family, the community, and the world.
• Ancient humans handled matters such as migration by collectively dreaming and sharing dreams; the modern news system is a similar backup system.
• Humans and nature follow pleasure rather than merely satisfying needs; pleasure is the obvious effect of value fulfillment.
• One of the main purposes of dreams is to increase human pleasure, that is, to increase the quality of life itself.
• Violence is always used creatively, but if this is not understood, any violence is violence against oneself; all actions are creative and recurring.

Main Text

Three Mile Island, Tehran, and Rob's Opening

On Friday, August 7, 1981, at 8:22 p.m., the Seth session began. This session is the first session (Session 933) of Chapter 10, "The Pleasure Principle, Collective Dreams, and Value Fulfillment," in Volume 2 of Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment.

Rob began with a brief overview, talking about the Three Mile Island nuclear accident¹. He said that when proper detection equipment had not yet been installed, 28 months earlier², when the reactor core of Unit 2 at Three Mile Island overheated and caused its core to fill with melted fuel rods and nearly melt down, government officials had no way of knowing how much nuclear radiation had been released into the Pennsylvania countryside -- because there was no monitoring equipment, we also do not know how much was actually released. The federal and state governments had announced that they had launched long-term population studies to measure the effects of this radiation.

However, since 1925³, scientists have been steadily reducing their estimates of what is a truly safe dose for humans. At the same time, since 1925, scientists have been doing less and less monitoring of the effects of nuclear contamination on people in the atmospheric environment or the natural environment. And many people now believe that even at low levels of radiation, there is no completely harmless dose. No matter how low the nuclear radiation, it has an effect on people; it is not the case that only above a certain level does it have an effect, as if below a certain level it has no effect on people. Many people believe that even the smallest dose of nuclear radiation has some effect on people and can alter human DNA structure. Any such leak will increase the earth's natural background radiation -- the earth has a natural background radiation, which is what exists when there is nothing at all, when no nuclear war or nuclear leak has occurred, there is a baseline natural radiation in nature, and this radiation value is very low. This kind of Three Mile Island nuclear leak will certainly increase this most basic amount of nuclear radiation in nature. And background radiation varies in our country and throughout the world according to latitude and other factors, influenced by environment, climate, wind direction, and various factors.

Rob said that Jane and he thought that the psychological impact of the Three Mile Island accident was at least as important as the physical impact, and that someday it would be far more important worldwide. That is indeed true. Not long after this, the more serious Chernobyl nuclear power plant leak occurred⁴, affecting most of Europe. Then later, the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan had another nuclear leak⁵, each one more serious than the last.

According to Rob's thinking, the consciousness connected with Three Mile Island has an unknown quality and quantity. That is to say, how much psychological impact it has on us, we cannot yet estimate -- scientists have not studied it.

Rob then talked about another news item. Six weeks earlier, in Tehran, the capital of Iran, more than 150 officials⁶ of the ruling Islamic Republican Party were killed by a bomb. The explosion destroyed their headquarters. At first the fanatics of the revolution blamed the Great Satan -- America; they said America was behind it. Then they also accused Iraq, which was at war with Iran. But what could be confirmed was that one of more than a dozen underground revolutionary groups in Iran was connected to this. What this explosion was truly connected with was not sabotage by outside forces, but its own internal underground revolutionary groups.

This massacre caused the Iranian government to immediately escalate its propaganda to eliminate those who opposed Shiite rule -- whoever opposed the Shiites, they would eliminate. Before the big explosion, more than 70 dissidents had already been executed⁷; and after the big explosion, many more were arrested. This big explosion had a very great impact on those dissidents.

Then Rob said that yesterday he read a report about how the Baha'i faithful in Iran were being severely persecuted by the government and the Shiites. When he began reading, he wondered why Iranians would harass a whole group of other Iranians in such an unlovable way -- did they really want to eliminate them and be done with it? Rob said that the Shiite hatred of the Baha'is is built on a primitive religious fanaticism that has lasted for centuries -- this is not short-term; it is a primitive religious fanaticism that has lasted for centuries, or many centuries.

These two sects cannot stand the sight of each other. Even though the Baha'i sect also worships only one God, or also recognizes the Quran⁸, the things they believe in are the same, but their peaceful and progressive ways are too liberal, too heretical. The core of what they believe has not changed, but their ways are not acceptable -- they are too liberal, too peaceful, too heretical. Because they are too peaceful, they are attacked instead.

What is meant by "too peaceful" is that among Muslims toward those who do not believe in Islam, some hold a peaceful attitude: you have freedom of belief; believing or not believing is your freedom, and they can coexist peacefully with them. But another group advocates hatred and extremism. They believe that as long as those who do not believe in Islam are all infidels, either you convert to our Islamic faith, or we will find a way to get rid of you. It is that group of religious fanatics who are extremely crazed. These people feel that the Baha'is, even though they also believe in Islam, are too peaceful, too liberal, too heretical. They are called unpatriotic and too secularized, not strict enough in observing doctrine. It seems that every day some Baha'is are attacked, stripped of their property, subjected to lynchings, or sentenced to death.

In all of this -- the bombings, the persecution, the killings -- Rob said, he realized that a large and loose consciousness was churning in an angry rebellion. Each consciousness, individual and collective, cooperating or opposing one another, within the framework of the national structures they had chosen, each wanted to know new creative aspects of itself. Each consciousness within this kind of nationwide scope, that is, this anger or purge of one sect against another, each individual or collective, would creatively do things that had never been done before. Previously they would not have had such extreme behavior; now they began to do these extreme things. This is what he called the "creative aspect" -- through bombings, through persecution, through killings, to manifest this cooperation or opposition between two different races or different faiths. In this case it was more opposition; he expressed this opposition at the level of consciousness through these creative acts.

A Real Refusal: No More Personal Material

At the very beginning of the session, the question Rob raised concerned how the real guilty self had responded to their efforts to help him over the past several weeks. They had not yet seen the kind of physical response they wanted -- an improvement in the body. And Rob wanted to know whether they had prompted the real guilty self to heighten its intention to protect the real self and control the real self.

Rob explained that he felt the efforts that Seth and he himself had made for the real self were being wiped out every time, because they had startled the fears of his guilty self, causing it to protect the real self even harder according to a very limited orientation. That was Rob's feeling. Why had the real body not begun to improve, and why had it even grown worse year after year? One of the reasons was that, as he and Seth kept offering help to the real self, or trying to get him to change, that guilty self would instead jump out and protect the real self even more intensely, shielding him from the influence of Seth and Rob.

Then the real self said, "My thought tonight is only to have a session of dictation on the book. I do not want any more private session material, I do not want any more personal material. That only makes me feel more foolish."

Why? Because for more than three months in a row, they had been dragging this real guilty self out and dissecting and analyzing it over and over again. Although this was beneficial to the real self, for the person concerned, he may also have reached the limit of what he could endure, and he was also quite averse to it and fed up. Because when you keep talking about this one part of a person's personality, and you have given it such a name, it makes him feel even more foolish -- why do you yourself still have such a part of your personality? Why do you still have a guilty self? Why are you like this, making yourself feel as though you have not done well? So he did not want them to keep talking about this private session, and said let us just have the session, and go back to talking about dreams and value fulfillment, and stop talking about personal matters all the time.

Rob reminded the real self that when he mentioned his guilty self, he was only referring to certain clusters of concepts that they had personified for the sake of convenience. It did not mean that the real guilty self was truly guilty, nor did it mean that that part of the real personality was truly guilty. He simply wanted to use such a brief term to refer to that concept -- to refer to certain belief systems of the real self. The guilty self was just that cluster of beliefs.

Dreams Are Social Events

Then Seth began dictating directly. He said the title of the next chapter is "The Pleasure Principle, Group Dreams, and Value Fulfillment."

As I have often mentioned, you all have a hand to some extent in the formation of all events.

This was covered in the previous session -- how you participate. Therefore, on some level, you participate in the construction of the global events that affect the world, whether they are so-called natural or cultural events. You participate in small events, and you also participate in large events -- whether you reason it out or extend it outward, the principle is the same. You also participate in constructing the major national or global events of the entire world.

I have also spoken previously of the importance of dreams in man's early background, and their importance to you as a species. Here I want to stress the social aspects of dreams.

In this session he wants to emphasize the social significance, or the social dimension, of dreams.

And I have also pointed out that dreams show you certain processes involved in the actual formation of physical events.

That is, certain processes by which physical events actually come about are reflected in dreams. So, on other levels of consciousness, long before an event concretely occurs, you do enter into an event, and this earlier activity takes place for the most part in the dream state. This is quite normal, just like the incident he mentioned in the previous session about that person who came to visit her -- you have already, in all kinds of ways, become involved in the event before it has happened.

Remember, however, my seemingly contradictory statement -- that your dreams are also social events, and that the dreaming state can almost be thought of as an inner public forum, in which each person can speak, and in which each opinion, however unpopular, is taken into consideration.

He says you can imagine your dreams as a worldwide forum, a forum for the whole world, very much like the internet we have now. Everyone can express their opinions. Maybe very few people know about your opinion, very few people see it, and its influence is very small. But no matter how small your voice is, no matter how small its influence, it will still be taken into consideration, because you are part of the whole world, and your statement is also one of the hundreds and thousands of viewpoints representing the whole world. You can imagine dreams as this kind of structure -- a public forum for the world.

If you want to consider a dream event as a private event, then I must tell you that the private event is actually your personal contribution to a larger, many-faceted and many-layered dream event.

He says in a certain sense, you always feel that your dreams are personal, very private, only related to your own events, related to your own life. If you think that way, I can only tell you that this dream you consider private is actually making a contribution to a larger dream -- your small dream, your personal dream, is making a contribution to that larger social or worldwide collective dream.

One level of it may be connected with the interests of a group to which you belong -- your family, for example, or your political or religious organization -- and extend outward from there into national and worldwide realms.

On some level, your dreams certainly sometimes involve your family, your family members, and even certain groups or organizations you participate in, whether it is a company, or your club, or extracurricular activities, or an association. The dream you have is actually connected with these various groups of yours.

In such cases, in your dreams you are simply drawing the small group around you into the dream state. In fact, this will also go on to influence the larger events of the entire world.

Let me give an example. You might be part of a certain public welfare organization that specifically works on the protection of women and children. Then recent events would stimulate you to actively participate in the media coverage, or the protection, or the practical work concerning the mother of eight children in Xuzhou⁹. And this sort of thing, if in a dream, the you in the dream state might have similar related dreams. Many people have recently told me that in their recent dreams there appeared many dreams of themselves being trafficked, or seeing trafficking, or dreams related to trafficking. Previously this rarely happened; very few people would dream of themselves being trafficked, or of someone else being trafficked. But recently such dreams have been especially frequent. Several people have already told me that they recently had a dream in which they dreamed that they themselves, somehow or other, were also trafficked, and how they went about this and that. My point in mentioning this is that within your scope, within your social circle, your dreams actually contribute to a larger event of the whole society, of the whole world.

Just as in general, your private conscious life is lived within a certain kind of living or community environment.

Your dreams are the same; they also exist within an organization of the dream state.

To put it simply, your private consciousness lives within a community, whether it belongs to a living community, a working community, or a community of some specific organization. Your waking life is lived within such a community. When you dream, you think the dream is extremely private, but in fact this dream also has a dream community, and your dream arises within this dream community.

So when you dream for yourself, to some degree and in a certain sense, you are also dreaming for your family, for your community, and for the whole world.

You are not only dreaming for yourself -- this is what is meant by social dreams.

Ancient Collective Dreaming

At one time, collective dreaming was taken for granted as a natural human characteristic.

In ancient times there was an era when human beings dreamed collectively. For example, within a tribe, when they faced drought and needed to find a new location, every member of the tribe would dream. The tribe might be suffering from drought in their area, and they needed to change their place of residence. Where should they move to? They did not know where the environment was good or where there was water. What did they do then? Every member of the tribe would dream, every single one would dream. During the dreaming, the problem would be considered—in the dream they would think, where should we go?

And each dreamer dealt with those problems that best suited his abilities and personal inclinations.

Would you say this collective dream was one single dream? No, each person dreamed their own dream. For example, one person dreamed of a bird flying to some place, and then he discovered that beneath the place the bird flew over there were reeds and so on; another person said he dreamed of a dog in his family, or a horse in his family, or something like that. Each person, according to their own inclinations, according to their own wishes, and according to their own characteristics, dreamed their own dream. But because their entire tribe was suffering from drought, each person would carry such an intention in the dream—to find a new place to live. And each person's different dream gave them different revelations.

The dreamers would then travel out of body in various directions to see the extent of the drought, and to ascertain the best direction the tribe could take in any necessary migration.

They would go out of body. You can regard the dream state as a kind of out-of-body experience within the dream. They would travel out of body to see the extent of the drought, and if migration was absolutely necessary, where they should migrate to, and whether the drought had reached the point where migration was truly necessary. This was an ability that people in ancient times possessed.

Their dreams were then shared in the morning, or at other gatherings.

When morning came, they would begin to tell each other their dreams. One person talked about the horse, another talked about the bird, another talked about all sorts of different dreamscapes. At that time, every dreamer would interpret the dreams that seemed related—people of that time were still quite spiritually attuned to dreams, and they could all interpret what meaning each dream contained, and they would find the correlations among these different dreams, and then these would give them some very useful information, telling them where they should migrate.

In the same fashion, other dreamers would check with dreamers in other villages or tribes, or in villages and tribes a hundred miles away.

There were also some people who would not only gather and communicate with the dreamers of their own tribe, but would also go to other tribes—for example, a tribe a hundred miles away, which would take a long time to reach, perhaps several days of travel in ancient times. Then they would go a hundred miles away to check face to face with the people of that tribe, asking what dreams you have had recently, and through this mutual checking of their own dreams, they would determine the direction of their migration or the condition of the surrounding environment.

All such dreams were extremely direct, while others appeared according to the dreamer's style and in symbolic fashion.

Some of the dreams were very direct, giving you the information right away—that in a certain direction there was water, or a place more suitable for living. Others did not appear in such a direct way, but appeared in various symbolic forms—the bird, the horse, the wind, and so on that I mentioned earlier. But in any case, the dream was understood to have, besides a private significance, also a public significance—that is, the shared search for a new water source or a new habitat.

News Broadcast and the Dream Backup System

Seth is talking about dreams from the social point of view. Are the dreams of modern people also like this? Yes, they are. He will go on to say that our dreams are the same, only that we have not noticed this part. This is still applicable today, still the case.

Although the dream body itself has been forgotten, we still do this today.

We do not seem to do it through dreaming; we do it through other means, but it is similar.

For example, in the morning news, television news gives you a manufactured dream, and to a certain degree it technically achieves the same purpose.

Modern people may not have as deep an understanding of dreams, or as deep a feeling for them, as early people did, but modern people use other ways, technical ways, to replace what tribal people in ancient times did when they got up early in the morning and talked about their dreams. For example, watching the morning news together. This phenomenon is very common, and it is like this in many countries. The morning news has the largest audience. For example, in China there is also Oriental Horizon, which starts at six or six thirty in the morning and runs until around eight, which is when most people go to work. At that time it focuses on all kinds of national and global news, political news, all kinds of news. When we are all watching this news, you are actually creating a shared dream—because this news is seen by everyone, right? Everyone sees the news from all over the world, just as if people all over the world had had a dream the day before and dreamed about what happened. Now it is not a dream; the news plays this role for you. Those ancient tribes would have a morning dream meeting; now you no longer attend the morning dream meeting, but instead you attend some kind of global news broadcast. So morning news everywhere around the world serves this role. Sometimes you do not watch television, then on your way driving, or on public transportation, you read or listen to this kind of global or regional news on your phone, and this behavior is just the same as dreaming together with others.

Early humans would not send photographers and news people to the farthest corners of the earth to gather news. On the contrary, he sent out a double of himself, or an out-of-body image of himself, to gather news.

In ancient times it was like this. Now these global news reporters act as a double for each person—because we no longer need our own doubles; they are equivalent to our eyes, equivalent to this double of ours, telling us what has happened in various parts of the world and shaping it into a dream drama. In ancient times people shaped dream dramas in this way: for example, Zhang San dreamed of this and Li Si dreamed of that, and then they gathered it together. Today, photographers and reporters tell you that this happened here and that happened there. It is the same principle, and it accomplishes the same thing.

So often the greater part of this material does not need to be conscious; humanity responds to it unconsciously and turns it directly into action.

When you watch the morning news, you do not especially need to turn it into something conscious; just listening is enough. Humanity responds to this kind of thing unconsciously and turns it directly into action. Although you do not pay special attention to any particular news item, you still take it in, and then in actual actions you will act on it. For example, after hearing some recent news—the situation in Europe, the situation between Ukraine and Russia—even if you feel that you do not care about it, when you come across certain matters your actions will respond to it. For instance, you will naturally avoid some risky investment behavior, some operations in stocks and funds; you will become more conservative, and with some wealth-management products you will adopt relatively conservative measures. This is because this news has produced this effect on you.

This kind of dream is now only regarded as a backup system.

Modern people also have the kind of dreams that tribal people in ancient times had, but it has become a backup system, not a main function. Because through the news we can achieve the same effect, we no longer depend on those dreams. We do not get up in the morning and ask the people around you what they dreamed—first ask family members, then ask colleagues at work, or ask the old man guarding the gate of your neighborhood, saying, what dreams have you had recently, did you dream that a thief came into our neighborhood and stole a car, and so on. You no longer ask these kinds of questions, because you can find out whether anything similar has happened through the homeowners' group chat on WeChat, or by watching your local news—maybe not in your own neighborhood but in another one. So you no longer rely on dreams; you rely more on this modern information network.

Once they are needed, they begin to rise to the surface.

We do not rely on dreams so much anymore, but if the modern information network is not sufficient to provide us with enough of this information, then this dream ability is always there, and this function has always been there. It is just that you feel it is not important, so you set it aside as a backup system. When it is needed, this dreaming thing is activated again.

Their purpose is to increase the value fulfillment of humanity and of the individual.

Whether it is that dream or that gathering of information, its purpose is one thing—to increase the value fulfillment of humanity and of the individual. What does this have to do with individual and human value fulfillment? It does have something to do with it, because it provides you with basic information about what other people are doing and what has happened in other places. Therefore, for your personal development and for the development of humanity as a whole, it plays a role in synchronizing or updating information.

Happiness and Value Fulfillment

Psychologists often talk about human needs.

This mainly refers to Maslow's theory. His thing doesn't actually have real significance. He just found some elite children, and according to his own ideas, he organized it all out. Whether from the perspective of psychology or from the development of human civilization, it doesn't have real significance, because that thing itself had no real research or investigation in it; it was just a way of thinking that he personally had.

I want to talk here about human happiness—because value fulfillment is an obvious characteristic, namely the effect of happiness.

This sentence is very important; you must remember it. When you don't know what value fulfillment is, just do the things that make you happy, do the things that bring you joy—as Bashar said, follow your highest joy within. Why? Because this is an effect or a result of your value fulfillment. Joy, the highest joy, is the place where your value fulfillment resides.

Human beings and nature are not so intent on satisfying needs.

Human beings and nature, from an instinctive level, are not actually so intent on satisfying needs. For example, according to Maslow's analysis, people have this need and that need, from the most basic survival needs all the way up to the highest self-actualization. But people will not do many things for the sake of needs. What does that mean? From the many levels of needs, pick any one at random—everyone has a need to be respected, right? This need to be respected is one of the basic human needs, though of course it is relatively higher up. But people will not truly be driven by this need to go do something; that driving force is very weak. For example, the highest human need, according to Maslow, is that people want to realize their own value, realize the meaning of life, transcend themselves. But is that a need? It is also one. But will people constantly do things in order to transcend themselves? No, except for a very small number of people who will do so, the vast majority will not.

Seth points out incisively that people—not just people, but including nature—will not do anything or take any action for the sake of wanting to satisfy some need.

But they do indeed vigorously and freely pursue happiness, and through following their happiness, each organism also finds and satisfies its needs.

Seth points out incisively that the main driving force behind all human behavior is the pursuit of happiness, the desire to please oneself. This pleasure can also be understood as a kind of pleasing, a kind of pleasing oneself, making oneself happy. Making oneself happy is an inner root of action that many people have not discovered. And when you follow this inner joy in your behavior, when you go do things, it automatically satisfies your needs, satisfies your needs at all levels.

Let me put it more bluntly. We go eat, not because we will die if we don't eat, not because we need to satisfy this need to eat—the need to survive. We eat because after eating this thing there is a sense of pleasure; it is delicious, and the joy, the pleasant state while eating it will lure it, will urge it, will motivate it to eat. There are many people who love eating who will drive very far, even one or two hours, trekking over mountains and rivers to a place, just to eat one bite of the thing they have been longing for. Do you think it is because if they don't eat this, their quality of life will be affected, or their nutritional content will be insufficient? No, they just want to eat it, they like eating it. So through this you probably understand that needs are not the core driving force; pleasing yourself, making yourself happy, is.

But in the experience of life, what is involved goes far beyond the satisfaction of needs.

In your life experience, you are not done once you satisfy your needs; what you want more is happiness.

For life everywhere possesses a desire toward quality—a quality that acknowledges the affirmative characteristics of happiness itself.

What is meant by the quality of life? What kind of quality of life do we aspire to? We can all affirm that happiness is a basic quality of life. No one in the whole world has any doubt about this, right? What is the essence of life, or the characteristic of life, or the characteristic of the quality of life? It is happiness. It cannot be said to be the only one, but we cannot deny that it is the most important one among the qualities of our life. So we will have a desire to pursue happiness, and this is pursuing the quality of our life.

In your terms, there is great happiness in both work and play, in excitement and in quietude, in using physical strength or in resting without using physical strength.

Seth says happiness is not what you think, that you must be in some particular state to be happy. He says there will be happiness in all of these. There is happiness in work, and there is happiness in play; excitement brings happiness, and quietude brings happiness too. When we use our physical strength, for example when we exercise, we are also happy. When we do nothing and just sit quietly resting, there is also happiness. Remember all of this.

Yet the very word happiness is often smeared, and frowned upon by so-called virtuous people.

The moment happiness is mentioned, it is easily smeared. People say, what gives you the right to be happy? Why are you happy? What achievements have you made? What qualifications do you have to be happy? Did you get first place in your class, or what? Why are you so happy? Look at your grades—can you still be happy? From childhood, parents have suppressed our happiness. All this happiness is said by those moral people, those cultivated people, those refined people to be something we should not have; they say you should have a sense of responsibility, you should have such lofty ambitions and ideals, you should do this and that. Therefore happiness in our society, in this world, in some so-called morally strict societies of propriety, is not promoted.

You know, Maitreya Buddha, we all know he is the one with the smiling appearance, right? Big belly, smiling appearance. He is telling us that we should laugh; don't all assume that as soon as you mention Buddha it must be like Shakyamuni. Of course there is also the Bliss Buddha; in Tibetan Buddhism there is the Bliss Buddha, depicting the joy and happiness during the union of male and female, which is also not understood or accepted by many people.

Therefore, clearly recognize the essence of happiness, and draw an equal sign between happiness and value fulfillment. In this way, we will be more relaxed and more at ease in the process of life, and will not be burdened by such heavy baggage.

More on the Creativity of Dreams

So one of the main purposes of dreaming is to increase man's pleasure -- that is, to increase the quality of life itself.

Increasing pleasure is increasing the quality of life, and increasing the quality of life is value fulfillment. So now you understand, when he tells you what dreaming is for -- what is it doing? A great deal of dreaming is about increasing pleasure. The pleasure you cannot get in reality, you can get in the dream state.

Dreams are a richly creative drama, combining mental activity and play, psyche and emotion.

You can think of dreams as a kind of creative drama. They combine many things -- they combine mental activity and play, and also the rich creativity of psyche and emotion. Putting all of this together, it is a creative drama.

As in dreams you begin to play with versions of events that are being considered for physical actualization, as in dreams you see, on a personal level, the probable events that will be actualized by your family, your tribe, your organization, your community, and your nation, then dreams also involve you in the most productive of enterprises.

To put it simply, your dreams are there to make you happy. And dreams are like a drama, with all kinds of performances inside. This performance combines all sorts of things, including your personal, familial, tribal, and so on. Your personal events, your family events, and collective events are all in there.

Rob's Notes

This session was very short. As Seth hinted in his opening remarks tonight, he did have some material for us, even though Mrs. Roberts had already made clear that she was not interested, and that material contained some surprising things -- see Note 3.

Jane really did not want to talk about his private matters, did not want to talk about the guilty self anymore; he wanted to talk about class material. But he said Seth did include some of these things in it.

First, look at Note 1. Rob said that recently he had asked Jane whether Seth could give them some information about consciousness related to nuclear energy -- this was a fascinating question he had always wanted to ask, one he often speculated about. And Seth promised him that he would discuss this matter soon. Rob thought that Seth's material would surely include many original insights delving into the whole subject of consciousness and energy in general, as well as the role of consciousness in events like the Three Mile Island accident. This was what he wanted Seth to talk about, but as it turned out, Seth did not talk about it in this session.

Rob also mentioned that not long ago Seth had said that as physical creatures, we humans cannot endure directly facing the fundamental, vast, unimaginable, awe-inspiring, and creative consciousness of All That Is. Since we cannot face the vast consciousness of All That Is in the flesh, and since we also cannot endure facing the tremendous natural power of nuclear energy, Rob often wondered whether this situation could be a worldly, imperfect, or time-bound analogy of the inevitable reality of All That Is.

Rob's question is very peculiar -- I cannot say bizarre, but it is very peculiar. Seth once said that the consciousness of All That Is is something no other consciousness can comprehend, or cannot look at directly, cannot face. What "cannot face" means is that the creativity of All That Is is too strong, too vast, too deep, too great -- and that greatness is not just about size -- and no single consciousness of ours is sufficient to understand it, or to feel it. You simply cannot meet it face to face; you cannot face All That Is face to face, because the thickness, breadth, and depth of its consciousness is something no other consciousness can face. What does "cannot face" mean? Many people cannot understand it. It is not that you are very different from it; it is that it is too big and you are too small. You are a drop of water; it is the ocean. Between you and it, although you are a component of it -- the ocean is made up of drops like you -- when a single drop of water goes to face the consciousness of an ocean, then you truly cannot face it; you cannot understand the entire consciousness of the ocean.

What Seth meant is that nuclear energy is also a force of nature. Humans seem to have control over it, yet also seem unable to control it -- for example, in an incident like the Three Mile Island leak, it was not controlled. The power of nuclear energy is so great -- could this be analogous to the power of All That Is being so great that we cannot look directly at All That Is, and we also cannot look directly at nuclear energy? This is Rob's personal thought.

Rob wrote a note. Six years had passed since Jane relayed the passage he was trying to recall, which was taken from Session 747 on May 14, 1975¹⁰. He found that he had first quoted part of that session in Session 742 of Volume 2 of The "Unknown" Reality. Basically his memory was quite accurate. Yet upon rereading Seth's material, it came to him like a revelation.

He told Jane that he did not think anyone else could ever have said it as well as Seth did -- through Seth, he expressed the core of his mystical knowledge. This is the following passage:

All That Is creates his reality as he goes along, each world with its own impetus, yet all ultimately connected. Remember that the true dimensions of a god's creativity would be unendurable for any consciousness no matter how important...

On the Magnitude of All That Is' Creativity

Rob said this passage is excerpted from Session 747, May 14, 1975¹⁰:

The true magnitude of a god's creativity would be unendurable to any consciousness, no matter how important.

The "god" here refers to All That Is. It means the magnitude of All That Is' creativity is so vast that no consciousness, being with it, could comprehend it. That spark is infinitely dimensionalized; the spark of creativity is of infinite dimensions.

It is always eager, and with each moment of a cosmic breath, worlds spiral outward, and the separation of many worlds is necessary.

The "cosmic breath" is not the breath of a person. He compares each breath of All That Is to the creation of countless worlds. One breath of All That Is creates countless worlds, and each world is different—not identical worlds made over and over. There is our three-dimensional world, and there are four-dimensional worlds, and countless three-dimensional and four-dimensional worlds, five-dimensional worlds, endless realities. All of this, all of it, is accomplished within a single inhalation and exhalation of All That Is.

If All That Is can do this within a single breath, how do you communicate with him? Our universe—humanity hasn't even finished exploring it, hasn't explored even one percent of it, let alone anything else. All That Is creates countless universes between breaths. How could you possibly reach a state of equality with him on the level of consciousness, or even a state of normal exchange? It's not that the two of you cannot communicate—it's that his volume of information is too vast. He has nothing to say to you, and you have nothing to say to him.

And individual and collective understanding always grows at such a pace that All That Is reproduces himself every microsecond, establishing past and future, and other time scales you do not know.

All That Is reproduces himself every microsecond—using the character for "reproduce," not the one for "value." Within a single microsecond, past and future are established, as well as time scales that cannot be described in terms of past and future.

Each in himself is a reality, in himself carrying his own potentials, and no individual consciousness has ever been lost.

Every individual in himself is a reality. For an atom, it has its own reality; for us, we have our reality; for the Earth, the Earth has its own reality; the same holds for the stars and the galaxies. Every consciousness carries its own potentials. Even the smallest atomic consciousness has never been lost; all are within All That Is.

This chapter is trying to tell you this: the magnitude of All That Is' creation transcends the space of human imagination—not the space of your ability, but the space of your imagination. You cannot even imagine it. For example, if he can create a hundred thousand galaxies within one microsecond, how are you supposed to imagine that? A single galaxy spans a hundred thousand light-years, and the entire universe humanity can currently observe has a diameter of 93 billion light-years¹¹. And yet our solar system—the farthest space probe humanity has launched still hasn't left the solar system.

So you say, let's have a chat—All That Is, tell me what the truth of this universe is, can you enlighten me? There's no way to enlighten you. You understand at a speed you can handle, word by word, sentence by sentence. Suppose All That Is could speak to you for one minute at a speed you could comprehend—then for All That Is, our universe might already have been born and destroyed many times over. So to try to fathom or comprehend the magnitude of All That Is with the magnitude of a single consciousness—they are simply not on the same level, not on the same scale.

Rob's point is this: if All That Is has such immense power that a person cannot look upon it directly, then what if we substitute an analogy from nature—on a small scale, the power of nuclear energy is also infinite for humanity. Is our human understanding of the power of the atomic nucleus just like our understanding of All That Is? That's what he's getting at.

Violence Is Also Creation

Note 2. Jane and I sometimes together, sometimes separately, listened to recordings of students from his ESP class. Before Rob had sorted out his own thoughts on the role of consciousness, he heard the following two passages transmitted by Seth, which immediately reminded him of what he had just been writing. The first quote is from Seth to the ESP class students on November 3, 1970¹²:

Violence will always be used creatively, and even if you try to destroy, you cannot do it — beyond that, at the same time, the violence you inflict is actually inflicted upon yourself.

What does this mean? Violence is actually also a kind of creation. We think violence is destruction, right? Violence is all about destroying. In English, creation and destruction are two completely opposite words. But Seth says: when you exercise violence, even if you want to destroy, want to wreck, what you are actually doing is another kind of creation. This is something many people cannot understand.

Seth says let us not discuss this issue for now — because on this issue, violence is actually also good, it is also a kind of creation. What we want to say is, beyond this issue, when you go and exercise violence, although it is a kind of creation, you must understand: this violence will be inflicted upon yourself. From a spiritual perspective you will not be judged, nor will you be criticized — I am not talking about the realm of law and morality in real society — but you must remember one thing: the violence you inflict outward is all inflicted upon yourself.

You are a part of All That Is, of all the nature that you know and experience — all the world you know, and even a part of the world you know or do not like.

Why is it all inflicted upon yourself? When you inflict violence, is there not an object upon which it is inflicted? That object is also a part of All That Is, and you are also a part of All That Is. When you inflict violence upon a part of All That Is, you are actually inflicting violence upon yourself. You think the violence you inflict on others will come back to you — because you are a part of nature.

If you tear off a fly's wings, you yourself will have less of something. If a person deliberately, with malice, steps on an ant and kills it, then to the degree of that malice, you unknowingly step on your own back.

Violence will always be used creatively, but if you do not understand this, at your present rate of development, then any violence is a violence against yourself.

Seth says: violence should be used creatively, but you humans at your current stage of cognition have not yet reached that level. You will not use violence as a creative energy. When you do not yet know how to use the creativity of violence, then this violence will inflict violence upon yourself.

This applies to each of you, because when you think of violence, what you think of is malice or aggression. No matter what anyone does, he cannot truly cause any destruction, but when he believes in destruction, then to that degree, he degrades his own nature, and must necessarily work harder at using creativity.

What he means is that violence actually cannot destroy anything, cannot change anything. If you believe violence can destroy, then what violence destroys must be a part of nature — whether it is a person, an army, a warehouse, or a school, all are parts of nature. And you are a part of this whole of nature. When you believe the whole of nature has been destroyed, does that not mean you are degrading yourself as having been destroyed? Your own nature actually cannot be destroyed, cannot be wrecked, but if you believe it has been destroyed, then you are degrading your own nature. And then you have to redouble your efforts to create, to make up for it — whatever is broken has to be fixed. But the thought behind your redoubled efforts to create is that you believe you have been destroyed, have been wrecked.

The Nature of Action

Rob said that most of their recordings were dated, but he did not know why the recording below this section had no date. He estimated that Seth gave this information to a group of visitors attending a session sometime in [\1974[^13]].

All action is creative and repetitive.

Seth said: This is the only way I can make these concepts understandable to you. Actually, the concept goes much deeper than this. What does "repetitive" mean? It means action never stops; it is always there; it is eternal. Action is not what you think it is — that once this action ends, it is gone. Action is always present.

All energy is individualized. When you see atoms and stars, you are looking at simultaneous action.

Let me explain what "simultaneous action" means. Atoms and stars are completely different things to you, and their respective movements are also completely different — their magnitudes and everything are not the same. But if you can see atoms and also see stars at the same time, that means their actions themselves are simultaneous.

What are stars made of? The sun is made of atoms. The movement of the entire star and the movement of the atoms — different in scale, different in size, seemingly with nothing in common — yet the movement of the atoms ultimately forms the movement of the star. Without the movement of these atoms, there would be no movement of the star. So he is saying: when you can look at the nature of action from both the most microscopic and the most macroscopic scales at the same time, you will be able to understand that action is creative and eternal.

Here "action" is a very abstract core concept, not the movement of objects as we ordinarily understand it. In the early sessions, there is a great deal of material specifically devoted to the concept of action — roughly half a book's worth discussing action and its attributes.

When you think of the past and the future, you are looking into the past and toward the future at the same time.

This sentence is also not easy to understand. What does it mean to look at the past and the future at the same time? Because we generally think that I can only look at the past, or look at the future, or look at the present. Seth's meaning is: the past and the future together form your present. The point of your present is formed by the past and the future together. When you look at the past and the future, you are simultaneously looking toward the source of time and the end of time. Just as you looked at atoms and stars a moment ago — through the microscopic and macroscopic of space, through the source and end of time, he is telling you: action is always creative and repetitive.

The next sentence is even more interesting:

In the landscape of the brain, you are trying to see the landscape of the mind.

What does this mean? When you think about problems, although you are thinking with the brain on the physical level, what you are actually looking at are nonphysical things — your mind, and the mind is half conscious and half unconscious. To put it in plain terms: every thought in your brain — some really do come from the brain, and some come from other times and spaces — all kinds of intuitions, inspirations, emotional leakage from parallel space-times, and so on. Those parts you normally cannot explore with your consciousness, but they surface into your mind, giving you the chance to see them. So he says: in the landscape of the brain, you are trying to see the landscape of the mind.

You do not perceive the consciousness within yourself.

Can you feel the consciousness within yourself? You cannot feel it. What you can feel are individual thoughts, individual ideas. Can you tell me the operating mechanism of your own consciousness, just like the operating mechanism of a computer? Any artificial intelligence, no matter how smart, is composed of algorithms and programs. Can you list the program of my inner consciousness and tell me how it operates? No. You cannot even perceive its existence. What you perceive are the thoughts and ideas that come after this inner consciousness has finished operating.

Nor can you perceive the consciousness within a star.

If you cannot even be aware of your own inner consciousness, then how can you be aware of the consciousness of a star? He says this in order to tell you the reverse: stars also have consciousness; you just cannot feel it. Because you certainly believe that you have an inner consciousness — whether or not you can feel it, you cannot deny its existence. So a star has its inner consciousness, and you cannot deny that either.

Yet the star is another kind of consciousness, materialized in your reality.

For example, the sun — the sun is the materialization of a higher-dimensional consciousness in the three-dimensional world. That consciousness wanted to become a luminous, heat-giving star in our three-dimensional world, so it formed a materialization in our physical world. When the consciousness behind that star materialized into the three-dimensional world and formed the sun, you have perceptions of the sun — warmth, radiance, the source of human life — and these perceptions are all correct. But the higher or different consciousness that existed before its materialization — that you do not understand.

Why did Seth place this passage here? He wanted to emphasize one point: all action is creative, and the nature of action is eternal. Rob placed these two passages together for discussion — from the social level discussing violence and creativity, and from the nature of action discussing action and creativity. He wanted to tell you: violence is also a kind of action, and the nature of action is creativity.

Jane's Guilty Self

Note 3. Seth began speaking this part at 9:07 p.m. -- the original dictation had ended, and what followed was a discussion of Jane's personal issues, so Rob placed it in Note 3.

Your earlier comment about Jane, that the guilty self is pertinent, was to the point.

What he meant before class was this: Rob said, "The more Seth and I discuss Jane's guilty self, the stronger the guilty self's defenses will become, and the more it will want to protect Jane, to protect Jane in its own way." If that happened, it would cause the illness to actually worsen, and the help Rob and Seth were giving Jane would have no effect, because it would all be undercut by the guilty self.

Here you see the two sides of the matter. When you want to resolve a core belief, you must bring it out into the open. But when that core belief is too strong, bringing it out is tantamount to provoking it, tantamount to startling the snake in the grass. It keenly senses that you intend to clear it away, so it rises up in resistance, strengthening its defenses and its aggression. At that point it becomes even harder to deal with.

Again, remember that the designation of the guilty self is a method of identifying certain attitudes, and those attitudes are indeed changing.

The so-called guilty self is merely a combination of attitudes -- the ways you approach certain things. And attitudes can be changed. It is not the case that once you bring it out, there is no hope.

In the case of our book, Ruburt himself was worried about your attitude.

What was Ruburt worried about? Ruburt was worried about Rob's attitude -- worried that Rob feared they were spending too much time discussing Jane's personal issues, such as the matter of the guilty self, and that this would delay the completion of the book. Jane's entire concern, to some extent, blocked his creative process, which in turn made him even more tense.

The main issue here, again, was that sense of responsibility. So whether he was writing or doing anything else, it was because he loved to do it, not because he should or had to do it. That applied to Seth's books, and it applied to his own books as well.

Why did Jane no longer want to have private sessions, and instead began sessions for this book again? Because she did not like Rob and Seth constantly bringing up the guilty self. Her guilty self had begun to resist, to put up a fight. Seth had already spent three full months, using a very gentle approach -- not blaming the guilty self, but simply helping her to understand and recognize it -- speaking about it slowly. In the end, Jane's attitude was: do not bring this up anymore, I do not accept it, or I do not want to discuss it further; let us talk about the book instead.

Why did she want to continue with the book? Seth's meaning was this: Jane was worried about Rob's attitude. Jane could sense from within that Rob was afraid the book would not be completed -- they had already discussed this for over three months, and the book had been interrupted for over eight months. Jane was afraid Rob had such thoughts, so she said, "Let us discuss this" -- she was not saying she did not want to continue discussing the guilty self; she was afraid Rob had such thoughts.

But here you see where the problem lay. In fact, the guilty self had already been discussed a great deal -- three months of discussion was more than enough. Yet look at how patient Seth was, spending a full twenty-five sessions¹³ on this matter. And during those three-plus months, Jane had ample time to make the corresponding adjustments -- but after recognizing the guilty self, she did not make those adjustments. In the course of this, the guilty self, on the one hand, had the intention of defending itself, and on the other hand, under the banner of "fearing Rob would worry that the book could not be finished," shifted the focus and emphasis back to the book, deftly steering the discussion away from further exploration of the guilty self.

This seemingly natural turn of events -- seemingly a good thing to return to the book, allowing the book to continue -- in its result led to Jane once again missing an opportunity for thorough change. As for which reason was primary -- whether she genuinely wanted to write the book, or whether she wanted to escape discussing her own problems, or whether it was out of concern for Rob -- we cannot say. But Seth immediately said it directly: it was because she wanted to write the book, because she loved doing it, not because she was considering Rob. It was not because something had to be completed that the book was continued; it was because she loved writing the book.

Ruburt became overly serious, overly insistent upon that picture, as you do at times, so that the affair seemed hopeless.

Both Jane and Rob were overly insistent upon and concerned about Jane's illness. And this excessive insistence and concern made the matter seem hopeless, and the evidence before their eyes showed no signs of improvement -- which further reinforced the belief that "the illness would continue to worsen."

That kind of projection perpetuates that kind of condition, that projection of an unfavorable future. Such projection is dangerous. You do indeed get what you concentrate upon.

The more you concentrate upon this illness, the more you worry about this illness, the more severe the illness becomes.

I have tried to break up that concentration of yours, and have indeed succeeded at various times. Creative changes therefore showed in all areas, including Ruburt's condition.

Seth said: You have a great mass of concern and anxiety about this matter. I have tried to divert it or break it up, and these efforts have indeed had effect at times, including visible improvement in Jane's body. But now, the old habits have returned.

And even with all of your combined good intentions, the idea of bringing things to a crisis point is still far more disadvantageous than it might appear.

This sentence is quite convoluted; let me explain it. Jane did have some genuinely unfavorable physical symptoms -- for example, she could no longer bathe herself -- but these symptoms were real, yet nowhere near the point of crisis that was irreversible, irretrievable, unchangeable. It was not the case that from then on Jane's body would steadily deteriorate. But your thinking believed it had reached that crisis point, believed that Jane could no longer care for herself, believed that Jane's body had reached a stage where reversal was impossible. And that kind of thinking on your part was extremely dangerous.

This does not mean that such a method does not work at times.

Today's situation does not prove that these methods -- including bringing out the guilty self, including analyzing it with her -- were unsuccessful. You cannot use Jane's current situation to prove that these methods are ineffective. But on the whole, it is a difficult method.

And in that regard, with the greatest honesty and clarity, I can only tell you what I have said before.

Seth said: I am telling you, with the greatest honesty and clarity, what is really going on with Jane's illness. I will no longer gloss things over. He had previously done some glossing over, saying Jane would get better, that Jane would improve more and more -- those were all things said to smooth things over. Today I will tell you the plain truth.

However it may seem in certain instances to be largely unfounded, basically speaking, when you cut it down in your mind, when you rid it of its importance in your mind, or in other ways turn your attention away from the illness, the condition does lighten.

Let me say something real and practical: when you stop focusing on this matter, when you find ways to reduce your focus on it, when you tell yourself, "Things have not gotten that bad" -- after all, she can still eat and sleep, still has basic mobility, can still paint -- if you keep focusing on the unfavorable aspects, such as being unable to move, unable to bathe, unable to go out alone, then the condition will certainly worsen. When you turn your attention away, the symptoms will actually lighten. It is that simple.

But it is easier said than done; it really is very difficult in practice, which is why he said it is a difficult method -- not that there is no method.

The point, of course, is not to project negatively into the future.

The core point is this: do not project these unfavorable beliefs into the future in a negative way. Because if you do, you are asking for trouble. You set up a very unfavorable future for yourself, and then say, "I do not want that future" -- but the more you focus on that matter, the more that unfavorable future comes about.

Even though the physical condition is presently obvious, at least you can realize that while these confront you with a certain kind of evidence, that evidence can indeed change.

You see the body's condition worsening; these are evidence, and Seth acknowledges that they do exist. But that does not mean the evidence cannot be changed -- it can be changed, and it is changing.

Once you understand that the evidence, while present, is not inevitably the only evidence available.

The genuinely bad physical conditions are indeed present, but that does not mean they are the only evidence you can obtain. There is plenty of evidence of improvement -- why can you not see it?

In each stage, the body is filled with health and vitality.

Including Jane's current state -- you can see from her descriptions: she was still painting, still writing, still proofreading manuscripts, still continuously transmitting the Seth material. Although her body had reached such a degree of illness, that health and vitality had not been taken away from her.

Those laws will not change. Ruburt is safe, and is protected. Those affirmations are extremely important now.

What laws? The law that "in each stage, the body is filled with health and vitality" -- this law will not change. This belief must be deeply implanted into Jane's inner being, to replace those beliefs such as the guilty self and so on -- these are extremely important for her.

Seth said the session was over -- the lecture was over, and he cheerfully said good night.

Seth had indeed done and said everything that needed to be done and said. What remained was for Jane to take corresponding action, and Rob should also help her take the action that followed.

Regarding the "crisis point" -- what Seth mentioned was that Jane and Rob had both been trying to help Jane, persistently going around in circles; see the opening remarks of this session. Rob said: "I had not realized that Jane was worried that I would think she should give up work on the book. I had not imagined that Jane would worry about me, thinking that I would be afraid she would abandon the book to focus on our private material. But I quickly made it clear to her that I had no such intention." Rob told Jane: whether the book could continue was not important; if you feel you need private sessions, if you feel you need to resolve your personal issues, if you feel you should obtain more private material from Seth -- then no matter how much, it is all fine. This was something the two of them likely communicated about further afterward on this issue, reaching some mutual understanding.

注释与核实

1. Source: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Backgrounder on the Three Mile Island Accident" (https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle) ↩

2. This claim could not be verified. ↩

3. This claim could not be verified. ↩

4. Source: World Health Organization, "Radiation: The Chernobyl accident" (https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/radiation-the-chernobyl-accident) ↩

5. Source: Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China, "Wen Jiabao Presides Over a State Council Executive Meeting to Hear a Report on the Response to the Nuclear Leak at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan" (2011) (https://www.mee.gov.cn/ywdt/hjnews/201103/t20110317_207005.shtml) ↩

6. This claim could not be verified. ↩

7. Source: The Washington Post, "Iranian Firing Squads Execute 149 Members of Leftist Group" (1981) (https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/09/21/iranian-firing-squads-execute-149-members-of-leftist-group/d418a1ee-8a70-43b4-b403-5fe612472df2/) ↩

8. Source: China Islamic Association, "The Standardized Text of the Quran" (https://www.chinaislam.net.cn/web/jxsx/b/content_4770.shtml) ↩

9. Source: Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government Investigation Team, "Report on the Investigation and Handling of the 'Feng County Woman Who Gave Birth to Eight Children' Incident" 2022 (https://www.zgjssw.gov.cn/yaowen/202202/t20220223_7431590.shtml) ↩

10. Source: Mary Dillman, "List of Seth Sessions" 2016 (https://sethresearchproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/SessionListforInternet4.pdf) ↩ ↩²

11. Source: European Space Agency, "The Universe" (https://www.esa.int/kids/en/learn/Our_Universe/Story_of_the_Universe/The_Universe) ↩

12. Source: Jane Roberts, "The Early Class Sessions: Book 2" (https://www.scribd.com/document/997680684/The-Early-Class-Sessions-Book-2-a-Seth-Book-the-Seth-Sessions-Held-in-Jane-Roberts-ESP-Class-in-Elmira-NY-1670-Jane-Roberts-Robert-F-Butts-Z-l) ↩

13. This claim could not be verified. ↩