Mike's commentary · The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 21

The "Introduction" and "Chapter Highlights" of this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike during his lectures. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Guide

This chapter revolves around affirmation, love, acceptance, and denial. Affirmation is the acceptance of your present life, your unique individuality, and your physical existence; it is not the same as resignation or weak acceptance, and you can also say "no" to people and things you dislike. Emotions themselves have no good or evil; hatred and love share the same source, and hatred is an attempt to win love back. Suppressing hatred and aggression creates a sense of powerlessness, and violence often stems from powerlessness. Only by loving yourself can you love others; false modesty and self-sacrifice are not virtues. The Christ message likewise points toward affirming individuality; affirming yourself can open up a broader mind, and you may receive guidance from your future self.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Affirmation is the acceptance of your present life, your unique individuality, and your physical existence; it is not resignation or weak acceptance.
• Emotions themselves are neither good nor evil; hatred and love share the same source, and hatred is an attempt to win back love.
• Suppressing hatred and aggression creates a sense of powerlessness, and violence is often the result of powerlessness.
• Only by loving yourself can you love others; false modesty and self-sacrifice are not virtues.
• Affirming yourself can open a broader mind and may allow you to receive guidance from your future self.

Main Text

Today we continue with Chapter 21 of The Nature of Personal Reality, "Affirmation, Love, Acceptance, and Denial."

He says he is giving us a longer stretch of time, because this session continues from the latter half of the last session of Chapter 20. Seth begins a new chapter, Chapter 21, titled "Affirmation, Love, Acceptance, and Denial."

Affirmation means saying yes to the life you are living, and accepting your unique personhood.

Affirmation means saying yes to the life you are living right now. No matter what state your current life is in, you must first accept this present life. That is the first step. As for how to change it, how to make life better, that comes later. The first step is to affirm your present life, to say yes to the life you are living right now. And accepting your unique personhood means the ways in which you differ from others. In other words, your present life is what you chose before. If you want your present life to become better, you can create that in your future life through your beliefs.

Affirmation means embracing the life that you possess and that flows through you.

Your affirmation of yourself is your greatest power. This affirmation is your greatest power. Be sure to remember that.

Your affirmation of yourself is your greatest power.

You can at times quite legitimately deny certain portions of your experience while still affirming your own vitality.

This is very important to note. Affirmation does not mean that you must passively accept everything that happens. That is not what it means. He says you can at times quite legitimately deny certain portions of your experience, and still affirm that you are vital. You do not have to say yes to people, problems, or events that make you uneasy. You have no need to say yes to people or things you do not like. There is no such need.

Affirmation does not mean a bland, weak acceptance of anything that comes your way.

This is very important to note. It does not mean accepting it and saying, I am very detached, I am very Zen, my state of mind is already very calm, I will not have any emotional changes, my heart is as still as water. That is not what Seth means. If you have emotions, you should feel them and express them naturally, rather than saying you have no emotions.

Physically, affirmation means health.

You go along with your life, understanding that you form your experience, that you yourself form your own experience, and emphasizing your ability to do so. This is a little different from what you may ordinarily understand affirmation to mean. You need to understand what affirmation of yourself means in this context.

Affirmation does not mean sitting idly by.

Affirmation is definitely not sitting idly by, saying I cannot do anything, because everything is in the hands of fate, and I can only resign myself to destiny. This is a misunderstanding many people have. They say, I have already studied spirituality, so there is a higher self behind me, and my entity behind me as well. Why should I exert myself? They have already chosen everything for me in Framework 2, they have already arranged everything for me. I am just a tiny physical existence. What is there for me to struggle for, to strive for? Can my arm twist the thigh? Can I twist the arrangement of fate? So here Seth directly refutes this view. He says no, affirming yourself is not resigning yourself to fate. Be sure to remember, affirmation does not mean resignation. It does not mean saying, then I will just accept the arrangement this present life has given me. My life is already arranged, so I will just proceed according to this predetermined path. He says that is not what it means. You must understand it is not the opposite.

Affirmation is based upon the knowledge that no other consciousness is the same as your own, that your abilities are yours alone, and unlike any others.

You are different from others. You are unique. Therefore you must affirm yourself.

Affirmation is the acceptance of your personhood in the flesh.

You must accept your present body, your present existence.

Basically it is a psychic and physical necessity, representing your appreciation of your own extraordinary integrity.

It also represents your own uniqueness, an appreciation of yourself.

Atoms, Cells, and the Body's Trust

An atom can take care of itself, but the atom itself is somewhat like a domesticated animal. When they join the biological family of your body, to a certain degree, it becomes a friendly cat or dog under your command.

Just as animals pick up the characteristics of their owners, these little pets will pick up some of their owners' characteristics. We say that the bird reflects the person who keeps it, right? You can tell the owner's taste by looking at the dog they keep. Why? Because the pet picks up some of its owner's characteristics. His use of "pick up" is quite interesting.

Cells also accept the influence of your behavior and beliefs.

Cells are the same; they are also influenced by your beliefs.

If you affirm the legitimacy of your physical existence, then you help the cells and organs within your body, and unintentionally treat them kindly.

First you must affirm, that is, you must accept the legitimacy of your physical existence, that is, your physical body, the legitimacy of your body. If you do not trust the nature of your physical body, the inherent reasonableness and legitimacy of your body itself, you will also radiate this feeling outward.

If you do not trust the nature of your physical body, you will also radiate this feeling outward, regardless of what health measures you take.

If you do not trust your own body, if you hate your own body, you radiate it outward. And regardless of what health measures you take, no matter how you maintain your body, if you do not trust your own body, it will not work; you will have no way to make your body healthier.

Just like animals, cells and organs also know that you do not trust them.

Just like animals. What do we mean by animals? If you do not like your cats and dogs, do your cats and dogs know? They know. If you do not like your pet, does your pet know? It knows. When you are very disgusted with it, when you hate it very much, your pet can immediately sense it, and its reaction is completely different from the feeling a pet has when you really love and adore it. Since your pet knows when you do not like it, then if you do not like the cells and organs in your body, do the cells and organs in your body know? Of course they know. And if you do not like your cells and organs, will the cells and organs in your body work properly? In other words, if you do not like your pet, will your pet treat you well?

In certain respects, you turn antibodies against you.

The so-called antibody is a biological term. Antibodies resist external invasion; they are directed outward, not inward. But because you do not like yourself, because you hate yourself and are angry at yourself, what happens then? Then you are mobilizing the immune system in your own body, your own antibodies, to attack your normal cells, to attack yourself. Very frightening, right? For example, with the novel coronavirus, some people get it. Why do some people die so quickly in the end, or there is not even time to rescue them? It is because at the very end, when the immune system discovers that all immune measures are ineffective, the immune cells launch a final attack, the kind of attack that is a fight to the death, preferring to be shattered jade rather than intact tile, that is, an indiscriminate attack on all the body's normal cells. They are also called cytokine attacks¹. Once this cytokine attack¹ is activated, your normal body cells cannot withstand it. So many people in this situation, among the death cases from the novel coronavirus, many are because the immune system, under the condition that it itself believes all measures are ineffective, launches this kind of all-out attack on the body, an all-out attack on its own normal body. It wants to use this indiscriminate attack, that is, a do-or-die battle, exerting the greatest, strongest aggressiveness, to kill the virus as well. If at this time you can be rescued, or you can pull through, or through other auxiliary drugs you can make the aggressiveness against normal cells less strong, then you can pull through. If you cannot pull through, in many cases the person was still eating and having steamed buns at 11 a.m., feeling that maybe they would be discharged in a few days, and by 1 p.m. the person may already be gone. The cause is actually this kind of immune system attack. So you know that the intensity of the immune system's, of the antibodies', attack on yourself exceeds your imagination. Do not think it is just whatever; its strength is very great. If its strength were not great, how could it protect you? How does your body protect itself? So when you hate your own body, when you do not like and do not trust your own body, he says it is as if, from a certain angle, your body's normal immune system begins to attack your body's normal cells. So you begin to get sick, and this sickness is also hard to treat, because you are also dealing with yourself, hitting yourself, so how can others help you? It is precisely because you do not affirm, you do not affirm the legitimacy of the physical body existing in time and space. This is all because of not affirming that.

There are many actual cases. Such cases are not many, but they do exist. For example, a few days ago I heard about a case. Someone said that a friend of his went out shopping. After he came back from shopping, he had worn a new pair of shoes out. After he came back, his feet hurt terribly. After he came back, guess what he did? He sat there and cursed his own feet: "Why are you feet so useless? Why are these feet so delicate? Why do they hurt no matter what shoes I wear?" After just those few steps, he began all kinds of slander against his feet, against his own body. People like this are rare, and then the friend next to him was stunned, dumbfounded. What is going on? There are still people who treat themselves like this. Yes, such people are rare, but they do exist. If you observe life carefully, you will see them, but this is certainly not right.

Saying "No" and Individuality

Sometimes you can very appropriately affirm your uniqueness by saying "no."

You have to learn to say no. Saying no does not mean denying yourself, saying no to yourself. It means saying no to those people you do not like and those things you do not like.

Individuality gives you the right to make decisions.

You do have this right. You have the right to decide what you like and what you do not like. In your terms, this refers to saying "good" or "not good" -- that is, whether a thing is good or not good.

Perpetual acquiescence implies a denial of your own individuality.

That is, perpetual acquiescence -- whatever others do, you say fine, fine, fine. Everything is fine, fine, fine. Especially many people who have just started learning spirituality, who have learned halfway but have not yet fully understood it -- they say, I must accept myself, accept the present, accept my current situation, accept the people around me, accept all things. All things are arranged, all things come for me, all things are meant to help me achieve and assist me. All the people who make me unhappy and challenge me are people who come to help me, and so on. I should thank them, bless them, and so on. These theories and ideas are not wrong in themselves, but if you always do this one-sidedly, even when strong emotions have arisen in your heart, when you are already very angry, very disgusted, very repulsed, and you are still persuading yourself, saying I must accept them, acquiesce to them, affirm them -- then what are you doing? You are denying your own unique individuality, denying your own uniqueness and individuality. Later you will understand why this is so, because at this point you will hold a view: you will think that a noble soul, or the soul of a person who studies spirituality, should be peaceful, should be joyful, should be perfect. It should not get angry, should not be furious, should not be this or that. This is what many people think.

Then Seth says, "I hate." He gives an example. Someone says, I hate this, this, and this; I hate so-and-so; I hate such-and-such a thing; I hate such-and-such a thing to death. Just like the person earlier said, if you hate your feet, why not hate the shoes instead? Just change your shoes and that is it. Can you change your feet? Since you cannot change your feet, you might as well change your shoes. It is that simple. When you say "I hate," the person who says "I hate" at least still has an "I" that can hate. He at least still has a self, still has a unique self, still has a self that can hate other things. But if someone says, I have no right to hate -- some people say, I have no right to hate, I cannot hate others. In many extreme religions, they will tell you: do not hate others. They tell you that greed, anger, and ignorance all must be eliminated. This anger means: do not have greed, anger, or ignorance; do not have arrogance. Note what he is pointing out here. He is telling you -- what is he doing? You eliminate anger, and there is no more hatred in your life. What does having no hatred mean? You say it is a good thing. It proves that my Buddhist cultivation has reached a certain level, that my observance of precepts has reached a certain level, that my inner shame and my own cultivation have reached a certain level, that I no longer have greed, anger, or ignorance. No more hatred. Well, is having no hatred correct? No, because you have even lost the "I" itself. You have thrown away the "I" along with it. Therefore you have not faced your own individuality. But from the Buddhist system's perspective, it is a self-contained system, self-consistent. It says: you need no-self. No-self is the first stage of your current practice. The first stage is to practice no-self right now. If you cannot even let go of attachment to self, then how can you continue? Every day you are still dragging along your own thoughts, your desires, your ideas, your attachment to self -- you still cannot let go of it, so how can you continue? If you cannot let go, then how can you continue practicing? So from that angle, Buddhism is correct. It wants you to discard individuality. It does not want you to have individuality. It does not want individuality to exist in you. You should be uniform. You should return to the state your soul is supposed to have, that state of great unity, of unmoving suchness. This is the concept and practice system of Buddhism. But think carefully: if it wants you to attain such a state in this reincarnation, then why send you down here? Before you came down, when you returned to the source of your soul, when you returned to that higher state, to the root of All That Is, then in that state, were you not in the state of unmoving suchness? Of course, that unmoving suchness is not really "nothing moving." It is the state from which all things arise out of nothing. We do not need to go into this further. The principle that form is emptiness and emptiness is form -- that unmoving suchness is not what you understand as nothing at all. Within that unmoving suchness there is everything. The meaning of All That Is is that it has everything. What is All That Is? In Buddhism, All That Is is emptiness. The Buddhist emptiness is All That Is, because emptiness means having all things, which is why it is called emptiness. Emptiness is definitely not nothing at all. You must be clear about this: emptiness means having all things, which is why it is called emptiness. All right. Since you came from there, and you came into this three-dimensional reality to create, to experience, to go through experiences, then if you say you still want to return to that state, then why did they send you here? It is like this: you belong to a company, and they send you on a business trip, to a certain place to handle business. You say, I do not need to handle anything. What business should I handle? Is the pursuit of our lives only about making money? If you say that to them, are you not asking to be fired? Who does that? You would be fired within a day, right? Your entity sent you down here precisely to experience. It sent you into this human world precisely to go through experiences. You say, no, I will not experience, I will not go through experiences, I cannot give rise to any emotions, I cannot have any anger, greed -- I cannot have anything. So this is where Buddhism's understanding has its limitations. It is limited right here. It denies the legitimacy of our physical existence, denies the validity of our existence in the human world, denies the importance of our experiences and our going through experiences in this human world. It denies all of this. It only asks you to pursue things of the soul. But it does not tell you what the things of the soul are. The things of the soul are livelier, more active, more exciting, more ecstatic. They are only more intense and more exciting than your current physical body. But I do not know how to put it -- actually, you have seen the surface appearance of those people, but you have not seen their inner ecstatic creation in another reality space. Let us continue. There is a distinction of levels here, a distinction of stages.

A person who knows hatred also understands the distinction between that emotion and love.

A person who knows hatred knows that hatred and love are not the same.

The animal's own ambiguity, by contrast and similarity, allows the free flow of its emotions.

What does he mean here? It means that our human emotions come more directly, and they are incompatible, and they -- I do not know how to describe it -- they use one to negate another. The boundaries are defined very clearly. Unlike animals, whose emotions are ambiguous, and can be compared -- this one and that one, this owner and that owner, it compares them. But it will never say, this owner is good and that owner is bad, and assign a fixed nature to an owner: this owner is stingy, that owner is generous, this owner gives me good dog food, that owner often makes me skip meals, combining three meals into two. Animals' cognition of these things is ambiguous. Their emotions are also ambiguous. Through many comparisons, or similarities, or affirmations -- through such a method, they treat emotions this way. But we humans are very clear and distinct about such emotions. I hate this person, I love that person, and so on. Of course, there is also the state of mixed love and hate. Later he will talk about the inner connection between love and hate. But what I mean is that we humans often define emotions very clearly. This emotion -- I am not only referring to romantic feelings between men and women; emotions in daily life are also very clearly defined. Between love and hate, a person often can only choose one side, like a child playing house. He will not take a neutral attitude: I cannot say whether I love or hate this person. Yet many of us are like this. Toward their own parents, they either love them to death -- loving, kind, filial to the extreme -- or they hate their parents to death, as if the parents owed them something, as if their childhood life is the cause of all their current misfortunes, all their current dissatisfaction, all their present unhappiness. They can find the cause in their parents and blame their parents for how they were treated in childhood. This is a typical example of how our love and hate are so clearly defined. Actually, you have never thought that your feelings toward your parents contain both love and hate. Between hate and love, it is mixed love and hate. Or some people have no hate, or whatever. Such emotions are very hard to define clearly. But we humans are often black or white, good or bad. This is our characteristic, the characteristic of us humans: good and bad. Seth mentioned "good" or "not good" over there -- not good means bad. We often say good and bad. Actually, we do not realize that emotions, in many respects, on the emotional level, have no distinction of good or bad. They are just your current state. It is like asking: does weather have good or bad? Of course, you will decide that rain is bad and sunny is good. That is what you think. For Africa, rain is good weather. For arid regions, nothing could be better than rain. So this is a typical example. Do you think weather has good or bad? No. Only when you think it is good is it good; only when you think it is bad is it bad. Weather has no inherent nature at all. You define it. So the animal's way allows its emotions to flow freely. But many people deny the experience of what they consider negative emotions and try to affirm what they consider positive emotions. They do not allow their own animalistic emotions to flow. What is the flow of animalistic emotions? It is that ambiguous way, that way of not distinguishing love and hate. They pretend not to feel what they perceive. They deny the wholeness of their own experience. In other words, people think: this experience is good, this emotion is positive, so I accept it; that negative emotion, I throw it far away, wishing it were not mine. They themselves make a distinction between positive and negative. In this way, they deny their entire wholeness. As a human being, you are bound to experience both the positive and the negative. If you only choose to experience the positive, then a part is missing. If you observe animals carefully, you will also see this. For example, with some animals, if you get angry at them, or they are mischievous and you scold them or reprimand them, after a while they will play happily with you again. They do not hold grudges. Generally speaking, unless you really strike them hard, unless you really hit them, animals do not hold grudges. They will turn around and play nicely with you again. But humans are not like that. If you harshly scold a person, if you scold a person the way you scold your pet, I estimate that person will not speak to you again for many days. This is just a typical small example.

Emotion and Belief

Your emotions follow your beliefs.

This is what he said earlier: emotions follow beliefs. Emotions do not come out of nowhere — you must understand this, you must think it through clearly. When an emotion comes, there is always a belief behind it.

They are the naturally changing states of feeling, each leading into another in the natural flow of energy and activity.

He means that emotions are the naturally changing states of feeling. The changing states of feeling are what we call emotions. Each emotion, within the natural flow of energy and activity, leads from one into another — rich and colorful. Your emotions are just this rich, just this colorful. If you leave them alone, they will automatically move from one emotion to the next. If you insist on managing them, if you insist on blocking them, stopping them, grabbing hold of them, then that emotion may get clogged up by you or affected.

The colorful variety of emotions brings changes to the quality of consciousness.

Without the coloring of emotions, our lives would truly be bland and flavorless, with no interest at all. If all that remained was the consciousness in your brain, with no emotions or feelings in it — just think, what would your life be like then?

The state of the personality can be compared to color alone, bright and dark, always representing intense patterns of moving, living, changing energy.

What he means is that colors are rich and varied, changing in endless profusion, just as each person's personality is also constantly changing — and that is normal. Your feelings flow naturally, and the natural flow of feelings automatically brings emotions. It is as natural as nature itself being full of color.

They are a method by which the consciousness that is attuned to the physical body comes to know itself.

This sentence is very important, but many people may read past it in the Seth books without knowing what he means. Yet this sentence is extremely important. Do you remember in our Robot User Manual², and in the Practical Manual for Living in Abundance³, both mention this point. What is the main function of emotion? It is a signal, a standard for checking, a testing device. Emotion is the most effective and most obvious testing device for judging whether you are aligned with your own inner self — and it is the simplest and easiest to use. If you are always in emotions of joy, excitement, satisfaction, peace, and happiness, that proves you are aligned with your inner self, that your ego and your inner self are in agreement. If your emotions are off — low, sad, angry, all kinds of such emotions — that proves you are not aligned with your inner self; there is pulling and contradiction. Then you should quickly notice and quickly adjust, adjust your belief system, so that your ego and your inner self can become aligned. So the function of emotion is very great. He mentions it here: this sentence means they are a method by which the consciousness attuned to the physical body comes to know itself. Emotion is a method for you to know yourself. Know what about yourself? He does not expand on it later, but it means knowing whether you are aligned with yourself — whether your physical body, your inner self, and your beliefs are in agreement. At this point you may recall the two videos I made earlier about how to align with your inner self. If you watch them again carefully, you will understand — the role of emotion in the middle is extremely great. You cannot deny it; do not reject it. It is useless — you simply cannot reject it.

They are not destructive, and one emotion is neither good nor evil.

Emotions are not destructive. One emotion is neither good nor evil. Emotion itself is neither good nor bad. Just like the weather I mentioned earlier — you cannot say the weather is good or bad. Emotion is just emotion. Remember this firmly: emotion is just emotion. There is nothing else to it; it does not carry all those rich inner meanings that you impose upon it. It is just emotion. Happiness is happiness, sadness is sadness, pain is pain, anger is anger. Very simple — emotion is just emotion.

They are an element of the power of your consciousness, filled with energy.

Emotions bring energy. Remember firmly: they are an element of the power of your consciousness. Remember firmly: emotions have no distinction of good or bad, but no matter what kind of emotion it is, there is energy behind it. It comes carrying energy — in fact, it is filled with energy. See, he already says it here: filled with energy. Remember that emotion is filled with energy, and you must learn to use its energy. That is, when you especially love doing something, when you are especially happy doing something, mobilize the energy of that emotion. When you especially hate something, hate some matter, mobilize that energy too. We often say "turn grief and indignation into strength" — is that not exactly this meaning? Turning the emotion of anger into a kind of strength — it is the same, because it comes in with energy behind it.

When these emotions are undisturbed, they can merge into a "sea of power" of existence.

It constantly adds to the sea of power of your existence, adding strength to your sea of power. It is energy. So some people are full of energy every day — their energy is very abundant. That is because they keep giving to themselves; they do not block it, letting the energy flow naturally.

If you affirm one emotion and deny another, you will set up a barrier.

If you say this emotion is good, I should encourage it; that emotion is bad, I deny it — don't come, don't come, this emotion is bad, it is a bad emotion, I really dislike it. He says that at this point you have set up a barrier. Emotion is like flowing water, and you have built a dam to block it.

You try to hide what you consider negative feelings in a secret chamber of the heart.

It is like in ancient times, when people would lock their insane relatives in the cellar, in a secret room. Both in China and abroad there was this tradition: if there was a mentally ill person in the family, a madman, they would lock him up and not let others know, feeling it was a great disgrace. If such a person appeared in the family, they felt the whole clan was disgraced, so to avoid disgrace they locked him up in a secret room. He says that we humans lock away our negative feelings inside our hearts just as we lock away our sick relatives. You think the negative emotion is bad, so you want to lock it away.

All of this is because you do not believe that your physical body is an aspect of your personhood.

The reason you do this is that you do not believe those negative emotions are a natural part of your physical body, and the physical body is an aspect of your personhood. It is natural. You will naturally have what you call positive emotions and negative emotions. In fact, emotion itself has no distinction of positive and negative. Emotion is just emotion — remember this sentence firmly. Seth emphasizes it again and again: just like the weather, weather is emotion, emotion is weather. When it comes, it comes. Today it rains — oh, then let it rain. Just enjoy the rainy day. As for songs about rain, I think if you look through songs from ancient and modern times, from China and abroad, there are far more songs about rain than songs about sunny days — I don't know how many times more. Rain inspires people's creative desire. Look at how many songs there are about rain: "In the Rain," "The Rain Keeps Falling," all kinds — Jacky Cheung's "Breaking Up Is Always on a Rainy Day," and so on. There are so many songs related to rain; I won't list them all. "Scenery in the Rain" — that's a very old song — and so on. Now let me ask you: ask you to sing a song about sunny days — how many can you think of? "The Sun Comes Out, Joyful and Bright" — you can think of that one, right? What else? "The Sky in the Liberated Area Is a Bright Sunny Day" — seems like that's about it. Anyway, I can't think of too many songs related to sunny days. So it doesn't matter whether there are any — sunny days and rainy days are both normal. When a sunny day comes, it's like, oh, great sunshine, let's go to the beach, let's sunbathe, let's play and frolic in the sunshine. A rainy day has the good things of a rainy day. All kinds of good things: stay home more, read a book, listen to music, or hold an umbrella in the rain and take a walk with someone you love — these are all very good things. And the sound of rain itself has a strong healing effect on people — do you remember? On a rainy day, just the pitter-patter of the rain itself can make a person's heart quiet down at once. Its healing effect is also very strong. Your emotions are exactly the same as the weather — exactly the same. When they come, they come. Oh, you're here — today I'm angry, so be angry. See what you look like when you're angry; your angry face is quite amusing. After a couple of days the emotion of anger leaves — it leaves, so let it leave. You can't pull at it: don't go, don't go, stay angry for two more days. If it leaves, it leaves. Whatever emotion it brings, it will naturally bring another emotion. No need to manage it. It is always one after another — after overcast comes partly cloudy, after partly cloudy comes sunny, after sunny comes partly cloudy again, after partly cloudy comes rain. Emotion is like the weather: always one after another, never stopping its change, and you cannot stop it. Why? Because it brings energy. If you block emotion, you block energy. Many people without emotion — for example, many spiritual practitioners — block all their own emotions. They categorize their emotions, whether into the seven emotions and six desires or whatever, and divide them very finely. Then one by one they cut them off, using all kinds of methods and means, one by one cutting them off. After cutting them all off — for them, of course, they themselves feel as though they no longer have emotions, and can quietly go practice, go study. But their inner drive is also gone. Their vitality is also gone. Their energy is also gone. That is why you see those monastics, or some people who have not truly attained liberation or enlightenment, who have just begun monastic life — what you see on them is that kind of, how to say it, that feeling of having no energy, no warmth. Lukewarm, neither hot nor cold. They may be pursuing that kind of state, but you also know that they themselves do not have much energy on them. They do not want to display their energy either.

Affirmation is accepting your own soul as it is in its animal nature.

What affirmation means is that you accept your own soul, just as the soul is in its animal nature. What does that mean? Affirmation is accepting the legitimate existence of your body. He has said this before — in Chapter 7 and Chapter 9 he discussed this issue. What issue? That you cannot deny your biological existence, the animal nature of your physical body. When he says animal nature, he means biological nature. You cannot deny your biological existence. You cannot say: I only deny my animal existence, and at the same time I have not denied my soul. Impossible. Nor can you deny only your soul while not denying your animal nature. The two are inseparable. In other words, when you deny your emotions, deny your body, deny the naturally flowing emotions like those of other animals, what happens? You are not just denying the behavior of your physical body. Many spiritual practitioners say: I am denying the behavior of my physical body, I am denying the behavior of this lump of flesh, but I am not denying my soul — my soul is noble. My inner being is noble. How can you on the one hand despise your own body, and on the other hand believe in your own soul? The two are originally one. Your physical body is a manifestation of the soul in three-dimensional reality. In other words, your physical body is your soul — your beliefs created it according to their own image. If you deny the existence of the physical body, you deny the legitimacy of the soul. The two are one. That is what he means by this sentence.

Session 673

Next let us look at the following session, Session 673, which was the class on Tuesday evening, June 27, 1973. He continues from the previous part, because the middle is continuous, he is talking about one thing.

The Relationship Between Hate and Love

Left alone, hate does not last long.

What does "it" refer to when he says "left alone"? It refers to hate. If you do not interfere with this hate, hate will not last very long. It is like the weather: it cannot rain forever. Just let it rain. You might say, "Oh, the rain in the south has been so heavy lately, it has rained for a whole month." Well, let it rain for two months, let it rain for three months and see. It cannot keep raining.

Often, hate is a close cousin of love.

The two are one and the same. Many of us know this: love and hate intertwined, hate born from love.

Because the person who hates is drawn by a very deep attraction to the object of his hate.

He is saying that if you hate someone, that person must have deeply attracted you. If this person had no real connection with you, you would not hate them. Would you hate a total stranger? No.

Hate can also be a method of communication, but it is not a stable, constant state.

Remember, hate is a method of communication. But it is not a stable, constant state. Hate is not the norm. Remember, it is not the norm, and if you do not interfere with it, it will automatically change, and the hate will disappear. It changes automatically. Just leave it alone.

If you believe that hate is wrong, and then you find yourself hating someone, you may try to suppress that emotion, or turn it against yourself.

This is normal. If you leave it alone, it changes automatically. This opening passage has already laid out the core point, and what follows explains it bit by bit. If you believe that hate is wrong, that is your viewpoint: that it is evil, that it is bad. And then you find yourself hating someone, so you may try to suppress that emotion. Why do you think it is bad? Is it bad to hate someone? Right? That is the meaning. Or turn it against yourself. You think hating someone is bad, that you should not hate someone, so then hating myself should be fine, right? Hating others is wrong, but hating myself does not bother anyone else, and I am not hurting anyone. So when this emotion cannot be expressed automatically, cannot be expressed naturally, this emotion of hate has no outlet and cannot be released. It will strangely turn its gun around and attack yourself.

It will rage against the self rather than against another.

Many people in life encounter situations where others bully them, and they endure it again and again. They do not fight back, they do not resist, they do not snap back. After bottling it up for a period of time, they begin to hate themselves: so useless, so cowardly, so incapable. Why could I not just say no at the time? Why could I not express my anger at the time? Why did I not tell the other person about my hatred and disgust? Why did I let them bully me again and again, using their negative emotions to affect me and disturb me? And then you transfer the hate you had for them onto your own head. We often say that punishing yourself with other people's mistakes is exactly this. Someone else made a mistake, you should blame them, but you did not say anything to them, and instead you turned around and tormented yourself. That is the meaning.

On the other hand, you may pretend that he does not exist.

There is another possibility: you pretend it does not exist. There is no hate. I do not hate anyone. That emotion of hate flashes by, and you immediately strangle it, nipping this hate in the bud. I do not hate anyone, I do not hate others. How could a spiritual practitioner like me hate others? My heart is full of compassion and love, so how could I hate anyone? I would never hate anyone. You hide it away.

In such a situation, you dam up that torrential energy and cannot use it for other purposes.

Originally, this hate carries energy behind it. If you use it well, this energy itself, if you use it well, it is also useful. Energy is neither good nor bad, and hate itself is not a bad thing either. If you believe hate is wrong and bad, that is why you obstruct it, prevent it, stop yourself from hating others. Since you have stopped yourself from hating others, you either cannot see this emotion, and if you cannot see it, then this energy cannot be used. You dam it up, block it, build a dam and pen it in. You cannot use this energy, and this energy is wasted by you for nothing. This refers to the case where you cannot see it, where you pretend you cannot see it. In the case where you attack yourself, the energy is not dammed up; it is used, but used where? Used on yourself.

In its natural state, hatred is a powerful motivating quality; it can initiate change and action.

Hatred itself is a powerful motivator. Hating a person, hating a thing, hating something, is very normal. It can initiate change and action. Only when you hate something will there be change. For example, if you hate a person, you can break up with them. If you hate a thing, you can stay away from it. If you hate your job, you can quit that job, and so on. These are all the motivating qualities, the change and action, that hate can bring. It is the driving force that brings action.

Regardless of what others may tell you, hatred does not initiate strong violence.

Others will tell you that hate is bad, that hate can lead to violent action, that violence is caused by hate. Seth says you must remember this: this is the opposite of all social concepts. Seth says, no matter what others tell you, no matter what sociologists and psychologists and everyone else tell you, that hatred is strong violence, he tells you it is not. He emphasizes here, telling you that you must remember that this viewpoint is wrong. Hatred does not bring about the so-called strong violence that others tell you about.

The outbreak of violence is often the result of a sense of inherent powerlessness.

He says, as we discussed earlier in this book, the outbreak of violence is often the result of a sense of inherent powerlessness. Violence, on the contrary, is not brought about by the energy and power behind hate; violence is often the result of a sense of powerlessness. He talked about this earlier. Remember, in the previous two chapters, he specifically discussed how this sense of powerlessness leads to violent behavior and crime. In the chapter where he discussed prisons and criminals, he specifically talked about it. In Chapter 17, Session 662, or Session 663, in both of those sessions he discussed how this kind of hate represents that sense of powerlessness.

Many who unexpectedly commit major crimes, or sudden murders, or even cause mass deaths, often have a history of docility and conventional attitudes, and are considered models of good behavior in fact.

Many who commit major crimes and sudden murders are like this. I saw an example a couple of days ago, a typical one. In 2014, a major murder case occurred in Japan: a 17-year-old girl killed her mother and her grandmother, her maternal grandmother, all of them⁴. This is a very typical case. In the end, the small city where she lived had only a little over 8,000 people⁵, but after the murder occurred, the local court received more than 12,000 petitions⁶ requesting lenient treatment for this child, petitioning on her behalf, saying she should not be punished. So in a small town of just over 8,000 people, there were 12,000 signatures, which shows that many people from nearby towns drove there specifically to make statements to the local court. Why? Because this child was normally too outstanding. A 17-year-old Japanese girl, too outstanding. From the age of five, she took on almost all the household chores in the family. But her mother and her grandmother, especially her grandmother, who was the main one, tortured and abused her to the extreme. That is how it was. You can go look up that history, look up that case. It was a very tragic thing, very, very tragic. You can find the specific details yourselves. In any case, this 17-year-old girl was pushed to the point where she had no choice. Finally, one day, she directly killed her own mother and her grandmother at home. After killing them, she used a knife to cut and hack, all kinds of cruelty beyond description. But no one ever imagined that this was something a 17-year-old girl could do, someone who was normally well-behaved, one of the top students in her school. There are many cases like this. I think if you all pay attention to social news, you can see them. So Seth is telling you here: those who truly commit serious crimes, violent acts, major cases, or kill many people on a large scale, are usually models of good behavior in everyday life. You cannot tell. Including in America, there are many cases of people shooting others with guns, or firing into crowds. In many of these cases, it is not that the person was normally a gangster or a street thug. Such people are actually rare. It is rare for such people to take large-scale revenge on society or kill people. You will find that those who take large-scale revenge on society and kill innocent people are actually people who are normally well-behaved. Many people will say, "Oh, how could he have done this? He was usually such a nice person, got along great with his neighbors, was always good to people in our community. How could he have done this?" Well, this kind of thing is exactly what this type of person does. Why? Seth has already made it very clear: this type of person has a deep sense of powerlessness, an inherent sense of powerlessness. This inherent sense of powerlessness drives them to use violent means to demonstrate their power. They feel they must display their power. As for true hate, well, we in China have long known: a barking dog does not bite. It is the dog that does not bark that bites. It is the same principle. Those who are constantly yapping, or who normally run with gangs, like in Stephen Chow's movies where there are those who collect protection money and so on. These small-time thugs may seem very arrogant in everyday life, bullying the common people and terrorizing the neighborhood, but these people really cannot pull off any earth-shattering major crimes. They are just making noise. Because their aggression has already been released in everyday life: today they curse this person, tomorrow they curse that person, always grumbling and cursing, they have already acted out their aggression. But it is precisely those whose aggression has not come out in everyday life, those who are especially meek and honest, whom anyone can bully. Regarding this, there are some domestic films that have been portraying this, like The Bad Kids and so on, and some others. There are many films like this, all portraying a person who is normally very well-behaved and obedient, who suddenly begins to do things that are utterly unimaginable. They use this kind of contrast in TV dramas to show this change and the influence of society on the person. Actually, Seth has long since explained this issue clearly from the perspective of human nature. It is their inherent sense of powerlessness that leads to violence. So I want to emphasize this again: everyone must remember, hate and anger do not bring violence. True violence is brought about by a sense of powerlessness. You must remember this.

In their natures, all components of natural aggression were denied, and any temporary feelings of hatred were considered wrong or evil.

In their natures, there can be no aggression. Any temporary feelings of hatred were also considered wrong or evil, not allowed. Not even temporarily allowed. Any expression of it was not allowed.

The result is that such people finally find it difficult to express the most normal negations, or to go against the codes of conduct they were given and the respected rules of behavior.

He discovered that normally, saying no is very normal, right? Saying no is very normal for us. But some people cannot do it; they do not dare to say no. Saying no is too difficult for them. Even the most common expression of negation becomes difficult for them to express. Or going against their natural laws: what law? The right to say no. The right to express my anger, express my hate, express my dissatisfaction. None of it is allowed. In everyday life, they are not allowed to do this, and they themselves also tell themselves they cannot. So they remain obedient all along, seemingly harmless to society, but that is very frightening.

In terms of expressing objections, they cannot communicate with others in a way that even animals can achieve.

This is too frightening. Animals know that when they are dissatisfied, for example, if you bully your family dog, try it: when it gets angry, it will really bite you. Depending on the degree, when it is mild it is fine; it knows you are playing with it. Cats are the same. When you play with them, they generally will not. But if you truly threaten them, they will really extend their claws. And dogs will really bite people. Between dogs, between animals, it is the same: when they are dissatisfied, they bark, they will fiercely charge forward. Puppies too, they charge right up to the other animal's face. What are they doing? They are expressing their own anger. What Seth says here is rather harsh. Even animals have this basic right to express their anger and express their dissatisfaction. Why is it that when it comes to humans, this is stripped away? Why does our society, our education, tell us that hating someone is bad? That expressing anger is bad, that expressing aggression is bad? Why must it be labeled as bad? Is this not the most natural, purely natural thing? Is this not the most natural thing? Yet you force them not to express it, not to say it, not to communicate their anger normally. They just hold it in, hold it in. I have told you about the energy of emotions. It is so great it exceeds your imagination. Did I not talk about this before? A girl's emotion of heartbreak. The energy can be so great that it could push a rocket to the moon. The energy is that great. It is much greater. These are Seth's original words, not mine; these are Seth's original words. Think about it: it is just the emotion of heartbreak, and it is that great. If from childhood to adulthood, decades of this anger cannot be expressed, emotions cannot be communicated, and no negative opinions can be expressed normally, then you can imagine how enormous that accumulated energy would become.

Psychologically, only a great explosion can set them free.

When this kind of suppression goes on for a long time, psychologically it becomes this kind of result: only a very great explosion can set them free. Otherwise, they will collapse. So when some people reach that extreme point, why do they commit those unimaginable, extreme major crimes? Because they have no choice but to do so.

They feel so powerless, which further aggravates their predicament, so they attempt to use violence to demonstrate great power and liberate themselves.

They feel powerless, and it becomes even more difficult. So they attempt to use violence to demonstrate great power and liberate themselves. Their goal is liberation. In Chapter 17, Seth already made it very clear: this is a very powerful force. He has already equated this with a kind of survival pressure, saying that if I do not do this, I will die. If I do not kill you, you will drive me to death. Whether it is society, school, teachers, friends, relatives, boyfriends, parents, grandfathers, grandmothers, you will kill me. They will rationalize this behavior into a challenge to their own survival. So they do it, because they feel it is for survival. If others are going to kill you, you will naturally fight back. It is the same principle. They feel this is justified.

War and the Sense of Powerlessness

There are some such individuals, model sons, for example, who rarely talk back to their parents, but who are suddenly sent off to war, and are given this freedom of action, to release all these emotions in battle.

He starts talking about America, saying that some people are normally very well-behaved, and at home they do not dare talk back to their parents. In America, the upbringing of children is actually even stricter than in China, sometimes. In China you often see children bickering with their parents, talking back, being cheeky in all sorts of ways. In America, before the teenage years, children do not dare talk back to their parents as casually as Chinese children do. If the parents tell him to go to bed, he obediently goes to bed; if they do not let him watch TV, he does not dare watch TV. So many model children do not dare talk back at home. Then, because of the war, they are sent off to fight. And are given this freedom of action. In the English original, this word means full authority, fully authorized. To release all these emotions in battle. To release these emotions on the battlefield. What emotions? That kind of anger, that kind of being suppressed by the parents, not daring to talk back.

Then I am referring particularly to the last two wars, that is, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

The Korean War from 1950 to 1953⁷, and then the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1973⁸. I am not referring to the Second World War, so the first Korean War, that we know very well, because China was one of the participants, and we are more than clear about this history. So I do not need to elaborate on it. For America, it was also a very important war. This was after the Second World War, and then there was another war, the Vietnam War with Vietnam.

In these wars, aggressiveness could be released, and the rules still had to be followed.

The rules of aggressiveness were still followed.

Yet these individuals must face the horror of having violently released their accumulated hatred and aggressiveness.

They had to face this horror, this violence, this anger. When he attacked the enemy, it would bring about that kind of bloody battlefield effect. The bloodiness of the battlefield, the missing arms and legs, the split-open bellies, the flesh and blood flying everywhere. This kind of bloody scene would frighten him badly. Why would it frighten him? First, the bloody situation itself would frighten him, seeing these results. That is the first thing that frightens him. Second, what does he find even more terrifying? What is more terrifying is that they would discover how they themselves could have such an enormous killing energy, such a terrifying energy. With such a great driving force, during the lulls on the battlefield they would think, how could I be such a cold-blooded killer? Even though I am on the battlefield, how could I be so brutal? So violent, so inhuman? Because this itself involves something about human nature, he would reflect on it. He would be afraid of that killing energy within himself. The first kind of fear is being shaken by the bloody scene itself. The second kind of fear is being afraid of this terrifying power within himself.

Then, when the war was over, they returned home, and the rules of behavior changed back to those of civilian life.

American society, if you have lived in America, you know that kind of very peaceful community life. War is very far away from them. Apart from seeing war in newspapers, on television, in the news, Americans themselves have never experienced war on their own homeland. Their civil war does not count, that is, the internal war. Apart from that, it has already been nearly two hundred years ago. In these two hundred-plus years, they have not experienced war on their own soil, so that kind of peaceful social life, that kind of stable life, has nothing to do with war. And those American soldiers who returned to their hometowns from the killing fields of battle. He once again returned to civilian life, and he could not release his own anger, those suppressed and repressed emotions, the way he could on the battlefield.

Then he clamped down on himself even more severely, as much as possible, once again.

Because he was afraid that his own power was too terrifying. He knew that within himself, this power existed like a demon. He knew because he had witnessed what the consequences would be if this power were released unchecked. He knew better than anyone, because you do not know, because you have not practiced it, but he had practiced it on the battlefield. So what does he do then? He would say, absolutely not. So he would clamp down on himself even more severely, at the slightest bit of anger or rebellion. Because he was afraid that one careless moment would bring about what came after.

Some individuals would behave like ordinary little people, very friendly, even expressing the luxury of emotion in an exaggerated way, and suddenly it was also strangled, and the sense of powerlessness relatively increased.

Very nice. Many soldiers, when they returned to their hometowns and communities, were very good. They contributed to the community, did charity work, helped their neighbors, and so on. Very friendly, even in an exaggerated way. You must remember that they would express the luxury of emotion in an exaggerated way, and this refers to where? On the battlefield. On the battlefield, he could completely obtain full authorization, freedom of action, right? On the battlefield, that means when you see the enemy, you kill them, without needing authorization from anyone, and that is called freedom of action. But when he returned to ordinary life, it was strangled again, gone again, and after it was gone, the sense of powerlessness increased again.

The beginning of wars between nations is also a sense of powerlessness.

Remember, this is also a sense of powerlessness. You must remember this. Seth is speaking from a higher perspective, from the perspective of human nature and from the level of the collective consciousness of nations and humanity. When two countries go to war, what is it more than anything else? A sense of powerlessness. This has nothing to do with their actual position in the world situation, or the power others have assigned to them, but is related to an overall sense of powerlessness, sometimes even regardless of which side holds world dominance.

This has nothing to do with their actual position in the world situation, or the power others have assigned to them, but is related to an overall sense of powerlessness, sometimes even regardless of which side holds world dominance.

This is not to say that as the world's number one power, he has no sense of powerlessness. For example, in the case of America, you might say, you are already the world's number one power, your military strength, your military economy, everything is number one in the world. So what sense of powerlessness do you still have? Why do you still keep going to war? Today you fight this one, tomorrow you fight that one. Where does the cause of this war lie? Of course, we set aside the political factors and the specific factors of each individual war, we are not discussing those. This time we are not discussing the specific justice of wars. We are not discussing that. We are standing at a higher level of humanity to discuss the topic of war itself. We must remember, we are not discussing the right or wrong of war itself, or whether it is just. Seth said, it is not that the side that dominates the world has no sense of powerlessness, it has one too. For example, now, let us start from earlier times. For example, at the very beginning, Germany, Germany in the First and Second World Wars⁹. We will not elaborate further, because elaborating would take too long, there is too much history. Simply put, Germany had a sense of powerlessness. Especially in the Second World War, after it lost the First World War, they signed many war reparations treaties, and those war reparations treaties were too harsh. Germany basically meant that for many years, everything they did was for war reparations, so the entire German society had a deep sense of powerlessness. They felt that we are working to pay war reparations. So when a leader emerged saying we should not be like this, the second war broke out again. Then we come to Japan in Asia. Why did Japan launch this war, why did it launch aggression? Among all Asian countries, I cannot say it is the smallest, but it is a relatively small country. Its geographical advantages do not give it the strength of a regional power, but it refused to accept that. It insisted on challenging, it insisted on becoming the hegemon of Asia. Its ideal state at the time was for Asia and Europe to be ruled separately. Germany and Italy would rule Europe, and it would rule Asia, it wanted to be the hegemon of Asia. We think, such a small country in terms of territory, with not that many people, and although its economic situation was relatively good, at that time Japan's economic strength was not that great either. Why did it have this feeling? It had a sense of powerlessness, it had a deep sense of powerlessness, because it felt that Japan's resources were limited. Sooner or later the resources would run out, and we Japanese people might have no way out. We are an island nation with limited resources. Our geography is also restricted, surrounded by sea on all sides, although in terms of daily life it feels very good. But the leaders with a global perspective, the more they looked at the map, the more stifled they felt, because if you look carefully at the world map, what kind of state is Japan in? And it is also in an earthquake-prone zone, a volcano-prone zone. It did not want this, it wanted to occupy a continent. It wanted to occupy a large landmass like China, a vast landmass like Europe, not just a small island. Not just living on these few islands, it wanted to live on this kind of large landmass, but it did not have one, so it had a deep sense of powerlessness. This sense of powerlessness led it to invade others, wanting to seize these resources and land, to possess all these things. So Japan was also based on this, including later why it went to war with America, it was also because it was blockaded. Although America did not directly enter the war at the time, it clearly supported the Allies, including the European countries led by Britain. It was blockading Japan's maritime cargo transport, and this blockade made Japan very uncomfortable, very distressed. Very painful, including trade embargoes, these economic sanctions, and so on, making it very distressed and painful, that feeling of being cut slowly by a knife was very painful. If you look at Iran and North Korea now, you will know that this kind of American economic blockade and sanctions gives people a feeling of suffocation. It is not the kind that gives you a quick end, it is slow, slow, slow. So under these circumstances, Japan had no choice but to declare war on America, attacking Pearl Harbor¹⁰, and so on. I am just giving a random example. Today we are not discussing the topic of war, and I am not an expert on war. I just want to tell you that, with the help of Seth's viewpoint, you can see that no matter what the two sides in a war are like, they all have their own sense of powerlessness existing in the middle of it. You must remember this.

In some ways I am sorry that this is not the place to discuss the Second World War.

I will tell you in a moment why he is sorry, because it was also a sense of powerlessness that erupted into mass slaughter. Just as I said, in the situations of these individuals, they privately follow the same path. That is to say, the Second World War was caused by the sense of powerlessness of these nations, leading to mass slaughter. For each individual, it is the same as the situation of the Second World War, similar, for each individual. That is, each of you can also trigger the causes of murders, or major crimes, or violent incidents. It is the same as the reason that Germany stirred up the Second World War at that time, which was caused by a sense of powerlessness.

The Situation of Veterans

I only want to point out, without going into any detail, that after the Second World War, there was a very strong nationwide effort in the United States to channel the energies of veterans into other fields.

Many people who felt powerless and went to war were given certain preferential treatment after the war, rewards, education, and benefits they had not had before. They had none of these before. After returning home, American veterans were extremely well treated, and even to this day there is still Veterans Day, commemorating veterans. Commemorating those who died for their country, there are two important holidays related to them. And in daily life, whether in their hometowns or in ordinary life, veterans are extremely well treated. For example, when buying a house, because I work in real estate, when buying a house it is very typical that if you are an active-duty service member or a veteran, when they buy a house they can have a zero down payment. They do not have to pay a single cent, zero down payment, and their interest rates are also very low, and some can even have zero interest, zero down payment and zero interest housing. For example, when they go to college, within some of their preferential systems, going to college is also free. And so on. For example, after they return to civilian life, their job placement is also given very high priority. For example, they will be given priority placement in the police department, civil service, that is, among what we call public employees. So they received very high treatment, and these people themselves had a sense of powerlessness. So this method could alleviate their sense of powerlessness. In the eyes of these veterans, they were given a way to obtain power, they obtained power, they received attention. In their hometowns they were also accepted as war heroes, as those who gave their lives for the country, who fought for the country. Although many people felt disillusioned, and many people felt very decadent and disillusioned after returning from war, within the overall national mood, within the whole of America, veterans were welcomed. This is absolute. American veterans are absolutely welcomed. Even to this day they still receive preferential treatment. For example, when flying, when boarding a plane, or doing anything, going anywhere to buy tickets, parks, amusement parks, any and all places, veterans have priority.

I am now making general comments about the wars we have been discussing, but there are obviously exceptions.

They are all making general comments, be sure to remember that. But there are obviously exceptions, there are certainly exceptions. I cannot say that it is always like this, but most people who were involved in the Second World War learned some things from their experience.

Most people who were involved in the Second World War learned some things from their experience, and each person in his own way recognized the personally ambiguous emotions involved in combat.

During the Second World War they learned some things, and they turned back against the will to violence. And each person in his own way recognized the personally ambiguous emotions involved in combat. That is, on the battlefield he would discover that although he was on the opposing side, he would kill the other side, kill his enemy. But after he killed the enemy, that intense, blood-soaked scene, and his own inner fear of that inner power of killing, made him develop a doubt about the justice of this war. This doubt about the justice of the war would lead to his ambiguous emotions. He should not have doubted it, right? This war was fought for the country and for justice, what is there to doubt? Right, you think there is anything to doubt about fighting for your country? To liberate your hometown folks, to protect this or that, to liberate humanity. This is the normal thinking of politicians, or of the ordinary people on the home front. But when you actually stand on the battlefield, when you have actually crawled and rolled through the battlefield for several years, when you see one by one the comrades beside you, friends, the people you liked most, close friends and comrades, die one by one on the battlefield, right beside you, directly blown apart with flesh and blood flying, missing arms and legs. That shock and that kind of thing, including when you go to kill the enemy, it is the same. That sense of justice and that kind of thing at that moment is no longer so important. At that point you begin to deeply consider the question of human nature. You begin to have deeper reflections, and not just a simple statement of fighting for justice, for this or that. So here you have to understand that these real cases on the battlefield would cause soldiers to have this ambiguous feeling. This is something that truly exists, just like the ambiguity of animals. It is not that once you label something as the enemy, then he becomes like someone who has gone berserk and will keep killing until all enemies are wiped out. It is not like that. Human nature is essentially the same as animals. Animals do not treat their enemies the way you imagine, killing them all off. They just drive the enemy back and that is enough. It is very rare for them to exterminate the enemy completely. It is not like that. It is the same among animals. You should understand that this is human nature. He himself has this feeling.

The politicians told them that this would be the last war, but ironically, those in uniform also largely believed it.

He is talking about the Second World War, remember he is talking about the Second World War. The politicians told them that the Second World War would be humanity's last war. From then on the world would be settled, no more. But ironically, those in uniform also largely believed it. Who are those in uniform? The soldiers. The soldiers all believed it too. He says, I. Rob Butts was also one of them, meaning he and his brother. This Rob Butts is his brother, and they also believed it.

Rob Butts was also one of them, and he and his brother also believed it.

But that lie did not come true. It was a deception, it did not come true. But it almost became true, as if it were real.

But that lie did not come true, but it almost became true.

Although those veterans failed, what did they fail at? They wanted to stop war. But after this war, America immediately had two more wars. One was the Korean War, and one was the Vietnam War. And after that there were even more wars, the Iran-Iraq War, the Kosovo War¹¹, and so on. It was not that after the Second World War there were no more wars, there were no more world-scale wars of that kind. But wars kept happening continuously. The meaning of those veterans failing is that their effort to stop war failed.

Although those veterans failed, they instead tried to raise children who would not willingly go to war and who would question its premises.

These veterans' effort to stop war did not work, and another war was fought. But what were they doing, subtly and imperceptibly, in their hearts, on the battlefield? Because there are always veterans leading new recruits, because those in the Korean War certainly included many veterans who had fought in the Second World War, but there were certainly new recruits coming in, since five years had already passed. The Second World War ended in 1945, and in 1950 the Korean War broke out. Many veterans led new recruits, and these veterans, Seth says, is very interesting. They did not do it deliberately, they did it subtly and imperceptibly. They were leading those children who were not willing to go to war. And then they also subtly and imperceptibly made them question the rationality and legitimacy of this war, these raw recruits. These young kids, these new recruits, very interesting. Those Second World War veterans could not stop the war, so in the process of leading new recruits, they invisibly implanted this kind of belief in them. Because they had fought in the war, they had fought in the Second World War for many years, and they knew what the essence of war was. So they would pass it on to the new recruits in a very strange way, which made those young people who did participate in the following two small-scale wars even more conflicted.

This made those young people who did participate in the following two small-scale wars even more conflicted, because the country did not support either war.

The so-called small-scale wars were the Vietnam War and the Korean War, and they were even more conflicted, making those young people who participated in these two wars even more conflicted. Why? Because the country did not support either war. That is, in the Korean War and the Vietnam War alike, it was not like the Second World War, where the whole country supported it, where the whole country said that in order to liberate Europe, we had to go to war, Japan had attacked us by surprise, we had to go.

Localized Wars and a Sense of Powerlessness

It was not like World War II, which had nationwide support; rather, it was a localized war. The fighting in this localized war did not have nationwide support and affirmation. The Korean War itself was a United Nations resolution, and the United States went to war at that time as part of the UN forces. The UN forces were mainly American troops, and of course there were several other countries as well, I do not remember exactly, a dozen or so countries. It was the same during the Vietnam War. We will not go into the causes of the Vietnam War, why such a war broke out in Vietnam; at the time it had more to do with the Soviet Union. But the whole war felt completely different from World War II. In the atmosphere of World War II, everyone was a war hero, and joining the army was an honor. These two wars did not have that kind of national feeling, so each person felt more awkward. As a soldier, you had to go to war, but it seemed that going to war did not receive the kind of positive affirmation and support from the nation.

On the side of the individual participating in the war, any sense of powerlessness was just as before. Everyone who joined the fighting also had a sense of powerlessness. He was given the opportunity for expression, just as before, and could express himself in combat. Although this time it was within a relatively localized large-scale slaughter, not worldwide but regional, for example confined to the battlefield of Vietnam, confined to the battlefield of Korea. But the law itself became less stable. The nation was not so firm about the justice of this kind of war, and the domestic anti-war wave rose higher and higher. The United States had strong anti-war sentiment in both of these wars, whether in politics, in the debates in Congress, or in society's newspapers and news media. There were two factions, one pro-war and one anti-war. Because the United States is a place where freedom of speech is expressed, you could naturally express opposition to the war, and that was normal. This sense of powerlessness was no longer accepted in its release within the military as it had been before. By the time of the last war, the Vietnam War, those in the country who opposed it and those who supported it became equal in number, half opposed and half in favor. The Vietnam War was the war in which American anti-war sentiment was at its highest; never had a war caused such great division in American society. Half the people were firmly anti-war¹², and anti-war demonstrations, protests, and marches rose higher and higher across the American homeland. This is a very typical example.

And after the Vietnam War ended, people's sense of powerlessness increased again. This was the reason returning soldiers committed violent incidents in that regard. Many veterans who came back from Vietnam had far more serious problems than veterans who came back from World War II. The emotions of Vietnam veterans were more troubled than those of World War II veterans, and their psychological state was more troubled, so they also committed all kinds of social violence. At this time, veterans did some not-so-good things, and there were some serious criminal cases. The reason he gives is that while he was fighting, the domestic anti-war sentiment would affect him. Then his killing behavior on the battlefield, that sense of powerlessness, and the very act of trying to correct it through violence, under the influence of the anti-war sentiment, would make him feel that his own legitimacy was even more doubtful. So on the bloody battlefield, he would have fear of his own killing energy itself, and with the addition of this anti-war sentiment, he would become even more worried. On top of that, the brutality of the entire Vietnam War became more and more intense.

Hatred Does Not Erupt into Violence

Seth says that if you leave it alone, hatred will not erupt into violence. Remember the premise is that if you leave it alone and let it flow naturally, it will not.

Hatred brings a sense of power, and initiates communication and action.

Hatred itself is a kind of power; it initiates communication and action. In your terms, it is the accumulation of natural anger.

Among animals, it can be said that they lead to face-to-face confrontation and bring about fighting postures.

If two animals encroach upon each other's territory, they will bring about fighting postures. Each animal's body language and ritualized movements are used to convey a dangerous situation. It will be in that fighting state, its fur will stand up, and it will make all those frightening sounds. At this point, if you carefully observe animal behavior, you will find that generally one side or the other will withdraw. This may involve growling or roaring, but it is rare for one side to kill the other. Whether animals are competing for mates, competing for territory, or fighting between natural enemies -- fighting between natural enemies is another matter, that is for survival, there is no choice. We are only talking about fights among the same species, and we humans are also among the same species. In fights among the same species, they generally will not kill each other. If you carefully observe fights between animals, of course there are accidents, such as one getting injured and eventually the other dying, but basically this does not happen in the whole process. Why? One side will withdraw. It will put on a fighting stance, and the one with weaker momentum -- among animals it is very subtle, I do not know through what method they judge, whether through scent, the loudness of the other's voice, or something else -- it can judge the strength of the other. Generally speaking, the weaker one will automatically withdraw, and while retreating it will still put on a brave front and call out a couple of times, but it has already lost its nerve, and it will leave. It will not engage in a real fight to the death. If you observe carefully, it will not, which is very interesting. But why is it that we humans invent all kinds of weapons and insist on putting the other to death? We are not even as good as animals, in many respects.

They will effectively display power, but only symbolically.

That is, to intimidate the other. This kind of face-to-face confrontation among animals rarely happens, and the chances are not many; it is not part of their daily life. It may happen only once every year, or every few years. Therefore the animals involved must ignore or pass over many smaller, initial angers, or small confrontations at the start. If the process of small confrontations had occurred from the beginning, it would not come to this. If you carefully observe animals, it is the same, for example within a group, whether competing for mates or something else, in their ordinary daily roughhousing and play, they have already determined who wins and who loses; they will not really fight to the death in the end. Every initial anger and every small confrontation at the start makes their status very clear. Whether monkeys, wolves, or lions, it is all like this, if you observe carefully. Their purpose is to avoid violence, which is very interesting. In small conflicts they have already decided their own rank; if you are lower in status and cannot beat the one higher in status, what is the point of stirring up trouble? There is no need.

Christ Offers the Other Cheek

There is also another point, and Seth emphasizes once more a point we have discussed before. He says that when Christ told people to offer the other cheek¹³. There was a story in the past about someone striking Christ, and then Christ said, after you strike the left cheek, give him the right cheek and say, strike me. In my earlier interpretation I already addressed this issue: when someone strikes your left cheek, if you are no longer angry, if no emotion of anger arises in you, then let him strike the right cheek; if at that moment you are already very angry, then just strike back directly. That is perfectly normal; whatever your emotion is, just strike back directly. Here Seth is explaining from another angle, at a higher level, what God's original intention actually was.

What I just said, you should remember, when we explain this material, it is layered, it is graded. You must not misunderstand and say, you said it that way before, and now you say it this way. It is like in the Buddhist scriptures, where things are taught in stages; some statements are correct at an earlier stage, and later on he says they are wrong. The Buddhist scriptures are often like this. Why does Seth say it this way here? Because this is a psychological avoidance of violence. Christ said, I give you my face, let you strike it. You want to hit me, right? I give you my face and let you hit it. Why? What Christ was doing above all was avoiding violence, just as animals do among themselves. It is like the principle among animals: I cannot beat you, so I submit; the result of my submitting is that there is no more violence. The goal I pursue is the absence of violence, but that does not mean accepting violence; it is not that Christ considered violence good. Christ considered all violent acts bad, so he did not accept violence, and he avoided violence. How did he avoid violence? The clever way was to offer his face. Why? Because this is a symbol. A symbol of what? It represents an animal exposing its belly to its opponent. Then Jane, as Seth, patted her own abdomen, patted her own belly. This sentence is meant symbolically.

On certain levels, the posture of defeat brings victory and survival.

You must remember this. What he means is that among animals, for example, if I show submission to you, many animals will roll over and expose their bellies, and usually the other side will not attack anymore. It is quite remarkable. If two animals are fighting, and one side is fighting fiercely while the other suddenly gives up resistance and rolls over to expose its belly, it is like a wrestler slapping the mat three times in a row, and then you cannot continue; it is the same principle. When it rolls over and exposes its belly, the other side stops attacking. It thinks, you have already admitted defeat, you have already submitted, so what is the point of me still hitting you, still attacking you? Was not our fight just to determine who is higher and who is lower? Since you are no longer contending with me, there is no need for me to put you to death. This is an ancient rule among animals, and the animals themselves all know it; it is very interesting. So Seth says that when Christ, after being struck on one cheek, offered the other cheek, it was because he did not want violence; he wanted to avoid violence. One of his clever ways of avoiding violence was to offer the other cheek. Would you still keep hitting? Many people, at that moment, their anger subsides. For example, if you are arguing with someone and you are extremely angry, and you slap them once, and the other person smiles and offers you the other cheek, is your anger not much less? If the other person argues back and curses at you, do you not get even angrier? But no, he smiles and cheerfully offers the other cheek as well, so is your anger not much less? And even less likely to produce the kind of severe violent outcome that follows. So from this level he explains why Christ did this; his point is here.

Then he brings out this sentence: on certain levels, the posture of defeat, you must remember, adopt a posture of defeat. You strike this cheek, and I offer you the other cheek; a posture of defeat. What does it do? It can bring victory and survival; you must remember this. We are not discussing politics today, nor discussing other things, but looking at the situation of wars around the world, the trends of wars and economic trends, ancient wars and modern wars are all the same. You can also especially understand the profound meaning of Deng Xiaoping's early proposal of "keeping a low profile"¹⁴. What is keeping a low profile? To put it bluntly, it is submitting, it is not being the boss, not taking the lead, not stirring up trouble, not taking the initiative; it is just pretending to be weak. But do you know where the wisdom in this lies? It is right here.

He does not mean, strike me again, this groveling behavior of a martyr. He says, let you strike me again, offering the face to you, does not mean this martyr-like groveling of "strike me again, just beat me to death and be done with it"; that is not the meaning. But it does represent a biologically appropriate statement, a communication through body language. It is a kind of wisdom; he uses communication through body language, he uses a biologically appropriate statement. He cleverly reminds the attacker of the old communicative posture of a mentally sound animal. Here he is referring to Christ, or to people who do similar things. He uses this to remind the attacker of the old communicative posture of a mentally sound animal. You must remember, it must be a mentally sound one. If you encounter a madman who is beating you desperately, at that time you absolutely cannot adopt this approach, because he will beat you to death. Here Seth also says it is the old posture of a mentally sound animal, that is, a very ancient way of communication, the most primitive way of communication. So from this point of view, in the current conflicts between great powers, conflicts between regions, even conflicts between companies, and even conflicts between individuals, you can make good use of it. You must learn these principles Seth is telling you. But you must also remember the story of the giant python I told before; you must understand that too. In this you cannot say, oh, how does this conflict with that one? They do not conflict; each of them has its own meaning on different levels.

The Roots of Love and Hate

Love is also a great inciter of action, and it utilizes a dynamo of energy.

Just now he talked about hate, and now he is talking about love. Besides hate leading to great action, love does too, and it utilizes a dynamo of energy.

On this very humid night, Jane's trance state was very deep. Now she told me that while she was giving the material on World War II for this book, she had been quite aware of another unspoken channel coming from Seth. That one was entirely about World War II, and Jane said with surprise that it included complete material on the causes of that war, as well as on the racial and reincarnational levels. For example, what the people of each country experienced, whether or not the country in question was directly involved in the war itself. That material even took into account the consequences that flowed out into the postwar world because of the intensified application of technology. That material already included a comprehensive analysis of both before and after the war, a complete one. Jane pointed to her lower left and said that all the material came from there. If you have been following the interpretation of the Seth material all along, you will find that Jane had this ability quite early on, probably more than a year earlier, she already had this ability, she had it in the latter half of Seth Speaks, she could simultaneously receive several channels of Seth's content, not just one channel, several channels, at most four channels open to her at the same time, and she could obtain whatever material she wanted. And she could also know the content in those channels, just as if you were watching four television screens at the same time, you know something about what is playing on all four screens, but you can only focus on one channel at the moment, so you roughly know what that material is about, but you cannot pull out the content of that television material in fine detail. That was her feeling. Just imagine at her lower left there was a Seth material that kept talking about World War II, but she only knew a rough outline. She said she spent about ten minutes describing some of the categories contained in that material, that is, what that material included, and she had already stated those categories. She repeatedly said she wished there could be a record, and she very much hoped they would let Seth speak about World War II. Although that material was available, they did not want to set this book aside in order to get it. She still had to continue with the book. Actually, the two of them also wanted to hear Seth talk about World War II, but we can imagine that if she were to talk about World War II, if it were expanded upon, I think probably one book would not be enough to finish it. But they still wanted to hear him talk about it, yet they also felt that once he started talking about it, the book could not be completed, so they returned to the book.

Jane's awareness of this possible channel reminded me of a similar phenomenon she had experienced in Chapter 18, Session 666. But at that time it was the same, when I asked her how she could, while doing the oral dictation of the book, also be talking about the earlier part on hate and war, how she could, while speaking that content, at the same time obtain knowledge of the content in another channel, that is, what she was speaking about, although not in specifics, she could still know the content within it, she knew the categories within it, and she could also perceive from Seth a series of subjective material, that is, detailed and rich material. Jane could not answer. You can see Chapter 2, Session 616, where she had her first contact with multiple channels.

Now, he continued, "now" is a cue word, proving that Seth was about to begin speaking.

Love and hate are both based upon self-identification in your own experience.

What he means is that the premise of love and hate is built upon an identification in your own experience. What is identification? If you do not identify with a person at all, you will not bother to love or hate them at all. This is a very important point. He begins to explain below. First of all, if you do not identify with them, if you have no recognition of a person and do not identify with them, you have no love or hate, because relatively speaking, they have not touched you, they have nothing to do with you. Our parents often say, oh, you hate me for controlling you, you hate me for managing you. But think about it, why do I not manage the neighbor's kid, why do I insist on managing you? When your parents come home and say this, it does not arouse very deep emotions in you. It has nothing to do with you. You will not hate a stranger you do not know, and you will not love a person who has nothing to do with you. That is normal.

Hate always involves a painful sense of separation from love, and that love may have been idealized.

Be sure to remember, it always involves, when we feel hate, hate is a painful feeling of separation from love, and the feeling of hate is uncomfortable. And this love is the love you have idealized. In other words, hate is simply not getting love, to put it bluntly. At any time, a person you feel strong aversion toward is someone who has not met your expectations. You have expectations of them, and they did not meet them. You hoped they would send flowers, and they did not; you hoped they would express their love for you, give you sweet words, write you poetry, give you romance, give you all kinds of rituals, and none of that happened, so you hate them. The higher your expectations, the farther they seem to fall short. If you hate your parents, if you hate your father or your mother, then it is precisely because you expected such love, you expected to receive love from your parents. If you did not even expect to receive love from your parents, would you hate them? No. A person you have no expectations of, you will never hate. This has already been made very clear. You hate a person because you expected to receive love from them, and you did not get it, so you hate them.

In a strange way, hate is a method of returning to love.

So you will often see that between husband and wife, or between lovers, they fight until their heads are bleeding, every day it is just, to an outsider, can these two even go on living together, if they cannot go on, why not just get divorced and stop being together. You will find that these two have fought their whole lives and still have not divorced. There are various reasons, and one of them is this. Hate is a method of returning to love. Those who are not rivals do not come together. In the fighting and quarreling, in the midst of this hate, they discover that they actually loved the other person all along. Is that not interesting? There has been far too much written about this kind of love-hate entanglement throughout history, and there is nothing unusual about it. Seth has merely stated its underlying core. We ordinarily know this too, it is just that we have not recognized it so deeply, so fundamentally.

If allowed to express itself unimpeded, hate's purpose is to communicate a separation that exists between what is desired and what is expected.

It is a gap. Hate is telling you, I wanted you to be such and such, I hoped you would be such and such, and you did not satisfy me, you did not reach it, so I hate you. Hate is for this reason, and the function of hate is to express this. It expresses how far the distance is between your expectations of them and their distance from your expectations. The more you hate, the farther it shows they are from your expectations. Be sure to remember, this is the function of hate. If you hate a person, or if you hate anyone at all, your parents, classmates, spouse, or partner, it is all like this.

Love, therefore, can contain hate quite easily.

What does he want to say? He is saying that through hate you can return to love, and hate expresses that feeling of not getting the love you wanted. Therefore, love can contain hate, and hate is contained within love. This viewpoint is quite interesting. Hate can also contain love, and love can also contain hate, a pair that give birth to and kill each other. And hate is driven by love. If there is no love, there will be no hate without cause. There is no hate without cause in this world, that is what it means. There must first be a love, and only then will there be hate afterward. Especially an idealized love, he emphasizes again. When this love is especially idealized, because we over-idealize love, then your expectations of them become very high, and when they cannot satisfy you, you will hate them. What he means is that you should not over-idealize love. In our real lives, many of us may have watched too many television dramas, films, or all kinds of web dramas, or Douyin, and have idealized love too much. In the midst of this idealization, the partner in real life cannot achieve that, so no matter how you look at them, they are an eyesore.

You hate that which separates you from an object you love.

What you hate is not the person, what you hate is the thing that separates you from the object you love, what you hate is that gap, that chasm. It is precisely because you love an object, you love a certain person, that if they do not satisfy your expectations, you will dislike them so much. On the contrary, if they satisfy your expectations, then you love them to death. If they do not satisfy them, you hate them to death. You may love your father or mother, but if they do not return your love and deny your expectations, then you may hate him or her. Because your love, this overly idealized love, makes your expectations even greater. And the meaning of this hate is to get your love back. Hate is, I still want my love. Its original intent is to make you send out a message. The original intent of hate is to let you say, I want love, I lack love, I lack love, that is why I hate you. And to declare your feelings can be said to clarify misunderstandings, that is, to show that your parents have not given you enough attention, to love you in the correct way. If this misunderstanding is not clarified, it will take you and the object of your love even farther apart. Actually, you do love your parents. If you did not love your parents, would you hate them? No.

Hate is not a denial of love, but an attempt to regain love, and a painful recognition of circumstances that separate you from it.

Be sure to remember this, mark it as important. You hate a certain person, you hate them to death, this hate is not a denial of them, but an attempt to regain love, and a painful recognition that you are about to be separated from love. What you hate is that you are about to lose this person, because they cannot satisfy your expectations, and you do not want to continue being with them anymore, yet you also hate the pain of this separation from them. Because you know that once separated from them, there will be no love. Once separated, what is left? Love what? Nothing. Once you break up, how can you love? This pain makes you hate extremely, because you hate why they cannot become a little better as you expected, so that you can continue to love them. Why can they not do some things you like so that you love them more, why do they insist on doing things you dislike so that you hate them more, why do they make you want to leave them, and when you want to leave them, you become even angrier and more frantic. He has explained the roots of love and hate very thoroughly and clearly. Whether between parents and children or between lovers, it is the same principle, it is all one pattern, this love-hate entanglement is all the same routine.

On this issue, actually many ancient and modern people have spoken very clearly about it. I remember watching a comedic television drama, I think it was called, oh, what was it called, I cannot remember. It was about an ancient woman who was very good at fighting and very capable, and then the king, I forget which king it was, he particularly liked this consort who could fight, but ordinarily he did not like her, because she was not good-looking. She could fight, so she was not good-looking, and that was one of her traits, but she herself was a very good person. The process was something like, when there is trouble, there is no such-and-such, when there is no trouble, there is no such-and-such, I cannot remember, the allusion at the time. When there was a war, he would remember this consort of his, and when the war was over and won, after this consort had driven away the invading enemies, he would go back to those charming and beautiful favored concubines. So this consort was very angry and very pained, because this consort herself loved the king, so she endured it all along. In the end, after several times, she discovered that the king did not love her at all. The king only called her over when he needed her, she came when called, fought when she came, won when she fought, and was tossed aside once she won. She finally got angry, and after several times, she left. When she left, she said something to the effect of, if I still had hate for you, I would have love, but now my feeling toward you is indifferent, I neither love nor hate, and with that feeling, there is nothing left between us to continue. In the end, the prince may have realized that he actually loved her too, I just cannot remember the names of these two people, it is quite interesting, the two names were very poetic, and then she passed away. But this matter, actually ancient people and modern people all know it. Do not be afraid of quarrels, do not be afraid of husband and wife bickering, do not be afraid of lovers fighting, just be afraid of two people having nothing to say to each other. Once two people have nothing to say, it is over. Fighting is not scary, but indifference is the end.

If you understand the nature of love, then you can accept the feeling of hate.

If you understand what love is, then you know what hate is, and you can accept hate. Hate is love, hate and love are a pair that give birth to and kill each other.

Affirmation includes the expression of such strong emotions.

The theme of this session is affirmation, and affirmation accepts these things. Toward such strong emotions, what emotions? That love and hate are one, affirming yourself, affirming the other person, affirming the present life, then you will not have so much hate, and you will not have such intense emotional expressions, either loving to death or hating to death.

At this point Rob yawned, and then Seth said, I did not think my material was that boring. Then Rob said, it is really interesting, not that boring. Why did Rob yawn? Actually, on the one hand he was tired, and on the other hand, the material Seth was giving was not difficult in itself, what he was saying was all the most basic things. Many of us humans, if a person has relatively high emotional intelligence, or has a certain amount of social experience, these points can be understood with just a hint, there is no need to go on at such length. The principles are too simple. But, that said, there is still a large portion of people, or a portion of people, who have never been able to sort out this issue of love and hate, and they remain entangled in it their whole lives. So if you feel that when Seth gets to this point, you say, does this even need to be explained, I understood such a simple principle long ago, wonderful, congratulations, you are a person of extremely high emotional intelligence. If you suddenly realize, oh, so that is how it is, then you should carefully study this session again, and it will be a very good help for your future life, your happy life, your happy marriage, your happy relationships, whether with parents, family, or between husband and wife, and it will lay a very solid foundation.

The Soul Reveals Its Characteristics Through Emotion

Those dogmas and systems of thought that tell you to rise above your emotions are misleading, and even, in your terms, somewhat dangerous.

What does this mean? He is saying that whenever someone tells you that you should transcend your emotions, rise above your feelings, that kind of theory, that kind of system, for you, to put it mildly, is misleading, and to put it more seriously, is dangerous to you. Dangerous how? Why is it that if you do not pay attention to your emotions over the long term, problems will arise? This kind of theory is built on the belief that within the nature of human emotion, there is something inherently unsettling, base, or erroneous, and at the same time the soul is always described as calm, perfect, passive, and emotionless. The premise of this theory is built on that foundation. To put it simply, they believe that emotions and feelings are all bad, that only lower animals have them, and that a person who has undergone spiritual study and certain practices should not have emotions. That is their theoretical basis. And what you should pursue is that kind of spiritual thing. What do they mean by spiritual things? They believe that spiritual things are always that state of mind like still water, very composed, unshaken even if Mount Tai collapses in front of you, certainly perfect, without flaws. The soul itself has no flaws, is certainly good, and is certainly passive, meaning it does not take the initiative to strike out, does not go looking for trouble, and is without feeling, emotionless, without emotions, indifferent toward things, with no such thing as liking or disliking, and absolutely will not fall into the whirlpool of emotion. He believes the soul should be like this. Many people are like this, many who have studied something or practiced something are like this, including many religions that go to the utmost lengths within this framework, denying all the seven emotions and six desires, treating them as floods and wild beasts.

Only the most exalted joyful awareness could be allowed.

He is saying you must always remain in that serene and joyful state. How is that possible? Living in the human world, how could you possibly always remain in a serene and joyful state? Of course, you can hypnotize yourself into saying I am immersed in it, that is possible. Only this is allowed. If you say you are joyful, peaceful, serene in your emotions, that is good, that is permissible, that is praiseworthy, worshipful, and esteemed. If you say I am angry, I am emotional, I am having feelings, then they look at you with contempt: oh dear, you have practiced for nothing, look at you, how can you still get angry, still get furious, how can you still be angry? Weren't you unmoved by the eight winds? How come one fart blew you across the river? This was an allusion from back then, the dialogue between Su Shi and the practicing monk. Haven't you been practicing? How can you still get angry? This is a typical story. So everything else is denied, only this is allowed, no other emotions are permitted, no love, hate, passion, or resentment, no joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, only that faint, serene joy, that steady state, mind like still water, calm without ripples. This is good, everything else is bad.

Yet the soul, he tells you, is primarily a kind of energy, a source of creative action, that is, it reveals its characteristics through ever-changing emotions. With this one sentence, Seth has thoroughly explained the nature of the soul. Of course, in the appendix of Seth Speaks, regarding what spirituality is, there is a very beautiful short passage, where he also speaks very thoroughly, about ringing bells and singing, resounding through the universe, letting one's soul dance joyfully, releasing fully. We will not expand on that here; you can look at the middle part of the appendix of Seth Speaks, where this is discussed. Here he emphasizes again that the soul reveals its characteristics precisely through ever-changing emotions. If you do not allow it to reveal its characteristics through changing emotions, then you cannot come to know the soul.

If you trust it, your emotions will lead you to psychological and psychic states of composure, quietude, and mystical understanding.

First, you must trust it, trust your soul. If you trust your soul, your emotions will lead you to psychological and psychic states of composure, quietude, and mystical understanding. If you follow it, your emotions will lead you to a very deep understanding.

But you cannot have a physical self without emotions any more than you can have a day without weather.

This is stated very thoroughly. You cannot say that today has no weather, cannot have any weather, you cannot say today cannot be sunny, cannot be windy, cannot be cloudy, that today cannot have any weather at all. There is no such day, no such date. No day is without weather, and no self of yours is without emotions. Throughout the entire process of your life and existence, emotions, like weather, are always with you. If you deny them, then you deny time, deny yourself, deny all the meaning of the soul. Here he emphasizes this point for you, emphasizes the importance of emotions.

In your personal contacts, you may be quite aware of an enduring love for another person, and still recognize moments of hatred for him or her.

In everyone's daily life, you may feel a lasting love for a certain person, for another person, and still recognize occasional hatred toward him or her. Occasional hatred within lasting love. When a sense of separation exists, because of the love you know is involved, you hate that separation. That is, in daily life, you will find that you love someone, but occasionally hate them. The reason for the hate is that you find there is separation between you and this love. When this sense of separation exists, you will give rise to hate, because hate comes from here.

In the same way, it is possible to have a generalized love of humanity, and at the same time to hate them at times.

It is possible for you to have a broad love for humanity as a whole, and at the same time sometimes hate humanity, hate them for not living up to expectations, precisely because they seem unworthy of that love, you feel they do not deserve it. This feeling is very common. I know many people who study spirituality and people in daily life who are like this: they have studied spirituality to a very high level, but they hate humanity. Why do they hate humanity? They feel that these people who bustle about all day, busy making money, living ant-like lives, robot-like lives, do not understand spirituality at all, do not understand themselves, are wasting their lives, and they look at them as if they were livestock, like beasts, living the lowest kind of life. They feel that such humanity is not worth saving at all, why save them? A bunch of completely unenlightened people, just let them perish on their own. They all fantasize that in 2012 the Earth would split into two groups, one group ascending, and the other group of Earthlings simply being destroyed. Oh my God, how much hatred must there be to have such thoughts? But this is a very mainstream idea, many spiritual people firmly believe this, asking every day when the separation will happen, when humanity will split into two parts, the spiritual people will ascend, the non-spiritual people will be destroyed along with the Earth, and we will go to another planet, the spiritual people will be guided and ascend to another planet, beginning a higher spiritual life, while those who waste their lives just eating and waiting to die can sink with the Earth, we will not care about them. Aren't many people like this? I have seen many, many people who study spirituality holding this view. How childish, how laughable. But when you get to the bottom of it, it is not that they have no love for humanity; they do love humanity, remember this, it is not that they do not love humanity. But when they get angry at humanity, why is that? It is because you love them. If you did not love humanity, would you get angry at them? Would you hate them for not protecting the environment, polluting it to this extent, and then fighting wars with each other, arguing over trivial interests, leading to mass slaughter of humanity, and so on. But the premise is always that you love them, and that is why you hate them, why you attack them, hating them for not living up to expectations.

To deny the existence of hatred is to deny love.

Remember this firmly: if you do not acknowledge the existence of hatred, you are denying the existence of love.

Those emotions are not opposites, but different aspects, experienced differently.

Hatred and love are just two sides of the same thing; seen from this side it is love, turned over it is hatred.

To some extent, you want to identify with those who feel deeply for you. You do not love a person simply because you associate with only a portion of yourself with them; you often love a person because they awaken within you glimpses of your "idealized" self.

This passage is also very central, laying bare the key to love. In this process, sometimes it is not only between the opposite sexes, but also between the same sex. If your friend is with you and there is a very deep friendship, this love between friends, this comradely love, much of the reason is that in the process of your getting along, you discover a better version of yourself, and under their expectations and hopes, this better self becomes vivid, as if attainable. The same is true between lovers. Many of us are ordinary people in life, an ordinary girl, no one is a fairy, an ordinary boy, no one is a prince. Yet in each other's eyes, they become prince and princess. In each other's eyes, they give the other the highest hopes and expectations, letting the other also see the ideal person they might possibly become. In this ideal person, they very much like that version of themselves, that is, they very much like how they appear in the other person's eyes. So he tells you that the root of love's existence is that it awakens within you an expectation of your idealized self. The core of love is here, not elsewhere.

The person you love awakens the best parts of you. In their eyes, you see what you may become. In another's love, you feel your own potential.

In their eyes, you see what you may become. Through their eyes, in their love, you feel your own potential.

This does not mean that in the heart of the one you love, you respond only to the ideal self, for you can also see the potential ideal self within the heart of the one you love. This is a peculiar "vista."

What he says here is very interesting. He says the earlier examples are simple and need no explanation. He speaks very plainly: in the eyes of the one you love, they have an ideal for you, an expectation, and you feel that in the future you may become that. They will say, in the future we will buy a house together, we will strive together, live together, and so on. In the scenes they paint of future life, without realizing it, they portray you in those future scenes as the person they hope you will be, and you also discover that this is the person you might become. Two people together building a family, and so on. So in the eyes of this beloved, you discover your own potential. He is not saying that in the heart of the one you love, you respond only to the ideal self, because you can also see the potential ideal self within the heart of the one you love. That is, you are not only responding to this ideal self of your own; you can also see from the other person's heart the potential, latent ideal self. This is a peculiar vista. What he means is that this is a future scene, shared by those who have designed it. Who are they? You and the one you love. In other words, you also have an ideal vista for them, and they also have an ideal vista for you, and between you there is a shared expectation for this vista, and it is because of this shared expectation for the vista that you can come together. In other words, as psychologists or relationship experts often say, in an intimate relationship, in this kind of intimate relationship between two people, what matters more is helping each other become that better self, making the other better, making the other even more excellent than they themselves imagined, and only then can this love endure. He is saying this.

Whether wife and husband or parent and child, from this vista it is quite possible to see the differences between the actual and the ideal.

There are certainly differences between this vista and the actual, the ideal.

During the rising periods of love, therefore, the discrepancies in actual behavior are overlooked, and considered relatively unimportant.

During the honeymoon period, the rising period of love, these discrepancies are overlooked, and you feel that no matter how you look at the other person, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, no matter how you look at them they are a little princess, no matter how you look at them they are a prince. In reality you also know they are not a prince, but in your eyes they are a prince. Your close friends might say, how can you like this person, what is it about them, though of course usually they will not say it, but in their hearts they will think, how could she like this man, he is so ordinary. But you feel he is not ordinary at all; he is the one among thousands, the only one. You would trade the whole world for him. It is very interesting. You overlook it, you imagine him as a little prince, but he is not, yet you overlook that he is not a little prince, you feel he is a little prince, and he, hypnotized by you, also feels he is a little prince, riding a white horse every day to pick you up and drop you off.

Love is ever-changing, and there is no eternal state of deep mutual attraction in which two people are forever involved.

With this sentence, Seth has actually explained love very thoroughly. There is no such thing. This is normal; it is impossible to say that two people will stay together forever until old age and so on; that may be due to social constraints, various relationships, family affection, and so on. But speaking of love itself, honestly and truthfully, love is like this. Whether male or female, it is the same; it cannot remain in an eternal state of constant mutual attraction, with both people forever fully invested. There is no such thing.

As an emotion, love is active, and can quite easily turn into anger and hatred, and back again.

Many times love turns into hate. After the honeymoon period of romance passes, the discrepancies with the other person begin to become obvious, and the discrepancies they previously overlooked become impossible to ignore. Then they start arguing, start hating, and the hate comes precisely from the discrepancies. Then they argue, break up, cannot stand the breakup, get back together, and so on, back and forth.

In the structure of experience, though love is not stable, it can be predominant.

Remember this firmly: although love is unstable, it can be predominant. What does predominant mean? He will explain below.

If so, then there will always be a movement toward the ideal vista, and some chagrin that naturally arises from the differences between the actualized and the vista.

What does he mean? He means that although love cannot be eternal, nor sustained and stable, in this process of loving, arguing, breaking up, then reconciling, or changing to someone else and loving again, although it is unstable, love can run through your entire life, run through your whole life. But this predominant current is all love, sustained by love. And within this predominant current of love, it may be with different people, or it may be the same person, having argued many times, broken up and reconciled several times. But no matter what, within this predominant current of love, there is always such a vista present. At different times, different ages, different states, there is always a different vista. This vista is that better you. Then naturally, between this real life and the vista, there will be differences, and some chagrin will arise, which is very normal. The troubles in your love life all come from this, that is, some chagrin arises, and it is normal. Remember, this is normal.

When a Child Says "I Hate You"

He shifted gears and went on to talk about the issue of adults and children.

Some adults become very upset when their children say "I hate you," and children often learn very quickly not to be so honest.

The child discovers that they should not say this, because "I hate you" is their true feeling, but they find that after saying it, their parents become utterly devastated and dissatisfied. The parents say, I raised you to be this big, I take care of you every day, I feed you and clothe you, I love you so much and everything is for your own good, how can you still hate me? Many parents are completely crushed. That kind of collapse frightens the child too. I said one "I hate you," and you fell apart like that? What is going on? The mother looks at her child with tears in her eyes, startling the child. What is going on? I just expressed a genuine emotion, and look at you: the father shakes his head and sighs, stomping his feet and beating his chest, while the mother stands there with tears streaming down, utterly devastated, as if the sky were about to fall. Then the child discovers that they should not say "I hate you" anymore. The consequences of saying it were too terrifying; I had no idea what would happen. You two are my whole world, my support, how could you both collapse? I just said one "I hate you," and you both fell apart, so I will not say it again. If I say it and you both collapse, what am I supposed to do?

What the child really means is: I love you so much, why are you so mean to me?

Seth imitates the child's tone, and he imitates it very well. This is exactly what the child is thinking inside. The child says, you are a bad mommy, you are a bad mommy. What does "bad" mean here? I love you so much, how can you be so mean to me? Why won't you let me have soup? Why won't you buy me KFC? Why won't you give me the food I want to eat? How can you be so mean? This is the child's truest thought. So the child says "I hate you." You must remember that if you understand hate as another expression of love, that hate exists for the sake of love, that hate arises only when love is not obtained, then you will understand that the child is lacking love. The child does not truly hate you. You need to understand this. The child is saying, I love you so much, why are you so mean to me? Or, what is standing between us and my love for you? This latter question is one that perhaps only a somewhat older child could formulate. That is, if you translate the words "I hate you" into the child's inner language, it is: what is standing in the distance between my love for you and the two of you? I love you so much, I love my parents, so why are you drifting further and further away from me? Why do you not understand me at all? Why do you push me away so hard? Why do you not pay attention to what is in my heart? Why do you not care about me? Why do you only care about grades? Are grades more important than my feelings? Which matters more, that perfect score, or the unbearable pain in my heart? For the parents, the perfect score matters more. Whether you are suffering or not, that is just the normal trouble of growing up. The child does not see it that way. The child says, I am suffering so much I could die, and you do not even care or ask. You keep asking me what score I got, how I did on this exam, what my class ranking is. The child's heart is shattered. The child says, between us, can we not talk about anything besides grades? Besides homework, besides rankings, besides the college entrance exam, is there no other topic? Is there no love left? Between us, can we only talk about grades? This is what the child is really thinking.

The child's hostility is built upon a firm knowledge of his own love.

The child knows. The child knows that they love you, and that is why they dare to say "I hate you."

But parents who have been taught to believe that hate is wrong do not know how to handle this situation.

That is, you teach the child that hate is wrong. Do not hate your parents, do not hate others, do not hate other children, and certainly do not hate your teacher. Hate is wrong. You teach the child that hate is wrong, and many parents educate their children this way, yet you do not know how to handle this situation. All you know is that hate is wrong, so do not hate. You are terrified that the child will say "I hate you" every day, and then you punish the child, saying do not hate others, do not hate. You must not say you hate me, you must not hate your parents. Doing so is wrong, and it will make your parents very sad. And this sadness is not fake; the parents are genuinely heartbroken. Then this deepens the child's problem. The child no longer even dares to hate, and no longer dares to express it either. The child clearly feels that love is not being received, that love is drifting away, but the child no longer dares to express it or say it.

If the parents also show fear, then the child is effectively taught to be afraid of this anger and hate.

The child no longer dares to express it. The child no longer dares to express their natural emotions, having discovered that the parents are on the verge of collapse. Because in front of the child, even the powerful parents cower. In front of the child, such strong parents actually fall apart precisely because the child expressed anger and hate. This is something the child never expected, so the child no longer dares to say it, realizing that this must never be said again.

The child is then conditioned to forget this instinctive understanding.

That is, the child is told not to understand hate, and no one tells the child what the essence behind hate is. If you could guide the child correctly, and say, when you tell me you hate me, is this what you are really thinking underneath? Then you would correctly guide the child toward a proper understanding of hate. But you do not. You tell the child not to say it, not to hate, that hate is wrong, that hate is bad, that no one should be hated. And then you overlook the connection between hate and love. As he explained earlier at length, hate and love are intimately connected. Hate is one of the ways back to love. If you do not understand this principle, then you cannot understand that the process of love simply requires its rises and falls; it is something that changes.

Now you are often taught not only to suppress hate verbally, but also told that your hateful thoughts and hateful actions are equally bad.

You also teach the child not only that they cannot say hate out loud, but that they cannot even think hate in their heart. Even thinking hate in your heart makes you bad, makes you a bad child. A good child's heart is always full of love. Is that not nonsense? The more you teach the child this way, the worse the child becomes. So you think you are absolutely correct, and many parents are full of righteous conviction. In the end, some children suffer mental breakdowns, some even develop mental illness, and some even commit suicide, and the parents remain completely unaware. When parents talk about it, they are utterly convinced of their own correctness. I did everything for his own good, what did I do wrong? Everything I did was for him, where is my mistake? I do not understand. Why did this child commit suicide without telling me first? Why did he not communicate with us if he had something to say? It is not as if we could not change, it is not as if we were incapable of anything. Why could he not talk to us? Why would someone so young choose suicide? Have you never considered your own role in this? Did he really never try to communicate with you? Are you the kind of open-minded parent who can be communicated with? Have you never asked yourself this question? So you should know that as parents, you must understand that when a child shows hate, you need to guide the child correctly. You cannot suppress it.

You therefore feel guilty, and even when you silently contemplate hating someone, you try to hide such thoughts from yourself.

Because your family taught you that hate is bad. From childhood you were taught that hate is bad, so when you hate someone, you do not even let yourself know it. You deceive yourself.

You may be so successful that on a conscious level you truly do not know what your own feelings are.

This statement is very profound, but in ordinary life we cannot grasp it. Generally, when you undergo deep hypnosis, when a real hypnotist puts you under, only then can you bring out many of those true emotions, because they have already been covered up by your consciousness, hidden away, buried, or forgotten. You do not allow yourself to have this emotion of hate, but under the guidance of a deep hypnotist, you discover that you actually hate a certain person this much, that you hate this kind of person this much. This person might be your parent, or someone around you, but ordinarily you feel nothing. I would not hate my parents, I do not hate them. They just treated me badly, and I have no feelings toward them anyway. But if you let a hypnotist guide you, you will discover that hate, and how intense it is. Why was it buried? That emotion is right there, and you hid it away.

They are hidden from you because you are afraid to look.

You cannot see them, cannot see those emotions of hate, because you are afraid to look.

To that extent, you are divorced from your own reality and have lost touch with your own feelings of love.

To that extent, you have already separated from your true self. You do not even dare to face your own emotions, do not dare to face this emotion of hate, and you have hidden it to the point where even you yourself cannot perceive it. And you have lost touch with your own feelings of love. This is very dangerous. It is not that you do not dare to hate. You say, well, I have no hate, so does that mean I am all love? Quite the opposite. When you separate hate from yourself, you separate from your own authenticity, and once you are separated from your own authenticity, how can you express love? Love is also part of your reality. Because you fear hate, you separate yourself from yourself, and then love is gone too. So you lose touch with the feeling of love. This happens a lot. I am not saying we need to go back to the family of origin, to dwell on family-of-origin issues, but in real life, the problems of the family of origin can be changed through the point of power in the present. But let us just talk about what the current situation is. There are indeed some children who lacked love from an early age. These children's need for parental love was never satisfied, and deep down they actually harbor hate toward their parents. But once this hate is suppressed, many of these children, when they grow up, do not know how to love. They do not know how to establish a correct and normal romantic relationship with the opposite sex, and the reason lies right here. The deep reason is here. Because they have already separated from their own reality, and once separated from their own reality, their capacity to love is gone. This is a very interesting thing.

The Projection and Awareness of Hatred

Those denied emotional states may be projected outward onto other people, onto an enemy in a war, or onto the neighbors around you.

You deny it and won't let it out? You don't let it express itself, so it gets projected outside, onto an enemy in a war, or onto the neighbors around you. Going head-to-head with the neighbor, locking horns with him.

Even if you find yourself hating this symbolic enemy, you will also find a strong attraction.

This is a very interesting thing. When you find that you hate this enemy very much, that you hate a certain person in your life, yet it seems that this person you hate has a kind of magic power over you, always drawing your attention. An enemy on the battlefield is one thing, of course you have to pay a high degree of attention to him. In everyday life it is the same: the person you hate seems to have endless magic power, he keeps attracting you. A gravitational pull of hatred, this is what he calls the gravity of hatred. The attraction of hatred will bind you together, bind you and your enemy together. But this attraction, it was originally built upon love. You say, no, my enemy, I could not possibly love him; I hate my neighbor, I could not possibly love my neighbor. No, that is not it. You do not love your enemy, and you do not love your neighbor. What he means is, how did this hatred originally begin. At the very beginning, when you wanted to hate someone, the reason you hated that person was because you loved him and could not get satisfaction, so then you hated him. But your parents told you not to hate others, that you must not hate others, so you hid the hatred away. Once hidden, and since this emotion needs to be released, it gets projected by you onto the enemy in the war and onto the neighbor. After you project it outward, you truly do not love your enemy, and you do not love your neighbor either, that is normal. But its root, how did that most original hatred come about? It came about because that most original hatred came from the love at the very beginning. Only when love cannot be satisfied does hatred arise. So the very beginning is first; what he is talking about is not the enemy, not that you have love for the enemy, not that you have love for your neighbor, but that your original love was not satisfied, which then led to the later hatred, projected outward.

In such cases, however, you reinforce and exaggerate all those gaps between yourself and the ideal, and you focus your attention upon them.

Focusing on that gap, you hate him even more. Because so-called hatred is when you have an expectation of the other person, and in reality he has not fulfilled that expectation, so you hate him. And at this point you pay even more attention, because you hate him, so you focus even more on that gap; no matter how you look at it, it is all gap.

In any particular case, you can consciously arrive at these things; it only requires an honest and determined attempt.

If you truly face yourself honestly, and steadfastly pursue the deeper reasons behind this emotion, as long as you do that, you will be able to become aware of these things. Then you go on to become aware of your own emotions and beliefs, and you will have a very deep awareness of your emotions and beliefs.

Even your resentment-filled fantasies, if left alone, will bring you back to reconciliation and release love.

What does he mean by this? He is saying that you need to learn to become aware of your own emotions and beliefs; this is what you need to do. You know the emotion behind your hatred, and what beliefs caused this emotion of hatred; you know how to find its root, you must trace it back to the source. He goes on to say, even if you let this hatred-filled fantasy run free, for example, suppose you hate your parents, you hate hate hate hate, to what degree? To the degree that you want to kill them. I want to kill my mom, I want to kill my dad, you hate them to death, they won't let me play games, won't let me do this, won't let me do that, just as an example. Then you hate, then you take it to the extreme, then you hate, and in your hatred you imagine pressing your parents into the ground, killing them, stabbing them with a knife, stab after stab, killing them. Watching one family member after another being killed by you, you just hate, and you keep doing this. What will you find? You will find something very interesting. His next passage is this:

A fantasy of beating one's parents or children to death, even to the point of death, if carried through to the end, will bring forth tears of love and understanding.

Very subtle. This is why some mothers beat their children, and as they beat them, they start crying themselves. Very common, right? This kind of thing is very common. Fathers too: a father hangs his son up and whips him with a belt, and as he whips him, he himself starts crying. Of course there are also those who get angrier the more they beat, but we are just giving an example. What does he mean? What he is talking about is not reality, but imagination. If in your imagination, you hate your child or you hate your parents, and in your imagination you beat them to death, you just imagine killing them, losing them, and see what it is like. Without your parents, without your child, beaten to death by you, what would you do? You killed them with your own hands; do you dare to imagine it? Don't you hate them? Do you hate them? Hate to the extreme, hate. When you do this, what will happen? You will find that the extreme of hatred is love. You hate them so much, you even want to kill them, but when you find that you really have to go through with it to this point, you will love, you will bring forth your love and your tears, an understanding of love, tears of love and understanding. What Seth says here is truly wonderful.

Now I will end our session. I give you both my fond regards, and wish you a good evening.

He says here that it has already ended. Finally they added a note: by this time it was already 12:17, already the middle of the night.

Jane's Statement and Comparison with Earlier Views

Finally he added a note. After comparing this session with some of Seth's earlier sessions, Jane wrote a statement. This was written by Jane herself, because she had spoken about it earlier, and it is very important for many people to understand this issue.

In the above discussion of hatred, and elsewhere in this book, Seth has gone more deeply into the nature of our emotional life than he had before. This refers specifically to the aspect of love and hatred. For example, his earlier comments on hatred were made when he had to take into account the level of understanding of those participating in that session. He had not previously discussed hatred in such depth; he had only dealt with hatred as a specific matter, without comprehensively discussing the relationship between love and hatred. For instance, one such example is in The Seth Material, that is, in his early sessions, when he responded to a statement made by a student in one of my ESP classes, Seth took the student's traditional concept of hatred for granted, and then answered from that basis. This student considered the traditional concept of hatred to be normal, that hatred between people is very normal; the student held this view. Then Seth told him, Seth said:

You cannot rationalize hatred.

He told the student, you cannot treat hatred as something rationalizable. Why?

Because when you curse another, you curse yourself, and the curse will return to you.

This answer must be considered in light of the preceding conversation, must be considered in light of his earlier conversation with that student. But you can see that this view is different from the view of hatred he had expressed earlier. Do you see it? In this passage he tells you not to hate, not to hate others, not to curse others. Why does he tell you not to hate others? Because it will rebound onto you, that is the key. And what did Seth say earlier? You should hate, you should understand the meaning of hatred, then go ahead and hate, and when you hate to the extreme, love will be born from it. Of course he does not mean that you should actually go and do this in every case; he is just making this point. He says, there is no need to suppress hatred. If you hate, then hate; express it. Hatred is a way of communicating; hatred expresses how far the other person falls short of your ideal. This is a normal way of communicating, a good thing. Why should you suppress your hatred? But earlier, when he was introducing it, he told the student you cannot hate. He says, in the preceding dialogue, the student was trying to rationalize violence, because you have to look at the context of the conversation. In that dialogue, the student wanted to rationalize violence; he felt that everyone in society is like this, everyone is violent, you hate me and I hate you, meeting violence with violence, repaying an eye for an eye, that is how everyone is. And as a method for achieving peace, the student's view was that only violence can stop violence, that is a method for achieving peace. Only violence can stop violence, that was his view. What was Seth's consideration at that time? What was Seth doing? His main consideration was to refute this idea, to refute this idea of meeting violence with violence, so he said, do not hate others.

But in this book, Seth is leading the reader beyond the traditional concepts of good and evil. In this book, Seth has already transcended the concepts of good and evil, and arrived at a new realm of understanding. He has already reached a higher level. But even at a deeper level, hatred is still not rationalized. Even having arrived at this new realm, at this level, Seth still did not rationalize hatred, saying that you should treat others with hatred. What Seth says is, you must face hatred honestly. Seth says you must face it honestly, and then this will bring the person, when you face hatred honestly, it will bring the person back to the love upon which it is truly built. You must remember that there is such a layering in this. He is not telling you that hatred is normal, so you should just hate every day, raging against heaven and earth. He says that is not it. He says when you use the word curse, Seth does not mean swearing or using foul language, but directing hatred toward another person. Until this person comes to terms with his own emotions, hatred will return again, because it belongs to the one who sends out the hatred, not to anyone else. The passage he referred to earlier is explaining the meaning of Seth's words. When you actively hate someone, it is because you have directed hatred toward another person, and the source of that hatred, its origin, is in you. You project it onto someone else, and it will be projected back, because it came from you in the first place.

In Seth's earlier guidance in Chapter Eleven, he provided a framework for dealing with emotions. He told you that hatred can be faced and understood, and this is also very important in this context. Seth often mentioned that the normal expression of aggressiveness can prevent anger from accumulating into resentment. In the earlier Chapter Eleven, in Seth's discussion of the state of natural guilt, he told you that you should express your aggressiveness normally, and not let it accumulate to an unmanageable point.

So this first part of the interpretation of Chapter Twenty-One is now finished. It has already been quite long. We can see that there is more to come later, and the later part is the second part, which we will not introduce today.

Next is the second part of Chapter Twenty-One of the Seth book The Nature of Personal Reality, which is Session 674, Monday evening, July 2, 1973.

Seth said "Good evening," with great humor, his eyes large and dark—this is him describing Jane, and it really was like that. Then he said:

You have the good cosmic writer about to begin his dictation.

This is him humorously referring to himself. Then he began to talk about affirmation, because the content of this chapter is affirmation.

Session 674

"Affirmation" means accepting yourself as the miraculous complexity you are.

Affirmation is not a simple thing; it is very complex. It means saying "yes" to your own existence. Acquiescing to the spirit within the flesh as your reality.

To put it simply: your present existence, your state of life, your present bodily state, your present surroundings, your relationships — all of it, everything in the present — you say yes to it. And you also acknowledge that you yourself are extremely complex — you are not some simple thing that can be operated like a robot. Your own complexity is very complex, hard to describe in words.

It is real; it is just that complex. Do not fantasize about using some simple, scientific or spiritual or any other method to define yourself as something that can be categorized, analyzed, and taken apart and understood like a machine. No. You yourself are incomparably complex, and this miraculous complexity is your reality, is the way you truly exist, so you must accept it. Accept that you yourself are complex, elusive, constantly changing, and multidimensional as well. You must also acknowledge that there is a soul within you, that you yourself are a multidimensional being, not just a physical body. You must acquiesce to the spirit within you.

This is acceptance.

Within your own complex framework — your own framework is already very complex. If you find it hard to understand, we can use another way to help you understand. You can imagine yourself as layer upon layer. Let us suppose you have nine layers of body, each layer with its own unique qualities: the astral body, the astral layer, the physical body, the spiritual body, layer upon layer. We need not worry about those definitions; what exactly they are is not important, and these layers do not truly exist. These layers are only a convenience of speech to help you understand. My use of "nine layers" is meant to make you understand that your interior is actually extremely complex — you as a person seem very simple, both simple and complex.

You have the right to say "no" to certain situations. You can say no to some things — be sure to remember this — and to express your wishes, to convey your feelings.

So within this complex framework, besides the complexity of your body, what he refers to also includes the complexity of the environment you are in, the complexity of the environment itself, which is also within the meaning of this complex framework. Your surrounding relationships, between your soul and you, between your reincarnational personalities and you, between probable selves and you, and so on and so forth — all of these are very complex. In this complexity, whether it is the three-dimensional world or the multidimensional world, no matter what kind of framework it is, you can say no. Remember this: you have the right to say no.

Many people say: "I am in this physical body. When I meditate and connect with my higher spirit, then I must follow its instructions, obey its commands." Do not listen to that. Listen if you want to listen; do not listen if you do not want to. Remember this: it must always be centered on you. This is a core point you absolutely must remember.

Affirmation is affirming yourself. No one else. It is not affirming that higher spirit outside of you, nor affirming your entity, nor affirming some deity or spirit outside of you, some higher consciousness, or affirming other people's experiences and knowledge. None of that. Affirmation is affirming yourself. So when you want to say no, or when you want to say no to certain circumstances, you must say it.

Then within the great flow of your eternal reality, there will be an overall stream of love and creation that carries you along.

What is meant by eternal reality? You yourself do not die; your soul is immortal. This is the eternal reality. Within the entire great flow of your eternal reality, there will be an overall stream of love and creation that carries you along. The implication is: within your eternal great flow there are other things besides this, but here he does not speak of the others yet; he first says that within it there is certainly an overall stream of love and creation.

Affirmation is accepting yourself in the present as the person you are.

That is, accepting yourself in the present as the person you are — this is affirmation. Affirming that you are yourself, affirming yourself as you are — this is affirmation.

Within that acceptance, within accepting yourself as you are, you may discover that you wish you did not have certain traits, or you may feel troubled by your habits.

This is a very interesting point. That is, within your acceptance, you may discover a misunderstanding or misconception. What is the misconception? You wish you were a pure soul, or a pure, elevated, noble thing, without characteristics, without traits. Or you may feel troubled by some of your daily habits, behavioral habits, or thought patterns. Why troubled? You feel this should not be how I am — this should not be the state of a spiritual practitioner or a student of spiritual learning. I should already be free of all distractions; I should already be like the mirror that is not a stand, so where could dust alight? How can I have so many afflictions? How can I get angry? How can I have emotions? This is your misconception.

Remember, it is not like that. The way you are now is already the best state. Do not expect to become a perfect person. As was said earlier, perfection is a state of completion; beyond that there is no future growth. Perfection does not exist; there is no such state of perfection. Remember, there is none. You can look at the definition of perfection in Chapter 5, around Session 626. Do not pursue a state of perfection; there is no such state. Since there is no state of perfection, there is also no state of becoming perfect.

Then what kind of state is it? It is the state of you becoming yourself, the process of you becoming yourself. Every thing you do, every word you say, every flicker of thought, your ideas, a single thought — all of these are you. Every action, thought, feeling, emotion, deed, expression — all of this is you enriching yourself, in the process of becoming yourself. There is no standard, no model, no template, no exemplar telling you what kind of person you should become. There is none.

You are simply becoming yourself. When you look around this universe, look at something, and want to become it, then you have chosen wrongly. You do not need to become someone else, nor do you need to become like so-and-so. You only need to become yourself; you are meant to become yourself. It is that simple. When you assume a state of perfection, then you are getting further and further away from yourself, and you become something you yourself do not even know.

Seth goes on to explain: Love your neighbor as yourself¹⁵ — this is a passage from the Bible, teaching you to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Then Seth says, turn the phrase around: love yourself as you love your neighbor. Why say this? Because you often treat others leniently and yourself strictly. In life we smile at others, at neighbors, with such radiance, such tolerance, such politeness — whether male or female, the voice changes; women greet neighbors with an especially sweet, coquettish voice, then turn around and the voice changes completely when speaking to their own husband — everyone has probably experienced this. Men are the same: when they see some other young lady, their voice becomes full of magnetism; when they go home to their own wife, they can hardly be bothered to respond. These are all very common.

So Seth tells you here: if you want to love yourself but do not know how, then look at how you treat the people around you. If you are polite and respectful enough to them, then you should treat yourself the same way.

He gives you an example. Those people, within what they believe to be humility, are extremely polite to the neighbors around them, believing this is humility, a great virtue and a sacred quality. They think humility is a sacred virtue, a merit, and therefore they regard feeling proud of themselves as a sin. They think it is wrong to be proud of themselves; they must be humble, keep a low profile about themselves. So in life they are extremely humble.

And within that frame of reference, within that framework in which they regard humility as a virtue and a merit, true affirmation of themselves is impossible. Be sure to remember: if you regard humility as a virtue, then you cannot appreciate yourself, cannot have a feeling of pride. You will even regard your own pride as conceit, as arrogance, as in itself a sin, a sign of immaturity, a sign of childish character. When you think this way, within that framework you cannot affirm yourself.

Seth continues:

True self-pride is the loving acknowledgment of your own integrity and value.

And true humility is built upon this loving view of yourself — so-called true humility is loving yourself, affirming yourself, and on that foundation adding this recognition: you live in a universe in which all other beings also possess this undeniable individuality and self-value. That is, you acknowledge your own sacredness, your own uniqueness and one-of-a-kindness and your own value, and you must likewise acknowledge that other people in this world are the same as you — behind each of them there is a great soul. No matter how humble or down-and-out they may be in real life, or how arrogant, how vulgar, how crude, how much they make you look down on them or dislike them, do not forget that this is only their expression in this world; behind them all there is the existence of a great soul. This is a key and a core point.

When you realize this, when you are filled with boundless love for yourself and at the same time recognize that other people in this world are beings just like you, only then is it called true humility. And so-called true self-pride is one's own recognition and acknowledgment built upon the loving acknowledgment of one's own integrity and value. This passage reads almost like prose; it is especially beautiful. Integrity includes strengths and weaknesses — be sure to remember, the meaning of integrity includes strengths and weaknesses, what you consider strengths and weaknesses, including your various circumstances. This is a normal, loving acknowledgment; this is an acknowledgment of yourself.

Now look at the next part. He says:

False humility tells you that you are nothing.

He tells you what true humility is, and then tells you what false humility is. False humility tells you that you are nothing, and it often hides within a distorted, inflated, denied self-pride — because no one truly accepts the theory that denies the value of the individual self. This is very interesting. Much false humility tells you that you are nothing, that you have no meaning, and then it hides itself within a distorted, inflated, denied self-pride. It actually uses pride to deny.

Because no one can truly accept a theory that denies self-value, there is no such thing as a true humility of "I am nothing" as he described; no such person exists.

False humility can lead you to tear down the value of others.

You not only think you have no value, but also think others have no value. Because if you do not accept your own value, you will not see value in anyone else either — while not acknowledging your own value, you also do not acknowledge others' value, so you tear down the value of others.

True self-pride allows you to perceive the integrity of your fellows.

You can perceive the same integrity in others — others have their own integrity — and it lets you use your own strength to help them.

For example:

Many people turn helping others into a grandiose performance, and encourage others to depend upon them.

This is a very dangerous thing. They believe this is a very sacred, virtuous practice. They turn helping others into this kind of good deed, this kind of ritual, doing all sorts of things; they think it is a very good thing, something with sacred virtue. In fact, what they are doing is preventing others from recognizing and using their own strength and abilities.

That is, there are some religions and some groups that tell you: you are nothing; you must believe in our leader, believe in our so-and-so; if you believe in him, his power is boundless; only by following him can you be such and such. Here they are denying your personal ability, making you dependent on them, telling you that you are not good enough, that you are nothing, that only our sacred leader is such and such. Whenever anyone says this kind of thing to you, just stay away from them. When someone denies your own ability and power, do not say another word to them; do not waste any more time.

No matter what anyone tells you, self-sacrifice is not a virtue.

Be sure to remember, no matter what others say, you must believe what I tell you: self-sacrifice is not a virtue. In real life many people think this way — I devoted myself for others, and they think this is a virtue, that they are so noble, so lofty, so great, that they gave up themselves for others. So Seth is very direct here, very blunt: stop pretending; this is not a virtue.

He says, first of all, it is impossible. No one truly sacrifices themselves for others. He says the growth and development of the self cannot be annihilated. Why? Because you must develop yourself; you cannot live for others; you must live for yourself. This is the simplest principle. You say, for you I have given up my own life — how is that possible? Others have their own missions; others have their own soul's purpose. And you have your own self-value fulfillment. You say my value fulfillment is to help him achieve, that I came just to help him — then are you not deceiving yourself?

Usually self-sacrifice means throwing the burden of yourself onto someone else, making that burden the responsibility of another.

You may not have understood this sentence. To put it simply, it is moral blackmail. To say it bluntly, in terms you can understand now, it is moral blackmail. You say "I sacrificed myself for you" — what is this called? This is called moral blackmail. It is like saying you should take responsibility for your own life — you should live your own life well — and you throw all of that away, saying I am not living my own life anymore, I am living for you. Are you not also making others bear the responsibility for your life development? For fulfilling your life value? This was originally your own burden, your own responsibility. You say I have sacrificed myself, and you dump this heavy burden and responsibility onto that person — onto your child, onto your husband, onto other people. What Seth is saying is exactly this: you throw the burden onto others. To put it simply, it is morally blackmailing others.

A mother says to her child — we often see many parents say this, whether mother or father — "I gave up my whole life for you." Saying this is meaningless. You think you are so great, moved almost to tears by yourself. Many parents really do cry; it is not fake, not crocodile tears; it is real. When they recall that their whole life has amounted to nothing, that it was all for their children, for their family, they truly do not know why they are alive in this world. So many times, in families that have lost their only child — that is, when a child dies young or has an accident — if you go in and look, the atmosphere of life is extremely oppressive, because they cannot find the meaning of life anymore.

In basic terms, such a mother believes — no matter what she says, do not mind what she says, what does she believe — that she does not have that much to give up, and that this giving up gives her the kind of life she wanted. What does this mean in plain language? It means that if a mother says this, then, to put it bluntly, this mother has certainly accomplished nothing. Seth says it more politely; I will say it directly — that is what it means. If this mother herself had great social demands, or had many things to do — for example, if she were a scientist, say she were Madame Curie, or an executive in some company, or a person in some important position — could she say this? No. To put it bluntly, she wants to give up facing these major things in society; she wants only to be a mother. This is the life she wants, but she uses her child as a shield, saying "I did it for the child."

A child says "I gave up my life for my parents" and devotes himself entirely to caring for them, for example being filial at their bedside, taking care of their daily lives day after day. What is he really saying? He is saying: I am afraid to live my own life, and I am also afraid to let them live their own lives. Therefore, while giving up his own life, he also obtains the life he wants. What kind of life? One where he does not want to go out, where he just wants to stay with his parents. To put it harshly, either it is living off one's parents, or being a mama's boy — in any case, one of several situations. Stop saying that you gave up something for your parents; these words are meaningless. Live for yourself; do not live for anyone else.

True love does not demand sacrifice.

He did not say that you must sacrifice for me, that this is true love. There is no such thing. If someone says this to you, then it is not true love.

Those who are afraid to affirm their own existence are also afraid to let others live for themselves.

This sentence is very direct and very harsh. When a person does not acknowledge the legitimacy and validity of their own existence, does not affirm their own existence, they are also afraid of others living their own lives. Because they think: I have not lived my own life, so why should you get to live yours? This is very dangerous. You must follow the rules and live according to the normal order of society. You tie your child to your side. There are many such parents who do not let their children go far away, afraid of this and afraid of that, like a mother hen always wanting to keep her chicks under her wings, not letting them go far. This does not help them at all. We all know that children of such parents cannot possibly have great development in the future.

When you encourage helplessness in your aging parents, you are not helping them either.

Why are you not helping them? Because you do not even acknowledge your own existence; you do not even accept yourself, so how can you accept others? In other words, if you do not accept yourself, how can you accept the lives of your aging parents? You will certainly think their lives are helpless, lonely, empty and desolate. This is your perception of them. With this mindset, can you help them? They should also affirm themselves. Because you do not affirm yourself, when you chat and communicate with them you are not affirming them either — because you have denied even yourself, you will deny them even more, because their aging lives are even worse than your present life.

Then through your animal nature you have been given the general ability to communicate, which if followed spontaneously and honestly would solve many of your problems.

We have mouths and can speak. This animal, biological instinct for communication, this biological ability — if we can spontaneously and honestly follow our basic instinctive ability to communicate — that is, say what is on our mind, without covering up, without hiding ourselves — it would solve many of your problems. If each of us spoke truthfully when communicating with others, many problems would be solved. Many of our problems cannot be solved precisely because we say one thing and mean another.

Only repressed communication leads to violence.

No communication, or poor communication, being repressed — only this leads to violence.

The natural force of love is everywhere within you, and normal methods of communication always bring you into greater contact with your fellows.

Communication brings exchange, brings understanding, brings mutual trust. These are all the same; they all require communication.

Love yourself, and give yourself the justice of that treatment, and you will treat others justly.

This is a foundation. Only if you love yourself can you love others, can you truly treat others justly.

When you say no, or deny, it is always because in your heart and emotions a present situation or a suggested situation falls far short of some ideal. You always make this rejection in response to something that is considered good. If you do not have too rigid a concept of perfection, then ordinary denial has a very practical purpose, but never deny your present reality simply because you compare it to some idealized perfection.

To put this passage simply, it means this: your denial of reality, of your present situation — whether your work, your relationships, your life, your state — the reason you deny your present state is only one thing: you have in your heart an ideal life, an ideal standard, and you think your present state is far from that ideal standard. When you feel that you and your ideal life are far apart, you will not accept your present life. You feel this is not the life I want; I want that kind of life, not the life I have now.

Perfection does not exist; he already said this earlier, and he says it again. Because all existence is a state of becoming. Here he does not mean that all existence is a state of becoming perfect — not becoming perfect, but becoming more of itself. As I explained earlier, it is becoming itself, more of itself.

All other emotions are based upon love, and they all relate to it to one degree or another, and are all methods of returning to it and expanding its capacity.

"It" refers to love. All your emotions are built upon the foundation of love. If you do not understand what this passage means, you can look at the first half of Volume One of Seth Speaks; he focuses on this issue there — at the very beginning of the world, humans had only two emotions, love and fear, these two primary emotions. All emotions are based on love; fear is also born in order to experience love. In Conversations with God and in the early part of Seth Speaks, he also repeatedly emphasized this point; we will not expand on it here.

Throughout this book, I have deliberately avoided using the word love, and also avoided using the word soul.

Why? Because we humans now have all kinds of interpretations attached to this word love, and because many mistakes are often made in its name. What does that mean? We often make mistakes in the name of love. For example, because I love you, because I want what is best for you, that is why I did such and such; because I love you, that is why I did this and that. Love has been given too many meanings by us humans, and some of these meanings are not the essence of love. So Seth in practice tries to avoid using the word "love" as much as possible, for fear of causing misunderstanding.

You must first love yourself, before you love another.

Underline this sentence. If you want to love others, you must first love yourself. This is the most basic thing.

By accepting yourself and joyfully being yourself, you fulfill your own abilities.

Very simple. Accept yourself, joyfully be yourself, become yourself as you are, and you fulfill your own abilities. It is that simple — just be yourself.

And by your presence you can also make others happy.

When you do this — love yourself, be yourself, be joyful and happy being yourself — when you do this, you can make the other people around you happy, and you can make the other people in your environment happy too.

You cannot hate yourself and love another.

You cannot say I am dissatisfied with myself and still love another person. Impossible. A person who does not love themselves cannot love others. On the contrary:

You will project onto others all the qualities you think you do not have.

You project the things you lack, the things you do not have, onto the people around you, praising them verbally. You praise them with your mouth — you are so beautiful, so good, so pretty, such a good attitude, so handsome, so rich — but in your heart you hate that. We are like this much of the time: we say how wonderful others are, then turn around and say in our hearts: oh, what is so great about them, they just have a rich father; or: oh, they just got lucky, the opportunity came at the right time. In all kinds of ways, we praise them on the surface but say behind their backs that they are nothing special. Because they have qualities you do not have; those people have qualities that you lack, so you hate them.

Although you claim to love that person, you attempt to undermine the very basis of their existence.

You claim that you love them, that you love that person, but you still try to undermine — I will not give examples; there are too many. In life, stabbing people in the back, making things difficult for them, all kinds of things, wanting to watch them fall from their pedestal.

When you love others, you give them their innate freedom.

You must give them freedom; love must give them freedom.

Rather than the cowardly insistence that they must always attend to you.

That is, when you love someone, you have to give them freedom. You cannot tie love to your side and say that they must take care of you all the time.

There are no distinctions within love.

A child's love for their parents, parents' love for their child, a wife's love for her husband, an older brother's love for his younger sister: there is no basic difference between these kinds of love. Love is all the same; it simply has various expressions and qualities. They have their own qualities and different expressions, yet all love gives affirmation. Be sure to remember that all love gives people affirmation.

It can accept departures from the ideal vision without condemnation.

This is what he just discussed in the previous session: in the eyes of someone who loves, whether it is parents loving a child, a wife loving her husband, or an older brother loving his younger sister, within that love there is always a vision for the other person, an ideal vision, a hope that they will become that kind of person. What does "departure" mean here? It means that in real life, the person may not have achieved this. For example, parents hope their child will do well in school, but when the child does not do well, that is a departure: they have not developed according to the predetermined ideal vision you have for their development. At that point, you cannot condemn them. You should not say that they have failed to act in your ideal way and then condemn them. Instead, you need to accept them, to accept the fact that they differ from your ideal vision.

It does not compare the actual condition of the beloved with the potential ideal condition you foresee.

It does not compare. Love does not compare the actual condition of the beloved with the potential ideal condition you foresee. That is, it does not compare your expectations of someone with their present condition. When you feel dissatisfied, you start flying into a rage. That is not how it works; real love is never like that.

Within this vision, that potential is seen as "present."

What does that mean? If you consider the simultaneity of time, doesn't your ideal person, the person you imagine in your mind, already exist somewhere in time and space? The moment you imagine them, they are already there. If we are talking about the simultaneous existence of time, then they already exist. So he says that potential, the abilities of the person in your idealization, is already there. And the distance between the actual and the ideal does not create a conflict. You feel there is a conflict because the time has not yet come, and they have not become what you hope they will be. But he says that, in fact, the abilities and potential possessed by the person you hope they will become are already theirs now. Because they coexist. Remember, the person and their potential abilities coexist.

Sometimes you feel that you hate humanity. Many different organizations, Greenpeace and all sorts of other organizations, actually hate humanity because they feel that humans are harming nature, destroying nature, and so on. Perhaps you think the other people sharing this planet with you are crazy. Perhaps you fly into a rage at their foolish behavior, which you consider so stupid, their bloodthirsty ways, the law of the jungle, the strong preying on the weak, and the inappropriate and shortsighted ways they use to solve problems. They pollute the environment to develop the economy, and you fly into a rage at this way of solving problems. Over disputes about faith or ideas, they can come to blows and go to war, even at the cost of innocent lives. All of this rests on an idealized concept you have of what humanity should be.

The reason you hate them this way, the reason you are so frustrated that they fail to live up to their potential, is that you have an idealized image in your mind of what human society should be, which is your love for your own kind. You love them, and that is why you hate them. Why don't you hate ants? Why don't you hate elephants? Why don't you hate other species? Go hate the Amazon rainforest, because this has nothing to do with it, and you do not love them either. Your hatred means that, deep down, you love them. You have an ideal expectation of them, and when they fail to meet that expectation, you fly into a furious rage.

But if you concentrate on all those less-than-ideal conditions, your love may become lost.

If you now concentrate on those actual conditions that you consider less than ideal, on the things they have failed to do to your satisfaction, your love will become lost. Is there any need to love them? To love these foolish humans, is there any need to love them?

When you think you hate humanity the most, you are actually caught in a dilemma of love.

When you feel hatred, you are actually caught in a dilemma of love. "Resenting iron for failing to become steel": this Chinese idiom expresses it best. You compare humanity with the idealized concept of the love it holds for you; you compare humanity's ideal society with its actual society, and of course you feel upset. In these circumstances, you forget the actual people involved. You overlook the fact that everyone has their own difficulties, their own circumstances. No one is idealized. The word "humanity" in your mind does not exist when applied to specific people; there is no one who can be called a standard human being. Everyone has their own actual problems and situations to face.

You place love on such a level that you separate yourself from your true feelings.

What are your true feelings? You yourself feel love, yet you end up turning that love into hatred. So love is your true feeling, but in the end it becomes hatred toward them. You are thus separating yourself from your true feelings and refusing to acknowledge that feeling of deep love. You do not acknowledge that you love them deeply. You do not acknowledge that this love is the root of your hatred. You refuse to acknowledge it.

Because you fear that those you love cannot be worthy of your love.

In this example, he means humanity as a whole. You fear that those you love cannot be worthy of your love. You feel that they have not done well enough, that humanity may not be good enough in the future either, and that they do not deserve your love. You take a pessimistic view of humanity's future development. Therefore, you deny the impact of this feeling. You deny the impact of love as the deepest foundation of all feelings, and you do not feel much love in your experience. In this kind of life experience, can you still feel love? You cannot. What you see is hatred toward humanity, hatred toward all kinds of things, and it becomes the main element of your life. More of what you experience in life is hatred than love. So you are focusing on this unattained ideal. That is where you have placed your focus.

If, instead, you allow yourself to release that love which is actually dissatisfied, if you allow yourself to release the love hidden behind your dissatisfaction with the current situation, saying, "The reason I am so frustrated that these people fail to live up to their potential is that I still love them," then when you express and release that love, this act alone can let you see the lovable qualities in humanity that now largely escape your notice.

When you look at the world from a different angle, with a different belief, when all you used to see was human behavior that was evil, bad, polluting the environment, and driving species to extinction, looking from another angle lets you see humanity's lovable qualities. If you have seen the film Spread Your Wings, you will know what efforts and attempts the father and son made for the migration of wild geese. Of course, they also bettered themselves and fulfilled themselves, but at the same time, they were making the contribution that they, as humans, should make to the migration of wild animals.

There was a break here. Jane's transmission was steady.

Seth continued:

Nothing is more pompous than false humility.

Seth circles back and remembers this matter again, and he attacks that false humility once more. How pompous is it? The examples he gives below are things we often see in everyday life: all sorts of so-called masters, all sorts of gurus. Of course, I am not trying to attack particular people, but if you observe this behavior carefully, you will find that many people exhibit this tendency. What tendency? Many people who consider themselves seekers of truth, or who consider themselves spiritual, are full of it. Full of what? False humility.

Let us look at how they practice false humility. These people often express themselves in religious terms. They do not dare use genuine language to express themselves. Every time they open their mouths, it is all religious language, all kinds of Buddhist scriptures, biblical texts, classics, and even Classical Chinese, elaborate passages of Classical Chinese with all its archaic expressions. They often say this. See if these words sound familiar.

I am nothing, I am not, I am nothing. But the spirit of God flows through me, and if I have done any good, it is because of the spirit of God and not myself.

Aren't they denying themselves? Isn't this a denial of themselves? It looks very humble: I am nothing, I merely borrow God's hand, and God flows through me. Or they say that they have no ability themselves, that only God's power has that ability, that there is only God's power and they themselves have none. What are they doing? This is called false humility. Seth gets particularly angry about this. He dislikes it.

He says, all right, according to that way of speaking, and then Seth refutes those two types above. If we follow what you say, if we follow that way of speaking, you are a manifestation of God's power, the spirit of God flows through you, you have no ability, it is all God's ability doing these things, and all good deeds are done by God. He says:

You are not powerless. Through your existence, God's power is strengthened.

What does "God's power is strengthened" mean? Because if it had not come through you, God would not have done this good deed. Because this good deed was done, hasn't one more good deed been done? Suppose God had done a billion good deeds, but because you did this additional good deed, hasn't God now done a billion and one good deeds? Doesn't that additional good deed enrich God's power? Are you strengthening God's power? Because you are a part of it.

You are not an unimportant, harmless lump of clay through which he has decided to manifest.

Because people say humans were made from clay, he uses this vivid analogy. He says you are a part of him. You are not an utterly unimportant heap of earth; you are him made concrete. You are just as real as he is. You are simply his embodiment. If you are a part of God, then he is also a part of you. You are a part of him, and he is a part of you. And when you deny your own worth, you consequently deny his worth as well, denying God's worth.

I do not like using the masculine "he" to describe God, because "All That Is" is not only the source of all sexes, but the source of all realities.

He is not only the source of all sexes, but also the source of realities. So within him, there is no such thing as gender.

Dancing and the Celebration of the Body's Nature

In some of these, what you think of as gender does not exist.

He will continue to elaborate on this in The Nature of the Psyche.

When the body is dancing, remember it is the body, "affirmation" is already in its spontaneous movements.

Affirmation is already included in the movements of the dance. So now you especially understand those people who do square dancing, those aunties and uncles, why they are so happy, so joyful, so delighted -- every day they are affirming themselves.

Many people who consider themselves quite religiously devout and often go to church do not understand the nature of love or affirmation as well as those who frequent dance halls. When these people dance along with the movements of their own bodies, they are celebrating the nature of the body and enjoying the transcendence of spontaneity.

So if you have this kind of possibility, this kind of interest or hobby, you can go sign up for some dance classes -- any kind of dance will do: street dance, modern dance, Latin dance, any dance at all, including pole dancing, belly dancing, all of it is fine. This kind of bodily movement will naturally bring about a celebration of your own body's nature, just like the soul ringing a bell and singing -- this form is very effective.

If you have seen the place where Osho first began -- I think it was called Poona, I forget, the place where Osho first started in India, its surroundings were all very run-down slums. The moment you entered that place, the energy field was very strong. I have a friend who used to go there often. One of the methods there was through this kind of dancing, natural dancing -- you did not need to learn it, you just moved along with everyone, and that energy and the process of dancing itself brought you to the transcendence of spontaneity. People who have danced will know this.

So for those who do not affirm themselves enough, who are not confident enough in themselves, you can try the method of dancing -- it can alleviate it, or help you recover some affirmation of yourself.

The Context of Christ's Era

True religion is not repressive. Remember this: it is not repressive. Just as life itself is not — life itself will not repress you.

When Christ spoke, he was speaking within the context of his era. In your terms:

He used the symbols and vocabulary that a particular people in a particular period of history could understand.

At this point he shifts his tone and begins discussing Christianity. Why? Because Christianity's influence on Western society is enormous, and Christianity also imposes a great many constraints and limitations on those who believe in it.

Let me give a simple example: Christianity does not permit premarital sex. So many Christians, whether boys or girls, are in great pain — they have these normal physical needs, but they cannot accept premarital sex. It is somewhat like the old views in ancient China. They suppress themselves with all their might. Then what do they do? Young men and women hug and kiss and so on — apart from not actually having sexual intercourse, they have done everything else. But he feels the Bible says that act is not allowed, so apart from that one act, he has done everything else. Do you think he has made love or not? He is just fooling himself.

Other religions are even stricter — they do not even allow hugging and kissing. So no matter what religion it is, its initial repressive force on people is very strong.

Then, Christ began with their beliefs — he began with the beliefs of the people of that time — and using the language familiar to them, familiar to that people and that era, he tried to guide them into a freer realm of understanding — that is, he was constantly helping them expand their cognition and extend their consciousness.

Just as Seth is doing for us today. You must remember that it has the character of its time: two thousand years ago, people's cognition was not as open as it is now. At that time, Christ's teachings were already open enough for them.

But with every translation of the Bible — and he means not only textual translation, but also oral translation — the Bible has been changed in meaning. Because it is interpreted in contemporary language, that is, we use modern people's words to explain the things in the ancient Bible.

So when Christ spoke of good spirits and evil spirits, it was because these represented the beliefs of the people at that time.

Related material can be found in Chapter Twelve.

In the words of the people of that era and that period, the evil spirits he showed them could be conquered. In Christ's time, he actually told others: look, I have subdued the devil, I have subdued the evil spirits. Through such demonstrations he showed others that these evil spirits could be conquered.

At that time, these were symbols accepted by people as facts. In those days, people regarded evil spirits as a kind of symbol — sometimes symbols of quite normal illnesses and human conditions.

What conditions? Two thousand years ago, humanity still believed in savage violence — whoever had the most power had the say. Wars were very frequent then, very much the law of the jungle. So in that era, these evil spirits symbolized those human behaviors that people could not understand at the time. Christ telling you that evil spirits could be conquered was a way of showing that war could also be conquered, violence could also be conquered, disease could also be conquered — they were all bad.

Love Your Neighbor: Christ's Humor

Then "love your neighbor as yourself" -- this is a line Christ said in the Bible, and it is an ironic statement. Because in that society, at that time -- not now, but in the society of two thousand years ago -- no one loved his neighbor, yet deep down no one trusted him either.

Therefore, most of Christ's humor was not understood. When Christ said "love your neighbor as yourself," he was actually satirizing the people of that time, satirizing this social phenomenon: not only do you not love them, in your hearts you do not even trust them. Seth says this was one of Christ's jokes, but none of you understood this kind of humor.

Then he says, in the "Sermon on the Mount" -- this is again a passage from the Bible --

The meek shall inherit the earth.

These are all original lines from the Bible, and this line has been greatly misunderstood.

Why is so much emphasis placed here on things from the Bible? Because the society he was in was American society, Western society, and the Bible's influence on people there was too great. Unlike our current domestic society, or other Eastern societies, where the Bible's influence on people is very small -- you only know those two words, but you actually do not know what they are saying. But in those Western societies, they took it as a guide and standard for behavior in daily life, and this was very important. So with these limiting thoughts and limiting beliefs in here, Seth could not help but want to point them out to them. So he also offended many potential audience members who believed in Christianity -- he meant well, but people did not accept it, and did not want to listen to him attacking their most beloved God, Christ, Heavenly Father, and so on.

What did Christ mean to point to in this line? What he wanted to say was that you form your own reality.

Those whose thoughts are peaceful will find themselves untouched by war and opposition, they will not be touched by it, they will escape and truly inherit the earth.

To put it simply, what he is saying is that you form your own reality: if you do not want war, and your heart is peaceful, then you will not be affected by war, will not be touched by war -- it is that simple. And when the war is over, whether the winning side or the losing side, they have not inherited the earth. Instead, it is these gentle people, these inwardly peaceful people, who, because their hearts are peaceful, create a peaceful world, and in their hearts, war has no effect on them at all. They will ultimately inherit this earth. In other words, they are the masters of the earth, not those who start wars -- those who start wars in order to seize land ultimately do not get the land; instead, it is those who love peace who ultimately get the land.

So peaceful thoughts, especially amid chaos, in the society of that time, required great energy. Now it seems easy, but at that time it required great energy. Now it is not easy either -- look at all kinds of relationships now, especially the recent China-US relationship, and other relationships, the conflicts between Islam and other religions¹⁶, all of this is very obvious.

Those who can ignore the physical evidence of war and concentrate their consciousness on thoughts of peace will win.

That is, ignore the physical evidence of war, do not look at it, ignore it, and only follow the reality formed by the beliefs in your own heart. Those who concentrate their consciousness on thoughts of peace will ultimately win.

But in your language, the word "meek" has come to mean spineless, not good enough, and lacking in energy. In our human language, meek means having no ambition, being a pushover who gets bullied. In Christ's time, the line "the meek shall inherit the earth" contained an implied application of affirmation, love, and peace as being rich in energy -- at that very period, when he said this line, it contained the meaning of how to focus these three things, affirmation, love, and peace, with great energy, and how to apply them in that environment at that time.

Christ Was Not Crucified

There was a pause here in the middle. In the trance state, Seth asked Rob to bring him his lighter, because he had run out of matches.

Then Seth continued:

As I mentioned in Seth Speaks, the existence of Christ was too large to be contained in any one person.

For that matter, in any one era, he could not be placed within any one era either -- too large.

Therefore the person whom you recognize as Christ was not crucified.

Here he goes again. He has repeated this over and over, as if he were afraid he had not offended Christianity thoroughly enough. You can say it in Seth Speaks, but you do not need to say it in every book. If you say this, all Christians will refuse to buy the book; that kind of resistance is simply beyond description.

So you should pay attention: if you have Christian friends around you, unless they themselves want to reflect and examine things, do not proactively push the Seth material on them. Deep in their hearts they are extremely averse to these statements. Something like "Christ was not crucified" -- the moment you say it, it explodes.

Nor was the concept of self-sacrifice involved at that time.

It had nothing to do with self-sacrifice. Why does he emphasize self-sacrifice here? Because the entire foundation of Christianity rests on this: Christ was burned to death, sacrificed himself in devotion, and through his redemption washed away humanity's original sin. That is its basic idea. If you erase this basic idea, then the entire foundation of the religion is gone.

The myth became more real than the physical event.

What myth? The event of being crucified and then resurrected three days later -- that is a myth. He says the myth became more real than the actual event -- that is, whether he was burned or not, whether he was really burned to death, no longer matters. Everyone believes he was burned to death, believes he was resurrected, and that has already accomplished its function. Whether this person was really burned to death is meaningless. Of course, that is also the case with many so-called important historical facts. This myth later became real history, but the myth was also distorted.

God did not sacrifice his beloved son by permitting that son's physical body to be killed.

Even the myth was distorted -- God did not let his beloved son offer up his own body. Although the body was not much to him, it was only a physical manifestation, still he did not let him sacrifice that physical body.

"Christ" desired to be born into time and space, and to rise above the animal attributes, in order to serve as a leader, and to translate certain truths into physical terms.

That is, Christ desired to have his physical existence in real life, to enter the three-dimensional world, to rise above the animal attributes, and to serve humanity in the role of a leader, a founder of a religion. That was the way he preferred.

Each and every one of you survives death. This is certain. Once we know that the soul is eternal, we know that after we die, each of us will still exist.

And the person who was crucified -- he said in Seth Speaks that that person was not Christ, but a drugged, dazed man. That man also understood this point beyond any doubt -- he knew that he would survive death, he knew he would not truly die, that after a person dies the soul lives on forever. Yet he sacrificed nothing. Everyone says the substitute was pitiful -- his physical body died, but his soul would not die.

So in Seth Speaks, he said that this substitute was arranged by Judas to replace Christ himself on the cross. That was what Rob asked Seth in the middle.

Then Seth continued, saying that this substitute seemed to be a confused man, but within his confusion, although he was confused, he still understood that everyone would be resurrected -- each of us is an eternal soul. He was willing to take upon himself the symbol of this knowledge, to show you that after death there is resurrection, and he was also willing to appear as a symbol. As for whether he was regarded as Christ or not, those things were not so important to him.

And the person who was called Christ was not crucified. However, within the whole drama, in your terms, what is physical and what is not -- what he means is, what is the point of agonizing over the question of whether Christ was actually crucified on the cross or not?

You say, of course it matters -- this is history, and history should be true. If you understand it that way, then your study of spirituality is still not fully understood. What is a fact? He said earlier that a fact is a fiction that is generally accepted -- do you remember the earlier sessions? If everyone believes it is a fact, then it is already a fact; whether it actually happened no longer matters. So whether the person crucified on the cross and burned to death was really Christ or a substitute is already meaningless, because we believe he was Christ burned to death, and that is the fact. Between what we take to be fact and what is not fact, there is not much real difference, because the greater reality transcends facts and creates them.

You have free will, and can interpret that drama as you wish, because it was enacted for you. You can understand it however you want -- a television drama was performed for you, and how you want to interpret it is your business.

Its great creative force will still exist, and you can use it in your own way.

The great creative force of this drama will still exist, and you can use this force in your own way.

Even as your beliefs change, you also change your own symbols.

When beliefs change, symbols also change.

But the main concept is the affirmation of physical existence, that the you that you know is not destroyed by death.

What does this mean? It means that when your beliefs change, when you believe that after your physical body dies your soul will not die either, then you will fully understand what the actual meaning of Christ's performance really is -- it is to tell you that you are not destroyed by death, to tell you that there is no death in this world. This was maintained even in that distorted drama.

The whole concept of the fatherhood of God, as given by Christ, was indeed a new covenant.

There is the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The male image of God was used because of the gender orientation of that era -- that era considered the male to be authoritative. But beyond that gender, the Christ personality said:

"The kingdom of God is within you"

This is from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17, verse 21. If you have a Bible, you can turn to it and look.

So in a certain way, the Christ personality was a specific manifestation of the evolution of consciousness -- it represented a concrete expression of the evolution of the overall consciousness of human society at that time, leading humanity beyond the concept of violence of that period, and changing a behavior that had been prevalent up until then. What behavior? Violent behavior. Think about it -- people simply burned heretics to death. How violent that was.

Christ used a method similar to "if someone strikes you on the left cheek, turn the right cheek to him as well," letting those so-called primitive believers who regarded him as a heretic crucify him. What was he actually doing? He was actually representing the fact that human consciousness had reached that stage -- what he was saying was that the overall consciousness of humanity was about to begin shifting from violence to peace or peaceful means, and that the concept of violence should have been changed in that era.

Follow-up Notes on Christ

During the break, what follows is what Jane said: she only remembered that Seth had once talked about Christ and quoted some words from the Bible, and she knew very little about either of these. As for the Bible itself as an example, she did not think that "the kingdom of God is within you¹⁷" came from the book of the Bible. But later she very easily found this saying of Jesus in several versions.

Many people had written or called them, asking about the biblical events concerning Christ that Seth had discussed, as well as related unpublished material from that era. In fact, all such material had either already been printed word for word and published, or had been mentioned -- apart from Seth Speaks and this book, one can refer to Chapter 18 of The Seth Material, which talks a great deal about certain things concerning Christ in that era. This is a note Jane added later. Much material is available, as long as they wait until the required timing is reached.

Seth finished his work on this book in mid-July. Not long afterward, Jane saw an illustrated article about Jerusalem in a travel magazine, and they kept it for possible reference. One of the photographs accompanying the article was a two-page color aerial view of the city taken from the sky. Jane and Rob found this image so exciting that they had it framed so they could study it at any time. Jerusalem's dry environment, combined with its incredibly complex and active historical background, caused them to reflect anew on the mysterious power of religious creativity that seemed to have always radiated from it and was still continuing.

What does this mean? It means that Jerusalem, as a historical birthplace of religion, remains a hot spot of religion even today, so it must have its own inner significance.

In a private session on September 3, Seth discussed the reasons behind Jerusalem's continuing attraction for a certain portion of humanity. These included probabilities, geography, and the unusual interplay of past, present, and future involved, and certain aspects of the Christ phenomenon were also explained.

Then in the next session, which was about other subjects, Seth unexpectedly added this sentence:

Whether now or whenever you want it, I can have more material on Jerusalem or on Christ. Whenever you want it, you can have a book such as The Book of Christ.

But at that time they were not yet ready to begin such an effort, so it was only later that he also did not specifically produce a book devoted to this aspect of Christ.

The Dawning and Unification of Human Consciousness

Then Seth goes on to say:

In terms of time, an evolution such as you think of it, and the emerging consciousness had reached a point.

If we calculate this evolution according to human time, by the era of Christ, the emerging consciousness of humanity had already reached a certain point.

And this human consciousness so enjoyed distinctions and differences that even within one small geographical area, diverse groups, different religious sects and nations all gathered together.

He is referring to Jerusalem -- even today the region of Jerusalem is still very chaotic, with all kinds of religions mixed together, each religion proudly affirming its own individuality and value above the others, each proudly proclaiming its own uniqueness above the other religions.

This is something that was bound to happen at that period in the specific course of human historical development.

In those terms, in the beginning the emerging consciousness of humanity needed to disperse freely, affirming individualization.

In the earliest budding stage of human consciousness, it needed diversity, laying the foundation for different characteristics, affirming the individualization of consciousness development. So there were many religions, many ideas, many schools of thought.

This is very similar to the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought in our own history -- the period of contending schools and flourishing ideas, which was during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, around the time before and after the Common Era.

By the time of Christ, however, there had to be some unifying principles. Through them, this diversity would also experience a sense of unity, and perceive its oneness.

After this period of flourishing diversity, unification was bound to come. Different cultures and different religions would also discover that behind them there existed a unifying presence.

So this is also why, after the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought passed, it became a small number of unified schools -- in China's case, Confucian culture gained the upper hand, was taken up by the ruling class, or became an ideology accepted by the people of that particular region of human society.

Christ was a symbol of the emerging consciousness of humanity, holding within himself the awareness of human potential.

His message was meant to be handed down beyond the ages.

That is, he should not have been limited by his era, but should have existed beyond time and space, transcending the ages. Yet this interpretation was often not achieved, and unfortunately he did not achieve it -- he was also distorted. If you read the introductions in the later chapters of Seth Speaks, you will know that throughout the whole process, there were many distortions. It was because of these distortions that a third Christ personality would appear again, to correct his distortions.

Christ used parables that were very appropriate at that time, such as using sacrifice as a symbol of authority, and turning water into wine.

Sacrifice itself is a symbol. In the Four Gospels it is written that Christ, during the process of this sacrifice, turned water into wine on the spot. And many people who considered themselves extremely holy overlooked what Christ did at the wedding feast.

Yet later Christianity denied that anything could cause one to fall, so later Christianity did not advocate people drinking wine, considering wine to be a bad thing that makes people fall, lose consciousness, and weaken their will. For a long time, both in Europe and in America, alcohol was prohibited -- selling alcohol was not allowed, drinking alcohol was not allowed, and alcohol was not allowed to exist on the market. Yet many people were drinking, through bootlegging, secretly selling alcohol on their own, which was illegal but highly profitable -- where there is demand, someone will provide the service, so alcohol was never actually completely banned.

You see, his point is that Christ drank wine, and Christ drank wine on many occasions, including the Last Supper and so on. Later it was said that none of that was wine, that it was all manna, holy dew, holy water. But I have not actually studied the Bible, so I do not know whether there is such a story in it, saying that Christ once turned water into wine.

What follows is all his criticism of later generations -- he is not criticizing the person of Christ himself, but criticizing the later church and the later inheritors of Christianity for their distortion of Christianity.

He says that Christ was together with prostitutes and the poor. His disciples could hardly be called prominent figures in the city -- they were simply not presentable. To use our internet slang, they were people who did not even have ID cards. Yet many people who consider themselves religiously devout are unwilling to give up fame and social status. This is a tremendous irony: when Christ was alive, he was with the poor, yet the Christians of later generations constantly pursue their own fame and social status.

Christ used the local language of his time, and in his own way openly opposed dogmatic concepts, and those temples that pretended to be repositories of sacred knowledge but in fact cared only for fame and profit.

He was challenging authority. When Christ was alive, he was completely at odds with authority, which is why he drew such hatred that they nailed him to the cross. He is talking about how later generations differed from him:

Yet many who considered themselves followers of Christ turned against the wanderers whom Christ considered his brothers and sisters.

But many followers of Christ said that those wanderers had no right to learn the things of Christ.

He affirmed that the reality of the individual transcended any organization.

This is the theme of this session: individuality, affirming oneself. When Christ was alive, he did the same things and took the same actions. At the same time, he still understood that some systems were necessary -- transcending organizations does not mean that all organizations should be abolished. Organizational systems are considered necessary, but you should not be restricted and suppressed by them, and you should not fear authority.

His entire message was that the outer world is a manifestation of the inner world. The Kingdom of God was physically materialized.

He is still interpreting that statement: the Kingdom of God is within each person's heart.

The Forged Gospel

Seth says there are lost gospels -- there are four gospels, and some were lost, written by people in other countries during that era, about Christ's unknown life, and also about episodes not mentioned in the Bible. These formed a fairly separate body of knowledge, one that could be accepted by people whose beliefs differed from those of the Jews at the time. That information was expressed through other narratives, but in the same way, they reflected affirmation of the self, and one's own physical death or continued existence. Love was always emphasized.

Then he says one of the four gospels is forged -- and once again he starts challenging this sensitive nerve of Christianity, challenging it again and again.

When he says it is fake, what does he mean? It was written after the others, not from the same period as those, but forged by later generations. And the events were all distorted -- the things described in it were all twisted and fabricated. The purpose of making it appear distorted was to make it seem as though some of the events happened in a completely different context from where they actually occurred, so that it would look like a work from the same period as the other three gospels, and so he altered it.

In any case, Christ's message was still an affirmative message. Affirming what? Affirming the self. Christ's message overall was affirming each of us, affirming ourselves.

So do you want to know what Seth is trying to say here? Seth goes around in a big circle, a long detour, and what he wants to tell you is this: each of you must affirm yourself, must love yourself. He says this is not something I newly proposed; Christ also held this consistent view. He went around in a big circle, actually wanting these vast numbers of Christians to accept his viewpoint, but it actually backfired -- by the time he said all those earlier things, no one was willing to look at this anymore.

While Jane was in trance, Rob looked up with a puzzled expression and asked her. Jane paused, and Rob's question was: which gospel is the forged one? You just said one of the four is forged, so which one exactly? Because once the book came out, they would inevitably receive countless questions about this.

Then Seth played coy here. Seth said:

The forged book is not the Gospel of Mark, nor the Gospel of John.

So that leaves two. Then he said:

There are particular reasons, so I do not want to elaborate on them now.

He would not say. One of those two is fake; you can guess for yourself.

Then Rob said all right, though somewhat reluctantly -- he was certainly reluctant, because once this got out, the letters would probably bury them like an avalanche.

He said that at that time, Christ unified human consciousness in ways that have continued to influence later generations.

That is, through Christianity, through the form of the church, to unify human consciousness.

Christ's consciousness was not isolated. We are now speaking in your terms, from our human perspective. Therefore, this same consciousness also gave birth to all religions. Through various different frameworks, people of different eras could express themselves and grow.

He says this consciousness of Christ was not unique to him. In that similar era, in that same period, there were many other similar consciousnesses -- what consciousness? Affirming yourself, affirming the meaning of your existence. People of other eras could also express it in different ways, express their own growth. Jesus Christ was also expressing his own growth -- the entire Bible is actually a story of one individual's personal growth. The Buddhist scriptures are the story of the Buddha's growth after his own enlightenment.

In all such cases, religion began with the beliefs prevalent at the time, spoken through the maxims of the age, and then expanded. So when the Buddha founded Buddhism, it was similar: in that period, ancient India had many competing schools, everyone believed in reincarnation, but everyone felt such reincarnation was meaningless, time after time... And the concept of reincarnation was not unique to Buddhism itself; it borrowed many of the beliefs about the six realms of rebirth, hell, and so on from Hinduism at the time. So it essentially took those beliefs that the Indian masses of the time generally believed in as its foundation, expressed them in a way that people of that time considered maxims, and then expanded upon them.

This is a characteristic and feature of how religions come into being; they are all like this.

Now, this represents the spiritual side of human evolution -- human evolution certainly has its spiritual side, and that spiritual side is reflected right here.

As the race grows and changes, the framework of ideas of the psychic and spiritual life is far more important than the physical level.

When a race, whether it is the Chinese nation or the Jewish people, is growing and developing, what is its first and most important thing? It is not the development of its body, such as what it becomes or what racial characteristics and appearance it has -- none of that matters. The most important thing is the change and development of the framework of ideas of its psychic and spiritual life; that is what truly brings about the growth and change of the race.

In other words, when our Chinese nation, when our Chinese people want to develop, want to elevate themselves, the most important thing is to change the framework of ideas of their psychic and spiritual life -- far more important than changes on the physical level. That is the point he wants to tell you.

A Small Experiment After Class

He said:

I give you both my most heartfelt blessings, and wish you both good night.

After the session, Jane did a short experiment. Rob explained to Jane the little he knew about the Gospels, and suggested she try to determine through psychic means which of the forged Gospels it was -- whether it was the Gospel of Matthew or the Gospel of Luke.

You see, the two of them were still hung up on this question. We may not live in that kind of environment, so we really do not care which one is fake. But they really cared, cared especially -- since Seth would not say, they decided to test it themselves. The session had already ended at 12:02, it was already the middle of the night, and these two went on to do the experiment.

Then very quickly, Jane did not expend much effort. Jane's psychic ability, in this process of transmission, as the spirituality of the self kept opening up, was growing stronger and stronger. Jane very quickly said:

The Gospel of Matthew.

She said it was the Gospel of Matthew -- meaning the Gospel of Matthew was the fake one. She did not know why she arrived at such an answer, and she did not want to discover more. She did not want to know why; she just said she felt it was the Gospel of Matthew. She did not feel that her statement came from Seth, or was answered through Seth; it was just her own intuition.

Everyone believes that the Gospel of Mark was written first, so everyone assumes that one must be genuine. As for the Gospel of Matthew being fake, the dates Rob gives below are all approximate:

Many biblical scholars believe that the Gospels were written between 60 and 100 A.D., which was much later than Christ's death in 29 to 30 A.D.

The Gregorian calendar we now use takes the first year as beginning from the day of Christ's birth. The year 29 A.D. is when Christ, at age 29 or 30, was crucified. And the Gospels were completed roughly 30 to 70 years after that death -- this is the result of biblical scholars' research.

But various recent claims, various pieces of evidence, all tend to push the writing of the Gospel of Mark back to as early as 35 A.D.

That would be about five or six years after Christ's death, much closer to the era in which Christ lived.

This is the final part of the interpretation of this session.

Jane's Experience Before the Session

On Wednesday evening, July 4, 1973¹⁸, this session happened to fall on America's Independence Day. That day there were celebrations all over the United States, and in the evening every city and household would set off fireworks; it was their tradition.

Before the session, Rob had some introductory remarks. That afternoon, Jane and he had driven through the lovely, crisp countryside near Elmira; the sun-drenched day could be described as nearly perfect. Yet when they sat waiting for the session to begin at 9:25, the living room was hot. All the windows were open, and in the evening you could hear the very exciting sound of firecrackers about a block away—they were still celebrating the national holiday.

While they were waiting for the session to begin, Jane began to enter a transcendent, intensified state of consciousness. Rob began to write down her experience, but missed some of her account because she was speaking too fast. Her hands acquired a velvety, comfortable "inner smoothness," and then she felt those familiar "giant faces"—the ones she had described earlier in Chapter 13, about a giant at the edge of the universe whose immensely huge face could look down and peer into our universe, with considerable nostalgia. It was as though a giant who had once been an Earth person—maybe he was the future us—looked down, but with nostalgia.

She laughed again. She said you could see it in the long note to Chapter 13, Session 653, where she would describe what happened to Jane on April 2. In one of those episodes, she felt the giant standing at the edge of our world; he saw the street, and at the far end of the line of sight there were many huge giants. Now Jane said that from their vast perspective, these observers could see everything happening in our whole world, from California all the way to Russia. It was like astronauts looking back at us, but they could see many details, see everything.

She said, "I had better get back into the session." But she still seemed to be expecting something. Happily she went on, sitting up straight in the rocking chair, listening, and connecting some things together. She said, "When I heard a car turn the corner, through my stomach I heard those trembling sounds. The firecrackers sounded like wrinkles in the air spreading out in all directions. The sound of the car was really fascinating; the car's sound acted on my head and ears. When I was pouring my beer just now, the sound of pouring the beer—for a moment I felt myself as big as a giant."

"When I tune in to Seth Two—if you don't know Seth Two, then remember the last chapter of Seth Speaks, where she talked about Seth Two—she said I become larger, and my perception is amplified. Now I feel that when I close my eyes, the whole Earth is inside my head." She said to Rob, "You don't understand it; you don't understand that feeling unless you close your eyes. I think this feeling is wonderful, and I wish I could put it into words, that I could say it in words. But you must understand that events outside the body and those inside the body are the same events. Neural behavior and all chemical activity, because inner and outer are so beautifully synchronized, so everything is always in correspondence."

She truly felt it, not through knowledge. She simply felt the whole Earth inside her brain; everything on the Earth, everything that happened, was happening inside her mind. Inner and outer were so matched, so synchronized.

She said, "Oh, of course, if something dies inside your head, maybe a cell, then in the outer world something may also die, like an insect or a person." She was describing to Rob her present feeling of the inner-outer synchronicity. There were some inexplicable instantaneous correlations; new births happened in the same way—dying was the same, and being born was the same. She said the sound of firecrackers was just like the sound of events inside the body; the inner sounds were just as clear. "That is why Seth is right," she said, "an outer event is an inner event. I must get back to the session."

She still had to remember to hold the session. Outside there was a fascinating, rich display—outside of you there is a very fascinating, rich display. Jane nodded toward the open windows, and she said, "There is a fascinating relationship between the change of seasons and the length of thoughts."

At this point Jane's sensory system had already synchronized the outer and the inner—this is what Seth means by "we create our world": the outer world is a manifestation, a projection, of the inner world. Jane truly felt and experienced it; she was not just remaining at the level of words.

No one realizes that the change of seasons is connected with the length of thoughts. Thoughts leave traces on inner levels; you can make a chart of thoughts, as it were, draw a picture of thoughts. On the inner level, thoughts can leave traces just like objects, and they align with the change of seasons, with the ocean tides, and with the waxing and waning of the moon. The changes in your thoughts are correlated with the seasons, with the ebb and flow of the tides, and with the moon's waxing and waning. But all these things seem to be external events, yet they are only manifestations of the rhythms within our bodies—including tides, seasonal changes, and the waxing and waning of the moon, all are actually a manifestation of the rhythms within our bodies. This was Jane's own realization and insight.

At 10:05 she said she did want to have a session, but this was too interesting; it made you feel so good. She felt this kind of extrasensory feeling was so wonderful that she could not help wanting to keep feeling it. "But I want to have a cigarette and change into Seth." Jane made some effort and gradually steadied her emotions. At the same time, she insisted that tonight's revelation had a reason and a purpose for happening, and indeed it did. We will soon know that Seth would mention it in a later session; it was indeed related to this session.

Then Jane said, "Now I feel a large Seth beside me." By "large," she meant large in her feeling. "I am trying to shrink him down to session size." By "session size" she meant a size that could match up with Jane. This did not mean physical size, but a matching size, or a size in frequency, or a size in energy. The two were not matched now; that Seth was too big. If he came through and transmitted to Jane in his present state, she said his voice would be so powerful—how powerful? It would drown out everything in the world. That was her feeling. I think that was only a metaphor.

Now she felt her legs keep lengthening, passing through the floor; her head was also growing toward the ceiling, and her whole body was stretched. Then she plopped back into the rocking chair—because she had been sitting up straight, and now she leaned back—with her eyes closed. As if receiving a signal, a gust of wind swept the curtains inward, papers rustled and moved about in the room, the explosions of firecrackers suddenly grew louder, and the living room became comfortably cool. And Jane finally really brought Seth down to a size we could control. She took off her glasses and began to speak for Seth.

Then Seth said, "Good evening." Rob said, "Good evening, Seth."

Affirmation and Denial

Next, look at the following content. Seth says, "So, do not forget that the content of this chapter is all about affirmation." No matter how many days pass, Seth never forgets this theme. It is as if he has an outline, like a textbook, and he has been speaking according to a certain knowledge structure, so it never gets disorganized.

Session 675

Affirmation means loving acceptance of your own unique individuality.

It means you should respect your own unique characteristics, respect yourself as you are, respect your present state, and accept it with love.

It may involve denial.

Deny what? Deny the things you are unwilling to accept. Accepting and affirming your own unique individuality with love does not mean you should be submissive to everything and accept it without daring to resist. Toward people you do not like and things you do not like, you can directly say I do not like it, I am not willing, I do not want to see him again, and so on. This affirmation itself also involves denial -- here denial does not mean denying yourself; it means denying the people and things you do not like.

It lies in your refusal to accept the visions and dogmas of others, in order to more clearly perceive and form your own.

That is to say, deny those authorities, those so-called religions, so-called masters, the experts in society, including the bosses and leaders around you, your parents, and the dogmas and laws of the jungle they give you. That is their life, not your life. The purpose is to more clearly perceive and form your own.

This kind of affirmation will lead you to your own inner discoveries.

Not accepting other people's things can itself lead you to inner discoveries, and the deepest part of your being will attract the particular kind of information and material you need, and can also bring out the kind of information you need. Which part? The part of your inner potential -- the information or perceptions, including information from past lives or from probabilities.

Loving acceptance of yourself will allow you to browse through your own beliefs.

At this point you will not say there are good beliefs and bad beliefs. All beliefs are spread out for you to look at, and you can face yourself squarely. This is who you are right now. Just as you browse through the changing scenery of the countryside, because your beliefs are changing -- if you feel a belief is no longer suitable, or you want to replace it, just replace it at any time, just as the scenery keeps changing.

A belief that encourages you to use your abilities and vitality is all the more affirmative.

What kind of belief is an affirmative belief? One that encourages you to use your abilities and vitality -- the more it does so, the more affirmative it is. The more a belief restricts you -- this won't work, that won't work, you can't do this well, you can't do that well -- these are all restrictive beliefs, and what you need are affirmative beliefs.

Ruburt's alteration of consciousness tonight was very great.

Why did we describe Ruburt's earlier experience? Because it will be used in the session.

And this is a certain example of both affirmation and denial.

Let us look at what it denied and what it affirmed.

Ruburt has always emphasized his own unique creative and intuitive process. He has always emphasized that he is a writer and a poet, and at the same time he has psychic abilities and very strong intuition, carrying both characteristics. When he was doing this -- being a writer on one hand and a psychic on the other -- he denied many other people's beliefs, because other people thought these psychic things were simply impossible, pure nonsense, and could not possibly happen in reality. So in this matter he was himself denying other people's ideas.

He accepted this belief: that he could be intuitive, could connect with someone like Seth to transmit material, and at the same time could perfect his own creativity.

He accepted the belief that any consciousness can have some kind of direct and intimate contact with experience and reality that is not usually perceived and is ignored.

What does this mean? It is like what he said earlier -- for example, the changing of the seasons and the length of thoughts have a close connection; he could hear the sound of cars with his stomach. That kind of feeling. He had already transcended ordinary cognition of things. That is to say, within some realities that we ignore or that have not been perceived before, they all have a certain connection with our consciousness, a close connection, and this is something we ordinarily do not notice.

Even in terms of the physical world, Ruburt understood that even within our physical world, there are many different ways of experiencing.

Because Jane's strange experiences just now were all experienced through her present physical world experience -- at that time she was not out of body, nor had she entered a meditative state, nor had she entered a hypnotic state. She was in a waking state, still using our own perceptual system, our physical senses, and our consciousness to experience. What Seth is saying here is that within our physical world, your feelings and experiences of the surrounding world are also different. You have accepted only one way of experiencing, but there are actually many ways of experiencing. Isn't Jane's way of experiencing quite amazing? Including that silky feeling in her hand.

Therefore, he rejected all thoughts that told him this was not so.

He excluded and rejected all those thoughts that told him such different experiences were wrong or did not exist. So Ruburt affirmed that there are many different ways of experiencing in this world, and he denied the worldly ideas and beliefs that others had taught him.

This belief itself will allow him to use those abilities.

When he rejected the worldly ideas and beliefs that others had instilled in him, and when he knew that our present physical world can actually be felt in different ways, he was using those abilities. When he thought this way, he was using this ability. Just as your muscles become more elastic the more you use them, the same is true of the power of your psyche and intuition -- they need to be constantly exercised and strengthened, to build up their intensity and strength.

Feet, the Mind, and Ants

After this, Seth begins to give an example. You really have to follow the rhythm of his thinking, or you may not know what he is talking about.

The legs will run and cross over a piece of land.

When we run, the legs are running and the feet are stepping on the earth, but these legs and feet have no way of explaining the reality of this earth.

The foot is not aware of the ant it crushes.

He is referring to the ground beneath, including the road you have walked on, the land, this earth, including the ants on this earth. If you run across this place and crush an ant to death, your foot will not feel it.

They may feel, that is, your foot may feel some grass... but the unique individual sensations of the grass itself and the ant are not known to the foot.

For example, when you step on a lawn you can feel it, and you can even feel a sidewalk, a walkway paved with decorative tiles, or a flat asphalt road, and so on. Running across grass, running across a road, and running across a sidewalk are all different, but the unique individual sensations of the grass itself and the ant are not known to the foot.

The foot is involved in its own reality, concerned only with those things that pertain to it as a foot and that are related to the foot.

What this passage is saying is that when our two feet are running across the earth, the feet tread upon the earth, but they have no real cognition or feeling for this earth. They do not care what they have stepped on, but they do know whether they are now stepping on grass, on a road, on a sidewalk, and what kind of road conditions there are. They know these things, but as for how many ants they have crushed, what small insects they have stepped on, which caterpillar they have killed, they have no feeling for that. But they do have feeling for the larger things.

In other words, the foot only has feeling for the things that are related to it. For example, what socks it is wearing, what shoes it is wearing, but here he does not mean that. He means that the foot can feel whether it is on grass, on an asphalt road, on cement, on a sidewalk, on a rubber track, on stones in the wild, or on sand, and it can also feel when you run through a puddle. So the foot is only interested in the things that are related to it as a foot, and it does not care how many bacteria, how many plankton, and so on it has crushed in that puddle; it is not interested. How many ants it has crushed, how many small blades of grass it has trampled down, it is also not interested. But it knows that it is stepping on grass, that it is running on a lawn, and that is what it can feel.

Seth's examples are always especially good, just as in our Buddhism the Buddha would also often give examples, and those examples were also very thought-provoking and very apt, all drawn from everyday life.

The mind, however, can interpret the experience of the foot and the leg, and by imagining those sense materials, by imagining it, can to some extent perceive the reality of the ant.

What does this mean? It means that your foot itself, while running, cannot feel the existence of the ant. But if I now tell you, "Hey, did you crush some ants? The ants under your feet are very pitiful, being squashed to death by you just like that." When I tell you this, you can use your mind, use your thoughts, open up your imagination, and you can more or less feel the reality of the ant. That is to say, you can temporarily, or for an instant, think from the ant's perspective, a thing as huge as a mountain descending from the sky and crushing you to death.

What he says is very much like a saying that circulated online at the beginning of the pandemic: a speck of dust in history, when it falls on each person, is a mountain. He uses it here, and you can understand what he means. That is to say, your feet and legs themselves cannot feel the existence of the ant, but you can use your imagination to perceive, to some extent, the reality of the ant. You do not perceive it completely; you can perceive a part of it.

And when your mind is racing... when your mind is racing, it is sometimes difficult to interpret its activities to the brain, which is usually concerned with other realities only insofar as they intrude.

What he means is that when your thoughts are running, when they are racing, just like your legs running, they have no way of transmitting all the things they have experienced, or all the things they have perceived, to your brain. They will not transmit all of it, because they do not care about those things. They only care about the part that intrudes into their world, the part that has an effect on them. When other realities do not intrude, they feel no concern.

The example here is still the example of the ant. Ants have their own world, their own lives. Suppose one day you enter into this world of the ants to look around, and if you were an ant, in this world of the ants, a single step from above would crush thousands upon thousands of ants to death. For you, this reality of the ant has not intruded into your world. Can you understand that? That is, the world of the ant has not intruded into the human world, has not intruded into the perception of your foot, has not intruded into the reality of the foot. Since it has not intruded, your foot cannot feel the existence of the ant. But now if I ask you to open up the space of imagination and imagine it, can you then feel, can you seem to understand a little of the ant's feelings?

He uses this as an example: when your thoughts are running, they have no way of letting your brain know all the experiences they have gone through. What can be done? They can only let the brain perceive that part of reality that has an effect on the brain, and as for the other realities that have no effect on the brain, they do not tell it. That is to say, when your thoughts are running, what they experience is running in a multidimensional world, but what your brain can capture, what it can perceive, is only the things related to three-dimensional reality, the things connected to our physical world. Only those can your brain perceive. This example he gives is very ingenious. If you cannot understand it, you can go back and read it again.

Now, Ruburt's mind is more aware of other realities than his brain is.

That is, Ruburt's mind has far more perception of that multidimensional reality, multiple realities, or multi-dimensional realities than his brain and his senses do. That is, when he perceives with his mind, he will feel the existence of many multidimensional worlds or many multi-dimensional worlds. That perception can be aware of them, but his brain cannot; the brain cannot be aware of that much.

But he consciously believes that he himself and the larger reality he perceives... he believes that he himself and what he perceives are both part of a multidimensional, larger reality.

This is what is different from other people. But it is also said that his brain also holds this belief; the brain also knows it.

Therefore, he opens himself as much as possible to the activities of the mind.

The brain will also try as much as possible to open itself to the activities of your mind, letting it feel, letting the brain also feel that greater, multidimensional feeling that it has never felt before. That is why Jane has those strange and peculiar feelings.

Because the brain does this, to some extent, certain intuitive psychic and broad intellectual experiences can be physically perceived.

After the brain opens to this extent, it can have intuitive psychic, certain intuitive psychic and broad intellectual, broad intellectual here refers to that broad wisdom. Wisdom is a higher-level thing than knowledge, called intellectual things. Experience can then be perceived by the physical body, by your brain. These things are originally hyper-dimensional, beyond three-dimensional things, and your brain should normally only handle things related to three dimensions. Just as your foot will only handle the difference between grass, cement, asphalt, tactile paving, or a walkway, it will not handle the details of ants, bacteria, plankton.

By the same principle, your brain normally only handles the things of this physical world that are related to it. But at this time, as this ability of the brain opens up, it begins to observe some things on the level of the mind. Some things imagined by the mind come out, that is, some things that are normally not felt, things of higher dimensions, it can perceive them all. Just as he said earlier, if you cannot feel the reality of the ant with your foot, then you can only feel it through the way of imagination. That is what he means.

This knowledge is interpreted through alterations in physical sensation.

That is, it is interpreted through the changes in your physical body, in your bodily sensations. Through the changes in bodily sensation, you can feel that broad knowledge it is able to receive. This kind of knowledge is normally something you cannot feel, but through changes in physical sensation, you can also understand it and interpret it. That is why Jane has that feeling of being a giant, a face, the earth running inside her own brain, and so on.

Thus giving the knowledge an important physical validity.

This knowledge is originally not something that can be obtained in our dimension, but you give it that kind of validity as knowledge, and it has the same perception in the body, in our brain. That is why she has that feeling of a globe inside her brain, and then she feels that when something dies inside her head, something will also die in the three-dimensional world. It is like saying that when a cell dies in the brain, perhaps in the three-dimensional world an insect dies, or something like that. That kind of feeling becomes very real and effective, whereas normally you do not have this feeling.

In such instances, heightened mental and psychic activity is reflected in bodily experience, providing a beneficial unity.

This is heightened mental and psychic activity, not ordinary psychic and mental activity; it is heightened. This heightened psychic and mental activity can be reflected in your body, in your bodily experience. What is meant by bodily experience? It is brought into your memory, brought into your real feeling. That is why at this time Jane would say, "Oh, I feel so good, this feeling is wonderful, I do not even want to have the session, I want to stay in that feeling all the time." That is what she means. But when this feeling comes, it allows your spirit and body to have an effective unity, a beneficial unity.

Here I return to the word "broad" to describe the activity of the mind and intuition that exists within what you might call an accelerated range of action.

He is explaining what broad knowledge means. He uses this kind of language to explain it. I do not know whether you can understand it. It is an activity of mind and intuition that exists within what can be called an accelerated range of action. How to explain this? It is very hard to understand, very hard to describe this broad wisdom in words. To put it simply, it is a higher perceptual ability for that multidimensional world or multidimensional existence. You can understand it this way. And then this perception of the multidimensional world, when we convert it into something that the three-dimensional world can understand, it becomes a kind of intuition, or an activity of the mind.

Normal intellect is ordinary intellect... ordinary wisdom is so precisely oriented because of belief.

It is oriented by belief, that is, what you believe, your belief structure, your belief system determines its orientation, so that it inevitably forms a single-focus perception. It is limited, because your belief holds that at the same time you can only perceive one thing, and cannot perceive two things at the same time. That is a limitation it gives you. Because your time comes in segments, your feeling has to be perceived in that way.

When you make certain affirmations about yourself... it can allow the brain to align itself with these broader methods of perception.

When you affirm yourself, when you accept your own diversity, you very miraculously find those methods within the brain that can perceive broader wisdom, and let them function again, reactivate them.

And those methods are natural characteristics of the mind.

Those methods themselves are a characteristic that the mind itself already has. They are not something to be learned from somewhere, trained, or developed. No. Your mind originally has this ability.

There are good reasons why such affirmations must occur first.

Why must you first affirm yourself, why must this thing happen first? There are very good reasons. What reasons? He begins to explain next.

The Brain, Beliefs, and the Vast Mind

The brain is primarily responsible for the system of the entire physical body.

The entire physical body, including the brain, is there to ensure the survival of your physical body. The main function of the brain, along with the operation of all the organs of your body, is to keep your body alive. That is the most basic function.

And it follows your conscious beliefs about reality... keeps your physical body alive, and then lets your conscious beliefs about reality keep following it.

That is to say, it keeps following your own thoughts, keeps following your own values, your own belief system — that is, it follows a self-cognition. Your conscious beliefs about reality are your self-cognition, that is, your belief system, your values, your worldview, your outlook on life — the thing you call yourself.

There is always a harmonious, unifying connection between your beliefs and your activities.

Between your beliefs and your actions, there is always a harmonious, unifying connection. What does that mean? You may not know what he is trying to say. Did he not say that your brain, your physical body, carries the actions of your entire body — whether it is the micro-level actions within the body, the operation of cells, organs, tissues, or the concrete actions you take in the physical world. For example, you go to the gym, you go running, you go to work, you do anything at all — are these not all actions? And how do these actions come about? What rules do they follow and obey? They must follow and obey your belief system. They must follow your ego's belief system, your conscious beliefs, your own thoughts. That is to say, all the activities of your body, all your actions, and your beliefs are closely connected. In other words, your body listens to the commands of your beliefs. Or you could say your beliefs command your body — it is the same thing. They are connected.

Some people are extremely confident in certain areas, very confident in some fields, and very timid in others. Everyone has things they are good at and things they are not good at. That is normal. For example, ask a mathematician to sing — you can try it — or ask him to do something he is not good at, and you will find he is very timid.

Certain aspects of life may be ignored, and may even be rejected for a period of time.

That timid side of him is the side he ignores, the side he has never worked on, and he absolutely refuses to do those things — because of timidity, he does not want to do them, is afraid to do them, and firmly refuses to do them. Many people are like this in life. Many people refuse to do this or that, and have downloaded many restrictions onto themselves. But the things you do not do — you focus your attention elsewhere on something else.

For example, some people feel that cooking is a waste of time, a waste of energy, completely unnecessary, so they would rather eat fast food or order takeout. Other people are very interested in cooking and find joy in it. So when a person rejects certain things during a certain period of time, he will focus his attention on other areas.

Often when a person is in the process of changing beliefs... he will be very clever in those areas where he feels safe.

He is giving us an example, reminding us: after we finish studying The Nature of Personal Reality, when we want to change our beliefs, when we want to replace our beliefs, we will discover a characteristic — we often move with ease in the comfort zones we are familiar with or feel safe in, and we strongly reject those areas we are not good at or have no confidence in, unwilling to do them, unwilling to try them. So you will advance very cleverly and shrewdly in your so-called safety zone, riding the waves and charging ahead triumphantly in your comfort zone.

Then you will not use your vast mind until you have affirmed its reality within yourself, and until you are ready to deal with the additional data that will then become somewhat consciously available.

You generally will not use the vast mind — that is, the vast wisdom, the vast knowledge mentioned earlier. You will not use it, and the reason is that you generally do not affirm its existence, nor do you affirm its reality. So at this point he tells you, you must first affirm its reality within yourself — what reality? The existence of this vast knowledge, the existence of the vast mind. First acknowledge it. If you do not even acknowledge it, if you think all these nonphysical things do not exist, then how can you cognize it? So you must first accept it, affirm it. Then, when you are ready to deal with those things, you will more or less gain some conscious additional data about that higher-dimensional knowledge, or higher-dimensional reality.

But the vast mind is actualized through your animal nature.

That so-called higher wisdom, or wisdom that comes from beyond the three-dimensional world, operates through your animal nature — he used the word "operates." That is to say, in the three-dimensional world you cannot be separated from your physical body, and your animal nature is your physical body. It must operate on the basis of your physical body, whether it is experience from the three-dimensional world or experience from higher dimensions — it must operate on your physical body.

In your terms, it represents the latent capacity of consciousness, which can be utilized more or less normally.

From our perspective, it represents the latent capacity of consciousness, and no matter how much or how little, you can partially utilize it. In our human terms, those are your subconscious, your latent potential — you can use a part of it, bring out a part of that ability. He says you can normally use a part of it, more or less. That is the point he wants to tell you. That is to say, the application of that extrasensory ability in your real life — you will think of it as a kind of potential, or as intuition and inspiration from the subconscious, without recognizing it at the level he is talking about.

Those innate biological structures can be activated to receive such information.

What does that mean? It means that your body carries certain hidden, latent abilities that have never been activated. Because when you want to receive this vast knowledge, or vast intellect, or vast wisdom, they will be activated.

They have always been a part of your physical nature as a species.

Physical nature means material nature. Simply put, every person's body has that latent quick-wittedness and function, and it is biological — not the part that requires cultivation. It has always been latent, and you have never known it was there. And this method, after you affirm yourself, after you go and make contact with the greater wisdom, you can then activate those things that humans may have already degenerated, that you think have degenerated — from Seth's perspective, they are things of the future. Whether degenerated or of the future, you do not need to worry about it. Because degeneration is thought to have happened in the past, and there is no difference between the future and the past, so you do not need to insist on this point.

They will not be triggered on an individual basis until your own beliefs allow you to perceive the multidimensional aspects of your own experience, or at least to accept this possibility.

They will not be triggered without your permission. They must be permitted by your own beliefs before they can be triggered, before this possibility exists. You must remember this, and do not get it wrong.

Why must your own beliefs give permission before you can perceive this multidimensional level? That is to say, whether it is your conscious mind or your consciousness, its primary design is to face this three-dimensional world and maintain the survival of your physical body. And at this time, if the experience of the multidimensional world were to intrude directly without your permission, it would seriously interfere with your judgment and cognition of the three-dimensional world. You would be in a state similar to the effect of taking some kind of drug or hallucinogen — you would be strongly unable to distinguish between the real and reality, and even the survival of your physical body would become a problem.

Let me give a simple example. Suppose several hundred years ago the place where you are now was a forest or a grove of trees, and at that time there were still tigers and many wild beasts around. But if you entered a multidimensional state, and in this multidimensional state there is no limitation of time and space, you might suddenly enter such a state. But then you could not tell whether the tiger standing in front of you was a real tiger, or a tiger from a hundred years ago. At that point you would be unable to judge — if it was a real tiger it would eat you, and if it was a tiger from a hundred years ago it could not eat you. We often speak of the tiger in a dream — Buddhism uses this example, the meaning of the tiger in a dream is that the tiger in a dream cannot eat you, but a tiger in reality can eat you. If you cannot distinguish between dream and reality, then it could cause fundamental impact and danger to your life in the physical world. Therefore, the perception of this multidimensional experience must be permitted and agreed to by your beliefs.

As with Ruburt's episode tonight... even normal sense data has achieved a kind of multidimensionality.

That is to say, using your normal three-dimensional senses, you can also obtain a kind of multidimensional perceptiveness.

This is a richness that is quite indescribable.

This is very hard to describe, so Ruburt also said: "I cannot use words to describe this thing, I can feel it." In other words, with your current senses, you can feel the multidimensional world. Using your three-dimensional senses, you can feel it.

This automatically provides biological knowledge.

It automatically provides a biological learning process. That is to say, in the process of entering the sensory perception of the multidimensional world, your body also gains learning, your physical senses also gain learning, and it provides biological learning.

In this, the senses can be utilized in a freer and deeper manner.

At this time, the senses are utilized much more deeply than usual. So your hearing becomes super sensitive, and all the senses — for example, just now Jane was using her stomach to listen to the sound of cars, which was very interesting. Then when she poured beer she felt the sound was so wonderful, and the sound of cars produced vibrations in her head and ears, and so on. It was all different. At this time the senses are very free, unrestricted, and able to cross sensory boundaries — it is like being able to see music, see sound, and hear images. It is like that feeling. It transcends your ordinary senses.

Although such situations have not yet occurred constantly... they are enough to alter ordinary experience.

It has not yet reached the point of happening constantly, but when it happens occasionally, it can change your cognition of the ordinary world. That richness overflows — the richness of the feeling of this experience has overflowed, and it covers over normal experience, completely transcending ordinary experience. You will never forget it for the rest of your life.

You do not need to have any understanding of so-called psychic abilities. Many people use the vast mind and perception, and take it for granted, without realizing how different their own perception is from that of others.

That is to say, some people are born with this ability. They use it but do not feel there is anything magical or special about it. For example, some people are born able to see music, able to hear or see music, and they think it is very normal. And some children from a young age can see things that we normally cannot see, but they think everyone else can see them too. They do not think that you cannot see them; they think you should be the same as them. It is not until one day that they discover that only they can see these things.

Ruburt was curious about the following matter, which is related to what was said above.

What was Ruburt curious about?

He said that physiologically, you carry within yourself the remnants of your evolution.

Physiologically, in our bodies, in our physical bodies, we carry the remnants of evolution. In our terms, these are the degenerated organs of the body, or other attributes that have long been discarded — in our human evolution, we think these have all degenerated and are no longer needed.

Abilities in the Body Not Yet Used

Ruburt was very curious about this matter: some attributes and abilities in our bodies that have already degenerated, that we think have degenerated, or that have already been discarded.

In the same way, your physical body already carries within it those tissues that have not yet been fully utilized, which are -- in your present terms -- pointing toward future evolution.

Some organs that we consider to have degenerated, such as the appendix, we think are no longer needed and of no use; there are many functions and special organs in our bodies that humans may not currently know what they are for, so we assume they have degenerated. But from a certain perspective, they may be pointing toward the direction we should develop in the future -- that is, things that will still be needed when the inner senses are activated in the future.

For you, that is the direction of your future evolution.

These are not vestiges that were eliminated in the course of human evolution; rather, it is exactly the opposite.

So for the vast mind -- that is, the higher intelligence -- this utilization involves these attributes and tissues that we consider to have been abandoned and degenerated.

Over the generations, certain individuals have experienced this other kind of awareness.

From ancient times to the present, generation after generation, some people have been able to experience this awareness, able to sense this vast, higher intelligence. No matter what method they used, they could feel it, although they never reached the most perfect state -- that is, regarding those abilities that have already degenerated, or that have not yet developed, however you understand it, whether you understand them as degenerated or as something we will develop in the future, these abilities are the many capacities that your inner senses should possess.

The experience of using the vast mind, when you use this experience of the vast mind, can dissolve any seeming conflict between intellect and intuition that occurs on other levels.

This vaster mind, or what we call higher intelligence, merges your knowledge and spiritual intuition, completely erasing their conflict. There is no conflict between them in themselves. We often tend to think that there is a conflict between intuition and logical thinking, between wisdom -- if a person is too emotional and their perception is too strong, we think their rationality must be poor; if a person is very rational, we think they have no intuition and their spiritual abilities are poor.

But what is truly well developed should be allowing both to develop simultaneously within one's own spirituality and wisdom, letting both sides reach balance. Only then do you enter into a feeling of the vast mind, and only then can you open up the possibility of higher-dimensional, multidimensional perception.

A New Mixture of Sensory Data

To whatever extent possible, the body's organization interprets that unity through a new mixture of sensory data, so that physically, the data becomes quite reasonable.

The body interprets that unity through a new mixture of sensory data. You still use these same senses, but because you are experiencing with a broader mind, the way the data from these senses is mixed is different from before. For example, when you can hear sounds with your stomach and see things with your palms, this kind of mixed sensory experience is different from before.

This new mixture, this cross-sensory interpretation, interprets which unity? It is the unity of your sensibility and rationality — the conflict between your intellect and your emotional feelings. A fully developed person should develop wisdom and spirituality simultaneously, allowing both to reach their maximum, achieving a state of balance, rather than leaning toward one side.

Our current human society is in a stage of leaning toward intellectual development, and then begins to enter the next stage of leaning toward spirituality. But is it okay to be all spirituality? No, that doesn't work either. Your spirituality and intellect must develop in tandem; you cannot negate one side while emphasizing the other.

A detailed elaboration on this point is in the book The Magical Approach. This book focuses on how to handle your intellect and spirituality in a balanced way at the same time, operating together in a state of balance, and only then can you achieve your magical approach — that feeling of whatever you think is what you get.

When you use the body's organization to perceive this new mixture — the unity of spirituality and intellect — then you can understand this material through physical substance.

A person can shift into the operation of the broader mind two or three times in a lifetime.

Generally speaking, a person probably only has two or three opportunities in a lifetime to enter this state of the broader mind. But you are not aware of it — you might say, how come I haven't? I've never encountered it, not even once. He says you generally don't intuit it, but rather have experiences that are hard to interpret and only discovered later. Looking back, he might find: oh, maybe that was it.

The affirmation involved here is certainly beyond that kind. In it, for a moment, a person affirms his reality within the flesh, while at the same time declaring himself free of the body's limitations, and understands that both conditions exist simultaneously.

What does this affirmation mean? It means you transcend the limitations of traditional consciousness. In other words, you can simultaneously perceive the feeling of being both inside the body and outside the body. Right now we can only feel living inside the body; we cannot feel what it is like outside the body.

Entering that experience of the broader mind, you will feel both inside the body and outside the body, and both exist simultaneously. It is like those people who have near-death experiences and see others trying to resuscitate them — at that time they are more in the feeling of being outside the body, and the feeling inside the body has already stopped. If you could still feel the sensations inside the body, then you would feel others performing surgery on you, cutting you open, trying to save you. Feeling inside the body and outside the body at the same time — if these two feelings can exist simultaneously, then you have entered the state he is describing.

A non-physical perception and a physical perception arise at the same time, and this produces a dual perception. After this dual perception occurs, your broader mind — your higher wisdom — is activated. By activated, it means you suddenly become aware of its existence. Not activated means sometimes it happens and you yourself don't even know.

Jane's Experience

Jane's delivery was mostly fluent, but she had a hard time getting into the session state at the beginning, and it took her a long time to get there. She said it was because the sounds sounded so exciting, and she loved listening to them so much—the sound of cars, the sound of beer being poured. Then she was very glad she had still held the session, and she was still lingering over the sudden alteration of consciousness. She even said that even now her own voice sounded so wonderful—she suddenly had a different perception of sound. And the sensation in her hands really was liquefied, just like water.

Rob described that the wind had died down, and there was no more sound of firecrackers, only the smooth sound of cars passing by. He made Jane a peanut butter sandwich with whole wheat bread. When Jane picked up the sandwich, she stared at it and said:

It was almost as if I had to choose whether to bite into this sandwich, or your hand holding it, or the knee beneath the hand.

Jane entered a state of supersensory perception while holding the sandwich. She could feel the hand holding the sandwich, the arm holding the sandwich, the knee pressing against the sandwich.

It is not because you have lost your bearings, but simply because everything is one thing.

It is not like losing your bearings after taking a psychedelic drug, nor is it like going insane and thinking the sandwich bread has come alive. It is because you truly recognize that everything is one thing, that you and all things are one.

When you become aware of that, you have to face the necessity of making conscious choices—you have to consciously choose, to discriminate, to feel it.

She became truly drawn to the texture of the bread, completely absorbed by the bread. She said:

When I broke this bread apart, I knew it made a sound that I did not hear.

What sound can you hear when you tear a soft piece of bread? Basically none. When she broke the bread apart she could hear a kind of sound, but she also knew that this sound could not be heard by her ordinary ears.

Therefore, I substituted the sound of the car that had just turned the corner for it.

She could not hear the sound of the bread being torn, but she knew that a sound existed. At that moment she used the sound of the car turning the corner to substitute for it—that "whoosh" sound of a car driving down the road at night. Then she felt that there was a very strong relationship between the bread going down her throat and the sound of the car.

This is what Seth said earlier: between the perceptions you are normally unaware of and normal consciousness, there exist some deep-level connections, only you normally cannot feel them. You would never think there is any connection between bread and the sound of a car, but if you connect them, then there is a connection.

This is like the example he gave earlier: when you are running, your foot steps on ants, and if you do not become aware of it, then it is as if no ants were stepped on and killed. When someone reminds you and tells you that you ran over and stepped on many ants, if you use your imagination to imagine the world of the ants, it is just like using your imagination to substitute the sound of the car for the inaudible sound of the bread being torn. At that moment there is a connection between the bread and the sound of the car, and this connection is what you perceive through the experience of the spacious mind.

The Vast Mind Will Enrich Humanity

Now, when the vast mind is properly, yet completely, utilized within what you call time, it will greatly enrich the dimensions of human life.

If every day we perceived the world the way Ruburt just did, it would simply be too rich.

And bring the body into a greater harmony that is not possible now.

Because as far as the nervous system is concerned, it can touch some latent triggers that have never been released. This experience of the vast mind is a kind of triggering for your spiritual system, triggering those unreleased potentials.

When they are activated, your actual experience of time, as you know it, will be altered. As you see it, humanity at that point will be so different that it will seem like an entirely different kind altogether.

When you enter into such an experience of the vast mind, it brings an impossible, greater harmony to your body. It causes parts of your body's spiritual system that were previously latent and untriggered to be triggered. Once it triggers these latent neural mechanisms, humanity reaches that stage, and it is no longer the same as present humanity -- like a new species, as if it were an entirely different kind altogether.

When you open the inner senses and enter into spirituality to a certain degree, humanity will differentiate into two kinds. Many spiritual materials will tell you such things. What Seth says here is not about higher and lower; he is simply saying that humanity has become different from before.

Changes in Communication Systems and Time Perception

As Ruburt once mentioned, your (modern) communication systems have already expanded the amount of information available to a private conscious mind within a given period of time, and this has occurred on a purely physical level.

Just like our contemporary communication systems—the internet, cell phones, mobile internet—they bring us information far beyond what humans in the past could ever obtain. They have enormously expanded the scope of what our conscious minds attend to, as well as the depth and breadth of information.

Without these communication systems, we could only concern ourselves with our families, our surrounding living and working environments, and the state of life in our own small towns. But now, you must process and digest information from other places that is now available to you. The moment you turn on your phone, you can know what is happening all over the world—news is pushed right in front of you. In previous centuries this was impossible; no ordinary person could be aware of such things.

Go back fifty or seventy years, to the era when your parents were young, and you can feel that that era was completely different from now—there was not so much information, no information that crossed geographical boundaries.

An event occurring at a great distance has become a kind of present knowledge.

What happens on the other side of the globe becomes your present knowledge, altering your perception. The time gap between an event and your awareness of it has been shortened, even if the event may have occurred on the other side of the world.

What Seth is mainly talking about is live television. By the 1970s, satellite live broadcasting was already very advanced. Back in the sixties, when Apollo lifted off and landed on the moon, the moon landing was already broadcast live¹⁹, and it was transmitted back live. Although the picture clarity was not great, you can imagine that having such a capability at that time was already extraordinary.

Jet travel has also disturbed your concepts and experience of time.

If you frequently fly across time zones, you can understand this feeling. You will often experience one day twice: suppose you board a plane on the morning of August 6th and fly to America, and when you arrive in America it is still noon on August 6th—you will feel that this day has been lived twice. If your birthday is on August 6th, then you have had two birthdays. The same happens when flying back: after taking off, you sleep on the plane, and then you find that a day has been lost—August 7th seems not to exist at all, flashing by in an instant.

When you frequently fly back and forth, you start to feel: what is morning, what is evening—whose morning, whose evening? Relative to whom? Relative to which region? People in multinational corporations hate international business trips the most, because during the day they have to coordinate with the China branch, and at night they still have to coordinate with the American headquarters—it is like doing two days of work in one day.

But within the body's mechanisms there are unused, unrecognized triggers that will allow you, as a species, to consciously handle a greater perception of time.

Within your body there is a trigger mechanism that you do not know about. Once triggered, for the entire species, it will allow conscious handling of a greater perception of time. Our current perception of time is relatively narrow; once that mechanism is triggered, the perception of time will be different.

In the same way that you now handle a greater perception of space.

Your current understanding of space is far greater than before—you know that the Earth revolves around the sun, that the solar system has several major planets, that beyond the solar system there is the Milky Way, and beyond the Milky Way there are many more galaxies. Our understanding of the universe and of space is immensely vast. But go back a few hundred years, and we even believed that the Earth was the center of the world, the center of the universe. Our perception of time is limited because that trigger mechanism has not yet been opened. Once it is opened, our perception of time will differ as greatly as our perception of space differs between a few hundred years ago and now.

Computers and the Contrast with Mental Energy

In a very limited, searching way, this is hinted at through the use of computers.

When Seth said this, he had a certain foresight. In 1973 there was no internet yet²⁰. The internet originated as a project supported by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1969²¹, but at that time it was only used among a few university laboratories and military laboratories, and it was all purely text-based. In 1973 it had not spread at all; there was no such thing as the internet. But Seth had already foreseen it—he could perceive future things, he just did not want to say so, but here he already let it slip.

He said you humans have a very limited searching method, which is through the use of computers, just like searching online with a computer. Only today do we know that searching is involved in every aspect of our lives, whereas back then none of this existed yet—at that time computers were still something only scientists could operate, and there was no such thing as a personal computer²².

On that computer level, you try to estimate "future probabilities."

We use computers to make predictions. For example, weather forecasting: a massive supercomputer, using weather model algorithms, inputs the relevant parameters and predicts future weather trends. Weather forecasts all over the world are calculated this way. We humans are also doing similar things: regarding the future development of viruses, using epidemiological transmission models, parameters are entered to simulate the future development of infectious diseases.

And in the present, as you go about it, your psyche does this far better than any computer.

Your psyche's ability to foresee and perceive the future, its intuitive ability, does not need computation; it just knows somehow, and its perceptual ability is especially strong. It does this far better than a computer.

In 1973 there were hardly any computers; ordinary people could not get access to them. His "any computer" here means that whether you are using a modern supercomputer or a quantum computer that may exist in the future, no one does this better than a human being.

Some people worry about whether artificial intelligence will replace humans, and so on and so forth; this is an excessive worry in one respect. If you consider the problem this way, then you have no understanding at all of human wisdom. In terms of computation, humans have indeed been left behind by computers by who knows how many streets. If artificial intelligence develops in this direction, humans really cannot keep up. But they do not know that the greatest characteristic of humans is the simultaneous development of their spirituality and wisdom, and there are also some biological abilities, all of which computers themselves do not have.

The Mind's Awareness and Time Perception

If your mind believes this, then certain portions of your brain will be activated.

Your precognitive abilities will then become very strong, the brain will become more aware of this knowledge of the mind, and the probabilities of future events will also become consciously perceivable, consciously realized.

Future events are a kind of probability, existing in Framework 2, and right now they are not available to you. When you reach a certain level, when the mind's knowledge of this becomes more aware, you will be able to have a clearer cognition of the probabilities of future events.

Now, the brain must organize this information so that the mechanism aligned with the physical body can clearly maintain its temporal "present."

The brain must process and organize this information, and then your physical body can maintain its cognition of the content of present time, clearly maintaining itself in this present moment.

When mankind first developed the "reflective" pause -- he has spoken before about the moment of reflection.

This is the fundamental ability that distinguishes humans from animals -- humans have the moment of reflection, while animals do not. This was discussed in Chapter Nine.

Before he learned to distinguish between an actively remembered past event and a presently experienced event, he did indeed have to go through an initial "sense of disorientation."

The greatest difference between humans and animals is that in this moment of reflection, humans think about having done something in the past, and that doing it again in the future might bring guilt, might bring bad feelings. You will recall those things you did in the past, and then use such a moment of reflection to keep yourself from doing such things again -- in your present life, in your present reality, do not do them.

At this time, you are, so to speak, bringing past events into your current experience. In this process, you will have a certain sense of disorientation -- not that you cannot distinguish, but it does have an effect on you.

For example: suppose you once encountered a wolf, and that wolf bit and injured you. Then when you encounter a wolf again, before the wolf has even begun to attack you, you have already brought in all of your previous experience. When you are in a relatively desolate place in the wild, before the wolf has even appeared, you already start thinking: do not run into a wolf, do not run into a wolf. There is no wolf in the present now, but that fear of wolves will envelop you.

The growing consciousness must make such distinctions through practical action.

In daily life, distinguish which things are past events, what influence and reference value they have for your present, and make use of future probable events.

The physical brain will be forced to expand its functions, while at the same time keeping the individual in clear relationship with the point of power in the present, or with the efficiency of reality.

You must be able to distinguish between the present and the things in your memory, to distinguish clearly what is past and what is present. Although your point of power in the present can change the future by changing the past, you must also know that that is the past. This is an important point for maintaining your present state, for maintaining your sense of identity in the present.

What is the point of power for? The point of power is for changing the past, and of course by changing the past you can also change the future. It stands in the present, and what it deals with is past matters. But what he means is that you must at the same time keep clear your relationship with the present and with what has been changed through the point of power -- you must have a clear understanding of the different reality systems of past and present alike.

Affirmation and Negation

"Affirmation" always involves acknowledging your power in the present moment.

Affirmation is acknowledging the power of the present, the point of power, acknowledging the effectiveness of the point of power.

Broadly speaking, "negation" is the giving up of that power.

Negating what? Negating your present existence. You are not satisfied with the present, you do not accept anything in the present, you feel everything is no good -- this is a form of negation.

Affirmation, then, is acquiescing to you, as the ability within your physical psyche to form animalistic substance, physical reality.

Affirmation is acquiescing to you, acquiescing to yourself, acquiescing to your ability to form matter in the physical world, to actualize physical reality through the physical body.

You can change the present by changing the past, or you can change your present from the future.

You can look at Chapter 14 for this; he discussed this issue specifically -- which world, which part of you.

Even such manipulation, however, must take place in the "present" as you actually experience it.

Whether you use the point of power to change the past, or change the present from the past, no matter which kind of change, you must ground yourself in your present moment -- this present moment is your now. You still need to have a clear awareness of your present physical cognition and sense of identity; if you lose that, then there is nothing left at all.

Guidance from the Future

Many people have occasionally, because of a word of advice from a "future" probable self, changed some of their present behavior, without ever knowing that such a thing had happened.

Some people may suddenly have an intuition, a feeling, as if a future self had come back to the present era to give them a reminder or a piece of counsel, strengthening a belief. But you do not know that it was the future you who came back to give it to you.

Below he gives an example:

Suppose that when you were young, you had a specific goal in your heart, something you wanted to do, and you worked toward it. You could say that your intent, intention, desire, and determination all formed a psychic force, all moving in that direction, and projected this into the future.

You have an ideal, a vision for the future, and through your intent, imagery, desire, and so on, you form a kind of psychic force -- you must remember this, psychic force -- and then through this force you project your ideal into the future.

You are sending your own reality from the present into what you think of as the future. Why do I say "what you think of as the future"? Because it happens simultaneously. What you think of as the future is actually sent there through your psyche's transmission. The present-past and present-future are more of a psychological structure than a space-time structure -- it is a structure in your psyche.

It is as if, at a certain stage, you have some decisions to make, but you do not know what to do. You hesitate, you cannot make up your mind.

When you cannot make up your mind at a crossroads in life, you may feel there is a risk and danger of deviating from your goal, and feel as if you have already deviated from your most original, earliest wish and dream. Yet, for some other reasons, you strongly feel the urge to do so.

In a dream or a daydream, you may suddenly hear a voice in your heart, telling you in a very definite way to move forward according to your original intention.

In our current terms, this is "do not forget your original aspiration, do not forget your mission." You suddenly feel as if someone is firmly telling you: go in this direction.

Or in other ways -- you meet some wise person who gives you counsel: young man, the path you are on now is right, and when you are old you will have no regrets. If you do not pursue your dreams and ideals while you are young, you will regret it when you are old. Or you watch a certain movie and are inspired, or read a certain book, or at some gathering you see people who did not hold to their ideals and ended up living miserably -- all of these touch you. It may also come through an impulse, or a mental image, or you may simply suddenly know what to do -- some people suddenly know what to do.

And this happens in your present. In other words, the you that you projected into the future, from a probable reality that you can still create, enters your present reality, and sends back an encouragement.

Let me give an example: the you that you projected into the year 2060, the you forty years from now, exists in a probable reality that you can still create. In other words, he enters your present reality, comes back from 2060 to 2020, and sends back an encouragement.

However, that focused self operates from his own present.

That is, the you of 2020 is operated by the you of 2020.

And on some future day of your own, you may find yourself looking back with fondness on a certain moment in the past.

On some day in 2060, you may find yourself looking back with fondness on 2020: the pandemic that year was so severe, all of humanity was stunned, no one knew how to respond, everyone was full of despair about the future, no one knew when a vaccine would come out, or when the pandemic would end.

You have a very deep impression and recollection of 2020. At that time you think back: back then, the pandemic should have been handled this way. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, too important for all of humanity. If I had seized that opportunity back then, look at how things would have turned out. You would have such considerations from the perspective of someone who has been through it.

Thinking back to 2020, you yourself were also completely lost, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to take the next step -- your business had just started when the pandemic hit. Should you keep going or give up entirely? If you gave up entirely, what would you do next? Before, you could find another job, but now jobs are hard to find, and every company is in bad shape. Work is not an option, the business cannot go on, the pressure is so great, and you do not dare let your parents know. In such a situation, how should you make a decision?

But when you think back in 2060 to the you of 2020, who was completely lost and did not know how to make a decision, you took the right path. You would think back: thank goodness I made that decision back then, I held on and did not give up. I firmly believed that there would be a very good turn for the better in the future -- crisis, crisis, within danger lies opportunity. Some people saw the danger, but I saw the opportunity, so I held on.

So when you think back in 2060 to the you of the past, you would have this kind of feeling: thank goodness I held on, that is why I am where I am today.

You may think, I am glad I did that, or, how fortunate I am that I made such a correct decision.

And at that very moment, at the very instant you think that, you are the future self who once spoke words of encouragement to that person in the past.

The probable future catches up with the actual present.

When in 2060 you sigh with emotion, thinking back on what happened in 2020 in this life, full of feeling about the wise decision you made and the firm confidence you held -- when you are reminiscing about the past, the you of 2060 sends a message to the you of 2020. At the very moment you think this, these messages are sent over.

The probable future is that probable existence in 2060, sending the you of 2020 an intuition, or an impulse, or guidance from the inner self -- sending you a message. Therefore, the probable future catches up with the actual present. The future is probable, and the present is what is happening now.

He explains this matter from two angles. The first angle: you project your present expectations, wishes, and visions for the future into the future, so is that future not a probable existence? Any single thought of yours is a probable existence. Such a strong desire, such a strong wish, will inevitably project a probable reality of the future. Then within that probable reality of the future, is there not a probable you? That probable you may well give the present you some suggestions and information.

The second angle: suppose that according to our human timeline, forty years have really passed, and you have already lived through that history. At that time, when you think back to the you of 2020, this very process of recollection brings the counsel for the you of 2020 back from 2060. He uses both a positive and a negative example to explain it to you, but no matter which angle you understand it from, which one comes first, which one comes later, how it happens -- these exist simultaneously. If you think of it this way, it is easier to understand.

Acceptance of Your Own Soundness

Your own earlier affirmation projected into the future makes such an event possible.

Your affirmation of yourself in the present can also be projected into the future, and that makes such an event possible. When you firmly believe that what Seth said earlier is true and not false, this in itself is an affirmation -- you acknowledge that this existence is real. When you acknowledge this affirmation, you make such an event possible. If you think, "This is pure nonsense, someone has been reading too much science fiction," if you hold that view, then this event cannot possibly happen for you.

In the same way, this acceptance of yourself and of your own soundness can change your past and your future at any present moment of your choosing.

Acceptance of your own soundness is acceptance of all your abilities. Then you can change your past and your future at any present moment. Here he emphasizes this point again.

Below he has some notes. If you are interested, you can look at the annotations, which discuss World War II and the soldiers mentioned in the first section of this chapter. We will not expand on that here.

注释与核实

1. This claim could not be verified. ↩ ↩²

2. This claim could not be verified. ↩

3. This claim could not be verified. ↩

4. Source: Wikipedia (Japanese edition), "Nanporo Town Family Murder Case" (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%97%E5%B9%8C%E7%94%BA%E5%AE%B6%E6%97%8F%E6%AE%BA%E5%AE%B3%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6) ↩

5. This claim could not be verified. ↩

6. According to Mike's original words, "the local court received more than 12,000 petitions"; upon verification, it should be "In the 2014 case of a 17-year-old high school girl in Nanporo, Hokkaido, who killed her mother and grandmother, classmates and parents first submitted 10,534 petition signatures (including 800 online signatures) to the Sapporo District Public Prosecutors Office on November 4, and then submitted 8,120 more to the Sapporo Family Court on December 26; the court did not receive more than 12,000." (Source: Wikipedia, "Nanporo Town Family Murder Case," https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%97%E5%B9%8C%E7%94%BA%E5%AE%B6%E6%97%8F%E6%AE%BA%E5%AE%B3%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6) ↩

7. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Korean War" (https://www.britannica.com/event/Korean-War) ↩

8. According to Mike's original words, "the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1973"; upon verification, it should be "The Vietnam War lasted from 1954/55 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975; 1964 to 1973 was the period of direct U.S. military involvement (large-scale intervention after the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, and the withdrawal of the last U.S. combat troops in March)." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Vietnam War," https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War) ↩

9. This claim could not be verified. ↩

10. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Pearl Harbor attack" (https://www.britannica.com/event/Pearl-Harbor-attack) ↩

11. This claim could not be verified. ↩

12. Source: Gallup, "Iraq Versus Vietnam: A Comparison of Public Opinion" (https://news.gallup.com/poll/18097/iraq-versus-vietnam-comparison-public-opinion.aspx) ↩

13. Source: Wikipedia, "Matthew 5:39" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_5:39) ↩

14. According to Mike's original words, "this 'keeping a low profile' was first proposed by Deng Xiaoping"; upon verification, it should be "'Keeping a low profile' is an ancient Chinese idiom that already existed, appearing as early as in Hu Xingjian's Yuan dynasty work "Chuyin Ji: Huiyuan Ji," and was also used by Zheng Guanying in the 1893 preface to "Shengshi Weiyan"; it was not first proposed by Deng Xiaoping. Deng merely used this old idiom in the early 1990s as a formulation of China's foreign policy approach." (Source: China News Service, "On the Origin of 'Keeping a Low Profile,'" https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cul/2011/06-06/3091736.shtml) ↩

15. Source: The Bible, Leviticus 19:18 (https://cnbible.com/leviticus/19-18.htm) ↩

16. This claim could not be verified. ↩

17. Source: The Bible, Luke 17:21 (King James Version) (https://biblehub.com/kjv/luke/17-21.htm) ↩

18. Source: Richard Nixon Presidential Library (U.S. National Archives), "President Richard Nixon's Daily Diary, July 1-15, 1973" (https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/virtuallibrary/documents/PDD/1973/103%20July%201-15%201973.pdf) ↩

19. Source: National Science and Media Museum (UK), "From the Moon to your living room: the Apollo 11 broadcast" (https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/moon-to-living-room-apollo-11-broadcast) ↩

20. This claim could not be verified. ↩

21. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "ARPANET | Definition, Map, Cold War, First Message, & History" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/ARPANET) ↩

22. This claim could not be verified. ↩