Mike's commentary · The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 9

The "Introduction" and "Key Points" 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).

Introduction

This chapter begins with the birth of consciousness, pointing out that the difference between humans and animals lies in "the moment of reflection": humans can recall the past, project into the future, and judge actions accordingly. Seth proposes that "the state of grace" is the basic condition of existence, one that humans cannot leave; natural guilt is a biological instinct, while artificial guilt is processed by the conscious mind, and conscience depends on the moment of reflection. Reincarnation is the conscious mind's linear interpretation of simultaneous reality, not punishment or cause and effect. The soul and the entity are like a cell and a body; multiple lives exist simultaneously, and value fulfillment is the nature of the soul.

Key Points of This Chapter

• The difference between humans and animals lies in "the moment of reflection," when a person can recall the past and project into the future.
• The state of grace is the basic condition of all existence, and a person cannot leave it.
• Natural guilt is a biological instinct, while artificial guilt is processed by the conscious mind, and conscience depends on the moment of reflection.
• Reincarnation is the conscious mind's linear interpretation of simultaneous reality, not punishment or cause and effect.
• The soul and the entity are like cells and the body; multiple lives exist simultaneously, and value fulfillment is the nature of the soul.

Main Text

Seth never shies away from any issue when he discusses it, and his starting point and the depth with which he addresses a topic are both very deep -- he directly begins talking about how consciousness was born.

This section continues from the tail end of the previous one. Rob asked Seth to repeat the title of this chapter, because he wanted to make sure he had not misheard. Seth said there was no mistake, that was indeed the title.

With animals, there are varying degrees of demarcation between the self who performs an action and the action involved.

With the birth of the human conscious mind, however, the self that acts needed a way to judge its action.

That is to say, between an animal and its own actions, there are varying degrees of demarcation. An animal is an animal, and an action is an action; it does not confuse itself with the action. For example, a wolf eats a sheep -- that is an action, but the wolf does not feel that killing the sheep has affected it. It does not feel guilt or remorse -- it does not think: how could I kill such a lovely little lamb?

But we humans have a conscious mind, and all our actions are chosen by ourselves. We consciously choose an action, so after the action, we need a way to judge that action: is it good or bad, virtuous or evil? Have I done this with a clear conscience? Am I at peace with myself, or am I filled with guilt and a sense of sin?

Again, we come back to the importance of that moment of reflection.

The self then uses memory to see its own past experience in the present, and projects the result into the future.

This is the opening of Chapter Nine. What he says in the preceding passage is a bit vague, and many people, after hearing it, do not quite understand what he means. Actually, what he wants to say is this: animals keep themselves separate from their own actions -- an action is an action, and the animal is itself. But we humans have a conscious mind, and before doing something, or when recalling something, we always have this moment of reflection -- using the present to recall the past, and then projecting the result into the future. This is what makes us different from other animals. The difference between humans and animals, that is, the difference between human consciousness and animal consciousness, begins to diverge right here. This is what the opening of the first chapter of "The Birth of Consciousness" sets out to say.

Jane's Creative Peak

Next comes the main body of Chapter Nine, which is Session 636, Monday evening, January 29, 1973.

During this period, Jane's creative peak was extremely intense; she truly entered a state of fervor. She was writing her own book, and the Seth material was also infused by her with an abundant energy, including the Sumari she sang in the ESP class, as well as in her poetry -- all of it showed this. You will find that when Jane was in good form, Seth would also speak more. Sometimes when Jane was not in good form, for example when there was a break of a month or two, Seth would also speak less. This does have a certain relationship with Jane's state.

The State of Grace

At this point Seth proposes a state called the state of grace. You must remember this.

In it, growth is effortless.

Just like a seed growing out of the earth, very naturally, as if it took no great effort at all. Of course, when we were children we studied a text about the power of seeds¹, how they can grow even out of cracks in rocks, how they can grow out of no matter how hard the soil. Can you imagine such a tiny, weak seed managing to push its way out of the earth? All things in the natural world are like this: when we humans are born, we still have to go to the hospital, and there must be people to deliver the baby -- doctors, midwives. But look at the animals in nature: which of them needs any of that? They are all simply born naturally, and then they grow up naturally. So it is said that in grace, growth is effortless.

Session 636

A transparent joyful acquiescence, which is the basic condition of all existence.

Key point: transparent, joyful acquiescence. "Transparent" means you do not feel it, yet this joyful acquiescence is everywhere. This state of grace is the basic requirement of all existence -- note the word "all": if everything in the world lacked this basic condition of grace, nothing would exist.

Your own body grows naturally and easily from birth, with no anticipated resistance.

Instead, its miraculous unfolding is taken for granted.

With a great, elegant, creative, aggressive abandon, it uses all that it has.

How magnificent is this statement of Seth's -- it is like poetry. A child grows up using all that he has with a great, elegant, creative, aggressive abandon. All of this is accomplished under the acquiescence of grace.

Therefore, when you are born into a state of grace, you cannot leave it.

We cannot leave grace.

You will die in a state of grace.

We will also die in grace. Whether or not anyone says anything special for you -- some people have a priest's prayers at the end of life, or religious ceremony, or hire people to perform rites -- none of it is needed.

Whether or not anyone speaks these words for you, or pours oil or water upon your head.

This refers to certain end-of-life religious rituals. Seth says that you share this blessing with the animals and all other living beings. You cannot fall out of grace; it cannot be taken from you. You are in a state of grace at every moment. You can ignore it, or hold some belief that turns a blind eye to it. You may say, "I do not see it" -- you do not see the existence of grace, yet you are still graced. Whether you see it or not, feel it or not, believe it or not, you are still receiving grace. Grace does not care whether you fail to see it, turn a blind eye to it, belittle it, deny it, slander it, or even curse it every day.

This is different from the God some people talk about. That God is one where if you do not believe in him, you are finished -- he will curse you to hell. If you do not believe in him, you have offended the boss of the world, and that is not allowed. But Seth tells you it is not like that: what you believe or do not believe has nothing to do with this. The existence of grace is everywhere, from your birth to your death, and even before your birth and after your death, you live in grace.

Only you do not perceive your own uniqueness and wholeness, and you turn a blind eye to the other attributes automatically given to you.

Because you do not feel the existence of grace, you do not feel your own uniqueness and wholeness, and you fail to see the attributes and abilities automatically given to you.

What is love? Love is seeing the elegance and gracedness of another.

So-called love is being able to see the elegance and greatness of another person within grace, to see that he is covered by the grace of all nature. That is love.

Like natural guilt, the state of grace is unconscious in animals, and it is protected. Animals take it for granted, although they do not know what grace is -- they simply do not understand, and they do not know what they are doing. Yet this grace expresses itself through all their movements.

They dwell within its ancient wisdom of manner.

Animals dwell within the ancient wisdom of grace. Again, they do not have conscious memory. But the instinctive memory of cells and organs sustains them. According to the differences among species, all of this applies to them in varying degrees. And when Seth speaks of conscious memory, he is using terms familiar to us -- he means:

A memory that can at any time look back through itself.

He says that in certain animals, the emergence of this conscious memory is clearly visible, yet still very limited and specific.

We often train dogs and small pets, including police dogs, drug-sniffing dogs, and guide dogs, and their memory is very clearly observable. Some animals are very intelligent and have very strong memories. I remember we once had a black German Shepherd at home, a very purebred one. My experience was that when you taught it a command, it took no more than three times -- basically it could remember within three times; after three times, when you called it, it knew what you wanted it to do. Some dogs may not have such high intelligence, or their comprehension may not be as good, but some can do this.

For example, a dog may remember the place where it last saw its owner. I once saw a very moving film: an owner had a dog, and after the owner died, he was buried in a cemetery. During the funeral, no one had time to attend to the dog, and after the funeral was over, the dog was lost. They searched everywhere and could not find it, and put up lost-dog notices with no result. Then several months later, on a memorial day or some special anniversary, the family went to the cemetery to visit the deceased, and they found this dog, which had been lost for months, still lying beside the owner's gravestone, keeping watch over the owner's grave. The cemetery caretaker told them that this dog had been lying there ever since the owner was buried, never leaving for a day, only occasionally going out to find something to eat and then coming back. You can imagine that this dog remembered the place where it was separated from its owner.

But it cannot summon those memories at will, and its way of acting cannot rely on the kind of association we speak of. Its connections lean more toward the biological -- more sensitive to certain smells, specific images, or sounds.

It cannot provide the kind of leeway that your own mental state allows.

A dog's memory is not quite the same as a human's. We can anthropomorphically imagine what kind of memory it has, but its memory leans toward the biological, without that much room for imagination and association. It will remember some simple places, smells, and special sounds, but it is not like a human. A dog does not reminisce, does not joyfully reflect on its own state of grace; nor does it anticipate that any future moment will happen again. A dog does not think about whether it will rain tomorrow, or how its owner will treat it tomorrow.

Yet, because the conscious mind gives great freedom, humanity was able to deviate from the great inner joy of existence.

To forget it, disbelieve it, or use free will to deny its existence.

The conscious mind gives people great freedom, so we can do whatever we want, do as we please. Because we have this ability, we have deviated from the great inner joy of existence -- our human existence itself has a great inner joy; if you are always graced, how could you not be joyful? But we have forgotten grace, disbelieved it, or used free will to deny its existence.

That wonderful acceptance of life on a biological level could not be forced upon humanity's emerging consciousness.

Therefore, in order to appear effectively and efficiently within the new focus of awareness, grace had to expand from the life of organized tissue to the life of feeling, thought, and the processes of mentation.

Thus grace became an adjunct to natural guilt.

What this means is: on the biological level, that wonderful acceptance of life in animals cannot be forced upon humanity's emerging consciousness. Because free will and the conscious mind are abilities unique to humans, we cannot use that primitive biological instinct -- that graced, wonderful feeling -- and impose it upon consciousness. Simply put, we cannot live like pigs, thinking that as long as we have food and drink we have been graced by nature. This works for animals, but it does not work for humans. Because we have a conscious mind, we have higher pursuits -- pursuits of thought, spirit, and emotion. This pursuit itself transcends the simplest biological pursuits of animals. In the process of this pursuit, you cannot feel the existence of grace. Because for animals, grace is very simple; for you, it is very difficult.

So what is to be done? In order for you to appear effectively and more efficiently within this new focus of awareness, grace must expand from organized life -- that is, animal life -- to the life that has feeling, thought, and the processes of mentation. That is to say, grace must expand from the natural state of animals to the life-form of human feeling, thought, and mentation.

Thus grace became an adjunct to natural guilt. What does this mean? It means that when we follow natural guilt and do not violate others, we can feel the existence of grace, feel that we are graced by nature.

Grace and Natural Guilt

When man dwells within the scope of his consciousness, he becomes aware of his graced state, because he has turned his consciousness toward a new world of freedom.

When man transitions from biological life to the process of having feeling, perception, thought, and mentation, within the scope of his consciousness he can become aware of his graced state, because he has turned his consciousness toward a new world of freedom. The so-called new world of freedom is the world animals do not have -- the world of spirit, emotion, thought, and logical reasoning. When we humans turn our consciousness to such a new, non-animal-level world, if we have not violated others, we will become aware of our grace.

What if he has violated others?

Grace returns to the level of cellular awareness, as with the animals, but he will consciously perceive that he has lost connection with the state of grace, and is no longer graced.

For example, a person kills someone. The reasons for killing may be various -- he wanted to rob, the person resisted, and he was afraid the person would call for help and get him caught, so he killed the person. This act of killing itself has already violated natural guilt. In this state, his consciousness no longer functions, because when a person makes the decision to kill, human consciousness is very frightening -- a person will defend and justify his own actions. He will say: I had to kill him, because he was calling for help; if I did not kill him, I would go to prison; I killed him because he was calling out. He has set up a very good storyline and plot for himself to exonerate himself.

So at this time, he does not feel a strong sense of guilt -- I mean on the conscious level. He gives himself reasons. But do not forget, humans are still a kind of animal. At this time, the natural guilt at the bottom of your cells -- because your consciousness has been suppressed, the guilt has not manifested -- then the inner cellular guilt will emerge. This cellular guilt can feel that you are no longer graced, and you feel that you have lost connection with the world of grace. You will vomit, your muscles will go weak, and you will unconsciously display all sorts of strange behaviors -- all of these can be felt. In this state, you have lost connection with the world of grace.

If you can refrain from violating others, it is your consciousness that is controlling you so that you do not violate others. When you can perceive your own non-violation of others, you can perceive the existence of grace. What is discussed here is the relationship between grace and natural guilt -- why grace becomes an adjunct to natural guilt.

Conscience and the Moment of Reflection

The simplicity of natural guilt is simple, and does not give rise to what you call the discovery of conscience.

But conscience also depends upon that moment of reflection.

Broadly speaking, the moment of reflection is precisely your greatest difference from the animals.

Natural guilt is very simple -- so simple that it is basically a biological instinctive reaction. It has nothing to do with conscience itself -- do not think that natural guilt is the discovery of conscience, that it is our conscience at work that makes us refrain from such things. Seth says that natural guilt is one level lower than conscience, because conscience already involves a very high level, involving the demands of moral standards. Natural guilt is at a lower level; it is something biological and instinctive. It is very simple and will not give rise to problems of conscience.

But our conscience -- when conscience has not been extinguished, when conscience flashes forth -- is because of that moment of reflection. Only when we reflect, in that instant of laying down the butcher's knife, we must have thought of something -- that is the moment of reflection. Conscience depends on the moment of reflection, not on natural guilt. The subtle difference here is worth savoring and pondering carefully.

The conscience that you recognize is caused by a dilemma and a misinterpretation of the conditions set for your physical survival.

Conscience arose together with the emergence of artificial guilt.

Our so-called conscience is certainly caused by a dilemma and a misinterpretation of the conditions set for your physical survival. Conscience -- we generally only have problems of conscience in a dilemma; if you are not in a dilemma, you will not face the interrogation of conscience. In normal life you will not face such interrogation. When you face the interrogation of conscience, you are often in a dilemma.

Or it arises from a misinterpretation of the conditions set for physical survival. One misinterpretation is that you do not understand: in your physical survival, you only need to follow natural guilt. But you think that besides following natural guilt, you must also follow conscience, this moral condemnation. The condition for physical survival is only one -- do not violate natural guilt. But you have set a higher condition for yourself, namely conscience, and that is a misinterpretation of it. You have set the conditions for physical survival too high.

The dilemma needs no further explanation. When you face something -- for example, you find a sum of money, and whether to return it to the owner or keep it for yourself is a dilemma. The most classic test of conscience is the thought experiment psychologists do: a train is coming, and there is a switch; if you throw the switch one way, it will hit and kill one child; if you throw it the other way, it will hit and kill five children -- they ask you which way you would throw it. Is this not absurd? Psychologists solemnly analyze this at length, how this and how that. This is a topic that seeks trouble where there is none.

The Origin of Artificial Guilt

Now, in itself, artificial guilt is still quite creative.

It was when man's conscious mind began to contemplate and play with the originally innocent guilt that carried no punitive connotations, that it created a branch in its own image.

Artificial guilt is very creative -- people will create endless varieties of artificial guilt. How did it come about? When man's conscious mind began to contemplate and play with the earlier innocent natural guilt that carried no punitive connotations, it created a branch in its own image.

Let me give a simple example. When we kill living things -- when we kill more animals than we need to sustain our lives -- we have a natural sense of guilt; this is natural. Then we will ponder it, mull it over, and play with it in memory. The result of this playing is: killing living things should be a bad thing, is this not a matter of guilt? Then we take this thing and, according to our own understanding, add a branch to it -- from then on, all killing of living things is bad, all killing is a kind of sin.

So he abstracts it and defines this as a kind of artificial guilt. Some people, in very strict Mormon areas, even wear masks when walking² -- not for fear of viruses, but for fear that insects might fly into their mouths and be swallowed. Some people cannot step on ants when walking, cannot farm, because farming would kill the bugs in the soil. Mormons basically cannot do anything except engage in business. And as a result, precisely because they have always been doing business, they have become better and better at it.

I am not sure whether this example is apt or not, but what I am telling you is this: you take the thing of natural guilt, redefine it, and define it as an artificial guilt according to your own standards. That is how artificial guilt comes about.

The Creativity of the Conscious Mind

So why does this kind of artificial guilt arise? Seth says it is the conscious mind that creates the distinction. The conscious mind plays the main role in this. On the one hand, it receives unconscious data -- that is, data transmitted by the inner self; on the other hand, it receives conscious data -- that is, feedback from the five senses and the external world. Then it takes the unconscious data, the various complete gestalts, and brings them to the level of awareness, gathering and organizing them in ever-changing forms. It takes the information at the bottom of your subconscious, the information transmitted by the inner self, the information transmitted by the body, and organizes it in ever-changing ways, like a kaleidoscope, presenting it before your consciousness.

Through purposeful focusing. This data is rich, but it passes through your purposeful focusing -- how to focus? According to your belief system. Your belief system determines which knowledge you accept and which information you do not accept.

Truly unlimited amounts of such data are unconsciously sorted and classified.

Be sure to remember: unlimited amounts of data are unconsciously sorted and classified, and then only the desired components are displayed; the rest is ignored by you. This content was covered in earlier chapters, and he mentions it again here. His purpose in mentioning it is to tell you how your artificial guilt comes about.

The conscious mind has inexhaustible creativity.

The conscious mind has inexhaustible creativity in all realms of thought. It is also an organizer of physical data -- it not only organizes the nonphysical data transmitted by the inner self, but is also an organizer of material data.

Therefore natural guilt became the basis for various variations.

And these variations closely follow the combinations of human religion and society.

Natural guilt is the basis for various variations, and artificial guilt comes from variations of natural guilt. These variations closely follow the combinations of human religion and society. The conscious mind, on the one hand, takes endless data from the unconscious level, organizes it in the unconscious manner, and then uses your conscious belief system to break it down and receive it; on the other hand, it receives material from the physical world -- including the problems, experiences, and lessons of religion and society that we experience in human society. The conscious mind also makes judgments and perceptions about this.

This latter is also the result of the perceiving mind's ability to play with, mix, and recombine perceptions and experience.

Your mind has the ability to play with, mix, and recombine your perceptions and experience. Take human religion and society, add natural guilt, mix them together and recombine them, and you will have this or that kind of perception, all sorts of artificial guilt.

For example, in Christianity, premarital sex and infidelity are firmly opposed; in Buddhism, matters of lust and evil are punished very severely. All religions mix these things together. Yet we know that natural guilt does not include these things. If two people are in mutual love, there is nothing about this matter that involves guilt. But artificial guilt does exist, and it is very strong. This example allows everyone to feel very strongly what this "artificial mixing" means.

And you should know that in different religions, different historical periods, and different countries and regions, such religious cultures are also different. In these different regions, artificial guilt is also different. For example, in some places polygamy is legal. Mormonism advocates polygamy, and just a couple of days ago the state of Utah passed a law³. Previously, bigamy was a felony in the United States, punishable by five years in prison. Because the Mormon Church is very powerful in Utah and has always insisted on polygamy, when Utah first joined the Union, the federal government required them to change this law, recognize monogamy, and make bigamy a felony. At that time, Utah had no choice but to make the change in order to join the Union. But recently they changed it back -- the legislature passed that bigamy is still recognized, but it has become a fine, I think $750, plus six weeks or two months of community service, and that is it; no prison time. It is now a misdemeanor.

But in other places, including Taiwan, adultery is not just a moral issue; in Taiwan it is a criminal offense. In mainland China now, this behavior is not a crime, but it is subject to moral and social condemnation. This is a typical example -- different periods, different regions, and different religious beliefs define this matter completely differently. Through these things, you can feel how artificial guilt is combined differently under specific human social and religious backgrounds.

Humans Are Innately Good

Man is innately good.

One sentence, period. This answers the question of "Is human nature good or evil at birth?" Our ancient ancestors told us long ago; the Three Character Classic says that human nature is good at birth⁴, that natures are similar but habits diverge -- this has all been made clear. Yet we still do not believe it. Seth here emphasizes it to you once again: man is innately good; there is no need to doubt this any further.

The human conscious mind must be free, with its own free will.

Strangely enough, the human conscious mind must be sufficiently free. Under this extreme freedom, you can think anything, and you can believe anything. In this situation, although humans are essentially good, a person can allow himself to believe that he is evil. You can believe this, because your conscious mind is absolutely free; if you insist on saying you are evil, that is allowed. The person who sets standards according to his own image -- if he believes he is evil, then he is evil. He defines evil, saying that such a person is evil. After he defines it this way, that person is evil. It is that simple.

The conscious mind is also innately able to see its own beliefs, and to reflect upon and evaluate them.

The conscious mind is innately able to see its own beliefs, and also to reflect upon and evaluate them.

Therefore, if man uses this tool as it was meant to be used, it will automatically help him recognize his beliefs and their effects.

The conscious mind will automatically help people recognize their beliefs and their effects.

This great freedom is meant to make man realize that he creates his own reality.

Because you have extreme freedom, unlimited freedom, the purpose of this unlimited freedom is to let you believe that you can create your own reality.

Free will is necessary; it gives man leeway.

It allows him to materialize his ideas, to encounter them in physical experience, and then to evaluate for himself their respective validity.

The conscious mind must have a certain amount of leeway. What leeway? It cannot proceed entirely rigidly according to a single standard. You create your reality according to your concepts, but there is a certain margin of error between the reality you create and your concepts. So you must feel these things in the actually projected external environment, and only after feeling them can you evaluate whether these projected things are appropriate or not. If your conscious mind did not have such great tolerance, this could not be done.

Animals have no such need. Animals do not need to project their inner selves outward and then look back to see whether what they projected is appropriate or not. Animals rest comfortably within the limits of their own instincts; they do not have this ability, so they are very comfortable.

At the same time, it also explores other levels of perception that are less kind and familiar to humanity.

Animals explore other levels of perception that are less kind and familiar to us.

But natural grace and natural guilt were given to you, and these will also grow fully into conscious awareness.

Natural grace and natural guilt were given to us, and they will grow fully into conscious awareness. If you can sit quietly and realize that the parts of your body are constantly replacing themselves -- you sit here gently, realizing that the parts of your body are constantly replacing themselves, that your cells are constantly arising and passing away, that your organs and all your tissues are constantly replacing themselves -- if you turn your conscious mind toward contemplating this activity, you can become aware of your own state of grace. The millions upon millions of cells in your body are constantly arising and passing away, yet you maintain such a complete, balanced, and vital bodily state, even though your cells are living and dying.

The Birth of Consciousness: Reincarnation Is Not Punishment

We continue with Chapter 9 of Seth Speaks. This chapter discusses the birth of consciousness, and the topic inevitably touches on reincarnation, which Seth here re-explains from a completely new angle.

At the beginning of this section, Seth continues discussing the state of grace. Earlier it was said that your body is constantly being replaced by itself, and your thoughts are also constantly being replaced by themselves—the millions upon millions of cells in your body are arising and passing away, yet you maintain such an intact, such a balanced, such a vital bodily state. You sit there gently, and if you turn your conscious mind toward contemplating this activity, you can become aware of your own state of grace.

How is it achieved? How is it accomplished? You will marvel at the wonder of nature and the grace of the universe within it.

If you can feel your own thoughts steadily replacing themselves—in this present moment you can only have one thought, and once that thought passes, a new thought replaces it—then I ask you: which thought is you? Is the previous thought you, or is the next thought you, or are all these thoughts you?

Isn't that interesting? When you become aware of this, you can also feel your own nobility. Where does your nobility lie? These thoughts of yours, ceaseless and unending, though each one is different—some may be vastly different, some may even be contradictory, completely conflicting with one another—yet these contradictory thoughts cannot stop you from recognizing that you are still this you. They cannot stop you from existing as a whole.

So when you can think of your body constantly being replaced by itself, and your thoughts constantly being replaced by themselves, and yet you are still sitting peacefully in this chair, you can feel the grace of nature. The grace of this universe toward you, the grace of this world toward you, is embodied right here.

However, you cannot consciously consider yourself guilty and still enjoy this recognition. When you consider yourself guilty, you cannot enjoy this feeling. A large part of the audience being addressed here comes from a Christian background—the idea that "I was born with original sin." We must escape from guilt, at least not at the level where you consciously consider yourself guilty.

If you find yourself belittling yourself over something from yesterday or ten years ago—we do this often: how could I have done such a thing back then? How could that have been me?—belittling yourself in this way is not a virtue. Many people think, "I am so hard on myself, I am so strict with myself, look at me taking this matter out and repeatedly dissecting myself, criticizing myself." Seth tells you, that is not a virtue. Don't feel smug about it, thinking, "Look at me, ever vigilant, ever self-reflective, pulling out the bad things I did one by one to examine them." Isn't this a jab at those in Christianity who go to confess to a priest? Listing the bad things they have done one by one, item by item, along with those indulgences and penance tickets and so on.

We have all seen Ge You's If You Are the One, where he sits in a church and keeps the priest talking from dawn until dark⁵ and still hasn't finished, saying, "I've only gotten to middle school." Carrying guilt from childhood to adulthood—human society considers this a good thing, that this person has a reflective heart. Seth tells you, this is not a good thing, this is not a virtue. What it is most likely to do is drag you into artificial guilt.

Let the past go; it is all past. Even if a real transgression did occur—if you really did harm someone—natural guilt also does not involve atonement. Natural guilt will also arise, but its purpose is not to make you carry the cross of guilt for the rest of your life, not to make you bear the reputation or label of a sinner. The meaning of natural guilt is as a preventive measure and reminder before something happens. It is not meant to make you live out the rest of your days with a guilty heart; it is telling you not to do it again, never to repeat it—the only message you receive afterward is "never do it again."

So when you have truly done something that harmed others, from this moment on—once you read this book, read this passage, or hear what I am saying now—let it go completely, release it completely. No matter whom you have hurt, whom you have transgressed against, you no longer need to carry guilt through the rest of your life. There is absolutely no need. You only need to do one thing: tell yourself—I have hurt others, and I will not do this again. That is the only message you receive; nothing else is needed.

The Theory of Reincarnation: The Conscious Mind's Linear Interpretation

Seth is being very rigorous here. He places the idea of "not repeating the offense" within our human framework of time -- "again" is a temporal concept, and since he says "from now on," that involves time. Because for us, those violations are born within this time.

But what is the fact? All time is simultaneous. Within simultaneous time, punishment is meaningless. Since there is no past, present, or future, you might as well say the punishment comes first. From a higher dimension looking at this world, all things happen simultaneously. Since they happen simultaneously, the punishment and the thing you are being punished for -- which of these two comes first is not even certain. I joke that you might get beaten up first without knowing why, because you haven't done that thing yet.

So why is there no need for a sense of atonement? Why is there no need for cause and effect, for karmic retribution to exist? Because they happen simultaneously.

Seth says that in Seth Speaks we almost never mentioned reincarnation -- not that it was never mentioned, but it was not discussed systematically. Yet in Chapters 9, 10, and 11, he discussed things from the human perspective, using the human timeline. Although he repeatedly emphasized several times in between "how it is from a higher dimension," the main thread was from the human angle. Now he steps outside of that and discusses it from another angle.

The theory of reincarnation is an interpretation created by the conscious mind in a linear manner.

We have another way of putting it: reincarnation -- the so-called previous life, this life, next life -- is an interpretation created by our conscious mind based on the idea that "time is a straight line." We think time is linear, a line extending from past to future. This viewpoint is, first of all, extremely distorted, because time itself is not linear, nor does it develop along a single thread.

On the one hand, it is an interpretation produced when the conscious mind plays with the reality it understands -- what does the conscious mind do? It is, on the one hand, inwardly aware of the reality it has created, and on the other hand, playing games with its own creations. It is in this process of play that it creates this interpretation.

But in ordinary terms, there is no karma that must be paid as punishment. Unless you yourself believe you have committed some sin that must be compensated for -- if you believe it, then you really will compensate for it, nothing to be done; if you don't believe it, then you don't have it.

In a broader sense, there is also no cause and effect. Although within your reality, cause and effect is a root assumption -- what is a root assumption? Time is a root assumption, space is a root assumption. Because space and time exist, cause and effect exist. But from a broader perspective, stepping outside of our reality's space, there is no cause and effect.

I have specifically discussed this issue before. Many people jumped out to object, saying things like "all phenomena are empty, but cause and effect is not empty" -- isn't that ridiculous? The world no longer exists, yet cause and effect still exists? How could that be. This is actually an overemphasis on our three-dimensional world's assumptions about time and space.

Seth here directly gives a definition of cause and effect: there is no cause and effect. He then explains why. He says:

Again, I use these concepts because they are known to you, and in your terms, they appear to be true.

Within time, cause and effect give you the feeling that they are real.

He once again mentions the "moment of reflection" -- this concept has already been brought up many times in previous chapters. In the moment of reflection, cause and effect both appear for the first time. In this moment, you think "if I do this thing, what consequences will arise," or "because I did something before, there is now this result" -- one involves the past, the other involves the future.

In your terms, it can be dimly traced by observing the animals that still roam the earth, for each, to their own degree, far less than yours, displays that reflection.

What does this mean? In our human terms of time, the moment of reflection is the point at which cause and effect first appear simultaneously. We can observe the animals on earth and dimly trace the origins of humanity -- because animals themselves have far fewer moments of reflection than we do. As mentioned before, some animals have only a very small portion of this state of the moment of reflection; most do not have it at all. Among those that do have it, the degree is also very low.

In certain animals, it does not exist at all. Yet it lies latent there. This refers to that moment of reflection -- a state of reflecting on past events, with a sense of guilt, that kind of reflective state.

Multiple Existences: Simultaneous and Open-Ended

He says, now you may rest.

Let us continue:

The longer you reflect, the more time seems to pass between events.

You feel that there is a period between reincarnations and existences -- one reincarnation following another. Because you see a reality of cause and effect, see one period of time following another, see this reincarnation go from this life to the next, you assume there is a reality -- a cause-and-effect reality you have assumed. In such a reality, you say one life influences the next, holding to theories of sin and punishment, imagining that in this life you are burdened by guilt gathered in the previous life -- or worse, karma accumulated over life after life. Buddhism speaks of creating karma, Hinduism says the same, and many religions say this as well.

However, these multiple existences are simultaneous and open-ended. Actually, "open-ended" is not well translated here as "endless"; the original is open-ended, not "endless" -- it is "open": an open ending, not closed off. Like a television series where the ending is not written in stone, where all sorts of possibilities exist -- please watch the next season.

In your terms, in this multidimensional reality, the conscious mind grows in the direction of fulfilling the role it plays. Why does he insist on adding "in your terms"? Because "growing" is a concept of time. Only in a world of time is there such a thing as growth. The moment he mentions growth, he must emphasize that this is your human viewpoint, so that you can understand it more easily.

How should we understand it? This multidimensional reality is originally simultaneous -- twelve dramas are being performed at the same time. But we have trouble understanding the idea of twelve dramas being performed simultaneously, so let us use the human viewpoint to understand it: these twelve dramas are all about you -- the first drama is you from ages one to three, the second drama is you in kindergarten, the third is you in elementary school, the fourth is you in middle school... In each drama, the you of a different age is growing toward the direction of your gestalt. Is that easier to understand now?

If you can understand this, then take it a step further: suppose these twelve dramas are twelve of your lives, from beginning to end, from birth to death -- twelve cycles of reincarnation. These twelve yous actually share one common you, one common direction of development. That is to say, you have lived twelve lives, all to fulfill the direction of growth of this one shared role. In each life, you seem to fulfill a direction of development for that life's personality, yet all these personalities together fulfill a direction of development for a larger personality -- or a larger entity. You are simply not aware of it.

He says, it is enough that you understand the role of this one existence. You do not need to understand your past lives or your future lives; none of that is necessary. You say, I use various methods to look at this and that -- there is no real meaning in it. It can only give you explanations on the timeline of your three-dimensional world that put your mind at ease, giving you a little comfort in your heart, but it has no actual practical effect, because things simply do not work that way -- it is still happening simultaneously.

When you fully understand that you form your present reality, everything else will fall into place. This is very well said. As long as you understand that you create your reality, that you create the world around you, everything else will settle into its own place. You need not concern yourself with anything else.

Your beliefs, thoughts, and emotions are materialized immediately. They do not pass through some span of time as you think -- your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, in their reality in this world, are already simultaneous at their inception. We have discussed before that when you have a thought, the moment a single thought arises, it is already complete. But in the world of time, there seems to be a passage of time between them, so I say "one causes another" -- using these terms to help you understand. But all of it happens simultaneously.

Life Is Like a Breath

Likewise, when your being naturally extends its multifaceted abilities—it may be a cook, a painter, or a musician—it immediately manifests as your multiple lives. You think your reincarnational lives come one after another, but he tells you: because your entity has many abilities to express, when it naturally extends these abilities, your multiple lives unfold immediately—your life as a musician, as a painter, as a beggar, as a cook, as a scientist, as a king, as a slave; all kinds of lives exist simultaneously and arise simultaneously.

The word "immediate" here does not imply a finished state of perfection, or a cosmic shape in which all things are already completed. "Immediate" is not a completed state, because everything is still happening—and the word "still" is crucial—you are also still happening, including your present and future selves. And your past selves are still experiencing the things you think are already finished. You think you have already graduated from elementary school, but you are still there attending elementary school—this is something you cannot imagine. We have already explained this many times in Seth Speaks and elsewhere, so we will not repeat it here.

What is more, he also experiences events you have no memory of. Those probable selves—the probable versions of you that you did not choose in this timeline—are also experiencing them. That event was merely something you thought about, and in this world it did not happen, but in that probable reality you are still experiencing those things. Therefore your past self not only experiences the things you remember, but also experiences things you have no memory of at all, because your linearly adjusted consciousness cannot perceive that. Your consciousness is a straight line; you can only walk along one storyline.

Within your body there is, in your terms, innate miraculous power and creative energy. Many people may take this statement as implying an endless state of youth—eternal youth and immortality. But that is not what Seth is talking about. Although youth can be prolonged in physical terms, even beyond the present time, that is not what he wants to say. He says:

In physical terms, you must follow the nature into which you were born.

You have to follow the laws of nature, and within that scope, the cycles of youth and old age are extremely important. In the natural environment, such a cycle is necessary—from birth to death, from youth to old age.

In some ways, the rhythm of life and death is like a breath inhaled and exhaled.

He gives a vivid example—many religions also observe breathing, because breathing is very much like life. You are not your breath. Breath enters your body and leaves your body; without its continuous flow, your physical body cannot exist. Likewise, your life enters you—and yet it is not you; it is you and not you—and then it leaves.

You think of your body as your entity, and your life—this physical life—as one breath. It enters your entity and leaves your entity. This one entering and leaving is equivalent to one reincarnation. There is within your entity a part that, after these lives have all gone, remembers them and knows their journeys and knows their whole process.

Imagine, when your breath is about to leave your body, where does it go? Maybe it slips through an open window and becomes part of the outside space. There you can no longer recognize it—which breath is yours? And once it has left you, it is no longer a part of what makes you you, because you are already different. Even with only a single breath's difference, it is not the same.

Therefore the many lifetimes you have lived are not you, although at the same time they come from you.

This line is extremely poetic. The many lifetimes you have lived are not you—just as the air you exhale is not you. But without you as this living person, how could there be this breathing in and out? Precisely because of your entity, your soul, there can be these successive reincarnations. They come from you. But without this soul, these reincarnations would not exist—yet these reincarnations are not you. They are only a breath of yours. The real you, you have not yet come to know.

When you close your eyes and think of your breath as life, and of yourself as the being through which they have flowed and are flowing—then you will feel that state of grace, and all artificial guilt will be meaningless.

When you are this being, your lives enter and leave, enter again and leave again, and your being remains here. As life comes and goes, does it still need artificial guilt? Only this real you would need to carry that guilt. But that life that comes and goes, that single breath itself, has no need for such a thing at all.

All of this in no way denies the full integrity and completeness of individuality. This life of yours is whole. It is not because we are only a breath that this life becomes insignificant, as dispensable as someone else's breath—how could that be? From your birth to your death, every breath you exhale in this life is indispensable; only that is the complete you. So he says, each of your lives is entirely complete and whole.

You are both that individual being through whom those lives flow, and the one through whom that "this" unique life is expressed—I don't know what "that this" means; it should be "that so" unique life. You are that soul, and you are also those lives.

Every atom is different; each is aware in its own way and can enter larger transformations and organizations, brimming with unlimited potential. All the greatest things in the world are fundamentally composed of atoms, and their potential is unlimited. Just as your breath leaves you and becomes part of the world—your breath is free—in the same way, those lives of yours leave you and continue to exist. Those reincarnations, those different lives, after leaving you continue to exist in their own reality spaces—just as the breath you exhale continues to exist, only you cannot perceive it.

You cannot confine the person you once were to some already ended century and deny it further achievements. You cannot confine one of your former reincarnations to a time that has already ended—for example, suppose you were someone in the Tang Dynasty; you cannot say that matter is already settled and that he cannot have other achievements. It is just as if you cannot put every breath you exhale into a glass bottle, label it, and preserve it so that it can no longer have new development. It must flow into nature. It leaves you and still exists.

They still exist. The former you—that Tang Dynasty you—still exists and has fresh experiences. It is not walking your old path and replaying it over and over; it continues to exist in that world and still experiences things you have not experienced.

Just as that reflective moment of yours gives rise to the birth of consciousness you thought you caused—because the two actually arrive together. Cause and effect come at the same time. Another phenomenon, another kind of phenomenon and reflection, can at least give you some dim conscious awareness of the vast dimensions of your own reality. When you reflect on the fact that the Tang Dynasty you is still alive, it will give you a dim recognition of the vast dimensions of your own reality—you think your reality is only this present world, but in fact it is not; it is a multidimensional existence.

Here Seth gives a particularly vivid example: animals pass through a forest, and we pass through the psyche in the same way—through psychological and spiritual realms. Animals receive through their senses information from far away that they cannot directly see—they cannot see the bear in the distance, but they can sense that danger is approaching, and that information is dim for them. In the same way, our psychic world itself is multidimensional; like animals, we move through this multidimensional forest, unable to see the existence of those other realities, but we can dimly sense that there is something else beyond the forest—the forest is extremely complex, not as simple as what our eyes can see; it has deeper layers, a broader range, and more expansive space. This is that state in which we both know and do not know our own multidimensional reality.

Well, that is all for our introduction to this section for now. This part is very important; I hope everyone will seriously reflect on the core content discussed in this section.

On the Structure of the Psyche and the Multidimensional Nature of the Soul

Today we are looking at Chapter 9 of The Nature of Personal Reality — corresponding to Session 637 in the original book, the session held on the evening of Wednesday, January 31, 1973. During the first fifteen minutes of this session, Seth answered questions that other people had asked, and then he began the formal dictation for this book.

Seth first said that the you that you think of as yourself will never be annihilated. Never. Your consciousness will not be snuffed out like a candle flame, nor will there be some kind of nirvana in which you are swallowed up and unaware of your own bliss. You will not be any more in nirvana in the future than you are now.

Session 637

The you that you think you are will never be destroyed.

Your consciousness will not be extinguished like a candle flame, nor will there be some kind of nirvana in which you are swallowed up, unaware of your own bliss. In the future you will not be any more in nirvana than you are now.

This is very interesting. Many people think that after we practice, attain liberation, and escape the cycle of reincarnation, we can enter a state of nirvana, a land of ultimate bliss -- a state of ultimate bliss where everything is perfectly still, unchanging. Seth says: No. In the future you will not be any more in nirvana than you are now -- you are in nirvana right now. In other words, you are in the land of ultimate bliss right now.

Then he talks about the composition of your body and its cells. Earlier in Chapter 7 he discussed the relationship between your body and its cells. All the cells that now make up the physical form of your body are obviously simultaneous. Imagine that you have many lives existing in the same way -- except in this case, you do not have many cells, but many selves.

I have told you that each cell has its own memory.

Of course, its own memory is the memory of this complete you, this entire self, with a much larger dimension. The "self" here refers to a larger self -- your greater self, which you could call "existence," "greater self," or "higher self" if you like -- the name does not matter. You can think of it as a real psychic structure that is being formed, just as real as your physical structure.

Think of it as a real psychic structure being formed, just as real as your physical structure.

In other words, you can imagine this greater self or existence -- or "entity" -- as a psychic structure, a psychic structure just as real as your physical body. This psychic structure is composed of many selves, just as each cell within your body has its own position within the boundaries of physical space. Each of those selves of yours, each self within the entity, is also aware of its own time and space of activity.

Just as a cell has its own spatial position and specific boundaries within your body -- it belongs to a certain organ and operates only within those specific boundaries -- the many "yous" that make up this entity or existence also have their own positions in time and space within psychic space. Here "time" and "space" are in quotation marks -- that is only relative to us. For the psychic structure of the entity, this is a kind of psychic time and psychic space.

Seth says that the body is a physical structure, a material structure. Yet the cells, while always a part of the body, are not aware of the entire dimension in which your consciousness resides.

Yet the cells, while always a part of the body, are not aware of the entire dimension in which your consciousness resides.

In other words, your cells can never enter the level of your consciousness -- they cannot understand it, nor can they perceive the existence of that dimension. They cannot even perceive all the elements available in three-dimensional experience.

For example, when you take a plane or travel abroad, your cells cannot feel any of that. They cannot sense all the elements of three-dimensional space, only a very small portion. Yet Seth goes on to say that your present consciousness, seemingly so much more sophisticated, is actually physically dependent upon the cells' awareness.

Yet your present consciousness, seemingly so much more sophisticated, is actually physically dependent upon the cells' awareness.

Although the cells cannot perceive the level of your consciousness, your level of consciousness is actually dependent upon the cells' awareness. This is easy to understand -- your cells cannot understand the things at the level of your consciousness, but your consciousness completely depends on the body composed of these physical cells. Without these cells, there would be none of the consciousness you perceive. So you are dependent upon the awareness of these cells.

Therefore, when you, as a part of that entity or greater psychic structure, become aware of a dimension of activity far greater than yourself, likewise, its more mature and sophisticated consciousness also depends upon your own consciousness. The two are indispensable to each other.

Just as your cells are a part of your body, the countless yous that make up this entity cannot understand the entity's vaster dimensions of activity -- you cannot understand it -- but its consciousness in that dimension also depends upon your awareness or perception. So the two of you are indispensable to each other, just like the relationship between your consciousness and the cells in your body.

A Moment of Reflection

In physical life, when this message jumps across nerve endings, there is a lapse of time. A nerve signal travels from one synapse to another, and a transmitting medium is needed in between to carry the signal, which takes time, though very brief. Seth uses another way of putting it, saying that on other levels, we can call this "a moment of reflection."

In other terms and on other levels, we can say that this corresponds to that moment of reflection.

The so-called moment of reflection is when you stand in the present, draw upon past experience, and then imagine what might happen in the future -- that is your moment of reflection in the present. He says that, from a certain angle, in the process of nerve cell transmission, the gap where the signal jumps from one neuron to another can be called a moment of reflection. Because it is jumping from one place to another, it spans both ends -- the process between the previous message and the next one.

When human consciousness evolved from animal consciousness, this moment of reflection was the moment human consciousness came into being. But one point must be stressed here: Seth is not saying that human beings evolved from animals -- that is not what he means. What he means is that this is the difference between human consciousness and animal consciousness. As was said earlier, the moment of reflection is a primary distinction between humans and animals, and the birth of our consciousness lies precisely in this moment.

He says, to put it another way, on another different level, this period of time occurs as the moment of reflection extends itself -- when the self detaches from and leaps out of the physical form, just as cells sometimes abandon their own bodies.

To put it another way, and on another different level, this period of time occurs as the moment of reflection extends itself, when the self detaches from and leaps out of the physical form, just as cells sometimes abandon their own bodies.

What does this mean? It is very simple. From a certain angle, when a nerve signal travels from one neuron to another, this in-between time -- the intermediate state where the message has left the first neuron but has not yet reached the second -- this intermediate state within the lapse of time exists detached from these two material neurons, detached from the physical form. Understood from this angle, can you now see that your consciousness can exist apart from the physical body? Now you can understand this.

Extending the Analogy

He says:

Now in this context, and only for the sake of our analogy, try to think of your own life as one message skipping across the neurons of a multidimensional structure — a structure just as real as your own body.

And think of it as a larger moment of reflection for this multifaceted personality.

He extends the example above. Once we understand the above, we extend it further: it is as if this life of ours, this present life, think of it as one message within a multidimensional structure, within a neuron — and think of it as a larger moment of reflection for this multifaceted personality, this multidimensional personality, because its duration is longer, equivalent to your entire life.

He is only making an analogy. If we imagine this life of ours as one message within that larger soul-body, between two neurons — then this life of ours is equivalent to the transmission of one neural message within this entity. If we think of this entity or soul as a body, then this life of ours is nothing more than the transmission of one message between its neurons.

You see, suppose this entity exists non-physically, living within multiple dimensions, then this instant of transmission between its cells does not exist within that dimension of its own. Just as in the physical world, this instant of transmission does not exist within the physical world. So at the level of the soul, the transmission of this signal does not exist within the non-physical level — it exists within the physical level, within our earthly life. What it manifests as in earthly life is one lifetime, one lifetime of time on Earth. And from the perspective of the entire entity, it is equivalent to the transmission of one message between neurons within the psychic structure of the non-physical world. It does not exist within that non-physical world; rather, it exists within our physical world.

Seth says:

I made these analogies because they are apt and to the point.

This analogy is apt and to the point. But I also understand that they may make you feel small. You might think: so what am I, after all? So I am just one neural impulse of the entity, or one leap? You would feel afraid for your own identity — why afraid? You would feel that I am just a message, that this life of mine is merely someone else's information.

Only then does he tell you: actually no, you are more than just a message.

In passing through the vast realms of a super self, you are not lost in the universe.

In passing through the vast realms of a super self, you are not lost in the universe. He hastens to comfort us — if you think of this vast entity and the state of the universe in this way, we humans would feel small. He tells you: do not feel small.

He says, in a book, we must use words, use terms as analogies — because we are writing a book. But what can these analogies do? They can, within your imagination, evoke some feeling of the intimate relationship between you and all other realities.

They can, within your imagination, evoke some feeling of the intimate relationship between you and all other realities.

If you allow yourself to imagine — when you imagine yourself as one cell within your body, and the entire body, the entire "you," is that entity, and this life of yours is one cell within your body — if you imagine it this way, you can experience the intimate relationship between the entity and you. The entity depends on your existence, on your awareness, to exist, and you are a support for the entity's larger awareness. In other words, without you, there would be no larger awareness either.

Just like the cells of your body — do you think the cells of the body are unimportant? If the cells of the body did not exist, then there would be no you. But how important are the cells of the body to you? Not that important — you have countless cells existing simultaneously. This is a dialectical relationship.

The Feeling of Grace

When this feeling of intimate connection between you and your own entity, between you and your other realities -- you do not exist only in this physical world, but also in other multidimensional worlds -- when this feeling of intimacy reaches a certain degree, what happens?

This feeling of grace is emotionally a native gratitude for your place and rights in existence, and the acknowledgment of its necessary purpose and freedom.

When you become more and more familiar with this sense of intimacy with multidimensional reality, when you realize that you are one of the countless selves of the entity, and that the existence of the entity depends upon the existence of these countless selves, then you will develop a native, inherent gratitude for your position and place within the entire entity -- this state is a feeling of grace.

Seth says:

Now in your terms, remember also that there is a great gulf between the cells that compose you and yourself.

That is, the gap between you and your cells is very large. Your own present identity, that is, your present physical self, contains all that simultaneously existing knowledge and memory.

They also remember in their own way all the physical structures that have ever been formed.

That is, your cells also remember that the physical body they formed is such a structure. It is very subtle -- every cell remembers that it exists within this physical body, it remembers the existence of this physical body. It remembers in its own way.

Because we have the concept of time, in consciousness you will interpret those simultaneous lives through the framework of reincarnation, as if they were one after another -- but in fact they exist simultaneously.

Let us use a vivid analogy: suppose your body is composed of fifty trillion cells. If you take out each cell individually, one cell is born and dies, then another cell is born and dies -- if all fifty trillion cells followed this linear time, being born once and dying once, being born fifty trillion times and dying fifty trillion times, could they form your life? Could they form your present body? No. They definitely could not -- that would become like observing in a laboratory the process of each cell from birth to death. Only when these fifty trillion cells are alive at the same time, exist at the same time, and are organized in a certain way, can they form your present body.

So, your entity depends upon these simultaneously existing selves to ultimately form such an entity. He uses this method to explain it. But because of our conceptual problem with the cognition of time, we think it is one after another, while in fact it is simultaneous.

Cells, the Soul, and Free Will

Seth says:

Your conscious thoughts, expectations, and beliefs direct the health and activity of your cells.

Our conscious thoughts, expectations, and beliefs direct the health and activity of our cells. But:

Cells do not have what you would call free will.

They are innately capable of forming other organizations—they also have the ability to become other organizations—but not while they are united with you. When they are united with us, they will not form other organizations; they are part of the body, a cell within a certain organ. After they leave us, they will become other organizations. To leave you, they must change form.

To some degree, within their natural framework, you determine their health, and the cells also help maintain your health.

In terms of consciousness, the entity, or the greater you, knows far more than you know.

Just as you know far more than your cells know. But Seth says:

You do indeed have free will.

You are different from cells—cells do not have free will, but you do. Because although there is a psychic structure that can be compared to the body, it is part of, and resides within, a far greater dimension.

The Analogy of Intimate Relationships

Seth says:

All of this may seem to have little to do with your personal reality.

But he says, your daily experience is connected with your own self or entity, just as it is connected with the cells of your physical form.

But your daily experience is connected with your own self or entity, just as it is connected with the cells of your physical form.

He has said so much, seemingly about the entity, about the soul, about the higher self, saying that the entity is composed of countless reincarnational selves, as if it has little to do with our daily lives. He says: that is where you misunderstand. Just as the life of your cells is intimately connected with you as a person, the reincarnational life you are living in this lifetime is very closely connected with that larger entity of yours — just as closely as you are connected with your cells. So how could it have nothing to do with you? Your daily experience is all connected with this.

There is an obvious intimate relationship between one cell and another.

Within the miraculous physical structure of the body itself, there is constant give-and-take and a combination of perceptions.

There is an intimate relationship between cell and cell. Within the miraculous physical structure of the body itself, cells constantly give and take with one another — mutually giving and receiving, exchanging nutrients and so on. There is also a combination of perceptions among cells — combining each other's perceptions into a complete perception, like the perception of a particular organ.

Your ideas and experience of reality are vastly different from the ideas and experience of any cell, but each is connected with the other.

Your ideas and experience of the reality around you are vastly different from the ideas and experience of any cell — of course they are utterly different. What a cell sees is not what you see, and what it feels is completely different from what you feel. But each is connected with the other — do not forget, your perception of the external world also depends on the perceptions of your cells.

A group of cells forms an organ, a group of selves forms a soul

Seth says:

A group of cells forms an organ, a group of selves forms a soul.

I am not saying that you do not have a soul you can call your own. Later Seth explains the word "soul," because many times people have formed misunderstandings about this.

A group of selves forms a soul, just as a group of cells forms an organ. At this point many people will ask: does that mean I share this one soul with many reincarnated selves? Do I not have my own soul? Later in the book, Rob and Jane asked the same question.

At the time, Seth's answer was: if this explanation causes you to misunderstand, then in this passage you can replace "soul" with "oversoul," turning it into a super soul -- one super soul has many souls under it, and many souls form one super soul. You may feel better understanding it that way. But to me there is no difference -- for your understanding, it may not be easy to grasp.

Why? Here we touch on the essential difference between our three-dimensional viewpoint and the higher-dimensional viewpoint. This soul itself is a nonphysical energy body. We can think of it as a quantum-state existence that is present in many places at the same time. This soul is one -- but to you, it seems to be a unique soul; to another reincarnated you, it is another soul. In the end, it is one soul -- different facets of one soul, manifesting and materializing a physical self in different times and spaces.

If we use human language, use our human three-dimensional viewpoint, then the you of the Tang dynasty and the you of the Song dynasty -- say one is a man and one is a woman -- would be considered two different souls. Seth says: if understanding it that way, believing that, makes it easier for you, then you can imagine the soul of that Tang dynasty warrior and the soul of that Song dynasty female singer as two different souls. Then the example I gave in this passage -- "a group of selves forms a soul" -- should be stated as "a group of selves forms an oversoul combination." If you insist on recognizing them as different souls, then you can understand it that way.

Seth's meaning is that this does not bother him -- in his view they are one. But if you insist they are different, you can also understand it that way. Why? Because your soul exists in different times and spaces simultaneously, and you think they are different -- from the viewpoint of your different times and spaces, they are different; but from the higher-dimensional viewpoint, this is the same soul.

Then he says:

It belongs to you, and you belong to it.

This soul belongs to you, and you also belong to this soul. You dwell within its reality --

You dwell within its reality, even as a cell dwells within the reality of an organ.

The organ, in your terms, is temporary, while the soul is eternal.

The organ, in your terms, is temporary, while the soul is eternal.

An organ has a lifespan of only a few decades, while the soul is immortal -- that is the difference. The cell, in your view, is physical, while the self is not. You think you are physical, but actually you are not physical -- this has already been said earlier.

So:

That entity, or greater self, is composed of souls -- a plural of souls.

That is, your entity or greater self is composed of many souls. Because the body exists within time and space, the organ has its specific purpose. It helps the body live, and it must stay in its place. The entity, however, exists within multiple dimensions.

The entity itself is a multidimensional existence. It is in this time and space, and also in that time and space. It is not singular -- saying I exist here and not there, either in the three-dimensional world or back in the higher dimension, is not how it works. It is in the higher dimension and also in this three-dimensional world; within the three-dimensional world there are also countless yous, in the Tang dynasty, the Song dynasty, the Ming dynasty, the Yuan dynasty, and also in the future, in ancient times, in the present, existing simultaneously. It may also exist in other dimensions, and may at the same time be reincarnating on other planets, in extraterrestrial lives -- all of this is possible. So your existence itself is multidimensional.

The Soul's Free Coming and Going

Seth says that the souls of entities, to us humans, seem to come and go freely within an infinite range.

Just as the smallest cell within your body participates, to its own degree, in your daily experience.

It is like when we look at the soul, it comes and goes freely within an infinitely vast range of time and space -- this feeling is somewhat like our cells looking at us as a person, coming and going freely in the three-dimensional world. The range within which we as a person move, relative to a cell, is simply unimaginably vast: you can take a plane and fly from here to another country, and now you can even travel to the moon. No matter where you go, your range of movement relative to a cell is simply beyond imagination.

And the range within which your soul moves, relative to you as an individual, is also beyond your imagination. So it can come and go freely within an infinite range. Just as the smallest cell participates in your daily activities, the soul, on an immeasurably greater scale, does what? It goes to "share in the various worlds of existence."

On an immeasurably greater scale, it shares in the various worlds of existence.

It goes to different times and spaces to experience, to undergo, to feel, and then brings back these felt experiences. The soul is such a state.

Back to Yourself

Seth says:

Within yourself, you possess all the potentials for the creative participation of consciousness in creation.

First come back to yourself -- let us not talk about such vast matters for now. You possess all the potentials for the creative participation of consciousness. A cell does not need to be consciously aware of you in order to fulfill itself -- although your expectations regarding health greatly affect its existence.

A cell does not need to know of your existence at every moment -- it may not even know that a person such as you exists at all; it simply feels that it lives in a world of its own. It does not need to be aware of you, and it can still do very well for itself, from birth to death. But your expectations regarding health, whether good or bad, greatly affect its existence.

Then:

But your recognition of the soul and of existence can help you channel the energy of these other dimensions into your daily life.

What is the purpose of all this that he has said? It is right here -- to make you realize that you are a multidimensional being. When you accept that you are a multidimensional being, only then can you make use of the energy within those multidimensional times and spaces, channel it into your daily life to change it, and bring in a continuous flow of energy.

He uses the same example -- because this matter is too difficult to explain clearly. The relationship between you and the soul, the entity, is indeed very hard to explain clearly; it can only be sensed, not spoken, because it has already transcended the cognition and understanding of our three-dimensional world. For example, the first point, that time does not exist -- many people find it quite hard to understand, and do not know how to approach it. Because if this assumption does not hold, it would trigger a series of earth-shaking changes in thought: the entire cognitive system, the worldview, the view of the human world, the view of oneself and of all things, would all undergo a fundamental change -- one could also call it a collapse-like change, or a change of being completely reborn. This is a very difficult thing to understand. And "time does not exist" is only one of these assumptions; there is a whole series of assumptions behind it.

Therefore, these assumptions that apply in the three-dimensional world are completely inapplicable in higher dimensions. Seth can only use examples to help us understand, to open up our imagination to understand the relationship between you and your soul.

When you understand that the relationship between you and your soul is like the relationship between a cell and you, can you then influence the health of your cells? We discussed this issue earlier in Chapter 5 of The Nature of Personal Reality -- how you influence the health of your body. The health of your body is entirely determined by a single thought of yours, and this single thought carries enormous energy that can influence these cells and influence the changes of the entire body.

So if each cell is one lifetime of yours, and your body is this entity, then once you connect with the entity, can you then draw upon and use that inexhaustible energy of the entity? Just as a cell uses the energy of your consciousness. He uses this example to let you draw an analogy, to let you imagine.

So now you understand: all this that he has said is to tell you that you have inexhaustible energy from other times and spaces available for your use; you are not only using the energy of the present time and space -- did he not say it, to "channel the energy of other dimensions" in?

You do not need to worry about this issue: worrying about what to do if my energy is insufficient, what to do if I use it all up. Many people say, "When I am sending energy to heal others, is my energy getting less and less, will it deplete me, will it deplete my life span" -- many people are considering these issues. There is completely no need. Your energy is inexhaustible.

Value Fulfillment

Seth says:

Dear reader, you are in the process of expanding the structure of the psyche.

You must remember: you are in the process of expanding the structure of the psyche -- in the process, present continuous tense.

You are in the process of becoming a conscious participant of the soul.

In a certain way, in the process of becoming your soul.

We are in the process of becoming a conscious participant of the soul, consciously becoming the soul in the process. In a certain way, in the process of becoming your soul.

Just as cells multiply and grow, within their own nature and physical framework.

Just like the multiplication of cells, the growth of cells -- cells naturally proceed within their own nature and physical framework. What does "oneself evolves by way of value fulfillment" mean? Here "oneself" refers to your present personality, the you who reincarnates through cycles. Cells naturally multiply, naturally grow, without you needing to do anything; within their physical framework they operate perfectly well on their own.

And we, as a state of becoming the soul -- as was said earlier, we are in the process of turning ourselves into the soul. Countless versions of us become one soul, and one of those versions of us is in the process of becoming the soul, and this process happens simultaneously. In this process, just as the cells of the physical body naturally grow within the physical framework, it is equally natural -- within this psychic framework or soul framework, each individual you seeks value fulfillment, and that is just as natural as the growth of cells.

Let us give another simple example. In our three-dimensional world, if you plant a seed in the soil, it will naturally grow -- this is the most natural thing, no need to give it anything special. Bury it in the soil and it will grow, that simple, that natural. Small animals are born and they naturally reproduce and grow. Common folk call this "heaven provides" -- you need not worry, heaven will provide for it. All things have their own way; as the common saying goes: chickens have the chicken way, cats have the cat way, dogs have the dog way, ducks have the duck way -- every animal, every species has its own way of living, its own way of surviving. This is natural; it will naturally grow up, and when grown it will reproduce, and after reproducing it will continue to propagate.

For example, when a spider is born, who teaches it to spin a web? Who teaches it? Has it taken any classes? No. Who teaches a duckling to swim? How does it float on the water the moment it emerges? Who teaches it? No one. Then why can a chicken not do it? Why can a duck? You say a duck has webbed feet and a chicken does not -- webbed feet are only for paddling, so how does it manage not to drown? And so on. You can cite many reasons, but it is simply something innate, something natural.

Then what about our soul? For the soul, what is the natural state? For all things in the world, the natural state is growth -- growth is what is natural. In our three-dimensional world, no matter what life form, growth is its instinct, its nature, its innate character. Then what is the innate nature of a soul? The innate nature of a soul is value fulfillment.

Value fulfillment is the innate nature of the soul. Many people ask: what is the meaning of my entity? What is the meaning of the value of my soul's existence? What goal are they trying to achieve? Where do their value and meaning lie? Where is the meaning of my life, where is its value? -- They keep discussing this question; many people ask such questions.

Here the answer has actually already been given to you: the value of your soul, the natural innate nature of your soul, is value fulfillment. You could not stop it even if you tried -- you say no, no, no, do not go do value fulfillment, can you not just rest every day? Is it not good to just stay in the blissful land, in heaven? Do not go create those things, do not go try those things you have never tried, what is the meaning of that? What in this world have you not already tried? Why do you still go try those tiny, subtle variations? What value is there, what meaning? -- We often think about things this way.

But from the soul's perspective, the essence of its existence is like all things in nature needing to grow. If all things must grow, then all souls must fulfill value -- every soul no matter how small, every consciousness no matter how tiny, must fulfill value. So he states this very clearly. That is why later there is another Seth book -- Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment -- that is the question explored in that other book.

The Soul Is a Creative Psychic Structure

Seth says:

The soul is also a creative psychic structure.

The soul is a psychic structure, a creative psychic structure, always changing—yet always maintaining a certain individual integrity.

The soul is always changing, yet always maintains a certain individual integrity.

Here "individual" should mean an individual integrity, a unique integrity. This soul is absolutely different from another soul—souls are just like us as people, every soul has its own unique integrity. If there are ten thousand souls, there are ten thousand one-of-a-kind souls; if there are a billion souls, there are a billion one-of-a-kind souls, each one different from every other.

And also:

All are dependent upon one another.

Since they are all different, they are still dependent upon one another.

In that way, the souls make up the life of the entity.

Through the way they depend upon one another, these souls make up the life of existence—that is, of the entity.

Yet the entity is more than the soul.

Souls make up the entity—many, many souls make up the entity—but the entity is more than the souls. This is its core. We think of that earlier word—"gestalt." The entity is made up of countless souls, but it is far more than the sum of countless souls. Just as your body is made up of all its cells, but the you made up of so many cells is not the sum of all the cells—it is far more than all the cells added together. The things you think about, the cells could never imagine; the cells could rack their brains and never imagine them—yet you truly are made up of them. Your entity is the same.

At the end of this session, Jane said her trance state was very deep, as if she had "popped out" and gone to a very deep place. She said she brought back a huge batch of material—not in terms of time, but in terms of content.

The Relationship Between Entity and Soul

Jane's trance state was very deep this time. She said she seemed to have "popped" out, as if she had gone far away, to a very deep place. She said she felt she had brought back a huge pile of material — this "huge" was not in terms of time, but in terms of the depth and breadth of the content, meaning that the significance of this pile of material itself was very far-reaching.

Seth said that when you become aware of the existence of the entity and the soul, you can consciously draw upon their greater energy, understanding, and strength. The translation here is a little misleading — if you replace "existence" with "entity," it becomes much easier to understand. In his later translations, Mr. Wang Jiqing translated "existence" as "entity," which makes the distinction possible, because Seth often uses the word "existence." In the other books that followed, he always used "entity" to say this.

The key word here is "consciously." Without consciousness, you cannot draw upon it. You cannot say that just because you had a dream, you gained unlimited energy — no, that will not happen. It must be under your conscious awareness that that energy, that understanding, and that strength become naturally available to you — they were prepared for you all along.

When you become aware of the existence of the entity and the soul, you can consciously draw upon their greater energy, understanding, and strength.

And how can these benefits be used by you? The method is very simple:

Your conscious intent brings about certain changes within you, and thereby automatically triggers these benefits.

Conscious intent is your intention, your longing, your desire, what your heart is set on. This conscious intent will bring about certain changes within your body — he did not explicitly say how it is brought about, and you do not need to worry about how it is realized or how it is manifested; none of that is your concern. What it tells you is this: it will automatically trigger benefits for you. What benefits? That you can use its energy, its power, its source — you have connected with the source of the universe, which is actually connecting with your inner self. That is why you can have what your heart desires, and why your inner self can help you manifest everything you want.

What you need to do is to have a conscious intent, and then remain in a state consistent and aligned with that intent.

The results will be felt by your body, even down to the smallest cell, and will affect what seem to be the most mundane things in your daily life.

For example, I want to have money, I want to have a boyfriend, I want to have a big house, I want to be free from worry about food and clothing — these are all very mundane things, and they will also be affected, and in a good way.

Your consciousness is growing, and therefore to use it will expand its abilities.

Consciousness is not a dead thing; it is an attribute and a characteristic. You need to become familiar with its characteristics and attributes, which is why your understanding and your desires are so important.

The process by which it is activated is beyond your normal perception, and it happens automatically because of your intent.

This process of manifestation is beyond your normal perception; you cannot detect it, and it happens automatically because of your intent. But if —

If you do not throw them away through panic, doubt, and opposing beliefs.

These three things are the interference: panic, doubt, and opposing beliefs. Many things in our real lives fail to manifest precisely because of these points. On the one hand you think about having money, and on the other hand you think you will not have money — the inner belief and the surface desire are in opposition, and so that thing cannot manifest. Without these three interferences, what you want will happen automatically because of your intent.

The Practice of Cosmic Visualization

Seth paused here for a long time -- he was thinking about how to say what came next, how to explain it clearly to you. You will notice he has already circled around and explained it from many different angles, but really it is all the same thing. Then he begins by asking you to imagine:

Imagine yourself as an invisible part of the universe, but within the universe, all the stars and planets are conscious and filled with indescribable energy, and you know this.

Try to think of the universe as a shape like a body. If you wish, you may visualize its outline shining brilliantly against the backdrop of the sky.

Imagine that in the vast universe, there is a body of yours made of starlight. The sun and the planets are all your cells, each one filled with energy and power, just waiting for you to direct them. Even the sun and the planets are your cells, and every cell has infinite energy -- how do you direct them? Direct them with your conscious intent.

Then watch this image explode into your own incredible, luminous consciousness.

Imagine a you made of fifty trillion suns -- your body is made of cells as bright as that many suns. Then this shape bursts apart, splitting in all directions like the Big Bang, and the state of those fifty trillion suns exploding in an instant -- that is your luminous consciousness.

And realize that it is part of a much larger multidimensional structure, spreading outward in an even richer dimension.

It does not just spread out in the three-dimensional world; it spreads out in multiple dimensions simultaneously. Then --

Feel the entity giving you strength just as you give energy to your cells. Let this energy fill you, and then direct it to any physical part of your body you choose.

Imagine that your physical body is filled with the luminous consciousness bursting forth from fifty trillion suns -- every part of your body is filled with this luminous consciousness, and in fact this is exactly how it is, only you are not aware that it is so. Do you know how strong the energy of your body is?

Then Seth says:

Conversely, if you strongly desire a particular physical event, then use this energy to imagine its actual occurrence as vividly as possible.

If you want to obtain something in the physical world -- say, a big villa by the sea -- then use the energy of this luminous consciousness that just burst open, and imagine its actual occurrence as vividly as possible.

If you follow these instructions, and understand their meaning as I have described, you will find the results to be extremely astonishing and effective.

This is Seth telling you how to bring about what you desire in everyday life. You can treat it as a practice and do it repeatedly, and the results will be extremely astonishing and effective.

Energy can be directed to any part of the body, and if you imagine that you believe in its action, that part will be healed.

If any part of your body is uncomfortable, as long as you believe in it, that part will be healed -- it is that simple.

This passage sounds especially like a cult, does it not? It sounds especially like a traveling medicine peddler saying, "Once I project my energy, you will be cured." If you only look at the outward form, and you have not studied any of this Seth material, and you read this passage in isolation, it would be completely fair to label it a cult without any injustice.

But then Seth goes on to say:

Remember, however, that if you hold the idea that you are a sick person, that belief may hinder you. In that case, changing that particular belief is your first priority.

You cannot just direct the energy while thinking at the same time, "I really am sick, and I am quite seriously ill" -- that will not work. The key is to first change the belief that "I am a sick person."

One of the purposes of this book is to tell you that no one is born a sick person.

If a normal person finishes reading this book, basically they will not develop any major illness for the rest of their life. As the seasons come and go, getting some minor seasonal ailments is normal, and you do not need to worry about them; but those very serious chronic illnesses, the kind that can take your life -- if you learn to use this method well, you will not get them.

In your terms, if you believe that you chose illness to compensate for deficiencies in a past life...

Why does he say "in your terms"? Because only we have the concept of past lives. If you believe that you chose some illness to compensate for the karma or misdeeds of a past life, but if you understand that:

You are forming your present reality now, and therefore can change it, this should help you.

Your present body and reality are created by your present beliefs, and have nothing to do with past lives. If you understand it this way, you can change it; if you firmly believe it is connected to past lives, then the illness will be very hard to cure.

Later we will discuss problems such as congenital disabilities.

What he says about congenital disabilities is not something we are discussing right now. What we are talking about now is the kind of situation in the body that can be corrected -- do not nitpick. The promise he gives is:

Your body is the basic product of creativity on the physical plane.

All the other constructions in your life must come from its wholeness. The body must be healthy. You came into this world to create, but the first product you create is your own body, and the foundation for all the other creative activities in your life is your present body -- it must be whole and healthy.

Your greatest artistic endeavor must arise from the soul in the flesh.

Why does he emphasize the flesh? Because we live in a three-dimensional world. If you want to create something in the three-dimensional world, and there is no physical body present, then your soul would not exist either -- this is said from the three-dimensional perspective. So you must maintain the wholeness and health of your physical body.

You create yourself daily, changing your form according to the incalculable variety of abilities.

Therefore, with free will and desire, you leap forth from the splendid psychic richness of the soul, and in turn create other living beings.

You leap forth with free will and desire from the splendid psychic richness of the soul -- this is how you came to be. Then you in turn create other living beings, and the outer world around you is also created by you, but first you have to be created.

In terms of society and civilization, you do not understand the fluid, living structures, all of which flow through you because of your alliance with flesh and blood.

In terms of our current social and civilizational education, we do not yet fully understand the creative vitality of this flowing consciousness itself, but you do not need to understand it or worry about it -- all of this will naturally flow through you because of your alliance with flesh and blood.

This creativity, the greatest force within all realities, comes from a source we have not yet discussed in this book, and reaches down to the smallest atom and molecule.

This creativity is the most powerful force, and its source has not yet been discussed in this book, but it reaches down to the smallest atom and molecule.

Your health is an extension of creativity, and in the same way, your relationship with your partner, your last relationship, and the events that are uniquely familiar to you personally are also extensions of your creativity.

Your body is an extension of your creativity, and so is your health; the partner beside you, your relationship with your boss, and the environment around you -- all of these are extensions of your creativity.

Then Seth says one sentence that sums up this section:

The body is your own unique living statue, and life is your most intimate work of art.

Your life is your most intimate work of art. You spend your whole life creating it, and the work you create is your life itself.

Clarifying Oversoul and Soul

Seth said these were the titles for Part Two, not the titles for Chapter Ten -- at first this caused him some confusion, and he corrected it later.

The next morning, when Jane woke up, this segment from last night's Seth session was still on her mind. She kept thinking about the phrase "a group of selves forming one soul." She had previously assumed, quite conveniently, that each of us has our own soul, and she asked Seth whether he was saying that we share a soul with others. Jane was very sure that the material she had relayed was not mistaken, and when checking the records she went over the notes again and confirmed that Seth had not misspoken. But she also wanted to know more -- she could not accept the idea of a group of souls or a shared soul. So Rob and Jane decided to ask Seth to elaborate -- they did not often make this kind of request, but on this matter, they still wanted to hear what Seth had to say.

Session 638

This is Wednesday evening, February 7, 1973. On Monday evening, they had originally been scheduled to have a session, but because an appointment had been made not long before for a visitor from out of state, when the time came they did not much feel like holding the session. On Monday morning Jane and Rob were both very sad, because they discovered that their black cat, Lonnie, had died unexpectedly the day before -- four years earlier they had taken in this stray kitten, and they buried him in the garden.

At Monday evening's session, the topic the visitor came to discuss was about psychedelic drugs, including the use of LSD for treatment. In many places in the West, methods using psychedelic drugs for treatment are still in use even now. This session did not involve any dictated content related to this book; in fact, once Jane began speaking for Seth, the session did go very smoothly, and it did not end until midnight.

By the time it ended that day, they were already exhausted. Even so, at Tuesday's ESP class Jane's energy was still astonishing -- all evening she was at one moment Seth, and at another singing in Sumari. Sumari is one family among the nine families of another soul, and it has its own special way.

Seth had already given the title for Chapter Ten, but as they now sat waiting for the session to begin, Rob reminded Jane about that question concerning the gestalt soul.

Seth began to speak:

I can see that my analogy -- comparing the soul to an organ existing within the multidimensional structure of the psyche -- has confused you. If I were to replace the soul with the oversoul, it would be of a similar nature, but I would then clarify the matter.

As mentioned earlier, to follow that analogy: each self has its own soul within the oversoul, and the oversoul itself is part of one of the multiple important structures of entity.

You can think of the oversoul as an organ of the entity, and within each oversoul there are countless souls, just as within each organ there are many cells.

The earlier statement presented no problem to me, because each self calls that portion of the larger reality within the whole unit his own soul.

Why is it no problem? Each reincarnating self calls that larger portion beyond the part he can be aware of his soul. He actually does not know what that soul really is; he only knows that there is a larger self -- but at present he can only perceive a limited self, and that larger self he calls the soul. So Seth says, "on this question there is no problem for me," but if you want clarity for the sake of understanding, you can divide it into these two concepts: soul and oversoul.

Then Rob, being the stickler he is, went to look it up in the dictionary -- the word oversoul had once appeared in Emerson⁶. Emerson and others established the Transcendentalist philosophy⁷, and Seth had previously said in Seth Speaks that Emerson was also a Speaker.

Seth continued:

I realize this whole body of material is very complicated and difficult to explain, yet in many examples in your lives it becomes very practical, and it affects your daily existence and experience.

I deliberately gave you the material for this chapter at that time, because I knew the visitor from the psychological treatment clinic would be here.

That is, the visitor from Monday evening who discussed using LSD to treat psychological illness. Seth says he deliberately gave him this material in advance, because he felt that when the visitor came, he would need such a foundation in order to understand.

Throughout the book I have often wanted to discuss the state of grace in detail and in different ways.

By the day this young man came to visit, he described in detail the LSD method used in treating patients. Psychologists hope to find ways to cure all kinds of emotional problems, and they really did introduce a state of grace -- after patients took LSD, many hallucinations appeared, some of them very beautiful, feeling as though they had entered a state of grace.

The material I have just given you is necessary for understanding the effects of heavy doses of LSD on the individual.

Here we are dealing with an artificial and forced method.

Using LSD to make people enter a state of grace is artificial and forced. They hope this method can bring about physical, psychic, and spiritual illumination -- illumination means awakening, enlightenment.

This enlightenment is supposed to lead to better health, self-awareness, and provide a state of inner peace.

All of these are suppositions.

Through this treatment, they want to reach and conquer the conscience once and for all.

That is, they want to remove their sense of guilt.

Then Seth asked: "Do you mean conscience or consciousness?" Because these two words sound very similar in English, and if you are not careful they can easily be confused. "I mean conscience," he replied.

They believe that the "self" must abandon the "ego" and symbolically die, so that the "inner self" can be set free.

Those psychologists believe that this self, this entity, must abandon this ego -- this outer little self -- must symbolically die, and only then can the inner self be set free. As long as the little self is not removed for a single day, the inner self cannot see the light of day again for a single day. How do you get rid of the little self? One method is to use hallucinogens, to let this ego pretend to die symbolically.

A discussion of LSD, the conscience, and the life and death of the self, of mental health and spiritual illumination, may seem inapplicable to those of you who do not take drugs.

For those who have never come into contact with hallucinogens -- whether ayahuasca, or various mushrooms, or various hallucinogens, LSD being a rather typical one, and there are still many new ones now -- these discussions may all seem useless. But:

You all do, to some extent, wish to attain illumination, greater vitality, and understanding, and you are guessing at the means by which such methods could help you achieve your purposes.

You have not come into contact with these things, but you also want enlightenment, and you also want to know more about yourself, about the world, and about the universe.

This book will discuss various techniques that can help you make your reality better.

So he also mentioned LSD. The next chapter will carry further the discussion of some of the questions raised in this chapter.

Chapter Summary

As an individual, to what extent can you become aware of your own greater reality? Can you use this knowledge to improve your daily life?

To what extent are you aware of the knowledge of your soul and entity? Is not the purpose of our learning to improve our lives—whether the pressures we encounter are mental, material, emotional, social, or work-related?

If your problems are severe, can LSD combined with therapy help you? Can a chemical open the door to the soul?

These questions will all be answered in the following chapters. At the time, regarding the Monday question about LSD, Jane and Rob were still doubtful whether this subject had anything to do with the book and whether it should be included. They did not expect Seth to bring it up on his own, and to continue expanding on it in later chapters. Seth said, I will help you, and give you all the methods and techniques that can help you make your practical life better. But this involves a question many people ask: can using a hallucinogen like LSD achieve the same effect and purpose? We will discuss that later.

Important Content in the Notes

The notes at the end of this chapter are very important.

In Chapter 3 of Seth Speaks, Seth gave a partial explanation, and since we have covered it before, I will not repeat it. Root assumptions are the presupposed ideas about reality, the concepts of existence that you establish within those agreements. For example, space and time are root assumptions. Each reality system has its own set of agreements, and when I communicate within your system, I must apply and understand the root assumptions upon which this system is based.

Then there is the third note, about Buddhism:

Nirvana is a state of supreme perfection, achieved through the annihilation of the individual life and the absorption of the soul into that supreme spirit.

Yet in a recent ESP class session, Seth said:

There is nothing more deadening than nirvana.

Seeing this, all those who practice Theravada Buddhism would probably jump up and object to Seth, because this statement basically negates the ideal they have been pursuing.

At least your Christian concepts give you some hope of a suffocating, stifling, boring paradise.

At least Christianity gives you descriptions of heaven, of a paradise. In that paradise, your humanity can at least express itself, although there is not much to do. In a perfect heaven he cannot create anything, but he can express himself. Nirvana, however, does not give you that comfort.

On the contrary, it is a kind of bliss achieved through the destruction of the integrity of your existence.

The so-called "precondition" for entering that bliss is the destruction of your present existence. You think this physical body is unimportant, that you must pursue spiritual development and escape the cycle of reincarnation, but you overlook one core point: the existence of this physical body, the reincarnation within our world, is also a part of your soul. If you deny it, you deny the integrity of your soul. You only acknowledge the noble part of your soul, but you cannot accept the part of the soul that eats, drinks, defecates, and sleeps. If you cannot accept a complete self, in other words, you cannot accept a complete soul, then what exactly are you cultivating?

So he says: flee from this kind of bliss as quickly as possible. I know that upon seeing this, all Buddhists will be dissatisfied and unhappy, because he directly negates the Buddhist Pure Land of bliss, describing it as a world that is lifeless, unchanging, and without self. This matter is a case of different people seeing different things; you may have your own views and thoughts. Here I am only presenting Seth's views and thoughts, along with a little of my own understanding.

The last note concerns value fulfillment. I have always felt that Seth's term "value fulfillment" is a particularly thought-provoking one. He began using this term not long after these sessions started, on April 15, 1964, in Session 44, which is in the second volume of The Early Sessions. Rob went back through the material to find "value fulfillment." In those days there were no computers; everything was typed by hand, and there was no way to search. How he managed to find notes from nearly ten years earlier and accurately apply them to this place in 1973 is quite remarkable. He found that a portion had been recorded in that session, and this portion is very important:

In your camouflage physical universe, growth involves the occupation of more space.

Whether a child grows from small to large, his clothes get bigger and bigger, and the space he occupies also grows larger.

In our inner universe, however, growth exists in terms of value or quality expansion, as I have mentioned before, and does not, I repeat, does not imply any kind of spatial expansion.

The nature of growth in our inner world is not manifested through spatial expansion, nor does it imply a projection in time.

As growth in your camouflage universe implies.

In our camouflage universe, growth implies not only the occupation of space but also a projection in time. You grow from age one to age two, and there is time in between. But growth in the inner world is neither spatial nor temporal.

I am giving you this material in as simple terms as possible.

This passage is very important:

If growth is one of the most necessary laws of your camouflage universe, then value fulfillment is its counterpart in the inner universe of reality.

If in the physical world, growth is one of the most fundamental laws of our physical universe, then value fulfillment is the equivalent of growth in the inner universe of reality; it is a root assumption of the inner universe.

So what does "value fulfillment" mean? In the physical world, the natural tendency of all things to grow is a root assumption of the universe; in the world of the soul and spirit, the value fulfillment of consciousness or of the soul is likewise its root assumption. It is simply natural; it is its attribute.

There is also a digression about Emerson, but I will not go into it here.

The interpretation of Part One of this book spanned the content of two sessions, and it has now been introduced. Later we will begin the interpretation of Part Two of The Nature of Personal Reality, starting with Chapter 10.

注释与核实

1. Source: Sina News, "The Power of the Seed | Texts We Read Together in Those Years" (https://news.sina.com.cn/o/2017-08-30/doc-ifykpuuh9705448.shtml) ↩

2. According to Mike's original words, "Mormonism is so strict that you have to wear a mask even when walking"; upon verification, it should be "the ones who wear a mask while walking (muhapatti) to avoid inhaling or accidentally harming small insects are Jain monks and nuns, not Mormons; Sthanakvasi and Terapanthi monks and nuns cover their mouths with cloth all day, while other sects cover their mouths with a white cloth held in hand when speaking." (Source: Wikipedia, "Muhapatti," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhapatti) ↩

3. Source: CNN, "Starting today, bigamy is no longer a felony in Utah" (2020) (https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/us/bigamy-decriminalized-utah-trnd) ↩

4. Source: Wikipedia, "Three Character Classic (San Zi Jing)" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Character_Classic) ↩

5. Source: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, "Ridicule, deconstruction, reflection, and identity: Christian elements and thematic expression in Feng Xiaogang's films" (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-05438-y) ↩

6. Source: Wikipedia, "The Over-Soul" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Over-Soul) ↩

7. Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Transcendentalism" (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/) ↩