Mike's commentary · Seth Speaks, Chapter 2

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

Reading Guide

In this chapter, Seth explains that the environment he inhabits is fundamentally different from the physical world: there are no permanent structures, no limitations of time and space, reality is created by consciousness, and images change with thought. He talks about how birth is more startling than death, and that death is not frightening; there is no objective reality, only forms created by consciousness. Seth's work is that of a teacher, communicating through telepathy and images, with emotional patterns different from those of humans. He also points out that the human inner senses can perceive a more genuine reality, and that changes in dreams will, under certain conditions, manifest in the physical world.

Key Points in This Chapter

• Seth's environment is nonphysical, created by consciousness, and not limited by time, space, or permanent structures.
• There is no objective reality, only forms created by consciousness; consciousness is forever creating images.
• Seth's work is that of a teacher, communicating through telepathy and thermal and electromagnetic images, with emotional patterns different from those of humans.
• Birth is more startling than death, and death is not frightening.
• Humans possess the inner senses, the environment is the result of perceptual patterns, and changes made in dreams can, under certain conditions, manifest in physical reality.

Main Text

The Fundamental Difference Between Seth's Environment and the Physical World

Seth first emphasizes that his environment is completely different from our physical environment. He uses an irony to assure us:

My world is just as vivid as your physical world, and just as changing, and just as full of vitality.

But he stresses that his world is more enjoyable. What does "enjoyable" mean? Because when your concept of pleasure changes, this enjoyment refers to a different kind of pleasure—because they are more rewarding, and this enjoyment lies mainly in the rewards of creation. In our physical lives, when we want to create something—for example, when we do a job, make a tool, or make a piece of clothing—creative achievements require more time to manifest; they do not.

Then he says that his present existence is—as this book puts it—the most challenging one he has known. Here we need to understand what this means. Seth has many forms of existence, and his current existence (the "current" explained from our earthly time perspective, though in fact all of his existences are simultaneous and parallel) is the most challenging one among them. His physical existences—that is, his reincarnational existences on our earth—have been many; his nonphysical existences—existences that do not require a body, that do not require the material plane—have also been many.

He says that nonphysical consciousness is not confined to only one dimension. Because this was translated by a Taiwanese teacher, when you see the word "dimension," just understand it as the concept of a dimension or a level. Nonphysical existence is not confined to only one dimension, just as the earth has more than one country, the solar system has more than one planet, the galaxy has more than one solar system, and the universe has more than one galaxy—there are also many dimensional spaces.

He says: my environment is not a place you will necessarily go to when you die. This is something everyone needs to be clear about—it is not that once we die we can arrive at the space-time where Seth is. Then he humorously says that before you can enter the plane of his existence, you will have to die many more times. What he means is that your level of attainment has not yet reached the plane where he currently is; you still need to go through many more cycles of reincarnation, continuously raising your consciousness, before you can reach his present state.

Birth Is More Terrifying Than Death

Seth talks about the contrast between birth and death. He says the shock you experience at birth is far greater than at death. Sometimes when you die you do not even know it yourself, and it takes a while before you realize it -- I have covered this before, so I will not go into it again. But birth always entails a sharp and sudden recognition -- you move from another dimension into a lower dimension, from a formless consciousness into a physical entity, and this process actually poses a great challenge. Originally you were free and unfettered, whatever you thought was what you had, whatever you imagined was what you got; now you have to be born, nurse, have your diapers changed, and be cared for just to survive in the physical world. For the first few years you are extremely fragile and frail. For a soul that can summon the wind and command the rain, that is omnipotent, this is indeed an enormous challenge -- he has no choice but to face the limitations of such a physical form. He says you do not need to fear death, because you have already died too many times. The reason he wrote this book is to tell you, do not fear death; death is not terrifying. It is birth that is terrifying.

There Is No Objective Reality, Only Reality Created by Consciousness

Seth then talks about his work environment:

My work in this environment is more challenging than any of you know, and I must also manipulate creative materials that you can hardly understand at present.

First he says you need to understand that there is no objective reality, except that which is created by consciousness. What he means is, apart from the realities created by your consciousness, there is no truly objective reality. And the reality created by your consciousness is only created by your consciousness; it is not in itself that kind of objective reality either. Here, by objective reality he means the physical world -- the physical world is not what you understand it to be, it is not truly existent.

It is always consciousness that creates form.

It is consciousness that creates outer form, not the other way around. So he says his environment is a reality created by himself and others like him (the word "people" is in quotation marks here, because actually they are not people; they should be a kind of consciousness or energy body, or the essence of a multidimensional personality). He says their environment represents the outer manifestation of their inner development.

He specifically mentions that they do not use permanent structures. Some people ask: in higher dimensions, are there houses, is there a physical world? He tells you no -- they do not live in a city or a town. But he does not imply that they float in a void. This sentence is very meaningful: they do not have the kind of cities and rooms you want, but it is also not the emptiness and void you imagine. Their idea of space is different from yours, and whatever they want around them, the image can be created.

Their outer images are created by their psychic patterns:

Just as your own physical reality is an exact replica of your inner desires and thoughts.

This is temporarily impossible to understand. You think physical objects exist independently of you, but you do not realize that they are actually the manifestation of your psyche and psychology outside of themselves. This book actually wants you to understand this; later there will be a great deal of space devoted to saying it again and again -- Seth repeatedly emphasizes this point: your beliefs create your reality. Many people ask exactly how this creation works, how thoughts become physical matter; this will be explained bit by bit later.

Seth says they realize that they create their own reality:

We do so with considerable joy and creative abandon.

The word "abandon" is very interesting. When they discover that this world can be created according to their own imagination, according to their own thoughts, that kind of excitement, that kind of abandon, is like what many people say: when you enter a higher dimension, whatever you think becomes reality. That kind of fortune, excitement, and joy is beyond words -- what is in your heart is displayed outside, and beautiful dreams come true.

Confusion and Consistency in Higher-Dimensional Reality

He says:

In my environment you would be quite confused, because to you it seems to lack consistency.

This sentence is extremely important. In higher-dimensional space, the first feeling upon entering is not excitement, not joy, but deep confusion. This is also a reminder for everyone: many people say, "I want to enter a higher dimension right now." This requires you to keep learning -- some call it cultivation, some call it spiritual practice, some call it enlightenment. Whatever you call it, it is the same principle. When your level of thought or consciousness has not yet reached that point, and you suddenly enter a higher-dimensional reality, the first feeling is deep confusion. I would not say it is a collapse, but all of your values will instantly crumble.

What does "lacking consistency" mean? Let me give my rough understanding. For example, in our thinking we believe that small things must be stored inside big things. When you suddenly discover that a small thing actually contains a big thing -- rather than a big thing containing a small thing -- your first feeling is that it lacks consistency. Another example: if you discovered that in this world a pizza could call to order takeout, and the delivery turned out to be a sofa or a plate, you would also break down -- and if the phone it used to make the call was a coffee machine, you would break down even more.

Let me give a few inappropriate examples. In Inception, you see buildings growing upward from the ground to the ceiling, streets curling up; you see cats talking, snakes cooking, and so on. To you, these represent a kind of consistency that is utterly incomprehensible, beyond your imagination. Later he will explain that when your ego's judgment or your ability to control consciousness is insufficient, when your stability is not enough, once you enter you will become lost -- completely unaware of what you are. Because there, whatever you think is instantly obtained. In that state, thoughts arise endlessly, one thought giving birth to ten thousand thoughts. When you cannot fix your attention in any particular direction at all, you will be dragged along by these thoughts and the realities created by these thoughts, completely losing yourself. Let me briefly expand on this point for now; it will be discussed in detail later.

Moving Freely Through History

Seth talks about how they manipulate the laws of the material world:

We know the inner laws that govern all materialization. I can present any period of what you would call history, whether day or night, and these changing conditions will not disturb my companions in the least, because they will take these changes as a direct clue to understanding my moods, emotions, and concepts.

They know how to manipulate what is called materialization—that is, the laws of the material world, of our three-dimensional space-time. He can instantly present any period of history that we are capable of knowing. He does not enter into it, but rather re-presents it, re-presents it within their dimensional space. These changes do not disturb his companions, because the companions take these changes as a kind of clue for understanding his moods, emotions, and concepts—he will judge what kind of emotional reaction, what kind of judgment, what kind of mood he would have made under those circumstances at that time, and present it as a simulated state of a scene.

Eternality, Stability, and Entity

He expounded on a concept:

Eternality and stability basically have nothing to do with image, but rather with the integration of joy, purpose, achievement, and identity.

The eternality and stability we ordinarily understand are not related to outward image or the image of the material world, but rather to the integration of your joy, purpose, achievement, and identity. Identity refers to your entity -- simply put, your soul. That is, integrating the purposes of the soul.

He said he travels to many other planes of existence -- "travels" in quotation marks, because it is not really that kind of travel. He has already fulfilled his responsibilities. What are his responsibilities? He is actually a teacher, going to various dimensions to impart knowledge. That is why he continuously spoke to Jane and Rob for twenty-one years, using twenty-one years to keep speaking. But for him it may not have been twenty-one years; it may have been just a few days or a few instants, but for us it was a full twenty-one years.

He said:

My responsibility is primarily that of a teacher and educator, and in those systems I make use of whatever teaching aids and techniques are most useful to me.

When he goes to different dimensional spaces, he uses the tools, teaching aids, and techniques of the dimensional space he is presently in to carry out teaching. For example, when he came to the three-dimensional world, at the very beginning he used a Ouija board -- the kind used in the West for channeling, a board with twenty-six letters and simple Yes and No -- and he made contact with Jane. Later, through a revolving transparent window in the psyche, he carried out verbal communication with Jane. These all made use of the tools and techniques of the local dimensional world.

He said I use many different methods to teach the same truths. Just as the Buddha spoke of eighty-four thousand Dharma doors¹, the teaching methods differ for different people; Confucius also taught according to each student's aptitude². The methods he chose were based on the innate abilities and assumptions of the system in which he had to operate. When he enters each system, he must follow the limitations and rules of that present system -- for example, the three-dimensional world has gravity and the passage of time, and he cannot fail to follow these things.

Personality, Entity, and Free Will

Seth mentions:

In some communications, and in this book, I use one portion of the many personalities available within my own entity.

He draws on the knowledge of many reincarnational personalities to make the corresponding explanations. He explains that in other realities, this particular Seth personality adopted by Seth's entity would not be understood. That is to say, the Seth personality now transmitting information to Jane is only one of the personalities of the Seth entity. If you do not quite understand the relationship between personality and entity, you can look at my commentary on Chapter 1.

We should not think that only a material thing reincarnating in the three-dimensional world counts as a personality. Any subject that your entity projects out to reincarnate, to experience, is called a personality. Seth himself is also a personality, but above him there is a Seth entity. The entity and the personality do not communicate or connect very often -- the entity does not understand all the things happening to this personality. For example, in your ordinary life, your entity actually does not understand it, nor does it care. But you do have an inner connection with it, only that connection is very faint, not the kind of potential you might imagine. That is to say, you have complete autonomy and independence.

Many people ask: since I am a projection or personality fragment of a soul, when I reincarnate in the human world or in other non-physical spaces, do I have autonomy? Do I have free will? Am I completely controlled by the soul, like a puppet on strings? Not at all, not in the slightest -- you are one hundred percent autonomous. The main body of the soul, after projecting you down, leaves you alone. What is this somewhat like? Let me give an imperfect analogy: it is like when you give birth to a child. The child carries your genetic material and genes, produced by the two of you, but the child's future free will, the decisions he makes and the things he does, are completely beyond your control. When he is little you can control this and that, but you cannot control what goes on in his head. The relationship between the soul and you is similar -- the soul does not have much control over you, nor does it want to control you. This is why you have free will.

Image, Gender, and Consciousness

He emphasizes that not all reality systems are physical:

Not all reality systems are physical, you should understand, and some of these have completely different ideas of physical image, and gender as you understand it is not natural to them either.

We are basically male and female, but in other reality spaces, that is not necessarily the case -- gender is not a natural thing in those places. But he also has some masculine attributes and feminine attributes. He says that when he communicates with them, he does not use a male personality that has had many lifetimes to communicate. Although this is a legitimate and real part of his identity -- Seth himself is a male personality, and he has also been a woman many times -- when he communicates with people from other realities or other dimensions, he does not use a male personality to communicate.

He says:

In my own environment, I can present any appearance I like.

And he changes according to the nature of his thoughts. However, he says that you are somewhat like this too -- at the unconscious level you form the image of your own physical body. Actually, when you reincarnate, it is already imprinted in your cells what you will look like in this lifetime, what you will look like at age one, at age two, every single day, like a mold. But there are some important differences: the way he changes his appearance and the way we change our outer image have similarities, and also differences.

He says:

Usually you do not realize that at every moment you create your physical body.

This is a fact. Scientists now say that our body's cells are completely replaced after a certain number of days -- actually, our body is changing every minute and every second, new cells are produced, old cells die. So can you point out which body is you, which is the true existence of the present moment? It is constantly changing. You cannot say that the dead cells are not you, nor can you say that the cells not yet born are you.

And it is a direct response to your inner conception of what you are.

Within you there is a self-perception -- what I am. This "what I am" is an inner concept that you cannot directly experience, and your body image is the direct result of this inner concept. Moreover, it undergoes important chemical and electromagnetic changes in step with the constant movement of your own thoughts. Your thoughts are constantly changing, which causes hormones or other chemical reactions in your body, and also produces electromagnetic reactions, changing your body's frequency and direction.

Seth says that they recognized long ago that image depends on consciousness, and they can completely change their image so that it more faithfully follows every subtle change within -- every change in their thoughts and experience is reflected in their outer image. But we humans cannot completely change our image, we can only change it in a limited way. You cannot say, I am a man, and with one thought I become a woman; I am ugly, and with one thought I become beautiful. That is not realistic. We need to understand that after studying this book we cannot become purely spiritual beings -- we must respect the basic laws of the physical world and the three-dimensional world in which we now live.

The Ability to Change Form and the Self in Dreams

Seth says:

The ability to change form is an innate characteristic of any kind of consciousness.

Actually, all of us have this ability; it is just that our degrees of proficiency and actualization differ. In our system, when you observe the changes of form that living beings undergo in the course of evolution, you can see that such changes are presented in slow motion. In our three-dimensional world, we can see the evolution and transformation of species -- evolving from single-celled organisms³ four billion years ago into the myriad things of the world. This kind of change cannot be seen within the lifetime of a single person, because your life span is too short. If you stretch the time scale to four billion years -- there was a documentary that said, suppose the four billion years of Earth were a single lifetime, then within the birth process of the universe's 13.9 billion years⁴, if you counted it all as one day, humanity would only amount to a tiny fragment after the decimal point following the last 11:59:59. Stretch out the time, and you can see the evolution and transformation of species -- these changes are all controlled and formed by ideas, only we cannot see it within this very slow time axis.

He goes on:

Therefore, we can also take on several forms at the same time.

He says he can have several forms existing simultaneously. Although usually you do not know it, actually we humans also have this ability. He gives an example: your physical form lies motionless in bed, yet in your dreams, you do indeed go out and act in other forms -- perhaps you become a soldier going to war, perhaps a spy carrying out a mission, or perhaps you simply lie on a beach sunbathing. That form is completely different from the one lying in bed. Actually, you have this ability; you just do not know it.

He says you can also create a thought-form identical to yourself and have it appear in a friend's house. This also happens often, only we are not aware of it. There is an example here: back when I was listening to Ma Guanzhong from Taiwan giving a lecture, he told an example -- one of his students was having a cesarean section (because Ma Guanzhong is a doctor), and the student told Teacher Ma that she hoped he could appear by her side to accompany her. They were in different places, and Teacher Ma said, don't worry, I will come to see you when the time comes. When the time for the birth drew near, Teacher Ma meditated there: I will go take a look at her. Later the student told Teacher Ma that during the last few seconds or dozen or so seconds when the anesthetic was gradually taking effect and her consciousness still retained its final clarity, she suddenly discovered Teacher Ma standing right beside her, standing at the head of the bed, touching her head with his hand and saying: you don't need to worry, everything is fine, I am a doctor, let me take a look for you. In fact, the two of them were in completely different physical spaces, but under anesthesia, during that final stretch when consciousness was still clear, she did indeed see Teacher Ma appear at the head of the bed.

This kind of situation also happens often. There is an old Chinese saying, "speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao arrives⁵," which also carries this meaning. When you are chatting with a friend about someone you both knew before, and very passionately, very eagerly imagine in your mind the times you once shared with that person, sometimes that person will suddenly pay a visit -- the doorbell rings, and you look and see that it is indeed him. This process is actually very subtle: first a form of you goes over, and even without your realizing it, your physical form may also go over.

Intentional Projection Bodies and the Buddhist Concept of Emanation Bodies

Buddhism has a special term for this: it calls it the "intentional projection body." The intentional projection body varies according to your ability. The most ordinary kind of intentional projection body is when you want to go to a place you especially long to visit -- for example, you have been to the Maldives and found the seaside there especially beautiful, and you can directly project there with your intention. If you enter a very deep state, you can even smell the scent of the ocean, feel the sea breeze on your face and the warmth of the sun on your skin -- you can feel all of it. This ability differs from person to person, depending on their level of training.

When you reach what Buddhism calls the level of a bodhisattva, the ability of the intentional projection body becomes extremely powerful. A bodhisattva can conjure thousands upon thousands of emanation bodies⁶, as many as desired. Moreover, when such an emanation body goes out, the other person can actually see him -- this is not something an ordinary person can do. When an ordinary person sends out an emanation body, the other person cannot see it, unless the other person has the corresponding inner sense ability to perceive your presence. But once you reach the level of a bodhisattva, when the emanation body goes somewhere, others can see his presence, and can even converse with him. And that conversation is not the bodhisattva directing the emanation body; it is the emanation body itself conversing with people completely independently. It is like Sun Wukong plucking out a hair and turning it into countless Sun Wukongs⁷ -- something like that. These different emanation bodies can indeed exist.

He says:

There is basically no limit to what images consciousness can create at any given time.

There are descriptions of this in ancient Chinese literary works. He says that in practical terms, they are far more advanced than we are in this regard -- that is certain, since they are not limited by the physical world. When we create these images, they are fully aware of it, while we sometimes are not. When you miss someone very deeply, when your longing reaches an extreme depth day and night, your emanation body has actually already gone over, and the person on the other side may also perceive your presence. Sometimes when two people's minds are in harmony and they cherish each other deeply, he can sense that the other person has already arrived -- that especially fascinating feeling of hearts and minds connecting.

Shared Fields of Reality and Telepathy

He said that he shares a field of existence with many others who face the same challenges and necessarily have the same overall pattern of development (people in quotation marks). Their reality space is shared by them, existing together, enjoyed together. Some of these people he knows, some he does not know—just like in our world, where we do not know most of the surrounding world.

He said:

We communicate telepathically, but telepathy is likewise the basis of your languages.

He said that without telepathy, the symbolic symbols of language would be meaningless. We humans do not know this. If we say a sentence, and it does not convey a thought, image, concept, or consciousness, then as for the words themselves, if you take them out—without the inner meaning, these words are meaningless. You may not understand what it means to be meaningless. For example: if I show you a passage of Arabic text, to someone who does not understand it, it is meaningless, because you do not understand what lies behind those words; but to someone who understands Arabic, after seeing it they can understand the meaning behind the words. The words themselves have no meaning.

Communication via Thermal and Electromagnetic Images

He says what they want to tell us is that they do not have mental words -- on their level there are no words, no language. Do not understand this as there being some special kind of mental words; there is not. He says:

Instead, they communicate only by what they may call thermal and electromagnetic images, and these images are capable of much more meaning within one "paragraph."

This "paragraph" is in quotation marks, referring to a specific period of time on their level. The intensity of communication depends on the intensity of the emotion behind it -- the intensity of the images depends mainly on the intensity of the emotion behind them. We cannot fully understand this for now, but we can actually understand it in another way: the deepest things in your mind are often not the most recent events. What you did yesterday, what you did the day before, what you ate last week -- you absolutely cannot remember; but something that happened years ago, you remember very clearly -- the imagery, the atmosphere, the emotional shifts of that time, when you recall them now they are vivid and fresh in your mind. The intensity of emotion leads to changes in the intensity of imagery. Whereas events from yesterday or the day before, however recent, if they did not trigger any emotional change, you simply cannot remember them. We can make an understanding from this level.

Seth, fearing misunderstanding, explains specifically:

We do have what you would call an equivalent to emotion.

On his level, there is no emotion as we understand it. His most fitting description of our emotion is:

The experience of far greater psychological events related to the inner senses, and their materialization in three-dimensional space.

He makes an understanding of our emotion from a higher dimension: what we in the three-dimensional world call emotion is the experience of psychological events related to our inner senses (human beings have nine inner senses, which we have not yet studied) that are far greater than his, materialized in three-dimensional space. This part will be introduced specifically later. What he emphasizes is that the emotion in their place is different from the emotion we understand -- do not think that love, hate, anger and the like will still exist when you reach a higher dimension. They have something similar, but it is not the love, hate, and emotional entanglements as we understand them.

A Caution Against "Love Is the Only Standard"

Let me add a word here. A lot of spiritual material nowadays treats love as the only standard -- saying love runs across the entire universe, through all dimensions, saying goodness is this or that, portraying truth, goodness, and beauty as the standards of all things in the universe. Well, I can tell you, these are all human ideas, things people think about at the human level. At higher levels, these things do not exist. He has other similar emotions, but those emotions are in quotation marks -- they are not the emotions we understand, nor are they what we call great love or compassionate love.

Saying this may make many people uncomfortable, may not be understood, and may even overturn many people's worldviews and values. But please, do not hold on to fixed ideas -- you must keep an open mind. You must remember: in this universe, in the endless worlds of reality, reality is not created according to human preferences or human ways of understanding and thinking. It is not even created in ways you can comprehend. You cannot even understand it, let alone expect it to follow your rules. Many people always emphasize how important their feelings are, how important their logic is, how important their values and worldview are, and once these are shattered, they cannot accept it. Have you ever considered: within the entire endless reality, we now live in one physical reality, and there are also endless nonphysical realities and realities of more dimensions. Among so many worlds, how could the universe set its standards according to yours, or divide and plan according to your way of understanding? It is impossible.

So when those paradigms emphasize to you that love is everything, that love can solve all problems, I do not know at what level they are expressing it, but I can only tell you that the gap there is still very large.

Emotion and Creation

Then he emphasized that their way of communicating is through a kind of imaging, a kind of thermal and electromagnetic imagery, and the intensity of this communication is based on emotion. Then he emphasized again that their emotions are not the same as the emotions we understand; they are another mode. What truly matters is this thing called emotion, but we humans still do not quite know how to use it. Seth has one sentence, and I will share his original words with everyone:

Although his experience differs greatly from yours -- his limitations are far fewer and more expansive.

He said he would explain the inner senses at the end of this chapter, but actually he did not -- because at the end of the chapter he was interrupted by Jane. Jane stopped for almost a month in the middle, which may have disrupted the rhythm of Seth's transmission. But in other places he will talk about the inner senses.

He said their emotional limitations are far fewer and more expansive. Because they can also perceive the entire emotional climate -- "climate" is also in quotation marks. Emotions are like weather; if you have been feeling low recently, this period is this kind of emotional climate state. They can perceive the entire emotional climate and correspond with it, and they have more freedom to feel and experience. He gave an example:

Our identity is not threatened by the intense emotions of others.

Why are we not very willing to feel and experience emotions? Because once we go through them, we are easily swept up by emotions -- heartbreak, passionate love, losing a loved one, all kinds of ecstasy or the joy of pursuing material things. Once experienced, the biggest problem for people is that they are easily swept away by emotions and firmly controlled by them.

He said they can swim through emotions in a way that is still unnatural to you at present -- the word "through" is in quotation marks. They can travel through emotions and transform them into a creative dimension that you are not familiar with. We do not understand what emotions can create; emotion is just emotion, what can it create? He will translate this emotion into something on a creative level that we are not familiar with.

He said:

We do not feel the need to hide emotions.

At that level, all forms are open, and there is no need to hide. Because at the telepathic stage, the other party can perceive any emotion you have; you cannot hide it -- and it is impossible to hide it, and it would not be good either.

He said:

In your system, emotions may seem bothersome, because you have not yet learned how to use them.

Whereas in their dimension, they are only now learning the full potential of their emotions and the creative powers connected with them. So this is not something we can face and study at present. From this level, he explained the environment in which he now works, the environment in which he now finds himself.

A couple (Carl and Sue) attended the session as witnesses with their little baby. In Seth's early sessions, witnesses often appeared. The reason was that at the time Jane was actually not quite certain about her own channeling; she always wanted to prove through a kind of witnessing, through having other people present, that her material was not a hallucination, not something she had imagined. The sessions had already been going on for over a year, but occasionally some friends, or students from her ESP class, would come in and participate as witnesses to the session.

Seth said, "Good evening, my friends" -- my friends included the two witnesses -- you have come to watch a writer at work. Jane herself is a writer; she is a novelist and also a poet. If you do not object, we will begin Chapter Two.

Session 514

Now, since you have experienced that our identity does not depend upon form, we naturally do not fear changing it, and we know that we can adopt any form we want.

Here he begins to talk about something even more interesting: in higher-dimensional worlds, after reaching fifth-dimensional or sixth-dimensional space, what do these people actually look like? He tells you that they can adopt any form they want.

We do not know death in the way that you call it.

They do not know what the concept of death is, because they do not have death.

Our existence takes us to many other environments, and we blend with them, and we follow the laws that exist within these environments. The "people" we are here are all teachers. Therefore we also adjust our methods so that those who have different concepts of reality can understand them.

They are all teachers, and their existence takes them into different environments. When they arrive in other environments, they must blend with those environments and follow the laws within them. They must also adjust their teaching methods so that people in different environments, people who hold different concepts of reality, can all understand what the nature of reality is.

The Core of Consciousness Is Creation

Consciousness does not depend on form, but it is always seeking to create form.

This is very interesting: consciousness itself does not depend on form, yet it is always seeking to create. The core of consciousness lies in creation and experience, and we will return to this point repeatedly later.

We do not exist within any time framework that you know.

So minutes, seconds, hours, years, months, and days have all lost their meaning and their magic.

However, I am quite aware of the time conditions within other systems, and these must be taken into account in our communications, otherwise what we say would not be understood.

Time has no limiting meaning for them, but he also understands time within other systems, such as our time, and possibly the time of other dimensional spaces. For example, if he went to Mars, he would also understand Martian time. He has to understand different time systems, otherwise he could not communicate with the people in that system. Just as he and Jane arranged to communicate and hold sessions every Monday and Wednesday evening at nine-thirty or ten, if he had no concept of time, he would be unable to communicate and interact with people on another level.

There are no real boundaries separating the systems I speak of.

He wants to go into different worlds, different systems, different dimensions, but these systems and worlds have no clear divisions or boundaries. He says the only thing that separates them is "people" like Seth himself — the different abilities of "perception" and "manipulation" that such "people" possess.

What he means is that between these different dimensional spaces or levels, there is actually no real separation — no dividing line, no boundary line, no specific physical structure. The "perception" and "manipulation" here are not the perception and manipulation of our three-dimensional world; they are only analogies. On that level, "people" like Seth have different abilities of "perception" and "manipulation," and thus can go to different spaces; those with higher perception and stronger manipulation can go to more spaces or dimensions, while those with lower abilities may only be able to go to a limited few.

You exist in many other reality systems, but you do not perceive it.

Because our perception is insufficient, and our manipulation is also insufficient. In fact, we ourselves exist in different reality systems. For example, our dream state is another reality system, but we can perceive it yet cannot manipulate it, and cannot even control it. So if we use dreams as an example, are there other reality systems that we have already entered but do not perceive?

Conversely, when other events enter our own three-dimensional world from another reality or another system, we cannot interpret them either.

For example, when flying saucers enter our world, we still cannot understand them, and the same goes for some mysterious phenomena — we cannot understand them.

Because the very fact of "entering" has already distorted it.

What he wants to tell you is that there is no concept of "entering" here. It is not that outside three-dimensional space there is a four-dimensional world, and outside four-dimensional there is a five-dimensional one — these spaces actually have no boundaries. No one has decreed that there must be three dimensions, four dimensions, five dimensions, six dimensions, seven dimensions, eight dimensions; between them there is a completely boundaryless structure, and they overlap with one another. So even if an extraterrestrial being or a higher-dimensional existence "enters" our three-dimensional world, it is not really "entering" — it has always been here. You cannot even say "always," because it is not the concept of "entering." It is a concept of manifestation, or rather a concept by which we are able to perceive it.

The Moment Point

I tell you, we do not feel your time sequence.

Here he is going to talk about time.

We only travel through different intensities... our work development and experience all occur within what I call this "moment point."

The "moment point" is a point that is completed in an instant.

Here, within the "moment point," the most subtle thought has already had its result, the most insignificant possibility has already been explored, and all possibilities have been thoroughly examined. The weakest and the strongest feelings are all attended to... This is difficult to explain clearly. But the "moment point" is the framework within which our psychological experience occurs.

He explains their concept of time. He gave their time a term called the "moment point" -- meaning it actually has no concept of time at all, not even an instant. Within such a "moment point," the most subtle thought already has its result. His thoughts create reality. All possibilities, even the most insignificant possibilities, have all been explored -- all branches, all possibilities have been explored. If you have studied computers, you know that any computer has a branching system, and it has already exhaustively enumerated all the possibilities of the branching system. And it is not just mathematical exhaustive enumeration; even the strongest or weakest branch scenarios within each possibility, and the feelings within them, he can attend to all of them. So he says this is hard to explain, but indeed the "moment point" is the framework within which their psychological experience occurs.

Within it, simultaneous actions follow one another freely according to associative patterns.

This sentence may be hard to understand. What does "following one another instantaneously according to associative patterns" mean? He gives an example:

If I think of you... when I do so, I immediately and completely feel your past, present, and future (as far as you are concerned), and all the intense or decisive emotions and motivations that have ever ruled you.

He can not only see Rob's past, present, and future like a video -- he does not just see it, he can even feel it, and can intensely feel the strong emotions or motivations that have ruled you across countless reincarnations. So it is not as simple as watching a video.

If I am so inclined, I may also travel through those experiences with you.

If he wants to, he can jump into that point in time, go back to that time together with Joseph, and jointly experience that experience once again.

For example, in your terms... in the blink of an eye, we can follow one consciousness through all its forms.

They have no concept of time, no concept of past, present, and future. He can jump to any point in time, and can simultaneously feel all the forms of your consciousness. Our bodies, and the external world as well, are all created by consciousness -- this consciousness can create many kinds of images and forms. He can follow one consciousness and experience all its possible forms, all the forms it has ever gone through. This is an ability they have once they reach this dimension.

Faced with such constant stimulation, an entity must learn to develop and experience in order to steady itself.

What does "such constant stimulation" mean? Look around you: whatever you want to see is what you see, whatever scene you want can be created; you are also not limited by time, and in an instant you can experience and feel all the possibilities and all the things another person's life or another consciousness has experienced. Under this kind of stimulation, an entity must learn to develop and experience in order to steady itself -- otherwise it will become lost. Many people do become lost, and even forget who they are, until they awaken once again -- a second awakening -- and only then recognize who they originally were.

This is actually very simple. To give an inappropriate analogy, it is like when we say some practitioners go astray, or some people become demons -- they did not become Buddhas, they became demons. It all means the same thing: when he enters another higher dimension, a higher-level space, if his own cultivation is not enough and his concentration is not enough, he will be carried away by this intense stimulation and become lost. Because this stimulation is too intense; basically whatever you think is what appears, and whatever you want to feel you can feel. It is a bit like a little kitten chasing butterflies -- it gets carried away by the feeling. For example, if he thinks of a person, it is not just like us communicating with that person from outside; he can directly become that person -- not exactly become, but he can feel everything that person feels.

So when identity can shift endlessly, he no longer knows who his original self really was. For them now, this has basically become automatic -- they already have this ability and will no longer become lost; they can know who their own entity is, and know which are his feelings and which are his entity.

Within the endless variations of consciousness, we can perceive a small portion of the entire personality that exists.

Within the endless variations of his consciousness -- whether countless changes of form, tangible or intangible -- they can still perceive a small portion of the entire inventory of personalities that exists. That is to say, he can still perceive this portion of the personality he had as a reincarnating person on Earth; he can also perceive the other portions.

What we call "vacation" is to visit very simple life forms and blend with them.

What does their so-called "vacation" mean? To visit very simple life forms, like a tree, and blend with them. He just stays there and feels the tree's feelings -- the so-called blending means feeling the tree's feelings.

We would indulge in relaxation, loosening up, and sleep.

That is sleep from their perspective. For example, he might spend a century -- one hundred years -- being a tree, or being a not very complex life form in another kind of reality, such as a multicellular organism, or even a single-celled organism; all are possible.

They delight their own consciousness with the simple joy of existence.

This is somewhat like when we have lived too long in a dazzling, bustling city and want to go live in a very remote, peaceful, and quiet little mountain village -- it is the same principle: your soul can find a certain peace. It is the same for them, because their usual life is too stimulating, so they need to quiet down for a while. But their time is different from our viewpoint; you must understand this.

You understand that we can create the forest in which we grow.

If I want to become a tree, I can also create countless trees. I can also become one tree in this forest, and I can also become the entire forest. Because he has simultaneity, all of this is possible for him.

Usually, however, we are very active, our entire energy focused on work and new challenges.

Most of the time they are not going off to be lower organisms or simple organisms for several centuries. Most of the time they are very active, with all their energy focused on work or new challenges. So you see, even when you reach a higher dimension you still have to work and still have to meet challenges -- it is not as you imagined, that once you reach a higher dimension you can do nothing. Of course, you can also do nothing.

At any time we can create other "persons" out of our own psychological entirety.

Other "persons," that is, other Seths. This "person" is not just a physical person like us -- he cannot create a physical person -- he can create "persons" like themselves, existing in purely nonphysical form, purely as consciousness. He can create a little Seth.

These "persons," however, must use their own innate creative abilities and develop according to their own abilities.

That is to say, the little Seth he creates must develop according to his own abilities, his own talents, and his own skills; they will not manage him, and he can freely go his own way.

They do not do this lightly.

Usually he does not do this. Having himself is enough; there is no need to do this. Doing this is somewhat like giving birth to a child -- a copy, but this child has no direct relationship with him, does not develop entirely according to his intentions, and has his own completely independent consciousness.

This is somewhat like the question many people ask: Do we have free will? Are we a marionette of the soul? When we reincarnate into the world, are we completely passively acting according to a predetermined script, something predetermined?

Actually, that is not the case. After your soul projects you down, within the deep inner self there is a complete blueprint and path for your evolution, but there is enormous room for completely free play. Your free will is entirely up to you. We will not go deeper into the relationship here; it is a very complex and subtle relationship. I am only telling you: you have complete autonomy and independence, and you are not like a marionette.

Our Environment Is Also Constantly Changing

After the break, Seth continued:

Now each reader is a part of your... that is, a part of your own entity, and is developing toward the same kind of state in which I now exist.

Each of us is a part of an entity, equivalent to a fragment personality. He pointed out our direction of development: right now we are all actually developing toward the kind of state in which Seth now exists. That is to say, we humans will ultimately evolve into a non-physical state, one without material form.

Each individual in childhood, in the dream state, has some perception of the true freedom that belongs to his own inner consciousness. For this reason, the ability of which I speak is an inherent characteristic of the whole consciousness and of each individual.

For children, the dreams they have are especially bizarre, unimaginable, and wildly creative; children's thoughts are also wildly creative. It is only as we grow up that we become more and more realistic, more and more influenced by society, and we lose that wildly creative imagination and creativity. But he says this thing is inherent in each of you; we have simply gradually forgotten it, thrown it away.

As I told you, my environment is constantly changing... but so is your own.

Our environment is changing, but we are not aware of it, and we do not rationalize it with a very legitimate perceptual awareness — we often feel these things are rationalized and do not give them any thought.

If a room suddenly seems small and cramped to you, you will conclude that this change in size is a product of your own imagination, and that the room has not changed, regardless of how you feel.

Sometimes you suddenly feel that a certain space, such as a room, is so oppressive, so cramped, and that oppressive feeling is very strong and very uncomfortable. But you would not think the room's dimensions have changed; you would think it is your imagination or your feeling that made it smaller. The actual situation is that, in that case, the room does undergo quite definite changes in certain major respects.

Even if the actual dimensions still remain the same — but why do you think the dimensions are the same? Because the ruler you use to measure the room is also within this space, and the ruler will also change along with it, so when you measure it, six meters wide is still six meters wide. But in fact it has already changed; you cannot feel it, and you cannot measure it — because the tool you use to measure is also in this same space, and it has also changed.

The overall psychological impact this room has on you has already changed. For you, the psychological impact has changed, and besides you, other people will also feel its effects. Sometimes when you feel a room is very oppressive, very stifling, very cramped, other people sometimes have similar feelings too.

It will attract certain kinds of events rather than others.

When this room actually becomes smaller, it will attract the feeling of becoming smaller in everyone, or trigger certain kinds of events, and it will not cause the feeling of becoming larger.

He wants to tell you: this change is real.

It will alter your own psychological structure and hormonal output.

This is very subtle: the change in the room will lead to changes in your psychological structure and changes in your hormones. You will feel uncomfortable in this room, feel oppressed, mentally suppressed, and so on.

You will even respond to the altered condition of the room in quite specific ways, although in terms of dimensions its length, width, and height may seem unchanged.

The specific ways are that you will have physiological reactions — sweating, faster heartbeat, irritability, and so on. He had Joseph underline the word "seem," meaning that the room's length and width seem unchanged — but that is because our measuring tools have also changed; in fact it has changed.

You are constantly changing the form — that is, the shape, the configuration, the contour, and the meaning — of your physical body and your most intimate environment. Although you try to ignore these constant changes.

He pointed out a fact that we may all have failed to notice: we are actually constantly changing our bodies, our physical bodies, and the form, shape, contour, and meaning of the environment closely associated with them. Things that are not closely related to you, things utterly unrelated and far away, you cannot change, but those closely related to your surroundings — those we can change, and we are often unaware of it.

Instead, we allow them complete freedom... not only allowing them to change constantly, but allowing them complete freedom. Because we know we are driven and impelled by an "inner stability" that can afford spontaneity and creativity, and we realize that the sense of psychic and psychological identity is dependent upon creative change.

When you completely allow them the freedom to change, it is because you believe they have an inner stability within — we ourselves have an inner stability within, and we ourselves are impelled by this inner stability. So when we ourselves are stable, we need not fear the changes outside; it can afford this spontaneity and creativity, and it is not afraid.

And we must understand: our sense of psychic or psychological identity, our sense of self-identity of "who I am," is dependent upon creative change. In other words, when you engage in different kinds of creativity, your identity and your psychological sense of identity change along with it.

Our environment, therefore, is composed of a delicate imbalance that allows "change" to move freely.

It is never a balanced or stable state; it is always in the midst of change.

Your own time structure makes you mistakenly believe that physical matter has a considerable degree of permanence.

Our misunderstanding of the time structure makes us feel that physical matter has a considerable degree of permanence — a table is a table, a rock is a rock, a house is a house — and we turn a blind eye to the constant changes within them.

Your physical senses limit you as much as possible to perceiving only a highly formalized reality.

Our five senses confine us to perceiving only a highly formalized reality — what is is what is. First we give it a definition: a mountain is a mountain. Once we give it a definition, that implies the mountain is unchanging. In fact, the mountain is changing every moment; every blade of grass on the mountain, every tree, every flower, including whether it rains or not — the mountain is changing at all times and in all places. But once we give it a highly formalized name, we conclude that it is unchanging. We say it is a table, and the table does not change; a chair, and the chair does not change.

Usually, only through the use of intuition, and in the dream state, can you perceive that your own consciousness, or any other consciousness, is joyfully changing in its very nature.

Only in dreams can you discover that your own, or any other — including external things, tables and chairs — that these things all have consciousness. In dreams you can discover that the nature of your consciousness or their consciousness is joyfully changing.

The nature of consciousness is that it is willing to change, willing to create, willing to alter. How do we understand this? In dreams you find that the surrounding environment is constantly changing, often changing so fast it catches you off guard. One moment the dream is here, the next moment it drifts over there; the changes of scene are unimaginable, strange and bizarre, completely beyond your control and understanding — beyond the range of your comprehension. This is what he is telling you: in your dreams, when you are not in the three-dimensional world, the surrounding environment — the environment itself is also composed of consciousness, so its nature is constantly changing, and joyfully so.

One of my duties is to enlighten you in such matters... We must use concepts with which you are at least fairly familiar. In so doing, we therefore use those portions of our own personalities with which you can establish some degree of relationship.

He wants to teach us, but he must use concepts we can understand. In other words, he has to speak in human terms. If he were to speak an alien language or the language of higher dimensions, expressing things in their way, we would not be able to understand at all. So he must use a part of his own personality — a part of his personality that has undergone reincarnation on Earth — he must use the relevant knowledge and experience from that part of his personality, and the connection and relationship he has established with Jane, with Ruburt, to transmit the content of his consciousness to Ruburt, so that Ruburt can translate it into human language.

Actually, at their level, information is transmitted more through telepathy, more through images, rather than through language. He has to translate those images into language, and then speak it in human terms. For him, this is their work and their challenge.

Our environment has no boundaries, and in your terms, there is no lack of space or time in which to operate.

Because they have no limitations of space and time, it is endless.

Now, for any consciousness without the proper background and development, this would put them under tremendous pressure.

Having no limitations of time and space is tremendous pressure for any consciousness. I give you a space of complete freedom: whatever you think is what it is, whatever you want is what you can do. If you want to fly, you can fly; if you want to become a rocket, you become a rocket; if you want to go to Mars, you are there in an instant — you can do whatever you want, do anything you wish. At this point, it is a tremendous challenge and tremendous pressure for your consciousness.

Do not think that doing whatever you want is easy. Because anything you want to do is conceived within the scope of your understanding, within the limitations of the three-dimensional world you live in. So you feel that the idea of being unrestricted is very pleasant. But when all the restrictive conditions are removed, and you are allowed to do whatever you want, your greatest feeling will be pressure, even fear.

Many people do not understand this. Let me give an example: right now, put yourself on an alien planet, or in outer space, with nothing around you, no concept of time or space, pitch black, no reference points visible — no planets, no solar system. Now let you create. For you, that would absolutely be a tremendous challenge and pressure, not what you imagined — wanting money, beautiful women, delicious food, villas, killing off everyone you hate. No, none of those things exist there.

We do not have a simple, comfortable universe in which to hide.

Why do we dare to imagine, dare to speak of those materialized imaginings mentioned earlier? Because you have a universe to hide in. All your imaginings are premised on the existence of this universe. If you were told that this universe no longer exists, then all your original imaginings would be meaningless; you would have to imagine anew.

We remain alert to other quite unfamiliar reality systems that flash at the outer edges of the consciousness we know.

This is a fact he stated: they remain alert to reality systems that are quite unfamiliar, that flash at the outer edges of their consciousness, beyond the consciousness Seth and they know. This is equivalent to how, when we explore to the edge of the universe, we also have a kind of alertness, not knowing what is outside. It is the same for them — at the outer edges of their consciousness, other quite unfamiliar reality systems flash, and within reality systems that even they cannot understand, they still must maintain a considerable degree of alertness.

The variety of different kinds of consciousness far exceeds the variety of physical forms.

We think physical forms are already vast and profound, endless — but he says the forms of consciousness far exceed them. Each kind of consciousness can create countless kinds of physical forms, and the variety of consciousnesses far exceeds the physical forms you can imagine — so you can imagine how complex those realities are.

This is very much like what Buddhism often says: our present world is just a small world; three thousand small worlds make a middle world; three thousand middle worlds make a great world⁸; the universe is composed of three thousand great thousand-worlds. The Buddha, twenty-five hundred years ago⁹, had no better language to describe this, so he used small worlds, middle worlds, and great worlds to describe it. That is to say, beyond the universe there is another universe, and beyond that universe there is yet another universe.

Each kind of consciousness has its own perceptual patterns... dwelling within its own camouflage system. But all of these consciousnesses have inner knowledge of that which exists beneath all camouflage and which composes any reality, regardless of what that reality is called.

Many people find this passage hard to understand; it must be explained. The Seth material is very rigorous and very logical, but if you do not understand it well, or if your comprehension is insufficient, you really do not know what he is saying. It is like how many people feel that when reading the Seth books, they recognize every word, but after reading they still do not know what he is saying.

What he is saying is this: there are millions of kinds of consciousness, and each kind of consciousness has its own perceptual patterns. Human consciousness has six outer senses and nine inner senses; these are the perceptual patterns of humans. Other consciousnesses have their own perceptual patterns — a flower has the perceptual patterns of a flower, a tree has the perceptual patterns of a tree, a metal atom has the perceptual patterns of a metal atom.

These perceptual patterns dwell within their own camouflage systems. Just as our human consciousness exists within a kind of camouflage reality — our bodies and our physical environment are all camouflage. Consciousness does not exist inside the brain or inside the body, but it gives you the feeling that it exists within the camouflage system.

But for all these consciousnesses — human consciousness, the consciousness of a flower, the consciousness of a nail, the consciousness of glass, the consciousness of a tree — for all these consciousnesses, they have inner knowledge of that which exists beneath all the camouflage in which they dwell, and which composes any reality. They can all perceive it, they can all know it. That is to say, these consciousnesses all have understanding of the inner knowledge of the camouflage world in which they live, and of the essential nature of that reality beneath the camouflage — the most real reality, that is, the conscious essence of which this world is composed.

Regardless of what that reality is called. This reality may have different names: if we enter the interior of an atom, enter a quantum state, in that state it is another kind of reality, and the terminology is different. Our present three-dimensional world, we call it the universe, space, the material world, and so on and so forth; these are our names for it. If we were to incarnate as the consciousness of an atom and enter into the atom, we would have no way to define what that reality is called. But he says, regardless of what it is called, it does not matter — that atomic consciousness definitely knows the knowledge of the reality within it, beneath its camouflage.

Changes in Dreams Will Manifest in Physical Reality

Then he let everyone take a break.

Now in the dream state, much of this freedom is quite natural to you... You often form dream environments as practice in applying such potentials.

We often travel to different places in dreams, actually practicing -- practicing our ability to create reality.

Later I will at least discuss some methods for recognizing your own psychic memories, comparing them with your proficiency in daily physical life.

He compares the psychic memory methods of creating dream environments in dreams with our proficiency in material life.

Therefore, by learning to alter and manipulate your dream environment, you can learn to alter your physical environment.

This is something many people want to achieve -- to make things happen through dreams. Many people think this is just wishful thinking, but he tells you it is possible.

You can also construct specific dreams in which you see a desired change, and under certain conditions, these changes will then appear in your physical reality. Now you often do this without realizing it.

This is especially important, and for each of us it is very striking knowledge and information. Note that he says "under certain conditions" -- do not miss this phrase. You need to see the change you want in a specific dream, and under certain conditions, these changes will then appear in your physical reality. Realized in the material world. And you often do this without realizing it.

Here I want to give two examples. One is a comment left by a netizen when I posted a video earlier. He said: "I often dream about something, and two days later it happens in real life." He asked me what this was about. This is one aspect of it -- the changes you dream about will manifest in the material world.

Another example: a person I know, who in the course of spiritual practice and study has also researched the Seth material and so on for a long time. He now has an ability: he knows what will happen the next day from the day before. He only has this one ability for now, and cannot foresee too much. But in his dreams from the day before -- not in an especially detailed, exhaustive way -- the main events of the next day replay exactly according to his dream. He has been like this for a long time, and is himself quite astonished and puzzled -- how could life be in such a state. I can only say that under special circumstances, there are indeed people like this for whom such things happen.

Consciousness Must Show Itself

Next Seth addressed another very core issue, and it is very important.

Consciousness takes many forms, but it does not always need to be within one form.

Consciousness exists by taking on various forms, but that does not mean it must exist within one particular form. The form he refers to is a concretized one.

Not all forms are physical.

That is to say, some forms are not concrete, and have no material reality.

Some personalities have never had bodies.

Here, "personality" does not refer to the personality as we usually understand it; it refers to this kind of thing. It has never had a body, never come into the human world for reincarnation, never reincarnated in the material world.

They have evolved along different lines.

Their direction of evolution is completely different from that of humans - they do not need physical evolution, do not need biological evolution, but only keep evolving on the spiritual level, so their psychological structures are also completely different from ours.

To some extent, I have traveled in such environments.

He has been to environments like this, where there is no material existence at all, and there are still many personalities there.

But consciousness must show itself. It cannot be nothing.

This is a key point, and you should remember it: consciousness must show itself; it cannot be nothing. What is called consciousness is that which knows it exists and has self-perception. That which has no self-perception cannot be called consciousness; we can only call it energy. Only when it can perceive itself can it be called consciousness, so it must exist, and it is a very substantial existence - not like what we think, that consciousness is empty, vague, and intangible.

It must, therefore, show its activation in other ways.

If it does not show itself in a material way, it shows itself in other ways.

In some systems, for example, it forms highly integrated mathematical and musical patterns, which themselves become stimuli for other universal systems.

In certain systems - and here he gives examples from those places he once traveled to - the expression of this consciousness takes the form of highly integrated mathematical and musical patterns. These patterns themselves then stimulate other universal systems, resonating with one another and producing interaction, just as we humans, as one form of expression of consciousness, also produce other stimuli for the whole universe.

Here he used the word "traveled" earlier. What does "travel" mean? For example, we often travel to various places around the world, but when we travel somewhere, it is basically just a quick look around, and what we see is very superficial. If you want to communicate deeply with the local native people, understand their thoughts, and experience their feelings, you must live there for a period of time, become familiar with the local language, understand the local culture, and know well the characteristics of their people, including their living environment. Under such conditions, after living there for a while, you can then speak of truly knowing and understanding them. Otherwise, you can only do it in the manner of a tourist, looking at them from the outside.

So when Seth said he had traveled in such environments, he meant that he did not know them very well - he was not very familiar with the levels he had just described, and he was not very familiar with many things on other levels either when he spoke about them. This shows Seth's honesty - knowing what he knows, and not knowing what he does not know. He would not force himself to talk about things he did not know; if he did not know, then he did not know.

If my environment is not an eternal structure, but is constructed through thought, then neither is yours.

Our material environment is also not eternal, nor is it a permanent structure.

If I know... then in different ways, each of you is also communicating with other personalities, or communicating through other personalities by telepathy, although you know little of the results.

The direct feeling here is this: we often watch certain movies, listen to music, or read a certain book - modern books, ancient books - some people read Seth's books, some read the Tao Te Ching, some read the Buddhist scriptures, and they feel joy in their hearts, with different resonances or spiritual joy arising. Some people shed tears, some feel ecstasy, and everyone is different. This kind of resonance is actually through telepathy, where you have direct contact with other personalities and carry out related communication, but we simply do not know that we have this ability, and we do not feel that we are communicating with them. Here he pointed this out.

Seth introduced his own working environment and characteristics, and this is the second part of Chapter 2 of Seth Speaks.

Session 515

From the Senses to Reality: How Seth Explains Our Relationship with the Environment

Let's first look at what this section mainly talks about. Seth says:

In a very real way, you create the environment you perceive through the senses you use.

In Buddhist terms, this is equivalent to the five sense organs creating the five sense objects -- the eye organ, ear organ, tongue organ, body organ, and so on, that is, the five sense perceptions, create the eye objects, ear objects, and so on, the five sense objects.

He says:

Your physical senses make it necessary for you to perceive a three-dimensional reality.

That is, a three-dimensional reality. He also says:

Consciousness, however, has inner senses, which are inherent in all consciousness, regardless of its degree of development. These inner senses are different from the senses a given consciousness uses when it adopts a particular specialized form, such as the physical body, in order to operate within a particular system -- that is, the five outer senses.

The five senses are mutually independent; they do not conflict.

Every passage in the Seth material carries very deep meaning. The first passage states this fact: all consciousness has its inner senses, and consciousness must exist within a system -- whether that system is tangible or intangible, three-dimensional or of a higher dimension -- and when it exists within a system, it will necessarily have senses adapted to that system for observing the camouflage reality. The inner senses and the outer senses do not interfere with each other; each operates on its own. This is easy to understand, because interference would cause other problems.

Therefore, every reader has inner senses, and to some degree, is constantly using them, although at the ego level one does not know one is doing so. As for Seth and his kind, they use these inner senses quite freely and consciously.

He says:

If you could really do this, then you would perceive the kind of environment in which I exist.

That is, if we could use the inner senses, we would be able to perceive what his world and environment are like. You would see a situation without camouflage, because our current three-dimensional world is entirely camouflaged.

In it, events and forms are free, and not glued into a jelly-like mold of time.

What does this mean? It means that within the camouflaged reality, we are subject to the limitations of time -- time itself is also a camouflage -- and also subject to many other limitations, such as the speed of light and gravity. Our events and forms are not completely free; forms are fixed, for example, the form of a table is a table, the form of a stool is a stool, and events are events.

He gives an example:

Not only can you see the furniture in your current home that seems to remain unchanged all the time, but if you can shift your focus, shift your conscious focus, and see the molecules that make up various objects, or their other particles, you will see an extremely vast and constant dance.

Here he uses a vivid metaphor: if you can adjust your conscious focus to observe molecules or particles, at the atomic and molecular level, they are in constant dance, like a vibrational pattern of these molecules. In quantum mechanics, scientists are now beginning to approach the true nature of objects -- the final sound of an object is like a small string vibrating. This is also the same as the说法 of Shiva in Hinduism¹⁰. In Hinduism, the most important deity in the world is Shiva, who is always dancing a dance that cannot stop; the whole world operates according to her rhythm and movement, and if her dance were to stop, the world would enter a state of annihilation¹¹.

In Hinduism there are three main deities: one is the creator god, which is Shiva; there is also a destroyer god called Krishna¹², who destroys things when they develop to a certain point; and there is an operating god, whose name I have forgotten, I think it is Shiva's son or Shiva's child. So we often say Hinduism also has this God -- G stands for the creator god, generate; then operation is the operating one; and D is destroy. These three gods -- operation, creation, and destruction -- are responsible for the functioning of the world.

He says, when you look at this object, if you use this other kind of focus, you can see a kind of phosphorescent glow -- like the ghost fire we see in graveyards. That is the aura of the electromagnetic structure of the molecules themselves; it is the aura of an electromagnetic "structure," and the word structure is in quotation marks here, because it actually has no structure, it is only metaphorically described as a structure.

If you wish, you can condense your consciousness until it is small enough to travel through a single molecule, and from the molecule's own world look outward, observing the universe of this room and the vast, interconnected, constantly changing star-like galaxies. Now all of these possibilities represent a valid reality. Your own reality is no more valid than any other, but it is the only one you see.

This passage is rather convoluted; you may not know what he is trying to say. What he wants to say is this: when you look outward from the human perspective, from inside our bodies, we see the world, and then we think the world we see is the real world, the only valid reality. But when you change your perspective, if you could shrink yourself down to the size of a molecule or an atom, and enter the world of particles, looking outward from inside an atom or molecule, the world you see is also a valid reality.

The core point of this example is to break down our dualistic viewpoint. From the dualistic viewpoint, we are we, the world is the world, objects are objects, and we are different from them; we look at them from our side, and they are outside of us. He asks you to change your perspective: you can also look outward from inside an atom, and at that point we humans are on the outside. What he really wants to tell you is that you do not need this dualistic viewpoint -- the idea that the world is separate, that the world is the world and I am me, that kind of dualistic way of thinking is very naive.

He says:

Using the inner senses, we become conscious creators and co-creators. But whether you know it or not, you are an unconscious co-creator.

He says if our environment seems unstructured to you, it is only because you cannot see the true nature of order -- you think order should be material and structural, but the essence of order has nothing to do with permanent forms.

In our environment there is no 4 p.m. or 9 p.m. I mean by this that I am not limited by time sequence, but nothing prevents me from experiencing time sequence either. If I so choose, I experience time, or something like time, according to the intensity of experience -- a psychological time that has its peaks and valleys.

Psychological time is actually the second of the nine inner senses that we humans possess. Earlier at the beginning of this chapter he said he would introduce some things about the inner senses, and at the time it seemed he had not introduced them, but in fact he is introducing them throughout this chapter -- the entire Session 515 is introducing things related to the inner senses.

When time seems to speed up or slow down, it is similar to your own emotional feelings. We have known this for a long time, but in some important places there are great differences.

That is, the speed of time is similar to emotional feelings, but not identical.

He says if our psychological time were compared to an environment, it could be compared to the walls of a room. But in Seth's case, these walls constantly change in color, size, height, depth, and width. This is a bit hard to understand -- what kind of concept psychological time is for them. He compares it to the walls of a room, with a certain color, thickness, texture, depth, and width, but all of these are constantly changing. If it is hard to understand, we can discuss this issue later. What he really wants to say is this: psychological time is a block-like, changeable thing with temporal structure, completely different from the time we ordinarily understand; it has its own intensity and degrees of strength and weakness.

Actually, our psychological structures differ in that we consciously utilize a multidimensional psychological reality. You are born with it too, but at the ego level you are not familiar with it.

Under the powerful consciousness of our ego, we are not familiar with this multidimensional psychological reality, so we cannot feel the existence of multiple dimensions; this is very normal.

He says:

As I dictate this book, I project a portion of my reality into an undifferentiated level between systems.

He is explaining how he communicates with Jane. When he dictates, he projects a portion of his reality into an undifferentiated zone between his system and our system -- a middle ground. There is relatively little camouflage there -- because within each respective reality there is its own camouflage; in our three-dimensional world there is the camouflage of the three-dimensional world, and in their reality there is also the camouflage of their reality. By comparison, it is like an inactive zone. If you think of it in terms of physical reality, this zone can be understood as the place just above your atmosphere.

But what he wants to talk about is the psychological or psychic atmosphere, not the physical atmosphere. In other words, the portion of his reality that he projects is similar to an edge zone of his psyche or psychology.

And these zones are far enough away from Ruburt's physically attuned self that communication can be understood.

What he means is that when Ruburt -- that is, Jane -- is at a very great distance from her ego consciousness, that is, in a state between unconsciousness or trance, in this state she is subject to very little camouflage influence, so this communication can take place. Seth's information can be communicated in the middle zone between Seth's system and Jane's system -- that is, the three-dimensional system we live in.

He says:

In some ways it is distant from our own environment, because in our own environment the material would be biased toward being explained in physical terms, which would be somewhat difficult for me. You must understand that this distance does not refer to spatial distance.

The distance he refers to is not spatial distance, but rather that at Seth's level, their material is not physical; it is purely consciousness-based -- concepts, understanding, and knowledge are all consciousness-based. Yet he has to use human language, this materialized way with temporal and logical sequential relationships, to transmit it, which is indeed very difficult for him. It is somewhat like explaining what the color red is to a blind person -- if the person has never seen red, that is where the difficulty lies.

I often give an example, and this example is very vivid. Suppose in Seth's world there is a very advanced machine, which we will call a time machine, designed with great precision and ingenuity. Seth wants to tell us humans about the principles and construction of the time machine, so that we can build an identical one. At his level, his understanding of the time machine is entirely consciousness-based and conceptual. To tell humans, he must use language, which is equivalent to disassembling the time machine into many parts -- say, fifty thousand parts -- and for each part he describes it in words: this part is round, with a hole in the middle, the hole is this size, the sphere is this size, what material it is made of, what its properties are, its size, function, and structure. After he explains all of this, he transmits this language-based explanation to Jane, and Jane receives it part by part, recording it in written form. Then Jane must, based on Seth's description, reassemble these fifty thousand parts back into a time machine.

The difficulty lies in the fact that Jane has never seen this time machine; she can only construct it based on Seth's description. And Seth must first transmit these fifty thousand parts one by one with complete accuracy, and then Jane must have a very powerful imagination to reassemble the parts back into the time machine according to her own understanding. If something does not work, she has to try again, modify it, and see if she can make it work. Now you can understand the difficulty -- how to understand things from a completely unfamiliar level. When Seth speaks of distance or difficulty, he means this: what he knows is very hard to express through language and words, but he has done his best, using language and words to the greatest extent of his ability to describe what he knows.

He continues:

The intimate relationship between creation and perception is far greater than your scientists realize.

For a consciousness, the two main characteristics are creation and experience, that is, perception.

Your physical senses create the reality they perceive.

This statement is very accurate; it is what we said earlier: our five sense organs create the five sense objects, our senses create our environment, the environment we observe, the environment we live in.

To a cell, to a bacterium, to a bird, to an insect, and to a person standing under a tree, a tree is something very different.

For the same tree, to a bacterium, to a bird, to an insect, and to a person, the tree is completely different. He says:

I am not saying the tree merely appears different; it is different.

This is not the concept of blind men touching an elephant, not that you are touching a different part. He says this tree, relative to a bacterium, relative to a bird, relative to an insect, relative to a person, in the perception of these different species, the tree is completely different.

You perceive its reality through a set of highly specialized senses, but this does not mean or indicate that its reality exists in a more fundamental way in the form you perceive than in the form perceived by bacteria, insects, and birds.

This statement is very interesting. We use our highly specialized five senses to perceive the existence of this tree, and then we think the tree is exactly as it presents itself to us, that this is its reality. He says this does not mean that the reality of the tree perceived through the senses of insects, bacteria, and birds is less real than what we perceive. We cannot say that the reality we see is correct and the reality others see is incorrect. From this you can understand that his way of considering problems is completely different from ours.

You cannot perceive the very exact reality of that tree in any other way than through yourself, and this applies to anything in the physical reality you know.

Other than using your own five senses to perceive this tree, you cannot perceive it from the perspective of a bacterium, from the perspective of a bird, or from the perspective of other insects. You can only perceive this tree from the human perspective; this is your human limitation. In other words, your perception of any other object is the same -- you will never know what a tree looks like in the eyes of a bird or in the eyes of a bacterium.

He says:

It is not that physical reality is false.

He emphasizes this point; we are not saying physical reality is false. Rather:

Consciousness expresses itself in various guises, and the physical picture is only one of countless ways of perceiving these guises.

The physical senses force you to translate experience into physical perception -- our physical perception forces you to turn experienced events into a material perception.

The inner senses, however, open up your range of perception, allowing you to interpret experience in a much freer way, and to create new forms and new channels through which any consciousness can know itself.

When you use the inner senses, you can interpret your experience in more ways. What you see is not only what the eyes can see; it is felt through the inner senses -- you see more, more completely, more broadly, more deeply, and without the limitations of time and space. You open new channels of the inner senses, and entering these new channels, the forms of objects you see are also different from before.

What does "any consciousness can know itself" mean? It means you can become aware of consciousness itself. This sentence is hard to understand. It means that after you open your inner senses, you can capture every activity and every feeling of your consciousness. In other words, you are using your consciousness to feel the world around you, rather than using your eyes to feel the world. For example, when you feel a tree, you no longer look at it with your eyes; you use your consciousness to touch it, to contact it, and at that point you can feel your consciousness touching the tree, touching the grass, touching the things around you. This perception of consciousness by consciousness itself can only occur after your inner senses are all opened.

He says:

Consciousness is also a natural and spontaneous exercise of creativity.

You are now, within a three-dimensional context, learning how your emotions and your psychic life can create various physical images.

In our physical world, we are learning how to use our emotions and psychic life to create various physical images.

You manipulate within the psychic environment, and these manipulations are then automatically impressed upon the physical mold.

It is like your mind is a projector; the changes in your psyche are naturally projected onto the external physical world.

He says their environment itself has creativity in a different way from your environment. What creativity does our environment have? Our environment itself is creative -- for example, trees bear fruit; under the principle of self-sufficiency, there is creativity. He gives an example:

It is as if the earth sustains its own creatures.

This is itself a kind of creativity. We bury seeds in the soil, and how do they grow into big trees, into flowers, into grass? Where does this come from? It seems as if someone cast a spell on it. But in fact no; he says this is the creativity inherent in your reality itself; it has this creativity on its own. Trees bear fruit, trees naturally bloom and produce fruit; who arranged this? No one; it has this creativity on its own. The earth sustains all things in the world, automatically sustaining them. In ancient China people often said heaven nourishes people and earth nourishes people; that is how it is, it naturally has creativity.

He says:

Your natural creative aspect is the materialization of the deepest psychic, spiritual, and physical tendencies of the race. As far as you are concerned, these tendencies were established an infinitely long time ago, and are part of the race's psychic knowledge stock.

This natural creativity is expressed in the materialization of the deepest psychic, spiritual, and physical tendencies of our race; it is part of the psychic knowledge stock of the human race.

He says we give the elements in our environment greater creativity. What we just discussed is where our creativity in the physical world is manifested -- the natural creativity itself, and the creativity materialized through psychic, spiritual, and physical tendencies; these are all things we already have. He says the creativity in their world is different from ours; their creativity is stronger and greater.

He gives an example: they do not have flowers that grow -- growing flowers are a manifestation of the creativity of our physical world on Earth, equivalent to the natural creativity of the earth; when we plant seeds, flowers grow. But in their world, there are no such flowers that can grow.

But the intense and concentrated psychic forces of our psychic nature form new dimensions of activity.

This is a bit hard to understand. His psychic power is much stronger than ours, much more intense and concentrated, so it can form new dimensions of activity. When we cultivate or exercise our psychic power, this is what we are cultivating -- theirs is stronger and more concentrated than ours.

He gives an example: if you paint a picture in the three-dimensional world, then this picture must be on paper, on a flat surface, or on the canvas of the painting. This painting only suggests the complete three-dimensional experience that you cannot enter -- what you paint must be some three-dimensional experience you have had, such as a beautiful scene you saw somewhere, or the beautiful scene in front of you; these are all three-dimensional experiences. Then you present the three-dimensional experience on a two-dimensional plane. But after the two-dimensional presentation is complete, you cannot enter it; you can only appreciate it in your heart and long for it in your mind, but your body cannot enter the painting you created. Unless you are Ma Liang with the magic brush, possessing a brush like that of an immortal.

What he means is that you cannot enter the two-dimensional image you created based on three-dimensional experience. But in Seth's environment it is different -- suppose he wants to paint a picture; after he paints it, he can enter the painting and experience and feel the scene and situation inside it. And it is not only three-dimensional; he can enter more dimensions, four-dimensional, five-dimensional. He can create a dimensional effect he desires, and then enter it to experience that dimensional effect. So what he still wants to say is that the creativity in their dimensional world is different from ours. Our creativity is manifested in the earth sustaining all things and trees bearing fruit and blooming, while their creativity is far more powerful than ours, completely unrestricted by the physical world -- he can create any dimensional space effect he wants, and then enter it to experience it. For example, if he wants a tree, he can think a tree into existence, and even become the tree to experience the tree's feelings.

He says these abilities are not unique to them, but are also your heritage. Humans also have this ability, but we humans have not developed it.

Later in this book, you will see that in your other states of consciousness, rather than in the normal waking state, you are practicing the use of your own inner senses and multidimensional abilities far more often than you realize.

In a non-waking, half-waking, non-normal state, we are also using these inner senses and the ability to enter multiple dimensions and create multidimensional realities. A simple example: dreams are created by you; dreams are a manifestation of the multidimensional ability created by your inner senses.

He says:

Since my own environment has no easily definable physical components, when I explain certain related topics in this book, you will understand its nature by inference.

Because there are no physical components in his world, when he speaks about the contents of his world, we humans can only understand its nature through inference or imagination -- because you cannot imagine what a world without matter is like.

It is because of your own psychological structure that your physical environment appears to you as it does. If you primarily relied on the process of association to obtain your sense of personal continuity, rather than on the familiarity gained by moving through time, you would experience physical reality in a completely different way. Past and present objects could all be seen by you simultaneously, their appearance made rational through associative connections.

To put this passage in plain words: if you use the associative method to obtain your sense of self-existence, rather than necessarily relying on temporal continuity to obtain your sense of existence, then the things you see and perceive are completely different. If you can only feel your self-existence through the passage of time -- the reason you are you can only be experienced within time -- then you are certainly a product of the material three-dimensional world. If you can change your perspective and observe this world through association, your experience is completely different.

Here he gives an example: suppose your father, during his lifetime, had eight chairs he particularly liked at different periods. If your perceptual apparatus were primarily based on intuitive association rather than on the results of temporal sequence, then you would see all these chairs at the same moment -- if you use intuitive association, you can see all eight chairs at the same time; or when you see one of them, you will perceive the others, and the images of all eight will appear in your mind.

This ability of intuitive association, therefore:

The environment itself is not a separate thing, but the result of perceptual patterns, determined by the structure of the psyche.

You think the environment is separate from you -- you are you, and the environment is the environment, and you cannot change this environment. What he actually wants to tell you is that this is wrong. What is your true environment? The environment is a result of a mode of perception -- you perceive something, and what results is your environment. For example, if you perceive the world through association, then the eight chairs appear around you at the same time, all placed before you at once, and you can sense the existence of the eight chairs. The existence of these eight chairs is your environment. But if you think about it the other way around, it is because you first sensed these eight chairs that the eight chairs then exist within your environment. This is a relationship where the root and the branch have been reversed, an inverted relationship.

He says this is mainly determined by the psychological structure of human beings -- our psychological structure has the concept of time, and has this particular concept of material reality, so we cannot, as he does, truly treat the environment as a result of a mode of perception. For us, the environment is truly existent, while he tells you that in fact the environment can be changed.

A couple of days ago someone left a comment under the video. He said that one day he went home, and his home was in Unit One, but he ended up entering Unit Two, entering a floor that was especially unfamiliar. Then he tried to open the door with his key but could not get it open no matter what. After coming out, he wanted to return to Unit One, but he could not get back no matter what; when he went back, it was still Unit Two. So he was trapped in Unit Two no matter what. But for some unknown reason, later it seemed that with one great effort, one great exertion, he got out, and in a daze he realized that what had just happened had been a kind of hallucinatory sensation. But that feeling of reality -- that fear of not being able to get out, the sensation of cold sweat all over his body -- was vividly present. He asked me why this was, what the situation was.

Using Seth's explanation, it is very simple: under specific circumstances of which you are unaware, one of your inner senses suddenly opened, and you saw a different material reality and a different material world. This change of environment was actually your perceptual system using different senses. If you look with your eyes, Unit One is Unit One, and Unit Two is Unit Two; but if you use the inner senses to feel this world, or if you use your intuitive associative feeling to sense the world, then Unit One and Unit Two are not necessarily fixed -- perhaps what you see is Unit Two, and Unit Two is your world, and Unit One does not exist.

To sum it up in one sentence: the environment you think exists is actually a result of your mode of perception, and not the other way around -- it is not that the environment exists and therefore you sense it, but rather that the result of your mode of perception produces the environment. This is very convoluted, and I do not know how to explain it. I can only say this much, and I hope you can understand.

He says:

Therefore, if you want to know what my environment is like, you must first understand who I am. In order to understand me, I must first speak about the nature of consciousness in general, because they themselves are a kind of conscious being. In so doing, I am in effect telling you many things about yourselves.

When he talks about himself, he is also talking about us. This session may seem very long, or may seem unrelated to our affairs, but in fact it is not. Seth is a very good teacher, and he is very intelligent. When he talks about his environment, he is actually hinting to us: this environment is essentially the same as his environment, both created by consciousness. He is not even hinting; he is stating it directly.

Including in Chapter One, when he says he has no physical body and is writing this book, he is also hinting: we think that because we have bodies, we are different from him -- but we are not greatly different. What he actually wants to tell you is that you are essentially no different from him: both are a kind of fragment personality, both are part of an entity, both are composed of the inner self, the outer self, and so on. It is just that for Seth, perhaps he no longer has an outer self, and only the inner self, the entity, and the fragment personality remain. In Chapter One he says he has no physical body, meaning that even though you have a physical body, you are actually the same as him, who has no physical body. In Chapter Two he says the environment in which he exists is utterly different from ours, and the environment in which he exists has no matter. Through these three sessions, what he actually wants to tell you is this: his world and our world are essentially the same. Why do we feel they are different? He tells you it is because the senses are different, and therefore you feel they are different. If you change to another kind of sense to look at this world, then it becomes the same, just like theirs.

He says, when I project my reality and tell you many things about yourselves, the inner portion of your entity already knows much of what I am going to tell you. Here, "entity" means the same as "being." The inner portion of your entity -- that is, the part that is the inner self -- already knows much of what Seth wants to tell us.

He says:

Part of my purpose is to make your egoic self aware of the knowledge that the greater portion of your consciousness is already familiar with, and that you have long ignored.

He wants to tell you again, from the outside, the greater part of the knowledge that your inner self already knows. In fact, you already know it inwardly, but you yourself do not know it; you have ignored it. Your inner self has been listening all along, and the inner self is thinking: I already know all of this, stop talking, it is a waste of time. It is just that this outer self of yours truly does not know.

He says:

You look outward into the physical universe, and you may take the data received by your outer senses as all of reality.

I want to stand within physical reality and look inward for you, and describe those truths of consciousness and experience that you are presently too fascinated to see.

We stand on the inside looking outward, using the outer senses, and then we interpret the data received through the outer senses as reality. We think that what the ears, eyes, nose, and tongue see, hear, and feel are all true reality. He says, I want to stand within physical reality and look inward for you -- look into the interior of physical reality, and then you can see those truths of consciousness and experience. What we see of the material world is camouflage, and what lies beneath the camouflage? Beneath it is consciousness and experience. The essence of the material world is formed by consciousness. He enters into the material world to look for you; you cannot see it, so he looks on your behalf.

This is because you are presently too fascinated to see -- we cannot see the interior of material reality; we can only see the outside of matter. The outside of a table, the outside of a chair, the outward appearance of a person -- we cannot see his inner heart, nor can we see the interior of a table or the interior of a tree. What we see are all external things.

He says:

Because of your fascination with physical reality, the state you are now in is the same as the trance state, equally deep, of the person through whom I am writing this book.

When Jane was writing this book, when Seth was communicating with her, she was basically in a trance state -- that is, a state in which she did not know what she was doing. He says that the state of your fascination with the material world is very much like Jane's present trance state -- you cannot see anything, you cannot feel anything, and even the thing right in front of you, you stare at it with wide-open eyes and still cannot see it.

All of your attention is focused in a highly specialized way upon one bright, shining point that you call reality.

Our attention is gathered by the five physical senses onto this shining point that we regard as reality. Around you there are many other realities -- besides this shining point, there are many, many other realities all around, but you ignore their existence and blot out all the stimuli coming from them, because that dazzling stimulus is too intense, and so we blot out all the other stimuli.

He says:

You will find that this trance state has its reasons, but you must wake up. My purpose is to open your inner eyes.

The purpose of his coming, the purpose of his teaching, is to open our inner eyes. Earlier he said that this trance state has its reasons and is necessary, but you cannot remain in this state forever -- paying no attention to the nature of reality, remaining ignorant and confused, seeing only the outer appearances.

Why is this trance state necessary? Because we live in the material world, and this is our instinct and ability for survival. If we did not possess this instinct, we would be unable to survive in the material world. This is also an exquisite design of human existence: we have both the consciousness of the outer senses and the ability of the inner senses. If at an inappropriate time we mix the outer senses and the inner senses together, it can produce fatal danger.

For example, your inner senses can exist across time and space, making no distinction between past time and future. Suppose there is a big tiger standing right in front of you, but because your inner senses have activated at this moment, you cannot see the tiger. You feel that you are lying in a very comfortable garden, and in front of you is an especially cute little kitten, and so you go to play with the little kitten. At this time you are actually using the inner senses to perceive things, but in the three-dimensional world, what is facing you is a big tiger, and it will eat you. Therefore, in the three-dimensional world, maintaining the effectiveness of your outer senses is necessary, required, and proper.

But what he wants to tell you is that you must know that besides the five outer senses, you also have many inner senses that you have never used. What those see is the essence of things, the attributes of things. Therefore, the purpose of his coming is to open your inner eyes and awaken your inner senses.

There is still a very small passage after this, but it can be disregarded. He says that the communication between him and his colleagues is also very important, but we will not discuss it for now. That is all there is to that one sentence; he did not say anything more. What is the reason? The reason is that there was probably a pause in the middle -- from February 11 to March 18, a pause of about one month and eight days, with no transmission at all. After a pause of more than a month, when it began again, Seth had already started the next chapter.

So to summarize this session: the importance of the inner senses, and why human beings must open their own inner senses -- because only by opening the inner senses can one come to know the nature of reality.

注释与核实

1. Source: Wikipedia "Eighty-Four Thousand Dharma Gates" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E5%85%AB%E8%90%AC%E5%9B%9B%E5%8D%83%E6%B3%95%E9%96%80) ↩

2. Source: Jurnal Bahasa dan Budaya China "A Preliminary Study of Confucius's Teaching According to Aptitude" (2012) (https://journal.ubm.ac.id/index.php/bahasa-budaya-china/article/viewFile/1684/1429) ↩

3. Source: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History "History of Life on Earth" (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/life-science/early-life-earth-animal-origins) ↩

4. According to Mike's original words, it was "the universe is 13.9 billion years old"; upon verification, it should be "the age of the universe is about 13.8 billion years (Planck/WMAP measured approximately 13.8 billion years), not 13.9 billion years." (Source: Stony Brook University News "Scientists Confirm Age of Universe is 13.8 Billion Years", https://news.stonybrook.edu/featuredpost/scientists-confirm-age-of-universe-is-13-8-billion-years/) ↩

5. Source: USC Folklore Archives "Speak of Cao Cao" (https://folklore.usc.edu/speak-of-cao-cao/) ↩

6. Source: Siksananda's translation of the "Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva, Chapter 2: The Assembly of the Division Bodies" (https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/T0412) ↩

7. Source: Wikipedia "Sun Wukong" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Wukong) ↩

8. According to Mike's original words, it was "three thousand small worlds make one middle world, and three thousand middle worlds make one great world"; upon verification, it should be "in Buddhist cosmology, the progression is by multiples of a thousand: one thousand small worlds make one small-thousand world, one thousand small-thousand worlds make one middle-thousand world, and one thousand middle-thousand worlds make one great-thousand world, that is, the 'three-thousand great-thousand world' — 'three thousand' refers to three successive thousandfold increases, not three thousand in number." (Source: Wikipedia "Great Thousand World", https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E5%A4%A7%E5%8D%83%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C) ↩

9. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica "Buddha | Biography, Teachings, Influence, & Facts" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Buddha-founder-of-Buddhism) ↩

10. This claim could not be verified. ↩

11. According to Mike's original words, it was "in Hinduism, the most important god in the world is Shiva, who is always dancing a dance that cannot stop, and the whole world operates according to her rhythm and movement; if her dance stops, the world enters a state of annihilation"; upon verification, it should be "Shiva is a male deity, and is regarded as the supreme god only in Shaivism, not the most important god recognized by all of Hinduism; as the Lord of Dance (Nataraja), the Tandava dance he performs is the source of all motion in the universe, and the destruction of the world is not because the dance stops, but because at the end of an eon his 'dance of doom' surrounded by flames itself completes the annihilation of the universe, after which a new cycle of creation begins." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica "Nataraja", https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nataraja) ↩

12. According to Mike's original words, it was "one is the god of creation, that is Shiva; and another god of destruction called Krishna"; upon verification, it should be "among the three great gods of Hinduism, the god of creation is Brahma, the god of destruction is Shiva, and the god of preservation is Vishnu; Krishna is not the god of destruction, but an incarnation of Vishnu." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica "Trimurti | Hinduism, Gods, & Imagery", https://www.britannica.com/topic/trimurti-Hinduism) ↩