The "Guide" and "Key Points" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This chapter presents Seth's explanation of probable realities: all probable worlds and probable selves exist simultaneously, and consciousness selects and actualizes reality from unpredictable probable actions according to belief, intent, and desire; atoms and cells likewise flicker within probability. True order can only arise from complete unpredictability, and predictable systems emerge from it. Probable selves together form the structure of the entity, and mature consciousness can form a larger sense of identity.
Key Points of This Chapter
- All probable worlds and probable selves exist simultaneously now; consciousness selects from the storehouse of probabilities according to beliefs, intentions, and desires, and actualizes them into reality.
- Atoms, cells, and the body flicker within probabilities; consciousness rides upon them and forms identity organization.
- Complete unpredictability is the source of all order and predictable systems.
- A group of probable selves forms the structure of an entity; mature consciousness can handle alternate moments and form a larger identity framework.
- The focus of consciousness determines which probabilities converge into reality; unchosen probabilities likewise occur on other levels.
Main Text
The Title of This Session
Today let's continue interpreting Session 681 of The "Unknown" Reality. The title of this session is "How Your Probable Selves Teach That Unpredictability Is the Source of All Events." This is the key point of this session. The titles for each session in The "Unknown" Reality were all created by Rob himself. Rob came up with them based on the content of each session; they were not given by Seth. But he felt that the titles could serve the purpose of outlining the main points, and they also make it convenient for us to locate the content of a session at a glance.
This session began at 9:28 p.m. on Monday, February 11, 19741. Rob said they had been sitting and waiting for the session to begin since 9:10, and they waited until 9:28. At 9:25 he said: "I'm just waiting. I can feel Seth around. I got some stuff earlier, but I'm just waiting until he's fully ready. I can feel ideas in my head, but they're not clear yet, not the way they should be." It seems that Seth found explaining these things quite difficult, and that really is the feeling. No matter who interprets this material, it is not an easy task. Even for someone as intelligent as Seth, someone who has already departed from the physical world, who has already spoken many times in the spirit world and across various times and spaces, even for him, explaining it still presents great difficulty.
Each session in this book is relatively long, so when you listen, you can break it up into several segments. If you cannot finish it in one sitting, if your mind stops turning or cannot keep up, then stop and do not force yourself to keep listening. Relax a bit, note the time point where you stopped, then rest for a good while, or come back the next day to listen again, and let it digest. Because the content of the Seth material is truly very rich, and that richness operates on multiple levels, not just on the surface level of content. With that kind of richness, if you do not have good preparation, it is very hard to fully understand or digest what he is saying. I hope everyone will not be in a hurry for quick results, but will slowly savor the inner meaning within it.
What Seth Said When He Came Through
Seth came through. Seth said:
Ruburt is right, so give us a moment.
"Right" here means that this thing is indeed very difficult to explain. Then Seth said:
What I am going to explain is indeed very difficult. I have purposely not put it in any book as yet, simply because certain beliefs must be dispensed with before these concepts have any chance of being accepted.
If you want to accept my viewpoints, you first have to remove some of the limitations of other viewpoints. He said: "In your terms, it is not that I want to withhold anything." Many people probably ask, why doesn't Seth explain a lot of the material thoroughly, why doesn't he make it clear, why can't he put it into plain language so we can all understand it easily, why does he make it so complicated or so hard to understand. Seth's meaning is, it is not that I want to withhold anything, but rather why I did not say it before and only say it now. He said:
It is not that I want to withhold anything, but that what follows must depend upon an understanding of what has been said before.
It requires a foundation of knowledge. We must help those who still worry about one soul, one god, one demon, to establish an understanding with a reality larger than their own framework, and if possible, gently lead them away from their own framework.
There are two kinds of preparation here. One is that you need to know some basic knowledge, for example the preparatory books that came before, Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality, these give you a basic preparation of knowledge. The second is that some people still believe in these gods, demons, Buddhas, the Dao, God; regarding these people, he said I still have to gently lead them away, lead them away from the limitations of the beliefs they originally held. And it has to be gentle; you cannot be too forceful or too drastic. If you are too forceful or too drastic, they will immediately bounce back; they will not accept your viewpoint, they will instinctively resist. So Seth said it can only be done gently.
He said:
I have spoken of probabilities in such a way.
He has spoken of probabilities before; in Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality he talked about probabilities. I wonder if everyone remembers a chapter titled "Which World? Which You?" That chapter was about probabilities. In The Nature of Personal Reality, "The Point of Power" in the present moment, the present moment can change the past, and that also touched on many things about probabilities. He said: "When I spoke of probabilities, other realities were disclosed." Let these people know that choice is possible, because they think of themselves as passive. Those who believe in one god, one soul, one demon, they feel they are passive, that their own rights and responsibilities are very small. These people must have this kind of recognition: they have the right to choose. However, merely knowing that you have the right to choose is not enough; a deeper explanation requires a further expansion of the concept of consciousness. You also need to expand your consciousness in order to understand, and there must also be a certain kind of reorientation. Not only must consciousness expand, it must also explore in certain directions that have never been explored before.
It is extremely important that you keep in mind the importance of free will. No matter where your consciousness travels to—because The "Unknown" Reality is really about taking your consciousness to expand into those areas you previously did not know at all, did not understand—he said no matter where your consciousness travels to, no matter where it journeys, you must always remember the importance of your free will. So at the very beginning of this book he tells you this, emphasizing your free will, and I hope everyone will always remember this. No matter what stage you reach in your practice, whether on your unconscious level or conscious level, or whether you enter some other realm, you must always remember that your free will is always the most important thing.
And besides this, there must also be the presence of what you think of as your own identity. That sense of the presence of identity must be there, the sense of presence of self-awareness must be there. With this preamble, let us continue.
What does this mean? Many people who practice, in the end, get rid of themselves, and after getting rid of themselves they feel it is very good and very normal. They say, doesn't Buddhism emphasize no-self? So no-self means getting rid of yourself? There is no self. I think this is many people's understanding. The meaning of no-self is not to get rid of yourself, but to take the narrow attachments of the small self, and the narrow attachments of the small self's consciousness, and expand them, enlarge them, expand them into a broader range. On that level, the small self is not absent; the small self simply becomes a part of it. We are not trying to eliminate the small self, or to kill off the small self in order to obtain something higher. So here we must understand, at any time, in any realm, first you must have free will. And whose free will is this? This free will is yours. So do not lose your sense of identity. No matter what this sense of identity is, of course it is certainly not the identity of your present ego or your present small self; it must be a larger sense of identity, but do not lose your sense of identity. Everyone must remember these two things.
Then he added in passing:
The difficulty of explaining this is not because of Ruburt's vocabulary.
It is not that Ruburt lacks scientific vocabulary or a background in scientific terminology; that is not the problem. Because even a professional scientist would only present these concepts in his own distorted way. Many people say that Jane's literary background, while it allows the language to be very beautiful and very precise, lacks a background in science and scientists, and wonder whether this would cause greater distortion of the material on many issues. Here he clarifies again that this is not the reason. He said even if your most professional scientist were to transmit this material for me, he would produce the same distortion. Why? Because these things are completely outside what we are familiar with and understand; they are not within the scope of our science. There might be a tiny bit of benefit, but it would not be as you imagine, that he could explain it more clearly.
He said:
In the terms of the language with which you are familiar... it is the language itself that is the problem.
It is a problem of linguistic structure, the limitations of human language, not the limitations of specialized vocabulary and specialized background. For example, some of the concepts I want to convey simply have no adequate words that exist. He said some of the things I want to say have no corresponding vocabulary; how am I supposed to tell you? That is, I can feel that thing, but that thing has no word in your human language, just that feeling, there is nothing that can describe it. He said, in any case, let us begin.
Even so, let us set out. So you can understand what a great attempt and challenge Seth is undertaking. When human language does not even have corresponding vocabulary, he still wants to take on the challenge and talk about these things.
All Probable Worlds Exist Now
All right, now we begin the real substance. He said:
All probable worlds exist now.
This is a declarative sentence. Those probable worlds, those parallel times and spaces, they exist now; they are not in the future or in the past, they exist in the present moment, they are simultaneous. You must remember this; this is a premise.
In any reality—that is, in any world, when you see "reality," just understand it as a world or a reality—in any reality or probable world, all possible variations of the most minute aspects exist now. In all worlds, in all parallel worlds, every most minute aspect's possible variations. The most minute aspects, for example even a molecule or an atom, even whether you want to drink water or drink cola, the possible variations of such a tiny matter—these two possibilities, the you who drinks water and the you who drinks cola, these variations all exist. But this does not produce as huge a divergence of probabilities as you might think, yet such tiny variations also exist. Why? Because in the next moment they merge again. Can you understand what I mean? The storyline splits for a moment, for example one you goes to drink water, one you goes to drink cola, and after five minutes of cola, these two people go play games together again. So the earlier water-drinking and cola-drinking were separate, these parallel worlds were separate, but when it came to playing games they merged together again. These tiny variations, these possibilities of parallel worlds, they all exist, down to the smallest possible degree. I am talking about the big ones; do the small ones exist? Of course they do. The possibilities of every molecule, every atom, every cell—do they exist? They exist. So this is where the magic of this world lies.
He said:
You are constantly weaving in and out of probabilities, picking and choosing as you go along.
Very vivid. The cells in your body are doing the same thing, and this is very interesting. Once you understand it, it means we are in a matrix of probabilities. You can imagine yourself in a matrix of probabilities. What is a matrix? It is three-dimensional. Why do I use the word "matrix" to describe it? To avoid giving you a linear feeling. The moment I talk about these linear paths of probability, you get a linear feeling; when I say "matrix," you get a three-dimensional feeling. That is, above, below, left, and right of you are all probabilities. Starting from your present point, it can connect to all probabilities. So you are in this matrix of probabilities, jumping from this time and space to that time and space, from that time and space to this time and space; you could also say jumping from this probability to that probability, from that probability to that probability. And then, picking and choosing as you go along. Choosing what? Choosing those things you want to feel and experience in the present moment. In other words, through the focus of your consciousness, through the point your consciousness is attending to, you select what interests you in the present moment.
For example, right now you want to drink cola, so you select the probability of drinking cola into your reality. The you who drinks plain water—you do not want that, so you do not select it, and it does not exist in your time and space; it is only a probability. Then there is another person who likes drinking plain water, who recently cannot drink cola anymore—too fat or blood sugar too high—so he goes to drink plain water. The probable you who drinks plain water, he thinks drinking cola is only a probability, a luxury he does not dare to indulge in. So our lives, our world, are composed in this way. Among all these storehouses of probabilities, all these warehouses, all these probable things exist simultaneously, they are always there, and you just pick and choose, selecting the things you like, and they compose your life.
The most amazing thing is, while you are doing this, your cells are doing the same thing. Your cells, like you, travel through the various probable worlds, and they also pick and choose, selecting what they like, what they are willing to accept, what they need. This is the relationship of our human body, our physical body, and our consciousness traveling through probabilities. Many people do not understand how those who got cancer and then suddenly recovered got better. Actually it is very simple: his cells and the him in that parallel time and space—it is as if he went to that parallel world, and in that parallel world the cells did not have cancer. When his consciousness reached the same frequency as that probable self in that world, his cells entered it in the same way. He is not only picking, he is also discarding, picking and choosing, taking some and giving up others. So many miraculous things happen in this way.
Then he said:
I have told you in the past that there are pulsations of activity.
He has spoken of these pulsations before, this pulsation of bright and dark, in which you flicker bright and dark. In Seth Speaks it was said that you are a flickering entity, bright and dark, like a firefly flashing on and off. But the speed of this flickering is much faster than a firefly's; exactly how fast, no one has given you a specific number, so you can just make one up, at least on the order of hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions of times per second or even higher. How many times you can flicker in one second, Seth never said specifically; he only said the speed of flickering is very fast. If your ability is sufficient, you can see this flickering, but the consciousness of ordinary people cannot keep up with its speed.
He said:
This applies to even atoms or subatomic particles.
So-called subatomic refers to particles even smaller than atoms, protons, neutrons, and even further down. He said it is not only you who flicker; atoms and particles smaller than atoms also flicker. Can you understand this? From modern microphysics to later quantum mechanics, and even before quantum mechanics, in relativity theory, they all discovered this reality: at the microscopic level, at the level of atoms, behavior already exceeds all the limitations of Newton's laws; it simply does not conform to what we see in the macroscopic world. That is, a thing is here, so it is here; if it is not here, then it is not here. But atoms, electrons, or even smaller particles, in this microscopic world, exist as a kind of probability. If you have studied this physics, you understand what I am saying. It is not as you imagine, that electrons just revolve around the atomic nucleus round and round. No. They exist in the form of an electron cloud. Where it exists is only a matter of probability; you can only say the probability of it existing here is such and such, the probability of it existing there is such and such, and this probability can be calculated. But where it is at this present moment, you can never capture it; you can never know where it is; you can only say what the probability is of it being somewhere. This is science, this is fact; this is not something I am saying. This is something everyone who studies physics knows when they reach this field. So what Seth is saying is not merely his viewpoint; it is a scientific fact. He is flickering.
He said:
You only recognize the activity of your own signal as real.
That is, you only regard the bright part of the flickering—bright and dark—you only regard the bright part as you, as real, and the dark part you regard as nonexistent. The bright part refers to the signal that is present; you identify that as real, and you do not perceive the other activities; those dark activities you do not perceive. The "you" here is in quotation marks, referring to the you in our physical world. But the you on other levels, the larger you—does he know? He knows.
When people think about this problem from their own viewpoint, they of course identify only with one body; they certainly identify only with this one body. You tell him his body is flickering, that in one second it may be in different places, and he thinks he exists in this world, in this universe, because what you can feel is only the bright part of the flashing. As for the extinguished part, the dark part, you cannot perceive it, and you do not know where it went. So you only identify with your present body, only with the bright part.
You know that the cellular structure of the body is constantly changing, but the body at any particular moment is manifested from that rich storehouse of probable activity. In other words:
Your body is selected from the warehouse where energy is aggregated, and after selection it is materialized, becoming a large block of aggregated energy.
What is this large block of aggregated energy? It is our physical body. Our physical body can be called a large block of aggregated energy. But where does this large block structure of energy come from? It comes from the storehouse of probabilities, from the warehouse of probabilities. If it is constantly flickering, is it not also a kind of probable existence? Here one moment, there the next, right? Then each of these flickering bodies is—each flicker is a probability. You chose this kind of flickering, that is, you chose the flickering of drinking water, and then the flickering of drinking cola you can no longer perceive. But the self who drinks cola can feel the flickering body that drinks cola, and he cannot feel the flickering body that drinks water. Can you understand what I am saying? So you then have two bodies.
The body is not as stable as ordinarily thought. He said it is not as you think, that the body is stable, like tables, chairs, and benches—of course tables, chairs, and benches are not stable either; he was just giving an example—on deeper biological levels, cells straddle all kinds of probabilities, and trigger responses. He said the reason you feel your body is stable is based on the perspective of your present self-awareness and perception. The cells that compose your body themselves also straddle various probabilities. What does "various probabilities" mean? It means the cell may be here or there, may be this way or that, may live or may die, may be in this state or that state. Your cells are all within various probabilities. Would you say this present cell is alive or dead? Both alive and dead, both dead and alive, in that state, neither alive nor dead. The more we talk, the more it starts to sound like mysticism.
So our atoms flicker, our cells travel through various probabilities, so how could we as people be otherwise? It must be this way. Because if the smallest particles that compose us are like this, then people are also like this. You say, but why can't I feel it? I explained earlier: because the focus and frequency of your consciousness are consistent with the frequency of your cells and body.
For example, you want to drink cola. The thought in your head, "I want to drink cola," this consciousness now exists, right? Once your consciousness exists, then within your cells there are—there are cells with the probability of drinking cola, and cells with the probability of not drinking cola—right? When you want to drink cola, you perceive the existence of those probable cells that want to drink cola. Cells are also within various probabilities, because the reactions to drinking cola and drinking water may be different for some cells and the same for others; let us set that aside for now. We are saying that in this situation, the two consciousnesses of drinking cola and drinking water correspond to two sets of cellular probabilities. One consciousness leads one group of body cells—the water-drinking consciousness leads the body composed of cells with the water-drinking probability, and the cola-drinking consciousness leads the body composed of cells with the cola-drinking probability, to go do the act of drinking cola. Does that help you understand a bit more? Our entire being is like this. Then do the cola-drinking one and the water-drinking one both exist? They both exist. And the yogurt-drinking one, and all kinds of others, all possibly exist.
He said:
Your consciousness rides upon the pulsations just mentioned.
What does "rides upon the pulsations" mean? It means your consciousness does not flicker along with these pulsations; your consciousness is relatively stable. Although your body moves in and out, although your physical body flickers, your consciousness does not flicker. I am only giving an example; although consciousness has its own stages and its own frequencies, let us set that aside for now. Let us first say that overall, consciousness exists above the flickering of the body. So why can't you feel the flickering of the body? Because your consciousness cannot feel it, because your consciousness does not flicker along with it; your consciousness is stable, it is a smooth flow. Doesn't that sound amazing and subtle? Why does consciousness not flicker while the body flickers? What if the body flickers and consciousness cannot keep up with the body? And so on. Let us not discuss these questions for now; let us continue below.
He said:
And within it, forms the organization of its own identity.
What does "within it" refer to? It refers to within consciousness. Through this consciousness, consciousness rides upon the pulsating body, and then upon this forms the organization of its own identity. What does "the organization of its own identity" mean? It means the organization with which it presently identifies. Can you understand what I mean by this sentence? Let me use the simplest example again to explain to everyone. Your body flickers; your body has many possibilities: drinking cola, drinking milk, drinking yogurt, drinking plain water, drinking sour plum drink, all of them. Your consciousness is above this. Now your present consciousness wants to drink cola, so you become aware of this one consciousness of drinking cola, and it forms a body that drinks cola. Your body then forms a body beneath this consciousness. How is the body formed? Don't these body cells have various possibilities? Aren't they flickering there? It then takes the state of the probability of drinking cola. It is not that part of the cell has this probability; it is that this one cell itself has countless possible existences. All 50 trillion cells of your body, each one of these cells has countless possible existences. Then your consciousness commands the probabilities of those 50 trillion cells that want to drink cola, forming a body that wants to drink cola, and then you go drink cola. So it forms the organization of its own identity—drinking cola is his present identity. Does he accept drinking water as his present self? He does not, because right now he wants to drink cola; drinking water he regards as only a probability, he does not want to drink water. So the self who drinks cola is his present sense of identity.
I am using the smallest example; you can expand it to a very large example, and it is the same. For example, the self who is a scientist, and the self who could be a businessman, these are two completely different senses of identity; large or small, it is all the same. The scientist also drinks cola and plain water; he also chooses. I am just giving you this example.
He said:
Each probability, however, is only possible from the viewpoint of a probability, or in connection with it. All are inviolate. Because it cannot be destroyed, once formed, that pattern follows its own nature.
This statement is very rigorous. What does it mean? We say that the premise of a possibility is that there must be other possibilities existing, otherwise this possibility would have no meaning, no connection. For example, as I just said, drinking cola and drinking plain water, aren't these two possibilities? Drinking cola and drinking plain water, each is the other's possibility. So it must depend on some kind of possibility. You say, I won't drink anything at all. Not drinking anything is also a possibility; doing nothing is also a choice, also a possibility. So what you call a possibility must be interrelated with some other possibility or possibilities. It must be connected to the viewpoints of other possibilities, or linked with them, in order to highlight the value and meaning of this possibility's existence. Otherwise it has no meaning. We often joke, "Should I drink cola or should I drink cola?" If that's the case, then you have no choice, and then there is no possibility, right? If all possibilities were the same as cola, that would be a joke. So there must exist other different possibilities; there must be the existence of another, otherwise this cannot be called a possibility.
Second point: all possibilities are indestructible; none of them can be destroyed. Once formed, they exist permanently. Their pattern -- what pattern? The pattern of that possibility -- will follow its own nature. The nature of that possibility. For example, once a thought forms in your mind, the possibility of that thought will carry a certain pattern, and this pattern will keep following along and will not disappear. For instance, if you like a girl and you want to be with her, that is a possibility. And once the pattern of this possibility is activated, it will carry a certain pattern, and afterward it will develop and operate freely according to that pattern. You say, I didn't even think about it; I just had one thought and then took it back. Yes, you took it back, and you don't need to pay attention to it anymore. Because that thought of yours, that consciousness of yours, will develop on its own; it will follow its own nature on its own. On the road of pursuing that girl, he will use all kinds of methods, all kinds of flattering and courting tactics. He is pursuing; you don't need to do anything; he does it. Of course, it may not be in this world of yours; it is in another world. I say it this way so that you can understand this matter well.
The Structure of the Entity
At 9:50, he paused for a minute, head lowered, eyes closed -- he was describing Jane's state, head lowered, eyes closed. He said:
Just as cells can grow into organs, organizations of consciousness also grow.
You need to understand this: consciousness is not dead. After consciousness leaves your mind, after that thought leaves you, it will not just disappear; it will grow on its own. Then:
A group of probable selves... will form their own identity structure.
A group of probable selves -- the one drinking water, the one drinking cola, aren't these all probable selves? This group of probable selves can, and indeed does, form their own identity structure, which is the structure of the entity. This is a core concept. You need to understand how your entity comes into being. Is your entity formed by these probable selves? Whether it is the possibilities of reincarnation or the possibilities within this one lifetime, the sum of all these selves, all these probable selves added together, is that not the gestalt of energy? That gestalt of energy, or that gestalt of consciousness, is that not the entity? Yes, that is exactly how the entity is formed.
Moreover, the entity has a structure. What structure? It is composed of countless probable yous; we can call this a kind of structure. The entity is composed of all the probable yous. If you ask about its structure, this is its structure. But what are the characteristics of this structure? Their structure is spontaneous and self-organizing, and therefore every entity is unique and completely different. Because these probable selves will spontaneously form a collective, or gestalt, structure, composed of each individual, yet they also form an overall structure. This overall structure is the entity, is the identity, is what you consider to be your higher self, your higher soul, or higher ego. That is how it comes into being.
So you cannot belittle yourself, because it is composed of you. Although the composed entity is much higher than you, the reason is what I said earlier: the gestalt is always greater than the sum of its parts. Even if you add up all your reincarnations, they still do not equal that gestalt, whether in terms of level, energy, or ability. The difference is not just a little; it is not a difference in quantity but a difference in magnitude. But you are still the most essential part that composes it. Without you, that entity would be incomplete. It is that simple.
It is like saying our body is composed of every cell. Each cell is very weak, its abilities very limited; it can't do much. It can only obtain nutrition, develop, and grow at its own level; it has its own life cycle. But when all these cells come together to form a person, the things that person can do are far, far greater than what a single cell can do. Can a cell speak? Can a cell operate a computer? Can a cell manufacture a cell phone? Can a cell write? Can a cell carry things? Can a cell fly to the moon or Mars by itself? Never. But fifty trillion cells gathered together form this person, and this person is the gestalt of those cells. It is composed of all the cells; in essence it encompasses the consciousness of all the cells, but it has a new consciousness, which is the consciousness of this person. The consciousness of this person can be said to be a consciousness structure spontaneously formed from all the cellular consciousnesses, and this new consciousness structure -- the consciousness of this person -- is not the same consciousness as the cellular consciousness. It is completely independent and transcends the cellular consciousness. They are not the same kind of consciousness; they are not consciousnesses of the same level.
Let us compare each probable self to a cell. Then who is the entity? Who is the identity? The identity can be compared to our body, to this person. Understanding it this way, the birth and death of each of your cells is equivalent to the arising and passing away of one probable self or one reincarnation. We use this analogy so that you can better understand the relationship between you and your entity, or between you and your higher self. How could your higher self possibly not love you? How could your higher self possibly not cherish you? Would you not love your cells? Would you stick your hand into a fire and burn it to pieces? No. Would you kill yourself? No -- aside from suicide, which is a different concept -- a normal person protects every cell in his body. But that kind of protection does not require special attention to the feelings of every individual cell. It does not need to specifically say, "I am paying attention to a certain cell in a certain area of my liver." You don't need to do that; one overall intention is enough. That overall grace of yours -- because you are a very large consciousness, the energy and the frequency of consciousness of your grace -- they can all perceive it completely.
Just as we, as a person, as an individual, are like a single cell in the universe, so the universe's overall grace and care for every thing in it -- all things in this universe, including us humans -- is similar to our care for our cells, only greater, never smaller; only more, never less. But it is also not the kind of care directed at one specific individual that you imagine; it is not that. So this is the structural analogy of how this thing works. I hope everyone can understand it better.
He said that the entity's structure is quite aware of the probable selves that participate in it. That is, this entity is composed of all these probable selves, so does it know every probable self? Yes, it knows. Just as we say, how could a person not know his cells? It is your conscious mind that does not know. Let me make this clear first. Your conscious mind does not know the existence of every cell, but you have another inner self, and that inner self is the self beneath what we call the subconscious, the part of you that is unconscious. It knows every one of your cells. The same is true here: this identity, this entity, is aware of every probable self, quite aware.
He said:
In your reality, experience is dependent upon time.
In our world, we all think that experience is measured by time. How long you studied a certain skill, how long you have been married, how long you have been in love -- we all use time as the standard for experience. But he said that not all experience is structured this way. In other realities, experience is not structured by time; it has nothing to do with time. For example:
Some parallel times are also easily followed, just as you follow sequential time.
In some realities, parallel times exist, and the existence of these parallel times, just like the existence of our linear time, can also be followed. It is just that we do not currently have this ability. We can only follow one main line of our life; you cannot simultaneously live two main lines of life, let alone two hundred or two thousand main lines. But this is a limitation of our space-time and a limitation of our conscious ability; it does not mean that in other realities this ability does not exist. It does exist.
Do you remember that in Seth Speaks, when discussing the reincarnation of the soul, there was a third choice, which is in the world of probabilities? It said that this person no longer needs to reincarnate back to Earth. When he is in that in-between zone, he can choose the script or plot of his next incarnation, and then he can simultaneously experience all probable experiences. He does not need to be in the human world, because in the human world you can only experience one single thread at a time. Although probable yous may be experiencing different other possibilities -- possibly countless lines -- for the present you, you can only experience this one line. But that third state, when this soul no longer incarnates, when he chooses the third way, he is in that world of probabilities simultaneously experiencing all probable timelines; he experiences them simultaneously. Is this not like our conscious ability going up a level, up a tier, or ascending a dimension?
In other words, for example, he may have dated five girlfriends in this life, but you only married one of them; the others he did not marry. But in that probability, those five yous exist simultaneously, and all five married those five girls. Of course, there are also five who all broke up; those yous also exist simultaneously. There may also be ten yous existing simultaneously, and even more yous -- the you who never met this girl also exists. I am just talking about these possibilities. So you should know that we cannot use our standards to measure the standards of other realities. You cannot speculate or conjecture that other realities are the same as ours, that experience must follow time.
He said:
The structure of probabilities deals with parallel experience at all levels.
I am now talking about probabilities. When we speak of probabilities, it is a parallel experience at all levels, and it is processed simultaneously. Again, do not think that probability means I experience this one and then experience that one, first experiencing that one and then this one. No. Probabilities operate simultaneously; they are a parallel experience. This is something we find hard to understand. We can understand parallel experience, but you cannot experience it. You cannot simultaneously experience the feeling of existing in all the parallel worlds where you exist. You can imagine this feeling: your consciousness picks and chooses, and where does it pick and choose? It picks and chooses among those parallel experiences, among the parallel experiences at all levels. This can also be called picking and choosing within the repository of probabilities.
The Word "Plane"
Here he uses "parallel experience at all levels." The word "plane" does not appear very often here; it appears a great deal in The Early Sessions. Let me first explain "plane." In English it is "plane," the same word as for an airplane. Why does he use this word? The meaning of "plane" is not the same as the reality of parallel space-time. What is called parallel space-time, or parallel time-space, is simply another time. The plane can also be understood this way, but it is a bit smaller than that, not as large. This word is best understood by its original English meaning -- airplane.
We can imagine that each airplane is a different plane. For example, today you fly United, or Delta, or Air China; no matter which airline's plane you take, after you board and the plane takes off, while the plane is in the sky, the people in this cabin are all on one plane. People on the same plane can have physical contact and communication with each other; they can interact. In the cabin, you can talk with the flight attendants, with the people sitting next to you, with others around you; conflicts may also occur -- that doesn't matter; you can interact. But you cannot have any interaction with people on other airplanes. On this one airplane in the sky, you cannot interact with people on another airplane. That is the meaning of "plane." Are you in the same space-time framework? Yes. But can you make contact? No, you cannot. Can you see each other? There is that possibility. For example, occasionally during takeoff or landing, you may see other planes taking off or landing, but that is all. Can you see what the people inside those other planes look like during takeoff and landing? Theoretically possible, but practically impossible. Even if you could see -- suppose another passenger plane is flying alongside you, and through the window you can see the other side -- you can only see; can you make contact? No. Maybe once in ten thousand flights you might encounter this possibility, that another passenger plane happens to fly right beside you at the same time, but that probability is almost nil.
So what is called a plane is this: you are separated, in two different space-times. Although you are on one overall large space-time level, there is no intersection between you; there is no interaction; your plane and its plane have no overlap. But planes are not absolutely non-intersecting; it is just that while you are on this plane, they do not intersect. Once you leave this plane, you can intersect. For example, when you arrive at the airport, you get off the plane, and people from other planes also get off. You all walk through gate number such-and-such into the airport hall -- into that terminal -- and when you are all in the terminal, all the people from all the planes are together, and you have the possibility of interaction, because you have left your original plane.
The second situation: while within a plane, there are some individuals with stronger abilities who can still communicate with other planes, but only in limited ways. For example, through radio communication. On this plane, the captain, or the pilot and co-pilot, are people with stronger abilities on this plane; they can communicate through radio with captains on other planes. You can also use the plane's broadcast system -- suppose there is an emergency and you urgently need to find someone on another flight -- we are speaking of theoretical possibility -- you can also have the airport relay the message. Or if someone on the plane falls ill, the captain can call the ground, and the ground is another plane; through ground ambulance personnel, they can prepare at the airport and wait for you to land to rescue you. So theoretically, planes are isolated from one another, but they are not completely isolated; they have the ability to communicate with each other, but not everyone has this ability. And this communication and interaction is also limited; you cannot do physical interaction, only communication and information exchange.
I use this airplane example so that you can truly understand what the word "plane" represents. Because it will be used often in the future, so when you think of "plane," do not immediately think of parallel space-time. There are countless parallel space-times in this world; of course, understanding it that way is not wrong, and there is no essential problem, but understanding it as "plane" is better, because then you can get closer to what Seth intended to convey. That is, there are not as many kinds of space-time as you imagine, but there are infinite, endless planes. When you are on your own plane, you are not aware of the people existing on other planes. So these probable yous are somewhat like those planes -- you can call them parallel space-times, or you can call them probable planes. For example, the you who wants to drink water and the you who wants to drink cola may be on different planes, unable to sense each other's existence, yet they are all superimposed in the same space-time. I am telling you this as a deeper understanding of the word "plane," so don't keep bringing up parallel space-time all the time.
Let us continue discussing the structure of probabilities, which refers to parallel experiences at all levels. Your consciousness picks and chooses among these parallel experiences, and only accepts the result or branch of some overall purpose, desire, or intent, treating it as real.
What are your standards and basis for choosing? First, it may be an overall purpose. For example, in Jane's case, Jane wanted in this life to do things related to mysticism. Her mystical nature was innate; it was one of the most primary and strongest attributes of her entity. So this mystical nature is an overall purpose. When you make very small choices, they are actually also encompassed within this overall purpose. So no matter how Jane chooses -- to be a writer, to be a nun, or to channel Seth and write these materials -- she is doing things related to mysticism. This is Jane's overall purpose; in every kind of probability, she has this overall purpose.
Then it is also related to desire. As I just said, drinking cola is a very small desire of hers; she does not want to drink water. Few young people nowadays drink water; they all drink beverages. That is her desire. Intent is the same principle, except that intent is larger and more stable than desire. Desire is more short-term; intent is more long-term and stable. Then there is result, or branch. The purpose branches, the desire branches, the intent branches, and he treats this as real existence.
Let me say it in reverse: each person, according to his own overall purpose, present desire, momentary impulse, or some purposeful meaning or intentional choice, selects from the repository of probabilities, from the simultaneous parallel experiences of probabilities, according to these purposes, intents, and desires, picking and choosing those things he wants, and then treats them as real. Those he did not choose, he considers unreal, merely a possibility.
You follow these through a framework of time. After choosing, you place them into our space-time framework. You must place them into the space-time framework in order for them to be experienced as real. The focus of your consciousness allows other equally valid experiences to become invisible or unfelt, because your focus is concentrated only on these experiences you have selected. Those experiences that are not focused upon, you cannot see; we call this being out of focus or defocused. It is like when you get your eyes dilated during an eye exam; after dilation, you cannot focus, and you cannot see anything clearly. Those other equally valid experiences, you consider invisible, nonexistent, or unfelt. But once you focus on those experiences you previously did not pay attention to, those experiences immediately come alive, exist vividly, become real. It is that simple.
So whether it is The Nature of Personal Reality or The Nature of the Psyche, when they tell you to change your belief system, to change your beliefs, they are actually telling you to change the focus of your consciousness, to place your attention on what you want, rather than on the things you are anxious about, afraid of, or worried about.
In the same way, you cling to one personal biological history, and you also cling to only one overall history of the Earth. You acknowledge only one physical self; you do not acknowledge the others. The history of the Earth actually has many versions, but you acknowledge only this one. All the others that you have not recognized, not felt, not seen, continue around you all the time. The fact that you cannot see them does not mean they do not exist; they still exist and occur around you. And the other probable selves of your own are experiencing their histories parallel to your history. Remember, parallel, not exactly the same, but still within one large historical background.
In practical terms of sense data, those worlds do not meet. From your outer senses, these worlds will not meet. Just like the people on the two airplanes I mentioned: while on the planes, unless you get off, you will never meet on that airplane plane; you only have intersection with people on your own plane. But in deeper terms, from a deeper perspective, they overlap. For example, from the higher perspective of the Earth, aren't these airplanes all on the Earth? They are all flying in the sky; it is just that one you boarded a plane to Paris, and another you boarded a plane to New York. They will not meet, but you have to say they overlap.
As for any of the endless events that happen to you and Ruburt, each one of them happened, except that the length of your attention simply does not include such activity.
Let me give a vivid example. Little Flying Bug told me this a couple of days ago, and I thought it was excellent. We can imagine our attention as the tip of a strand of hair. Suppose our consciousness is only there; the eyes, nose, ears, and senses are all at that point. You can only feel the perception of that one point at the tip of the hair. It is extremely sharp, and it sways very strongly; when the wind blows, that hair strand sways. You can only feel the tip, but your overall perception is the entire hair. The feeling of every segment along that length can be different, not the same as the feeling at the tip. But you can only feel the tip; you cannot feel the sensations of every point along the entire length of the hair, because your perceptive ability, your attention, can only focus on that tip. You do not notice that the entire length of the hair root is you; you also do not notice that you are not just the tip of the hair -- you are the entire hair. Going further, the entire hair is far too insignificant for you as a person; you cannot even feel the whole hair, let alone feel your head, your body, the consciousness of you as a person.
Suppose your identity or entity is there, unmoving, like the body standing or sitting there. Relative to the hair strand, the tip of the hair does not move, but the swaying of that hair tip is very obvious, whether from the wind or from external disturbances. The closer to the end, the more it sways, the more it vibrates. Whether we practice spiritual cultivation or return to the true self, it is about returning to that real self, returning to that place that does not move much. Its not moving does not mean it cannot see everything; only when it is still can it perceive the sensations of every point on every hair strand, every hair clip. But when you are focused only on the tip of the hair, constantly swaying yourself, you cannot see the swaying of your own hair, or even the swaying of other hairs, because you yourself are still busy swaying, in that dazzling, ever-changing confusion.
Why do we need to return to the true self? It is like a big tree: the roots do not move, but the treetop sways constantly, and every leaf on the tree also sways constantly. When you return to the consciousness of the tree, you can feel the swaying of every leaf, the swaying of every branch. Many people think that when they reach the state of unmoving suchness, the state of stillness, is there nothing at all? No, it is not nothing; it is everything, as if there were nothing. And we ordinary people are like every leaf swaying in the wind, too obviously affected by the external environment, unable to gather our minds and return to our true source. You are that tree; it itself does not move.
This endless creativity can seem so dazzling to you -- this endless creativity, where all possibilities exist, is of course dazzling to you. All the possible events in your life have actually all happened, so much so that the individual would seem to be lost within it. Because all possibilities tell you they exist simultaneously, are you a bit confused? There is a you who is a scientist, a you who runs a street stall, a you who is a professor, a you who is a petty thug, a you waiting in prison to serve a sentence. When all these identities are piled onto you, you do not know which one is really you. He says "seem," because in reality it will not happen; your sense of individuality, your sense of identity, will never be lost, but the feeling it gives you is as if you were lost.
Consciousness forms its own organization and psychic interactions on all levels. To put it more plainly, this one you has all the possible yous existing, and all these possible yous live on different levels. There is no intersection between them, and you cannot sense their existence through your senses. But they are all formed by one consciousness, formed by that larger consciousness above. That larger consciousness is not the consciousness of the entity; it is your own consciousness. This consciousness of yours rides above all these possibilities. It has its own intent, its own awareness, and it forms its own possibilities. All these possible selves have inner communication among themselves, because they are all composed of consciousness. So consciousness can form its own organization on all levels -- on this plane it forms one set of organization, on that plane it forms another set. Going on a blind date with Zhang San is the level of living with Zhang San; marrying Li Si generates the level of living with Li Si. These two different levels each organize their own organizations. No matter how they live, their inner consciousness, on the subconscious level and the unconscious level, communicates with each other. Amazing, isn't it? They communicate with each other.
Any consciousness automatically attempts to express itself in all possible directions. Why do so many possible selves exist? Many people do not understand. First, do not ask why on the question of the universe. This was mentioned three times in the previous book The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. You can only accept it with a peaceful heart, feel it with a peaceful heart, rather than asking why. Second, Seth still gives you an explanation close to what humans can accept: because consciousness automatically attempts to express itself in all possible directions. It wants to try out all possibilities. This is the nature of consciousness. It not only thinks this way, it also does it, trying out all possibilities.
In so doing, it again experiences All That Is through its own existence. This is of course interpreted through its own familiar reality. It has done all possible existences, and in this process it feels All That Is. All That Is is all possible existences, so what they do is the same as what All That Is does. Here All That Is is put in quotation marks, meaning that what you truly experience is the real All That Is? No, it is not the real one; it is what you feel you have experienced. Because within that reality, it is All That Is understood through the camouflage, distortion, or interpretation of that reality; it is not the true All That Is.
So do not say, "Oh, I will go try this possibility." Just boldly go try it. Even if you do not try it, another possible you is trying it. Rather than letting someone else experience that novelty, why not experience it yourself? The possible you experienced it, but you did not experience it. What does someone else's experience have to do with you? That is another you, on another level. So do not limit yourself. Try all possibilities as much as you can within your range, within the range you can realize. And do not think about whether you are a scumbag or not. Your soul is a scumbag, your consciousness is a scumbag. It tries out all possibilities. Everything you can think of and cannot think of, everything you have thought of and have not thought of, it has tried them all. There is no way around it; your consciousness is just that much of a scumbag. Whether you admit it or not, whether you are willing or not, it is like this.
He says you grow possible selves the way a flower grows petals. This is the most natural thing. Another meaning is that you are all petals on one flower. The possible you and every other one all come from the same source. You cannot say which is more important or less important; every petal is important. But the meaning of his metaphor is this: each possible self will go all the way in its own reality. It will go all the way in its own reality, meaning it will experience the full range of its innate capacities to the fullest extent. This possible self must unfold all its possibilities on that level. Once generated, it will not disappear, will not be destroyed, and will keep going. Going all the way means, for the human body, the end of physical life. But its consciousness does not go all the way. Where does the consciousness go? This was discussed in the previous session. One of Rob's mother's possible mothers died at 59, the one who was a nurse, and then her energy returned to the one in this world.
In your terms, you pick out one birth and one death. This sentence is very important. In our human terms, because you take physical life as the standard. You yourself picked one birth and one death. Among all these possibilities, the birth may be the same one, but the deaths may be different, and the branching of the paths is different. But each one must go all the way, all the way to death. In the middle it is impossible to say, "I quit halfway, I do not want to live with Li Si anymore." You chose such a possibility, so you go all the way. Going all the way does not mean staying with Li Si all the way to the end; you can divorce in the middle, but you must keep going to the end of your life.
He says to Rob: But in this life that you think of as yours, as a young boy, you died in an operation, before you even reached 16. Then you also died in the war -- Rob served in the military and participated in World War II, when he was a pilot2 -- but those were not your official deaths, and you did not recognize them. In another probable world, those really happened. You have already died twice.
Science likes to think it deals with predictable actions, and it does not want to study unpredictable things. Science also knows that in the microscopic realm, the micro world is unpredictable; it is fully aware of this. But because the micro world has no influence on our macro world, scientists think the macro world is predictable. From the movement of celestial bodies down to airplanes and trains, everything visible to our naked eyes conforms to Newton's basic laws. In the macro world Newton's laws are valid, and on larger scales Einstein's space-time unity is also valid. Only the micro world is unpredictable, but so what? We do not live in the micro world. That is the scientists' view.
True order and organization, even concerning biological structure, can only be expressed by acknowledging a basic unpredictability. The order and organization we think of are achieved only on the basis of this unpredictable possibility. That is, the macro world is built upon an unpredictable micro world. Without this unpredictable micro world, the macro world could not exist. The macro world appears to have regularity and organization, but its bottom layer or foundation is unmeasurable and unpredictable. I know this sounds very shocking: all order is built upon disorder.
Basically the motion of any wave or particle or entity is unpredictable, unrestrained, and undecided. Waves are energy waves, particles are microscopic particles, and entities are even more mysterious -- they may be neither waves nor particles, and may also be a kind of consciousness or some kind of energy. Their motions are unpredictable, unrestrained, and undecided. So do not ask me again whether my life is predestined, whether it is fixed and determined. Everything is undecided. Your life is a result of unpredictability. Your psychological structure is the same. Can you predict what you will think tomorrow? You cannot even predict what you will think in the next second.
But if you see a fairly consistent picture, our macro world is consistent, and certain laws seem to apply. You think you have discovered laws, so you think the laws existed first, and then all things in the world came into being, and physical reality followed. Actually that consistent picture is the result of the unpredictable nature of all energy, and this nature is necessarily the basic nature of all energy. Do you remember when I talked about the properties of energy, I said energy has a core property: it automatically achieves a kind of coordination, and what it manifests is coordination. Because energy has this coordination, you see all things in the world displaying a consistent state. But energy itself is uncertain and unpredictable. Do you remember that in the discussion of energy I also mentioned that energy tries as much as possible to attempt all forms of transformation and conversion? That is also a property of energy. It tries different carriers, different forms, different changes.
Statistics provides an artificial, predetermined framework within which your reality is examined. What you call science first provides a framework, and then uses this framework to fit your reality, so of course it will conform. Mathematics is a theoretical, organized structure that itself imposes upon you those concepts of order and predictability. One plus one must equal two; this is perfectly normal. Mathematical laws cannot be changed, so our world is predictable.
Last year I recommended to everyone an American TV series called Devs3. It was about how they used a quantum computer, and when its computing power became very strong, it could already simulate any possible prediction. It could calculate and infer all future possibilities, and it could also go backward, even recreating the history of Jesus Christ at that time. But in the end the system collapsed. You can go watch that show; it is very interesting. But is the future actually predictable? From a certain angle, if your quantum computing power is strong enough, it is predictable, but its nature is unpredictable. The premise that it displays a part of predictability is that its bottom layer has unpredictability. All predictability is built upon unpredictability, and all order is built upon all disorder. If you cannot understand this, then you truly cannot understand spirituality or the truth of the universe. It lives within this paradox. You also cannot understand why the Buddha insisted on the principle of non-duality -- not one and not two, not this and not that, or both this and that. If you still judge with good and bad, right and wrong, then you have not entered the door of spirituality; you have not even touched the doorway.
Statistically, the position of an atom can be theorized, but no one knows where any particular atom is at any particular time. This is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle -- for anything microscopic down to the atomic level, you can either measure its position or its momentum, but you cannot measure both at the same time. This is one of the most core theories of quantum mechanics. You are examining probable atoms. You are composed of probable atoms. So there is a popular science book on quantum mechanics called God Does Play Dice; you can find it and read it. It was written a long time ago, and it popularizes quantum mechanics. If you do not understand quantum mechanics, there is another book called The Quantum Heart; the reading group is currently discussing it. The so-called wave function is a probability function, so they are composed of probable atoms, and we are also composed of probable atoms.
If consciousness is to be completely free, it must be endowed with unpredictability. If you admit that our consciousness is completely free, then it must have complete unpredictability. If a consciousness can be predicted, can you still say it is free? Can you still say it is free will?
All That Is must constantly, by freely giving itself freedom, surprise itself and itself and itself. Remember this word: surprise. Why? It must give consciousness absolute freedom and absolute unpredictability in order to produce possibilities that completely surpass what All That Is originally envisioned. Because of the unpredictability of consciousness, this world can be so brilliant and so dazzling.
Many people ask me, what did our soul send us here to do? What is my life mission? What is my life blueprint? What I often say is: the soul did not send you here to read from a script like a puppet on strings. The soul sent you here to produce experiences that make even it dumbfounded, astonished, and unexpected. If it could imagine all of them, why would it send you here? It gave you consciousness and free will because it wants you to do things that even surprise it.
So this basic unpredictability runs through all levels of consciousness and existence. That is, unpredictability is a basic property of all universes or of All That Is. A particular cellular structure may seem inevitable within its own frame of reference, only because the opposite or contradictory possibilities did not appear within it. A cell forms a structure that seems to us as if it could only be this way: for a cell to survive in the human body's environment, it can only have this basic structure -- cell membrane, cell wall, nucleus, and so on. You think this is inevitable, but that is because possibilities completely different from the cell structure you understand did not appear in your world. The unpredictability of cells is beyond your imagination; you just cannot observe it. What you see are all possibilities that already conform to our space-time structure or fit this environment.
In your terms, consciousness maintains its sense of identity by accepting one possibility, one specific life, and maintaining its identity throughout that life. The premise of this is from the three-dimensional perspective, or from the perspective of us humans on Earth. Our human consciousness accepts, from the matrix of possibilities, those things you picked out that match your will, purpose, and desire, and then arranges them in the three-dimensional world according to the sequence of time -- first do this, then do that. This is your life. In this life you also maintain your sense of identity. You have self-recognition -- I am a student, I am a boy -- all the way until death, maintaining this sense of identity.
Even so, some events are remembered while others are forgotten. Can you remember what you ate on this day last year? Of course not. Never mind last year, you cannot even remember last week or last Sunday.
When a consciousness matures and becomes proficient, it will learn to handle alternate moments. Alternate moments is a term that appeared in The Nature of Personal Reality. You can also understand it as another present, a probable present. When your conscious ability reaches a certain level, you will use the method of the point of power to replace your current present with another present. This is called the replaceable moment. When you replace in this way, you can change the past and change the future. Because the alternate present has changed, the point of possibility entered through this present can be changed. If you are not familiar with this part, I suggest you go back and read The Nature of Personal Reality, probably around the section before and after the point of power, where he discussed this alternate moment.
When consciousness matures to this extent, it forms a new, larger framework of identity, just as cells on another level form an organ. What he means is that when your level of consciousness can use or manipulate this alternate present to change the past, present, and future, your sense of identity is no longer limited to the original cognition within this present space-time. For example, you originally thought your current identity was just this -- a student who graduated from university, started working, and became a small clerk in a company. When you enter the world of probabilities through the alternate present, you discover that after graduating from university you went to graduate school and got a PhD, entered a research institute, and became a scientist; you also discover that you went into business and made a lot of money. When you can enter these space-times through these probable presents, your sense of identity will gather together the consciousness of all these possible yous and automatically form a larger sense of identity.
Your Sense of Identity Will Become Larger
He uses this example to explain it to you: your sense of identity will become a larger one, rather than being limited to the identity you now have as a small clerk in a company. You are the small clerk plus the boss plus the tycoon plus the nouveau riche plus the scientist plus the beggar, and so on, all combined. So what kind of identity is that? That is how you knew yourself at that time, how you identified your own sense of identity at that time, that is your larger sense of identity. But it is not confined to any one kind; it is an integrated, larger sense of identity.
When Seth speaks, he jumps around, so you need to be able to understand the relationships between his contexts.
In your terms, the moment point is the present, the point of intersection between all existence and reality, through which all probabilities flow. Although one of your moment points can be experienced as several centuries in other probable realities of which you are a part, or as just a single breath.
This sentence is even more mysterious, more profound, right. Let's not rush; let's take it in carefully.
Why the Present Moment Is So Important
He says, this present moment -- why must we live in the present? Why do all those meditators, those enlightened people, those old monks, those Zen practitioners, all tell you to live in the present? Why is the present so important? Now you know -- Seth explains it to you.
The great thing about Seth is that he doesn't just tell you what to do; he also tells you why you should do it, and he explains the principles and reasoning behind it. That's what makes people like him and love him the most -- a very lovable little old man.
What does "all existence" mean? All existence is All That Is, and All That Is is the state of All That Is as existence. It can go as high as the level of All That Is -- All That Is is the state of existence. When it intersects with different realities, it forms a manifestation that we can understand within this reality, or a manifestation of a possibility.
So as long as we can live in this present point, you live within all possibilities, you live within all existence. That's the importance of this present point.
Then he goes on to say:
Although this present point is just a present moment to you, for other probable realities -- although it is also in that world -- this point might be as long as several centuries, or it might be as short as a single breath.
Let me give you an example. This example may not be perfectly apt, but it will help you understand. Suppose at this present moment, you are like the scholar in the story of the Yellow Millet Dream, and you have a dream -- that dream is that present moment. During the Yellow Millet Dream, it may only take the time to cook a pot of yellow millet, but in another probable time, he has already lived through a whole life of several decades. If you don't know it, you can look up the story of the Yellow Millet Dream. In that very short time, he experienced another probable lifetime of his -- a whole lifetime, not just the highlights of a life, but every single day lived through. He only woke up at the moment of his execution and returned to the Yellow Millet Dream; if not for the execution, he probably would have kept living in there.
So with this example you can understand. At this present moment of yours, for example, when you enter meditation, or when your mind is thinking right now, considering a possibility, you feel it's just a possibility, a fleeting thought in your mind, saying, "If I married so-and-so, it might be a different kind of life." The moment you think that, in another probable world, you and that so-and-so may have already lived a whole lifetime together.
Let me give a concrete example so it's easier to understand: one day you might have a fleeting thought, saying, "Marrying Zhang San might be pretty good too; maybe I could experience a different kind of life." The moment you think that, in the probable world with Zhang San, the two of you have lived a whole lifetime. Then you might think, "Wouldn't it also be nice to live with Li Si?" And you live a whole lifetime in the probability with Li Si. But in Zhang San's probable world, Zhang San never thought about living a lifetime with Li Si -- he couldn't stand him, or maybe he doesn't even know Li Si.
So what he means is that this present point of yours, for certain probabilities, for certain probable worlds, might be several years, several decades, a whole lifetime; or it might be nothing at all, with no such probability existing whatsoever.
Ruburt's Sense of Vastness
Ruburt felt vast at this moment, and you can refer to Appendix 3 for this. Ruburt felt vast, and Rob wrote many appendices; you can look at them when you have time, and they will specifically introduce the concrete matters related to each session.
He was experiencing several things. His inner cells — while Ruburt was transmitting, at this time he felt his body had grown larger, immensely vast, feeling like a giant gorilla. The consciousness of his inner cells felt themselves to be vast. Ruburt felt vast because his cells felt themselves to be vast.
Although to you, cells are tiny, when each cell feels its own consciousness has become very large, your entire consciousness as a person will also feel that you have become very large.
For example, Seth crumpled the wrapping paper of an empty cigarette pack; the sound of crumpling the pack, or the sound of fingernails scraping across the table — he made a demonstration, and it was amplified.
Because in the world of the cells, they are an important kind of cosmic world beyond themselves, carrying information of great importance.
Cells are so tiny, so the sound of crumpling the cigarette pack, the sound of fingernails scraping across the table — to the cells, that is simply like a tremendous sound in the universe, like some planet exploding in the cosmos. Yet to you it is nothing at all, but to the cells it is enormous.
Cellular consciousness experiences itself as eternal. Although to you, cells are only a brief life, those cells are aware of the body's history, and in a way far more familiar than your awareness of the earth's history.
What he means is, you think the life of a cell is very short, yet cells are familiar with the entire history of humanity, even the history of the entire planet; they understand far more about us than we understand about them.
When the cells manipulate the body's past and future history, they are also more familiar with it than you are, and they perceive probabilities in a way more familiar than yours.
When your cells are manipulating your body's past, present, and future, they are even more familiar with the existence of these probabilities than you are.
Once again, Ruburt experienced a sense of vastness.
Within your concepts of probability, the cellular structure feels its enormous permanence.
Right, that is, when Ruburt felt himself vast, the cells also felt the vastness of this cellular structure.
When he was dealing with events that to you are not even real, it produced a physical structure, and that structure maintained its sense of identity and predictability from within a vast creative network.
What does this mean? Ruburt now felt his body was vast, like a Tarzan figure. And at this time Seth said, when he felt himself as vast as Tarzan, his cells also had this feeling. The cells felt that their cellular organizational structure — that is, their organs — also grew larger, and it was a lasting kind of enlargement.
Was the event he was dealing with real? It was not real, because if you measured with a ruler, Jane was still the same height; she only felt herself to have grown larger. So when he dealt with this kind of unreal event, he produced a physical structure — he became as if he had really grown larger. But where did this physical structure come from? Where did this kind of physical structure come from?
It is precisely because the cells can maintain a sense of identity and predictability from within a vast creative network. Do cells have a world of probabilities in which they exist? Within the probabilities of the cells, is there not a state of giants? The cells drew upon the existence of those probabilities from the probabilities of beings with enormous size, and then brought that into this world of probabilities, forming a vast physical structure from the cells to the tissues. Once this structure formed, Jane genuinely felt herself to have become immensely vast.
The network is unpredictable, yet from this unpredictable network, Ruburt could predictably flick his cigarette ashes into the shell.
When he said this, Jane picked up her favorite ashtray — the shell ashtray we found in 1958 on the Baja California peninsula4 — and flicked some ashes into it. That place is Mexico; going south from California, past San Diego, past Tijuana, that is the Mexican peninsula.
He said, the cells took out the probability of a giant-like cellular structure, and that network itself is unpredictable. The amazing thing is that while Jane was in this state of an unpredictable network at the cellular level, she could still very naturally and gracefully flick her ashes into the ashtray. The predictability of her gesture was built upon an unpredictability.
During this period, many, many other actions could have occurred, and in other realities they really did occur.
What he means is, on other levels or in other probabilities, Jane did not flick the ashes into the ashtray; Jane might not even have held onto the ashtray, perhaps the ashtray fell to the floor, perhaps Jane's hands and feet did not obey her. These probabilities also really occurred in other realities. And why in this reality did her ashes land precisely inside? It is because Jane wanted this probability; she chose the probability of flicking the ashes precisely into the ashtray, and she manifested it in this world. And the probabilities of not landing inside, of landing on the floor, of the ashtray falling — these also occurred on other levels of probability, and they really occurred as well.
Choice: You Pick What You Want from Unpredictable Actions
He now asks us for a moment, and you rest well too, your hand and Rob rest. If everyone has listened up to here, you can also go rest, you can pause for a while and rest.
All right, let us continue below. Although Jane had many pauses, she spoke steadily for 78 minutes in trance, still sitting straight in her chair, not sitting loosely. Sometimes she would be loose -- when truly transmitting those everyday trivial matters, unimportant things, she was relaxed, lying there lazily; but when transmitting material like this, she instinctively sat straight. She sipped beer in small mouthfuls.
After a minute's pause, Seth continued:
Now, your beliefs, with intent, cause you to choose, from a group of unpredictable actions, those you want to happen, and you experience those events.
Since this world is unpredictable, how does it appear as if it were predictable? The reason is because of your beliefs and intent, you choose from those unpredictable actions of probability what you want, and then you experience those things, you experience what you have chosen.
He then said to Rob:
Your desire to live crossed over the death of that child in the operation.
He put it in quotation marks, because this "you" refers to the "you" of the Rob who is alive now, not the "you" of the Rob who died on the operating table at that time.
That probability exists, but in this life of yours, in this probable world of yours, it did not happen, because your desire to survive was too strong. And that child, in that probable event, died on the operating table before the age of 16, and that was because he wanted to die, he had the wish to die. And why did this Rob not die? Because this Rob had the wish to live. He uses this extreme example to tell us: although all probabilities exist, your desire, your wish, your purpose, determine what you choose.
People are as free as atoms.
What does it mean to be as free as atoms? Unpredictability, atoms are unpredictable, an atom is a principle of probability. People are the same.
He asked us to wait a moment, and rested again.
You cannot at all predict what will happen to that child in your own photograph, and you also cannot predict what is happening to you now.
The photograph he spoke of, the child he spoke of, refers to the photograph taken when Rob was two years old. You cannot predict what will happen to him in the future, and you also cannot predict what is happening to you now.
You can choose to accept any number of unpredictable events as your reality. In that respect, the choice is yours.
You can choose one, two, a hundred, a thousand, you can place these probable events into your life, you take them as your reality, as your actuality. But all the events you do not accept, that you have not chosen, will still happen in the end. The ones you hate most, the ones you least want to happen, they will still happen in the end, but they do not happen in this reality of yours, they happen in another reality.
Each of You Brothers Has a Different Mother
In a very small way, when you think of your mother in her later years, and compare your idea of her with your brothers' idea of her, you can see how this works.
He gives an example, saying that Rob, you have three brothers, and when the three of you brothers think of your mother, each of you perceives her differently. But she is herself.
Although certain agreed-upon historical events are accepted, she takes into her reality whatever portions of your probable realities she chooses. Each of you brothers has a different mother.
This sentence is interesting again. For example, some people think their mother is a very cheerful person, some think their mother is a gloomy, very realistic person, and some think their mother was frustrated all her life and that her relationship with their father was not that good. But was her relationship with his father good? Of course it was, because his father came in this lifetime precisely to make up for the emotional deficiency toward her in that lifetime as an inventor, so his father's feelings toward her were quite good. But after the birth of the third son, Richard, his father basically fell into a state of senility, or of being oblivious to worldly affairs, so his mother was also quite depressed in her later years. Also, his mother liked material things, was realistic, and liked money, but his father in this lifetime had no great interest in making money; his father came in this lifetime for the sake of emotion. So let me fill in some background for everyone.
His three children's perceptions of their mother were different. He says it is as if his mother had three mothers, living respectively in the different probable worlds of the three brothers. For example, in Rob's world, his mother was someone who particularly depended on Rob, hoping that Rob could take the place of his father's role and shoulder the burden of supporting the family and making money. The second and third sons' perceptions of their mother were another kind of probability.
But he says his mother is herself, and she takes the experiences of these three probable selves living in the three brothers' different realities into herself, all of them into her own reality. Whatever kind of experience, she takes it all into her own reality, forming herself.
So from this angle, you will often find that why is the same person a completely different person in different people's minds, or in different people's words? Why is a certain leader so lovable and amiable in some employees' words, yet so repulsive in other employees' words? Why is the same person adored beyond measure and seen as utterly perfect in one woman's eyes, yet seen as terribly lacking in another woman's eyes? This is because you understand: they live in different probabilities.
The Focus of Consciousness
Probabilities intersect in your experience, and their intersection is what you call reality. Biologically and psychically, these are crossing points, meeting points, a focus that consciousness adopts.
He coined a term here, coming together. His choice of words is very deliberate: coming, in the process of; together, in one place. Present progressive tense. Why? Because all things happen simultaneously, so he used "coming together" rather than "came together," precisely to make that distinction.
What does this mean? All these probabilities, so many of them, how do they intersect with our everyday reality? How do these probabilities manifest in our everyday reality? The intersection is this: when the focus of your consciousness rests upon one of them, that probability manifests within your space and time, and you call it reality. We call it manifestation — using "manifestation" makes it easier to understand — or it becomes actual, becomes real.
Putting it in plain words: all these probabilities exist, and they exist simultaneously. So which one actually has an intersection with our reality? Which one can actually become a real actuality in our world? There is only one way: whichever one you choose. In other words, whichever one you choose is whichever one the focus of your consciousness is placed upon. That is the function of the focus of consciousness.
So all the exercises we do, all the manifestation exercises we do — what is their core really doing? They keep having you place your conscious attention, your focus of consciousness, upon the state you want to become, whether psychologically, biologically, in terms of feeling, or emotionally. They keep having you place the focus of consciousness there. It is that simple. Now you understand why those mental laws work, why they are effective — it is right here: they simply manifest those probabilities, bring them forth into your world.
All the Atoms and Molecules of Your Body Exist Now
Once again, Ruburt is still experiencing the sensation of enormity. All those atoms and molecules that have composed your body since your birth and will keep composing it until your death, in your terms, exist now.
It says that the atoms and molecules that compose your body exist now. From your birth to your death, the molecules and atoms throughout your entire life process are not something you can only experience at the moment of your birth, or at the moment of your death -- the batch of molecules and atoms at death is certainly not the same batch as at birth, and the cells are certainly not the same group either. People often say: every 28 days all the cells in the body are replaced, or every few months all the body's cells are replaced5. So the cells at your death are definitely not the same batch of cells as at your birth.
But what is Seth telling you? At this present point, from your birth to your death, all your cells, all your atoms -- all the atoms and molecules that are ever your body's -- they exist now. The cells at your birth and the cells at your death, the sum total of all the cells from all the stages of your life, all exist, and they exist now. Are those cells all probable existences? Right. So they all exist.
Therefore, even your knowledge of the body is in a time form, that is, experienced bit by bit.
This sentence is even more interesting. Your body from birth to death, at any point in your life, is a total experience, a holographic experience. That is to say, at any point in your life, you can experience the entire complete process from your birth to your death -- you have this ability. But because you are born into this three-dimensional world, you can only experience it bit by bit, one second, one hour, one minute, one day at a time, year after year, enduring it, experiencing it, feeling it, using this time form to feel the entire process of your body from birth to death. You can only feel it in this way, when in fact you are capable of feeling it all at once, as a whole.
This is like many students who have opened some of the inner senses -- they will share their experiences. For example, when they see a flower, they can simultaneously see the entire process of that flower from full bloom to withering; some people see a tree and can see the whole process of that tree from a seed all the way to its death, to its final rotting there, the whole tree toppling over, withering and falling. Every one of us has this ability, though of course not at the level of our three-dimensional world -- you can experience it only after you open the inner senses. But this ability and this state, it has always been there.
At 11:05, there was a long pause. Ruburt's sensation of enormity came in part from the enormous feeling of simultaneous existence within the body. He felt the body growing larger.
Indescribable calculations take place, so that because of this basic unpredictability, you experience events that appear to be predictable, only because you concentrate upon the reasonable behavior in your reality and ignore the rest.
Jane's experience of the body growing larger is, by normal standards, an unreasonable one -- how could a person's body suddenly grow larger? Jane experienced the body suddenly growing larger more than once. Seth uses this example to say: actually you do have this kind of perception, this unpredictable perception of the body, but you ignore it. It is not only that you may feel the body growing larger -- at many times, for example when a person has a high fever, they may see external objects grow larger or smaller, they may feel they have entered a land of giants or a land of little people, and so on. These are all at the level of ego consciousness cognition.
The reason you cannot feel these things in your present life is that you only accept those reasonable sensations, and you ignore the unreasonable ones. If Ruburt's perception were not sensitive, this sensation of growing larger would also be an unpredictable probability for him, but he did not focus his attention on this matter, so he could not feel it. But this sensation of the body growing larger, at the level of his cells, also exists as a probability -- it is just a matter of whether you can feel it or not.
When we say that you died as a teenager, we do not mean it symbolically, but literally. And the dying child did not hide any cruel fact from the mother, because your mother, in that portion, was the part that regretted having the child.
In another probable reality, you died in your teens. The fact of your death did not bring too much pain to your mother. Why? Because in that probable reality, your mother did not want the child; she regretted having the child. So when the child died, although on the surface she would not say it, it actually coincided with a wish in her heart. Seth is comforting Rob a bit here.
At the same time, an atom can move in more than one direction. You are only scientifically aware of the probable movements that interest you, and the same applies to subjective experience.
What is the characteristic of an atom? At the same moment, it can simultaneously move in multiple directions. It is not that it moves so fast that it is here one moment and there the next -- you are still understanding it at the material level, thinking it is just moving fast. It is not that it moves fast; the atom itself has this ability, it can simultaneously move in multiple directions, it can go both east and west at the same time. This is something we cannot understand at the material level. Many scientific experiments have already proven this -- the motion of microparticles completely transcends our understanding, completely unpredictable.
Then he says, the same is true for a person: you can only feel the probable movements of the part that interests you, and you ignore the parts that do not interest you. The same applies to your subjective experience: you can only perceive the part of subjective experience that interests you, and you cannot feel the subjective experience that does not interest you. This is also why when the same event happens, some people are interested in one part of it, while others are only interested in another part -- this is each person's different choice.
Jane Out of the Trance State
He said you could take a break, and there was another pause in between.
At 11:10, Jane slowly came out of her longest trance state yet. She had been in that state for one hour and forty-two minutes. He said I was merely pointing out one of his many long pauses. Through this you can see that transmitting this material was truly not easy, very difficult indeed -- even Seth needed to keep stopping to think and organize the language.
Jane still felt enormous; her eyes rolled upward, then closed again. Jane said:
"Things are really strange, as if the sky were splitting open. Seth talked about things under control, but now my head has become really huge."
I woke him up, and he said:
"I really feel extremely strange. I don't know whether I should stop this phenomenon or keep following it. I feel my head is really huge now, and it has turned to the right, and it is still spinning. It is enormous."
This was Jane's self-perception.
At 11:15, even though there was no sound outside, everything was ringing -- like the way your ears ring, only stronger.
"Now my whole body is really huge and heavy. I might end it; it is very strange, not pleasant. My teeth seem really enormous, and everything is enormous, including my feet."
Her feeling after this trance state was like this: everything was ringing, everything was vibrating like a tuning fork, like tinnitus, but stronger than tinnitus. Anyone who has experienced this will know that tinnitus often appears during meditation and in certain states, and it can even ring for a long time after your meditation ends. She said it was very strange, but not pleasant; even her teeth had grown larger.
By 11:17, when I was calling him, Jane smiled and said:
"Just now there was an image: I was a giant in a huge room, and then there were some things I didn't understand, an image of myself as a gorilla, or something like that. I was as tall as the ceiling, and I wanted to knock the walls down. I don't quite understand what happened. Now I have become even bigger, and I think I want to come out. Is my face doing anything? Has there been any change?"
She felt as if she had become like King Kong.
At 11:21, four more minutes later, she said:
"I have a feeling that my hair is very long, and it is parted in the middle. It is as if I have some kind of human features, with hair hanging down on both sides of my face. My face is somewhat like an animal's, with very intelligent and very gentle, soft eyes."
Jane finally opened her eyes. She still had tinnitus, and the sound was so loud that she asked me whether I heard the same sound. I told her I did not. We walked around the room, and then I made half a sandwich for him to eat. He said:
"This is somewhat frustrating for me. It is as if I saw or felt what I could do in that moment, and I know there is more information behind that; I can feel them, but I cannot get them out."
He said while eating:
"The sound in my mouth is really loud."
When he drank beer, he felt the cold liquid flowing down through his body, but it was misplaced to the right of her esophagus -- he felt that the liquid did not flow down along the esophagus, but went down from the right side of the esophagus. She described a series of opposite sensations within her body, which she also perceived simultaneously in her larger body. She could feel them both in her present body and in the body that had become as large as a gorilla. Her right foot was very cold, and her back was very hot. I gave her a sweater, because our living room had cooled down; February nights are very cold.
Only Unpredictability Can Give Rise to Order
Finally at 11:47, after another pause of several tens of minutes, Seth continued:
Only from unpredictability can an infinite number of orders or ordered systems possibly arise. Anything less than complete unpredictability will ultimately lead to stagnation or to an order of existence that will eventually destroy itself. Only from unpredictability, from within that system which is also predictable within it -- predictable within that system -- can ordered systems be produced.
Remember this sentence: only from unpredictability can countless ordered and predictable systems possibly arise. Only within this kind of unpredictable possibility can some ordered and predictable systems be born.
Anything less than complete unpredictability, even if it is short by just a tiny bit -- if it is mostly unpredictable with only a little bit predictable, that will not do -- as long as it is not completely unpredictable, it will ultimately lead to stagnation. Because that predictability will cause the entire system to gradually, bit by bit, come to a stop, and in the end it will destroy itself.
You might want to say, I want order, so if I make everything predictable, won't I have order? He says that is wrong: when your unpredictability is incomplete, you will instead destroy your order, and the order you wanted will no longer exist. Only from unpredictability can any system emerge. That system is predictable within itself, but this predictable system can only come into being based on an unpredictability.
Seth is expounding a fundamental principle: the essence of this world is unpredictability, yet our ordered, regular world is born from, generated within, this unpredictability.
Only in complete freedom of movement is any regular movement truly possible.
Movement that seems unpredictable is what leads to regular movement.
Your orderly daily life, your organized behavior, springs out of the chaotic seedbed of dreams.
The real world is all rehearsed by dreams -- he introduced this earlier, so we will not go over it again.
In your reality, the behavior of your consciousness and the behavior of your molecules are very connected. You presuppose a molecular consciousness, and this consciousness of yours is innate within the molecular consciousness, innate within your system, but it is not fundamentally predictable.
In your world, in our three-dimensional world, our consciousness depends on our nerves -- nerves are a molecular structure, a nerve cell structure. So our consciousness, in our three-dimensional world, cannot be separated from them. In the physical world, our consciousness needs to depend on the consciousness of molecules, and the consciousness of molecules gathers together to form our human consciousness. And this human consciousness, at the level of molecular consciousness, is innate -- molecules themselves have this consciousness -- but within your system, it is not fundamentally predictable, meaning it is basically unpredictable.
Predictability implies deep significance. Unpredictability looks at itself in various different ways, discovers that certain parts of itself are deeply significant, and forms around itself certain orders or ordered sequences.
When you think something is ordered, it actually represents meaning. Predictable or ordered represents meaning. And how does this order and meaning come about? It is in this state of unpredictability, looking at itself in various different ways, discovering that certain parts of itself are deeply significant. When it discovers those meaningful parts, it forms certain orders around those parts. And the order and sequence we perceive are these parts; those disordered parts, those meaningless parts, we cannot perceive.
What he means is this: at the human level, at the material level, our consciousness is produced by the operations of cells, nerves, and the brain. In the physical world, consciousness needs a vehicle; in the nonphysical world, it does not need a material vehicle. And in the physical world, consciousness needs a material vehicle -- don't quibble over the fact that consciousness itself does not need a material vehicle; in the physical world, it needs a vehicle, that much you can understand.
Then where does your consciousness come from? It comes from the consciousness of that pile of vehicles. The consciousness of these vehicles constitutes the combination of your consciousness. These vehicles are molecules, and the consciousness of molecules forms your human consciousness. But the consciousness of molecules is far too different from human consciousness, because much of molecular consciousness is meaningless, disordered, and unpredictable. Yet your consciousness gives you the feeling of being ordered and predictable. How does this come about? It is because those disordered, unpredictable parts -- the consciousness formed by molecules, when looking at itself from various angles, discovers that some of it has far-reaching significance, has meaning, and so it forms certain orders and sequences around these meaningful, deeply significant parts. Sequence means there is a temporal order, because neurons have temporality; their transmission has temporality, has order. When you speak of order, you bring up sequence -- without sequence, how can you speak of order? These are interrelated.
So in this state, you feel that your consciousness is ordered and meaningful. The reason is that those meaningless, unpredictable things without much significance are simply ignored by you -- it is not that they do not exist, they still exist, but you only pay attention to those meaningful parts. This is telling you why order can be produced from unpredictability: because your consciousness only focuses on those meaningful, ordered things; those disordered, chaotic things you do not care about. Because the focus is only on order and meaning, you feel that there is meaning and order; it is not that these things are all ordered -- they are fundamentally disordered and unpredictable, but you do not pay attention to that part.
Unpredictability Is the Source of Order
In one of our very early sessions, I told you that within a vast range, we are aware only of certain data that we deem meaningful. That so-called certain data can only be born from the seedbed of unpredictability:
Only unpredictability can provide the greatest source of possible order.
Only unpredictability can provide the order you want. Only complete unpredictability is the collection of all possibilities, and within the collection of all possibilities, are there not possibilities? Right. There is a theory in science about this, I forget how it goes -- you let a gorilla type, give it a typewriter or a keyboard, the gorilla cannot read, and everything it types is completely unpredictable, completely without order. But if you give the gorilla enough time, say ten thousand years or a hundred million years, and it keeps typing without stopping, one day it might type out a complete Shakespeare. What is the probability of typing out Shakespeare? Scientists have done related calculations; I do not know the specific result, but theoretically it is feasible. A gorilla can type out Shakespeare precisely because it has endless unpredictability and possibility. As long as this unpredictability and possibility are endless, there must be order within it. Order is the minority, it is incidental; disorder is the majority, but ordered things are definitely contained within this disorder. If you do not allow this disorder to occur, then the order will also cease to exist.
This way you can understand this passage once again:
A cell is quite capable of handling different kinds of events. Therefore in the dream state, they perceive your experience in their individual way, and from it select those facts that you want to make real, in your terms.
Cells can operate at the level of reality, and they can also operate in the dream state. In the dream state, they select those things you want to make real, to experience in physical life. In dreams, you can know probable events, and then you make your choice from among them. He said to Rob:
So when you died as a child, before that you knew you could choose that death.
This is one possibility. Before you died as a child, you knew you could choose death, and you could also choose not to die. Broadly speaking, from a higher perspective, you chose both life and death. One you chose life, like the present Rob; one you chose to die at that time.
He said you chose life, and you also chose death, you chose both. Isn't this a bit like that Schrodinger's cat thing? And that photograph of you at age 16 was never taken in that reality. In this world of yours, you have a photograph at age 16; but in that reality where you died, where you died during surgery before age 16, there is no such photograph -- because you were already dead.
Then Rob said, Ruburt could only do this much tonight, and this is only a beginning. See, this is only a beginning; he said this is all he could say, he could not go on, because Jane had also reached her limit. Then he gave Jane other material in the middle of the night, and made a joke, saying that Ruburt's probable brain could only translate this much at one time -- he was joking about Ruburt, joking about Jane. At 12:06 a.m., they ended the session.
Jane added a few sentences the next day. She said she did not sleep soundly, and found herself talking about the material on probabilities almost the whole night. She often woke up, and at those moments, when she found that she had not given another session that I had failed to record, she breathed a sigh of relief -- even in her sleep she felt she was talking about the material on probabilities, and would suddenly wake with a start, thinking, "I spoke, and Rob did not record it, wouldn't the material be lost?" So she would wake up frightened. But when she found that she had not actually spoken, that it was not a session that should have been recorded, she breathed a sigh of relief. She said with a laugh that in that case the material was still safe, and we would still get it in a regular session. A regular session means a session where the material is delivered. Jane often told me that on such occasions, she did not feel Seth was present or hear his voice; instead she was only aware of the material running through her -- when she was talking about the material on probabilities in her dreams, Seth was not there; Seth was not present, but the material was.
Note One: Relationship Circles and Personality Structure
The following are some notes. Many notes have been added here; let us go over them briefly, some of the notes are interesting. Note 11 we will skip; it refers to a certain chapter in Seth Speaks. Note 12: long before this, Seth was worried that once we tried to grasp the endlessly branching explanations he was giving us, we might feel very small. He was worried that once we knew there were probable selves, and that there were so many probable selves existing, would this self of ours become very small -- just one of thousands, millions, countless probable selves, and therefore not so important? We used to think we were unique; when we discover we are just one of these many probabilities, will we feel small?
As he said in Session 29 on February 26, 19646 (the early sessions run from Session 1 to Session 5107):
Later I will try to show you where the boundaries are.
Although he smiled, there really are no boundaries. Those boundaries form the various planes, or what could also be called realities -- I explained the term "plane" earlier -- into a relationship circle:
Within which cause and effect operate more or less as you understand them.
This relationship circle is crucial. He said that within this probability time dimension, they form a large circle, a relationship circle: this probability causes that probability, that probability causes this probability, all probabilities strung together become a web of probabilities, or a circle of probabilities, and they are interconnected. And in this process, it seems as though cause and effect operate the way we humans imagine, but actually they do not; it only makes you feel that way. He said that after the various planes we have described to you form a circle, beyond that point, he did not want to go any deeper:
I will speak of entities, personalities, reincarnation, and the various groups of fragment personalities.
What are the differences here? An entity is the same as what we call the entity, or existence, or the fundamental self; they mean the same thing. Below it is the personality -- for example, Jane is a personality, and Ruburt is this entity; Rob is a personality, and above Rob is Joseph, and Joseph is this entity. Then what can each of our reincarnations be seen as? It can be seen as a personality coming down. Then what is a personality fragment? This fragment of the personality can be understood as a probable self, and it can also be understood as the personality of each incarnation; it is incomplete, and can only be seen as a fragment. All these personality fragments added together can form a complete personality -- all the reincarnations added together can form the real you, and that you is your personality.
Regarding this, Seth's accounts have been inconsistent on two occasions, but I think we should not delve too deeply into this. He once had another exposition: the soul, and above the soul there is the oversoul, and so on. The soul is somewhat like the part of the personality I just mentioned, and the oversoul is composed of that group of personalities. So in different books, or in different expressions, Seth's presentation is not entirely consistent. This is because from his perspective, this thing itself is undivided; he does not divide it very clearly, he considers it to be one whole. But in order to explain it clearly, he artificially divides it into entity, personality, personality fragment, soul, oversoul, and so on. So in different lectures, in different contexts, he sometimes gets himself tangled up as he speaks. But this is not important.
Why is it not important? Because this structure itself does not exist. This structure is deliberately divided only for the convenience of explanation, to help you understand. So do not get hung up on it, saying that I must draw a diagram of the relationships among entity and personality, personality essence, personality fragment, and so on -- this thing can be drawn, but it has no substantive meaning; it is only for the convenience of understanding. Once you understand it, wipe it away quickly. You must not carry this structural diagram with you forever, pulling it out whenever you talk with anyone; then you have learned it in a dead way, and you will only end up endlessly arguing with people.
He continued:
Those planes that you are familiar with and can understand... I will tell you about these, and finally try to deal with the question, whether you have asked it or not, of where entities come from.
He will tell you about these. He said:
What I want you to understand is even more than these, some truly astonishing complexities, an intelligence that operates in what I assume you would call a gestalt manner.
This is a very high intelligence, with a truly incredible maturity, very advanced, with awareness, understanding, and vitality as its constituent elements. These are the closest things to the ultimate that I understand. He will unfold it bit by bit; this thing is very complex -- this intelligence that operates in a gestalt manner is very complex. He said:
This material of mine should not make you feel unimportant or small; that is not my intention.
This framework is supported in this way: every particle of consciousness depends on every other particle. Every consciousness depends on other consciousnesses, so do not feel that you are very small, because the whole needs you. The strength of one increases the strength of all; the weakness of one weakens the whole; the energy of one recreates the whole; the striving of one increases the potential of everything. And this places a great responsibility on every consciousness -- precisely because of this, every consciousness has a great responsibility, because each one affects the whole.
I would even suggest that you chew over the above sentence repeatedly, because it is a key, and a very important key: we are part of the whole, and we are both this whole and a part of the whole. On every face of existence, facing challenge is the foundation of existence -- on every face of your existence, in your various worlds, in various parallel space-times, in various universes, you may face challenges, and these challenges are the foundation of this existence; without challenge, this existence would not exist. Facing challenge is the developer of all abilities. And:
Even the smallest particle of consciousness has the responsibility to use its own abilities, and to use its abilities to the utmost.
The strength and coherence of all that exists depend on the degree of this self-completion. Simply put, all of this depends on the strength of every existing thing, and also on the degree of self-completion of every existing thing. That is to say, the better each of us completes ourselves, the greater the contribution to the entire species, to all of humanity. You do not need to accomplish great feats; as long as each person completes themselves well, the same goal can be achieved.
Note Three: The Uncertainty Principle
Note three, he said:
I think that in Seth's last sentence, he is particularly related to the uncertainty principle8, or the principle of indeterminacy, proposed by the German physicist Heisenberg in 1927.
This is what Heisenberg proposed in quantum mechanics. We will not say too much about quantum mechanics. Seth certainly knew about it, so he mentioned it. This principle in quantum mechanics says that it is impossible to simultaneously determine both the momentum and the position of an electron or such a subatomic wave-particle. The day after this session, I asked Jane whether she had heard of Heisenberg or quantum mechanics, and she said she had not. And after I explained it to her as best I could, she still did not understand -- you see, Rob was still using his male logical thinking, wanting to explain to Jane what the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics meant, but Jane did not understand. Actually, sometimes it really is very difficult to explain quantum mechanics clearly to a woman; sometimes it can be done, and sometimes it is really, really difficult.
Note Five: On Seth's Predictive Ability
Note five, since Seth brought up prediction in connection with this photograph, this is a good opportunity to look at what he said in earlier sessions about his own predictive ability. Jane and I found this to be very useful material.
In Session 234 on February 16, 19669 (this is still an early session), Seth said:
Now often precognitive material will appear to be wrong. In those cases, it is because a self chose a different probable event to actualize than the one predicted. I can access the field of probabilities, while you cannot. And to me, your past, present, and future merge into one.
Around Session 234, Seth was making some predictions. Actually, they wanted to turn Seth's predictive ability into an experiment, to record it, to make it into something empirical, so as to increase the credibility of the Seth material. They did many experiments in the early sessions. For example, when Jane and Rob's friends went traveling, they would have Seth use his predictive ability to see what events or situations they would encounter, and then they would write it down first -- because communication in that era was not very convenient -- and when these people returned from their travels, they would ask them one by one, on such and such a day did you meet so-and-so, or did you encounter such and such a situation. This was all told to them by Seth, and they would check it item by item. Sometimes Seth was present, and sometimes Seth was not present.
There was another experiment, with a psychologist, a university professor, I think a doctor. They agreed that every night, as long as Seth came through to deliver material, at exactly ten o'clock every night, Seth would use his inner vision to see what this person was doing, and then record it in the Seth material, accumulating it for a month, and then send this material to the doctor. And the doctor also had to record what he was doing at ten o'clock every day, around ten o'clock, to compare whether what Seth said matched what he was doing. This was a suggestion provided by the doctor; he wanted to use scientific methods to prove that Seth truly had this ability. They also did many experiments, such as putting some content in an opaque envelope, and then having Jane touch the envelope and tell everyone what was inside, what the content was, and so on. They did many, many of these experiments in the early sessions, especially the experiment with the doctor, which was done about a hundred times in total10, meaning that in a hundred sessions they did over a hundred such experiments. The results were sometimes accurate and sometimes not; some predictions were very accurate, and some were completely off, with no connection at all.
What Seth said in this passage is that some predictions seem inaccurate because these people have complete autonomy; they can choose their own lives. Seth said:
I can access this field of probabilities to see what these possibilities are.
But these are only possibilities; it is a field of probabilities, not a definite thing, but an undecided state. He said I can only rely on my intuition to sense which possibilities will occur, but this person still has his own unique free will to decide.
He said:
I have told you that you continually change your past. To you, it does not seem to change.
Your past is always changing; you feel your past has not changed because you changed along with it -- you changed too, your past changed too, your cognition changed, your beliefs changed, and your past is also changing. But this change, because as your beliefs change, you will feel that your past has not changed, when in fact your past has already changed. Isn't that amazing? In the same way, you change your future. Why is your present belief so important? Because when your beliefs change, your future changes. But why do you not feel that this future is so abrupt? It is because your beliefs have already changed, and your future follows naturally; you feel that this is how it should be. And if your beliefs returned to the state before the change, you would feel that this future is so abrupt, so out of tune, so out of sync with the you in that space-time before your beliefs changed. But why do you not feel this way? Because you yourself are also changing; because you are changing, you cannot perceive these influences you have on the future and the past, these changes you make to them.
So:
In such cases, the correct channel of probable events to perceive is necessary, correctly speaking the channel that will finally be chosen by this person.
What you perceive is always the channel you finally choose. For example, regarding the past, there are ten versions of your past, and you only choose the channel you want to hear. He said:
However, these choices are based on your changing perception of the past and the present. Your perception has also changed. Therefore, I have a greater range of awareness than you do, and I am better able to predict what will happen. But this depends on my prediction of the choices you will make.
So-called prediction is only predicting what you will choose. I can see that there are eight possibilities in the future, so my so-called prediction is only guessing what choice you will make; you certainly will not go beyond these eight. He said I only see these, and then predict your choices; I am not predicting a definite future. The future is never definite; possibilities always exist, and the choice is still yours; you still have free will.
The choice itself does not conflict with the theory of free will. It is not as if the future only has eight choices, and that means my free will is limited to choosing among only eight; that is not free will; free will should be infinite possibilities. Like a song says, "a million possibilities," but a million possibilities still cannot prove it is free will; there is still the million-and-first possibility. What Seth means is that these choices of possibilities I speak of do not deny your free will. The relationship here is very interesting; it all seems like paradoxical relationships.
The Paradox of Free Will
Although free will depends on far more than the freedom of any single ego. Although free will is far more than the range of choices available to your ego, because in theory free will has an infinite number of possible choices, in actual life your choices are limited to a certain extent; you cannot choose from within infinity. For example, right now you are Chinese, and you say, I want to grow blue eyes. That is impossible; that possibility does not exist. You say, I want my child to grow blue eyes. That possibility does exist; you can find a foreigner and marry them, but whether the child has blue eyes is still only one possibility; they might also have black eyes. Do not be argumentative and say that because I have free will, I can do whatever I want.
He says:
If the ego were allowed to make all the choices, and the other levels of the self had no veto power whatsoever, you would all truly be in a miserable situation.
What he means is, if it were as you think, that you have complete free will, that you can choose anything you want to do and can make it manifest in your life, while the other levels of yourself -- do you not also have other probable selves? -- if they had no veto power, then you would be in a very miserable situation. So this free will is also a paradox: if you had complete free will, you would live very miserably. We will not expand on this with examples. You, as the existence of all your probable selves, have an integrated relationship among them; it is not something unconstrained and unrestrained.
Just as he said in that earlier passage, let me bring it back for you: the various levels form a circle of relationships, and within this there is still a certain cause and effect, the cause and effect we ordinarily understand, and it is still operating. They form a circle, a circle with no beginning and no end, a spherical circle, but among them there is still the kind of cause and effect we can sense. Although there is no true cause and effect, because they all happen simultaneously. This is the boundary -- the relationship between boundaries and your probabilities, and free will. You cannot have the kind of absolute free will you imagine, but does that mean you have no free will at all? No, you do have absolute free will, but you still have limitations; there is still this circle of relationships, mutual influence, mutual dependence, and mutual interdependence. Otherwise, if a person insisted on having their own way and doing whatever they pleased, disregarding the opposition and negation of their other probable selves, then they would move toward a very miserable situation. Of course, in reality we cannot actualize this or try it out, because other consciousnesses themselves have the power of negation; you cannot do this. Seth is only describing that this possibility would be very miserable.
He says:
Therefore we can know far more about your future than you can perceive. I know far more than you do, but I am still far from omnipotent.
This is not a polite remark, not a courteous formula; indeed, Seth is still far from omnipotent. Strictly speaking, this kind of omnipotence is also impossible. Does such an omnipotent being exist? One can only say that on certain levels, within certain times and spaces, or within certain worlds, there is this so-called omnipotence; but as soon as you change levels, or on other levels, it is no longer omnipotence. Yet in certain fields, it does have this kind of omnipotence.
Note 6: The Atom Is a Process, Not a Thing
Note 6, stated in very simplified terms, is that in modern physics -- not classical physics -- the atom is a process, not a thing. This sentence is very important:
The atom is a process.
The atom is an event, a process, an experience; it is not a thing. Why do we say it is a process? Because it is a probabilistic existence; it exists probabilistically. The atom or its constituents can manifest as waves or particles; it has wave-particle duality, depending on how we observe them. Here again we are talking about quantum mechanics. And these qualities exist outside our gross space and time -- this wave-particle duality, or this quality of the atom being not a thing but a process, does not exist within our macroscopic world of space and time; it is outside our macroscopic world, in the microscopic world. Why do we say it is outside? Because at that level, at the level of quantum mechanics, through scientific reasoning and understanding, it is held that at the quantum level there must exist a ten- or eleven-dimensional space; there are some curled-up dimensions of space and time that we cannot perceive, but they must exist, because if they did not exist, the theory would not hold up.
The atom is a pattern of probabilities; the atom itself is probabilistic. Going further, our very attempt to describe or imagine such non-specific qualities inevitably causes us to misunderstand them -- when we attempt to describe or imagine these non-specific, indeterminate qualities, that very attempt inevitably causes us to misunderstand them. Because when you go to describe something that is itself indeterminate, you are already misunderstanding it. How can you describe something indeterminate, something unpredictable, by insisting on predicting it? This is probably Rob excerpting from some discussion of physics, or his own understanding.
注释与核实
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Source: Jane Roberts, The “Unknown” Reality, Volume One (https://www.crisrieder.org/thejourney/storage/2025/02/Seth_Jane_Roberts_The_Unknown_Reality_Vol.pdf) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Disney+ Devs (2020) (https://www.disneyplus.com/zh-sg/browse/entity-fd2f6cc3-dafc-4741-ae2e-d86494f3ca51?msockid=15ea374e9d856c5005c521959cae6def) ↩
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Source: Jane Roberts, The "Unknown" Reality: Volume One (https://nowdictation.com/q/book%3Aur1%2Bsession%3A681%2Bpredictions/) ↩
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According to Mike’s original words, “every 28 days all the cells in the body are replaced, or after a few months, all the body’s cells are replaced”; upon verification, it should be “the renewal rates of different types of cells in the human body vary greatly, and not all are replaced in 28 days or a few months; for example, the annual renewal rate of cardiomyocytes drops from about 1% at age 25 to about 0.45% at age 75, and less than half are replaced over a normal lifespan.” (Source: Olaf Bergmann et al., “Evidence for cardiomyocyte renewal in humans,” 2009, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19342590/) ↩
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Source: Mary Dillman, List of Seth Sessions, 2016 (https://sethresearchproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/SessionListforInternet4.pdf) ↩
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Source: The New Age Seth Educational Foundation, The Early Sessions, Book 6 (https://www.seth.org.tw/publication/261) ↩
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Source: Nobel Prize official website, “Werner Heisenberg – Facts” (https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1932/heisenberg-facts.html) ↩
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Source: Mary Dillman, List of Seth Sessions, 2016 (https://sethresearchproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/SessionListforInternet4.pdf) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩