The "Reading 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 block quotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This chapter uses the metaphor of a "multidimensional television" for the psyche: only one channel appears on the screen, but all the other programs exist simultaneously and influence one another, and switching depends on the focus of consciousness. True space travel is not flying outward, but shifting focus and traveling between different dimensions; alien phenomena, myths, and dreams are often projections of such cross-reality experiences. The outer world is created by consciousness, and willpower is the mobilizing force behind all creation and healing.
Key Points of This Chapter
- The psyche is like a multidimensional television set: beyond the picture of one reality, other "programs" are equally real and interconnected, and the focus of consciousness determines which one you are currently perceiving.
- True space travel is time travel; you must change the focus of consciousness and pass through different dimensions and reference points from within. Merely flying outward according to three-dimensional coordinates is a rather useless process.
- The same thing in different realities may appear in completely different forms; phenomena such as UFOs may be images projected into the present from other times or worlds.
- The outer world is created and expanded by consciousness; dreams, out-of-body experiences, or myths often record experiences of cross-dimensional travel.
- Willpower is the force that mobilizes all the resources of body and mind; no one is healed against their own will.
Main Text
Your psyche, compared to a multidimensional television set, has always been used in this way within the forms of reality -- this is the theme of this session. This session began at 9:28 p.m. on Monday, October 21, 1974.
One evening, we were talking about the material Seth gave after 11:38 in the previous session. He spoke of some of the pressures Jane experienced as she developed her psychic abilities during the first part of her apprenticeship. Jane said, the fact is, when I was alone in this channeling business, I was the one who had to do this thing -- it was that feeling of "if not me, then who" -- I was the one who had been chosen. Basically speaking, her examination of the inner dimensions had to be something done alone; this kind of thing could only be accomplished by her alone.
When she began these sessions more than eleven years ago, we sought advice and help from several people, because at the time she did not know what was happening, how such a thing could occur. They sought advice and help from many people, but as we slowly began to understand that her gift was of a highly personal nature, we discovered that this gift was hers alone -- this was not a very common thing; it was very personal, very unique. Basically speaking, when only Jane had this ability, we realized that she had to find her own answers as she went along, and I could only help her as much as possible. This path, this path of inward exploration, could only be walked by Jane herself. As her husband, Rob said, I could only help her as much as possible, but this path still had to be walked by Jane herself.
These circumstances may have had a fermenting effect in the early years, perhaps on a very shallow level, helping to determine the direction of Jane's psychic exploration. Whether or not Seth existed, Jane would have gone inward to explore, because you can see this tendency in her early poetry. More importantly, she always did her own thing. Beyond that, for example, a personal, intuitive matter -- such as how to take the next step in her psychic growth -- how could she ask others for advice? These circumstances made her search seem far simpler than it actually was -- Jane's path had to be walked by herself; seeking outside help was of no use. Whether or not Seth existed, Jane was a person who wanted to explore inward and seek truth; this was a mission of her life, and one could also say it was a core of her personality. This is what Rob said before we began.
All right, now let us look at the content of this session.
The Multidimensional Television Set
If you again imagine the psyche as some kind of multidimensional, living television set, it may help a little. Although within this seemingly small screen space many programs are going on at once, and although you can only watch one channel at a time, all the channels you are not watching are still playing. However, to put it in such a way, all the other programs are interwoven with the one you are watching.
This interweaving does not mean that those channels are playing at the same time, but rather that the programs are connected to and influence one another, and that there is a coordination linking them together. Between one program and another, there are regions between them that you cannot see, and there are communications between them that you cannot see. And once again, the action within one will affect the action within every other.
In this imagined multidimensional television set, the psyche contains within it other programs, other plots, other environments, and world situations besides the one you are playing.
What he means is that, within this imagined multidimensional television set, your psyche is not only playing the program you are now watching, but also playing those programs you are not watching, with different plots, environments, and world situations.
Theoretically, when you know how to do it, you can indeed step out of your program and into another program as easily as you now walk from one room to another.
When your level is sufficient, you can walk from one program into another just as you walk from one room to another, as if you were changing film sets. Suppose you are an actor, and you move from one set to another, except that these two sets are merely two adjacent rooms in a hotel, shooting two different indoor scenes. You must know that other programs exist; you have to know there are other programs, otherwise where would you go? Which crew would you go to, which program would you act in? You would not even know. So you have to know that other programs exist, otherwise you would never think of the possibility of such an action, and you would not know which room to go to at all.
Broadly speaking, all the programs are only part of one whole. However, the various sets are real, and the characters are also alive.
Although one can say that these are all individual programs, and all these programs are part of one whole, the characters within them are real, and the props and sets are real.
For example, the actor playing a role is obviously alive as an actor. But within a fictional plot, in your terms, the character presented by the actor does not live in the same way the actor does.
For example, if an actor plays an ancient character, their ways of living are certainly different, and he is not really alive either, but only alive within that plot. So he lives in a different way; that character lives only within that plot, while the actor lives in real life.
On the level of the psyche, however, and within its greater reality, those characters have their own lives.
On the level of the psyche, the different characters in different dramas all have their own lives, and these are just as real as the actors' own lives. From a higher perspective, the character in that drama—for example, if he plays an ancient figure—that figure also has life, and that life is just as real as the actor's life within this reality.
At this point, do not forget that they have actually already crossed two different dimensions of time and space. Although that drama is also staged within this three-dimensional world, the time and space in which that plot takes place is no longer a three-dimensional world. He is talking about an ancient place, or another environment, or even a television program staging an alien Star Wars. So this may already not be in the same time and space as ours at all. But no matter where it is, the life of that character within that reality, within the reality of that plot, and the life of that actor within our present physical reality, are equally real. You need to have this kind of awareness.
In the same way, think of your psyche, taking the program now on the screen for granted as a fully real reality, while within its components are somehow hidden all the other programs that have not manifested.
He says you should regard the program on the screen as a real reality, and within this program are also hidden the programs that have not been shown but are playing on other channels. As for how they are hidden, Seth says it cannot be explained clearly for now, using the phrase "somehow" to tell you that it cannot be made clear in a short time, but he will tell you this much for now.
These are not lined up in the space behind the program in front.
Those programs that have not been shown are not queuing up in the so-called space behind the program that is currently playing; it is not like that. There is no concept of space; how could there be space for queuing inside a television set? They are merely different programs, but they are contained in that side in a completely different way. They are not in a space, yet they do seem to be in a space, which is very interesting.
For example, at any given point in a frame of film, there is shown a high silk top hat on a table. The people acting on the screen will see the hat and the table, and will react to them according to the characteristics of your own personalities.
He gives an example: in a program, you see a high top hat placed on a table, and each person in this program reacts to the hat differently; for example, the owner of the hat and other people react differently.
Although in that scene the hat on the table possesses all the necessary equipment of reality, it may also occur simultaneously in another program as a different kind of reference point. In another reality, for instance, the entire outline of the hat and table may be meaningless, while still being interpreted in an entirely different form and from a quite different perspective. The table in program two, for example, may be a natural plain, and the hat a strange-looking natural rather than artificial formation upon it.
Any object shown in the program you are watching can be used as a different kind of reference point in another reality, in which those objects appear as something else. A top hat in program one may become a small hill in program two; a table in program one may become a plain in program two. So something in one reality may be another kind of thing in another reality.
I am trying to make analogies on two levels, so please bear with me.
Here he is about to make an analogy. On the level of your psyche—each of your thoughts and actions exists not only in the way you are familiar with, but also in many other ways that you do not perceive. From the level of your psyche, each of your thoughts and actions exists not only in the way we are familiar with in this world, but also in ways we are not familiar with or do not perceive, in other times and spaces.
In a dimension different from yours, it may manifest as a natural world, such as wind or rain, dream images, or even energy that propels itself.
In a time and space different from yours, it may manifest as a natural world. This energy propels itself and develops itself; energy is absolutely never lost. The energy in your thoughts, after you finish thinking it, does not dissipate.
In one reality, an energy—for example, an event, or an emotion you send out, or one of your emotional states—after you have sent it out or finished thinking it, may pass. But this emotion has not been wasted, and this energy has not dissipated; it appears in another reality in other forms.
An Off-Center Picture and Space Travel
Now imagine a picture on a television screen, showing your own universe.
The style shifts. On such a television screen, the picture showing is our universe -- a program like universe exploration. Your concept of space travel would be like you sending out a ship from one planet, say Earth -- a spaceship -- into the rest of space, and this space is what you see on the flat screen.
Now we are watching a documentary about the universe, and in this documentary it is talking about humanity's exploration of space. At this point we can imagine seeing a person on a spaceship -- a spaceship lifting off from Earth -- and then going out to explore other parts of space in the universe. He says, imagine a scene like this.
Even with the future technology you imagine, this would still involve a great deal of the time factor.
This definitely makes space travel, interstellar exploration, involve time. For example, if we go to Mars now, it takes roughly four to six months, one way1.
Now imagine that the picture on the screen is off-center to begin with.
We will talk about what "off-center" means in a moment. It is not centered on your present consciousness as the focus. That is what is meant by "off-center."
Therefore everything is somewhat distorted, and going outward into space seems like going backward in time.
Why is it called going backward in time? Suppose you look from a distorted, off-center angle, your focus depends on where you stand. When your focus stands at a relatively macroscopic, universal focal point, then it considers you as not off-center. When you stand at a certain visual focal point, you may take that as your visual center.
What he means here is that when you look from your own angle, when you go out to explore the universe, you are actually like going backward in time. Because the space we explore all comes from faraway places. For example, when you explore a star, the light from that planet travels from far away to reach Earth, and it comes from the past. Now you want to go against that light to reach that star, so in terms of time, you are walking backward, going against its time, walking toward the source of its time.
If that picture were magically placed at the center, then all time would seem to flow outward from that immediately perceived moment -- that private present.
When there is no so-called off-center, that is when the picture is centered on the perceiver's, or the space traveler's, present consciousness focus. That is called not off-center. When he looks at this matter from any focus other than that, it is off-center.
Can you understand this? It means that our true space-time travel must be based on that point which the traveler obtains only by exploring inward from within, at the present moment. So everything is based on that present point within the space traveler's inner self. He has already talked about this before; everyone needs to understand that this is the core point. If you do not observe from this point, or if you do not look at this matter from this point, then it is off-center, which means you are going backward against the direction from which time came. For example, a star ten thousand light-years away -- that is going backward. Let us understand it this way.
When you place the center of the picture right in the middle, when you place it -- centered on this person's present consciousness -- then you can immediately perceive that the moment flows outward.
That is, when you take your own present as the center point, you can feel that all time flows outward from this point of yours. Whether your past or your future, both flow outward from this present point of yours.
And in many ways, that mass present represents an overall present point for your planet as a whole. From that present, time goes out in all directions of possibility. In fact, it also comes in from all directions of possibility.
Using the example of the space traveler just mentioned, he says that in the astronaut's present state, all time flows out from this point of his, and past and future both flow out from this present point of his. This is quite normal. The past flows in one direction, the future flows in the opposite direction. Of course, besides past and future, there may also be other directions -- for example, those probable realities, whose actual flow rates are also different.
What can such a point be understood as? It can be understood as the viewer watching the television, or you in front of the television, or the whole of our human collective, or the present point of our entire planet right now. This present point is where all time flows out in all directions of possibility, and also flows in from all directions of possibility.
You need to understand this point. What does "flowing out" and "flowing in" mean? Flowing out means you follow the direction of that possibility and go seek it. For example, you go explore an inner reality, you connect with it, and then your consciousness goes there. After your consciousness merges with that probable reality -- that point where space and time coincide -- have you not, in effect, gone from your present point to that point in space-time? In terms of the meaning of a point in time, you have flowed over there. But from another angle, you can also switch perspectives -- that probable time, because it is now linked with your present, these two space-time points coincide, and then that possibility is brought into your present perceptual system, brought in by you. So you can say that this time flows out, and you can also say that that possibility flows in.
The simple picture of the astronaut's universe that you see on the screen represents a view from your own present perspective. But each star, each planet, galaxy, or whatever, is formed in other reference points. In those reference points, simply put, the same pattern has a different time phase.
I do not know whether you can understand what he means. Right now, standing at your present angle -- as an astronaut on Earth, from your present angle -- you have a certain cognition of this universe, a certain viewpoint. Looking from here, everything seems to radiate outward with you as the center, and everything also seems to flow inward with you as the center. Is not all that light shining toward you? Is it not also flowing in? Things that happened tens of thousands of years ago, after their light traveled tens of thousands of years in this reality, are they not now presented before you? Whether it is a supernova explosion or a black hole, they can all be detected by our instruments in the present, right? Are not events happening in the distant universe also flowing into your reality?
But what is the point he wants to make? The things you see are all referenced to you, all referenced to your present space-time. And the things you see all have their own respective reference points. For example, when you see a galaxy, the galaxy has its own reference point, not referenced to your Earth, but referenced to the galactic center. We know that the galaxy also rotates, and Earth's solar system, as a small part of the galaxy, also rotates along with the galaxy. Suppose the diameter of the galaxy is one hundred thousand light-years2, the solar system in the middle also has to move along with it. How many tens of thousands of light-years does it have to travel to complete one circle within the galaxy? Therefore, the universe we see today is viewed from our present perspective.
At each reference point, that same pattern has a different time phase. What does that mean? What was said before was all centered on the present perspective -- that is one pattern of theirs, a pattern of viewing this universe -- but they all have a different time phase. Their world looks the same as our world, but actually it is not the same; they are not in the same space-time. Understanding it this way may be better.
Suppose you take Earth as your reference point, with your present consciousness focus, your judgments and views, you form a certain judgment and cognition of your world. This judgment and cognition of yours then forms a unique encryption system specific to your consciousness, or a frequency of consciousness. Then this frequency of consciousness forms for you an overall macroscopic world of your universe. But do not forget, this so-called macroscopic material world of the universe is generated by this specific frequency of your consciousness; it is this frequency of your consciousness that generates this material universe.
Suppose you were on another star system in Centaurus -- a place in Centaurus where there is another highly intelligent civilization -- when the people there generate their view of the universe through their consciousness, with their own focus as the center, in their view of the universe they can also see Earth, but the Earth in their eyes and the space-time we now live in are not the same space-time. The reason is that they use another set of consciousness encryption systems, or you could say another set of consciousness frequency systems, different from ours. Can you all understand this? This part is a bit complex, not quite the same as what we imagine. We used to think that the universe was just one material universe, all in one space-time, but what we did not realize is that the universe is composed of different space-times; it is a multidimensional universe, not a single-dimensional universe. This is a principle we must understand.
Therefore, if you go exploring for extraterrestrial beings in the universe created within the consciousness space of Earth humans, you will never find them, because they are simply not in the same space-time, not in the same universe, even though it all looks the same.
True space travel would, of course, be time-space travel; it would certainly involve crossing space and time. In it you learn how to use the points of your universe as dimensional clues -- dimensional meaning of dimensions -- as clues of dimensionality, and use them as entry points into other worlds.
I will explain after I finish reading, otherwise it is hard to understand.
Otherwise, you are no more than an insect flying around the outside of a television set, trying to land on fruit that is not on the screen.
Again, like a poor, confused fly, not knowing why you cannot do it -- that is, you cannot land on the fruit on the television.
True space travel must involve space-time travel. He puts it in quotes; why quotes? Because the space-time travel he speaks of is different from the space-time travel we humans understand. The space-time travel we humans understand is traveling within our three-dimensional world -- actually you are not traveling in space-time at all; you are only traveling within this three-dimensional world, and you are not crossing between different dimensions at all. But Seth says that true space travel is travel across space and time, that is, travel between different universes, travel within different parallel worlds, travel within a multiverse.
He gives a vivid example: a fly sees a watermelon on the television so lifelike that it flies over to land on the watermelon, lands on the watermelon on the television screen, and then discovers -- why can I not land on it? Why do I still land on such a glass surface? Is this not a watermelon? Why can I not land on it? Now you know, that watermelon is a prop in the studio where the television program's cameraman filmed it, and that may have been filmed several years ago. How could this fly fly to that place? They are not in the same space-time; you are only seeing an image. No matter how lifelike that watermelon is, it is not real. He uses this vivid metaphor so that you can understand what a huge detour our human space exploration has taken, how many wrong turns it has made, and that it is fundamentally meaningless.
In your reality, you use one main focus in the exterior world. This means you have a clear picture -- humorously, seemingly clear. You use one main focus in your exterior world, a materially oriented focus. That material program is the one you live in, the one you perform in.
He says we humans have one main focus, which is centered on the material. You are watching a television station -- one day in the material world, or one day in the Earth world -- that station's program is very clear, and you also live within it, you also perform within it, and it is the program shown on the screen. And that program is the universe you were just watching on the television screen, which is what you consider the material world.
He says what you humans consider the material world is nothing more than a picture on a television screen, and you take it as real. That is quite normal.
That screen is the portion of your psyche upon which you concentrate your attention.
So your psyche has many portions, but the portion you concentrate on is this portion of the material world. This portion of the material world is only one part of your psyche, but you pour your attention only into this aspect -- just like that fly pouring its attention only onto the watermelon on the television screen.
Not only do you tune in to that picture, but you also create the props, create the lives and the times, the entire history, but in a living three-dimensional way, and you are within that picture as well.
You not only focus your attention on the materially oriented picture, you also create history, create props, create characters, create the entire three-dimensional world, and you place yourself within it to participate in the performance. This is the universe we see; that is how it is.
The kind of reality so created by that portion of your consciousness forms a given experience.
It certainly carries its own particularity, because it is created by your particular beliefs and your particular consciousness. It is valid and real within that time phase -- it carries a given experience, and within that time phase it is all valid.
Therefore, when we operate anything within our reality, it all feels very effective. When you want to travel, you travel within the dimension of the reality so created. For example, on Earth, flying from Shanghai to Beijing, from Chengdu to Lhasa, these are all travels within the reality we created. Driving or flying from one city to another, you would not think that journey is imagined; you are exploring that given dimension, that world. Here the meaning of "given" is that you have a given experience, and all of this is created by yourself. Is that direct enough? Your consciousness first creates a reality, and then you yourself operate within this reality, and then you take all these experiences as real.
You first have a given experience. It is like when we set the rules of a game. For example, in an online computer game, to go from one city to another, you have to spend time, and you have to run on the map for a long time. This is what you have set. Of course you can change to other tools; you can walk, you can run, you can ride a horse, or you can ride something that flies -- even a flying dragon -- and the time may be different. But no matter how different, you still have to pass through a space and pass through a time. But we know that between two cities in a game, is there really distance? If you set it to have distance, then it has distance. Can you now understand what Seth means? That setting is the "given." You use a given experience to explore within a world created by a given experience, and the experience you get will certainly be a given experience -- a real experience.
For example, suppose you set that from this city to that city, if you do not ride a horse and walk, it takes ten minutes. Then when you control this character in the game to walk, it will take ten minutes. If you ride a horse, it may only take seven or six minutes. If you ride a flying dragon, it only takes three minutes. This is what you have set. Is it the same as our world now? It is the same. Our world now came about exactly this way. If you take a plane, it may be even faster. So do not ask why everything is real, why everything is validly real -- because you are operating according to the experience you yourself set, you design according to that given experience, and the results that come out will certainly match your given experience, so to you they all appear valid and real.
In other words, as long as you want to play this game, as long as you enter World of Warcraft, and you want to go from one city to another, then the distance every player travels is the same; only your means of transportation is different, and the time spent may be different. This is the same principle as our real world.
Stirring the Picture
Now if you change that picture just a little, so that the images seem somewhat stirred together, and you do this by altering the focus of your consciousness, then the familiar coordinates disappear.
Now imagine this: we take the picture of the universe we were just looking at and change it a little — say the solar system, for example. Earth is here, the Moon is there, the Sun is there, Venus is here, Mars is over there. Put this picture of the universe in front of you. Now stir it up a bit, like stirring tea or a cup of coffee — mix them all together. What do you find when you do this? You find that objects may all become blurred, and ordinary sounds become distorted.
It may seem that your usual orientation is perhaps only one of many frames of reference.
That is, the things you normally use as reference points no longer seem so certain, because the whole picture has been stirred together.
If you really want to change the focus of your consciousness further, then you may bring in an entirely different picture. Seen from the outside, this would bring you another reality, within which your old reality may still be glimpsed somewhat like a secondary image.
Go on and imagine this: stir up the picture you have at this moment. Do you remember Van Gogh's starry sky? What does Van Gogh's starry sky look like? Isn't the whole sky all stirred together? Think of that image. In that image, there is still a trace of our traditional reality — you can see a bit of a trace in Van Gogh's starry sky — but is it the same as the starry sky we actually see? No, it is different. You can only see a bit of a secondary image, just a faint shadow.
If you know what you are looking for, and if you remember your previous coordinates, if you still remember their original positions, you may still be able to find them.
So he stirred it a little, and you might still be able to find them. For example, if you stir a cup of coffee — do not stir it too hard, just a couple of turns — if you keep your eye on that spot, maybe you can still find where the heart shape was. If Van Gogh painted the starry sky of a certain season in southern France, and if you compared it with a star chart of that time, maybe you could still make out where the stirred-up positions of those stars ended up in their new places. Although the positions have changed, they are still in there — just stirred together by you.
From the inside, however, you would not travel around or along the periphery, but through another portion of the psyche that has its own reality. That kind of travel is no more imaginary than traveling from one city to another.
Seen from the outside, this world is different now. The old image, the old world, may have only a faint afterimage left. But if you can still remember the original positions, the original coordinates, you may still be able to find where they are now in their new places.
What does it mean to see from the inside? If such a reality is entirely formed by your consciousness, then from the perspective of consciousness, when you travel from one point to another — in that originally clear picture, you knew how to get from this coordinate to that coordinate. But no matter how violently or chaotically it is stirred, when you look from the inside, when you go from one coordinate point of inner reality to another, you can still arrive instantly, unaffected by the external stirring.
I am not sure how to put this into words for you. To put it simply: if you want to go from Earth to a planet in another galaxy right now, when you travel inward, you only need to establish a connection with that planet. Many people do not know how to establish a connection with inner reality. There are many methods; we will not go into them here for now, but later I will teach you the specific methods. The most basic methods are actually emotion, your intention, and consciousness itself. Let us say you have established an inner connection with that planet you want to go to. When you travel inward on the level of consciousness, from this planet to that planet, you do not need to care at all about what it looks like on the outside — whether the outside is all stirred together or not does not matter. You just pass right through in an instant.
But if you approach it in an outward way, looking from the outside, does it not seem as though you have already entered another reality? Suppose each picture is a kind of reality. For example, this universe is like this: the Milky Way is here, the stars are here, this constellation is over there. If you stir it all into a pot of porridge, then for you this universe has already changed. Looking from the outside, you have entered another time and space, another universe — all the positions have changed. Seth says: yes, from the outside it seems as though you are traveling through different times and spaces, but from the inside, you have always been traveling within your own space of consciousness. Do not worry about the outside. So many people ask: how do I go from one reality to another? How can I achieve this kind of space travel Seth talks about? How can I pass through these times and spaces? Seth says: from the outside you will never find a way. You can only look inward, within consciousness.
This kind of inner travel of consciousness is no more dependent on imagination than flying from Shanghai to Beijing. In other words, in the three-dimensional world, you think the distance from Shanghai to Beijing is 1,000 kilometers. You think it takes an hour and a half by plane, a full twelve hours or so by car, and maybe five hours by high-speed rail. All right, you believe the distance between Shanghai and Beijing is just that, and that is fine. But is this distance not just like the distance between two cities set in a game? It is something you set, is it not? This is simply a given experience, giving you a given feeling — that is perfectly normal. This feeling you get from the outside is also something you imagined, something you set. If you think of it as a game, then how far apart are Shanghai and Beijing really? You can set them as far apart as you want. You can set them at 1,000 kilometers, or 2,000 kilometers. This is set by the designer of the game.
So going from Shanghai to Beijing seems like crossing the time and space of a real physical world. He says that in a certain sense, you are really just traveling in imagination. If you replace it with a game, it becomes easier to understand. Traveling in the inner world from one planet to another is the same as going from Shanghai to Beijing — there is no essential difference. Both are imagined; both are a distance of the psyche.
There are space-time coordinates that operate according to your own viewpoint, and space travel carried out along the axis of your time, from the viewpoint of your own time, would be a rather useless procedure.
Space travel carried out from our current perspective — the material viewpoint, the coordinates of space and time — and along the axis of our time, that is, space travel within the material world, would be a rather useless procedure. It is useless, because it is not there. It does not exist in that three-dimensional world. It only remains within your perception of this three-dimensional world.
To put it more bluntly: when you look at a distant star like Sirius, that is a perception of yours. Where do you think Sirius is? Within your three-dimensional time and space, it really is there — but it only exists within your three-dimensional time and space. What you see is only one facet of Sirius in the three-dimensional world. And Sirius, just like Earth, is itself a multidimensional existence. You are only using our clumsiest method — the simplest method — the method of the material world. You think Earth and Sirius are in such a three-dimensional space-time framework of the universe, separated by, say, 8.6 light-years3, and you take that to be the spatial distance between you. You want to build a spaceship and fly 8.6 light-years away. Never mind how long you can live — that is a secondary issue. Even if you got there, what would you see? You would see one line of sight of Sirius in the three-dimensional world. Its line of sight in the three-dimensional world is a phenomenon you manifest using your consciousness focused only on the three-dimensional world.
So there would be no life on Sirius, because it is only a materialized image generated by your focus in the three-dimensional world, and it is not really there at all. What does that mean? It is a multidimensional existence. Just as the atom is not really there — same principle. This is exactly the problem driving scientists crazy right now. We think the stars are there, but actually the stars are not there either. You say the stars are too far away, I cannot get there, it would take hundreds of millions of light-years, I cannot make it — so then I will look at the atom. Surely it cannot run away? I will observe my hand, observe my fingernail, observe a piece of metal, observe the most microscopic part of matter — surely it cannot run away? If it is not far away, it is close, right? If I cannot figure out that distant thing, surely I can figure out this one? And then scientists are dumbfounded — this one is even harder to figure out.
When you get to the atom — after all that expense and effort, who knows what year it will be or how far technology will have advanced — you say: I want to explore the reality of this material particle. Surely that can be explored? You go and explore it, and you find that the atom is not there either. Scientists are baffled. Why is the atom not here either? You say it is not here, but it is here. Just like Sirius — is it there? It looks like it is there, but when you really go to study it, you poke it with a little stick, and it is not there. You say it is not there, but it really is there. Scientists are dumbfounded: is it there or not? Can you give me a straight answer? Then the quantum mechanics scientists come out and say: it is both there and not there. And you are even more confused — is that not just saying nonsense?
This is a classic example. When you can understand that the atom is not there either, then you can understand that the star is not there either. But when you say it is not there, it is only from a certain angle that it is there — from the material angle, from the angle of three-dimensional reality, it is there. But is its true self there? Its true self is not there. What is its true self? Its true self is consciousness. Whether it is a star or an atom, its true self is consciousness. So if you want to explore this true self, do you not have to explore it with consciousness? Can you build an iron spaceship to explore the true self of consciousness? You cannot explore it.
Just like the example Seth gives: the watermelon is not there; the star is not there. That planet has only a material image that we humans believe exists there, but its true image, its true self, is consciousness — just like the atom. What is the core of the atom? Units of consciousness. Units of consciousness form EE units, EE units form the strings of superstring theory, and those strings, vibrating at different energies, form different particles. Different particles form the different components of the atomic nucleus we see — quarks — and then protons and neutrons form the nucleus, with electrons outside. That is the process. What is at its very core? At its very core is still that consciousness, still those units of consciousness.
So now you understand what Seth means by this. Some of these passages go a bit slowly — do not be impatient, everyone — because this really does overturn a great deal of human cognition. It is a complete overturning.
UFOs and Black Holes
Some reports of UFO sightings, from the viewpoint of the alien visitors, happened in their past, but appeared in your present as images or in physical form. This involved only one sighting of a flying object.
He brings up UFOs here. He says you have seen many flying saucers and alien spacecraft. From your perspective, what you see are only some flying images. So is what you witness an image, or is it real? He says both. Some are images, and some are real. But whether it is an image or real to you, for that alien spacecraft, these are all things that have already happened in their past.
Remember, this is from the viewpoint of the alien visitors, not from the viewpoint of our Earth. From the viewpoint of our Earth, it happens in the present. For example, if you see a UFO today, you think it is in the present — a certain month, day, hour, and minute. But from the aliens' perspective, it happened in the past — in their past. Not your past, not the Earth's past, not the past of our human world, but the past of these aliens. Why does it happen in the aliens' past? Let us stretch the wings of our imagination a bit.
Yet it appears in our present as images and in physical form, so what we see is only a sighting of a flying object. The fact itself is real — seeing it is real — but what you see is an alien from the past. All right, everyone can look at Appendix 20 for this. It has a detailed introduction. If you are interested in extraterrestrial beings, you can go read that.
When you switch your ordinary television set from one channel to another, you may encounter jumping specks or twisting images.
He is talking about the 1970s. When you change television sets, when you bring a new television set home, you have to tune the channels first, and there will be twisting and jumping.
If the machine has some defect, you may only be able to turn to patterns that seem to have no meaning and where no program appears.
If the television set is broken, you may actually see some meaningless programs, with crackling and jumping that you cannot make out at all, or even with no sound, or with sound but no picture, or with the picture and sound out of sync — the picture showing one program while the sound is from another program.
So when you begin to experiment with altered states of consciousness, you often encounter the same kind of phenomena, and at that time it seems as if nothing is right.
When you begin to explore the unknown reality, when you alter your state of consciousness — you must alter your state of consciousness, because your present consciousness is aimed at physical reality, and you must aim it at other channels, at those nonphysical realities, at those inner space-time coordinates — when you are adjusting, it is perfectly normal for these strange things to appear. The picture jumping wildly, the picture unstable, the picture and sound out of sync, picture without sound, sound without picture — all of it is normal.
Recently physicists have had some important breakthroughs, but they did not recognize their importance. For example, the universe as you know it is filled with extremely minute black holes and white holes.
Scientists have discovered that black holes and white holes appear at any time within our world. I am not sure which point he is referring to — that is, matter in our reality world has that kind of annihilation phenomenon, where two particles sometimes annihilate each other, and after annihilation both particles cease to exist, positive matter and antimatter and so on. That is, there are many tiny black holes and white holes.
Since your scientists have given these labels — black holes, white holes — then I will use those terms. I would say, with great gentleness and humor, that there are also red holes, green holes, orange holes, purple holes, all kinds of holes, not only black holes and white holes.
The so-called black holes and white holes merely represent the deeper properties of your universe that your physicists have inferred, as well as the method by which energy at certain coordinate points in one world is pushed into another world. What your scientists call black holes and white holes means that your understanding of this universe has reached a deeper level, and you now know that this universe has another dimension. For example, what is on the other side of a black hole? Scientists cannot probe it. Everyone knows that things get sucked in, but sucked in to where? No one knows. Not even light can come out, so no one knows what it looks like. They only know it is like a black hole, enormously huge, with infinite mass, and nothing can escape it. Then through inference and calculation, scientists discovered that there should also be a white hole — the matter sucked in on this side is ejected out on that side. But when it is ejected, it is already in another space-time and dimension, not in our universe, because in this universe you can no longer observe it — if it were in this universe, would you not be able to see it? Where did it eject? No, it did not eject in this universe; it ejected in another universe. So black holes and white holes can be understood as pushing energy from one world into another world.
If we use your human terminology, around your universe there are also holes of many colors — red holes, green holes, purple holes, pink holes. He gives this example, using colors as labels for you — meaning there are also many holes of different properties that can push into different reality spaces. We are situated within a multidimensional space-time, only we cannot perceive it, because our sensory systems can only perceive three-dimensional things. We cannot sense anything beyond three dimensions, and even less can we sense the existence of these things.
However, nothing exists outside the psyche that does not exist within it. There is no unknown world that does not have its psychological or psychic counterpart.
Yet nothing outside our psyche exists without first existing within our psyche. Any outer world can find its corresponding thing within the psychic world.
When man tried to externalize inner experience, he learned to fly. Because in the out-of-body state in dreams, he had long been familiar with flying. When the psyche experiments with reproducing the inner freedom of its existence in any given outer world, all travel into its outer time appears.
Simply put, all outer worlds are a projection and manifestation of the inner world. Everything that exists in the outer world first existed in the inner world. Because human beings could already fly during out-of-body experiences, humans are not at all unfamiliar with flying, so it is perfectly normal that humans later built flying machines. When the psyche attempts to reproduce in any given outer world the freedom that exists within — first you are free within, and inner freedom means freely traveling anywhere within, because the inner is not limited by space and time — only then can your travel into outer space-time appear, and only then do we have outward exploration and travel.
People have also visited other worlds throughout the ages, and other people have visited your world.
Within the history we have received, in dreams and in altered states of consciousness, human beings have engaged in this kind of travel. And when they returned, they almost always interpreted their experiences in terms of their own station's programs, weaving what happened into great myths and stories — real yet not real.
Human beings have had the experience of traveling to other worlds. But after they returned from those worlds, they could only use their own station's programs — that is, human language and human methods of description — to describe it. They could not explain it using the cognition of the universe they had visited. If they did, no one would understand what they were saying. They could only describe it through their own feelings. And after that, it would become our myths and mythological legends. Those myths and legends are both real and not real — they are the experiences of human beings visiting other dimensions or other worlds. So look at many of our myths and legends — flying, transforming, endless transformations, Sun Wukong's seventy-two transformations, covering one hundred and eight thousand miles in a single somersault, and so on. Are these not the experiences they brought back from visiting another space-time and then described? They certainly are.
Although all of this may sound very esoteric, it is actually very practical. And we are dealing with the nature of creativity itself, not with the peripheral or outer phenomena of creativity.
These things may sound very esoteric, but they are actually very practical, not esoteric at all. We are dealing with creativity itself — the creativity of consciousness, the creativity of the psyche. We have always been dealing with these levels of things.
For example, your thoughts and your intents have their own validity and power. You only have to activate them, and then afterward they follow their own laws and reality.
Dealing with creativity itself — your thoughts and your intents have their own validity and power. You only have to activate them. All creativity comes from your psyche. You only need to activate your thoughts and intents. This is the reason the psychological laws ultimately take effect. You only need to take what you want to realize as your intent, as your vision, and describe and imagine it concretely. As for how it is activated, how it operates, how it is realized — it has its own validity and its own power. What you need to do is activate them, and then they have their own laws and their own reality. And the energy of that creativity all comes from your psyche.
Building a City in the Space of Consciousness
Recently, I suggested a project to Ruburt's ESP class, a project that will ultimately demonstrate many of the points I have been discussing in this book. I suggested that Ruburt's students build a city on another level of reality -- this is not something like a castle in the air, or some heaven suspended high above, but a meaningful meeting place between worlds.
I suggested that the ESP class, Ruburt's students, collectively create a city, but not in our reality -- on the other side of reality, inside consciousness -- to build a city there. This city is not some heaven, nor something lofty and high above; it is a very real, meaningful place of intersection between worlds.
What is a meaningful place of intersection? For example, a marketplace of the psyche, where concepts are exchanged, a place where concepts can communicate with one another -- a place of psychic commerce, where psyches can interact with one another.
A pleasant environment with fairly definite coordinates, established like a satellite in orbit on the periphery of your world.
Just like building a space station for your Earth -- it is not on your Earth, but it is not too far from your world either. Inside that cosmic space station, we can carry out psyche-to-psyche communication, and together we construct such a virtual city.
So after hearing this, we can also build something similar. For example, we can create our spiritual university in our space of consciousness. Each person builds it according to their own imagined version of that spiritual university, imagining how to make the materials of this spiritual university available within it, within the space of consciousness, so that those who visit this space of consciousness can receive excellent learning, obtain very meaningful materials, and also receive actual training and actual practice. This is one of these very meaningful exercises, and everyone can give it a try.
You ask how to build it? Just think about what this university looks like in your world, and start from the concrete details. In that imagined world of yours, what does it look like? Then you build it, and then you communicate with others. You can be in a QQ group or a WeChat group, with everyone in it, and each person imagines their own construction of the spiritual university in such a space of consciousness. For example, what kind of architecture does it have, or does it have no buildings at all? Or is it an open university within a university, with mountains as its backdrop and heaven and earth as its classrooms? Or does it have its own architectural style? Imagine -- all of you imagine together, and then build it together. Build this virtual university in consciousness, in the same way that we would build a space station in our universe -- each person responsible for building a part, or everyone collectively building a part.
You can use this method as an exercise. As you practice and it becomes very interesting, you will find yourself going to this place in your dreams. You will even continue building this place in your dreams. If your abilities reach a certain level, you can also go to this place during out-of-body experiences. You can do anything you want there -- you can give lectures, teach other students, lead students in practice, or be a student yourself learning more advanced knowledge. All of it is possible.
All worlds were originally created in just such a manner. And in a manner of speaking, in a very small way, these involved the creation and expansion of a different reality. Yet from your viewpoint, it was consciously accepted.
How did the world originally come into being? All worlds came into being this way -- they were all imagined. Such an exercise is very useful, expanding and creating on a nonphysical level. Once you accept this viewpoint -- accept that you can create a realm of your own in the nonphysical world -- this change is of tremendous significance.
On an unconscious level, the world as you know it is expanding in just such a way.
Without your conscious awareness, our world is being built in this way, and expanded in this way, and it is still being built and still expanding.
Several students have dreamed that they participated in such a project. Ruburt found himself in an out-of-body state and saw a leather jacket -- a jacket that was enormously large, an oversized jacket, and it had four square pockets. When he saw this jacket, the front of the jacket was open, and in the dream Ruburt flew through the front opening and directly entered another dimension.
And a certain point on the front of the jacket became a small hill, and he landed on that hill. At this point a second viewpoint appeared -- the first viewpoint was him seeing a large jacket and flying into it; in the second viewpoint he was sitting on a small hill, and he knew that this small hill was part of the jacket's front.
He sat on the small hill, and the pocket of the jacket from the first viewpoint became the window of a house in a third dimension, existing behind a mountain farther away. When Ruburt sat in the second viewpoint -- that is, on the small hill -- and looked into the distance, he saw that the jacket pocket from the first viewpoint had become a third viewpoint -- the window of a house.
He stood on that small hill, in the second viewpoint, and he knew that the house window of viewpoint three was the jacket pocket of viewpoint one, but he could no longer see them that way. He could no longer see them from viewpoint one, because he was already standing in viewpoint two. He knew it was the pocket of viewpoint one, but in this viewpoint two, he could only treat that pocket as a window. When he wanted to look back at viewpoint one -- to see the full view of the jacket -- he found that he could no longer see viewpoint one; viewpoint one was no longer visible. And viewpoint three was still in front of him, the window of the house still before him, and then it was separated from him by a fissure he did not understand.
You see, an object in one reality is another object in another reality. Yet he also knew that if he pulled the curtains closed on the window in viewpoint three, then in viewpoint two the pocket flap of the jacket would look as if it were closed -- if he pulled the curtains of the window closed in viewpoint three, then looking from viewpoint two, that thing which was both the jacket pocket and the house window, once the window curtains were drawn, the jacket pocket flap would also close.
He also understood that by means of the jacket made in viewpoint one, he had directed the construction of the house in viewpoint three. That is to say, when he was making the jacket pocket, it was actually equivalent to building a house in the world of viewpoint three. Amazing, isn't it?
Then when he walked into the small hill of viewpoint two, he spoke with the foreman who was already there -- the foreman in charge of building the house in viewpoint three. Ruburt said to him, I want to change my plans. The foreman agreed, and then loudly directed the workers who were working in viewpoint three, where the house was -- the client wants changes. Ruburt said I want to change the house plans, the house design, and then the foreman stood in viewpoint two and shouted toward the workers in viewpoint three.
Ruburt truly participated in the construction of that house in viewpoint three, and he did indeed traverse those various dimensions. In them, an object in one world represented something entirely different in another world. So the flying saucer we see in our world is not necessarily a flying saucer in another world. However, he used those particular symbols only to confirm the theory -- he wanted to use those symbols to confirm that things seen in different worlds are actually something else in this world. But the dream represented this: any object in one dimension has its own reality in another dimension.
I remember I told you before that Little Flying Insect once had an experience. One time he looked down from the fourth floor; it had just rained at his home, and there was a water stain downstairs. He happened to see a car drive over a water stain, leaving several marks. Then suddenly, in a flash, he saw that on the other side of the ground, there seemed to be another time-space existing. He saw an ancient person wielding a brush, writing on a wall, and the characters written on that wall immediately became the marks left on the ground by the car wheels in this world. The brushstrokes on the wall in that other world and the wheel marks in this time-space were completely overlapping and simultaneous -- over there the writing was happening, over here the wheels were pressing down, and when the writing was finished and the pressing was also finished, the two traces were completely identical. So you do not know that the marks in this world are what was left behind by the brushstrokes in that world.
Photos, Time, and Probable Lives
A thing in one world is another thing in another world. You cannot travel through time and space without changing the focus of your psyche. If you cannot change the focus of your psyche (that is, of human consciousness), then you cannot travel through time and space. But when you change the focus of your consciousness in this way, you also change the outer realities that you experience along with it.
In other words, when the focus of your consciousness is no longer simply concentrated on the material-centered focus, when you can explore inward in other ways, then when you look at this material world again, your feeling about it is completely different as well. Those who have opened the inner senses have very deep experiences of this.
Seth's ability to shift topics in this session is extremely strong — you could say it is a matter of things completely unrelated to each other. Just a moment ago he was still talking about space travel and the alteration of the focus of consciousness, and then all at once he turned to talking about the will — the will of our firm determination — and its influence on life.
The Nature of Will
Seth says that Ruburt directed his will toward certain areas. Your will is your intent, and a firmer will is just such an intent. All the forces of your existence are mobilized by your will. And your will is an inference made according to your beliefs about reality.
Each person uses his own will in a different way, and deals with challenges in a different way. Ruburt used his will to solve a series of challenges. For example, Ruburt had earlier decided to find the kind of partner best suited to him and to his own unique characteristics, and as a result he found Rob. But at that time Rob was already married, and he himself was married too, yet he firmly followed Rob, because he felt Rob was the person he was looking for. He was very clear about what kind of person he was looking for, and that was his intent.
After finding his partner, Ruburt began to use his will, and mobilized all his forces to fulfill his abilities. When he went about fulfilling his abilities, he also brought about certain conditions, in which he hoped Joseph could also fulfill Joseph's abilities — that is, to paint and to write novels.
Ruburt's way of handling things was to face one challenge at a time, concentrating all his energy and strength on that one challenge, solving only that one problem at a time, while temporarily ignoring other problems. When he was looking for a partner, he threw himself entirely into finding a partner, until he found the ideal one; then he developed his abilities, throwing himself entirely into developing them until they were brought to the utmost; then he also let his husband go do the things he liked to do.
At the very beginning, the two of them were both without jobs — one painted and one wrote books, but they both took some odd jobs. Jane was doing small jobs for a gallery, and Rob was painting advertising pictures for an advertising company. Ruburt wanted to write, and wanted to use his creative and psychic abilities to the utmost, so he cut down on all analytical matters, and did not want to do anything except create.
His inflexible mind led him to a rich feast of creative and psychic experience. Ruburt's mind was very stubborn; once he set his mind on something, he would stick with it to the very end. So when he wrote, it led him into a rich feast of creative and psychic experience, which for him was a wonderful thing. And it led him to a situation in which Joseph and he could at last, to some extent, have financial freedom, and were not threatened in that respect.
Here let me mention something in passing: when you truly do the thing you want to do, you do not need to worry about your financial problems. Of course you may not become enormously wealthy, because your focus of attention is not in that direction, but neither will you be reduced to such hardship that you cannot keep going.
According to Ruburt's thinking, he threw away all excess baggage, and nothing could interfere with him. So as far as the body was concerned, his diet was simple — the ellipsis after that was not written out, but he was far more than simple in diet; he was simple in clothing too. She often wore one pair of jeans, and one pair of pants could be worn for a week without being changed, or even a month without being changed, and her underwear was not changed either. Later even Seth could not stand watching it anymore, and said, go change your clothes; how long have you been wearing those clothes?
And you can imagine that Ruburt was extremely minimal about food and clothing — hamburgers, pizza, eating two of those a day was enough, and he absolutely would not spend one extra minute on eating. In the early sessions Seth raised this issue many times with suggestions, saying that eating is also a kind of enjoyment, and also a kind of creation, and a very beneficial part of creation; you two should spend some time making a good meal, or go out to eat, and not eat this junk food every day. But the two of them still went their own way.
Ruburt's willpower was astonishingly strong. It was not that he was deliberately simple; it was because his attention was not on these things at all. His attention was on that rich feast of psychic experience, and he was very full from that psychic feast. He was not a person who could operate in many areas at the same time; he was only good at solving one problem at a time. So when he was focused on creation, he could not take very good care of his life.
Each person lives according to his own intent. When a person lives according to his own intent, the energy and strength he needs automatically well up. In all of this, probabilities are involved, because at all moments in the past, it touched upon the point at which the probable self could be healed — because all probabilities exist.
But no one can be healed in violation of his own will.
Seth's meaning is very blunt: Ruburt's mind was simply not on healing his body. You only have to look at his working hours in the later period — he got up at eight every morning and began writing, and wrote until noon; at noon he ate a meal, and it seemed he did not even rest, and then continued writing; he wrote until perhaps three or four in the afternoon, when he was tired, slept for an hour or two, got up and ate dinner, prepared a bit, took a walk, and at that point he might create a little more; then at nine o'clock, the transmission of the Seth material began. Do not forget that by this time he was already afflicted with illness, and even taking a few steps was already very difficult, yet he still did not pay much attention to his own body. To put it bluntly, he did not care about this body; he only wanted to do his creative work.
Seth put it very tactfully, meaning that if Ruburt had wanted to heal his body, he could have healed himself at many, many points in time, but he simply did not. No one could force him, because his willpower was not there. This was also one of the main reasons Ruburt died at a very young age in the end.
Ruburt traveled very well in the inner world, so he did not need to travel in the outer world; the two were balanced. But not needing to travel in the outer world led to his physical condition getting worse and worse. Seth said that this challenge had already been won — the travel and exploration in the inner world had already been won — and now the focus should be shifted, and some attention should be given to the outer world, to the state of the material body, the physical condition. He told Ruburt that he should shift the focus of his willpower, and use his willpower in some material area, to solve the problems of his body.
Rob's Will
Seth then said to Rob, you decided to seek the kind of relationship you and Ruburt now have, the kind of connection your parents never had, and you directed your willpower in that direction. Rob's parents did not get along well, so he put all his willpower into emotional connection.
At the same time, unlike Jane, Rob could place his willpower in several areas. Rob was also a reclusive sort of person; the two of them hardly had any social activities and were not very willing to deal with other people. Rob was almost worse off than Jane in this regard; Jane had a few friends, but Rob had very few friends.
Seth said, Rob, you have separated yourself from the world to a considerable degree, yet at the same time, while separated, you still maintained and developed an emotional contact with a partner, one completely different from your previous experience. The development of this kind of relationship necessarily involved creativity. Through your relationship with Jane, through your feelings for Jane, because your relationship and feelings were good, you also wanted to explore the nature of reality, or at least catch a glimpse of that possible vague picture.
Within this probability, Rob provided a background that included exercise and care for the body—Rob's body was in excellent shape; he loved exercise and loved taking care of his body. And in a probable reality, Rob was an outstanding professional athlete. Jane, on the other hand, would not take care of her body.
Seth also pointed out a shared belief: in order to probe the truth of this world, in the process, they shut out all the distracting things of the outer world. For example, the two of them did not accept interviews, did not give interviews, did not deal with the media, did not hold book signings, did nothing of the sort, and basically lived in a state of seclusion.
Ruburt, with his practical mind, carried this out even more rigidly than Rob—he simply did not go out, did not move around, and thus thoroughly blocked out the distractions of the world.
Placing Willpower on the Body
In this passage Seth goes around in a big circle, but really he just wants Ruburt to place his attention on the body, and he emphasizes the role of willpower — that role of willpower is actually something each of us can borrow and make use of.
Many of us who study spiritual practice have a misconception: we think that during practice we should not have strong willpower, nor strong purpose, nor strong direction; we should take things as they come, sliding wherever we slide like stepping on a watermelon rind, without strong desire, without strong purpose, and should be tranquil and empty — only that is good. This is wrong. Those views are all traditional mistaken views of spiritual practice. Seth deliberately emphasizes willpower here, showing that willpower is extremely important in the middle of all this.
Jane's willpower is astonishing. You can tell just from looking at her works — she could write so much while dragging around an exhausted body, and from that you know how strong her willpower is. Seth says that with that kind of awareness, it can be used in a new directive for the body's orientation. The only thing needed is that he needs to give the body the command, and everything else will naturally follow unconsciously. As long as Jane gives her own body the command, the natural forces, the natural healing ability, will follow along.
When you study this kind of material, and you understand that the point of power is right here in the present moment, this is far more important than saying that when you were little your mother cursed you, or that your mother's rheumatoid arthritis was passed on to you, and so on. You can change. Ruburt has faced a series of challenges, all of which he accomplished through his willpower, and the physical challenge — that is, Ruburt's current physical health problems — is simply the next one to be overcome.
A Supplement Added One Year Later
Six months after Seth finished dictating this book in April 1975, he discussed the will in a personal session. When Jane delivered that material, I immediately thought of including the more general portions of it in this session.
Seth said: You cannot be wishy-washy. You cannot live that kind of Buddha-like life -- anything goes, sure, whatever -- it is not like that. You have a will for a reason, and you should not be without a will. Many people are taught that they cannot have a will, that they cannot have purpose, but willpower is perfectly normal, and it exists for a reason.
When you are born, that will is directed toward growth and development. You were really born because of willpower; you have a will to live that sets all the body's activities in motion. Then the will itself, by the same force from which the will emerges, operates automatically.
In the exercise that followed, he gave the example of a scientific experiment: if a white mouse is placed in water and left to drown on its own, it can hold out for anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. But if it is rescued just before drowning, and after it recovers is dropped into the water again, it can hold out for a full 72 hours4, floating in the water without sinking. Originally it could only last 20 minutes to half an hour, but now it can last 72 hours. This is a typical effect of the will to live -- it can bring us to a point we would ordinarily consider unimaginable.
In infancy and childhood, that will single-mindedly directs the body to charge forward with all its strength, setting aside all obstacles in the tremendous impetus toward growth and development. However, that will must also be used to assess the conditions of the organism's growth, and to find the best areas for expansion -- all of this requires the action of willpower.
There have been periods in history when human beings, in planned societies, every man and woman knew his or her place, and always knew the direction to follow. Although other conditions and rights might have been neglected -- for example, living conditions were harsher, food and goods were poorer -- the willpower followed its own direction of development.
In fact, in your society there are also many rights; eating well and dressing well are all rights. Ruburt wanted to move in a particular direction, namely his writing, and in the later period, developing the ability to explore inward, yet there was no clearly known method to get there. He wanted to follow a nontraditional route; he felt that those traditional sciences, those theories, could not solve his problems. While he was learning, until he gained enough wisdom, he felt he needed protection -- for example, he needed a personal identity, a social status, and so forth.
And that quest itself would lead to a completely different set of values, and a brand-new belief system. The new values and the new belief system would in turn give his willpower a new boost.
You should notice that there may still be people around you using old, outdated beliefs to deal with their life challenges. They say that in order to cope with challenges, they must change their beliefs. When you come across some hurdle in your life that you cannot get past, try changing your beliefs and see.
The universe is on your side, not against you. Your fellow human beings are also on your side, not against you. When each of you realizes that -- that the universe is for you, and your human companions are also for you -- then you can reach that part of your fellow beings that is with you: what they have achieved, what they have been able to attain. You meet them on an inner level, not on the physical level. That is also inspiring to them, and sets them off on new developments.
Willpower is quite formidable, and it is spread throughout your entire body, throughout every cell of your body. The body relies on its direction -- whatever the willpower wants to do, the body can do. As in the example just given, with the support of willpower, the white mouse could survive in the water for 72 hours.
The beliefs of your will activate the body's automatic resources. You do not need to worry about where that ability comes from; it is mobilized automatically. You only need to have a firm willpower.
Attribution of the Book
The following words are excerpted by Seth from a private session on April 29, 1975, five days after he finished dictating this book. He said that our books -- including Seth's books and Ruburt's books -- do not fall into any clear category, especially at the beginning, and the same is true now.
Ruburt does not have any accepted academic credentials, has never attended college, and is not a holder of this or that master's degree or doctorate. Because no living person could be qualified to grant him one, or to grant him a degree on your particular line of research -- no one is qualified to confer upon him the title of what kind of scholar or what kind of expert Ruburt is. Ruburt does not hide behind any academic credentials, social system, or dogma at all; he does not care about these things in the least.
The second note is from Session 454 on December 4, 1968, which is from the early sessions, and the full text is in The Seth Material. In that session, I believe Seth brought forth one of his most thought-provoking concepts. That passage from Seth is deeply meaningful:
You do not understand the world into which your own thoughts fall. For they continue their own existence. Others look up at them and regard them as stars. I tell you that your own thoughts and mental activities appear to the inhabitants of other systems as the stars and planets within your own system. And those inhabitants cannot perceive what lies within and behind the stars hidden in their own firmament.
The inhabitants of that space, that dimension into which your thoughts disappear -- from their perspective, your thoughts are like the stars in their sky. And they do not know that when they look up at the starry sky, behind the dense stars that fill their entire firmament are actually your thoughts. Through such a vivid description, you can understand how great the differences are between one reality and another, between one world and another, between one universe and another -- what is merely a thought on our side may be a planet over there, a star in the sky. So this passage truly makes one sigh with emotion, marveling at the mystery of the universe, the infinity of the universe.
注释与核实
-
At the time of this commentary, a one-way trip to Mars took roughly four to six months, depending on launch windows and trajectory. ↩
-
The Milky Way's diameter is commonly estimated at about 100,000 light-years, though more recent measurements suggest it may be larger. ↩
-
Source: NASA, "The Dog Star, Sirius, and its Tiny Companion," 2005 (https://science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/the-dog-star-sirius-and-its-tiny-companion/) ↩
-
Source: Curt P. Richter, "On the Phenomenon of Sudden Death in Animals and Man," 1957 (https://scottroberts.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/pheomenon-of-sudden-death-in-animals-and-man.pdf) ↩