Mike's commentary · The "Unknown" Reality, Session 729

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 parts Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This chapter discusses astrology, probabilities, and inner triggering mechanisms, pointing out that once people label themselves, they impose limits. The time and place of birth are chosen by consciousness, and the positions of the stars are only sensory effects, not causes that determine fate. Those born at the same time and place belong to different probable space-times, and their inner response mechanisms also differ from one another. The stars and planets themselves are consciousnesses on different scales. Astrology sometimes appears accurate because the interpreter projects psychic abilities, and the star chart is only an aid. Consciousness exists before birth and has preset inner triggering mechanisms that determine whether it responds or does not respond to certain conditions.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Labeling yourself sets boundaries and limits your own development.
• The time and place of birth are chosen by consciousness; astrological positions are not causes that determine fate.
• People born at the same time and place do not share the same space-time, nor do they necessarily have the same fate.
• Astrology or fortune-telling is sometimes accurate because the interpreter projects psychic abilities; the chart or hexagram is only an aid.
• Consciousness exists before birth and has preset internal trigger mechanisms for responding or not responding to certain conditions.

Main Text

Labeling and Limitations

The title of this session is: Astrology, Probabilities, and Inner Triggers -- Stars and Planets as Consciousness. January 13, 1975, Monday, 9:16 p.m.

In this session, Seth points out the theme clearly from the very beginning:

Once you label yourself, you set a limitation, you fold up a boundary, and you define the direction of your psyche, usually limiting yourself according to rather narrow concepts.

Once you label yourself, no matter what you call yourself or how you do it, you are limiting your own development. You think you must begin or end somewhere, that you must have a fence surrounding you, a yard of identity within which you can feel safe. You want to feel comfortable and secure, and only within the two time periods of birth and death do you feel that your existence is reliable and stable.

I have said many times that the self has no limitations. But you seem to be afraid that you will flow out, flow off to somewhere. You insist on setting up a boundary around yourself, placing a fence or a wall, because you are afraid of losing yourself in a labyrinth, afraid of losing your sense of identity.

Yet you understand that your self exists in a far larger dimension than you usually assume. So you talk in terms of reincarnation, and you know there are more identities of the self that exist. This idea of reincarnation holds that you have past lives and future lives. In this way, it can both assure you that you know a larger self exists, and at the same time guarantee that your concepts of time and space will not collapse -- the possibility that they will not collapse.

This is the approach we ordinarily take -- you imagine yourself as one reincarnated self after another, each identity neatly separated from your other identities by the flow of years, by an apparent death and an apparent birth. You think that each time you reincarnate, it is because of each birth and death, very neatly separated from another self.

Counterpart Personalities and the Urge to Define Yourself

The counterpart personalities I discussed in the previous sessions are actually meant to break this kind of fixation you have on your identity. When you understand that in the same era there are many other personalities who are counterparts to you, you will not be so attached to your identity. It is as if the same task has been assigned to several different identities to carry out simultaneously.

But you still want to give yourself some definitions. So do these counterpart personalities of mine form a four-sided self? Remember how Jane imagined it for herself -- if there were four counterpart personalities, would these four become a four-sided self? Or are they one body of consciousness? This is actually still wanting to define yourself. Only when you have a definition do you know where you stand, in which reincarnation, in which time and space.

The Temptation of Astrology and Fortune-Telling

You are so fascinated by the concept of labels that many people blindly follow astrology. Because you are fascinated by labels, you become fascinated by astrology or other forms of fortune-telling. At this point you will use other methods to mark yourself. For example, in the West, based on the date and time of your birth, based on the positions of the stars in the sky at the time of your birth, it is determined what kind of state you are in now, what you will experience in your life, and what kind of personality traits you have. Some people even extrapolate more esoteric things -- energies, gifted energies, the secrets of numbers, rainbow numbers, and many, many more.

Seth in this session is specifically here to break down these illusions for you. He will not come right out and say whether these are right or wrong; he will explain the reasoning behind them to you.

You were born at a certain time, in a certain place, under certain conditions, and you will take this as a label for yourself. But consciousness is always forming those conditions. What you do not know is: who formed those conditions? When you were born, where you were born -- you think that was a natural accident, but in fact it was decided by consciousness. If you can understand that your consciousness decided at what time you were born, then you will not believe in these fortune-telling methods so much -- because all of it was decided by you.

Seth emphasizes that consciousness always determines those conditions. That is, the consciousness of the fetus decides at what time it will be born.

You say, how could it be decided by oneself? Teacher Xiyu has spoken of his own experience and practice: if a person's telepathic ability is very strong, and they can communicate with a fetus one month before birth, the fetus can accurately say on which day and at which moment it will be born, and no matter how it is tested, it is always correct. The premise is that this person truly has this kind of telepathic ability; otherwise they cannot communicate with the fetus.

Then if consciousness is influenced by those conditions to some degree, it is because those effects come in the same way that a painter is influenced by the landscape he himself has created.

You say that the time of this person's birth was chosen by himself, so the positions of the stars in the sky at the time of his birth were also known to him -- in other words, they were also created by himself. It is like a painter who paints a picture himself, and then he is influenced by that picture. All of it was painted by the painter himself, but he is also influenced by what he himself painted.

You decide, for example, to be born in a certain month or on a certain day, when the planets are arranged in such and such a way, and beforehand you choose the season of your birth. In the simplest terms, you decided it. You chose the time; you came.

A violet in the backyard enters into life, but that violet must remain in that backyard, and its entire growth depends on the weather conditions of that particular backyard, even though those conditions themselves are produced by the activity of the entire planet. But you can walk out of the time and place of your birth, while the flower cannot.

It is like a violet blooming in your backyard. It chose to incarnate in that position in the backyard, so it chose the environment of this Earth where the backyard is located, and the climatic conditions of that position, as the larger background of its birth. But once it incarnates there, it can no longer choose; it can only remain in that backyard. But you are different -- you can choose to be born at any time and in any place. This is something you chose yourself.

To put it bluntly, the environment and background of your incarnation were chosen by you. So when other people take this you -- who was incarnated according to the time and place you yourself chose -- and then tell your fortune and say what your future will be like, do you not think this is a little ridiculous?

The Convergence of Probabilities

So why is it that many fortune-tellers are very accurate, or very effective? Let us continue reading.

From a larger perspective:

Probabilities operate to a degree you perhaps cannot imagine.

The operating patterns of probabilities are far grander and more complex than you imagine.

Any one focus of actual life is caused by a convergence of probabilities.

Any moment in your life, any point in time, is formed by the interaction and convergence of numerous probabilities. In other words, the other people you meet in this world, from their perspective, are merely an intersection between their probability-time and your probability-time. This does not mean that the two of you live in the same time and space. You cannot see him standing in front of you and say that the two of us are in the same time and space, the same world -- that is your understanding on the physical level. You can only say that during this period of time, the two of you overlap; your two probability space-times overlap, but that does not mean the two of you are in the same time and space.

The Analogy of Rock Strata

Remember in the last session, Seth compared a year to the rock strata of a mountain, just as a tree ring represents one year of the tree. He said seasons come and go, and over a period of time many batches of spring flowers grow there. So in those terms, each year is like a stratum of rock.

He continues:

Again, for example, if the year is 1940, all those born on a particular day in 1940 are not necessarily born at the same time.

Even if they were born on the same day, or at the same time, they were not born at the same "time." This "same time" is in quotation marks. What does it mean? They appear to have appeared at the same time and place, but they belong to different space-times. They have an intersection, but that does not mean they belong to the same space-time.

This is like two flashlights intersecting at night -- they intersect with each other, but they will continue along the directions they are shining toward, toward farther places. At the point where they intersect, there is an intersection, but it does not affect their respective trajectories and directions.

The 1940 you think of is merely one season on that stratum. If one stratum is one year, 1940 is one of the strata, but this one stratum has four seasons -- spring, summer, autumn, and winter. You think you live in 1940, but you were born in spring and he was born in summer; you belong to different seasons.

The flowers born in the spring of one year do not see the flowers of the next spring or the previous spring, nor do they mingle with them. In the same way, those born in one season of 1940, broadly speaking, will not mingle with those born in the same year.

This example is not very well chosen; what he says about seasons might mislead people. But what he actually means is this: if we take the lifespan of a mountain, it is described in terms of millions or tens of millions of years, so one year is already the smallest unit for the mountain. He is saying that what you do not know is that within a year there are still seasons; a year does not simply end after that year -- within the year there are still spring, summer, autumn, and winter. If this is hard to understand, try understanding it this way: take one second of human time and divide it into spring-seconds, summer-seconds, autumn-seconds, and winter-seconds, and perhaps you will more easily understand what he means. It is simply a matter of different scales.

What he really wants to say is this: people truly born at the same moment, at what you consider the same moment and the same place, from Seth's perspective are in different space-times, belonging to different probabilities.

Each year is like a stratum, bringing forth innumerable distinctive flowers of every kind that grow there.

Those separate years, such as 1940, 1920, 1950, continue along their own lines of development. In those terms, time expands inward and outward, and it does not only move forward.

For example, from the perspective of 1975 now, 1940 has already passed. But in fact we know that 1940 has not passed. 1940 has many, many probabilities that are still continuing. For example, if you incarnate yourself back into 1940, then 1940 is still an existing, still-living 1940 for you. Would you not still fall in love, get married, and have children with the people of that 1940 era? Does that 1940 not gain new storylines because you incarnated back into it? At the very least, it gained you. Originally there was no you in 1940, and now there is a you in 1940 -- is that not different? So he says that from a certain perspective, time is expanding inward or outward, continuously, rather than, as you imagine, time only being able to continue moving in a single direction. In fact, within it, it is also constantly increasing in value and becoming richer.

The Luminous Platform

Your reality is like a luminous platform, a plane resting upon probabilities.

The world you are in now is like a luminous platform. Your focus is all on it, but what you do not notice is that beneath this luminous platform, what supports it are numerous probabilities. You follow these so unconsciously and beautifully -- you only pay attention to what plays are being performed on the platform, what storylines, what plots those protagonists are acting out. You act out your own play on this platform, and you act it so well that you never even think to question your roots, or the medium in which your experience exists.

Those probabilities are the medium in which our world exists. Just as sound can only travel through air, or through a medium of a certain density, and cannot travel in a vacuum -- our world, this time and space, this theater in which we can perform our lives, exists precisely because of the support of the medium of numerous probabilities.

People Who Share a Birthday

All those who share any given birthday, even sharing place as well as time, do not have the same fate.

Let us take a simple example: twins -- are they not born at the same time? In a certain sense, there is a sequence, but in fortune-telling it is no longer considered that precise. The fortune-teller calculates to the shichen, and considers that to be the same fate. Chinese fortune-telling generally goes to the shichen, and one shichen is two hours; within those two hours, they all consider it to be the same shichen of birth. If we follow this reasoning, the same bazi is the same. So in the same hospital, in the same delivery room, on the same day or in the same hour, are there not many babies born? If they are twins, then it is even more simultaneous. If it is a cesarean section, the time between being taken out of the mother's belly is even closer. So does this simultaneity produce two completely different lives with the same fate? Of course not. If you carefully look into twins, of course it is not the same.

But not only that, they do not necessarily share the same conditions.

What does this mean? They are not, as you think, in the same time and space. You say, that is not right -- they were born in the same place and at the same time, how can they not be in the same time and space? Let us return to the reasoning explained earlier -- you can only say that at the moment of their birth, their two space-times overlapped and intersected, but you cannot say they are in one time and space.

You say, why is this so? All right, let us return to the core. What do you think your time and space is composed of? What forms your time and space? Is it not formed by your consciousness? This time and space is all created by you. Each person has their own independent set of time and space, and each person's time and space is different from everyone else's. It is its own independent coding system, or rather, a time and space that matches and resonates with your current frequency of consciousness -- only then can it be perceived by you and experienced by you. Why is your time and space on the same frequency as your consciousness? Because it was created by you -- how could it not be on the same frequency as your consciousness?

You say, that is not right -- I had dinner with him yesterday, we have lived together for decades, how can we not be people in the same time and space? You say, how can we not be people in the same time and space? You think you are, but that only means you think you are. You eat together, sleep together, work together, and you think you are. But can you walk into his consciousness? You cannot. Can you enter his dreams? You cannot either. So how can you say the two of you are people in the same time and space?

Therefore, even people born at the same time and in the same place are not people in the same time and space. Each of them is influenced by the probability system of their own birth. The two of them just happened to be born at that time and in that place simultaneously, but the probabilities supporting their births are not the same. It is like two people appearing on stage at the same time, but one may have gotten in through connections, and the other may have gotten in through real ability. They both appear on this platform, suddenly under the spotlight of history, but that does not mean the reasons behind their appearances are the same. Because their platforms of probability are different, their subsequent developments are also completely different. It is only at the point of birth that they happen to coincide.

From Which Moment Does Life Begin

To determine the exact time of physical birth based on the time of conception itself is wrong in its very method.

From which day should your life be counted? Nowadays everyone says it is counted from the day of birth. But the Chinese do not think so. You truly began from the moment of fertilization; your life was obtained from that moment. So is the time of conception the standard? Is this time the most accurate? That is also wrong. You can be precise down to the process of the sperm entering the egg and becoming a fertilized egg, but the process of fertilization itself is not an exact time either; it is also a process. Suppose you had an instrument that could measure the process of the fertilized egg forming, and you recorded the instant the sperm penetrated the egg -- that would still be useless. Using this time to determine the beginning of your life is itself wrong.

There is no point at which you can say a person is alive.

You cannot say at any point that this person is alive, because before he came he was already alive. What is the essence of life? The essence of life is consciousness, the attention of consciousness. The existence of your physical body is merely a prop borrowed by life, or a mold borrowed by it, like the Avatar body borrowed in the movie Avatar. What truly gives it life is not the physical body, but the thing behind the physical body -- that consciousness.

There is no point at which you can accurately say when this person has life and when they do not. Although you do find it more realistic to accept certain points of birth and death. At birth there is a birth certificate, on which the exact hour and minute of your birth is accurately recorded -- though of course that time is simply filled in casually by the nurse after cleaning up, glancing at the clock in the delivery room. At death, the doctor also writes down a date of death. From your perspective, it seems that the points of birth and death are real. But your consciousness has always been itself since long before -- before your physical life began, the consciousness that entered your physical life has always been itself, existing since long ago. It is an old soul, an old life.

In an even larger framework, a son is his father's father, just as normally as he is the son.

Many people cannot understand this. For example, there is a person in our group whose abilities are relatively strong, and he can sense that after his father passed away, his father incarnated into the newly born baby of his daughter-in-law or some distant relative. So what do you call that little baby? Do you call him son or do you call him dad? His soul is his father, but in terms of the physical body, he is his son. Unacceptable. But whether you accept it or not, this soul, this consciousness, operates in this way.

Once you release your consciousness from the narrow concepts of time and of yourself, you can begin to explore the unknown reality of that greatly unrecognized self. Once you break through the illusion of time, and also break through the narrow perception of yourself -- the idea that before the birth of this physical body my life did not exist, and after the death of this physical body my life ends again -- once you leap out of such viewpoints, only then can you begin to truly explore the unknown reality of that unrecognized self.

To put it simply: your time of birth is not important. You think the time of birth is very important, but that is because your consciousness chose to be born at that time; it does not carry any magical, specific meaning, nor does it contain any information. If it contains any information, that too was chosen by your own consciousness.

When you think of astrology in popular terms, it is as if you were looking at the cover of a book without understanding that there are many pages inside.

In general terms, so-called astrology is just seeing a cover. When astrology says what kind of person you are, it only sees your cover. You say, is the cover it sees correct? There is certainly some truth to it.

Astrology and the Inner Trigger Mechanism

The title of this session by Seth is "An Inner Condition" -- that is, the inner trigger mechanism, that trigger. What things can make him react, and what things do not make him react -- he has set this up himself, and it has already reached the cellular level.

You say, how can this be? Of course it can. Ask any woman and she will know: she naturally feels goodwill toward certain men, and naturally feels aversion toward certain men, without them having done anything bad. Instinctively, some men can touch her, and some men cannot. You say why? She does not know either; she cannot explain it clearly herself. It is actually not that mysterious -- it is because certain expressions, appearances, images, scents, and also mannerisms and behaviors of those men can be felt by that woman's cells, and she herself will produce different reactions to those conditions. This kind of bodily reaction sometimes cannot be restrained, though it may be restrained by reason. For example, this is my boss -- although sometimes his hands wander and it is very annoying, I do not dare truly resist him -- but the sense of aversion in the body is different.

Consciousness is active within all cellular structures, and, so to speak, triggers in advance their own responses to certain conditions and not to others.

Let me give another example to help you understand this point. In those "CEO falls in love with you" dramas, the female leads all wish they could throw themselves into the CEO's arms -- but that depends on whether the CEO is handsome, whether he is the type she likes. So this is a very core point: why is it that within the cells, consciousness has already set up its trigger mechanism for all external reactions.

Many people are born at the same hour of the same day of any given year, but individually, that inner trigger may be very different.

So although the overall conditions at birth are the same, their inner reactions are indeed very different. Seth says that if we must explain this in terms you can understand, it means that although these two people were born at the same time, in the same place, and in the same period, their inner reaction mechanisms are different. One person's inner setup responds to this kind of stimulus, and the other person's setup responds to that kind of thing, so their life trajectories are necessarily different, and their fates are also different.

Some people react differently to the blow of a breakup -- some collapse completely, some grow stronger with each battle, and some do not take it seriously at all. Some people are far more influenced by other probabilities, and far more sensitive to other probabilities, and these will not show at all in an ordinary astrological chart. Suppose their probabilities were all the same -- as was said earlier, their probabilities were originally not the same; now suppose they were born at the same time and in the same place, and the probabilities of the events they will encounter in the future are also the same -- their reactions would still be different, and their fates would still be different. Why? Because their inner reaction mechanisms are different.

Seth is here thoroughly determined to break your illusions about fortune-telling; he will not stop until he has broken them. The same event, experienced by different people, produces different reactions, and these will not be written in your astrological chart. These minute differences are things an astrologer cannot see.

He says these astrological charts emphasize one line of probabilities, only one branch of probabilities -- a child born at this time has this kind of probability, while the other probabilities have not been studied at all. And even for that same line of probability, is each person's reaction not also different? So all of this becomes uncertain.

The interpretation built upon that chart will be more meaningful to those who have chosen the same probable birth circumstances.

For example, the calculations of an astrological chart may be more meaningful for people with relatively similar life backgrounds -- remember, more meaningful. Two children born in the same delivery room on the same year, month, and day -- one is the child of a wealthy family, and the other is the child of a farming family -- their lives will be completely different. Although according to Chinese fortune-telling their fates are the same, their fortunes are different, and their backgrounds are also different. If both of them came from the same family background, then it would be relatively close. So look at twins -- although their fates are also different, the fates of most twins are relatively close. If you carefully observe the development of twins, there may be many differences, but there are also similarities, because their living environments are relatively close.

But for those who, in your terms, are born at the same time yet follow a different line of probabilities, there is no value in this. There is another level here: suppose two people have the same material conditions and the same environmental background, but these two people are in two different reality spaces, then their outcomes also cannot be measured. Why is it useful when two people are in the same environment? Because they overlap too much. For example, if two people's realities overlap 99%, or 85%, then we can say these two people are basically in one reality -- although it is not one reality, the degree of overlap is too high, so can we treat it as approximately the same? Yes. So the subtle point lies right here. You and the people around you, if you are in one time and space, working at one company, living in one neighborhood, with similar work environments, then the two of you are basically in one reality. Although specifically speaking it is not one reality, generally speaking it is the same, because most of it overlaps.

The Operation of Cells and the Psyche

Just as cells operate with knowledge of probable actions, cells know all probabilities, yet still maintain the physical body within the system you have chosen.

Cells can cross time and space, and can operate directly with consciousness, while at the same time maintaining the physical body within the system you have chosen. The changes of cells move in and out of different probabilities, but this does not affect their influence on the identity of our three-dimensional physical body; the body still maintains its own state.

Your psyche operates in the same way: it fluctuates itself among many different probabilities. Cells come and go, shuttling through different probable times and spaces, yet this does not affect your body's sense of identity. Your psyche is the same: it sows itself everywhere in different times, and this also does not affect its existence as an integral psychic whole, nor its own cognition.

In such examples, Seth says he is speaking of physical probabilities -- not that you go to a nonphysical world, but parallel times and spaces of probability, yet still material worlds the same as our earthly time and space.

They are parallel times and spaces, substitutes for the world you know, another version of that world. Those who live together with you, your contemporaries, do not all belong to the same probability system.

He speaks very rigorously: they do not all belong. He does not say they do not belong, nor does he say they all belong. People contemporary with you basically are not in the same time and space as you, but they also have things in common; you also share a part, or a large part, of overlap, and it may also be said that they partially belong to a certain probability system, but they do not all belong.

In that regard, you are at a meeting place.

People coming from many probable realities have mixed together, temporarily agreeing to accept certain portions of the same time-space environment. From a certain angle, you and the people around you are all a kind of meeting, a kind of intersection -- they all come from different probable times and spaces. Zhang San, Li Si, Wang Er Mazi, they are all in different times and spaces, and then they briefly intersect with you in this time and space. When you meet, when you eat together, drink tea, and chat, you are in one time and space; once you separate, each of you walks into your own time and space, and the time-space intersection ends. If you understand them in this way, then you will understand.

Why We Do Not Perceive It

You say, I would feel that this should not be the case; I feel that we are in the same world, so how could it be that we are not in one world?

Because your concentrated focus is upon the similar places of experience.

In the places where your experience and his experience are the same, you reduce the importance of the differences, so that often in so-called experience, the greater dissimilarities completely escape your attention. You only pay attention to those same things that are mutually recognized, while those different things are not noticed at all, and you do not even pay attention to them. So you only look at those same things, and therefore you think you are all in one time and space.

For example, you all say there is a train station over there. Right, it is that train station; this is the same. So you think it must be one time and space -- otherwise how would he also know about that train station? But you have not thought about it: is the train station he goes to the same train station as the one you go to? You say yes, they are all in the same place, so how could it not be the same train station? Actually, once you go there you will know. Even if it is one train station, it can only be said that in the position of time and space, the two of you overlap at the point of that train station. In his time and space, there is a train station at that place; in your time and space, there is also a train station at that place, but that train station and your train station are, in a certain sense, a kind of intersecting object, an overlap of two times and spaces.

If you disagree with another person about what happened at a certain time and place, you think it must be a mistake of memory.

Like those historical events that have recently been experienced. If your experience differs from others', you will persuade yourself: I must have remembered wrong; this must be something I myself got confused about. This kind of thing often happens in our lives -- some things you clearly remember as being a certain way, but others say it was not so. I think everyone has experienced this, right? You remember it clearly and distinctly as being that way, but the fact is not that way, so you can only say that you yourself remembered wrong. But what is the actual situation? It may be that time and space have crossed.

Let me give you a real example that happened to me a couple of days ago. I wanted to buy a very small mini camera for my little cat, only about one centimeter in size. Because my little cat goes out to play every day, we especially wanted to know where he goes and what he does when he is out; seeing the world from the cat's eyes would also be very interesting. Also, sometimes when he does not come back at night, we would know roughly where he is, and we also wanted to put it together with an Apple AirTag. So I placed an order on Amazon, and the order showed when this item would arrive. But it did not arrive, so I looked at the order again, and it said it would arrive the next day. The next day I waited again, and it still did not arrive. On the third day I remembered: how come this thing still has not arrived? I went to check -- and at that moment a strange thing appeared: there was simply no such item in Amazon's order records; it showed that I had never placed this order. It was neither canceled, nor delayed, and there was no record at all.

Then I searched through my emails, because every time an Amazon order is successfully confirmed, it sends a confirmation email, and another one when it ships. There was no record in the emails either. The whole matter of buying the little camera for the cat was as if it had never happened. But this thing really did happen, truly and genuinely. Yet there was no way around it: in all the records in this time and space, there was no such thing. I myself clearly remembered how I selected it, how I chose it, how I placed the order, what it looked like, its functions, how long it could record, how big and heavy it was -- I carefully chose it for a long time -- and there was nothing. So what do we do in this situation? We can only say that we ourselves remembered wrong.

We do not think that we are in different times and spaces -- the time and space in which I successfully placed the order is no longer the same as the present time and space. This is a real example. So we generally adopt an attitude of ignoring those different places, or not taking them seriously, or thinking that we ourselves remembered wrong.

The most famous example of this is the Mandela Effect. In many people's memories, Mandela died in 1989, "killed" in prison, and never came out at all. But someone discovered that the historical record shows Mandela did come out¹. There are very many memories of this kind. For example, when Kennedy was assassinated, was the car he was riding in a three-row or two-row convertible sedan² -- you will experience mental confusion, not knowing what it actually was.

All right, there are actually many examples like this, and I think everyone has many.

Versions of Events

You of course think that interpretations of events will change -- the same event, different people have different feelings; this is understandable, this can be accepted. But certain obvious events happened, and those are unchangeable. Yet some things really happened, and you feel they cannot change, so how could they change? This is what you cannot understand.

Quite the contrary, the event itself is not that solid.

You accepted one version of a probable event. From a certain angle, other people may have experienced another version of that event, which became the reality perceived by that person. You experienced one version of the event, and he experienced another version of the event, so the two of you have completely different cognitions of this event. No one is right or wrong; you simply experienced different versions of the same event.

There are very many examples of this. In The Nature of Personal Reality, I gave the example of someone in their group named Chang'an, who experienced this kind of time-space crossing when buying shampoo. He repeatedly confirmed that he had bought that shampoo, and even glanced at it when checking out, but when he got home and took it out, it was not that scent. He cared very much about it; he definitely wanted to buy that scent of shampoo, and after much careful selection, there was only that one bottle left on the shelf, and he took it, and he was quite happy -- but when he got home and looked, it was still the shampoo he did not like, and he was devastated.

These events can indeed be quite different, and the separate interpretations give quite valid explanations of the separate different versions.

In your terms, one event can happen in many different ways.

All of this is very fine theory, but it has almost no practical value.

These things are experienced by each of us. Many people have experienced such things. But it seems to be of no use, and it is very mysterious. In theory it sounds very plausible, but what use is it really? We can neither control it nor manipulate it, nor do we know its mechanism or when it will happen. Under what circumstances does this kind of time-space crossing happen, and under what circumstances does it not happen? We ourselves seem unable to control it. So it seems to be of no use to you. Unless when is it useful to you? When you begin to truly explore the reality behind it, then these things become useful to you -- when you truly realize that the reality behind it is a larger reality, then these experiences become useful to you.

The Analogy of the Flowers

Seth has not forgotten that flower; he has always wanted to talk about that flower.

On the rocky ledge of our mountain, any wildflower will view the valley below from its own perspective. Each flower looks from its own position, seeing its familiar environment spread out around it, seeing the whole valley environment as very familiar. Although the angles differ, other flowers born in one spring will die at approximately the same time, and the new flowers of the next year will see a slightly different landscape.

The overall pattern is the same: the mountain is still the mountain, the places where the flowers grow are about the same, and the houses and scenery in the valley are also about the same.

If you saw that same landscape one summer, and then the next summer, you might say: the violets always grow there. And it is truly delightful to see the lilies of the valley likewise in the shadow of the rocks!

Violets grow in the sunlight, and lilies of the valley grow in the shadow of the rocks; such a well-arranged pattern is truly beautiful. If you came in the first summer and saw this landscape, and then went traveling there again the next summer and saw the same landscape, although the violet flowers you saw in the two summers are not the same, you would feel as if the violets always bloom there. The mountain has also undergone some subtle changes, and it is no longer the same mountain; the landscape has also changed slightly, and the flowers are certainly not those same flowers -- their positions, postures, and sizes may all have changed slightly. But you do not care about this at all. You only care that the violets are still blooming there. You know that the flower you pick is not the flower you picked at the same time last year; you know this is this year's flower, not last year's flower. But your focus is only poured onto those differences when forced -- most of the time you only pay attention to the sameness. What is the sameness? It is that the same violet flowers grow in the same place. Otherwise you would think: violets are violets; they will always be here every spring. You feel that they are just one bunch of flowers; it is just that violet. But it is clearly already this year's violet, not last year's violet.

In terms of the flowers, the vast inexplicable differences that exist are another matter. For only at that scale, the flowers you pick are purely themselves in their world. And to some degree, you have picked them from there.

From the scale of the flowers, last year's flowers are last year's flowers, and this year's flowers are this year's flowers; there is no difference in this. And you picked them both last year and this year, so for the flowers, this difference is very great.

If those flowers could see the same environment of the previous year, there would be an unimaginably different presentation, and all the ignored subtle variations would be immense.

If this year's flowers could see last year's flowers in the same environment, they would find that there is a different presentation, because it is not the same as this year. All such subtle changes are immense. We say that this mountain is the same as last year's mountain, but how great are the changes on the mountain over this year? They are beyond counting -- how many small animals have already lived and died, how many grasses have already gone through spring and autumn, how many plants have experienced how many rains, how many times of rain erosion and snow cover -- all of this has completely changed.

Indeed, different enough to make the flowers think that a different time and space is involved.

If this flower could see the scenes of two years, it would find that these are two completely different worlds. For the flower, last year's world and this year's world are two worlds. But do we know that it is one world? We know that last year it was still this mountain, and this year it is still this mountain; although there are some slight changes, they are not important.

So what Seth means is: we only pay attention to those places that are the same, and do not pay attention to those places that are different. Even if time and space are not the same, and each person is in a different probable reality, the world we are in is not the same -- but you do not notice it, because you only pay attention to the same places and ignore the different places. If you put your emphasis on the different places, you will clearly feel that these are two worlds.

Even among those flowers born roughly in the same year and month, there are different versions, and very important probabilities at work.

Not only in terms of external conditions, but also in terms of internal conditions. The flower can feel that its inner probabilities are different. Using the flower as an example here is still meant to speak of the people mentioned earlier: people born at the same time are not only different in external environment -- the environment in which they later grow will change, and this will affect them, so their fate cannot be accurately calculated; the inner is also different, and whether the inner cells trigger reactions to certain things or not will also affect their later fate.

The Precognition and Choice of Consciousness

Consciousness does not simply choose to be born at a certain place in time and space; it also endows its physical organism beforehand with certain inner triggers, so that consciousness will react to those conditions in an extremely individualized manner.

Consciousness chooses where to incarnate, and not only chooses the external material environment, but also sets up many inner mechanisms in the life form it incarnates into, determining which conditions it will react to and which it will not. He calls these "certain inner triggers," which are actually inner reaction mechanisms.

I am not in the least implying predestination or predetermination.

If you say this, does it imply that some people's fates are already fixed? If the external environment can be chosen, and the inner reactions are already determined, then if both of these are fixed, is a person's whole life fate already set? Seth says, I am not saying this at all. If you understand it this way, then you have misunderstood.

He says, let us try another simple analogy.

A seed, for example, knows that it will come to life in a flowerpot in someone's living room.

Suppose it is a tomato seed, and the homeowner decides to start cultivating plants from this seed. In your terms, the life of all cells is precognitive, but actually this is simultaneity -- it is only for us humans that it is precognitive.

The seed knows, then, that in this particular room, the sunlight will come in from the west. And before the sprout begins to emerge, it begins to react in that fashion.

The seed already knows where it will take root and sprout, and it knows where the sun comes in from, so as soon as the sprout emerges it will turn toward the direction of the sun, which is more conducive to its growth. If the sprout emerged facing east, with its back to the sun, that would not be conducive to its growth.

That sprout does not merely react to the direction from which the sunlight comes; it perceives this long before.

The little tender sprout that grows out of the seed does not turn west because of phototropism -- it knows before it sprouts that it should grow toward the west. It knows this inwardly, not as we humans think, that it grows west because there is sunlight in the west outside.

And the seed makes itself sensitive to those conditions beforehand.

For the seed, light is the very root of its life. For us humans, light seems not so important, but it is also important -- you see, when we buy a house we all want one facing south. In China you definitely want south-facing; abroad, when buying a house, you also buy south-facing. Actually, houses abroad are all villas, with light on all four sides, so the direction makes little difference, especially in Los Angeles where the sun is quite strong, with more than three hundred days of bright sunshine a year³, so a south-facing house will actually be hotter and more sun-exposed. But no, because people who come from China mainly live in the Northern Hemisphere, mostly in the north, where sunshine hours are not so sufficient. In the south, because the climate is humid, people also like the north-facing sunlight to drive away the dampness. So this has led to the fact that in China, whether in the south or the north, people all like houses facing the sun -- you see, this is an innate preset.

Let us return to the seed. The seed is naturally aligned with that light; it knows even before the sprout emerges.

The sprout could also grow toward the east; the sprout growing eastward is also one of the probabilities. The trigger mechanism is not in the direction of the sunlight alone.

It is not that because the sunlight is in the west it grows toward the west; rather, it already knew this long ago, and the inner trigger mechanism was activated.

It is the plant's inner knowledge of that direction.

The plant knows before it sprouts: I will grow from the west. But we humans observe: this plant has phototropism; whichever side has sunlight, it grows toward that side.

The plant, for example, is not predestined to grow westward.

This is precisely to break your concept of predestination. These two interact with each other. You say it grows westward; if you put it in another room where the light comes from the north, will it still grow westward? No, it will turn toward the north. It is not that it is predestined to grow westward, but for it, this is how it is -- because it knows there is sunlight to its west. At this time, if you move it to another room, after it emerges it will face west, but very quickly it will turn toward the south or the north, toward the direction from which the sunlight comes.

In the same way, in terms of the time and place it chose beforehand, it knows beforehand an optimal condition for its own development.

For the seed, it knows in which direction it should first develop. But it truly has infinite probabilities from which to choose, to actualize its abilities while at the same time maintaining a functioning selfhood -- selfhood is its own identity, its own attributes.

Consciousness chooses the best overall conditions possible for the purposes of its own growth, then preconditions its own flesh to react or not react, to exaggerate or minimize importance, to deny or accept, the time and place of birth.

He again uses this example to say: the reaction direction toward light has already been preset, so it is first conditioned that when your sprout emerges, it will grow toward the west. As for the place of birth, it has also already preset which conditions it will react to and which it will not. What does this mean? For example, still using the example of the seed growing a sprout: it has already set itself to react to the thing called light. At this time, suppose music is playing on the east side; do you think it will grow eastward? No, it is not sensitive to music -- this is a very subtle change. But do you say it is sensitive to moisture? It seems so. Then if the east side is more humid, it will react; that is another matter. It all depends on what things it reacts to and what things it does not react to.

Consciousness, entering those material conditions, automatically alters those conditions -- a fact not recognized by astrologers.

This passage is very important. When a consciousness incarnates into our material world, ordinary astrology deduces its fate based on the time of its birth. What astrologers do not know is this: once this consciousness enters matter -- once this little baby is born -- it has actually already changed those conditions; the external environment has already changed because of it. You say, can the birth of a child change so much? Of course it can. If you go to a family without children, and to a family that has just had a child, for example both are couples of about the same age, and you visit their homes -- the external environments of the family with a child and the family without a child are vastly different. You can even smell the difference as soon as you enter the room: the family with a child has that special milky smell of a baby; the family without a child has the fragrance of flowers, the hostess's perfume, or lit incense. There is absolutely no milky baby smell. This is a typical example -- the birth of a child automatically changes that environment, and this is something astrologers have not thought of.

The subject that the astrologer measures has actually also changed the object, his environment. Let us continue reading; later he will completely overturn your understanding.

Every child that is born changes the entire universe. When a child is born, because he is different -- originally the universe did not have him, and now the universe has him, so is the universe also different from the previous universe? It is different. And as for changing the world at the time of his birth, the example I just gave is vivid enough: because of his birth, his entire small family environment has changed, and his grandparents and in-laws will also undergo changes, right? There will be very great changes.

Then through these changes, activities that in your terms were not there before are brought in, and by means of a stamp, an imprint of his own reality -- an indelible stamp -- it is imprinted upon the universe. Originally, because there was no such child, the universe was that way; because there is now this child, the universe is different. And because of his existence, many activities will be brought in by him: his grandparents will come to see him, he will go to school... his entire life is completely -- because of his existence, this universe unfolds a series of new probable activities. And because of his existence, he imprints all the experiences and lessons of his activities upon the universe, to declare his own existence. This is easy to understand, right? Yes, so he also influences the entire universe.

That child chooses any given date of birth. On the day of his birth, many probable versions exist. At any time, many probable versions exist, right? That child can choose the version of probability he wants. This date, although it is not only precisely fixed in space, a certain point in time -- he says this date is not merely a definite point in time fixed in space -- that date also represents all the probabilities within it. That one point is not just one point; it contains many probabilities within it.

So first of all, since all time is simultaneous, then you are always dying and being born.

You are always dying and being born, and your later experience affects the time of your birth.

Your later experience affects the time of your birth. If all of this happens simultaneously, then this in itself is a paradox. In human terms, it is that the experience of your final life determines when you will incarnate again. I admit this.

Seth says, a birthday can serve as a convenient reference.

This I do not deny; a birthday can serve as a reference.

Right, this is why so many of our fortune-telling methods use the birthday. This point, I said, I do not deny; it is so.

But if you can realize that your consciousness indeed existed before that time of birth, then your memory will open up, and the birthday you accepted will appear far less important.

If you can admit that before the day you were born, your consciousness already existed.

In other words, your life already existed before that. If you could see this, then all your memories -- all of your memories -- would open up: your past lives, this life, your future life, how you came here, why you chose to be born on this particular day, all of it would open up. Once these open up, coming out of the womb is just an event, just an event, and you cannot say it is your birth. He says this is far better than that. He says from now on, do not say you were born; you can only say that at that time you came out of the womb. In other words, before that, you already had your life. What he wants to say is this: your life is far broader than you imagine.

You are aware of probable births, including when you would be born, when you would come out of the womb -- all of this is determined by yourself, decided by your consciousness. And also the identities of your other parents -- you have other probable existences, you have other probable parents, and this is not necessarily your only choice. And those are almost equally valid and legitimate as the personal history you can now accept. That is to say, you have probable parents; you do not necessarily have to be born into this particular family. Among those probable parents, there would be other probable lives of yours, and those are just as real and valid as the life you have now.

You yourself are without limits -- he emphasizes this statement again.

And the true meaning of this statement may perhaps one day be understood by you.

Right now you may not fully understand it, but one day you will finally understand that you yourself truly have no limits at all.

The concept that the self is only one person, only one life, still prevents you from seeing the greater multiple lives that are your true reality. He says the concept that you think you have only one life will limit you from seeing more lives, from seeing those multiple lives. Often your dreams will give you a hint of this kind of existence: in fact, you do have multiple lives, but you can only recognize one of them, and this is caused by the limitations of your own concepts. He says but your dreams will give you this hint, because in dreams you have many identities, many lives, completely different experiences. He says those dreams are hints that you yourself are a being of multiple lives.

He says you have your own focus, with which to look at the heavens and the universe, to look at planets and stars.

He says this focus of your own, in a certain way of speaking, is a very narrow kind of focus. Although narrow, it is still your focus.

You look at the sky, at the universe, at the planets through the focus of your own consciousness. First of all, you are looking at one version of the universe. That is, the universe you are looking at now is only one version of the universe -- the universe has many versions.

As it appears to exist in that instant in which you perceive it.

That is, when you look at this universe, when you perceive the existence of the universe, in that instant the way the universe exists is perceived by you, and that version is the version of the universe you believe in. The world you believe in is the world you perceive, the world you perceive in that instant.

But the entire nature of a personality cannot be considered as a whole from within that small scope.

But the entire nature of your personality cannot be fully considered in that single instant in which you perceive the universe. In other words, what does this mean? It means that this physical universe you see -- this three-dimensional universe -- is only a phenomenon or a version of a multidimensional universe in three dimensions, the version you perceive. And your greater self cannot be expressed within this three-dimensional world.

He continues:

The personality itself is not only independent of time and space, but uses time and space for its own purposes, producing the illusions we experience.

This statement is very powerful, and it is very important. We must understand it, because it will completely overturn your concepts. Why? It says that the premise of our usual fortune-telling is: we are born into this universe, we are born from the universe, right? When we are born, the external environment of the universe -- for example, what kind of environment it is in, what its astrological configurations are like, how the planets in the sky are moving -- then determines my future destiny. He says when you think this way, there is one thing you have not considered: you are not independent of time and space. To put it more bluntly, you are the one using the illusion of time and space; to put it even more simply, you created this time and space. This time and space itself is created by you, and yet you use the time and space you created to say, "Oh, it foretells something." In that case, it would be more reliable to say that you foretell yourself into being something. To put it even more bluntly, what you will experience in the future was already decided by your consciousness when you came here; it was not decided by those stars, it was decided by yourself long ago. You decided it first, and then after you arrived, you used your perceptual system to sense your external environment, and then through your perception and cognition, you created this world. What you perceive is what you believe to be real, so this world is created through your perceptual system. But you then believe that this world exists objectively.

So this statement is extremely crucial: you are not only independent of time and space, but according to the purposes of your own consciousness, you are using the illusion produced by time and space. This statement should be read several times.

All things are related, and they do not operate in a certain way because the planets were thus and so at your birth. There is a relationship, but it is not a causal relationship. He says it is not because the planets were arranged in a certain way at your birth that this proves what your future will foretell. He says there is indeed a relationship: the planets at your birth do have a relationship with the destiny of your life, but this relationship is not the causal relationship you imagine -- it is not that because of such a planetary arrangement, because you were born at this point in time, your destiny is thus and so. It is not that kind of relationship; do not get it backwards. In other words, your time-space and your birth were created simultaneously, and both were created by your consciousness. How can you say that it is because of the positions of the planets that you have such a relationship? The two do not have that kind of causal relationship; even those stars were created by you.

He continues. He says:

To say that it is because you are who you are that the stars operate in a certain way -- this statement, reversed from the usual one, is just as true as what people ordinarily say.

What does he mean by this? We ordinarily say: because you were born at that time, because of the positions of the stars in the sky, you therefore have such and such a destiny. For example, in China people might say you have the appearance of an emperor, you are the reincarnation of the Star of Literature, your fate carries wealth, you will be thus and so -- they say it this way. Our tradition says that the reason you are who you are is because the stars in the sky at your birth determined it. In Chinese terms, it is determined by your eight characters of birth; in Western terms, it is determined by the astrological configurations in the sky. Look at those people who read astrological charts, they talk on and on, about your north node, your rising sign, your... it is very complicated. Analyzing an astrological chart is very complex, and they speak with great confidence, as if you as a person were determined by the stars.

He says, it would be more true to use another way of saying it. Which way? The other way of saying it is: precisely because of your appearance, because you became who you are, the planets operate in that way. He turns it around and says: it is because of your birth, because you chose such a destiny, because you chose such challenges in this life, that the stars are arranged that way. Can you understand what he means? The stars come for you; the stars are prepared for you. This is just as true as the usual reversed statement.

Why does he use "just as true"? Why does he not say that one is wrong and this one is true? Notice the phrase he uses -- just as true. Are you influenced by this environment? Yes, you are; this cannot be denied. But conversely, the environment also exists because of you: because you exist, that environment exists in that way. If you did not exist, how the stars are arranged would not matter. Do you understand what he means? Because you exist, the planets are arranged this way. If you did not exist at all, how the planets are arranged would be meaningless to you as a person, to your consciousness.

The positions of the planets and stars are themselves effects of the senses.

The positions of the planets and stars in the sky, their positions on the zodiac, are an effect of your own senses. And those senses, their perception only has meaning for a consciousness such as your own. That is to say, this effect of the senses only has meaning for this kind of consciousness, for your kind of consciousness, and has no meaning for a greater consciousness. In other words, these things of the three-dimensional world, which we experience through our physical senses, only have an effect on the consciousness of our own brains.

Those perceptions, then, cannot make you act in any predetermined way, because those conditions have no meaning outside your own consciousness.

What does this mean? He says the positions of the stars are only an effect of your senses; your senses feel that the stars are here. Since it is an effect of your senses, he says this sensory perception cannot determine how you will act, cannot determine your future destiny; this is simply not realistic. Let me say it again: the positions of the stars in the sky are only a sensory experience of yours, right? That sensory experience truly exists, but you cannot say that this sensory experience can determine your future destiny. It is only an experience. Just as when you look at a flower, you also have an experience; can the experience of looking at that flower determine the destiny of your entire life? No. Why then can the positions of the stars in the sky determine the destiny of your entire life? It is the same as looking at a flower; it is also just an experience. Therefore those conditions -- the positions of the stars, the so-called conditions of the constellations -- have no meaning outside your consciousness. Remember this statement: outside your own consciousness, they have no meaning at all.

Then he continues:

The universe exists; that is a fact.

The universe exists, right? But there is much more after that -- only within your own perception does it take on the shape and form that you recognize. The universe exists, but it does not exist in the way we understand it; it exists only in the way we perceive it. Our perception believes that the stars are like this, the sun is like that, the moon is like this, the Milky Way is like that, the nebulae are like this -- this is only what comes through our human perception; we perceive the universe as existing this way. He says but the universe does not truly exist this way; it does not exist in the way you perceive it.

He continues:

The movements of the planets, as we ordinarily understand movement, are in fact only the truth of your perception.

The movements of the planets as you understand them are the truth of your perception. They originally exist in a different way. We think the movements of the planets are only the result of our own perception, but the movements of the planets do not exist in the way we perceive them; they exist in another way. But through the perception of our human physical eyes, we believe they exist that way, and there is nothing we can do about it.

This time he once again shatters your illusion: you keep using the movements and operations of the stars to explain what they can foretell, and he says the movements and operations of those stars are fundamentally just a perception of yours; the stars do not move that way at all, it is only that you feel they move that way. And then you take something you feel and say, "Ah, that will influence something about you." He says that is -- to put it harshly -- nonsense, that is getting off the train.

For example, let me use a somewhat inappropriate example: you watch a movie, and then you say this movie foretells some future event. What is this? This is a perception of yours. You feel that this movie may foretell something; the movements in the movie, the development of events, and so on, that is only a perception of yours. Watching a movie is only an experience; it is only an experience of the images on the movie screen. But that experience is not enough to influence your judgment of things, not enough to foretell your future development. Why? Because it is just an experience; it is not something that truly exists. Of course, the experience is real, but that experience only acts upon your consciousness, only upon your own consciousness -- everyone's experience is different -- it only acts upon the consciousness of that experience of yours; it is not a truly existing event.

All right, let me continue reading. I will not expand on this further: the universe you see, to put it harshly, is just a picture; you merely react to the picture of this universe, and then you treat it as something that can determine your life.

The universe is seeded by consciousnesses of every kind, and when they intrude upon the fields of your actuality, those that appear to you as planets or stars... are in fact different consciousnesses within the universe.

In his words, they are consciousnesses of every kind within the universe. It is just that those consciousnesses of every kind, in our three-dimensional world, become stars, fixed stars, and planets. As such identities -- as the identities of stars and fixed stars as we think of them -- they appear to behave in a certain way: when you identify them as fixed stars or planets existing in the sky, they seem to operate in a certain way, as if they have taken on some form and thereby have some effect. This is the observation of us humans. But what is the essence? The essence is that they are all consciousnesses of every kind within the universe.

You and the stars are simultaneous events.

You and the stars are simultaneous events, each with consciousness and awareness. You have consciousness, the stars have consciousness, but on different scales of actuality -- on different scales of reality, on different physical scales. Actuality means physicality or certainty. That is to say, you have your consciousness, the stars have their consciousness, the sun has its consciousness, you have your consciousness -- all right? But the consciousness of the two of you, assuming both are a perception of matter, the sun as you think of it and the sun as the sun thinks of itself, these are two completely different concepts. Why? Because the physical scales of the two of you are different. The physical scales of the two of you are so different, just as there is such a great difference between the consciousness of an atom and your consciousness. You can feel the existence of the universe; the atom feels the existence of the universe. Do you think what it feels is the same as what you feel? No. To put it simply, the reason they are different is that the physical sizes you inhabit are different. For example, we humans can only process things roughly within the range from the millimeter level to kilometers, several kilometers, several thousand meters. Anything smaller than that, our physical eyes cannot see or feel; anything larger than that, we also cannot comprehend. If an object is tens of thousands of kilometers across, our human understanding of it becomes somewhat vague; if the diameter of this thing is tens of thousands of light-years, then humans do not know how to understand it at all; it becomes incomprehensible. And the diameter of the Milky Way is one hundred thousand light-years⁴; it is not a matter of how many kilometers, it is calculated in light-years. For light to travel from one end of the Milky Way to the other takes one hundred thousand years; calculate how enormous that scale is.

He says the stars have their consciousness, you have your consciousness, but your consciousnesses are utterly different. The reason for the difference is that your scales of physical size are so different. He gives another example, in case you find it hard to understand:

Just as the scale of your consciousness differs from the scale of a violet's consciousness.

Why does he not use size to distinguish here? He uses nature to distinguish. Because you and a violet are things of completely different natures, not just a matter of size. So there is another layer implied here: not only do your different physical sizes lead to completely different awareness in your consciousnesses, or different kinds of consciousness; the greater reason is that you are not the same kind of thing at all, you are not the same kind of consciousness, not even the same kind of consciousness. Therefore you cannot feel the consciousness of the stars, and the stars cannot feel your consciousness, just as you cannot feel the consciousness of a violet, and a violet cannot feel your consciousness.

Of course, viewed through the physical senses, this picture is entirely consistent. From the physical senses, stars, violets, atoms, molecules -- all these things live in one time and space, all exist in one time and space; you feel they are not incongruous, they are within one scale. All within the scope of your cognition. It is not that violets exist in the time and space of violets, and stars exist in the time and space of stars -- no, they are all in one time and space. This is how it appears from your physical senses, and you believe this is real.

You understand that some interested observer... on another planet in the galaxy, when he looks at the earth, he will see what you consider to be the earth's past.

For example, suppose there is a very attentive observer on another planet in the galaxy; when he looks at the earth, he will see what you consider to be the earth's past. Suppose he is tens of millions of light-years away from the earth, then what he sees is the image of the earth from tens of millions of years ago. The earth is 4.6 billion years old⁵; suppose tens of millions of years ago the earth was a barren wasteland with nothing on it, and suppose he is looking at it -- but I have pointed out that he might also see the earth's future according to his own viewpoint.

I have also pointed out that he might see the earth's future according to his own viewpoint.

What does this mean? It depends on what viewpoint he uses to look, what point in time and space he stands on to look at this point. This is very hard to explain, very hard to say. To understand physical time, if you lack knowledge of astronomy it is very difficult.

Let me give a simple example: we now say that at the other end of the Milky Way there is a person, and he has -- hypothetically -- a super telescope that can see our earth. Suppose he can see it -- in fact, he cannot see it with an optical telescope -- suppose he could see the earth, then what he sees, for him, when the light travels from the earth to his telescope, is it not already tens of millions of years later? So what he sees can only be a what of the earth? The past, a past version of the earth, right? Seeing the earth's past, this is from the perspective of his cognition.

But from another perspective, when he looks at this earth, at this point in time, at this very present moment, what he sees in his telescope is the scene of the earth from tens of millions of years ago. And what is happening on the earth at the same time, is it not already tens of millions of years later? Can your mind turn around this point? At the time he is looking, what he sees is the light of the earth from tens of millions of years ago traveling across tens of millions of light-years to reach his telescope; this is correct, what he sees is the earth from tens of millions of years ago. But at the same time he is looking, what is happening at that location on the earth is already tens of millions of years later. So from a certain perspective, he is also looking at the earth's future. He uses several quotation marks in this sentence, and I will not explain what those quotation marks mean. Here, who does "he" refer to? Can you understand this?

Of course, this does not change your reality at all. However he looks, whether he sees the earth from tens of millions of years ago, or the earth of now, or the earth's future, none of it affects your present reality. What he sees has nothing to do with your present. The appearance of his observation cannot cause a change in the reality on earth.

What does he mean by this? Can you understand it? Then why would the positions of the planets and stars in the sky affect the destiny of one person on earth? He gives this example to say: they would not.

But the positions of the stars and planets, and your time schemes, cannot be relied upon to indicate a cause-and-effect relationship. The personality simply exists in a far larger way.

I am not sure how to explain this part; it is very complex. He says the positions of the stars and the positions of the planets, together with your time schemes -- look at the positions of the stars, the positions of the stars in the sky plus a time -- when put together, they cannot determine a causal relationship, saying that such and such will lead to such and such a result. Why? Because your personality itself is a multidimensional existence; it itself transcends time and space, transcends dimensions. Yet you insist on using a three-dimensional time-space, such a small picture, and you want to use it to determine the existence of something as great as a personality. This is absurd; it is simply impossible. You are clearly a multidimensional existence, and in the three-dimensional world there is only a very, very small, three-dimensional line of sight of yours. To put it even more bluntly: you are only a focus of your greater consciousness in the three-dimensional world. So how can it be said that the positions of other stars can influence the direction of this focus of your consciousness? The direction of the focus of your consciousness is entirely determined by this focus of your consciousness itself, and has nothing to do with any stars. The two are not even on the same scale. The size of a fixed star in your three-dimensional world is not even the true appearance of that star, nor the true reality of its movement. And even if it were, it is only a three-dimensional aspect, which compared to the greater you is utterly insignificant; how could it possibly influence you?

Just like the "he" he mentioned earlier, what does he mean by it? Suppose at the other end of the Milky Way, a person with a telescope looks at the earth; he has two attributes. One is his physical attribute: his physical attribute can only see the earth's past, because the light has traveled for tens of millions of years, and what he sees is the earth from tens of millions of years ago, right? But what is happening on the earth at the same time, at the point in time when he is looking, what is happening on the earth is already the present events of the earth tens of millions of years later. And that thing can only be felt through the greater it -- this "it" is in quotation marks -- only through its nonphysical existence, its essence, or its greater self, can it feel the existence of this earth. So at this time, it can see the earth's present, and it can also see the earth's future, because for it all of this happens simultaneously. This "he" refers to that greater he, the one that exists as a body of consciousness, not the physical he on the planet at the edge of the Milky Way. In this way you can understand, right? So he can see both your past and your future; but the physical he can only see the earth's past. These are meanings on different levels. So every passage of Seth's contains different meanings, many layers of meaning.

That is, you want to use things from the three-dimensional world to define the direction of the destiny of a multidimensional existence; that is simply ridiculous.

He continues. His later examples get more and more amusing. He says if you use traditional astrology, you will find certain correlations, because certain specific events that occur are indeed related to one another. But why does fortune-telling astrology still have a certain accuracy? He says it is because certain specific events are indeed related to one another; there is a certain degree of correlation.

But many people will not find themselves in an astrological chart, simply because they have chosen probabilities that are, by their nature, so different from the norm.

Some people simply cannot find themselves in an astrological chart. What does this mean? It means it does not match their life experiences at all. If you do not believe it, give your eight characters to someone and have them calculate your past experiences -- for some people it is accurate, for some people it is completely inaccurate, having nothing to do with the eight characters at all, completely unrelated. You will find this out eventually.

Why is this? The reason is that you chose other probabilities; you did not choose the probability he was reading.

When this astrology is accurate, it is accurate because the astrologer uses his creativity and his psychic abilities, and then projects that knowledge into a pattern, and that pattern itself is too small to contain all that knowledge.

Then that diagram is the astrological chart, which merely becomes an aid. This applies to our eight-trigram calculation method in the same way: the eight trigrams are combined in pairs, eight times eight makes sixty-four, becoming the sixty-four hexagrams⁶; within the sixty-four hexagrams they are further divided into six lines, each line having a different state of change, and so on -- all of this is the same idea. Seth makes a core point here: he says why is it that some people's astrological readings are very accurate, and some people's fortune-telling is very accurate -- especially when using the I Ching for prediction, it is indeed very accurate. Why is it so accurate? It really is accurate; I do not deny this; it really is accurate, no joke. He says why is it so accurate? He tells you why it is so accurate. He says it is because that astrologer projects his own creativity, his own creation, and his psychic abilities -- remember, he uses his psychic abilities -- into it.

Why can't some people get accurate readings? If it were accurate, wouldn't anyone be able to get accurate readings? Why can't the I Ching be turned into a computer fortune-telling program? Everything in it has been written down, so why does it still need a person to interpret it? Why is it said that certain masters can give accurate readings, but a computer cannot be used to predict your fate? Why? This is the reason—because a computer has no psyche, a computer has no psychic ability. This is very subtle. When you go to have a reading done, they always make you shake the copper coins yourself. If someone else shakes them, it won't work. You have to shake them yourself, in front of him—that is the most accurate. Of course, many people say, "My level is very high, I can do remote sensing and remote measurement, I don't need this." That's possible—I don't deny that there are people of very high ability—but I don't believe most people can reach that level. For most people, if what you shake out in front of him can be read accurately, that is already quite amazing, let alone using a computer or remote network nowadays. If a person could reach that level, I think he probably wouldn't come out to tell your fortune anymore.

But why is he still sometimes accurate? Even if he does remote sensing and remote measurement, he is still sometimes accurate. Sometimes you just give him a name, or give him a birth date, and he can still tell you a good deal about yourself. Why? This is his ability of psychic projection—his psychic ability is very strong. And the hexagram that was shaken out is only an aid, only an aid. What really makes the reading accurate is not the hexagram, but the person's ability—his psychic ability is what makes the reading accurate for you. He uses this aid as a kind of trigger, and then, through this contact with you, his present, past, and future all occur simultaneously. He is able to see some of the possibilities that may happen in your future. And as for the things that happened in your past, to him they are too clear, too simple, because although for you the past also holds many possible pasts, for you those are already settled matters, things that have already happened. In the eyes of those fortune-tellers, if his psychic ability is strong, it is as plain as a louse on a bald head—completely obvious. It is too simple.

So this is the relationship involved here: those auxiliary things only serve as aids. The hexagram texts in I Ching divination, and those written words, only serve as aids. How they are interpreted still depends on the level of the master. The same hexagram, the same phrase, will be interpreted completely differently for different people. Otherwise, how could those 64 hexagrams be made to sound perfectly reasonable for millions upon millions of people? Do you mean to say there are only 64 kinds of people in the world, only 64 kinds of fate? No. It is only an aid. Here it is told again: it is only an aid. And then through his own—through this auxiliary information, through psychic interpretation, through his own psychic feeling, through this way of the unity of time and space—he is completely clear about the past, and he is also completely clear about the possibilities of your future. And he also knows your present beliefs—since you have made various choices in the past, doesn't that indicate how you make your decisions now? At every step of your life there are many possibilities, and at every juncture of possibility, what kind of decision you made—can he see that? Can he infer that when you have three possibilities in the future, which one you will choose? Of course he can, because your past has already shown him how you chose before, and when you encounter similar things later, you will still choose that way. So he can predict your future. Once he knows your possibilities, and also knows the pattern of your choices, then your future can also be told to a good degree of accuracy—very accurate.

Now you can understand this. So from now on, there is no need to keep going back and forth discussing the question of fortune-telling.

He says:

There are some things here that are very difficult for you to understand, and indeed it is very difficult for you to understand them. But apart from this, the only thing we can rely on is to repeat the myths and stories that you have long since transcended.

He says it is very hard for me to explain this clearly to you, very hard to make it clear. He says the only thing you can rely on is those things about predestination and fate. He says those myths and those stories actually foreshadow many things.

The stars and planets are simply not in one place at the same time.

He says the stars and planets are not in just one place at the same time; they are in many places at once.

I admit that your perception of them makes them appear quite stable.

He says I know that your cognition of the stars—whether fixed stars or planets—makes you feel they are very stable. To us humans, they seem like eternal existences.

And the perception to which you are biologically attuned, as you know it, their experience of time and motion is relative.

He says your physical perception, first of all, is itself imprecise. Physical perception can only perceive time and space. So your experience of the movement of time and space is always relative; it is not something fixed.

And compared with your own relatively brief lives, the planets do indeed seem eternal.

They seem to have endless, limitless time. This is the viewpoint you adopt when you look outward from your own reality. From your present angle, they seem like eternal existences with endless time. It is because your viewpoint of time and space limits you—within this scale of time and space, when you look at things in another scale of time and space, they seem endless. Actually they are not.

He gives an example:

Other tiny creatures very likely mark a portion of their lives by your comings and goings, and imagine that your position at their birth regulates their activities.

He gives an example, saying, let me give you an example so you can understand. He says suppose there are some tiny creatures, such as an ant. To an ant, your appearance, your position in their lives—where you were standing when they were born—determines their fate. The little ant would think this way. And then, you can imagine, the little ants make some charts and some diagrams, linking their lives to where you appear. Do you have a habit of pacing back and forth in a room? Do you walk from one end of the room to the other?

In another scale of time, within a different scale of time, when your shadow paces, sweeping from one side of the room to the other, it may seem to take how many years. You may spend only one minute walking from one end of the room to the other. And then suppose you have a habit of pacing—you often pace around the room, walking back and forth, back and forth. You never thought about it: you may walk from one end of the room to the other in one minute, and then take another minute to walk back from that end to this end—to an ant, this process might be an entire year.

He says this analogy is not as far-fetched as it seems. He says you think this analogy is very far-fetched, but actually it is not that far-fetched; it is the same. It is the same as you looking at the stars, and the ants looking at you.

For obviously your shadow would have a slight effect upon the temperature of the room.

What changes would a shadow cause? There would be changes—wherever your shadow passes, it blocks the sun. Then for a tiny local space, it would affect the temperature there. But the temperature change is very slight; you cannot feel it, but for the microorganisms in that place, they can feel it.

And in ways you would never understand, alter other conditions there.

You cannot imagine what changes and effects your shadow sweeping across the floor would have on the microorganisms on the floor. This often causes a tremendous change for a consciousness on another scale.

On the Scale of the Stars

Can you imagine that just a shadow, for a consciousness on that scale, could cause an enormous change? That scale is not the same as yours. For example, a microorganism survives precisely because you block the sunlight; and during the time you are not blocking it, the sun's ultraviolet rays kill it directly. You know that ultraviolet light has a very strong sterilizing effect. If a bacterium lives in your shadow, it can survive. Perhaps your shadow sweeps over it for only a few hundredths of a second, but in those few hundredths of a second the bacterium may fall into a crevice, and then it can grow. Yet during those few hundredths of a second when you are not blocking the sunlight, while it is floating in the air, the ultraviolet light kills it directly. You know, that sunlight may represent warmth to you, but to some microorganisms it is a death ray -- the kind of death ray in many movies, where a beam of light sweeps over something and it dies. So your shadow, to them, is as important as the universe itself, as vast as a planet. You would never imagine how great a change it can bring.

He goes on to give another example. He says:

An imaginary ant, and this ant has philosophical companions -- suppose this ant is a philosophically minded ant, and perhaps it sits there, pondering in its own way. How many times you walk across the floor during a period of time (which to it seems like a year), it may try to calculate in advance your next passing, so that the cautious ant can run away at the right moment to avoid your footsteps.

He gives the example of an ant: the ant has to calculate how often you walk back and forth, and then when it wants to cross the room, it must avoid your footsteps, otherwise it will walk right under your foot and be crushed. He uses the ant's perspective to allude to us humans: we humans observe the movements of the planets just as the ants observe our movements -- only the scale is different.

Your rumbling footsteps can shake its little home in some crevice beneath or between the floorboards.

To the ant, it seems like nothing to you when you walk by, but that rumbling sound may collapse its little home.

He says he admits that he did exaggerate -- I have indeed exaggerated the story of the ant here -- he says he did exaggerate, and he admits it. But then he takes the imagination one step further:

Our little fellow becomes familiar, let us say, with every person in an apartment. Suppose this little ant is very good at research; it will study every person living in the apartment, when they come and go at what times -- just as we observe how many stars there are in the sky -- and learn to recognize all the footsteps going up and down the stairs.

It knows that each person's footsteps are different: the sound of the footsteps is different, whether they are wearing high heels or slippers, whether it is a man or a woman, who is with whom -- it can distinguish all of them.

Our philosopher ant keeps in touch with the other ants, until after much time, effort, and patience. After a very, very long time, these ants finally discover a problem -- a chart of regularities is finally made, and the calculations are also worked out.

Just as we observe the movements of the planets, the ants observe human activities, and they also make a chart of regularities. What kind of chart? For example:

An ant born at three o'clock in the afternoon, when a certain young lady and her boyfriend come home, will inevitably meet with an unfortunate fate.

For example, on a certain Saturday, or every seven days at three in the afternoon -- or every day at three in the afternoon, it does not matter, it is just an arbitrary example -- when a certain young lady and her boyfriend come home, these two certainly will not stay still; they will surely run around the room. Because that energetic couple running around -- young people with boundless energy -- will shake the whole room: turn on the stereo, turn on the subwoofer, and perhaps invite a group of young people to have a party together. And they will shake up all the dust in the crevices of the inner room's floorboards.

He says that in saying this, he is not mocking astrologers by comparing them to ants observing the movements of the stars and their influence on the earth.

However, I am trying to let you know that you are not at the mercy of the stars. And when you behave as though you were at the mercy of the stars, then your understanding of your true position is as limited as that of our ant.

You are not at the mercy of these stars at all. But when you think you are at the mercy of the stars, then you are like these ants, thinking that you are being influenced by these people. Actually, do you think these people intend to influence these ants? They never even think of the ants' existence. What influence do people have on these ants? No direct influence, none. But the ants think there is.

Your relationship with the stars is not a deep one.

You have no real relationship with the stars; they are not even on the same scale as you. But speaking metaphorically:

When you try to place your fate in their hands, then indeed it seems as though you have little control over your own destiny.

When you feel that you are controlled by them, when you feel that your fate is determined by them -- when you place your own fate in their hands, then it really does seem as though your own destiny is controlled. On this point I will emphasize again: if you read Liao-Fan's Four Lessons⁷, you will understand this especially well: when you give up struggling, when you accept your fate, then that fate really does become accurate; when you discover that you can defy heaven and change your fate, then that fate is worth nothing at all, and is completely overturned by you. So your fate is in your own hands, just as Nezha said: my fate is decided by me, not by heaven.

You are consciousness at particular points of experience, and in other kinds of reality you sparkle like stars.

To put it simply, in other realities, you sparkle like stars. You are also a kind of consciousness; you are simply a consciousness experiencing particular points -- your consciousness is not the same as others', and it is not the same as the consciousness of the stars. But to beings in other realities, your consciousness, within their reality, sparkles like a star. You are the star, you are the fixed star, you are the planet. To the beings of that scale in that reality, you are such an existence. Your consciousness is such an existence. Can you understand this? This connects back to what he said earlier.

In this universe there are consciousnesses of every shape and form, and these consciousnesses surface in, or intrude into, our three-dimensional space-time. You see them as stars, but they are actually just a kind of consciousness. Your consciousness cannot be seen or touched, yet in other realities, when your consciousness intrudes into those other realities, it is like a star; it becomes a fixed star in someone else's universe, and you become an earth, or you become a Venus. He uses this analogy to tell you: you are equally great. You are not controlled by the stars, and to certain beings you are also a kind of star. That is the relationship at this level.

Why You Are Not Told Your Fate

He said:

Now, I am about to end our session. I am glad you came.

He said this to William. William said he was glad too, and so was he.

Now, I will not tell you anything.

William must have asked Seth: can you tell me about the fate of our lives or something like that. Seth said I will not tell you anything. You can see Seth is very interesting, very mischievous. He said:

This will always make you angry.

He said if I do not tell you, it will always make you angry. Because you will think: you have the ability, so why not tell me? Since time and space do not exist for you, why can you not tell me what the future will be like? This is a question many people ask. Especially when someone has a special ability, if you do not tell others about their life and fate, they will get angry -- you clearly know, so why not tell me. Look at Seth's explanation:

But at the same time, it will also make you happy.

Why?

Instead, I have given you a method you can use.

Why will you be happy? Because I have given you a method. Then:

By following your will as much as you want, you can bring about your own reality.

He emphasized humorously: you only need to follow what you want, follow your own will as much as you want, and you can bring about your own reality.

And because of the energy involved in tonight's session, you have the chance to have some wonderful dreams. Whether you remember them or not, you will certainly dream, but I hope you can remember, though there is no need to strain yourself over it.

Seth said: I will not tell you your fate, but I am telling you that the mechanism by which you operate is very simple -- just follow your beliefs, follow what you want, firm up your will, and realize the dreams you want, and you can achieve them. Why ask me what your fate is? Your fate is open, entirely in your own hands -- whatever kind of life you want, that is the kind of life it will be; whatever kind of environment you want, that is the kind of environment it will be. You decide all of this yourself. And then you come and ask me what your fate is? That is what Seth meant. This session ends here.

Regarding this matter of fate, fortune-telling, and astrology, he has already finished speaking. I think such a long explanation from Seth can give many people a thorough understanding and comprehension of the matter of fortune-telling. And then they ended.

Below are some notes. I will just briefly mention a few of these notes:

As far as astrology is concerned, Jane and I appear to be the kind of people who follow a different line of probabilities.

As far as fortune-telling is concerned, Jane and I are clearly the ones who did not play by the usual rules. Apart from some general material -- that is, the very generic kind of thing that applies to anyone -- we have little guidance on astrology, and we do not understand it; we only know the rough outlines. However, when we gave our birth dates at the request of some readers -- many readers asked what your two birth dates are, we will do a reading for you, because fortune-telling is very common in the West -- those readers then calculated our birth charts, and these had very little relation to what we considered to be Jane and me. The life trajectories those people calculated from our birth charts had nothing to do with the two of us. And one chart made for us differed from those made by other people -- the charts made by these people were all different from one another. As a result, our feeling was:

The astrology currently in vogue is too narrow in its concepts.

Using things from the three-dimensional world to speculate about the creative possibilities of a multidimensional world is simply too narrow. The rest are all notes, about where to look at which materials, and we will not explain them. So the interpretation of this part ends here.

注释与核实

1. According to Mike's original words, "In many people's memories, Mandela died in '89, was 'murdered' in prison, and never came out at all. But someone discovered that the historical record shows Mandela did come out"; upon verification it should be "The so-called 'Mandela Effect' is that some people misremember Mandela as having died in prison in the 1980s; in fact he was released in 1990 and died in 2013." (Source: Raeya Maswood, Suparna Rajaram, "Social Transmission of False Memory in Small Groups and Large Networks," 2018, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tops.12348) ↩

2. Source: The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, "Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy," 1964 (https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-2.html) ↩

3. According to Mike's original words, "The sun in Los Angeles is relatively strong, with more than three hundred days of bright sunshine a year"; upon verification it should be "Los Angeles averages about 185 clear days per year, not more than three hundred days; 'clear' means cloud cover does not exceed three-tenths of the sky." (Source: David Bruno / National Weather Service, "Climate of Los Angeles, California," https://www.weather.gov/media/wrh/online_publications/TMs/TM-261.pdf) ↩

4. Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), "How Big is Space? We Asked a NASA Expert," 2025 (https://www.nasa.gov/science-research/astrophysics/how-big-is-space-we-asked-a-nasa-expert-episode-61/) ↩

5. Source: United States Geological Survey, "Geologic Time: Age of the Earth" (https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html) ↩

6. Source: Huang Huaixin, "A New Collated Edition of the Original Text of the Zhouyi with Explanations" (https://www.tup.tsinghua.edu.cn/booksCenter/book_05218601.html) ↩

7. Source: Wikipedia, "Liaofan's Four Lessons" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E4%BA%86%E5%87%A1%E5%9B%9B%E8%A8%93) ↩