The "Guide" and "Key Points" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This chapter begins with Sumari's creative traits, explaining that the nine families of consciousness share their characteristics with one another. Using apples and symphonies as metaphors, it explains that probable selves, reincarnational selves, and counterparts are merely different facets and variations of the same existence, not contradictions. People often set different identities or abilities in opposition, but in fact multiple identities can coexist. The pauses in music and the variations not played are equally important; extreme lives such as tragedy, suicide, and adventure are also often chosen as frameworks for experience and creativity. Finally, it mentions that individuals and eras can change their own melodies, and includes Rob's notes on buying a house.
Key Points of This Chapter
- The traits of the nine consciousness families are shared with one another; creativity is not unique to the Sumari family, but is present in everyone to a greater or lesser degree.
- Probable selves, reincarnational selves, and counterparts are not contradictory identities, but expressions of the same being in different facets and variations.
- Identity and ability need not be opposed to each other; a person can maintain a primary identity while adding or actualizing other focuses, and this enriches rather than diminishes the self.
- Life is like a piece of music that can be rewritten; an individual can change the tempo, add variations, or begin a new piece; this applies not only to individuals, but also to eras and history.
- Extreme experiences such as tragedy, suicide, or adventure are often chosen as emotional frameworks for experience and creativity, and are not necessarily merely a fear of living or a wish to die; but this does not mean that tragedy is more vital than a happy life.
Main Text
Hello everyone, I am Mike. Today I will continue sharing with you all from The "Unknown" Reality, Volume 2, Session 735, titled "The Symphony of Your Being, Probable and Reincarnational Selves, Tragic Lives, World Goals, and History." This session began on Monday, February 3, 1975, at 9:10 p.m.
At the start, Rob gave a brief introduction. He said that last Thursday he completed the 40 illustrations for Jane's poetry collection Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time, and this afternoon they began looking for a house. He said that concern about our dwelling place reminded them of matters related to the family -- about dwelling places, families in general, and what Seth calls the families of consciousness. He said that while they were looking for a house, they also thought about families and the families of consciousness associated with families. As we drove back to the apartment for dinner, we discussed the incredibly complex roles and events surrounding those different kinds of organizations. Then Jane remembered a very fitting phrase. She said "the genealogy of events," laughed, and then added: just as human families have their genealogies, the families of events also have a genealogy. What she meant was that events always have their inner connections -- the ones we know and the ones we do not know, the probable and the hidden, the ones that happened and the ones that did not. Behind every event we see, there is a string of inner factors at work in the middle of it.
As we waited for the session to begin, Jane suddenly received a batch of impressions from Seth about two people we had encountered last week who made opposite uses of personal power. The woman historian who disturbed their class last Wednesday night was named Barbara, and she was so afraid of her power; and a young classical guitarist who visited last night was immersed in a positive use of her power. Jane said these impressions could be used in her book The Politics of the Psyche.
Sumari's Characteristics and the Families of Consciousness
Then Seth came through and began speaking to them. Seth said, of course, this characteristic of Sumari -- because the previous session had dealt with Sumari, and he was continuing from that session, since what had been interrupted had begun with Sumari -- the characteristics of Sumari do not exist only within Sumari itself. Every family of consciousness, to some degree, carries within it the traits inherent in all the families of consciousness, so there is great diversity. Each of these nine families of consciousness carries a commonality shared with all the other families. He is not saying that they are mutually exclusive, that a certain trait belongs only to one family and not to the others. It is like our astrological signs, the twelve signs -- he speaks as if one sign were this way and another sign that way, but many of the attributes within those signs are shared. It is hard to say, for example, we all say Virgo is such and such, very picky and so on, but actually many people of other signs are also very picky; there is a great deal of commonality in there.
But Sumari's ability is highly creative; creativity is its primary characteristic. To a very large degree, those creative abilities have always been suppressed in your society. He said the purpose of my discussing Sumari is to enable each person to learn to recognize the degree to which he himself possesses the Sumari nature -- that is, the degree of Sumari's creativity -- so that the playful creative component can then be released. When you recognize that your inner creativity is very close to Sumari's, that will activate your playful creative component, and only then can it be released. Remember, Seth has repeatedly mentioned this playful creative component of the personality. Sumari may be a comparatively typical example of such traits, more obvious, while in other people generally it is less obvious. But he said everyone has a portion of the Sumari attributes, more or less. He said by singling it out, it lets you see that you also have this Sumari within you; everyone has this Sumari attribute within them.
He said these traits are especially important, this creative type of trait is very important, because they supplement, temper, or strengthen the primary characteristics of the other families of consciousness. This creativity supplements, tempers, or strengthens the primary characteristics of each of the other eight families of consciousness. Each family has its own characteristics, but it is precisely because of the existence of this creativity that they are enhanced, or strengthened, or tempered, or supplemented in their own respective characteristics. Remember, it is not always strengthening; sometimes it is tempering, sometimes a kind of supplement. This creativity does not strengthen all eight of the other families; sometimes it is also a tempering. If you are a born reformer, then the Sumari traits brought to the surface can help you temper your seriousness through play or humor. He said you carry play, carry humor, to play, to carry out your reforms -- in this way it is actually easier to succeed; do not be solemn and rigidly tense. The more tense you are, the more rigidly wound up, the less likely you are to succeed.
Every personality carries, in addition to the family of consciousness it may belong to, trace amounts of other traits. Sumari's creative aspect can be especially useful if those aspects are encouraged in any given life, simply because the inventive nature of those aspects will illuminate all components of experience. If this creativity itself carries a certain inventive nature, then this inventive nature itself will also illuminate the experience of the era in which this person lives, including his own experience, making his experience all the more radiant.
The psyche, as you know it, is composed of a mixture of these families of consciousness. One is not superior to another. Among these nine families of consciousness, none is higher than another; they are merely different, and there is no distinction of high or low. And they represent diverse ways of viewing physical life. They are psychic families -- these nine families of consciousness, they are all nonphysical existences, but their angles of viewing this physical world are different, and that is why they manifest in the expression of the psyche as different personality characteristics. To explain the psychic dimensions of the different families of consciousness would require an entire book. Here, I merely want to let the reader know of the existence of these psychic families; I will not go into detail and unfold the characteristics of each of the nine families of consciousness.
I am not entirely certain; I have used many terms, and it may seem difficult to understand. Between probable selves and reincarnational selves, counterparts and families of consciousness, contradictions may at times seem to exist. You may wonder, amid such a variety of psychic variations, how you can still be yourself. You see, the first half of this book discussed the probable self, and you learned that there are parallel space-times, that probable selves exist, and these probable selves are many in kind. You had just figured that out, and then he brought up counterparts, and you said you also have counterparts -- not only do you have probable selves, you also have counterparts. Does every counterpart also have its own probable selves? Another huge group. Then besides counterparts, there are also reincarnational selves. In this lifetime you have probable selves and counterparts, so in another era is there also a reincarnational you? Does the reincarnational you also have a whole crowd? And does every reincarnational you each have probable reincarnational selves, and counterparts of the probable reincarnational selves? Of course they do. Then besides all these, we have recently been discussing the families of consciousness, the nine families of consciousness, and this adds yet another attribute -- you also belong to one of these families of consciousness. So which one is actually you? So many probable yous, reincarnational yous, counterpart yous, and also this family-of-consciousness you.
Seth then began to help you understand why this is so; he wanted to remove this confusion.
An apple can be red, and it can be round, and it can be many-seeded, or good to eat, or in a basket, or growing naturally on a tree; it can be sour, and it can be sweet. You can find one on the ground, or one on a table, or in a piece of apple pie.
None of these things is contradictory to the nature of an apple. You would not ask how an apple could be both red and round at the same time. Because these are different attributes of the apple: color is one attribute, shape is one attribute, taste is one attribute, location is one attribute. So many attributes, yet none departs from the apple's basic attribute -- it is an apple. You can look at an apple and then hold it in your hand, so it is obvious that its shape does not contradict its color, because you understand that an apple can be red, can be green, can be both red and green. If I say the apple lies quietly on a table, you must agree that sometimes this is the case. Then if I say the apple rolled down a grassy slope, you must also agree that this situation I describe could exist. If I say the apple fell through the air, once again, you would be forced to admit that point is true. You would see very clearly that none of these statements contradict one another, because in different circumstances, the apple can engage in different behaviors.
Here he is telling you, using the apple as an example, that what he means is that you, as that true existent being, or your entity, engages in different behaviors, and in different space-times its behaviors are different, and its attributes viewed from different facets are also different. That is why there are so many possible yous existing -- probable yous, reincarnational yous, counterpart yous, and also those yous within the psychic families or families of consciousness.
But so far, you have not held your consciousness in your hand. So when I speak of the behavior of your psyche, you may find it strange, because you would say, how can my spirituality exist in more than one time at once? It can do so, just as an apple can be found on a table, on the ground, or on a tree. What this means is that you cannot observe your consciousness completely or comprehensively, because to you consciousness seems to transcend space and time; within one space-time it is very hard for you to grasp it -- it is larger than you. If you can understand this, then you can understand that the nature of your psyche is just like an apple: it can simultaneously be in the sky, on the ground, rotting in the soil, and at the same time on the dining table, in a child's pocket, or still hanging on a branch. It can be both red and sour, and it can also be both round and sliced. These are all apples; it can also become dried apple, apple juice, apple pie -- all of that is possible. The nature of your psyche can likewise take on various shapes and forms, and in different times it has various different behaviors -- it is all one apple. In different growth periods and different times, the apple's shape, size, color, taste, state, and behavior are all different; your psyche is the same.
However, the inner dimensions of consciousness cannot be described so easily; they cannot be as well understood and described as an apple can. If you ask, how can I have both reincarnational selves and probable selves at the same time? When you ask such questions, it is like asking how an apple can be both red and round at the same time. Of course you can have both reincarnational yous and probable yous, and they all exist simultaneously, just as an apple can be both red and round, because he is speaking of different facets, different attributes.
The Symphony Analogy: Probable Selves, Reincarnational Selves, and Counterparts
He said last night a young classical guitarist came here, and he was very skilled at the guitar. When he played, it was obvious that any given piece grew out of that one note, the first note. Just like many people who play guitar or piano, once the first key, the first note is struck, what follows flows out naturally like running water. And countless other alternative pieces also lie latent within the same notes. Those pieces that were not played are, so to speak, just as valid as the piece that was played -- all those pieces were in the mind of the young man playing the guitar, he simply did not play them. In fact, they are an unheard part of every heard melody. Those variations that were not heard actually achieve a musical enrichment, a silent structure and pacing. The unplayed gaps, or those silent rhythms, actually enrich the sound, bring rhythm, bring pacing. Without those silent gaps, the music would be one continuous noise, with no beauty whatsoever, and could not even be called music.
In the same way, each psyche contains within itself an infinity of notes, and each note has its own endless creative variations and versions. You follow your own one melody, and for some reason you seem to think that your own true complete orchestra would somehow overwhelm you. You follow your own melody, but you always seem afraid that the vast symphony will drown out your melody. Actually, without you there would be no symphony at all, but within the vast symphony you seem to be just one melody among many, as if not so important -- but it will not drown you out.
So then, when I speak of counterparts, or reincarnational selves, and probable selves, I am saying that within the true symphony of your existence, you are the violin, you are the oboe, you are the timpani, you are the harp. In other words, you are a living instrument through which you play yourself. In a symphony, you are one of the instruments. And from a certain angle, you are all of these instruments, and you play yourself through this self that you know. Those other instruments are also you -- those other instruments are the probable you, the reincarnational you, the counterpart you, they are also you, and together you play one symphonic movement, and you are just one of them. But you must understand, you are not an instrument being played. Quite the opposite, you are the composer and the symphony orchestra. You originally thought you were just one instrument, only playing one melody within a grand symphony orchestra -- that is what you used to think. But actually you are the composer, you are even the conductor, you are even the entire symphony orchestra. You are not just one of the instruments. You also play classical repertoire, you also play light popular music, you also play opera -- all of it is you. Each instrument also gives play to its own melody and tone color, yet one creative performance does not conflict with the others.
A symphony orchestra can play very classical symphonic pieces, the classics, and can also play very lyrical pieces, and can also play opera, and can also play popular music -- all of it, all of it is this symphony orchestra. But which piece, which performance represents this symphony orchestra? Any performance represents this symphony orchestra, but no single performance can represent all of it. You cannot say that because this orchestra just played a sad piece, the entire orchestra is sad, every musician is sad, every instrument is sad. This orchestra can play any piece, and you are that orchestra. You can imagine those musicians, those instruments expressing different tone colors and melodies in different movements as different probable selves, different reincarnational selves, different counterparts.
You may take a break.
He went on to say, the life as you think of it is by no means without flexibility. He said, do you imagine your life to be as rigid as you think? Actually it is very flexible. You can be the piano for a while, the violin for a while, the drum kit at the back for a while, you can also be the composer, you can even be the conductor, even the entire orchestra can be you. He returns again to our discussion of alternative pieces -- those pieces that were not played. At any time you can bring some elements from any alternative piece into the piece of your own present life. To put it more plainly, the performer, or the symphony orchestra as a whole, gains skills, feelings, insights, and experiences from performing other pieces, and these are helpful to you in performing this piece. Although one may be a sad piece and another a joyful piece, for an orchestra, performing both kinds of pieces enriches each other.
Some people build their entire lives around their children. Many mothers are like this, some fathers too, but mothers are the majority -- they focus only on their children. Other people spend their whole lives around their careers. For their own particular pleasures, some people fish their whole lives, some hunt their whole lives, some love photography, and photography can be quite obsessive. Life is suffering, and some people spend their whole lives around suffering, deliberately pointing out the suffering -- this is also the life of many people, from birth to death, it could practically be written into a very tragic novel, unbearably bitter. Yet this suffering is also what they want to play, just like in music, there are those sad pieces.
Again, these are merely certain focuses you have chosen to guide your experience. You direct all of this, you guide your own experience onto certain focuses. If you want to place it on a focus of sadness and suffering, then you place it there; if you want to place it on your children, then you place it on your children. Your focus differs, and you can add other adjustments -- you have this right. You can add other focuses while still maintaining your own identity, and indeed it enriches that identity. Adding focus will not affect the richness of your current focus; quite the opposite, it can enrich your present identity.
Sometimes you behave as if one ability conflicts with another. From a certain angle, you seem to feel that one ability can conflict with another ability, that the two are opposed -- but actually they are not at all, it is only what you think. For example, you often think, I cannot be a good parent and at the same time a good sexual partner to my spouse. Seth is blunt and points this out directly, because this is quite common in society -- apparently not only in the East, but in the West as well. Many families have this situation: once people become parents, once they become fathers and mothers, they add another layer to their sense of identity, thinking, I should be a parent, I should set an example, I should be proper. How can I still be so lustful in bed, so wanton, how can I still be as wild as before when there were no children? Because they now carry the role of parent in their minds, they think these two are in conflict. And all those behaviors of a good sexual partner seem to conflict with being a proper, upright parent, so they stop doing them and devote themselves entirely to being a parent. Seth's point is that these two do not conflict; each is its own thing, and they do not affect your being a parent.
For those who think this way, this may imply an inevitable contradiction.
A woman may feel that the qualities of a mother are almost vibrant, and almost directly opposed to the qualities of a vibrant sexual partner. Women especially are like this, so a woman will feel that her qualities as a mother should be kind, steady, and child-centered, and this seems to have nothing to do with being a vibrant sexual partner, and is in fact quite contradictory and opposed. So she will suppress her needs in this area, and many mothers sleep in a separate room with the child after marriage.
A man may imagine that the position of father, that title, means providing a very good house and income. He may think that aggressive, competitive, and emotionally cold behavior is necessary to play that role well.
He turns and points at the men. Many men also feel that after becoming fathers, they should have a positive, manly sense of responsibility, take care of the family, earn more money in society, take care of their wife and children, and become serious emotionally, no longer like a child. Although many men are still obsessed with gaming after becoming fathers, maybe still playing battle royale games or whatever, their identity has already changed -- they are fathers now. So they say, I can no longer do those things, I have to act like an adult. He begins to say, I must play the role of a good father. This may be considered opposed to the qualities a husband must have: love, understanding, and emotional support. What a husband should have is love, not seriousness, not coldness, not going out every day mainly to earn money. Is earning money the only way to repay the family? Actually, being considerate to your wife, caring about her, helping with housework -- these are also very good expressions of love, not necessarily earning a lot of money as the only expression.
Many men will say, you work hard at home taking care of the kids, and I work hard outside too, look at me earning money to support the family, and so on. Actually in today's society, women also earn money to support the family, not just men, right? Besides earning money, women also take care of all the housework and the children -- their workload is much greater than yours. But men will say, I earn more, you earn less. Earning more does not necessarily mean you are more capable; it is that society itself is unfair, men earn more than women in many industries, and it does not necessarily mean you are actually more capable than your wife. But you will feel that because I earn more, I can act like a lord when I come home. In fact, you are missing care for the family, missing love, missing understanding, missing emotion. Seth points out three things men easily get wrong -- lacking the necessary love, understanding, and emotional support for the family, while thinking that coldness, seriousness, being stern, earning money, and focusing only on career and competing outside are what a father's role should be. He has it twisted.
Actually those things are not contradictory, and it is not that they are wrong -- those are also right, but you should not set them in opposition to these other things. Just as a wife should not stop having a sexual life with her husband just because she had a child, as if you feel it would harm the child's development. Taking care of the child is of course proper; as a mother, as a father, you should take good care of the child, but do not set that in complete opposition to your other roles and identities. That is what Seth means here. Of course, in fact all such opposition is entirely unnecessary.
Yet in the same way, you often feel as if your identity is dependent upon some very specific role, until those characteristics that are also your own seem quite threatening. They almost seem like non-self.
You often make a mistake in life: you need a very specific identity to define your role -- I must be a very competent mother, or an excellent mother, a standard mother, a virtuous wife and good mother role. Once you stick this label on yourself, and it is very vivid, if it is not vivid and clear it will not do. Your identity is multiple; you are not just this one identity. You are also your mother's daughter, you are also the little padded jacket of your parents; you are not only your child's mother, you are also someone else's child, and you are even more your husband's wife. All these identities and roles exist simultaneously; you cannot focus on only one and neglect the others.
When you walk through society with a very specific role, that specific role will threaten your existence. Why? Because you threaten the legitimacy of the other roles; you use this one role to replace the others. At that point you endanger the complete you, because you are composed of multiple roles.
When you begin to come into contact with the concepts of probable selves and counterparts, to some degree you will have the same feeling -- they are also different roles, and their roles are all so vivid, different from your present one. It is as if you have an infinite storehouse from which you can draw abilities and characteristics. To you they are an infinite storehouse -- their identities, occupations, jobs, skin colors, environments, experiences are all different, and to you that is all a good thing. In other words, you can do this, you can do that, all kinds of identities could be you. But you are afraid, because you fear that other roles will affect your present role, so you insist on only one role. You fear that any addition will make you less rather than more. But that is not so -- this will not make your identity less, it will only make your identity more. When we recognize that those roles exist, will it make my present role seem unimportant, or dilute my present sense of identity? It is the same -- it is as if you ask, if I am a good wife and a very good sexual partner to my husband, does that mean my role as a mother is weakened? It is not weakened at all; how could it be weakened?
If all of this takes place on a personal level, within this one life of yours, when you choose one melody from that storehouse and call it your own, then perhaps you can begin to see the collective creative aspect of civilizations that seem to rise and fall. When in this life of yours, if you have such an awareness, that you have selected one role from all those probable selves, or reincarnational selves, or even those counterparts, as the main melody of this life, he says you will be able to understand the rises and falls of the development of our civilization. These counterparts and these probable selves -- when you are hugely successful, wealthy and honored, is there a probable you who is very low, living in dejection? Absolutely, absolutely. Otherwise how would he experience it? If you have never been hungry, how do you know what it is to be full? If you have never been low, how can you know what it means to be hugely successful? When you can understand that these people, these roles, are of all kinds, with kings and beggars, you will be able to understand that your civilization also rises and falls in this way.
So you look at the past through historical review, you look at the past through history. Then all the counterparts living in the same era together form what you think of as a musical chapter of the present. From a historical perspective, the counterparts of your same era together perform a movement of this age. And once that multidimensional song has been played, its past spreads out behind it like ripples, and its future sings in advance. When you begin to compose the chapter of this era, the movement of this era, you must understand one principle: when you begin to play, what you have played lies behind you, and it spreads out like ripples. What does this mean? It means all of your past has infinite possibilities; that past has not died, it is not dead, it spreads out like ripples -- the past is still happening. And once the movement of this era begins, what will its future be like? What is the melody of its future? It was composed long ago. When an orchestra plays, there is certainly a score; although each person only sees his own part, the entire orchestra has one large score, a full score, and the entire movement of the era has already been composed in that full score. Its future sings in advance -- that is what this means. You think these pieces are as if every note has just been played, but actually they were already in the score long ago. And the past of this era is not as unchanging as you think; its past can also be changed. That song, from beginning to end, is created simultaneously. For example, suppose we sing a piece today; from the very beginning, that piece determines its melody, rhythm, and the emotional state it brings.
However, in this example, it is as if each note has its own consciousness and has the freedom to change its part of the melody. Each note can change the melody belonging to itself according to its own completely free ideas. If it changes, does the melody of the entire orchestra change? Yes. Yet all of this happens within time. Within an overall piece, it is simultaneous. So time itself is used as a measure by which the piece is written down. This is very crucial. The melody of this piece is very much related to the rhythm it adopts and its time. All pieces define their rhythm at the beginning, but what he is saying is that whatever time scale you write the piece in, you are subject to that time. It is chosen according to organizational focus and framework -- according to your organizational focus, how you want to organize this music, what focus you use, which melodies or which instruments you emphasize, what kind of framework you use to compose the movement of the entire era. A symphony is divided into many parts -- first movement, second movement, third movement, fourth movement -- and within that it is divided very finely, into many layers; this is all its framework. If you want to become a piece of music, it has its own special framework, so these frameworks, these focuses, these organizations all have to be placed within such a scale of time. Some things seem to let you savor them slowly for a long time, while others seem to flash by and pass quickly.
Remember, from now on he uses symphonic music as an example, and you should have this sense of immersion. In music, the pauses are just as important as the sound. In fact, they are used to highlight the sound, and to frame those sounds. The pauses are the frame, just as a painting has a frame, just as a painting has blank space, and calligraphy too -- there is blank space, there is a frame, there are empty areas; without empty areas, its beauty cannot be expressed. If music had no gaps, the music could not be framed. The beginning of music is empty, right? The end of music is empty, right? It is like a frame. Between pieces of music, do not the pauses separate each piece of music? That is the meaning. The sounds are of course important, but it is because of the position they occupy within the pauses or the silence that their importance is determined.
So then, the parts of your psyche that you recognize as yourself are important, intimate, and real, precisely because of those inner pauses and silences and stillness that are not actualized, or are unactualized, yet are part of your greater existence. The reason you consider your present life to be important is precisely because of those probable yous, those reincarnational yous that you do not perceive -- it is because of their existence that the importance of your present existence can be highlighted.
Now, imagine a piece of music in which the pauses and silences you cannot hear have sound, and conversely, the sounds you now hear are not heard, but are instead the unheard inner structure. Imagine a kind of piece in which the places without sound, the silent places, instead have sound and can be heard by you; while the parts with sound instead become an inner structure, not heard by you. When you can think this through, in these last few sentences of description there is an intuitive definition of the probable selves, reincarnational selves, and counterparts in relation to the self you know.
He says I cannot give you a definition; I can only give you a feeling, an intuition, to let you understand what state those probable selves actually are in. It is like those blank parts, those pauses, those silences, those parts that do not sound in a piece of music -- because to you they are also invisible and unknowable, so you feel that in your life they exist like blank spaces. The reason you have your present life, your present life experience, is precisely because of the existence of those things. The existence of those probable yous, those reincarnational yous, those counterparts -- it is because of them that the present you becomes so prominent, so important. But if you reverse it, if you imagine that what is heard suddenly becomes silent, and what is not heard suddenly has sound, then you can understand that they are just as valid an existence as you are, and just as real.
But in your case, if you choose to do so, you can change your own tempo, add your own variations, or even begin an entirely new piece. This places the emphasis back on you. Earlier I gave you an intuitive definition of the relationship between you and your probable selves; now what I give you is, from your own perspective, you can change your own tempo, you can add some of your own variations, you can even begin an entirely new piece -- you can do all of it, and the initiative is entirely in your hands.
The Infinity of Creativity: The Carpenter and the Writer
Now, many people accomplish this by means of sudden decisions, making use of abilities they had previously ignored, and they do so in very simple and mundane ways. This kind of example in real life is very obvious: suddenly making a decision, suddenly making a change. Actually, these are all what was just said: in the middle of playing in this band, you suddenly add your own variation, you suddenly speed up or slow down, you suddenly begin a new melody. For example, a person who does literary work, at the age of forty, suddenly remembers his old love for woodworking, and suddenly discovers that he loves doing woodworking. He reads do-it-yourself manuals -- that is, the DIY manuals, the "Do it yourself" manuals. America has a lot of DIY manuals, which teach you how to do woodworking, so many Americans have a pile of tools in their garages that let them do woodworking themselves. He begins to do his own furniture repairs -- actually, the furniture does not need repairing, but he just wants to do this. After years of despising the baseness of this activity, he suddenly begins to discover an intimate relationship with the land and its products, and this appreciation enriches words that might originally have been as dull as chewing wax. When he suddenly begins to take an interest in this kind of furniture, he may suddenly discover that the woodworking he had so despised many years ago might bring him a new kind of experience and feeling in his literary creation, causing those originally dull-as-wax words to suddenly have flair, to suddenly have flavor.
What he means is actually that these things are all helpful to you. It will not be the case that because you are a writer, and you suddenly begin doing woodworking, your career as a writer or your role will be weakened. He says no, sometimes it is even an enhancement, an enhancement you could not have imagined. Abroad, you know there was a woman writer who, when she was creating, suddenly wanted to write about the lives of prostitutes, so she went and became a prostitute herself for a few years, and then through her own feelings she wrote a work of women's literature that gave people a completely new understanding of the lives of prostitutes. That life had no direct relationship with her identity as a writer, and sometimes even conflicted with it, but she did not think so; she considered it an enriching part of her literary creation.
He says, do you understand? In that example, in another reality -- in the example just given, in another parallel space-time, there is a carpenter or a similar figure who carries an unexpressed latent love of literature, and that person will then begin to develop it, perhaps begin reading books on how to write, or begin a hobby that will allow him to express through literature his love of the land and the products of the land. In another parallel world, there may be another carpenter who suddenly takes a liking to literary creation, or a farmer who tills the land, who suddenly develops a special fondness for the land and the products of his land, and for this expression. He says the creative power of the psyche means that no single world or experience can ever encompass him, so he creates those dimensions, those planes, and then he has his experiences within them. The creative power of the psyche cannot be encompassed. When he wants to create, he will certainly create a reality in which to experience and undergo it. This is the infinite creative possibility of his psyche.
Each portion, whatever its name, contains within it the full potential of all abilities.
This sentence is very important: each portion contains the full potential of everything. Every person carries within them all the potentials of these possible yous, reincarnational yous, and counterparts -- actually, they are all latent within your body, and these potential abilities all exist. The reason those unknown realities still exist and have not manifested is that you play one single melody over and over again. You have never thought about changing the melody, you have never thought about making a variation. No matter how beautiful this piece is, playing only it over and over is not very interesting. You need to try different variations, different melodies, different pieces of music. There are many, many kinds of instruments and many kinds of music.
I can say that music is uplifting, and I can also say that music is tragic. Some people listen and shed tears, and some people listen and feel very stirred and impassioned. He says you will understand that I am not contradicting myself -- music has different emotional states. He says you would not say, at least I hope you would not say, why would someone write something like Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony1? Why would a composer choose a melancholic style? The music itself will have its own surge and power, and indeed it is beautiful beyond all concepts of good and evil. Some music is sad, and some music is uplifting, but you cannot say that uplifting music is better than sad music. And very often, the shock brought by sad music transcends so-called sadness and happiness; it transcends good and evil. This beauty transcends the concepts of good and evil, and of sorrow and joy. It is not that happiness is always the best.
The Meaning of Tragedy
Seth says that, in a certain way, even a magnificent tragic piece of music transcends tragedy itself. Just like the other day when I was reading the interpretations, Teacher Xiyu mentioned that line from Chaplin: if you look at life from up close, it is all tragedy; if you stand far enough away, it all looks like comedy. A sorrowful piece of music is created out of a tragic experience, out of a tragic realization, but it is no longer that tragedy itself. It has transcended that tragedy.
The composer, even in the deepest tragedy, even in a mood of failure, is still soaring. Those composers, when they write sorrowful songs, their emotion is extremely full, and often it feels like it is written in one stroke. A sad love song is just written like that, in one go, and it can make countless people weep. So in the process of creating, he is high-spirited. Can you understand what he means? The tragedy from which this sorrowful piece of music is created truly exists, but the piece of music the author creates out of that tragedy, or the very process of creating it, is no longer tragedy. When you begin to create something based on a tragedy, it is already no longer tragedy; you have transcended the tragedy itself. When you have a very miserable life, if you want to pick up a pen and recreate your miserable life through some form of artistic creation, then in fact the harm that tragedy has done to you is already not so great. You have already transcended it; you have already found that passion, that soaring spirit, in the artistic creation. No matter how miserable you are, if you have not yet come out of it, if you are now in a state of romantic loss, or sorrow, or divorce, or depression, you can write a novel out of this experience, out of what happened between you. When you finish writing it, you will find: what was that? It is not even a thing at all. The process of creation itself will lead you out of that tragedy.
In such cases, the tragedy itself is chosen as an emotional framework upon which the psyche can play.
This tragedy is only an emotional framework, a story structure, upon which you can savor your sorrowful emotions. With this plot, your tragedy can be played out very deeply, very sorrowfully, very movingly. Without such a plot, this tragedy would not become a tragedy. So you must understand that the tragedy itself is not something real, something so important and insurmountable; it is only an emotional framework upon which you can play. When you begin to use this tragedy as the blueprint for creation, are you not already treating the tragedy as a tool, as a framework for creation?
The framework itself is not forced upon your psyche.
The plot of the tragedy, the events of the tragedy, the structure of the tragedy, is not thrown onto your psyche by force; it is not something imposed, something you cannot escape, something you can only accept. And indeed it is precisely because of its own qualities, even if perhaps those of dejection, that it was chosen. For example, when you are at your very happiest in a relationship, your other half, the person you love most, suddenly dies. It seems as though this event suddenly happened, as though a tragedy were thrown onto you, and you have no choice but to catch it. Not so. He says this is the way you wanted to choose to create, to experience. Whether you wanted to choose that kind of dejection, or tragedy, or a tragic life, or you wanted to stimulate your greater creativity, all of this is your choice. Of course, it may not be a choice made by your conscious self; it is a choice made by your unconscious self. It is you who chose it for a larger purpose.
In the words of ordinary people like us, you have sung enough of the happy songs, and suddenly you feel you want to sing a sorrowful song. But you cannot sing the sorrowful song, because you cannot shift into that tragic state. So here comes a tragic plot for you, to brew up the emotion for you, and then you can sing it. If you can look at this matter from this angle, then your life truly has no difficult problems left. And the fact is exactly this; it is not that if you choose to look at it from this angle then it becomes the fact. It is simply like this, only you yourself do not know it.
Second, you feel as though this tragedy were forced upon you, like a disaster falling from the sky. If you have that kind of mindset, you are done for. Why do you feel it is a disaster from the sky? Why me? Why does it have to be me? Why me? You absolutely must not have this mindset. When you feel, oh, so it was my choice, do not feel that it is forced upon your psyche; feel that it is your choice, and your mindset undergoes a fundamental change. When you can still create upon it, then you have transcended it even more. Then you can truly reach, or truly realize, the purpose and meaning of the soul's arrangement, which is simply to let you create upon it, and experience it, and feel it. That plot and that story itself are not important; what is important is what you have experienced, what you have realized, what you have felt through this story or this tragic experience, and how deeply and sorrowfully you sang the song, and how many people you moved. That is what matters.
So this passage from Seth is saying that in life we all have times when things do not go smoothly. When things do not go smoothly for you, when you encounter this kind of setback and suffering, you must understand how it happened and why it happened this way. When you think of yourself as a symphony, and the piece you happen to be playing recently is an extremely sorrowful piece, and you happen to be playing Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony, then just think of it that way: right now you are playing the Pathetique Symphony, and that is all. Then perhaps the next piece will be Richard Clayderman's romantic "Fur Elise" or something like that, all of it possible.
From that framework, from this overall framework, your psyche wants to taste the extreme of those qualities. That framework is the tragedy itself. The tragedy itself is an emotional framework, and your psyche wants to taste that tragedy itself. The tragedy itself is the quality of tragedy, of sorrow, and you taste it to the extreme.
The vitality and the fire of existence experienced from that particular viewpoint. And that dejection can be more vital than a joy that has not been deeply sounded, that has only been slightly experienced.
When a person is in a state of extreme sorrow, he actually has fire in him; inside him there is that suppression, that grief and indignation, and all that vitality is in it. That extreme sorrow, that extreme dejection, even that sorrow and dejection that makes one want to commit suicide, want to die, is more vital than a joy that has not been deeply experienced, that has not been tasted to the extreme, that has only been slightly experienced. The shallow, stop-at-the-surface joy of everyday life actually has no depth; on the contrary, it is the deepest sorrow that is more vital, more moving, and has more of an immortal life force. Look at the famous works of literature and art: they are all tragedies. Comedies that can become world-famous masterpieces are extremely rare. Take the top one hundred world-famous masterpieces and see how many of them are comedies and how many are tragedies. That experience of tragedy to the extreme has within it a very strong vitality, the fire of existence. The fire of existence is its vitality, its energy, its explosive force, all contained within it.
In the same way, certain individuals can and do choose life experiences that involve great tragedy. Some people specifically want to experience tragedy; they experience tragedy again and again, and they are very willing to experience their lives in this state of sorrow, in this state of tragic grandeur. There is nothing wrong with that. So when you see someone else in sorrow and pain, do not rush up to help them or rescue them; do not forget that they are engaged in a great artistic creation. The depth of this artistic creation may be even more meaningful than your kind of small-happiness, contented, happy life, but you cannot realize it. They dare to have this kind of courage, this kind of boldness, to challenge such a highly difficult, miserable life, and then to create and experience their own experience. Do not go around being all compassionate and pitying this one and pitying that one; you have no idea where the joy of creation in tragedy lies for them. There really is joy in creating within tragedy, only you cannot realize it. If there were no joy in it for them, how could they keep staying in tragedy and not come out? If it were worse than death, they would have come out long ago. There must be that sweetness of creation in it, and that sweetness cannot be told to others.
It is like some people love to eat stinky tofu. I saw a prank video the other day: abroad, a guy took stinky tofu and had a foreigner smell it. The foreigner immediately called his mother and said, a Chinese friend of mine put a little glass jar in the fridge, and inside it is his poop, and he eats poop at home every day. To foreigners, eating stinky tofu is no different from eating poop. Yet how many Chinese people love eating stinky tofu. In the past there were also people who loved eating hairy eggs, and in the south they eat stinky tofu; in Hunan, Hubei, Wuhan, Changsha, the streets are full of fried stinky tofu. Such a beautiful young girl with delicate makeup sits by the street eating a box of fried stinky tofu, beautiful beyond words, but a foreigner would just break down. So how do you know what sweetness tastes like to someone else?
However, those tragic lives are often used as a focal point, a place where a spotlight shines upon us. And in fact, through comparison, the great vitality and impulse of existence are brought into experience. Through experiencing this kind of tragedy, experiencing this kind of extreme sorrow, it can form a kind of comparative impulse; that kind of drop, that kind of strong contrast, can directly bring great vitality and impact into experience. Only when you have experienced this kind of extreme sorrow do you know how happy the peace of life is; only then do you understand what it means that the plain and ordinary is the true; only then do you know what state a person is in when he is happiest. He needs this kind of tragic experience in order to have a greater contrast.
Seth gets especially excited when he talks about this, because when he talks about human tragedy, he gets extremely excited. He is not gloating over misfortune. He is saying: clearly all of these are comedies, but you insist on treating them as tragedies, so I am just telling you that it is not that sad.
This does not mean that a tragic life is necessarily more vital than a happy, simple one, but only that each individual is involved in an art of living.
Having said all this, do not let it give you the wrong impression that we should all go live tragic lives, that we should not live our good lives properly and should quickly switch to something else. That is not what I mean. I am not saying that a simple, happy life is not good, nor that a tragic one is more meaningful. What I mean is simply that every person has the right to choose his own art of living. He can choose the sorrowful, or he can choose the joyful; he can choose the impassioned, or he can choose the tranquil. All are fine. These are different creations of the art of living, different experiences of the art of living, with different themes, different instruments, different melodies. But existence itself, like great art, cannot be limited by simple definitions. These themes, these melodies, these instruments, these timbres can all be experienced, but existence itself cannot be simply defined and limited. It is very hard to define music; all great art is very hard to define in words, but you can experience it, you can feel it, and it is without limits. What is art? One of its qualities is that what cannot be repeated is art; what can be repeated is a photocopier, or industrialization. It cannot be repeated; its creativity is infinite.
The Self-Destroyer and the Adventurer
He gave an example:
From the outside, it may seem as though a young man knows death because he is in some way dissatisfied with life itself. Undoubtedly, people usually take it for granted that those who commit suicide are afraid of life.
From an outsider's point of view, this young man who commits suicide is often dissatisfied with life itself, dissatisfied with his current situation, dissatisfied with society, and especially dissatisfied with his own life, which is why he would commit suicide. And people all take it for granted that these suicidal people are afraid of living, that they do not dare to live, which is why they die. Here Seth once again overturns your understanding; he has a completely new understanding of those who commit suicide.
But the suicide -- that is, the person who may commit suicide, who has committed suicide, or who might commit suicide -- often has such a tremendous, genuine desire for life that they continually place it in jeopardy, so that they can experience life in its heightened form.
This passage is very meaningful. I think it can serve as a reminder for suicide-prevention education, or for the education of everyone. People who truly commit suicide do not fail to love life; they often place life in danger. They want, through such a state, through such an experience, to experience life in its heightened form -- after placing life in mortal danger, to experience what life truly is. After they place physical life in mortal danger, that state is another level of life, a kind of heightening. They are not afraid of death, and they are not afraid of living; they have a new understanding of life, a genuine desire, a tremendous, genuine desire, which is why they go to their death. To put it bluntly, they want, through a kind of giving up of life, or through placing life in jeopardy, to cast off this physical life; they want to experience a purer, higher-level life. All people who commit suicide believe there is another place, and in that place they will have a better experience. It is not that they do not want to live; they want to live better. So this is a warning from Seth, a reminder, about how we should regard these suicidal people.
This also applies to many people who pursue dangerous professions. People commonly assume that these people have a death wish. Quite the opposite: many of them have an intensified wish to live. What do people in dangerous professions do? They are those who go off adventuring for no particular reason, who go mountain climbing. How many people have died mountain climbing, yet how many others still cannot be pulled back no matter what. For example, something that was quite moving: there was a mountain climber whose family tried every way to persuade him, but it was no use. Once he nearly died; his toes were amputated, and it seemed he injured something else. He had just recovered, and his body was still in a disabled state, when he set off again to climb mountains. In the eyes of many other people, this kind of person is simply courting an early death. Many people say, is this not being tired of living?
On the Edge of Danger and the Will to Live
Those who work in dangerous professions or engage in extreme sports may seem to others as if they are "tired of living" or "have a death wish." Many people assume they have a will to die. But Seth says, you simply do not understand them—they actually have an intensified will to live.
They place their lives on the edge of danger, and as they brush past death time and again, they experience that intense will to live. Their understanding of life is far deeper than that of ordinary people. In other words, those who commit suicide and those who engage in dangerous exploration are tasting the flavor of life—they taste the flavor of life in a state where life hangs by a thread, in ways that ordinary people would never dare to attempt.
Our ordinary will to live is the standard version: find a good job, earn more money, make life a bit more comfortable, and avoid danger as much as possible. Their will to live is the exact opposite of ours—they insist on going to those dangerous places, and then coming back alive, to show you just how strong their will to live is. They insist on parading back and forth right in front of the face of death.
This is very much like skiing. If you have ever skied, you know that the thrill of skiing lies in constantly finding that balance point between losing control and not losing control—the instant when your body's balance is about to be lost but has not yet been lost. Skiing itself is also a dangerous sport.
For people who engage in extreme sports, that heightened excitement is worth the risk. The excitement itself is worth the risk to them. In fact, the risk gives them an enhanced version of life—we live the standard version of life, while they live the enhanced version. We are using an iPhone 12, and they are using an iPhone 12 Pro Max. That is the right way to understand it.
But at the core of it, one must still engage in these sports through highly professional training. Do not go in recklessly and take foolish risks—that is not acceptable. For example, some people do not know how to ski at all, yet they insist on taking the chairlift up to the most advanced black diamond run, saying, "As long as I close my eyes, I can learn to ski." That is impossible. You are placing both your own life and the lives of others in extreme danger, and that is absolutely unacceptable. Whether it is diving, skiing, skydiving, or paragliding, all of it requires professional learning and training. The enjoyment lies within that process, not in reckless, brute-force attempts.
Of course, what Seth is describing here is not the case for all suicides or all adventurers. He is simply saying that this factor is present in some of them—not everyone is like this. It varies from person to person.
Mary's Probable Variations
Seth gave an example. He said, in your terms, a person who dies at seventeen may experience a far larger dimension of life than someone who lives to eighty-two. And such a person is not as unaware of those choices as it may seem.
Suppose a teenager who commits suicide at seventeen may have experienced a richer dimension of life. If that is the case, he is not unaware of what he is doing—he knows, and so he still goes ahead and commits suicide at seventeen. Of course, Seth here has no intention of encouraging or inciting anyone to commit suicide; he is only telling everyone how to understand what may be going on in the minds of those who might commit suicide. As Seth said, every person who commits suicide is someone who has prepared himself to die; it is his own arrangement.
But this does not mean you are destined to commit suicide, or destined to play that sad Pathétique Symphony all your life. No. At any point you can change—if you say, "I suddenly want to switch to a cheerful tune," you can, right away.
Seth gave a hypothetical example, a young woman named Mary. By nature she sought out crisis situations and favored that kind of experience. She might attempt suicidal behavior, even actually try suicide—you know many girls have this suicidal tendency; you see many girls' arms covered with cuts, and whether it is a real suicide or just an attempt, whether they are rescued or only cut themselves twice and then stopped, the important thing is that they all tried.
On the other hand, Mary might not have had such thoughts at all, yet she was murdered at seventeen.
Then Seth said forcefully:
We are obviously not trying to excuse this murderer.
He is not trying to excuse the murderer, but wants to tell you: no murderer can kill a person who does not want to die. The murderer selects the victim through intuition, just as the victim seeks the murderer—both through intuition.
But Mary's experiences in life may have made her change her mind. So in another probability, at seventeen she met with a serious illness and then triumphantly recovered; or she narrowly escaped the murder—when the murderer's bullet hit the person next to her and missed her.
And in an entirely different level, in an entirely different way, she might not have gone through these experiences but instead become a writer of murder novels, or a surgical nurse. Her novels would be all about murder, experiencing such plots every day; or every day in the hospital she would see people who either died or were brought back. The particular variations that one person can play are endless.
But unless you first realize that you form this framework of your life, you cannot consciously begin to change it. When you one day truly understand that this Mary can have her own choices—she can be a nurse, can be a writer, can be a rebellious girl who commits suicide at seventeen, or can be murdered by a thug—when these life scripts all lie within her own choices, then you can change it; from any point you can jump to another storyline. When you do not understand this, you feel that you are just a character in the play, and you are powerless to change the direction of the play.
That melody is your own; whether it is sad, whether it is first held back and then lifted, or first lifted and then held back, all its rises and falls are yours to decide. That melody is not inevitable, and it is not the only tune you can play. To a certain extent, you can actualize part of your own unknown reality—you cannot actualize all of it, because there is too much of it, but you can switch to another storyline, or another tune. You bring that part of the unknown reality that you want to choose into the experiential field of your life.
The Symphony Between the Notes
In a musical composition, there is a clear relationship between one note and another. So, in terms of specific families as well as broader nations, there is a relationship between each individual's reality, and that reality, like the notes, is constantly changing.
You know what sociology often calls six degrees of separation -- you can know anyone in the world through just six layers of connection. So the farthest you are from anyone is only six degrees.
To a certain extent, your own reality is received by the people of your time. Just as every note is related to every other note, your note is also felt by your contemporaries -- they decide, according to the particular themes and focuses of their own lives, whether to accept or reject your note. If they are also playing a tragedy, and you happen to be a tragedy too, then they will incorporate your tone into the grand movement of their tragedy, and the entire era, in the eyes of such a group of people, becomes a tragic era. If someone is optimistic and positive and wants to experience optimism and positivity, then your pessimistic melody is clearly out of tune with their impassioned melody, and they will not accept you.
Seth says something here that is very convoluted, but very important:
You are not any part that is not a part of your own reality.
He uses such awkward phrasing deliberately, to make you think about it. This sentence has several layers of meaning. One layer is that you are a part of the reality of your life -- that is easy to understand. You live in this world, but you think you are separate from your world; you think you are you, and the world is the world. What you do not know is that you are that very part.
From another, higher perspective, you are also the part of this world that you think you are not. For example, suppose you are a young girl who was murdered at seventeen. You think you are a victim, and you think the killer is utterly evil and deserves to be hacked to pieces. Actually, from a certain angle, you are that bad person -- but you do not think so.
What he most wants to say is this: you are precisely those parts of your reality that you think are not you.
When you express the reality of your own life through music -- when you are a sad melody, and others accept your melody, that proves they are also in a similarly sad theme; if they do not accept you, that proves they have nothing to do with your theme. You will then discover why people who are suicidal can always find others online who also want to commit suicide. You would not even know where to look for them, but they can find each other -- group after group.
Variations of the Times and the Goals of the World
Seth then gave examples. He said you are grappling with the challenge of how best to utilize the world's resources. Some countries will overproduce, while others will underproduce. That is indeed the case. I just saw a headline today saying that America's problem is that it is too wasteful. It is hard for you to understand -- if you ask an African child what a food surplus is, the child will ask what food is -- the child has never seen food.
I once watched a documentary specifically about the real Africa. An ordinary tourist who truly walked into those tribes and those villages -- it was really heartbreaking. The children there had nothing to eat. They used a special kind of mud, mixed with something from certain plants, dried it in the sun, and shaped it into something like biscuits. From a young age they ate these mud biscuits as their snacks.
If you have never experienced that kind of life, you cannot understand them.
Seth said, can you understand? These are all variations on the same theme. Just like in a piece of music, the drumbeats can be light or heavy, the rhythm can be wide or narrow -- that is a variation. On the whole, people of the same era are working on resolving some of the same challenges. Although oversupply and extreme shortage may appear in any particular place, without those excesses, perhaps those challenges would not be clearly highlighted -- these excessive situations actually let us see clearly that this is how things are.
As people of different eras, counterparts choose a particular time framework, and within that time framework itself certain focal points become clear, and in your terms, this cannot be accomplished in another framework. Counterparts are in different times and spaces; the time may be in the same era or in different eras, but at least within such a broad group of contemporaries, the challenges they face are the same. Why counterparts? Because within such a time framework, one cannot accomplish what can only be accomplished in that other time-space environment; it requires a different time-space environment, so they need to incarnate in different worlds and different places.
Seth pointed out the problems of contemporary human society with piercing clarity:
What you are now learning about industrial progress and the equal sharing of the earth's products can only be learned within such a framework, one in which industrialization is considered to have gone too far, and technology is seen as an ever-growing danger.
The problem we face in this era is learning, within so-called industrial civilization and industrial progress, how to effectively and rationally utilize and distribute the earth's resources. And in the process of learning, we have discovered that industrial culture seems to have gone too far, and technology seems to be becoming more and more dangerous, already turning into a dangerous product that can control human beings. You see, he had already foreseen this back in that era -- this was 1975, when technology had not yet reached such a formidable level. Today these words have even more practical value and even more real-world significance.
Then Seth said the following passage. He said he admitted that what follows is true, but it was very difficult for him to describe:
In terms that I admit are difficult to describe, the creative solution will come about by altering the course of past history, thereby adopting some variations, and technology will not progress in the same way it has in your experience.
What he said is very interesting. The way to resolve the current predicament will be by changing the course of past history, adopting some different versions, different versions of the progression of human civilization. Technology will not progress in the way it does now -- the current kind of technology is purely material, excluding everything non-material.
In other words, as we now learn, as we learn about spiritual cognition, and as more and more people in the world come to recognize the importance of spiritual knowledge, when we are able to effectively and beneficially combine our inner sensory systems and spiritual knowledge with scientific knowledge -- in other words, when science one day truly realizes that it is not omnipotent, that there are many things it does not understand, or that it has gone in the wrong direction, and when it truly begins to humbly learn anew from places it previously did not understand, was not familiar with, and did not recognize -- at that time, people will have learned this. But by then, human technology may already have reached a point of no return.
What do we do then? By that time we will already have learned to change the past. So through the point of power, we go back to the past, for example back to before the Industrial Revolution, or back to some point in time in 2021, and make a new change. Under this new change, the earth has a new version of civilizational development. In that version, spirituality and science, reason and emotion, our inner self and outer self, developed very effectively and in great balance. Human civilization was greatly elevated and began to enter a new era of civilization.
Seth's meaning is that this is not something that will happen in the future; rather, through changing the past, in another version of earth's civilization, it has already happened. He described a possibility for you. For example, we discovered some mysterious things in ancient Egypt; we discovered that beneath Tibet there are places that can lead to the Indian Ocean, or to certain places in the Mediterranean. A couple of days ago a CEO posted a video saying there was a great underground passage in Kunming, in Yunnan, which was later submerged and placed beneath Kunming Lake. And so on with these ancient legends.
In the future, when the development of our human technological civilization will eventually lead to extinction, some people will go back to the past in a manner similar to time travel, and then cause human history to take another version. And from a certain perspective, these are happening simultaneously -- that version of the earth, that version of human civilization, is also being played out at the same time. We are playing out this version, but as the frequency of your consciousness rises, as your cognition rises, you can enter into that version. But when you enter, you do not enter with this physical body; your physical body cannot enter. You may be able to shuttle between different parallel time-spaces, to experience and to feel, but to truly say that you can bring this physical body over -- that is impossible. Of course, if your abilities have reached that level, it is also possible, but that is extremely, extremely rare.
You can use other methods. For example, when you die and reincarnate, whether that version of human civilization is among the options in your list of choices for your next reincarnation -- that is a question you should consider.
Seth said that this point had been mentioned before. In The Nature of Personal Reality, he had already talked about how through the point of power you can change your past. He said the same applies to your human civilization as well; human civilization can also be changed in the same way -- through the present, change the past, and then change the direction of human civilization's development. In other words, how this symphony of human civilization is to be played is entirely up to us -- however we want to play it, it will be played that way; we can play all kinds of different versions. The initiative is entirely in our hands; if we want to change it, we just go back and change it.
Seth said:
I will end this session, give you my heartiest regards, and good night.
Rob's Notes: Advice on Buying a House
Everything after this section consists of Rob's annotations. Why did they want to buy a house? Because from time to time, I had mentioned one inconvenience in the apartment, especially the traffic noise that kept increasing during that particular session. We very much needed a private or quiet environment, but at the same time we wanted to avoid the sense of isolation that might arise if we moved to the countryside. I might have liked that rural feeling, but I had only recently learned that such a situation would considerably trouble Jane — Jane did not like an environment where there was not a single person for miles around.
In a private session following Session 726, Seth had something to say about the matter of the house we were about to look for. By this time Rob and Jane wanted to buy a house, because the apartment was too noisy, and the two of them had also saved up some money — he had published several books, and the income from those published books gave them a portion of income, enough to buy a house.
But keep in mind, Seth's advice here was only aimed at this couple, not at everyone. You must not apply it to your own standards for buying a house. These are two completely different matters; it only applied to the two of them.
He said not to buy a house with a cellar made of dirt — by cellar I mean the basement. Houses in the eastern United States all have basements, called basements. This was a special need in their region, because it is relatively cold there, and in winter the basement would not be very cold; it was quite comfortable. Moreover, in the East the land area is relatively tighter than in the West, so adding a basement allowed it to be turned into a game room; some people made it into a living room or a gym, which could increase the area of the house. In the western United States, or in the central-south and west, there is no concept of a basement — simply put, in warm places there are no basements.
Do not buy a house heated by burning oil, because the oil fumes are not good, even though you cannot see them. In earlier times, heating in some parts of the eastern United States was done by burning oil; now that no longer exists, and now it is all natural gas. American household heating, except for some places without natural gas that use electricity, is mostly done by burning natural gas to produce heat — there is a furnace in the house that ignites the natural gas, burns the heat onto a heat exchanger made of copper plates, and then blows air over it from above, turning it into warm air that is blown into every room. Seth said not to buy a house heated by burning oil; oil is not good for the body.
In your area, under their geographical circumstances — they were at the border between New York State and Pennsylvania, about an hour and a half to less than two hours from New York City — a house facing east was good.
Use the abilities of your psyche as much as possible to determine the atmosphere of the house. This one is practical for all other people buying a house. Do not look at how good it appears, or how beautiful the decoration is; none of that matters. What matters is that if you feel uneasy staying inside it, then do not buy it. No matter how beautiful or good-looking the house is, if you feel uncomfortable inside it, do not buy it.
It should have a fireplace to remind you of the warmth of gathering around the hearth. Seth had imagined this scene several times — beneath a fireplace with a roaring fire burning, because winters over in New York are very cold, the two of you sitting beside the fireplace, and I would come to give you lessons. Seth had envisioned this scene countless times, so he suggested they buy a house with a fireplace.
It should not have exterior walls made of aluminum or other metals — in the past some houses used metal for exterior walls, and now there are very few of those. In the area you have chosen, it should not face south — you see, Chinese people like south-facing houses, but he did not like south-facing ones. This was also related to the way they used energy, and had nothing to do with other people, so this is not a principle that others can follow.
When you are not sure whether a house suits you, you may use a pendulum to decide.
Even in the countryside, if mountains or trees are too close, a house can still have a feeling of being closed in. This is a universal principle — do not let the house be too close to mountains and trees; do not have especially close, oversized trees in front of or behind the house, as they will definitely create a sense of oppression; and do not be too close to a hillside.
The land you own is very important, but the land you do not own yet can still see is also very important — your view is also very important. Although the land is not yours, if your gaze can extend over it, that land is also very important. He said you should live in a place where you can see mountains, or some open area, while still having a private, mysterious domain.
Based on his description, you can tell that what he was actually talking about was the kind of good feng shui location described in Chinese feng shui. We are not saying anything about feng shui per se, but feng shui does have a certain validity. This residential pattern does have a certain universality — with a backing mountain behind but not too steep, and a relatively open front, these are all good. Whether a house is good or not, you can feel it immediately after you go inside. If you feel uncomfortable, do not buy it again, no matter how cheap it is or how good the cost-performance ratio is; none of that matters. Your intuition is very accurate.
Regarding the part about suicide, Seth discussed it in Seth Speaks, and also in The Nature of Personal Reality, both in Chapter 11, from different angles, so we will not go over it again.
Alright, let us end our interpretation of this session here.
注释与核实
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Source: Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, "Tchaikovsky | Symphony No. 6" (https://www.hkphil.org/sc/watch-and-listen/symphonies/tchaikovsky-symphony-no-6) ↩