Mike's commentary · The "Unknown" Reality, Session 742

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).

Guide

This session begins with why probable realities seem unfamiliar: because people are unaccustomed to observing their thought processes and cling to single-level thinking, they shut out probable realities that do not match their beliefs, and may even develop a victim mentality. Seth points out that the unknown reality is a reality of the psyche, the spirit, and the psychological -- not a spatial or parallel dimension; using Ruburt and Joseph's move as an example, he shows that moving through space simultaneously changes time and enters new probabilities. Humanity is now moving into a new era, and the world's outcome is open. Atlantis is not a historical fact of the past, but an ideal civilizational blueprint formed from future memory, projected by fear into a past destruction. The earth is a focus of consciousness, divided into zones of time and of probability.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Probable realities seem unfamiliar because people are not accustomed to following their own thought processes, and they shut down realities that do not match their beliefs.
• The unknown reality is the reality of the psyche, the spiritual, and the psychological, out of which physical experience springs; becoming aware of the inner does not require ascetic practices or over-analysis, but rather a clear awareness of life.
• Moving house is not only a change in space; it also changes time and enters new probabilities; humanity is moving into a new era, and the world's outcome is open.
• Atlantis is composed mainly of future memory, a psychic blueprint toward an ideal civilization, projected by human fear into a story of past destruction.
• The earth is a focus of consciousness, actually also divided into zones of time and probability, where different civilizations exist simultaneously and have leakages.

Main Text

The title of Session 742 of The "Unknown" Reality is "The End of the World and Possibilities: A New Era for the Atlantean Humans," and this session is all about big matters. This session began on Wednesday, April 16, 1975, at 9:29 p.m., and it started without any unnecessary preamble.

Seth said directly:

Only because you are not in the habit of following the processes of your own thoughts does the whole idea of probable realities seem so strange or esoteric.

Why do you find this unknown reality or probable reality so strange? It is because you do not even understand the process of your own thinking. You do not know how you think, how thoughts come and go, how decisions are made. So if you do not even know these things, then even those probable realities that are plainly evident remain invisible to you.

At any time, when they do not conform to your own nature, or to your beliefs about the purpose of reality in general, you turn them off.

When this unknown reality or probable reality does not conform to your understanding of your own nature, when it shakes your sense of identity, when it destabilizes the foundation of your cognition, or when it conflicts with your general beliefs about the world, you turn these realities off. You refuse to see them, refuse to hear them, refuse to recognize them.

However, the deepest significance of probabilities lies in their psychological meaning, not in any spatial or parallel-dimension sense. It is not as if there are more possibilities, more parallel dimensions -- no, it is more about their psychological meaning for you.

You have become so hypnotized by a single-level kind of thought.

We always think in a single level, a straight line, one possibility and one result. We are always determined by this single-threaded thinking, to the point that anything else seems impractical and unreal. Only this single-threaded, single-level thinking seems real. It is very hard for us to consider things with a three-dimensional, multi-dimensional mode of thought.

You focus your attention on the decisions you make -- ordinarily we make a decision and then carry it out, without paying attention to the process involved. How exactly did you make this decision? How did this decision come about? You do not care.

He says, do you understand, that this kind of thinking pattern has already been carried to an extreme. What extreme? It is that often you are so out of touch with those inner operations that your own decisions consequently seem to come from somewhere else.

In certain extreme cases, you do not even know how the decision was made; you do not even seem to know who is making the decision. It is as if, in all of this, you are the passive one, the one without choice, who can only resign yourself to fate, letting yourself be tossed about by destiny, as if there were no way out.

So this is how you feel. Because you also do not know why these things happen, you attribute everything to coincidence, chance, the tricks of fate. Because you simply cannot recognize that these things are all decisions you made yourself. It is very simple: because you are muddled about your own thinking and about the process of making decisions, in the end you cannot recognize that these decisions were made by you.

You may be convinced that events happen to you -- you believe this very firmly, and that they are beyond your control. You say things happen to me, I cannot decide, I cannot control them, I am just this unlucky -- so who is there to blame?

Only because you are so out of touch with yourself that you never catch the moment when you make a decision. You do not know that it was you who made the decision; you cannot see what you look like at the moment of deciding; you think all of this is something life throws at you, dumps on you, places on your head.

Then you feel as if you are a pawn of fate, insignificant, blown about by the wind. And the concept of probable actions seems like complete nonsense. When others tell you that all these probabilities lie before you and you can choose freely, such words sound like nonsense to you -- you think, how is that possible? Where are all these probabilities for me to choose from? I am just passive, at the mercy of fate.

Every event seems inevitable. If this mentality is overemphasized, then it can even seem as if you had no hand at all in creating your own reality. If this victim mentality persists, then it is as if this reality has nothing to do with you at all, as if you did not participate in it, as if you merely accepted everything passively. When you reach that point, you have a victim mentality.

Why is that? Because, as Teacher Xiyu has also said, in the interpretations everyone asks: why are we humans willing to do this? Because the victim mentality is more comfortable than the creator mentality. In a traffic accident, we all prefer to be the one who was hit rather than the one who caused it. Because you feel you are innocent -- the innocent mentality of the victim: I am innocent, I do not know why this happened to me, look, disaster has fallen on my head, how pitiful I am.

If you truly recognized that your present life is entirely created by your own hand, then would not your responsibility be enormous? You would have nowhere to complain; you could not even shift the blame -- shift it onto whom? Would you only shift it onto yourself? So we have a rather bad habit of automatically shifting responsibility onto others, making ourselves like innocent victims. You will always feel that you are a victim; this is a mentality many people have.

The Unknown Reality Is the Reality of Your Psyche and Spirituality

And the unknown reality is the reality of your psyche, your spirituality, and your psychology. In this book, through both volumes, we have been discussing the unknown reality. What is the unknown reality? It is the reality of your psyche, the reality of your spirituality, the reality of your psychology. And your ordinary physical experience, what we call material life in the three-dimensional world, leaps out from these unknown realities above.

So why do we need to study and understand the unknown reality? If you do not study these things, you will not understand how your material world, your material life, your life itself comes into being. You will just be living in a muddled, vague feeling.

The more responsive you become to your own inner environment, the more you have a feeling for your inner environment, the more you will know that the outer world is determined by the inner environment. When you reach that point, when you can recognize that your outer world changes according to your inner environment, you will come to know that inner existence which pervades everything — your inner self is an existence that pervades everything, existing within all things. It is not just that you yourself are like this; the entire universe is like this. It is all an inner existence.

This does not mean that you become entirely self-centered. You might say, I only focus on my own inner existence, I do not consider the outside, I do not even look at the outside — does this not become self-centeredness? No, it does not mean that.

To put it in one simple sentence, let me say it plainly: when you think that this so-called only considering your own inner self, only focusing on your own inner environment, seems like selfishly considering only yourself, seeking inward — actually, after this extreme inwardness, this so-called extreme selfishness, you arrive at the best state of the greatest benefit to self and the greatest benefit to others. This extreme selfishness appears selfish, but in fact it is the greatest altruism. You just have not recognized this yet.

Many people do not understand — why is this so? Because your true inner self, as he explains here, is an existence that pervades everything. If you understand this, you can roughly comprehend part of it. If you still cannot understand, then it does not matter — just understand this one point: do not be afraid or worried, saying, if I only care about myself, only care about my own inner feelings, is that too selfish? If I do not consider others, do not consider my family, do not consider my parents, do not consider my children, and only consider my own inner feelings, is that excessively selfish?

Many people go around and around on this question and cannot get out of it. This is one of the main obstacles for many people in spiritual study and practice. So Buddhism adopted a very extreme method: precisely to prevent you from having this obstacle, it directly has you leave home and become a monk or nun. The Buddhist teachings — I cannot explain it clearly to you either. Ordinary people cannot understand it, and I cannot explain it clearly, so I will not bother trying to tell you — the simplest thing is: leave your family, leave worldly life, cut off your seven emotions and six desires, come to the temple, and then there is only yourself left. In that way, you can study properly.

But the biggest problem with this approach is that he did not clearly explain to everyone why. Everyone then went to the other extreme — when they had not yet generated the correct understanding and cognition for doing so in their hearts, they were forced to do it anyway. It is doing first, then telling you why afterward.

I am not advocating that you do this. I am only telling you: behind the seemingly extreme selfishness of seeking inward lies an extreme altruism. How does this happen? It is because your inner self is an existence that pervades everything. As long as you are together with your inner self, you are together with all things, you are together with all people. This is a process where things reverse at their extreme — extreme selfishness is actually altruism.

Approaching Inner Awareness with a Playful Attitude

He said I am not telling you to become entirely self-centered, turning a blind eye to the rest of the world.

Nor does it mean that you must spend hours in silent meditation, or study your own thought processes with such great effort that you neglect all this other activity.

I am not telling you to do these things -- to do nothing every day but sit there meditating for hours, and then spend great effort observing your own thought processes, chasing after every single thought, until you finally reach some kind of state. You have misunderstood.

That kind of inner awareness and cognition is by no means the state of practice we ordinarily understand -- that you have to go into the mountains, go to a temple, go somewhere where no one will disturb you in order to practice. That is not true practice.

It only means that you are aware of your own life as clearly as possible.

Telling you to inwardly perceive the changes and reactions of your own environment is telling you to be clearly aware of your own life, to stay in touch with your thought processes, to perceive your thought processes, to stay in contact with them.

And then perceive these thought processes, yet without excessive concern or over-analysis.

This is a core point: you must do this with a playful attitude. The awareness of the inner environment, that is, the awareness of the inner self -- do not turn it into an academic task, a scientific task, a homework assignment, or a task of diligent striving. Do not say that I must meditate for several hours every day, sit in meditation for several hours, observe the arising and passing of all my thoughts, constantly polish and refine, and so on -- do not do that. No matter what others have told you, now that you have seen this and read this, you understand that those views are all wrong.

Be sure to remember, do not do it that way. Because when you put all your energy into that, when all your attention is focused on that, then your life becomes something else entirely. I have said many times before: relax, feel your own thought processes, live with inner awareness and perception, experience everything your life gives you, with gratitude, with joy, with peace, with challenge -- to try, to create, to live. This is a correct and very normal state of living.

You say this is nonsense. It is not. You have seen many truly realized people, eminent monks and great masters -- in the end, their views are consistent with this point. It is only those who have not yet entered the door, or who have just touched the edge, or who have not even touched the edge, who will tell you that the path of practice is not easy, that the path of practice is bitter, difficult, and arduous, presenting you with a picture of "the sea of learning is boundless, and only through bitter effort can you cross it." Do not do that. You must approach this with a playful, relaxed, game-like attitude, to feel and experience this thing. This is the most dangerous part -- many people have learned it wrong.

Self-nature, the Leaf and Plant Analogy

Seth then continued:

They are a part of your inner environment, just as trees are a part of your outer environment.

"They" refers to the unknown reality, which is a part of your inner environment, just as trees are a part of your outer environment.

In the same way, the self has different species, and the world has different species as well.

He said the self has different species, humanity has different species, and the world has different species as well -- not just one world.

However, when you identify only with one particular level of your thoughts, the other levels appear very strange to you. There is really no need for this -- you begin to feel threatened, because the other levels seem to threaten the level you currently occupy. When you try to identify with those unknown realities, they seem to affect the reality you currently have.

So, you are determined to hold on to an old concept of your self-nature. What does self-nature mean? It is the nature of the self, that part of your self-nature -- what exactly is you, that is called self-nature. The old concept of self-nature you want to hold on to is wrong; in fact, there is no self-nature that exists at all.

Later I will talk about how there is a greater self-nature. But ultimately, there is something very paradoxical in the middle of this -- you can maintain each self-nature, yet in essence you have no self-nature. We will come back to this later; these are two different levels of awareness that you need to have, existing simultaneously.

Seth gave an example:

A plant grows many leaves, and one leaf does not threaten the existence of the other leaves, and the plant does not envy its own leaves.

If the greater self is a plant, then the leaves on the plant are each a manifestation of the self-nature of each self. From this perspective, the leaves on the plant do not envy one another, nor do they feel threatened -- saying that another new leaf has grown, does that threaten me as a leaf? No, leaves do not feel that way. And the leaves do not feel that the plant affects them, and the plant does not envy its own leaves.

He used this example to talk about the relationship between your greater self and your self-nature -- you have your own self-nature, and the greater you also has a self-nature. Are these two self-natures one big and one small? Does the big one affect the small one? Just as a plant affects its leaves? No. They each exist with clear distinction, both merged and clearly distinct, just like a tree and its leaves; you would not confuse the two.

So there is no need to protect your own individuality. Do not try to maintain your individuality; do not feel that once you explore the unknown reality, your individuality will cease to exist -- the moment someone mentions the probable you, the counterpart you, the reincarnational you, you think, "Then who am I?" And then you try with all your might to maintain and preserve this existence of yours, sticking this label everywhere -- there is absolutely no need for that.

Because it may send out other branches into probable realities; the you that you think you are will send its probable selves into other probable realities. This is simply the self growing in different directions, scattering its seeds. Just as a plant scatters its own seeds, and dandelions drift with the wind, sending their seeds to various places -- this is how you should understand it.

Moving Into a New House and the Forking of Probabilities

Then Seth said:

Ruburt and Joseph moved into a new house.

Why is "new house" in quotation marks? He explains below:

In so doing, they fulfilled probabilities, just as each of my readers would under similar circumstances.

Just as when you move into a new house, you have passed through many probabilities. What does that mean? He goes on:

They are identified with the self that moved into this hillside house.

They are identified with the self that moved into the new house. To put it another way:

They are now different people than they were when the "Unknown" Reality began, fourteen months ago.

The selves who moved into the new house -- this Ruburt and Joseph -- are no longer the same people as the Ruburt and Joseph from when the "Unknown" Reality first began. They are already in a different reality space.

He tells you:

Many of my readers, however, are also different people than they were when they began reading this book.

The same goes for all of you here. After you have read the Seth material, especially The "Unknown" Reality, from before you read it to when you finish the whole book, you too have changed, and you are no longer the original you.

This does not refer only to changes in your thinking. This "no longer the original you" refers to a real kind of no-longer-the-original-you. What does that mean? It means there is a probable you who never read The "Unknown" Reality at all, who does not even know who Seth is -- does such a you exist? Yes. Is there also a you who read this material? Right. These two yous live in different times and spaces.

That is what he means. It is not like what you ordinarily understand as "your thinking has changed, your consciousness has risen and expanded" -- of course that is also true, but what he wants to say is on another level.

Let us go back to a little over two months ago in your time. At that time Ruburt and Joseph were looking for a house, and they moved in a month and a half ago. As was mentioned earlier in The "Unknown" Reality:

They had already seen the inside of a house, and as far as the pen is concerned, the manuscript began at that point just before Ruburt and Joseph's latest exploration of probabilities began.

As I mentioned before, they had already found a house, had seen the inside of a house -- that was the Foster house, the first one they looked at. And from that angle, the manuscript began at the very point where Ruburt and Joseph's latest exploration of probabilities began.

What does that mean? In the process of buying a house there are many kinds of houses. They looked at thirty-five houses, and whichever one you end up buying is a probable existence. For the two of them, they ultimately made a difficult choice between the Foster house and the house on the hillside that they finally bought -- that is the existence of one or two probabilities.

He says the content you are now reading in this book, part of the content of this book, actually all began at that point of the probable exploration. Does that seem a bit strange?

Simply put, these are two times and spaces, two parallel times and spaces. One time-space is where they did not buy this house, and bought another house instead; the other time-space is where they bought the house on the hillside. Then Seth says, the manuscript I am now speaking -- that is, the content he is currently discussing -- came into being after the fork in the probability branch where they decided to buy this house. In another time-space, in another probability, they did not buy the hillside house, they bought the Foster house, and in that probability, I might not have said these words.

But two months ago, they were attracted to the house on what you call Foster Road. At first they liked that house, often drove past it, and also went inside; they had already gone to look at it several times.

Ruburt imagined his ESP class being held there, and imagined both Ruburt and Joseph seeing themselves standing there, and certain psychic energy was projected into that house.

They liked that house, often passed by it, often went inside to look, and they had already projected their lives into it -- imagining holding ESP classes there, imagining what it would be like to live in that house. Such a probability had already been projected outward, had already happened. In a probable reality, a Ruburt and a Joseph -- different from the Ruburt and Joseph they are now -- live there, in the house on Foster Road.

However, in the official world that you recognize, they moved into the hillside house they are in now.

To some extent, both of you were aware of an inner process involved in the final decision.

As to why you ultimately chose this house, both of you had already become aware of it -- actually, it was under Seth's guidance that they became aware of it.

I do not mean that they were merely familiar with the outer thought processes involved, such as the hillside house being better built, or having a better view. I am speaking of the deeper mechanisms of consideration, in which connections were made between inner and outer reality.

Seth says, the reason you ultimately bought the hillside house is connected to certain inner unknown realities. You can already see part of the connection now. For example, as discussed in the previous session, all his neighbors were acquaintances of a former student of his, and so on -- he has already listed forty clues connected to why they ultimately bought this house. Again, this connection does not refer to the surface level -- that the house was a good price, cheap, a good environment -- none of that; it is an inner connection.

Obviously:

When you move from one place to another, you make a change in space, but you also change time.

You think moving is merely a physical shift in space, a change of coordinates. Seth says no: when you make a move in space, it involves the creation of one probability or more. From a certain angle, when you move to a new house in space, it actually means you have entered into a probable reality, it means you have created a parallel time-space.

So he says you have not only changed in space, you have changed time, you have entered another parallel time. You and the you who did not buy this house are already two different yous.

When a house is empty, all the neighbors send out their messages.

When a house is empty, the whole neighborhood can send out the message that the house is empty. To some extent:

Any inhabited area forms its own entity.

Anything from your neighborhood or community, as small as that, up to a country, will have its own entity. This entity is formed by their inner selves, not just the outer. This inner information is often contacted in the dream state -- in dreams we can receive this information.

An empty house is a psychic vacancy longing to be filled.

When you move:

You move into other portions of your own selfhood.

Other portions of your selfhood -- is there a larger probable existence of you? The house you move into unfolds a new probability, and this is one probable reality of your own complete, larger self. An empty house waits for you to move in, and the process of moving in is like moving into a certain part of your own selfhood -- the part that was originally outside your self-recognition. That part has always been there; a probable you lives in such a house; and there is also a probable you who never moved into this house at all, and lives in another house.

Humanity Is Moving Into a New Era

Then Seth said you could take a break. The gist of tonight's Seth material made Rob think that he was about to finish the book The "Unknown" Reality. Whenever a book was nearing its end, both of them had a feeling about it, and both could sense it. Usually Jane sensed it more keenly than Rob, and since Jane hadn't felt that way, Rob didn't say anything either. He made a note to test whether his feeling was accurate -- the book had two more sessions to go. This was Session 742, and with Sessions 743 and 744 the whole book would be finished.

Seth said:

In fact, you have been moving into your own new area all along.

You have been moving into your own new probable reality all along. Humanity is now entering such a phase -- just as Rob and Jane moved into their new house, so all of humanity is about to move into a new home, a new home for humanity. For humanity, that means a new society, a new civilization, and a new era.

Humanity will move into its own new house, but the physical change will be the result of inner change, and a change in the main line of probabilities.

Remember, this is a very major change in the line of probabilities. Why is it that in an era like this, more and more people are beginning to come into contact with spiritual knowledge, including the Seth material and other materials? It is because we humans have entered this present period and are beginning to enter a new era.

There are many probabilities; some are minor, and some are major. For example, whether you have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea -- that is a minor probability. When you decide whether to marry this person or that person, that is a major probability.

Humanity's entry into this new era is first of all the result of inner change. Whether you can actually enter it depends mainly on whether your own inner self is changing. If your inner self has not changed all along, then you will continue to remain in the original probable reality -- just as if you had not moved. All of humanity is moving, but you do not move, and the reason is that your inner self has not changed.

And this move is a very important change of line, so I hope everyone can keep pace with the arrival of this new era, truly change within, and enter humanity's new civilization and new era.

The World's Ending Is Open

Seth talks about how this Christian theology views the end of the world in a certain way. Christianity looks at the end of the world and sees a solemn, great God descending to reward the good and punish the wicked, Christ coming again, the great judgment, the arrival of doomsday. That belief system allows no other possibilities — everyone who studies Christianity will tell you that there is only this one possibility, and all of them firmly believe this, firmly believe that the world will ultimately be destroyed, that Christ will inevitably return, that good people will go to heaven, and that the standard for being a good person is that you must believe in Christ — whoever believes in me shall have eternal life. If you don't believe in Christ, it doesn't matter if you're a good person. This feels a bit like forming cliques.

Seth brings this up again:

Some people see the end of the world coming in the form of a tremendous disaster.

Some people have this kind of precognitive, foreseeing ability, and they see the end of the world, imagining that humanity finally destroys its own earth. This is one possibility.

Others, however, see a period of peace and progress.

The world is not destroyed; we enter into a more advanced civilizational process.

And each possibility will happen somewhere.

Both of these possibilities can happen. This "somewhere" is put in quotation marks; it doesn't refer to some place on earth as we ordinarily understand it. It refers to some parallel world, that is, within some probable reality, these several possibilities will all happen.

Many of my readers, however, or their descendants, will be involved in a new dimension of selfhood, in which, at least to some degree, consciousness is fully explored, and the potentials of the soul are also discovered.

It is not as Christian theology holds, that the world has only one possible ending. The ending of the world is open; there are many possibilities. Of course, the possibility Christianity speaks of also exists, but other possibilities also exist, and in some parallel world, different possibilities are all happening.

Readers who have followed along with the Seth material all this time, and their descendants, will all be involved in a new dimension of selfhood — that is, a new possibility concerning their own selves, their larger selves. In that new reality, each person's degree varies, some higher and some lower, but at least in that reality, consciousness is fully explored, and the potentials of the psyche are also discovered.

Here he makes a prophetic statement about the future of the world, about the ending of the world. It's not like religion saying whoever believes in me shall have eternal life. What he means is: if you have studied the Seth material, your consciousness will inevitably expand, and whether in breadth or in height, it will have been fully expanded. With this expanded consciousness, you will inevitably go on to explore more domains and spaces of your consciousness. When you go exploring, you are stepping into new dimensions, into those new dimensional spaces.

And in the process of exploring those new dimensions, you will inevitably discover the potentials of your inner psyche, of your soul. When you begin to use these potentials, taking them as your new tools, combining these tools of human potential, you begin a new era, a new age. At that time, in the world you are in, in that probable reality, human civilization begins a new journey.

To put it simply, it means developing both spiritual civilization and material civilization at the same time. Our current problem is that we only develop material civilization and not spiritual civilization — that is its greatest drawback. We also had a drawback before, which was only developing spiritual civilization and not material civilization, and that was also not good at that time. The correct approach is to develop both, without leaning to one side. This is the biggest point of difference between the Seth material and other materials.

Human abilities will be seen for what they are.

Humanity's inherent potentials are complete in themselves. And a great period of new discovery, of new development, will occur — humanity will welcome a very great, entirely new period of development. In this period of development:

All ideas about selfhood and reality will truly be regarded as uncivilized superstitions.

A modifier is missing here — all the old ones — those existing, current, old ideas about selfhood and reality, in that new era of human development, will truly be uncivilized superstitions.

In other words, many of our beliefs, values, scientific views, and materialism today will truly be a kind of superstition in that new era, just like how we view the uncivilized superstitions of primitive tribes. People of the new era will look at us people of today as uncivilized and superstitious — because our ideas about selfhood and reality are too backward.

And humanity will truly move into a new selfhood.

When we reach that era, after discovering the new latent attributes of humanity itself, it will be like moving into a new selfhood of humanity. To put it in plain terms, it means entering a new reality, a new parallel space-time.

The theory of probabilities will by then be regarded as the most real, practical, and feasible psychological fact.

What we today consider these illusory, unknown realities and probable realities will be real in that era.

Giving the individual leeway and freedom.

The existence of these possibilities places the power of decision and choice in your hands. At that time, humanity will no longer feel that it is at the mercy of external things, but will instead become the creator of those external things.

The Analogy of the Fruit and the Peach

You squeeze the great fruit of your own selfhood into small, cramped, soft pulp, unaware of the sweetness of its branches and leaves, or the rich variety of its seasons.

He gives an example: suppose each person's selfhood is a very luscious, plump, juicy fruit, yet in your present cognition, you have pressed and squeezed the selfhood into a limp, dried-out pulp without sweet juice, losing the vitality and spirituality of the fruit itself. It is like the difference between a fresh, delicious peach and a peach that has been dried in the sun and eaten as dried peach -- the feeling is completely different.

You look at the outside of your own self.

Suppose the selfhood is divided into the outer self and the inner self, then what you are actually looking at now is only the outer layer of your selfhood,

just as a peach is aware only of its own skin.

Just as a peach sees only its own skin covered with fuzz, itchy and seemingly useless, all shriveled up. But what is the real peach beneath the skin?

Yet in the probable reality that I foresee, people will become familiar with a far greater aspect of themselves.

In the future development of humanity, people will discover the greater aspect of their own selfhood, and will put it into realization -- not only discovering it, but also realizing it. They will fully open up the true inner self, and fully realize the inner potentials as well. Simply put, they will use the nine inner senses as skillfully as we use today's outer senses.

When they make decisions, they will know completely that they themselves are making those decisions. In that era, people will know that all their decisions are made by themselves, and that everything happening in their lives is decided by themselves, rather than, as people now believe, being the tricks of heaven or the arrangements of fate.

If they become ill at that time:

they will know that it is because they chose that condition of illness in order to emphasize the development of certain other areas, or to diminish certain other areas.

They will consciously perceive their choices, and know why they became ill. Illness is not something infected from outside; they themselves chose the state of illness in order to expand other abilities that could not be expanded without being ill. For example, illness causes certain functions to fail, and that may be precisely in order to expand other functions; it may also be to diminish certain functions, feeling that certain functions are too strong, and letting them temporarily lose that function in order to gain a new awareness.

The body's remarkable power and resilience will be understood far more.

The body has great resilience, a very wide range, and great power as well. By that time we will all understand this, not because medicine has made astonishing discoveries, but because the alliance between body and mind will be seen more clearly. You know why your body has such mechanisms -- it is because of the choices of your inner psyche.

Although this is said, it does not mean that your medicine will not have astonishing discoveries -- medicine will still make very astonishing discoveries; the two do not conflict. In the probable reality of future humanity that Seth describes, people begin to explore the potentials that were previously untouched yet vast in body and mind -- those abilities that are inherently complete within us, to be developed one by one.

The inherent, remarkable challenge.

It truly is a remarkable challenge, and we also rise to meet new challenges, exploring broader realms, whether inner or outer.

That each of you belongs to in some measure, each person will recognize his innate power of action and decision, and feel a personal sense of belonging to the physical world, one that springs forth according to individual desires and beliefs.

By that time, people will have a personal sense of belonging to the physical world, because they feel that the physical world is created by themselves, created according to their personal desires and beliefs, so they feel that the physical world is not outside -- not something produced by cosmic evolution or the explosion of stars and planets. The physical world is created by themselves, so there is a sense of belonging. Unlike our present sense of separation from the world, where we feel the world is the world and humanity is humanity.

Atlantis Is a Memory of the Future

He said, please wait for us a moment, and now he begins to shift the topic:

Your concepts of Atlantis are partially composed of future memories.

With this, his style shifts, and he turns to Atlantis. Earlier, it seems that in Session 708 he also discussed Atlantis, and there he said, "I will talk about it again later," without saying too much. Here, sure enough—he has not forgotten the matter—near the end of this book he brings up Atlantis again. The following passage is very important; this description of Atlantis is something many of us have long been puzzled about.

Atlantis is a land that you want to live in.

He says this is a memory coming from your future. This Atlantis is not something from the past as you understand it; it is something from your future. But because of the simultaneity of time, your future self certainly exists as well, and may be living within that advanced civilization of Atlantis, so your present self can also perceive it.

They are a psychic yearning toward the ideal civilization, patterns within the psyche, just as each fetus has within it its own ideal fulfillment toward growth.

Atlantis is an ideal state of development for your human civilization, so from childhood you have had a longing for it. Just as a fetus knows from the start that it will grow up, a girl knows she will grow into a graceful young woman, a boy knows he will surely grow handsome and strong—that is the kind of knowing. And Atlantis is like humanity's inner awareness of its own society, its future society: in the future, human society should develop into that. This is the ideal of human society.

So Plato called it the ideal republic¹. It appears in your literature, your dreams, and your fantasies, because this is your most ideal state. It is the driving force of your development, just as the inner blueprint of an infant is the driving force of its development.

It is real and effective.

The idea of Atlantis, such a concept, is real and effective.

In your terms, it is not yet physically implemented.

In terms of your present timeline, it is not yet a concrete fact. But has it already happened in the future? Yes. So he uses "yet" in quotation marks. But:

In certain terms, it is more real than any physical fact.

From a certain angle, it is more real than any concrete fact. Because it is a blueprint of the psyche. What does a blueprint of the psyche mean? It means that humanity will certainly move in that direction. No matter how we try, no matter how many probable attempts we make, the ultimate goal is to develop toward that.

If this is the blueprint of the human psyche, then it is more real than all real things—because you will certainly move toward it. No matter how you explore within all these probabilities, all your explorations are for the purpose of realizing that blueprint. If you are not familiar with this, you can look back at the earlier discussion of the inner blueprint; the blueprint of the psyche is the inner blueprint. To put it more plainly: Atlantis is a blueprint for the future development of human civilization.

It also carries the stamp of your fears, however.

Yet when we speak of Atlantis, we always say it was destroyed overnight, destroyed in an instant, in the impact of an asteroid or in some natural disaster for humanity. There are many legends about Atlantis; you can go collect them. The basic account is that they were especially skilled with crystals, that their urban society was built to a very high degree of civilization and development, but how they used crystals is something present humanity still does not know; they were especially skilled with sound, and their use of sound was far more advanced than ours. Bashar also made a special presentation on Atlantis², and as it happened, the time Bashar spoke about Atlantis, I was there in person to listen. He titled that lecture "The Last Day"—the last day of Atlantis—and he used very poetic language to depict the process of Atlantis's destruction.

His view is the same as Seth's: Atlantis is not your past, it is your future. But he said your past also has one. At the time, many people who studied Seth's material understood it easily, but many who listened to Bashar were a bit bewildered, not knowing what he meant. Bashar said at the time that in your future there is another Atlantis, and in your past there is an Atlantis. We will not expand on that here; on this question, the two of them have a striking consistency.

Because the story says that Atlantis has been destroyed.

This is the fear that you humans carry, and you have placed it in your past. Although it exists in your future, we humans have forcibly moved it into the past—this is something that happened in the past, a civilization that was destroyed.

Not only the destruction, but the entire pattern is seen through the framework of your beliefs.

Not only is that destruction itself formed by the fears of humanity itself—there was no destruction at all, but the fears of humanity projected it out. Not only that destruction, but everything in the legends about Atlantis carries the very strong belief-processing of present humanity—you use humanity's present understanding of the world, your worldview, to depict what you believe was the destruction of a past civilization. Not only is that destruction unreal, but the description also carries the characteristics of your era, and none of it is accurate.

Beyond that, however, many civilizations have come and gone in much the same way.

From the perspective of your human time, there have indeed been many civilizations that came and went. So from the perspective of your human time:

Atlantis is a myth, based to some extent on physical fact.

According to us humans, Atlantis is not entirely nonsense; it also has a certain historical reality. Because in the developmental history of human civilization on your past Earth, there have indeed been many advanced civilizations that came and went, and were destroyed—he did not use the word "destroyed"; he said they came and went.

So humanity moves into their own new house—what does "new house" mean? It means entering a new era, a new kind of reality. Atlantis is a story of a probable future; for humanity, it is a new house. Humanity is now in the process of moving.

Then it projects backward into an apparent past.

It is clearly a story of the future, yet it projects backward, projecting into our past.

Earth Is a Focus of Consciousness

The earth as you know it is a certain kind of focus for consciousness.

Just as we know that each of us is a focal-point existence of our own greater self -- I have made this point many times, touching on it from time to time since Session 840 on mass events. Seth finally revealed this point outright here as well, no longer concealing it. If our life is a focus of consciousness, then the earth we live on, from a certain angle, is also a focus of a greater consciousness.

On your level, you think of it as an area divided into land and water.

We now call them the seven continents and four oceans, with islands and peninsulas, cities and forests. The earth you perceive has land, has seawater, has the various continents, and on the continents there are countries, islands, deserts, forests, cities. But the fact that you perceive the earth as being this way does not prevent it from being a focus of consciousness.

Your consciousness is attuned to the frequency of perception that gives you that kind of impression.

Why do you think the earth is like this? It is because your consciousness is attuned only to the frequency of perception that gives you this impression. In fact, your perceptual system is capable of perceiving other images and other faces of the earth, but your perceptual system's perception of those other faces of the earth is not on the same frequency as your current one, so you cannot sense it.

To put it bluntly, you can only perceive what your human five senses and outer senses can perceive; you can only resonate with their frequency. As for what material reality actually looks like as perceived by your inner senses, you are not on the same frequency with them, so what your inner senses perceive is unknowable and invisible to you. Of course, as your inner senses open and your inner potentials are activated, many people are able to sense it -- that the reality of this earth is not what we see; it is something else entirely.

A cat, an insect, or a plant -- their worlds are all very different in their inner perceptions.

The earth as perceived by a cat, and the earth as perceived by a human, and the earth as perceived by a flower or an ant -- they are so different. Yet each is equally valid to them. This same earth, under the perception of different living beings, presents a different world to each different being, but each one is so real and so valid to them -- just as we humans feel this earth is so real and valid.

So what is this world really like? This is a truth we come to understand. That is why the Buddha said: one flower, one world; one leaf, one bodhi³ -- that is exactly what this means. The world in each person's eyes is his own world.

Seth said, I may explain it simply:

Your planet is also divided into areas of time and of probabilities.

Your planet, in its true nature, is not divided only into land and ocean, desert and forest as you imagine. Besides this division of the physical world -- it does not conflict -- it can also be divided into different times and spaces. To put it bluntly, your earth has many versions, many parallel realities exist, and many probable realities exist as well. If you understand it this way, then this earth is relatively closer to a truth, to a complete picture -- one earth has many versions, many parallel space-times, and many earths all exist simultaneously.

And certain leakages.

At the same time, so many civilizations exist, and those civilizations exist simultaneously. It is not as you think, that once they leave they disappear -- no, they still exist in another parallel reality. But there are still leakages between them; occasionally there are wormhole-like existences.

In your terms, certain civilizations are real and can be perceived.

Some civilizations from other realities that have leaked into ours appear to us like ruins, and we think they are not real. And there are some existences you simply do not know about and cannot perceive at all, because for you humans, that leakage has not occurred.

When we see the ruins of ancient civilizations, those are all the results of leakage. To put it simply and crudely -- this earth, if we use an analogy and imagine it as a game, it should be on different servers, and different servers have different civilizations being played out. If you have played online games you know, whether you are on the American server, the Japanese server, or the Chinese server, each server has an earth, but as the game progresses and develops, different players in these different worlds create their own different results -- building different cities, different things. On some servers civilization develops better, on some it develops worse.

In theory, information between these two different servers cannot leak through; each is its own. But there may be some small bugs, some small problems in the program, and occasionally something from another server may pop up on this earth. For example, a pyramid appears -- it might be something developed by a civilization on another server, perhaps their power station, a high-tech power station. But on this other server, it should not exist, yet the program was not done well, and it leaked out, and it did not fully reveal its original appearance, only part of it. So what you see looks like an ancient pharaoh's tomb, and you do not think it is a modern power station or something for transmitting information.

I use this example so you can understand what Seth means in this passage -- the things that leak over are things you feel you can perceive, like the Mayan civilization, ancient civilizations, and so on; some things you just feel do not exist.

So this session by Seth discusses a very grand vision, a clear version of human and planetary civilizations, and through Atlantis it also tells us what the blueprint for humanity's future development looks like -- a society of high civilization, high development, primarily spiritual, and balancing both spiritual and material civilization in common development.

Then Seth said loudly:

End of session.

This is a good place to end and to begin the next session:

I am ending here for the convenience of beginning the next session. This is a good place.

Then Seth said, I wish you a good evening. Rob said thank you, Seth. Seth said loudly and playfully:

I have much to say regarding your personal situations, but I want to return to the book first.

This session ended at 11:10. Jane said, I do not know why, but sometimes I feel that doing this -- the Seth sessions -- is a very great pressure, but I am determined to explore this reality as best I can, and to bring out everything I can bring out.

You see, Jane's resolve was also very great. Why was she uncomfortable? Because what she transmitted was completely at odds with mainstream society, and she faced enormous pressure. Today we sit here studying this, and many people are still very careful, not daring to let others know, afraid that their colleagues, family, and friends will find out they are studying the Seth material, not daring to say a word, afraid that others will think they are being mystical and weird, like a lunatic.

But think about it: as the person transmitting this, Jane not only had to transmit it, she also had to publish it. American society -- you think it is open, and it is open, but you think it is conservative, and it is also very conservative; it is a country where Christianity accounts for 80 percent of the population⁴. What Jane transmitted and what she wanted to publish actually faced enormous pressure, so when she said it was a very great pressure, everyone must understand this.

However, sometimes, Jane said, I feel it is as easy as pie, and I do not think about these things; it does not matter. Everyone has his own troublesome matters, and I am no exception -- the material I transmit is actually all at odds with mainstream values, and I bear enormous pressure; people would think I am crazy, a lunatic, whether I am talking to myself, and so on. I do not care, but I cannot stay silent. Is this not a headache? For me, this is a troublesome matter. But just as each of you has your own troublesome matters, it is not strange.

I really do think I have far fewer problems than many people -- on this issue, I have far fewer problems than you. I am only struggling with the issue of being out of sync with mainstream consciousness, while your problems may be even more numerous than mine: emotional problems, family problems, financial problems, and all sorts of other problems. I have only this one headache.

Rob said, I read Jane a few passages of Seth's material on Atlantis, because the session ended early tonight, at 11:10. We both thought it was quite reasonable -- Atlantis is something in the future, but it was projected into the past by people, because past, present, and future occur simultaneously, so we humans have a certain ability to perceive it.

But it brought up some questions I will discuss shortly. I must admit, when Seth discussed popular notions with a somewhat heretical flavor, like Atlantis, we both cringed a little. Because we always thought that although those beliefs served all sorts of very legitimate and valid creative and psychic purposes, they were probably more like a legend or a myth rather than concrete fact.

The two of us actually both cringed a little whenever Atlantis or similar notions came up. Because this thing is too popular; in the West it has been passed down since ancient Greece, since the time of Plato, for thousands of years. And then Seth gave a completely opposite view: Atlantis is not something of the past; it is something that will happen in the future. This is a bit too outrageous, a bit too much.

It is equivalent to telling everyone they are wrong, including the ancient sages. To them, Plato and Aristotle are like figures such as Laozi and Confucius in ancient China. If Confucius told you there was a world of great harmony, and then you told him this could only happen in the future, that this world of great harmony did not exist at all -- that all of Confucius's ideas were things you imagined, and there was no such thing at all. What great harmony under heaven, what restoring the system of the Zhou dynasty -- if one day you suddenly said the Zhou dynasty never existed, that it was a human fantasy, and that the Zhou dynasty actually existed only in a future era -- I think you can understand the pressure the two of them were facing right now. I use this analogy so you can think about what the two of them meant.

Rob said the word "concrete" is very important here. From these words it is easy to see that our acceptance of Seth's concept of Atlantis presented in this session was much better than our acceptance of his ideas about Atlantis at other times -- previously in Session 707, and also in Seth Speaks. Because what he said was a future matter, a blueprint for humanity's future, which was easier to accept.

Jane said she still had much to say on this point. If Seth were to talk about Atlantis, he could go on and on; there was much to say. But he did not return to the trance state, nor did he discuss it further. Actually, the two of them did not want to discuss it too much either; he knew readers were interested in this subject, but the two of them did not want to discuss it too much.

The question Rob raised was this: in the information from the spirit world (in The Early Sessions), Seth discussed Atlantis once, and in Seth Speaks nine times, always saying Atlantis was in our historical past. Seth had said before that Atlantis was in the past, and today he said Atlantis was in the future -- this in itself is self-contradictory. He had personally said before that Atlantis was something that happened in the past, so why did he say today that Atlantis was not something that happened in the past at all, but something that would only happen in the future? Is this not self-contradictory? It is one thing for others to say it, but you are slapping your own face -- you say one thing at one time and another thing at another time; you cannot even be certain about this, so the credibility of this material itself becomes questionable. That is what the two of them meant.

Of course, he did this tonight as well. At 10:59 he said that the concept of Atlantis was composed in part of future memories. In Seth's theory of simultaneous time, there is the statement that "future probabilities project backward into an apparent past," and this leaves a great deal of room for interpreting events or questions, so that the contradiction between the past Atlantis and the future Atlantis becomes a question so simple it needs no explanation.

What does this mean? In previous material, Seth specifically explained: our present is not determined by the past; on the contrary, it is determined by the future. The future pulls us forward, as if it has made a template for us, drawn a blueprint, and our present develops according to that blueprint. He said when you can understand those points, then you can understand today's statement by Seth that Atlantis is something that happens in the future but is also projected into the past -- and you will more easily understand what he means. If you can understand that point, then the earlier contradiction is no longer a contradiction, and it is no longer a problem.

At any given time, according to whatever information Seth had previously given, Jane could just as easily quote Seth's statements placing Atlantis in our historical past, or in a probable past, or in the present, or in the future, or for that matter, in all four places at once -- past, probable past, present, and future. Any one of these viewpoints, or all of them, is simply a rearrangement of the other dimensions of time by our present point of power (the point of power in the present moment).

Was Atlantis something that happened in the past, a probable past, the present, or the future -- which of these four points is it? From the role of the point of power discussed in The Nature of Personal Reality, time can be rearranged, and you can make it happen wherever you want it to happen. Because at that point of power in the present moment, it connects past, present, and future, like a convergence point in the present, where all past and future can be obtained at that one point. Then it does not matter; it just depends on where you want it to happen.

Then the question of reincarnation also came into play. Seth only once connected himself with Atlantis, but he said it very explicitly. In Chapter 22 of Seth Speaks, Session 588, Seth said:

I was born in Atlantis.

You see, he used "was," the past tense. So Jane and Rob thought that meant it was something in the past. And at that time Jane and I also felt those uncomfortable twinges -- they did not like discussing these very popular things, like Atlantis, Mayan culture, and so on. When Seth said "I was born there," it was like they did not like Seth saying "I was once Laozi" or "I was once the Buddha." They actually very much disliked Seth bringing famous people, historical events, and very popular myths and legends into this book. You can understand their mentality; the two of them tried their utmost to avoid this kind of thing.

Note 1: The Expansion of the Universe and Probable Realities

Seth says:

You call this your universe, this is your world, because you have formed it. Indeed you have. But within you there is also the knowledge of other magnificent experiments being attempted.

What he is saying is that within you there are other worlds, other probable realities. Just as other probable systems are also aware of this reality experiment you are carrying out.

Seth says there is a question he has been avoiding: other civilizations have walked your path before, but failed. The reason he has avoided it is that talking about this would carry negative implications for you. But he turns instead to say that some inhabitants of the earth have also been very successful -- note, he does not specifically refer to humans -- and there have been successful civilizations, not all of them failures.

He goes on to say:

The future is not fixed; the future has many versions. You can follow any road you choose. But before you understand that you as an individual form your individual life, and that you have a hand in the collective creation of reality, there is still much for you to learn.

This means all possibilities are open to you. But first you must understand the principle that "you create your own reality" -- the lesson you should fully grasp within physical reality. Physical reality is the materialized outward expression of your thoughts, emotions, and intentions.

In your terms, before you learn the great power of your thoughts and subjective feelings, you will not be allowed to enter other dimensions.

This sentence is very important. Your beliefs create reality; this is the great power of belief. Before you can truly understand this, you will not be permitted to enter other dimensions. Because in this physical world, belief creating reality is a process; yet in other realities, it is instantaneous. If you do not understand that the world is your creation, once you arrive there you will not be able to distinguish what you yourself have created from what is the reality of that world.

This is also the state that many spiritual practices and Buddhism aim to reach -- only when the inner mind is pure, when beliefs no longer fabricate, can you perceive higher dimensions with awareness. Otherwise, what you perceive is all phantoms created by your own inner thoughts. Buddhism calls these dharma appearances; the Buddha said all appearances are illusory. What Seth explains here is precisely this meaning.

So even when you think you are destroying, you destroy nothing. And when you think you are killing, you kill nothing. So when you imagine you can annihilate a reality, a world, you can only attack the reality as you know it, while the reality itself will continue to exist.

This means what you destroy is only the reality you yourself have created; reality itself is unaffected. Here you must remember the relationship of levels and gradations -- Seth spoke earlier about natural guilt, saying do not kill. This is not contradictory; these are matters on different levels. When you are already about to leap beyond the three realms, when you can see through the three-dimensional world as all dreamlike illusion, then where does killing even come from? But you cannot take this statement into real life and say, "Then it is fine for me to go out and kill" -- that is a completely different matter.

Seth goes on to explain why you cannot destroy the world:

Because you cannot follow a thought; you do not know where it has gone. But because you can no longer hold that thought in consciousness does not mean it no longer exists. It enters a probable reality. If a world escapes you, you cannot follow it, and you think it has been destroyed, then the same thing applies to that world -- it continues to live.

Just as you cannot keep up with your thoughts, when you feel a world has vanished before your eyes, it only means you can no longer follow that world. It continues to exist within its own probable reality.

Seth says this will stir up many questions in your minds, and this content complements the discussion in Appendix 12 about the reasons for the world's suffering and disasters. Related topics have been discussed in Session 580 of Seth Speaks and Session 634 of The Nature of Personal Reality.

Note 2: The New House

The house we just moved into is already twenty-one years old, but to us it is like new. Seth also called it new. The word "new" is used to distinguish it from the old apartment we moved out of last month. But in fact, "new" expresses a state of our body and mind right now -- we have entered into a brand-new possibility. Even if this house were older than the one we left behind, we would still call it new.

In China, houses are basically all built within the last few decades, but in America many houses are several hundred years old. Yet an old house does not mean it is not a new house to you -- it means a new possibility, a new reality has opened up.

Note 3: The Last Judgment

According to certain Christian denominations, all of this will happen at the Last Judgment, at the time of the expected Second Coming of Christ⁵. This is recorded in the Bible, in Matthew and so on; I won't go into it further.

Note 4: Atlantis

For this note, see Appendix 14, which is devoted to Atlantis.

Note 5: Session 747 on Atlantis

This note is excerpted from Session 747, three weeks after The "Unknown" Reality ended. That session is not in this book, because its content is interwoven with early humans, the animal kingdom, theories of cosmic expansion, archaeology, Jane's work, All That Is, and so on, making it very difficult to extract the Atlantis portion on its own.

Jane and I felt that Seth's statements about Atlantis were still only a partial explanation. We wanted to know why, in Seth's view, Atlantis would move forward from our historical past -- that dwelling place he found uncomfortable -- into a future probable reality. We wanted to ask Seth: you once said, "I lived in Atlantis," using the past tense, so that should be something in the past; yet now you say it is in the future. What exactly are you trying to say?

Seth answered in Session 747:

Your concepts of the age of the earth are in error. There was intelligent human life long before the time you suppose.

Setting aside the question of the simultaneity of time for the moment, even in terms of your human time, your understanding is wrong. Because in that period before which you assume humans had no intelligence, there had already long been intelligent humans. And because you assume a single-line progression from primitive creatures to humans, you ignore any evidence to the contrary. Humans did not evolve in a single line, nor did they evolve at all.

Highly developed human civilizations with complex cultures existed simultaneously with what you might call the animal kingdoms -- organized animal tribes with their own primitive cultures. Among those animal kingdoms, some used tools, their senses were extremely acute, and their cultures dealt with a certain transmission of knowledge that made very complex vocabularies unnecessary.

These animals had extremely high intelligence and could transmit knowledge using simple vocabulary. These species did not compete for unified dominion over the earth; they simply shared the same environment with more mature groups from beyond the earthly sphere. There were many highly technological human cultures, but they did not spread across the globe.

The legend of Atlantis is in fact based upon such a civilization. However, there was no single specific civilization as its basis.

It is not that some particular civilization was Atlantis; rather, the existence of those highly intelligent civilizations gave the legend of Atlantis its factual basis. The legend that Plato picked up was a foreshadowing of a future possibility -- the image of an inner civilization of our psyche, projected outward into the future, where it was used as a blueprint to lead humanity forward.

A lost splendor. Just as, in other terms, the Garden of Eden became Paradise Lost, it is the same.

Atlantis was beautiful and ideal, yet it is believed to have been destroyed; just as humanity was said to have been cast out of Eden. Such legends make us more willing to create those beautiful things.

Ruburt in his novel The Education of Oversoul Seven hinted that some archaeological discoveries are not discovered in your present because they do not yet exist. You think archaeology is the discovery of ancient things, but those are actually things from the future. It is quite mind-bending, but Seth said this concept is very difficult to explain in prose and language. According to his meaning, the ruins of Atlantis have not yet been discovered, because it has not yet been placed from the future into your past -- it simply never happened in your past.

Do not take it too literally; it cannot be made clear from the angle of time. Seth could not make it clear either, and he did not say much about it. You just need to have a vague conceptual grasp of it.

He continued:

The future is a probability. However, in your terms, the remains of some civilizations were used as the physical basis for that Atlantis legend. Those civilizations were scattered, so the so-called ruins were not found in any one place as expected. Some are beneath the Aegean Sea, some beneath a branch of the Atlantic Ocean, and some beneath the North Pole, because the world once had a different shape.

There are cities beneath the Aegean Sea, civilizations beneath the Atlantic, and also beneath the North Pole. Because at that time the world was different from what it is now.

In much broader terms -- he said more loudly and humorously, at the risk of repeating myself -- time is simultaneous, so those civilizations and your own have always existed together. Your methods of calculating the age of the earth are very misleading.

Time is simultaneous, and your method of calculating the earth's age is wrong. The earth has its probabilities and different versions of reality.

In your terms, at any given time, from your present, you implant images, stories, legends, that appear to come from the past but actually come from the future, like ghostly images, for you to follow or disregard according to your own choices.

When you speak of what happened on earth ten thousand years ago, you are using today's understanding, today's legends, today's stories you have heard, piecing together a complete storyline. These are all implanted by you yourself. Those images you think come from the past -- ancient Egyptians riding spaceships, the vimanas written about by Indians -- are actually seepage of information from the future. They are your guides and blueprints, and you can choose which ones to accept as your history.

In that regard, Atlantis and the Garden of Eden are the same.

Did the Garden of Eden actually exist? Did Atlantis actually exist? Both of them come from the future, yet we describe them as things of the past.

When you think your species came from another planetary system, then you are still dealing with the old concepts. In your usual way of thinking, the earth does not exist at all.

When you think humanity came from this planet earth -- if you look at the earth from a physical perspective, thinking of it as a solid mass composed of so much iron and so much silicon, occupying the third orbit of the solar system -- then this earth does not exist. The so-called physical earth you speak of does not exist at all.

When you ask whether the universe came from a big bang, or whether it is constantly expanding, it is truly meaningless.

Because there is no such physical universe to begin with, so insisting on asking how it came to be is meaningless in itself. Although in that sense, Seth did say it continues to expand -- just as a concept or a dream expands. The universe expands like a thought; the dream world appears in a flash. When you understand how the dream world comes into being, you will understand how the universe comes into being.

Seth was not saying the universe does not exist. He said:

I am not saying the universe does not exist; it simply does not exist in the form you see it.

The existence of the physical universe is what appears within our outer sensory world. So now you can understand why the Buddha said the world is like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow.

Then Seth, with a smile, almost laughing aloud -- he was mocking us humans:

The truth of the matter is far more magnificent.

But he did not explain further. He went on to say:

All That Is creates his reality as he goes along.

Just like us humans, creating reality as we go along. Each world has its own impetus -- the Buddha spoke of the three thousand great thousand worlds⁶, great thousand worlds nested within middle thousand worlds, middle thousand worlds nested within small thousand worlds. All these worlds are ultimately connected.

A dimension of divine creative intellect that was truly smooth would be unbearable to any consciousness, regardless of its importance. Therefore that smoothness is infinitely dimensionalized.

No matter what level your consciousness reaches, it is impossible for you to comprehend the dimension in which All That Is resides. The place where All That Is resides, its smoothness is infinitely dimensionalized -- infinite dimensions nested together. Any consciousness attempting to explore it is powerless. You really cannot take this too literally; it is like ants discussing how to design a Mars rover -- it has no meaning for them.

With each moment of a cosmic breath, the universe spirals outward, making the division of worlds necessary, and individual and group understanding grows forever at such a pace.

With every breath of the universe, countless worlds spiral outward; each dimension is each world, and divisions must form between worlds. Your individual and group understanding grows forever in the same way the universe is created. In a single thought you create a parallel world, just as you create a thought. The speed at which you and your group create worlds is as fast as the speed at which All That Is creates worlds. How many universes have you created without even realizing it?

So that All That Is multiplies himself in every microsecond.

With every breath, All That Is creates many worlds; within each world there are many individual consciousnesses; each individual consciousness creates countless probable reality spaces every second. Layer upon layer of nesting, so in every microsecond new universes are multiplying themselves.

All That Is creates both a past and a future that you do not recognize, as well as other scales of time.

Time is not just the two scales of past and future; it is dimensional, multi-dimensional, capable of moving inward and outward. And every microsecond is creating.

Each is in itself a reality. Each carries its own potentials. And an individual consciousness, no matter how small, is never lost.

Each of you is a world; you and your reality are one; you are your reality. A consciousness that can create universes -- how could it ever be lost?

Within such a framework as I have described, how could I explain an Atlantis?

If you understand how the universe operates, then what meaning is there in asking, against such a backdrop, whether Atlantis belongs to the past or the future? In this instant, countless universes have been created. If you insist that I answer, I can only say:

It exists in both your past and your future. Some of you will choose a probable world, and it comes from a model placed in the past of your future, in your terms, partially based upon fact, but its greatest validity lies in its probability.

The greatest and most valuable part of Atlantis is its probability -- it shows us how high a level human civilization can reach, and points us toward a blueprint for the future. That is its meaning. If you insist on searching for factual evidence of its existence in human historical time, Seth tells you directly: that fact simply does not exist.

This passage is rather grand and also quite mind-bending. Reading this far, you can probably tell that this book is nearing its end -- Seth is basically like this; when he rises to a very high cosmic view, the book is about to end.

注释与核实

1. According to Mike's original words, "Plato, you see, called it the Republic"; upon verification, it should be "In Plato's writings, what represents the ideal order is prehistoric Athens; Atlantis is the powerful tyrannical state that wages war against it." (Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Plato’s Ethics: An Overview," 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics/) ↩

2. Source: BasharTV, "The Last Days of Atlantis" (https://tv.bashar.org/checkout/new?o=p3073580) ↩

3. Source: Center for Aesthetics and Aesthetic Education, Peking University, "One Flower, One World" (https://caae.pku.edu.cn/mxyj/xzcg/20caae1383868.htm) ↩

4. This claim could not be verified. ↩

5. Source: Catholic Church, "Catechism of the Catholic Church: The Last Judgment" (https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_one/section_two/chapter_three/article_12/v_the_last_judgment.html) ↩

6. Source: Sui Dynasty, Dharmagupta, translator, "Sutra on the Original Cause of the World's Arising" (https://tripitaka.cbeta.org/ja/T01n0025_001) ↩