The "Reading Guide" and "Key Points" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the block quotes are Seth's original words (the parts Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This chapter begins with the hospitalization of our friend David for heart disease, which leads into Seth's discussion of illness and suffering. Seth points out that religion regards illness as divine punishment or demonic intrusion, while science views life and illness as probability and mechanical outcomes; the Freudian unconscious merely replaces religious devils with psychological devils. These explanations are equally distorted. He emphasizes that beliefs affect the body, that illness is often used as a means to achieve a purpose, and that suffering itself may even be actively pursued. Finally, he offers "stop worrying" as the first commandment for dealing with illness.
Key Points of This Chapter
- Religion explains illness as divine punishment, settling of accounts, or harassment by evil spirits, while science sees illness as probability and mechanical causes; neither is a complete explanation.
- Science regards life and suffering as meaningless, making illness a disgrace and a biological stigma.
- The Freudian concept of the unconscious merely replaces religious devils with psychological devils.
- Beliefs directly affect the body's structure; true hereditary diseases are only a minority, and many diseases considered hereditary are not necessarily inherited.
- Illness is often used as a means to achieve an end, and suffering itself is sometimes actively pursued; the first commandment in dealing with illness is "do not worry anymore."
Main Text
Historical Background
The content of this session is extremely important. Although it has nothing to do with the origin of the universe discussed earlier in this book, it touches on and answers a question many people have always wanted to ask: Why do we get sick? What exactly do illness and suffering mean in the meaning of our lives? Let us see how Seth answers this.
At the start, he first introduced some background. Rob said that a friend of theirs was named David, Jorde -- this is a pseudonym, not his real name. He was 48 years old this year, a bachelor, teaching at a high school. They met him when they moved from Sayre in May 1960 to an apartment near the center of downtown Elmira. That building had once been a luxurious private residence. Three years later, Jane started her class there -- by "started her class," it means she began making contact with Seth and began the transmission of the Seth material, starting from the first session, which was around December 1963. Indeed, they stayed in that apartment for a full 15 years.
Initially David lived across the hall from their second-floor apartment. Eventually, when a larger apartment directly below them became vacant, he moved downstairs, since he liked having a bigger apartment. Then the apartment across from him became empty. Later on, Jane and Rob rented the apartment he had lived in on the second floor. As a result, they ended up with two side-by-side apartments, facing each other. At that time they needed more space but did not want to move.
David was one of the nicest people they had ever met, one of the kindest. In 1967, Jane started her ESP class. For the next seven and a half years, every Tuesday night, their ESP class friends would make a great deal of shouting and knocking above David's apartment. The ESP class was very lively, because it was all about extrasensory experiences, so everyone was very excited. And you know that in American apartment buildings the soundproofing between units is not very good, so at night, especially at night, making such a racket and such noise overhead was a great disturbance to the person downstairs. So David lived below them for seven and a half years and never complained. He said David knew what Jane was doing, but had only a tiny bit of interest in psychic phenomena, not much interest at all. David never complained about all that noise, although sometimes he would retreat to a small back room and leave the apartment until the class was over. It seemed as though they were always apologizing to him for disturbing him, every week, time after time.
When they could not afford their own telephone -- you see, at the very beginning they did not even have a telephone, because they had no money -- David let Jane use his telephone to call publishers. He gave them his magazines and newspapers; David subscribed to many magazines and newspapers, and this continued all the way up to the present, meaning up to when they moved to the hill house, and he still regularly delivered the newspapers and magazines he subscribed to, once a week. Sometimes they exchanged furniture with him, and sometimes he sold them furniture he was replacing at a very reasonable price. He was very particular about neatness and had a very orderly life. He bought an electric lawn mower, and for many years he mowed the lawn himself without asking the landlord for any compensation. Because they lived in an apartment, mowing the lawn should have been the landlord's responsibility, but this man went and mowed it himself and never asked the landlord for compensation.
In March 1975, Jane and Rob bought a hill house outside Elmira, which is where they live now. And within a few weeks, David also bought his own place in the valley below, not far from them. Two old neighbors, from 1960 all the way to 1980 -- that was 1975, and this material was transmitted in 1980. They did not see each other as often as before, because previously they had all been in one apartment building and would often run into him. But every week, one morning on his way to school, David would leave his magazines and newspapers at their back door, whether or not they had gotten up to see him. This had gone on for another five years. However, in the last two weeks, David had not come up the hill on time to bring them the newspapers and magazines, but Jane and Rob were both so busy that they hardly noticed.
Then last Thursday morning, when Dolores -- she was also a teacher, and another friend from when they lived in the apartment -- called to tell them David was in the hospital, they were truly shocked. David was scheduled to have coronary bypass surgery the next day. They had always thought David was in excellent physical condition. He had recently started jogging, and now he ran three days a week, 15 miles each time -- more than 20 kilometers. While David was lying in the hospital, Rob asked Dolores: Why did this happen to him? Just when he was trying to take good care of himself, help others, and do everything right, why would he get sick?
This is a question many of us want to ask: Why do so many very kind people, very good people in this world get sick? Every time someone they knew ran into serious trouble -- such as illness -- Jane and Rob would question their values all over again: Since we say belief creates our reality, why are there still so many kind people in this world, so many people who we feel do good things in their lives -- caring for others, caring for themselves, caring for their families -- why do such people get sick? Because this kind of challenge seems to come uninvited from some far corner of each person's reality.
They were also thinking of another friend who died of cancer last year at the age of only 39 -- dying of cancer at 39 is truly too young. Now David was recovering well, but could not receive visitors. Jane called the hospital every day to ask after him, and they felt a little guilty. She was preparing to make a unique book of poems and paintings to give to David; she wanted to use her own talents alone to make a book of poems and paintings. Rob was running errands for David, that is, helping him take care of some hospital matters, and would eventually bring him back to his own home.
Tonight Seth talked about illness and suffering in general, and about David in particular. Rob excerpted the general content from the material below, but did not discuss David himself. They had no thought at all of forcing Seth to discuss David's private material, and doing so would have violated David's privacy. However, tonight's material enhanced their understanding of topics such as free will and choice, good and evil, illness and health, and reflected many questions people had asked them over the years.
As they sat waiting for the session to begin, Jane said: I would almost rather believe you were the victim of blind chance or accident than that you got sick because of your own stupidity, ignorance, or choice. She was referring to David. She said she would rather believe David was a victim of illness due to accident, due to a certain probability, than believe David got sick because of his own stupidity, his own ignorance, his own choice. She said when I try not to worry about such things, Rob replied that she had better also get back to her book writing and forget the problems of the world. Then Jane said: Come on, Seth, I am here.
Then Seth came. Seth said good evening in a whisper, and Rob answered jokingly, replying in a whisper: Good evening, Seth. The two of them were exchanging light jokes like old friends who had not seen each other for a long time. Then what Seth said next was not light at all.
Religion and Disease
Seth said:
For centuries the structure of the Roman Catholic Church held Western civilization together, and gave it meaning and truth. Those meanings and truths flowed through the entire society, and were used as a foundation for all the established patterns of knowledge, commerce, medicine, and science, and so forth.
What this passage is basically saying is that the foundation of Western civilization was all built with the Catholic Church's religion as its core. The Church's view of reality was accepted by people -- how the Church looked at the world, for example, that the world was created by God, was created by the Lord, and this view was generally accepted by the whole of society. That is, however the Church looked at the world, people accepted the Church's view. The belief structure of that era -- I cannot overemphasize this point -- the religious belief structure of that era structured every human life. Every one of our human lives was interpreted, explained, and read within this great religious background. Seth said this is an absolutely true fact.
This is still true today, so that the most intimate events in each person's life are interpreted to give them such-and-such a meaning, and of course the events of nations, and the phenomena of plants and animals as well, are the same.
Down to every individual's personal private matters -- including illness, including your family relationships, including your every thought and impulse, including all kinds of things you encounter -- up to the affairs of nations, including all the matters of animals and plants in the world, the whole of Western society had a religious viewpoint to explain it. How to look at the world, how to face the things we encounter around us, that is, our belief system, was in that era completely ruled by religion. The power of religion influenced every aspect of our lives, generation after generation, for roughly the last one or two thousand years. At that time, the coronation of Western emperors had to be performed by the Pope1; religion stood above royal power, and even the emperor was beneath religion.
Illness was endured in silence. Illness was sent by God to settle accounts with our souls, to cleanse our bodies, to punish the sinful, or simply to teach a person to stay in his place and not commit the sin of pride. Suffering brought by God, then, was considered a fact of life, and a religious fact as well.
In that era, especially in the Middle Ages, and all the way up until the Industrial Revolution, before industrial civilization, if you were sick you endured it in silence, because this was God's punishment of you, God's settling of accounts with you. He said this was both a fact of life, because being sick is being sick, it is a fact of life, and it was also a religious fact.
We in China have something similar, namely "he who commits many injustices is doomed to destruction" -- you get sick because you did not do good deeds. So we often see that many people who fall ill, even in modern times, still have this kind of self-reproach: what bad thing did I do, that I would get this illness? Other people, more or less, also have such thoughts, thinking this person must have done some shameful bad deed in private, otherwise how could he get such a terrible disease. Of course no one says it out loud, but the sick person reproaches himself. Although both East and West have this kind of problem, in the West it is more pronounced. They have explicit formulations; they will even tell you what mistake you made, what wrong thing you did to get what kind of illness, all laid out for you one by one.
Some other civilizations also believed that illness was sent by demons or evil spirits.
Besides these Western civilizations, there were also some other tribal civilizations, and some ancient Eastern civilizations. What did they believe? They believed that getting sick meant evil spirits had entered the body, that demons had possessed the person, and then they would have many rituals, shamanic dances, and perform religious ceremonies, which are still prevalent in many, many places, and are still prevalent even today in modern civilized society. Nowadays when people get many strange illnesses, they still go and invite these so-called sorcerers, so-called masters, so-called great teachers to help you resolve it, because they feel this is due to evil spirits and malevolent spirits invading.
The world was filled with good spirits and evil spirits, invisible and formless, mixed together with the elements of nature itself, and man had to walk a careful path, or he would offend those more dangerous or mischievous beings.
In human history there have been all kinds of incantations -- the chants we now recite, the Great Compassion Mantra, this mantra and that mantra -- to appease the evil spirits that everyone believed in as fact and as religious truth. What were those incantations for? To deal with evil spirits, to appease them. The way to deal with evil spirits was to appease them, drive them out of your body, and then find them a good place to go. This was a means of appeasement, and all kinds of religions had similar things of this sort.
It is easy to look at those belief structures, shrug one's shoulders, and wonder at man's distorted view of events.
Many modern people just smile at this: this is too ignorant, very strange, how could people be so ignorant, so distorted? He said you think this is easy, because you are ridiculing others. Why ridicule others? You think they are ignorant, unscientific; you think you have a scientific understanding, you know what illness is about, you think you understand illness very well, and you think illness has nothing to do with the psyche. So you can ridicule others, ridicule these religious interpretations -- both of the above carry strong religious coloring in their interpretations of illness. You think you are a person of science, so you ridicule these religious interpretations of illness, and you think they are too ignorant.
Science Is Equally Distorted
Then Seth turned around and gave science a slap in the face:
But the entire scientific view of illness is almost equally distorted.
He said this with an amused emphasis. He said you modern people laugh at how distorted and ignorant those religious people's interpretations of illness were, but he said your science's explanation of illness is just as distorted as theirs, no better at all.
Science's explanation of illness is just as painstakingly brewed, and just as interwoven with the inorganic. It is hardly any different from the fact that God sent illness as punishment, or that illness was a mischievous demon, or an unwelcome gift from evil spirits.
Seth's words here are very harsh: science's explanation of illness is no different from those religious explanations of illness, equally ignorant and foolish.
Now the medieval churchmen could draw diagrams of the various parts of the human body, showing that people contracted certain illnesses because they were steeped in particular sins. The logical mind once found those diagrams quite convincing, and a patient who contracted a certain illness in a certain part of the body would believe that they had committed the sins involved. The entire belief structure was regarded as reasonable within itself. A man might be born deformed and sickly because of his father's sins.
In the Middle Ages, the church would draw diagrams of the various parts of the human body, and tell you that this part became ill because you did some bad thing, and that part became ill because you did some other bad thing, and even the bad things your father did would have an effect on you. And the people of that era believed it deeply, found it quite convincing, and did not doubt it in the least. You say that is so ignorant. It is not ignorant. It still exists now -- in mainland China, and also including Taiwan, and in many other places such views still exist, except they are not the views of Western religion, but the views of Eastern religion. All sorts of things exist, for example ghost shaving of the head. Ghost shaving of the head is not a serious ailment, but you would think a ghost came and shaved your head, and so on and so forth.
Basically the scientific framework is just as unreasonable, although within it the facts often seem to bear it out.
At this point many people who believe in science would certainly jump out and say: no, that is wrong, science's explanation of illness is so reasonable, so logical. For example, bacteria can cause illness, viruses can also cause illness, our illnesses are caused by bacteria, viruses, and certain organic lesions, and so on. They would have a whole pile of reasons to give.
Although within it the facts often seem to bear them out.
It seems as though science can be correct. I saw the virus in the laboratory, under the microscope. I saw the bacteria. Through chemical tests I proved that your illness was caused by this bacteria and this virus. Everything seems reasonable, and moreover proven. For example, only when the virus exists do you become ill.
Your beliefs become self-validating realities.
What does that mean? It means that because you believe viruses cause illness, when scientists discover viruses, you feel that this is necessarily the connection. He says this is caused by your beliefs. Suppose humanity had never discovered viruses, never discovered bacteria? Before viruses and bacteria were discovered, why was humanity's understanding of illness not like this? You say that was unscientific, because science was not advanced at that time, and now that science is advanced and these things have been discovered, we finally know the cause. What you say seems reasonable. Then I would ask, in another 100 years when science is even more advanced, will it find yet another cause of illness? And in another 100 years if science is even more advanced, will it completely overturn all the causes of illness? If you say the previous one is reasonable, then why can you not admit that the later science, after further advancement, has even more reasonableness? Can you understand the point of my logic?
And it is impossible to discuss human suffering without taking that into consideration.
When you consider human suffering, including illness, you cannot avoid considering your belief system. Your ideas are passed down from one generation to the next. Your parents told you, society told you, and then you will pass them on to your children and your children's children, generation after generation.
And those ideas are the vehicles for all of your reality, including its joys and its agonies.
The ideas you pass on, the ideas universally accepted throughout society, are a vehicle for the whole of reality. What kind of vehicle? The tool by which the whole of reality is carried, explained, and interpreted. It is not that reality itself; it is merely the tool you use to interpret that reality. Our joys and our agonies -- what we consider joy and what we consider agony -- all exist within our social ideas and personal ideas.
Science, however, is a very poor healer.
Why? Here by healer, he means a healer of pain, of suffering, not a healer of illness. Science is still a very poor healer of suffering. Why?
The church's view at least gave suffering a kind of nobility.
The church's view said that you suffer because God is punishing you -- this actually gave it a kind of nobility. Why? Because this illness came from God's punishment of you, or was an unwelcome gift -- such as an invasion by evil spirits -- but after all it was a punishment given by a firm father for the child's own good. He is saying that although the church's explanation was fundamentally wrong, fundamentally off the mark, it still had a certain advantage compared to science: it carried a certain sacredness, as if the illness were bestowed upon you by God, or like a father punishing a disobedient child for the child's own betterment. We often educate our own children, and we do it for their own good, and we often punish them as well. In that sense, it is still better than science's explanation of illness.
Science, of course, separates fact from religious truth. In a universe formed by chance, where survival of the fittest is the main law of good behavior, illness becomes a kind of crime against one's own species.
Science absolutely does not acknowledge religion's approach; it considers itself to have far surpassed religious truth. According to the scientific view, the reason humanity exists today is because of a series of very, very, very small probabilities that formed such a material universe and the birth of life. You especially know there is a recent documentary about our universe -- I forgot what it was called, something like the wondrous universe. It says that supposing from the birth of the universe 13.7 billion years ago2 until today, if you counted it as one year -- this is science, mind you, I am talking about the scientific view -- then when did humanity come into being? Humanity came into being in the last twenty seconds or so, or the last dozen or so seconds, of December 31 at 23:59 of that year3, and of course still due to a series of probabilistic coincidences.
If science believes that the birth of humanity was composed of a series of probabilities, and was the result of evolution driven by the laws of natural selection and survival of the fittest, then illness is the part that should be eliminated in this natural selection. Because only the healthy will remain, will continue their offspring, will allow the offspring to become stronger and stronger, and will be able to adapt to this environment and society. Therefore when you become ill, you are regarded as a second-rate product, a defective product, and you have been eliminated in the evolution of humanity and the optimization of human genes. This is an implicit idea in science that is never spoken aloud: illness means you are unfit, you are unsuited to this environment.
It therefore brings up all kinds of questions that were not seriously asked before. For instance, do those with inferior genes have the right to bear offspring?
If you pursue this concept, this theory, to its logical conclusion, a very deep ethical question emerges: do those with genetic defects have the right to bear children? Do you know what science tells you now? Science now tells you that if your genes have problems, you should not have children; you will only bring burden, difficulty, and suffering to society. Because you are the person with inferior genes, you belong to the ones who should be eliminated. It is best that you do not have children; with you gone and dead, there is one less in this world. If you pass your genes on, then the even worse genes combine with others and produce new children, and then this bad gene will continue to be passed down. It would be best to genetically modify the genes into the best genes through screening, and have every fertilized egg undergo genetic screening before it is considered ideal.
Let us not first discuss whether this theory itself has a fundamental error. I have discussed this issue before: when you want to make everything completely right, the result is surely a dead end. What you consider wrong often brings possibilities you never imagined, and that brings vitality. If you think making everything right is the best, then you are truly too shallow. Everything right, the result is a dead end. Perfection and flawlessness are a dead end. These things you consider errors, these things you consider flaws, are precisely what bring about these mutations and changes, and only then do subsequent developments have new possibilities.
Let us not first discuss whether this theory is wrong or not. Let us first talk about this kind of moral condemnation, which makes every person who becomes ill feel a kind of self-anxiety inside: is my body not good enough? Are my genes not good enough? Should I not get married? I wonder how many of you here -- I do not know how many people have had this thought cross their minds: my genes are not good, is it appropriate for me to have children? Let me tell you, the more highly educated a person is, the more severe this self-censorship becomes; on the contrary, those who have not received this higher education do not even think about it, and just have children directly.
Illness is considered to come like a storm, the result of physical forces against which the individual has little recourse.
This is what scientists believe.
Freud's Other Devil
The repugnant unconscious -- that new Freudian concept -- led to an even newer predicament.
According to modern psychology, your suffering, your pain all come from your subconscious, and your subconscious comes from your infancy, your childhood. When you had no awareness, you were influenced by your environment. This is the "family of origin" issue we often talk about now, which is widely discussed in mainstream society today -- all of it is a derivative of Freud's theories.
For at that time, as now, it was widely believed that as a result of infantile experience, the subconscious or unconscious could very well undermine the best interests of the conscious personality, and lure it into illness or disaster.
He says that whether in the period when Freud first proposed his theory or now -- even though Freud's theories have long since been overturned -- people still believe these distorted doctrines. We have long since confirmed that many of Freud's views are wrong, yet the general public still accepts this idea: that many of our problems today -- psychological illnesses, mental illnesses, and even physical illnesses caused by mental and psychological illness -- are all caused by the subconscious or unconscious from childhood. So you are powerless -- back then, in infancy, what could you do? You could do nothing, so this demon was planted in you, because the unconscious and subconscious were both planted at that time.
In a certain fashion, the idea replaced the metaphysical devil with a psychological devil.
According to Freud, there is a devil in your psyche, a devil planted by your subconscious and unconscious, a seed planted in your infancy. He says, is there any essential difference between this idea and religion saying you are possessed by an evil spirit? No, it is just a different devil. Religion's devils are described in vivid detail -- this ghost, that ghost, this evil spirit, that malevolent spirit. But Freud did not accept those; he said religion is too ignorant, I am telling you it is not that -- it is because there is a ghost in your psyche. Is that not just another way of saying the same thing? The same nature.
If life itself was considered by science to have no real meaning, then suffering, of course, must also be seen as meaningless.
Science considers life to have no meaning, because life is the result of a series of chance coincidences and probabilities. If even life has no meaning, then everything in life is meaningless.
The individual became a victim of chance in terms of his birth, the events of his life, and his death.
The reason this person was born is a matter of probability -- he emerged from among two hundred to five hundred million sperm4, a process of probabilistic selection. Then the events of his life, we also consider to be a combination of probabilities -- whom you meet, what happens to you, all combinations of probability, including what illnesses you get, all a kind of probability. And your death is also a probability, so each person becomes a victim of this kind of probability. It seems we are powerless, living in a series of probabilities, from your birth to your death -- that is what scientists think.
Illness became its most direct contact with the seeming meaninglessness of individual existence.
Scientists believe your individual existence has no meaning, so when an illness -- this probabilistic event -- happens, it just happens, and it has no meaning either, and suffering has no meaning either. Therefore they do not investigate the reasons behind illness, nor do they investigate the meaning and value of your existence.
Belief Is the Root of Illness
You influence the structure of your body through your thoughts. If you believe in heredity, heredity itself becomes a strongly suggestive factor in your life, and brings into the body the kind of illness that you believe has always been there. Until finally, your scientific instruments discover the mechanism that went wrong, and then there is evidence that everyone can see.
If you believe in this theory of heredity, then the effects of heredity will show up in you. Why does this happen? Is it that hereditary DNA is actually at work, or is it that this idea of yours is at work? Seth tells you that it is your idea that is at work, because you believe it. You first have this idea, you accept that kind of fact, and then your body acquires the illness that you think you should have inherited. Eventually scientists, through examinations and tests on your body, do indeed prove that your genes have changed, and then scientists will say: See, this is a fact, you really did get sick because of heredity. And then you will believe it even more firmly, and then you will tell everyone you know and meet that this illness is hereditary. Why? Because the evidence is right in front of your eyes, and you cannot help but believe this kind of evidence that science gives you.
In your terms, although there are some conditions that are hereditary, and that show up almost immediately after birth, compared with the illnesses that you believe to be hereditary, such as many cancers, heart problems, arthritic or rheumatic conditions, these make up only a very small minority.
Again, he says that some illnesses really are hereditary. He says he cannot deny that some illnesses—for example, these illnesses, where a child is born with a serious illness and it shows up immediately—he says these really are hereditary. But he says, compared with what you believe to be hereditary—you believe that cancer can be inherited, heart disease can be inherited, joint problems can be inherited, rheumatic conditions can also be inherited, and so on and so forth, we humans have summed up a great many hereditary illnesses—compared with what you humans believe to be hereditary, these make up only a very, very small proportion. To put it simply, true heredity does exist, but it accounts for only a very small proportion of what we humans believe, and the vast majority of what we believe to be hereditary will not be inherited.
And in many cases of hereditary illness, through the application of other spiritual methods of healing that we will undoubtedly discuss one day, better changes can be brought about.
He says that even in these cases of hereditary illness, through a kind of spiritual method of healing that we will definitely discuss one day in the future, there can still be very good treatment of and change in this illness. Remember, it is a spiritual method.
Suffering, Like Joy, Comes in Many Varieties
All right, he goes on to say:
Suffering comes in many varieties, just as joy comes in many varieties, and I cannot give you a simple answer.
Suffering, like joy, comes in many varieties, and people define it and interpret it in their own different ways. He says I cannot give you a simple statement about suffering, saying what suffering is all about, why people experience suffering. Seth means: I know you want a simple answer, saying why people experience suffering, but I cannot give you one, because it simply cannot be answered simply.
As the creature that you are, you accepted the conditions of life, and then from those conditions you created the experience of your life.
As the creature that you are, from a biological standpoint, you accepted the conditions of life. What conditions? The condition of living in this physical world, and then from these conditions you create the experience of your life.
You rose into a system of beliefs, even as you rose into the physical world, and nature in its various ways gave you the freedom to interpret the experience of life.
You not only rose into this physical world -- this earth of ours, this world, this society -- you not only entered this society with a physical body, you also entered the overall ideas of this society, and you also entered the belief system of the era in which you were born, the country you were in, the society you were in. So you need to understand, you not only rose from the physical into this world, you also entered a belief system in the spiritual sense. These are the conditions of your life; you have two conditions: one is a physical condition, and one is a spiritual condition. You might say, can I just have my physical condition and not my spiritual condition? Impossible. Living in such a country, such a society, you will naturally be influenced by the cultural ideas, beliefs, and group beliefs of the country and society you are in, and more specifically by your clan, your family, your parents, and the events you have experienced -- all of these have a very deep influence on your beliefs.
The meaning of suffering, the nature of suffering, its nobility or its disgrace, will be interpreted according to your system of beliefs.
What suffering actually is -- each person's interpretation of it is completely different, and it has a great deal to do with the society you are in. So the meaning of suffering, its nature, its nobility and its disgrace, are different for every person. For example, in a social group like the ascetics of India, they regard suffering as a kind of nobility, a kind of glory, a special glory and experience that ordinary people cannot enjoy. In a social group like that of the ascetics, I give you just this one extreme example so you will understand. So suffering is not the same for all people, and therefore I cannot give you a single unified answer.
I hope, as I go along, to give you a picture of reality, with suffering placed in its proper perspective.
Seth says I hope to give you a picture of the world, and within this picture of the world, to place suffering at the angle where it should be, in a proper perspective: we should neither over-interpret suffering, nor should we give it a relatively objective interpretation.
But it is one of the most difficult subjects to discuss.
Why is it the most difficult to discuss?
Because it touches most deeply upon the hopes that you hold for yourselves and for mankind, and touches upon the fears that you feel for yourselves and for mankind.
Because the moment you discuss suffering, it touches your deepest, deepest hopes about yourself and humanity, and it also touches all the fears you feel about yourself and humanity, the deepest fears. I think you can understand this, right? Because all of us believe that individuals and humanity should not have to suffer; this is a common underlying understanding shared by all of us humans. So the moment suffering is brought up, if Seth discusses it improperly, it will make you lose hope for individuals and humanity. If I say suffering is a normal process that humans must go through, then you will say, well, why is humanity like this, and then you will deeply give rise to your fear, and you will be afraid of the coming of this suffering.
Then Seth says, please give us a moment, and he goes off to think about his wording again.
Suffering Is a Disgrace
Continuing:
You have taught yourself to be aware of and follow only certain portions of your own consciousness, so that mentally you consider certain subjects taboo.
He says you have taught yourself to follow only certain portions of your consciousness in your life, and as for the other portions, you try not to touch them as much as possible, you consider them taboo. For example, the topics of death and suffering -- very few people look at them squarely or discuss them positively or face them -- I am talking about ordinary people; we basically do not touch them, we just do not think about these things.
Thoughts of death and suffering are included in this, and this is one of our taboos.
So in a species that regards survival of the fittest and natural selection as most important:
Any little bit of suffering and pain, or any emotion concerning death, becomes disgraceful, a biological shame, cowardice, and almost a sign of mental instability.
As a species, you humans believe in survival of the fittest and natural selection, so any such feelings about suffering, about illness, about death, any such pain, or any fear of death, will make you feel very ashamed, will make you feel it is a biological shame. Illness is a biological shame, fear of death is a disgrace, a kind of cowardice, and if you worry about this every day, then you are mentally unstable.
Life must be pursued at all costs, not because it is inherently meaningful, but because it is the only game in town, and at best a game of chance.
Life should be the only thing we pursue, that is, being alive should be the only thing we pursue. According to your human viewpoint, the only most important thing in this life of yours is life itself; life is the only thing that needs to be pursued, and nothing else matters, while illness and suffering are important clues that you might lose your life. This is not only because of the inherent meaning of life itself, but because life is the only game you have, as if once you lose your life you no longer have a game to play. You may think that once you lose your life, your life also stops. So you regard life as the highest goal to pursue, and at best your life is nothing more than a game of probability, a game of chance. What kind of game? It is the game of whether you can get through this lifetime safe and sound, with no accidents, no illness, no premature death -- this is a series of probabilities, and only if you are lucky enough can you live longer; this is a game of chance.
And you can have at most one such life, and that one time is surrounded everywhere by the threats of illness, disaster, and war.
Science tells you that you can only live once, you can only play the game once, and when you die the game is over, so you cannot die. And if you cannot die, you must be surrounded everywhere by these threats of illness, disaster, and war, and the probabilities of these occurring determine whether you can keep living to the end. If you escape such harsh environments, if you were not born in an era of war, or in a world full of famine or rampant disease, then it seems you have dodged it and you can live relatively well. So at most you can have only one such life, and even if you dodge all these bad probabilities, even if you are a lucky one, you still have only one such life.
That is merely the result of lifeless elements briefly entering into consciousness and vitality, and this life will inevitably end.
Even if you escape all of this, you have simply entered into a meaningless state of life -- a kind of lifeless material element entering into the range of vitality and consciousness, making you feel that you have life, and this life will inevitably end in the end. This is the overall picture that science gives you about life and illness and suffering.
Then Jane, with an emphatic tone mixed with speed, irony, and humor, relayed the above material for Seth. What is described here is Seth's attitude: Seth's speed alternated between fast and slow, with irony and humor, but all in an emphatic tone, as he told them the above passage.
In such a framework, even the emotions of love and ecstasy are seen as nothing more than neuronal firing, or the unstable activity of chemical upon chemical.
Within that theoretical system of scientists, love and ecstasy are also abnormal, or they are also a kind of material reaction -- merely chemical reactions, the firing of neurons, a result of bioelectricity and chemistry. We often say, in the West people often say whether two people have chemistry or not, meaning whether we have a chemical reaction. He often uses such a phrase to express: we have no chemical reaction between us, meaning there is no spark between us. So we often use the concepts of having a spark and having a chemical reaction to describe whether we have fallen in love with someone or something. And here Seth says: is this not returning to the material level again? Having a spark and chemical reactions are both material reactions; why must you cast aside human emotions, human thoughts, human consciousness, and human will, and insist that someone falling in love with someone must be a chemical reaction or a kind of neural electrical response.
Those beliefs alone bring about suffering.
Why? Because you will feel that all of these are accidental -- whether I have chemistry with someone or not, how would I know, right? It is a probability. I do not have chemistry with him, he has chemistry with me, these are two probabilities colliding. So you feel the impermanence and suffering of life.
In your era, all of science has been set up to promote beliefs directly contrary to the knowledge of the human heart.
In your present era, all of your science runs contrary to the knowledge and beliefs of the human heart; you do not acknowledge the importance of the human heart, you do not acknowledge the importance of the human inner reality. Science denies the validity of emotional experience -- indeed, science does not acknowledge the role of emotion. Science acknowledges that emotions exist, but it considers them unimportant, merely the results of these chemical reactions. Science believes that if I inject you with this chemical agent -- what is it called, dopamine -- you will become excited; if I inject you with endorphins you will feel pain, and so on. So science believes that emotions are unimportant, that emotions are all just the reactions of these chemical substances on the human body.
Science not only denies the validity of emotional experience, but also believes so firmly that knowledge can only be obtained from outside, from observing the surface phenomena of nature.
Science not only denies the importance of emotion, but also denies the importance of knowledge coming from within. Science believes that knowledge can only be obtained from the outside, that knowledge can only be obtained from observing the surface phenomena of the external natural world; this is the core viewpoint of science. If you say that by observing inwardly you can obtain knowledge, science will just smile and say I will not argue with you, you are an idealist. This is the pride and arrogance of science today, and it has always been so.
The Quality of Life and the Meaning of Suffering
We have spoken of the quality of life, and indeed, at least many centuries ago, men and women may have died earlier, but they lived fuller lives of a more satisfying quality. And in that respect, I do not wish to be misunderstood.
Seth says that many centuries ago, several hundred years ago, human lifespan was not as long as it is now, but the quality of human life was higher than it is today. But he says he does not want to be misunderstood, as if the shorter one lives, the higher the quality of life. He says that is not what he means.
Now religion in some of its aspects has indeed glorified suffering, elevating it to one of the primary virtues, while at other times it has also debased suffering, regarding the sick as possessed by demons or as madmen, as less than human.
Religion now actually promotes suffering, regarding suffering as a virtue, and takes relieving pain and illness as its own duty. So you see religion has built many institutions to help people relieve their suffering, including many people like Mother Teresa who go to help those who are suffering, and this kind of promotion has become a symbol of religion. He says religion now begins to regard suffering as a virtue, but do not forget that religion previously regarded these sick people as if they were possessed by demons, regarded these sick people as madmen, as not even human, believing that those who got sick were all insane. He says religion involves many issues, and he does not want to discuss them.
But science treats the body as a machine, and then science holds that consciousness is trapped within the model of this machine, and that human suffering comes from mechanical causes, and so on. You merely give that machine some better parts, and then everything is fine.
Seth says with an amused tone: You scientists think that a person operates like a machine, and that our consciousness is trapped inside the machine. If a person gets sick, you replace whatever is broken, and then the person is fine. He is again making fun of science.
Of course science can work as miraculously as magic, so on certain occasions, the belief in science itself seems to bring about miracles.
Science is as miraculous as magic, so people trust it and worship it. On many occasions, it is not science that cures your illness; it is your belief in science itself that creates the miracle. Remember, it is not science that creates the miracle; it is your trust in science, this belief itself, that creates the miracle. For example, a new heart gives a person a new heart — in an organ transplant surgery, when a heart is transplanted, you feel that this person has obtained a new heart.
At 10:16, after discussing some of David's personal private matters, David returned to the educational class material at 10:30.
The Motivation of Illness
Illness is used as part of human motivation. What I mean is, human motivation at certain times involves illness, because illness is often a method of achieving a desired result, a way of accomplishing certain things. At such times a person believes it cannot be achieved in any other way.
Illness involves the question of motivation: this person's motivation, this person wants to accomplish something, and becoming ill is one means by which he wants to accomplish this thing, because he believes that apart from becoming ill there is no other way to achieve his purpose. This is one of the main reasons for becoming ill.
A person may use illness to achieve success, and a person may also use illness to achieve failure.
Some people achieve success through illness, and some people obtain failure because of illness. Think carefully about the society you know: which people have achieved success because of illness? Without this illness, they would not be as influential as they are today, as well-known, as recognized and noticed by society. And some people fail because of illness.
A person may use illness as a method of expressing pride or humility, of gaining attention or escaping attention.
People use illness to obtain these two completely opposite possibilities. Sometimes they use illness to express their pride, and sometimes they use illness to express their humility -- saying "I can get sick too." This is very interesting, and sometimes it is both at once. Do you remember last year when Trump got COVID, and then after about ten days of treatment, about a week or so, he recovered. That kind of illness was for him a kind of pride. Do you remember how he promoted it: "My body is in excellent shape, I recovered very quickly, this illness had no real effect on me," and so on. At the same time he also hinted at a kind of humility, saying, look, I can get it too, just like you, I can get COVID too. Through his getting this illness, it also made the whole world notice that the President of the United States could also get COVID. Some people also use illness to escape attention. For example, some people do not want to go to class, some people do not want to take an exam, some people want to avoid military service, so they get sick.
Illness is another mode of expression, and science has never mentioned that illness may have its purpose, or many purposes.
Science has never said that illness has its own purpose within it -- or many purposes, not just one purpose. Science never looks at the question this way.
But I do not mean that those purposes are necessarily bad in themselves.
He says he is not saying that those purposes are problematic, causing you to become ill, because you have simply used the wrong method. Illness is one method among others, but you insist on using this method.
Illness is often a misguided attempt on the part of a person to obtain what he considers to be of prime importance.
Remember, it is misguided. A person wants to achieve a goal, or wants to obtain what he considers most important, and then he has a correct method, but he uses a misguided method. He believes that becoming ill is a very good, effective method. So this becoming ill is a misguided method; this person has been misled.
Illness can be a badge of honor or dishonor, either is possible. But when you look at the human picture, there is no doubt that to some degree, and to an important degree, suffering is not only purposeful and useful, but is actively sought for certain reasons.
When you look at the whole human picture, you will have not the slightest doubt, and you will discover that to a certain degree, and to an important, very important degree: suffering is not only for achieving its purpose, as a means, but is also actively sought for certain reasons. What he means is that illness and pain and suffering are not only a means of obtaining other things; sometimes these sufferings themselves become the goal that humans actively pursue. He has no higher goal, he is not pursuing a higher goal; he has been misled, he uses the method of suffering and illness, and sometimes people simply pursue this suffering and illness for its own sake.
Most people do not seek the extreme experience of suffering. But beneath those extremes, there are various degrees of stimulation that can be considered painful.
For most people, you would not pursue this extreme experience of suffering, but beneath those extreme sufferings, there are different degrees of painful stimulation that are actively pursued. People are pursuing that stimulation.
Certainly, man's involvement in athletics is a case in point.
Here is a ready-made example: athletics. We all know athletes suffer, right? Of course they suffer. If you have watched athletes train, you know how hard it is. You know many parents send their children to learn gymnastics, but the school or the gymnastics team never lets the parents watch. Some parents cannot resist secretly going to watch their own children training in the gymnastics team, and not a single parent comes back without crying. The first thing they say when they come back is "We are not doing this anymore," because that kind of hardship is beyond your imagination.
In the meantime, the rewards of society and the hope of remarkable physical achievement lead the athlete into activities that ordinary people would consider most painful.
The suffering athletes endure is something ordinary people cannot bear, but for the sake of social honor and personal, remarkable physical achievement -- for example, I am the fastest runner, I am the person in the world who can lift the heaviest weight, I am the person who can jump the highest, I am the fastest swimmer -- for the sake of this social honor and physical achievement, he is willing to endure this suffering.
He also gives an example: humans climbing mountains, in pursuing the goal of mountaineering, willingly endure great pain. The pain of mountaineering is unimaginable, because I have had contact with some mountaineers. For example, when climbing Mount Everest, that kind of pain is unimaginable. Only when you are there do you know what it feels like. How do you describe it? There is no way to describe it. Basically above 6,500 meters you know what it feels like; it is a kind of pain beyond human imagination.
The First Precept of Illness
Then Seth transmitted some more private material about David. Then Seth went on to say:
I do not want any of this material to seem overly simplistic.
Seth said he does not want this matter -- for example suffering, the matter of suffering and illness that we are discussing -- to seem overly simplistic, as if he were handing you a conclusion in just a few words.
But in a discussion of this kind, we must begin somewhere. This is far from the whole story of illness.
What we have talked about today is still far from the whole story of illness -- the entire chain of causes and effects, why illness arises in the first place, its relationship to the whole of human experience and to the individual's belief system, and finally the healing of illness. But for tonight, this is enough.
If you can, encourage your good wife, following your example, to decide not to worry.
This should be the first precept of illness. There is still much about illness that we need to discuss, and we will discuss it later, but the first precept of illness -- the first precept he gave us -- is what? Not to worry. Remember, for the treatment of illness, the first piece of advice Seth gave, the first precept, is to stop worrying.
I give you my heartfelt blessing and wish you a good evening.
He said thank you, Seth, and good evening to you too. 10:45.
Jane's Feelings
"My God," Jane said, "your fingers must be about to break." She exclaimed this as she came out of an excellent trance state very quickly. She moved from her rocking chair to the sofa: "Why didn't you ask for a break?" He had delivered this entire session in one breath, from beginning to end.
Rob said, "You didn't seem to need a break. But I also became so interested in the session that I forgot everything. However, my right hand is indeed very tired now." He had completely forgotten at the time, because Rob was also deeply captivated by this session of Seth's. Because Seth rarely discussed the topics of suffering and illness; he basically did not discuss these topics, and always passed over them briefly.
Jane said, "I don't remember much of what he said." She did not know while she was delivering it. But she had a feeling: "Seth meant to use this material to touch upon a crisis in some of my recent thinking—that there is no answer at all to all the pain and suffering in the world, that the whole thing is so big that you cannot say or do anything useful for anyone."
Jane said: I don't know what Seth said in this session, but I can feel that the material Seth gave in this session has been of tremendous help to me recently. Because recently, regarding the suffering of the whole world, and even illness, I could not find a fundamental answer. I don't know why we still have to accept suffering in this world, why we still have to experience illness. When I don't have a fundamental answer to these things, I don't know what I should say or do that would be useful—a sense of powerlessness. When you don't know why suffering comes, when you don't know why there is suffering, why there is illness, then you don't know how you should get along with this world, and you don't know how to counsel, or influence, or change this world. So Jane was in a state of deep confusion at this time, and at this critical juncture, Seth gave such a session, which was of tremendous help to Jane; otherwise Jane would have lost her belief.
Rob told Jane that this might explain her reaction to David's illness, including the book she had made for David. He also said: Although Seth did not call this session's dictation related to this book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, it could well be said so. A large part of it, at least, could help people answer their questions—questions about suffering and illness are asked by many people, and in this session Seth gave a relatively clear answer. So although this session seems to have little to do with this book, I still wanted to place it here, because many readers will encounter such questions.
注释与核实
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: NASA, "WMAP's Portrait of the Early Universe," 2007 (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10123) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Hala Bastawros, "Human Reproduction: A Clinical Approach," 2023 (https://iastate.pressbooks.pub/humanreproduction/chapter/ejaculate/) ↩