The "Introduction" and "Key Points" of this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike 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 records Seth's analysis of Rob's six recent "Sell" dreams: Sell symbolizes childhood, and individuals often take their own birth as the starting point of humanity as a whole. The discussion then continues on suffering, pointing out that humans are naturally curious and seek stimulation, and suffering is one of the natural experiences; children will imagine death through play, and will also use illness to escape difficult situations and quickly forget. Next, it explains that asceticism is a form of actively seeking suffering, suffering is related to compassion, and personal painful experiences are recorded in the "world's heart."
Key Points of This Chapter
- In Rob's dream, Sel symbolizes childhood; people also often regard humanity as a whole as having been born only at the time of their own birth.
- Suffering does not need to be rationalized; humans are naturally curious, seek stimulation and a sense of drama, and suffering is one of the natural experiences.
- Children imagine death through play, and they also use their will to make themselves ill in order to escape difficult situations, but later forget their own role in it.
- Asceticism is a form in which humans actively make use of suffering, and it exists within the framework of nature.
- A person's susceptibility to pain helps in feeling compassion for others; personal painful experiences are recorded in the "world's heart" and become part of the overall experience of humanity.
Main Text
Rob's Dream and the Symbols of Childhood
This session began at 9:09 p.m. on January 16, 1980.
Right at the start, Rob gave an account. According to his notes, after finishing Monday night's class, there was just enough time to get ready for this session. Meanwhile, Jane called David at the hospital, and to her surprise, David sounded even weaker than the last time they had spoken on the phone. He asked Rob to postpone the next day's visit to Friday afternoon.
Next, Jane quickly looked over a batch of what Seth called Sel background dreams that Rob had brought in. Since December 22, over a period of nearly three weeks, he had recorded six long and complex dreams set in his hometown of Sel. In these dreams, he explored a variety of sometimes contradictory beliefs about writing and painting, about his relationship with society and with the studio, and also about his relationship with his deceased father—because his father represented certain other beliefs.
Recently Rob had asked Jane whether Seth would comment on these dreams. As it turned out, tonight Seth did indeed comment on his dreams, and with great insight brought all the dreams together. Seth said, in your mind, Sel represents your childhood; and to that extent, for you personally, it also represents the childhood of all people—because once again, to some degree, everyone feels that humanity as a whole was, in some sense, born at the very moment of his own birth.
Why is this so? Because every person, every kind of human being, at the moment of his birth, feels that humanity was also born at the moment of his birth. In other words, every person's awareness of humanity only begins when he is born into this world. Before he came into this world, humanity had no meaning for him. When he began to enter our three-dimensional world, when he entered as a member of the human race, he became aware of the birth of a whole—in other words, his own life also represents the life of humanity. Because for him, humanity only began when he had life; after he dies, the concept of humanity no longer exists for him—this stage of experience as a human being has come to an end.
There was a break at 9:40. At that time Rob praised Jane for being right, for being right about her dreams. Jane said, I tell you, I only glanced at the dreams in your notes, and it took me less than five minutes. Jane couldn't help but laugh, quite pleased with Seth's ability—because this interpretation required Jane to first glance at Rob's notes on the dreams, and then Seth, having looked for only five minutes, produced such an interpretation of his six dreams. What was quoted above is only the final summary of the dream interpretation; Seth explained each of his six dreams separately.
Rob went on to say, my memory of the events in those dreams is just as real as my memory of anything else I have done recently. That dream was too real, just as real as the things I have done recently, just as real as going shopping or going to work. Many people feel this way after reading the Seth material—their dreams are very real. Rob said, I have always been curious about my simple observation—because for him, once dreams begin to become the past, dream events occupy an increasingly important place in his life. Although the dreams have passed, the events in the dreams become clearer and clearer. I think when a person wakes up in the present, he is far more likely to call a dream just a dream, and cannot give it the same fulfillment and validity as the real experiences he has in the waking state—but Rob felt that his dreams were the same as real experiences.
Then Jane said she wanted to hurry back to the session and did not want to keep dwelling on these dreams. Even though the following material really has nothing to do with the dictation for this book, for obvious reasons it is still included here. The following content began at 9:52.
The Nature of Suffering
After Seth finished explaining Rob's dreams, he said, let us continue our discussion of suffering—because the previous session had discussed illness and suffering, and this session continues it.
I think sometimes it seems that people expect me to rationalize the state of human existence, when they really do not need any such rationalization.
This statement by Seth is very interesting. He said people are always asking me questions: what is suffering all about, what is joy all about, what is illness all about—the only purpose of asking these is that they hope Seth will give them a rationalized explanation and reason. Seth said this does not need to be rationalized. Your life is simply like this; you will get sick, you will feel pain, you will suffer—what is there to explain? You insist on finding a reason for this suffering, a rationalized reason, but there is no need. Because everything that happens to you is already rationalized; there is no need to find another reason for it.
He said, your beliefs prevent you from seeing much knowledge about the human psyche—knowledge that could otherwise be easily available, knowledge that could be used to answer many questions about the reasons for suffering. What Seth means is that the answer is obvious and very easy; you would know it immediately. But because of your beliefs, you think you do not know why you suffer.
He said, but men and women are born with a curiosity about all sensations, and about all possible life experiences. The reason you suffer is because of your curiosity—you want to experience this; you crave all kinds of experiences. Your curiosity is not limited to beautiful or practical things, to doing business, living your life, having children—it is not just that. Your curiosity is endless; you even want to feel the sensation of suffering.
People are born with a desire to break through limitations—remember this, it is innate. And then to explore where no human foot has trod1—Seth said this is the opening line of a famous television program. People are born with a sense of drama, a need for stimulation; this is innate. We are naturally very dramatic people—have you ever seen a stage play? That kind of startled and exaggerated, loud-voiced, emotionally full and high-pitched, highly performative thing is called a sense of drama. People are naturally fond of this, and then there is the need for stimulation; we are born seeking stimulation. Life itself is stimulation.
The quietest emotions, in terms of the spectacular molecular activity impulses beneath them—many people say I do not seek stimulation, I am very quiet. Seth said, what you call quiet and calm emotions actually still have those spectacular molecular activity impulses underneath that you cannot even imagine. So the quietness or calmness you think you have is not really calm—just admit it openly, you do like stimulation.
When you become adults, you forget many of your quite natural inclinations, feelings, and inner fantasies. You grow up, and you forget those wild, adventurous, quite natural feelings, inclinations, and inner fantasies of childhood—because they do not fit the picture of what a human being is that you have been taught to believe. After growing up, you no longer admit that you ever had these strange thoughts; you feel they do not fit the thoughts of a normal human being or a mature person.
Many events in your life that were originally natural extensions of those feelings have therefore become alien. In your life, things that originally continued your natural feelings—curiosity, the desire to experience stimulation—were all perfectly natural. Yet you feel very alienated by them: why do I like these stimulating things? Contrary to your deepest hopes, or as if they were thrown upon you by outside forces or a mischievous subconscious—you will say I have no idea where these thoughts come from, I just want to go skydiving, I just want to quit my job, I want to challenge myself and start a new business. In fact, these are all driven by your inner instinctive desires, present since childhood, innate desires to seek stimulation, but once you grow up you no longer admit it.
Children's thoughts give excellent clues about human nature, but many adults do not remember any of their childhood thoughts. You cannot remember how you thought as a child; you can only remember some events. You only remember those that fit or seem to fit your beliefs about childhood; otherwise, those that from an adult's viewpoint do not conform to adult logic have all been cut away by you. Because most of children's thoughts do not conform to adult logic, when you recall your childhood thoughts as an adult, you basically think there were none.
Children and Suffering
Children play games of being killed; they are trying to imagine what death is like. This was a favorite game in childhood—do you remember that many children liked to play games of hanging? Many parents were terrified when they saw this. They imagine what it would be like to fall off a wall like Humpty Dumpty, or to break their necks. They also indulge just as much creativity in imagining tragic roles—being beheaded, being decapitated, being hanged, and so on. They play heroes, and they are also willing to play tragic figures.
They are often quite aware that they make themselves sick by their own will in order to escape difficulties. They forget that it was they themselves who wanted to be sick, who used their own intention to make themselves sick, and who also used intention to make themselves well again—they quickly learn to forget their role in such episodes. So when they grow up and find themselves ill, they not only forget that they themselves caused the illness, but unfortunately also forget how to make themselves well through intention—this was actually a trick they often played in childhood.
There are various degrees of suffering. Seth began this discussion in a very general way. He said that between the dictation sessions for the regular book, he would continue this discussion from time to time.
In past ages, people covered themselves with ashes, put ashes on their heads, and whipped themselves with iron chains, or starved themselves, or performed other self-punishments. You may ask how such things could happen. They really did happen—in some remote areas of the north, and even in some big cities today, certain customs are still preserved, such as when a man and a woman get married, the mother-in-law and father-in-law will smear ashes on her face and dress her up like a clown. If you have lived in some parts of northern China, you will have experienced similar things, and you will find it unbelievable—how could this be? It really does happen.
In other words, they suffered for religious reasons. Some religious people suffer for religious reasons—ascetics—and this custom has not completely disappeared even today; there are still many people who practice through asceticism.
They did not merely believe that suffering was good for the soul—Seth said, this statement can be both true and false. Why is this so? From the true side, suffering is also something the soul wants to experience, also a sensation the soul wants to feel; from the other side, suffering can greatly elevate the soul—no, it cannot. Suffering is the same as enjoyment; it is only one kind of experience. It will not give your soul a great elevation; it only gives the soul one more kind of experience. So this statement is both true and false.
They also understood another thing: the body can only bear so much suffering, and then it will release consciousness. These ascetics had their own experience—when pain reaches its extreme, your consciousness cannot bear it and will leave the body. When consciousness leaves the body, they believed they had achieved a kind of religious ecstasy. They wanted consciousness to leave the body, and there was no other way, so they could only achieve this through suffering and asceticism. In fact, there is no need to use physical suffering as a stimulus; you can achieve the same thing through other methods. And such a method ultimately harms religious understanding—you have obtained the sensation of consciousness leaving the body, but your understanding of religion has been greatly distorted.
However, those episodes are one of many methods, representing that human beings can actively seek suffering; it is also a manifestation of free will. Suffering is a means of achieving another purpose through suffering. And to say that such activity is unnatural is beside the point, because it exists within the framework of nature. Many people say, since you say the universe is oriented toward good, why do people still suffer? Seth gave a very clear explanation here—it is also within the framework of nature.
Suffering and Compassion
Asceticism is one form of applying suffering. People have not been taught to understand their own tremendous appetite for experience—human curiosity is enormous; he has a tremendous curiosity about experience. A child will naturally be curious about suffering; through suffering he learns to avoid the suffering he does not want, and to help others avoid the suffering they do not want; and more importantly, to understand the various levels of emotion and sensation that are his heritage. Because he does not want to suffer, he also does not want others to suffer. Through understanding suffering, he feels that this suffering is very uncomfortable, and he does not want others to suffer either. At the same time, more importantly, suffering is also one of his various sensations.
If he understands this, as an adult he will not cause pain to others—because he will allow himself to feel the authenticity of his own emotions. Because he suffered as a child, he does not want others to suffer; he has this empathetic experience, so in his behavior he will not do things that cause others pain.
Now do you understand? Why do spoiled children have no compassion? Why are children with very privileged living conditions instead very cold and callous? The reason is right here—they have not suffered. It is that simple. Seth pointed this out in one sentence. So if you want your child to have compassion, to have empathy, to have a merciful heart that can love others, suffering a little in childhood is beneficial. There is no need to deliberately seek suffering, but do not stop children from suffering; they will try it on their own.
If you deny yourself the direct experience of your own emotions, yet cover them over through overly severe asceticism, then you can very easily hurt others—because you project your numbed emotional state onto them. For example, in Nazi prisoner camps, people followed orders to torture other people, and you could only do this by first numbing your own sensitivity to pain and suppressing your own emotions.
When you were young, you numbed your sensitivity to pain, so when you tortured others you felt no heartache, you felt no pain, and only then could you do it. You have seen many similar things—a person calls over a stray cat, the stray cat thinks he is going to feed it, and he grabs the stray cat and smashes it to death alive; there are also many such acts of torturing stray cats and dogs. Many people do not understand why these people are so cruel; the reason lies right here—he numbed his own sensitivity to pain, and then suppressed his own emotions; only then could he do such things.
A person's susceptibility to pain helps him feel compassion for others—because people fear pain, they are also willing to feel compassion for others, and also do not want others to feel pain, and thus help him more actively alleviate the causes of all kinds of unnecessary suffering that exist in society. Because he himself has suffered, he himself has felt pain.
The World's Heart
Seth said, that is all for tonight, and I give you both my heartiest regards. He added one more point:
The experiences of a painful nature that each person has are also recorded in what we call the world's heart.
The experiences in which we feel pain are all recorded in something called the world's heart. Every failure, every disappointment, or every unsolved problem that causes pain becomes part of the world's experience—this or that method does not work, or this or that way has been tried before but the results were not good. None of your suffering is in vain; it is all recorded in the world's heart. In this way, later humanity will know that doing things this way does not work, that doing things this way only brings bad results, so later people will avoid such things.
In that manner, even the weaknesses or failures of suffering are resolved, or one might say redeemed—because certain adjustments have been made in that information. Because of your painful experiences, others have learned lessons from them, and they have made some compensations and adjustments, so that similar things will not happen again.
From this direction, each person privately lives his life for all humanity as well. All of his experiences become the experiences of the whole human race. From a unique viewpoint, each person tries new challenges, new situations, and new achievements for himself and for humanity as a whole.
Then Seth cheerfully said the session was over and wished them good night. Rob said, thank you very much, Seth, good night. 12:27 a.m.
Jane said, that was really wonderful. When Jane came out of a very good trance state and the delivery, she said to Rob, I really wish we could find a chance to use this material somewhere—because she felt this would not be put into this book. Rob had inserted the previous session, which was unrelated to the book, into the book, but Rob did not quickly make the same decision about this session, although eventually he did insert it too, but at the time he did not make the decision right away. Rob said, I am also thinking about what to do. Jane said, don't worry about it; maybe one day we can use it in a book, but at the same time I am not going to hide my concern about this—maybe Seth will continue doing this, continue adding some discussions about pain and suffering, and one day it might become another book. Then Rob laughed and told Jane that he would not worry—this new resolution sounded very much like him. Rob often said this: I am not worried about where this material will be used; one day it will be used. Yes, later on he published all of Seth's material.
Rob's Notes
Below are the notes. Seth's concept about children trying to imagine what death is like in their play undoubtedly added an intuitive dimension to Rob's childhood activities. Because Rob was born at the end of the twentieth century, the game children loved to play most at that time was cowboys and Indians—think about cowboys and Indians, they just killed each other; today you kill me, tomorrow I kill you. When we played in the nearby fields, all of us pretended that we had killed the enemy—whether the Indians killed the cowboys, or the cowboys killed the Indians, or we were killed by the enemy—we had a wonderful time, and often played this game until we were exhausted.
Rob also agreed with Seth's statement that children are often quite aware that they make themselves sick by their own will to escape difficulties. I remember very clearly that I did this on certain occasions, usually to avoid some school activities. Even at that time, I was surprised that my parents did not figure out what I was up to. After the danger period passed, my recovery was as easy as pie.
Jane said, you never told me about deliberately making yourself sick. Rob said, I thought I had mentioned it. He asked Jane whether she had ever done this. Jane said, of course I did—in Catholic elementary school, I knew that sometimes I made myself sick to escape things like diagramming sentences and being drilled on multiplication tables; I was so afraid of those things. I think it was around fourth grade, once I made myself get a three-day fever.
Jane said that her group of playmates did not play games like the cowboys and Indians that Rob and his friends played; we might occasionally play dead—you know, lie down and close your eyes, but that was all there was to playing dead. In fifth-grade history class, Jane learned about the story of the French queen Marie Antoinette, who was sent to the guillotine in Paris in 17932. Jane said, I often pretended by myself to be that French queen Marie Antoinette—I would be brave and defiant, and in that identity as Marie Antoinette, I knew I was going to be beheaded.
So both of them were a little curious, noticing that for them, at least some of the imagined experiences revolved around their early school life. That is to say, what Seth said about children's early attempts at death, suffering, and so on—they had actually experienced it.
I do not know whether the readers or listeners here have experienced similar things—think back carefully on your own childhood; did you play similar games, or try playing dead?
Seth's content is varied and covers all aspects, but his interpretations often give us sudden clarity—providing a new cognitive angle and deeper understanding of many things we take for granted. This session and the previous one discussed one topic for two consecutive sessions: why we humans suffer, why we get sick. On this matter, he gave us a different understanding from what we had before—simply put, it is that we ourselves want to be sick, we want to experience this different sensation. This is his overall idea.
注释与核实
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Source: CBS Home Entertainment, Star Trek: The Original Series "Where No Man Has Gone Before", 2013 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj5GjmDT0G4) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩