The "Introduction" and "Key Points" for 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 portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This chapter discusses the legend of the Garden of Eden as a distorted version of humanity's shift from dream-body identification to physical-body identification: humans could no longer directly perceive the dream body while awake, had to be subject to physical limitations, and thus developed a sense of separation from nature and all things, along with gender differentiation and concepts of good and evil. Seth points out that humans are the part of nature that specializes in the conscious use of ideas, and will grow intellectual flowers deeply rooted in the earth; the dream body has not disappeared, it is merely obscured by the physical senses. Humans develop through exploration, naming, and the guidance of inner impulses.
Key Points of This Chapter
- The Garden of Eden legend is a distorted version of humanity's awakening as physical creatures, in which humans shifted from directly perceiving the dream body to fully identifying with the physical body.
- Embodiment brought about a sense of separation from the environment and all things, along with sexual differentiation, physical reproduction, and limitations such as the need to eat and to protect oneself.
- Humans are the part of nature that specializes in the conscious use of ideas, growing intellectual flowers rooted deep in the earth, and developing language and naming.
- The dream body cannot be harmed or disappear; it is merely obscured by the physical senses. Early humans' memories of the survival of the animal dream body gradually dwindled until only legends remained.
- Humans roughly converted pleasure and aversion into versions of good and evil. Following inner impulses will guide oneself and others toward the best development.
Main Text
Chapter 5 Opening: Eden, When Man Lost the Dream Body and Gained the Soul
Today we continue sharing Seth's book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Volume 1, Chapter 5. The title of Chapter 5 is "Eden, When Man Lost the 'Dream Body' and Gained the 'Soul'" -- here "Eden," "lost," and "soul" are not the meanings we humans normally understand for these three words; they are all extended meanings, which is why they are placed in quotation marks. The first part of this chapter is actually the last part of Chapter 4's final session, Session 899. The content is not long, but it is extremely wonderful and important.
Seth says directly that the legend of Eden represents a distorted version of man's awakening as a physical creature. It is not a primitive version, but a version that has been transformed and adapted. What was changed? It was the physical awakening -- he became entirely operational within his physical body. And the dream body that had previously been so real to him -- the body that people who do out-of-body experiences ordinarily call the astral body -- could only be felt indirectly in the waking state.
At this time, man identified entirely with his body, living wholly within the flesh, and that astral body or dream body could no longer be felt directly, only indirectly. The word "indirectly" is very important -- man could not use his consciousness in the waking state to directly feel the dream body. He could only feel it in two states: one is the dreaming state, and the other is the out-of-body state. The dreaming state is further divided into two kinds: one is the feeling of ordinary dreaming, and the other is what we call lucid dreaming -- a lucid dream is when your consciousness knows you are dreaming, your consciousness is still awake, and you bring that waking consciousness into that state, and only then can you feel the existence of the dream body. The other kind is what we ordinarily call an out-of-body experience; during an out-of-body experience you can truly and really feel the existence and experience of the dream body.
So at this time, early man had already completely merged with his physical body, and the feeling of the dream body could no longer be obtained in the waking state. Now he had to face his experience within a body that had to be kept warm by clothing and protected from the forces of nature -- our physical body has this characteristic, it is relatively fragile. He had to obey the laws of the earth and the earth's gravity, and he had to use such a body to create and to experience. That dream body which was not controlled by gravity and could never be injured, he could no longer directly control. He had to use the muscles of his physical body to walk from one place to another; he could no longer fly here and there.
In a flash of understanding, he suddenly saw for the first time that his own existence was not only separate from his surroundings, but also separate from all other creatures on the earth. Because they all had their own physical bodies, completely independent. He suddenly discovered that he was not only separate from his environment, but separate from all other things. From that angle, that sense of separation at first was almost unbearable to him; he could not endure it.
But man is that part of nature that is destined to have an outside viewpoint from which to look at itself. Man is a part of nature, and man's role within the whole of nature is precisely to look at itself from the outside. This point is very important; be sure to remember it. Although he could not bear the separation and division from the natural world and from all things, although he had become an independent physical existence, he found that he had to look at this external world from the perspective of an outsider.
The reason for this, Seth says, is our human responsibility that we cannot shirk, or rather, a natural division of labor we have as a part of nature -- our division of labor is to look at nature itself from outside nature, rather than looking at it from within. This is a natural division of labor and an attribute of us humans. We humans ourselves are also that part of nature that is destined to specialize in the conscious use of concepts. Every species in nature has its own attributes and its own division of labor, all for their own value fulfillment. So what is man's value fulfillment? As the existence of the human species, what it is best at is the conscious use of concepts. Why? Because only when you do not have a sense of oneness can you distinguish what this is and what that is. When man was not separate from nature, he did not have this feeling, because he considered all those things to be one with himself.
This kind of feeling is like how you would not go about distinguishing the difference between this cell and that cell in your body; you consider them all to be your body. If one single cell became independent on its own, it would feel that it is one cell, and another cell is another cell; it would feel there is a difference. But from the perspective of your whole person, that is how it is. From the perspective of nature, the entire physical world and the entire natural world are one whole; it exists within a wholeness, does not make conceptual distinctions, and does not use concepts and ideas to do things, because within this oneness there is no distinction and no concepts -- it is all itself, so what is there for it to distinguish? But man is different. Man first acquired the ability to look at the world from outside, acquired his own unique self-consciousness, and then discovered that he was different from others, different from his environment, and different from all other things. The reason he developed the experience under this consciousness was precisely to accomplish, under the premise of his own cognition and concepts, experiencing his surrounding environment and his world in this way.
Seth says loudly that he will grow the flower of intellect. Humanity will grow its own flower of intellect -- that is, our reason, logic, and inference. On the premise of being based on concepts, do reason, logic, and inference not first require concepts? What kind of laws, what kind of actions will produce what kind of results -- all of this requires concepts, requires logic, requires theory and inference. We call this the flower of rationality. Therefore humanity will certainly grow the flower of rationality, a flower that must be safely and deeply rooted in the earth, also called the flower of intellect. The root of our flower of rationality comes from our inner world. It is deeply rooted in the earth, deeply rooted in nature.
Seth uses a very poetic statement, saying that humanity will certainly grow the flower of intellect, but this flower is deeply rooted in the fertile soil of nature, and then this flower scatters outward new seeds of the psyche. What does this mean? It means that under the cognition and experience of this flower of intellect, there will be new psychic experiences and feelings -- different from the feelings and experiences in the state of consciousness before the flower of rationality or intellect, when all things were considered one with itself. And these new feelings and experiences, the experiences that come after having concepts, having a discriminating mind, having self-consciousness, all originate from the blossoming and branching out of this flower of rationality, this flower of intellect.
He emphasizes again that he does this not only for himself, not only for humanity, but also for the rest of nature -- and he himself is also a part of nature. Humanity does this not for humanity itself; this is a natural division of labor within nature's inherent mission. He has to do this, and doing this is not only for himself, but also for the entire natural world.
But man looked outward and felt his sudden separation, and was astonished by his loneliness. At this time man looked from inside outward and saw that the world and environment around him had all separated from him. This sudden sense of separation made him feel very surprised, very astonished -- how could this be? Were we not originally one? Was it not that the environment followed the mind? Was it not that my environment would be however I wanted it to be? Why did it no longer follow? Why was it no longer that the appearance arose from the mind? Was it not that whatever I thought should immediately appear? Why did it no longer appear? This sense of separation suddenly made him especially astonished.
He now also had to search for food; previously he did not need to eat. Before, his dream body did not need the nourishment of food; he did not need to eat. Previously man was neither male nor female, but combined the characteristics of both, and now the physical body was also divided into two by gender, man and woman. Because man had to carry out physical reproduction. Previously humanity did not need physical reproduction; reproduction could be accomplished through thought. But once man became materialized, once he became a physical body, then reproduction had to occur through the two sexes, and so separation was unavoidable. Originally when you were a dream body, there was no distinction between male and female; your spiritual essence had no male-female distinction; you combined the characteristics of both together. But at this time you had no choice but to separate, so you could only experience your male identity or your female identity. Clearly your soul or your original self, clearly it was one, and now it had to be divided into male and female -- this in itself is a separation, a split. Clearly there was no need to eat, and now there was a need to eat things and drink water; originally there was no need at all to worry about one's safety, and now one also had to worry about one's safety, about not being eaten by wild beasts.
Some lost ancient legends emphasized this sudden gender distinction in a clearer way. In ancient times there was another version, but it has now been lost. Later the Bible adapted that legend and turned it into the story of Eden in the Bible. The Bible turned historical events as well as social beliefs into the version of Adam and Eve. You see, before Adam and Eve ate the fruit of wisdom1 -- also called the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil -- the two of them did not wear clothes and had no concept of gender. But after eating it, the two of them developed a sense of shame. Why did they develop a sense of shame? Because there was now a difference between male and female, so a sense of shame naturally arose. Then they used leaves and grass to make something like grass skirts tied around their waists, covering their reproductive organs. Why? Because they discovered a difference; they discovered a distinction. Previously there was none of this; previously they did not wear clothes and did not feel it was abnormal, because they considered everything to be one, with no male-female gender distinction. So he says Adam and Eve is an adaptation of this event.
On the other hand, man did indeed feel that he had fallen from a higher status. This point is very important; in many studies and spiritual practices this is mentioned: we have a process of falling. From the perspective of consciousness, we have fallen from a higher level of consciousness. This is a sense of falling, and it is very normal. Fallen from where? Because he previously remembered his dreamlike freedom -- he previously had unlimited freedom. He fell from that stone statue -- what stone statue? The one in which other creatures were still immersed to some degree -- animals and plants, a part of them was still in that state of oneness. When man operated with the dream body before that state, he had unlimited freedom. But once he entered the physical body, there were many restrictions: he had to eat and drink, he had to pay attention to safety, he had to give birth to children and reproduce, and children were so fragile. All of this made him feel countless restrictions and shackles. For example, previously if he wanted to fly somewhere, the thought arose and he was directly there -- it was not even the concept of flying, he was just directly there; now he did not know how long he would have to walk, or perhaps he could never reach that place.
Incidentally, man's mind at that moment already had all the abilities you now assign to him. People at that time were just as intelligent as people now, from that time onward. He was able to contain the great inclusiveness that embraced the contrast between imagination and reason -- this inclusiveness is very important. He knew what the ideal was, and he also knew what the present reality was; he knew how to move from the present reality toward his ideal; before it was realized, he would not be impatient or restless, but would patiently do his work, and then let the matter advance step by step toward the result of his dream, the process of making dreams come true. But in the middle he would not be agitated that the dream had not yet been realized. He could contain the driving forces of objectivity and subjectivity. What is subjective? I want, I like, I am willing -- this is his subjective driving force. And the objective driving force is the conditions of reality -- what you want may not be immediately obtainable, what you desire may not be immediately attainable. There will inevitably be a gap between this "I want" and the limitations of conditions in real society, and man can contain this gap, and this gap itself is his inner driving force. The things he subjectively wants and the reality that objectively does not allow him to obtain them become the driving force for him to want to do things. Where is the driving force of human civilization? It lies in daring to imagine, and then daring to put what is imagined into practice. This is the inner driving force.
And he fully possessed the ability to develop language. Man could develop language; he had a keen mind; man was very intelligent. The level of intelligence he had as a caveman -- that is, someone like the Upper Cave Man -- was just as intelligent as anyone walking on the street today. Seth points out a misconception for us: we previously thought that Upper Cave Man or early humans had insufficient IQ and insufficient wisdom, and that it was only through later continuous development, the invention of tools, the invention of language, step by step, that people became smarter and smarter. Seth says this is not so; man at that period was already just as intelligent as modern man.
But if man suddenly felt alone, lonely, and isolated, he was also immediately awed by the great multitudinous variety of the world and its creatures. The loneliness man felt in an instant, because he had separated from the natural world and from all things, but this separation gave him a new kind of awe and experience. Why? Because previously when he was in a state of oneness with all things, he would not distinguish them; he felt they were himself, and he himself was them; there was no difference. When he separated from his environment and all things at this time, these multitudinous varieties and creatures dazzled him and awed him greatly. Because previously he had never distinguished them, and had never thought about this question, so the awe at this time was different.
Each creature separate from himself held a new mystery. Was there no such mystery before? Previously when they were dream bodies, they could also see these creatures in the dream world, but those creatures were different from the creatures now. In the dream world, when these creatures died, they died, and the dream body would continue to live. So in the new world, after these creatures took on the attributes of the physical world, they were different from those in early man's dream world. Although the outer forms of these creatures were the same, their feelings and experiences, and the feelings and experiences they produced in man, were also different.
Let me give a simple example. When you see this apple in the dream world, you can only feel its feeling as an apple -- its life force, its energy, its color, its vividness, its luster, you can feel all of it, but the one thing you cannot do is eat it; you have no way to put it in your mouth. So what you can feel is another kind. And when you come into this real world, although you cannot directly feel its energy -- ordinary people cannot feel its energy and the inner things about it -- the colors you see are also relatively simple and singular, just the colors within the spectrum of nature. Actually the colors of an apple in the dream world are more beautiful and more pleasing, yet you cannot eat it in a dream. In the real world you can take a "crunch" bite of it and feel its crisp sweetness, the feeling of juice bursting everywhere, the feeling it leaves in your mouth -- this is something you cannot experience in the dream world. This is the new mystery. Animals and plants are also like this.
He was also fascinated by his own subjective reality; he was also very magical to himself. Previously he had never eaten anything, and now he could eat things; previously these things had no taste, and now they had taste; previously he did not know what pain was, and now he knew what pain was; previously he did not know what hunger was, and now he knew; previously he did not know what sleepiness was, and now he understood it too. These things, he also found very magical and fascinating. He discovered the body he was within, and the differences between himself and other people like him and other creatures -- he saw this body of his, and this body, he himself was inside this body. He discovered that this physical body was different from other creatures, and even among fellow humans, there were differences between people, and this made him feel very magical; everything was different.
He immediately began to explore -- he did not even think about it, because this concept, this feeling, this experience he had not had before -- he immediately began to taste all the things he could taste, to eat all the things he could eat; he tried them. He began to explore, to distinguish, to point out, to name the other animals, other creatures, other creatures on the earth that came within the range of his attention, including animals and plants. At this time humanity began to name them. This is what we often call "the name that can be named is not the eternal name2." This was when humanity first began to do some naming.
In a manner of speaking, this was a great creative yet cosmic game that consciousness played with itself, and this game indeed represented a new kind of perception. This is a game our consciousness plays with ourselves, and it is a cosmic game -- this game is played on a rather large scale -- but this game indeed represents a new kind of perception; that is, this consciousness wanted to experience a new kind of perception.
One point Seth wants to emphasize is that every version of All That Is is unique. What does this sentence mean? It means that this version of the game our consciousness plays with consciousness -- we can feel the physical world, the physical world is like this, our consciousness experiences within it, and so on -- this is one of the many versions of the games that the many consciousnesses of All That Is play with themselves. Do not think that this is all there is, that All That Is only plays this game; All That Is has many, many more varieties of ways to use consciousness to play games with itself. He says each version of the game has its purpose, and the purposes are all different. This version is to let us experience a kind of perception of the physical world.
Although that purpose cannot easily be defined in your terms. You might want to ask: then tell me, man experiencing such things in the physical world, this is one purpose of All That Is, so what are the purposes of other versions of the universe or other versions of the world? What does it want to feel? What does it want to experience? Seth says I cannot explain it clearly to you; your human language has reached its limit at this level; it exceeds the range of your understanding; I do not know how to tell you.
He gives an example. For instance, many people ask me, what is the meaning of my life, what is the purpose of my life, why exactly am I alive? What you mean to ask is: what should I do? Tell me what the correct thing to do is. But Seth says, if you ask me this question, the only answer I give you is: the purpose of your life, and of every other life, is in its existence. In other words, the purpose of your life is existence; existence is the entire purpose of your life. But there is still something within this existence -- that existence may include certain actions, but those actions are important precisely because they are -- they spring forth from the essence of your life, and life, simply by existing, will inevitably fulfill its purpose.
Many people then say, so if existence is my purpose, do I not need to do anything? That is not so. Do the two words "existence" not imply that there will be many actions in between? Existence itself is also a state and also an action. There is much more implied behind it -- does existence not first involve a process of growth and development? This existence itself implies, conceals, or contains in potential all possible actions. Why is it said that they are all important? Because they all spring forth from the source of your life. What is the source of your life? What is the essence of your life? The essence of your life is existence. To put it more plainly, we can understand it this way: this series of actions of our life's existence is an outward expression of the existence of your life. And these actions are important because they are what the essence of this existence should be like. Just as a flower should bloom, and a fruit tree should bear fruit -- that is its original nature. Why do you say the action of bearing fruit is important? Because it is the essence of its life.
In this passage, he is actually not focused on discussing what the purpose of your life is; he is just giving you an example in passing. What he wants to tell you is that asking what the purpose of other versions of the universe is, is the same principle as asking what the purpose of your own life is -- its existence is its purpose. And this purpose, I cannot describe it well to you in words.
Seth paused for a long while in a steady and rather fast delivery, then continued, saying that of course man's dream body was still with him. Remember, it is not that once he had a physical body the dream body disappeared; it is just that he could no longer directly manipulate it and feel it; he could do so through other indirect means. The dream body has always been there; it is just that the present physical body obscures it. The existence of your physical body will affect your feeling of the dream body. The dream body itself cannot be harmed, while the physical body can be harmed. When man shifted the general outline of his experience from one kind to another, he quickly discovered this. It is very normal; when he transformed from a spirit body or dream body into a physical body, he discovered the difference -- the difference was very great; not only did he have to eat and drink, he could also be injured, and he could even die; this physical body would die.
In the dream body, man feared nothing. Why is a newborn calf not afraid of a tiger? A newborn child fears nothing, because he has just come from the dream body, so of course he fears nothing; he does not know that this physical body itself is so fragile and needs protection. The dream body will not die; before the death of the physical body and after the death of the physical body, it exists -- before birth and after death, including while you are alive, it also exists.
In the dream body, man had seen scenes of animals killing other animals, but they immediately saw the animal's dream body emerge from the physical body unscathed. In the world of the dream body, when he saw other animals being hunted and killed by other animals, he did not feel death; he felt that the physical body was killed, but the dream body would never die. They saw the earth change its form in this way, different from the form of his previous dreams. In the earth of the dream world, it was no problem for animals to hunt or fight each other; death was not feared, because after the physical body died, the spirit body automatically emerged; the spirit body would not die. But the identity of each unit of consciousness survived. Although this earth was no longer the same as before, no longer the earth of the dream body world, that unit of consciousness did not disappear; it still survived, just in a different form -- previously it existed as an energy body of a unit of consciousness, and now it existed as a physical body or material body, a particle body of a unit of consciousness -- no matter what you call it, it existed in material form, displaying its material aspect; previously it existed in its energy aspect.
So although they saw images of death, they did not consider that to be death. Although many people regarded it as if it were an inevitable result, he could see animals die but did not feel that was death; he felt that it was just a change of energy form. Then man saw that in order for the world to continue, there had to be an exchange of physical energy. For this world to survive, there had to be an exchange of physical energy -- that is, this animal had to eat that animal, converting that animal's physical energy into the energy needed by its own physical body. It had no way to directly absorb the energy of the universe; it had to rely on this physical energy: from plants to animals, from herbivores to carnivores, such a conversion along a biological chain. Otherwise this material natural world could not continue to exist. We call this the food chain or the ecosystem; this is the principle.
They watched the drama of predator and prey -- today you eat me, tomorrow I eat you -- and he saw that every animal made its contribution; in the entire natural environment every animal had its own contribution, and only thus could the concrete form of the earth continue. From the smallest microorganisms to lions and tigers, all were the same; each had its contribution. It is very simple; if you watch a documentary about an ecosystem, you can understand all the contributions from the smallest to the largest.
But the rabbit eaten by the wolf still survived in a dream body. Although the rabbit was eaten by the wolf, and the energy of its physical body was supplemented into the wolf, becoming the wolf's physical energy, the rabbit's dream body was not affected in any way. And man knew that the rabbit's dream body was the true form of the rabbit's existence; the physical body was merely another form of energy.
But when man woke in the physical body -- when man truly woke from within the physical body and shifted to dwell in the use of the senses, here referring to the use of the outer senses -- he no longer perceived the dream body released by the killed animal running away and still leaping in the mountains and forests. He could no longer feel that after the rabbit was eaten, its spirit body could still leap out of its body and still live within nature. Remember, it is very normal that you cannot feel it, because when you focus on the physical senses -- your outer senses of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body -- you cannot see the spirit bodies of these animals leaping out of their dead bodies.
Then, he retained the memory of his earlier knowledge — he still remembered before that when the animal died the spirit body would leap away — and for quite a long time, he could also occasionally recapture that knowledge. It is said that in humanity's early period, humans could still remember this knowledge. So you understand why early humans had feelings toward animals and toward these things that were different from how humans feel now. They said every animal has a spirit. Do you remember, especially in ancient China, people said certain animals had stronger spiritual natures, such as turtles, snakes, foxes, and so on. Why? Because he retained these memories, he knew these things truly had spirits, that spirit bodies truly existed. But after a long time, slowly they became more and more aware of their own physical senses, and their feelings for the five senses grew stronger. As for matters of the spirit body, he could only rely on memory; he could no longer perceive it. The memory was still there, and it might turn into legends and myths passed down, but he no longer — generation after generation of people could no longer see these spirit bodies, only seeing their death. His inner senses had not yet been activated.
Some of these things were clearly pleasant, while others were not — some stimuli should be pursued, while others should be avoided. When man began to rely on the outer senses, he began to develop discrimination: some experiences were pleasant, while others were painful. For example, if he was bitten by another animal, or eaten by someone else, then that experience was certainly painful; but some experiences were very pleasant, such as when he was hungry and ate other animals, that was also very pleasant. Think about it, when you eat meat with great relish, are you not also very pleased? Have you ever considered the feelings of the animal you are eating? You would not. Some stimuli, of course — that joy, that happiness, that wonderful feeling — he definitely had to pursue them; while some things had to be avoided as much as possible, such as illness, injury, and so on, which had to be avoided.
Thus for a period of time, he transformed pleasant and unpleasant things into a rough version of good and evil. Where did humanity's earliest good and evil come from? It came from this. When he used the five senses to perceive, he defined those things he liked as good, and those he disliked as evil — basically, whatever made him feel pleasant was good.
He was endowed with strong, clear intuitions, which were meant to guide him toward his own most magnificent development and his own greatest achievements. This intuition was the natural pursuit of pleasant things, which would naturally lead him toward magnificent development and great achievements. Is that so? Of course it is. Think about it, has not the development of human civilization up to today all come from wanting to reduce human labor, to let us live more easily and more happily, to make the environment more comfortable, to eat better, to have more abundant food — is it not all for this? The development of human society is the longing to pursue a better life, and it develops under this driving force. All the achievements of human development come from this.
So in this way, it also enabled him to help bring out the highest potential of all other families of consciousness. It seems that humans doing this are very selfish, only for their own pleasure, pursuing their own joy, pursuing their own highest point of joy. He says do not worry, this is an intuition — when humans pursue their own supreme joy, they also bring out the highest potential of other families of consciousness at the same time. I will not expand on this — between this animal and man and other living beings, its natural impulse is to provide inner guidance. Which inner impulse? It is the way of pursuing the joy he wants, the inner impulse of pursuing the highest joy, which gives this intuitive guidance. He does not need to calculate whether what he is doing is good for others, for all things, for the whole natural world; it is naturally good, and it will just happen to lead him in such a direction. Therefore he will pursue what is best for himself and for others as well. In other words, as long as he follows this inner impulse to do things, it will certainly bring him in such a direction — toward what is best for himself and others. And this is through intuition, not through calculation, and not through arrangement. As long as he follows the inner impulse, he can achieve this purpose. This was naturally set during the early developmental process of humanity's transformation from the dream body to the physical body.
The dictation for this session ends here. This day's content returned once again to the very beginning, about personal pursuit and personal purpose and value fulfillment — very simply, pursue your inner highest joy. After Seth gave Jane and me a few words, the session ended.
Below is a note by Rob. Rob said, when I was typing this session, I thought Seth was contradicting himself here. Because earlier in that session, he said that other creatures on Earth woke up before humans did, while relatively speaking, before humans did that — before they did that — their dream bodies had already formed their own bodies into physical bodies. Rob used what Seth had said in the previous few sessions, saying that Seth contradicted himself. Then he said, then I began to think that Seth actually meant that man separated himself from the dream body to a greater degree than other creatures, so that even though those other entities became able to use their bodies effectively before man did — this was Seth's original wording — they still retained a greater awareness of their dream bodies than man did. I must remember to ask Seth to explain this point in detail, although I also think he indirectly mentioned this later in this session.
Rob said, where did he think the contradiction lay? Seth said that other creatures, such as plants, woke up first, and then animals woke up later — woke up from where? From the dream world into the material world. The waking up he referred to was waking up in the material world and developing identification with one's material form. First plants, then animals, and man was the last to wake up. Then Seth also said that before man woke up, man already had a physical body; it was not that man only had a physical body after waking up. Man's physical body was born at the same time as those plants and animals very early on, but at that time man was still in his own dream world, in his own dream body — that is, in the astral body — still playing with great delight. The so-called not having woken up means he did not yet have much cognition of his material body or physical body, and lived more in the dream body.
So Rob said, is this not a bit contradictory? He said, if you say those plants and animals woke up first, and you also say that although they woke up they retained more of the dream body than man did, then man should have woken up more thoroughly than they did — man can no longer directly feel the dream body, while those animals and plants can still half feel the existence of the dream body and half feel the existence of the material body, yet man can no longer feel the existence of his own dream body. With such a kind of waking, man should have woken up more thoroughly. So he had several points of confusion, and he did not know what this "waking up" actually meant — why those who woke up first actually woke up less thoroughly, while those who woke up later woke up so thoroughly.
Actually I think there is nothing contradictory in this session, and there is nothing contradictory in Seth's discussion here either. I think where he saw a contradiction, he may not have understood why it was said that the dream body already had its own body before waking up — he said the dream bodies first formed their own bodies, and before waking up there was already a body. This point may have confused Rob, who thought that man only had a body after waking up, and before waking up there was only a dream body. What he did not know was that he did not understand Seth's meaning. Seth said that at that time man had both a physical body and a dream body, but man existed more within the dream body, and he identified more with the dream body, not with the physical body — this was the early state. And Rob may have misunderstood somewhat. That is all right.
注释与核实
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Chinese Text Project, Tao Te Ching (https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing/zh) ↩