Mike's commentary · Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Session 909

The "Introduction" and "Key Points" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This chapter begins with the contact between humans and physical reality: what a person first experiences is their own consciousness, and the physical senses depend on the attributes of consciousness; instruments provide only secondhand evidence, while dreams and subjective experience are more direct. It then discusses evidence for reincarnation, moves into questions of genes, deformities, and talents, and points out that human differences each have their reasons, that genetic development cannot be precisely predicted, and that it is adjusted by thoughts, feelings, free will, and reincarnational knowledge. The end records Jane's out-of-body experience and a poem, and includes Rob's note on the division of the volumes.

Key Points of This Chapter

• A person's first contact with physical reality is through their own consciousness, from which it can be inferred that there exists a larger identity of consciousness than the everyday one.
• The evidence of reality obtained through instruments is secondhand information; dreaming and subjective experience are more direct and irrefutable than the evidence concerning black holes, atoms, and the like.
• There is a great deal of evidence for reincarnation and life after death, but it has not been taken seriously by established science.
• Congenital deformities and disabilities belong to the same diversity of human genetic expression as geniuses and outstanding athletes; each has its place and its reasons.
• The development of any particular genetic factor cannot be precisely predicted; thoughts, feelings, desires, intentions, and reincarnational knowledge adjust the genetic structure, causing certain latent characteristics to manifest or diminish.

Main Text

Seth book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Volume One, Session 909, Monday, April 21, 1980, starting at 9:05 p.m.

Rob first gave a brief account. He said that at noon, before Jane took a nap, she received a letter. The man who wrote it explained that he had married a woman with a genetic deformity of the hands, and they had just had a daughter with the same condition, also a genetic deformity of the hands. The man had apparently learned a great deal from reading the Seth material, and from it he revealed some insights into why he and his wife had chosen to marry in the first place -- he knew from the Seth material why he and his wife had married. Yet he still expressed his sorrow, and asked why he had to face every day the troubling challenges brought by a so-called deformed wife, and now with a daughter added on top of that. Jane was prepared to tell him that he and his family were actually doing far better than he thought, and Jane intended to console him in that way and write back to him.

During Jane's nap, Jane had a small out-of-body experience, and as soon as she woke up she described it to Rob. Then that afternoon, she received another message from Seth, saying that in the new chapter, Seth would explain that, among other reasons, bodily deformities are manifestations of the vast range of abilities contained within our species' genetic bank, and that we retain this flexibility so that it can be put to use in case great changes are ever needed. That is to say, bodily deformity is a kind of preservation within the enormous genetic bank of the human body; he preserves the existence and possibility of such deformity precisely so that when genetic mutation and change are needed in the future, such change can take place, and it can be put to use in the future. He also said that our genetic conditions are connected with our reincarnational patterns, and in order to keep our species adaptable in many unpredictable ways, the attributes that may result in so-called disabilities are needed -- that is, some people are born with deformities, and this is actually an expression of the richness of the human genetic bank. Jane said more, but at the time I did not write it down. She thought Seth would comment tonight on the situation in the reader's letter, but in fact he did not.

So let us look at what Seth said tonight.

First Contact Is Consciousness Itself

Seth begins by saying:

Humanity's first contact with physical reality in life is his experience of his own consciousness.

This statement is very important, and you must remember it. Our first contact with our material world in life is not the material world itself, but our own consciousness. The first time a person experiences this world, he experiences it through his experience of his consciousness. You must remember this point.

He perceives a different kind of existence, one unlike anything he had known before. First, he comes into contact with his own consciousness, and only afterward does he come into contact with his own world. Therefore:

Of course I am saying that each person has a larger identity than the framework of consciousness with which you are ordinarily familiar in life.

The point here, I am not sure whether you can grasp it. He is saying that although we cannot directly contact this material world while in it, the first thing you contact is your consciousness. If we look at it from this angle, then we must necessarily be in contact with a larger world. And on that level, we can directly contact that world, without needing to rely on this consciousness to perceive the world as we do now. So he says, from this we can infer that we should have a larger conscious identity within the framework of consciousness, and within this larger identity, we would not need to rely on consciousness to perceive the world the way we do now.

This principle sounds simple when stated, but it is not so easy to understand. Because even if we understand this passage today, we still have to understand it through our consciousness.

Let me give a simple illustrative example. Suppose we are in a particular game scenario. For a character in this game scenario to experience the environment, the objects, the levels, and so on within the game, he must enter into the game. Suppose this game requires some kind of virtual engine, or requires wearing something like a VR headset. Then he must rely on this device to enter the game. If we externalize this device as a VR headset, it is actually equivalent to our consciousness—we must rely on such a tool to enter into a virtual simulated reality game. If we say that the material world we live in is a virtual reality game, then if we want to move, live, and operate within this virtual reality three-dimensional world, the only tool we can use is our consciousness. Without this consciousness, or without engaging this consciousness, we have no way to operate or act within this three-dimensional world. We need to understand this point well.

Through this point, we can actually infer in reverse that we must have a larger identity, one that does not need to rely on this VR headset to perceive the existence of the world. I give this example to help you understand the meaning of this passage.

A New Consciousness, a Larger Consciousness

When you are born:

You understand that you have a new consciousness.

Actually you have a larger consciousness, but as soon as you are born, you have a new consciousness.

As you explore its branches, this new consciousness is one branch, and it is the primary evidence of your existence in the physical body.

This new consciousness is the primary evidence of your existence in your physical body. The reason you can prove the existence of your life in this reincarnation is because of this new consciousness — this consciousness of the ego based in the body. Without this consciousness, you could not even be aware that you exist in this body. So this is a core. But you must remember, this is a new consciousness, and you have a larger consciousness — a larger you also has a larger consciousness, and this consciousness in the physical body is only a new branch.

Direct Contact and Secondhand Information

Basically, each person must confront the experience of reality through direct contact.

We all need to confront our present, actual experience through direct contact.

Of course, this contact is made through the use of the physical senses to perceive and interpret what happens in the material world.

You have to make contact with this material world in order to have experience, but what do you use when you make contact? You use your physical senses. In our Buddhism we call them the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind.¹ Your five sense organs—eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body—all ultimately converge at the level of consciousness, and it is through consciousness that you cognize the world around you.

Those senses' utilization, however, depends upon the nature of your consciousness.

That is, how you use these senses is applied through the nature of your consciousness.

And that consciousness, through the use of its own attributes, perceives its own power, and action.

The reason your five sense organs can perceive this world, the reason they are able to perceive this world at all, is also an attribute and capacity of consciousness. It is precisely because you have this nature of consciousness that your five sense organs can have perception and experience. Tell me, when you have no consciousness, is there any use in having five sense organs alone? There is no use. It is like when a person loses consciousness—for example, when he is in a coma, or when he is in a vegetative state—he can no longer obtain the corresponding information from his five sense organs. Having five sense organs in vain cannot serve any function; it must be that these five sense organs, combined with his consciousness, work together before he can feel his own power and action.

And these attributes—what does "attributes" refer to here? What are these attributes of consciousness? They are imagination, creation, telepathy, clairvoyance, and the ability to dream, as well as the faculties of logic and reasoning. These are all attributes of your consciousness—but they are not all the attributes of your consciousness. Here you must understand that these are only some of the attributes of your consciousness. So consciousness itself inherently possesses imagination, creation, telepathy, clairvoyance, the ability to dream, and the rational analytical capacity of logic and reasoning.

You know you dream, you know you think—those are direct experiences, these are all direct experiences. You know you are dreaming, you know you are thinking, and you do not need inference, nor do you need anything else. The experiences in dreams are vivid and lifelike, and you know them completely.

Any time you use instruments to probe the nature of reality, no matter how precise those instruments may be, you are looking at secondhand evidence.

Here he is telling you: knowing that you dream, or knowing your perception—that is what counts as firsthand experience; whereas what instruments tell you—all of that is secondhand data, secondhand information.

The subjective evidence of dreaming, for example, is far more convincing and irrefutable than evidence of an expanding universe, or of black holes, or even of atoms and molecules themselves.

He says the evidence of dreaming, your direct experience, is extremely direct. You do not doubt in the slightest that you just had a dream, and you do not doubt in the slightest the dream experiences you went through in that dream. But have you ever seen an atom? Have you ever seen a molecule? Have you ever seen a black hole? Have you ever seen the universe expanding? Because all of these are things that instruments tell you, that scientists tell you. Yet you believe these more, and instead you do not believe your dreams. But in fact, the experience your dreams give you is far more real than those, and it is more direct, firsthand information. And these things you have neither seen nor observed—you have not even seen them through instruments, unless you are a scientist, in which case you might have made observations through instruments; if you are not even a scientist, you have not even seen them at all. So why do you believe them so deeply, while regarding your real experience as unreal?

Again, while instruments can indeed be quite advantageous in many ways.

I am not trying to deny the usefulness of instruments; instruments are indeed useful.

They still give you secondhand information, however, rather than being firsthand exploratory tools.

No matter how useful they are, they are still secondhand information.

And they distort the nature of reality far more than the subjective attributes of thought, feeling, and intuition.

If you want to explore this universe, do you explore it with a secondhand instrument, or do you explore it with your direct perception? Our scientists choose to explore with secondhand instruments; they trust instruments more, and they do not trust their own intuition, feelings, or judgment—they feel these are all unimportant and cannot serve as evidence, and only what the instruments obtain counts as evidence. When Seth puts it this way, do you suddenly have a flash of realization and say: oh, so that is how it is. Is what is obtained through instruments more distorted, because it is secondhand? Whereas what you directly feel and intuit is the most real? Although it is also a kind of distortion, it is still better than the instrument.

The human consciousness, therefore, has not developed the best and most proper tools for examining the nature of reality, and it is precisely because you have used other methods that much evidence remains invisible to you—evidence that would show the physical universe existing in a manner quite different from what you suppose.

He says your human consciousness has not developed more effective tools for examining the nature of reality—this is a shortcoming of human consciousness. Our human consciousness cannot directly examine the truth of the universe; we must rely on these outer senses to examine it. This is a limitation of us ordinary humans. It is precisely because we use the method of the outer senses that we shut out the inner senses. When you use the outer senses to perceive this world, the world you see and the world you would perceive with the inner senses are completely different. When you perceive the world with the inner senses, the evidence that is ordinarily invisible to the outer senses will show itself very clearly. And at that point, the universe you see exists in a completely different manner from the universe you see with the outer senses.

In other words, the universe you see with the outer senses—with your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body—is an objectified and materialized existence; whereas the universe you see with the inner senses is a subjective, energetic state of existence. There is a great difference between the two: one is objective and material, the other is subjective and energetic.

You have been taught not to trust your subjective experience, which means you have been told not to trust your initial and firsthand contact with reality.

From childhood you have been taught not to believe these things, but to believe instruments. In effect, this is suggesting to you: do not believe your firsthand data, but believe secondhand data.

Evidence for Reincarnation and Life After Death

The evidence for reincarnation is also very available.

We have been saying all along whether people actually have reincarnation, and the evidence for this is extremely abundant.

There are enough examples already known, and already listed, to prove the fact of reincarnation.

There are especially many, many examples. If you search online for evidence of reincarnation, just search for that online, and a great many will come up.

And beyond that, there is also psychological evidence in your private life that has always been invisible.

Besides the external evidence you can see, in your personal life there is also some psychological evidence that has always been invisible. For example, you suddenly prefer certain things, or you like certain things, and you do not know why, you are just born that way. These are all very obvious pieces of evidence. Or you keep having a certain dream, and so on.

Only because you have been taught not to pay attention in that direction.

Since childhood we have been told those things are not important, do not bother with them. So you do not pay attention to them.

There is enough evidence to prove the fact of life after death.

There is a great deal of proof for life after death. There is a documentary specifically covering all of this about life after death — each person's real experience, their experience after death, near-death experiences, and so on.

Episodes encountered by individuals very strongly point to the hypothesis of life after death.

Everyone will tell you that after he dies he still has perception, has awareness, that he has experienced and gone through these things. But that hypothesis has never been taken seriously by your established science. Yet whether or not there is life after death, should we not study it? But science never studies it. Science never studies these things about reincarnation. It considers none of these to be evidence, not even data or material.

For example, there is far more evidence for reincarnation and life after death than there is for black holes.

He says, for example, the evidence for reincarnation and life after death is far more abundant than the evidence for black holes — evidence for black holes is actually very hard to find. Seth says in an amused tone:

Very few people have ever seen a black hole.

No one has ever seen a black hole, so how can you be so certain about black holes?

Yet countless people have referred to secret reincarnational experiences or contacts in which the personality survived death.

Those near-death experiences and experiences of reincarnation after death — many people have given you evidence, and even you yourself have had some experiences, yet you turn a blind eye to them.

Those experiences are commonplace, they have been reported by people of all ages, and they represent a kind of commonsense knowledge that famous universities and scholars disdain.

Such reports are everywhere, yet those universities and research institutions never study these things.

Throughout this book, we will often speak of experiences that most people encounter in some fashion, yet they are not sanctioned by established knowledge.

In this book, I will talk about many direct experiences or direct encounters that most people have, and although these have not been sanctioned by our traditional science, this book will focus on them.

So throughout this book, I will discuss the many different characteristics of dreams through genetics, reincarnation, culture, and your personal life.

We will also consider matters related to your personal value fulfillment, and free will and its role.

We will also talk about your personal value fulfillment, what free will you have within this value fulfillment, and the question of your role within this value fulfillment — these are the points he wants to address in this book.

Rob's Note

This is the content. Then a closing note -- after Seth completed his entire book in 1982, that is, the whole of Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Seth's final note said the following:

After we published the two volumes of Seth's The "Unknown" Reality in 1977 and 1979, Jane and I decided we wanted his books to be shorter; we never wanted to split into two volumes again. Of course, this time we did it again -- we split into two volumes again. When we began organizing Seth's dictation for this book, and adding Jane's and my notes, plus excerpts from other related sessions, the situation quickly became obvious: the whole work had grown too long and had to be divided into two volumes.

At first, I felt sorry for the readers, because the book would be interrupted, and yet at the same time I was happy for ourselves -- because in addition to presenting Seth's dictation, I had room to develop other personal and worldly themes involving Seth, Jane, and myself.

Rob would also discuss some of the ordinary, mundane life content of the three of them -- Seth, Jane, and himself. Then Rob said, I think they added more dimensions of meaning to the book -- indeed, they were a great help to our understanding of some of the content of the Seth material.

The first half of the entire book ends here, and Chapter Six also ends here.

We continue with the second volume of the Seth book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment. The second volume is likewise divided into six chapters, from Chapter Seven through Chapter Twelve, and after Chapter Twelve there are also about ten essays, mainly Rob's records of his and Jane's daily life, especially the process of Jane's struggle with illness. The front matter is the same as in Volume One, so we won't go over it, but Rob's preface was prepared specifically for Volume Two, so let's briefly go through it.

Rob said that when he discovered Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment would grow so long that it had to be split into two volumes, he began thinking about how to synthesize all the material Jane, Seth, and he himself had contributed to Volume One. He had a funny thought -- if he really did it the way he wanted, this preface would be as long as the preface to Volume One. Later he realized there was no need to write a long and detailed preface for Volume Two; readers would do best to read Volume One before going deeper into Volume Two, and there was no better way to understand the complex themes of that book. He was afraid readers would buy only Volume Two and read it directly, so he suggested that readers really read Volume One carefully. That is indeed the case.

However, by mentioning here the combination of Seth and Jane, along with three short pieces of material from Rob's own editor at Prentice Hall, Tam Mossman, it could help inspire readers to enter this book. Rob added some of his own follow-up comments.

After Jane and Rob completed Volume Two, Tam wrote a letter to the publisher's executives. While Jane and Rob worked hard to prepare for publication, Tam and the others at the publishing house had waited very patiently for several years. During that time, no one pressured them. The publisher never demanded that they turn in the manuscript quickly, and they were deeply grateful for that freedom. In the letter, Tam enthusiastically recommended the book to the publisher's boss, and Rob thought he very neatly explained the way and purpose with which he had produced this book.

Tam's editorial recommendation read like this: This book is worth the long wait. It is in fact three books in one -- two of them are Seth's Volume One and Volume Two, which Seth fans have been waiting for, and the third is an unexpected, unanticipated bonus -- the ten essays.

The core of this Seth book was already good enough, but Rob added a detailed, heartbreaking report describing why Jane, who possessed so many psychic and creative resources, fell into such deep physical pain. Many readers had written letters repeatedly asking such questions. Rob made a complete and careful report on this point, and although the result is not necessarily easy reading, this essay section still answers the question Seth readers have been asking all along and which is not easy to answer: since Jane had so much ability to transmit the Seth material, why did she herself contract such a serious illness and die in her fifties?

The Seth material also includes not only the book dictation, but also much pertinent private material about Jane's illness and other parallel sessions, including some private sessions. So in the final analysis, fans of Jane Roberts will be given one of the best books in the Seth series. Tam considered this book one of the best of all Seth's books, and indeed, Seth himself said it was his most ambitious work. This book raises and answers the meaning and essence of Seth's entire body of work.

Tam's enthusiasm for this book was only tempered by Jane's suffering and Rob's necessary record of groping for a way out. He saw that Rob and Jane, regarding Jane's illness, pain, and how to search for treatment, were tempered by this suffering. So this book carries not only a trace of tragedy, but it should not make Jane's readers too sad -- they know the facts, and now they long to know the story. In fact, if possible, this book will be published as soon as possible.

Rob said that Tam's descriptions in this book of Jane's personal challenges are heartbreaking. They strike at our fears of illness, disability, and even death, making us consciously face those possibilities, while at the same time they perfectly reflect our equally deep inner needs and longings. In this book Rob reported as clearly as possible Jane's struggle with her physical symptoms, and he also asked each reader to bring forth their best insight and deepest understanding. Even if that material is not easy to evoke, in his view it is essential to understanding what the Seth material is all about.

He said that Jane's struggle with illness -- the fact that this illness happened to her in the flesh -- is also part of the Seth material, and it is a part that is both unavoidable and essential. It lets us see what problems and challenges Jane herself faced as the transmitter of the Seth material.

Rob said he had discovered long ago that Jane's remarkable creative ability was so closely connected to her personal challenges that they were inseparable. What this means is, the more such challenges there were, or the more such physical difficulties there were, the stronger Jane's creativity became. She was the kind of person who, the greater the pressure, the greater the rebound -- unlike most people who would say, I have such great physical pain, so I give up. So Rob's point is that because he knew Jane relatively well, he said Jane's creativity and the challenges she faced were inseparable, which in a sense implies that without these physical sufferings, perhaps Jane's great creativity could not have been aroused.

So everything has its two sides.

Rob went on to say that they were never interested in merely producing a series of books about psychic abilities, without all the human, personal details they had accumulated over a lifetime -- the details that enriched every minute, every second, every day and month, and created the wholeness of their entire lives. He did not want to write a series of textbook-like books, with no human warmth, no variety of human experience, no trivial matters of daily life, no suffering, all about bright, correct, great cosmic truths. He wanted to blend every little bit of life with the Seth material, to give readers the most real, most complete understanding -- including of life and of Jane's whole life.

He was right to do so. The charm of the Seth material, which distinguishes it from other material, lies precisely in this. Look at other material -- it basically never mentions the channelers or their specific lives; what is transmitted seems to be truth beyond question. But the Seth material is not like that. It is like an old friend chatting with you -- except that it is an extremely wise old friend from a higher dimension. In the process of speaking gently and at length, he subtly uses his wisdom and ability to bring knowledge into your conscious level in an imperceptible way, unknowingly expanding the depth and breadth of your consciousness -- that is his characteristic. And the bits and pieces of his and Jane's life that Rob recorded here also fill the whole book, the whole set of Seth material, with human warmth, with tenderness, and with a trace of tragic color. Jane became very seriously ill toward the end; she kept transmitting the Seth material until the week before her death -- if it was the week before, she was still transmitting the last session, and then a week later she passed away. From The Way Toward Health you can see how she lived each day of her life.

Rob said he also believed the common saying -- that every living entity in the world is engaged in such a process of fulfillment, tailoring it for unique individual purposes. He said, I believe every entity in this world is creating their own life in this mutually reinforcing, inseparable state of facing challenges and stimulating their own creative ability. Just like us, and the same for you. You also have your own challenges and your own problems in life, and this is normal -- only with challenges is there creativity. If life had no challenges, if everything were calm and uneventful, then you would have no creativity and no motivation to create. So do not be afraid of challenges; go out and meet them. Seth said very, very early on, and I have also said in all the sessions, Seth's philosophy of life is to rise up and meet challenges in the three-dimensional world; challenge is the most important point.

Rob said that, in larger terms, Jane and he believed the earth is alive, and that the universe itself is also alive. He did feel that part of that fulfillment designed a global, possibly cosmic healing activity. What this means is that our living, very down-to-earth life in the three-dimensional world itself carries a strong healing effect. The trivialities of life, the daily necessities, themselves carry a certain healing and restorative effect. If you remove all of that, leaving only the grand, glorious, and correct, idealism, great undertakings, human development, human civilization, then it actually loses a certain healing effect. And every form of life makes a contribution -- the sick and the healthy, the well and the defective, all contribute to the whole of life. At least on earth, we ourselves have created this important force, which sustains us within an endless great synthesis of rebirth. It tells us that everyone has their own important meaning in this life.

Yet we have not read anything about this, at least not seen it written from this angle. What angle? That our daily lives have a healing effect on the development of the whole human race and the whole earth, whether sick or healthy, and so on. Humanity should study the whole subject of global healing; we should look at this great subject of the healing of the entire earth from a larger vision or a larger scale. Thus the knowledge we can obtain will lead us into new realms of thought and feeling.

What does he mean by this? It means that illness, genetic deformities, gene mutations, and even the prevalence of certain viruses, are in fact manifestations of possible genes in the process of human development. They show the diversity and complexity of human genes, and they also embody genetic possibilities, which at certain periods will re-activate these possibilities. To put it simply, illness -- including Jane's illness -- is also an important link in the healing system of the entire earth. Do not think that only healthy people have a healing effect; these deformities or illnesses likewise have the same effect.

Then he went on to say that in Jane's own creative way, she was doing exactly this. Although Jane had illness in her body, in spirit, in transmitting the Seth material, she did better than everyone. The symptoms of Jane's body were a signpost of her personal struggle and of the incomplete knowledge she and Rob shared -- indicating that they still had much to learn. Jane's success and failure -- the success was in the process of transmitting the Seth material, and if we speak from the angle of failure, she did not take good care of herself. Seth led the way for many people, led the way for all people, and we are still studying the material he transmitted today. Although his own body was not well, and he did not fully accomplish some of the things Seth taught, that did not prevent him from leading the way for everyone. Even with Rob's help, Rob said, the path my wife walked was still extremely lonely. Jane, in her essential inner self, was extremely lonely, even with Rob's companionship.

The endless variety of consciousness springing from this global healing process must truly be never-ending, and each one is forever creative, forever looking forward, looking toward a bright, positive direction. That is the point he wanted to make.

This preface itself is not difficult, but it carries a great overall emotional state within it. Rob wanted to use Jane's story to tell readers how they should view Jane, the Seth material, and this book, as well as the issues he wanted to address in the chapters below. If you want to understand the detailed records, you can read the essay section later; all ten essays contain detailed records of daily life. The reason Rob wrote such a preface is that this preface connects with the content of the following chapter. This chapter is actually the second part of the previous Session 909; that entire session was divided into two parts, with the first part placed at the end of Chapter Six and this part placed at the beginning of Chapter Seven. In order to make this book stand on its own, Rob wrote this very emotional preface, with a touch of sadness but also with great warmth and positivity, making a very good link and integration between Volume Two and Volume One.

Chapter 7: Genetics and Reincarnation

Let's look at Chapter 7 of the Seth book: Genetics and Reincarnation, Gifts and Deficiencies, the Vast Genetic and Reincarnational Scale, the Free and the Handicapped. From the title you can see that this chapter actually continues the theme of Chapter 6, discussing genes, deficiencies, and congenital disabilities.

This is the second segment of Session 909, beginning at 9:34. Seth says: "Give us a moment, and the next chapter will begin." The title has already been read, so I won't repeat it. After a long pause, Seth says:

You are born as a species that includes idiots and geniuses, fools and wise men, athletes and malformed individuals, very beautiful beauties and very ugly people, and all the various kinds of people in between.

That is, between the ugliest and the most beautiful, between the smartest and the most foolish, there are all kinds of different people. So there are truly infinite kinds of genetic cultures at work -- he calls them genetic cultures -- and each has its place and its reason, each has the rationality of its existence, its correct position and reason for being, and each fits into the whole picture. That whole picture is not just the overall picture of one person's reality, but also includes the picture of all natural earthly reality. The tall and short, fat and thin, beautiful and ugly, intelligent and foolish among humans -- all this diversity not only fulfills the completeness of the overall picture of humanity, but also fulfills the completeness of the entire natural world of the earth.

Your religious concepts often tell you that congenital deformities are the result of the parents' sins cast upon the child, and they design a kind of punishment called karmic debt, or karma, or kamma. In biological terms, people speak of coming from good stock or bad stock, inferior stock, and even those implications, those labels, also imply moral judgments.

People don't say it aloud, but in their hearts they think: you must have done something bad in a previous life, otherwise why would your child be born without an anus. We Chinese often curse others by saying "may your child be born without an anus," meaning that this person has done bad things. So he is saying that this kind of congenital deformity carries an implied suggestion: you probably didn't do anything good, otherwise why would your child be disabled. Therefore, parents who have a disabled child at home feel deeply ashamed in their hearts. When you speak to their child with even a tone of sympathy, even a tone of pity, or with those kinds of looks, it actually hurts them as well. Don't think that sympathy and pity are expressions of love -- they are not. Sometimes the sting to them is very intense. So what should you do? You should just treat the child as a normal child. Treat them as different, not as wrong.

You see, on the talk show "Rock & Roast," there was a woman named Zhang Cailing². She originally posted videos on Douyin all the time. She has a foreign husband and always made fun of him. Because Douyin became popular, she was later invited onto "Rock & Roast." She often says one thing about her husband: her husband never thinks he has done anything wrong. Her husband says, "I'm not wrong, I'm just different from you all." She tells it as a joke, but actually this statement is very wise. When you feel you lack confidence, when others strike at you, just remember what he said. Her husband very firmly -- very seriously, not joking -- says, "I'm not wrong, I'm just different from you all." This viewpoint is something I hope everyone can understand.

The whole concept of reincarnation has also been greatly distorted by other religious concepts.

We have distorted reincarnation, including Buddhism -- it especially distorts this thing, always tying it to things like karma. Reincarnation is not a psychological economy factory composed of sin and punishment. Reincarnation is not for that -- you did good or bad deeds in a previous life, and in the next life you get punished. No.

Again, within the characteristics you yourselves have established, you have free will in the conditions of your life. The great talents and adaptability of humanity depend upon the amazing interplay between genetic precision and genetic freedom.

This diversity of humans, including talents and adaptability, all comes from the accurate expression of genes and the mechanism by which genes have very great freedom to mutate, interacting with each other. If genes could not accurately transmit information, that would be very dangerous; but if they transmitted with strict, exact precision, with no mutation, no change, no variation at all, that would also be terrifying. So there is both the accuracy of genetic transmission -- there is too much discussion of this in biology, so I won't say more -- and also uncertain genetic mutation. Only the combination of these two can bring human talents and adaptability in the environment to their fullest.

The very characteristic attributes of humanity, reliability and integrity, depend upon constant checks and balances, and upon the existence of the different characteristics against which humanity can measure itself.

The reliability and integrity of genes require a constant check and balance, meaning they need to be constantly displayed between the best and the worst, between two extremes. This display is actually a kind of check and balance -- to see what kind of mechanism one can ultimately develop biologically: how smart can the smartest be, how idiotic can the most idiotic be.

If you can't understand this, you can think of it as a display monitor. It certainly has to test how bright it can get at its brightest and how dark it can get at its darkest. The newest computers and monitors from Apple are all very good now. The highest brightness can reach 1600 nits³, and the darkest areas are close to pure black, close to zero, emitting no light -- because it uses mini-LED technology, turning off the backlight in that area. So its contrast ratio, the contrast between the brightest and the darkest, can reach 1,000,000 to 1⁴. This example seems completely unrelated, but if you map it onto human genes, you can understand what this check and balance means. There always has to be, between the brightest and the darkest, a look at what extremes human limits can reach -- someone always has to play the darkest state, and someone always has to play the brightest point.

Humanity is also always in the process of the millions of characteristics preserved in its gene pool.

The human gene pool can combine freely. Although there are only tens of thousands of genes, the permutations and combinations are far more than millions. These millions of characteristics always have to be tried out one by one -- you can't say I have this ability but have never used it, so is this ability still good? Can it still be used? You don't know. So there will always be, among the vast population, some genetic mutations that exist to display one of these millions of genetic possibilities. Although what is expressed is a form of deformity or handicap, and from a humanitarian perspective it may seem very unfair to this person, from the perspective of the balance of the entire human gene pool and the maintenance of the effectiveness of the various characteristics in the gene pool, it is necessary. If it were not so, humanity's genetic attributes could not guarantee their effectiveness, nor could they guarantee the effectiveness of the millions of genetic characteristics in the gene pool.

Those characteristics may be useful in various kinds of accidents. For example, this example is hard to give -- for instance, if I have no hands, can I do nothing at all? According to your understanding, yes. But you see many people without hands whose feet are still very nimble -- they can knit sweaters, cook with their feet, prepare meals. Whatever your hands can do, they can do. So do our feet have this ability? Yes, but you don't use it. But it has to be tested from time to time. How is it tested? Let one person be born without hands. Then they have no choice but to use their feet, and they test the ability of their feet -- this gene works, it's fine. So in some extreme accident, for example if a person loses both hands in a car crash, their feet can still sustain their life, and this ability has long been preserved in the gene pool. This example I'm giving is not quite apt, but it just gives you a way of thinking.

And in that regard, there is of course a connection between many kinds of viruses and the health of other human species. The possibility of creative change must always exist.

That is, the possibility of creative change must always exist, including diseases and viruses. You may wonder why viruses keep evolving endlessly -- from Alpha, Beta, Delta, and now all the way to who knows what. Why does it keep evolving? Because it is trying out all possibilities, in order to guarantee human resilience. This genetic creativity is also what guarantees human resilience.

And that resilience can manifest in many ways, in what you think of as deformities, congenital handicaps, or any variations from the assumed bodily standard. You all look quite similar, generally speaking, each with one head, two hands, and two legs. These differences and variations, which are quite amusing in a way, are very obvious on some level.

For example, you may have more or fewer fingers than you should, or one hand with two thumbs, or any condition considered a deformity. This is very common -- people often grow a sixth finger, commonly called a sixth finger. There are too many cases to go into.

There are also mental conditions. Besides the physical ones you can see, there are also mental ones -- for example, the so-called simpletons who do not have the reasoning mind that others have.

The so-called simpletons are those without logic, without rationality, without a reasoning mind. We call them intellectually disabled.

Again, there are also people who are extremely gifted physically and intellectually. They sometimes seem as far from ordinary people in their degree of freedom as the idiot is at the other end of the human spectrum.

People who are naturally brilliant seem almost not human. I don't know if you've ever met one, but such people occasionally appear in life. For example, they really can read a book once and remember it all -- this is no exaggeration. For example, they never study seriously in class and never do homework, but every time they always score 100. There are always geniuses like this.

So as we continue, I hope to show you the role that all these conditions, of the individual and of our human species, play in development.

The content that follows will tell you -- not in this session, but in other later content -- what the relationship is between this individual and the entire human species, and what roles each of them plays.

From the human standpoint, or from the standpoint of the individual, on a relatively small level of activity, such differences will of course be overlooked by you. You do not know whether you have any bad genes unless their effects show themselves.

From a macro perspective, we can know that there are all kinds of people -- intelligent ones, deformed ones, those born with athletic talent. But returning to each individual, you don't know whether your genes contain those combinations that might cause physical problems, whether it is like a programmed sequence that will be triggered at a certain time.

But in fact, on the microscopic level there is no such thing as something that conforms to a standard, and it is utterly impossible to predict with complete certainty the development of any genetic factor.

Actually there is no specific determination at all that you will definitely get cancer in this life, or definitely get some disease, that because you have a family genetic history you will necessarily be a certain way. There is no certainty, no definite, secure determination that you will definitely be one way or definitely not another. Here he once again confirms for you: free will plays a very large role. You can make collective predictions, for example what percentage of people will get this disease -- that is possible. But for individuals you cannot make predictions; every individual is completely different.

And overall certain judgments can be made, but because other factors are involved, no particular genetic factor can be precisely predicted in its development. This is because its activity also involves relationships of manifestation that are not within any of your calculations.

Why can't it be predicted? Because it is not within the range that can be calculated on our level. The inner data far exceeds the scope you can understand, or rather, the thing behind it does not display itself on our level. So how can you know whether it changes or not?

As you use your free will through the experience of your life, and constantly make new decisions, your thoughts, your feelings, your desires and your intents, and also your reincarnational knowledge, adjust that structure, bringing certain latent characteristics into actualization while de-emphasizing others.

This last paragraph is the finishing touch. He tells you: so how exactly do these genes operate -- which ones take effect and which ones don't? He says which genes manifest, or weaken certain characteristics, or weaken some and strengthen others, depends mainly on your free will. And you also have to change constantly, because your thoughts, feelings, intents, and desires all change. When these things change, including your reincarnational knowledge -- that is, the experiences, intents, and wishes accumulated over many lifetimes -- when all of these influence you at the same time, they adjust that entire structure. What structure? The structure of whether genes mutate or not, whether genes express accurately or undergo some possible changes. The structure he refers to is the structure of the influence of genes on the human body. Then it will bring certain latent things that were not originally there into your life, into your bodily changes, and it will also weaken some things that were originally there.

So this is very subtle. For example, some people get cancer, and it can be weakened until it disappears; some people don't have cancer, and they may get cancer -- it is brought into the realm of possibility. What does he emphasize here? What we learn from this is: your thoughts, feelings, desires, and intents are very important. Is your reincarnational knowledge important? Also important. Is what we are learning here today useful? It is useful. It is useful not only for this life of yours, but for all your lives, because they all help and influence those inner yous. So the knowledge you learn in this life will affect your other reincarnations.

Jane's Afternoon Out-of-Body Experience

Then Seth said: "Our dictation is over. Do you have any questions?" Rob said: "Would you like to say anything about a small out-of-body experience at noon today?"

This out-of-body experience was quite amusing. At noon, Jane left her sleeping body in her bedroom and traveled to her writing room at the back of the house. There she ran into Rob, who was also in an out-of-body state -- remember, not the real Rob, but Rob in an out-of-body state. Two out-of-body people met in Jane's writing room, and they had a very vivid conversation. Afterwards, Jane insisted that Rob had also been out of body -- she said, "You weren't chatting with the real you; you were chatting with the out-of-body you." Although Rob had no conscious memory of any such event. Rob said: "How come I didn't know I was out of body? I wasn't out of body." They speculated that the time when Jane's experience happened was exactly when Rob had finished his morning painting and was washing his oil paint brushes in the bathroom sink. Because the brushes always had to be washed clean, this was a daily routine for him. The painter finished his morning painting, then sat by the bathroom sink at noon washing his brushes -- because there were quite a few brushes, all different sizes, and he washed them clean.

At that moment he was actually in a very relaxed state, as was just mentioned -- this is a state that allows a portion of the psyche to freely engage in other adventures. He was very relaxed at that time; whether his consciousness had gone off to do something else, he had no idea. However, since Rob was awake while Jane was sleeping, they guessed that those same habitual cleaning tasks were enough to occupy Rob's mind, so that he could not perceive what another part of him was up to.

Even such a seemingly monotonous daily brush-washing action can focus the consciousness on washing the brushes, so that he cannot perceive that a real part of his consciousness has already left the body. This example tells you that sometimes you are out of body without knowing it yourself. When you say, "I have never been out of body," that only means your consciousness has never been out of body. A true out-of-body experience only refers to a conscious out-of-body experience; unconscious out-of-body experiences are far too numerous. You may recall the piano player in The Psyche⁵ -- while he was playing the piano, his soul had already left his body.

Seth said:

His out-of-body experience was the result of a change of attitude, and it was made possible because Ruburt's body was relaxed.

Ruburt relaxed his body. Ruburt had always been tense before, so he went out of body. He was practicing using his consciousness, allowing himself greater freedom, and at that time, a portion of your mind was drifting -- remember, not all of it, just a portion of your mind was drifting.

Now when people are focused on other things, they may be wiggling a foot, or doodling with their hands, or playing with a pen, or tapping on a table. They are also practicing with their consciousness in the same way, doodling with their minds, relaxing themselves in such a manner, wandering off, refreshing themselves. And you were both doing that. But Ruburt, so to speak, caught his own little tail.

Just like when you are ordinarily absent-minded, you make movements you are not aware of -- shaking your leg, doodling with your hands, some people twirl a pen around and around, or pull at their hair, touch their nose, tap the table, and so on. You make these movements unconsciously. Your consciousness does similar things -- it doesn't tap the table, it wanders off. When you are doing something, your consciousness slips out. What does it slip out to do? To relax itself. Because it feels there is nothing much going on here, so it slips out. It slips out to refresh itself -- refreshing means regaining a kind of recharging sensation.

Why does it have to slip out in order to refresh itself, in order to recharge? Because normally, our consciousness is actually very tired inside our bodies. It originally could be outside the body, moving around freely, floating here and there, flying here and there. But inside the physical body it cannot do that -- when consciousness combines with the physical body, it has to walk. If it wants to see someone, it has to walk there, drive there, or take public transportation. But consciousness itself, without the encumbrance of the physical body, would be in front of that person in an instant. So the physical body is an encumbrance to it. Therefore, when it has the opportunity to slip away and relax, it will go out on its own.

Seth said that both of you were like this -- when Rob was washing his brushes and when Jane was sleeping, both of your consciousnesses came out to wander. It was just that Jane caught the state of her own consciousness coming out, and knew she was out of body. Both of you were wandering in the house -- he used this term, both of your consciousnesses came out in part, both were wandering. And Ruburt, in that place of his mind, caught himself and discovered he was out of body. It was just that his physical body was not in the same place.

That is to say, when your consciousness comes out to wander, you can discover that you are wandering. But if your physical body is not together with your wandering consciousness, then you know you are out of body. This is one state.

Because this is like a mental doodle -- like doodling with your hands, like a casual mental scribble, a relaxation. So the colors are not yet complete, and the picture is not yet finished.

It was very casual, not as intense as those out-of-body sensations. So this was a mental slip-away, a kind of relaxation.

The entire conversation was an attempt to make the event seem plausible.

Why did the two of you have to be together chatting? Actually, both of you knew this state was a mental slip-away. But in order to make it seem plausible, the two of you had to say something, and then enrich the event, as if it then had color, had content, had flesh and blood.

He said this was an attempt to color the picture -- you wanted to add color to this event, so the two of you created a conversation.

Seth said: "You both did very well. Good night."

This passage is very interesting. Jane went out of body and discovered that Rob was also out of body, and the two of them chatted for a while. The key point is that Rob did not know he was out of body -- Jane said he was out of body, and she saw him out of body. So regarding out-of-body experiences, it is not as simple as we think; it is more complex than we understand. We will discuss this out-of-body experience separately when we get to The Early Sessions. In The Early Sessions, Seth divided out-of-body experiences into three levels, three states, three different depths. Most of our ordinary experiences are the first type of out-of-body experience, the general kind -- whether we call it the astral body, the spirit body, or the etheric body, the name is not important; many people call it by different names. This is one type.

The second type of out-of-body experience is when you can create a consciousness space, and within that consciousness space you can enter other people's spaces, or you can go together into a shared space. In other words, from a certain perspective, when you master the second type of out-of-body experience, you can enter other people's consciousness spaces, or enter a shared consciousness space. You can even enter other people's dreams, or enter into the other person's mind, or you can agree upon a space together. This is the second level.

The third type of out-of-body experience is even deeper; basically your consciousness can hardly capture it. In the third type of out-of-body state, you can obtain that kind of knowledge -- direct perception, which is the fourth inner sense, the direct acquisition based on concepts. You gain this ability. In that state, many legends describe teachers teaching students, or students entering an out-of-body state to learn certain knowledge and then returning -- all of that learning happens in this state. It is like a sudden flash where you know everything at once. Understanding based on concepts is only possible in the third type of out-of-body state; the first two do not have this ability.

So out-of-body experiences are far more complex than you think. A simple example: when you are out of body, your consciousness has left your body, right? You are in our three-dimensional world, which means you are no longer limited by the physical body, and in the three-dimensional world your consciousness can wander freely -- that is one type. Another type is when you go out of body within a consciousness space; you are not out of body in this physical world, but in another consciousness space. In the second type of out-of-body experience, if your ability is strong enough, you can even create your own consciousness space, create a world, and do whatever you want in that world. In this state, you can arrange to meet others there; otherwise you would not be able to meet others in this consciousness space.

Jane's Poem for Rob

Now let's look at the notes. These two poems were written by Jane for Rob's birthday last year, and they fit very well here.

Jane said:

I always feel I have always known you Yet every day you surprise me With a new version of yourself Which I then commit to memory

He memorized the new him again. He applauded inwardly and said "of course," and you are in the process of becoming yet another new version, one he had come to know just a short while before.

The meaning of this poem is: you haven't changed, you are still the same you, but every day or every time you appear as a new version. You are a person who is renewed every day, yet you are still that person, still the one I know, even though every day you surprise me.

The second poem:

This private probability is not so bad When you consider that to get here We had to make our way through the public world Molecules waiting on the flanks Seeking the precise leap into space and time Tiny units of consciousness Centuries later Finding ourselves Out of millions of other forms we had taken part in Only the Jane and Rob we wanted

To put it simply, our consciousness, after millions of years, has reassembled itself together again. In between, our consciousness may have returned to the universe, to all things, to leaves, to flowers, to the soil, but that does not prevent us, after several centuries, from reassembling into "you are still you, and I am still me." After several hundred years we meet again, and I still recognize you, and you still recognize me. This is somewhat like the idea of "three lives, three worlds, ten miles of peach blossoms." This is Jane's poem, given to Rob as a birthday gift, carrying a strong sense of love within it, and also a deep sense of traversing history, a feeling of crossing through time.

注释与核实

1. Source: Fo Guang Shan Electronic Tripitaka, "Similes for the Six Sense Organs" (https://etext.fgs.org.tw/store_content.aspx?id=8) ↩

2. This claim could not be verified. ↩

3. Source: Apple, "Pro Display XDR - Technical Specifications" (https://support.apple.com/zh-cn/111892) ↩

4. Source: Apple, "Pro Display XDR - Technical Specifications" (https://support.apple.com/zh-cn/111892) ↩

5. This claim could not be verified. ↩