The "Reading Guide" and "Chapter Highlights" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the block quotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This chapter records the process by which Jane and Rob, after a long break from the sessions, fell into physical and mental depression and repeatedly attempted self-help plans that kept getting interrupted, and then transitions into Seth's dictation on the "life cloud": life sows itself across space as seeds and possibilities, dreams, thoughts, and the life cloud interweave with one another, and every existence participates in value fulfillment. At the same time, Seth responds to the two of them regarding their conflicts over writing, holding sessions, and health, pointing out that they should use love to care for their present life, accept themselves, and treat the magical approach as a natural way of living, rather than as a tool for achieving specific results.
Key Points of This Chapter
- The cloud of life seeds worlds with seeds and possibilities spread throughout space, and the seeds of life carry within themselves nourishment, environment, and branches of possibility.
- Dreams, thoughts, and sleep automatically enrich other dimensions, and the dreams of all people interweave with one another at different times and places.
- Every part of the cloud of life pursues value fulfillment, and the human being itself is part of the meaning and purpose of life, a meaning that cannot be fully expressed within the structure of the individual.
- The magical approach is a natural way of inquiry, the adult version of childhood knowledge, the human version of animal knowledge, the conscious version of unconscious understanding; it should be used because one recognizes it as it is, not in order to obtain some specific desired thing.
- Begin from where you are, care for the life you have and for your own uniqueness with love, and do not be in a hurry to define your personal identity or to shoulder the responsibility of the reader.
Main Text
Chapter 12: Life Clouds
Today we continue sharing the last chapter of Volume 2 of the Seth book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Chapter 12, "Life Clouds." The first session of this chapter is Session 939, which began on Monday, January 15, 1982, at 9:48 p.m.1
A Depressed Holiday
Rob wrote a fairly long preface. Because two months had passed in between, with Thanksgiving and Christmas, they had gone through a very depressed holiday. By the time almost a month of the new year had passed -- by January 25, it was nearly over -- the weather was still very cold, but there was no trace of snow on the frozen ground.
Our mail was still as heavy as usual. Those unused gaps of time, those weeks-long interruptions between the recent chapters of this book, had become very worrisome to me.
They felt idle, just answering mail and replying to letters, about 30 to 50 reader letters per week2, but the progress on this book had largely stalled. It stopped for two months, because they had gone beyond Jane's natural creative rhythm -- that is, she normally held two sessions a week, naturally, without needing to force anything. But lately she kept not wanting to hold sessions, and this had gone beyond Jane's natural rhythm.
During that period of writing the book, they had not even held many private sessions. For example, between Chapter 10 and Chapter 11, they held only two private sessions; and between Chapter 11 and Chapter 12, only four. The sessions were becoming fewer and fewer, which also indicated that the two of them were now entering a state that was not very good.
A Key Private Session
Rob said that he regarded the first private session Jane held before beginning Chapter 12 as a key session:
Because for us, it was indeed an excellent session. We felt it was a turning point, a very important turning point. Yet strangely, we were not at all certain we could turn in the right direction.
After Jane gave the last session of Chapter 11, she transcribed that session a week later, putting the important parts into Note 11. The next day, December 2, they thoroughly discussed that session. As a result, Jane became defensive about some of the things Rob had written in certain notes. Rob said he had not seen her display such vitality in a long time; Jane defended herself, and he was glad. He agreed with some of Jane's good points, but not so much with others. At this point they had a disagreement.
Rob asked Jane to type up a conclusion of her own, to be placed in their next session, so that it could represent her viewpoint. At the same time, he also tried to make it easier for Jane to type -- because Jane now had great difficulty raising her hands high enough to place them on the typewriter. Rob spent time making a relatively low, very sturdy table, so that when she sat in her office chair, the tabletop would sit just a little above her knees. The lower height made typing easier for her, because her finger movements were not very good and she often made typing errors, but she worked hard to correct them. Her notes were also not as steady as before; both her typing and her handwriting were not what they used to be.
What she typed on December 3 said this:
Rob made a new wooden typing table, of the proper height, and I am now trying it out. It works very well. Then I began to think, I want to write a diary. Just beginning to write, I want to begin writing, and I also want to begin holding sessions again -- or at least that is what I tell myself.
But she did not finish typing the conclusions about her own viewpoints that Rob had asked her to type. That evening, she held the second of those four private sessions.
They were discussing the Seth material and made a plan: how to return to a normal working state, while that state itself could also be of some help to Jane's body. This included playing for Jane every day the recorded tapes of suggestions they had made -- that is, recordings of the suggestions Seth had given Jane, summarized from the past Seth material, from the sessions of November 1 and 3.
Obviously we are trying to encourage some activity in Framework 2. Rob and Seth started a plan for us -- this is Jane speaking -- although we have barely begun, I really do feel a little relief and calm.
On the morning of December 5, as Jane sat at the new low table typing part of a page, she wrote:
Yesterday I felt that this place, all around me, was filled with ticking sounds, a little feeling of work, a little feeling of time passing, ticking. In the afternoon I answered a little mail, but did not really begin writing the notes that were part of that original plan. My typing is still terrible, but I know it will improve. In these jottings, I do not feel any stream of inspiration, but I do feel a potential, inner stream that will surface, and I really do feel more stable, more content. As I write this, I feel a definite blockage of expression, and some not-too-serious panic, but I recognize that there is a suppressed feeling when I decide to write jottings, and that is a fact.
When you hear her description, you know Jane's state was not good at this time. Not only was her physical state poor, her inspiration was basically gone as well. She wanted to write but could not get it out, could not say it, and being able to feel this itself made her very fearful. Typing was also difficult, and she could not write by hand either.
A New Poetry Collection
That afternoon, something positive also happened: Jane received from a magazine publisher her new poetry collection -- If We Live Again, subtitled "Or, Public Magic and Private Love." Jane was even happier than when her Poems and the Soul: Dialogues of the Soul and the Mortal Self in Time was published. If We Live Again once again brought her back to the earliest time of her creative work -- those were the love poems she wrote in her early days, when she and Rob had just met, love poems between a man and a woman. Through the publication of this poetry collection, she returned to the relatively early girlish time when she created these poems, fulfilling the dream of being a poet that many young girls have -- although this happened after she was fifty.
Rob said that he had shown in various works of the Seth books that Jane's first love in art was poetry -- later came painting, later came fiction, later came the Seth material -- but her first love in art was poetry.
Jane expressed her beliefs with an astonishing, simple clarity.
Looking at Jane's poems, there is basically no embellishment, no flowery language, none of that flowing, poetic quality; instead they feel very dry, very hard, not like poetry. Her expression of emotion is also very obscure, or one might say cold and clear. It is clear and simple, and combines her mysterious innocence and knowledge with her openness toward material life -- she combined an enlightened acceptance -- all brought together.
The Self-Help Plan
Jane wrote on December 7:
I began reading Seth's sessions as best I could. Next he and I put into practice this plan we made for him.
Rob made a plan for Jane; they read the Seth books together, studied Seth, and once again jointly explored the Seth material, hoping to stimulate vitality in Jane's body.
We played the recording of the suggestions we made, and I really felt blocked in expression. My buttocks hurt while typing, and I sat in an obvious joint soreness, which brought some tears.
She cried. Very sore and aching, just imagine.
Yet it was a stretching sensation, and the right arm was the same. I have so much I want to write.
She had so much she wanted to write, but her body now limited her. When she wanted to write, her body would not cooperate; and when she could write, or could somewhat express herself, her inspiration was gone.
Returning to Childhood Images
Later that day she wrote that, although they did not know in what way, their suggestions had helped her tune in to her hometown -- Saratoga Springs. She saw herself in an amusement park located on the shore of Saratoga Lake, just outside the city; she saw herself in a park across from the Catholic elementary school she attended, very young, jumping rope; she saw family members who had all now passed away, and was interacting with them. That night she had extremely vivid dreams, what Jane called the early spontaneous images of her Saratoga childhood -- her re-creation of her own past.
The next day, those images continued. Rob felt those images were especially sharp, because in them, she saw herself possessing the complete and unconscious freedom of physical movement that young people so take for granted.
I wonder whether a part of her was perhaps looking at her childhood, in order to remind her of that heritage of movement, to help her rediscover it now.
That was Rob's feeling -- was a part of Jane looking at her own childhood, in order to reactivate her body's functions? Because for young people, physical movement is completely without obstacle, something that requires no thought at all.
Once again, she saw herself jumping rope. But the places themselves -- the places where she jumped rope -- seemed to her more meaningful than the people. She wrote:
Those places were quite expansive, with color, and I looked out at the scenery from them. So entering them to a certain degree must have included a vague concept from when I was about three years old. When I was five, an old man in the neighboring house died, and I was playing on the front porch of his house when someone took me to see the corpse. It was my first experience of that kind, observing a corpse up close.
This is one of Jane's records.
Deterioration of Physical Condition
Rob said that five months earlier, in the opening remarks of Session 936 in Chapter 11 of this book, he wrote that at the end of August 1981, Jane wrote the drafts of the first three chapters of The Magical Approach. In all the days that followed, she wrote only three very loose draft chapters. On December 9, he thought it possible that she would never finish that book. That evening Jane delivered the third of those four private sessions.
Her hearing and vision difficulties continued -- not only was her body failing and her typing failing, her hearing and vision were also affected. Her vision developed double images; everything she looked at appeared doubled. Her hearing eventually became such that she could barely hear anything. Seth again provided material related to their daily plan.
As the New Year holidays drew near, Jane's work became less and less. Only on December 15 did she hold her fourth private session, and the most inspiring topic, "Painting and Child Psychology," was separate from the theme of this book. They saw only a few friends. Rob was busier than in previous years, because he had to handle household chores, prepare for Christmas, help his wife in various ways, write notes for this book, and try to accumulate some time for painting.
Jane did not continue writing The Magical Approach, nor did she seek medical assistance as she had spoken of in early December. Their self-help plan -- that is, what to do each day, the plan that began on December 1 -- gradually diminished. They had done many such planned tasks based on Seth's suggestions before. Seth's suggestion was not simply that the painter paints, the writer writes, and the one who delivers the Seth material delivers the Seth material; rather, they had to apply what they had learned in practice to their own lives. They hoped to turn this process of applying theory to practice into daily plans, including listening to the Seth material, listening to the recorded suggestions, and reading the Seth material they had previously written down. But this plan once again fell apart -- they had done similar things before.
Rob's Attempt
One day Jane sat idly at the typing table in her writing room. To cheer Jane up, Rob tried a strategy that had worked very well almost six and a half years earlier -- when he began writing The Nature of the Psyche: he stood behind Jane, wrapped his arms around her, and rolled a blank sheet of typing paper into her typewriter. But the following is what Jane wrote the next day -- she had written nothing that day:
On a gloomy morning, I felt a distinct hesitation in myself, mixed with other sensations. There was the warm smell of heat from the radiator, mixed with the lingering smell of oil paint from Rob's paintings, slightly comforting. Suddenly sunlight poured out from the sky. As I typed, my body was sore, my arms ached, and it seemed as though Rob was completely silent in his studio. I thought of an experience I especially wanted to write down. Yesterday morning my feelings were very much like today's -- not in a good mood, body sore -- yet I was aware of a need to break through this spell and move. After lunch yesterday, Rob jokingly put a piece of paper in my typewriter and said, just type the first page, and you can begin writing something new. He returned to his studio, and I closed my eyes and tried to see my psychic library, but it was completely blank. I tried again, and this time suddenly saw a woman sitting at the living room table across from me.
The first time it was blank; the second time -- she suddenly saw a woman in their living room. That was the last thing Jane wrote in her journal that year, at the end of December 1981. She did not date it. Although she told Rob that she quite liked the image she saw -- a woman sitting at the table across from her -- she said very little about it, and did not explain what kind of situation it was, no details.
Rob said:
I made a mistake. I should have insisted that she give me a detailed oral or written report, and if necessary write my own notes. I do remember her describing an old woman in blue-green, whose lips were moving, as if speaking to Jane, but there was no sound. She said the event was extremely brief, but quite real.
Please note, Jane felt that she herself had been moved from her writing room into the living room. In any case, Rob's attempt to use direct, positive suggestion to help her remove doubt and worry still failed; she did not begin any new long-range writing project.
The Trembling Voice
After the holidays, Jane colored some acrylic flowers that friends had sent at Christmas, wrote some jottings, and tried writing a few short poems. Her handwriting was still unsteady, and her typing still often had errors. But she also began to occasionally show a new, unsettling development: her voice began to tremble slightly.
Not only were her hands not working well and she could not stand up, her handwriting and typing both had difficulties, her eyes could not see clearly, her ears could not hear, and in the end even her voice began to tremble. This was something Rob was also very worried about -- if it continued to develop, then Jane would gradually lose, one by one, almost all her senses of connection to this world.
Each time that trembling sound appeared, her speech would slow down a little -- when Jane's voice trembled, the speed of her speech would suddenly slow. They thought this voice effect was connected to her vision and hearing difficulties, which also fluctuated from time to time.
Jane was both worried and not worried. And again, I saw in her that naive acceptance of the reality she had created -- that reality I so often found difficult to understand -- she again saw that Jane had created the reality of her own body through her own beliefs, and I also did not understand why I myself was participating in this reality.
It was Jane who naively accepted her current condition, but Rob was still very distressed, and he did not understand why he himself was experiencing this. It was not that Jane welcomed this physical challenge without complaint, but rather that she had a state of mind that covered over its arrival and continued living as best she could -- covering over the physical symptoms, not thinking about them, and continuing to live.
Rob said:
When we talked, we tried not to make her nervous. At the same time, I wondered inwardly whether this change in her voice was a further sign that she was withdrawing from this world.
This was what worried Rob -- did it mean she was slowly leaving this world? Before our private session of December 1 last year, he admitted to her that he feared she was gradually reducing her communication with this world. Neither of them knew how such a trembling or the slowing of speech would affect these sessions -- Jane had not spoken for Seth for several weeks, so they had no way of knowing yet.
Rob also recalled the excellent vocal strength she had when transcribing the private session on December 3, and felt comforted. For her, her voice was a powerful and dramatic link between one reality and another:
Whether she was speaking for herself, speaking for Seth, or speaking in her trance-state language -- Sumari -- or singing, it was always full of power and emotion. The steadiness and strength of a voice coming from a person weighing around 100 pounds had always been very reassuring to us.
They tried what Seth had suggested many times: after discussion, they gave Jane gentle suggestions that those effects could be greatly reduced -- that is, the voice trembling problem -- and then turned their attention away. Just such a suggestion was enough, and then they would no longer focus on the voice trembling.
In fact I wish we had relied almost childishly -- relied on what? -- to make them disappear completely. I feel that at least it was closely related to some of the psychological factors involved in her acceptance of the voice challenge.
Jane's List
Only after two weeks of the holidays had passed did Jane finally write a formal entry by hand in her 1982 diary. On Friday, January 15, 1982, she wrote:
My loves, my merits.
She wrote them down, making a list: on the left were her loves, on the right her merits. Her loves included Rob, the house, the scenery, sunlight, nature, the cats, people, writing, and so on; her merits were honesty, beauty, many talents, writing, psychic ability, the ability to write poetry, a good mind, a good heart, and many other things, things I cannot wait to do, finishing the Seth books.
This was the first diary entry of the new year. Rob said this list could extend forever. He said he could not wait to add these qualities to the list of traits she had written:
For example, she was a powerful singer of Sumari, she was a good performer, she was an inflexible person, then incredibly stubborn, and basically naive.
Most people would agree that Jane's singing of Sumari was very extraordinary and original, and she was an excellent, natural performer. The dramatic quality in her life's work is easily missed or skipped over, because it is so diffuse, permeating all of her creative efforts. Jane's life actually did not have much that was dramatic; it was not very "dramatic"; she lived a very stable and peaceful life. But her creativity already contained great dramatic quality within it; she just dispersed this dramatic quality throughout her creative works.
This quality became much more evident when Jane sang and spoke in class -- when she was in her ESP class, or when singing, it was very evident; but ordinarily it was not. She did not need to consciously summon it, did not need to put on an extra "dramatic" performance -- like the way you see stage actors speak, that is what is called dramatic.
Each time, in their own way, in their own form, that dramatic quality was still present in our sessions and in her poetry, writing, and painting. That it was not so obvious does not mean the dramatic quality did not exist.
But Rob said some people would argue about whether the last three traits on his list -- inflexible, incredibly stubborn, basically naive -- were truly assets or hindrances. He said whether these three things were good or bad was uncertain. All three were actually the same thing -- inflexibility, stubbornness, basic naivete; these three were different facets of one thing.
I believe any one of them could be either this or that depending on the situation. My attitude is that all these traits listed by Jane and me represent the creative part of her, just as it is, and I accept all of them.
Rob said, including those parts that most people would feel are shortcomings, he accepted all of them.
Jane had written on the 15th that she wanted to finish the Seth books quickly. In the following ten days, she wrote nothing in her diary; she painted a great deal. Her voice trembling not only did not worsen, but in some situations lessened, and in some other situations disappeared completely. The slowness of her speech continued, but did not become more pronounced. And with their own suggestions, they did quite well, not dwelling on those voice challenges.
On Monday, January 25, at 9:48 p.m., Jane did have the energy to firmly begin dictating Session 939 of Chapter 12.
Life Clouds
Seth came through and said good evening, then said:
Dictation. We begin a new chapter. Chapter 12, entitled "Life Clouds."
Seth said:
Joseph used this term in today's discussion, and it is an excellent description of the way in which your universe was seeded.
This was a topic Rob had discussed during the day. Rob had seen a report saying that scientists had discovered that in the 4.6-billion-year history3 of our human Earth, according to scientists, organic life began 3.8 billion years ago4, and has been evolving ever since. But according to their own data, from organic matter, from small molecules to large molecules to final organic matter, becoming single-celled, then multi-celled, it seems that 3.8 billion years is very, very long, but according to scientists' estimates and calculations, these 3.8 billion years are not enough for a lifeless planetary Earth to form a creature as complex as a human being in the end -- no matter how they calculate, the time is insufficient.
So scientists speculated that life on Earth exists widely throughout the Milky Way, in a kind of life-network structure. Simply put, space is filled with countless life microorganisms, amino acids, and such -- for example, they have already been found in meteorites. If a meteorite falls to Earth, it may bring life, like sowing seeds. For example, sperm crashing into the Earth -- suppose the Earth is an egg, and amino acids or some microorganisms are the sperm -- it is like sperm colliding with an egg. The entire Milky Way is filled with such life-sperm, spread densely like clouds. Human life or Earth's life began from that place, seeded by the Milky Way. So "life clouds" refers to those clouds.
Seth said:
If you want to use an analogy, that is a fairly good description and analogy. However, you should understand that the term "dream clouds" would be just as good -- if you said dream clouds, it would actually be better, better than your analogy of life clouds. Nevertheless, it is a thought-provoking statement about how All That Is wraps itself within the fabric of its countless realities.
All That Is wraps itself within its own creations. Every small unit, or every component, that makes up All That Is contains All That Is itself within it. This is a very interesting and thought-provoking matter.
Such life clouds still exist.
According to this view, those life clouds must exist -- because the All That Is that constituted the birth of this universe packaged itself into every small part that makes up our universe. Each seed of life, in itself, contains its own protective shell, its own necessary nourishment and environmental conditions, its own system of probabilities and branches. The seed of life includes all of these -- its nutrients that allow it to develop and grow, and also its branches of probabilities, what it can develop into in the future, and the conditions of the environment in which it lives.
Those branches of probabilities are like distant receptors, coming from the future, seeking out those conditions best suited to the seed's optimal value fulfillment and development.
What it will develop into in the future, it actually already knows at the time of the seed. For example, when an apple seed is planted and eventually grows into an apple tree and bears apples, it actually already knows that this is what it will accomplish -- this is its value fulfillment, already contained within the seed.
In the simplest terms, those life clouds send out their contents to the environments best suited to their own needs.
They send their contents to the environments they need, and then grow, develop, evolve, or change into the probable selves, or the branches of value fulfillment. There are countless branches, and each branch is a part of value fulfillment; it is not that only one is and the others are not. For example, with a fruit tree, would you say that only the final apple is the result of value fulfillment? No -- it is the entire process of growing into the apple that is its value fulfillment, not the final apple itself. Because we humans are especially prone to mistake a result for the completion.
And in another respect, the life-cloud can completely seed its own worlds.
It can seed its own world.
In space itself a beginning of a creation has already been spoken. For no matter how empty space may appear, it nevertheless looks like a vast cathedral, like a tent, or like the shape of a pyramid, perhaps empty inside for now, with walls so distant that they have not been seen.
What he calls space is the same as a pyramid, a room, or a cathedral, except that its walls are farther away, and you cannot see them right now. When you discuss space, you are acknowledging that kind of framework and structure. And if that is the case, then has not this space already been created, already existed?
Possibilities may be swirling everywhere. Possibilities are swirling everywhere, yet at any given moment they are of course still invisible.
They exist everywhere. Once you fix a definite time and a definite space, this possibility no longer exists—you can no longer see it. It is not that it does not exist; it is there, but you cannot see it, because as soon as you fix a time and a space, it becomes determined.
So within this abrupt or strange metaphor, you might hear a faint and brief whooshing sound, like the sound of wind swirling.
If you have experienced a day with strong wind, you can feel it—when the wind blows past, there is that whooshing sound. Although you cannot see the wind, you can see the things swirling—leaves, dust, anything it blows about. But can you see the wind itself? No. What he means is: you cannot see the existence of possibilities, but you can feel the effects that possibilities bring, such as hearing their sound.
And consider it unimportant. You think this wind is unimportant, yet what you hear is the possibilities of an entire world rushing past the place where you stand.
Suppose you are standing there, and a gust of wind sweeps past you. Although you cannot see it, you can feel that rushing sensation, and you think it is merely a trivial wind, or something of no importance at all. But in fact, that rushing thing you feel is all the possibilities of the whole world sweeping past this present moment of yours—at this single point of the present, you have experienced all possibilities. Although at this single point of the present you have accepted only one among hundreds of millions of trillions of possibilities, that does not mean the others do not exist. They whoosh right past this present moment of yours.
This sound, therefore your own entire life structure, with its sharp and precise meaning within the package of reality, is a living life-cloud. That may or may not be perceived in other realities.
You have an entire life structure, and then you and it have a sharp and precise definition within the package of concrete reality. Your whole life is as vague and general as a cloud, but within concrete reality—take yourself, for example—it is very specific and precise. The whole of you cannot be pinned down—how do you define a cloud? It is changing all the time, drifting east and west, now appearing, now vanishing.
From objective observation, clouds in the sky seem to appear all of a sudden, and then vanish all of a sudden. So do they exist or not? When they appear, that means they are perceived in our reality; when the cloud vanishes from the sky, it may no longer be perceived by our reality.
That cloud contains within it an ever-renewing creative source.
Within that life-cloud is the ever-creative source of life.
When you dream, sleep, or think, you automatically add other dimensions to a life-cloud or dream-cloud, and that is paid for by the behavior of your own subjective actions themselves.
Whether you are thinking ordinarily, dreaming, or out of body, you are actually creating other new times and spaces—other dimensions are other times and spaces. But you do not feel it. You had a dream—how can you say you created this world? Actually, at the very moment you were dreaming, you had already created a time and space, created a world within the dream. When you are thinking, the things you think about automatically form some parallel times and spaces of possibility—there is a probable you, and in all those things you have thought of, it will appear in other times and spaces. From this angle, you are always creating new times and spaces, new universes, and this is what is so magical.
Infinity and New Species
At 10:10, there was a one-minute pause.
Even infinity is expressed in every moment and every place. For infinity itself is not something separate from the universe, because the universe is a part of infinite creativity.
Infinity can be expressed at every place, every point, and every moment of this objective physical universe. Although we think of infinity as something permanent and eternal, at every moment and every point of the universe the existence of infinity is embodied. You think infinity is very powerful, very great—the universe is infinitely large, time is infinitely long—but do not forget that the concept of infinity itself is also a part of the universe's creation.
There is a view that new species are always emerging. Whether or not your own environment allows you to perceive that emergence.
Because it is infinite, there will always be new kinds appearing. The appearance of new species may or may not be felt by you—it depends on whether you allow it to appear, and whether your perception is sufficient.
You yourselves may be a part of that emergence. From your threshold or focus, you will be relatively unaware of it. You are moving at ease upon a new threshold of time, because to the beings on that threshold, you will be the ones who have already arrived. Yet to you, in your present condition, your existence is at most theoretical. It is as if they are future selves, and of course from your viewpoint, they would be so.
What he means is that every existence of yours will have new existences. Because your existence itself represents infinity—infinite possibilities, infinite developments. Among them there are some new thresholds, or new times and spaces, and within them there are new beings. For example, one of your thoughts or one of your dreams will create such a new threshold or new existence. In that reality, there is a new you, or a new event has happened.
To the beings on that threshold, to them you already exist—because you had that dream, and only then did the people in that world within the dream come to life, come alive; because you had this thought, you brought about a new time and space. "Threshold" means the place where you enter a new time and space, something like the wormhole or space-time portal in science fiction movies. You open a new space-time portal and enter that new time and space. To those in the new time and space, you have existed for a long time, because it was you who created them.
And their existence, to you, is at most theoretical. You feel that there should be a world within my dream, and they should be living in it; the possibility I imagine should have such a parallel time and space. You only feel that it should be so—theoretically it exists. For example, you think, if I had not joined the army, what would it have been like if I had gone to graduate school—then that is a probable you. To you, that did not happen; it exists only in theory, only in possibility. You went to graduate school, later got a PhD, did all kinds of research—this is only a theory, an existence under theory.
From their viewpoint and from your viewpoint, each is the same as the other. This point was already discussed in The "Unknown" Reality, except that here it is stated in another way, just repeated once more.
The Interweaving of Dreams
On other levels, your dreams not only mix and interweave with the dreams of your contemporaries, but also interweave with the dreams of those who, in your terms, are alive or dead in all times and places.
Your dreams are interwoven with other people's dreams, and even with the dreams of all those who are not of your generation, the living and the dead.
Each universe, such as the one you know, is used as a small colony of existence, and within its essential nature it is infinite.
Your universe, say this universe, is only a small colony of existence that you know. There is a larger world, and this universe of ours is only a very small part of that larger world, and that larger part is infinite in its essence.
Some of tonight's material will have meaning for you only in the dream state.
The things I have told you tonight can only have some meaning for you in dreams.
And the words of this session may draw your attention to those meanings.
They will stir your thinking in dreams. Why does he say they will have meaning in the dream state? Because the things said today have already transcended the limitations of three-dimensional time and space—from the very beginning they have transcended three-dimensional time and space. He is discussing this issue from a very macroscopic angle.
The Nature of Value Fulfillment
Once again, every portion of all such life-clouds seeks value fulfillment. But alas, that term itself is not sufficient to express the nature of life's variety, purpose, and meaning.
Every part, every point of the life-cloud is pursuing its own value fulfillment. But it is a great pity that the term "value fulfillment" cannot fully embody or express the infinite variety of life, nor the essence of its purpose and meaning—it cannot be expressed; we can only use this term as an approximate expression.
Yet this purpose and meaning do not exist apart from your own existence.
This is a very crucial sentence. The purpose and meaning of your life, or your value fulfillment, is not separate from your present life and your present existence.
You are a part of life's meaning and purpose.
You are a part of the meaning and purpose of this life, this larger life. You do not need to go searching for what the meaning of my life is—you are that meaning.
But those purposes come from the source of your own existence, and are too great to be expressed or described within the structure of personality as you understand it.
You always ask, what is the purpose of my coming here? First of all, your meaning is yourself; you yourself are the meaning of existence. Many people keep asking what value fulfillment really is—in this last chapter near the end of the book, he is explaining this truth. Your existence is that meaning.
You say, then what is the purpose of my coming here? The purpose of your coming here lies in the source of your life. But because the purpose at the source of your life, in this lifetime, in this lifetime of your personal existence, cannot be expressed or described—because that purpose is too great, too grand, so great that you cannot describe it or express it within this lifetime of your physical body. You can express and describe the meaning of this one life, but you cannot understand the meaning or purpose at the source of your life within this lifetime, within your physical state.
It is not that he cannot say it; it is because it is too great, too deep, too vast. And the structure of a human lifetime—including the structure of your thought, the structure of your consciousness—is not sufficient to carry these things. The amount of information over there is too great, and the information you receive over here is too little.
If you have studied computers, you probably know that over there it flows at a speed of how many petabytes per second—hundreds of millions of petabytes—and it changes at any moment; it is not static. What does PB mean? 1,000 TB is one PB5, and 1,000 GB is one TB. So you can roughly understand how great that amount of information is. If that is the amount of information, and your ability to process information over here is only within the range of how many gigabytes or how many megabytes, then how can you understand something so much vaster than yourself? And this is not merely a matter of quantity; it is a matter of quality.
Then you say, does that mean I can never know the purpose and meaning of this life of mine? No—the purpose and meaning of this life of yours does not need to be understood; it is already the existence of this life of yours. Just live every minute of your present well, live your present life well, and you are already practicing the meaning of this life. You say, but I do not understand what the great blueprint behind it is, what its great intention is—there is no macroscopic great purpose that I can see and know where I am now, and what meaning what I am doing has for the whole blueprint. You are a great—say there is a blueprint of a life, and you are one small mosaic tile in the middle of it.
We say that the relationship between the meaning and purpose of life and that grand blueprint is not like a huge canvas where you are merely one pixel. It is not simply a concept of being infinitely large in quantity. Of course, in the early stages you can understand it that way, but its core point is that every point actually penetrates the entire concept, and every point is linked and moving together with every other point. The complexity in the middle, and the solemnity and splendor of its structure, cannot be understood within our kind of framework and cognition. Only by continuously elevating your cognition, raising your level of consciousness, crossing beyond the limitations of the physical body and this one lifetime, and standing at a higher angle, can you gain a preliminary understanding of the source of that reality, of the source of your life.
Then my earlier question naturally arises: if that is the case, our lives are so tiny, then is there no point in living? Here we must return to what was said earlier: at every point of your life, you are a part of that purpose and meaning. Just believe this, and with a sense of ease and contentment, with a sense of being graced and protected, believe that everything you are doing now and every present moment you experience is a part of the blueprint of your life. Such a leisurely and contented state of mind is enough. You say I insist on understanding that great blueprint, then you can take that as your goal and keep refining yourself. But standing at our present human level of cognition, Seth says that cannot be expressed or described.
Yet sometimes when you are listening to music, or when you are deeply stirred by emotion, and when you do not keep a great distance between it and yourself, this understanding is often experienced and felt.
What he means is that the purpose and meaning of life can be felt and experienced, but it simply cannot be spoken in words. Under what circumstances can you feel it? When you and your emotions are deeply stirred—moved by music, infected by a movie, placed within beautiful scenery. When you do not separate yourself too far from it, you can feel and experience it. This is what we often call "can be sensed but not spoken," like the Zen saying "not relying on words, pointing directly at the mind." It is not that they do not rely on words; it is that it cannot be said, and can only be felt and experienced.
Then Seth continued.
Begin from where you are.
"Where you are" is in quotation marks, and it has multiple layers of meaning. The most superficial layer is the physical environment, the time and space you are in right now. But you must not limit yourself to this level. Understood more deeply, it refers to the place where the focus of your consciousness is. For example, if you are dreaming, then the focus of consciousness in the dream is where you are; if you are out of body, the time and space that the out-of-body consciousness takes you to is where you are; if you sit in meditation and enter a state we call "lingjing"—this term is a Chinese translation that Qian Xuesen gave for virtual reality6; he seems to have proposed this term in 19867, ling for soul, jing for environment, and I think the translation is excellent—no matter what state you are in, that is where you are.
But you must never think that being able to go out of body or enter a threshold state is a level higher than being in the physical world. If you understand it that way, you have gone astray. There is no higher or lower. Sitting in the present, steadily drinking tea and eating your meal, standing in nature and letting the wind brush your face, is the same as going into the lingjing to feel and experience. It is like you travel to Guilin and he travels to Yangshuo—only the location is different; there is no question of one place being more advanced.
Begin from where you are—this is the only place you can begin.
Take care of the life you have with love, and that will best allow you to perceive a feeling for your own meaning.
These are all practical essentials. He says, how do you experience the meaning of your own life? Just these two sentences: begin from where you are, and take care of the life you have with love. The life you do not have—do you take care of it with love? No. Simply put, it is to ground yourself in the present, and live with gratitude, with a sense of being protected and graced. In this way you can feel the meaning of your life.
Then what exactly does he mean by "take care"? He says it means taking care of the present. "Take care" is also in quotation marks, with the same meaning as the quotation marks above. It does not only refer to your present life; if you can travel to other places, then take care of the life in that place. Take care of this table of abundant reality that appears before you. Whatever life gives you, enjoy it.
At this point you may raise an objection: my life is not wonderful at all; it is a mess, or even worse, there are more miserable situations. You ask me to experience and feel, to take care of the "abundant" reality that appears in my life? It is very "abundant" indeed—every day is chaotic: the children need tutoring, work requires overtime, my husband is like this, and there are in-law relationships and coworker relationships. What is there to enjoy in this?
Here I must emphasize again: yes, this is the only thing you have, and this is the only thing you can experience and feel. Those imagined better lives—the imagined Prince Charming, the child who loves studying and scores one hundred on every test—that is not your life, that is not the life you should experience; that is only the life you think you should have. You say I do not want what I have now; I want that one—then you have not taken care of the present.
Let me make an analogy. You go to a restaurant, and the restaurant serves you a table of dishes. You say I do not like these; these are all hot and sour noodles, malatang, hotpot—all junk food; I only eat green and environmentally friendly food. Suppose you can only eat these? Would you rather starve to death than eat them? Why do you have such strong emotions and aversion toward them? Because you have a judgment: you think malatang is junk food, hotpot is too greasy and unhealthy, and this stuff is too spicy and will give you a stomachache. The premise is your judgment about these things. So here Seth deliberately uses a neutral term—"abundant reality." "Abundant" is a very neutral word; he did not say beautiful, good, or happy. Can you say this table of dishes is not abundant? It is just not to your taste.
What we need to do now is to remove these limiting beliefs one by one, eat whatever is given, eat it well, and experience the difference between it and the things you love to eat. For example, you only like green food, but that does not prevent you from experiencing it. Is it completely worthless? Or do you think it is completely worthless? Do you know how many people in the world love malatang and hotpot? It is just that you do not like it.
If your cognition has not yet reached the level of treating all things equally, like those wandering monks—they eat whatever is given. In ancient times, the earliest wandering monks did not pick and choose; if given meat, they ate meat; whatever was given, they ate. If you insist on picking, has not your discriminating mind already appeared? In the Buddha's time, when he led his monks from place to place, there was a rule of begging for food with an alms bowl. I cannot remember clearly whether they could only ask at three houses or five houses8, I think it was three houses. If you received food, you ate; if you did not, then you did not eat. Knock at the first house, and by the third house, whatever you received, you ate. Why did he set this rule? If you think carefully, this is a very easygoing approach. If you received food at noon today, then it was meant for you to eat; if you did not, then it was not meant for you to eat today. If you insist on getting a Lady M cake before you are satisfied, who is going to give it to you? If you insist on a Michelin feast, then you will just keep wandering and do nothing else. So he set the rule that they could only ask at five houses, and eat whatever they received. If you can think this through, you will know that the rule set by the Buddha is fundamentally consistent with the idea Seth is talking about—just eat the abundant table of food before you. And he would pour the food from those several houses together; the bowl was very large, like a basin. In Thailand today it is still like this: when it is time for offerings, the monks walk past, and people pour food into the bowl; as a monk, you cannot pick and choose.
So Seth is telling you how to live after studying this book. Ultimately you still have to return to life itself. Afraid that you would not understand, he explained what taking care of the present means.
Take care of the person you are.
"What you are, who you are"—your shortcomings, your strengths, what you consider your shortcomings, accept all of it, accept it completely. This is the most crucial point. You cannot say I only accept my good side and do not accept my bad side; that is not taking care. Accept yourself completely, love yourself completely.
Many people do not understand this. The day before yesterday I met someone who had studied the Seth material for a long time and was in great pain, saying, "I cannot achieve unconditional love." When I asked, I found that she thought unconditional love was for all other people. I said you have misunderstood; unconditional love is not for others, it is for yourself. First be unconditional toward yourself, and do not think about matters concerning others. Including those things you consider shortcomings and imperfections, accept all of them; this is the premise. No one is asking you to love others unconditionally. When you truly love yourself unconditionally, accept everything, allow everything, receive everything, then automatically and naturally you will love others unconditionally. This does not need practice, nor does it need meditation or some great state of the Way. If you cannot even do it for yourself, then do not bother with the rest.
But when many people study, they are too deeply influenced by worldly things. As soon as unconditional love is mentioned, they feel deep self-reproach: I still have selfish thoughts, selfish desires, and jealousy—when I see a woman prettier than me, I still feel jealous. What is the reason? It is that you cannot truly love yourself unconditionally; you cannot accept a jealous self, cannot accept a flawed, imperfect self. First accept him, and then we can talk.
Then someone may ask: are you not telling us to change our beliefs? Should I not change these shortcomings? Yes, but there is an order to it. First accept, and in the state of acceptance, you will naturally feel joy and enter a state of very high frequency. That joy is the natural state of your spirituality, and many problems will dissolve on their own. If you do not solve this root problem and only deal with the branch issues, you will never finish dealing with them.
Let me emphasize once more: take care of the person you are—be yourself, accept yourself.
And take care of the loving cherishing of your own uniqueness.
See how beautifully this is said. You must cherish your own unique qualities with love, and cherish that cherishing itself. Whether they are strengths or weaknesses, you must cherish them. Taking care of your life in this way will bring you into clearer communication with the inner actions of your own existence. When you do this, you will be in communication with your inner world, and the inner actions will tell you what to do next; you just follow intuition and impulse and act.
At this point the dictation portion of this session ends. These last two passages of instruction that Seth gave, you can listen to them again and again, and truly take them in. Then comes the notes portion of this session. The notes portion is also quite long, because Rob added the highlights of the private sessions from these intervening sessions into the notes. I suggest you pause first, and then continue listening to the notes portion. The preceding lessons are what Seth truly wanted to express; the notes that follow are actually Rob's summary and organization of this period, especially around Jane's physical condition, and he put in what he considered important from the private sessions. It has little to do with what Seth wanted to convey in this book. Everyone take a rest, and then we will begin the introduction to the notes.
Rob said that eight weeks later, he had only written a lengthy discussion of the private session on the evening of Tuesday, December 1, 1981. These notes come from an unexpected discussion that began around eight o'clock in the evening. A few minutes after Jane told Rob that she wanted to have a session about himself, when Rob returned to the living room, he found Jane leaning on the sofa asleep, with a lit cigarette still in her hand. When she woke with a start, the ashes fell into her lap, which was dangerous and could easily have set the house on fire. Jane cried out in remorse: I will never do that again when I am alone. Yet when Rob went out to get his office chair from his writing room, by the time he came back, Jane had fallen asleep again.
Rob thought it was a bad sign that Jane said she wanted a session and then fell asleep again. Indeed, her energy was simply no longer enough. If you have had this kind of experience in your own family, you can feel it: a person says she wants to have a session, then turns around and falls asleep, and then says she will never do that again, but by the time you come back with the chair, she is asleep again. Rob said this was not a good sign. Yet he believed that in this session, Seth had touched on several core psychological beliefs that they had not understood at all, let alone overcome. Rob said that as for these core beliefs, never mind overcoming them, they had not even discovered them or understood them. So only if Jane truly allowed it could Seth do more for them. Because if Jane's subconscious did not want Seth to speak, she would block Seth—Seth had to speak through her mouth, and her unwillingness to speak would directly block him. This had happened many times in earlier sessions. But after all their years of struggle, Rob was not sure Jane could still let Seth do more. He felt she could not even manage to have a session anymore; she simply fell asleep.
Rob said that in their discussion, he was afraid that for the most part he himself was the one talking. He put the word "discussion" in quotation marks; actually it was not a discussion, it was Rob losing his temper, getting a little angry. Although it did not reach the point of real fury, the things he said were all very heavy. But again, they tried to look at their lives from a shared mental and physical perspective; they did not quarrel, or even debate. Rob said they had never quarreled, yet he said some things he later wished he had not said. He assumed such regret was inevitable, but if he could tell his wife, for example, about the storm of consciousness he believed was so active in the Middle East, then obviously he would also very much want to discuss his feelings about their own challenges. What he meant was, rather than discussing the international situation—at that time the Middle East situation was very intense, Egypt and Israel had gone to war9, and a series of wars had broken out—it would be better to discuss their own consciousness, which had great conflict and great storms.
Both of them were as concerned as ever about Jane's condition. Actually, you can imagine now, they were too concerned. But this would happen to anyone; whoever it happened to would be concerned. Jane had had feelings of panic today, and Rob tried to help her through it, which also produced a kind of panic in his own heart. When your own heart is not strong enough yet, and you go to help a person who has inner panic—especially panic about life—you will be infected by it too. Rob said, sometimes I cannot believe I would speak the way I did tonight, even though once again I was driven to believe that on deep levels Jane's mysterious work brought her what she wanted. He could only assume that all of this had to be said, or was meant to happen.
Then Rob told Jane that he believed that on those levels, she really did not want to have sessions anymore. He said if you really do not want to have sessions, then do not have them; they could see clues everywhere that she did not want to have sessions. And now such a powerful part of her was so opposed to her psychic work, so afraid of its implications, so swept up and contrary to her early religious indoctrination, that it placed her fear, placed her, in a physical impasse. What Rob meant was that there was a "guilty self" inside Jane, and that guilty self was so powerful that it did not want her to keep writing books, because she felt this was a bad thing, so deeply in conflict with the religious ideas she had received early on. This would lead to a physical phenomenon, namely that your body was in a kind of impasse—stiff and unable to move. Rob said, if that is the case, if writing books is a kind of harm to your body, then let us just stop writing.
He said, since Jane was becoming more and more helpless, in ordinary terms, it was hard to say they were resolving their challenges—the body was failing first, so what was the point of talking about resolving challenges? It had not gotten better; on the contrary, it was getting worse and worse. Rob said, do not tell me your current state means you are getting better. By this point Rob was actually already very angry; it could not be called quarreling, but his words had already become very harsh. He said do not use those words to comfort me, the way Seth has been implying to you all along. He actually scolded Seth as well. Do you not have any idea what your own body is like? You have not gotten better at all.
Rob went on, aggressively—how long has it been since you walked? I think it has now been a year and two weeks. More than a year without walking, and not even able to walk leaning on your typing table. I know you may be dealing with certain lifelong challenges through psychic methods, so the question becomes: how far do you actually want to take this? How far do you want to take your own body, how bad do you want it to get? Clearly, within Jane's possibilities, Rob said firmly, I put the survival of the body first. But what about you? Rob said, I must admit that sometimes I suspect you do not have—he did not say the harsh words, but the meaning was: your problems are actually all your own problems, but you do not really want to solve them. If you do not want to solve them, then let us just stop writing books. Why put yourself in this dilemma? On the one hand, writing books makes you miserable; every time a book is published, your body gets worse and worse. But if you do not write, you are torn, and you cannot be your true self, and you cannot achieve your value fulfillment. What exactly do you want now?
Rob said, she really kept listening to me rambling on, and I have again come close to the point of refusing to help you have sessions. Rob declared: I do not want to help you have sessions anymore. Why? Because he wanted Jane to stop. He felt that inwardly Jane did not want to write, and then there was that "guilty self" and the "spontaneous self" constantly fighting. If I do not help you, then you will not be able to write, right? Because her writing needed Rob's assistance, and having sessions also needed Rob's assistance. Rob said I know I have said this before, but this time I do not know what else I can do; this time I am not trying to scare you. If we do not see some fairly dramatic improvement within the next few sessions, then if you still want to have sessions, the likely result will be that you will be talking to the wall, or talking into a tape recorder, and I will no longer take notes for you—if you can operate your tape recorder. Actually she could not operate it; her hands had no strength. I cannot stop you from speaking for yourself or for Seth, or from speaking to another person, but I can refuse to encourage you.
At this point Rob's attitude was very weary. He did not want Jane to have sessions anymore, because having sessions had caused tremendous harm to Jane's body. It was not the sessions themselves; it was because of Jane's mind—as had been made very clear in the previous few sessions. He said you can also have someone else help you take notes, and you can continue to speak for Seth; that is your freedom, and I cannot stop you, but I will not encourage you to do so.
Rob said, regarding the idea of illness, as a race, we understand so little about it consciously; in terms of attention, we are still truly in the Dark Ages. I have had that feeling for a long time, that our understanding of what a human being actually is—as for how much we actually understand about human beings, at most it is only this much, and that is basically no understanding at all. Seth has offered the most remarkable insights I have ever heard, and for those I am endlessly grateful. I think it is very dangerous to insist on anything we think we have learned as a species. Because we cannot imagine how much longer, in the coming thousands of years, or hundreds of years, we will still cling to this knowledge we have already learned, while at the same time we grope in the dark.
Rob said, to ask any one person now to resolve it, and prove it to the whole world, and at the same time heal himself, may be asking too much. He was talking about Jane. Although the Seth material is very good and is an important method for solving human problems, to ask one person to prove it to the whole world right now, and to prove it by healing her own body, is far too difficult. Why had Jane always refused to go to the hospital? She had a belief: if the Seth material was useful, then she would definitely be able to heal herself; if she could not heal herself, then that would prove the Seth material was useless, and then what would be the point of transmitting it? Would that not be misleading people and fooling everyone? If she could not even heal herself, why go on teaching it? This was the most painful and most tangled place in Jane's heart. Rob pointed it out to her: is this approach of yours not asking too much? What you want to achieve, simply put, is whether you can heal yourself. There are many factors involved, and among them your own factor is also very important. But objectively speaking, for one person to try to give the values, worldview, or psychological structure of the whole world a massive upgrade, you cannot bear such a heavy sense of responsibility and pressure. The key is that your own heart has not yet become strong and sorted out to that degree; you still have so many problems yourself, and your guilty self has been active all along. You always want to prove it, and when you cannot prove it you suffer even more, yet in your heart you feel this truth is right. Your pain comes from this.
Rob said, rather than that, then let us just stop having sessions, let us just stop teaching, is that not okay? He went on, learning to understand our abilities is a social and cultural matter. The progress of human civilization and the elevation of consciousness is a matter for the whole society and culture; it needs time, needs digestion, needs a gradual process. This is not one person's affair. And you, or anyone, need help. Jane herself also needed help; her body was already like this. It is just that when you are trying to learn some things, where can you get help from? What he meant was, you will not even accept help, and yet you still want to help others and save the world? I am not trying to threaten you into going to the hospital, and I am not saying that if you do not go to the hospital I will not help you have sessions. I have told Jane several times, because last summer, when Rob and others could not persuade her, he had already given up the idea of persuading her to be hospitalized.
Jane said, I do not want to do that; I would rather try at home, try some things. For example, ask an ear, nose, and throat doctor, or an orthopedic doctor, to come to the house to see her, rather than going to the hospital. But I was very shocked by what you said about giving up the sessions. At this point Jane was also afraid; look, you are threatening me with no more sessions. Rob said, I did not expect to say these things tonight either. So this was the first time Jane said she was considering medical help—she had never agreed before, not even to a doctor coming to the house to see her. Even if only under certain conditions. Just recently, she had begun to have occasional double vision—double vision is seeing two images—and hearing problems. The latter had already reduced their communication. She was very serious; later on she basically could not hear anything at all. Rob said, because these days, before speaking to her, he would almost automatically frown, unless the two of them were face to face. He said now it was no good; she could not hear, and he could only sit in front of her and speak loudly for her to hear.
But Jane's main confusion was that even with the material from Seth and the "guilty self," her physical symptoms still continued to such a degree, although there was occasional relief. She understood everything, and Seth was always helping her, but she wondered: why is my illness still not getting better? Although it occasionally lessened, the symptoms were always in a state of worsening. She was actually doubting the Seth material, doubting that "guilty self," doubting the effect these things had on her. Think about the confusion and doubt in her heart—although on the surface she appeared very firm and very stubborn, refusing to see a doctor, not seeing a doctor did not mean she truly believed in her heart. Do not think that because she was so insistent, she really believed in this matter. Rob had already pointed this out. Because of this confusion, she no longer wanted to have sessions.
Jane said, obviously the two of us have not consciously affirmed what we are challenging and fearing on certain levels. They had not yet directly faced the challenges and fears on certain levels, and had not dug out the root of the fear. Rob said, obviously I am just as deeply involved in her symptoms as she is. They had encountered many delays while talking about making the book The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. A week ago they had felt good about finishing Chapter 11 of that book, but recently they had not done much with The Magical Approach, except rereading the draft at the beginning of that book. Tonight I admitted my fear; I was even guessing that, in a way, Jane had begun a long campaign—if not to eliminate completely, at least to reduce her communication with the world. He felt Jane was slowly not wanting to communicate with the world anymore; she would not cut it off completely, but she was reducing it. Her physical symptoms also manifested this way, because in a way that was almost impossible to be accidental, her senses were being sacrificed one after another. Jane revealed that she had similar thoughts too—she did not want to communicate with the world anymore, so her language ability, hearing, and mobility were all affected.
Rob said, he explained, that recently he had been thinking about what happens when a person chooses to be born with very strong talent, and then later discovers, for whatever reason, that he cannot use it, or must pay a very high price for it. For example, a person has psychic ability, has the ability to foresee the future, but he discovers that this ability has not made his life better, and has not made human life better either—what happens then? There are many science fiction films about this; I cannot remember them. I remember there was one science fiction film about a person with precognitive ability, a little girl, but this precognitive ability made her unable to be accepted by others, and actually did not bring her good things.
Rob said, at first I thought it was a contradictory thing that this kind of conflict could occur within the framework of nature. Then I realized that they must have been happening all along, and therefore were actually entirely natural. He had previously thought that in a natural environment, this contradictory state of having very strong ability but being unable to use it was unnatural. But now he suddenly realized that it was also a kind of nature, and that this phenomenon had been happening all along. What does that mean? Actually, if we carefully look back at ourselves, we will find that we actually have many abilities, but sometimes we are afraid of these abilities. Do you understand what I mean? Sometimes we are afraid of certain abilities of our own, and deliberately suppress them in various ways. The reason for the suppression is very simple: you have labeled it, or there is a contrary belief at work. Jane is a typical example.
Rob said, I have now figured it out; this kind of thing is too normal, and it has always been happening naturally and normally. He had previously thought that nothing could stop a person from displaying a great ability—gold will always shine. Now he began to doubt: it is too normal for a person's great ability not to be displayed; this is the most normal thing in nature and in human society. Gold can also have times when it does not shine, and when it does not shine it is still gold. Now I told Jane, I understand that things are not that simple. Using or not using a trait has many branches and many possible variations, just as there are many people who possess spotted versions of that trait. From completely submerging the trait in a lifetime and never exercising it, to merely setting it aside, to using it in its original form—letting it come out however it comes out, without intensifying it—to being completely transformed in some expression, where the trait has disappeared. All of these are very normal.
This was Rob's own insight. This was what happened between the two of them before the session.
Then that night, December 1st, Seth came through at 9:45. Seth saw that they had just spoken their minds. Seth said, I have some comments on your discussion, and I will keep them brief. He said, Ruburt does not owe me anything. If he decides not to have sessions, or not to operate in the so-called psychic field, this does not mean he is a failure in any way. Ruburt does not owe me anything. If you want to have sessions, have them; if you do not want to, do not. It is also fine if he does not continue in the psychic field; it does not mean that if he no longer operates in the psychic field, he has failed. He does not owe me a sense of commitment, as if I must transmit the Seth material. No.
But I will stand by the material I have given concerning his health, whether or not you find it difficult to understand, or whether or not you can let yourselves accept it.
Seth said, you do not owe me anything, but still, I once gave some material about his health, and I still think it is helpful to you. I do not know whether you find it very hard to understand, or whether you simply cannot accept it. But Jane does not need to carry this psychological burden, and she certainly does not need to feel that not developing psychically is a failure. It is not.
I do admit that from your standpoint, or from your viewpoint, it may be very difficult to accept some of the statements I have made.
Seth said, many things I say may be very hard for you to accept. For example, I said Jane is actually improving, but what you see is that she has been worsening all along. That may seem even to be directly contradicted by your observation of Ruburt on a daily basis, and by his own experience of himself. From your bystander's perspective, or from his own perspective as the person involved, his condition has not improved, yet I have kept telling you he is improving, so you feel the information I give you is all contradictory, all simply wrong, just meant to comfort me.
To both of you, obviously he does not seem to have gotten any better; he has not improved. On the contrary, quite the opposite, it often seems that the reverse is true.
Not only has he not improved, he has gotten worse and worse. You may now feel it is too difficult to make the necessary leap of faith, because you no longer believe him, and you no longer believe what I told you about Jane improving. Without more evidence to support it, you still have to have faith and leap forward, firmly believing he is improving, because the evidence you have gathered shows he is not improving at all.
Even with obviously many more difficulties, Ruburt does experience fairly frequent feelings of release.
Although there are difficulties, Jane still often has that feeling of release. If those feelings had no further effect, then what good were they? So the two of you are bound to wonder. He said, in the overall course of Ruburt's illness, from your viewpoint, or from your actual experience and sense of the evidence, it is getting worse and worse, but interspersed with many feelings of release—Jane would often have this kind of ease, "these past few days have been very comfortable." Including when her friends came to see her—you remember at Christmas 1980, when some of her classmates and students came to see her, her body already had a very large spontaneous improvement. Seth said, if those improvements were not meant to help her, not meant to further improve her, then what do you think those physical releases, that ease, were doing? They were certainly helping her, right? I know those feelings of release are an indicator of the body's healing energy. If you do not know, then I will tell you: that kind of intermittent ease and relaxation in the body is an indicator that the body is healing.
But you do not believe it. In the book The Way Toward Health, which he wrote after being hospitalized later on, he also said many similar things: when your body improves, those clues of improvement, though very faint, are positive; they are signs of improvement. But you choose to ignore them and turn a blind eye; you feel they are not important, and you focus all your attention on the body worsening.
Seth said, the intermittent ease and relaxation in the body is an indicator that the body is healing, but you do not believe it. He fully understood that, on the whole, you find such a statement unacceptable. Seth said I understand; what I say is also futile, and you do not accept my viewpoint.
Then Seth went on, and he paused for a long time. He said, but I would never hinder Ruburt's recovery as you understand it. He said I would not say that because of my existence, I hinder your thoughts of wanting to help Ruburt recover, such as the matter of stopping the sessions. I also would not feel that Ruburt or you have let me down in any way. He also did not feel that you had done anything to feel sorry toward me, or that you had not used my material well, had not healed yourselves, as if you had let down these twenty years of transmission, or this earnest teaching. But no; do not have that kind of thought.
Returning to an Earlier Orientation
Ruburt does need to return to an earlier orientation, back to his previous state. When he first began transmitting the Seth material, he was not like this; he did not have so many worries. He simply felt the Seth material was very interesting, and it seemed to reveal many things he had not known before. With a strong sense of curiosity, curiosity about the universe and the world, he wanted to bring through as much of the Seth material as possible. At that time he did not have so much sense of responsibility and pressure, and this sense of guilt.
This all came later, as books came out one after another, and also from readers' letters; the influence of readers' letters on him was also considerable. Among them there were always good ones and bad ones. The good ones were encouragement and praise; did he actually need those? He needed them too, but he did not need them very much. But the bad letters were a blow to him, such as those criticizing him, that is one aspect, and all kinds of challenges and criticism.
Think about it: he received about thirty to fifty letters every week. Let us take an average of forty letters a week; a year has fifty-two weeks, so calculate how many letters he received in a year? More than two thousand letters. The key is that the two of them read every letter; he had no assistant, no aide, no secretary; it was just Rob and Jane, the two of them, reading every letter and often replying. And most of this reading and replying was done by Jane, with Rob doing some auxiliary work.
Most of those letters were addressed to Jane, and one category among them was the help-seeking kind, meaning can you help me, can you ask Seth to help me solve some problem? And those letters would also leave Jane with bad feelings in the end. Because she was not solving problems formally the way a psychologist would; for example, if you make an appointment with a psychologist and come for treatment several times a week, I know the whole course of your illness, and I can also see you steadily improving. But they would write one letter today and then there would be no follow-up. Jane would very seriously write back a letter telling him how to proceed, but Jane could not see the later result; it was like a situation with no feedback or response at all. This was actually a great blow to Jane. And in her own body, she also could not see a positive effect, which was also a blow to her.
Seth said, Jane needs to return to that previous state, the state of curiosity, exploration, and thirst for knowledge, and not carry so much sense of responsibility. That kind of reorientation can lighten the sense of responsibility she sometimes takes upon herself. No one asked her to take it on; she took it on herself.
Seth said she needs an orientation toward simpler issues, such as those that carry within themselves a simpler childlike curiosity. For Jane, she needs to simplify, to make this matter simple, not to think so much about complexity, about humanity and society, but simply to maintain a child's curiosity, and that is enough.
Then he went on, Ruburt needs to turn away from excessive concern with the heavier problems of life, and to let go of the feeling that it is up to him to solve those problems for himself and for you and for the whole world. Whether solving problems for readers, for Rob, or for the whole world, do not think about solving problems; just explore with curiosity, and that is enough.
The Weight of Readers' Letters
The pace of speech below became slower and slower. He said, to you, to Rob, most of that should be very obvious. Rob, you can see clearly; you can probably see all of this very clearly, but Jane still cannot see it clearly. He said it in a way that the pressure was not only about one person, namely that person's relationship with his own nature. It was not only the relationship between Jane and her own nature. What nature? The nature is curiosity, mystery, and this kind of intellectual thing. And then herself, and also the part of her guilty self. It was not only the relationship between these two parts, that is, not Jane's source, or the anxiety with Jane in real life. In other words, it was not the conflict between Jane's guilty self and her spontaneous self.
He said it is not only that; of course that is also one part of it, but it is not only that. What else is there? There is also this—those issues are now aggravated by Ruburt's understanding of other people's lives. Because those readers' letters contain many, many very heavy problems, and some of those problems are very serious.
For example, I will not mention the specific content, because Ruburt rarely touched on personal privacy. What questions those readers' letters asked, he generally did not say; they were very protective of privacy. But as far as I personally am concerned, many people send me private messages asking questions, and as I have told everyone, some of those questions are really very serious. They are not simple questions; they are very serious, involving life and death, involving a family, involving a person's extremely important life decisions. Not one question is light, not one question is simple. If it were simple, he would not come to you to ask; he could solve it himself. Those who come to you are generally asking about very thorny problems.
So at the time, in Jane's situation, the questions those readers asked her were the same. And these people's descriptions of their own lives, their descriptions of being stuck in life's difficulties, actually placed a great sense of responsibility on Jane as well. The deeper Jane got involved in the life predicaments described in those readers' letters, the greater Jane's sense of responsibility became, and the more she wanted to help them through the Seth material.
Seth said, at the same time, he did not deal with such people directly, only through letters. So for example, he could not follow up the way a therapist would. The direct contact his ESP class had given him over the years, when he himself helped guide others and could see the results through their achievements and behavior, gave him a sense of accomplishment. Back when he taught the ESP class, those students came to class every week, and he could see their changes.
But when he corresponded with these readers, he could not see any sense of accomplishment; he could only see those heavy lives. And then he would write someone a letter full of deep feeling, a reply telling them what to do, but most of the time the letter would simply sink like a stone into the sea. He did not know whether the letter helped the person or not, or whether people felt his letter had no real practical meaning at all. For the person writing the letters, for Jane, for the person who had been transmitting the Seth material all along, this was truly a heavy blow. You have to understand how she felt. This was something neither of them had expected, and it was Seth who pointed it out to them.
Treating Herself as a Therapist
He said Ruburt clearly expected more of himself than others asked of him. He was just a psychic, just a channel, just a person who transmitted the Seth material. He did not have therapeutic experience, and Jane actually had no particular gift in that area. He felt that because he had transmitted the Seth material and understood many things, he could therefore heal people. No. It is not the case that once you have mastered a lot of knowledge you can heal others. These are two completely different professions. A therapist is a therapist, psychological counseling is psychological counseling, a psychotherapist is a psychiatrist. These are completely different professions.
But Jane treated herself as a therapist. She treated herself as a healer or a helper. She was helping these readers, but she herself did not have this ability. So it would have been perfectly fine for her to just be a channel, and up to that point she had done it extremely well. But she was expanding the scope of her own responsibility. She was piling responsibilities onto herself that were not hers in the first place. Those people were not her patients, she was not a psychiatrist, and she was not a therapist. To put it even more bluntly, she did not even know these people, and she had absolutely no need to carry such responsibility. Yet she carried it.
Seth said, I believe a few months ago I gave him a great deal of material on this subject. I said these things. But I will keep your question in mind, sort through his experience, and see what material I can give you. He said, I know where the point of contention between you two lies tonight, and I also understand the points you have been pressing. Let me see what help I can give you through what I can offer.
He said earlier, I have already given you a great deal of material, and these are all things I have said many times before. The other comments are merely convenient bandages. Like adhesive bandages, they seem unable to do much. What he meant was, the information I gave you, the advice I gave you two, seemed insignificant, and did not give you a clear plan for treatment or recovery. It seemed like a little today and a little tomorrow, like bandages. But along the way, it has been extremely beneficial to your health. It has been extremely beneficial to your health. But the two of them did not recognize this.
When she feels panic, your loving touch, physical contact, a gentle and quick massage or embrace, acts on the nervous system as quickly as anything else, and far faster than any medicine. Animals have long been aware of this immediate healing behavior. When Jane began to feel panic, an embrace from you, a comfort, a caress, might give Jane a better healing effect than medicine. Animals have long known this, and people actually know it too.
Redefining Personal Identity
Seth paused for a long time at 10:21. He said, this statement I have made about the spontaneous self and the inborn nature, if accepted, could be extremely useful. You have a spontaneous self, and then you have an inborn nature, which is inborn in you. If it can be accepted, it will still be useful to you.
You are trying to redefine the very definition of personal identity. What is personal identity? Redefining this definition is not in itself an easy thing. For example, is the sinful self a part of the self? This is a matter of defining personal identity. Questions like this, not only for Ruburt, but people in the world today are also to some extent in the process of such a redefinition. Redefining the definition of identity itself.
It is impossible to assign any time factor to that lesson. When a person can complete this process of redefining their self-identity, do not give it a time limit. Because this process itself cannot be considered within time factors. Because your identity, your larger identity, is not within this time and space. It is just that if you set a time limit, you cannot understand it. To put it even more bluntly, your larger self requires countless reincarnations before you can have a clearer recognition of it. In this one short life, you say you can have a clear and definite understanding of a larger identity? If you say you have it all figured out, that is nonsense.
Some people will say, I have seen my past lives, or I know who I am. What is being told to you here is, do not give yourself a definition in terms of time, as if not knowing the definition of your identity is something shameful. Many people are in this process, and being in the process of recording it is enough. The fact that you are thinking about this question is already enough. The fact that you are exploring this process is already enough. You do not necessarily have to have a result.
Pay attention to this point. Many people want that result, and especially want to understand who they are. Especially after studying spiritual material, they want even more to approach it from a spiritual angle. Traditional knowledge is not enough to express it, so they want an expression and recognition of self-identity from a spiritual level. Is this right? No. Many people say, I am the reincarnation of so-and-so, I was a child attendant before the Buddha, and then I am whoever, and my higher self is whatever. Do not do this. You may maintain continuous exploration and a continuous firm process, but do not rush to make this definition.
Seth was saying this to Jane. That is, do not discover the sinful self, and then discover this entanglement, and then your recognition of yourself becomes blurred. Actually, by the later period Jane had already become very averse to discussing this kind of topic, and you can understand why she disliked it. What Seth was actually saying was this: just act spontaneously. The spontaneous self and the inborn nature. When Seth spoke of the sinful self, he also said, do not try to change it, or blame it or criticize it. What you need is to understand it and accept it.
At the same time, in some way Ruburt experienced that pressure. But Ruburt had this pressure, and he wanted to figure out exactly who he was, exactly what kind of person he was, exactly what the relationship was between the writer, the sinful self, and the spontaneous self. Seth said there is no need. Relax. There is no need to reach a conclusion at this time.
Falling Asleep in the Trance State
Then Seth said, tonight I cannot say much more, but I will indeed make whatever further connections I can, and I will add my own assistance and energy to Ruburt, on whatever level is most useful to them.
At 10:28, Jane sat very quietly on the sofa, paused again for a long time, her eyes closed, and then she began to snore softly. She was always like this. She had fallen asleep. In his surprise, Rob hesitated about whether to wake her. Finally, when Rob began to put away his notebook, Jane started and returned to Seth's consciousness. She had fallen asleep, and then when Rob wanted to put away the notebook, she woke up again, and then continued speaking for Seth.
He said, then I will end the session. Tonight on several occasions I have already wandered within the session. See what other clues there may be that I may have noticed. As I always do, I wish you a good evening.
Seth said, during your argument today, I was present the whole time. I kept wanting to see what I could offer you directly and immediately, to give you immediate help. These points were all things Jane had not noticed before. To summarize simply, she reacted to readers' letters, and this sense of responsibility was something she did not have before. Why did she have it now? Because she had not previously been exposed to the tragic lives of other people. But she could not appear in the role of a therapist in response to these tragic lives, and moreover she herself was not a therapist. That was not her identity. But she was affected by this, by this pressure, by this sense of responsibility. This was the source of her suffering.
And then she also wanted to settle her identity as early as possible. But she also knew the sinful self and the spontaneous self, and she could not fully accept and reconcile the two. At this point she wanted to give herself something definite as quickly as possible. But to put it bluntly, she could not handle the sinful self, and the sinful self was still very powerful. So the spontaneous self and the sinful self became a kind of tug-of-war, and this led to her symptoms. Then Seth said, do not rush like this. Do not rush to settle the question of your identity. So these insights were all things they had never thought of before.
Then at 10:32 they said good night to Seth, and the content ended. Rob also made some summaries of the opening remarks he had made for this session. Jane remembered being asleep, but did not remember what happened during that period. Rob understood how she could drift from this trance state into the sleep state if she was tired. But although Rob asked her, she did not understand why she could wake up within the trance state, yet not in her usual waking consciousness. She even continued speaking for Seth. When Rob put away my notebook and went to feed the cat, she dozed off again, and Rob helped her move from the sofa to her chair.
This matter could be explored in depth, but we will not explore it in depth today. Actually, this thing is very interesting. A person entering the kind of state Jane used to transmit material for Seth, in the past she was always awake. But this time was very special. She was actually asleep, already asleep and snoring, but suddenly she woke with a start and began speaking again, wanting to speak for Seth, and after speaking she fell asleep again. She slept before, slept in the middle, and slept after. From a certain angle, Jane was in a sleep state the entire evening, and in the middle when she woke she spoke for Seth, and after speaking she slept.
Then when Rob asked Jane, do you remember what you just did? Jane said she remembered dozing off the whole time, sleeping the whole time, and she actually did not remember the things she had just said for Seth. Then Rob found it very strange, saying, this is not right. You are usually awake. How come this time you were in this state? You just need to know that this possibility exists, that this phenomenon exists.
Rob's Fear and Withdrawal
Then Jane woke up, and at this point she said it would be terrible to give up the sessions. When Rob pushed her into the bathroom, she shouted that she did not want to have sessions, because Rob had already threatened her: if you do not see improvement in your body, I will stop the sessions. I will not do them anymore, and I will not take notes for you anymore. You can find whoever you want to take notes, or record it if you want, but I am not doing it anymore.
At this point Jane was actually a little afraid. Rob quickly said, dear, do not worry. He said with a smile, I actually know it will never come to that. I will not stop doing sessions for you. Maybe I was completely mistaken. I really did expect you to publish books soon, and other psychic things, although I do not know whether you will write The Magical Approach again. Rob said, do not worry. I will not say I will not write for you. If you want to continue, I will continue doing sessions for you. But when I think about what he will become when he continues working, I am really afraid. Because as soon as Jane started working, her body began to deteriorate. So in his heart Rob was still not very willing to let her continue.
Rob said, we talked about starting another reading, and a daily plan for discussing Seth's concepts. Jane was not saying we disagree with Seth, or feel his material is unacceptable, but that we cannot make it work for us the way we want it to. He said, it is not that we think the Seth material is bad, nor that we think it is useless. It is that we find it does not work the way we imagined it would.
That is to say, if the Seth material is so effective, it should at least give Jane an inner intuition, saying, I am meant to transmit the Seth material, and I have no hesitation in transmitting it. But Jane was hesitating now. Should I transmit it or not? This was a little strange. Your Seth material says it can bring out a person's inner impulses, the things they want to do inwardly, the inner self, the inner action, very clearly. But in Jane's case it was not clear. Sometimes she wanted to do it, but her body was like this. And this was where the two of them doubted the Seth material. He said it did not work the way we wanted it to. Jane did not give him a strong inner purpose, did not tell him, you must finish transmitting Seth, and so on. Instead it gave Jane even greater confusion, doubt, anxiety, and hesitation. And perhaps some things were not said, because Jane may have unintentionally blocked them.
Rob told Jane, Seth said nothing at all about what I considered the main conflict. Rob thought Jane's problem was the conflict between the sinful self and the spontaneous self. Seth said this was not the problem at all. Jane's problem was not there. It was in the points he made in this session, namely that Jane's sense of responsibility was too heavy.
Rob also found it strange. I even agree that our challenge may very well have been handled successfully in one or more other probable realities, and in that sense, that is a way of learning we can completely accept. He said, I know that perhaps in another parallel time-space, our problem has already been solved, and there is no such problem there. In that one, we could learn the Seth material in a way we could accept, and our problem would be solved very well. But we are not there yet. We still cannot accept the learning method Seth has given us, because we still have doubts about his learning method.
But the solution left to us by such a route may be far inferior to the solution we want in this reality. Rob meant that if in a parallel time-space there really were no problems, and any problem would be solved in a few words, he said that might not be as good as our current effect. The solution given to us by the current state is one that faces such a great challenge, and perhaps the method of solving it under such a challenge would be of even greater help to others. This was Rob's contradiction. He did not want Jane's body to deteriorate, but he also wanted a solution that could help Jane solve the problem even under the worst conditions.
And I truly believe that a solution must also be possible here. He firmly believed this. Where is our faith? We still have much to learn. He said, where is our faith? Do we have faith? Actually, we do not. So we have much to learn from him. How to establish our own faith, that is the difficulty.
The Rhythm of the Treatment Plan
Note 1, by its length, could actually have been a session in itself. It was a private session, and not shorter than a normal private session.
Then let us look at Note 2. After the private session of December 1, Rob suggested to Jane that we begin a daily plan of reading and discussing the Seth material. Following that idea, two days later Seth suggested that we begin studying The Magical Approach and the sessions on the sinful self. Then he commented that this approach had a cyclical and meaningful nature.
Rob suggested that Jane begin reading the Seth material every day, so that it would become a way to bring Jane back to that state as quickly as possible, to shake off that dejected state, that state that was also bad for the body. Then Seth suggested that you could discuss the sinful self on one hand and The Magical Approach on the other. The combination of the two itself had a certain cyclical and mutually reinforcing quality, and could achieve its own beneficial nature.
Seth said, obviously to the two of you, it looks as though you have begun many plans designed for treatment, only to watch helplessly as they disappear. Seth said, this is a treatment plan tailored specifically for the two of you, yet the two of you watch helplessly and do not use it, watching it disappear before your eyes. Seth was also quite anxious.
But with this kind of plan, there is a rhythm. With this kind of treatment plan, you use it for a while, then after a period you stop using it, then after another period you use it again. This is very normal. They begin with a certain impetus, giving you a certain kind of progress, and regardless of whether that progress is large or small, there must be a period of digestion. When stimulation over a period of time is intermittent, it is more effective. As for the nature of the process, there is necessarily a need for relaxation, turning, and diversion.
Seth was comforting him, saying, this treatment of yours is rhythmic and staged, and this way the effect will be better. It is not that it works all at once, a miracle cure. No, it comes in stages. Here you can understand that when we use spiritual material to solve certain problems, it is not necessarily instantly effective. It requires a process of repetition. Each repetition makes the process more solid.
In Buddhism this is called regression. When you have studied something very diligently, and in practice you find it is not very effective, you begin to doubt, and your belief in yourself begins to waver. But you also see its progress. The regression has not completely returned you to your most primitive state. It is under limited progress that you see there is indeed some advancement, but it has not completely changed your state. Then you continue to practice on this foundation. You cannot give up and stop using it just because there is a regression. Here this is explained clearly to you: it is rhythmic and repetitive, and this is all normal.
A World That Does Not Need the Seth Material
He said, do not worry about it. The body itself knows how to use this rhythm. If you trust the basic characteristics of the natural person, generally speaking, in the world, you would not need sessions like ours at all. Because this knowledge would be part of that world, and contained within its cultural framework, and within people's daily habits. Most people in this world are healthy and do not have major problems, because they do not need such sessions. They do not have the Seth material, and they live perfectly well. This is something people know on their own, and it is hidden in the bits and pieces of life habits, in the bits and pieces of your cultural framework. It is contained within it.
A normal world contains this material, because this material also comes from the world. So you do not need to deliberately do anything special. Look at the bits and pieces of your daily life. Many, many aspects are very much in accord with the Seth material. It is not that every one of us must study the Seth material in order to be a certain way. If a person can live in the state Seth describes, resting in each present moment, pursuing inner joy, living a normal life, then they are already living in that state. Whether they know it or not, the result is the same.
Then Rob said, how ironic. What have we been doing for these ten or twenty years? We produced so much Seth material, and then Seth says that in life the Seth material is not needed. This was a blow to the two of them.
Seth said, if generally speaking, if we humans normally did a better job of creating our reality, it would be unnecessary. What he was referring to was the Seth material. The Seth material is also unnecessary. So here we need to have a concept: do not treat the Seth material as a truth, as some kind of thing, as if the world would stop turning without it. No. If the world were running well, the Seth material would not be needed at all. This truth is everywhere, all over the place.
It is the same as the Buddha's idea. If the Buddha had felt that without the sutras, without the concepts of Buddhism, the world could not run well, then he would certainly have said, write it all down and pass it on. This cannot be lost. He did not. He said, do not record me, do not spread this thing. Why was he not afraid? Why did he not need to pass down all the sutras? It is because if you have that kind of natural trust in nature, if you trust the magical approach of the natural person, then the Seth material is contained in the behavior patterns of every natural person, contained in the bits and pieces of daily life, contained in every aspect of daily work such as cooking breakfast in the morning and taking the children to school. Without the Seth material, you can live very well, and one could even say live better. So you do not need to carry something on your back, set up some kind of framework and structure, and then feel that you are a cut above others, that you are extraordinary. This is unnecessary, and it is a very dangerous idea.
So here Seth emphasized this point again. What he said was very profound and very sharp. Let us turn this statement around. Why did Jane feel her illness could not be cured? It was because Jane always had a certain idea. She always wanted to verify the Seth material. She treated the Seth material as a method and means of healing, and she always wanted to try it on herself. This was one of her misunderstandings. Actually, she did not need the Seth material. Without the Seth material, her illness could still be cured. You only need to believe that you are natural and magical. This is what Seth said over and over again. You only need to remember this one thing, and that is enough. You will naturally be able to heal yourself, and naturally enter a very good state.
But you clearly do not need the Seth material to heal yourself, yet you believe you need the Seth material to heal yourself. And when the effect is not obvious, when the process has its staged and rhythmic quality, you begin to doubt again. This is interesting.
To put it simply, Seth is not the cure for this society. We ourselves are. Our most natural state of self is the true solution for this society. The Seth material is not the solution. Do not get it backwards. Never treat the Seth material as the method for solving society's problems. What is it then? Every person living in the most natural state is the natural way to solve it. And all the Seth material has been saying, after all that, is that it wants you to return to that natural state.
If you take all the vast knowledge of the sutras the Buddha spoke, and condense it into one sentence, it is: be yourself, be your most natural self. That is all. Just this one sentence. There is nothing you need to do. Just be your natural self. Because every person is endowed with the Tathagata nature. If the Buddha said, there is no need to say it. Does being yourself even need to be said? Can't everyone be themselves? If you are not being yourself, then who are you being?
If you insist on elevating it to the philosophical level, the psychological level, the spiritual level, then being yourself becomes a very profound topic. But when you look at this question through the eyes of a small child, from the perspective of a child or an infant, this is not a problem at all. There is not even such a question. It is as if you have gone around in a circle and come back, and it is still not a problem. No matter what you do, you are yourself. Can you become someone else? No matter how much you study, how much you improve, how much Seth you study, how much you refine yourself, how much you meditate, how much you practice, who do you end up being in the end? Still yourself. Can you become Maitreya Buddha? Can you become Guanyin Bodhisattva? Can you become God or Jesus? Can you become someone else? You cannot. You are Zhang San, and you cannot even become Li Si.
So no matter what you do, you are yourself. Being yourself is not something you need to learn. Then you say, just as Rob felt, what have we been doing all these years of study? It is a matter of returning to simplicity and authenticity. If you understood this principle from the very beginning, then you truly would not need to study. But our problem is that we are wrapped up in these realistic, worldly, layer upon layer of beliefs, like ropes wound around the body again and again. The Seth material gives you a sharp knife to cut those ropes one by one, to cut away the things binding you, to return to yourself, to hand yourself back into your own hands. That is all. You do not need to take some extra graduate course, or study some secret method or some practice, before you can be a certain way.
The Healing Nature of Creative Work
From a deeper perspective, why could Jane not be cured? It was because she had not thought these principles through, she had not figured them out. She always felt that since she was transmitting the Seth material, then the Seth material had to be useful. If it was not useful, why was she transmitting it? What if it was harmful? Then how could she prove it was useful? She wanted to verify it on herself, to see whether she could cure herself. As it turned out, after all that verification, she found she was not cured, and that was an even greater blow, an even greater pain, an even stronger sense of responsibility. But she vaguely felt that what Seth said made sense, so why was it not working in her practice? That was the root of the problem.
Although Seth said only a few words, they were very important. Seth basically said that the sessions for The Magical Approach could be used as valuable springboards to release new touches of inspiration and understanding from your own creative realms, thereby producing therapeutic developments. In other words, they should be part of the program, regardless of how Ruburt could handle those sessions in terms of writing the book. For Ruburt to go on and complete The Magical Approach was actually part of his treatment plan, allowing him to release new touches of inspiration and understanding, giving him new ideas to refine his creativity.
He said another point: regardless of any seeming contradictions, the beneficial aspects of any particular creative activity far outweigh any disadvantages. As long as you do creative work, even though on the surface there may still be many unfavorable effects or some negative effects, as long as you do creative things, its benefits will always outweigh its disadvantages.
When you do creative things, or when you live in a creative way, it is not that your life is full of advantages everywhere according to our worldly views. There will also be unfavorable occurrences, and these unfavorable occurrences cannot hinder the beneficial part. In other words, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
The nature of creativity, no matter what particular expression it takes, is reflected in an overall general manner, and automatically enhances the quality of life. As long as he is being creative, he is enhancing the quality; you do not need to look at what the whole thing looks like. And this benefit is certain, there is no need to question it. No matter what other circumstances become apparent, no matter how terrible it looks, it is helpful to improving the quality of life as a whole. In other words, as long as you do creative things, that is enough; do not negate it just because some things you consider bad appear in the process or the results.
Seth said, I want to make clear here that regardless of any side effects that may seem all too obvious to you, in the production and release of my and Ruburt's previous book, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, its benefits far outweighed its disadvantages. If that book had not been produced and released, you do not know what would have happened, so that question may remain unresolved. In the same way, the publication of my next book, or rather the book we are now working on, will certainly bring you greater benefits rather than disadvantages.
Because by this time Jane had already begun to waver: should this book still be published? Because the results were not good, so why publish a book with poor results and mislead others? That was the inner conflict Jane was struggling with. And then Seth quickly came out to strengthen her confidence.
The turning point in Ruburt's thinking came from the uproar that The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events caused in society. Because many of its viewpoints were so conflicting with the mainstream views of that time, and even of the present, and even carried a strong sense of offensiveness and aggressiveness, it also met with strong backlash from mainstream society. The letters from readers were extremely sharp, and some people even protested and organized demonstrations against the release and publication of the book.
This book was a turning point for the two of them in the publishing process. Why were the books published in between not affected? Because from the time Seth transmitted the material to the time of publication, it generally took about two or three years, and many sessions were held during that period. When the book was actually published, the material transmitted in those intervening years would not be affected. But this book was published in January of 1981, and at this point it had only been out for about a year, truly available to the public for only a year. So you can feel the reactions to its effects in the latter half of this book. The ones in between, such as The "Unknown" Reality, were not yet affected, and because they were not affected, their content had not changed. But after that book was released and published, you can see that Jane's changes were very obvious.
Seth gave her a reassurance at this time. Because by then Jane often stopped for eight or nine months during the transmission of that book, because she already had an inner anxiety at that time. He said that publishing that book was of course much better than not publishing it. He said you do not know what bad consequences there would have been if that book had not been published. Although you only know that after it was published it also brought many bad results, he said you do not know that if the book had not been published, it might have brought even greater harm to the development of human civilization. But we do not know this, and Seth said I cannot prove it to you, right? So I can only tell you, but I cannot prove it to you.
He then said, let us put it this way: our book, or the next book, is beneficial to the whole of human society, not detrimental.
Of course, expression is far better than repression. He said you must express, but it is more than that. It is not just about repression; you cannot solve it by adding more repression as a form of treatment. Expression is good, better than repressing expression. For example, Jane wanted to express, but did not dare to express. The main thing is not this; the main thing is that you cannot use repression to treat your problem of repression. That is what he meant.
As for Ruburt's symptoms, the problems will emerge in different ways, regardless of their apparent triggers. If you do not let him express, then his symptoms will only get worse, and they will manifest in other ways.
If the apparent trigger of a difficulty is a creative achievement, then that difficulty itself also contains its own natural therapeutic solution. This statement is very dialectical. A creative achievement triggered a difficulty. To put it more bluntly, in the process of Jane creating the Seth material, this was creative work, but it triggered an obvious difficulty, whether physical or inner psychological.
In our ordinary lives this also happens. When we are doing creative work, we may also trigger difficulties. Of course it does not always trigger difficulties, but when it does, as in Jane's case, he said that this difficulty itself carries a strong natural healing effect. You think this difficulty is a difficulty, as if it were an unfavorable factor for your treatment, but in fact this difficulty itself is also beneficial to your treatment; you just have not recognized it. To put it plainly, as long as you are doing creative work, even if it brings many things you consider unfavorable or difficult, for the value fulfillment of your whole life, the appearance of these difficulties has its benefits. It just depends on how you look at it.
Rob's Realization
After the session, after Seth had finished this private session, Rob said he told Jane very clearly that the message of the Seth material was that giving up the highly creative endeavor of these sessions would be a great mistake for us. Because the sessions themselves are creative, giving them up would be too great a mistake, and very bad for Jane's treatment. Regardless of whether those sessions would be published or not, published or unpublished, they still had to be creative.
Then Rob said he was glad to retract the observation he had made in the previous session. What observation? That they would stop having sessions from now on. He said I retract it; we will still have sessions from now on.
Seth had actually made this matter clear to him. He said it was not a question of having sessions or not having sessions; you cannot use one repression to repress another repression. You cannot say that because Jane feels this sense of repression when publishing books, this sense of responsibility and morality, and then feels guilty about herself, which is itself a repressive thing, and then you say, fine, my way of treating you is that you should not publish anymore, using another repression, "do not publish anymore," to repress that repression. Seth said this will not work; you cannot use this repression to repress that repression. That is not a method of treatment. You can only let him express.
He said Jane did not want to continue having sessions. Rob said I retract what I said, my observation. Actually Jane was not like that; Jane did not not want to have sessions.
Then Rob said again, once more, we can try to seek out the creative pattern of the symptoms themselves. A pattern is a model, a template. Find it, and the answers to our challenges, because that is where those answers will be found. Then Rob had learned to be clever. Rob said then let us look at the problem she is now facing, her current symptoms, that is the problem. Through this difficulty itself, let us see whether it is some way of solving the problem that we have not yet discovered. Seth had just said that when you encounter difficulties in the middle of creative work, this difficulty itself carries a certain capacity for healing and solving problems. And then Rob was very clever: then let us see whether we can find in Jane the solution that this difficulty brings.
Difficulties Are Also the Solution
This is something we hadn't thought of before: the difficulty itself is also the solution. This is the content of Note 2.
Now let's look at Note 3. Rob wrote that, while he was writing the afterword for this book, he mentioned the material that would become If We Live Again -- that was derived from a private session on September 13, 1979. Three months later, when writing the opening for Session 886 in Chapter 2, Jane decided to include in that book some of the poems she had given Rob in the years since they met in February 1954, and Seth agreed as well.
Quite immodestly, Rob presented below the first stanza of a love poem Jane wrote to him on November 5, 1965, which was included in Section 2, and that section was titled "If We Live Again." Jane often rewrote her poems, but in this poem she had written 16 years earlier, she changed only two words and added only one. At that time she was 36, and they had been married for 11 years -- that is, she married at 25. After 11 years of marriage, Jane wrote this, called "Past Lives," to Rob:
In which past lives have we lived? My cells remember, what my brain cannot recall.
The brain cannot remember, but the cells remember. Your light touch makes images fly up -- Rob's touch on Jane could activate in her cells what her brain could not remember. What does it mean? It means they had loved each other in past lives. It's that "three lives, three worlds, ten miles of peach blossoms" idea. Like leaves sounding in the wind, from the silent strata beneath the earth -- you see, a female poet, when expressing her love, she uses this kind of approach.
Of course Rob loved that poem, but in a different way, he loved it just as much. Fifteen years later, on August 25, 1980, Jane wrote an "untitled poem" on another subject, when she was 51. Rob borrowed that poem for the opening of Session 920 in Chapter 9 of this book, and urged her to give it a title, and to place it in If We Live Again. In Section 6, "Strange Freedom," Jane did both. She also changed the form of the poem, but the words that Rob considered among her best creative insights were not changed. This is a short poem, about the "source of reason" -- reason as in the reason of logical thinking:
Not that my heart knows less than before, but that reasoning has finally deduced this source.
What source? The source of reason, the source of reasoning. Beneath logic, logic reasons out its own source -- beneath that logic, one senses the deeper inspiration that drives its beliefs. A deeper spontaneous order -- she found that beneath logic there is a deeper order, one that we humans have overlooked. That is the source of reason. That is what she was talking about.
Note 4, Note 5. Rob said that, inevitably, Jane's image experience reminded them of the note written not more than two months earlier -- that note discussed how Jane recreated the past through nostalgia. In Note 2 of Session 936 in Chapter 11 of this book, her image experience led Rob to dig out a pile of worn black-and-white photographs he had managed to preserve from childhood, along with some fragments of his youthful poems. Those photographs were the only collective remnants he possessed from his childhood. And upon studying them again, Rob realized how truly valuable they were. He talked about hiring an experienced, professional photographer to re-photograph them and make enlarged copies. Rob thought that one day he would place some of them in this book -- but that idea would have to wait, because for many years now, Jane had not agreed to be photographed, and she also did not agree to have her photographs placed in books anymore, no matter when they were taken.
Note 5. Rob had been encouraging Jane to write The Magical Approach, but his hope that Jane would one day finish that book had been fading over these weeks. When he was reading Jane's notes, he did not give her any negative suggestions, even though the ending of that passage expressed her conditional optimism, but Rob truly believed that the book was really dead. Aside from two small corrections, he presented what she had written exactly as it was below. Rob said, when I read this piece, I knew that The Magical Approach could not be written any further. The following is what Jane wrote, actually written on December 9, 1981:
Every time I think of starting The Magical Approach, what I feel is a reluctance, a great reluctance. I'm not sure what is bothering me -- rewriting the records, or organizing everyday events into words, or what -- but for myself, I want more joy in life and more magic, and less hard labor.
She wanted joy, but the moment she thought of writing The Magical Approach, she felt annoyed.
I had planned a serial storybook, including some of Rob's dreams and interpretations, pointing out how this or that detail fit into that picture. But I felt some pressure about it. At noon today I thought, by this point that approach seemed too rational. I want a book with a lighter tone, lighter, more open-minded. If it is to have any special feature, the technique of the book itself should be magical -- forcing readers to make non-time-framed connections.
Then regarding the first step, what possibilities did she think of? Including the original Seth sessions, one after another, and also including Rob's notes -- nothing of her own at all, all Rob's material. The next step, the second step, its chapters would follow an intuitive shape, leaning toward more associations and "guilty self" stuff, showing part of the psyche's activity. It could begin with a first chapter very much like the one I myself organized, and then each chapter would have only one or two sessions. Then the third step -- I don't know, these are all just ideas.
Jane felt that the structure of The Magical Approach itself should carry a magical quality, that it should break its own time framework, so she conceived that the structure of her The Magical Approach book should be like this, this, this -- it itself would interweave breaks in the time framework, and so on. That was her conception.
Then this morning, I read Chapter 1. The first chapter she wrote was almost exactly all I needed to do. What I did, and then thought about these ideas for a while. And this afternoon, up to now, I have only done this -- wanted to look over that chapter once more. Now, after rereading Chapter 1, this time it seemed quite good. So I will read the rest, and see what I think.
Now on the contrary, I feel very impatient with the "guilty self" syndrome, and want to align myself with the magical self.
Jane said, I don't want to link myself with the guilty self anymore, I want to be the magical self, the spontaneous self. I don't want to have any entanglement with the guilty self anymore, very impatient, very unwilling to mention it, unwilling to hear it.
Finally, after considering the interpretation of Jane's notes, Rob concluded that she would not finish her book on Seth's The Magical Approach. Rob began to imagine that one day he himself would put this material together. Rob felt that Jane would not write this book anymore, because from her earlier expressions he felt the difficulty was enormous, and she herself was very impatient and irritable.
Note 6. Rob said that Seth, in such an excellent session, not only designed his material to help Jane and me, but also to help others. In my view, he also answered the notes my wife made today -- the notes above. However, beyond all these points, I think what is remarkable is that although Jane had physical difficulties with her body, she approached the same poise and inspired certainty that she had attained two years earlier in certain passages of Chapters 1 and 2 of this book. Rob said, although Jane was very hesitant about this book, she still had her own ideas about the chapter design, and they were very definite ideas.
The Magical Approach Is the Natural Approach
Then in this private session, Seth says directly:
Ruburt is really beginning to understand that the magical approach to reality is indeed the natural approach to the experience of life.
Ruburt is really beginning to understand that the so-called magical approach to inquiry is indeed the natural approach to the experience of life -- there is nothing magical about it, it is simply something natural. Why does he say this? Because Jane wanted to write a storybook about Rob, right? She wanted to produce a comic book, a picture-story book, that would take Rob's dreams and his interpretations of dreams, and the events of Rob's daily life, and use such a storybook to tell about Rob's dreams -- and Jane often interpreted Rob's dreams for him. She said, look, Rob's dream is this, and then these things showed up in his life, so there is a certain kind of relationship between his dreams and the events in his life. And she wanted to put this into The Magical Approach. Now, this The Magical Approach is not the one in the Seth material -- this is a The Magical Approach that Jane herself wanted to write. It is not that The Magical Approach -- that The Magical Approach is a very thin booklet, only fourteen sessions. She was inspired by those sessions, and she wanted to write a new The Magical Approach, taking the ideas in that book and the part about her "sinful self" -- you know, that came out later, didn't it, they had another twenty-five private sessions? The twenty-five private sessions took three months and dealt with the "sinful self" -- she wanted to take this part about the "sinful self" and the part where Seth discussed the "magical approach" in the earlier fourteen sessions, and fuse them together in her own way, to write a complete The Magical Approach. But the The Magical Approach that we see does not include the content about the "sinful self." And Jane always felt that these two parts should be combined.
Then Seth tells him here:
He is really beginning to understand that the so-called magical approach is the natural exploration of the experience of life.
There is nothing magical about it. It is the adult version of childhood knowledge -- this sentence is very important:
The magical approach is the adult version of your childhood knowledge, the human version of animal knowledge, and the conscious version of unconscious comprehension.
This parallel structure. He says:
I tell you that Framework 1 and Framework 2 are actually united, but they appear to be so disunited that it is almost impossible to put it in any other terms.
What is the magical approach? The magical approach is the adult version of your childhood knowledge, the human version of your animal knowledge, the conscious version of your unconscious comprehension, and the fused version of Framework 1 and Framework 2. If you want to ask what the magical approach is, this is it. At the same time, Framework 1 and Framework 2 can only be discussed together.
But in order to explain that point, it is very important to understand the simple concept of Framework 2's indisputable existence.
Framework 1 and Framework 2 were originally mixed together, but in order to explain them, or to help you understand them, I can only talk about them separately. He says there is no way around this.
Then he pauses for a long time:
You need not worry in an overstrained manner about whether you should immediately translate the new principles of life into practical experience.
What does this mean? He says after you have studied the magical approach, you should not be too tense -- tense about what? That is, I just studied the magical approach, or I studied the Seth material, and I should immediately put it into my life, into my daily living, and change things right away. He says you do not need to do that, you do not need to worry. Do you understand what he means? The magical approach is your natural approach. You do not need to forcibly make a strong connection between the Seth material and your daily life. Saying, Seth said it should be like this and like that, so I will go and do it accordingly. If you do that, then you have not really understood what Seth said. Seth is not saying that he wants to impose his ideas on you, or that you must forcibly bind the Seth material to your life. Seth says, after you have studied my magical approach, after you have studied the Seth material, what is it that you should do? Live the most natural life.
Or berate yourselves for stupidity.
Or if you did not do it well -- look, I did not do it well, I have studied the Seth material for so long, and there has been no change in my life, did I do something wrong somewhere? Am I very stupid? He says:
If stupidity shows itself -- if you can see that stupidity -- do not berate yourselves for stupidity.
A very long pause, eyes closed. What does this mean? It means do not blame yourself, this is very normal. Because what you did before was wrong -- you insisted on applying the Seth material to your life, but then you found that it did not fit with your life at all, and then you scolded yourself for being stupid: why can't I apply it well? Why can't I use it well? Such good material, why can't I actually apply it in my life? And then you blame yourself. He says do not do that, do not blame yourself, do not feel that you are stupid, do not berate yourself.
Looking at the long record of work that we have done together, it should be obvious that our concepts are oriented in certain directions. For I am not only trying to strip away your official concepts, but also training you to accept a new version of reality.
What kind of version?
A version that can be described in many ways. In historical ages, this version has been spoken of. But many of those ways also turned out to be meaningless, and with the best of intentions gave a false picture. Then you ended up with gods and demons, with this cumbersome method, and with cults that were fashionable for a time, and rationality was often lowered. Of course, I hope that our paradigm avoids many of those pitfalls.
To make a long story short, Seth says: this Seth material that I have given you, all these things I have told you over all these years -- it is not just that I have stripped away the views you already had -- that is not even the important part. The important thing is that I want to give you a new version. This new version is not something that no one has ever described before. In the long river of your human history, many people have described it. But unfortunately, some people described it wrongly, they misunderstood it, or they did not understand it, and when they expressed it, others misunderstood it. No matter what happened, in the end what you got was a wrong version. For example, there were gods, there were demons, there were all these cumbersome things, and so on. By cumbersome methods, he is referring to the so-called practices, the so-called cultivation methods in many religions. He says these are all wrong, none of these are the true appearance of that reality. The true appearance is simply that what is natural is right. The most natural, the simplest, the most spontaneous is what is right. Do not create all these rules and regulations, these disciplines, these laws of cultivation -- none of it is needed.
He says, Seth says, our material, our paradigm, the Seth material, should not fall into that trap. So you can see that the Seth material rarely mentions these specific methods, such as how to interpret dreams -- he does not say. Why does he not say it? He is afraid of falling into that trap. Including many specific practice methods, how to have an out-of-body experience -- he does not say. He does not discuss out-of-body experience here. In the early material he explained out-of-body experience very thoroughly, but he does not bring it up. He is also unwilling to give you a specific practice method, saying you should do this or that. Although later someone published a book called Thirty Years of Practicing Out-of-Body Experience10, Seth felt that all of this is unnatural. To put it more bluntly, when it is time for you to have an out-of-body experience, you will have one. You do not need to practice or study. When you do not need to have an out-of-body experience, what you practice has no real meaning. For you, it is simply a matter of returning to a natural state. Because in fact, every person is already out of body every night when they dream. You do not need any additional practice for that. Do you need to practice dreaming? Do you need to practice how to dream? You do not need to practice. That is what he means.
In those chronicles, in the history of man, there is one legend after another, one story after another, one history after another, describing civilizations that came and went, kings who rose and fell. Those stories always represent the culture of the psyche, and describe the pathways of exploration that the human psyche takes as it meets with worldly experience.
He says those human chronicles are actually all manifestations of the human psyche's exploration in the real world. You see them as stories, as history, as this and that, but he says they are all pathways of exploration for your human psyche. Each one is a different path of your psyche's exploration, a story of exploration, a journey of exploration -- that is, your psyche's exploration, when it intersected with the historical period and the time and space of that era, formed such a story. Dynasties, civilizations, kings, and all those things -- he says you must understand that the core is the combination of your inner psyche's exploration with the real society of that time, and that is what formed your history.
And then some mountain climbers, when asked why they climb a certain mountain, often answer: because the mountain is there waiting for me to climb it.
Indeed, many mountain climbers say this. Why do you climb mountains? Isn't it dangerous? Or why do you want to climb this particular mountain? And they will say: the mountain is there waiting for me to climb it.
So that natural approach, that magical approach, waits to be used, because it exists, and because it represents an open doorway into a world of reality -- one that has always existed, and that has always been at the basis of your culture and experience.
What does this mean? He means that just as the mountain is there waiting for you to climb it, your magical approach has always been there waiting for you to explore it. Where is it? It is right in our lives, in every little bit of our daily lives, in our everyday living. It is not so magical that it exists nowhere at all.
At least theoretically, the magical approach should be used, because it represents the most harmonious approach to life.
He says at least theoretically, the magical approach should be used by us, because it represents the most harmonious approach for human beings. The most effective approach for you humans is the magical approach -- that is, the combination of reason and intuition, of science and that kind of sensibility. It is a way of life -- remember, this is crucial -- it is not some kind of rules and regulations, not some kind of precepts. It is our most natural way of living.
It automatically enhances all of your abilities.
It automatically enhances all of your abilities, just like in a game where all your attributes gain 100 points. As long as you use the magical approach, all of your abilities are enhanced -- not just this ability or that ability, all of your attributes are being enhanced.
And quickens your comprehension.
And quickens your comprehension, that is, it raises your cognition to a certain degree.
This rather short session tonight should remove your sense of urgency and self-criticism in that regard.
Seth says this very short session tonight is meant to achieve two purposes: to remove your sense of urgency about The Magical Approach -- the feeling that you must get it done quickly -- and also the sense of self-criticism -- the self-doubt that comes from not using it well. He wants to remove both of these from you.
When and how you can learn to make that magical approach work in any particular way -- that is, why you cannot, for example, learn to explore, to make the approach work in a faster, more effective way to help Ruburt's condition?
What he means is, you should not have this kind of thought -- is there a faster, better way to immediately change Ruburt's physical symptoms. He says you should remove this sense of urgency, remove this sense of self-criticism, remove this sense of pressure and responsibility, and only then can the magical approach work. If you are in such a frantic hurry, thinking about getting The Magical Approach out quickly, trying it on Ruburt right away to see if it works immediately -- if you are this frantic, and carrying such great pressure and sense of responsibility, how can you still call this magical? You yourself are already not magical. You are no longer in the natural magical approach. So Seth points out their current problem with one sharp remark.
You should understand that the approach is generally the best one to use in life -- the magical approach to exploration. But it will improve all situations, even though you may still have problems in certain areas, and its use will necessarily enhance the overall quality of your lives. That recognition relieves the pressure, so that you can to some extent relax your old attitudes, and allow the magical approach to work in certain areas where the issues were being argued about.
Let me put this in very plain language: he says the magical approach is the best one to use, that goes without saying, and it will change all of your situations. And then, although it changes all of your situations, it does not mean that all of your situations will become good. Some areas may still have problems, but what it promotes is your overall quality. It is not that once you use the magical approach, you all become beautiful, or once you use the magical approach you grow taller -- that is not what it means. It raises the overall quality of your life, not the kind of concrete improvement you want in every single area. When you understand this principle, it will relieve you of pressure, and allow you to return to that more relaxed, earlier state of mind, rather than the frantic state you are in now. Then you can allow the magical approach to work on those focal issues you were arguing about -- that is, the issues concerning Ruburt, the issues concerning health. Only in this state can you let it work on the issues you are anxious about. If you maintain the mindset you have had recently, it will not work.
The magical approach puts you in harmony with your own personal knowledge of the universe.
It puts you in harmony with the knowledge of the universe.
It puts you in touch with your own feelings of magic about yourself when you were a child.
It can connect you with the magical feelings you had about nature and the universe when you were a child. Simply put, it returns you to a curious, most natural state.
And usually, it is beyond the level of your specific knowledge of yourself, and yet it is familiar to you.
That childhood understanding of the sense of magic transcends knowledge -- because at that time you did not yet have knowledge -- it transcends the specific level of knowledge, and yet you are still familiar with it.
Then it is better to use it because you recognize what it is, rather than to use it specifically to get something you want.
This sentence is very important, and he will explain it later.
No matter how beneficial that something may be.
These two sentences are extremely important. This is where many people misunderstand him. He explains below:
In my terms, there is no question that used in that fashion it would naturally and easily clear up Ruburt's difficulties. If you use it because you recognize its place -- its innate rightness within yourselves, its innate superior position -- then it will automatically put you in a larger trust and faith. It opens your choices, enlarges the horizons of your understanding, so that the difficulty itself no longer seems nearly as important, and once again, in a more natural fashion, it disappears from your experience.
Let me say this again in plain language. What Seth means is: you two have not fully understood the magical approach at all. When you truly understand the magical approach, you will not think about using the magical approach to achieve something you want. This is a misunderstanding many people have. Many people say, I study the Seth material, I have mastered the magical approach, and I want to achieve this, achieve that, achieve the other thing -- by doing this, you are violating the magical approach. You might say, well, what else? Then what is the purpose of my studying the Seth material? Isn't it so that I can learn the magical approach to solve some problem, to deal with some difficulty? This is the core and root of the issue.
Seth says, you should understand what the magical approach itself is, and use it because of what it is. What is the magical approach? The magical approach is the natural approach. In that book he already made it very clear: what is called the magical approach is the natural approach. The most natural way is the magical approach. In other words, you simply trust that this most natural way is the most effective, and that the most natural way is innately superior. In other words, you do not use the magical approach because you want to get something. You use it because it is the natural approach, because it is the path you should walk. That is just how it is. It is the most normal way of living for you as a person, or for you as an existence. Without interference, every person's most natural state of living from childhood to adulthood is the natural state expressed through the magical approach. You use the magical approach not because it is useful, but because the magical approach is the way of nature itself.
This is consistent with the idea in Busting Loose from the Money Game -- they are fused together. He says when you enter Framework 2, or what is called the "point of total release," what kind of mindset should you have? The mindset of working odd jobs. Every morning when you get up, see what life has arranged for you today, and go do that. I never make plans, never make arrangements. I just go naturally, and whatever comes up, I deal with it. At the time, many people did not understand. They said, I have learned Busting Loose from the Money Game, I have these four tools, and I should take these tools and use them to manifest what I want. I worked so hard to learn this, patiently finished the course, mastered these four tools, and I practiced them repeatedly, and on some issues I did verify that they work, so I should go solve some bigger problems -- that idea of yours is the same mistake that Seth points out here, the mistake most people make. The method and the plan that book finally tells you is not because it is useful, or because it can solve some problem, or because it can get you into some state, or because it can bring you a better life -- although the author of that book used that title as a gimmick -- but that method is simply because as a human being, you should live that way. It is not that living that way will get you some benefit.
The magical approach is the same. It is not that you practice the magical approach in order to heal someone, to cure Jane, to cure Rob, to cure whoever -- no. The essence of the magical approach is this -- this is your way of living, this is what your life is originally like, and you should live this way. All other ways of living are disharmonious, all other ways are twisted. You apply the magical approach in this way. You cannot apply it as a way of healing, as a way of solving problems, as a way of using the magical approach as a tool -- it is not a tool. It is your natural state.
Just as Laozi said, "The Dao that can be spoken" -- that Dao is your natural way. You are already on this path, so what other path do you need? You might say, if I study Laozi, can I solve some problem? Can I use it to govern a country? If you think that way, then you do not understand the Dao De Jing at all. Laozi says the Dao De Jing is not for you to solve problems. You should simply be like this. Other than this, you have nothing else. Other than the natural way, what else can you be? That is the meaning.
So here Seth once again, in his distinctive way, resolves it for them: in a more natural fashion. So when you use the magical approach, when you live the way he describes, the problems you wanted to solve will naturally disappear -- it is not that you solved them, it is that at your level, they disappear. So many people misunderstand this. They feel as if they used the magical approach and solved some problem, and the problem is gone. Actually, it is not that. It is that when you live your life in the way of the magical approach, the problems that used to trouble you are no longer problems. It is not that you solved them; they vanished on their own. Just like in Busting Loose from the Money Game, after you enter the point of total release, after you enter the second stage of life, it is not that your problems were solved and disappeared -- they simply no longer exist. You did not solve them; you do not need to solve them. Look at that book -- when did it ever solve any problem? It did not. He does not need any kind of suggestion or anything -- it is one level higher than the law of belief. It is not on the same level. You have to truly understand this.
So this is the point he wants to make. So would you say these notes are unimportant? They are important. This Rob, after transmitting the Seth material for so many years, actually had a deeper understanding than Jane. Because after Jane finished speaking, she often did not read it herself, or she did not read it as deeply as Rob did. Rob -- he listened once, took notes once, typed it up once, proofread it again when it was being published, and then proofread the final draft again -- and all of this work was done by him. Think about how many times he went through it. He went through the Seth material at least three or four times: listened once, took notes once, typed it once -- that is three times; then proofread it again when it was published, at least four times; and the proofreading may have happened more than once -- those of us who have published books, who have worked in publishing, know that there is a first proofread and a second proofread. So he personally went through the Seth material in depth at least four times, while Jane often did not read it even once -- she finished speaking and that was it. Sometimes, in order to help her learn, Rob would give Jane what he had typed so she could read it, but Jane did not read all of it. But Rob -- because of the nature of his work -- understood more. So when Rob put something into this book, sometimes he might seem overly verbose, but sometimes he genuinely felt that something was good, and that is why he put it there.
The Promised Land Is Where You Are
All right, let's pause here for a moment on this passage. Below is 9:37:
So in one way, in the chronicles of our relationship, all the material I have given you—in this time history of our transmitting the Seth material, all the material I have given you—has been intended to lead you in a certain way to a place.
The purpose of all the material he has given you is one thing: he wants to bring you in a certain way to a place—
Where at least you can glimpse slightly the true nature of reality.
At that point, you can take a peek at what the true nature of reality is.
You are at that point now.
What does this mean? Actually Seth is saying, what I just said before is precisely the true face of reality. Through what I just told you, you are already able to glimpse the true nature of reality. So this preceding passage is very important.
In one way, Ruburt's physical condition represents a bruise—what is a bruise? It is an old injury. In a certain sense, Ruburt's body is an old wound, a bruise—and that is a wound sustained on a person's journey toward a greater understanding of his own life experience, toward the Great Wall of knowledge.
Again he is saying this is a wound he had to endure in his personal growth—in the growth of his life. This is not for everyone, only for Jane; this is a wound he needed to bear. Why did he need to bear it? Because Jane's process of growth was different from other people's—his early years and so on—so he had such a—from religion, then turning around to speak of Seth, then touching spirituality, then publishing, and so on—because of this kind of life growth experience, it is perfectly normal that he sustained such a wound.
In religious terms, you begin to glimpse a promised land—a land of the psyche.
He says in religious terms, you see a promised land, a land of promise—this is the Christian way of saying it. A land of the psyche.
That reality, which lets you glimpse it—that promised land, that land of the psyche—represents the reality of unimpeded nature.
What is that promised land, that land of the psyche, that land of promise, that true nature of reality? It is the reality of unimpeded nature. Your nature is simply this. To put it bluntly, your nature is the essence of this reality. As long as you return to your nature, as long as you return to your naturalness, you are in the state of glimpsing the truth of that world. In other words, you are together with this universe. It is that simple. It is the reality of unimpeded nature.
When you ask the proper question—the proper question you should ask is not "Can I enter that place?"
If you are still asking this kind of foolish question, then you have not yet understood.
When you no longer ask that question—when you no longer ask "Can I enter that place"—that place is right there.
Do you understand what this means? When you no longer ask "Can I enter that land of ultimate bliss," "the Western Pure Land," "Can I enter this samadhi," "Can I enter this land of the psyche," "Can I enter that reality of nature"—as long as you are still asking this question, you cannot enter. As long as you are still asking, you cannot enter. Why? Because you think that thing is not together with you; you think that thing is somewhere else—you want to enter it? If it is not where you are, you want to enter it? It is another destination; it is outside of you. It is like asking me how you can go to this country or that country—then of course you first have to think: I want to go to this country, I have to apply for a visa, buy a plane ticket—then you certainly believe you are not in that place, which is why you would do these things, right? But the most magical thing is, the place you want to go is right on you. Because it is right on you, yet you think it is not on you, so you can never arrive at that place. So that place is right there—when you do not ask this way, when you do not ask "Can I enter that place," you are right there. The place where you are now—and it has always been right here. This is that place—right where you are. Wherever you are, it is there too.
The pattern, the belief, the method of traveling to a destination—when you want to think the truth is not here, when you want it to be at some destination, when you want to travel there—such a thought, belief, and method of yours creates that destination itself.
You create it. Actually it is not there at all, yet you insist on creating it—so can you ever arrive? You can never arrive.
A one-minute pause.
Without trust in your present mode of existence, you could not function.
When you do not have an instinctive, natural trust in your present mode of existence—the most natural trust—you could not live here.
He paused for another minute:
For beyond those shining packages of belief—the vast storehouse where the absolute itself exists—that place truly exists beyond belief.
What does this sentence mean? It means that in that ultimate place, there is no belief; it is a place that exists beyond belief. But along the way, you will pass beyond those glittering beliefs; you will see those beliefs, but those beliefs must be transcended. You cannot reach that place by establishing some so-called correct beliefs—the place you reach must transcend all beliefs. That is to say, only in the absence of belief can you enter that place.
The universe does not depend upon your belief in it for its existence.
Whether you believe in the universe or not, the universe exists. It is not that it exists because you believe in it. That is what he means.
Within itself, the universe contains its own comprehension of its own knowledge, its own magical recognition of itself, its own laws of harmony and order, and its own organization.
The universe has its own set of things—its comprehension of its own knowledge, its magical recognition of itself, its recognition of its own laws of harmony and order, and its recognition of its own organization. It knows all of this. The universe does not need you humans to approve of it. You discover a law, and the universe operates this way—whether you discover it or not, it runs according to its own set of rules. What he means is that this natural way, this magical approach, is like this: it does not need your approval, it does not need you to believe in it.
It possesses even the smallest probability.
What does "the smallest probability" mean? Even an atom, a molecule, a single movement of a cat—these are all probabilities, right? This is the smallest kind of probability.
And still maintains its original state.
That is, even the probability of a subtle change in a single atom in the universe, or even the probability of change in a tiny person like us—it preserves all of it, allowing you to change, permitting you to change. But while every point in this universe can have infinite changes, the universe can still maintain its own original state, still maintain the universe as it is in its own appearance. The universe is the appearance of the universe, yet within this universe it allows for endless transformations. This is the magical thing about the universe.
Therefore in the swift motion of a universal mechanism, no most fleeting probable life, creature, or being has ever been lost.
All within this lightning-flash instantaneous change of the universe—because everything is changing, everything is changing—within this rapid change, this rapid motion, this rapid movement, not one fleeting probable life, creature, or being—he uses these different words to represent them—has ever been lost. That is, it will not miss any possible life, any possible experience, any possible event, any possible probability. The universe is this magical. To put it simply, every life is taken care of—even if you are a nonphysical life, it is the same.
But even more—even to want to feel the existence of that reality, you must also open the door of Framework 2.
He says when you want to experience this state I described earlier, this truth of reality, the truth of the universe, he says you must also open the door of Framework 2. In other words, you have to enter the state of Framework 2—only after entering the state of Framework 2 can you glimpse it slightly. If you have not even entered Framework 2 yet, then first think about how to enter Framework 2. That is what he means.
And begin to use the magical approach as your natural, instinctive way of dealing with experience.
After you enter Framework 2, you will naturally use the magical approach to deal with this most natural, most instinctive reality. And your most natural, most instinctive way is precisely this magical approach. You can only use this magical approach to explore that new unknown world; apart from this you have no other method. Those worldly methods in Framework 1—this way of doing business, this way of life, this way of being a person, this way of being a daughter or a father, this way of pursuing studies—none of those work; those only function in Framework 1. In Framework 2, you can only use the magical approach. Of course, if you use the magical approach in Framework 1, you can immediately enter Framework 2. It is that simple.
Then he laughed, the session ended, and he wished everyone good night.
The Song of Sumari
Below is note eight. This passage is wonderful -- be sure to remember it later.
In Chapter 7 of The Adventures of Jane's Consciousness, he thoroughly discussed how, in November 1971, he spoke and sang in his trance language, Sumari.
Jane originated Sumari in the ESP class. And when we ended that ESP class four years later, and moved to our new house, we largely abandoned it, gave it up -- just as with speaking in Seth's voice.
The greatest power and drama in Jane's singing happened in class. In our regular private sessions and in the books we wrote, Seth mostly spoke to us as a quieter, more orderly energy. I always felt his vitality and humor, but never as loud, fast, and boisterous as he was in his ESP classes.
During class, Seth was in a completely different state -- when he was in the ESP class, facing a roomful of students, Seth was in that kind of state: loud, fast, boisterous, extremely seasoned -- quick questions and quick answers, rapid responses, both rowdy and lively.
Jane was clearly sensitive to the fusion of energy from the thirty-plus people at those gatherings.
The energy of thirty-plus people gathered together -- very sensitive.
And through Jane, Seth responded with great sophistication. The same was true when he sang. The range of his voice could go from the most delicate feminine trill, with the subtlest of differences, all the way to a powerful, much deeper sound.
Then Rob said:
I began to feel that I should have encouraged Jane to sing in Sumari more often, whether when we were alone here in the house, or, say, on a Friday evening when we had guests over. I gave up doing so partly because I did not want Jane to feel the pressure of performing -- come on, we have guests, sing us a Sumari -- whether or not the material was being recorded. And partly because, except on rare occasions, he did not initiate singing on his own, and he rarely sang during class either, the way he had often done spontaneously when we were in our apartment in the city.
Before they moved to this new place in California, Jane would often suddenly, spontaneously break into song.
Once in a while Jane would sing to himself. He would sit at his desk in his writing room facing east, looking out through the French windows, gazing north toward the stretch of woods or the small street -- across the street was our neighbors' white-walled house. We loved those neighbors, but they also loved me... Our friends had a large yard beside their house, full of trees and flowering shrubs. Jane loved that view; he described it and painted it several times.
Indeed, on a foggy morning at four o'clock in June 1979, he was truly looking at that view when inspiration struck, and he called that part of himself whose eyes were "as clear as a child's" "Jane's God" -- that is, Jane said that when his eyes were as clear as a child's, he called that state Jane's own God. Out of that insight, he named the book he had begun writing a few weeks earlier Jane's God: A Declaration of the Psyche. For an introduction to this part, you can see the opening remarks and note one of Session 860, Chapter 9 of The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events11.
When I was not at home, Jane would occasionally record a Sumari song. Later I might hear him playing it back, but I did not nag him about it; I asked him to share his songs with me. As his symptoms worsened, his songs became softer and deeper.
When Jane's body was unwell, his songs would also become soft and deep; when his body was well, the songs were high and impassioned.
Although he rarely translated them into English, I knew that their themes, like Seth's, represented a part of Jane's psyche offering comfort to another part that was, in our terms, more conscious.
Sumari was a certain part of Jane's psyche, used to comfort another, higher-consciousness part of himself.
He was dealing, in the most exquisitely personal detail, with his questioning of the reality he had created. He wanted to know why he made his choices, why he was determined to keep striving, his acceptance of our beloved Earth and of our universe.
He was talking about what those Sumari songs sang about -- most of what they sang was about these things.
Sometimes his singing would drift from his writing room in the back to our kitchen, then turn the corner into the hall, and then into my studio. And sometimes I heard him singing halfway through, his voice would crack, he would be overwhelmed by his longing, and he would stop singing.
He talked a bit about Sumari.
Life Clouds
Note 9:
When Seth quoted my mention of "life clouds," he was referring back to the discussion Jane and I had at lunch today. It was about the recent news story and the newspaper report: some prominent space physicists, mathematicians, and astronomers announced that they believe in a kind of panspermia -- that is, in ordinary time terms, life on Earth was seeded from space, rather than arising by pure chance in some primordial mud and oceans on our planet.
Those people believe in evolution -- that is, what Darwin proposed, that once life began it kept increasing in complexity, and through natural selection and random mutations, or DNA replication errors12, it evolved into who we are today, and the life and living beings we see.
Among other signs, these rebellious scientists presented evidence of vast clouds of microorganisms in space, and in certain meteorites they identified extremely miniaturized fossils of bacteria or molds, as well as certain amino acids. They declared that even at 4.6 billion years old, the Earth is numerically still not old enough to allow life the time to evolve into the enormously complex forms we see today.
In evolutionary theory, this insufficiency of time was a question Jane and Rob often wondered about. This panspermia theory says that life came to Earth through a living tissue that pervades our entire galaxy -- and that there is a creator, an intelligence, or a God there.
When we talked with Jane today, I went a step further: the galaxy itself is alive, not merely filled with life.
The galaxy is alive; it is not a question of it being filled with life.
Jane and I discussed how All That Is might, through the role of probabilities, sow life on Earth in various ways of seeding, and how certain subsequent forms could take root on Earth when environmental and psychic conditions were appropriate.
He said this was explaining -- and thus giving an appearance of an evolutionary process. What looks like evolution is actually a distribution by All That Is on Earth, a generation of diversity.
I said All That Is might have offered the living Earth those same elementary forms many times, only that for many reasons, the Earth rejected them or failed to develop them.
He said it is possible that All That Is gave the Earth many versions, where the other versions were all too low-level, and life did not develop to a place as advanced as humans, while the Earth accepted this advanced version -- this was their speculation.
But even these recent scientific theories are built upon a concept of past, present, and future; their proponents do not consider time to be fundamentally simultaneous.
Of course those scientists still believe in time and space, that is, that the universe is being created right now.
We had an interesting discussion; see Sessions 882 and 883 in Chapter 1 of this book.
He simply made a brief note about the origin of "life clouds," so that everyone would know why Seth titled this chapter "Life Clouds."
All right, as for this session, it is also a very long one -- aside from Session 936, this is a very long session. So regarding the content of this part, we will interpret it up to here. Finally, I wish everyone a magical and wonderful day. Thank you all.
注释与核实
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According to Mike's original words, it was "Monday evening, January 15, 1982, at 9:48 p.m."; upon verification, it should be "January 15, 1982, was a Friday, not a Monday." (Source: University of California, San Diego, "1982 Day-of-Year Calendar," https://igppweb.ucsd.edu/~agnew/Cals/cal2.doy.1982.pdf) ↩
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Source: Jane Roberts, Robert F. Butts, Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Volume Two, 1986 (https://avalonlibrary.net/ebooks/Jane%20Roberts%20-%20Seth%20-%20Dreams,%20evolution,%20and%20value%20fulfillment.Vol2%20%5BOCR%5D.pdf) ↩
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Source: United States Geological Survey, Geologic Time: Age of the Earth, 2007 (https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html) ↩
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Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NEO Basics: Life on Earth (https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/about/life_on_earth.html) ↩
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Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST Guide to the SI, Chapter 4: The Two Classes of SI Units and the SI Prefixes (https://www.nist.gov/pml/special-publication-811/nist-guide-si-chapter-4-two-classes-si-units-and-si-prefixes) ↩
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Source: Xinhua News Agency, "Thirty Years Ago, Qian Xuesen Named VR 'Lingjing'," 2021 (https://www.news.cn/2021-11/30/c_1128114970.htm) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, it was "proposed as early as 1986"; upon verification, it should be "Qian Xuesen proposed translating 'Virtual Reality' as 'Lingjing' in a letter to Wang Chengwei dated November 27, 1990, not in 1986." (Source: Xinhua News Agency, "Thirty Years Ago, Qian Xuesen Named VR 'Lingjing'," 2021, https://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2021-11/30/c_1128114970.htm) ↩
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According to Mike's original words, it was "only three or five houses"; upon verification, it should be "The alms-round practice recorded in the Madhyama Agama is 'limited to seven houses,' not three or five." (Source: Translated by Gautama Sanghadeva, Madhyama Agama, https://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/sutra/chi_pdf/sutra1/T01n0026.pdf) ↩
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Source: Associated Press, Carter's quest for Mideast peace didn't end with Camp David (https://apnews.com/article/af2fbf95bfac2c1ebb8df5a67fcbeb2b) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Leslie A. Pray, DNA Replication and Causes of Mutation, 2008 (https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/dna-replication-and-causes-of-mutation-409/) ↩