The "Introduction" and "Key Points" of this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the parts Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This session points out that science equates rational thought with itself, causing other modes of thinking to be regarded as irrational, and as a result thought becomes rigid, compartmentalized, and lacking in holistic cognition. The scientific viewpoint isolates people from their environment and ignores the cooperative and integrative forces of nature. The natural person is the magical person; life emerges from interrelated fields or levels, and personal power is innate. The intellect should clearly perceive material conditions and move toward goals; the magical approach and the rational approach need to be united as one in order to effectively achieve goals.
Key Points of This Chapter
- Science equates rational thought with itself, treating other modes of thinking as irrational, which rigidifies thought, fragments it into separate disciplines, and lacks a holistic perception of reality.
- The scientific viewpoint isolates human beings from the environment, ignores the cooperative and unifying forces of nature, and reinforces a sense of opposition toward genes, the body, and extinction.
- The natural person is the magical person. Life emerges from interconnected fields or planes, and personal power is innate, not something attained through striving.
- The intellect should clearly perceive physical conditions and orient itself toward goals; desire acts like a magnet drawing relevant conditions to it, and the intellect alone cannot accomplish goals by itself.
- The magical approach and the rational approach should be united as one. Relying only on the magical approach while ignoring practical action cannot effectively achieve goals.
Main Text
The Style of Thought: Uniting the Magical Approach with the So-Called Rational Approach
Today we will introduce Section 5 of The Magical Approach, titled "The Style of Thought, Uniting the Magical Approach with the So-Called Rational Approach." This session was delivered by Jane on Wednesday evening, August 20, 1980, at 9:08 p.m.
Before it began, Rob described it this way: they began sitting in meditation at 8:45 p.m., waiting for the session to begin. Jane had been feeling much better lately. She had once said, "I feel my back is seventy-five percent better" -- you can see that by this time Jane was already clearly improving. Now she said it again, that her back was seventy-five percent better, and she had gone back to continuing the chronology for Seth's most recent book, Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, and had also done some paintings involving her own dreams. Rob was doing extremely well at interpreting those dreams. He said that some of his sleepwalking stemmed from reading the material of these Magical Approach sessions.
Seth began: Good evening, and now continue our discussion.
The scientific frame of reference has become so equated with "rational thinking."
Our science is now completely equated with rational thinking, basically so.
That any other tendency of thought automatically appears to be irrational.
Apart from rational thinking, we consider all other thinking to be irrational. In this regard, thought has become too specialized, and more importantly, it has become prejudiced and inflexible. Our thinking is too rigid. So-called rigidity means having no flexibility, tolerating not a single additional voice or additional possibility of thought -- we simply believe that thought is rational thinking. If a person does not use rational thinking to explain a problem, we say that person is irrational, non-rational. Seth emphasizes that our thinking has become very rigid, inflexible, and prejudiced.
He says:
Thought has style.
Every person's thought has his or her own unique style of thought. Seth says that each person has his or her own idiosyncratic, peculiar, rich, and personal combination of speculation, fantasy, and the use of subjective and objective data. The word "idiosyncratic" here means that everyone is different -- a very peculiar, rich, and personal way of combining things, and this as a whole is called the style of thought.
But science has so dominated the world of thought that many of these fine differences and areas that were once considered quite rational have become quite disreputable.
Because science dominates the world of thought, many fine differences and areas that were once considered quite rational have become disreputable. What does that mean? It means that some cross-disciplinary collaborations, and things in non-mainstream fields, have become seemingly unimportant, seemingly meaningless. Seth will go on to say that science tries to hold fast to what it can prove, and it regards those things outside the domain of science, things that may have fine differences in their fields, as being disrespectful to science, as challenging science.
Science wants to hold fast to what it can prove, but unfortunately, it then tends to establish a worldview built only on certain information. You ended up with separate sciences -- biology, psychology, physics, mathematics, and so on.
This is the current problem with our human science. Science is divided into many disciplines. What is "science"? Science is a word we translated from English. The Chinese word "kexue" means to govern by dividing into disciplines, to learn by dividing into disciplines. So the division into disciplines is itself a major characteristic of science: science must be divided into disciplines. You cannot say that a person is a polymath who understands biology and physics, and also medicine and nutrition and health care, and also theology and channeling -- impossible. From the scientific point of view, you can only become an expert in one or two or three fields, and that is already quite impressive. Physics people are physics people, biology people are biology people.
What result does this learning by dividing into disciplines produce? He will tell you below:
Each science has its own pile of facts.
Each discipline has its own theories, scientific arguments, points, papers, and so on, which are very carefully guarded. Each discipline very carefully guards its own so-called facts, its own foundational arguments. Physics has its foundational arguments -- classical physics, and then new physics, including quantum mechanics, Einstein's theory of relativity, all kinds of theoretical foundations. Biology has its own characteristics, and psychology has its own characteristics too.
Each science provides its own worldview.
He will give you examples later: for instance, the world we see through biology. Biology will explain how you see the world -- how your retina and nerve cells respond to external signals, how visual signals are transmitted through the optic nerve to the visual center, how the brain then displays an image, and why it is inverted.
You will find that if you have small children at home, children see the world differently from us. For example, when small children write numbers and letters, they are often mirror images, inverted. One of our group members, CC, has a child whose writing is all inverted. Every small child does this -- when writing a 2, they will write it backwards, like a 5; when writing a 5, they will also write it inverted, just like a mirror image.
We find it strange, wondering why children see the world this way. Science has now proven that the image in our brain is actually inverted. According to the pinhole imaging principle, the image projected onto our retina is inverted relative to the external world1, just like what we see through the viewfinder of an old-fashioned camera -- an inverted image. Why does it appear right side up when it reaches our brain? Because our brain automatically flips it over. Scientists have done experiments: if you wear glasses that invert the image back again, our brain will adapt after a period of time and flip it back once more.2 Very interesting.
So we see this world through biology, and then we see reality through the eyes of physics. Seth is actually being sarcastic: the world you see through biology, the field that studies this world should be physics. In other words, he is saying that there is no field that can synthesize all this information, no overall field that tells you what this world really is, and no discipline that applies the facts of one discipline to another -- you cannot apply the theories of one discipline to another.
Of course, we now have some cross-disciplinary applications, such as biochemistry, which applies biology and chemistry together. But Seth's point is that this science of ours, which learns by dividing into disciplines, has enormous limitations in itself. Dividing science into so many disciplines means there is no global, holistic understanding of the world -- each discipline sees only one part of the world, and we even believe that this is the only way to understand the world, and if you do not understand the world this way, you are wrong.
This theory itself sounds absurd and naive. We clearly should understand this world holistically, yet science tells us: you cannot view this world holistically; you must, like the blind men touching the elephant, each see one part -- biology people see biology, physics people see physics, chemistry people see chemistry, astrophysics people see the stars, those who study electromagnetism see electromagnetism, those who study thermodynamics see thermodynamics. You must separate them; if you do not separate them, you are not scientific, your thing is unreliable, your thing has no scientific basis.
People often use science to crush others. But let us return to the essence of science -- we all know that the fable of the blind men and the elephant tells us that we cannot view the world one-sidedly; even small children understand this. So why does our science treat the blind men and the elephant as the only way to understand this world? This is clearly a wrong method, yet it tells you that this is the only way to understand the world, that there is no better way, that all other ways are wrong, are mistaken, and only through the blind men and the elephant is it correct.
This is what our scientists tell us. So you can see where its limitations lie -- no one truly uses all the sciences to tell you what the whole world is like; they can only speak to you from within their own field. Evolution experts speak from the perspective of evolution, physicists speak from the perspective of physics.
So, comprehensively speaking:
Science, with its rational thinking, cannot provide a balanced, constructive, suggestive hypothesis about what reality is -- a broad and complete concept.
Science fundamentally cannot provide a complete, suggestive, holistic concept. In other words, there is no holistic view of what the world really is. Physics studies it from the perspective of physics, but we are human beings, and from anthropology, from biology, we have our own judgments, and then from evolution we have our own viewpoints. There is no holistic, objective, balanced thing. As for what this world really is, what we now get is what the blind men and the elephant tell us -- each discipline tells you a set of theories.
It seems that each person is actually isolated in some important way. We are isolated. For example, endowed with a genetic heritage, driving the body machine with some energy of unspecified amount. Intent, purpose, desire do not apply in this state.
Using the scientific viewpoint above, it seems that each of us is isolated in some important way -- we are isolated, we are separated from nature. Then we are endowed with a genetic heritage, as if we are born carrying the genetic inheritance of both parents. And then, we drive the body machine with some energy of unspecified amount. Many sources will tell you: when your energy is used up, you die. We believe that the body's energy comes from food; we eat food to obtain energy, and this energy drives the machine. He says that intent, purpose, or desire do not apply in this state -- your purpose in coming to this world, your meaning, and so on, are all unimportant.
We are just like a robot, except that we carry our parents' genetic mechanisms, and we have our own energy-driving system. Biology tells us that we must eat food -- the three basic elements of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins -- and how these are converted into energy in the body, driving cellular energy through adenosine triphosphate, ATP. This is what our biology, physics, and these so-called natural sciences tell us. And in this process, human intent, purpose, and desire are all irrelevant, completely meaningless. Do you not feel that a person's intent, purpose, and desire are the most important things in his life, the things he should be most concerned about?
Again, the individual is a stranger in his own environment.
From the perspective of our science, each person in such a material world, in a strange environment, is himself completely a stranger. Why? Because he does not know what he came to do; he does not know the purpose and meaning of this trip. Like a robot driven by a machine, driven by energy, he is almost an alien -- just like an alien, dropped onto an alien planet. You wake up, open your eyes, look at the alien world, and you do not know what you are supposed to do. For example, if you were dropped onto Mars, you would not know what to do either. One morning you wake up, and you find that as soon as you open your eyes, you are surrounded by Mars, and you do not know what to do. You follow the people around you; whatever others do, you do too. You also do not know your purpose in coming here, or what your intent is.
In this kind of so-called environment, we are like a stranger and an alien, completely bewildered. In such an environment, he must struggle in order to survive -- resources are scarce, and if he does not fight for them, he cannot even get food to eat.
He must contend not only against his immediate environment, [but against] the [uncaring] forces.
He must not only contend against his immediate environment, but also against genetic determinism -- some people are born with good genes, some with bad; some people are born this way, some that way. Including the current idea that good-looking people are somehow one way, and not-good-looking people are another way. Those with good physical conditions, and those with poor physical conditions. So he must also contend against genetic determinism.
What does "the uncaring forces of the environment" mean? It means that he believes the material environment has nothing to do with him, so the forces of the material environment -- the natural and man-made disasters of the external environment -- have nothing to do with him; they are uncaring forces, forces that neither cherish him nor favor him. It is as if these forces are all working against him, and he must contend against them. We must contend against all the irresistible forces of nature -- natural and man-made disasters, natural calamities.
On one hand, he must face the natural external environment, and on the other hand, he must face internal genetic determinism. He must also contend against his own body -- overemphasizing the body's susceptibility to innate chronic diseases and illnesses. He must also tell himself that in this natural world, it is very easy to get sick, that bacteria and viruses are everywhere, and if you are not careful, you will get sick. There are also many terrifying cancers, hereditary conditions, and so on.
And contend against an inherent time bomb. What is the inherent time bomb? It is death, or the idea that the environment is so harsh that humanity will become extinct. Scientists often scare us by saying that if humanity does not take better care of the Earth, it will perish at any moment. The assumption is that extinction may arrive without warning -- this kind of time bomb.
We often say that atomic bombs, the outbreak of a third world war, nuclear warfare, will wipe out humanity entirely. Or if this assumption cannot scare some people, they will say that perhaps one day an asteroid will strike the Earth again, and the Earth will be destroyed again. Or if none of these happen -- I am making an objective, rational choice -- then as humanity develops, energy will be exhausted, and humanity will be finished. Or environmentalists say that the Earth's environment has been trampled by humanity, the ozone layer is getting thinner and thinner, ultraviolet rays are getting stronger and stronger, temperatures are rising, carbon dioxide is increasing, the climate is warming, glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, and some cities at sea level will be submerged in the ocean.
If none of these can scare you, then spiritual people will come out and scare you by saying: we are now controlled by reptilians, we are now controlled by aliens. And humanity is about to undergo a great transformation; the Earth will split in two, divided by levels into one part going to a higher realm and one part going to a lower realm -- which realm do you want to go to? If you go to the lower realm, you will be destroyed directly; if you go to the higher realm, you will ascend. The entire Earth is ascending, and only the part of humanity that chooses ascension will ascend along with it. This is another viewpoint.
All these viewpoints are extremely laughable; they are all the same -- they are scaring you. So this is a kind of time bomb. This is the so-called influence of the scientific viewpoint on us human beings -- placing ourselves in an environment similar to that of aliens, strangers to ourselves, strangers to the environment, strangers to the influence of the environment, strangers to our own genetic mechanisms. Everything, and at any moment we may face the extinction of humanity.
Science does not stress nature's cooperative forces.
Science does not emphasize that nature is cooperative, that it operates as one. Science separates nature from humanity and sets them against each other, as if we must conquer nature. If we cannot conquer nature, we will be swallowed up by nature.
It prides itself on sharp differentiations and classifications.
Science prides itself on sharp differentiation and classification. It prides itself on the blind men and the elephant being divided as finely as possible -- originally there were five blind men, and five blind men together could roughly piece together the shape of an elephant; now it is divided into fifty blind men, each touching only a very small part; later it is divided into five hundred blind men, each touching an even smaller part. You can imagine that your understanding of the elephant can only become less and less. But science is not ashamed of this; instead, it takes pride in it, believing that this finer and finer classification proves scientific progress and the progress of human civilization. It does not consider this a regression; it considers it a progress.
And generally speaking, it is quite blind to the unifying forces that are, of course, just as real.
We are very blind to those real unifying forces; we do not know what they are, and we do not believe they have unifying power. But we know that nature has a real unifying force -- that is, the comprehensive, cooperative force of nature.
So when I say that the natural person is also the magical person, it is easy to convert that concept into the more isolated version that I do not mean.
What does this mean? It means that when he points out that "the natural person is also the magical person," people easily take that concept -- the concept that nature and we are separate -- and convert it into the more isolated version that he does not mean. What is the "more isolated version"? It is the version that separates oneself from nature.
It is not that each person has his or her source in a magical dimension, but that his or her entire life emerges from it.
He is emphasizing here: it is not that your present material body has a mysterious source. Do not misunderstand. If you hold the scientific viewpoint above, you will go to a more isolated version -- if you use the scientific viewpoint above, when I tell you that the natural person is also the magical person, you will not have a scientific understanding; you will go to the other extreme. You will say: then is humanity composed of mysterious aliens, or an unknown God, or some heavenly being, or aliens of some kind?
People nowadays do not believe in gods anymore, nor in God; they believe more in aliens -- always aliens, this galaxy and that galaxy, this planet and that planet. Because the rhetoric of God seems too outdated, too old-fashioned; no one believes it anymore, especially young people born in the 1990s and 2000s, who will no longer believe the rhetoric of God. But they believe the rhetoric of aliens, so these theories use aliens as an outer packaging, and in the manner of aliens they come again -- it is actually the same principle. The so-called aliens, if you set that aside and replace the word with the ancient immortals, the Jade Emperor, the heavenly realms, and so on, it is exactly the same meaning. They control humanity, humanity is enslaved by them, and so on -- it is all like this; the Earth is a prison; it is all this kind of thing.
So he says: when I say that every natural person is a magical person, I am not telling you that each of you has a source in that magical dimension; it is that your entire person emerges from that magical world; your entire life emerges from it -- it is not that your source is there.
There is an essential difference between these two. One says that you were born from there, that your source is in that magical reality; the other says, without speaking of your source, that your present physical body, the essence of this body, its inner being is another magical world -- that your present life is the product of this magical world. It is not that your ancestors, the ancestors of humanity, came from some magical world, or that your abilities come from some magical world; it is that you, right now, this very thing, emerges from the magical -- you, right now, this person.
So the source of the individual is itself a part of the energy that also supports the entire planet and its inhabitants, and the entire structure of the universe as you understand it.
The source of each life -- that is, the magical dimension from which your life emerges -- that dimension is also a part of the core energy that structures our entire planet, all of humanity, all things in the world, and even the entire universe. Can you understand this? You and the source of this universe are one; your life comes from a part of the energy that creates the overall structure of this universe; your life comes from this.
In other words, you are a part of the magical, interconnected fields or planes that connect all kinds of life. And it is not that it is supported by, say, one system -- for example, a biological or spiritual system supporting it -- but that it is supported at every conceivable point of its existence.
These two paragraphs are not easy for many people to understand. Let us expand on them. What he means is that if we want to explain this clearly, we can simplify it this way: there are many interconnected "fields." Field is a physics term; if it is hard to understand, you can look up what a field is -- you can understand it as an energy field, an electromagnetic field, various frequency fields, any kind of field. It is this kind of field.
He says interconnected fields and "planes." What is a plane? A plane is a level that is not directly connected to other levels, but there is an inner connection between them. The English word he used is "planes," and in the early sessions he used the word "plane" a great deal. When Seth talks about things, he does not use the word "dimension" very much. Why does he not use dimension? I have roughly explained this before: because dimension is a kind of cognition in our human world; we believe there is a three-dimensional world and a four-dimensional world. But from their level, from the perspective of the universe, there is no concept of dimension -- this is a human cognition. Is the concept of dimension correct or not? It is both correct and incorrect. It is a method by which we humans understand this world and understand space; if you do not use dimension, you cannot find a better way to express it. But does this world really have dimensions? It does not have dimensions. This kind of dimension is only for you to understand it, but if you say there is no concept of dimension, is that correct? It is also not correct. This is very difficult to explain clearly.
In the early sessions, Seth specifically talked about five-dimensional space, and he explained it very clearly: he said, first I will let you establish dimensions; through the conceptual thing of the three-dimensional world, the four-dimensional world, and the five-dimensional world that you humans can understand, I will use dimensions to help you understand. He said you must construct these frameworks and lines in your mind, but after you understand, he said what I now ask you to do is to dismantle all these lines, to dismantle the structure of five-dimensional space that you have built up in your mind. You must imagine that it exists, but in fact it does not exist -- this is a concept.
This is one of the things about dimension that is not easy for us humans to understand. So Seth uses the word "plane" a great deal. We will not expand on this issue today; if we talk about the early sessions again, or about related dimensional matters, we can expand on it specifically. If you are interested, I have made a video specifically about five-dimensional space, and also one specifically about four-dimensional space; those are only rough introductions. The real introduction to dimensions and space is only a very simple, entry-level thing. If, as I said today, dimensions do not even exist, then many people will find it even harder to understand and impossible to imagine.
So Seth often uses the word "plane," which in English is "planes." Let me use an airplane as an example, and you will understand what a plane is.
For example, you are sitting on one airplane, and another person is sitting on another airplane, and you are both flying at an altitude of over ten thousand meters. On these two airplanes, you are on two different planes -- we can say you are on two different planes. When you are on different planes, you are on different levels and cannot communicate. You can communicate through the pilots -- they can communicate through the control tower relay station, through the ground, or directly by radio, but only limited communication, the kind of walkie-talkie communication. And as people inside these two airplanes, you do not even have the pilot's ability; you have almost no communication with people on other airplanes, let alone material communication. Let us first assume that phone calls are not possible on airplanes -- of course, airplanes now have satellite phones, and many airplanes even have internet access, so you can contact them through the network. I am talking about the time before there was internet, before there was connectivity, when the two people on these two airplanes had no way of contacting each other, and there was no signal on their mobile phones.
With this, you can understand what people on two planes are. Do you say they are in different space-times? No, they are both in the same space-time. But do they have any intersection? During the time they are both on the airplanes, they have no intersection; it is impossible for them to intersect. But when they land at a certain airport, perhaps they land at the same airport, and they may have an intersection -- but they may also be in different terminals. It is possible that when they go to a common airport hall to wait for a taxi, they may have an intersection, or they may not.
So you use "levels" to understand many of our current systems, and that is closer to the essence of the matter than using "time and space." Here Seth uses many levels -- you can understand many fields or levels as all being connected to all kinds of life. Remember, all kinds of life means being connected with all things, with all sentient and insentient beings in the world -- all life is together.
Can you understand what this means now? It means that all things in the world are connected together, not only human beings -- we are connected with all living things and all non-living things in nature.
And it is not that you support it through one system, but rather support it at every conceivable point of its existence.
What he means is, it is not that your present life, or the world, or your present system, is supported by another system -- another system, another spiritual world, or another biological world. It is not like that. There is no world supporting you, and there is no system supporting you. You and these systems, and these spiritual worlds, are joined together; you are not separate from one another. There is nothing supporting you; you support it, and it also supports you; you are one with each other. So he says "support it at every point you can imagine" -- support it at any point at all.
This is not easy to understand, and I hope you can think carefully about the meaning of this passage. This passage actually breaks through many people's misunderstandings. Many people think the spiritual world is a separate world, that the non-physical world, the inner world, is a separate world, as if our world is carried by that world, or projected from that world. From different cognitive perspectives, your understanding is also different. So when it comes to the magical approach, he speaks even more thoroughly: they support each other, they sustain each other.
So now you understand -- do not keep fantasizing about some other system supporting you, that our present world is built within that system. No, all worlds, all time and space, all dimensions, all of everything -- they are all together. Through different -- in Seth's words -- different fields or different levels, they are connected together. It is like two airplanes flying in the sky: people on the same airplane can communicate with each other, chat, talk, and get to know each other; people on airplanes at different levels have no such possibility. But that does not mean the people on these two different airplanes are never connected -- when they land at a certain terminal, these two strangers may meet by chance as they pass each other and get to know each other, and sparks may even fly; they might become partners and get married -- all of that is possible.
I use the metaphor of airports, terminals, flights, and airplanes to help you understand: things on two seemingly unrelated levels -- one spiritual, one physical; one in the visible world, one in the invisible world; one in the inner world, one in the outer world -- seemingly have no connection, but inwardly they are all connected. Through what are they connected? Through fields or levels. Different fields and different levels connect them all together. If you can think of "field" as an airport, and "level" as an airplane -- with these two vivid metaphors, it will be easier for you to understand.
All things are one, and this is a viewpoint you should hold, rather than saying something supports something else. For example, that the invisible inner world supports this outer world -- it is not like that. They are different levels, they are different fields, and they support each other, sustain each other.
You are not given a certain amount of, the energy just mentioned.
Just now it was said that you do not have a certain amount of energy; your new energy is available everywhere, and there is energy everywhere. You do not need to worry that when your energy runs out, you will have no ability and will die -- that will not happen.
Again, there are no closed systems.
He says there is no closed system. This "closed" is not used well; it should be "sealed." No system is sealed. It is not that our relationship with the invisible world, or our relationship with the inner world, is insurmountable. Not at all; they communicate constantly and are merged together.
If you do not know about this, I think Meng Kong Xiyu just wrote an article a couple of days ago, and it is very well written; you can take a look -- "Five Steps to Enter the State of Samadhi." In it he gives many, many examples, including the example using a balloon, which is excellent. That is exactly the concept I have been wanting to explain to everyone: "both within it and outside it." He also explains what "so great it has no outside, so small it has no inside" means. If you are interested, you can look at Helen's channel; he specifically introduces "Five Steps to Bring You into Samadhi," and that contains a very good example. Actually, that example speaks of the same principle. There is no field, no space, no time-space that is sealed, that does not communicate with others, that has no connection -- they all have connections.
Again, the environment is meaningful and alive.
He tells you again that the physical environment we live in, this so-called three-dimensional world, is alive and meaningful. And between all parts of your body and all parts of the environment, there is constant communication.
Many people say, well, I have studied spirituality, and I know this world is empty, everything is empty, so what meaning does our physical world still have? Here he emphasizes again -- our surrounding environment, the physical matter we live with, is meaningful; they are mutually dependent, mutually inside and outside, mutually surface and interior. If you stubbornly believe that our physical world is empty, and only the so-called spiritual inner world is truly real, that is also wrong. If you believe our physical world is the only one and is also real, that is also wrong.
This is what Buddhism often tells you: you should hold the Middle Way view and avoid any extreme views. Do not be empty one moment and existent the next. You need to have the concept of neither empty nor existent, neither empty nor existent, both empty and existent. This state and realm can only be experienced by those who have experienced it; otherwise it is very easy to fall into "emptiness."
And Buddhism also repeatedly emphasizes that in actual practice, we often encounter all kinds of people. Some who have just begun studying spirituality easily fall into the view of emptiness, and this absolutely must be avoided. Whether in Buddhism or in Seth, in all of Seth's books he always tells you to hold the view of "existence." Books that "hold emptiness" are not here. In all of these he tells you to hold existence. Why hold existence? This is very consistent with Buddhist theory. Buddhism says: when you cannot understand what true emptiness is -- that is, you cannot understand the true essence of emptiness, and you only know a superficial or nominal meaning, but you cannot truly understand that "emptiness is all existence." If you cannot understand the idea that "true emptiness gives rise to wondrous existence," and you do not have a true understanding of emptiness, the Buddha says: you should still hold existence; it is better to hold the view of "existence."
If you cannot truly understand emptiness, and you go ahead and use emptiness, then you are finished; it will indeed be very hard to turn your life around. So this is a piece of advice for all practitioners: if you begin practicing, it is best to go from existence to realize emptiness, and then from emptiness to realize existence; this is a complete cycle. Only after both aspects have been verified can you have the concept of neither empty nor existent. If you start by holding emptiness, believing everything is empty, and you want to go from emptiness to realize existence -- unless your capacity is very good and your realm is very high, and you can truly see the wondrous existence within emptiness. If you do not have that ability, then if you hold the view of emptiness, there will be nothing left afterward; you will not be able to learn anything, and you will not even have wisdom -- because wisdom is also empty to you. You will tell others every day, what is the use of all this, all words are wrong, everything is empty, all theories are wrong, and the moment you speak it is already wrong. You will start talking nonsense, and no one will want to deal with you anymore. But at that time you will still think: they are all vulgar, and it is normal that they ignore me; I am just too refined for them. Then you will be smug every day, dwelling in a kind of self-made emptiness. We call this "holding the view of emptiness" -- it is too early, and it is the wrong thing to hold.
So in all of Seth's material, in the early stages he tells you to hold the view of existence; you must have the concept of "existence." That is why he tells you the environment is meaningful. Many people misunderstand Buddhism -- they have not misunderstood it; they think Buddhism teaches emptiness. That is not so. Buddhism teaches existence; Buddhism does not teach emptiness. Buddhism sees emptiness within existence, and existence within emptiness, neither empty nor existent -- that is its view. If you only see emptiness, then perhaps your teacher is not good, or your understanding and capacity are not good.
In your terms, this means that you do not need to rely only upon what you think of as your personal resources.
That is, you do not need to use only your own resources; you can use the resources of the entire universe. You may not necessarily know how to use them, but he tells you that you should use them; do not use only your own resources.
Basically, value fulfillment is one of the most important characteristics of existence.
For existence to exist, it needs value fulfillment, whether it is your entity, your soul, or you as a person. He emphasizes that value fulfillment is one of the important characteristics of existence.
Therefore, all things act individually and together in the way that best provides value fulfillment for the entire construct.
This sentence should be underlined; it is a very good summary he gives. He says all things, all things in the world, act individually and together in the way that best provides value fulfillment for the entire construct. To put it simply: the structure of the entire universe has one great value fulfillment. Within it, each of us has our own value fulfillment, and each entity and each soul has its own value fulfillment. Then each person's value fulfillment, or each soul's value fulfillment, is a part of this entire universe's value fulfillment -- a small action within a great action, like a small battle within a great campaign. It is holistic, so they all support and provide for one another.
But you may say: the world is so big, the universe is so big, what use is one little soldier like me? Then you are wrong. Every campaign, every battle, including the victory of the entire campaign -- its core concept depends on every soldier. In many crucial battles, soldiers played a crucial role. If you have watched many war documentaries, you know: never underestimate any single soldier.
He says you were born because you willed it, your desire to be born.
Here he begins to speak in poetic language:
A plant comes alive for the same reason. You, however, dwell within a different reference framework than a plant.
A plant wants to live, to be born, just as you are born. But you are different from a plant; you dwell within a different framework than a plant -- what we call a different level. If you want to call it a level, that is fine, and Seth also uses many words here; "reference framework" is also a different level. Are you the same as a plant? You are both in the same time and space, but is your world the same as the plant's world? It seems both yes and no -- you both overlap, and yet you have different time and space.
You have more choices, and your interaction with nature is different.
Your interaction with nature is completely different from the plant's interaction with nature.
Your intellect was meant to help you make choices.
Your intellect was originally meant to help you make choices. It allows you, within a physical time range -- "physical" means material, physical. Within a physical time range, that is, within the range of several decades of Earth time --
to perceive certain possibilities.
You cannot perceive all of them; those other possibilities are experienced by other yous. You can only experience certain possibilities.
When the intellect is allowed to perceive physical conditions as clearly as possible, then you are using the intellect correctly. It can then make the most advantageous decisions about the goals you want to achieve.
When we perceive physical conditions as clearly as possible, we are using our intellect correctly. The more clearly you perceive your surrounding environment, the better you use your intellect. Then your intellect can immediately make the most advantageous decisions about the goals you want to achieve. But at this time, the intellect is using not only the information of your physical world; it also uses other sources of information. You do not need to worry about it; it will make the most advantageous decisions about your goals.
Here you can see that within the physical world, he also emphasizes your role in the physical world.
Those goals are usually idealized desires.
He says those goals are all idealized desires.
And once the desire is formed, once the desire is formed, it acts like a magnet, drawing from those vast interrelated fields the conditions best suited to fulfill those goals.
You can understand it as an energy field or an information field, whatever kind of field. It will draw upon and help you find resources.
The intellect alone cannot bring about the fulfillment of those goals.
The intellect alone cannot bring them about. What can the intellect do? The intellect can perceive physical conditions as clearly as possible -- the main function of your intellect is perception. Then your intellect can immediately make the most advantageous decisions about the goals you want to achieve, and you just follow the decisions of this intellect. Of course, the decisions made by this intellect do not depend only on your physical information; they depend on much more information.
These so-called goals are your desires, conceptualized desires. And once this goal, this desire, is formed, it will act like a magnet, within Framework 1 and Framework 2, known and unknown to you, within all kinds of fields, absorbing, attracting, and drawing upon all kinds of energy sources, all kinds of materials, all kinds of energy, and all kinds of resources for your use, to achieve your goals.
He says the intellect alone cannot bring about those goals.
What can bring them about? Desire. They act like magnets; they can bring them about, while the intellect alone cannot. Do you remember this? You must remember this: Seth tells you that your logical thinking cannot bring about those things, but your desire can. You may think of the human robot, and in the manual for abundant living it also mentions those things -- you must first have a desire. The formation of that desire, whether it is wanting to live better or wanting to avoid living worse -- no matter what kind of desire it is, it will bring about fulfillment. Not through your knowledge, your reasoning, your deduction. No.
The intellect alone cannot bring about a single motion of the body.
He is emphasizing that your intellect cannot bring about bodily motion. What must it depend on? It does indeed activate those other characteristics -- and that spontaneous, inner complexity of arrangement, that ordered magic. That is how it is.
He gives an example: you say that is impossible; if you do not rely on thinking and reasoning, then what do you rely on to achieve goals? He gives a counterexample to prove that your intellect alone cannot bring about a single motion of its own. For example, you think of getting up to pour a glass of water -- such a simple action. You think this was accomplished by my intellect -- I just wanted to get up and pour a glass of water. But the fact is: your intellect must mobilize your body, activate its magical system, mobilize all your inner nervous system, every muscle, every nerve, coordinated under the command of the brain. You automatically step out of bed, or walk away from the chair, and go directly to pour a glass of water. A seemingly ordinary action inevitably involves that inner magical complexity of arrangement and combination. So it is called "ordered magic."
He tells you: your logical thinking ability, your thinking ability, cannot act alone; it must first activate the inner magic, and the magic then drives you to complete it. Every seemingly simple action involves who knows how many magical things cooperating inwardly. Without the cooperation of these magical things, you could not complete it. So now you know how complicated it is for humans to build a robot like a human -- because there is no magic in it; it relies purely on signals, computers, motors, machines, gears, and so on.
He says when the intellect is used correctly, it thinks of a goal and automatically sets the body in motion toward it, and automatically arouses other levels of communication unknown to it.
These are levels of communication that the intellect does not know are known to the intellect itself. Therefore, all forces work together toward the achievement of that goal. Here he tells us how we accomplish goals -- he uses an action as an example, a movement in daily life, whether walking or running; he gives an example to tell you how we realize our goals.
Below he will give a more hypothetical example, supposing a goal as a target. The target is your aim.
When used correctly, the intellect imagines the target, and then imaginatively achieves it. If it is a physical target...
"Target" translated here as "target" is not appropriate; it should be translated as "bull's-eye." If it is a physical bull's-eye, like the kind used in archery --
the person will stand holding bow and arrow, thinking only of hitting the red center.
If you have tried archery, you know that the arrow is not easy to shoot -- a red center dozens of meters away. He says:
You concentrate upon it, perhaps making a few postures you have just learned, or postures you have learned before. For example, the correct footwork, stance, and the hand gesture for holding the bow and arrow, these basic movements, and the body's magic will do all the rest.
In other words, a top-level shooting athlete or top-level archery athlete, when training, may consider many things -- gradually during the training process -- but when it comes to the actual shot, whether in competition or in training, in his mind, in his eyes, or in his heart there is only the target; he only thinks about how to hit the target with one arrow. In this process, he may consider some basic movements, making sure the movements are done properly, but more than that, he has the target in his heart; in his heart there is only the target. Only in this way can he hit that goal.
When the intellect is used incorrectly --
He gives a counterexample. When our intellect is not used correctly -- and in real life we often do not use it correctly, though of course many times we unconsciously use it correctly -- what is it like when it is not used correctly?
it is as if the intellect feels it must somehow or other personally direct all of those inner processes.
That is, you use your intellect to mobilize all the muscles of your body, controlling how far the bow is drawn. That force is very hard to grasp -- because the amount of force is related to the angle of your bow and arrow. The arrow flies in a parabola, not straight toward the target. So the size of the bow, the amount of force you hold, has a certain relationship with your angle, and the angle of the parabola -- actually, the subtle calculations in between are very hard to master. But if you insist on using your intellect to direct it --
So when erroneous belief systems and negative tendencies are connected with so-called rational reasoning, then it is as if our archer sees the target, but instead of directing his attention toward it, he concentrates upon all the various ways his arrow might go wrong. It might go left or right, fall too far or too short, break in midair, or drop from his hand, and in various other ways go against his intent.
That is, when we are moving toward a goal, we should only think of the goal. Some people who use it incorrectly think during the process: what if I miss, what if I go left, what if I go right -- all such thoughts, as you now know from studying spirituality, are wrong. Because all the points on which you focus your attention are going against the purpose you want to achieve, against the purpose of hitting the bull's-eye.
He has completely diverted his attention from the target. He has projected upon present events the picture of his fears, rather than the picture of his original intent.
He thinks, "What if I miss?" -- so his body responds to his mental images and his thoughts. His body will respond to him, reflecting his confused actions, bringing about actions that reflect his confusion, and this will certainly not shoot well. Anyone who has done shooting or archery should have a lot of experience with this.
In other words:
The magical approach and the so-called rational approach should in some way merge into one, to produce the best results.
These two should originally work together.
People sometimes write to you about their intent to make money.
People would write to Rob and Jane, saying they want to make money -- like now, under the videos, at first some people left comments, though not many now. Some say: what should I do if I want to make money? Didn't you say beliefs create reality? I now have the belief of wanting to make money, so why can't I create reality? Or rather, the intent to get rich.
Then they say they concentrate upon money, and wait for it with complete faith, believing that because of their faith or concentration, money will be drawn to them.
For example, they may do the "point of power" exercise -- this is the exercise from The Nature of Personal Reality, which we just finished a while ago. Some people do this exercise, and they feel they have faith, and they are attracting this money.
They may, however, have quit their jobs, ignoring the impulse to look for other work, or adopted a rational approach while relying solely upon the magical approach.
He actually still wants to find another job and has this impulse, but he ignores it. He stays home every day doing the point of power exercise -- of course this will not be effective. What does he mean? If you stay home every day practicing the point of power and do nothing, will it work? No. So many people misunderstand and say: didn't you say before that as long as I have belief, whatever I wish will come true automatically, and I do not need to do anything? You misunderstood -- when he says "it will be realized automatically," he is telling you that the process of realization does not require your participation, and you do not know how it is realized; but he did not say you do not need to do anything. You must not misunderstand and think that since I do not know how to do it, I will do nothing at all. No, in real life you still need to take all kinds of actions. So here the "rational approach" means taking action, using your ability of logical analysis and rational analysis.
So your rational approach and magical approach must be combined. Otherwise, if you stay home every day meditating, sitting, and doing nothing, sitting from morning to night, then you have become possessed.
So when Ruburt applies the magical approach, and when you use it, you understand that it blends perfectly with the rest of existence, inspiring the intellect, inspiring the body's motions, because it activates the body's attributes.
When you use the magical approach, it is merged with the other parts -- it does not act alone; it is coordinated with your intellect, your logical thinking ability, and your body's movements. Be very careful: after learning the magical approach, do not become all mystical and stay home every day praying and chanting. It must be combined with your daily life; the magical approach is contained in every bit and every aspect of life.
We will then continue describing the method by which the two approaches work together.
Which two approaches? The rational approach and the magical approach.
The point I want to make, however, is that the source of your personal power is that greater field of interrelatedness.
That is the field and level mentioned earlier, where all things in the world are connected -- it is a field, and your power comes from being part of this interrelated field. This is also a fact; what I want to emphasize is that your personal power comes from this field of interrelatedness with all things.
Your existence rests securely within it.
Your existence is within this field that is connected with all things in the world.
It is not something you must strive for.
This is something you must remember. It is not something you must strive for; it is within your body. It was effortlessly yours at birth and before birth.
It was effortlessly yours at birth and before birth.
It is simply your thing. This magical approach, this inner power, it is originally yours. You do not need to make some special effort to obtain it. No, it is right there in your body, right there on you.
And it also carries with it its own emotional or intuitive understanding.
What does that mean? It means that it not only comes with your bodily life, it also carries with it its own emotional and intuitive understanding -- that is, it has its own understanding of emotion and of intuition. Very interesting.
If you understood this, then by and large, many of your fears would all disappear.
If you know that the power of your magical approach, or your inner power, is innate, then what is there left for you to fear? You are a part of all things in the world, you are a part of the energy that created the universe. An innate ability, everyone has it. He says many of your fears will all disappear, so just understand this point and that is enough.
All right, the content after this is no longer related to this session -- that is, the question Seth had just talked about regarding the illustration, whether or not to draw the illustration, it has no direct relation to this session.
Seth says that is all for tonight:
Once again I wish you a magical evening, and remember all of your existence, and look for hints and clues in all the levels of your existence.
Just look for clues in your life, look for this kind of hint, look for those intuitive things. He reminds you at the end: the magical approach is right there in every little bit of our lives, it is not outside and not elsewhere, and no one can give it to you. It is simply the thing you are born with. Observe carefully, pay careful attention, and you will discover it -- the magic of life is everywhere.
注释与核实
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Why is the visual image projected on the retina of the human eye upside down?" (https://www.britannica.com/science/Why-is-the-visual-image-projected-on-the-retina-of-the-human-eye-upside-down) ↩
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Source: Sachse et al., ""The world is upside down" – The Innsbruck Goggle Experiments of Theodor Erismann –1961) and Ivo Kohler –1985)" (Cortex) (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945217301314) ↩