Mike's commentary · The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Chapter 4

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

Introduction

This chapter explains the characteristics of Framework 2: it is the inner source and creative medium shared by the physical world and consciousness, and Framework 1 is immersed in it and emerges from it. Framework 2 is not neutral; it automatically tends toward constructive development, combines order with spontaneity, and organizes events by association. Thoughts, imagination, and emotions form patterns within it, and after mixing into collective patterns they materialize as individual and mass experience. The chapter also uses children, the Cinderella story, the theory of evolution, and other examples to illustrate the role of imagination in the formation of events.

Key Points of This Chapter

• The chance encounter of material elements does not produce consciousness; both the material universe and consciousness originate from the nonphysical Framework 2.
• Framework 2 is not neutral; it automatically inclines toward constructive development and operates through association, spontaneity, and order.
• Thoughts, emotions, and imagination form patterns in Framework 2; after mixing into collective patterns, they materialize into physical events.
• Imagination is the key by which human beings direct experience and form civilizations; subjective experience is determined by imagination, while objective environments are built by beliefs.
• Each individual's unique intent exists in Framework 2 before birth; mass events are composed of many individual psychological events coming together.

Main Text

The Title and Core of Chapter Four

The title of Chapter Four is "The Characteristics of Framework 2, a Creative Analysis of the Medium in Which Physically Oriented Consciousness Resides, and the Source of Events." That title is long enough; you mainly need to grasp one core point: this chapter is primarily about the characteristics of Framework 2, and the rest is just an explanation.

This session is actually a tail end of the previous session. The previous session ended by opening a topic, saying that the next chapter, Chapter Four, would be about the characteristics of Framework 2, with Framework 2 in quotation marks. Why in quotation marks? Because Framework 1 and Framework 2 do not actually exist in themselves; it is only for the convenience of narration and explanation that we deliberately create such frameworks and terms.

After a long pause, Seth continued:

A creative analysis of the medium in which physically oriented consciousness resides, and the source of events.

The so-called "physically oriented consciousness" is consciousness that is interested in the physical world. The medium in which such consciousness resides, its creative analysis, and the source of events—that is the title of this chapter.

Material Encounters Do Not Produce Consciousness

Then Seth goes on to say:

Under no conditions -- remember this, under no conditions -- does the chance meeting of physical elements alone produce consciousness, or the conditions that would then make consciousness possible.

Seth states this very firmly. You see, Seth generally rarely uses such absolute terms when he speaks; when he does use absolute terms, it means there is no room for negotiation on this issue.

What does he mean? He means that matter -- so-called physical elements alone, that is, those things we consider lifeless -- cannot possibly produce consciousness. Their chance encounters cannot produce consciousness, nor can they produce the conditions that would make the emergence of consciousness possible. In other words, to put this statement in reverse: the emergence of conscious beings such as us humans or other living creatures must have consciousness working behind it; matter without consciousness cannot give rise to consciousness.

He says:

If you suppose -- and this is the current scientific view -- that your world with all its great natural splendors originally came about through the sponsorship of chance, through an almost impossible accident, then certainly it often seems that such a world could have no greater meaning.

According to what your human scientists now say, this world of ours happened by chance: it has such a good temperature, such a good climate, such a good distance from the sun, such a large planet, such a good gravitational configuration, and so on and so forth. When we look at our natural environment compared to other planets in the universe, it is almost a one-in-a-hundred-billion possibility¹ that such a perfect planet could be born.

So human scientists have by now explored countless planets, including those in our solar system and in other galaxies, constantly exploring, constantly searching for Earth-like planets -- terrestrial planets very similar to Earth. They have found many, but none has climate conditions even close to Earth's, and even less have they discovered other life.

Regarding the failure to discover extraterrestrial life, this has always been something scientists themselves cannot explain convincingly. If according to their theory, although the probability of life emerging on Earth is one in a hundred billion, there are far more planets and galaxies in the universe than a hundred billion. Based on this ratio, they have calculated: if you do the math this way, there should be at least several million planets like ours with humans in the universe² -- at least that many, and possibly more. Yet even so, in our astronomical exploration and astronomical practice, up to this very day, not a single electromagnetic signal has ever been received, let alone visits from extraterrestrial beings. This is why scientists have been utterly baffled: if life in the universe came about so accidentally, why are other extraterrestrials invisible to us and impossible to find?

Seth tells you, this is impossible. If the universe came into being so accidentally, then this universe has no greater meaning -- because it is itself accidental. Since it is accidental, it did not come with meaning; it just happened to collide, two planets collided, and so on, which has no meaning.

So its activation -- he is referring to the activation of this life and this universe -- is seen as having no source outside itself.

No source, meaning that this present world of ours, with life, with living things, with sentient beings, seems to have no other source; scientists believe it was accidental.

The myth of the great chance encounter that is supposed to have brought life to your planet, then -- and this is a myth -- in a manner of speaking presupposes an individual consciousness that is alive through chance alone.

If according to your human hypothesis, what brought life to your planet was a chance encounter, an accidental phenomenon, then through chance alone it came alive, and one individual consciousness after another also came alive -- this is what we humans believe.

Then Seth pokes fun at humans again:

The humor is that such a living consciousness -- meaning a human being -- could suppose himself to be the end product of those lifeless elements that somehow managed to combine themselves in such a way, and that this has brought your species fantasy, logic, vast organizational power, technology, and civilization.

He says the funniest thing is that such an accidentally produced, meaningless consciousness could actually suppose itself to be the product of those elements without a living origin, combined in some unknown way, made of non-living elements, and that this human product could even have thoughts, fantasies, logic, and thinking, and could also create our technology and our civilization -- doesn't that sound a bit too ridiculous?

Your myth tells you that nature has no intent except to survive.

This is what all our scientists tell us: nature wants to survive, and apart from surviving it has no other intent; it is just for continuation.

It is indifferent to the individual -- it does not care about the individual -- caring only whether the individual helps the continuation of the species as a whole.

It only cares whether our human species can continue; you as an individual do not matter. As a person, reproduction is your main task. So nature, in its operations, appears to have nothing to do with the individual. Since this matter seems insignificant to the individual, and the individual is of no consequence, then this nature has no direct relationship with the individual.

But what is nature formed from? Nature itself is composed of countless individuals. This world of ours is composed of countless individuals. So much so that we cannot observe it in any other way -- if we cannot observe this nature in the manner of the individual, then there is no other way. Yet we also say that this nature has nothing to do with us humans; nature is nature, and humans were born from nature, as if they were two separate systems.

Without those particular plants, animals, peoples, or even an individual cell or virus, nature would have no meaning.

Nature is composed of these things: animals, plants, peoples, humans, cells, viruses -- all are components that make up nature.

Your physical universe has a nonphysical source, and it still rests within this source.

Your physical world definitely has a nonphysical source, and this physical world of nature still rests within this nonphysical world.

In the same way, your individual consciousness also has a source, and it also still rests within this source. They are the same source.

The source of nature and the source of each individual's consciousness are the same source.

Framework 2 represents the inner realm of reality that gives your world its characteristics, the inner dimension of existence.

Simply put, Framework 2 is an inner realm that allows our physical world to exist; it is an inner world, an inner dimension.

The energy and power that keeps you alive, that supplies your thoughts, and the energy that lights your cities -- all have their source in Framework 2.

Many people, after learning about Framework 1 and Framework 2, think that Framework 2 only functions in the realm of thought, on the level of the psyche, in the spiritual world, and has no practical effect on other physical energies or the physical world. That is not the case. Everything in our physical world comes from Framework 2; our physical world, Framework 1, emerges from Framework 2. So Seth specifically points out -- not just the power and energy of your thoughts, but the energy that lights your cities, your nuclear power plants, your solar energy, all your energy sources, everything in this physical world -- all of it comes from Framework 2.

When you turn on your television, the energy that leaps into practical use is the same energy that allows you to tune in to the experience of daily life.

What does this sentence mean? When we turn on the television, originally there is nothing in the television; it is empty, silent. When you turn it on, the programs come alive and perform right there inside it. And where does this energy that leaps into the television come from? The energy that leaps into the television, and the energy we need in our daily lives -- for example, if you want to go out and drive, the car has energy; if you want to get things done, your body must have energy -- this kind of energy and the energy that leaps out of the television are the same kind of energy.

To extend this further, the ideas that pop into your mind and the energy of your emotions are also the same kind of energy. I hope you can understand: do not say this is electrical energy, that is electromagnetic energy, that is a radio signal, that is a brainwave, that is an alpha wave, beta wave, theta wave, whatever wave -- their essence, their core, at the level of energy, at the level of core energy, is the same energy. It is only the forms of expression that differ: expressed as electrical energy, light energy, electromagnetic energy, including your thought energy and emotional energy -- all of these are energy.

Rob's Note: Quantum Mechanics and the Observer

At the end, Seth said one more thing:

As these sessions continue, it would be well if you both kept Framework 2 in mind, used it with more confidence, and again became alert to the coincidences that have been occurring all along.

Seth's final suggestion is that after learning about Framework 2, you should not just set it aside and not use it. You should apply it in your life, and apply it with more confidence. This is the core point: you have to use it with confidence. You cannot still be hesitating inside -- does Framework 2 actually work or not? Is there really such a thing as Framework 2? Is this all nonsense? If you lack confidence like that, then you will not be able to bring out the effects of Framework 2. When you apply it with confidence, you will be able to see the traces and clues in your life, just like the hidden hints and clues mentioned in the last part of the previous session -- they will surface. The clues and hints of Framework 2 will be able to emerge within Framework 1.

There is a note by Rob in the book, a note on the previous session. Let us go through it briefly.

When Seth mentioned the psychological activity of atoms and molecules -- this was brought up in the previous session -- Rob said:

I intuitively felt strongly that his statement was related to at least two principles of modern physics, but I hesitated. I told Jane that I knew my feeling was right, but how could I explain it in a few words so that people would understand? I was also limited by the inadequacy of my own knowledge.

Rob knew his feeling was right -- what feeling? The feeling that atoms and molecules also have psychological activity was right. But he could not explain it to others in a few words, because after all he was a painter, not a physicist.

Although I felt particularly that Seth's concepts were related to two principles in quantum mechanics: the uncertainty principle and the principle of complementarity.

There is an explanation below. What are the uncertainty principle and the principle of complementarity? Let me go through them briefly.

After quantum mechanics emerged in the 1920s, Heisenberg first proposed the uncertainty principle in 1927³, or the indeterminacy principle -- the name does not really matter. It is part of quantum mechanics. It set definite limits on the possibility of simultaneously measuring the motion and position of two atoms and elementary particles. Heisenberg established a function, and within this function, the particle -- whatever kind of particle it is, whether an electron, an atom, a neutron, or a photon -- has one defining characteristic: their total energy can be determined, but of its position and its energy, only one of the two can be measured accurately. Why can these two parameters not be measured at the same time? They simply cannot. When you want to know its position, you cannot know what state its energy is in at that moment; when you want to measure the particle's kinetic energy accurately, that is, its potential energy or energy state, you cannot determine its position.

Then the principle of complementarity was proposed by Bohr in 1928⁴. What did he propose? He told you that the contradictions shown by mutually opposing experiments -- he resolved this problem:

Those experiments showed how light could be regarded as being composed of particles or of waves.

This is the famous wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics. That is, a tiny particle that we consider to be in a particle state -- its own attributes include both wave properties and particle properties. Whether it manifests wave properties or particle properties is determined by whether the observer is present. The observer determines the result of the experiment.

This is the thing that drove all physicists to the brink of collapse, and the most maddening part is this: according to what scientists believed, the result of an experiment should have nothing to do with whether anyone is observing it -- an experiment should be objective, and whatever result it produces is simply what it is. How could the presence or absence of an observer produce two completely opposite results? One is a particle state, like a tiny grain; the other is a wave-like form, an energy state.

So this wave-particle duality is actually the greatest challenge to traditional physics. It made scientists realize for the first time that human observation -- that is, the observer -- is also part of the experiment. We used to think that the objective world is objective, and we are human beings, we are observers, and between us and the objective experiment and the objective matter there is a relatively objective relationship, with ourselves excluded. But this experiment tells you: no, the observer is also part of the experiment. With an observer and without an observer, the results of the experiment are completely different.

This actually leads very well into what Seth has been emphasizing all along: we and the natural world are one, and we cannot split ourselves off from nature and separate ourselves from it. We use instruments made from nature to observe nature, and this is a bit like trying to use your eyes to see your own eyes -- assuming you do not use a mirror, you can never see your own eyes.

You say, what if I use a mirror to look? Yes, you can use a mirror to look. Then let me ask you: are the eyes in the mirror still your eyes? You say yes. They are only the eyes in the mirror, they are a reflection. I am still asking you the same question -- think about it carefully yourself: are the eyes in the mirror still your eyes? They are only a reflection of your eyes, they are not your eyes. So it is quite interesting, is it not? Think about it carefully -- you can never use your eyes to see your own eyes. That is to say, you can never use instruments and equipment made from nature to observe nature; it is in itself a paradox.

Rob continued:

I doubted whether physicists in the 1920s cared about the psychological activity of atoms, molecules, and particles -- certainly they did not care; at that time no one would think from that angle -- although when Heisenberg considered the free behavior of an electron knocked out by a beam of light, he was already very close to Seth's concepts.

He said this electron is free.

Einstein's research, on the other hand, was rooted in strict causality. He considered the claim that electrons have free will to be untenable. Although as early as 1905, his special theory of relativity had already become a cornerstone of quantum mechanics.

Einstein's special theory of relativity was a foundation for the development of physics in that era, and from it the later quantum mechanics developed, giving great inspiration to quantum mechanics. But the two are fundamentally very different, and Einstein's limitations were very strong.

The one thing Einstein could least accept was that time does not exist. He knew that time can be altered -- this he accepted; he also knew that time and space are one, that is, the unity of space and time -- you cannot talk about time apart from space, nor talk about space apart from time; it is called the space-time continuum, they are one, that is from the special theory of relativity. But he could not accept that in this world, space and time actually do not exist at all. This was a viewpoint he could not accept.

So he was limited right there. When quantum mechanics developed later, he opposed it fiercely. Einstein organized many, many challenges, many thought experiments -- because at the level of quantum mechanics, many experiments could not be done in the laboratory, so he used many imagined experiments to challenge quantum mechanics, saying that quantum mechanics was nonsense and simply impossible.

You see, even such a great scientist was in many cases limited by himself. Although in many ways he was very wise, and his brain was indeed much smarter than most people's. For example, he once proposed -- I gave this example in an earlier class -- he said: the most important question in this world, the most central question, is whether this world is fundamentally good or evil. That was a viewpoint he put forward at the time. Since he raised this viewpoint, what was he actually saying? He was actually trying to ask whether this world has consciousness -- because good and evil themselves represent whether this world is conscious. This was his ultimate question. So he also recognized that this world itself has consciousness, but he did not dare to step outside his own framework, because he believed in his special theory of relativity so deeply; he thought it was the truth that would solve the universe. Although there were many things in it that could not be explained, he said: it is still better than your claim that time does not exist, space does not exist, and there are even other dimensions, and even the existence of faster-than-light speeds -- because in quantum mechanics, the motion of the ultimate strings has already exceeded the speed of light -- all of that is pure nonsense.

Let me give the simplest example. You say the observer changes the result of the wave-particle duality experiment, right? Then Einstein issued a challenge. Using his brilliant brain, he issued challenges that really made it very difficult for these people to answer his questions.

For example, one of his challenges: what if the observer were replaced by a monkey -- would the result change? Wave-particle duality is also called the double-slit experiment⁵; you can search online for what wave-particle duality is and what the double-slit experiment is. The double slit is two narrow slits. The result of the double-slit experiment is that when scientists or instruments are observing, the result changes from wave properties to particle properties; when no one is observing, it displays wave properties. Then Einstein said: fine, fine, fine, everything you say is correct, let us go with what you say, everything you say is reasonable. All right then, now we will not use a human to observe, and we will not use instruments to observe either. Let us suppose we send a monkey to observe -- will the result change? He really stumped those scientists; this is very mind-bending. He said: all right, all right, second -- you say you cannot use a monkey, only a human can be used. Then let me suppose we use a child with no consciousness, for example a newborn baby, to look -- what result would there be? A child with no scientific knowledge, no scientific background, and so on.

These questions turned into a war of words at the time, and in the end neither side could convince the other. Einstein never acknowledged quantum mechanics until the day he died.

Session 824

Cinderella and Myth

Let us continue. What I just covered was the previous session. The main content of this session is Session 824. On Wednesday, March 1, 1978, at 9:40 p.m., Session 824 began. Before it started, after dinner, Rob and Jane had a discussion about the theory of evolution, which they had discussed before. Then Seth directly broke in, breaking in halfway through their discussion. Seth said:

While I am speaking about the creation of the universe, and the creation of both public and private events, let us for a moment consider a different kind of myth.

The word "myth" here is very interesting. As I mentioned earlier, in Chapter 3, Session 1, I discussed this issue of myth. In English, "myth" carries both the meaning of a mythological story and the meaning of a mistaken view. If you do not know what a myth is, you can go back and listen to the content of Chapter 3, Session 1 again from the beginning.

Seth said, when we speak of the creation of the universe, and the creation of both public and private events -- that is, the creation of the universe and the creation of personal events and mass events, these two kinds of creation -- before we discuss this, let us first consider a different kind of myth. What myth?

This evening, during a pleasant dinner hour, our friends Ruburt and Joseph watched a television program based on the story of Cinderella.

The story of Cinderella has been passed down through the ages, especially in the West, and the same is true in the East. This story is known to every household. I do not need to tell the story of Cinderella; there is no one who does not know it.

See how remarkable Seth is. He begins with this story, using such a fairy tale to unfold the matter of how mass events and personal events come about.

According to the definition I gave earlier, this fairy tale is a myth.

According to the earlier definition, this fairy tale itself is a myth. What is a myth? A myth is a distortion of the truth, a distorted version of the truth. I covered this before, so I will not repeat it. At the same time, a myth can also be regarded as a mythological legend. Did mythological legends really happen at the time? They are the human understanding of what really happened at the time -- all mythological legends did happen at the time, but they are all later people's interpretations.

I once told everyone about a U.S. military base on a Pacific island. During World War II, it served as a military base with supplies constantly being transported in. After the war ended, the base was abandoned and the personnel withdrew. But decades later, around the seventies, eighties, or nineties, when scientists reached the island again -- this is an isolated island -- they discovered that the indigenous people on the island were worshipping a mock airplane made of tree trunks, branches, and bark, and they regarded it as a god. The entire local tribe worshipped this fake airplane made of wood every day, paying homage to it as if it were a myth.

Why? Because they felt that the airplane came from the sky like a deity, and they did not know where it came from. But they knew that whenever the airplane landed, all kinds of delicious food and fun things were unloaded from it, including Coca-Cola they had never drunk, canned beef and canned pork they had never eaten, instant food they had never seen, chocolate, candy, flour -- everything, for the indigenous people of a Pacific island nation, these foods and the airplane were like the existence of gods. These foods were things they had never seen, never heard of, never eaten in their entire lives. So they prayed that the airplane would come again and bring them food and good things.

So what does this mean? The event of the airplane coming, for them, had its own explanation, and that explanation was a myth. But they did not know what the airplane really was.

Through this matter, human scientists suddenly realized: if this is the case, then the mythological stories that humanity has passed down orally to this day must have had a version that actually happened at the time. If those events had not happened at the time, humanity would not have passed down such a matter, such a scene, orally for millions of years. If that scene had not happened, people would not have imagined it.

I do not know whether everyone can understand this: the mythological stories you see must have had something that actually happened at the time, and then the people of that time recorded it as a very, very important matter, which became a story passed down orally from generation to generation in the tribe or primitive society of that time. In the process of this transmission, and in their interpretation of the phenomenon of the story, tremendous distortion had already occurred -- just like the tribe's distortion of the airplane.

So this kind of distortion, for example, is called a myth. Is it wrong? It is not wrong -- the airplane really could produce many things. Is their explanation correct? It certainly is not. But if you say it is incorrect, is it fundamentally wrong? It is not wrong either. I do not know whether you can understand what I mean; this kind of thing is called a myth.

Framework 2 in the Cinderella Story

Of course, it seems that such a children's story has nothing to do with anything profound -- like such a serious adult topic as the creation of the world. You might think there is no necessary connection between the Cinderella story and how this world came into being, such a serious adult topic as the creation of the world.

But what is it that is certain beyond doubt?

From such a source, what seems impossible to occur: pertinent scientific material concerning the nature of events.

He says you have it exactly backwards. From such a source, what seems impossible to discover: pertinent material concerning the nature of events is discovered -- how events come about, the Cinderella fairy tale gives us pertinent scientific material. It is scientific material, interesting, isn't it.

Let's continue with what it says:

Of course, first of all the Cinderella story has a happy ending -- certainly a happy ending -- and according to many educators, this is highly impractical.

Many educators say that these fairy tales all have happy endings, and that this is not good, because it does not properly prepare children to face life's inevitable disappointments. You write fairy tales so beautifully, the prince and princess live happily ever after, so how come you did not take into account the harshness of life's reality? The fairy godmother -- the one in the story who helps Cinderella -- is definitely something imagined by a novelist.

And many serious, earnest adults will tell you that daydreaming and wishing are utterly useless.

Adults will all tell you, this is just a fairy tale, this is only a fairy tale.

Yet in the Cinderella story, the heroine, though poor -- Cinderella's heroine is very poor, and her status is low -- nevertheless manages to reach a satisfying and seemingly impossible goal. Her intense desire to attend a splendid ball and meet the prince set into motion a whole series of magical events, none of which followed the laws of logic.

The fairy godmother who suddenly appears makes use of ordinary objects from daily life, such as turning a pumpkin into a carriage, and brings about other equally magical changes.

This story has always held a strong attraction for children, because they recognize the rationality behind the story. The fairy godmother is a creative personification of one of the personified rational components of Framework 2, and is therefore a personification of the inner self, coming to the aid of the physical self and responding to its desires -- even when the desires of this physical self may seem not to fit into the normal person's actual framework, he will still come to help you.

Many of the figures in myths and fairy tales carry certain implied meanings. For example, this fairy godmother is a personalized, creative personification within Framework 2 -- a person of great creativity, such as turning a pumpkin into a carriage, producing a glass slipper, and so on.

From another angle, Framework 2 itself is a place where the inner self exists. So one could also say that the inner self within Framework 2 can be reflected in this fairy tale as the fairy godmother, coming to help the physical self fulfill its wishes. In other words, the relationship between our inner self and our physical self, that is, the relationship with our ego, is exactly this kind of relationship. It comes to help you realize your wishes -- as long as your wish is strong enough, your inner self will come out to help you realize it.

When the inner self responds in such a manner, even the ordinary, common, seemingly harmless environment suddenly becomes filled with a new vitality, and seems to become more favorable to the person involved.

The time, the place, and the people all become favorable to you. As soon as the inner self makes a move, the world changes.

The Inner Strength of Children

Seth still needles us from time to time:

If you are reading this book, you are already too old to clearly remember the constant fantasies of your early childhood.

By the time you are reading this book, you are certainly already an adult. Once you are grown up, you can no longer remember the constant fantasies you had in childhood. Do you still remember your childhood fantasies? What did you fantasize about? Vaguely, but you have long since forgotten them.

You see, this old man Seth is not very kind; he needles us from time to time.

Children automatically know quite clearly -- children know very clearly, they know their own fantasies -- that they have a strong participation in the creation of the events that happen to them.

Children are always fantasizing about this thing and that thing, and in the things they fantasize about, they have a strong sense of participation. And what about us adults? We no longer participate. Adults think about it, and the common thing to say is, go wash up and go to sleep; something like, ideals are full, but reality is bony -- using such words to comfort themselves. He does not even want to participate anymore -- what does participation mean? It means participating in those intense longings and fantasies about the things one wants in the future, the things one wants to happen. He does not even go there anymore; he does not even fantasize; he does not even fantasize at all, so he simply does not participate.

And do children participate? Of course they do. Children's enthusiasm for participating in that kind of fantasizing is extremely high. Think carefully: why is a novel like Harry Potter, about a school of magic and wizardry, so wildly popular all over the world? Think about it -- aren't those children all fantasizing that one day they will have such magic? They are fantasizing. And adults look at it and say, this is just a book for children, fooling little kids.

And then those stories seem to happen to them in turn.

That is, children first fantasize about something, then actively participate, with a very strong sense of participation, actively fantasize, and then that thing seems to happen to them -- it really happens.

If you ask a little child, the child will tell you that the world is extremely magical.

Just like what Simon was sharing in the group the other day -- he can conjure an eraser out of thin air, he can conjure this and that. Do you think he is telling a joke? No, they often do experiments. You see him doing experiments; he is not just casually thinking about it, he is doing experiments, and quite secretly at that. Children are often doing things on the sly -- have you not noticed that children always have many secrets they are unwilling to share with adults? Right, they have some secret places, some secret places to play, all kept from adults. They are constantly, secretly doing all kinds of experiments, strange and peculiar ones.

Because at the same time, their elders are trying to get the children to conform to a given, mass-produced, solid reality.

Adults tell children not to play with these things, to come back to reality, telling children what reality is and what fantasy is.

Children often experiment, creating joyous and frightening events, to ascertain their own control over experience.

Children do not only play at happy things; they also want to play at frightening things. Do you remember the animated film Ne Zha -- how rambunctious and restless that Ne Zha was, scaring this one and that one? That is a characteristic of how children play. You see children often play at frightening events: digging a hole in the sand, covering it with a piece of paper, burying it with sand on top, and another child steps into it and falls through, and so on. What is he doing? He is ascertaining his control over experience -- I want to do something frightening, and I want to see whether I can scare others; I want to do something that makes people laugh, something that makes people happy, and I want to see whether I can make others happy. They are experimenting with this.

They imagine joyous or frightening experiences, and they are in fact most fascinated, most enchanted by the effects of their own thoughts, emotions, and purposes upon daily events.

Children most love to be fascinated by their own ideas, thoughts, and wildly imaginative thinking -- they are especially fascinated. They are fascinated by a single idea. This is a natural learning process; you must not disturb them or interrupt them.

If they can create monsters, they can also make them disappear.

They feel that the monster is something they themselves created, and since they can create the monster themselves, they can make the monster disappear; they are not afraid.

If their thoughts make them sick, then they have no real reason to fear illness.

They feel that the illness is something they themselves produced. Do you not know that many children develop a fever as soon as exams approach? Do you not know that many children get sick as soon as school is about to start? They actually want to be sick themselves; the illness is something they brought on themselves. But they are not afraid, because they know this is an illness they themselves wanted. They feel: since I can make myself sick, I can also make myself well. So as long as school does not start, as long as there is no exam, my illness will get better right away; as soon as the exam is over -- and the illness happens to coincide with the end of the exam -- oh, I am better. Children's illnesses come quickly and go quickly, for this very reason. Observe children carefully: their illnesses come extremely fast and go extremely fast -- because those are their own creations.

But this creative process is nipped in the bud as soon as it sprouts. Adults do not like children being this way; as soon as a child gets sick, adults become so frightened and nervous that they rush the child to the hospital. By doing this you frighten the child, when the child knows it is actually nothing.

By the time you are an adult, you seem to be a subjective being in an objective world.

That is, once we grow up, you become a subjective being in an objective world: you yourself are subjective, but the world is objective. As a subjective you, you have to deal with this objective world and be pushed around by others -- because this objective world is not under your control; you have to be pushed around by this objective world. You have only the most superficial control over the world in your life; you can only control the most basic, most surface level, and you can no longer control the deeper levels.

But for children it is not like this. They feel that life is a subjective world; they feel that life is as they wish it to be, lived according to what they want. Think carefully: is a child's life like this? It is. Children never worry about what they will eat tomorrow -- unless they live in a poor family, or a family where they never had enough to eat from childhood -- normal children never worry about such problems as not having enough to eat or wear. All their time and energy is spent on creating, on playing, on experiencing.

The story of Cinderella becomes a fantasy, a delusion, and even, in Freudian terms, a story of sexual awakening.

Freud -- he sees everything as related to sex. Freud believed that behind the most primitive driving forces of the human world, sex is the main driving force, and everything must be explained in terms of sex -- mother-daughter relationships, mother-woman relationships, mother-son relationships, family relationships, all kinds of relationships, he explains them all in terms of sex. He even said of smokers: why do people smoke? Because they did not get enough milk as children, so as adults they have this unsatisfied desire, and therefore they need to hold a cigarette holder in their mouths. Is that not a bit too far-fetched? With Freud, no matter what question you ask him, if you dig to the bottom, it always comes back to sex. So Freud said that the story of Cinderella itself is a story of sexual awakening -- the child begins to awaken sexually.

The disappointments you face do make such a story seem directly contradictory to the truth of life.

After you grow up, you will feel that this story is indeed the opposite of the truth of life: there is no such thing as a pumpkin turning into a carriage, and there is no such thing as Cinderella one day actually marrying a prince; such things simply do not happen.

Yet to some extent, the child within you remembers a certain sense of mastery that was only half realized.

To some extent, the child within you -- as we often say, everyone has a child in their heart. If you have seen the film The Guardian, the theme song of The Guardian is sung by Tsai Chin; you may have forgotten it, and you can find time to listen to it sometime. So to some extent, your inner being is a little child. This child remembers the things he played with as a child, remembers that he had only half a sense of mastery -- because he was slapped in the face by real life, given a hard lesson, told that the truth is not like this, so he has only half a sense of mastery.

He remembers a certain sense of power that he almost grasped, and then seemed to lose forever.

The wording he uses here is very good. This inner child -- everyone has an inner child in their heart -- remembers a certain sense of power that he almost grasped, and then seemed to lose forever. How tragic. This child in his heart vaguely feels that he seems to have a certain ability to control things, not completely passive as others say. But this ability does not work very well; it seems to have only half its power, only half its mastery. And then, he vaguely remembers that he once had it -- that ability in childhood to have things happen as he wished -- he once possessed such power, but ultimately lost it.

And a dimension of existence -- that is, there is still another world.

This child, the inner self in everyone's heart, has this feeling -- there is still another world, in which...

What the Inner Child Knows

Children can feel even more than this—they feel a larger fulfillment of themselves entirely within another framework. They feel surrounded by the greater reality of Framework 2.

Our inner child is actually a part of our inner self, or that deep, innermost part of us. Children know they came from somewhere else, which is why they often ask their parents, "Where did I come from?"

Many people don't know how to answer this question, so they treat it as an embarrassing question and start explaining physiology to the child. But you can't really explain it clearly, the child can't understand it, and you feel too awkward to talk about it—so it turns into a very strange question.

But if you really think about it: when a child asks you "Where did I come from," are they asking about physiology? No. They vaguely sense that they did not come from this world—they came from another place. They originally wanted to ask an adult, hoping the adult would give them a reasonable explanation, but instead the adult pretends to be clever, pretends to know a lot, and starts babbling about anatomy and sex education.

The best thing to do at that moment is to seize the opportunity to give the child a spiritual initiation—starting from the origin of the child's life. The anatomical details are not the point. Life is not born from that; that is only something we have imagined within the physical world. Life does not come by accident—it comes by design, with life infused into it.

The child knows that his most intimate thoughts, dreams, and gestures are connected to the world as naturally as a blade of grass is connected to the field. The child knows he is a unique and wholly original event or being—one of a kind, original, with no one else like him.

On the one hand he is his own focus, and on the other hand he belongs to his own time and season.

This is a very interesting line of his: on the one hand, he focuses his consciousness upon himself, attending to the physical world; on the other hand, he belongs to another time and space, another dimension, with his own seasons and time at the level of Framework 2.

Children seldom let anything escape their attention. Things you often fail to notice, children can notice. They constantly experiment, in order to discover the effects of their own thoughts, intents, and wishes upon other people—whether they can scare someone, whether they can make someone laugh with delight.

You see, little kids love doing this sort of thing. When you play with a child, you'll notice a particularly interesting trait: if you pretend to be startled and make an exaggerated expression, the child becomes extremely happy, with a kind of heartfelt joy. Through these experiments, the child is actually practicing his own experience: can he make other people display the effect he wants according to his thoughts and intents? At the same time, he also discovers the degree to which others influence his own behavior—this is a two-way process. He also lets others scare him, wanting to see what effect others have on him.

To that extent, they deal directly with probabilities in a manner that is quite foreign to acknowledged behavior. This is something we adults no longer do. Adults seem to think they are very clever—we only deal with facts, never with probabilities. But children deal with probabilities—"What if," "Let's pretend," "Let's play a game"—and then see what the effect is.

In a way, they deduce faster than adults, and often more truly, because they are not conditioned by a structured memory of the past.

Their deductive speed is faster than adults', and often more accurate. Why? Because they are dealing with probabilities, constantly deducing these possibilities. Adults don't. The advantage children have is having no past, not being constrained by the past. The advantage adults have is memory, but the disadvantage is also memory—on the one hand, memory gives us a great deal of material, but on the other hand, it also limits us in many ways.

Their subjective experience brings them into fairly direct contact with the methods by which events are formed. How are events formed? Through his desires, his wants, his thoughts—realized through the deduction of his thoughts, intents, and wishes. It is in his "pretend pretend," "for example for example," "imagine imagine" that things become real. He discovers that events are formed in just this way.

Children understand the importance of symbols, and they often use symbols to protect themselves—not against their own reality, but against the adult world.

They often pretend, and they quickly learn: if he can't ride a bicycle, he imitates others—he pretends, he mimics, and after pretending long enough, he can do it.

In any realm, sustained pretending will eventually result in a version of the imagined activity that is actually experienced.

Children quickly learn: sustained pretending—and remember, it must be sustained; pretending just once won't work—this sustained pretending, in any realm, will turn that imagined activity into an actually experienced version. This experienced version is not entirely identical to the imagined activity; there is creativity and variability in between.

They also understand that they do not possess complete freedom. Certain pretended situations will later materialize in a form less faithful than the version he imagined; others will seem almost entirely blocked and will not concretize at all. For example, he imagines he can fly, but he cannot fly—that is something that did not concretize for him. But many other things he imagined did come true. If you don't believe it, have a good heart-to-heart talk with a child and you'll understand.

Before children become familiar with the conventional concepts of sin and punishment, they discover that it is easier to bring about good things through wishing than to bring about unhappy things.

Children are born with the energy of Framework 2's impetus and support provided to them.

They intuitively know that wishes beneficial to their development are more likely to occur than those that are not. For example, a child fears monsters, fears a big dog coming to bite him, but the big dog never comes to bite him—in his life he can discover that good things are easier to realize. Because those good things are all beneficial to his development; his natural impetus naturally guides him to develop body and mind.

When he acts according to those inner impulses—inner impulses being the information Framework 2 gives him—he perceives a protective effect and support. Why? Because at the level of Framework 2, that impulse has already been preset, pre-embedded, prefabricated with the pattern and main framework of his development. Framework 2 continuously gives him impulses and intuitions throughout his development. Children have not been influenced and poisoned by the traditional adult world, so they can easily feel their own inner impulses and act on them directly. Sometimes you say a child is willful and can't control himself—but that is actually his normal impulse, perfectly normal.

Children are naturally honest. When he is sick, he intuitively knows the reason for the illness, and he understands very clearly—he himself brought about that illness.

Adults won't admit this. When adults get sick, they never reflect on themselves; they put on an innocent expression and say, "I shouldn't have gotten this illness. I'm a good person. I've never done anything harmful. Why should I get this disease?" They start by defending themselves, never admitting that the illness was brought about by themselves. But a child, even if he doesn't say it aloud, knows it in his heart.

Parents, on the other hand, believe the child is a victim of illness—that he did not become sick for personal reasons, but became unwell because natural factors attacked him. It is viruses, bacteria, the external environment attacking him, or his own immune system working against him. They may tell the child: "You caught a cold because you got your feet wet," "You didn't dry your hair after your bath," "You caught a cold from Xiao Ming," "You got a flu virus, so your body was invaded."

It seems as though this is contrary to their will—they didn't want to get sick, but the cold virus came. Yet the child knows that this cold was brought about by himself.

He learns this belief—that the illness is caused by viruses, by the environment, by another child infecting you. The experience he learns is acceptable, approved by adults.

Going along with adults is much easier than being honest. If a child says, "No, I wanted to get sick myself," the adults will surely say, "Nonsense, don't talk rubbish—you must have caught a chill." Especially when honesty often involves a kind of communication that parents might frown upon, or involves the expression of emotions that are quite unacceptable.

So later on, children stop telling the truth. For example—"Mommy's brave little trooper"—so he stays home and endures the illness with great courage. Because all his behavior is treated with leniency: he rests at home, eats and drinks well, his parents don't make him do homework, and he can even play the video games he normally isn't allowed to play.

The child may know that this illness is the result of emotions his parents would consider very cowardly: the moment he gets sick, his parents' emotions soften, and they agree to whatever the child asks. Otherwise, it would involve an emotional fact that his parents simply would not understand.

Gradually, the child finds it easier to accept his parents' assessment of the situation. Because according to the adults' way of thinking, when you're sick you must rest, you must recuperate, you must be taken care of—and there are benefits. The child feels there is something sweet in it. If he insisted that he wanted to get sick himself, would the adults still take care of him like that?

The beautiful relationship between his psychological feelings and his physical reality, and the precise connection between them, is eroded bit by bit.

This is the saddest thing. The child's psychological feelings and physical reality have a beautiful relationship and a precise connection, and this thing is eroded bit by bit by the parents' so-called scientific viewpoints.

I do not want to oversimplify, and throughout this book we will describe such behavior in detail from beginning to end.

He says that behaviors you regard as perfectly ordinary, he will describe in detail.

A child who comes down with the mumps along with many of his classmates, however, knows that he has private reasons for joining in such a group biological phenomenon.

The child knows why he joined in the mumps infection of the whole class; he has his own personal reasons. But adults do not perceive their own reasons. They are usually persuaded—by the media, by scientists, by public opinion, by all kinds of news—persuaded that their bodies were indeed invaded by a virus. Like the current COVID-19, they say this virus invaded our bodies, and that is why we developed these symptoms.

Whether or not he personally agrees, he will be invaded. It seems as though the invasion has nothing to do with his own personal will.

Here it must be emphasized: whether or not you are invaded by a virus is an inner choice of yours. But scientists tell us, social news tells us, that this is entirely passive—whether you get infected depends entirely on whether you went to a danger zone or came into contact with someone carrying the virus. Therefore he is a victim, and his personal power is eroded. He says, "I can do nothing about the virus; I was simply infected by it." Whether the virus invades him or not depends mainly on the virus's mood; he himself is completely passive.

When a person recovers from such an ordeal, he usually attributes his recovery to the medicine he took.

He thinks his recovery is the result of medication, the result of treatment. He may think he was simply lucky. But he does not allow himself any power in such an event.

The healing seems to happen to him, just as the illness seemed to happen to him.

He again uses the word "seems"—did it really happen? The symptoms happened. Usually the patient cannot see that he himself brought about the recovery; he is responsible both for the illness and for the recovery from that illness. Because he cannot admit that his own intent was responsible for the illness, he also cannot learn from his own experience that his recovery was also brought about by himself.

Each bout of illness appears largely incomprehensible—he cannot draw any lesson from it. He feels the illness came strangely, by chance, and that being cured was the doctor's doing; he has no sense of power in the process, nor any subjective initiative. He should have gained some learning and reflection through the illness, but instead he gained nothing.

Jane's Automatic Writing

In a genuine trance state, considerably faster than in recent sessions. After 11:10, however, it proceeded at a slower pace.

Then Seth continued:

Several years ago, before our sessions actually began, that is, in the latter half of 1963, Ruburt had a writing experience of his own, and he described his experience.

Ruburt once had an automatic writing experience, and this event became a scribbled manuscript titled "The Physical Universe as Idea Construction"⁶, which has not been published to this day. It was just Jane suddenly writing furiously there, producing something from who knows where -- not from his own mind -- and only after finishing did he realize, how did I write such a piece?

His desire to know more about the nature of reality, and his intense intent, triggered that fragment of automatic writing.

He was explaining why this happened: Jane wanted to know more about the nature of this reality, he had such an ardent desire and intent, and that is why such automatic writing appeared. The title of this piece was "The Physical Universe as Idea Construction"⁶ -- our physical world is constructed from our concepts. This was something Jane suddenly wrote on her own in the latter half of 1963, and this was also a beginning of the Seth material. Within a few months, they wanted to try whether they could contact something else through a Ouija board.

Then he said:

At the time of President Kennedy's assassination, he found that as a young man, he was living in a world that seemed to have no meaning.

Mike said at the time that Kennedy's assassination was around 1960, and Jane was not yet 30 then, still a young person. After Kennedy was assassinated, he suddenly felt that life had no meaning, and the world was also meaningless. Then he went on to think: what exactly is the reality of this world?

At the same time, although this Ruburt was conditioned by the beliefs of his generation, and is still today tainted by the beliefs of your era, he nevertheless clung tightly to a supportive belief that he had never entirely lost since childhood.

Jane was still influenced by the beliefs of the mainstream media of his era, but he clung tightly to a supportive belief that he had never entirely lost since childhood -- he wanted to know what the essence of this world was, what the essence of reality really was. This belief was a firm conviction Jane had held since childhood.

This belief sounds illogical, and when applied to daily life it seems self-contradictory.

Why contradictory? Because this belief itself says: each person can, by virtue of the innate abilities that naturally belong to him, perceive the essence of reality on his own. That is to say, everyone is inherently complete, everyone has the ability to know the truth of this world. And those abilities are a person's inheritance, something innate.

In other words, Ruburt felt there was still the slightest chance to open the closed door of knowledge, and he decided not to let that chance slip away.

Ruburt's belief itself was also a state of entanglement: he both believed that every person possesses this ability, and at the same time felt that he should not give up even the slightest chance to open the door of knowledge.

So at the end of 1963, they tried the Ouija board about four or five times in a row, maybe five or six times. He and Rob fussed with it every night. At first there was no information at all, but they did not give up and kept playing. Until one day, a person named Frank came through -- and from then on, this story began.

Why was Seth talking about this? What he actually wanted to say was: Jane's childhood wish to obtain material about the nature of reality -- is it not already being fulfilled today? Is Seth not, through him, constantly explaining what the essence of this world's reality is? What Seth wanted to say was: this is like the Cinderella story -- as long as you hold on to this belief and do not let go, it will come true. This belief at the time, and even now, was considered impossible to accomplish in many respects, yet Jane made it happen. He published 31 books in total -- not counting the books he wrote himself, just the Seth books alone numbered 31, and he himself probably wrote more than a dozen.

This first showed itself in the results now in those yellowed manuscripts, already 15 years old, which enabled him to see immediately that he had to some extent chosen the events of his life.

This was 1978, and that was 1963, 15 years. When he truly looked back at the past, at the thick stack of manuscripts accumulated over these 15 years, he suddenly realized: he had in fact chosen this event in his life -- to reveal the essence of reality. And each of those private experiences of his, or the events encountered together with others, he was the creator of, not the victim. In this life of his, he encountered all kinds of people, including his mother, his priest, his Catholic school -- these people were all indispensable life experiences that ultimately enabled him to accomplish this task. And the people in this, including Jane herself, were not victims but creators. They all jointly created this one thing: that Jane could transmit a portion of this world's reality through Seth.

This is very much like the Cinderella story.

In those most real, power-filled hours, he also knew that the physical senses did not perceive phenomena as being that solid, but actually took a hand in the creativity of events, and then regarded them as facts.

In those few hours of automatic writing, Jane knew that what his physical senses perceived was not as solid as he had understood. If the physical senses were solid, then he would not know how he could have automatically written out these things -- he should have had the thought first, and then written, right? But no, he wrote automatically. So he discovered that the physical senses were not that solid, but the physical senses did take a hand in his writing process -- without the cooperation of hand and eye, how could he have written anything out? And then he regarded that hand he took part with as a fact -- I wrote this out with my hand, this is a fact -- only he did not know where the content came from.

Actually, what he wanted to tell us about life: our experiences in life are all like this, only you do not know it. The bits and pieces we experience in life, any big or small event, all come about this way. How the event happened, you do not know. You think you know, because you believe there is a cause-and-effect relationship -- because of this, because of that, therefore this happened -- that is what you think. But in fact, how this event came about was not produced in our time and space at all; it came from Framework 2.

But we experience these events, and we participate in them through our physical senses. Because the process of its manifestation in the physical world must be manifested through us. Even if you were to become a billionaire, would you not still have to pick up a bankbook, or buy a stock that suddenly skyrockets several hundred times -- would it not all have to go through seemingly miraculous experiences, and also through your physical senses to actualize it? And in this process of actualization, your body participates in the process, and then you think it is real. You do not know that behind it there is actually a deeper, higher framework, and that the event all happened there first.

In other words, when Jane wrote this piece, the framework behind it was at the level of Framework 2, or even Framework 3. Seth said earlier that in Framework 3 this matter already existed, in Framework 2 it was a possibility, and in Framework 1 it was manifested. What we see from this level within physical time is the manifested result. And the events we ordinarily experience are also like this, but we do not see it that way. We treat events as facts, because we participated in them -- whatever we personally participate in, we consider to be fact.

Believing in Magical Power

At 11:26, Jane, still in trance, transmitted several passages of material, and within them came this insight -- what Seth said when discussing his assimilation of the Cinderella story. It was a summarizing insight:

Forgive my phrasing, but you both believe in magical power, otherwise these sessions would never have begun.

You believe that reality is more than what the senses show, and that together you can accomplish what no one has achieved before.

If the two of you did not believe that magical things exist in this world, these sessions would not be possible, nor would you have used a Ouija board to connect with some other spirit, let alone transmit through me for over a decade. You believe that reality is more than what the senses can show, and that together you can accomplish what no one before you has achieved -- like communicating with someone such as Seth, who is not in our world. Such things do happen in reality, but very few can do what he does, speaking at such length, transmitting book after book over decades. So what you are doing truly offers a meaningful and real solution to the problems of the world. The significance and value of this material itself is not only about solving problems of the spiritual world; it also has a strong practical effect and practical significance.

Note: Session 806

There is a note here. This text can be found in Chapter 2 -- in the portion that was deleted from Session 806, Seth transmitted some comments about children, which are very consistent with the material he gave tonight. He adds it back here:

The point of power is in the present. Whenever possible, minimize the importance of a problem as much as you can. Forget a problem, and it will go away. Of course, this is foolish advice, or it seems foolish, but children know its truth. If you reduce the obstacles in your mind to a minimum, they really do become minimal. If you exaggerate the obstacles in your mind, then they will quickly swell into giants.

What is Seth trying to say? The point of power is in the present. No matter when a problem occurs, it can be resolved in the present. Whenever possible, you should minimize the importance of a difficult problem -- do not treat it as some enormous matter. You may be facing something that cannot be resolved for the time being, and it exists before you like a mountain, pressing down on you until you cannot breathe. At such a time, if you reduce its importance as much as possible, you will feel that it is not important. How big a deal is it, really? It is not a big deal -- reduce it as much as you can.

You may ask, what use is that? He tells you: when you forget the problem, the problem will automatically go away. You may say, how is that possible? Is this not just wishful thinking? Is this not the spirit of Ah Q? Is this not the ostrich approach of burying your head in the sand? So if I do not solve my financial problems, someone will pay my bills for me? Someone will pay off my credit cards? All kinds of debts will automatically be cleared? He would feel that this is simply unrealistic. No matter how you try to persuade him, he still treats the matter as being as huge as a mountain.

At this point Seth says: this seems like foolish advice, like the suggestion of a fool, but children all know its truth.

Why is that? Think about it carefully: when a child does something bad, like breaking a vase at home, he is very, very afraid. But what do you notice the child doing? He is especially afraid of this matter, but he chooses to forget it, not to look at it, not to think about it. He thinks: it would be best if the adults never discover that the vase is broken. He is using this method to reduce the importance of the matter -- if the adults do not see it, then is its importance not that great after all?

Let me give an example: according to a child's imagining, if he breaks a vase at home, will he get a beating when he comes home? But in fact we all know that even if a child breaks or shatters something, at most the adults will scold him a bit; they would not actually beat him -- because he did not do it on purpose. So we adults all know this would not happen, but in a child's imagination, is this matter not bigger than a mountain? He broke Mom's favorite vase -- what is he going to do?

Yet in the end, the result is often not as serious as the child imagined. So Seth says: if you reduce it to a minimum, its obstruction really does become minimal; if you exaggerate the obstruction, the difficulty, the danger, the fearful thing, it will quickly swell into a giant in your mind -- a giant so huge that in the end it can scare you to death. Many children jump off buildings precisely because of this: he did poorly on an exam at school, and at most his parents would scold him a bit -- see, you have been playing games again lately, not focusing on your studies -- what could really happen? But for the child, he cannot bear it. He imagines the danger as being unimaginably huge, so huge that he cannot endure it, and so he kills himself. This is a typical example.

This is the same viewpoint expressed in A Course in Miracles. Because recently our group has gained many friends from A Course in Miracles, and as I was communicating with them, I saw the words their teacher said, and I found them very reasonable. The meaning of A Course in Miracles is roughly this: whatever you resist will persist, will not leave, and will certainly keep surrounding you in your life; whatever you accept will dissolve and depart. The more you resist something, the more it refuses to leave, and the more it keeps reappearing in your life. When one day you truly accept it from the bottom of your heart and resign yourself to it, then the matter is over. It is no longer a big deal, no longer so frightening, no longer so terrifying.

Children all know how to use this method, but we adults have forgotten it. We adults cling tightly to the difficult, the dangerous, the frightening thing and refuse to let go, repeatedly reinforcing it, and as a result the difficulty grows larger and larger, even larger than you imagined.

Today we continue sharing the second subsection of the interpretation of Chapter 4 of the Seth book The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, which is Session 825. This session began at 9:30 p.m. on March 6, 1978. At the beginning he paused for a moment, and then he began to speak again about his content.

Just as Ruburt perceived in the experience he mentioned in the previous session, the physical universe is constructed from concepts.

What he is referring to is that in the second half of 1963, Ruburt suddenly one day wrote an article through automatic writing, and the title was exactly "The Physical Universe as Idea Construction."

Session 825

This perception is not the kind of accepted sensory data recognized by your sciences.

That is to say, the acquisition of this information is not what our science recognizes as being obtained through the physical senses. Ruburt did not arrive at a recognition of the spiritual source of the world through reasoning, nor did he obtain it through logical deduction, and still less did he feel it through the body. He did not know where it came from; his consciousness left the body. Many people consider this impossible -- how could consciousness leave the body? Many of us think that consciousness is inside the body, that it is an attribute of the body. If consciousness leaves the body, does the body die? This is something many educated people cannot understand: that consciousness and the body can be separated.

Although Ruburt's consciousness still maintained his own individuality, he merged with the leaves outside the window and the nails in the window frame.

That is to say, Ruburt was still himself; his consciousness still retained its independent uniqueness, yet he merged with the consciousness of nature, the leaves, the nails, the trees. And at the same time, he was traveling outward and also inward -- he could feel the outer physical world and also feel an inner world within; he could feel both simultaneously.

Thus, like a spiritual wind, like a wind of thought or a wind of spirit, this consciousness traveled through his other psychological neighborhoods.

His consciousness went to the streets of other psychological realities, sweeping through them.

Here he describes consciousness as wind, and this is very significant. A long time ago I heard Teacher Yang Ning give some introductory talks on Buddhism, and one point he made was especially good. He said, sometimes when people meditate they say: as soon as I sit in meditation and enter samadhi, I feel like I am a tree; I visualize a tree standing tall between heaven and earth. Some say, I feel like I am visualizing a mountain; I can feel the sensation of merging with nature; I can feel the wind blowing past me, past the treetops, past everything. Then Teacher Yang Ning said: why have you never thought of being that wind? Why have you never thought of being that wind, traveling everywhere, running everywhere, roaming all through nature? Why do you always insist on visualizing yourself as an unmoving state -- a tree, a stone, a mountain? Why have you never thought of being that wind?

Actually this point is crucial. In our self-perception, we always want there to be something unchanging; we always want a sense of self-identity. But flowing things like wind and water have no shape and no fixed form, so many people think that wind and water do not possess an attribute, name, or concept of self. You cannot say what kind of water this is, what kind of wind this is. Wind is just wind, water is just water; they are generic names. But a stone can be called a stone from Mount Tai, a stone from Mount Emei; a tree can be called a tree from a certain place, a certain species. Wind -- you cannot say what kind of wind it is, what name the wind has. So Yang Ning's point is very profound; take your time to feel into it.

Of course, in the early stages, when many people do meditation, sitting in dhyana, the first step can be to visualize yourself as an unmoving thing; that is easier and fits a gradual process. But once you reach a certain level, you should no longer think of yourself as that unmoving thing.

So when we see Seth speak of wind here, I immediately think of this meaning: our consciousness is like wind. The state we truly enter in meditation is simply being together with our own consciousness -- wherever your conscious focus is, there is your world, there is your state, there is that present moment. So your consciousness is actually more like wind than like an unmoving thing. It drifts here, drifts there, drifting everywhere. Very interesting.

This wind of his, on the one hand, has its own attributes -- at all times it is wind; but when it combines with all things, in the process of embracing all things, feeling all things, surrounding all things, passing through all things, it can also apprehend the feelings of all things, and it is one with all things.

When Jane was writing this article, her consciousness had already left her body. The so-called leaving the body does not mean that consciousness separated from the body, but rather that the focus of consciousness had shifted away from the body, moving onto another psychological reality. In that psychological reality, her consciousness was traveling, drifting like wind through other psychological spaces.

He says the source of your universe is nonphysical; he has said this many times.

The source of your universe is nonphysical, and every world, no matter how great or how small, is born within the environment of Framework 2.

Our physical universe is a universe of results, an effect. Everything you encounter, everything that happens, is an effect. So where is the cause? The cause is in Framework 2, because everything is born in Framework 2. All events, whether great or small, are in Framework 2. So you should understand that what we face is a world of effects. Then you should not be surprised when many people ask: why is this world so miraculous? When many people reach a certain level of spirituality, they feel that this world is too miraculous, sometimes so miraculous that it seems almost fake -- fake to the point where you can see the actors, see the breaks in the scene, see the traces of deliberate arrangement, or those clues, those hints, becoming more and more obvious, more and more surfacing. The reason is right here -- because in Framework 2, it has already been born.

Your physical universe arises from that inner framework.

That is, it arises from this framework within Framework 2. And it continues to do so; it is still creating the reality of Framework 1 right now.

The power that supplies your thoughts also comes from the same source.

Your thoughts certainly have original energy, original power. Thought requires power; many people say thinking is so exhausting, it gives me a headache; when I concentrate and focus my mind on thinking, it really is very taxing. Or thought can bring about a sense of power that manifests outwardly. And this power of thought all comes from the same source -- the same source as the physical universe. The source of thought and the source of our physical universe are both in Framework 2.

In one way, from a certain angle, the universe as you understand it, with all the events it contains, operates automatically in its important processes, just as your own body does.

Our universe operates automatically, and our body also operates automatically.

For example, your individual desires and intents direct the activity of your body's spontaneous processes. That is to say, because of your wish, your body walks across the floor at your command, although the processes involved must happen by themselves.

What does this mean? It means that our physical universe, just like our body, operates spontaneously and automatically. Why does it operate spontaneously and automatically? Because its source is in Framework 2; all the processes are generated in Framework 2. When they reach our Framework 1, it is a process of manifestation, a process of reaction, a process of materialization. Every event we see has behind it an archetype in Framework 2, so it is automatic.

He gives an example: when you give your body a command -- I want to get up, I want to stand up from this chair, I want to walk across the living room to get a glass of water over there -- such a simple action, you only need to give your body the instruction: I want to get a glass of water to drink. As for how your feet walk, how your legs, your muscles, your body, your heart, your blood, your circulation, your cells coordinate and cooperate so that your body smoothly walks over there to get a glass of water to drink -- you have absolutely no idea. All of this happens automatically, though of course it happens under your command.

And this universe is the same; its operating mechanism is the same.

Your intent has a very great influence on your physical health.

That is, your inner intent has a very great influence on the body. This has been discussed in many earlier sessions. Our body happens automatically, but do we have an influence on this automatic process? Of course we do. You certainly have an influence on your own body; this imagery is very important.

In the same way, at any given time, all living people jointly direct the universal world to operate in a certain way, although that process must happen by itself, or automatically.

Remember a few key phrases: any given time, living people, jointly direct. Each of us knows that our thoughts affect our health; although our body operates automatically, it is still influenced by our thoughts. He says in the same way, in exactly the same way, at any single moment in this world, what kind of events happen in this world is jointly directed by all the living people in this world.

What does "direct" mean? It is the same principle as you directing your body to go drink water. Our intentions, thoughts, ideas, desires, expectations -- all of these can be called directing. But here it is all living people jointly directing -- be sure to remember these key phrases.

So our collective world, the universal world, the earthly world, and even the specific small world of events happening around each person, are all produced in this way: under the operation of joint direction, it completes itself spontaneously and automatically. How exactly it happens, you do not know, I do not know, and you do not need to know; it just happens naturally like that, very miraculous.

If you insist on obsessing over it, explaining this automatic process through sociology, ethics, human thought activity, social psychology -- fine, you can force an explanation. Just as you can use human kinesiology, neurology, muscle science, and the anatomy of body structure to explain the movement of the human body -- that is possible. But explanation is explanation; you still do not know how they operate automatically, and you still cannot build an automatically operating human body.

Society is the same. You can retrospectively explain the causes and background of a social phenomenon, a social behavior, or a group event, and you can analyze it using social psychology and so on, but it can only remain at that level; you still cannot control its automatic occurrence and automatic generation. So I think this is what he wants to say here.

Other species, however, also have a hand in this.

He said all living people, so you might ask whether other species have no influence, no effect? Not so. Other species also have a hand in it. Other species includes all things, includes all sentient beings; all sentient beings have a hand in this.

You all more or less direct the activity of the world's body, just as each of you directs the behavior of your own body.

Each of you, more or less, is directing this world, this great body. If you think of the earth as a great body, each of you participates in the activity of this world, only to different degrees of depth. If you are the president of the United States, your influence may be somewhat greater; if you are an ordinary citizen, your influence may be somewhat smaller; it depends on the role and position you occupy. But whether great or small, each of you participates, just as you direct your own body.

You are innately endowed with a primal impetus toward growth.

This session is very important. This session has no difficulty, but its importance is very great; you must deeply grasp the content of this session and carefully feel into it.

What is spoken of here is the law of growth. In the physical world there are several basic laws, and the law of growth is one of them; there are also the law of mental power, the law of love, and so on. This law of growth is a basic law of our three-dimensional world, and its source comes from the basic laws of the universe. Seth has mentioned that the universe has 11 basic laws, 11 basic principles, and one of the most important principles is the value fulfillment of the soul, or of consciousness. Value fulfillment is a basic law of the universe, and its counterpart in our three-dimensional world is the law of growth. So where does the law of growth come from? It has its source, its creative power -- it has that original law of value fulfillment within it.

So you are innately endowed with a primal impetus toward growth, which is automatic. You are automatically given an inner blueprint that will lead to a completed adult form.

This is very interesting. Earlier it used "growth," but later it no longer uses "growth"; it uses "lead to." Why is this word used so exquisitely? There is a fundamental reason it does not use "growth" -- because this process is not the growth we imagine.

We think that we develop from a small fertilized egg into an embryo, become a fetus, are born, and grow up -- a gradual process from small to large, a continuous process of growing, and this is the understanding of all of us. Actually it is not; this is a misunderstanding and an illusion of us humans.

How do we humans grow up? The same as all other things and all sentient beings. At the moment of your conception, when the embryo is formed, what you will look like in the future, what you will look like at every age, every day, is already engraved in your most primitive cellular memory. Then you might ask, where in this cellular memory is it stored? Is it stored in DNA? No. The amount of information stored exists in a nonphysical form. DNA is still a physical form; it is stored in a nonphysical form.

How great is that amount of information? How much information is in a single cell? Seth gave an example: suppose you used the computers of your time, and you tried to store the information contained in one of your cells using contemporary computer storage -- you would need to fill a volume and space the size of the entire earth to store the information contained in that one cell. So this kind of nonphysical, multidimensional information exceeds the imagination of our three-dimensional world. Do not always think from the perspective of the three-dimensional world, saying, "How much could possibly be stored in this cell?" You cannot understand it that way; it is not like that at all.

So it stores all the images of you from childhood to adulthood. It is like those molds we spoke of, frame by frame, cell by cell -- one transparent mold after another; at what age you will look like what, that mold exists. First there is the mold, and then material, physical substance is filled into it; that is how it is filled in.

In other words, from the perspective of the universe, you grow up cell by cell, frame by frame; you grow in leaps. Just as in quantum mechanics, you grow in a quantized way, not in a continuous way. Of course, we humans cannot see this process; we can only see ourselves as a continuous physical body, growing little by little from childhood.

So here he uses "lead to"; he consistently does not use "growth." He tells you there is an inner blueprint; when each person grows, there is an inner blueprint, and this inner blueprint will lead to a completed adult form. That is, what you will look like when you grow up was already determined at the time of your conception; you grow according to that.

But can this thing be changed? Of course it can. This thing belongs to the inner world; if your inner world changes, the outer thing naturally changes; it is not fixed. So you see some people's facial features change as they grow; they really do change. We often say a girl changes eighteen times before womanhood, and boys too; as they grow, they change. When a person's character changes, their appearance also changes; very interesting.

So once you understand this principle, all the girls who want to become beautiful -- think for yourselves about how you can become beautiful. Have you figured it out? If your inner self is beautiful, then your outer self can be beautiful; this is the most basic condition.

Not only those cells, but also the atoms and molecules that compose them, all contain positive intent to cooperate to form a body, to fulfill themselves. Then they are not only preset to survive, but also preset with an idealization, a maturity that leads toward the best development.

Here two layers of meaning are spoken of. The first layer: not only the cells, but also the atoms and molecules within the cells, all must cooperate together to form a body that is you. This process of formation can be interpreted in different ways; I have already explained it above. Regarding cells in the overall operation, Japan recently produced an animated series called Cells at Work⁷, or maybe it was The Human Body Factory; anyway, you can take a look. That animated series has a Douban rating of 9.4⁸, very high, and now there is a sequel. It personifies red blood cells, white blood cells, and the cells of the human body, turning them into one beautiful young lady after another, inside your body. For them, the human body is a giant factory, and these cells are all workers -- there are newly hired, newly born red blood cells, and white blood cells, and so on. You can find that animated series and watch it; it very vividly depicts, through personification, how hard it is for a person to stay alive -- how those cells work day and night to ensure the normal functioning of your body. That animated series is very good; if you have time, go watch it.

So in such a state, your cells and atoms and molecules are all developing toward a completed you. While they fulfill themselves, they also fulfill you. This process is completed according to that mold.

The second layer: after all this effort to complete a human body, it is not merely about maintaining the state of being alive. If merely keeping the body alive were the only purpose, it would not be worth it. So there must be a better development; it must lead toward a better development and maturity. Therefore, every person is certainly not born merely to stay alive; they are born for a better life, to better express themselves, to become their best self, to develop all their potential. This is an innate ability and an innate attribute of every person.

If a person just drifts through life waiting to die, merely maintaining the state of being alive, then their life has no meaning. This is the most basic principle, and here Seth explains this issue from the root. It is impossible; your atoms, your molecules, your cells -- none of them would agree. If you just drift through life waiting to die every day, your inner self will not agree. You might ask, so what if it does not agree? Nothing much; at a certain point, life simply departs. Because it feels that being with you is truly a waste, utterly meaningless. You do nothing, every day just eating to stay full, just keeping your body alive; in that case, to put it bluntly, you do not deserve to have such a life, and life will leave you.

All those characteristics have their source in Framework 2.

That is, the development toward something better, the need to become more mature, the completion of an adult form -- all these characteristics have their source in Framework 2.

Because in Framework 2, it is the psychological medium through which creativity is naturally transmitted.

Because at the level of Framework 2, creativity is naturally transmitted. Framework 2 is pure consciousness, without a body. What is the nature of consciousness? Seth has mentioned many times that the nature of consciousness is to create and to experience; these are the two most basic attributes of consciousness, and they cannot be taken away. Of course consciousness has many other attributes, such as once created it can never be destroyed, and so on. But first, the most central ones that we can feel are creation and experience. You cannot deprive a consciousness of its primal impulse to create more possibilities and to experience more possibilities. This is the attribute of consciousness; its nature is like this.

And this creation, this creativity, at the level of Framework 2 has no obstruction whatsoever; it operates with zero obstruction, directly creating, directly feeling the creation. So he says that in Framework 2 it is naturally transmitted; it naturally transmits into Framework 1, because Framework 1 comes from Framework 2.

Therefore it is not merely a neutral dimension. Framework 2 has its own inherent automatic inclination toward the completion of all patterns that are within it.

Be sure to remember this point: Framework 2 is not neutral; it is not a neutral world, a neutral dimension. It has an inclination -- it is not neutral! What does it incline toward? Toward the completion of all patterns within Framework 2. Remember -- the completion of all patterns. Framework 2 is a field of possibilities; all possibilities are within it, and all these patterns of possibility must be completed; this is its original inclination. So you can understand why in real life it behaves this way.

Like James -- James is the posthumous American philosopher William James⁹ whom Ruburt contacted.

Ruburt and William James⁹ wrote a great deal of material together. After James died, he made a comprehensive survey of the American society, the world, philosophy, culture, and psychology that he had known. That book is also very good; in our QQ group files, someone has already made a preliminary machine translation of it, apparently called The Superspeed¹⁰; it has been roughly translated, not finely translated, because the volume is not small. Both the English version and the Chinese version are available.

In this book, James said something like this: the universe does indeed have benevolent intent.

Then Seth says again:

Framework 2, as the source of the universe, automatically tends toward the creation of good events.

He added quotation marks -- putting this "good" in quotation marks.

I will put the word good in quotation marks for now, because of your misunderstandings of the nature of good and evil, which we will discuss later.

In other words, this good is not the good that we humans understand; it is a greater good, a supreme good, not the standard by which we humans judge good and evil from our own perspective. So he puts it in quotation marks, fearing that you might misunderstand -- you might think, does this not become a value judgment? So you must understand.

Simply put, Framework 2 is the source of the universe; as the source of the universe it has an inclination; it automatically tends toward completing the creation of all its possible patterns. And this automatic inclination of its, in a way that we humans can understand, is that it automatically tends toward a benevolent manner. But that good and evil is no longer the good and evil we humans understand; it is a greater good, a more essential good, a truer good. He is telling you that it has an inclination.

To that extent, the physical universe, like every physical body, is magical.

That is, speaking in this way, is our physical universe not like every physical body -- just like our body -- magical? Why? You want to walk and it walks; exactly how it walks you do not know; you only need to give it a command and it executes. This universe is the same; it is that miraculous.

Regarding the statement that the universe is good, that it has benevolent intent, Anjisang asked this question in many of the stories; I will not repeat it. He kept asking whether this universe is ultimately good or evil. So this sentence can be regarded as Seth answering Anjisang's question: the universe itself has an inclination, and it inclines toward the good.

He says I deliberately use the word magical because it overturns the dictates of your adult reasoning.

What are the dictates of reasoning? It means that after we humans become adults, we must use rationality to deduce when thinking about problems; everything must be reasonable, must be reasonable, must have causes and reasons. But this universe itself is neither reasonable nor rational, yet it accords with the magical. Be sure to remember this sentence -- do not always ask why this universe is so unreasonable, so unfair, always trying to find some logic. This universe has no logic, no reason, no rationality; it does not operate in this way.

In what way does it operate? From the human perspective, it is simply magical. The operating mode of this universe, seen from the human angle, is like a magical fairy tale in operation. That is why Seth has a book called The Magical Approach; he has always been speaking of the magical approach. Our world, this universe, all operate in a magical way. We humans are also a part of this magic; we are both the creators of this magic and the created of this magic.

So if we humans want to be at ease in this universe, we must match, coordinate with, and resonate with the magic of the universe. You cannot always bring out your logical reasoning to argue with it; then you are finished; then you are using the stupidest method to understand this universe. You always want to use logic and rationality to understand this universe.

And by such an overturning, of what you think of as the rational, I may perhaps be able to arouse within you some hint of what I call the higher intellect.

Seth says he has gone to so much trouble to overturn all this rationality in your minds, and to use the word "magical" to describe this universe, because he wants to awaken in you, fundamentally and inwardly, a little of this so-called higher wisdom—what wisdom? That this universe is magical. Cast aside all your reason and logical reasoning, and look at this magical universe with a magical method, a magical angle, and magical eyes. Then you will discover everything, and you will find the clues within it.

Then you will feel that this universe is so fake, so magical that it seems fake. In our group there is a well-known senior fellow student who often brings up this point: this world is simply so fake that I dare not look at it anymore, too fake—that kind of wish fulfillment, those magical coincidences, those "accidents," it has already reached the point where it is so fake that I cannot even face it directly. Why? Because as long as you look at it from a magical angle, it is very normal, and it is not fake. It is just like that; it is a magical universe, as magical as your own body.

I remember I have forgotten which philosopher or someone said it, or maybe Xiao Feichong mentioned a similar point when chatting with me. What he meant was that after he entered an awakened state, the insight he gained was this: when you drink a glass of water, when you take two steps on the ground, any normal action in your life, all the actions you are accustomed to—all of them contain the magical approach, and this magical approach is exactly the same as the magic of the universe.

In any action of your ordinary daily life, there is nowhere that is not magical; there is no place that is not magical. Flowers blooming and falling, the turning of the four seasons, the normal life of your own human existence, the little bits and pieces of life, every move and every gesture—which of these is not magical? Nowhere is not magical. So when you see this magic, when you realize that this universe is magical everywhere, when you understand that this magic is the essence of the universe, then you will become one with the universe.

This is why, at the end of Soul¹¹, when the protagonist watches a leaf fall from a tree and land in his palm, that single action allows him to instantly realize the beauty of life. The deeper meaning of that film is very profound. Why? Magic. He felt the magic of life and the magic of the universe.

Reason itself can only handle deductions made about this known world; it cannot accept knowledge that comes from elsewhere.

The reasoning logic we ordinarily use can only handle the known world—that is, this world that is already a result—and make deductions. It cannot accept knowledge from the nonphysical world, because such material does not conform to the category of reason. Nonphysical information comes from thoughts, ideas, and emotions, and these things do not conform to our category of reason.

And it also disrupts the original pattern by which cause and effect operate.

When we humans use reason to deduce the events that happen in the physical world, there is a very strong causal inference at work: because something happened, therefore this happened. Workers' income is low, so they march in the streets; in everything we feel we must find a cause. Actually this is not the cause—workers marching in the streets is already an effect. You may ask, isn't it because workers' wages are low? Many other reasons contributed to it, and it is not just the one thing you imagine, that wages are low. There have also been times in history when wages were even lower, and no one marched in the streets. We won't expand on specific events; you need to understand: our logical reasoning can only be applied to the physical world, and cannot be applied to the nonphysical level of the psyche.

The power to reason comes from Framework 2.

You say, I can reason, I can deduce the direction of events in the physical world. But where does this ability to reason come from? Who gave you this ability to think and reason? Where does that power come from? Think about it carefully—the very ability you have to reason also comes from Framework 2, and not from this world.

In the terms of this discussion, within the context of this discourse, you can reason precisely as a result of those magical events that make reasoning itself possible.

He says the reason and rationality that you humans are so smug about, and these abilities, all themselves come from Framework 2. The reason you can reason, and still sit here arguing back and forth with me, saying this thing is unreasonable, that thing is unscientific—these abilities of yours, these so-called rational and logical things with which you debate and discuss with me—they themselves are all the result of magical events. Without the arising of these magical things, you would not even possess these reasoning abilities. Without magical people, without magical life, without this magical brain, how could there be the things you talk about? Humanity's current understanding of the brain is still only at a preliminary stage. So Seth must emphasize at this point: even what you call intellect itself comes from magic.

The word "magical" has always been used to describe events that reason cannot explain—those events that exist outside the framework within which reason feels at home.

When we say something is really magical or so magical, we are actually saying: this matter cannot be explained by the physical world; things that cannot be answered by our logical reasoning and reason, we all classify as magical. This category of events consists of things that are outside your reason.

The Birth of the Universe and the Birth of Life Are the Same Question

Your scientists consider themselves quite rational, and many try to describe the beginning of the universe. If they admitted that reason alone cannot provide any real insight, they would at least be more honest. Some scientists, when discussing the birth of the universe, will say, "I don't know, I really don't know how the universe came to be." But there are some scientists who force an explanation, using conjectures, hypotheses, and assumptions — this is where the Big Bang theory of the universe comes from.

So Seth says, when you don't know how the universe came to be, you would do better to simply say "I don't know" rather than impose on it a so-called theoretical, rational inference.

Each of you is as familiar with the so-called birth of the universe, and has the same degree of closeness to or distance from it, as the consciousness you know has toward the birth of your own physical body. For the questions raised by the awakening of an infant's powers of observation and feeling are really the same as those involved in the birth of the universe — they are the same in nature.

In other words, from another angle, how the universe was born is just like how we humans think about where our own lives come from. These two questions are one question, exactly the same. This question is familiar — because we are within life, right in the midst of this life, which is why we ask the question — yet even though we are within this life, we cannot know where this life comes from. This life is quite familiar to us; we are with it every day, yet we do not know where its source is. This feeling of being both familiar and strange is very much like how we feel about where the universe came from.

As I said in the previous session, when a child first asks you, "Mom, where did I come from," he is not asking whether you came from your mother's womb or whether you developed from a fertilized egg — that is not the question at that level. What he is asking is: Where does my life come from? Did I come from beyond this universe? Is there another world? He is asking an ultimate question, one of the same nature as the question of where the universe came from. So, all you parents, when your child one day asks you this question, you should be prepared for how to answer him — where he comes from.

The mother cannot consciously control the process of physical birth.

Mothers who have given birth all have this experience: she cannot control at all when the child will be born. In a natural birth, a vaginal delivery, when the child will be born, when contractions begin, how strong the contractions are — she cannot control any of it at all. To put it in the truest terms:

Birth happens miraculously, just as miraculously as life first appearing on Earth.

Where Is Consciousness?

A scientific analysis of the brain will not tell you the force that runs your thoughts, nor can it hint at the source of the brain's abilities.

Human beings have studied this for a long time, and even today there is still no precise answer to where human thought comes from. What scientists now generally accept—though it is not truly a scientific conclusion, it is simply the way people have come to think about it—is this: Where does human consciousness come from? It is a state of the brain's integrated activity, called consciousness. That is, your brain can feel all the various sensations of the five senses; after all the sensory information converges in the brain, you also have to add the mutual stimulation and mutual operation among these senses—like mutual fermentation, they react with one another—and this reaction process produces consciousness. Where it actually comes from, no one knows.

We know which area of the brain is responsible for pain, which for language, which for vision, which for hearing—these have all been mapped out. But across the entire brain, there is no region specifically responsible for consciousness. Current brain science is quite advanced; if we had not figured out which regions of the brain process which kinds of information, there would be no research such as Elon Musk's brain-computer interface work. The fact that he dares to do brain-computer interface work means he knows which parts of the brain process which information. But the strange thing is that scientists simply cannot find where consciousness is, cannot find which part of the brain processes consciousness.

If you research a little more deeply yourself, you will find that the human gut can also process consciousness. Human consciousness is not only in the brain; it is also in the small and large intestines. The nerves in the intestines are the same as the nerves in the brain; the number is not large—it is only one-tenth of the brain's neurons¹²—but it is enough.

I remember The Self-Talking CEO¹³ once made a documentary specifically about fecal microbiota transplants—by grinding someone else's feces into a dry powder, introducing it into the patient's intestinal system, rebuilding their gut flora, and treating digestive system disorders. But a strange thing happened: after this treatment, a person's personality would change dramatically; their personality, their state of mind, their whole being would undergo a great deal of cross-influence and one-way influence from the person who provided the feces.

Our research on consciousness has never found a breakthrough. So no matter how much we study the brain, we still do not know where the brain's computational ability, understanding, analytical ability, logical reasoning ability, and even consciousness's capacity for self-awareness all come from. However:

In the very existence of your world, and in the relationship between your imagination, emotions, and beliefs, and the individual and collective events that organize your experience, there is constant activity between Framework 1 and Framework 2, and it is plainly visible.

Although you cannot find the source of the brain's thought, you can sense that your brain is interacting deeply with things that do not come from our physical world—for example, our feelings, emotions, beliefs, will, imagination, and so on. Many of these things themselves come from Framework 2. So between Framework 2 and Framework 1, information is closely exchanged; in the personal world and the group world alike, there is a very close and constant connection, and this activity is very apparent.

After this passage ended, there is a note they made in between. At 10:13 the break came a little early. Jane said she had been a bit distracted before the session, perhaps tired from writing the preface to The "Unknown" Reality this afternoon. She said that over the past few days she had received from Seth some material for today's session, but what came tonight did not match any part of it. She had a feeling again: as if, when she was out of trance, a great deal of time should have passed, and she thought it should be much later now—somewhat like when the material is very good, she expected it to take more time to receive. But the flow simply stopped, because break time had arrived. She felt the material was very good, and the transmission she received was also very good; originally she could have used more time to transmit this material, but then suddenly it was break time.

The Division of Labor Between Reason and Intuition

Twelve minutes later, at 10:25, Seth continued:

I have no intention of speaking of reason in a derogatory fashion... for it is highly suited to its own purposes, and it is very important in your reality.

You cannot deny the importance of reason just because of what Seth said earlier. He quickly patches it back up, afraid that you will swing to the other extreme and spend every day criticizing reason.

And in deeper terms, you have not really developed your reasoning abilities yet, either.

This statement makes humanity lose face. He says, first of all, I am not trying to belittle your reasoning abilities, but from a certain angle, you humans have still not truly made good use of your reasoning abilities. Not only have we failed to grasp and apply spiritual knowledge well, we have not even truly made good use of the logical, rational reasoning abilities that we pride ourselves on and are so proud of.

Therefore, your view of reason is bound to produce some distortions.

He says, I also have no intention of calling on you to use intuition and feeling at the expense of reason -- I am not saying that you should use intuition, impulse, and feeling every day to replace rational analysis. On the contrary, later in this book I will suggest other approaches, not denying reason, but combining reason with the emotional or spiritual side.

However, reasoning as you now use it deals mainly with physical reality, and then you form distinctions by classifying physical reality into categories.

In Buddhism, this is called "name." It is often said that "what is called something is not that something but is merely named that something." In the Diamond Sutra¹⁴ there is often this kind of logical reasoning -- something is not something but is merely named something -- meaning that we have classified it into categories, and once we classify it, we give it a name, and the moment we give it a name, that thing is no longer that thing; it is only the name of that thing. There is a fundamental distinction here, but I will not expand on it today. It is a very large topic -- the relationship between name and the thing itself.

Following the law of cause and effect, in its domain it largely examines time that has already been perceived.

What we call following cause and effect is done through rational reasoning. There must be cause and effect for it to be called reasoning; only because there is a because and a therefore is it called reasoning. The moment we use reasoning, we are using cause and effect, and the moment we use cause and effect, we are examining things that have already been perceived, events that have already happened. Can cause and effect be applied to things that have not happened? No. In other words:

Reasoning deals with the solid nature of events that are already facts, already determined, in your world.

On the other hand:

Your intuition, however, follows a different kind of organization, and so does your imagination, involving the bringing of events into a unity that is often not limited by the restrictions of cause and effect.

That is, when you use intuition to deal with a problem, you can often bring the event into its original unity. You can see both the positive and negative sides of the event, and you can also see why the event happened -- its inner cause, not the cause in our three-dimensional world, but a cause with deeper meaning and significance. When you see that level, you can see a unity: the you in the event, the you observing the event, the parties involved in the event, the event itself, the environment in which the event occurred, the other people, things, and the entire environment involved in the event -- you will see their integrated coordination. To put it simply, you are standing from a higher angle, a higher perspective, seeing more broadly and more completely, with nothing left out. Unlike before, when you only viewed the matter from the three-dimensional role, the role of the small self, now you can view the problem from the perspective of others, from a macro perspective, from the perspective of the world, even from the perspective of the universe. This is what Buddhism calls "no omission" -- when you consider a problem from the perspective of oneness, you will not miss any aspect of the cause.

Framework 2 Operates by Association

Put in that way, Framework 2 deals with associations.

What does Framework 1 deal with? Inference, logic, rationality. What does Framework 2 deal with? Associations.

Within it, therefore, the physically knowable world can be put together in countless ways, and then appear in your private or personal experience according to the instructions given to them by those associations you have psychologically formed.

What does this mean? At the level of Framework 2, the way it organizes events is not through inference; there is no causal logic. Its only logic is association. So we often train our imagination -- when you use your imagination, you are using association. Why train the ability to associate? Because our associative ability is the same as Framework 2's ability to process and organize events.

Within Framework 2, the things that happen in the three-dimensional world can be put together through countless associative methods. For example, Zhang San and Li Si get into an argument. In the three-dimensional world, there is a reason you believe in -- some conflict, some quarrel. But in Framework 2, this argument between the two of them can have many associative methods, many associative possibilities. There is no logical inference in between; there is only associative organization. It is very much like the scenes in your dreams, which lack the logic you understand. Framework 2 operates exactly this way.

So all the things that happen in our three-dimensional world are, at the level of Framework 2, stacked together, superimposed. In other words, the event of you arguing with him exists, and the event of you reconciling with him also exists, and the event of you never arguing with him at all also exists, and the event of you never meeting him also exists. So how do these things actually happen? How did the event of you arguing with him come about? You associated it into being -- there is no cause, no effect; you simply thought of it, and there you were.

In what way does it associate? Necessarily with emotion as the bond. Think carefully: when you associate things, what do you use to associate? When your thoughts drift freely, what is pulling that drifting along? Is it not your wishes, your beliefs, your emotions? That is the driving force of your associations. So we say that emotion and feeling are very important, because at the level of Framework 2, they are the primal force driving association. To put it simply, when you recall your life, the things you can remember are definitely not arranged in chronological order, but strung together according to their emotional importance to you. For example, if you ate a very good meal, you might associate it with a similar fish you once ate somewhere in a certain year; from that fish you think of the person who went fishing; that person might be a friend of yours; from that friend you think of how he is an expert in some field -- the way events are organized in between is entirely leaping and associative, without the logic we imagine.

Those seeming coincidences, chance encounters, unpredicted events -- all of these come into your experience because you have attracted them in some way.

That is, you must have thought of it. No matter in what way, you must have thought of this scene, this possibility, for it to happen in your world. And this method sometimes escapes the attention of your conscious mind.

When one day your spiritual learning reaches a certain level, and you can truly and honestly face your own thoughts and ideas, and can truly step outside and observe the operation of your own consciousness from a bystander's perspective, you will see very clearly why these events are attracted into your life. We often say "the person involved is confused," and this is the reason. When you observe from a bystander's perspective, you will discover that many things in life are attracted by you consciously -- of course, this consciousness is not your subjective consciousness; it may be your subconscious, certain core beliefs within, certain fears or joys in your heart, or associations you are not aware of.

Obstacles and Intuition

Even if the possibilities that occur may seem to have insurmountable resistance, that resistance does not exist in Framework 2.

In Framework 2, this resistance does not exist. Whatever you think, it goes from one association to the next, one leap after another. But in Framework 1, not all the possibilities in Framework 2 manifest as you think, instantly materializing just because you wish it. It encounters many obstacles. This is also why many people fail in the process of manifestation -- the manifestation process from Framework 2 to Framework 1 gets blocked. So what we need to do is minimize this blockage. The smaller the resistance, the stronger the ability to manifest, and the stronger the ability to make things happen just by thinking of them.

How do we reduce this blockage? We have already introduced some of this elsewhere, and it will also be introduced later. To a certain degree:

Your intuition will bring in the fact that you have your own place in the universe, and that the universe itself is well disposed toward you.

That intuition will speak of your unique and important role in the inner universe, in the universe of Framework 2. Intuition will tell you that the universe is on your side. This is a fact, no need to doubt it.

Your reasoning ability, however, can only deal with the results of your physical perception, at least with the training your society allows it.

Our society trains us from childhood that the reasoning ability can only deal with things in the physical world. In fact, you do not allow your reasoning ability to obtain important data, because you have taught it not to trust the abilities of the psyche. It is not that your reasoning ability is not strong enough; it is that you have not given it enough information. When we reason about something, we must have known conditions, causes and effects. But you only give it a surface result, a single cause. The information coming from within -- those intuitions, those feelings -- you do not treat them as a premise for reasoning. You automatically screen them out, because you do not believe in the abilities of your psyche.

Let me give you an example so it is easier to understand. When you are doing business with someone, you vaguely feel that this person is not reliable. But for the sake of business cooperation, for the possible profit, you use your intellect to tell yourself: I am not making friends with him; we are only cooperating in business, and I just need to be careful with the contract. In the end you will often find that the result is exactly as you feared -- he really will cheat you, deceive you. It may be intentional or unintentional; the other party is not necessarily doing it on purpose, but the final result is just like that. This is what happens when you do not treat the intuition given to you from within as a major condition to consider. You ignore it.

Next time you reason about something, you should take this feeling given to you from within, just like the feelings given to you from outside, and include it in your considerations. They are just as important as the information from the external world, and should be considered comprehensively. It is also not right to consider only intuition -- that is not right either; that is being all mystical. I have seen people like this: anything that happens in life, they tell themselves it is a hint from God, a prompt from the inner self, a message from the higher self. They explain everything in spiritual terms, and to others they look like they have studied themselves silly.

What Seth wants to say is that your reasoning and rational logic are the only things you can use, but when you use your wisdom and intellect to reason, you should add some intuitive, inspired, inner-impulse, even associative information, and integrate all of it into the comprehensive consideration of your overall reasoning. Only then can your reasoning ability be used well. Earlier he said that you humans have not used your reasoning ability well, and this is what he meant -- you only use factual evidence as the premise for reasoning, and do not use inner information as the basis for reasoning, so your reasoning is bound to fail to produce correct results.

Children's fairy tales still carry some of that ancient knowledge.

What ancient knowledge? The power of the inner, of the psyche. Like the story of Cinderella discussed in the last session, children will believe in inner power, believe that magical things happen in this world. If you ask children carefully, and if you do not crush their curiosity, they really believe that the things in these fairy tales happened in a distant place, in an ancient time, because they believe in magic. And you no longer believe in magic.

Framework 1 Is Immersed in Framework 2

So far, I have been talking about Framework 1 and Framework 2 separately, for your convenience and understanding. This is like the concept of conventional truth and ultimate truth in Buddhism. In order to help you understand things in a gradual, step-by-step way, I have to explain some things in a way you can comprehend, but that way itself is not the ultimate truth. Framework 1 and Framework 2 are the same. It is only for your convenience and understanding that I have separated them, and I will continue to do so later on. But in actual fact, the two are fused together -- the existence of Framework 1 is immersed in Framework 2.

Your body is constantly being replenished within Framework 1, receiving material replenishment. Our bodies need to engage in large-scale exchange with nature and with the material world at the molecular and atomic levels, replenishing energy and information, and we also need to eat food to replenish energy. So apart from Framework 1, this body could not possibly exist. And precisely because this body simultaneously exists in Framework 2, we are able to constantly exchange information, exchange matter, and replenish energy with the material world in Framework 1. If the body were not in Framework 2, you would be split off from nature, separated from it, and then this replenishment would not take place.

Framework 2 continually externalizes itself. It appears in your experience in the form of Framework 1.

Framework 1 is simply an externalized, materialized expression of Framework 2. However:

You are so thoroughly focused upon outer reality that you often ignore the quite obvious deeper source of your physical existence.

You make such complete use of distinctions and classifications that you fail to see the associative organization. We take all kinds of things in the material world and sort them into categories, assigning them labels -- animals, plants, the natural world, metals, we classify everything. Classification has its advantages, but classification also has its disadvantages -- association no longer functions. You say this thing belongs to such-and-such a category, and that defines its attributes, its connotation and extension, yet in fact they can be linked together through association, and we have cut off that possibility of association. Although you often make use of association in your most intimate thought processes, when dealing with the material world we do not use association, and so our thinking becomes rather rigid, rather inflexible.

This session ends here. At this point Rob asked a question, saying he had asked Jane to help him write the introduction to Volume 2 of The "Unknown" Reality, and what did Seth think of that. Seth said:

I think it is a very good idea. I am letting events come forth magically, as they grow beneath the surface of your lives.

Because Ruburt likes surprises, Seth did not let it show. Seth said Ruburt is now very active on other levels -- nonphysical levels -- and is making good use of our material. He is not idle on those other levels.

This session has actually been talking all along about how Framework 2 operates, about its operating mechanism. The latter part of Chapter 3 and all of Chapter 4 have actually been discussing the relationship between Framework 2 and Framework 1, and today it once again re-elaborated this from an even more far-reaching perspective.

Session 826: The Attributes of Framework 2

The third section of Chapter 4, "Framework 1 and Framework 2," which is Session 826 of the book, began at 9:35 p.m. on Wednesday, March 8, 1978.

At the very beginning, Seth said:

You must understand that Framework 2, in one respect, can be an invisible version of the physical world.

The physical world is visible; Framework 2, from a certain angle, is an invisible version. Yet in another respect, it is far more than that—it is not merely an invisible version of the physical world; it also includes all the probable versions of this physical world.

Because within it, it contains the probable variations of the physical world. From that larger scale, down to the most minute events of any actual day—that is, any actual day in the physical world of Framework 1—the probable versions are all in Framework 2. Whether a sparrow lands here or there—these are all probabilities; it could land here, or it could land over there—including the subtlest details of this kind. So Framework 2 is far larger than our world—how much larger? Indescribable, because the probabilities of every world are in there.

To put it in simple terms—because this is too complex, we can only use simple terms—your body has an invisible counterpart in Framework 2. This is an analogy: while we live and reincarnate in the human world, this invisible counterpart is connected to your physical body, so that the visible and invisible bodies are joined together as one. Some people might misunderstand and wonder what this is all about—an invisible you and a physical you, the two united together.

In the same way, your thoughts have a reality in Framework 2. In Framework 1 we cannot see thoughts. You say, "Take out your thoughts and show them to me"—you cannot see them. You can describe them, write them out, speak them, but you cannot see them. Yet in Framework 2, you can see them.

To use a meaningful analogy: thoughts can be said to be an equivalent of objects. Suppose Framework 2 were also a physical world like Framework 1—then in there, your thoughts would be objects, one after another. Remember this is an analogy, because Framework 2 is not physical either. Precisely because of this, in Framework 2, thoughts and emotions are far more important than objects are in physical reality.

In this physical world of ours, objects are already very important, right? Many people who have not studied spirituality and knowledge spend their whole lives pursuing nothing but these objects—houses, cars, all material things. But Seth says that on the level of Framework 2, emotions and thoughts are far more important than matter.

In Framework 2, thoughts instantly form a kind of pattern.

It is still translated as "pattern"—the English word is "pattern." Translating it as "pattern" is not wrong, but I think it is easier to understand if you think of it as a "mold."

They are a natural element of that psychological environment.

Framework 2 can be called a psychological environment. Just as our natural environment has wind, fire, earth, and other natural elements—like the Chinese Five Elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, water—they merge and combine to form, if you will, the psychological cells, molecules, and atoms of events.

Thoughts in Framework 2 are like the most basic units, playing the same role as molecules, atoms, and cells in our physical world. These thoughts can combine, merge, produce chemical reactions, and then form new, changing things. Molecules and atoms have their own little molds, little shapes; they can combine into larger objects, up to the degree visible to our naked eyes. Atoms and molecules are too small for us to see, but just because you cannot see them, does that mean they do not exist? Of course they exist—all physicists know that our surroundings are composed of atoms and molecules.

In Framework 2, those most basic units are thoughts. Thoughts can form a mold, and then these molds combine with one another to form larger molds. Seth has been using analogies all along to help us understand, because without analogies it is not easy to grasp.

The physical events that you perceive and experience can be compared to, as it were, a psychological object that exists in space and time with physical solidity. Such physical events usually seem to begin somewhere in space and time, and just as clearly end there.

Remember the key phrase: "usually seem." This is what we often say—the objects we see can be vividly compared to a kind of congealed thought. For example, in this room, everyone agrees that this is a table; you think it is a table, I think it is a table, everyone thinks it is a table—these thoughts of "thinking it is a table" form such a table. You might say, "That is not right—there is only one table, how could there be ten?" They are superimposed on one another; that makes it easier to understand.

You can look at an object, or a table, for instance, and see that it has definiteness in space.

We are too close to psychological reality to perceive it in the same way. In the physical world, when we see a table, we can observe it from the outside—where it is placed, what material it is, what texture, what color. But in our psychological world, it is very difficult for us to perceive our thoughts the way we perceive a table—why? Because we are too close to them; we are inside the thoughts themselves. The consciousness that observes thoughts is itself thought, so it is very hard to look at thoughts the way we look at a table.

The events we ordinarily experience, such as going out to eat—from entering the restaurant, ordering, to finishing the meal—have a process, and this perception has a starting point and an ending point.

Conversely, the events you experience usually involve only surface perception. You observe a table's surface as smooth and solid, although you understand that it is composed of moving atoms and molecules.

A smooth, hard surface—glass, metal, some material—at the atomic level is certainly not smooth, flat, and solid; the spaces between atoms are enormous. In the same way, you experience a birthday party, a car accident, a bridge game, or any psychological event as psychologically solid, with a smooth, touchable surface condensed in space and time.

For example, yesterday was your birthday, and your boyfriend gave you a bouquet of flowers—this is an event, and you consider it a firm, certain, irrefutable fact. But you forget that this fact is only what you see, just as when you see the smooth surface of a table—that table surface is certainly not smooth; it is certainly composed of a pile of atoms and molecules. And this event of receiving flowers on your birthday—you feel it is solid, but it is composed of many, many tiny events, and within those small events are all thoughts.

Such events are composed of invisible particles and faster-than-light perceptions that never manifest.

Here Seth seems a bit at a loss for words. What he means is that what composes this event is invisible particles and faster-than-light perceptions. Why must faster-than-light perceptions be mentioned here? The only faster-than-light phenomenon that human science has been able to explore so far is quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement is when a pair of coupled particles are pulled apart—for example, a pair of electrons, one spin-up and one spin-down—if you change one side and make it spin-up, then the other side, perhaps a hundred thousand miles away, instantly becomes spin-down. In between, there seems to be some mysterious communication mechanism that exceeds the speed of light, and this is something we humans cannot yet understand. Seth mentions the same issue here—invisible particles and faster-than-light perceptions together compose such a world.

In other words, they contain a psychological component that flows from Framework 2 into Framework 1.

The event of receiving flowers is one of the many probable events in Framework 2, flowing from the space-time of Framework 2 into the space-time of our Framework 1, and then you can experience it and feel it. So those invisible particles and faster-than-light perceptions can all be called a kind of psychic component.

Therefore, any event has an invisible thickness—remember that this thickness can only be perceived, not seen. For example, the deep bond between you and your buddy—this "depth" cannot be seen, but you can feel it; the two of you know it best. This is a multidimensional foundation.

Many people's deep feelings can be sensed—close girlfriends often go shopping together and stay in frequent contact; is that what deep feelings mean? Is it really? Nowadays there is a popular concept called "relationships that do not require replies." People online say: if two people's relationship is truly rock-solid, there is no need for formal politeness; you may go a very long time without contact, but if you ask him for a favor, he will absolutely respond; or if you are chatting and you need to go take care of something, you do not need to say politely, "Sorry, let's talk later." Truly close people just go about their business, and the other person will not mind, thinking, "I sent a message and you did not reply—is that rude?" When a relationship is truly deep enough, no one cares about these things. That is a very deep relationship. I use emotion as an analogy—actually, any event is like this, not just emotion; everything has an invisible thickness, a psychological thickness, a psychic thickness that we do not know about.

Your skies are filled with breezes, currents, clouds, sunlight, dust.

Our firmament covers the entire planet. The invisible firmament of Framework 2 contains countless patterns, countless molds, changing like clouds; they mix and merge to form your psychological climate. This is very interesting—how does our psychological climate come about? It comes from this invisible firmament of Framework 2, with countless patterns merging and changing with one another, finally forming our psychological climate together.

Thoughts are composed of something we shall tentatively name—we shall tentatively call—of electromagnetic properties.

We can assign thoughts an attribute called "electromagnetic properties," but this is our naming. Is it really that? Certainly not. Because electromagnetic waves are something we humans can now measure; electromagnetic waves within a certain frequency range can all be detected. If thoughts were electromagnetic waves, then could we measure them too? Could we transmit them across space like cell phone signals—your thoughts and my thoughts passing back and forth, with no need for language? We cannot do that now, because we cannot detect thoughts. So we can only tentatively call them "like electromagnetic waves."

You can imagine it this way: each person's brain is like a cell phone. When you send a message to someone, whether through WeChat or any app, do you not need a phone and radio waves? Now imagine all of that away—imagine your thoughts as a cell phone with wireless communication capability. When you want to contact someone, without speaking, without typing, without an app, the electromagnetic signal of your thought goes out, and the other person receives it instantly. Does this kind of thing happen? Of course it does—we are constantly engaged in telepathic communication with others, using exactly this method. But this method is beyond the comprehension of our conscious minds, so on the conscious level we cannot catch it. Yet at certain especially sensitive moments and periods, you do have this feeling.

In those terms, your thoughts mix and cooperate with the thoughts of others in Framework 2.

If we call our thoughts a kind of electromagnetic wave, then in the space of Framework 2, do electromagnetic waves influence one another, mix with one another, cooperate with one another? Using the electromagnetic analogy makes it easier for you to understand how they mix and cooperate. Although electromagnetic waves superimpose and mix together, the signals still maintain their own independence—when transmitted, they are a set of signals; after reception, through frequency modulation, amplitude modulation, code division multiple access, various frequency band technologies, 5G communications, and future quantum communications, through encoding, decoding, modulation, and demodulation, the information is restored. Using this analogy, I want to tell you: our thoughts mix and merge with one another in Framework 2, but they do not lose the most fundamental essence of the original thought, just as atoms and molecules in space combine with others to form new substances, but they do not lose their original atomic properties.

Then they create that collective pattern—each person's thoughts mix with one another in Framework 2, and after mixing they form collective thoughts; collective thoughts form collective patterns, and these collective patterns form the overall psychological foundation behind the world. Any world-scale event in Framework 1 has a psychological foundation behind it, a psychological foundation in Framework 2. For example, this pandemic of ours is supported by a worldwide collective psychological foundation behind it. I have already discussed this before, so I will not repeat it.

However, let me say it again: Framework 2 is not neutral—be sure to remember this. It is definitely not neutral.

Framework 2 is not neutral; it automatically leans toward good or constructive development.

This must be understood. The word "good" here is not in quotation marks, because it does not want to be verbose every single time. It is not talking about the "good" as understood in the human world—you can also understand it that simply, but it is not that good; its meaning is far more profound than that. Framework 2 automatically leans toward the supreme good, toward constructive development. This is the so-called non-neutrality of Framework 2.

It is a medium of growth.

Be sure to remember—it is a medium of growth; it is automatically an environment of growth, a medium of growth. Constructive, positive emotions or thoughts are more easily materialized, more easily manifested, than negative ones, because they are consistent with the characteristics of Framework 2. Remember this—why is it that up to now, there are still more good things than bad things in this world? Why are there still more good people than bad people? You might say there are plenty of bad people too—that is because news reports magnify them. If you calculate by the proportion of the total population, and divide according to humanity's current moral standards, you can look up the crime rates of countries around the world—they are extremely, extremely low, calculated in probabilities of a few per ten thousand or a few per million. Why is it that the people we encounter in life are mostly positive, upright, good people? It is precisely for this reason—from the very root of this physical world, Framework 2 is not neutral; it has an inclination. This is an extremely, extremely important point.

Just as Einstein kept asking whether this world is good or evil¹⁵, or as our ancient sages kept asking whether human nature is originally good or originally evil, with two viewpoints endlessly debated. Here Seth has actually already given a clear answer: this world is good, and it is automatic—no special conditions needed; it automatically tends toward the supreme good, automatically tends toward constructive development. What does "constructive" mean? Constructive is the opposite of destructive; the opposite of constructive is destructive and negative. It always moves toward a good, better state; it will not destroy it.

You might say, "That is not right—why do we still have natural disasters, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, forest fires in nature?" He will explain this below.

If Framework 2 did not have a certain inclination, inclined toward the good and the positive side, your own species would not have existed as long as it already has.

If this universe were not inclined toward the good, if we humans were not graced, or if all things did not grace one another, then we humans would not have existed this long. Human civilization—art, commerce, or even technology—would not be possible. To put it simply, if this world as a whole were evil, there would be no human today.

Framework 2 combines order and spontaneity.

Has this chapter not been discussing the attributes of Framework 2 all along? Framework 2 has an innate order and a spontaneity. Be sure to remember these two points. In this chapter we are discussing the attributes of Framework 2: besides being the invisible version of Framework 1, the collection of probabilities, and so on, we must also understand what characteristics Framework 2 has, what inclinations it has—the supreme good and the constructive. And besides these, what else? It also combines order and spontaneity.

But its order is another kind of order—it is different from the order we humans understand. You cannot think of order and immediately think of the structured order of human beings. What is it? It is an associative order, a circular associative order. And do not use the human kind of circle to imagine it either; it is not that kind of circle. Do you remember the diagram of a wheel that I discussed in a later chapter of The Nature of the Psyche? Later there was also a ball of lightning. Use that image as a closer approximation—a circular wheel, or a spherical shape. A sphere, with lightning in the middle, directly releasing lightning outward. The relationships among them are associative; the relationships between this world and events, between these orders, are associative. Be sure to remember, this is not the order of our physical world.

Our physical world has order—first of all, there is time and space; these are the two most basic orders. Time proceeds in sequence; what happens first and what happens later—that is the order of our three-dimensional world. Space has its own order: large things cannot fit into small ones; one space cannot simultaneously contain two objects at the same time—you cannot put two chairs in the same space at the same time. The order of the physical world is like this. Does Framework 2 have this kind of order? No. It has order, but it is not the order of human beings or the physical world; its order is associative, circular, and simultaneous.

This is a naturally orderly process.

Remember? It is "naturally orderly." So now you know why the Tao Te Ching ends with "Man follows the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, the Tao follows nature"¹⁶—why must it ultimately return to nature? That "nature" is definitely not the natural world; remember, that "nature" is not the natural world. It has a natural order; naturally, it has order.

In it, spontaneity automatically exists within the overall order that best fulfills the potentials of consciousness.

Framework 2 has two basic attributes: one is order, the other is spontaneity. What is the relationship between these two attributes? It is this sentence—spontaneity automatically exists within the overall order of the potentials of consciousness; spontaneity exists within the overall order that best fulfills the potentials of consciousness.

How to understand this? Simply put, on the level of Framework 2, value fulfillment is its core universal principle—we say the universe has eleven principles, and the first among them is value fulfillment. This value fulfillment, in the three-dimensional world, can be understood this way: whatever potentials, whatever plasticity, whatever possibilities you as a person have—the collection of all of them fully expressed is all of your potentials. You could be a musician, a painter, an athlete, an entrepreneur; you could be a good father, a good son, a good husband, a good leader, a good employee—all of these are the potentials of consciousness. Remember, these are the potentials of consciousness, not the potentials of the flesh, of the body. When you do not know what to do, you must fulfill the potentials of your consciousness.

Consciousness is far too vast; the things consciousness wants to do are far too many; the possibilities are endless. So you can understand why we come to reincarnate, why we must experience again and again in the three-dimensional world—because the potentials of consciousness are too many, too vast.

On the level of Framework 2, within the field of probabilities that is the collection of all Framework 1 possibilities, the two basic attributes are order and spontaneity. This order is the order in which all consciousness must fulfill its own potentials. It is like that ball of lightning—observe it; from the center it releases countless bolts of lightning in all directions, forever changing, every bolt different. Although they may look similar, if you carefully observe and measure, no bolt of lightning is exactly the same as another. Every flash, whether millions or hundreds of millions of times, no two bolts are completely identical. The difference of every bolt is the expression of the potentials of consciousness. The order of Framework 2 is this kind of order.

Within this order there is an automatic spontaneity—spontaneity itself is automatic; it does not need to be started, it does not need certain conditions to be met before it acts; that which initiates itself is called spontaneous. Spontaneity automatically exists within such an overall order that allows all consciousness to express its potentials. The two main attributes of Framework 2—spontaneity and order—their relationship can be expressed in one sentence: spontaneity is contained within order. Within such a vast order, its automatic spontaneity is contained—automatically and spontaneously fulfilling the potentials of consciousness.

At the birth of each person, each individual is automatically equipped with a natural capacity for growth.

When life arrives, each person is automatically equipped with a natural capacity for growth, and that is why you can grow up. That growth fully satisfies his own abilities; there is no need to install any program or any specific settings. You just place him in human society, and he will automatically grow up. Just give him food and drink.

He does not work against the good of others.

Would you say that when this person grows up, he will be harmful to others? No; on the contrary, he is beneficial to others. Can you understand where this "beneficial to others" is reflected? You might say "common society" or something like that—that is still a relatively shallow view. Look at it from the perspective of the human species, from the scope of humanity as a whole: why is it said that the birth of one person determines, within the overall scope, the fulfillment of every other person?

Let me give a simple example, and you will understand immediately: if you had not been born, would your son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter have been born? No. Is your birth extremely beneficial to your son's birth—the only beneficial condition? If you had not been born, would your precious daughter have been born? Would your grandson or granddaughter have been born? No. Push it upward—is it not the same? Was your parents' birth not the most beneficial thing for your birth? The births of your grandparents determined the fulfillment of your parents. In such a chain of links, is the whole of humanity not a community, each promoting the formation of the others? From a very macroscopic perspective, is it not such a network structure?

There is an ideal, psychological pattern that is intimately connected with you.

According to the above, in Framework 2 there is a very ideal psychological pattern, a psychological state—set at your birth. Then the inner self constantly moves you toward that direction, constantly pushes you toward that direction.

But that pattern is not rigid—when you see "pattern," it is easier to understand if you think of it as a mold. This mold is not dead; you could say it is fixed, but it is always open, always changeable, with enough elasticity to make use of changing circumstances.

Just as a potted plant will turn toward the sun, even though you move it from one room to another, and the direction of the same sunlight changes as well.

This mold is elastic and can take environmental variables into account. A plant always faces the sun—if you move it to another position, it will still face the side with sunlight. Use this example to explain us humans: at birth there is an ideal pattern, a set blueprint, but it allows great elasticity, because the environment changes, life experiences change, and you have free will to express. But no matter how you change, the inner ideal pattern is always there, and the inner self will constantly pull you toward that place, push you toward that direction.

So that is why we are told to follow our inner impulses and joy—they act like an indicator light. When your heart is joyful, when you have impulses and intuition, follow them, and they will lead you toward the ideal psychological pattern that this life of yours should have.

The inner self, however, does not exist in time as you do.

The inner self is not in time. Therefore it relies on your assessment of situations—which your reasoning equipment is sufficient to handle. The inner self has a vision of ideal psychological development; you brought such an ideal pattern at birth. But because the inner self transcends space and time, it cannot function well in this space-time—it cannot distinguish the relationships among yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after. For example, jokingly speaking, if a big tiger is right in front of you about to eat you, and the inner self were in charge at that moment, it would be disastrous—it cannot tell whether this is the tiger right here and now, or a tiger in a dream, in another space-time, yesterday, or the future. So at such times, the inner self must rely on your physical body's assessment of the environment.

Just as every plant has an innate mechanism for facing the sun, but the specific direction of the sun and how to face it are determined by the environment it is in—in the Northern Hemisphere it faces one way, in the Southern Hemisphere another. This perception of the environment is the process by which the plant adapts to its surroundings. We humans, through the physical body, the senses, reasoning, judgment, and intellect, decide what we should do—this is our integration between the ideal and reality.

It is very much like the relationship between a car's GPS navigation and the steering wheel -- the navigation tells you where to go, but on the road you still have to hold the steering wheel yourself (let's not quibble about self-driving cars). You listen to the navigation telling you to turn left or right, but you still have to watch the traffic on both sides, the traffic lights, the road conditions; you cannot just follow the navigation. That is what it means.

Although there are objects of various sizes, durability, and weight, there are objects that belong to individuals, and objects that belong to the public, and there are also enormous psychological objects.

Objects can be large or small, with different durations and durability. Food rots in a few days, while metal things last a very long time. By analogy, the same holds true psychologically -- thoughts and emotions in Framework 2 are all like objects, some large, some small, and some enormously vast.

What does "enormously vast" mean? For example, a mass event of very large scope -- in the psychological world it is an enormous psychological object. This pandemic is one, because it involves the whole world. There are also natural world events of various degrees involving groups, such as flooding over a large region. For example, last summer the flooding in the Yangtze River basin was also very severe, but in the end it was held back; every so often in the United States there is a very powerful hurricane that sweeps through the Midwest, including Houston, Indiana, and other states prone to flooding.

Such events involve the psychological shapes of all the parties concerned.

If your thought is an object, then does a thought-object have a shape? The lives touched by such events have inner personal patterns that to some extent share a common purpose -- in a mass event, everyone in it is affected, and within the personal patterns there is still, to some degree, a collective common purpose. At the same time, it also accords with the overall interests of a natural planetary foundation. The two reinforce each other.

In order to endure, the planet itself must be involved in constant change and instability.

I know this is hard to understand.

But every object that you perceive -- grass, a blade of grass and a stone, even an ocean wave or a cloud, or any physical phenomenon -- has its own invisible consciousness, its own imagery and emotional coloration.

All things in the world have consciousness that you cannot see; they all have their own imagery, inclinations, and emotional coloration. But you must not understand this from a human perspective -- grass and trees and such, you cannot understand them from a human perspective.

Each is also endowed with a pattern toward growth and fulfillment.

"Growth" refers to the growth laws of the natural world, and "fulfillment" refers to the fact that the consciousness behind the object has a need for value fulfillment. Every object has an invisible consciousness, and what does this consciousness want to do? It wants to fulfill the possibility of all the potentials of this consciousness; it has a spontaneous need for self-fulfillment, and this is called value fulfillment. What shows up in the physical world is a kind of growth -- all things grow vigorously and flourish. The driving force of this inherent attribute is the spontaneity of value fulfillment behind the consciousness that forms them.

This growth and value fulfillment is not detrimental to the rest of nature.

The things that happen in nature are not meant to be bad for other things -- on the contrary, they are good for others. Not only are they not bad, they are actually beneficial.

Thus every other component of nature can also be fulfilled.

Any physical phenomenon, any object -- a blade of grass, a great rock, an ocean wave, a cloud -- is the same; they all develop according to a pattern that serves the whole and benefits the whole. So you need not worry anymore about whether they are destroying humanity or destroying the earth -- they are not.

In certain respects, and from certain angles, the intents of these people and the intents of nature may then merge.

It is on certain levels, on a certain elevated level of consciousness -- not on all levels -- that human intent and natural intent merge. How do they merge? Because people also need to grow, and people also need value fulfillment; all things in the natural world also need to grow and also need value fulfillment. Moreover, their growth and value fulfillment, whether human or of all things in nature, will not cause harm to either side, but instead fulfill the other. Very interesting, isn't it? So in one of the later chapters near the end of Seth Speaks¹⁷, there is a special discussion of "nature's grace" -- we are inherently graced by the whole of nature, and the root of it lies right here.

I am speaking now in very simple terms.

It can only be said simply, because once you expand on it, the things of the world are too many, and the movements of nature are too numerous. You cannot single out one thing and say, "Tell me what benefit this tsunami had for the natural world" -- you cannot be that specific; it has to be spoken of in general.

Those involved in a flood, for example, some of them wanted their past washed away.

Some people subconsciously want their past washed away; they want to start over, their lives are not satisfactory; or they want to be overwhelmed by a powerful emotion -- the kind that disasters often bring -- and they want to say goodbye to the past. For their own various reasons, these people became involved in such a flood. They wanted to feel the power of nature anew. Although they suffered devastation -- homes destroyed, fortunes lost -- they used such an experience to begin a new life. You might say, how cruel is that? To begin a new life in this way, with hundreds of thousands of people losing their lives. But nature has nature's intent; it has its own purposes, and we cannot use a human perspective to understand or speculate about it.

Those with other intents will find excuses to leave such areas.

Some people do not want to experience this, so they will have an excuse to leave -- a chance encounter leads to a hasty trip; or another person, by a premonition, suddenly leaves the area to find a new job, or decides to visit a friend in another state. As if moved by some uncanny force, he suddenly wants to leave the place, so he walks away and avoids the event. People who do not want to mingle with the experience of nature will not become part of that mass event. They will act according to information coming from Framework 2 -- certain intuitions, hints, and chance events arranged by Framework 2; they follow that structure and leave. Those who stay, by choosing to participate, are actually also acting according to the same information.

Seth paused for a moment, then said:

When you entered time and physical life, you were already aware of its conditions.

This sentence is very interesting. "When you entered time, when you entered physical life" -- that is, at the time of incarnation -- you were aware of the conditions of "it." "It" refers to the environment in which the physical body you were about to incarnate into was situated. Where and in what environment you were going to be born, you automatically knew when you came -- he was already aware of it.

Physically and psychologically, nature could easily grow in that abundant environment.

He had already chosen well; he certainly chose an abundant environment in which he could grow.

And on all surfaces, contribute to the achievements of your species.

Not only did you choose an abundant living environment in which to grow at the time of incarnation, but you also had to make a contribution to the achievements of the human species.

But beyond that, you also add your own unique viewpoint and experience to the larger pattern of consciousness that contains you.

Not only do you have your own indelible contribution to the development of human civilization, but there is something further -- you add your own unique viewpoint and experience to the larger pattern of consciousness that contains you. What is "the larger pattern of consciousness that contains you"? It is Framework 2, or your entity, the larger consciousness that sent you here on the soul level. The experiences, viewpoints, insights, and emotions you undergo in the human world are imprinted like seals firmly upon the entire universe -- not this physical universe, but the entire universe, or rather imprinted upon your pattern of consciousness.

So every person who comes into this world has his own mission -- a personal mission, a mission as a member of humanity, and a mission to leave the imprint of his own existence in the universe.

You are beginning to understand a close connection that exists within your physical environment.

We are only beginning to understand -- because Seth has just been telling us these things. Through inventing the internet and cell phones, we have learned various ways of maintaining close connections in the physical world.

Psychologically, however, the connections are far more complicated. Thus each person's dreams and thoughts are interwoven with every other person's, forming ever-changing patterns of desire and imagery.

In real life, we maintain close connections through the internet and cell phones, but your psyches are not idle either -- the psychological connections are far more complex than network connections. Each person's dreams and thoughts are interwoven with those of every other person, forming an ever-changing pattern of desires and imagery. From this pattern, some rise up and become concrete worlds, while others do not -- some become manifest as the material world of our three-dimensional reality, while others do not become manifest.

Seth said, "Take a break," and then the dictation ended.

Rob's Dream

After the main body of this session there is still a short passage. Although Seth said he had finished the dictation for tonight, the first topic he now touches on -- the dream Rob had this morning -- is undoubtedly related to the statement he made just before the break. What statement? It was "when you entered time and physical life, you were aware of its conditions."

Rob said: I think my dream was an excellent example of that philosophy -- the philosophical theory that "after you begin your physical life and enter time, you are able to perceive the conditions of the environment you are going into." Yesterday I discussed that dream with Jane, and I planned to ask Seth to comment on it tonight. I did not claim that this dream gave him the inspiration for tonight's session, or that it was precognitive -- that I received tonight's topic in the dream. The part of the dream surrounding himself was constructed in order to give me that particular piece of information.

He said: Perhaps I should ask Seth about this possibility. While he was speaking and I was busy taking notes, I did not notice the implications of these words -- that is, the statement just made, "when you entered time and physical life, you were aware of its conditions." He did not notice it while taking notes at the time.

Below is an excerpt from Rob's dream notes. It was a dream from the morning of Tuesday, March 7, 1978, the day before this session.

Rob said: Very vivid and in color as usual. I dreamed I was in the kitchen of our apartment here in Elmira, preparing to go out to the backyard, and my mother -- who had died five years earlier at the age of 81 -- was with me. In the dream her age was indeterminate, and my age was also indeterminate. I believe she was telling me what I would encounter outside, but I also knew what I would encounter.

I went out to the grass, the backyard, and I saw them -- his father, who had already passed away, and his father's mother, that is, his grandmother. His father had died seven years earlier, also at 81. The grandmother had presumably died in 1926, when Rob was only about seven years old.

A most unusual dream. Strangely, his grandmother looked much younger than his father -- only about 30 to 40 years old, a beautiful woman with straight brown hair and striking blue-green eyes full of intense femininity.

Now the grandmother was kneeling upright on the grass, and I knelt down in front of her as well. We greeted each other like old friends, embracing and kissing each other on the cheeks in a lively manner -- in foreign countries, close relationships have that cheek-kissing etiquette. We were truly happy to see each other. Father stood beside us, but throughout the whole dream he was rather vague, not as solid and real as the grandmother, and I did not see his own mother more clearly either. We were all talking continuously, but I do not remember any specific words any of us said, except for the feeling that our meeting was a happy occasion. I do not remember ever having had such a dream.

When the dream ended and withdrew from my perception, I woke up and suddenly felt that it represented something quite unusual. I told Jane I had a rather strange dream. When we got up at seven in the morning, I described it to her in detail.

After the break, Seth immediately said the following about this dream -- didn't Seth say earlier that the session was over? But he specifically said these words for Rob's dream. See how Seth interprets dreams -- this ability is not something ordinary people have. Other people's dreams are best interpreted by oneself; you write down the symbolic meanings, and after recording enough of them you will be able to understand them yourself. For someone else to interpret your dream, basically unless that person has very strong abilities and can cross time and space to capture the dream you had yesterday, or even see past and future lives, there is no way for them to explain what your dream really means. For example, with a dream like this, it is very hard to explain what it represents.

Seth said:

In your terms -- this is a premise, because in dreams there is no concept of time, but in order to make the dream clear in explanation, the sequential nature of time is added -- your grandmother was already preparing to enter time again.

"Enter time again" means entering our space-time again, beginning a new reincarnation.

Your father was pointing you out to her.

Rob's father was pointing his own son out to his own mother -- Rob's grandmother -- to show her: "He is still alive in the human world, this is your grandson." He was also letting her become familiar with the other living members of the family -- those still in time.

Many people do this, becoming psychologically aware of the living relatives of the person.

Although in the future life, you may never meet at all -- perhaps you will never meet again, or perhaps she will be reborn into a member of your family. For example, the grandmother might become the child in your daughter-in-law's pregnant belly, and the child born is the grandmother reincarnated -- this is possible, and in many cases it does happen. It is very interesting; when you observe carefully, you can discover some interesting characteristics. But he does not know -- the child that is born knows nothing either. His soul knew before incarnating, but once incarnated he no longer knows. The soul level knows, but the child does not know.

If all your relatives were dead, then you might feel quite lonely in life as well.

In the same way, when you enter the human world and begin reincarnation, you often make sure for yourself that past friends or relatives are already there first. When you reincarnate and enter this life space again, aren't you very interested in which of your old friends and relatives are still alive? Before coming, you need to find out first -- because in between, it may have been a few years, or it may have been several decades.

The grandmother was about to reincarnate and come back, and it had been a full 52 years since her last death. Seth said "the dream implied many things," and then said no more.

After that is Rob's note: The dream implied many topics that Seth had not discussed before, and I will leave them for the reader to ponder.

Ponder what? For example, the issues of time and reincarnation, the issue of age changing -- why the grandmother was so young in the dream, he did not know either. Also the issue that memory in dreams has nothing to do with time. In the dream, his memory had no image of his grandmother when she was young -- she died when he was seven, so he could not have seen her appearance at thirty or forty. But why did he see the image of a young woman of thirty or forty, extremely charming, with captivating eyes? Yet he knew it was his grandmother.

Very interesting. In dreams and out-of-body experiences we often have this feeling -- you just know who he is, not by recognizing the face, because in that realm it is not based on appearance. How is it recognized? Seth specifically discussed this before: in that kind of spiritual world, between people there is a unique -- you can understand it in a way humans can comprehend as a unique code, or a unique frequency of consciousness, a one-of-a-kind characteristic of a consciousness. The moment you encounter him, you know it is him.

Rob said: I do have a few clear and conscious memories of my grandmother -- the last time I saw her she was ill, which was 52 years ago, a few months before her death. But I had never seen her when she was young. It is strange that I can consciously accept that my grandmother has been dead for more than half a century, yet I still cannot accept the fact that my own parents have each been dead for seven years or five years.

So in the dream his mother and father were both vague and unclear -- he could only sense his father as a pair of legs standing beside him, and the feeling of his mother was also hazy.

After discussing this dream, Seth briefly addressed two other matters, and then ended the session at 11:05.

Summary: Two Basic Attributes of Framework 2

Seth was just talking about the attributes of Framework 2. After studying this session, you should remember: the attributes of Framework 2 are spontaneity and orderliness. It is orderly, but its order exists in an associative way, in the manner of lightning spheres, not in our human time sequence and the exclusivity of space. Across it, there is no concept of time and space. Within that order, it exists in an associative way.

You should also understand that Framework 2 has its own non-neutrality — it leans toward the highest good and constructive development. That is the inclination of Framework 2.

The True Role of Heredity and Environment

Seth first explains that this content is an essay -- although this is Seth material, it was not originally part of the planned content of this book. It was Rob who felt it would be appropriate to include in the book, so it was included as an interlude.

Next, Seth touches on a very interesting theme: heredity plays a far smaller role in the formation of so-called personality than is generally assumed. We generally believe that a person's character, talents, and roles are all determined by heredity. Scientists did a great deal of research long ago, and the results showed that a child's personality is about 40% inherited from both parents¹⁸, with the remaining 60% coming from who knows where. Seth says that heredity's influence on our personality is far less than what scientists assume. The same is true of the influence of environment.

However, your culture believes that our beliefs incline us to interpret experience in this area in terms of heredity and environment.

Session 827

Our human cultural perspective holds that a person's character is formed mainly from two sources: one is heredity, the genetic mechanism of parental DNA passing on traits; the other is environmental influence. Therefore our focus is concentrated on these two beliefs, treating them as the primary causes of behavior. But Seth says:

This in turn creates an experience that need not have been so structured in the first place.

The formation of human personality was never meant to be a structured process -- by "structured," I mean having a concrete structure like DNA, or theorizing and structuring environmental influence as well. But we humans insist on structuring something that originally did not need to be structured.

You have not concentrated upon the exceptions.

We never study the exceptions; we only generalize about the aspects that resemble the parents' personalities. Suppose we say that 40% of this child's personality is inherited from the parents, so roughly 20% comes from the mother and 20% from the father. But if you look at it the other way around, about 80% of him resembles neither the father nor the mother. So why do we only talk about that similar 40%, and not pay attention to the much larger portion that is dissimilar?

The same family, the same environment, identical twins with exactly the same genes, and the same birth environment -- why are their personalities completely different? One is introverted and the other extroverted; how do you explain that? We humans do not consider these exceptions, feeling that they are too rare, so of course no one attempts to observe those unacknowledged behaviors, and all of this is treated as isolated cases and individual instances.

But Seth said long ago that the development of science is precisely built upon the observation and study of anomalous phenomena, and that is how many laws were discovered. Why is it that in fields like physics and chemistry, we study those individual cases that do not conform to common sense, yet in matters of personality, biology, medicine, and psychology, we adopt an attitude of ignoring and turning a blind eye to those individual cases?

For this reason, there is a very large organizational pattern behind human activity that often almost entirely escapes our attention. This organizational pattern operates in a way completely different from the logical, structured manner we understand; it is associative, simultaneous, and circular in its organizational structure, which is why we cannot discover it, because we are accustomed to thinking in a logical way.

Seth gives an example:

You often read of people who are strongly influenced by fictional characters, by historical figures, or by complete strangers, seemingly more than they are influenced by their own families.

Indeed, such things often appear in the social news: certain people are influenced by people they do not know at all, or influenced by fictional characters of their own making, or influenced by historical figures, and this influence far exceeds the influence of their environment and family. We treat it as something strange, but Seth says this is perfectly normal. Because this person's personality, his character, does not come entirely from parents and environment; a large part of it comes from places we do not know about.

The human personality is far more open to all kinds of stimuli than you suppose.

If you believe that information is received by the individual only through physical channels, then heredity and environment must necessarily be regarded as the causes behind human motivation. But the fact is otherwise. We humans, in addition to the physical senses, have channels for obtaining information that are far more open than we assume -- the inner senses, the pathways of the psyche, the pathways of consciousness, the pathways of the subconscious, all of which escape our traditional physical senses. When you understand that the personality can and does have more than physical access to other kinds of information, then you must begin to wonder: what influence does this information actually have on the formation of personality and the growth of the individual?

Consciousness Forms the Genes

Children, when they are born, do indeed already possess individuality. Many people think a child's personality is formed after birth, but Seth says:

The entire probable intent of their lives exists at that time already.

Every little baby, when born, carries with it the probable intent of its life -- this is why some people can have their fortunes told, and why the "fixed fate" spoken of in fortune-telling comes from this, because it already exists at birth. The degree to which this life blueprint is fixed is just as certain as the probable plan of the adult body they will later possess. Just as how tall a person will grow, whether they will be fat or thin, good-looking or ordinary -- these are already determined -- so too is our life blueprint already determined at birth.

It is consciousness that forms the genes, and not the other way around.

It is not that genes form the brain, and then the brain forms consciousness. On the contrary, it is consciousness that forms the genes. The infant about to be born is only a vehicle -- a medium, and through this newborn, consciousness adds its new data into the structure of the chromosomes. From the moment of birth, a child's awareness of all kinds of things and events far exceeds our imagination.

A Quantum Mechanics Interlude

Let me insert a quantum mechanical explanation of the process of life and incarnation. After the 1920s, when quantum mechanics had just begun to develop, humanity discovered that matter has wave-particle duality -- microscopic particles, whether electrons, protons, or even some molecules (molecules are actually much larger than atoms), all exhibit wave-particle duality at this level. What is wave-particle duality? It means that when someone is observing, it displays particle nature; when no one is observing, it displays wave nature. When someone looks at the experimental results, the particles shoot out like little balls, "thump thump thump thump"; but when no one is observing, the little balls turn into waves, into a kind of energy wave. That is why the double-slit experiment produces those interference fringes.

Scientists gave a particularly interesting explanation of life from the perspective of quantum mechanics. Whether or not it is correct, this was the first time humanity formally explained life from the standpoint of quantum mechanics. They said: Look, when a person is alive, he has consciousness, and having consciousness is equivalent to having an observer -- he comes into this world with his own self-conscious observation, his capacity for self-awareness, and this observation causes the body to manifest in material form, that is, in particle state. Atoms and molecules form cells, and finally form our physical body. When a person dies, scientists believe that consciousness no longer exists, and the entire physical part of the body -- the particle state -- turns back into a wave state, returning in wave form to a most basic energy state. When it exists as an energy state, it is invisible to the naked eye, and life comes to an end, becoming an energy wave.

So where does this energy state exist? In that era there was no good explanation, so they believed there was an "ether" existing in space, and all these conscious energy states existed within the ether. Then they gave a time frame -- one reincarnation every 150 years¹⁹, believing that after 150 years, this energy state existing in wave form would once again enter our material world, take on physical form, incarnate into a little baby, and once again appear in particle state (material state). From beginning to end, its own attribute -- whether we call it the soul or something else -- has always existed, only existing in different forms: after death it is in wave form, in energy form; while alive it is in particle state, in material state. This was the early quantum physicists' understanding of life, and it is very interesting.

We will not go into depth on this; I only mention it as an interlude. Let us return to what Seth said: consciousness forms genes, and consciousness, through the medium of the newborn, adds new material to the structure of the chromosomes. The chromosomes are like a blank storage device, just as a phone's memory capacity comes in 64G, 128G, 256G, 512G -- it writes the program into the chromosomes. So the moment a child is born, he carries with him the blueprint of his life and the appearance he will have when he grows up.

Multiple Explorations in Growth

Then the child, from birth onward, is aware of all kinds of things far beyond your imagination.

But in addition to awareness of the environment, the child uses its early years to explore, especially in the dream state, other material suited to its own fantasies and intents.

A child not only observes the physical society far more than we imagine, but at the same time, in dreams and in other environments, it explores other material that is related to its own fantasies and intents and suited to it. It is constantly exploring in both the invisible world and the visible world, and the purpose of this exploration is to realize the entire possible intent of that life -- the possibilities of life, the greatest possibility of all.

Moreover, it continually receives material that has nothing at all to do with its heredity or environment. Why? Because it does not only observe the physical environment; it also observes material in dreams and material from other dimensions, so these differ from its environment and heredity -- and its hereditary DNA is also determined by consciousness, not the other way around.

Seth gives an example: on these nonphysical levels, in the dream state, the child knows the personal life plans of nearly every person born at about the same time, and discovers that these plans more or less coincide with its own. Why do people of one era have relatively similar behavior patterns, life ideals, and goals? Because in the dream state they continually communicate by telepathy -- what are you coming to Earth to do this time? What am I doing? What are you doing? In this process of communication, it is as if they hold a great communication conference, seeking common ground while reserving differences, and many things become consistent.

And the probabilities immediately begin to work in Framework 2.

The results of their communication in the dream state immediately begin to be calculated in Framework 2. For example, some people want to be tall, rich, and handsome; some want to be fair, rich, and beautiful. Then they begin to communicate, and after communicating, they begin to calculate these probabilities in Framework 2. For instance, a certain person -- let us say person A -- will meet another person, person B, in a certain market thirty years later. If this accords with the intents of both parties, and both want to meet, then in each person's life there will be certain basic contacts, and you will meet that person. Because in the dream state, on that level, you have already discussed it all -- the tall, rich, and handsome one must meet the fair, rich, and beautiful one; of course, it is also possible that a domineering CEO falls in love with the new receptionist. Anything is possible, provided both parties are willing to play such roles. If it accords with the intents of both parties, there will be certain basic contacts.

This is what fortune-telling calls "fixed fate." Some of the basic links and key nodes of your life -- whom you will meet, whom you will encounter, what will happen -- have actually already been arranged. You might say, well then, life is so boring; I am like a puppet being controlled. First of all, this can be changed -- once you have studied spiritual knowledge, past, present, and future can all be changed. Second, this is also arranged by yourself; it is arranged by your inner self or your higher self, still arranged by yourself, not imposed on you by anyone else. Do not set the ego (the small self) in opposition to the higher self. Those that are set as very strong probabilities naturally have a greater chance of occurring. For example, whether in this life you will eat Quanjude roast duck once -- that is not such a strong probability. If the circumstances happen to coincide, you eat it; it is also possible that you become a waiter at Quanjude and often roast ducks; and it is also possible that in this life you have no connection with Quanjude at all. But whether in this life you will meet your current spouse, whether you will meet important work partners, whether you will attend certain universities and study certain majors -- these are very strong probabilities.

But here you must remember that the word he uses is "probabilities" -- still not fixed certainties, only relatively high probabilities. If you have studied quantum mechanics, you know that this is a wave function, a probability wave, with a relatively high probability. But whether it can actually be manifested still depends on many factors.

Then why is fortune-telling so accurate? Why can something that is only a probability be calculated so accurately? Let me say one simple thing and you will understand: because in the three-dimensional world, we are subject to certain basic pulls -- profit, fame, desire, the most basic of these things. Before you have studied spiritual knowledge, these pulls are very strong. It is like blindfolding a little donkey turning a millstone; it just turns there, and turning all day does not cause it pain. If you do not blindfold it, it will not turn -- because it feels it is meaningless, spinning in place, and it refuses to go on. There is another method: tie a stick in front of the little donkey's head, and hang a carrot from the stick. The little donkey keeps walking toward the carrot but can never eat it. Before we humans are awakened, we are like this little donkey, pulled along by those basic material desires -- profit, money, wealth, happiness in life. These pulls are the most basic; there is nothing variable about them, and everyone is the same -- when a high-paying job and a low-paying job are placed side by side, everyone will choose the high-paying one. Such a choice has no suspense at all, so a fortune-teller can immediately calculate what your life was like before and what it will be like after. But if you can discover that you can change it, then he can no longer calculate accurately.

The Body of Events

Next Seth uses a very vivid analogy -- the body of events:

That is something you will materialize in a certain fashion, almost in the same way that you materialize your own adult body from the structure of a fetus. In those terms, the body deals with material things, although those things have their own consciousness and reality.

What is meant by "the body of events" is that some events have a finished form -- the matter will ultimately develop into a certain outcome. For example, you and your girlfriend will ultimately develop into the outcome of marriage. For the infant, this outcome is like how his adult body was already determined when he was a fetus. In other words, when you and your girlfriend meet for the first time, it may seem like a first encounter to you, but the fact that you two will marry in the future is already settled. Events develop out of a budding state, an embryonic state, and there is a developmental process within events. In the early stages of development, no one knows what the result will look like, and too many things die young along the way. Yet this event has a predetermined outcome -- it has all been arranged already, and you will materialize it in a certain fashion.

From the perspective of the human body, our bodies really can only deal with material things. Although our bodies are grown by consciousness, once they have grown up, that original consciousness-level something that made them grow -- its own consciousness, its own conscious reality -- the body can no longer handle it, and can no longer even perceive it.

Obviously, your mental life deals with psychological events. But beneath so-called normal awareness, the child grows toward the mental body of the events that will compose his life.

This is like there being a mental gestalt body. How events happen in the material world has already been discussed earlier; and the developmental process of events in mental life -- from the initial budding all the way to developing into a full event -- is especially like a child growing from a little baby's body into an adult's body. Events develop precisely according to their mental appearance.

Intentions Exist in Framework 2

The unique intent that makes each individual special exists within Framework 2.

Each person's individuality, their distinctive traits -- the unique intent of individual specialization -- is in Framework 2. Seth took a long detour earlier, but what he really wanted to tell you is this: each person's characteristics and distinctiveness are all in Framework 2.

And once born, this child's unique intent -- the mission, purpose, and blueprint of this life -- begins to interact with the physical world from the moment of birth, and begins to influence the physical world of Framework 1. How does it influence? It moves in the direction that tends toward fulfilling his life mission and goals; it automatically gravitates in that direction. In your unconscious state, it is already manifesting according to your direction.

Obviously, the birth of each child changes the world.

The birth of any child brings change to the world, because there is now one more person in this physical world. It establishes an immediate psychological impetus -- what impetus? The impetus to manifest the individual's unique intent in Framework 1. From the moment of birth it has this most primal, psychological impetus, and begins to influence action in both Framework 1 and Framework 2. The physical world is influenced by it, and it is also influenced by the physical world at the same time; it is a process of mutual influence.

Seth gives an example to illustrate. A child may be born with a strong musical talent, an extraordinary genius. Before he is old enough to begin any kind of training -- at one or two years old, when it is simply impossible to receive training -- he already knows on other levels the possible directions that contemporary music will take in this lifetime. The schools, trends, and currents of contemporary music -- he already knows them all. In the dream state he has already met other young, just-budding musicians -- although from the standpoint of human life they are all young infants, each one is actually an old soul. They often play together. You ask how these geniuses are formed? Although they are all infants, those so-called budding musicians are also infants, and they often get to know each other.

Once again, probabilities will be set into motion. In Framework 2, the things favorable to the development of his musical talent in this lifetime begin to be arranged, so that the intent of each gifted child can develop outward. They communicate with each other, connect with each other, and there is also great flexibility -- there has always been great flexibility, it is not fixed. According to individual purposes, many of these children will also be quite familiar with musical acquaintances of the past, not only of the modern era, but also people of the previous era, the previous generation, who were familiar with music.

Seth says this is only the example of musicians; in fact, it is the same in every field. A genius arrives, and of course this helps the musical development and civilization of humanity as a whole. And the talented people in every field are like this. You say, I am not a genius, just an ordinary person, so does an ordinary person also contribute to the development of the whole world? Of course. Do our intentions also benefit other people? You want to become a musician; does this intention also lead or inspire other people to want to become musicians? For example, Lang Lang, as a famous Chinese pianist, has influenced how many Chinese children to begin learning piano. Before, learning piano seemed hopeless; now they see hope -- Lang Lang has set a very good example for them. So this effect is mutually reinforcing, not merely additive. People in the same profession are not rivals, but rather promote each other; without competitors there is not much interest either, because they accomplish each other, and this brings about the accomplishments of your world.

From the negative side, lacking a certain ability will of course also cause these people to have obvious deficiencies in certain respects. So some people are born with no musical ability at all, completely tone-deaf, without a single musical cell, unable to sing; others are born with it, open their mouths and out it comes, singing beautifully.

The Drawbacks of Being an Only Child

Some readers have brothers, have sisters, or have both, while others are only children, and their ideas about individuality differ greatly from yours.

Children with siblings and children who are only children are not the same in their thinking and ideology. Because each individual influences and enriches every other individual.

Now, the one-child policy that was popular in mainland China for so many years — actually these people simply did not understand — they understood neither education nor humanity's basic birth rate and demographic dividend. If you want to know more, look at a demographer or sociologist in China named Ma Yinchu. He advised against carrying out such drastic birth planning, and said people should have at least two children. Why? If two parents produce only one child, then the population decreases exponentially. For example, China now has 1.4 billion people²⁰. Suppose everyone has only one child, then the next generation becomes 700 million, the generation after that 350 million, the one after that 175 million, and the one after that a little over 85 million. After a few iterations, the population shrinks many times over. You might say, no problem, when that time comes we will just encourage everyone to have more children. What do you take people for? Machines? Livestock? You tell them to have children and they have children, you tell them not to and they do not? Once a collective consciousness forms in society of not wanting to have children, it is very hard to reverse. That is exactly what society is like now — now that you have opened up the two-child policy and the three-child policy, and people can have as many as they want, nobody wants to have children anymore. Social pressure being too great is one aspect, but also young people today do not want children — young girls are happy going shopping every day and doing their nails, they are still children themselves, and you expect them to take care of a baby? They are not willing. Boys are playing video games every day, and you expect them to take care of a baby, to get up in the middle of the night to look after a child? Impossible.

And moreover, this kind of social atmosphere has already formed, and on top of that, they themselves are only children, used to being alone. From childhood, they played with toys by themselves, did activities by themselves, and from beginning to end they were the only one in the household. The divorce rate in such only-child families is very high — they have no experience getting along with siblings, and they do not know how to get along with others. Among young people born in the 1990s in mainland China, the divorce rate is over 50%²¹, and the divorce rate within the first year alone is as high as 50%. Why? Neither one will yield to the other — I am also the treasure of my family, and you are also the young master of yours, so why should I give in to you? On top of that, both sets of parents spoil them: "We must not let ourselves be mistreated. If he treats us like this, then we will divorce him." Fine, then go ahead.

The only-child issue is not just a matter of how many fewer people are born, as everyone imagines. It requires scientific, rational, and comprehensive analysis by the whole of society. You cannot simply say that when the population is too large you apply a one-size-fits-all policy and make everyone an only child, as if that were all good.

What Seth is saying is exactly this: because the individual and the collective are interrelated.

Every portion of consciousness, while being itself, also contains, to a greater or lesser degree, the potential of all consciousness.

The Nature of Mass Events

Therefore, your private information about this world is actually far less private than you imagine.

Anything that happens in our world has information from other dimensions behind it. People who experience these events can all access the information from the dimension behind the event. In the three-dimensional world it appears to be an isolated world, but at the level of Framework 2, it may be an expression of a mass world. What you see in Framework 1 is an extremely personal, private world, but at the level of Framework 2, it absolutely is not—it may very well be another matter, or involve many more people, only you do not know it.

If you are caught up in any kind of mass event, on other levels you are also aware of all the actions that led to that particular event.

A concert is a mass event, and an avalanche is also a mass event. On other dimensions you can perceive all the actions behind an event that occurs in Framework 1—why such an event came about. But of course you do not know it, because it is obtained on other levels; however, that "I" of yours does know, because it can process that kind of information on other levels.

If a house is built of quite visible bricks, then mass events are formed by many small invisible events... each one fitting together quite precisely, in a kind of psychological brick-laying that each of you invisibly takes part in.

A very large mass event that we see is also composed of many tiny events invisible to the naked eye, and each person invisibly takes part in the psychological brick-laying project. This also applies equally to large-scale conversions and natural disasters. In historical periods when religion flourished, large numbers of believers converted to a certain religion; or when specific natural disasters occurred at specific times—whether natural disasters or human mass events—behind them all is an enormous mass event. In Framework 2, each of us has had a hand in it, only you do not know—what you see is a massive, far-reaching mass event in Framework 1.

Jane's Dream

The dictation for this session ends here. The following is a note added by Rob. He said that at 10:43, while this session was in progress, he began to wish that Seth was dictating this book, although in the end it was decided to insert it into the book. The following is not dictation, but rather concerns a very vivid dream Jane had a few days earlier, and an interpretation Seth gave of it tonight.

Rob said Jane's dream made him a little jealous, even though it was a dream that involved some elements of fear, because he had never had a similar dream. Actually, Rob was also being a bit petty -- regarding the fact that Seth came through Jane, as a male, he felt a little jealous of the intimate connection between Jane and Seth. But Seth had always treated Jane as a man, never as a woman; he always called Jane Ruburt. Even so, Rob still felt jealous of the dreams Jane had and of the intimate relationship between Jane and Seth.

The following is the dream as Jane herself described it. On the afternoon of Saturday, March 21, 1978, Jane took a nap and upon waking remembered this dream: she was in a room, asking a group of people about a "council" -- this was a mishearing of the English word "counsel." She wanted to know whether there was such a thing. Immediately, a white light as wide as a door panel shot from the floor straight up through the ceiling. On or within the light there were some symbols. Many people in our group also encounter this kind of thing during meditation or when they are not dreaming -- some people can see various symbols and writing. Jane said she "whooshed" into that beam of light, rising at tremendous speed, burst out of the room, passed through the ceiling and shot right out. She said she felt a little afraid and wanted to come back -- she was afraid of completely losing her autonomy. After being carried out through the roof by the light, she did not know what she had seen; the moment she felt afraid, she immediately returned to the room, and forgot how she had done it or how she had come back.

Later, somehow she found herself in a fortune-telling place, where she told a woman about her experience. When she said she was the author of the Seth material, the fortune-teller became very unhappy and said they did not accept her. But this did not bother Jane.

The following is Seth's explanation of Jane's dream:

I know that Ruburt was looking for that "council," but in fact, he was seeking a kind of counsel from the highest level. Because of the pronunciation, it became "council." I might add, this is an excellent term.

Seth said this is a very good term -- counsel, advice from the highest level. What is good about this word? For every person, this counsel is the most personally relevant -- the most helpful to you as an individual; at the same time, it comes from the highest level, from the highest wisdom. Just like the Buddha's teachings to his disciples, all of it is this kind of counsel -- it accords with the individuality of each person, and those words are most effective only for that person. That is why some of the teachings in Zen only work for the person involved; people not in that situation cannot understand them -- outside that Zen moment of sharp insight, one cannot comprehend the state of enlightenment experienced at that time.

Ruburt was seeking a higher state of consciousness, with personal meaning for him... that represented a source of revelation that was unique yet cosmic in nature.

Jane had always been seeking this kind of thing -- the part that was personal to her, yet also cosmic, revelatory, most primal and most true. This source exists for every person, no matter how it is interpreted -- the methods of interpretation are endlessly varied: some people receive it through dreams, some meet a person, some encounter a Taoist sage with an otherworldly air while walking down the road, some meet a fortune-teller, some meet a spiritual teacher, some meet a monk -- none of these are fixed.

In this dream, the white light was a distinctive symbol. This material is available to everyone; Jane has it, and all of us have it. But she both wanted to receive it and was afraid -- she was afraid she could not digest this material, and so she fell out of the light.

At least to some degree, frightened because of the vastness of the experience involved.

Many of us are like this too. When you reach a certain level in meditation, or when you open up some of the inner senses -- you say you want to obtain the truth, but when genuine information from the highest level is given to you, very often you will be frightened. That kind of experience is too vast.

What does "too vast" mean? It is hard to make an analogy, hard to understand. Simply put, it is as if the concentrated emotions of a thousand years all surged toward you in a single instant; that kind of feeling is generally impossible for a person to describe or comprehend in words. Many people cannot withstand that kind of intense impact. Do not say you could withstand it -- in your daily life, a small breakup, an emotional hurdle, being scolded by your boss at work, encountering difficulties in business -- you often cannot even bear these things, so how could you possibly bear the impact of emotions accumulated and superimposed across several lifetimes of reincarnation? The same is true of knowledge, and the same is true of experience.

As if for personal reasons he was pursuing that ancient yet ever-new knowledge, so all-encompassing.

Jane, for personal reasons -- since childhood she had always wanted to know the truth of this world -- was pursuing this knowledge that is both ancient and ever-new. This knowledge is all-encompassing, covering everything, to the point that her individuality had no way of processing this all-encompassing knowledge while at the same time maintaining her own necessary framework of relationships. She could not maintain it -- when she received the entire knowledge system poured into her all at once, her mind could only handle one thing: if she processed this knowledge, she lost her sense of self, did not know who she was, and did not know who was processing this thing; when she tried to maintain her own framework of relationships, she could not obtain that knowledge.

What is a "framework of relationships"? When you acquire a piece of knowledge, you must relate it to your existing knowledge. Our knowledge is always iterative; it is impossible for knowledge to suddenly drop out of thin air. Knowledge must have a reference -- it must have a reference point, something to refer to. This framework of reference is the system by which each person acquires knowledge. When you learn a piece of knowledge, you need to know what field it belongs to: is it chemistry or physics, psychology or electromagnetics, the humanities or military science -- these most basic divisions are all called reference frameworks. If you acquire a piece of knowledge but have no corresponding reference framework, you cannot understand that knowledge. It is like drinking alcohol -- if you gulp it all down at once, you get drunk, your head goes blank and you know nothing -- because there is no associated reference framework. When you try to grasp these reference frameworks and see how they match up with your existing knowledge system, that knowledge slips away; it cannot be matched. Why? Because that knowledge structure cannot be matched with your existing framework of relationships -- it comes all at once, not as a gradual process, not from low to high, from simple to difficult. It comes all at once, so you lose that ability. This is a rather natural reaction.

The reason it is called natural is simply that we are usually not yet very familiar with this kind of experience.

Speaking of this, it is still the same principle. Many people keep asking: what is the most ultimate knowledge? Give me the most ultimate truth; do not tell me about things that are not ultimate. Tell me -- preferably tell me directly. But Seth repeatedly emphasizes that he is not the truth -- he is only trying as best he can to describe a world we are not familiar with, and there is still a great gap between what he describes and the truth; do not treat it as the truth. But relative to humanity's existing knowledge, this is already very high.

Then why cannot the truth be given to me directly? Why give me this Seth material? Bring out Seth Two, bring out Seth Three, bring out the big boss of Seth to the Nth power, and let them speak to me. Many people think this way -- it is quite normal. But just like this dream, you simply cannot accept it. That kind of knowledge, that kind of wisdom, is not something your little brain can understand; it would explode in an instant. And it is not an explosion of capacity, nor an explosion of understanding; it is two completely different structures. For example, if that knowledge itself is a five-dimensional structure of knowledge, how can you fit it into a three-dimensional consciousness? Your consciousness structure is three-dimensional; it cannot contain a five-dimensional knowledge system -- it is this kind of explosion, let alone the issue of capacity.

So whatever level our consciousness is at, we accept whatever level of knowledge corresponds to it, rest securely at that level, and then we can continually expand and elevate the breadth, depth, and scope of our consciousness. There is no need to rush; this process itself is the joy. Many times I want to know the truth all at once -- but there is no such "all at once," and there is no final truth either; it is always in the process of changing. Our greatest joy lies precisely in the process of exploration, in the process of the truth being unveiled layer by layer, enjoying the pleasure in between. Do not think, "Unveil all the layers for me, let me see what the truest thing is, and then I will be satisfied and have no regrets in this life." Many people have this idea. But for your current level of consciousness, once all those veils are removed, there is only emptiness, nothing at all. Is it really emptiness? Of course not -- it is the thing formed by the three thousand great thousand worlds, the myriad worlds; everything is in it, only you cannot understand it.

The Integration of Dreams

Seth continued:

However, this Ruburt had once bathed in that light, had once been filled by that light, and had been restored in spirit, and had gained new understanding.

Although Jane did not gain a very deep cognition, she still gained some new understanding. And this understanding will now appear in her experience in a case-by-case manner -- she cannot embody it as a whole; she can only have it digested and assimilated into her normal framework of relationships through different experiences in her life, one case at a time. She has no way to receive it all at once; she can only, in the bits and pieces of her daily life, through the various individual cases of her life experiences, take the knowledge apart, break it up, and slowly digest it in slow motion, comparing it with and comprehending it against her existing framework of relationships, and only then can she obtain a portion of that experience. It is as if he slowed the action down and stretched it out.

Even here a translation was used, and even so, the contact was reestablished.

Even in the process of translation, her contact with this highest counsel was reestablished. It was through a series of events and experiences in her life that she separately understood the highest counsel given to her in that white light -- it was a whole, and she could only understand it in a scattered way, and what she understood was still the translated version. Even so, she established a connection with the highest counsel.

This is the wealth of information contained in Seth's interpretation of Jane's dream, and it is also the main reason why Rob wanted to include this session in this book.

The Body as the First Creation

Seth spent a few more minutes telling Jane some other things, then said good night at 11:10. Rob later noted in his annotations that he had forgotten a passage, and now that he remembered it, he copied it out. This passage was the one he had pinned on the studio wall at the time -- what Seth said in Session 580 on April 12, 1971:

As you know, Ruburt is extremely creative, and what most artists do not understand is that the body itself is that first creation.

For the artist, his body is his first creation. Artists do not think of themselves as the product of their own creativity. Because of Ruburt's energy and creativity, he always perfectly, or even somewhat exaggeratedly, reflects the condition, activity, and inner posture of Ruburt's inner self.

Once you understand this, look back at Jane's earlier dream: in the dream, she used an exaggerated form of expression to display the condition, activity, and inner posture of the inner self. This is where the strength of Jane's psyche exceeds what most people can understand -- she can directly express the things of the inner self in an exaggerated or perfect way. This is also why Seth chose to transmit through Jane: between her inner self and the outer world there is an open passage, with no obstruction. When Seth enters her inner self, he can produce sound through her mouth.

Obviously, Seth's observation applies not only to those engaged in art, but also to everyone -- this ability is not something only artists have; everyone is like this. Your body is the first thing you create in this world, and then around this physical body, you create a whole series of other things. When you say you are not a creator, just look at your own body -- it is what you created.

Early Humanity's Conscious Relationship with Framework 2

From a historical perspective, early humanity had a more conscious relationship with Framework 2 than you do now. There are some details to note here: he says "from a historical perspective" because from Seth's point of view there is no time, but according to our human development, there is indeed a timeline, and it truly exists. So he adds a premise here -- only from the perspective of human history can we speak of "early humanity"; otherwise there would be no early humanity.

Early humanity and we now are actually within the same time and space range, but they had a more conscious relationship with Framework 2 than present-day humans do. We -- the vast majority of people -- actually have no conscious relationship with Framework 2 at all. We have no awareness of it on a conscious level; we do not sense the existence of Framework 2, and we do not even sense that there is such a thing as Framework 2.

Just as Ruburt mentioned in the book The Integrity of the Psyche²², consciousness itself has many levels, and can basically be divided into seven levels. And in The Nature of the Psyche, I also mentioned that early humans had other ways that were different from those you are familiar with; they had other ways of using their consciousness. Different from the ways we are familiar with, they used their consciousness in other ways.

Session 828

For example:

They often treated the products of what we would call the imagination as sense data that had, to some degree, already been objectified in the physical world.

He is pointing out that early humans used consciousness differently from the way we do. We modern people use consciousness in a certain way because of the development of science and technology; over the past few hundred years we have placed a high degree of trust in scientific and technological development, and this has led us to reject things that are non-technological or outside modern science. In early times, however, because there were not so many scientific constraints or scientific theoretical systems, people kept the imaginary and the real blurred and uncertain. That is why in early human history there was a great deal of pantheism: people believed that if there was thunder in the sky, there was a thunder god; lightning had a lightning god; wind had a wind god; rain had a rain god; flowers had flower gods; trees had tree gods; every kind of flower and every kind of tree had its own god. This was a process in which people extended their own feelings into the natural world and personified it. From that feeling you can see that people's understanding and use of consciousness at that time was not the same as ours today. We modern people receive so-called scientific education and modernized education from childhood, and that wipes all these things out of you. So you need to understand that it is quite different.

Causal Consciousness and Imagination

Imagination is always connected with creativity, and the two are closely related. Can you say a person might have no imagination but still have creativity? Impossible, the two must be closely related.

And when humanity began to decide to adopt a consciousness that deals with cause and effect, he no longer directly and concretely saw, as before, that the products of imagination produce results of power. What does this mean? It means that we modern humans have decided to adopt a causal way of consciousness -- the consciousness of people today is entirely causal consciousness. We look at this world in terms of cause and effect, and we look at the development of events in terms of cause and effect as well. The moment we open our mouths, it is because of such and such, therefore such and such. Whether it is politics, economics, science and technology, culture, or daily life, every aspect of human life is reduced to cause and effect. Even in places where there is no cause and effect, he wants to force it into cause and effect -- for example, something like artistic creation actually has nothing to do with cause and effect anymore, but we still drag it into cause and effect. Including a social phenomenon, we also drag it into cause and effect. We always try every possible way to find a cause for an event. This is what we humans have been doing for the past several hundred years of modern science. In everything we do, we must find a cause for it: because of what did it lead to today's situation? Because of what did it become like this? He insists on finding that cause.

With our current mode of thinking or mode of consciousness, he is unable to recognize that imagination can have certain results. Simply put, this matter was clearly produced by imagination. It was through your imagination, through your expectation, that this matter was produced in reality. But you do not think so. You think imagination is not the cause; you think it is because there were such and such causes before this matter. Such a theory of cause and effect will lead us to look at this world in a different way.

As for the problem of the theory of cause and effect, Buddhism already negated it more than 2,500 years ago, more than 2,600 years ago²³, but we humans up to now still cling to it desperately and will not let go. How was it negated? What Buddhism said is the doctrine of dependent origination. He defined the source of dependent origination as emptiness -- that is, dependent origination has no origin at all. We think that a certain event in life must have a cause: for example, your current job, you must have wanted to find this job, and only then did you get your current job. Many people think this is perfectly normal. Well, if not this way, how else could you understand it? Could a job come and find you? You certainly think that you had to want to find a job in order to have your current job. Then why did you want to find a job? That is because you have now graduated, and you need to find a source of income to support your life. Then you start pushing it back, bit by bit -- why would graduating from university lead to looking for a job? Why would you go to university? You just keep pushing and pushing and pushing, and you can always find the cause before that. You push all the way back to your birth: why were you born? It is because your parents met. Whether they married or not, in the end the two of them got together, and finally gave birth to you. How did your parents meet? That is because there were your paternal grandparents and your maternal grandparents. You just keep pushing forward.

But if we can explore this objectively and rationally, if we truly examine this theory of cause and effect according to the so-called rigorous method of scientists, you will discover a most terrifying reality: when you push it to the end, to the origin of humanity, the origin of material life, the origin of the material world, to the origin of the entire universe -- that point of the Big Bang²⁴ -- there is still nothing at all. You will find that this cause simply does not exist. You cannot find this first cause. This is what Buddhism calls the problem of the first cause, this matter of dependent origination and the emptiness of nature. Buddhism puts it very beautifully: the occurrence of an event is certainly a series of causes and conditions coming together by coincidence, the union of causes and conditions, or one might say the fulfillment of various conditions -- you may feel that once eight conditions are met, this event occurs, and then you look for these eight conditions as the causes. But these eight conditions, these eight causes, do they not also have causes before them? And before those causes there are still more causes.

But no matter what is said, it is of no use. Human consciousness up to now is still this causal way of consciousness. So last year I was always making a video about cause and effect not existing. Actually, everyone did not know the deeper meaning of that question. The deeper meaning of that question was to tell everyone: if cause and effect do not exist, you have to reconsider in what way you use your consciousness, and how you look at the problems of this world.

So in ancient times, people did not look at this problem that way. The matter of imagining what he imagined and finally having the dream come true was considered a perfectly normal thing in ancient times. Then when a dream comes true, what is the cause? Your dream is the cause, your thought is the cause, and the things that are conjured up in real life are the result, your environment is the result. Thinking this way is correct. That is, your cause is not something from the material world. Your cause is your thought, your belief, your idea. Your cause is there, not here, not in the material world. Many people still cannot understand this. We will not expand on it today; later when we encounter it, we will expand on it then.

Imagination, Illness, and the Healing Methods of Ancient Peoples

For example, in those early times, because human beings had a far more direct experience of the vivid character of their own imagination:

He knew that illness, just like health, was from the very beginning the result of imagination.

You see, in ancient times human beings knew that this illness was the result of his own imagination, just as a small child's illness, for him, was simply imagining being sick, simply the result of imagination. So the boundary between imagination and actual experience has already become blurred for us -- we can no longer distinguish, among the things we discover in real life, which ones are what we thought in our minds, which ones are formed by our expectations, and which ones are formed by preceding causes. But in ancient times, they were able to understand these things -- that many of the things in his life were imagined by him, and imagination became reality. This is one of the most important differences between ancient times and our modern human understanding of the world and our use of our own consciousness.

We human beings now believe that imagination does not have such a great effect, that it is just daydreaming and nothing more; but in ancient times, they believed that these imagined things could really be realized.

And of course those boundaries were also altered by other beliefs and by the experiences produced by those beliefs.

What is meant by boundaries? It means being clear -- between imagination and experience, we human beings can still distinguish clearly that these things were indeed produced by our imagination. But now we can no longer distinguish them; it is all vague and blurry, and for the most part we tend to believe that these things are not the result of imagination, but are caused by other causes in the material world. The reason this boundary has become blurred is because of some of our past events, some of our beliefs -- we discovered that imagination is not reliable. When we discovered that imagination is not reliable, we did not reflect: was it that our process of imagining, or our use of the law of belief, the process of beliefs creating reality, that had a problem, or was it that this matter itself is unreliable, or that this rule itself is unreliable? In any case, we simply concluded that imagined things most likely cannot be realized. This is one of the viewpoints of us modern human beings.

Seth says that he is only speaking in a very simplified way, and that in reality it is much more complex. For example:

Early human beings began to perceive that no one would be injured unless that event was first, to some extent, imagined.

This is very hard for us modern people to understand -- early people could also discover that no one would really be injured unless we imagined that some people would be injured; if no such thing was imagined, then no one would be injured. Isn't this very strange? Of course it is very strange. So many people will say, why did some early primitive tribes, some primitive peoples, so foolishly believe that they were invulnerable to swords and spears? He imagined it. And within the natural world in which he lived, this imagination of his was very often effective. But once he encountered external invasion or intrusion, external things that were not within his natural framework, then many of his imaginings might no longer be effective. This is also very interesting. So you cannot be overly rigid about this; you cannot say, why is it that modern people's imagination does not work but ancient people's imagination did -- there is a certain historical background and cultural background involved.

For example, the same is true in rural areas today. In many remote places, even in some rural areas of mainland China, many people do not go to the hospital when they are sick; they go to local folk -- I do not know what to call them -- they will give some folk remedies, give some local methods of treatment, and they can also cure the illness. You ask whether it works? It really does work.

Let me give a simple real-life example: very often, infants within their first year or within one or two years of age will frequently cry inconsolably at night. In Chinese folk tradition this is called the "night-crying boy" -- crying every night, dry wailing and dry crying, with nothing wrong at all -- not hungry, not thirsty, not needing a diaper change, just crying nonstop. At such times Chinese folk tradition holds that the child has been frightened, has seen something it should not have seen, or has touched something it should not have touched. And the folk practice at such times is very simple: take a bowl of millet, fill a bowl about two-thirds full of millet, cover the mouth of the bowl with a cloth, and then move this bowl in circles over the child's forehead and the top of its head, while chanting as you move it -- something like "Heaven is vast and earth is vast, my family has a night-crying boy," something like that, roughly. Just chant like this, moving the millet in circles over the child's head and forehead, and after a while the child quiets down, and after a while it falls asleep normally. Then when you open the millet bowl, you find that the millet has decreased by half. This is very mystical, like a shaman's sorcery. But I think anyone who has had a similar experience should know what I am talking about -- it just cures it like that. So this kind of thing is very hard to evaluate.

There are many folk treatments for illnesses like this. For example, in China there is a commonly occurring condition called autumn diarrhea in children²⁵. Older children, five, six, seven, eight years old, when autumn comes -- when the season shifts from summer into autumn -- many children get diarrhea, and this diarrhea cannot be cured. All traditional Western medicine and anti-inflammatory drugs cannot cure it. I have really seen this, I am not joking. Many of them are the children of doctors, and they cannot do anything about it either; traditional pediatricians have no solution for autumn diarrhea. What is very interesting is that many doctors take their own children to see very traditional folk doctors -- traveling from town to town, into the county or into the countryside -- and it turns out that the doctor may not even have a medical license, but is very famous locally. The person takes out needles and pokes them a few times on the child's belly, and after going home the child is cured. Just that simple. What is the reason? He does not know any theory either; he cannot explain it. He just knows that by poking a few needles like this, the child's autumn diarrhea is cured.

So in ancient times, in remote antiquity, their understanding of the relationship between the human body and the natural world was different from ours. We cannot use the thinking of modern people to replace the thinking of people of that era. At that time, before technological civilization and modern science and all of these existed, their feelings were different from ours. Therefore they believed that illness was imagined -- that no one would be injured, that being injured was all imagined. And if it was assumed that someone was injured, then the treatment could also be carried out by means of imagination, and within that, an imaginative act cured a specific illness. And at that time, those cures were truly effective. These folk remedies and certain treatments are truly effective; no matter how unwilling you are to accept it, you really cannot deny it. This includes things I have encountered myself, and things people around me have encountered. Once you encounter it, you will know. Before you have encountered it, do not rush to criticize it, because if you have not encountered something, do not rush to criticize it.

Early Human Health and Sense of Identity

So this is why he is saying that in ancient times, including ancient China, there were some folk healing methods that worked entirely through imagination, and they really were effective.

He says no matter what your history says, those early men and women of yours were quite healthy.

Your history may say that early humans had very low average lifespans, very high mortality rates, and so on, but he says early men and women were quite healthy. What he means is do not believe everything your history tells you.

However, in a way that is now very difficult to understand, they dealt with the physical world through the deliberate use of imagination.

That is, in a way that is very hard for us modern people to understand, they used imagination to deal with our physical world. So our scientists now conclude that these ancient humans had very short lifespans and very poor health. That is the conclusion modern science tells us. Is that really the case? Not necessarily, really not necessarily. So you cannot just listen to what they say and believe whatever you hear; you have to push your thinking further. Just look at ancient China, where people of great longevity were everywhere, not to mention those in the legends, like Peng Zu, who lived eight hundred years²⁶, and many, many others who lived for several hundred years, several hundred years, as recorded in many historical accounts. And in the Bible it is recorded that this one lived five hundred years, that one lived four hundred years, this one lived seven hundred²⁷ -- Adam and Eve's several children, and their children's children's children, all have specific records, how many years Cain lived²⁸ and so on. So in ancient times, for people to live several hundred years was quite normal in the remote past, not the way we imagine it.

Then they understood that they would inevitably die. But their greater awareness of Framework 2 gave them a larger sense of identity.

What does a larger sense of identity mean? It means they knew that this physical body would inevitably die, but beyond this physical body, they had a larger identity -- for example, they felt that above the physical body there was a soul, and the identity of that soul was larger than the identity of the physical body. Therefore the death of the physical body did not matter; the soul would endure forever. Hence:

They understood that death was merely a necessity of nature, and also an opportunity to gain other kinds of experience and development.

The death of the physical body, within other kinds of experience, might be a new opportunity. Death was not felt to be anything much; it was just changing form and gaining a new kind of life anew.

This form is very much like -- for example -- suppose that larger identity is a great tree, and this one incarnation is like a single leaf on that tree. In spring this leaf first grows out -- before that it was a bare trunk, with no leaves -- so this leaf growing out in spring is equivalent to a person being newly born; then through spring and summer, the lush summer turns to autumn, and before winter arrives it may be blown down by the cold wind. For this one leaf, its lifespan has already ended, from sprouting in spring to falling in winter. But for the whole great tree, this is just a normal change of seasons. Would you say this leaf is a part of the tree? Of course it is a part of the tree. Would you say the leaf knows the identity of the tree and the identity of the leaf itself, and what is the relationship between the two? There is a relationship of identification. It knows it is a part of this great tree, but it also knows it is itself. From a macro perspective, without the growth of millions of leaves every year, there would be no great tree. Although for each individual leaf, its contribution to the development of the great tree may be relatively small, without these leaves the tree would not grow either. A hundred-year-old great tree, or a great tree with a lifespan of several hundred years, growing tall enough to pierce the clouds -- is it not made up of the contributions of every single leaf? So this is very much like the relationship between our one human life and our soul; with an analogy like this, it becomes clear.

The Relationship Between Humans and Nature

They keenly felt their relationship with the natural world, and experienced it in a way entirely different from yours.

Early humans felt that nature was a larger expression of their own emotions and temperament. So you see, in ancient poetry and songs, people connected their own emotions with the scenery of nature -- expressing emotion through scenery, which is a device often used in our ancient poetry -- often with great boldness, or sorrow, or subtle emotion. So ancient people handled the relationship between their own emotions and nature's climate and environment extremely well. They believed that nature's climate, weather, and environment would change according to their own emotions and even temperament -- and "temperament" is a very good word here. Interesting, isn't it? So you see, when different people write different poems and lyrics, the feeling, the scenery they depict, and its resonance with their state of mind at the time -- generally what makes a good poem or a good lyric is whether that resonance is done well enough. Expressing emotion through scenery -- this is one of the earliest methods used in China. What relationship is there between scenery and emotion? The ancients believed there was one; we modern people think the relationship is minimal, or even reversed -- we modern people think scenery influences emotion, while the ancients thought the opposite: that their own emotions and their own temperament influenced the environment. You can see how the subject-object relationship is reversed between them.

They felt that the things of nature were a materialization of a personal world.

The environment and nature around you are all a materialized expression of your personal world -- your personal emotions, your personal temperament. And those personal worlds were simply too vast; some personal worlds were so vast that they could not be contained within the flesh and blood of any single person or any group of people, so they had to be placed into nature itself. A single person or a group was not enough to carry those people's feelings, those emotions, that temperament -- it had to be manifested in nature.

So early humans were curious about where thoughts went. They did not know where thoughts went, so they imagined that those thoughts, in another way, became birds, stones, animals, or trees that were also constantly changing.

This was a method often used in ancient times. They did not know where their own thoughts and ideas went, so they imagined them as living or dead birds, animals, trees, and connected those thoughts with the environment around them. They believed that all those things were generated by their thoughts. Interesting, isn't it?

However, they also felt that they were themselves. And as humans, they were a larger materialization of nature.

Early humans' own emotions and temperament needed a larger expression -- their physical bodies, their behavior, their language were all insufficient to express those intense emotions and that temperament, so they had to borrow the larger background of nature to express them. But when expressing through nature, they did not lose their nature as humans; their ontological identity was not lost. It was not that they turned themselves into a waterfall, or into something else, or turned themselves into a well and lost themselves -- no, they still maintained their own ontological identity. But they regarded nature as a materialization of their expression: they believed that this wind and this rain were transformed from their emotions. This is often encountered in ancient poetry and writing -- they believed that this wind came at the right time, that this rain, this weather situation, even the scenery at the time, all arose because of them and came for them.

Because it was too splendid to be contained only within the framework of nature.

So they connected themselves, their own personal emotions, with the emotions of nature.

They felt that nature needed humans to give it another kind of voice.

Ancient people believed that nature needed humans to endow it with a more special kind of voice. When people spoke, they were speaking for themselves, but because they felt so much a part of the natural environment, they were also speaking for nature and for all other living beings in the natural world.

When ancient poets wrote poetry and expressed their feelings through poetry, they were not speaking only for themselves; they were also speaking for nature. In ancient poetry, if you look carefully, much of the time they were speaking on behalf of nature -- sometimes speaking for the moon, sometimes for the Yellow River, sometimes for the creatures along its banks, sometimes for the vast sea meeting the sky, sometimes for the lotus, for the willow, for the wind, for the moon, for wind, flowers, snow, and moon -- they spoke for all of them. How did they come up with such a creative method? Because they felt they should speak for those things. I am also a part of nature, and those things are also a part of nature; those things cannot speak, so I will speak for them. Because I am also a part of it -- the wind, flowers, snow, and moon are also an extension of my personal self, or a manifestation of my emotions and my temperament; they inherently carry my temperament, my thoughts, my emotions, but they cannot express them, so I express them on their behalf. Is the human voice not also the voice of nature? Of course it is. Why do we speak of "sounds of nature" -- the sounds of small insects in the forest are sounds of nature, the sounds of the natural world are sounds of nature, but we humans are not sounds of nature? We humans are just noise? How could that be. Are we humans not products of nature? Is the sound we make not the most beautiful sound in this world? Of course it is. So that is why we must speak for them -- this is what people in ancient times thought.

In that kind of world, there were many misunderstandings. People knew that nature was balanced, and that both animals and humans were bound to die.

In ancient times, people knew that nature, animals, and humans were all bound to die. If a person was eaten by an animal, as sometimes happened, his companions would not begrudge letting the animal eat him -- they would not say, "How could my companion be eaten by an animal?" They felt that was simply natural. At least at the deepest level, that was how it was. On the surface, of course, he would be angry, but at the deepest level he understood: he ate animals, and it was normal for animals to eat him too.

And when he himself killed other animals and ate their hearts -- for example, killing a leopard and eating its heart, killing a bear and eating its heart as well. You see, we say "eating the heart of a bear and the gallbladder of a leopard" -- why? Because they felt the bear's heart was very brave. So it was not just about obtaining that animal's courageous heart or fearless heart. Ancient people often did this kind of thing: they took out and ate the hearts of fierce beasts like bears and leopards, feeling that after eating them they would have that fierce beast's feeling, that fearless heart. Because bears and tigers in the forest fear nothing, and those hunters also wanted to fear nothing in the forest, but in fact they were afraid. So what could they do? They had to eat the hearts of these animals, wanting to obtain that quality.

But was it only for this? No. They were also attempting to preserve those qualities.

They wanted to preserve the qualities of those animals within themselves -- fearlessness toward nature. Therefore, through human experience, every animal continued to live on to some degree. Through humans eating animals, the consciousness of those animals still lived within human consciousness. Consciousnesses would mix, forming what is called a joint consciousness. In The Nature of the Psyche, in one of the later chapters -- I forget which, around chapter sixteen or so -- this issue was discussed: after we eat animals, besides wanting to obtain some of the animals' qualities, we are also, in another way, allowing the animals to live on within our human bodies, within the overall consciousness of humanity. Suppose we humans have a collective consciousness -- whatever we call it, the shared consciousness of humanity -- then each of us who has eaten animals, and not only animals but plants and minerals as well, has had the consciousness of those things mix with human consciousness. The consciousness of animals would continue to live on to some degree, in a certain experiential sense.

So many people say do not kill living things and so on -- that is one belief system. From a certain level, the relationship between humans and nature is one of constant interaction, constant giving and taking; there is no such thing as "if I kill living things I will suffer" or "I will incur karmic debt" or anything like that.

In that era, people protected themselves against storms, yet in the same way, they would not begrudge delivering the victims over to the storm. They merely changed their alliance of consciousness, transforming their bodies from the self within flesh and blood into the self within the storm.

In the face of natural disasters, just as when humans were eaten by animals, when people were swallowed by a storm, ancient people did not think much of it. They felt that you had merely changed your form of life -- previously your consciousness lived within your flesh and blood, and now your consciousness lived within the storm. Although you were swallowed by the storm, you became one with the storm; the storm now contained your consciousness, just as when you ate other animals. This kind of interactive relationship between humans and nature -- they understood it very deeply, more deeply than we modern people understand it, so they did not think much of it.

The intents of humans and nature were, for the most part, the same.

We humans, as a part of nature, have our own intents, and nature, as nature, has its own intents. These two intents are essentially, for the most part, in agreement. So there was a cross-species joint consciousness, and there was also this understanding: we know what nature's intent is, and nature knows what human intent is; there is a mutual understanding between them.

In those ancient times, people did not fear the forces of nature as much as is now assumed.

Ancient people did not fear the forces of nature that much. They did not have our modern technology, did not have our modern techniques; they were quite backward in this regard, but they were actually less afraid of the things of nature than we are. They considered it all very normal.

Some experiences known to early humans are now quite foreign to you. But in some way, those experiences have nevertheless been passed down through the generations.

Those experiences from that time may not have much direct use for us now, but they have still been preserved.

Projection and the Origin of the Gods

Again, early humans saw themselves as a single individual person.

This seems quite awkward -- a single individual person, you see? That is, early humans regarded themselves as a single individual person, and they felt that nature expressed their own emotions and vast powers for them. They felt they were a person, but their relationship with nature was this: nature could express their intense emotions and vast powers. So in ancient times there were often those who practiced various arts, qigong, and techniques, who made use of the powers of nature -- with one strike they could split trees and break stones, and so on. They were making use of the powers of nature.

They projected themselves outward onto the natural world, onto the heavenly realms, and imagined that there was a great personalized image there.

They projected themselves onto nature, onto heaven and earth, onto the universe, and imagined there a great personalized image. They magnified themselves, magnified themselves within the natural world. And that later became, for example, the gods of Olympus²⁹ -- meaning deities. That is, they placed their individuality into nature, and then magnified it, and it became a god of nature. He is talking about the European Olympus, which is what we later call Olympia; the gods of Olympia are exactly this meaning -- many gods on the mountain, all things that individuals extended and magnified from themselves.

So in ancient times there were so many gods, all kinds of gods, heavenly gods, especially in Europe, where there were many gods. And you find that those European gods were all very strange; their personalities were basically just like humans: jealous and wrathful, and also lustful, and even incestuous, doing all sorts of things. If you think about it according to Seth's explanation, you can understand why the gods of that time were all like that -- in fact, the gods of that time were just some people magnifying their own individuality into the natural world. But at that time they used their imagination extremely well; unlike us now, who are subject to many restrictions, they had no restrictions. So at that time, nature truly was for them something that could summon wind and rain and do anything. When certain people reached that state, when they merged with the natural world -- when they poured their consciousness into the natural world and made nature unify with them -- they could ride the wind as they traveled, and they could summon wind and rain. At such times they truly believed they were a god, because they had become one with nature. This is very interesting; some of the earliest gods came about in this way.

However, they also perceived that there was life force even in the tiniest parts of the natural world.

Apart from the great storms, volcanic eruptions, violent winds and torrential rains, thunder and lightning, they discovered that in very small places, in tiny places, there was also life force.

And before sense data had become so standardized, they perceived in their own way that individualized consciousness.

What does it mean to say it had not been standardized? It means that what we modern people receive from childhood has already been standardized. For example, when you see a certain shape or see something, you fill it in according to the education you received from childhood -- when you see something shaped like a five-pointed star, you think it must be a starfish; when you see something round, you think it might be the egg or fruit of something. You have already limited it. Before standardization, it had many kinds of meanings.

These consciousnesses, much later, became the four great elements of earth, water, fire, and wind.

Ancient India called them the five great elements³⁰, adding space -- earth, water, fire, wind, and space; ancient India called these the five great elements that make up this world. Or there were also sprites, the existence of various little sprites.

But on the whole, early humans could perceive the source of nature.

What is the source of nature? It is composed of these consciousnesses that have life force. They could perceive this.

The Freshness of Consciousness and the Source of Joy

When his own consciousness, you see, constantly enters existence anew, he is also full of curiosity.

Every time he reincarnates, he is full of curiosity -- he is still unable to hold that process steady with the kind of smooth continuity that your own consciousness has achieved. This passage may be a bit convoluted. What does "unable to hold that process steady with the kind of smooth continuity that your own consciousness has achieved" mean? It means that when we think, we cannot perceive where thoughts come from, the gaps between thoughts, where thoughts go, or how they arise and pass away in the mind -- we cannot perceive any of this. We regard our own consciousness as flowing smoothly like a river, with no breaks at all in between. This is how we humans perceive our own consciousness.

So when we have just been born into a reincarnation, our consciousness has not yet formed that smooth perception of consciousness that we develop later as we grow up. In the early stages, its consciousness is in its normal state -- there are jumps, there is continuity, there are also breaks, there are different levels or leap-like forms of consciousness. At that time, when it does not yet have that perception of a continuous consciousness, it is able to clearly perceive how thoughts come and how they go. This is different from us modern people. Modern people rarely do this, except for many people who observe their thoughts during meditation, but in normal life, in the ordinary lives of human beings, no one does this. We think our consciousness is a very complete, continuous continuum of consciousness, with no breaks at all in between. But does it actually break? Of course it does. Unless you have been drinking, many people know -- I blacked out, I don't know how I got home last night, I don't know how I opened the door or how I got into bed. That kind of consciousness blackout, he understands. But in our normal everyday life, our consciousness is just like this -- blackout, blackout, blackout -- except that the breaks happen very quickly, and then a continuous, smooth pattern of consciousness covers it over -- you cannot see that it is blacking out, or you cannot perceive that your consciousness is blacking out. In the early stages, he could perceive it, because he did not have this smoothing mechanism, so he could see the blackouts, and thus he could know where his thoughts came from and how they came.

Thus his own consciousness is forever a source of joy, its changeable quality as striking and evident as the changeable sky.

Why is it a source of joy? Because within it there are endless thoughts, endless ideas, and the speed at which those thoughts change is like the changeability of the sky, and moreover it is brilliant, colorful, and striking. But we modern people have basically become unable to perceive the changes in our thoughts. They have become very smooth, very gentle, very natural in their manner, so it is hard for you to have a sense of "hey, a thought just popped up." But if you carefully observe a small child at play, that is exactly how it is -- if you have children at home, you will observe that your child thinks of an idea one moment, then another idea the next, then another thought, then does this, then does that -- that leap-like quality of thoughts is very clearly expressed. Do we humans act like that? The older we get, the less so; the older we get, the smoother it becomes. And the smoother it becomes, the more boring, the more plain, the more tedious it becomes.

Many people do not understand why children have boundless energy, why they are full of vitality no matter what they play. Now do you know why? In their minds, at the level of their consciousness, in their brains, there is forever their source of joy -- the endless stream of thoughts and ideas, the feeling of wanting to try, wanting to experience, wanting to create, is constantly stimulating them and inspiring them, so they are forever like a perpetual motion machine, constantly doing this and that. Because it is too obvious, they cannot help but notice it, they cannot help but pay attention to those thoughts. Although the thought that comes to you may be quite funny -- for example, he just wants to shape mud into a certain form, just such a simple thought, yet he cannot restrain himself from doing it. So you see many children playing with mud, digging in the sand -- one sandpit can keep them occupied for half a day, and you do not even understand what they are doing.

Therefore, your own consciousness is relatively smooth, at least in that sense, achieved at the sacrifice of certain other experiences. Otherwise, those experiences would be possible.

What he says here is quite sad. We adults have traded for this smoothness, but we have lost certain other experiences -- we have sacrificed other experiences in order to obtain the smoothness of our consciousness. It is like a person who is very steady and stable, and people say this person handles things very steadily and maturely, not like a child. But in fact, he has also lost a great deal of spiritual and lively qualities. If he were not so smooth, he could also obtain those experiences, available at any time. So if we want to live like children, we can live more richly and with more variety, and only then can you obtain this source of joy, only then can you truly be happy.

So you see many people of advanced age -- if their mental state is very good, or if they have learned spiritual knowledge and methods, they have an inner joy and are happy at any time. Those small thoughts and small ideas in their minds make them very happy -- they do not need to accomplish great feats or earth-shaking deeds; they just do very small, very small things and that makes them very happy.

If your consciousness were as playful, curious, and creative as his was in the past, then you would be unable to dwell in your present world of time. For in that case, time would also be experienced in a very different fashion.

If you kept your consciousness in the state it was in during childhood, or in early humanity -- especially fond of play, curious, and creative -- then you would be unable to dwell in the kind of world you have now, one with a timeline and continuous space-time. Why? Because at that level, in that state of enjoying play and being able to observe the coming and going of thoughts, you lose the experience of time, or rather, time is experienced in a very different way. What does that mean? You enter psychological time, you enter another kind of genuine experience of time, rather than our traditional physical time.

Think carefully: when children play, do they have any concept of time? When they are truly absorbed in playing with many things, they have no concept of time at all; they are completely immersed. When you are doing something similar, do you also have no concept of time? When you are doing something you especially like, something you are especially fascinated by, you also have no concept of time. Say, when I meditate, when you observe your own thoughts, thoughts arising and thoughts falling -- you follow one thought and run and run and run, and the thought seems to run to a cliff and somehow falls off on its own, disappears, and you do not know where it went. No matter, new thoughts come again; thoughts bring thoughts. You do not need to worry about how they come; you just follow the thoughts. You can do this kind of practice: if you truly focus on the thoughts themselves, you will forget the existence of time, and you will not know what year this is or where you are.

Different Uses of the Imagination

So the events you now perceive also come from the same realm of the imagination.

You also perceive events by means of the imagination, only the method you use is different, not the same as the method ancient people used.

This is just like how early humans regarded events that you now consider illusions or pure imagination as real things.

You cannot understand why they would be like that — that is clearly an imagination, that is clearly an illusion, how could it possibly be real? Yet in ancient times they considered the real to be truly real; they took illusions and imaginings all as real. So this is what is different: we apply our imagination in another way. When we look at our world now, we also use the imagination, but the method we use is not the same as the one ancient people used. Here you must remember — what is used is always the imagination, but the method used is different. Ancient people considered these things real, and we consider them false; this is the main distinction. We can only regard as real those things that can be seen and touched, that conform to objective laws, that conform to what we call physical laws, that conform to what our human cognitive facts accept. This is the greatest difference.

Climate, Emotions, and Collective Beliefs

In your view, a group event of nature is obviously entirely outside your jurisdiction.

We modern people think that nature is something we cannot control at all -- when the wind blows, when it rains, when earthquakes happen, when volcanoes erupt, it has nothing to do with us. It is outside your jurisdiction -- except when you exert control over it or harm it through technology. But you still use technology or other means to exert control over it. Beyond that, when we do not use modern technological means to control or harm it, you feel that you and the natural world are unrelated. You feel you cannot control it at all, and it has nothing to do with you. Of course, now we know that is not the case. For example, we can fire cloud-seeding shells, and there are even weather-control aircraft -- it is rumored that the U.S. Air Force has some weather-control technology³¹ that can control local weather from aircraft or from space, but we are not sure. Assuming that without such technology we cannot control it, we humans believe that there is no relationship between ourselves and the weather, between ourselves and nature -- however the weather changes is its own business, and we are our own business.

So you admit that the weather has an effect upon your moods, but most people believe that there cannot be any deeper psychic or psychological connection between you and the forces of nature.

We only admit that the weather has an effect on our emotions, but we do not admit that this weather is the result of our emotions. In other words, the climate and weather around us are the result of the combined influence of our collective beliefs. We do not think that way; instead, we think the weather affects our emotions. What we do not see is that it is actually our emotions that affect the weather -- it is that kind of connection, and we humans cannot see it.

Yet you use phrases such as "flooded with emotion," or other very intuitive ones.

If you look at novels and poetry, you will find such phrases are very direct -- "flooded with emotion." Is it not true that only water has that kind of ability?

This shows your own deep recognition of events.

This appears to be a literary description, but actually it is a deep recognition within you of this event: a recognition of the connection between yourself and the natural world, between your emotions and the natural world, deeper than before. But when you examine it through reason alone, you turn a blind eye to it. When we analyze it with the intellect, we say, "No, we cannot possibly influence the weather, much less the climate."

Man actually brings about the storms himself.

Seth is getting impatient here. He says you humans really do bring about the storms yourselves. But prove it to me -- you cannot prove it. Yet ancient people could prove it to you. Do you remember how in ancient times they often held rain-praying ceremonies, rain-seeking rituals, all kinds of sacrificial activities, beseeching heaven and earth? You say that is feudal superstition and completely useless. Let me ask you: in ancient times, when material resources were so scarce, if something truly did not work, why would people keep using it for thousands of years? They were not stupid -- if they used it once and it did not work, used it again and it did not work, used it again and still it did not work, would later generations still use it? They would not use it anymore. It must have been effective many times when they used it, which is why they kept the method. Recently the weather has been bad and there is no rain, so let us pray for rain -- is that not a reasonable explanation? If it were really as you say, completely useless and pure nonsense, why would people still do it? So you see, people can indeed bring about storms themselves.

Man sought the storms, for emotionally he understood quite well their role in his private life, and the necessity for them on a physical level.

On a personal emotional level, he knew what role the storm played in his private life. So he had to take both aspects into account: he knew that at this moment he needed a storm to echo his inner emotions, to match his current psychological mood, or the needs of his psychological drama -- at this moment he needed a rain to set the scene. Like Jacky Cheung's song "Breakups Always Happen on Rainy Days"³² -- why do breakups always happen on rainy days? Actually, he was also in love on rainy days, he just did not notice. But he noticed that breakups always happen on rainy days, so at that moment he needed the rain.

But could nature refuse to cooperate? It also had to satisfy the needs of the physical level of nature. It cannot be that just because you want rain, it rains -- without the natural conditions, it will not work. So here you must pay attention to the physical level. You cannot be argumentative and say, "Go to Africa and make it rain for me, go to the Sahara Desert and make it rain for me, can you?" No. So besides this, there is also a necessity on the physical level. Simply put, when there is sufficient moisture, you can make it rain, or it is easier to make it rain according to your emotions; in a place where there is no water vapor at all, no matter how strong your inner self is, it cannot call forth the rain.

Man felt the source of nature and his own.

The source of nature and the source of humanity itself -- they are one source. So he knew that the power of that source could bring him to an emotional realization -- it could borrow the power of that source to bring itself to an emotional realization, which was necessary for its own greater psychic and spiritual development. What does this mean? It means that at this moment it needed a rain to echo its psychic and spiritual development, and because it is one with the source of the natural world, when certain physical necessities were met, it could call forth that rain, letting the natural world provide assistance for its personal emotional and spiritual development. It is that simple. It constantly made associations and interactions between nature and itself, letting nature help itself -- when it needed spring warmth and blossoming flowers, when it needed gentle breezes and fine rain, when it needed thunder and lightning of a certain kind, such things would happen.

Death, Natural Disasters, and the Larger Framework

Death, then, is not an end, but an alteration of consciousness. Nature, with its changing seasons, constantly gives you that message.

Nature constantly gives you messages through the changing of the seasons: flowers bloom and wither, leaves sprout anew and finally fall. It is always reminding you of the cycle of life and the alteration of consciousness.

From that viewpoint, and with that kind of understanding, natural disasters do not take lives.

Looking at it from this angle, natural disasters in nature do not take lives either. It is like leaves falling: would you say the cold wind took the life of the great tree? No. Did it take the life of the leaves? Yes. But would you say that life was taken by it? No. It is simply a natural growth, a change of seasons. We can understand human life as a kind of natural seasonal change, from spring all the way to winter.

Nature and man together play their necessary roles within the larger framework of reality.

Remember, nature and man together exist within a larger framework of reality -- that is, Framework 2. They each have their own roles in Framework 2. The changing seasons, birth, aging, sickness, death, and reincarnation that we see in Framework 1 all have their meaning in Framework 2. In the process of reincarnation and the birth and death of life in this physical world, sometimes we cannot understand why one is born and why one dies, but he tells you that within the larger framework there is a role, a necessary role. Not only for man, but for nature as well.

However, your ideas about death and nature force you to view man and nature as adversaries.

Our ideas about death and about nature force us in this way to separate man and nature, and even turn them into adversaries. And this also arranges your experience of such things -- the way you perceive it is the way you will experience it. You believe nature is an adversary, so you see everything and force it into that direction, feeling that nature is working against us humans, making it seem as though they have confirmed what you already believed. You are merely finding things to fit that pattern.

As was mentioned earlier in Session 821:

Every person involved in an epidemic or a natural disaster has personal reasons for choosing those circumstances.

Every person drawn into a natural disaster or a man-made disaster -- an epidemic is a man-made disaster -- and a natural disaster, each person has their own reasons, each person has their own needs.

However, such situations also often involve times, and these situations also involve, also often involve events, in which the person feels a greater sense of identity.

Beyond satisfying his personal reasons, this event often also involves some other events. What kind of events? In such an event, a person can feel a greater sense of identity, and sometimes even a rebirth of a sense of purpose, which under ordinary circumstances would not make sense.

What does this mean? What he is saying means this: in a natural disaster or an epidemic or plague, every person involved has their own reasons, their own needs, their own causes. And these causes and reasons may not be understandable in the way we understand things in the physical world. You say, I did not want to be involved -- it is determined by the necessary roles they have within a larger framework behind the scenes, and this you do not understand. If you could enter that framework, you would know why; if you have not entered it, then within Framework 1 you cannot understand why Framework 2 would do this. So at that point you cannot understand it.

But in this process, many of us, after experiencing natural disasters and man-made calamities, will have a realization completely different from usual. We often have the line in songs, "what a painful realization" -- without going through these things, one would not have this experience, and ordinarily one cannot feel it. So one will discover a new mission, be reborn with a new sense of purpose, find a new direction, a new purpose, which before this one could not find. So can you say this natural disaster is good or bad? It is very hard to define. Many people need to be drawn into such natural disasters or illnesses in order to gain a new life from them -- only through this can they gain a new life. For example, the business he used to run can no longer be run; he used to run a restaurant and now cannot keep it going; he used to do this kind of business and can no longer do it, or that kind and can no longer do it. He will undergo a tremendous change. The life experience of the past several decades turns out to be useless here, of no help at all. The traditional models of commercial and economic activity have all undergone fundamental changes under the enormous impact of this current pandemic. One must reconsider, replan, and re-plan one's life. Perhaps this is the reflection that great disasters and great pandemics bring to all of humanity.

Rob's Note: Jane's Description of Relaxation

This is Session 829 of the book, which began on Wednesday, March 22, 1978, at 9:30 p.m. Before it began, Rob made the following note. Rob said that on Monday night Seth gave Jane a very short private session concerning issues related to him personally. In that session, Seth said he was preparing some special material for Ruburt, but aside from the fact that Jane had from that time on been experiencing what she described as an excellent relaxation effect, we still did not know what else it would involve.

From Jane's perspective, she had recently quoted her own words in Note 4 of Appendix 19 of Volume 2 of The "Unknown" Reality, about her understanding of relaxation. She said it was a super relaxation, almost somewhat suspended, and a relaxation of body and mind at the same time, completely different from merely yawning, although perhaps she did indeed yawn. In describing this state of super relaxation, she touched on a strange sensation of falling inward, a feeling of slowly sinking beneath the reality of our ordinary perception. Such a relaxation is almost an extension of biological insight.

What is meant by biological insight? In many forms of meditation, we focus our consciousness on our own bodies, for example, focusing on the space between one breath and the next, or focusing on the movement of energy, and some people are accustomed to working with the chakras. No matter which aspect you focus on, you are sensing your own biological nature in a way different from the ordinary. We are normally unaware of our bodies; apart from feeling our bodies when we eat something delicious or spicy, we ordinarily do not have much sensation of them. But when you enter meditation, you have a transcendent feeling toward the body. The super relaxation Jane spoke of is a further extension of that transcendent feeling, even more wondrous than that feeling -- in other words, it is similar to using the inner senses to feel your body. The meditation and focused attention just mentioned still take place in the ordinary, normal state of consciousness; it is just that consciousness is adjusted from outside the body to attend to the body itself, including the breath, but it still uses the ordinary senses. What Jane is describing here is a deeper level of sensory experience.

She said that even while immersed in this most comfortable state, she still wanted to hold the session. She knew roughly what tonight's topic would be, but was not sure whether it was related to the book. Then Jane took off her glasses, entered a trance state, and Seth came through and began dictating.

Session 829

Animals Also Have Imagination

Seth says:

Regardless of your current ideas, animals do indeed possess imagination.

This point needs to be made clear: animals have imagination. This differs from our usual understanding. We generally think animals have no imagination, that they only react to immediate things -- eat when hungry, sleep when tired. But Seth tells you, animals have imagination. However:

Humans, for the most part, use imagination to direct their experience and to form human civilization.

It is true that animals have imagination, but the way humans use imagination is far more powerful than animals. Once we humans grasp the purpose and method of using imagination, we can create our civilization.

What formed our civilization? Imagination. Imagination has two functions here: one is to direct human experience. What does it mean to direct experience? It means we imagine something first, and then go do it. For example, we want to build a pyramid -- that is an act of imagination; we are now preparing to establish a spiritual university -- that is also a kind of imagination, and it has not yet taken shape. But when we want to complete this imagined thing, from preparation to operation, we are experiencing this process. Human civilization comes about this way. You first imagine something, then go act to make it happen, and it directs our experience to some degree -- whatever it wants us to experience, we experience. You long for the happiness of marriage and family, so you go find a partner and get married; you long for career success and academic improvement, so you go study. Behind every motivation to do anything, there is an imagination supporting it. So imagination is extremely, extremely important to humans.

I have mentioned to everyone many times before that American elementary and middle schools focus on cultivating three core abilities: interests and hobbies, imagination, and the ability to challenge authority. Now you understand why they must cultivate imagination. Why do many people live dull lives, fail to achieve in their careers, have lukewarm romantic lives, and finally say their lives are meaningless and unexciting? Lack of imagination, because it was stifled when they were very young. If you want your children to live happy, exciting lives, do not focus your attention on academic grades. How many points they scored in advanced math, their class ranking -- those really do not matter. What matters is cultivating their imagination. In the 24-week universal experience, the first two or three weeks, three or four weeks, focus precisely on cultivating imagination: having you look at a cone and imagine it in your mind, and eventually imagining a flower, a ship, an aircraft carrier, building imagination from simple to complex, including constructing the world and home within your mind -- all of this is accomplished through imagination.

You simply do not clearly understand this point.

This is the main problem we humans face: we simply do not realize how important imagination is to us.

Social organizations are built upon an imagined reality

Your governments and social organizations -- corporations, enterprises, churches, organizations of every size, including the family -- all of these are built upon an imagined principle.

Whenever we set out to build something, to form a government, to form a nation, in the beginning, step by step, it is all like children playing house, like fooling around. The simplest example: the First Congress of the Chinese Communist Party at the South Lake meeting³³ At the first South Lake meeting of the Chinese Communist Party, on that boat in Jiaxing, who could have imagined that in the end a new China would truly be established? At South Lake in Jiaxing, there were only a dozen or so people at the time, purely imagination. From 1921 to 1949³⁴, from 1921 to 1949³⁴ more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight years passed, from a dozen or so people to finally establishing a new regime -- is this not a typical proof of imagination?

Chairman Mao as a person sometimes relied too heavily on imagination, man will conquer nature, and did some unimaginable things, emphasizing that human willpower and belief can overcome everything. Chairman Mao emphasized that man will conquer nature. Let us not first discuss merits and faults, right and wrong -- he tasted the sweetness of using imagination, and was a direct beneficiary.

The United States is the same. From the establishment of the American government, the establishment of the nation, starting with the Mayflower, those Puritans who traveled from England to the American continent, the Mayflower landed in the area of Rhode Island³⁵, Rhode Island, around Plymouth. Plymouth Before they went ashore, they first formed an agreement, the Mayflower Compact³⁶, the Mayflower Compact³⁶ From this beginning, they gradually conceived of a new world, a new society, a new organization, from the original 13 colonies³⁷, the 13 colonies³⁷ growing little by little, and finally becoming today's America. Are these not all the results of imagination?

So using imagination is the most effective method, but we have all forgotten it. The foundation of the experience you are most intimately familiar with, and the structure behind all organized structures, is imagination. All experience, organizational structures, social forms -- as long as they are virtual things, behind them imagination is at work, and they are all built upon a reality of imagination. With the support and assistance of imagination, we have established nations, governments, organizations, yet these organizations and institutions that were founded by imagination completely refuse to acknowledge that they were established by imagination, and even turn around and suppress imagination.

The reason Seth wants to discuss this issue is that this book is about the nature of mass events. If you do not make this issue clear, you will not even understand how our organizations came to be, much less understand the role, function, and significance of the individual in mass events. So he must make this clear: the experience of each of us, including individual experience and group experience, and all organizational structures -- whether companies, families, small sole proprietorships, or multinational corporations, listed companies, social groups, charitable institutions, nations, political groups -- are all built upon a reality of imagination. Yet these organizations founded by imagination in turn refuse to acknowledge that they were constructed by imagination. Nowadays, governments of various countries often take a suppressive attitude toward these spiritual matters, toward these newly emerging things; more open-minded countries ignore them, while less open-minded ones begin to suppress them.

Easter: The Blending of Imagination and Historical Time

Easter is coming soon. Every April, America holds its annual celebration of the so-called historical facts of Christ's resurrection and ascension. Easter Seth begins by using Christian history to explain why, though we are built upon a framework of imagination, we turn around and oppose imagination. He says:

Over the generations, countless people have commemorated Easter in various ways. Individual lives, public emotions, and religious fervor have all come together to celebrate this holiday. Easter eggs, countless village celebrations and intimate family gatherings, as well as church ceremonies, have all celebrated it. They were held on Easter Sundays now forgotten. Bloody battles have also arisen for the same reason, along with private persecution. During this period, those who disagreed with certain religious doctrines were killed, supposedly for the sake of their souls.

There have been spiritual rebirths and renewals, as well as unholy massacres.

Over the years, this holiday has brought spiritual rebirth and renewal, which is a good thing; it has also brought unholy massacres. This undoubtedly touched flesh and blood, and so it also changed those people's lives.

All those religious and political structures you consider reasonable arose from this event of Christ's ascension.

Within the broader context of Christianity, the religious and political structures you consider reasonable all arose because of this one event, Christ's ascension, because Christianity was born out of it. Christ was nailed to the cross and buried, and after a time he rose again and ascended into heaven. This person came back from the dead and ascended into heaven, and that in itself became a miracle. And for someone to come up with this concept was a pioneering act of imagination. Then this feat of imagination, through the combined workings of everyone's imagination, was brought onto the stage of history, highlighting all the events of that era.

An event of imagination like this represented the moods, emotional needs, and psychological aspirations of the people of that era. This issue has already been discussed over and over in Seth Speaks. Because Christianity is the foundation of Western civilization, Seth wants to make this matter clear. There was such a need in that era, so this event, which originally existed in imagination, came to seem illuminated by a sacred and extraordinary light.

The concept of coming back from the dead is nothing new; it has been used for hundreds and thousands of years. Tibetan reincarnate lamas and their child reincarnations³⁸ After a Tibetan reincarnate lama or the Dalai Lama dies, a child is designated as his reincarnation, and people say that this child is his next incarnation. That child then becomes the new spiritual leader. The coming of deities, possession by divine beings: these concepts have also been used all along. Even now, some people in America say Trump is God's chosen one. Trump is called God's chosen one Isn't this concept ancient? It is very ancient; people have been using it since antiquity.

However, the ancient religious myths suited a different kind of people and had circulated for centuries in the past, just as long as Christianity has exerted its influence. Before Christianity, there were many concepts of coming back from the dead, the descent of heavenly deities, and the son of God, and they had circulated longer than Christianity has. But later, as imagination and historical time blended subtly, they became increasingly out of step. What is meant by historical time is that, in different historical periods, people's imagination must fit the characteristics of that period. At the time of Christ's resurrection, things were already somewhat out of step: humanity's collective imagination had come into conflict with those ancient traditional cultures, so a new religion was ready to emerge, and the old deities could no longer capture people's imagination. Christianity grew out of Judaism. Christianity grew out of Judaism³⁹ Those traditional Jewish accounts of deities could no longer capture people's imagination as they once had, so the time was ripe for Christianity to arise.

But because people did not understand a characteristic of the world of imagination, nor did they understand its importance. People kept insisting on turning myths into historical facts. Because people regard only the world of facts as the real world and feel that the world of imagination is worlds apart from the real world, they need a person of flesh and blood to prove beyond doubt that every other human being, too, will rise from the dead and ascend into heaven visibly, before their eyes. So Christ was crucified, resurrected, and ascended into heaven, and this whole world was like a living performance, telling you that every one of you can ascend into heaven after death as long as you believe in God.

Even today, if you discuss these issues with any materialist, the first thing they ask is: Can you prove it to me? You tell them that this is how their world is; does it still need proof? Your present life, this world, everything is a product of imagination, the result of creation through belief. They will tell you to stop talking nonsense and then send you to a psychiatric hospital. Because they need facts they can see with their own eyes, they do not consider the world of imagination as we understand it to be more important, while the physical world of reality is merely a manifestation of the world of imagination.

The Truth Christ Realized: Every Person, by Virtue of Existing, Is All That Is

Seth said in a tone of wry amusement:

Only such a practical-minded humanity would insist on the physical death of both God and man as proof.

He is mocking humanity's shallowness and cognitive limitations. If you believe that man and God are one, that Jesus is the Son of God, the child of God, then after he died he would surely go to heaven, so why would he need to use a physical body as proof? Do you actually believe in the existence of God, or do you believe in the existence of the physical body? This was true in Jesus' time over two thousand years ago, and it is still true today. He needs empirical proof, but Seth put "proof" in quotation marks: is the manifestation of the physical world proof? It is not proof at all. The physical world itself is a product of imagination, creativity, and belief, and behind it there is a framework supporting it, just as behind all nations and social organizations there is an imaginative reality providing support.

Seth said once again:

Christ was not crucified. The historical Christ, so-called, was a man illuminated by the reality of the psyche.

He again emphasized this record: he was a man, not a god, and not the child of God. But what was extraordinary about this man was that he was illuminated by the reality of the psyche. Ancient religious traditions were passed down, and people hoped to see a man die and come back to life. That era needed a new imagination and a wondrous fusion suited to a new age, while the old imagination no longer fit the times, and so a new religion, a new imagination, was needed. Christianity was born in that era.

He attained complete realization, sudden enlightenment, just like the Buddha. What exactly did he realize? In other words, what is the true Bible trying to convey to us? He said:

Any one individual, by virtue of his or her own existence, is All That Is.

He put it in quotation marks. You can think of this as the universe, as God, as the source, as the cosmic spirit; the terms differ. The Seth material uses "All That Is" to represent this. This ordinary mortal, by virtue of the very fact that he is alive, the very fact that he exists, reveals the connection between a person and the source of the universe. What Christ truly realized was this: every person, simply by being alive, proves that he is intimately connected with divinity, and divinity shines its light within him. Seth did not use the word "God"; he used "All That Is," to avoid misunderstanding.

Then:

Christ saw in each person a meeting of divinity and humanity.

He used a particular word: meeting. He did not use fusion, nor did he use union. What does "meeting" mean? Humanity and divinity each maintain their own independence, but they meet here. What does that mean? Humanity is the self-awareness each of us has right now, which many spiritual traditions call the small self or the ego. Many religions deny the existence of the small self. Whether in Buddhism or in monistic viewpoints, they all hold that the small self is unimportant, that one must kill the small self, eliminate the small self, believing that by killing the small self one can return to the greater self. We cannot say they are wrong; we can only say this is a limitation of their understanding.

They believe the small self is superfluous, unnecessary, like an appendix that should be removed. Or even like what some people say about the thyroid gland: the thyroid is useless to the human body, because when you are not sick, the thyroid is of no use at all, so it should be removed to prevent future thyroid cancer. The incidence of thyroid cancer is very high, and the reason is that, especially in mainland China, iodine intake is far too high⁴⁰. The salt industry, in order to reap huge profits, in order to turn salt that costs a few cents or a few tenths of a yuan per jin into something worth several yuan, claimed that everyone is iodine-deficient and added iodine to salt. But in many coastal regions of China, and even in some areas where people regularly eat large amounts of seafood, people are not iodine-deficient at all, yet they are still consuming large amounts of iodized salt. For roughly several decades, you could not buy non-iodized salt in mainland China; selling non-iodized salt was not permitted, and all salt was iodized, because the salt industry was a monopoly⁴¹.

Many people think the thyroid is prone to thyroid cancer, so they might as well remove it in advance. Many people also think that, for women, the breasts are prone to breast cancer, so they might as well remove them too. Compared with aesthetics, life is still more important. My point is that we treat the small self as something insignificant, something that can be cut away at will, as if once the small self is cut away, only the light of divinity remains.

But the truth that Seth says Christ realized is this: in every person, divinity and humanity meet. Divinity is not in any way tainted or affected by its meeting with humanity. Each remains well on its own; there is no question of you influencing me or me influencing you. Humanity is also a unique existence within the universe, and the collective of humanity is also where the light of divinity resides. Without the existence of these human aspects, divinity would be empty and meaningless. The complexity of humanity, its greatness, and even what we consider its filth, actually enrich this divinity.

And humanity, by virtue of its existence within divinity, is able to overcome death. Why? Because when the physical body dies, the divine part remains. Let me use the quantum mechanics I discussed a couple of days ago as an analogy: in quantum mechanics, your physical body corresponds to the particle aspect of wave-particle duality, the material aspect; your soul, the divine part, corresponds to the wave aspect, the energetic aspect. The energetic aspect is invisible to the naked eye, while the particle aspect is visible to the naked eye. When you die, it is as if the particle aspect returns to the wave aspect, existing only as energy; when you reincarnate again, the energy converts back into the particle aspect, becoming a materialized state. This is only an analogy, to help you understand. When speaking with a materialist about the immortality of the soul, using this example can make it easier for him to accept.

Christianity's Problem: Following the Letter Rather Than the Spirit

He went on to say that, without exception, all the terrible knowledge associated with Christian doctrine comes from following the letter of the law rather than its spirit.

Christianity has brought about a great many bad things, starting from the Middle Ages and continuing in large numbers. If you know the history of Christianity, you know that even today there are still many. I will only mention one fact that ordinary people acknowledge: the sexual abuse cases involving clergy in the New York church.⁴² A bishop of a New York church and a group of clergy, over a period of twenty or thirty years,⁴³ sexually abused boys and girls. Those with criminal records, convictions, and who appeared as witnesses numbered roughly one or two thousand,⁴⁴ and no one knows how many never came forward. Every single one of these cases faced enormous obstruction and pressure from the church, and for any of them to be exposed at all was already extremely difficult.

So Seth says that all the terrible things associated with Christianity, including wars -- the Crusades back then went on for decades,⁴⁵ and each time the Crusaders recovered a little they organized a new expedition eastward. There have been far too many wars fought because of religion, and even today many wars are still because of religion. These bad things all come from their persistent adherence to the letter of the law rather than following its spirit. Because the spirit of Christianity is this: every person is a connection between himself and God -- every single person is. And since every person is, why would you go and kill someone just because the words they believe in are different from yours, their rules are different, their doctrines are different? Under the fine-sounding pretext that it is for the good of his soul. How do you know that the other person is not connected to his own God? So Seth's point is that they fundamentally do not understand the essential doctrine of Christianity, and only understand it from the literal surface of the words. In Christianity's view, everything outside itself is a cult -- this is what they have always insisted on.

When divinity and humanity meet, in A Course in Miracles, Little Flying Insect specifically explained to me that there is a term in A Course in Miracles called Christ consciousness. This Christ consciousness has another name in the Seth material, called the conscious mind. The conscious mind is the part where humanity and divinity combine -- it sees both the inner self within and the outer ego without, like two sides of one whole. In Seth Speaks, Seth gave a very vivid example: you can imagine a kind of animal that has two faces. One face is turned toward the inner world, observing the activities of inner consciousness, spirituality, and inner awareness; the other face has the five sense organs, looking at the material world and receiving physical sensory input. The most amazing thing is that this creature does not know the other part exists. It is clearly made of two halves joined together in the middle, yet each part refuses to acknowledge the existence of the other. The only thing in the middle that can connect them is the conscious mind, which happens to straddle the middle and can turn its head to look at this side for a while and then at that side, knowing what is happening on both sides. So A Course in Miracles calls this Christ consciousness: it transcends traditional consciousness, the conscious mind, and it is also not the subconscious or the unconscious. It can be understood as the consciousness perceived on that platform, at that point, where humanity and divinity meet.

And at the same time, the concepts of spirituality and imagination that lie beneath the words were ignored. Many people who study Buddhism know that after the Buddha attained enlightenment, he said the same thing: every person is a Buddha-nature existence that is inherently complete in itself. After the Buddha attained enlightenment, he said that every person is inherently complete in themselves⁴⁶ -- meaning exactly the same thing that Christ wanted to say. But does Christianity today still insist on a literal interpretation of the words? I do not know what Christianity today is mainly transmitting, whether they long ago lost it, or whether they never truly grasped the real spirit of Christ.

Imagination Forms the World

Seth says again:

Man directs his existence through the use of his imagination, a fact that sets him apart from the animals.

The main difference between humans and animals is the ability to use imagination. Animals also have imagination, but they do not use it as well as humans do. The reason humans feel their own existence is because of imagination. How do you perceive yourself? What kind of person do you think you are? Did you imagine it, or did you do market research and consult the opinions of relatives and friends around you? From birth until now, what kind of person have you thought yourself to be, and whose opinions have you consulted? Some people may be more modest and have consulted others, but do you really believe their opinions? How much do you believe them? You can immediately understand what he means. Including the things we accomplish through imagination, all of these are directing existence through the use of imagination.

He gives imagination a very lofty status, so lofty that the main difference between humans and animals lies in the use of imagination. A person who does not know how to use his own imagination, this is a great tragedy. To put it bluntly, his difference from animals is not so obvious. Why should we preserve children's imagination? I once gave an example: the American kindergarten letter O lawsuit.⁴⁷ A kindergarten teacher in America taught children that a circle is pronounced as the letter O. The parents sued the kindergarten, saying that ever since you told him it is pronounced O, he no longer thinks it could be an egg, the sun, or a bubble. He thinks that as long as you draw something round, it is O. In the end, the kindergarten lost the lawsuit and paid the parents one million US dollars. Compensation of one million US dollars.⁴⁸ The reason the parents sued was that you destroyed the child's imagination.

How many times in our lives have we destroyed children's imagination? Many parents who came out of traditional education have already had their own imagination destroyed. They themselves are victims, and they did not develop well from childhood. When it comes to their turn, they intensify it, and their concern, anxiety, and irritability about their children's grades are beyond words. If you have destroyed all of your child's imagination, what does he have left? Are academic grades really that important? Does getting into a prestigious school or a key school really determine his whole life? Without imagination, is his life not like that of a walking corpse? Human imagination cannot be cultivated after a certain age. If you do not believe it, just look at the results.

Seth continues:

What brings people together or separates them is the power of concepts and the force of imagination.

What can unite people, and what can also cause wars and hostility between people, are the power of imagination and concepts. A certain ideology, a certain viewpoint, a certain concept, a certain religious belief, can either become a force that unites people or a reason that makes people hostile to one another.

Patriotism, family loyalty, political alliances, the concepts behind these things have the greatest practical utility in your world.

Those who play politics, those who manipulate people's hearts, some have noble purposes, some have their own purposes. Whoever masters this thing can master human society. If you want to engage in politics, or build a career, you must make good use of these things. Patriotism, loyalty, alliances are all surface-level. Behind them is using these concepts to unite some people and do certain things. This is the method that can exert the greatest practical utility in this world. It surpasses money and all other means.

Free Imagination and the Rendering of Experience

Seth continued:

Through freely imagining your growth, you projected yourselves into time like children.

The future life of each of us is also projected outward through imagination. Your unique imaginative process instantly renders physical experience and nature itself.

What does "render" mean? It is like rendering in film and video production, making it more real and more colorful. The very process of your imagining has already made the thing real. You say, why do I not see it become real? Why have I wanted to become a millionaire and it has never come true? We have discussed this question countless times, so I will not discuss it here.

Let me give an example: we are now preparing for a spiritual university, and right now there is nothing. Suppose a year from now it is already running very well, operating very well in various countries and regions. Was that not rendered by our imagination today? Without our envisioning and rendering of the future today, would it come into being? In other words, however you envision it, however you imagine it, that is how it will develop in the future. Is "render" not a better word for this process? Seth uses the word "render," which I think is better than my use of "manifest." Seth's vocabulary strives for precision, but while it is precise it is also a bit plain, so sometimes I say things that go too far or intensify the tone, in order to give you impact, so that you can understand what he really means. I used the word "manifest."

Unless you think fairly consistently and deeply, the importance of imagination is often overlooked by you.

What does "consistently" mean? It means always, constantly maintaining awareness of your own thoughts. Many people ask why, after studying the 24-week universal panacea, their lives undergo such tremendous change, as if they had turned on a cheat code. It is constantly strengthening your focus, your imagination, your insight. It is like a person going to the gym to train muscles. This ability was something you had never used before, and you did not even know you had such an ability. Now someone tells you that you have this ability, and also tells you the method to keep strengthening it. Once you have finished strengthening it and use it just a little in real life, you discover that it is actually this magical. We have always been using it all along, just using it unconsciously. Now it becomes conscious use, so of course it is very powerful.

Imagination forms the world you experience, as well as the group world in which you dwell.

Imagination forms your personal reality, and it also forms group reality. This chapter is discussing Framework 1 and Framework 2, and imagination is the most important thing in Framework 2. Our world and our experience come from Framework 2; how do we construct things in Framework 2? In a world without matter, what is used is imagination.

More than a year ago, when we first started discussing Seth Speaks, there was a person in that QQ group called Dagong who kept asking me: he had been rich in imagination since childhood, wildly imaginative, was that good or not? Including during meditation, his attention was not focused, his mind wandered here and there. I told him at the time, imagination is your most important ability, and if you have this ability, that is really amazing. He was half believing and half doubting, because from childhood his parents had told him this was a shortcoming. Later, the more he studied, the more he came to recognize this point, and he was able to deeply enjoy the advantages that imagination brought him.

Evolution: An Imaginary Construct

For example, the theory of evolution, that is, Darwin's theory of evolution, Darwin's theory of evolution⁴⁹ is an imaginary construct. The theory of evolution was simply imagined, without any factual basis. You think that's wrong, because there were so many fossils back then, fossils of the evolution of various species. But we won't discuss this issue today, because the theory of evolution has already been abandoned by mainstream science. The theory of evolution has been abandoned by mainstream science. In all disciplines in the West, the theory of evolution is no longer taught. It exists like a joke. If you still believe in the theory of evolution living in the 21st century, I can only say you are scientifically illiterate. The theory of evolution itself is an erroneous thing. It is an imaginary construct, through which many generations have viewed the world.

Not only do you yourselves think you are different, but you actually experience a different self. Your institutions change their face accordingly. Therefore experience is consistent with your beliefs about it.

I'll speak more slowly, because many key issues are involved here. He says it is not only because you yourselves feel you are different from all things in the world -- he is still speaking from the angle of the theory of evolution -- it is because you truly feel you are different from others. This is a difference you genuinely experience. But you have not grasped the core of the difference. According to the viewpoint of the theory of evolution, human beings should be the same as other species, yet you can clearly feel that you are different. The existence of human beings, the birth of human beings, does not conform to the theory of evolution, but we have no choice, so we use the theory of evolution to view the world, insisting on placing ourselves together with proto-humans, Homo sapiens, and apes, saying we evolved from them. Yet we clearly know we are not at all the same as them.

The theory of evolution holds that all things are the same, survival of the fittest, and that the reason human beings survived is because they mastered tools and language. Seth says that is not so. First, the theory of evolution is imaginary; second, you know you are different from all things. It is not a difference the ego believes in, but a difference you genuinely experience. Therefore your human civilization and institutions have also changed their face along with this difference. That is why there is human civilization, and there will not be a mouse civilization, a yak civilization, a lizard civilization, or a dinosaur civilization. Why is there uniquely human civilization? That is what this means.

What kind of experience a person wants to obtain depends on what kind of belief he holds about that experience. Many people do not understand: is not the experience I obtain determined by the things I go through? You go through the same thing, but the experience is different for each person. Different views of the matter, different cognitions, will cause it to give you completely different feelings. For example, if a boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you, different people have completely different experiences. Some people feel it is encouragement and impetus, making themselves better, finding someone more worthy of them; some people are deeply stricken, feeling they are worthless, becoming even more self-abasing. What they go through is the same thing, both are breakups. So the experience of a breakup depends on how you understand it. If in your value system, you regard every breakup as an opportunity to move toward a better partner next time, then you will not feel the breakup is painful; if you think every breakup means losing the best possible partner in your life, then every time is heart-wrenching. Your cognition and belief about the matter of breaking up, and your experience of it, are completely consistent.

Imagination and Belief Subtly Construct Subjective Experience and the Objective Environment

Seth says at the end:

You do things in a certain way, so you look at the whole universe in a way that did not exist before.

When you understand the importance of imagination in life and in human development, you can look at the whole universe in a different way. You will arrive at this recognition: you obtain your subjective experience through imagination, and then you construct your objective environment through your beliefs. Your subjective experience within the objective environment is entirely determined by your imagination; and this objective environment is constructed by your beliefs.

Imagination and belief subtly construct your subjective experience and your objective environment.

He used the word "subtly." When you recognize the importance of imagination, you will have a completely new perspective when looking at the whole world and the whole universe.

Creating in Framework 2, Experiencing in Framework 1

You will have this profound realization: your own subjective experience, subjective perception, subjective feeling, depends entirely on your imagination -- not on the event itself that you went through, but on how you imagine it.

Let's go back to the breakup example. It's the same breakup, but if you imagine the future as incredibly bright, you will imagine meeting someone in the future who likes you more, who fits you better, who suits you more, who loves you more -- your true love is just around the corner. If you imagine your life that way, then this breakup really doesn't mean much to you. It can only be a stumbling block on your way to true love, and leaving earlier is actually better. If you feel that after leaving this person you will never meet anyone who loves you more, that this person is the one who loves you most, and that without them you have no chance of meeting anyone better -- if you imagine your future that way, then the breakup will make you wish you were dead, and you may even lose the will to live.

Why do I often use this example? Because everyone has been through this kind of thing, so it's easy to understand. The same breakup event -- when your imagination about its future differs, the subjective experience it brings you is completely different.

Then how is your objective environment created? Your external environment, the physical world, is formed by beliefs. Beliefs create reality -- we won't go over this again; the entire book The Nature of Personal Reality is about this issue.

Seth interpreted this matter in yet another way. You understand now: your subjective feelings are determined by imagination, and your external environment is determined by beliefs. So start working from within -- on the one hand, adjust your belief system; on the other hand, strengthen your capacity for imagination. Whether you imagine the good side or the bad side is entirely up to you.

All Imaginings Fall Within Four Categories of Things

So he begins giving examples:

For example, within all other imagined constructs, regardless of their advantages or disadvantages, man feels himself to be part of a plan.

See how airtight his wording is here:

The planner may be God, or nature itself, or man in nature, or nature in man. There may be many gods or one God, but the universe must have a meaning. Even the idea of fate will drive a person to resist, and spur him to action.

Actually, you'll find that when he doesn't give examples, it's fine, but once he does, you don't know what he's talking about. It's not that his examples are bad — his examples have far-reaching significance — it's just that they aren't good for your understanding.

Let's go through it step by step. Within all other imagined constructs, regardless of advantages or disadvantages — when we imagine something, there are certainly advantages and disadvantages, there's analysis involved. But when you do an analysis of advantages and disadvantages, your greatest tendency is that you definitely place yourself as part of this plan. Of course — if the world you imagine doesn't include you, what's the point? If you imagine your best friend and her boyfriend living a happy life, isn't that just having too much time on your hands? What matters is imagining what kind of life you yourself will live. So you are definitely part of this imagined plan.

Who makes this plan? He says the planner may be God, or nature itself, or man in nature, or nature in man.

No matter how you construct your imaginings, isn't there always a larger background? Isn't the thing you imagine always part of some bigger plan? If you want to grow old together with someone, isn't that premise built on a social foundation? You imagine an environment of peace and prosperity, not one of chaos and war. Whether chaos and war or peace and prosperity, that's all a larger background — who decides that? That's what he means.

So he summarizes it in several ways. The things you imagine are nothing more than these four categories of things: matters of God, matters of the universe, matters of man, matters of nature, and also your own spiritual matters. What you call conception, imagination, cannot go beyond these four things. Seth lumps these four together in one pot. And within these four imaginings, you yourself are certainly part of the middle of it.

So who constructs this larger plan, this background? He says you may have many gods — pantheists believe there's a god of heaven, a god of earth, a god of flowers, a god of trees; or you may believe there's just one God, as in Christianity. He says it doesn't matter. But the universe in your imagination must have a meaning. Or even if you can't figure out what the meaning is, you'll still think there must be some fate in it, that you definitely came with a mission, with a blueprint. That's why you resist, why you are spurred on, why you act.

What he's actually trying to say with this example is: everything I just described — imagining one God, imagining many gods, imagining such a framework, imagining the role he plays within it — all of this, isn't it all thought up by him? It's all his imagination. It is because of this imagination that people act, whether through resistance or through being spurred on.

Why does he use two words, one "resist" and one "spur"? People only act in these two states. Resistance means you are dissatisfied with the status quo: dissatisfied with your income, dissatisfied with your material life, dissatisfied with your emotions, or dissatisfied with your knowledge and understanding. Many people study spiritual knowledge because they want to understand the truth of the universe but haven't penetrated it thoroughly — that's also a form of dissatisfaction, so they study day and night, forgetting to eat and sleep. The second is being spurred on: not dissatisfaction, but satisfaction, yet wanting something better. These two are different — dissatisfaction is wanting to change, "I don't want my current life"; being spurred on is "I'm quite content, but I want more," more and more.

Irony About a Meaningless Universe

In the passage below, Seth speaks with heavy emphasis and irony. You see, when he talks about something, he could just say it plainly, but he speaks with irony — now that he is not human in this lifetime, he spares no effort in being sarcastic. Of course, his irony is also meant for emphasis.

However, the concept of a meaningless universe, this in itself, is a highly creative thought, an act of imagination.

Seth's thinking is very jumpy, and you have to keep up with him. He is talking about the theory of evolution. According to the theory of evolution, this world is meaningless — survival of the fittest, those that adapt to the environment survive, and those that do not adapt are eliminated. From beginning to end, the theory of evolution speaks only of this principle, with no other meaning.

So Seth turns back and says: the person who can put forward the concept that "the universe has no meaning" is himself highly imaginative and creative. This idea itself is extremely creative and challenging. Can you hear the point of his irony? What he means is: you think this world has no meaning, so why do you use an imaginative approach to imagine that a meaningless universe exists? Your imagining itself carries very strong subjectivity within it. How could such a concept, so strongly subjective and so full of imagination and creativity, possibly come from a meaningless universe?

For example, animals could never imagine such an idiotic thing.

Here he is being sarcastic:

Therefore, that doctrine apparently comes from the incredible achievement of an apparently orderly mind and reason, which can actually imagine itself to be the result of disorder and chaos. Man has the ability to map his own brain for himself, yet imagines that the brain's incredible regularized order could emerge from a reality that is in itself meaningless. So that theory really says that this orderly universe appeared magically. And evolutionists must more or less believe in a god of probability or a god of chance, because otherwise, without a god of probability and a god of chance, their theory simply cannot hold together at all.

What do you all think of Seth's example? Does it make things clearer for you or more confusing? I think it is better to leave this passage for everyone to savor. Let me briefly summarize what he means, and then you can savor the logic within his words — it is very interesting.

This passage is very long, from "For example" all the way to the end of the paragraph, with commas throughout — it is one single sentence. To put it simply and plainly: these people who believe in the theory of evolution think that this world has no order, that it is based on chance and probability — the emergence of life is accidental, and the development and evolution of life is also based on accidental genetic mutation. If everything originally evolved from a single-celled species, how could it eventually transform into all the myriad things of the world? He says there are mutations in this process, and mutations are produced by the environment. So to understand this passage, you also need a bit of knowledge about the theory of evolution.

What he means is: if you say that this whole world is generated entirely by probability and accident, including the birth and evolution of life, then you must necessarily admit that there is something in this world called a god of accident, or a god of probability, or a god of chance. If such a thing does not exist, then this theory cannot hold together — because how does this accident happen? How does probability happen? He is actually vigorously attacking the theory of evolution, attacking this idea of "the unconscious universe" and "the meaningless universe," and he uses very fine language to attack it.

Imagination Is the Law of the Inner Universe

Continuing:

The world of the imagination is indeed your point of contact with your own source.

This is very interesting. What is the source of us human beings? All That Is. The source of the natural world is also All That Is. So what is imagination? The world of the imagination is the place where All That Is and our human thoughts meet.

In other words, when you use your imagination, you are using the ability of All That Is. Let me emphasize it again: when you use your imagination in large measure, you are using the ability of All That Is.

Its characteristics are the closest to the characteristics of Framework 2 that you are presently in contact with.

From the beginning of Chapter 4 all the way to today's sixth episode, we have been talking about the characteristics of Framework 2, and we have already covered them, so I will not repeat them. Here he emphasizes again: if you want to understand how Framework 2 operates, then you need to understand how the world of your imagination operates.

Let me expand on this a little further. I will put it in one sentence. It is like a secret of the whole world. Today I will spell it out clearly, and then you will understand. This secret is something many people cannot figure out no matter how hard they try, and it is also something they dare not believe, because it is too far beyond the ordinary, too subversive, too incredible. This sentence is especially simple. What is it?

It is that this world you experience is a world that comes into being as you keep thinking and thinking and thinking. From another angle, when you want to create, the only thing you can use is your imagination. You just keep thinking and thinking and thinking, and it becomes real.

This is the greatest secret in this world, and also the simplest secret. Does it sound like a cult? It sounds too much like a cult, too idealistic, idealistic to the extreme. You do not even need to criticize it; you yourself dare not believe it. But this world operates in exactly this way. The more you learn and the more thoroughly you understand, the more clearly you will see it.

All right, so you say, then does that mean I can get whatever I wish for, command the wind and rain, and have whatever I want? Yes. So now let me have you imagine—suppose you had this ability, and in fact you really do have this ability—each of you has this ability. This is what the Buddha and Christ said: every person is a combination of divinity and humanity, and every person has divine abilities.

So now I ask you: now that you have this ability, what do you want to go do? You say, I want a mansion, a luxury car, money, beautiful women, handsome men, make me a king, make me president—fine, no problem. Otherwise, where would all the kings in this world come from? If no one had ever thought of a king, how could there be kings? If no one had ever wanted to possess that much money, how could there be billionaires or the richest person in the world? You say, I want beautiful women—those clubs, singers, and celebrities, who are they prepared for? Are they prepared for monks? You say, I need handsome men—those young idols and heartthrobs, who do they live for?

I use this example to tell you: just imagine, is this not how it works? You keep thinking and thinking and it becomes real. This world came about in exactly this way. Then you should think: when you have this ability, what do you want to go do? You say, I just want these things. And after these things come true? Granting them to you is not difficult. And then? You say, there is no "then," I just want this and that is enough—fine, no problem, if you never get tired of it. Anyway, the universe is abundant, resources are unlimited, use them as you please. All right, I will put a cross mark here—I accidentally let out the secret of the universe.

Concepts Form the Material World Around You

Your experience of history and of daily life is invisibly formed by concepts that exist only in the imagination.

Your experience of history -- past events -- and of daily life in the present moment is invisibly, without our noticing, formed by concepts that exist only in the imagination. Think about this carefully; the more you ponder it, the more unsettling it becomes. Judge it objectively: which of your past, previous, and present experiences in life is not formed by concepts in your imagination? Whether it is the television you watch, the novels you read, the stories others tell you, or the stirrings and impulses within your own heart -- are these not all things of the imagination? Your life is formed with the imagination as its driving force, its motivating power. Without imagination, there would be nothing at all.

Then, after that, it is projected onto the material world, and your world is formed in this way. First there is a concept in the imagination, and then it becomes something in the material world. For example, you want to start a company -- that is a concept. Later the company is established, with an office building, employees, a receptionist, technical staff, marketing staff, sales staff, everyone having a grand time, creating their own careers within it -- the company goes from being a concept to being a real company. Is it not always like this? There is no need even to mention inventions and creations; they all come from concepts.

This also applies to your personal beliefs about yourself, and to the way you see yourself in your imagination.

This point is very powerful. The concepts formed in the world of the imagination are not only projected outward to become the material world around you; they also form the way you see yourself. The way you see yourself ultimately forms who you are. So how you imagine yourself becomes an immensely important matter.

Fundamentalists and Distorted Dogma

You, in turn, have again stirred up wars between Jews and Arabs, or between Christians.

He is talking about Jerusalem -- the place where three religions come together. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all say it is their holy land, their place of origin. Why do you go to war? Because what you emphasize is a literal interpretation of spiritual truth, not spiritual truth itself, but the literal interpretation.

Within each person, the world of the imagination carries its own impetus and power, gathering into the reality of history.

Each person carries impetus and power within his own imaginative world, gathering into the reality of history. This needs no explanation; his language is already quite beautiful.

Within him, the ultimate, inviolable, irrepressible power of All That Is is individualized, and dwells in time.

Because each person is connected with All That Is, and All That Is is our source. Through the individualized imagination of each of us, All That Is projects itself onto the dimension of time -- forming each person's history, and also forming the history of all humanity.

Man's imagination can carry him into other realms, and when he tries to force those truths into too small a framework, he distorts inner reality, thus forming distorted dogmas.

Imagination can carry him into different spaces of consciousness. When you insist on squeezing this vast concept, which is not limited by time and space, into the small, restrictive dimensional space of the three-dimensional world, distortion inevitably occurs, forming distorted dogmas.

Every religion has its own dogmas, and those dogmas are necessarily distorted. Why? Because when knowledge from multiple dimensions is described in the three-dimensional world through language, it is necessarily distorted. So why does Buddhism receive more respect from people who truly study the nature of reality? Because the Buddha understood this principle. He always emphasized that what he transmitted was distorted. He said that in forty-five years of teaching he had not spoken a single word, and that after his death his disciples should not set down his words in writing. But his disciples did not listen to him -- humanity cannot get rid of this bad habit of always needing to find an authority, a great master. He said that later, two thousand years after his death, it would become the age of the decline of the Dharma. He divided time into periods of five hundred years each, and the final five hundred years would reach the age of the decline of the Dharma. Why? Because language and writing will inevitably distort and misinterpret, producing many misunderstandings. No one can understand the true meaning, and everything falls into chaos. And people also fight among themselves -- not only do different religions fight each other, but within the same religion, Buddhism, for example, people also fight each other, this school against that sect, fighting to the death.

A Reaction Against Evolution

Speaking of Christian fundamentalists -- this was being discussed in 1978, and it had already been on the rise for some time. Islam calls this approach fundamentalism. What does it mean? Completely following the literal words of the Bible, or the New Testament and Old Testament, allowing no interpretation or development whatsoever, not changing a single bit. Christianity calls it fundamentalism, Islam calls it fundamentalism -- they mean the same thing.

They are a kind of reaction against the theory of evolution.

He says this is a reaction against the theory of evolution over the last few decades. When Seth was being transmitted through Jane in 1978, evolution was still mainstream science; no one was opposing it. Of course there were some dissenting voices, but they could not become mainstream. Unlike now, when evolution has completely disappeared from the mainstream.

So then you had an overcompensation -- it went too far in the other direction.

Because in the Darwinian world, the world is meaningless and without order; survival of the fittest is the only law, and there is no standard of right and wrong. The purpose of humanity, the purpose of existence, is only one thing: reproduce, reproduce, and reproduce again, so that the human species adapts to nature and ultimately becomes the largest species on earth. That is the view of evolution.

So then, fundamentalism returned to an authoritarian religion, in which even the most minute behavior was necessarily regulated, allowing emotions to be vented, and thus rebelling against scientific rationalism.

Evolution holds that the world is meaningless, without right or wrong, without good or bad; whereas fundamentalist Christianity holds that everything has right and wrong, everything has good and bad, and every smallest action has right and wrong. This is somewhat like the Vinaya school in Buddhism, which takes the precepts as its practice. Even now there is a faction that insists: if you cannot even uphold the precepts, then what are you talking about in terms of spiritual practice? If you cannot even observe the precepts, what are you talking to me about spiritual practice? Pure nonsense -- do not defile the word "spiritual practice." They will also say: the Buddha said, precepts, concentration, wisdom -- first precepts, then concentration, and only then can you attain wisdom. If you cannot even keep the precepts, how can you attain wisdom? That is their line of reasoning.

They will once again view the world in terms of black and white.

In many periods of human history, black and white were clearly distinguished; things were either black or white, and good and evil were depicted in the simplest possible way.

Thereby escaping a slippery world.

What is meant by a slippery world? The people who believe in fundamentalism do not want this world to be smooth and slippery; they want the world to be black and white, clear and distinct, either right or wrong, either good or bad, either virtuous or evil, with no neutral zone or gray area. Because in such a slippery world, they cannot keep their footing; they cannot hold themselves steady. When you tell them that something is neither good nor bad, they collapse. If you say eating vegetarian is fine and eating meat is also fine, they collapse -- they absolutely must distinguish a right and wrong for you.

Unfortunately, fundamentalists interpret intuitive reality literally rather than following its spirit, so that they further narrow the channels through which the psyche's abilities flow.

They also speak of intuition and also speak of spiritual practice, but their understanding of intuition is stuck on the literal level, so not only do they fail to broaden the channels of spiritual ability, they actually make them narrower and narrower.

During this period, the fundamentalist framework, though filled with fervor.

Whenever you come into contact with people from these sects, their enthusiasm is absolutely high. Not only Islamic fundamentalists and Christian ones -- in Buddhism there are also the original Buddhism school and the forest monastery school, which insist on strictly following the earliest Buddhist scriptures in their most original form. Every religion has this kind of group that adheres to the original teachings. Their fervor is very high, but it is not rich -- too narrow, too parochial, only recognizing this one rigid truth. It is not like the Christianity of the past, which had many saints; now there are fewer and fewer.

Rather, it is a blindly believing, puritanical tendency.

They really are self-disciplined -- they do not just demand it of you, they do it themselves. But they are blindly believing -- blind faith. He says this fundamentalism is unique to Americans. Actually other countries have it too, but America is relatively open about religious belief, so this faction can establish its own denominations and attract many followers. In other places, like Europe, I suspect they would have no room to survive -- they would not be so tolerant as to allow them to set up their own denominations.

It is restrictive rather than expansive.

It is not expansive or constructive in itself; it is restrictive. Because emotional outbursts are very strictly structured. In these churches, emotions are very strictly controlled -- under what circumstances you can do what, and under what circumstances emotions cannot be casually expressed. In most areas of life, emotions are restricted. Is this not very similar to many aspects of Buddhism? They consider emotions to be bad, to be endured, and they even make it into a special skill called "forbearance." When you have a temper, the master tells you to practice forbearance. You practice until you become a "ninja turtle," indifferent to everything -- even if you are cuckolded you do not get angry, you just face it with a smile. How is that possible? Is it not a way of operating that goes against human nature?

Only under certain circumstances is an explosive religious expression permitted.

Think again about the terrorism in Islam -- when they promote their doctrine through suicide, is that not an explosive religious expression? Many extremist Islamic organizations are fundamentalists -- normally all emotions cannot be expressed, this is not allowed and that is not allowed, and finally there is one big explosion. Many people do not understand why these people would blow themselves up, turning themselves into human bombs. It is because normally they have no opportunity to erupt. Then the religious leader tells them that doing this is the greatest devotion to the religion, giving them a grand title, and since their emotions are normally suppressed, at this moment there is an opportunity to erupt -- just thinking about it makes them excited, just thinking about it makes them thrilled.

At such times, those emotions are not expressed naturally, but rather burst forth like a suddenly released dam of repressed feeling.

Seth explains this very thoroughly.

Imagination Always Seeks Expression

Imagination always seeks expression.

You must remember this sentence. What does it mean that imagination always seeks expression? It means imagination always wants to manifest its content. When I say manifest, I mean in the physical world, but it can also manifest in the nonphysical world -- in dreams, in the mind. It is always the most creative.

Let me give a simpler example: you certainly have an imagination about your significant other. You imagine him as a prince on a white horse, and then you project that onto a specific person -- that is an expression, a concretization of your expression of love.

Beneath the social framework, it provides fresh incentive and new avenues of achievement.

Our entire society's incentive mechanisms, reward mechanisms, and driving mechanisms are all created by the expression of imagination. Thinking of something and wanting to express it -- that is the driving force of social structure.

Both can be utilized through fanatical belief.

"Fresh incentive" and "new avenues of achievement" -- both of these aspects can be utilized by fanatical belief. Fanatical belief here includes many things, including religious ones, and even patriotism. If you are not careful, patriotism turns into nationalism -- and remember, both patriotism and nationalism are not good words. Under the banner of patriotism, people are actually being utilized by fanatical belief. I will not give examples; there are too many.

Let me give an uncontroversial example: in Germany during World War I and World War II, was not every person filled with patriotic fervor? During Japan's militarist period, every young person was ready to shed blood, and Japan had the most suicide squads. What were they doing? They were being utilized by fanatical belief. Why were they utilized? Because their imagination needed expression. And the way imagination expressed itself was through fresh incentive -- actually not fresh, but it gave them the feeling of being fresh; and also a new avenue of achievement: for example, you do not need to study to a very high level, you just need to strap yourself with a human bomb, blow up yourself and those devils, and you can directly ascend to heaven and enter paradise -- is that not a new avenue of achievement?

So from history until today, many people are easily utilized by fanatical belief. But does society allow fanatics to utilize people this way? No, no country and no government allows it. Except when a country wants to achieve its own goals and wants to stir up a kind of fanaticism -- has that happened in history? It has, has it not? Germany was exactly that, and Japan was exactly that. This kind of fanaticism is sometimes suppressed by the government, and sometimes stirred up by the government. But what is the final result? Violence appears, either way.

If you look for signs of God's vengeance, you can find them anytime and anywhere.

If you say God is taking revenge on humanity, you will find that earthquakes, avalanches, and floods are all God's revenge. You do not see them as natural actions of nature's creativity; you treat them as God's punishment for sin. Including the current pandemic, there is still a mainstream group of people who believe this is God's punishment on humanity -- this view is fundamentally wrong. That is a natural action of nature, with no meaning of punishment in it.

Evolution Has Nothing to Do with Morality

But in the theory of evolution, human nature is amoral; for the sake of survival, the entire species will stop at nothing to ensure its own continuation and reproduction.

In some very remote and backward places, you find situations where three brothers marry one wife. Of course it is because they are too poor to afford separate wives, but think about it -- this in itself violates common human ethics. Why would it be accepted in such a conservative, closed-off, unenlightened place? In the West there is actually a specific term for this kind of relationship, a whole school of thought, called open relationships or polyamory. This should not arise in very backward, closed-off places; it should arise in places where civilization is extremely advanced. Indeed, the more open-minded a society is, the more common this phenomenon becomes. But in a very backward mountain village, why would it be permitted?

Poverty is only one aspect; no matter how poor people are, there is still a moral bottom line. Seth tells you, and the theory of evolution tells you as well: because at this point there is no moral issue; it is amoral. He is reproducing, having children. Under the great premise of reproduction, for the sake of survival, morality can be set aside. The more remote and backward a place is, the more it holds to one principle: living is for the purpose of producing offspring and carrying on the family line. That is the sole goal of such a backward region. Now you can explain it all, can you not?

Fundamentalists, on the other hand, prefer to believe in the innate sinful nature of humanity, because at least their belief system provides a structure through which he can be saved.

Fundamentalists believe that people are born evil, with original sin. But they are not afraid, because they feel there is a way to redemption -- believe in God and gain eternal life. So it provides a framework they can rely on.

However, the most original message of Christ, what he conveyed, was that every person is naturally good by nature.

Remember this: what did Christ originally convey? That people are born good, and moreover, that each person is a deified individual, a part of the deified individual. Divinity is a relatively abstract, unified concept; once it is individualized, each person's unique personality is added to it, and it manifests in every individual.

But humanity has never attempted to build a civilization based on that premise.

This is the key point. If we humans want to establish a new civilization, that civilization must be built on this premise: that human nature is inherently good, and that we are a part of the deified whole. Only a civilization built on such principles is in line with human development. But unfortunately, from the birth of civilization to the present day, humanity has never established a civilization based on this idea -- including your current civilization.

So this is why we promote the Seth material, why we transmit these correct and rational things. The Buddha taught for forty-five years, and later Christ came back to speak as well, and various people throughout history have also been speaking. Why? They have always been trying to build a civilization on such a foundation.

The vast social structure of Christianity was not only not built on this foundation; on the contrary, it was built upon the sinful nature of humanity.

Christianity, in essence, appears to be a civilization that encourages people toward goodness, but from the larger perspective of the development of human civilization, it has actually hindered the progress of human civilization, because it is built upon the idea that people are innately sinful.

Those organizations and structures cannot make people better, nor do they recognize what Christ saw so clearly: the inherent goodness that people already possess.

Those church organizations not only failed to promote the development of human civilization, they actually went in the opposite direction -- because they got it wrong: they believed people are born sinful. Nor did they make people better; instead, they overlooked what Christ saw so clearly: "the inherent goodness that people already possess."

Blasphemy

When you encounter the opposite at every turn.

What does "the opposite" mean? I tell you human nature is fundamentally good, yet all you see is evil -- the TV news, the media, the movies: so-and-so broke into a house and robbed it, so-and-so killed several people. And then if I say again that human nature is fundamentally good, that would almost be blasphemy against the divine. Because the divine says human nature is fundamentally good, yet people have not shown goodness -- it is all evil -- so would that not be blaspheming the divine?

Because people too often display what seems to be the motivation of a born killer.

People are born wanting to kill this and kill that, resorting to violent action at the slightest provocation, so you start to wonder: did the divine get it wrong?

And then you are taught not to trust the original face of your own existence.

Is our original face good? But you are taught not to believe that you are originally good.

If you believe you are innately lowly or innately flawed, then you cannot expect yourself to consistently carry out rational, altruistic actions.

Because you humans have always been taught that people simply cannot be good -- look at the world, this and this and this. And then you are taught: people are evil, and if a person does not look out for himself, heaven and earth will destroy him -- an old Chinese saying that gets quoted often, as if heaven itself would not tolerate a person who does not look out for himself, and if you go do altruistic things, heaven will take you out.

Seth says, if you believe that, then you cannot possibly carry out rational or altruistic actions. You cannot expect yourself to consistently carry out rational and altruistic behavior. "Consistently" means not doing a good deed once in a while -- everyone has a shining side -- but continuously carrying out rational and altruistic behavior. So this is why Christianity played a negative role in the development of human civilization -- right here: it taught people that human nature is sinful.

You Are the Part of Nature That Has Learned to Make Choices

As for you, you are that part of nature that has learned to make choices.

What this passage means is this: human beings are a special species within nature that has already learned how to make choices for themselves. What sets you apart from other species is that you have dreams, you have beliefs, you have aspirations, and you can also organize your reality around your dreams and beliefs by using your imagination. This is what distinguishes human beings from other species within nature.

There are many effects you do not like, but you possess a unique kind of consciousness in which each individual has a hand in the overall formation of the world's reality, and you all participate in this at one level of existence. At one level of existence, in which you are learning how to transform the imaginative realm of infinite possibilities into a clearly defined world that is concretely experienced.

What does "effects you do not like" mean? When you transform dreams and beliefs into your reality, there are not only good results but also bad ones. What do the bad ones refer to? When you are exploited by fanatical beliefs, is that not bad? That is also using your imagination, also seeking the expression of imagination -- but it has been exploited. There are some effects you do not like, such as World War II, which is one of them.

But we possess a unique kind of consciousness, and at this level of consciousness, we participate in the creation of the overall reality of the entire world -- that is, each of us participates in the creation of the world at the level of Framework 2, and at the same time, in this world of Framework 1, we actually experience the results of that creation, and then we bring that feedback back into Framework 2 to carry out new creation.

Do you understand this? Creation happens in Framework 2, and experience happens in Framework 1 -- you must not misunderstand this. Framework 1 is not the level of creation; creation definitely takes place in Framework 2. Framework 1 is the place where you come to experience the results and the process of creation. But do not interpret this as "not creating means not acting" -- those are two completely different things. Why?

Because your actions in the three-dimensional world -- the things you do, the work you carry out -- that action itself is already the result of Framework 2 manifesting in Framework 1. Do not say, "I do not want to create anymore, so I will not do anything, I will just sit here and dream" -- no, you must act. But you need to understand that your action is not the cause that ultimately produces the thing you want. It is not because you acted that you get that result; it is because you had imagination, and you have already created it in Framework 2. In Framework 1, this action is simply the necessary movements and steps you must go through to reach that result, and it is already the result from Framework 2. You simply have to do these things.

To put it more bluntly: for example, in Framework 2 you say, I want to become a millionaire. Fine, Framework 2 has already realized it for you -- becoming a millionaire takes 49 days and requires you to do 108 things. These 108 things have already been constructed for you in Framework 2, and you just have to do them in Framework 1. You say, if I do not do these 108 things, can I still become a millionaire? Sorry, no. Because these 108 things and becoming a millionaire are one and the same thing; they are part of the entire process. You cannot say, I only want the money at the end and not the process. That will not work.

You do not know specifically how to act, so just follow your present impulses, your present joy, your present logical thinking, and whatever your brain tells you should be done -- just go do it. The thing you do, that action of yours, is already the result of Framework 2. Just do it happily, and do not judge in the middle what result this action will bring. All you need is the firmest belief in the final outcome. That is enough.

Choosing from Infinite Possibilities

So in a certain way, you choose from an infinite, inexhaustible, incalculable number of concepts, and then you sculpt these into physical fragments to form normal experience.

You choose what you want from an inexhaustible matrix of possibilities, and then you sculpt it into fragments of the physical world — this is how you ordinarily go about things, and this is how your life and our world are formed, except you don't know it and haven't noticed it.

So that the timeless event is then experienced in time.

On the level of Framework 2, the event itself has no temporality. The event of you becoming a millionaire has no temporality — it could come true the very next second, or it could be impossible for ten thousand years; to Framework 2, that makes no difference. It all depends on how you choose to place it within time and experience it. If you never choose it, then in your timeline it can never happen.

And therefore, they are mixed together to fit the dimension of your reality.

Those events without temporal attributes, once you choose to pull them into Framework 1 and place them on a timeline, require mixing. Because in Framework 2 there is no timeline — they all happen simultaneously and overlap one another; but in Framework 1 there is time, there is a sequence of before and after, and you cannot make them all happen at once. Which one happens first and which one happens later — that is a kind of mixing, or perhaps "arranging" would be a better word. This mixing and arranging is what constitutes the dimension of our reality.

It is equivalent to saying that you build from an inexhaustible infinity of possibilities the materials you want to manifest in the physical world, and then after you arrange them according to your understanding and the order of time, they form your world, your reality.

In this process, you will have some achievements, and they are as precious as the achievements any kind of creature can produce.

This time he emphasizes: don't think you are superior. Other creatures in Framework 2 also create their own reality through their own imagination, and in terms of nature, you are not any nobler than they are. It is true that in ability you are stronger than them, but in nature it is the same.

And then there are also great failures, but this is because the shining inner knowledge of the imagination suggests those ideals to you, and by comparison, your actions seem to be failures.

"Seem to be failures" — you hold a lofty ideal in your heart, and when you compare that ideal with reality, you feel that you have failed. This failure is an apparent failure. If you can look at it from a higher perspective, is this failure a necessary path toward your ultimate ideal? If it is, then it is not failure.

What you pursue are those ideals, those results — so before the day they are realized, is your entire life a failure? Your apparent failure is because you focus on the ideal rather than on the process of realizing the ideal. If what you focus on is not those ideals but the process of realizing them, then there is no failure to speak of — you are succeeding all along.

Those ideals exist within every person, and they are natural tendencies toward growth and fulfillment.

Within every person there is an inner ideal — a tendency that always moves toward the constructive, toward the better, toward a greater good. That ideal is oriented toward growth, toward completion, toward achievement itself; it is a natural tendency. It will ultimately bring you to that state of completion, and it can certainly bring you to the state of value fulfillment. It inherently carries such a tendency.

The Finishing Touch of This Chapter

The dictation for this chapter ends here. At the end, Rob added a supplement. He said he thought this brilliant content that Seth gave after the break was largely related to some material Seth had given in Session 825:

Because of your misunderstanding of the nature of good and evil, I have put the word "good" in quotation marks for now, but we will discuss that point later.

What Seth was saying is this: Framework 2 itself is not neutral. It carries a clear inclination -- an inclination toward a kind of completion, toward something creative rather than destructive, toward a greater good. He put this "good" in quotation marks because that good is not the good as you humans currently understand good and evil. Rob thought that this final passage was actually explaining what the nature of that good is from the perspective of Framework 2. So Seth used Christian viewpoints, fundamentalist viewpoints, and elaborated a great deal on the roles of Framework 2 and Framework 1, imagination, our lives, and future development.

This session is the final finishing touch. If you truly understand this session, then your life will be different from then on -- it is as simple as that.

---

注释与核实

1. This claim could not be verified. ↩

2. Source: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, "The Milky Way Contains at Least 100 Billion Planets According to Survey," 2012 (https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/the-milky-way-contains-at-least-100-billion-planets-according-to-survey/) ↩

3. Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "The Uncertainty Principle" (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/) ↩

4. According to Mike's original words, "the complementarity principle was proposed by Bohr in 1928"; upon verification, it should read: "Bohr first publicly proposed the complementarity principle in his lecture 'The Quantum Postulate and the Recent Development of Atomic Theory' at the Como Conference in Italy in September 1927 (the paper was not published in Nature until 1928)." (Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/) ↩

5. This claim could not be verified. ↩

6. According to Mike's original words, it was "Physical Reality Is Constructed by Concepts"; upon verification, it should read: "Jane Roberts's manuscript is titled 'The Physical Universe as Idea Construction' (translated as 'The Physical Universe Is Constructed by Ideas'), not 'Physical Reality Is Constructed by Concepts.'" (Source: Yale University Library, "Guide to the Jane Roberts Papers," https://ead-pdfs.library.yale.edu/4482.pdf) ↩ ↩²

7. According to Mike's original words, it was "Cell Factory"; upon verification, it should read: "This Japanese anime that anthropomorphizes human cells is titled 'Cells at Work!' (original Japanese title 'Hataraku Saibō,' original manga by Akane Shimizu), not 'Cell Factory.'" (Source: Wikipedia, "Cells at Work!," https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B7%A5%E4%BD%9C%E7%B4%B0%E8%83%9E) ↩

8. This claim could not be verified. ↩

9. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "William James | Life, Books, Psychology, Contribution, & Facts" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-James) ↩ ↩²

10. This claim could not be verified. ↩

11. This claim could not be verified. ↩

12. According to Mike's original words, it "only accounts for one-tenth of the brain's nerves"; upon verification, it should read: "The enteric nervous system contains about 200 to 600 million neurons, roughly one two-hundredth of the number of neurons in the human brain (not one-tenth)." (Source: Queensland Brain Institute (University of Queensland), "Enteric nervous system," https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain/brain-anatomy/peripheral-nervous-system/enteric-nervous-system) ↩

13. This claim could not be verified. ↩

14. Source: Wikipedia, "Diamond Sutra" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%87%91%E5%89%9B%E7%B6%93) ↩

15. This claim could not be verified. ↩

16. According to Mike's original words, "the Daodejing ends by saying, 'Humans follow Earth, Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows the Way, and the Way follows Nature'"; upon verification, it should read: "'Humans follow Earth, Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows the Way, and the Way follows Nature' appears in Chapter 25 of the Daodejing, and is not the end of the entire book; the Daodejing has 81 chapters in total, and the final chapter is Chapter 81." (Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Laozi," https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laozi/) ↩

17. Source: Wikipedia, "Bibliography of Jane Roberts" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_Jane_Roberts) ↩

18. Source: Vukasović & Bratko, "Heritability of Personality: A Meta-Analysis of Behavior Genetic Studies," Psychological Bulletin (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25961374/) ↩

19. This claim could not be verified. ↩

20. Source: National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China, "In 2025 the National Population Total Was 1,404.89 Million, and High-Quality Population Development Continued to Advance" (https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/sjjd/202601/t20260119_1962338.html) ↩

21. This claim could not be verified. ↩

22. This claim could not be verified. ↩

23. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Buddhism" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism) ↩

24. This claim could not be verified. ↩

25. This claim could not be verified. ↩

26. Source: Wikipedia, "Peng Zu" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peng_Zu) ↩

27. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Methuselah" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Methuselah) ↩

28. This claim could not be verified. ↩

29. This claim could not be verified. ↩

30. Source: Wikipedia, "Mahābhūta" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah%C4%81bh%C5%ABta) ↩

31. Source: University of Alaska Fairbanks, "HAARP research attracts conspiracies, misunderstandings" (https://news.uaf.edu/haarp-research-attracts-conspiracies-misunderstandings/) ↩

32. According to Mike's original words, it was "that Jacky Cheung song 'Breaking Up Always on a Rainy Day'"; upon verification, it should read: "The correct title of Jacky Cheung's song is 'Breaking Up on a Rainy Day' (not 'Breaking Up Always on a Rainy Day'), included on the 1992 album 'True Love Expression.'" (Source: Wikipedia, "Breaking Up on a Rainy Day," https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E5%88%86%E6%89%8B%E6%80%BB%E8%A6%81%E5%9C%A8%E9%9B%A8%E5%A4%A9) ↩

33. Source: Wikipedia, "1st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_National_Congress_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party) ↩

34. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Chinese Communist Party (CCP)" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-Communist-Party) ↩ ↩²

35. According to Mike's original words, "the Mayflower was at that place in Rhode Island"; upon verification, it should read: "The Mayflower first arrived in 1620 at present-day Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and anchored in Provincetown Harbor; the passengers later established a settlement at Plymouth, Massachusetts, not Rhode Island." (Source: National Park Service, "Pilgrims," https://www.nps.gov/caco/learn/historyculture/pilgrims.htm) ↩

36. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Mayflower Compact" (https://britannica.com/topic/Mayflower-Compact) ↩ ↩²

37. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "American colonies" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-colonies) ↩ ↩²

38. This claim could not be verified. ↩

39. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "History of early Christianity" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-early-Christianity) ↩

40. According to Mike's original words, "the incidence of thyroid cancer is very high because iodine intake is too high, especially in mainland China"; upon verification, it should read: "The incidence of thyroid cancer in mainland China has risen rapidly in recent years, but this cannot be attributed to excessive iodine intake; the iodine nutrition of the national population is generally adequate, there is no positive correlation between iodized salt consumption and thyroid cancer incidence, and the rising incidence is closely related to advances in diagnostic technology and overdiagnosis." (Source: National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China, "Common Questions and Answers on the Prevention and Treatment of Iodine Deficiency Disorders," https://www.nhc.gov.cn/jkj/c100062/201705/dfe49f6f7d9c44edb3d5e2ab224be90f.shtml) ↩

41. According to Mike's original words, "for roughly several decades, in mainland China you could not buy salt without iodine, salt without iodine was not allowed to be sold, all salt was iodized, because the salt industry was monopolized"; upon verification, it should read: "Not all table salt in mainland China is uniformly iodized: the regulations implemented in 1994 provided that high-iodine areas were not subject to universal supply of iodized salt, and people who could not consume iodized salt for medical reasons could also buy non-iodized salt from designated units with a medical institution certificate." (Source: State Council of the People's Republic of China, "Regulations on Iodized Salt to Eliminate Iodine Deficiency Disorders" (1994), https://www.samr.gov.cn/zw/zfxxgk/fdzdgknr/bgt/art/2023/art_ccd29fa1db274edd9fbb5bf25efa0a72.html) ↩

42. Source: NPR, "New York Archdiocese Names 120 Clergy 'Credibly Accused' Of Child Sex Abuse" (2019) (https://www.npr.org/2019/04/27/717798215/archdiocese-of-new-york-names-120-clergy-credibly-accused-of-child-sex-abuse) ↩

43. Source: Westchester County Grand Jury, "Report of the April 'E'Westchester County Grand Jury Concerning Complaints of Sexual Abuse and Misconduct against Minors by Members of the Clergy," 2002 (https://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2002_06_19_Westchester_NY_Grand_Jury/) ↩

44. This claim could not be verified. ↩

45. This claim could not be verified. ↩

46. This claim could not be verified. ↩

47. This claim could not be verified. ↩

48. This claim could not be verified. ↩

49. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Origin of Species" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Origin-of-Species) ↩