Mike's commentary · The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 13

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

Guide

This chapter lists three sets of belief systems concerning grace and the loss of grace, involving oppositions such as Christian/white/wealthy/healthy, Eastern/poor/brown-skinned/spiritual, and young versus old. This chapter points out that these beliefs about good and evil, black and white, and age influence individual behavior and social activity, and rationalize racial and religious prejudice; it also discusses how old age is mistakenly regarded as decline, when in fact it is a period of accelerated spiritual and psychic development, and suggests using short sleep and segmented sleep to integrate consciousness and the unconscious, changing the fear of dreams, the unconscious, race, and death.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Three sets of belief systems respectively regard Christians, white people, the wealthy, and the healthy; Easterners, the poor, brown-skinned people, and the spiritual; and the young as states of grace, while their opposites are seen as having lost grace.
• These beliefs about good and evil, black and white, and age influence individual behavior and social activities, and allow racial, religious, and class prejudices to be rationalized.
• Old age is not simply decline, but a period of accelerated spirit and psyche, of emerging creativity, yet existing belief systems deny this.
• Shortening and segmenting sleep helps integrate the conscious and the unconscious, and changes the fear of dreams, the unconscious, race, old age, and death.
• The repression of the unconscious, sexuality, emotions, and so forth is projected onto other races, faiths, or groups, creating social and individual conflicts.

Main Text

Three Charts

At the very beginning, Seth had Rob draw three charts. The first chart on the left is the "state of grace": health, possessing wealth, white, Christian -- in certain societies this is the state of grace. The state of being out of grace corresponds to it, namely illness, poverty, black, non-Christian.

Then in another society, Indians or Easterners are a state of grace; this kind of poor person, but a poor person with integrity, is considered a state of grace; brown skin, great mystical thought, an understanding of the cosmic nature -- these are all states of grace. In this society, they consider some Americans and even Westerners to be embarrassed tycoons, people so poor that all they have left is money; their white skin, cold and unfeeling, rich but unkind, lacking in spiritual understanding and disintegrating.

He listed two charts for comparison, under different states of grace. This is actually the opening of Chapter 13, giving everyone a simple comparison.

The third chart, on the left the state of grace refers to being young, having intuitive understanding, having knowledge, having beauty, having comprehension, full of physical energy, a future full of hope -- these can all be regarded as a state of grace. This one actually already crosses the boundaries of race, nation, and culture, and is more comprehensive. Because the two obvious examples just now were certainly two completely different societies, completely different cultural backgrounds, for there to be these two completely different beliefs about grace and the loss of grace.

And the belief system below this one crosses the distinctions of culture and race. The loss of grace is being old: very advanced in age, rigid, spiritual and psychic ignorance; being too worldly is itself also ignorance; and being ugly, faded with age; the disintegration of mental power, thinking ability no longer working, the brain not working well anymore, even having amnesia, senile dementia; having lost vitality; and then withered like dead wood and ashes, the future no longer having hope.

Seth said that this chapter will discuss some currently popular beliefs, namely those more popular beliefs just listed, involving your most personal behaviors, and also involving social suggestion. He outlined the broad strokes of many opposite ideas that people hold, all involving concepts of good and evil: beauty and ugliness, young and old, black and white, Christian and non-Christian. These ideas are applied in areas to which they do not belong, and they should not have belonged to them in the first place. But in real life we often impose these opposite ideas onto our own beliefs.

He said this chart will make some of the contrasts clearer; he just wanted to lay out these beliefs clearly before beginning the next chapter.

Stereos, Watches, and Economic Improvement

This session began on Thursday evening, March 22, 1973¹, and it started rather late, because Rob and Jane had bought a high-quality stereo system the day before. You can see that by 1973 they already had a stereo system. I remember when I was little, in China it was around the mid-to-late eighties, around 1985 or 1986, that stereo systems like this first started appearing. Yet in 1973, they were already fiddling around with these stereos. Jane wanted this stereo for her Sumari, she was singing Sumari songs and wanted to record them.

While they were in the store buying the stereo, Rob impulsively bought a watch. That watch could not only tell the time, it could also show the date. For some reason, he found the date-display feature very interesting. By this time Rob was probably already close to fifty-something — Jane was about ten years younger than him, and she was already in her thirties when she began speaking for Seth; by now they had been doing this for ten years, from '63 to '73, so Rob would have been in his early fifties. But think about it: Rob was in his early fifties before he bought a watch that could display the date. By today's standards, a watch showing the date is completely ordinary, but in the seventies there were no quartz watches yet, they were all mechanical watches, and mechanical watches with a calendar were not very common, and they were not cheap. So you can see that by this time Rob and Jane's financial situation had already begun to improve. In the later period they even started buying a house; before that he had always rented an apartment-style place with Jane. Now, through this simple description, you can tell that their financial condition was getting better.

Seth came through and joked, saying, I am glad that now you can know the date just by looking at your watch. He said you will be using that stereo system often — right now you have not yet thought of what you will use it for.

The First Group of Belief Systems

These simple charts merely represent some common beliefs as seen from the standpoint of moral values. Your ideas of good and evil not only affect how you behave with others, but also affect activities in your community and in the world. Our values of good and evil, these common beliefs based on moral-value judgments, not only influence how we deal with the people around us, but even influence the activities of the entire world.

In the first chart, many people believe that being a Christian, white, wealthy, and in excellent health are all good, and in themselves carry a sense of moral superiority. Now although the word "male" does not appear in the chart, in a patriarchal society, being male itself also carries a certain advantage.

People look at the world through this belief system. If you believe those beliefs, if you accept those beliefs, you will feel that those characteristics are given by God -- because the premise is that you are a Christian. According to the intensity of the ideas you cling to, you will find that they envelop you. The more attached you are to these beliefs, the more they will envelop you.

Session 650

Because in a very limited way, they will define your idea of the good.

Here translating it as "goodness" is not quite right; it should be "good," good versus bad.

People who hold this kind of belief are often those with what is called strong "religious sentiment." In China it may be more common among Buddhists, and Christianity also has them; in Western societies Christianity has a great many of them. They consider themselves to have religious sentiment, and may even feel they are a cut above others -- because they have come to save you, and you are the one in need of saving.

A nation that emphasizes similar beliefs will send missionaries, evangelists, to convert those heathens to Christianity.

The so-called heathens are, in his view, those who are inferior. So it is obvious that even now, many Western societies still send large numbers of missionaries to various parts of the world they consider backward, including in the past when they went to China, preaching there in the late Qing period. Even today there are some Koreans who are more radical, sending people to Pakistan, Afghanistan -- countries where Islam is the state religion -- to proselytize. We often see news reports of Koreans preaching in Afghanistan being seized, executed, or sentenced by local people or religious organizations. So you can imagine how brave, how fierce these Christian missionaries are.

He says that people with this kind of feeling are very uncomfortable when they are around people of different races, faiths, or skin colors. When dealing with community affairs and such matters, although they ought to be warm-hearted and friendly, they are instead very stubborn and conservative.

They regard poverty as a sign of not having found favor with God.

They develop a tendency to think that if you are poor, it is only right, that you have not found favor with God, and that this is not their problem. They take a hands-off attitude toward such matters, leaving God to deal with them. They seem to speak of other people's difficulties with sympathy, while at the same time believing that those difficulties exist because those people are naturally lowly.

Seth here exposes them without mercy: in the course of their missionary work, within their parishes they ought to be serving the local people with zeal, but deep down they look down on the locals, thinking that the reason these people suffer poverty is that they are naturally lowly and have not received God's favor. They think this is something God should handle, and they consider themselves the group favored by God. But if you look down on people, why go help them and preach to them?

These people may be of any age, and may come from any economic background. Now if you happen to be a Christian, and male, white, American, wealthy, and healthy, then by these standards, at least within your own framework of belief, you can look at yourself with a "guiltless" gaze, feeling that your life is already complete and your foundation is already very good. However:

Your foundation is indeed very unstable.

But at least for the time being you rest upon this foundation -- you will feel very comfortable, and under such a social positioning, you will feel that your persona is already very good.

He says, you will notice that he has added Christians and Americans to this value system; these two were not there before. If you hold such a set of beliefs and still fall short in some way, then you have a problem. For example, some of these components carry more emotional weight than others. For instance, a Catholic or a Jew who holds such beliefs, although somewhat out of place -- they are also American, also male, also white, but they are not Protestant Christians. So when they compare themselves with those who fully meet the criteria, they will feel a sense of guilt -- provided they have accepted the belief system above.

A black person who accepts the same beliefs, now that is a real problem, with even more points of incongruity. If he also happens to be poor, then he is in double danger -- he is both black and poor; although he is also a Christian, he is still poor. Poverty, illness to a certain degree, or even being female, holding non-Christian ideas, or belonging to a non-white race -- not necessarily black, even Asian or people of other skin colors -- will all be considered wrong.

In a country or society dominated by such a belief system, these problems are bound to arise. If other, different, opposing beliefs intrude, they will be regarded as a threat. So racial issues and religious conflicts will be justified from the standpoint of these beliefs. This racial issue is the idea of white supremacy, white priority -- because it is supported by such a belief system, they think it is reasonable. This session that Seth taught happens to fit very well with the current state of American society today -- there are very serious racial problems right now. We can see how Seth analyzes their condition: these people, because of their own belief system, have made these racial issues seem justified. There should be no racial discrimination, but they rationalize it; still less should there be religious discrimination, but such religious conflicts do exist, and in many Christian denominations other faiths are regarded as cults that should be banned.

Using the Idea of Reincarnation to Rationalize Prejudice

Some of my readers may think of themselves as very open-minded; for example, they believe that reincarnation consists of a series of lives. However:

They use that idea to rationalize the belief that other races are inferior.

Logically speaking, someone who believes in reincarnation ought to be a fairly open-minded person, yet on this point he is still stubborn. Seth said before that you have actually been all kinds of races, you have become them all, and that is why you can have all kinds of complete experiences. But in this life you may be white, and perhaps in the next life you will be black, so you should not have racial discrimination in this regard, and yet that is not the case. A person who holds such beliefs will use his own beliefs to rationalize everything within reincarnation, believing that his own race is superior to others.

They may say that since a person chooses his own problems in this life -- for example, being born black, or poor, or both -- then "karma" is at work. So such problems should not be adjusted by changing laws or customs.

He thinks that since you had the courage to take on the challenge of being born black in this reincarnation, and what is more, you may happen to be poor or even ill, then that is something you yourself need to do, and it is your karma that made the decision. So this problem should not be addressed by changing laws, or by changing everyone's beliefs and saying there should be no discrimination; instead, they should be left to do good deeds themselves, so that in the next life they can be reincarnated as white people.

The Second Belief System

Take another look at the second chart. You will find that in this kind of situation and in this kind of country, people's thinking is relatively more open. But if you understand that they have prejudices in certain respects -- just as the first group is prejudiced in another direction -- then you will find that they are not so open either.

The state of grace on the right is: Indians or Easterners, the proud poor, brown skin, great mystical thought, cosmic understanding. If these are all good, or states of grace, then compared with the left side, you might feel they are more open than the left side, because they accept people of color. But if you analyze it carefully, they are the same as the people in the chart on the left. They have their limitations, and they are not so open either. They simply stand on their own angle and position and think this way. So Americans, white people, and rich people are instead the bad ones, because they lack spirituality, have no thought, and have no soul.

He says:

In the second system, to be white, American, and rich -- even to be economically comfortable -- is wrong.

All the distortions in Christian doctrine are quite apparent here.

The first group turns a blind eye to all the distorted things in Christianity; but in the second group, he takes those unreasonable, relatively simple and childish things in Christianity and blows them up out of all proportion.

Here, however, wealth and white skin are not only bad, but obviously a sign of moral corruption.

If the first belief system sees money and property as God's blessing, then in the second belief system, the possession of material things is taken as evidence of spiritual corruption.

Within these two completely different belief systems, the judgment of wealth is completely opposite.

Here foreign things are romanticized and exalted, as if things in a painting were taken as real.

So black skin and brown skin become the standard of spiritual perfection, and poverty is not only a source of pride, but is often used as a weapon of attack.

How could such a thing happen, how could such a society exist? It does exist. Think about mainland China right after liberation, and even all the way up to the reform and opening-up. People's attitude toward the rich was not at all like it is now. Those rich people were like rats crossing the street, with everyone shouting and beating them. I remember when I was little I often heard this nursery rhyme: "Little leather shoes go clack clack clack, bourgeois stinking thinking²." At that time, if you went out wearing leather shoes, you would be mocked and ridiculed by others. From 1949 all the way to the reform and opening-up in 1978, for a period of more than thirty years in between, all wealth was considered a kind of corrupt, decadent thinking³, while poverty was instead a very noble thing. The poor and lower-middle peasants were a very popular social class at that time, while the bourgeoisie and capitalists were to be overthrown and criticized. Young people living today certainly cannot imagine that such a scene existed in that era. But this farce went on for a full thirty years. It was not like a painting; it was real, and it was taken as real. At that time, people really had their homes searched, were criticized and struggled against, were dealt with, and were sent down to the cowshed.

People who follow this belief system think they are right. Their way of life, their interpersonal relationships in society, and their political leanings are all exactly the opposite of the theories of whiteness, wealth, and health. So Seth lists these two completely opposing belief systems precisely to let us see clearly: how different the belief systems of different societies and different countries are -- completely turned around, completely opposite. From this matter, can you imagine that we who live in these two different worlds also have belief systems that are just as opposed and completely opposite?

Seth uses these two contrasts to actually tell you: first, belief systems are influenced by the larger environment; second, do not take these belief systems too seriously. They are all a kind of human moral and value judgment, somewhat like playing house. Seth is actually implicitly trying to tell you how much these belief systems influence your daily life, yet how ridiculous they are, how easily they can be changed by you -- and yet you take them as real and turn them into something unchangeable.

Now if you happen to be black, brown, or poor, and believe the second belief system, then at least within it you will feel quite safe.

So during the Cultural Revolution, the poor and lower-middle peasants were instead the safest. The poorer you were, the more revolutionary you were; you had red roots and were properly bred⁴. But the children of wealthy families, the capitalists and industrialists, were instead very unsafe within it, and could easily be dragged off to be criticized and struggled against.

Conversely, if you are a rich white person and yet hold such a belief, then you will consider yourself to be really quite inferior.

If you grow up in this place, and you are a white person, you will feel quite inferior. If you hold this kind of belief, then after a long time you will feel that being white is not a good thing. You will magnify all your own weaknesses, and do your utmost to show how exotic you are. For example, after some white people go to Eastern countries and stay for a long time, they have a common characteristic: they assimilate themselves to the local people -- speaking the local language, wearing the local clothing, and following the local customs and habits. They unconsciously identify with the values and belief systems of the local people, and try as much as possible to be like black or brown people. But no matter how you dress up, you are still a white person, and quite wealthy, and perhaps secretly obsessed with your Christianity -- but in this society you dare not say so. And undoubtedly, you will also tastefully display idols and Indian prayer beads. Idols are some local gods or offerings to gods, such as Hinduism, some Chinese Buddha statues, and even pendants of bodhisattvas and Buddhas worn around the neck, and prayer beads worn on the wrist. Even in our society today, we often see this definition of the "middle-aged greasy man": holding a thermos with goji berries soaked inside, wearing a string of Buddhist beads on the wrist, and every day flaunting this kind of Buddhist-style life, flaunting that he has faith. This is an external form, expressing identification with a certain belief and value system.

The Third Belief System: Age

The third chart can cut across the first two systems, and it is mainly organized around age: the young are considered good, and the old are considered bad. Within the first two systems there is a great deal of room, a great deal of space, and age can be added into all of it -- youth can be added to the state of grace, and old age can be placed in the state of non-grace.

He says:

Because all of you, sooner or later, will approach old age.

In your terms, if you are fortunate enough -- if you did not die young, if you did not have an accident -- we will all approach old age.

Many people believe that the present is a time of spiritual and physical decline, a time in which all those hard-won attributes of maturity slowly vanish, and in which the reasoning functions slip away like sand from the mind's grasp.

Our reasoning ability is also disappearing, and we feel that after a person grows old, everything declines in every respect.

If in this third belief system life is seen as good, then youth is regarded as the crowning jewel upon the diadem.

From that peak onward, from adolescence or from early adulthood onward, we are on a downward slope, already merely dragging out a feeble existence. We often say "enjoy one's remaining years in peace" -- another layer of meaning is that there is no more value, so just go downhill, and keep living until death and that is that.

The elderly are no longer given the attributes of wisdom, but are regarded as evil, unpleasant, or frightening. To those people, aging seems to be the natural and inevitable end of life.

Many people who hold such beliefs in their hearts try not to acknowledge it, and we try to act young. In Chapter 11, Session 644, the phenomenon of acting young was discussed. We are unwilling to admit that we are aging, so we desperately try to act young.

Youth and age each have their place.

In your life's journey, each has its important place, and if you shift to looking at the human race as a whole, both play important roles.

You are accustomed to thinking in terms of heredity, from the physical standpoint, and in a different way than you imagine.

Heredity is very important, yet certain worldly experiences depend upon the length of time, and are the result of the mind's long years and experience at play. We often look at problems from the viewpoint of heredity and the physical standpoint, but we forget that our wisdom needs to deal with time over the long term within worldly experience, and that it is a result of playing with experience. To put it simply, the wisdom of our human race is a crystallization within social practice and experience, and these things are what young people do not have, and only old people do, because it requires time, requires long years and play with experience. Seth's wording here is also very good -- it is only when we are playing with experience that this comes about.

There are certain quite natural and definite functions that are set into motion.

He says that when you grow old, certain quite natural and definite functions are set into motion, which your scientists seldom perceive, let alone understand:

When the mind within the body clearly sees that its time on earth is drawing to a close, when you truly grow old, an acceleration of spirit and psyche takes place.

This is a key point. When your wisdom discovers that it will not be long in this world, at that time a very strange thing happens, and our scientists have still not discovered it: your growth in spirit and psyche is accelerating. Physically you may be on a downward slope, but in the growth of spirit and psyche you are accelerating.

This phenomenon in many ways resembles the experience of adolescence. When we grow from the muddled state of childhood, a state somewhat like half-conscious and half-unconscious, into the state of adolescence, when we face society for the first time and begin to establish our own worldview, values, and outlook on life, our spirit and psyche begin their first acceleration. And when we grow old, we begin our second acceleration, yet our ordinary scientists and human beings have not discovered this second acceleration.

There is, therefore, a great surge of creative activity.

At this point in time, precisely when a great surge of creativity arrives, it brings with it many questions -- because one is creating, and in creating one discovers many problems -- and it is preparing for an entirely new personality and growth, preparing for the next incarnation and reincarnation, for the next earthly life. And this is something our human race does not know.

Jane emphasized this with great force, and used many gestures.

Were it not for your present belief systems that force the elderly to interpret their experience through them, this phenomenon would be quite obvious.

Our present human belief system is that old people are no good, that once a person is old they are finished -- wisdom and intellect are finished, reaction ability is finished, vitality is finished, spirituality is finished. We use such a system to force the elderly to interpret their own experience, and therefore we make this phenomenon, which is clearly a spiritual acceleration, invisible to you, and moreover we interpret it in an opposite way.

Many instances of expanded consciousness and of spiritual and psychic growth are often interpreted by you as signs of aging.

For example, old people are often in a daze, cannot distinguish some things clearly, forget some things, and develop amnesia. Even the concept of time regarding the things an old person has experienced is completely scrambled, not following our normal chronological order. This is clearly an expansion of his spirituality or an expansion of his consciousness, yet we call it aging. Even when some of an old person's senses decline -- when hearing, vision, or some other senses decline -- is it not possible that his inner senses are gradually strengthening and opening? But we only see the decline of the outer senses, and do not see the strengthening of the inner senses.

Even some old people sleep very little -- they get up after four or five hours of sleep, sleep when they want to sleep, eat when they want to eat, and this is the living state of old people. Yet we often regard it as bad. Actually, when we sleep less it is very good. In the subjective experience of old people, especially in this condition of aging -- hard of hearing, dim of sight, forgetfulness, unclear memory, scrambled memory, and so on -- there is a very important relationship with the experiences obtained by people of other ages who are involved in expansions of consciousness. Whether it is natural sitting meditation, or drug-induced expansion of consciousness, the symptoms of old people are very similar to that kind of consciousness-expansion experience. If you have contact with some old people, you will find that more or less they all have such characteristics: some auditory hallucinations, some inability to distinguish reality from actuality, some inability to distinguish the boundary between imagination and reality.

Any such feelings are immediately suppressed in the elderly.

This kind of belief in society and the old person's self-perception suppress him. It is clearly an expansion of spirituality or consciousness, yet we judge it as a sign of human aging, so the old person does not dare to strengthen it, and tries his best to avoid it, tries his best to make himself look young, youthful, physically healthy, dressing himself up in the direction of youth.

Such experience, however, affects the right hemisphere of the brain, and releases energy in somewhat the same way that adolescence does.

The right hemisphere is responsible for the intuitive part of our brain. We also have the same state during adolescence -- there is a great deal of creativity, a great deal of energy with nowhere to expend it, so we take actions that from an adult's perspective are unreasonable and extreme. You will find that old people have similar behavior, and are very easily angered. We often say "old child" -- if you have old people at home, you will find that some old people are very easily angered, just like little children: if they are slightly dissatisfied they shout and throw tantrums, and if you give them a little benefit they are extremely happy. You will find that in fact old people have very vigorous energy, not expressed in physical strength, but expressed in spirit. Ancient China discovered this problem long ago, and called old people old children: when a person grows old, many of their behaviors are very similar to a child's behavior.

When the time comes that an individual begins to move beyond worldly life and open levels of awareness, then they are still involved in normal adult life, intensely focused upon the material -- which at this time they are unable to do.

This sentence is very awkward. Let me put it simply: when a person reaches old age, he has already passed the kind of life that takes material existence as its focus, and no longer pursues worldly life so much. He will no longer think of buying a sports car, buying a Ferrari, buying a Lamborghini, and has no interest in living in a huge mansion or a large courtyard. His interests have already gone beyond these things.

I remember a couple of days ago someone mentioned Cai Zhizhong to me -- the Taiwanese cartoonist. The Caigentan, using comics to explain Laozi and Confucius; when I was little I especially loved reading the comics he drew, and I bought his entire set of comic books. Later he went to Hangzhou, and the Hangzhou government gave him a very nice courtyard. At that time he discovered when his creativity was strongest -- he found it was around one or two o'clock in the morning⁵. So every night he went to sleep as soon as it got dark, and got up around one or two in the morning to create, because that was when his creative inspiration was strongest. It is said that the Hangzhou municipal government gave him a very beautiful, very large mansion with a courtyard, said at the time to be nine hundred and twenty-five square meters⁶. In the end Cai Zhizhong said that what he actually used on a daily basis was only four square meters⁷ -- his desk and the arhat bed beside the desk. He said that after he woke up he would create at the desk, and when he was tired he would go to the bed to sleep. He is a person who lives entirely according to this theory of Seth's -- create when awake, sleep when tired, completely unrestricted by worldly time. Such a large house, and I only use four square meters.

What does this mean? It means that when he passed this age, he was no longer affected by worldly temptations and influences. This is precisely the time when his spirituality should grow most easily, yet we define him as old, as useless. In fact this is his best time, because he has already transcended worldly life, and has opened levels of awareness, and has deeper levels. And this is something he could not do when he was young -- when he was involved in normal life, in a materially oriented life. When we are young we all have elders above and children below, and we also want to get ahead, to run companies and do business, and we must establish ourselves in society, so we are certainly materially oriented. This kind of tranquil, detached life can only be achieved at a certain age.

Unfortunately, usually the individual does not have a belief system that can support such an expansion.

Therefore both the physical and the psychological natural healing are denied. The belief system of the whole society does not acknowledge this, and everyone believes that being old is useless. He does not know that he is in a period of rapid spiritual growth and eruption, and at this time his spirituality is very strong, and he could through self-healing adjust his body to a very good state. But because the belief system of society and his own personal belief system both feel that he is already old, already useless, already declining in every respect, he is suppressed, denied, and cannot heal himself.

And at this time our medicines are often used as suppressants, and then they obscure the clarity of what appears to be distorted vision.

Let me give a simple example. Many old people already sleep very little, basically only four or five hours, and this is normal for old people -- because spirituality is awakening, and even if they want to sleep they cannot fall asleep. But at this time what are many old people doing? They have been taught by society that this is not right, that this is a sign of insomnia, and that senile insomnia should be treated with sleeping pills. Many old people are taking sleeping pills, more or less, some severely. Without sleeping pills they cannot fall asleep, and they always want to return to the way they slept when they were young, sleeping eight hours or ten hours at a stretch. When they find they cannot sleep that long, their beliefs tell them this is bad -- if you cannot sleep eight to ten hours, that proves you are already old. So they are forced to take sleeping pills. But after taking sleeping pills, the self-healing function in sleep is gone. Human beings can heal themselves in sleep, but when you take sleeping pills, your entire consciousness is suppressed by the pills, muddled and drowsy. This causes the spiritual clarity you should have had to be completely distorted.

Yet this is one of the most creative and precious aspects of your life.

In your society, the entire social education, social system, and social beliefs tell old people they are useless, and they themselves often think so too. And the experience under such circumstances has not prepared them at all to face subjective experience. They do not have such a mental preparation, nor do they have such a belief system to support them in facing the experience after growing old -- this experience is in fact a phenomenon of rapid spiritual growth, yet it is interpreted in the opposite way as a sign of aging.

There are no teachers to instruct them.

No one tells them that the life of old age is a very creative part.

The connection between old age and childhood is often mentioned in a derogatory fashion.

This is what we call "old child." In this context, it is a derogatory term -- saying that the older this old person gets, the more muddled he becomes, the more unreasonable he becomes. Seth says that in fact the reason old people are like children is that they have creativity just as children do, but we have not discovered it. Many old people after retirement actually burst forth with a "second spring" -- some discover that they have artistic creative ability, and come to like painting, calligraphy, or do things they had no time or energy to do when they were young, and even attend universities for the elderly. Yet it is only after retirement that they discover how strong their abilities are.

Of course I am speaking generally now, because your living conditions have so distorted the natural situation.

Everyone's living conditions are also different, so the distortion of this phenomenon is completely different, and to different degrees.

Even the chemical and hormonal changes that occur are also helpful to psychic growth at that time.

After a person grows old, the secretion of sex hormones declines -- whether male hormones, female hormones, testosterone, or progesterone, all decline. A person's desire for sex becomes somewhat weaker, and this is natural, rather than something you need to suppress through restraint when you are young. It naturally weakens the demand in this respect. At this time it is actually a very good state for spiritual growth: you no longer have too many physical entanglements and attachments, and spiritual growth is a good opportunity. Yet we often do not discover it.

Your belief systems deny the joyful affirmation that the elderly could naturally have.

In this state, although there is not the sexual desire that only young people have, there is another kind of joy. If you go and observe the elderly men and women who do square dancing, you will find that their joy is far greater than the joy of young people. What joy do young people have? Going to work, coming home from work, worried and frowning every day. If you have really observed the elderly men and women doing square dancing, that joy is truly heartfelt joy. Why do they have such great energy and creativity? As Seth said earlier, it expresses itself in another form -- if you do not let them grow spiritually, and do not let them grow creatively, then they release this surplus energy in other ways. Then you can understand why they dance for so long, and why they play such loud speakers at deafening volume: because their energy is too vigorous.

Jane's Reflection and Rob's Father

During the break, Jane said, "This is wonderful." She felt that Seth was getting into something truly good -- a whole new gerontology. Seth's views on the elderly in this session completely overturn current values, opening a new chapter on life in old age. Jane remarked with heartfelt emotion that our society had never even considered such things.

Then Jane and Rob talked about how both of their parents had passed away within the last two years. Rob's father died in '71, but before his death he had lived in a nursing home for three years, diagnosed with senility and a host of geriatric conditions. During that time, he got through the days on large doses of tranquilizers. After hearing what Seth had said, Rob was deeply saddened and full of regret. He wondered whether his father had been deprived of a part of that natural heritage -- the creative aspect of old age -- all of it tranquilized away by sedatives and anesthetics.

Psychedelics, Enlightenment, and Creativity

Seth continued:

In one respect, within your limited frame of reference, the psychedelic experience cannot be explained. This phenomenon of "glimpsing something" is not unexplainable, but simply because your belief systems have given you too many limitations.

This kind of psychedelic experience can be understood as the way elderly people often drift into confusion from time to time, or something similar to the early stages of Alzheimer's, unable to distinguish reality from illusion. He says this state of glimpsing something is not unexplainable, but rather that your beliefs have limited it -- defined it as a disease of old age, a phenomenon of functional decline as one grows old. If you use such beliefs to understand it, then it really does become that.

Therefore, no matter what age, no matter at what time, an opening is very difficult to explain to others.

Including right now, for those listening to this book or reading this book. Many people say: Oh, when I read it, I felt as if I had been enlightened, suddenly everything became clear, and life seemed as if I had awakened. But this state of awakening is very difficult to explain clearly to others. You can only understand it in your own heart, and when you tell others, they look at you as if you were a monster. If you walk up to a good friend on the street and say "I am enlightened," the other person will look you up and down and think to themselves: You probably need to take your medication.

So Seth says, no matter what age, the matter of awakening is very difficult to explain.

Therefore when you are relatively old, no one will be interested in this phenomenon.

It is the same as during adolescence. That great creativity may emerge, but it is not recognized. Many adolescents are extremely creative, yet we suppress them all, saying what does a little kid like you know. The elderly do not understand either. It is those people living in the middle, the so-called worldly people, those oriented toward material things -- only you understand the most, while those who do not pursue material goals understand nothing at all. So we define adolescents as people who understand nothing and are too naive; and the elderly? The elderly have lived a whole lifetime, and then you say: You have all gone senile. You have erased the two most creative stages of life, leaving only that middle section which is just about making money, and you think that section is the most valuable part of life. In fact, that section of life is the least valuable in terms of spiritual growth. But this is how our human society is: we completely erase these two most creative periods, adolescence and old age. Whether you admit it or not, that creativity is right there, only you have not recognized it.

This period may be more beneficial to the individual and to humanity than any other time -- if it is recognized for what it is.

Rising to the level of humanity, it is more beneficial than any other time. We humans need to reflect on this and correct this phenomenon.

The peculiar chemical changes that occur often lead to greater concepts and experiences, but these have nothing to do with the practical applications you have in mind.

The hormonal changes within our bodies are chemical changes that can lead to greater concepts and experiences, but they have nothing to do with the practical applications we think of.

Then a mechanism is set into motion, and a momentum occurs in which the personality releases itself from space-time orientation, and no longer has to participate in the adult manner.

What we call "adult" is that middle section I mentioned, probably only about twenty-five to thirty years. During this period, our space-time orientation is very clear, and our material orientation is very clear. But when you reach old age, because of certain chemical changes in the body -- not just changes in mentality and experience, but changes in hormones -- these can lead you to greater concepts and experiences, giving you a broader perspective and a wider vision. At this point you have already transcended basic material pursuits, and you are more concerned with holistic issues for all of humanity or the whole of society, perhaps leaning toward the spiritual side, toward things beneficial to humanity as a whole. That is, you have released yourself from the material level. Yet at this time, we define them all as a group of people who no longer have value, and we no longer value their views and opinions.

Again, at that time the personality views the nature of experience in its purest form.

He has already transcended the material level and is basically free of desires: no longer has any strong desire for the opposite sex, and a spouse is more like a companion, with gender orientation no longer so pronounced; the demands for food are also not as many, no longer eating stimulating, greasy foods, but instead eating very light, simple foods -- plain rice porridge and vegetables are the best foods for them.

In some early civilizations, this occurred within a natural framework.

In those early civilizations, the bodies of the elderly were well cared for, and what they said was listened to with great attention, and the views of the elderly were highly valued. So many tribal leaders were the oldest people, or clan elders; in rural areas within a large family, it was generally the respected elderly who presided over the affairs of the entire clan, which was very natural.

The idea of the wise old man and similar legends apply equally here.

The legend that one grows wiser with age is very applicable. So we even have the concept of the "old witch," referring to some elderly women, believing they have wisdom and know some magic.

If the natural aging process is not interfered with, the elderly will understand the illusion of their own present.

If in a natural environment, without the interference of the belief systems of modern society, the elderly will understand what this "illusion" of aging means. The so-called illusion is that state that only comes with old age: that trance-like state, that sense of detachment from space and time, that historical memory not following chronological order, all kinds of hallucinations. It is actually not an illusion; it is an opening of spirituality and a process of spiritual growth. He will understand that this is his own spirituality growing, and body and mind can cooperate very well.

Seeing this, I think many people are no longer afraid of the matter of human aging. And in this process, some people in our group have been working in fields related to elder care. If you read this section of Seth's discussion of the elderly, I think you will have a completely new understanding and a thoroughly subversive way of thinking.

Session and Background

This section is the second part of the commentary on Chapter Thirteen of The Nature of Personal Reality, that is, Session 651 of the book, held on Monday evening, March 26, 1973. The title of this chapter is "Good and Evil, Personal and Mass Beliefs, and Their Effects."

Beliefs About Age

Let us look at the content of the Seth book. Seth says, your beliefs about age -- in the previous session he talked about how our beliefs about the elderly are misunderstood -- like everything else, will form your experience. Our beliefs form our experience, just as everything else does: our beliefs bring us emotions, and then beliefs determine how we experience our experience. And your group beliefs will influence civilization. The beliefs of humanity as a whole will influence the progress of the entire human civilization.

Session 651

In terms of the ideas held by your present society, men and women begin to fear old age from the time they are young.

This is indeed the idea held by our present society. Whether men or women, they begin to fear old age when they are very young. They start taking care of themselves when they are young; many girls begin all kinds of skin care in their twenties, because other people tell them, oh, if you do not take care of your skin when you are young, you will be finished when you are old. I have seen a great deal of this. You see the beauty, health care, medical, and medical aesthetics industries all start coaxing people into spending money on preserving youth. The core of it is that our whole society's belief is a fear of old age.

If youth is considered the epitome of life's happiness and success, then old age is seen as its opposite.

That is, old age is seen as a time of failure and decay. Our society considers old age to be merely dragging out an ignoble existence, a corrupt time, a time without meaning, a time in which no value can be created.

In your terms, these are connected with distorted ideas in both your conscious and unconscious minds.

They are connected with the distorted ideas in both our conscious and unconscious minds.

The Conscious Mind and the Limits of Reason

Generally speaking, in Western society, the conscious mind is regarded as coming into its own during adolescence, and at that period the "self" rises out of the unconscious background of childhood.

Our youth actually rises out of the time of childhood. But we feel that many of the concepts from when we were little are vague. You may have already forgotten many things from your elementary school days, even your good friends from elementary school, and some of you may even have forgotten your homeroom teachers. And adolescence rises out of this unconsciousness of childhood, and reaches its critical awareness and discernment. Once you begin to have the conscious mind, you begin to have the ability to discern and be aware. You begin to be able to differentiate, and you develop a discriminating mind. Even the smallest things, you can tell them apart.

The understanding of "distinctions" and "differences" is considered the conscious mind's greatest invention, its greatest characteristic.

That is, we can distinguish differences. We can see the differences between things -- events, objects, people, experiences, these differences. We can discover differences, and this is our greatest characteristic. Therefore these aspects of it are valued, that is, this rational aspect, this aspect that can discover differences, is valued.

On the other hand, the equally important characteristics of the conscious mind -- assimilation, combination, and connection -- are ignored.

We are more focused on discovering the differences in between. We are taught how to discern these differences, but we are not educated as much in discovering how they can merge, how they can combine, how they can be assimilated. We rarely discover the internal interrelatedness and internal consistency between them. We are more focused on discovering the distinctions and differences between things. So our academic disciplines are also divided finer and finer. Dividing disciplines is dividing differences, finer and finer, and the disciplines become more and more numerous.

In academic circles, as well as in many fundamentally nonacademic circles, reason is regarded as a critical function. Thus the more judgments you can make, the more rational you are considered to be.

This kind of critical thinking ability is considered a very representative, very powerful tool of reason. So in American high school education, starting from high school, the education begins to cultivate students' critical thinking⁸, reasoning ability, and collaborative ability. They have terms called Critical Thinking and Critical Writing. These two terms are the two abilities that students are expected to strengthen during the high school stage. And in American elementary and middle schools -- elementary school and junior high -- the focus is on cultivating three abilities in students: one is imagination, one is interests and hobbies, and one is the spirit of challenging authority⁹.

And these three, in our Eastern-style education, especially in Chinese-style education, these three are all suppressed -- imagination, interests and hobbies, and challenging authority. These three are actually the three abilities that American elementary and middle schools focus on cultivating, and they are suppressed in our system. And in high school, America emphasizes rational thinking ability, which is the two things just mentioned, Critical Thinking and Critical Writing, that is, critical thinking and critical writing, or this kind of rigorous, logical thinking and writing. And this approach is considered by Westerners to be a representative of reason. So here Seth emphasizes: you regard reason as primarily a critical function, so the more judgments you can make, the more rational you are considered to be. So the more you can write these kinds of papers that differentiate, discern, and define, the stronger your rationality is considered to be.

In Western adulthood, the conscious mind is most intently focused upon a particular area of activity and physical manipulation.

The so-called adulthood is the adult period of entering society. So Western society has a very strong tendency toward specialization and professionalization. After a person becomes an adult, he only focuses on a certain field. For example, if he is an engineer, there are all kinds of engineering, and within a certain one he only specializes in that one thing; if you are a lawyer, then you only specialize in a certain area. Lawyers are also divided into many types: you might be an economic lawyer, a criminal lawyer who appears in court, or one who handles divorce, property division, traffic accidents -- all kinds of lawyers are also divided into many specialties. In Western society, our consciousness is often focused on a particular area of activity.

From childhood, the mind has been trained to use its distinguishing characteristics, and creativity has been allowed to flow through only certain very limited and accepted channels.

From childhood, the mind has always been trained to use the characteristic of discernment, and then we neglect the other characteristics -- that is, assimilation, combination, and connection. We neglect these characteristics. We also cultivate creativity, but this creativity is only used in specific fields that have practical value. For those that do not have much practical value, it is basically not encouraged.

Retirement: The Moment the Mind Is Set Free

When a person gets older, say after retirement, that particular type of focus -- he has retired, his work is no longer being done -- its focal point is no longer there. He no longer pays attention to the field of his work, so that particular focus is gone.

The mind actually becomes more itself.

That is, your mind has more time to become itself. The mind no longer focuses on work, no longer on performing a surgery, or researching a medical paper, or writing an engineering paper, or doing an engineering project, or the everyday work in a hospital or a courtroom -- it no longer pays attention to these things, and it becomes more like itself. Then it can also use more of its abilities more freely; it has the energy for that now.

And it is allowed to slip out of that restriction, to digest, appreciate, and to create.

Which restriction? It is the specific field, and this specific field is the restriction. It allows your mind to slip out of this specific field in order to digest, appreciate, and create. So many retired people's lives are actually more wonderful. I remember sometimes reading an article that was very well written, saying that a wonderful life begins at fifty, and sometimes a wonderful life begins at sixty -- well, that person may have gotten the essence of this.

Yet at this very time, the person is told to beware of any such lack of concentration, and to consider that kind of behavior a sign of mental deterioration.

But after retirement, when one gets older, someone tells you to beware of this kind of lack of concentration, which makes you feel that you should concentrate, that like a young person you should concentrate more, and that you should not let your attention scatter, and they consider that kind of behavior a sign, a symptom of mental deterioration -- attention no longer concentrated, scattered in all directions.

Those who follow the mass beliefs will find that their own intentions have changed, and they fear that their age itself, or their existence in time, has betrayed them. They see themselves as leftover material, a dim remnant of a better self.

Fearing age itself, you fear growing old. This is still an adjective -- they see themselves as waste, as something useless, already a relic of history.

And within their value judgment system, the very fact of their continued existence in space and time makes them feel guilty.

He will feel that he no longer has any value. Since he can no longer create value, and every day he still occupies the earth's resources, eating and drinking for free, deep inside he has a kind of self-guilt and sense of sin; he feels he should not be like this.

If they once trusted their physical soundness, they no longer do so. They begin to act out dramas written by others, yet ones to which they have also given their tacit consent.

If they once trusted their physical soundness, they no longer do so. They begin to accept other people's beliefs -- the beliefs others give them, they accept them. And the social mainstream is creating the development of the whole society, and they begin to become an unimportant, subordinate role, a subordinate, passive role in other people's drama.

So this can very well explain why many people are in very good health when they are not retired, but once they retire they find all sorts of ailments, diseases, and physical problems appearing. The most important point among these is that their beliefs have changed; they feel they are useless. Previously they felt they were very useful, with a sense of social presence, social value, and social meaning; now they find that is gone, and they cannot find new value and meaning. At this point their belief has already made them feel useless, and this belief of feeling useless will lead to the appearance of certain physical illnesses.

Black and White, Race, and the Inner Unconscious

You may not see any connection between that situation and your beliefs about color, but the two are closely related.

This actually has something to do with color. For example, you regard white as intelligent consciousness, good, or equivalent to youth; and you equate black with the unconscious, old age, or death. In fact, this does have a certain connection with color -- in places deep in our underlying consciousness that we do not know about, it is connected with color. In this value system, we fear the black race. Many of us, deep down, are actually afraid of Black people, and that is basically the same as being afraid of old age. It seems like a kind of instinct. Many people, including us now in America, even though we cannot be racially discriminatory or anything like that, still try their best to avoid areas where Black people live. For example, many of our clients, when buying a house, will quietly say, it is best not to buy in a Black neighborhood, definitely avoid Black neighborhoods, do not go where there are a lot of Black people.

Why is this so? Seth says that the reason we fear the black race, the reason we fear Black people, is that the essential, fundamental psychological activity is the same as fearing old people, because we feel that black is not good. What is not good about it? It is not about the color itself, but because it is too primitive.

We think of Black people as primitive, and as having creative musical talent.

Our Black music, much of today's popular music, some rap, some rappers, including some Black music, including some soul music, all have great talent. But for a very long time, these were all underground activities¹⁰. Before current popular music became mainstream, all this Black music was underground activity. Including this rap music, these rap things, in the past none of it could be presented in respectable venues.

They created acceptable musical works, but were not allowed into respectable national concert halls.

Even though everyone found it pleasant to listen to and acceptable, it was still not allowed into national concert halls. Why not allowed? No one knows, it is very strange. They are all music, so why can national concert halls only perform those so-called highbrow symphonies, classical music, folk music, tenors, sopranos? Why cannot this hip-hop music be performed in there? Yet hip-hop music is more welcomed and liked by the general public, while how many people actually like that truly traditional music, classical music? I know some people do like it, but in terms of numbers, it is far fewer than those other people, yet it still cannot be performed in these venues. So you can see how strange human beliefs are -- whether at the bottom of it all, people are afraid of this kind of primitive thing.

Therefore, in your society the black race represents that chaotic, primitive, spontaneous, savage, unconscious part that you consider to be your own.

We actually take the black race, in our subconscious, as representing our own inner, each person's inner chaotic, primitive, spontaneous, savage, unconscious part. So we often say with that discriminatory tone, oh, Black people are very savage -- many people say Black people are savage, and does this not implicitly contain that meaning, primitive. So this is the underside of the "noble American," that is, the back side, the side that cannot be looked at.

On the one hand, then, Black people are oppressed, but on the other hand, as children they are also doted upon.

People always have a great fear of Black people, fearing that this race will escape its shackles and push for more and more.

Only because white people so fear the nature of the inner self, and recognize the power that they have desperately tried to strangle within themselves.

Now you understand that this kind of racial problem, racial discrimination in Western society, has very deep psychological, and even spiritual, reasons behind it. Because we do not dare face our own inner self, do not dare face that unconscious part within ourselves. We have been taught to think that part is all bad -- impulsive, savage, uncontrolled. Then we project it outward, onto the image of Black people. We project our inner fear and our inner uncertainty about the inner self outward. We also fear that our inner self will push for more and more, will be uncontrolled, will escape its shackles, will escape rational control, and so we treat the Black race and Black community the same way. On the one hand we feel it is oppressed and bullied, just as we feel about our own inner self: we all know our inner self has not been fully expressed. It is bullied on one side, oppressed on the other, and at the same time we do not dare let it fully out, do not dare give it absolute release. This is the current state of mind of most of us. So the point Seth is making by bringing up this issue is that our fear of Black people is actually more a fear of our own inner primitive impulses.

Sometimes, like a person, a country can also have a split personality. On the one hand, we feel that Black people have been bullied, that as a minority group, historically they were oppressed and brutally suppressed, and discrimination against Black people was even codified into law; but on the other hand, we fear them being fully released. Therefore there is this interaction, and this split is like a split personality. The country is also split, with these two completely opposite ideas interacting with each other.

In this interaction, Black people express certain tendencies of the nation as a whole, while white people express other characteristics.

Black people merely express a certain tendency from the perspective of the country as a whole, while white people express other characteristics. It is like one person having two different split personalities, two different personalities existing within his body like Augustus, and a country is the same way. Black people represent a certain tendency of this country, and white people represent other tendencies and characteristics of this country. Both groups have a tacit agreement about their roles.

From a larger perspective, each has belonged to the other race at other times. More precisely, in simultaneous existence, one plays the role of the other.

From a higher perspective, this is actually a simultaneous existence. In other words, they themselves are playing each other's roles. In other words, Black people are a manifestation of the white person's inner self -- they are also a displayed part of the white person's inner being; and white people are also something that Black people wanted to have but did not have. So between them, at this inner level, they exchange roles.

Why is this? Because in simultaneous existence, remember, time exists simultaneously. So this person may reincarnate as both a Black person and a white person, so from his perspective, he is both Black and white. If you compress time and space into a single point, it is simultaneity, all happening at the same time, without this continuity of time and history, as a single simultaneous point in time, then Black and white have no meaning, and distinguishing between them is meaningless, because each person may be both Black and white.

Dark Worship and Underground Belief Systems

This is just like with the elderly, where black indicates a return of that unconscious power.

Black represents the unconscious power beginning to return, because in your adult life there is more of that conscious life.

All of this so far has been viewed from an American and Western perspective.

Up to now what we have discussed has all been from an American and Western standpoint, rather than from an Eastern perspective. So the reality that many of our readers are involved with—this is what many of their current readers are involved with, because this book was published in America—this is the reality those readers at the time were involved with, whereas here in East Asia we may not have these problems.

In other "underground" belief systems, however, black is seen as a symbol of great knowledge, power, and strength.

In some belief systems that are not orthodox or not mainstream, black is instead seen as greatness, power, and strength. When this is carried to an extreme, it gives rise to some forms of devil worship.

In these, the little-understood forces of creativity and vitality burst forth in distorted form, bursting forth in the manner of devils.

When our awareness of this black unconscious power grows stronger and stronger, and it develops to a certain stage, this worship of black—which is actually the worship of the power of the unconscious—what is its essence? It is creativity and vitality. Because the bottom layer of the unconscious is creativity and vitality, but since we do not understand it, we let it burst forth in the manner of devils.

The underside of consciousness was thus exalted, while the other "white," "conscious and objective" values were demeaned.

The underside of consciousness is this unconscious, this black—assuming we use black to represent the unconscious part of consciousness—this part was thus exalted. This refers to those underground belief systems. In such systems, the value of the unconscious is highly elevated, intensified, even excessively exaggerated, while the conscious, objective values are demeaned and considered meaningless.

Yet in both of these two systems—one being the mainstream value system, the other the non-mainstream value system—one holds that darkness is good, and the other holds that white is good.

In both systems of belief, the aged are denied their unique powers and wisdom.

Neither of these two systems acknowledges the power and wisdom of the elderly.

The civilization and the individuals within it suffer as a result.

So our human civilization, and every individual living within it, we all suffer a loss, because we do not acknowledge the power and wisdom of the elderly, and this affects the development of our entire human civilization.

Waking and Dreaming: The Origins of the Light-Dark Symbolism

All of this is also connected with your beliefs about the waking and dreaming states.

The waking and dreaming states are also related to this belief of ours. See how interesting it is. So the connections between our beliefs go far beyond what we imagine.

The white man is familiar with the daytime, and the black man is familiar with the dreaming state. Again, here there are the ancient connections of the god of light and the dark prince and Satan, all distinctions made at different periods of development. They are also related to the present source of consciousness.

They are all related to the present source of our consciousness, all stemming from the ancient struggle between darkness and light.

In the same way, through the generations, underground philosophies attempted to unite these two concepts. When they attacked the contemporary ideas of the historical period, however, they often went from one extreme to the other.

In the past, underground philosophies, non-mainstream philosophies, once tried to unite them, to unite these two concepts. But when they attacked these two concepts, they often went from one extreme to the other.

In some of these philosophies, for example, it was believed that daylight was pale compared to the truly brilliant knowledge that illuminated dreams, and black was the symbol of secret knowledge.

The truly brilliant knowledge that illuminates dreams is the knowledge we obtain when we are unconscious. Compared to that, the sun and the daytime are meaningless, pale.

This secret knowledge could not be found in normal consciousness, nor could it be examined in the light of day.

Only at night, in the darkness, can we find this brilliant knowledge in the subconscious that illuminates our dreams.

Here you will find that stories of black magicians exist all over the world, in every part of the world there are these black magicians¹¹.

And again age was added in. Thus the legend of the wise old man or old woman entered into the folk tales.

There are many, many folk tales that begin with a wise old man or a wise old woman¹².

Death was seen in terms of good and evil, black and white, these value judgments. The destruction of consciousness was seen as black, and white was its resurrection, seen as white. The light of clear awareness was experienced as white, and yet it often appeared to describe the darkness of the soul, or to illuminate the darkness of the night.

Although many people say that at the moment of death they see a white light, see a white light coming to guide them, this is actually all a symbol of their belief system. They believe that this light of clear awareness should be white.

Therefore for you, the two are attached to each other.

We often depict the white light of clear awareness as the light that illuminates the night, the light that cuts through the darkness. But if there were no darkness, where would the white light be? So the two are mutually dependent. Without darkness there is no white light, so these two belief systems are mutually dependent.

And you use your beliefs to change their connotations.

We take these two mutually dependent belief systems and often change their connotations, using our own viewpoints to change the meaning of black and white in different historical periods.

In many ancient civilizations, the night and its darkness were revered.

We all know that these mysterious things all happen at night.

And the secrets of nighttime consciousness were also explored, and relationships were found. In this, the knowledge was consciously used in the daytime.

The relationships between consciousnesses were also discovered. These laws and connections between consciousnesses were discovered at night, but they were applied in the daytime, so the two levels were mixed together.

And there was the flowering of art and civilization.

In other words, when we mix the unconscious and the conscious together, there is the flowering of art and civilization.

And in your present time this is almost unimaginable.

We now feel it is almost impossible to imagine that we could bring the things of the night into the daytime — in other words, that we could combine our dreams with our daytime reality. In our present understanding, we feel this is not possible.

In such civilizations, all races joyfully found their proper places. People of all ages were also honored for their individual contributions.

In this civilization, all races joyfully found their proper places. The young had their contributions, the old had their contributions, and they were honored differently for their different contributions.

In such societies, the limited value judgments discussed in this chapter were not practical. Individuals did not need to take on a particular role to act out different portions of the characteristics of humanity. Each person was allowed to be a unique individual, and everything that statement implies.

The value judgments we are discussing here were different from theirs. Because in this civilization, an individual or a certain race — for example, the white race or the black race — did not need to take on a particular role to act out different portions of the characteristics of humanity. What he means is that white people did not need to play the part of humanity that is on the level of the ego, the level of knowledge and wisdom; black people did not need to play the unconscious part of humanity, the underlying part, the part of primal impulses. There was no need to use race or individuals to play these parts. So every person was allowed to be a unique individual, just to be themselves, and they did not need to play the conscious or unconscious parts of humanity.

And everything that statement implies — this person has uniqueness, and has completely cast off the limitations of race, and has even cast off the human instinct to divide oneself into the conscious and the unconscious parts. They have completely freed themselves from these limitations, so this is a very good state.

This does not mean that mankind fell from a state of grace into an apparently lower state, but indeed that they have chosen to diversify functions and abilities.

What he means is not that humanity returned to a primitive society, but indeed that they have chosen to diversify functions and abilities — rather than our traditional way of defining them, so to speak, isolating them, for the purpose of learning and understanding and even developing their specific abilities, letting them focus on understanding and learning their specific abilities.

There are ways to merge your inner knowledge.

Inner knowledge is that unconscious knowledge, that dark, black knowledge we have always feared.

Including the contradictory values of light and dark, good and bad, young and old, and using these yardsticks and in the most practical manner to enrich your own experience.

After merging your inner knowledge, it includes the contradictory values of light and dark, good and bad, young and old. You unify these values, you do not see them as opposites, and then you can use these yardsticks and in the most practical manner to enrich your own experience. These opposing concepts, at this point, because you have merged with your inner knowledge, become unified, no longer becoming opposing beliefs.

In doing so, you do not only elevate yourself, but you elevate society, and even the entire world. You will also recognize the state of grace in which you necessarily exist.

You also elevate the entire world. When you are in this state, you will certainly recognize that you exist in this state of grace.

The Method of Integration: Suggestions for Short Sleep

Let us look at those methods -- which methods? How we can integrate inner knowledge with outer knowledge.

Not only in individual but also in group experience, you must try to find the connections between different levels of experience, to synthesize light and darkness, consciousness and the unconscious.

This is the method he gives. Whether on the individual level or the group level -- whether speaking of one person or of one race, for example Black people, white people, Asian people -- you must try to find the connections between different levels of experience, to find the connections between those experiences, to integrate light and darkness, consciousness and the unconscious, to bring these opposing viewpoints together and integrate their connections.

As I discussed earlier in Seth Speaks, you make a great distinction between waking and sleeping.

In Chapter 8 he specifically discusses waking and sleeping. We separate them -- waking is waking, sleeping is sleeping. If you are not familiar with it, you can look at Chapter 8, Session 532 of Seth Speaks; he introduces this there.

You are clearly separated, and little effort is made to connect the two.

This is what we are going to learn. What does he mean here? He said earlier that you do have a way to integrate your inner knowledge. When you integrate inner knowledge, you unify those contradictory beliefs, and then you are helpful to the individual, to society, and even to the whole world. At this point he tells you what method to use. He says, one of your methods is sleep. We normally and ordinarily separate them -- sleeping and waking, waking and sleeping. He says, if you can find a way to connect the two internally, this is a method of connecting with inner knowledge, a method of integration.

Because of work, many people find it impractical to change their sleeping hours.

I have to go to work during the day, and I cannot just take a nap whenever I want, so I need to sleep well. But some of you can -- some people are freelancers and can sleep whenever they want.

Those who are interested in this can at least occasionally achieve some variations.

If you are truly interested and try it, I think many people reading this book or listening to my lectures are already trying the sleep method from Chapter 8 of Seth Speaks. When you try it, you will occasionally achieve certain changes, and each person's experience will be different.

That will allow you to more effectively connect sleep with waking activity.

Under this way of sleeping, you can more easily connect sleep with your waking activities. Those who can do it, if you persist with this sleep pattern, you will find that a slightly altered arrangement will be very beneficial to you.

What does "slightly altered" mean? It means a change in your sleeping hours. Such a change in sleeping hours is very beneficial to you. How do you change it?

I suggest you sleep six hours at a stretch.

Sleeping six hours at a time is enough, not more -- remember, definitely not more. Six hours is already the upper limit. If you feel your energy is still not enough and you still need rest, then you can add at most two more hours of napping, making eight hours in total. Those two hours should be distributed during the day, or in the evening after dinner -- either is fine.

If you are an office worker who has to go to work every day, you can adopt this kind of sleep schedule: six hours plus two hours. That is, you go to sleep around eleven or twelve at night; I suggest you go to sleep at eleven. After going to sleep at eleven, you get up at five in the morning. After getting up at five, you can do some pre-work arrangements, or do some meditation, or go out and exercise -- anything is fine. Then after getting up at five, you arrange your work, and you can make some advance preparations for the day's work, or come up with some creative ideas, and go to work with initiative.

During the workday, most workplaces do not allow you the conditions to sleep, so what do you do then? Actually, during the day you just work normally; you may feel tired, you may be exhausted. Then after you get off work, you eat dinner. For example, after finishing dinner at six or seven in the evening, you can take a nap then. You can sleep from seven after dinner until nine, and then get up again, giving you two hours from nine to eleven to do things you want to do or are interested in. This way you can ensure your daily sleep without sleeping too much, and you still have plenty of time to arrange your affairs. All of this works. You can also go to sleep at twelve -- that is, from nine to twelve, spend those three hours doing things that interest you, then sleep from twelve to six in the morning, and then arrange your morning affairs. For office workers, I suggest placing the supplementary sleep in the evening, after dinner. If you have the conditions to rest at noon, then supplementing it at noon is also fine.

Many people also find that five hours of steady sleep is quite sufficient. If needed, a small nap can be added.

Some people may not need six hours; five hours is enough.

Four hours of sleep, however, is the most ideal.

Remember this: six hours is the upper limit, do not exceed six hours at most; five hours is also fine, and four hours is the most ideal. If you feel it is natural, supplement with whatever kind of nap you like. If you sleep four hours, for example, you sleep at twelve and wake at four in the morning; at that point you may have a lot of time. And if you feel sleepy, you can take a nap at any time. But this places certain restrictions on your work environment and conditions; if you are at work, it may not be so easy to operate this way. If you are resting at home, on a day off, or some people are still at home -- including many people in America and Europe who still cannot go out -- you can try this sleep pattern.

Generally after waking up, eat something -- have a small snack to replenish yourself. You do not have to eat only the three main meals during the day and then go hungry all night. You can eat at any time; you can combine your eating times with your sleeping times.

In such circumstances, no great artificial division is created between the two states of consciousness. And consciousness is able to remember and fuse its dream experiences.

That is, the dividing line between sleeping and waking will no longer be so distinct. What is the biggest characteristic at this point? Your dreams become exceptionally clear. Those who have tried sleeping this way will have experienced this. If you persist with this kind of sleep, one of the biggest experiences is that the degree of reality in your dreams is exactly the same as the things you experience during the day. After you wake from a dream, it is as if you walked from the door of one room into another -- that is to say, you wake from a dream, you are lying in bed, and it feels the same as if you came from another world, opened the bedroom door, and returned to your bed. That sense of reality cannot be understood by those who have not experienced it. So he says you can feel it for yourself. I think many people have already experienced this kind of clear dream. Such clear dreams are usually rare, but if you persist with this sleep habit, they will be very frequent, very common.

In dreams, the self can more effectively utilize its waking experience.

What does "utilize its waking experience" mean? It means that in dreams you can bring your consciousness in with you. Your waking experience is what is in your consciousness -- your memories, your experiences, your feelings. Normally when we dream, we cannot bring these in; we can only enter passively and unconsciously. But if you sleep for shorter periods, in dreams you can bring your waking memories in with you. In other words, you can have lucid dreams, conscious dreams.

Often in the elderly, you can find this phenomenon occurring naturally.

Old people sleep less; as you age, naturally you sleep less, and generally you wake up around five in the morning.

But those who automatically awaken after four hours, because their beliefs make them think they suffer from insomnia, cannot properly utilize their experience.

They think they have insomnia; they do not think this is normal, so some people take medication, which is even more dangerous.

In a shortened sleep program, however, both the conscious and the unconscious will operate more effectively.

Rather than how we normally operate -- where only the conscious operates very effectively during waking, and the unconscious basically has little effect.

And for those involved in "creative" work, such periods will bring greater intuition and usable knowledge.

For people doing creative work like artists, or scientists, or people doing computer-related creative work, such periods will bring greater intuition and usable knowledge. For those working on assembly lines, the usefulness may not be as great, but it will still bring many benefits. But for those doing creative work, the benefits are simply enormous.

If you follow those who behave naturally in this way, you will feel they have more stability.

More stable, quite stable. Of course, what I mentioned is a general pattern; each person can find their own particular rhythm. Each person does not necessarily have to follow Seth's rhythm exactly; you can follow your own rhythm. Everyone's rhythm is different; perhaps you need to do some experimentation to learn the greatest balance. You need to experiment and try which state gives you the best energy and vitality.

Then the flow of your vitality will be increased.

Because you feel energetic, full of vitality, vigorous, and strongly creative.

Indeed, in certain periods of your life, this pattern will have its own rises and falls.

At certain times in your life, this pattern will automatically rise and fall -- the length of sleep will automatically follow your own rhythm; longer or shorter sleep will occur naturally, and it is all very natural.

Through such practice, what you think of as consciousness will expand. Generally speaking, eight hours or more of sleep is not beneficial.

Your range of consciousness will expand. With this kind of short sleep, this kind of short-sleep practice, eight hours or more is unnecessary. From a larger perspective, this is not unnatural for human beings -- do not think that it is natural for people to sleep eight to ten hours. He says that is unnatural; the natural way is short sleep.

There is a chemical reaction, or rather a mutual accommodation of the chemical rhythms of reaction, that is far more effective during those shorter sleep periods.

You do not need to worry about the modifiers, or the mutual accommodation of the chemical rhythms that follow -- do not worry about it.

Many people sleep past the period of their greatest creativity and creativeness.

That is, during the time when you are most creative and most alert, you oversleep; you are still sleeping.

That is the time when the conscious and the unconscious are most perfectly concentrated and become one.

During that time period, your conscious and unconscious are most perfectly concentrated together and become one -- that is, when your creative ability is strongest. But you overslept; you are sleeping.

Just when the conscious mind can receive its greatest benefits from the unconscious, and can achieve the most meaningful balance in the world you know, it is often drugged by sleep.

The energy and power of our conscious mind all come from the unconscious inner self. When our conscious mind can receive its benefits from the unconscious, and achieve the most meaningful balance in the world we know, we are instead sleeping, drowsy and groggy. But this is actually your best time, the time when you should be creating, because you can receive great benefits from the unconscious.

In such circumstances, the beauty and clarity of your dreams can clearly manifest in the conscious mind, to balance your physical life. And the contrasting situations of your experience will be presented to you with unified clarity.

Beauty and clarity -- what does that mean? In this situation -- because you overslept, drugged by sleep -- in the dreams of sleep, this balanced state of unity between your unconscious and conscious will manifest in the conscious mind in the form of beauty or a kind of awakening, or what is called clarity -- that is, the manner of enlightenment. So the content of your dreams can manifest in your conscious mind, to enrich your physical life.

Because you are still sleeping, but at this point your state is already at its best. At this time, in order to enrich your physical life, it takes the good things from your dreams and embodies them in your conscious mind, bringing you back to a place where you can perceive them in your conscious mind -- you had a beautiful dream -- and through this way it enriches your physical life, enriches your waking life. This is actually something you should have experienced while awake, but because you cannot experience it while awake, it can only let you experience it in dreams, and then bring you back to the conscious level so that you can become aware of it.

Then the contrasting situations in your experience -- the so-called contrast of experience is that beautiful feeling of a dream coming true, which can only be felt in your dreams, and then lets you compare it with your reality. In reality you have not had a dream come true, so it presents this clarity of a dream coming true to you; it is actually hinting to you that if you were awake at this time, you could create your reality in this waking state. It gives you this contrast; it lets you feel it. But we humans basically have not realized this -- have not realized that the function of beautiful dreams for us lies here.

Summary of This Session and Seth's Urging

So in simple terms, this session asks us to see that our views about Black people, our views about the colors black and white, and our views about the elderly are deeply connected, inwardly, to our ideas about sleep and dreaming. All of these have inner connections. The core point for us, the most meaningful help we can take from studying this session, is that we need to change the way we sleep, to try this new approach, so that our conscious and unconscious states can reach a state of balance, so that we can create more — create more in our physical world. And our experiences in the physical world are also a great help to us in our dream state. The two promote and influence each other, allowing the unconscious and the conscious to merge well together.

He says this part is the end of the oral delivery for this session. I wish you both a good night. I suggest that the two of you at least try the idea we have offered to others.

What he means is, since we are writing a book teaching other people how to sleep, the two of you should try it. He says you may find it quite surprising.

So when Seth says this, it actually means the two of them had not tried this approach, or had not tried it enough. And at this point, Rob begins to add his comments. He says that usually they do sleep this way — they generally sleep six hours at night, and then take a half-hour nap to supplement it. Jane, however, often interrupts his nighttime sleep. She wakes up spontaneously, then gets up for about an hour or so, getting up for about an hour in the middle of the night. This is Rob's general summary of their sleep patterns. But from Seth's suggestion, it seems the two of them had not fully followed Seth's approach to sleep.

When all the parts of awareness in dreams are mixed together, will your beliefs change as a result? This question can find some answers in the sleep pattern Seth suggests.

How Changes in Sleep Patterns Affect You

Seth suggests that you adopt a rhythm of short naps. Now he says, when your sleep patterns have undergone such changes, you will very effectively change the way you view your personal world, and thereby also change your general conception of reality.

To a certain degree, you will find that conscious and unconscious activities naturally begin to blend. This blending itself will bring about a greater understanding of the interactions that exist between yourself and other portions of yourself — that is, these interactions between the inner self and the outer self.

The unconscious is no longer considered equivalent to something dark or to the fearful components of the unknown. Its characteristics have been transformed by us; that "dark" quality will in fact be seen as light illuminating a portion of conscious life. At the same time, it provides the normal "ego-oriented" experience with a greater source of power.

On the other hand, a portion of ordinary behavior that originally seemed opaque, unclear, or dark — for example, those behaviors with personal characteristics that were not understood — may suddenly become quite clear because of the individual's changes. At that time, the dark side of the unconscious will become radiant and dazzling.

Barriers are broken down, and certain beliefs built upon them are also broken down. If the unconscious is no longer feared, then the race that symbolizes it will no longer be feared either — that is, black people will no longer be feared.

Three Clear Shifts

From this suggested sleep rhythm, many other natural and spontaneous understandings will also come. In our general concepts, the unconscious, blackness, and death all carry strongly negative connotations. Within these, you fear the inner self and do not trust the dream state, which often hints at thoughts of death and evil. Changing the habits of sleeping and waking, however, can bring about a shift that makes the following three things clearly evident.

The first is that dreams contain great wisdom and creativity.

The second is that the unconscious is quite conscious.

The third is that, in fact, a sense of personal identity can be retained in the dream state.

What does this mean? It means that after you practice this method of short sleep for a period of time, you will have these three greatest changes: first, dreams contain great wisdom; second, the unconscious becomes quite conscious -- for example, in dreams you can have lucid dreams, you have a very strong sense of autonomous awareness, you know you are dreaming, and you can even direct the characters in the dream to do certain things; by that point, we will no longer fear the destruction of identity symbolized by death, and we will no longer fear death.

As a result, other personal beliefs that depend on such opposite concepts will automatically be broken as well -- those beliefs generated on the basis of fear, such as fear of death, fear of aging, and so on, will all automatically be broken.

When you discover that in the dream state you are just as alert, responsive, and rational as in the waking state, and in dreams you also have very clear self-awareness and rational judgment, you can no longer continue operating within the old framework. That old pattern -- waking is waking, sleeping is sleeping, with waking and sleeping divided into two very distinct parts -- will no longer apply.

But this does not mean that in all dreams you can reach that kind of awareness; he is not saying that you can do it in every single dream. But within the waking-sleeping pattern I suggest, this condition can often be achieved.

It reaches a certain state beneficial to nature, within which the conscious and unconscious minds meet. This is very beneficial to nature as a whole. Regardless of what your sleep pattern is, this condition will occur spontaneously, but it is very brief and rarely remembered. The reason this optimal condition is so short is that consciousness remains in a drowsy state for long periods of time.

How Animals Use Sleep

Animals, following their own natural waking and sleeping times, in their own way, derive more benefit from these two states than you do, and they make use of that benefit with greater efficiency. Especially with regard to the body's innate healing system, it makes excellent use of the body's self-healing function during sleep. They know exactly when to change their sleep patterns, whether for longer or shorter periods, thereby regulating the production of adrenaline and governing all the body's hormones. So animals' sleep times are not fixed.

For human beings, this is also related to ideas about nutrition. According to your habits, the body is really starved for a long time at night, while during the day it is often fed too much.

In dreams, all the important healing information was originally supposed to be remembered, but it is not remembered, precisely because your sleep habits cause you to fall into what you think of as unconsciousness for too long. Our current sleep habits are either staying in consciousness too long, or staying in unconsciousness too long, keeping these two states separated from each other.

The sleep pattern Seth suggests actually keeps both the conscious and the unconscious in a very active state, one in which they can communicate with each other. The body can get rest and renewal in far less time than eight hours¹³. After five hours, the muscles themselves desire activity¹⁴, and this need is also a signal to wake up.

Therefore, the data of the unconscious and of dreams can be consciously integrated, because you have not yet forgotten the dream, and you still remember it very clearly.

The Relationship Between Sleep and Concepts of Good and Evil

Many of your erroneous ideas about the nature of reality are directly connected to the dividing line you place between "sleeping and waking experience" and between "conscious and unconscious activity." A great many of our mistaken notions lie in separating the two experiences of sleeping and waking, and conscious and unconscious activity, too sharply, treating them as two entirely different worlds, two entirely separate matters.

The opposing two sides that do not actually exist seem to have come into being. Mythic symbols and rationalizations all became necessary—in order to explain the seeming divergence and contradiction between two worlds that appear so different. In mythology, we often have things that can only happen in dreams—like somersaulting a hundred and eight thousand miles in one leap, being able to ascend to heaven and descend into the earth, moving between the celestial and the mortal realms, with all sorts of demons and monsters emerging. All of this serves to make the contradictions between these two seemingly different worlds appear less divergent.

Sometimes the individual's psychological mechanisms are activated, manifesting as neurosis or other mental problems. These bring inner challenges and dilemmas out into the light of day. Things that could originally have been easily resolved through compromise between conscious and unconscious reality are instead, because they were not resolved, expressed in very severe phenomena and symptoms.

In the natural mind-body relationship, the sleep state is a great connector, an interpreter, allowing the free flow of conscious and unconscious material. In the suggested sleep pattern, the most beneficial conditions are established. Under those conditions, neurosis and psychosis simply would not occur.

In this system, within the space where consciousness naturally moves back and forth, external dilemmas and difficulties are resolved in the dream environment; and inner difficulties—emotional, affective, psychic difficulties—can also be symbolically resolved through physical experience. This is a very good suggestion for treating psychological illness: we can suggest that such patients adopt this kind of sleep pattern, and they may improve.

The various clarities of the inner self will appear clearly in the waking world. Previously we actually had no idea what the inner self was; it was vague and unclear. If you use this sleep pattern, then in your waking hours you can have a very clear awareness of the inner self. And likewise, the invaluable data of the conscious self may also be received in the dream state—that is, the data of your daytime physical world can also be received in your dreams, opening up a connection between these two worlds.

In both cases, there is a spontaneous flow of psychic energy, as well as appropriate hormonal responses. For example, you would not block up these energies through suppression, nor would you fear emotions and their expression. In your ordinary life you would be the kind of person who says whatever is on your mind, straightforward and outspoken.

Emotional Repression and Projection

In your present belief system, you look upon the unconscious with an ambiguous eye, and you often display a fear of emotion. Because emotion feels uncontrollable, completely beyond control, and you do not know where it comes from. So emotion is not only often blocked in waking life, but it is also censored as much as possible in dreams. Its expression becomes very difficult, and it is not even allowed to express itself in dreams.

Some people are extremely strict with themselves. In the dreams of such strict people, they are very rigid, and even in dreams they do not allow themselves to express their emotions. They create a great blockage of energy. For you, this can form mental illness, or even more severe psychological disorder.

This suppression of emotion also interferes with the nervous system and other healing functions. This repressed emotion, along with the entire emotional load that follows from distorted ideas about the unconscious, forms an outward projection onto others. You will project your emotional load onto the people around you, and you will project this bad thing outward.

And at the same time you will be attracted to these people, because this projection represents a part of you. So when you find that there are always people around you whom you do not like, or people you really dislike are always by your side, these people are actually projections of your accumulated emotions. And after projecting them, you are still attracted to them, quarreling with them every day, making trouble with them, fighting with them, tangling with them, tearing at them, pulling at them. The reason is that they are actually a part of you, because you projected them outward, but because they were originally a part of you, they will be attracted to you, and you will always attract such people and such events.

As for a nation, these characteristics will be projected outward onto the enemy. Within a nation, they can also be directed at any particular race, religion, or skin color. A certain country treats us especially badly, and so on. Inwardly, we project onto a certain group of people within the country—Black people, or white people, or certain races or religions—all of these are our own projections.

The True Source of Sleep Habits

He said your sleep patterns do not happen without a reason. It is not the result of habits formed by our technological or industrial development -- this is our usual view, that the reason we sleep the way we do now is because technology developed, the electric light was invented, so we can stay up late at night. Seth tells you it is not that way; it is exactly the reverse. It is precisely because we needed such a sleep pattern that we went on to develop that kind of technology. As part of the beliefs of industrial society, we needed it this way, and only then did we develop such technology and beliefs.

They appeared when you began to categorize experience more and more, and to see yourselves as separate from the source of your own psychological reality. We began to classify experience with various theories, and then separated ourselves from the inner psychological source.

In a natural environment, animals sleep at night but still remain partially alert, guarding against predators or danger. And in the mammalian brain, there is a great balance among the innate characteristics: during sleep, the body can relax completely, while at the same time consciousness is maintained in a partially suspended, passive yet alert state. That state allows the animal to consciously participate in and interpret unconscious dream activity, and this state also gives the body a chance to renew itself.

The body has not always been lying down and motionless during such long periods of time. Mammals have also altered their habits to adapt to certain conditions you have imposed upon them. Therefore behavioral studies in the laboratory are not necessarily the same as how these animals perform under natural conditions. Of course, this alteration of animal behavior is itself also natural.

The consciousness of animals is different from yours. As far as your consciousness is concerned, a more refined discernment is necessary, so that unconscious material can be digested. Yet all human development lies latent in the animal brain; we evolved from animals -- from a certain perspective. And many attributes of which you are unaware also lie latent in your own brains; the biological pathways for these potentials already exist.

The Narrow Definition of Consciousness

Once again, within your current beliefs, consciousness is given a very narrow definition, equated with your idea of rationality. You consider rational thinking to be consciousness, and you regard this as the pinnacle of mental achievement. It grows out of the "undifferentiated" perception of childhood, and in old age you feel ashamed and return to that undifferentiated state of awareness.

The sleep pattern I have suggested would bring you into contact with the great creative and energetic portions of psychological behavior, which are not entirely separate, but simply differ from your general ideas about consciousness, and which have been operating throughout your entire life. The creativity and vitality within your psyche have always been preserved; it is only your general concept of consciousness that differs, but you have been operating in this way throughout your life, only most of the time without realizing it.

For example, the time-distortion experiences you speak of -- time is not a constant thing, and many times we perceive that it is not constant -- these natural experiences of time distortion occur in both childhood and old age. We do not know exactly how much time has passed; we often play and forget about time, and in old age we also forget about time. This distortion represents a very normal experience of your basic time environment. In terms of the basic time environment, it is far more normal than the clock time you are familiar with.

We ordinarily look at our watches to tell time, but the perception of time in childhood or old age is actually more normal. After we become adults, we constantly look at our phones and watches, and all that clock time is abnormal, artificially imposed. Children and the elderly perceive time more accurately than we do.

Therefore the pattern I have suggested would bring you much closer to reality, and help you break down those beliefs that create divisions between the individual and society.

The prolonged continuous activity of waking consciousness, to a certain degree, does not conform to your natural inclinations. Working roughly sixteen to seventeen hours during the day is not normal¹⁵. This cuts off the "spontaneous negotiation between unconscious and conscious material," because staying awake too long necessarily brings about certain changes that make that prolonged sleep necessary. The body is denied the frequent rest it needs; you do not let it rest often, so you make it sleep a great long sleep at once, and when awake you keep it awake doing things continuously.

Conscious stimulation is excessive, making that merging very difficult -- that is, the merging of the conscious and the unconscious becomes difficult. Because our conscious stimulation is excessive, it suppresses unconscious stimulation, and places a great strain on the mind-body relationship.

The two sides of experience begin to adopt completely different behavior patterns, and the unconscious becomes more and more alien to the conscious mind. And the beliefs that have been built up around the unconscious -- that it is frightening, uncertain, terrifying, unknowable, and so on -- as well as the symbols involved, are all exaggerated. The unknown seems threatening and likely to turn bad.

The color black, representing the unknown, becomes strongly associated with evil, and is considered something to be avoided. In dreams and during sleep, self-destruction seems to be an ever-present threat to you. At the same time, you become afraid of the brilliant, creative, spontaneous, emotional outpourings that normally emerge from the unconscious, and you project them outward onto enemies, other races, or other faiths.

The Projection and Repression of Sexuality

Sexual behavior is obviously considered corrupt by those who most fear their own sensual instincts, and they attribute it to a primitive, evil, and unconscious source origin, or even try to censor their dreams in this respect so that they do not remember them. Yet they will project the greatest sexual license onto those groups they choose to represent their repressed behavior.

Many people are afraid to face their own sensual instincts. They are afraid, so they attribute these instincts to a source that is primitive, evil, and unconscious. They say, "I don't know where sexual desire comes from," or "It seems to be something I cannot control." They even try not to have so-called erotic dreams in their sleep, so they will not have those dreams, and they will not think about anything related to sex.

Yet they will project the greatest sexual license onto those groups that represent their repressed behavior. Which groups? Religions. Many religious groups repress sexual behavior; they are absolutely repressive. Then people project sexual license onto them. That is why we often see, in many religious groups, incidents of child sexual abuse--for example, in both the United States and Europe there have been such incidents, and not just one or two, but over decades possibly thousands upon thousands of children were sexually abused¹⁶. Later these children, after reaching adulthood, came forward to identify what had happened and the harm done to them. These groups ought to have been sexually repressive, but in sexual matters they were licentious.

If sex equals evil, then of course these groups will also be considered evil. This is a very strange human reaction and phenomenon.

If a member of such a rigid group believes that youth is pure, then he will not admit that sexual experience has any place in childhood. This will alter his own memory to fit his belief. They will not admit that there should be sexual experience during the pure period of childhood, so in their own childhood memories they erase the sexual process altogether.

But in fact that is not so. If you face yourself honestly--or if some people are honest--they will tell you that their sexual impulses actually began very early, as soon as they became conscious.

I remember a very famous Taiwanese female writer--well, not exactly a writer--named Hu Yinmeng, the former wife of Li Ao. She herself was of course also studying spirituality. She once wrote a memoir about herself, and in that memoir she wrote: "From the time I was seven, when I was still a little girl, when I became conscious at age seven, I knew what sex was about¹⁷." She said she could discover that in a certain part of her body, when she touched it or stroked it, it would bring pleasure. Nobody taught her this; she knew it by herself. She said this is normal, this is very normal. She said, "I don't know about you, but for me it was like this."

Then I also saw other reports and statistics about this, all showing that it is very normal--having sexual experiences and sexual awareness in childhood is normal. But we completely

Changes in Belief Are Equally Effective

Once again, your ideas of good and evil and your waking and sleeping patterns are closely connected. What does "closely connected" mean? It means that when you are afraid of your own unconscious, when you feel that the unconscious is bad, is evil, then you are unwilling to bring out your unconscious state, and you are also unwilling to use this short-sleep method to integrate and harmonize the unconscious and the conscious. Because you feel that the unconscious is not good. When you can hold such a belief, when you feel that the unconscious and the conscious are the same as your normal bodily consciousness, that they are all good, then at that time you will adjust your sleep pattern and turn it into this form that can be fused together.

When you change your sleep pattern, something very curious happens: your standards of good and evil will also change. Because you have opened up this passage between the conscious and the unconscious, your sense of right and wrong is no longer judged entirely according to the moral values of our real-world material society. You follow more the values of your source or your inner self in making judgments; it is a judgment on a higher level, rather than using the scope of society's morality to constrain your good and evil. Because in dreams you can gain many experiences that you cannot get while awake — you can gain the experience of a child, you can gain the experience of your old age — and this gaining of experience gives you a completely different perspective on the whole matter.

Those of you who cannot actually make any changes in your sleeping habits, then change your beliefs within the scope of our discussion, and you can also gain some benefits. If you really say, I cannot change my sleep schedule, for various reasons, then you can change your beliefs. Because Seth has been saying all along that one main reason for changing your sleep is to change your beliefs, to change your views on the standards of good and evil. Because when you change your sleep pattern, he will tell you that changes will happen naturally. But if you say I cannot change my sleep schedule, then you can obtain the same effect through changing your beliefs.

Then learn to recall your dreams, and when it is convenient for you, take a short rest — rest for a bit when you are tired. Then make a habit of recalling your dreams, and immediately afterward write down those dream impressions that you can remember.

You must give up the idea that the activity of the unconscious is repulsive. You must learn to believe that your nature is good — you must believe that the unconscious part of you is also good. Otherwise you will not go explore the other conditions of your own reality. If you do not believe that your own nature is good, then you will not dare to explore the other conditions of yourself.

You must have absolute trust in yourself, trust that your essence is good. When you believe in yourself, you will also believe in your own interpretation of dreams, and this will lead to greater self-understanding. When you have a dream, when there are some impressions in the dream, you can try to interpret them for yourself. When you do this, it will let you understand yourself more.

Your beliefs about good and evil will become clearer — what exactly you think is good, what is not good. In this process of interpreting your dreams, you will clearly understand where your standards of good and evil actually are. Then you will no longer need to project repressed tendencies onto others in an exaggerated way.

So when you see those repressed tendencies in other people, those reactions, those emotions and attitudes, they are actually all projections from within you, only you yourself do not know it; they are all projections of the parts of you that you have repressed.

That is the content of this session. Chapter Thirteen still has one last part, which we will introduce separately next time.

Session 653: Jane's Personal Transcendent Experience

The earlier part of this session mainly introduced some of Jane's remarkable personal experiences of altered consciousness.

This weekend, Robert Monroe and his wife Nancy¹⁸ came to see us. They live on a farm in central Virginia. Robert is the author of Journeys Out of the Body¹⁹, which Jane and I consider the best book of its kind. Among other things, he told Jane that he had established a research institute on his farm, and that this institute was used by "a bunch of guys" to study various kinds of psychic activity, and these "guys" included doctors, parapsychologists, psychiatrists, and other scientists.

On Sunday evening, April first, Seth came through and had a long recorded discussion with the Monroes. We planned to meet again on Monday evening. However, starting Monday morning, Jane began to have an intense burst of creative inspiration, a clear transcendent state that lasted for several hours. She had already had a premonition of this on Sunday afternoon before our guests arrived.

Here I will describe this phenomenon, including some fairly lengthy excerpts from Jane's own account of the event, in order to show the other psychological activities Jane was engaged in while this book was being written, and also because this kind of perception gave the book some insights.

On Monday, Jane described to me her altered state of consciousness -- not our ordinary kind of consciousness; she had entered another kind of conscious state. While she was still in this altered state of consciousness, she wrote as detailed a record as she possibly could the next morning.

Dialogue of the Speakers

Jane said that on Sunday afternoon, before the guests arrived, I began reading a book about Emerson, a poet and philosopher who lived from 1803 to 1882²⁰. She said I read an essay in it called "The Poet"²¹, which talked about the "Speakers." The "Speakers" are a kind of person we discussed in Seth Speaks, people who have existed since ancient times, through thousands of years. "Speakers" are people who use their inner abilities to "speak their own inner secrets." This is one of Emerson's viewpoints: Speakers are people who use their inner abilities to speak their own inner secrets.

This essay made a very deep impression on Jane, and seemed to resonate with her own writing and psychic characteristics. As she was thinking about the content Seth described regarding the "Speakers" in Chapter Twenty of Seth Speaks, the Monroes arrived. They had a lively evening, and Seth also came through that night.

The next morning, Monday, as she was sitting at her desk, suddenly -- remember, suddenly -- she was filled with the most intense and vivid inspiration she had ever experienced. All day she was carried along by it, writing feverishly without stopping, excited yet happy. As a result, a nine-page poem was completed, which she titled "Dialogue of the Speakers." This might perhaps continue to become a book, just like the poetry collection she had just finished writing in early March -- that collection was titled Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time²² -- that collection had begun in exactly this way, from a very inspired creative beginning.

When she finished writing this nine-page long poem in the afternoon, she became increasingly unable to describe her feelings -- a poet and writer unable to describe her own feelings shows just how wondrous those feelings were -- and she could no longer type either. The following are the last two stanzas of her poem, through which we can get a sense of what Jane's indescribable feelings were like:

Do those "Speakers" exist / Their grand and magnificent lives / Spanning across our lives / Through their eyes / We gaze upon a universe

That is to say, through the Speakers' descriptions, through the material they give us, through our understanding of this material, we seem to see a universe.

But all that we know and see / Is merely the details of a plan of overwhelming power

If the Speakers intended to bring a complete body of material, then any single Speaker brings only a part of that material, and through this material of overwhelming power, we are able to see such a universe.

So much so that now when I write / I become very weak / I begin to weep and lament / What I can feel cannot be expressed in my words / Words cannot contain this inner evidence

The evidence of the inner senses' existence is very difficult to describe in words.

The chasm left to me is so vast / That what remains unsaid becomes the all

The gap between what she wanted to express and what she felt was so vast that what she could not express became, instead, the all.

And what I cannot grasp / Is precisely that part of me that makes me me and you you / My thoughts are very weak / Cupped hands cannot seize these meanings / Yet our lives are like shadows at my fingertips / Therefore we are sent out by others / Those grand and colossal relatives in a family so vast / In which every member is bathed in grace

We are sent out by these relatives. They are our relatives. They are behind us. They are grand and colossal, in a family so vast.

She said that as I struggled to write these poems -- why struggle? Because she wanted to describe, and describing in this way was already very difficult -- she said my subjective consciousness expanded greatly, and then I called Rob, and began to feel the colossal lives of the Speakers. The Speakers are an immense system; their lives are very great. And I realized that I had already transcended the verse and entered into actual experience -- she had already transcended the verse itself and entered into a real experience.

Session 653

This inspiration still directs my perception now / so when I look around / the world has already changed

When these things happened to her, what we consider subjective life became real and objective, and she regarded it in the same way we regard our normal physical life. That is, the very subjective thing we consider our life itself, this subjective life, was viewed by herself from the perspective of an observer, from a real perspective, as if it were a real object. She looked at her own life just as she looked at the other objects in her room.

This is never a process that can be completed, and it can never be described. But this process of inner material externalizing outward is a splendid experience, though at times it can be unsettling.

Perception Beyond Three Dimensions

From the desk where I sat / I faced the window of our small kitchen / I could see over the treetops / and see the street on the next block / but that was not three-dimensional space / it was more vivid

This feeling is that after the inner senses are opened, when you enter another state of consciousness, the world you see is no longer a three-dimensional world; it is a world beyond three dimensions. But this world beyond three dimensions is extremely wondrous, and yet very difficult to describe.

Anyone who has experienced it can feel that sensation. For example, you look at something in the distance, something very far away, you see it, but the moment you focus your attention on it, that thing automatically comes right up before your eyes. You do not know whether it came over or you went over—it feels as though it came over, not that you moved over. And you can also switch among different objects: for instance, if you feel a tree, you can become that tree, as if you were inside the tree, feeling the world from within the tree outward. You can also shift your focus at any time and become other objects. You can even feel the very lushness of the tree itself, and even feel the entire life of the tree—not only the tree itself, but every single leaf on the tree. This sensory system can only be perceived through direct personal experience; it is not something ordinary people can grasp or language can depict.

At this point she said:

I saw or felt / colossal figures / standing at the edge of the street scene I could see

That is, when you look into the distance, at the edge of your line of sight, at the edge of the street scene, at the very end of the road, that is equivalent to the edge of the world. She saw many colossal figures, standing there one by one like human-shaped figures.

My eyes were open / I used my inner vision / I felt one of those figures / solid and inconceivably vast

Actually there was one particularly solid, particularly vast one, perhaps bending down, using his enormous face to look in through my kitchen window. This person stood at the edge of the world, his form so immense that with a single bend he could reach right before you, looking in through your kitchen window, and Jane happened to be sitting inside the kitchen.

She said although she also understood that all of this was only her own interpretation of the impressions she received—only an interpretation.

At the same time / conversely / my perception of the room also changed / everything inside it / although to my gaze it still maintained its dimensions / had become miniature and small and lovely / like a toy-like world model of a fairy-tale world / yet it was a real and living world / my room was one of countless toy houses

She followed this phenomenon and looked, seeing her own house like a little house in a fairy-tale world. But this fairy-tale world was not like our ordinary toy houses, which are dead; this was a living world, with living people dwelling inside it.

She was very excited yet uneasy, trying to follow this phenomenon while still maintaining a certain kind of distance. She kept a distance between herself and this fairy-tale world; she was both inside this world and outside this world. So she did not get lost or sink into this world, nor was she completely lost, but she had already partially sunk into this world.

Can you feel it? That is, she seemed to be outside looking at this world, and at the same time she seemed to be sitting inside one of the rooms of this toy house, at the back of the kitchen, looking at the edge of the world where a colossal being bent down and looked in through the window—just as when we play with toys, the feeling of looking into a toy house is the same, as if the people inside the toy house also saw us looking at them. It was exactly this kind of proportional relationship. Jane could see both inside and outside, could feel both inside and outside.

Within God

Rob asked her to take a short nap, because the Monroes would be back in about an hour. She said that as she tried to sleep, from among many thoughts one thought popped out that startled her: we are God, we are within God, we have never been externalized.

Through her previous sensations, she suddenly had a feeling: they had always been living within God's inner world, and had never been externalized. She felt that this so-called physical world of ours was merely an inner world of God, and there had never been any actual outward projection, or projection outward, or concretization, or materialization.

But these words are also hard to explain her emotional and subjective involvement with this idea. She said this was not a description; she was vividly living in this world. That emotion—it is the feeling you get when one day you suddenly discover that the world we live in is just a game. You suddenly realize that this is a game. Jane had exactly that feeling at the time; she discovered she was living in a virtual world, and this world had never materialized, never manifested, never truly become physical substance. That is something only those who have experienced it can know.

Because I suddenly felt that God was as if within this room / everything I imagined and knew was within it

Everything she imagined and knew was within God, within God's world; there was no outside at all—this was her direct feeling.

I definitely had a touch of claustrophobia / feeling confined by this small room

My vision again changed in a strange and smooth way / I saw everything within itself / nested layer upon layer / endless

Everything she saw was layer upon layer, one level after another, from small to large, nested one inside another like Russian nesting dolls.

Then she suddenly felt that this state of hers was very normal, because this kind of scene had actually been explained by Seth in Seth Speaks: if you look at this world from a higher-dimensional perspective, it is a process of layer upon layer of nesting. It is a process from nothing to something, and then from something back to nothing, from this matter never having existed in this world, to this matter finally disappearing from this world, it is a process. And what you see is the entire process, not just a single present state.

But almost immediately there came a most strange sense of security. She first felt a kind of smallness, because she felt it was too incredible, this world, that she was living in an inner virtual world, but at the same time there was a most wondrous sense of security. Where did the security come from? Because she discovered and realized: since we are within God, then if this is made of the divine itself, then we should be eternal. And so this wondrous sense of security arose.

My next feeling was that the nature of this inner quality was so inconceivably vast

This inner quality within God contains all possibilities, with constantly expanding space, infinite space. Not just three-dimensional space, but space in all dimensions is infinite. Only an "within" can possess those constantly expanding qualities—that is, your inner world can expand without end.

Each of these ideas was like an emotional revelation, accompanied by bodily sensations and visual changes. It was not only visual; it was accompanied by bodily sensations and visual changes, but more than anything it was an emotional enlightenment and revelation.

Eagles and Dinosaurs: The Experience of Cellular Memory

At this point, other experiences also began.

She said she became lost in these other experiences to varying degrees. One of them concerned her body becoming enormous—that enormity was not an external physical enormity, but the very sensation of "enormity" itself. She felt the very sensation of "enormity," felt herself to be enormous, rather than how enormous her physical size actually was. She said she actually lay there enormously, she only expanded a little, rose a little higher.

Jane then went through a whole series of things involving various aspects of this concept of "enormity." Although for her body this was completely real, she also knew they were symbolic interpretations of inner reality. We believe this also involved what Seth described as cellular memory—that is, when our body feels enormous, sometimes it is cellular memory bringing you a real sensation.

She said the following was the confirmation of that description:

The next thing I knew I was back on the bed / I became heavy and huge and for a moment felt afraid / my left hand resting on the pillow had become an eagle's talon

Her eyes were closed, but as far as her physical sensation was concerned, her hand had indeed become so; her left hand had become an eagle's talon.

I felt a wondrous power in the hand / it tried to grasp like an eagle's talon / the strangest feeling I felt was a kind of armored sensation

That strange, hard, powerful talon feeling replaced what we call the sensation of flesh.

Then my shoulders and the entire upper half of my upper back / began to turn into a great eagle / it flapped its wings / the surging power and the feeling of the wingtips were astonishing

She simply felt she had become an eagle, flapping her wings, and that power, that force, astonished her.

In an indescribable process / another change occurred / this time I was a dinosaur / I mean I really was a kind of dinosaur / I stood on a great plain / reared up / and let out a rough and triumphant roar

Between the eagle and the dinosaur there was a similarity, and that lay in the armor of the body and that strange roughness of something unknown.

These were all stages I experienced / or at least something certain cells in my body remembered / and as far as I was concerned this personal feeling was extremely vivid

It was something these cells remembered, but that personal feeling was extremely vivid.

Then Rob called her, woke her up, and then we went to the hotel to pick up the Monroes. She felt absolutely delighted, but utterly exhausted. She began changing clothes, getting dressed, yet still felt that sense of being within God.

Outside the birds began to sing, and she was completely stunned—because she felt that the birds were God singing. This was not a symbolic, artistic feeling, but a suddenly understood fact.

Even when I found myself laughing / their incomparably sweet singing still echoed in my ears

She said the birds' calls were like incomparably sweet singing, like God singing, still echoing in her ears.

I had typed all day on the poems for the Speakers / and the edges of the newly applied nail polish had already chipped / I would now touch them up

She said whether within God or not, she was quite capable of thinking about things in such a worldly manner, of touching up her nail polish. When she walked into the living room to prepare for the guests, that room was also an "within"—that is, a virtual room within this virtual world of God.

The Continuation of the Transcendent Experience

Jane's transcendent experience continued for several more days, not just a little while, but several days. She also recalled some details she had not written down, and usually these memories were triggered by the ordinary time of our daily lives. She may not have remembered everything at the time, but in the days that followed, certain things she experienced in daily life would trigger those memories.

Monday evening she did not hold class; instead Jane used her own ability to tune in to a machine diagram Rob had drawn. It was a mechanical diagram Rob had seen during an out-of-body experience, and questions about physics came up—it was a discussion about the Fermi gap, related to the movement of a certain kind of electron²³. And Jane later began drawing her own pictures; she very much enjoyed using her abilities in this way.

She gave Rob her notes and her drawings. Then on Tuesday, besides writing about the episode of her transcendent experience, she also wrote a description of Monday evening's discussion, and for her own records she redrew and reorganized the notes and the sketch.

Wednesday evening at 9:22, Jane said: "I feel Seth is right here, and within a minute I can be ready." Strangely, as she sat there waiting, she felt many colors and great anticipation—she often felt this way, almost like the soaring feeling she had when she had written some good material, many poems. It was just like Monday's feeling—Monday she had written many poems, and that soaring feeling came again.

Seth: How Beliefs About Good and Evil Affect Attitudes

Then Seth began to speak:

Your attitudes toward sleep, toward dreams, or toward any alteration of consciousness, are all to some extent colored by the beliefs about good and evil in your Western society.

You live in this Western world, and your changes in attitude toward sleep, toward dreams, toward states of consciousness, are all to some extent colored by the beliefs about good and evil in the Western world.

These all come from the old Puritan work ethic.

The Puritans had their own ethic about work—people need to work, people cannot be idle, people cannot do nothing. Their theory was that "the devil finds work for idle hands." In other words, the Puritans believed that if you idle about every day, then you are doing evil things, because the devil will arrange evil work for those idle hands.

Such a threat and such a value system led everyone to not dare to be idle, and to keep busy every day. This idea itself brought about a comprehensive attitude that disapproved of rest, and also had no good feelings toward dreams.

Daydreaming and slight alterations of consciousness were also moral failings

That is, when we daydream, or make slight alterations in consciousness, these are all moral failings.

These ideas manifest in countless ways in your society, and in areas where the values of good and evil are not obvious

Some places have nothing to do with good and evil; in many areas of society there is not such a strong need to emphasize the values of good and evil, but even in those areas unrelated to good and evil, they are still influenced by these values of good and evil.

Yet aggressive activity is considered good

We consider this kind of daily aggressive activity to be good.

And that passive, intuitive activity they consider bad

You insist upon a physical product that can be tangibly displayed

We must have a tangible physical product. In this regard, dreams and daydreams are not regarded as constructive or productive, because they cannot produce such a tangible physical product; all you give is an imagination, a conception.

Young people are encouraged to face life aggressively

To face life aggressively, with impact, with action, but here it refers to being competitive. Young people are encouraged to work aggressively and competitively, telling you that in this society you must rise above others, otherwise you are an unsuccessful person. You must get into the best school, enter the best company, or start your own business, earn the most money, become one of the Fortune 500, or a listed company, and so on.

It also implies, and only advocates, an outward orientation of individual consciousness

It only emphasizes looking outward, not only focusing consciousness on the external world, but also within those limits. It further concentrates on certain specific goals—that is, focusing on a certain category of the external world: for example, if you are a doctor, you only do doctor things; if you are an engineer, you only do engineer things.

Such people are trained to think that alterations of consciousness, seemingly "passive" activities, are somewhat dangerous

For example, an artist is tolerated only when his works sell very well, and in such circumstances people think that painter has merely discovered a more cunning way of making money than most people. And a writer is tolerated only when his books gain fame and fortune; only then do we acknowledge the writer's value.

And poets are rarely tolerated

Because poets rarely gain fame and fortune through their poems or poetry collections; in today's society no one reveres a poet anymore, and the poet has become a profession in which one cannot even earn a living by writing poetry.

Dreamers, regardless of their age, profession, or family background, are considered the worst

Because they do not even have a skill to serve as an excuse for moral laziness. Even a poet has a skill; even a writer, an unknown writer, has a skill. But this dreamer is worse than all of them, because he has nothing, no ability at all; he only knows how to dream.

People who hold such beliefs find it extremely difficult to understand their own creativity

People with such beliefs find it very difficult to understand their own creativity, and cannot see the work accomplished in dreams and the many experiences encountered there.

They have little respect for dreamers or the idealists of the world

They all look down on them, and would be the first to attack those among their peers who show such tendencies. When he finds that his peers have that kind of idealism, or dreamer-ism, or are willing to use the way of dreams, he will attack these people—he feels you might as well go do something practical, and not do these vague and insubstantial things.

But in any case, each person's inner world is not affected by those beliefs

Although no matter how others attack you, each person's inner part is not affected by those beliefs. Indeed, those ideas will be reflected in their daily experience, and appear very reasonable—those concepts, those ideas will manifest in their daily lives, and appear very reasonable.

Yet beneath these banners, the inner self is quite aware of the great and striking creativity that occurs in dreams

Beneath that so-called reasonable daily life, the inner self is quite aware of the great and striking creativity that occurs in dreams, and realizes that the source of personal energy has nothing to do with these surface concepts of the nature of good and evil. This inner creativity of yours, this source of inner personal energy, has no relationship whatsoever with this external view of good and evil—that is, the secular, moral concepts of good and evil. You come entirely from the inner self; when you are connected with the inner self, when you are aligned with the inner self, your energy will flow continuously from the inner self. It is not that when you do good deeds outwardly, you then have a source of energy—no.

注释与核实

1. Source: timeanddate.com, "Year 1973 Calendar – United States" (https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=1973&country=1) ↩

2. This claim could not be verified. ↩

3. Source: Wikipedia, "Reform and opening up" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform) ↩

4. Source: Wikipedia, "Poor and lower-middle peasants," "Red Five Categories" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_and_lower-middle_peasants) ↩

5. Source: China News Service, "Cartoonist Cai Zhizhong: When my stomach is empty, my IQ is highest" (https://www.chinanews.com.cn/m/cul/2015/09-12/7520130.shtml) ↩

6. This claim could not be verified. ↩

7. Source: Yicai, "Seventy-year-old madman Cai Zhizhong: The most powerful thing is not scoring high on exams, but executing your dreams" (https://www.yicai.com/news/102947527.html) ↩

8. This claim could not be verified. ↩

9. This claim could not be verified. ↩

10. This claim could not be verified. ↩

11. This claim could not be verified. ↩

12. This claim could not be verified. ↩

13. This claim could not be verified. ↩

14. This claim could not be verified. ↩

15. This claim could not be verified. ↩

16. Source: Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE), "Sexual Violence in the Catholic Church: France 1950–2020" (https://www.ciase.fr/medias/Ciase-Rapport-5-octobre-2021-Les-violences-sexuelles-dans-l-Eglise-catholique-France-1950-2020.pdf) ↩

17. This claim could not be verified. ↩

18. Source: Society for Psychical Research (SPR) Psi Encyclopedia, "Robert Monroe" (https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/robert-monroe/) ↩

19. Source: Penguin Random House, "Journeys Out of the Body" (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/116125/journeys-out-of-the-body-by-robert-monroe/) ↩

20. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ralph Waldo Emerson summary" (https://www.britannica.com/summary/Ralph-Waldo-Emerson) ↩

21. Source: Wikipedia, "The Poet (essay)" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poet_(essay)) ↩

22. Source: Jane Roberts, "Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time" (Prentice-Hall, 1975) (https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5191888M/Dialogues_of_the_soul_and_mortal_self_in_time) ↩

23. This claim could not be verified. ↩