Mike's commentary · The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 14

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

Introduction

This chapter points out that everyday reality is the result of specific probable events being filtered and attracted through conscious beliefs and then actualized; beliefs determine the body's sensory experience, individuals create their own world, and the collective world is an agreement reached through shared beliefs. This chapter also discusses the simultaneity of time: past, present, and future are not fixed, present beliefs can change the past and the future, cellular memory can be rewritten, and illness and death can also be changed. Prophecy is merely seeing the existing line of beliefs; the future is not predetermined. These abilities are used to enrich physical experience.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Daily reality is the result of specific probable events being filtered and attracted through conscious beliefs and then actualized.
• Beliefs determine bodily sensory experience; individuals create their own world, and the collective world is agreed upon through shared beliefs.
• Past, present, and future are simultaneous; present beliefs can change the past and the future, and cellular memory can be altered at any point.
• Prophecy merely sees that people often move along established belief lines, but the future is not fundamentally predetermined, and even the time of death can be changed.
• These abilities are used to enrich physical sensory and psychic experience, not to detach from the material world.

Main Text

Which You, Which World

Seth book The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 14, titled "Which You, Which World." This section is actually the latter half of the last session of Chapter 13. Let us look at its content.

The topic we continue with is the subtitle under this main heading:

Your daily reality is the manifestation of particular probable events.

Everyone should note this down. It is actually a clear statement of this chapter. Chapter 14 has a main title -- Which You, Which World -- and then its subtitle is "Your daily reality is the manifestation of particular probable events." This chapter is actually highly subversive, overturning all of our values and our understanding of the world. If you are not very familiar with this chapter, I suggest you first look at Chapters 16 and 17 of Seth Speaks, regarding the analysis and related discussion of probable worlds and probable selves.

Let us look at how this chapter discusses it.

The brain can be called the physical counterpart of the mind.

The brain is simply a materialized expression of our mind.

Through the functions of the brain, the soul, and the intellect, we can connect with our body.

We ordinarily have a brain, we have our soul, and we also have our intellect -- these are three things -- and through their functions we connect with our body, connect with our physical body.

Through this characteristic of the brain, events from nonphysical sources are transformed into physically effective events.

That is, events from nonphysical sources, from nonphysical origins, become material events that occur in our three-dimensional world.

There will then be a definite filtering and focusing effect in operation.

Because there are very many nonphysical events, very many probable events. Which one will actually be manifested in our actual three-dimensional world, or materialized, requires a definite filtering and focusing effect in operation. You cannot manifest all things simultaneously.

Practically speaking, you do form the face that reality takes through your conscious beliefs. These beliefs are used as the motivating force for filtering and directing, bringing a particular nonphysical, nonmaterial "probable event" from other regions into three-dimensional space for realization.

The core meaning of this passage is that when we bring those nonphysical probable events into our three-dimensional world, they must pass through our conscious beliefs -- remember, it is through our conscious beliefs that they are formed. Through them, filtering and screening occur, deciding which probabilities to bring into our actual life. So these beliefs are primarily the motivating force for filtering and directing.

Other probable events may equally become your physical experience.

Those other probable events that were not manifested in the three-dimensional world may likewise become your physical, material experience -- it may not have manifested in this world of yours, but in other worlds it will manifest.

Your beliefs about yourself form your self-image.

How you perceive yourself will form your own image.

And then they will define what you consider possible or impossible for yourself.

This is all your belief system at work.

Therefore, from those nonphysical probable events, you select only those that suit you.

From all those probable events that do not occur in your actual life, you select only those that suit you, those you feel match what might happen to you now, those you believe can happen.

Because of your psychological and psychic structure, within the rich construction of your existence there are endless variations. We call these "probable selves."

Because our psychological and psychic structure causes us to have endless probable existences -- these endless probable variations are the "probable selves."

In one reality or another, all of these will be experienced.

All of these "probable selves," in the reality where they reside, or in other probable realities, will all be experienced. Be sure to remember: "all" of them.

In your present existence, however, you will only use those psychological characteristics you believe you possess. Therefore personality cannot be defined.

Why? Because you are constantly changing. Whatever psychological characteristics you believe you possess, you choose that kind of probability to manifest in this world.

Probability and Complete Experience

Regarding these probable selves, let me say a few words. Many people do not understand, asking why such probable existences are necessary, why there is such a design or such a structure. Many people keep asking why, always pursuing with a spirit of a hundred thousand whys. This spirit is very good. I can only use my understanding to explain it to you simply.

First, we say that you come into a three-dimensional world to experience this society, to experience the experience of this three-dimensional world. You came from the nonphysical realm, you came from the soul, or you came down from your entity. All right, once you arrive in this three-dimensional world, you may want to do this, and also want to do that. You can set up the broad background of your game, for example what kind of family you are born into, what your parents are like, which country, which region, which era, which age you are born into -- you can choose all of it. But after choosing, under the premise of such initial raw material, many possibilities may then occur. For example, you might drop out of school halfway and go into business; it is also possible that some strange changes will happen in your family; it is also possible that some accident will happen to you; it is also possible that you make different choices -- you might choose to go directly for a PhD, do scientific research, become a scientist. All of these are possible.

Simply put, within the same initially set broad environment, you have many possibilities. Since you have been sent here once, how can it become a complete you, a complete experience? It should be that all possibilities are experienced.

For example, you want to marry Zhang San, you want to marry Li Si, and you also want to marry Wang Wu. You want to marry these three people. If you married all three of them once, and experienced married life with each of them, would your life then be called complete? Would your experience then be called complete? Otherwise, would you not be left with regret, saying, I only married Zhang San in this life, I never lived with Li Si, I do not know what it would have been like if I had lived with Li Si. Well then, although in this life of yours you only married Zhang San and did not live with Li Si, in another reality space, you have already married Li Si. The moment you had that thought, you began living with Li Si, developing along another timeline, another storyline. In that world, you experience the experience of living with Li Si. And all of these experiences -- your experience of living with Zhang San, your experience of living with Li Si -- are all the possibilities that you as this person, under such a broad physical environment, such a material environment, in such a space-time setting, can manifest. And only the complete experience of all these probable yous can finally be called a complete personality. So this is why we need so many "probable selves" to exist.

Let me give a very simple example. Suppose you want to play a role-playing game, and this game has many settings: you can be a wizard, you can be a warrior, you can be a mage, or some other character. If you say you want to play this game thoroughly, do you not have to play every character once? We can regard each character as one reincarnation, each time choosing a different life to begin. Then within a single character, once a persona has begun, do you not have to try all the possible branches of the game's story? Because in game design, there are certainly many possibilities and branches; it cannot be a single storyline -- that would be a very primitive game. Modern games are all open-world games, with many possibilities and branching structures. So as a hardcore player, if you say you have played this character thoroughly, the premise is that you have completed all the possible quests of this one character, and only then can it be called a complete experience. My example is not especially apt, but it can at least make you think, and from this angle understand the significance of these probable worlds and probable selves.

Belief Determines Your Sense Experience

Let us continue.

The physical construction of the body follows your beliefs.

However your beliefs decide, your body decides accordingly.

Therefore all physical sense data will faithfully reflect the beliefs that direct their activity.

Because your body follows your beliefs, your senses -- your bodily senses are also your body, also your physical body -- will faithfully reflect the beliefs that direct them. Simply put, your body is entirely directed by your beliefs. So what you can feel, what you can see, what you can accept, what you can approve of, what you can understand, what you can experience -- all of it is entirely decided by your beliefs. They decide all of it.

You must remember this. This is the first place that may overturn your beliefs. Do not think that in the external world you are a passive receiver, a victim, as if you had no control at all. It is actually completely reversed. It is because you decide your body; your beliefs manipulate your body, making it experience, feel, receive, see, hear. All life experience is directed by these beliefs. So if you want to experience something, if you want to feel something, then go modify your beliefs. That is your only method.

If you understand this principle, it is as if your life has unlocked a password or a cheat code. When we were children playing games, in our era when games were not yet so advanced, we could often modify games -- pull out the game files, and through various compiling programs find the code for the key character attributes. The codes in those games were all hexadecimal, things like F, F, F and so on. When we found that method of modifying games, we would change the character's stamina, ability, energy, attack power all to maximum values, all F's. When this character returned to the game, after restarting and re-entering, the character's abilities had completely changed. What I mean is that when you understand this principle, it is as if your life has been given a cheat code, as if you have understood a great secret -- you know how this world and life work, and from then on you can begin living the life you want to live, completely free from any limitation. Because you only need to change your beliefs, and your world will change accordingly.

In a manner of speaking, hypnosis is only an exercise in changing beliefs.

From a certain angle, hypnosis is an exercise that can change beliefs.

And it clearly shows that sense experience does indeed follow your expectations.

So in a hypnotic state, you can experience different things. Under the guidance of a hypnotist, you will discover that your senses and your feelings can indeed -- in a hypnotic state -- return to different scenes, return to the past, return to history, and feel things from your childhood or from earlier times, and can even bring you into experiences from past lives. The point of his mentioning hypnosis here is to tell you: since hypnosis can make your senses feel experiences that are no longer of the present -- experiences from decades ago or even from past lives -- that means your beliefs can control your body, making your body feel what it wants to feel. He wants to prove that this fact exists; he uses hypnosis to prove this point of his.

The "self" that you presently consider yourself to be only represents one of the probable states of your existence.

The "self" that ordinary people consider themselves to be only represents one of the probabilities of existence, just one of them. It reveals your present "self," entering into physical experience, entering into our material reality, entering into our present life, and then directing the life and body of the flesh, defining all sense data -- be sure to remember, it is this self that defines.

He is saying that each of us in the present moment -- this "self" that each person considers himself to be -- only represents one of the probabilities of your existence. It has revealed itself, entered into manifestation in our three-dimensional world, entered into our material reality, and then it directs your physical life and body, and then it defines all sense data.

If your ideas about yourself change, then your experience changes accordingly.

He uses the earlier example of hypnosis as evidence to make you believe this matter. I think that those who have been studying along with us all this time have already discovered this kind of change in their lives, though perhaps they are not yet one hundred percent certain, still in a state of half-belief, half-doubt, still in the process of experimenting. Seth is tireless -- actually, if his principles were condensed simply, they could probably be explained in two or three hours, but he spoke at great length over several years. His point is just one thing: to repeatedly revise your belief system. Because if it were said too briefly or without emphasis, you would not be able to accept it all at once.

Even the intimate bodily experience will change.

Not only will your external experience change, your bodily experience will also change. You might say, we ordinarily say "I am just me," this thing is just "you are you." I say I am me -- he says, which one is you? Among so many probabilities, which one is you? The one you recognize as you -- and the reason you recognize this one is because your beliefs decide it.

Let us continue:

From an individual standpoint, each "individual" creates his own world.

Each separate individual creates his own world.

And your human physical equipment dictates your group experience to a certain extent, at which point an agreement is reached, but only along general lines.

What does this passage mean? He mentions that you create your own world. But you say, why do we still have a world that interacts with others? Why is there still an external world when we go outside? And this external world does not only contain myself, it also contains other people. They also create their worlds, and I create my world. Is my world the same world as theirs? This is a question many people ask. Does this world with seven billion people have seven billion worlds? Then which world is the real world?

His following passage explains this question. He says it is because your group experience reaches a certain extent, reaches a kind of consensus, and then an agreement is reached -- an agreement that everyone accepts -- and then it follows only those general lines. In other words, each of us has our own belief system, and each of our belief systems is actually related to the country, the society, and the world in which we live. When you had no belief system, your parents were teaching you, or instilling in you their belief system. After you accepted their belief system, you actually accepted the belief system of all humanity -- they are part of humanity, they have lived in human society for decades, and when they instilled their belief system into you, it was actually equivalent to instilling the belief system of the region, the country, or the era in which they lived, the belief system of humanity in that era. And when you accepted this system, you actually tacitly agreed to this agreement.

For example, apples are sweet, bananas are soft, walnuts are hard, and so on; what is good, what is bad, what can be done, what cannot be done, what makes people like you, what makes people dislike you. Once you accept these concepts, it is equivalent to agreeing to this agreement, agreeing to such a common agreement of humanity. When you agree to this agreement, do your beliefs not largely overlap with the beliefs of these humans? When we hold the same beliefs, our worlds basically begin to enter a state of merging or overlapping.

For example, when you were little, your parents taught you that this is a cup, used for drinking water. If you accepted such a belief and such a concept, then your concept is the same as everyone else's in the world -- children all over the world were also taught by their mothers, their fathers, that this is a cup for drinking water. So on this matter, on the matter of cups for drinking water, all humans in the world have reached a consensus; there is no difference here. But on many other small matters, there are serious differences. For example, we eat with chopsticks, while Westerners insist on eating with knives and forks, and many people in India eat with their hands -- and they eat with their right hand, they do not eat with their left hand; the left hand cannot be placed on the table when eating, it must stay below. Why? Because when they go to the toilet, they use their left hand to handle the toilet matter¹. Their toilets all have a small bucket of water placed there. After using the toilet, they use their hand to clean up, and after cleaning they rinse with water, and they feel it is clean. But they also know the left hand cannot be used at the table for eating, because it is very unhygienic, and they have formed such a habit -- this is something they consider very normal and natural. This is a different belief, and divergence begins to arise. Including religious beliefs, beliefs about skin color, beliefs about race, social beliefs, differences in political ideas -- all arise because of this.

So you will understand that our so-called external world, our so-called common human world that we perceive, is constituted by some of our common beliefs. It is that simple. This is what Seth means in this passage.

The entire human experience that you perceive forms your world.

The entire private experience that you perceive forms your world.

But which world do you inhabit?

He returns to asking you this question again.

If you change your beliefs, and therefore change your personal feeling about reality, then that world, which seems to be the only one, will also change.

Here he challenges your thinking again. Which world do you inhabit? You think you say, I live in this world, just this present world. But if you change your beliefs, and therefore change your personal feeling about reality -- reality is our personal feeling about the external world -- then will that world not change accordingly? And that world, which may seem to you to be the only world. In other words, you do not have a single unique world; your world is changing minute by minute, changing every second. Because your beliefs are always changing, your thoughts are always changing, so the angle from which you see the world is also changing, the feeling with which you feel the world is also changing, and then your world is changing. He asks you, then which world do you actually live in?

You are indeed constantly experiencing changes of belief, and your perception of the world differs accordingly.

Because your beliefs have changed, your perception of the world is already different. This is the simplest thing, right? For example, someone who has just fallen in love -- whether male or female -- when they have just fallen in love, when the other person has just agreed to be their boyfriend or girlfriend, they see the whole world as glowing and shining, tinged with the colors of romance. This is very obvious; everyone can feel it. When you go through a breakup, the world is still that world, but the feeling with which you see the world is completely different. The places you once went together, the places that were once romantic memories, have now all become places of heartbreak, places you cannot even look at, cannot even go to.

So you seem no longer to be your previous self. And your world has changed, and this is not merely a symbolic statement; it is real.

The fact is just this: you are not your previous you, and your world has changed. Everything has changed.

Being Alive or Living

You often fall into a state of "ineffectiveness."

That is, you often enter a not-so-good state, a low state.

In fact, you pull your consciousness back, and experience life in a less adequate fashion.

What does it mean to pull your consciousness back? It means not letting your consciousness rush so far forward, not letting it feel so keenly, but turning it into a comparatively inadequate -- that is, not very adequate -- way of experiencing life. Suppose your consciousness has 100% capacity, and you are now only using 30% or 40%. You are using only a very small part of your consciousness to experience your life, and the functions of the other part you are not using at all. And most of us -- if you have not studied spiritual material, or have not entered an enlightened state -- are basically in this state.

In this state, what are you doing?

You seem not to experience yourself directly.

Like many little Zen stories tell: a young monk asks an old monk, what is the difference between before your enlightenment and after your enlightenment? The old monk tells the young monk, before my enlightenment, when I carried water I thought about chopping wood; when I chopped wood I thought about boiling water; when I boiled water I thought about brewing tea; when I brewed tea I thought about drinking tea. He says, I still do these things now, but when I carry water I only carry water, when I chop wood I only think about chopping wood, when I boil water I only think about boiling water, when I drink tea I only think about drinking tea -- just such a simple change. His meaning is that in this state, you seem not to experience yourself directly. If you have seen Peaceful Warrior², it will tell you how to experience your present life, the feeling of this present moment.

And really, in what you consider your waking state, you act in the most mechanical fashion, and "live."

We follow habits, drift along with habits, and become comparatively unaware of sensory stimulation. We call this state "being alive." We should "live," not merely "be alive." And this state is called "being alive" -- like a robot drifting along with feelings. Whatever others do, I do too. Others say civil service jobs are relatively secure these days, so I will go take the civil service exam, placing myself in what seems like a very safe place, because civil service is the most stable and risk-free -- that is what he believes. Then you are drifting along with other people's habits, and you are completely not acting according to your own thoughts. In fact, the place you think is safest in this world is often the least safe, and the way you think is least safe may actually be the safest.

So much of our ordinary life is that two-point-one-line kind -- company, home, at most going to the supermarket, strolling through a mall, gathering with friends. If you carefully analyze your life, it is nothing more than this, operating in such a mechanical way. You do not fully use your consciousness to experience your life, so you are unaware of the flowers and grass along the road, the beautiful scenery along the way, the beautiful feelings in life. You become very dull, muddled. Eating is also tasteless; you casually shovel down a couple of mouthfuls and stop once you are full.

Your beliefs usually lose their sharpness, and the instructions given to the body are not very clear.

The instructions you give to the body are also unclear, whatever.

And the world seems fuzzy.

It is as if you are looking at this world, and also as if you are not looking at this world. Every morning you get up in a daze, wash your face in a flurry, then hastily make something to eat, and then rush to catch the bus, catch the subway, go to work. The whole way, time is tight, and there is no time to observe, to carefully observe this world. When you arrive at the workplace, another muddled day goes by, busy and bustling without knowing what you are doing. When you finish and get off work, you do not know where the meaning and value of your work lies. Then you go home, another round of the bus system, or you drive stuck in traffic -- whether stuck in Beijing or stuck in Shanghai, or stuck in the urban traffic of some other city. When you get home, you begin your normal life again, scrolling through Douyin, watching short videos, binge-watching dramas, and then you are very tired, after this day, and you sleep. Day after day passes like this, and the world looks very fuzzy, not so clear, and you have never carefully looked at what this world really is.

This is often a time of deep unconscious activity.

At this time, you are basically in a state of half-consciousness, half-unconsciousness.

It is the opportune moment when new latent possibilities await.

When you live your days this way, you are actually always waiting, waiting for an opportunity. In fact, deep down you also know that living this way is meaningless, and this is not the life you want to live, yet you keep waiting, waiting for an opportunity to come to you, to change you, through changes in the external environment. Both of these possibilities can happen. If your intention is strong enough, if your belief in change is strong enough, then substantive change will occur. The change may also not be a good thing for you -- perhaps you get laid off by your company, because with the current pandemic, every company is cutting staff, and you may be laid off and lose your job, so that you can no longer even manage to live this mechanical kind of life. At that point you are forced to make a change and begin asking yourself what you really want to do.

In your terms, probable events are brought into actuality. This is done through the body's nervous system, and achieved through a certain intensity of will or conscious belief.

How can you bring probable events into actuality? He tells you several points: one is that it must be done through the body's nervous system, this absolutely must be done through the nervous system. In other words, through the conscious you, through this thinking brain -- this is necessary. You must remember, it is done through this. You cannot say, what if I do not have this brain's thinking ability, then what? No. It is done through your nervous system, and this is required.

So many people ask this question: can our animals also create things? Can animals also create their worlds? No, they cannot. There are many essential differences between humans and animals, including the moment of reflection he mentioned earlier, the nervous system, and so on, as well as our relationship with the entity -- the entity is a part of All That Is, and we are a part of the entity, and this relationship is essentially different from that of animals. And here he will emphasize one more point: this process requires the body's nervous system to accomplish, and animals do not have the kind of nervous system that we humans have. They have nervous systems similar to ours, but also very different systems; for example, their brain mechanisms are completely different from our way of thinking.

Then through your will, or a "certain" intensity of conscious belief. You see, Seth's wording is extremely precise. He uses "a certain" intensity -- "a certain" intensity does not mean that the harder you think about something, the more it will be realized. This degree of intensity is not the kind of intensity we humans understand. Of course there is some correlation, but they are not equal. It does not mean that the more you want something, the more surely you will get it. He uses "a certain" intensity to mean that you must be in alignment with it, you must reach the same frequency as it, and only at the same frequency can we talk about intensity. If you are not on the same frequency, no matter how strong your intensity is, if you are not on the same frequency as what you want to manifest, it is meaningless.

So you see, in this sentence, Seth expresses it as rigorously as possible.

These beliefs obviously have another reality besides the one with which you are familiar.

Besides the reality you are familiar with, these beliefs also have another reality. You must remember this. That is, your beliefs have manifested certain things in this world of yours, but only in your world -- in this world you are familiar with -- they also have another reality.

Beliefs attract and bring certain events into existence, while others are not brought in.

You see, he uses the word "attract." So where did the law of attraction come from? That law of attraction -- this "attract" came from here, that is where this "attract" came from. So beliefs attract, and bring certain events into existence -- certain probable events, they bring them in. He uses the word "bring in." Does this mean you do not need to do anything here? It is all your beliefs doing it. What do your beliefs use to do it? They attract it. Why does it attract? If you want to get to the bottom of how beliefs attract it, Seth has already told you -- it goes back to the most primitive units of matter, back to EE units. These EE units themselves attract like to like; they themselves have the property that people gather by kind and things divide by group. So your same beliefs will attract the same events, it is that simple. So he uses the word "attract," and if you want to get to the bottom of it, that is how it comes about.

Through this way of attracting, certain events are brought into this existence. Actually this process is very complex, and he has already explained it before, so we will not repeat it. It is not such a simple matter, but this complex process happens to be something you do not need to exert effort to do, and you do not need to artificially figure out how it is realized. How does it manifest in the three-dimensional world? You only need to know the principle of this process, and you only need to believe that it will be realized. As for exactly how it is realized, I can only say that with humanity's current level of intelligence and wisdom, it is still impossible to understand it -- that is, how a thought becomes something manifested in our three-dimensional world. He has given many explanations and descriptions, from atoms to molecules, from states even smaller than atoms, and Seth has explained as much as he possibly can. But if you insist on getting an explanation in the terms of current science, I can only say it is impossible. Because current science is nowhere near reaching that state; current science discusses problems on an entirely different level, in another dimension, in another realm, and it is still far too distant from the essential things of this world. If you want to use a theory from that world to explain what happens in this real world, then you have chosen the wrong approach.

They therefore decide which events to experience from an infinite variety of probable events.

Who are "they"? They are those beliefs. These beliefs decide, from an infinite variety of probable events, which events to experience.

You seem to be in the center of your world. For you, your world begins at the point where soul and flesh consciousness meet.

For you, the you who exists in this physical world, your world begins at the moment your soul enters your physical body and they intersect, that is, from the moment of incarnation, your world begins. He says you must remember, it is "for you" -- not for everyone. So for you, your world comes about in this way.

In surface terms, the sense of "I" that you possess is the result of a constantly emerging "probable identity." It has continuity in time, which is caused by the intervals of the body apparatus's innate nervous reactions.

So this continuity in between is not real continuity; it is determined by your body apparatus -- determined by our body's biological properties, physical properties, caused by our nervous mechanism -- only then does this continuity exist. And what is the real situation? It is that the you that you think you are has many kinds of probabilities -- probable identities constantly emerge, and then under the feeling of your physical, nervous continuity of perception, you feel that such a self has been continuously existing. But in fact it is not; it is just one probable you after another probable you, and then another probable you. These probable yous -- you think that these frequently emerging probable yous are you, and you recognize them as you. Because you possess physical continuity, they seem to be continuous, and your sense of identity seems to be consistent.

You only recognize that portion of your identity that is physically realized.

That is, the portion of your true identity that is realized in the physical world, the portion manifested in the physical world -- those portions brought into the physical pattern, brought into what your physical body can perceive. And there are also those portions you do not perceive, which you are not aware of.

At this point Seth says with very forceful gestures:

This is the result of the focused yet limited behavior of the "physical brain."

This is your physical brain -- our biological brain, the brain of the flesh -- the result of its focused yet limited behavior. It will necessarily lead to such a result. Because your brain is physical, it can only perceive what it so-called recognizes, what it acknowledges as perception of the physical world. Because your senses are all physical senses; you have physical eyes, a physical nose, a physical tongue, all of which are material existences, and you perceive through them. This is a result of your brain's focus.

For in your world, effective survival action must depend upon reactions to time.

In our world, all survival behavior, all things, all actions, must depend upon reactions to time. We cannot escape the net of time; time for us is the only and eternal kind of existence, and this way of being limits you in many ways.

The activity of the nervous patterns therefore creates the illusion of a "present," in which your consciousness appears focused and alert.

The activity of the nerves creates an illusion for us, and in this so-called illusory "present" moment, your consciousness appears focused and has feeling; so-called alertness means having perception.

In a certain manner, "future events" exist now.

It is in quotation marks -- "future events" exist now. Why does he put it in quotation marks? Actually there is no future either; it is all now, all happening simultaneously.

They are too fast, they skip over the nerve endings too quickly, and you have not yet been able to perceive and experience them physically.

He explains it from another angle: why can you not perceive the future? Why can you only perceive the present? Why can you recall the past? -- For now he is talking about the future first -- why can you not perceive future events? It is not that you cannot perceive them; it is that they have already happened, but they are too fast, so fast that your nerve endings cannot capture them, and they simply pass over your nerve endings, so you have no perception of them. You cannot physically perceive them, but that does not mean they have not happened or do not exist.

Nerve impulses possess a far different reality than medical men or biologists suppose.

Here he begins to talk about nerve impulses. They are completely different from what our current scientists and biologists suppose, not the same at all. Our current biology and medicine's understanding of nerve impulses is completely different.

While you are thinking, the "past" is still happening. That "pull" that guides you across the nerve synapse is not physically recorded.

He says that when you are thinking at this present moment, the "past" is still happening; it has not yet leaped across your nerve synapse. Once it leaps across, would it not be finished happening? But he says it has not yet -- it has not yet passed, which means this past is still what? It has not yet happened, it is still happening. So it has not been physically recorded by you, and this is completely different from our understanding.

Past events continue. You only consciously experience a portion of the event with the physical structure, and this structure itself records the entire event.

He says that this structure of your nerve impulses -- that is, the overall structure of our entire nervous system -- records the entire event. And what our physical body can perceive is only a portion of this event. Which portion do we perceive? What we perceive is the stimulation of this past event, from one nerve ending leaping across to another nerve ending, and between the two nerve synapses this leap has already been completed. Because this leap has been completed, you have a sense of time -- because completing this process requires a certain amount of time, and this sense of time gives you a basic cognition of the event, and only then do you have the distinction of present, past, and future. And you think that past events have already finished happening; that is only a portion of the entire past event that you experienced -- because you only experienced the state in which it felt as though it were completed, so you think it has been completed. But in fact this past event has not been completed; it is still progressing, still happening. But we cannot feel this entire event; we only feel the process of its completion. This is our understanding of past events, and this is caused by our body, by the design of our nervous system.

In this way, the cells maintain their own memory. Although you do not perceive it, the body is able to be aware of so-called future events, though usually you will not consciously perceive this.

Under normal circumstances, you basically cannot foresee the future. But some people can foresee the future, and there are too many stories about this process -- some people through dreams, or directly before their eyes, can see what will happen in the future. What does he mean here? He says that in the same way, how we perceive the past is how we perceive the future, it is the same. Our cells maintain their own memory -- what memory? It is this complete memory. The cells' memory is complete, but you cannot perceive it; you can only perceive the portion that actually happened. And the body can be aware of so-called future events; your cells can also know future events, but you cannot perceive them, you cannot feel this future.

Then he suddenly begins to speak very enthusiastically and rapidly:

However, in other levels of psychic activity, this knowledge is available to you. But only when you separate experience from the time-activated nervous structure can this be done, through various alterations of consciousness.

So here Seth gives you a basic theoretical foundation for being able to foresee the future. That is, when you do not take time as the starting point for experiencing all your experiences -- ordinarily when we think of things we have experienced, we first take time as the starting point: when did this happen, when did it happen, what happened before and after -- when you do not take time as the starting point for experiencing your experiences, in other words, when you break free from the limitations of time, then you will discover that what are called future events are all right before your eyes.

So humanity's feeling about the future, and this feeling of time as present, past, and future, is a feeling of your psychological structure or a nervous structure; it is not real. It is not that the future will be such and such, the present is such and such, the past was such and such -- these are all illusions and hallucinations given to us by our nervous system. It is because we have such a nervous system that we perceive in this way, and it is not that the future is the future, the present is the present, and the past is the past. No, they all happen at the same time.

Let us continue.

Many such instances can give you a far more direct experience of the nature of your "nonphysical reality" than any normal conscious questioning.

There are many such instances, generally only perceivable in our abnormal states. What he means is that many times when we are awake and consciously question this issue -- it can give you a far more direct experience of the nature of nonphysical reality. At certain stages of your life, you have certainly experienced this feeling of foreseeing the future several times. The most typical example -- I estimate everyone has had this experience, just differing in frequency and intensity -- is that at a certain point in time, in a certain scene, you discover that you seem to have experienced this scene before. In an instant you recall that you have been to this place in this situation, and you also know what the people around you will say next, what will happen afterward, and what they say and what happens are exactly the same as what you felt and anticipated in your mind.

What Seth is saying here is that the occurrence of this kind of situation, along with many other abilities of a prophetic nature that are accurately realized -- including your own ability to prophesy, your ability to foresee the future -- the experience this kind of thing gives you is far more useful than consciously questioning it. It will truly tell you what the essence of nonphysical experience really is; it gives you a real experience, far more effective than studying it through theory. And everyone will have this experience; it is all real.

Which you? Which world?

He comes back to this question again.

To some extent, you can discover other probable you's, that are a part of your identity.

When you reach a certain ability, a certain degree, you can discover other probable yous, which are a part of your existence. You still have other yous, existing in other times and spaces.

The past also has its own future

Let us take a break. Then Jane, while in trance, did not know that the delivery was so slow. When I asked her, she seemed to recall these fluctuations. She said that in this session she spoke very slowly -- so you see, this content is very short, but she actually spoke for a whole evening, already past eleven o'clock. She said Seth tried to present this material in a way that people not very familiar with such things could also understand, while also making it interesting to a doctor or biologist, but that was not a simple matter. She said there was also a pile of material about nerve synapses and neurons and so on that he had not put in, because it involved specialized academic matters. Actually Seth wanted human medical scientists, biologists, and scientists to do research according to his line of thinking, because this is the essence of our world's reality -- his book is called The Nature of Personal Reality, this is the essence of human reality, so he wanted to attract their attention. But he also considered that this involved too many specialized terms from neurology and medicine, so he did not put it in. This is also a rather regrettable place -- if he had put it in, the impact on current medicine might have been enormous. Let us not talk about this in the middle, about synapses between neurons and nerve cells and so on.

They represent your "experience not on a physical level."

What are "they"? They are those things that jump outside our daily experience -- for example, suddenly having a feeling of premonition, suddenly feeling as if this scene has happened before and is being replayed again, but you cannot remember when it happened, yet you remember it very clearly -- it is this kind of perception. For example, someone dreams about what will happen tomorrow, and then the next day that thing happens. One of our readers left a message saying, I now have an ability: I cannot foresee further ahead, but I can clearly foresee what will happen tomorrow -- he can always clearly know what will happen the next day, and the next day unfolds exactly according to the events in his dream from the night before, referring to the main events. So when experiencing them, he does not find any event strange at all; they were all dreamed the night before. What is referred to here are those feelings we consider abnormal -- they represent your experience on a nonphysical, nonmaterial level.

My dear friend Ruburt, in a novel, gave an analogy for this.

You perceive a certain event as present because your beliefs let that event in through the nerve synapses, and attract it, and then it seems to become past.

This is Seth's analogy for this event in the novel. He says you perceive a certain event as "present" because your beliefs let that event in through the nerve synapses. If your belief system does not want it to come in, it will not happen in your world -- so your belief system plays the role of a filter. Why does he tell you to revise your belief system? To let the things you want, the things you hope for, happen -- that is, it allows certain things to come through, and only those things can come through. You let it come through, and then you begin to attract it. Then it seems to become past -- after it happens, it becomes past, it seems to become past, but actually it does not become past.

Yet you have only physically tuned in to a portion of it.

You have only tuned in to a portion of this event -- which portion? The portion you can perceive. It has been happening in the past all along; when you think it has already passed, it is still happening, still happening for you, and for it, it is a future matter. That past event continues to exist, but we can no longer perceive it. We can only perceive the portion that physically exists for us.

It has its own future.

That past event has its own future. And according to which probability you pull down into this experience, that determines whether you perceive it or not. In other words, whatever event you want to feel, you pull it into your experience and let it manifest in your three-dimensional world.

The past, therefore, does have its own past, present, and future.

Every past you think of has its own past, its own present, and its own future.

From a certain past event, you will only materialize one particular future of it.

From a certain past event, for example, after graduating from university you went to work at Company A -- that is one event. Then while working at Company A, there will be a particular future of Company A's development, and then you materialize that particular future of Company A's development. But when you graduated, you may have received job offers or confirmation letters from many companies. Would you go to Company A, Company B, or Company C? You only chose Company A, but the possibilities of Company B and Company C all exist. So you only chose Company A, and only gave this past event one direction of development. You took this past event's future and made it your future, and materialized it -- it is also your present, because you are still working at Company A now.

But the event itself continues.

That is, going to Company B or going to Company C is also happening, and going to Company A is also happening -- it is a timeline, and it is still happening.

It has its own dimension, or rather a multidimensional one.

Rather, it is a multi-space-time or multi-world -- Multi-Worlds, that kind of multi-world.

That is also yours.

You also possess multi-worlds, multi-times, multi-space-times.

You can study the memory of the cells, for example, and only use memory to trace back the sequence in which remembered events are recognized.

If we carefully study the memory of the cells, you can only use memory to trace back this sequence of what is remembered and recognized.

But from your present viewpoint, some portions of your past are as unpredictable as portions of your future.

When you stand from the perspective of the present moment, your past and your future are equally unpredictable. This completely overturns many people's beliefs and concepts. Your past is just like your future; it is the same, and creativity awaits you in both. Why? Because your past -- every past has a probable space-time existence, and a probable world developing there. So every past is different; it is not something dead, settled, and closed with a period. Is this past matter over? That matter is still happening, still in the process of happening. So just as you do not know what will happen in your future, you think your past has already happened, but actually it is still happening, in the process of happening. So your past is also unpredictable to you.

But to utilize such experience, you must learn to alter your beliefs.

If you want to utilize this kind of experience of changing your past, you must change your beliefs.

And to some extent escape the particular, narrow, conscious focus to which you are accustomed.

You must shift your conscious focus. If you use your narrow conscious focus -- the narrow focus that only observes the physical level -- you cannot change the past and the future.

Or we can continue this lesson, and you may rest -- if you wish. Then Jane asked with particular confusion, "Did we not just rest?" He told her that this lesson was difficult, not so easy. Wait for us a moment -- so this session was hard for him to present, and he needed to organize his language.

The physical structure itself contains what you would call "the necessary prerequisites for the evolution of consciousness."

That is, your physical body itself already contains all the necessary prerequisites for the evolution of our consciousness.

To some extent it also contains the necessary prerequisites for the organization of experience, in ways that are now quite foreign to you.

What do these two paragraphs mean? What these two paragraphs are saying is that you can change the focus of your consciousness, and your consciousness can evolve. Your consciousness is not the way it is now and will always be this way. Through practice, training, and in actual experience, you can continuously evolve your consciousness to a certain specific level, so that you can easily -- or at will -- shift the focus of your consciousness, rather than being limited by the current narrow, specific focus of consciousness. And your physical body itself has this ability. You have this capability, without needing to enter some kind of divine realm. Every one of you has this ability; your physical body has this ability. And to a certain degree, you also possess this ability to reorganize experience -- this precondition. What does it mean to reorganize experience? It means breaking all the limitations on your experience of the present, past, and future, so that when you experience them there are no restrictions. You can organize these experiences in your own way, and experience your past, your present, and your future in your own way.

Sense data can be organized in different ways.

Here he is emphasizing to you -- why does your physical body have this ability? He is proving it to you.

There are certain mechanisms and pathways that make it quite possible for you to see sound, or hear color, although this is not the custom you adopt at this time.

Sound is generally heard, but you can see sound; color is generally seen, but you can hear color. We have talked about this example before. So your sense data can be organized in different ways, not just in one way.

In certain ways, intervals of time can be leaped. Just as a "past" smell or sight can suddenly be perceived with present vividness.

What we call past smells or sights in your memory can suddenly be perceived with present vividness. I gave an example before, of suddenly smelling the scent of chive buns while on the phone -- or other scents, it is the same. What is that? That is leaping across your olfactory cells. Your neural synapses received no external stimulus -- that is, there are no chive buns in your reality, but the smell of chive buns is still transmitted through your neural synapses, giving you this real sensation, letting you smell the chive buns, and even see some kind of scene -- this all actually happens in reality.

This kind of thing that happened in the past, under certain circumstances, a memory may suddenly become more real than the present moment.

A memory can seem more real than your present moment. We have all felt this.

And thus rush into your present experience.

It will burst into your present experience. For example, right now you are not eating chive buns at all, but the experience of chive buns has already rushed into your present world. What is he trying to tell you with all this? He is telling you that you have the ability to organize past experience -- past experience has not passed. If you want it to come back, it can come back instantly. Your physical body has this ability.

This is as effective as when it first happened.

That smell is absolutely real, just like something happening right before your eyes.

If your physical structure did not have innate mechanisms allowing it to do this, or if under certain circumstances the normal gaps between cellular synapses could not be leaped in different ways, then this could not happen.

What this passage means is to tell you that your body has this ability. It can leap across your neural synapses in different ways. Because this event is something that already happened in the past, or something that was once in memory, yet it can jump before your eyes in the present. It is precisely because your neural synaptic cells have this ability -- they can skip the normal way. It is not that there is only one normal chronological way to experience things; you can experience them in other ways. So he is telling you that your physical body itself has this ability. Your nervous system, your body, has this ability to reorganize past experience.

And in the same way, you can also organize future experience.

So in the same way, a future experience can also be physically perceived in your "present."

In the same way, since you can feel the past, you can also feel the future. Because the past holds infinite possibilities for you, and the future also holds infinite possibilities for you.

Now beneath your usual consciousness, you do not realize that the physical body can react to future events, just as it can also react to past events.

Under our usual conscious viewpoint, we think this is impossible. We do not feel that our material body, our physical body, will react to future events, just as we do not believe it can react to past events.

In such cases, the intensity of the initially nonphysical event has been strong enough to break through the normal neural patterns.

In this state, when you possess this ability, this nonphysical event -- that is, a nonmaterial event, one that is not happening before your eyes -- its intensity can break through the normal neural patterns, allowing you to experience the past, and also allowing you to experience the future.

If you perceive such a future episode, you will be forced to react to it as a conscious being.

When this future event happens before your eyes, you have no choice but to react to it as a conscious person.

In any case, whether or not you know the reasons for such behavior, the physical structure will still respond.

What this means is that if a future event -- say something that was supposed to happen the day after tomorrow -- happens today, happens before your eyes, no matter how you understand it or perceive it, or how you judge it, your body will still react to it, will still respond to this event.

The future event may, however, occur in its chronological order, and you will recognize it through memory.

This is very interesting. What he says here completely transcends all of our understanding -- future events are recognized through memory? How can the future be recognized through memory? He will explain.

In such a case, your reaction to what was once the future "present" will be altered by what seems to be the memory of the past.

This passage is extremely convoluted. How do you recognize your future through your memory? How do you recognize it? The future event may occur according to its own chronological order, but how do you recognize through memory that it is a future event? He tells you how to recognize it. The following words are very convoluted -- he says your reaction to what was once the future "present" will be altered by what seems to be the memory of the past. Every word in this sentence overturns our understanding.

What he means, simply put, is this. He believes that what we call future events are all versions, developments, extensions in the future of things that could have happened in your past. And your perception of future events depends on your memory of past events and your view of them -- and is changed by them. Therefore, changing your view of past events will both affect the nature of your past events and affect the future development of those events. Because all of this, as he says, happens in a state of simultaneity.

At this point, he is using both our human concepts of present, past, and future -- which actually have time limitations -- and the simultaneity that essentially has no time limitations. He is putting these two concepts together to talk about them, which is why it makes you feel very confused. What he means is to tell you that the future you perceive is actually an extension of some things in your past. And through changing your perception of past events, the occurrence of your future events will also change. What kind of change you want to happen in your future depends on how you change and perceive your past events. So it is the past that changes the future. And you in the present -- standing in this present moment, right now -- you span both ends of the present and the future -- for humans, the two ends of present and future -- and when you change your belief system of perception at this moment, you are simultaneously changing your past and simultaneously changing your future. Standing in the present, you change both ends at the same time.

In your terms, however, that event may never occur at all.

In our human terms, the future event we experience, this so-called future episode -- this event may never occur at all. It is only a possibility.

Because it may have sprung from a probable past.

There are many kinds of past. The past is not singular; you have only chosen one past.

That was once your present.

That past was once your present. For example, are not the things you call future events all caused by this present moment of yours? And is not this present moment of yours, when viewed from that future point, a probable past? Therefore, the so-called probable future event you speak of could be one of those probable presents.

Is this not mind-bending and convoluted? Savor his words carefully.

But you branched off from it.

The reason it did not happen is precisely because you branched off from your probable present. You chose a different path, so it did not happen. You may experience a future event, and this event may never have happened at all in your physical world. What is the reason it did not happen? It is because it may have come from a probable past, and that probable past may once have been your present. Because your present is derived from that past, from the events of that past developing into the present, and at that time -- at that past point in time -- you already branched off from it, or at this present point in time you branched off from it, you made a different choice. Both are possible. Therefore, this event may not happen in the future, may not happen in your world.

This is one of the reasons why the predictions of psychics often seem not to be fulfilled.

Many fortune-tellers or many psychics say, I have seen the future, I have seen things about you, but they cannot always be confirmed and verified. Because it says that at every point, at every point of your choice, you have free will. You can completely bypass it, and through your beliefs change these experiences. So the importance of every present moment lies here -- you not only change the past and thereby change the future, you even change your future by changing the past at the same time.

Your beliefs are the hub that forms your present experience.

Your beliefs are this hub. So your belief system is like a network, and at every juncture it chooses left or right, chooses different directions as a hub. The meaning of hub is that it is a network hub; it can make decisions.

So the content of this session is extremely important and core. It re-elaborates the issue of probabilities from another angle, giving us a renewed understanding of the importance of our beliefs, and giving us a completely different, subversive understanding of past, present, and future.

If you are interested in probabilities, you can read Chapters 15, 16, and 17 of Seth Speaks -- actually I remember it should start from Chapter 16.

I continue introducing the second part of Chapter 14 of the Seth book The Nature of Personal Reality, "Which World? Which You?" This chapter is Session 654, the Monday evening class of April 9, 1973.

The entire Chapter 14 is subversive to people's viewpoints. For those who are just beginning to encounter Seth, or who are not yet fully familiar with Seth's ideas, there is a certain difficulty in understanding, but as long as you carefully follow the line of thought, it is easy to understand. Once you understand it, your worldview and your view of the world will be completely subverted.

Possibilities Are Not Merely the Future

Seth says, in your terms practically speaking, from our perspective, you think of probable events as potential future events, and that seems more reasonable to you.

From the human perspective, you think of probable events—that is, events that may happen in the future—as potential future events, and that seems more reasonable. For example, if I say, "In the future I might graduate from college and go to work for Company A, or I might go to work for Company B, or I might start my own business," these three options all represent a kind of future possibility. So we think the future is just this kind of possibility, and to us that seems more reasonable.

But Seth says, although you think this way and believe this, the fact is not so. What is the fact still? It is that within your personal previous experience, there are "still able to happen" possible past events. Within your previous experience, there are possible past events that can still happen—that is, the past that has not yet passed, the past that is still ongoing, those possible past events.

So a new event can truly still be born in the past, in the "now."

If you see this, you may not know what he is talking about. What he wants to say is, in this present now—assuming we say from the human viewpoint that there is a present, a past, and a future—at this present moment, we can change our experience of past events by changing our personal beliefs. When you change your experience of past events, your body changes accordingly.

When we change the present, past, and future, the experience of it is mainly the experience of changing the body. Our consciousness can of course enter at any time, but we live in a three-dimensional world, and the most important thing is to change the feelings of our body—that is the core. For example, if we are sick now, we want to go back to the past and change it so that we were not sick—that is the result we really want.

As your beliefs change, you will change your experience of past events. When you change that possibility that could have happened in the past, that past event will undergo new changes. According to human cognition, is this newly happened event not a future event for you? Although it may happen in the present—for the present, for that past event, it is the future.

In other words, let me give an example so you can understand better: you have now already contracted a terminal illness, you have cancer, and this cancer came from long-term emotional suppression. For example, you were squeezed out by certain people in your company, leaving you frustrated and unfulfilled. You neither dared to resign nor dared to fight back, but your heart was extremely depressed. Under ten or twenty years of long-term emotional suppression, the final result was that you may have developed liver cancer—your qi was constantly blocked, and in the end you got liver cancer.

At this point today, you already have late-stage liver cancer. But today, for example, you read the Seth material, or you studied other spiritual material—not necessarily Seth, others are fine too—and you heard someone explain some principles to you, and you suddenly understood some things. You discovered that you can change the past.

So at this time, you return to that past: in the state before you entered that company, you could choose not to go to that company. Second, you could also choose not to get angry. Third, you could choose to directly confront those people, to release your anger and suppressed feelings, to express those emotions. These are all choices you could make.

Let us take the simplest example: suppose you choose not to get angry. You feel it does not matter—however they step on you, suppress you, make things difficult for you, prevent you from advancing in your career—you just laugh it off. This job is not that important to you. When you choose not to get angry, your present belief changes. Twenty years later, you choose to let go of that past event, to stop being angry, and to stop hating those leaders and the people who helped the leaders squeeze you out. When you truly let all of this go—I mean truly let go, not pretending "I forgive them"—when you truly understand, and also understand that you should not have gotten so angry back then.

Suppose you can understand all of it, can forgive all of them, can accept them. When your belief truly changes, do you think the past events will not change? But no. When you truly change your belief, and you look back at things one by one, you will find that they actually did not make things difficult for you. You will find that they were actually helping you grow. The obstacles they designed for you time and time again were all to help you improve, to help you finally become someone who—without that pressure—you might not have been able to reach the point you are at today. Under their constant suppression and exclusion, you kept overcoming one challenge after another that they set for you, and you have the result you have today. Today you should be grateful to them. It was what you then thought of as exclusion that was actually making you who you are.

If you think from this angle, the exclusion, resentment, grievances,委屈, and depression you felt back then will all vanish like smoke. When these things vanish like smoke, something very strange will happen. Those cells from twenty years ago that caused your cancer, those mutated cells—those cells have already died, already no longer exist. But your change today, very miraculously, can even change the memory of those already dead cells of that you from twenty years ago, so that you no longer get cancer, so that you no longer get sick.

There is a very strong possibility: one month or two months after you figure this out, the cancer cells in your body will all be gone, and you will miraculously recover, becoming a medical miracle, becoming what others call a miraculous divine sign.

The reason for all of this is: when your belief changes, regarding that possibility at the time—you had several possibilities back then, to get angry or not to get angry, but you chose the state of getting angry in the present—after your belief changes, you can choose the result of not getting angry. You chose the result of not getting angry, and it produced a new change. And this new event is the new result produced by your present belief changing, changing the past.

The cells in your body all changed. These cells are no longer the cells of that year—the cells of that year have died countless times already. But what is miraculous is that the memory of these cells, its transmission process, does not shift according to your goals. To put it more bluntly: the past and the present happen simultaneously. You think that the you of twenty years ago, whose cells have already died, but those cells still exist in that reality, in that time and space. Your belief change today will affect those cells of twenty years ago, so your liver will be safe and sound.

You were already safe and sound twenty years ago. You chose not to get angry, so twenty years later today your cancer is cured. Because that event did not exist—the trigger for getting cancer never arose. Today you no longer have the event of getting cancer—you went from having cancer to having cancer and then being cured—is the event of the cancer being cured not a newly happened event? Do you think it is a future event? It is actually the present change caused by your change of belief about the past. When you go from having cancer to not having cancer, is that event not one of two future versions of that past event? You can choose which version to experience, which version your belief accepts.

This was said in his previous session: your belief chooses what events manifest in your life, and that is what manifests in your life.

So Seth says here: those things where you go to change the past—because the past has not passed, it is still happening. When you use belief to change it, to re-experience and re-live it, those past events will change. Once the past changes—so-called change, does it not mean there is something new? For us humans, is something new not something that only happens in the future? How could there be new events in the past? The past is already written in history, already carved into time, immovable—how could there be change?

And Seth tells you: the past is changing. Because the immediacy of this change in the past happens simultaneously with our present and future. If your past can be changed, then are those changes not the future for you? Those events that did not happen in the past now happen—are they not future events for you?

So new events can truly still be born in the past. New events born in the past are the present for us; for that possible event that happened, they are the future.

Present Beliefs Can Alter the Past

Seth says that this kind of situation rarely happens on a large scale in the way you perceive things. Only a few of you can sense it; most of you cannot perceive it. He says that a new belief you hold in the present can, on a neurological level, bring about changes in the past. You must remember this. You have to understand that basically time is simultaneous. This is a premise underlying everything.

In our human world, time is not simultaneous. Because of our own nervous system, one of the basic assumptions of this three-dimensional world is that time flows down like a river. But in actuality, in the higher multidimensional world, time is simultaneous. Because of the simultaneity of time, you can understand that your present beliefs can alter the past. It is that simple.

So what does it mean if present beliefs can alter the past? It means you are completely free from the limitations of time and space, and you have also broken through one of your most stubborn beliefs -- namely, that the you of today is caused by past events. The reason you are the way you are today is because of how things were in the past. But Seth tells you that you can change your past, so what excuse do you have left? At this point we come to realize how powerful our abilities are. We can change the past.

He says that in some cases of healing, there are cases where illnesses are cured -- for example, the spontaneous disappearance of cancer or any other disease. This is often seen. If you look into the medical field, you will find that the percentage is not high, but the frequency is not low either. These people appear regularly in various countries, various regions, various places. A person gets cancer, the doctor has already pronounced a death sentence, but two months later he recovers, and the doctor has no idea how he got better. Many of these people have been made into movies, written into stories, turned into television dramas, or passed on by word of mouth in real life. There are too many of them. If you ask around carefully, you will find that this kind of thing happens often.

He says that when cancer or other diseases disappear spontaneously, it is generally because you have made this kind of change, which in turn affected the cellular memory of the past -- because we made some kind of change in the present, and that affected the cellular memory of the past. We changed the cellular memory, and the genetic code and neural patterns changed along with it. Therefore your illness gets better.

When this kind of thing happens, generally speaking, the person has undergone a major change in beliefs. If the patient has not undergone a major change in beliefs, this kind of thing generally does not happen. I also have many cases of this kind in my hands. There are many people who got cancer and ultimately healed themselves. If you have family members with cancer or serious illness, you can introduce this kind of knowledge to them and see whether they are willing to accept it. If they can accept it, they can get better.

Seth says, I am trying to explain this matter as simply as possible, because if the explanation is too complicated, we would not be able to understand it. In such cases -- where someone suddenly recovers -- a deep biological structure that existed at a certain point in time is reached. You must remember this. What is the state in these cases of self-healing? It is that the person's beliefs have undergone some kind of change. He reached a deep biological structure that existed at a certain point in time, and at that point, probabilities were altered, and the illness was erased in your present -- that is, in the present moment -- but also in your past.

The illness was erased in our present -- now you are well -- and also in the past. Because the present and the past happen simultaneously, when you go to the past and erase it, it is equivalent to erasing it in the present. Therefore the moment your present belief shifts, your illness gets better.

A sudden or intense belief in health can indeed reverse your illness. Remember this. But in very practical terms, it is a reversal of time. From a practical standpoint, it is like a reversal of time -- time and space flowing backward, returning to the past, changing your state, and then affecting your present.

In such circumstances, as far as the cells are concerned, new memory is implanted and replaces the old state. You went back to the past -- the so-called past, which is actually the same as the present -- because the change in your present belief will affect the past. Because the past, present, and future happen simultaneously, your present belief will affect the cellular memory of that you in the so-called past. So for those cells -- for the cells of that you whom you consider to be in the past -- new memory is implanted, inserted, and replaces the old memory. Quite miraculous.

When people get rid of illnesses they did not even know they had, this kind of healing often happens in a spontaneous manner. Sometimes we get sick without knowing it. We seem very healthy, but in fact we may have already been ill in between, and the process of being ill was something we ourselves did not know about. We healed ourselves without knowing it, and we still do not know that we were once ill and once healed ourselves. We do not know any of this.

This kind of learning -- the learning of cellular memory -- is not only passed from cell to living cell, not only from living cell to living cell, though of course some of it is. Biologists have already discovered this. Learning between cells is not only passed from living cell to living cell, but is also passed down through the present physical reality, and also passed down through your physical reality.

Sometimes it is possible to alter the information of past cells, but those cells no longer exist as far as you are concerned. They do not exist for us, but that does not mean they do not exist for the real you. Of course they exist, because your present, past, and future are all simultaneous. How could they not exist? If the cells of the past no longer existed, then how could the reality of your past continue to develop? But from our human perspective, those cells have already died, died several times over, and no longer exist.

In much the same way, an intense belief in a particular ability will work backward from the present into the past, bringing about the changes that must occur so that this ability becomes apparent in the present.

Accelerated Learning and the Rewriting of Cellular Memory

The example Seth gives next is from experiments done abroad, in which accelerated learning took place. For instance, under hypnosis or in other circumstances, a person in the present is persuaded -- say, that he is a great painter or a linguist -- and this present belief activates the person's inner latent abilities.

This kind of thing also happens in our reality. Some people have an accident or something of the sort, and suddenly they possess the ability to paint or the ability to speak languages, suddenly able to speak the languages of other countries. We know that language and painting are not just a kind of knowledge; a great deal of it is cellular memory or muscle memory. The feel of painting, the sensation of the brush on paper -- this requires many years of practice to acquire. It is not that once you acquire the knowledge of painting you can paint. Language is the same; it involves your mouth, your tongue, your breathing, your vocal cords -- it is a group of muscle memories formed through long-term training. So to speak a certain language very well, you need all of this. Yet in some people, they suddenly learn these things that might normally take a very long time to learn.

What is this situation? It is that under a strong belief -- just as when you get cancer and want to go back and change yourself into a state without cancer -- at that time you believe that you are a great painter, or believe that you know a certain language. Under the guidance of this strong consciousness, you go back into the past, and in the past you chose a probable developmental path -- for example, going back a few years, you took part in learning a certain language, or went abroad and settled in a country for a few years, or you learned some painting skills. Therefore, you now possess such abilities.

He says that the biological structure that existed in the past was therefore affected. Experiences that did not exist before were input into the organism. That is a rewriting of the program -- a rewriting of the program. It is not just the instilling of knowledge; it involves your muscles, the things of cellular memory, all written into you, as if you had undergone decades of painting training or several years of language study.

Of course, you cannot now examine those cellular structures that exist in the present and at the same time exist in the past. Because when you examine this cellular structure now, it is the present cellular structure that already has this skill; you have no way to observe the process of this program rewriting.

These cellular structures exist simultaneously in the present and simultaneously in the past. What scientists examine is always the structural state of your cells in the present moment, which already possesses these abilities. He says that in science, you can only detect those effects in your present. If today you change your beliefs, you rewrite the programs of the past.

So you will understand how important the change of your beliefs is.

The present is your point of action focus and point of power. From that point of consciousness, that point of will -- the point from which you exert force -- you form both your future and your past. This present point alone is your point of exertion.

When you understand this, when you realize this knowledge, you will come to understand: you are not someone controlled by an uncontrollable past; you can change the past. This past is determined by your present; you can change both the past and the future at the same time. We generally think we can change the future, but we do not think we can change the past. Seth uses more than a session's worth of content to tell you: your future is actually a new development of what you consider the past -- this is what you consider the future.

Therefore, the change of your present beliefs will affect the present, and also affect the past, and also affect the future.

Then Jane says that Seth spoke very slowly, so she could get the material right, but biologists would not accept it. She wanted to get the material right, because this material was too important.

Seth does not care whether biologists can accept it or not; in any case, he is going to say these things. He says that although your conscious beliefs determine present experience, and although in your feeling the physical body exists substantially only in this present moment, beneath these two -- that is, beneath your physical body and your consciousness -- those ever-changing components that compose you are quite free in time.

Those components that compose you can constantly change, quite free in time, not restricted by time. They are not restricted by what you call "only after this can that happen." You say, "It is this way now because it was that way before, so it cannot be changed, because the past has already happened" -- Seth tells you it is not so.

Beneath your body, beneath your consciousness, these two things -- one is the material body, the other is the invisible world of consciousness. What is beneath consciousness? It is your unconscious part, the part of your inner self. Beneath the body are your cells, the part of cellular memory that you do not understand. These two parts are both things you do not understand, and their operation and change are what truly compose the parts of your body. The body you truly experience emerges from these two parts.

And the changes of those two parts are quite free in time, completely not controlled by the time you think of. Because they are existences of the multidimensional world, inherently existing within the multidimensional world. The most essential characteristic of existing in the multidimensional world is that it is completely not controlled by our three-dimensional world, not controlled by this time you think of. This is something we have never known or understood before.

They exist within a multidimensional reality -- the cellular operating mechanisms within your body, and the operating mechanisms of the unconscious inner self, they exist within a multidimensional reality that the reasoning consciousness is not yet able to process. Our consciousness still cannot process it; it can neither perceive it nor process it.

Seth says this is not meant to dilute the function of your reasoning mind or your natural abilities. In saying this, I am not denying the natural laws of nature and natural abilities -- you might think, "According to what Seth says, can you go back to the past at any time and change it, change the present and also change the future, completely free from the restrictions of natural laws, and you are completely and truly free? Including precognition of the future, which you obtain through reasoning" -- I am not trying to dilute this function of yours or your natural abilities.

Because the power of reasoning -- your ordinary reasoning, that is, reasoning about the unknown world of the future or about things that will happen -- allows you to focus experience in a highly specific manner. It focuses experience, the experience in your past memories, in a highly specific manner, and directs energy with great purposeful attention. It is not that it is not diluted; rather, it tells you: your reasoning ability directs energy with great purposeful attention.

In your terms, this action is automatically altering the nature of the reasoning consciousness, which as you think of it is in a state of evolution. What state? Your reasoning consciousness is evolving. In other words, when you use more of your ability to project into the future, you are constantly allowing your consciousness to evolve; your consciousness is in a constant process of learning and evolution. For the nature of your consciousness, this is an evolution, a progress, not a denial or weakening.

Your consciousness is not a thing you possess, and your individuality -- that is, your uniqueness -- is not a limited thing either. Your individuality has no limitations; your uniqueness can be completely alive, and cannot be limited by anything. No one knows what you will develop into in the future.

Which You? Which World?

You might ask: in all of this, where is my individuality? Where am I myself? If what you say is true, then it seems I don't have much autonomy in all this, and my individuality can't be expressed. Or you might ask: which me am I? If what you say is true, and I have so many probable selves existing, then which one is actually me?

If you ask questions this way, if you think about things this way, then you automatically conceive of yourself as a psychological being with definite boundaries. If you are always asking which me is actually me, or where my individuality is expressed, this means you have a very clear psychological boundary, and you have limited yourself: I am just like this, and only this is me — you have boxed yourself in.

Because you originally have no limitations at all, your individuality has no limitations either, and your consciousness is constantly evolving and developing. No one can define your person or your personality, because it is in a constant process of evolution. If from this angle you still keep asking which one is you, isn't the question itself rather foolish? Because the very fact that you ask this question means you believe there is a you within a certain psychological range, within certain psychological boundaries — this person is you, or a certain kind of thought is you, or holding a certain belief is you, or being in a certain state is you, whether the sick one is you or the healthy one is you.

If you keep considering the question this way — like the cancer patient mentioned earlier who later recovered, you would ask, "Is the one who got cancer me, or is the one who didn't get cancer me? Which one is actually the real me?" — in this way you limit yourself. All of those are you, and each one is also you.

So those boundaries must be protected at all costs. If you define a psychological existence for yourself, if you set a boundary on your psychological existence, that boundary is what you must ordinarily protect at all costs to maintain the existence of the self. If this thing goes even slightly beyond the line, you think it seems no longer to be you.

You might say: I was born in a house on a certain street in a certain city, and no belief contrary to the present one can change this fact. You say, "I was born in 1982 or 1994 in Shanghai or Beijing, in a house on a certain street in a certain city, I was born in such-and-such a hospital" — no belief contrary to the present one can change that — this is a fact.

But if in the present moment a past event can be altered within your nervous structure, that is to say, basically there is nothing that cannot be changed. Seth emphasizes to you again: those facts you think cannot be changed can all be changed, even the fact of your birth can be changed.

Are you on the verge of collapse? Yes, Seth is trying to make you collapse.

You always want to define yourself clearly: I am so-and-so, I was born in such-and-such a place, I am like this. You define this biological you very clearly, protect it very carefully, and do not allow others to violate it, nor allow others to deny it. You define yourself in terms of time and space: I was born in a certain year and month, in a certain place. You think this is an absolute fact that no one can change. But he tells you that even this can be changed.

Why? If a past event can be altered within your nervous system, then this event can also be altered — it just depends on how strong your will is.

In your actual experience, a table is a table. Although physicists understand quite well — physicists all understand this principle — that the outward appearance of objects is in some respects only a mirage, only a surface appearance. And at the level of your experience, you accept many impressions and apply them in a very practical way. That is, within experience, we still accept many symbolic, mirage-like things, but we treat them as real and apply them — this is perfectly normal.

On the physical level, we know that a table is composed of atoms, with electrons around the atoms and a nucleus inside the atoms. But when we look at a table, what we see is a smooth surface and different materials; you absolutely cannot see the atoms, and you would not regard it in terms of atoms. You see it as just a table. We know that according to the essence and facts studied by physics, it is simply a pile of atoms and molecules, but you cannot see that; you can only see it as a normal table. And we all know that the table is only a symbol, a surface appearance.

The table is a surface appearance, and you treat it as real. At the level of your experience, you still accept many such surface appearances and symbols, and you treat them as real, but in fact they are not their true appearance. You think the solid table is composed of electrons and atoms, but you treat it as a real table. It is the same in your experience: you regard the event of your birth, and the things that happened in the past, as absolutely fixed and impossible to change. Seth tells you this is not so — you can change them.

All of a sudden, your worldview will collapse, and the whole world and its values will fall apart, completely destroyed before your eyes. If the past can be changed, you can imagine what your worldview would become.

The Deconstruction Methods of Different Speakers

This chapter, along with "The Probable You" starting in Chapter 16 of Seth Speaks, is actually all about overturning your worldview. Different speakers overturn your worldview in different ways.

For example, Buddhism has its own way of overturning your worldview. It has deconstruction -- deconstruction means telling you that the world you consider real is all false. Its method of deconstruction is also very simple, and the principles it teaches are also very simple.

Let me give an example. Buddhism says that the clay pot we used in ancient times for drinking water -- a clay pot is made by mixing mud and water together and then firing it. We use it to hold food, hold water, use it as a vessel. So the Buddha asks you: what is a clay pot actually made of? It is made of mud and water. The fact is, we mix some mud, add some water, stir it together, fire it, and it becomes a clay pot.

The Buddha asks you: before the mud and water were mixed together, did the clay pot exist? You say it did not exist. Because with mud, with water, plus special handling and fire, the clay pot comes into being. After the clay pot comes into being, you give it a name and call it a clay pot. So is the essence of the clay pot not just mud and water? Can we use mud and water to represent this clay pot? Yet in our real life, once the clay pot is produced, once you label it and name it a clay pot, you no longer think of it as something made of mud and water. It is just a clay pot, and you can no longer see that its essence is mud and water.

In other words, the clay pot as a thing actually never existed at all. It was produced from mud and water. If you break the clay pot apart, crush it, and look at its essence, it is just mud and water -- there is no such thing as a clay pot. The clay pot is -- you think it is a clay pot, so it is a clay pot.

A modern example: the example Yu Xiaofei gave when lecturing on the Diamond Sutra³ is also very interesting. He says, go to an automobile assembly line and look at a car. We drive cars every day, ride in them every day -- this is something real to us. But if you start watching from the beginning of the assembly line, you will know that the car is just a pile of sheet metal frames. Under the welding of robots, wheels are installed, the engine is installed, the interior trim is installed, and then after the dashboard and steering wheel are put in place, the fuel tank is ignited, the car starts up, and it can roll off the line -- the car drives off the assembly line.

When the car drives off the assembly line, it is already a car. But if you push it back, back to the very beginning of the assembly line, does this car exist? It does not exist. This car is just made up of a pile of parts. But when these parts form a gestalt structure, it transcends the parts themselves, and it becomes a car. If a person then sits inside, it can be driven away, and the car seems to have a soul.

It accomplishes what no single part alone can accomplish, and it also accomplishes what those parts piled together cannot accomplish. If these parts are not assembled and combined in the proper way, piled together they are just a heap of scrap metal. But if you combine them in the right way, they become a very good car that can run very fast on the street.

So how did the car come into being? Before it was assembled, where was the car? The Buddha says here: the arising of this car is due to the arising of certain causes and conditions -- this is called the doctrine of dependent origination. What causes and conditions? There are these people, these workers; there are these parts; the workers assemble these parts according to a certain method, sequence, and structure, adding the engine, tires, chassis, transmission -- then the car exists. If even one part is missing, it will not work. The existence of these things, in the Buddha's words, is called "conditions."

So the Buddha says, if you insist that this car exists, then I ask: the existence of this car has a premise, which is that there must be conditions -- with so many coincidental causes and conditions, at the right time, with the right parts, under the assembly of the right people, only then can a right car be produced. All these right things are called conditions -- the conditions of fortunate coincidence. And if the Buddha continues to ask further: how did the tire come about? How did the engine come about? They also arose because of certain causes and conditions. If you continue deconstructing every part, pushing back to the very beginning, does this car not become nothing at all?

Only then do you arrive at the first level the Buddha spoke of, called dependent origination and emptiness of nature. If you break a tire back down into a steel rim and rubber, the rubber is tapped from a tree, the tree grows from the soil -- and you keep pushing back like this, all the way to the source of the world, the origin of the world, you will find there is nothing at all. Nothing at all is the essence of the origin of the world. And if this nothingness is the essence, then where did everything after it come from? So the Buddha uses this method to deconstruct for you, saying that this world is not real, that it is all created by your cognition. This is the Buddha's method.

And Seth has Seth's method of deconstruction. First, he takes matter -- in Chapter 5 of Seth Speaks -- and has already explained the structure of matter clearly to you. Matter is composed of units of consciousness; units of consciousness form energy units; energy units form the elementary particles we recognize -- those thirteen kinds of elementary particles then form the slightly larger particles we recognize -- atoms, protons, and so on -- and then these particles form our molecules, and gradually they become visible and knowable to us. This is Seth speaking from the origin of matter.

So from what angle is Seth speaking now? What he tells you today directly shatters your concepts of space and time. Starting from the matter of "the past can be changed," he directly deconstructs your cognition of space and time -- the cognition you consider unbreakable and solid.

Their points of deconstruction are different. Many people compare Buddhism with Seth. When the Buddha taught, he spoke to different people using different levels and states. The Dharma the Buddha taught has different levels -- from the Human and Heavenly Vehicles all the way to Hinayana Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism, and his theoretical system is also divided into several levels. And what is Seth's greatest characteristic? Most of the time he does not divide into levels; he directly tells you the essence of things.

You can understand it this way: Buddhist teaching has a process of conventional truth and ultimate truth. Conventional truth is a viewpoint that ordinary people in the world can generally accept. The Buddha first accepts this viewpoint, and then from this viewpoint he further proposes ultimate truth, and ultimate truth actually negates your previous level of conventional truth. Then he treats this level of ultimate truth as the conventional truth of the next stage -- the thing you regard as truth, at a higher level, is just a conventional truth, something that needs to be overturned. The ultimate truth at the next level, then at the level after that, becomes conventional truth again. It is this kind of spiraling ascent, a cyclic ascent of negation of negation of negation, gradually approaching the truth of the world itself.

If you want to understand how Buddhism discusses this issue, I can recommend that you listen to Yu Xiaofei's lectures on the Diamond Sutra⁴ on Ximalaya; he explains it quite thoroughly.

Seth does not talk about these things. He directly starts from that final layer closest to the truth. So most of the time he has no transition, no ladder; he comes right out and says these things. Many people say why is Seth so hard to read and hard to understand -- the reason is right here: he has no ladder. Actually, he has already built many ladders, laying the groundwork bit by bit starting from Seth Speaks. If you truly want to see Seth's most core beliefs, I suggest you read Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment⁵ or The "Unknown" Reality⁶ -- those two books are closest to the truth, but ordinary people really cannot understand them.

He has done a lot of groundwork, and then he continues building ladders for us. But his so-called ladders are already too high for many people; he directly overturns all your cognition and values. Many people stop reading at this point. Because unless a person has a certain level of spiritual attainment, the thing they can least accept is having their values overturned first. Because their protective instinct toward the self is very strong; if their belief system is broken and overturned, they no longer know where the "I" is.

When a person is afraid of losing the self, they no longer want to continue learning. Many people's premise for studying spiritual material is to make themselves better, and there is more or less some selfishness in it -- is this "self" not this "I"? But this old man Seth, right from the start, is the same as the Buddha in principle: he deconstructs you into nothing right away. The you that you think you are -- this you simply does not exist. If he deconstructs you into nothing, do you still want to keep reading?

Many of us study worldly teachings wanting to help ourselves become better. But when this "self" is about to be destroyed, from the ego's perspective, it is rather resistant to this theory. Yet the real world is just like this; there is no way around it.

So Seth is also carefully proceeding bit by bit. You see, starting from Part One of The Nature of Personal Reality, "Your Meeting Point with the World," he talks about your cognition of the world, how you understand this world, how your thoughts operate, how your consciousness arises -- bit by bit, and at the end he starts unleashing his big move. Once he unleashes this big move, it will strike you down completely.

The Solidity of Events

If you look at that solid table, you cannot see the atoms and molecules that make it up. So in the same way, but put differently—same method, different wording—facts seem as solid as a table, events seem as solid as a table. He used "seem." He uses the same method we use to deconstruct a table to deconstruct your events. You think events are as solid as a table, but their essence is not that at all; inside, they are constantly in flux.

Yet on another level, on another level, the solidity of events also seems to collapse. Seth has already explained that if viewed from the perspective of the multidimensional world, the solidity of events collapses and does not exist at all; events have no solidity of their own.

The title of this chapter is both like a poem and like a questioning: Which you? Which world? Which one is you? Which world do you live in?

He says regarding illness, a sudden, present belief will actually reach back into the past—that is, he is coming back to the question of illness—and on that level affect the person. In the past experience of the cells, the beginnings of those biological events are embedded, and then those events seem to produce a present illness.

Therefore, at this present center point of your conscious mind's experience, it not only directs the present experience of deep psychic events, but also directs their future and past experience. In your conscious mind—that is, this focus of your consciousness—it can not only direct the present experience of deep psychic events, but also direct the past and future experience of those deep psychic events. That is why changes can be made to the past and the future.

Cellular memory can be changed at any point; this is what we need to remember. Present beliefs can embed new memories—whether psychological or physical—into it. This is something we did not understand before. We thought past events could not be changed. He tells you that cellular memory can be changed at any point, and past events can also be changed.

The future is absolutely not predetermined on a basic level; this is a very important conclusion of this session. He tells you that the future you think of is absolutely not predetermined on a basic level. The future is not predetermined; the future is actually hidden within a development of past events.

The Principle of Prediction

This does not mean the future can never be foretold. He circles back to what he said before. Why is it that your future clearly can change, and yet it can still be predicted? Why can it still be calculated for you by some masters using divination?

Seth gives you an answer here: because practically speaking, you often continue along one particular line of probabilities, and that can be seen in advance.

This one sentence of his clarifies the root of prediction, the principle of prediction. What is called prediction is simply this: these people, through all sorts of methods, enter the level of probabilities. They really are one level above you. The level they are above you on is this: they can see on this level of probabilities that, among so many probabilities, based on your past events, based on your present events, based on your current mentality and state, they can infer which road you will likely take in the future.

Why? Seth puts it very simply: because your beliefs determine which viewpoints you will accept, which experiences you will accept, which experiences you will decide to bring into your life, and which things you will actualize in reality. These fortune-tellers, through all sorts of methods, learn some of the fixed thought patterns of your beliefs, and then they can know that among these many probabilities, when it comes to turning left or turning right, you will definitely turn left, because that is just how your beliefs are.

To put it even more bluntly: when you face uncertainty, there are two possibilities. One kind of person is willing to take risks, and another kind is not. You are definitely the kind who is not willing to take risks, so you will definitely choose that option. With a whole series of such left turns and right turns combined, your path has already emerged. What is called fortune-telling is simply being able to see this path of yours.

But remember: fortune-tellers do not read the fortunes of people who are truly spiritual or who are practitioners, because they know these people have completely transcended their fixed thought patterns. They understand that beliefs can change, the past can change, and the future can change, so for these people, they cannot calculate anything.

Moreover, the prediction itself can also influence probabilities. Does not a direction of probability serve as a kind of suggestion to you? It strengthens the current route of such a belief. He first sees that according to your present beliefs you will definitely choose this road, and then he points this road out to you. Does not pointing out this road happen to match your present beliefs? It matches your present beliefs, so you reinforce your beliefs even more, and by reinforcing these beliefs you become even more likely to walk this road. That is why these fortune-tellers become more and more accurate the more they tell fortunes.

But what does a fortune-teller with a conscience do? When he sees what lies ahead on the road, he generally speaks of good things and does not speak of bad things. It is very simple, because speaking of good things strengthens the belief that good things will happen; if he sees bad things, he does not mention them. If he told you about a bad thing that might happen in the future, he would strengthen the likelihood of it happening. So generally he does not bring it up.

But those charlatans are exactly the opposite. They will first say some good things, but the purpose is not to say good things. Then they will suddenly shift their tone and say: "But recently you have such and such a disaster, such and such a calamity. If you want to dispel these disasters and difficulties, you have to spend money, you have to ask me to perform a ritual for you, to do some feng shui." These are all frauds. Be sure to remember that. You do not need to seek them out. You can resolve all of this by changing your beliefs yourself, without spending a single cent. Once you have studied these systems and these theories, you can just go change these beliefs on your own.

Why does fortune-telling have such an effective result? Because it strengthens your beliefs.

Doctors often wonder whether they should tell a patient that death is near. In hospitals nowadays, when someone gets cancer, people still hesitate over whether to tell the patient they have a terminal illness. This itself is highly controversial. The prevailing view now is to tell them: they have the right to know. Regardless of their psychological capacity to bear it, they have the right to know the condition of their own body, so they can arrange their final affairs. This is now a mainstream viewpoint.

But in fact, in certain cases, a prediction can make death a fact. You tell him, "You only have two months to live," and he may really die after two months. Another person, on the other hand, may have the prediction cause the patient to generate a firm belief that he must go on living. Some people, when told "You only have two months to live," say: "No, my children are still young. I cannot leave like this. I cannot die. If I die, everything is over." Some people have this kind of intense belief, and it keeps them alive.

So in the end, whether it is better to tell or not to tell is very hard to say. Some people, if you tell them, will truly be frightened to death. Others may be fine, and it may even stir up a stronger desire to survive and a stronger fighting spirit.

Yet no one dies because a doctor tells him he is going to die. It is not because the doctor tells him that he dies. One person's belief cannot influence another person to that extent. It must be that the other person accepts such a belief. If you do not accept it, no one can manipulate you.

Now you know how great the power of belief is. We often say: "No one can change another person, not even God." The implication of that saying is now verified here. God cannot change a person either, because if that person's belief is very firm, you cannot change him, because his belief determines what will be actualized in his world and what will become fact.

Fate and Change

Generally speaking, every person knows his challenges and his overall plan, as well as the time of his death. Generally speaking, every person knows. But even this kind of decision can be changed in your present.

Why does fortune-telling exist? Because every person has a fate. What is called fate is this: before reincarnating, when he chooses the challenges he will face in this life, when he chooses the broad background of this life, he has a general blueprint, a script, a general plan. Therefore life and death are fated; every person has a fixed number, and it is indeed fixed.

Here is a little trick for knowing this: just go ahead and stir things up as hard as you can, without fear. Do not be afraid that you will die of illness, or that you will catch COVID-19 and die. Take the precautions you should take, handle what you should handle, but go ahead and stir things up as much as possible. If it is not your time to die, or if you are not meant to die in that way, then you cannot die. How you will die has long been set for you, and you yourself know it.

But he says, even this kind of thing that has already been fixed as fate, even this kind of decision -- Seth has already said it, be sure to remember this sentence -- can be changed in your present. The whole body can be reborn in a way that general medical opinion would call unpredictable.

For example, your fate says you should die at sixty-eight, but at that time, if you use the method mentioned earlier, using intention and belief to change -- change your past, change certain things -- and you do not want to die, then you can avoid dying. And at that time some very strange things will happen, namely, medicine judges that you should also be dead, but...

Session 654

Even Death Can Be Changed

Medicine has determined that you are truly beyond cure, that by every indication you should be dead, yet you miraculously come back to life, and even the doctors cannot explain how you survived. Seth says:

The entire body can be reborn in a way that ordinary medicine cannot predict.

That is to say, even when you die -- that time of death written in the Book of the King of Hell -- can be changed. From this you can understand how enormous the energy of your belief system is, and how decisive it is. You have absolute initiative, you have absolute free will. Although you came here carrying tasks, carrying challenges, carrying a script, all of this can be changed. It is not that because you came with a script, you must perform according to that script. If even something as great as when you die can be changed, then the experiences in your life can also be changed.

The Focus of Consciousness and Two Worlds

Seth says:

You govern your experience through your present focus.

This focus refers to the focus of consciousness, from which you view your experiences of the present, past, and future. Within your present focus of consciousness, on the one hand your beliefs directly meet the body and the physical world; on the other hand, they also intersect with that invisible world from which you draw energy and power -- that is, your inner self, the inner world, or the world that forms the invisible shape of your body. Your focus of consciousness, in this present moment, is simultaneously dealing with and communicating with both the physical world and the nonphysical world. Seth says:

This applies to individuals, and also to societies, races, and nations, including all social, biological, and psychic activities.

Regarding the social aspect, there will be more explanation in The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events⁷, and here Seth does not discuss it further. Actually the principle is the same: a person, a society, an organization, a group -- all have their inner aspects and their outer material aspects. For a nation, the outer material aspects are its infrastructure, its national system, its military, its political system, its government. But does this nation also have its inner aspects?

It is very interesting, just as we say -- a nation has its national destiny, and a person has personal destiny. National destiny can also be changed, if the beliefs of that group are strong enough.

Concentrating on Latent Abilities

Seth says:

In daily practical experience, try to concentrate for a while upon seemingly secondary abilities.

In our ordinary lives, we should focus on those secondary things -- so-called secondary, meaning that invisible, intangible world, which we humans consider secondary -- those abilities, which we consider latent. If you use your imagination and willpower to continuously place your focus of attention upon them, then those abilities will become prominent in your present.

In other words, suppose you previously had no leadership ability, but if you focus your consciousness upon your own leadership ability -- that latent, secondary ability, and you feel "I was never suited for great undertakings, nor do I have the ability to manage teams of hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of people" -- Seth says, if you want this ability, just keep doing this, and these abilities will become prominent in your present, and you will suddenly acquire this ability.

This is a little trick, equivalent to a way of modifying the game. Seth has already told you the secret. Whatever latent ability you want to acquire, whatever ability you currently do not possess or that is not prominent in you, if you want to strengthen it, use your imagination and willpower to continuously concentrate on that ability which is not prominent in you, and simply imagine that you have such an ability. It is very simple.

Present Beliefs Rewrite the Past

Your present belief will then rewrite past experience. Why did you originally have no leadership ability, and now you have it? When you desire to have leadership ability, it will change past events. You may originally never have been a class monitor, nor a league branch secretary, nor a student union president, nor held any leadership position in your workplace, but when you want to have leadership ability, you will change the past.

In this kind of change of the past, you may become someone who started as a class cadre, then moved on to leadership in clubs, leadership in the community, and then gradually in this process, that leadership ability was trained and developed. So this enhancement of ability is a substantive enhancement, not that kind of verbal, imagined self-improvement. Leadership ability is the same as drawing ability or multifaceted abilities -- they all require an accumulation of time; it is not that it can be pressed onto your head and you are done.

When you concentrate your energy, you are actually quietly changing your past experience, turning your past life without leadership ability into one where, among those past probabilities, there is a you who had leadership experience, allowing you to learn from that experience. For example, when you ran for student union president before and did not get elected, is there a probability that you were elected? Because your past has multiple probabilities. If you change your beliefs, then in the reality of that probability where you were elected, you learn many things, and that reality was previously invisible to you, imperceptible, and that experience was also unobtainable to you. But when you change your beliefs, that becomes your past, and you become someone who went from student union president all the way to manager, to vice president -- this has already become your experience and your past, which is why leadership ability suddenly appears prominent.

It sounds like mythology, but this is how it actually is. Seth says:

Not only are past, forgotten, and unconsciously perceived events put together in new ways and organized under new themes, but in that past -- which is now unpredictable -- the body's entire response to seemingly past events also changes.

In that past, right now, is that past still happening? The past is still changing; it is not dead. Because your beliefs have changed, that past is also changing, and you do not know what it will become, so it is now unpredictable. It is not that the past is forever knowable -- it is unknowable, because you have many kinds of past that you have not experienced. Your body will also change, your cellular memory and your muscle memory will change, so your every gesture and movement will carry more of a leadership temperament and that leadership presence will emerge. So leadership ability is not merely knowledge and experience; it is more of an ability in practice.

Desire and Belief Reach Back Into Time

Your desire or belief really does reach back into time. Seth says:

Teaching the nerves new tricks.

Because your desire is very strong and your belief is very strong, you can go back into the past, and in that past, specific events -- specific reorganization will occur in your present. The intensity of your desire and the intensity of your belief will play new tricks upon your nerves, changing the experience of your deep-level nerves. When your deep-level nervous experience changes, the sensations of your body also change. When the sensations of your body change, that means you have already changed -- your so-called experiences, your so-called experience of different things.

For example, whether your past experience was serving in the military or attending university -- these two are different. After graduating high school, you could choose to join the army or choose to attend university. Besides the changes in daily life, these two choices also bring changes to your body, and changes to your spiritual world as well. But if both your spirit and your body are changed at the same time, including your muscle memory and cellular memory, and your spiritual world is also changed, then does that mean I can erase your past of serving in the military and turn it into the experience of attending university? Or the reverse? If both of these can be changed, then does that mean the facts you thought were in the past have been changed?

Actually, what facts does the past have? What you call the facts of the past are simply your physical or spiritual experiences and cognitions of the past, and these two things can be changed. They change because the underlying things can change -- when the underlying things change, these two things change. Your body and your mental state or psychological state will both change, and your events will change, as if the facts had been changed. Actually what changes is not the facts, but your underlying things.

If we use human language, when your inner belief system changes these inner things, and then causes your bodily experience and spiritual experience to change, then that is equivalent to the facts having changed -- it is exactly the same. What essential difference is there? Going into the military is just daily training, morning drills, five-kilometer cross-country runs, training in various subjects. Whether you are in the army, navy, or air force, the training subjects are the same. If I can make you experience this on a spiritual level, in Seth's words, your body will respond accordingly.

The Body Responds to Past Experience

The body responds to past experience, just like when you smell the aroma of chive buns -- or this kind of past experience will bring about a direct response in your own body, including the response of your muscles. Then if you re-experience this entire process of serving in the military on a spiritual level, what essential difference is there from actually serving in the military? Where is the difference? How do you distinguish which is false and which is true? Are you still distinguishing which is false and which is true even today? Is it your experience that is real, or is it the event that is real? So this returns to Seth's phrase: "Which you? Which world?" How do you define it?

After reorganizing the past, it allows you to act in entirely new ways, completely changed, because it will change your present. Seth says:

The specific reorganization of the past will occur in your present.

This sentence is a bit convoluted, but this is how it actually is -- that reorganization did not happen at that time; it happens in your present. For example, if 2020 is the present, and you want to change a you in 2021, then you go back to that state in 2021 and change the beliefs of that time -- when your present beliefs change, they will change your choices in 2021, and the occurrence of those historical events. So for that event, this reorganization of the past occurs in our present.

And the you in 2021 at that time did not know such a change would happen. You were simply moving forward along one timeline, one storyline, and the you at that time did not know that many probabilities were happening simultaneously; you could only experience your present moment. But when you reach 2020, from 2021 to 2020, during these ten years many probabilistic choices occurred, and you only chose one of those lines. When in 2020 you go back and reorganize the experiences between 2011 and 2020, you can recombine these probabilities, all the possibilities of these experiences, and experience those things that your original timeline did not experience. You can at this time re-experience and recombine them -- in other words, you can rearrange the events of these ten years, and among all the probabilities that occurred in these ten years, you can select the experiences you want to experience and recombine them into a ten-year process, and these ten years can be completely combined according to your own way.

After combining them according to your way, this reorganization of the ten years will occur in our present; it is we who make it reorganize now. So this is why his words are convoluted. If after reorganizing, we want to acquire some new experiences and new abilities, do we acquire them in this process of reorganization? Of course we do. Previously you walked one line; now you combine all these probabilities together -- do you not become very powerful? Whatever you want to experience, you can draw from there.

Learned Behavior Also Changes the Past

Seth says:

Therefore learned behavior changes not only present and future behavior, but also past behavior.

For example, in 2012, on a whim you went to learn to be a chef. You enrolled in a class at Baoding Chef School⁸; you suddenly wanted to learn cooking. You studied for half a year and came back. Although in those six months of chef training you could not achieve any great accomplishment, among ordinary people your cooking level had completely surpassed 99.9% of people. Your culinary skill was no longer something ordinary people could compare with.

Now, this matter of learning to be a chef for half a year in 2012 -- you might think it would affect the period after 2012 or the present of 2012 -- because the food you cook is better, your family likes you more, and so on. You think it will have an effect. But the act of learning to be a chef in 2012 can even affect events in 2010 -- this is changing past behavior. How does it change? When you go back and recombine, you can combine the behavior and method of 2012 into whatever point in time you want -- the chef skills you learned in 2012 can be pushed backward, to 2010, to 2008. You can push the skill you learned in 2012 back to 2008 so that you already knew it then.

Why do some people suddenly know a language? How did they learn it? It is through recombination, a combination of experiences. Where does the opportunity for this lie? It lies in the fact that in the present of 2020, you want to have acquired this chef ability in 2008, yet in 2008 you had no idea that you would learn to be a chef in 2012. But because in the present of 2020 you want the you of 2008 to have this ability, you change the order of the experience of this past event, and you make the you of 2008 learn it. So on a certain day in 2008, your culinary skill suddenly surges, and you do not know how it happened, as if you had a sudden awakening -- within just a few days, maybe ten days or a few days, it is as if you had been given a cheat code. You look at a recipe and completely understand it; after reading recipes for only a few days, you can cook any dish. You never had this ability before, and suddenly it appears, and from then on, you only need to casually look at something, or eat a dish someone made at a restaurant, or someone merely describes to you how a dish is made, and you can make it. It is that simple, and you do not know where it came from.

Why do some athletes suddenly perform as if they had been given a cheat code? It is recombination. That is how incredible things happen.

The Present Is a Creative Structure

Seth says:

As rational consciousness, your power is focused in the present. You are only vaguely learning to understand that when you truly learn a certain ability, you will automatically begin to appreciate not only your own species, but also the multidimensional abilities of other species.

Seth is teaching you this method, and you must grope your way through learning it, understanding it vaguely. Because our consciousness only focuses on the present, we are not very skilled at this way of learning. Seth says, just learn it vaguely, break all your time limitations and time sequences, and you can even learn some abilities you possessed in past lives, or abilities from events you have not yet experienced in the future -- all can be realized at the time when you want or need that ability. You will truly live a life as if you had been given a cheat code: whatever you want to learn, you can learn.

The present as you think of it will be a creative structure. Through this present moment, through this structure, your nonphysical self constantly forms physical reality.

You are a nonphysical self, because you are a being of a multiverse, you are a multidimensional being. Seth says:

Through that window into earthly existence, you form the future and the past of physical reality.

What is the window into earthly existence? It is your body and the consciousness above the body that directs it. Through your body, through the direction of your consciousness, through the direction of your belief system, you form the future and the past of physical reality -- you form both at the same time, creating the future with one hand and the past with the other. The new things that happen in the past are, for you, the future.

This is why he emphasizes that the present moment is so important. Why do Buddhism or Zen insist that you focus on the present? Why is it enough to focus only on the present? Because this single moment of the present is a creative structure. Through this structure, we humans -- this nonphysical self of yours -- can enter from the nonphysical self into this physical existence on Earth, and only then is there physical existence. And the past and future of this physical existence are created through the present -- the present simultaneously creates the past and the future.

You may take a break.

At this point Jane's reaction was -- she said that after coming out of an excellent trance state, she had a feeling that during the transmission, while speaking for Seth, she was simultaneously thinking in her head: "This is wonderful, Seth, I hope people can read it and follow it." Jane did not know the specific content of what Seth was saying at the time, but she had this intuitive feeling, so you know how important the content of this chapter is.

Seth was also becoming more and more energized at this point; after receiving Jane's praise, he became even more excited.

Gestalt Consciousness and the Body

Purely in physical terms, when the gestalt consciousness of the atoms, molecules, cells, and organs that compose the body reaches a certain peak of intensity, the consciousness that you consider your own arises from it.

Where does your consciousness come from? When the atoms, molecules, cells, and organs that compose the body each have their own consciousness, the combination of these consciousnesses creates a gestalt consciousness. As I said earlier, the parts of a car combine to form a car, but the abilities the car possesses far exceed the combined abilities of all its parts -- the meaning of the car is already far greater than the combined abilities of all these parts. We humans are the same: we are composed of atoms, molecules, cells, and organs level by level, and each has its own individual consciousness -- atoms have atomic consciousness, molecules have molecular consciousness, cells and organs each have their own consciousness. But the combination of these consciousnesses is called gestalt consciousness, and this gestalt consciousness is far greater than the sum of their combination. When it reaches a certain peak of intensity, our self-consciousness emerges from it -- our own consciousness, our self-perception arises from here.

Seth continues:

The physically oriented self that you know has its own reality in that context, but in physical terms, its reality is also more than any analysis of its entirety can show.

He emphasizes once again: this physically oriented body, this self of yours -- if you take it apart and analyze every cell, every organ, every system and how it operates, including taking out your brain and scanning it with a computer -- he says if you add all of these together, all the analyses combined, it is still more than their totality. That is, the physical you -- purely from the physical orientation -- is also more than the sum of all your parts.

Then:

It then directs the body's actions. That gestalt consciousness which is more than all your consciousnesses added together, that is, the self, directs the body's actions. You arise from within, you arise from the body, but it turns back and directs them. In that respect, it is dependent upon neural activity.

However:

The psychological structure of the gestalt consciousness that composes the body is not dependent upon the body.

You must remember this: although the psychological structure of your gestalt consciousness arises from the physical body, as if it emerges from the body, it is not dependent upon your physical body. It arises from there, but it does not depend upon it. The sum of the consciousnesses of all your cells, organs, atoms, and molecules -- that gestalt consciousness, or your self-consciousness -- is greater than the sum of the individual consciousnesses of the cells and organs combined. And that is not all: the key point is that after it arises from there, it can also exist independently of them.

Let me give a simple example so you understand. Suppose a car is composed of three hundred parts. The three hundred parts ultimately operate in a certain way and form the car; each part performs its own function and together they compose this car. After the car is formed, the gestalt consciousness is greater than the sum of the consciousnesses of the individual parts. At this point, suppose one part breaks; you only need to replace that one part, and the car still maintains its own gestalt, holistic structure. For example, you drive a Mercedes, and a tire breaks; you replace it with a BMW tire, and it is still a Mercedes -- it will not become a BMW just because you replaced a tire with a BMW tire. It is still a Mercedes. But there is a limit: when you replace all the parts with BMW parts, although it still has a Mercedes emblem on it, it has already become a BMW. I am just using this example to explain the relationship between the gestalt structure and the individual consciousness structures. This part tells you: the gestalt structure is what makes the car a car; it does not depend on the parts. Once it has formed into a car, it no longer depends on those parts; if a part breaks, it can be replaced.

You Are Only a Part of a Larger Entity

Therefore you experience yourself as only a part of this larger entity.

The you that you experience is only a part of this larger entity -- the whole of you. Why? Because you can only experience the you that depends upon the body, while the real you exists completely independent of this body, and you cannot experience that. What you can experience is only the part that can be experienced through dependence upon the body.

Dreams Are a Way of Translating Nonphysical Experience

In certain stages of sleep, you cause the neurological structure to temporarily cease functioning, and perceive a multidimensional experience.

During sleep, you let your nervous system temporarily relax, stop working, and perceive multidimensional experience. During sleep you can perceive multidimensional experience, because the nervous system is no longer focused only on the physical world.

Then it attempts to translate it as much as possible.

You have experienced a nonphysical, multidimensional experience, but through thought you translate it into something you can understand in the physical world, so that it can be digested and stimulated by the physical.

Therefore you often translate this into a symbolic image that can be understood by the bodily structure.

Many times such symbolic images are used as patterns for inner vision. They often bear similarities to cellular architecture, or to planets.

Your dream images, then, are structured in a biological manner.

Your dream images are structured in a biological manner. Behind them -- that is, the experiences behind the biological structure -- the nonphysical experiences bring you into contact with the deepest parts of nonphysical reality, and the unconscious then translates these for you into images and forms you can recognize.

Here he is explaining how our dreams, at the deep unconscious level, become those images with visual form, that kind of sensory stimulation. So when we remember dreams, we always remember things like a giant python, some terrifying animal, arguments with certain people, and so on -- these are all things you can recognize, but they actually come from the deepest levels of your nonphysical reality.

Everything Emerges From a Field of Activated Probabilities

Seth says:

In the same way, your unconscious also translates for you, from a previously undifferentiated labyrinth of reality, or field of activity, into things and events that can be recognized in daily life.

He is explaining the entire process of our inner workings. When you dream, it is also the unconscious operating, not your conscious mind. In the same way, when you are awake, it is the same. Your unconscious, from this undifferentiated, not yet differentiated reality -- from all probabilities -- selects some things and events that can be recognized in daily life. Just as in dreams, it can only translate into those inner visual images that you can understand in real life; it can never show you the real thing, because you cannot comprehend it.

In real life it is the same. All the things and events in our daily lives, all objects, physical things, and the events that occur -- behind them all, they can be understood as a field of probabilities in that undifferentiated state of quantum mechanics, or what he calls a field of activation -- where all probabilities have not yet separated, have not yet differentiated. Your consciousness and beliefs will select from it those things that your consciousness and beliefs can recognize, want to recognize, like to recognize, desire to recognize. And all of this is operated by the unconscious; your conscious mind has no idea how it is done.

So our beliefs can be changed, because if you want to change these things, you just go and select from it the things you want.

Learning These Abilities Is to Enrich the Physical Experience

You are now rooted in your animal nature, gifted so that you may perceive unique life experiences through the body.

Seth says the main purpose of teaching you these abilities is to let you enrich your physical senses and your psyche's experience.

These should be used to enhance your enjoyment of your animal nature, and to enrich your senses and the expression of your psyche.

"Enjoyment of your animal nature" may sound uncomfortable to many people, but what he actually means is enjoyment based on the body, experience based on the body, expression based on the physical senses and the psyche. In other words, he teaches you to select, from the nonphysical multidimensional space, those abilities that can be manifested in the physical world -- that is, the ability to change your past, change your present, change your future -- and the main purpose of teaching you this ability is to let you enrich your physical senses and your psyche's experience.

Seth is afraid that after you learn this ability you will go live in that space every day, so in these last two sentences he specifically instructs:

In the brilliant glory of your physical existence, spirit and flesh are intertwined.

They cannot be separated; they are tightly woven together. So you must not misunderstand, and you must not think that you can go exploring and roaming in this nonphysical world every day -- the purpose of your exploring and roaming is to bring it into real society, to let it manifest in real society, and then to let you experience this creative process, to experience what you want to manifest. You must not put the cart before the horse and return to a kind of special pursuit of nonphysical experience, non-body experience -- treating your own body as a lowly, inferior kind of animal need and dismissing it, turning instead to pursue that so-called purely spiritual, purely psychic, purely mental thing. Seth says no, you have got the wrong direction; telling you these things is precisely to enrich your physical experience. You came into this three-dimensional world precisely to experience this three-dimensional world. It is that simple.

Session 655

The Rhythm of Tension and Relaxation

Your mental activity constitutes conscious experience. The overall rhythm of your animal nature automatically brings you to periods of rest and periods of intensely focused mental activity.

The automatic rhythm of your physical body will automatically bring you to periods of rest and periods of intensely focused mental activity. This is very normal; it will bring you there automatically.

Day and night constitute a framework within which your experience can occur, providing the stimulation and relaxation that the conscious mind needs, while allowing events to be properly digested.

You must have a process of relaxation and tension, of loosening and tightening, and your physical body itself possesses this ability. You just follow along with the body. Let me give an inappropriate example: you ride a roller coaster, and one ride is very thrilling. But what if I made you sit on a roller coaster twenty-four hours a day? How would you feel? Another example: making love is a very blissful thing, but what if I made you do it every day, twenty-four hours without getting out of bed, staying in bed all day every day? How would you feel? So you must have a process of relaxation and tension, of loosening and tightening.

Nevertheless, the body's structure and innate mechanisms can alter such an arrangement, so that it can handle more data.

Even so, the body's structure and innate mechanisms can alter such an arrangement; it does not have to follow this routine.

Within the sequence of events, the reality of probable actions often remains hidden from you.

You can actually know this reality of probable actions, but it simply does not let you know. Why? Because you cannot handle that many things. If your entire future life were suddenly dragged out and dumped in front of you all at once, how would you deal with it? There would be no way.

This more complex reality is an ever-present characteristic of your personal animal nature.

Although hidden, this more complex reality is an ever-present characteristic of your personal animal nature—it is always there; it has not disappeared, it is simply not manifest.

Death Is Only a Night of the Soul

In your terms, you have lived more than once. In each of these reincarnations, you face the same relationship with probabilities and possibilities.

In each case, the nature of the conscious mind also establishes what it considers to be its own territory of identity.

In every case of every reincarnation, your conscious mind must establish what it considers to be its own territory of identity—"this is me." So the you of the present is one of those reincarnations, but you have your own territory of identity, your own domain of identity, and you consider that to be you. This provides a clear focus; only then can you have a focus. If you mixed all your reincarnations together, you would be in chaos, your focus could not converge—one moment male, one moment female, one moment ancient times, one moment the present—you would not be able to focus clearly, and you could not consider your current actions.

Yet each life is simultaneous.

Although you can only perceive the identity of the present moment, each of your lives is simultaneous; you just can only perceive this one in the present. He is emphasizing this fact: all of your reincarnations are simultaneous.

A single death is only a night of the soul.

This statement is very philosophical. Think about it: one death of a person is one evening of the soul—in other words, one dream of the soul. You are a part of it—you are a part of the soul, a part of that greater existence, which is the entity. It does not matter what it is called; you just need to understand what it is like.

The Entity Wakes Each Day in a Different World

Following your progress as easily as you follow your own progress each day.

What does this mean? You, as one lifetime of reincarnation, are, on the level of the soul, one dream of the soul. When the soul has its second dream the next day, that is another lifetime. In your dreams each day, that self of yours is different each time, possibly from different dynasties. Then what does this dreaming you—that is, the soul, the whole complete you—pursue for itself? He says it is just like you: you dream every day, but you do not lose your sense of self-identity; you still develop your own goals according to an established direction. Your soul is the same. Although it has countless reincarnations—actually, in terms of time sequence, they are simultaneous; let us assume, to make it understandable to you, that this soul has one dream every day, and each dream is one lifetime of yours. Then this soul, in the process of dreaming every day, also does not lose its own sense of identity. When it wakes up, it understands "what I want to do," and it continues its pursuit.

Most people usually wake up every day in the same city, in the same room, in the same bed—unless you travel often for work; otherwise it is basically like this. Most people wake up every day in the same city, the same room, the same bed. But obviously, when you wake up, you are still the same person in the same world and the same century. When you wake up, you are still the same person in the same century, the same era, the same age. Although you wake up, dream, and then wake up in the morning every day, you are still the same person.

In those terms, your entity wakes each day in a different world, as a different person. If we use an analogy, your entity is like waking up in a different era every day—today in the Tang Dynasty, tomorrow in the Song Dynasty, the day after in the future. It wakes up in different eras as different identities. When you wake up, you are the same identity—if you are male, you remain male. But the soul is not like that. The soul wakes up in the morning: "Oh, I am living in the Tang Dynasty as a woman." The next day it wakes up: "Oh, I am living in the year 3047 as a man." Just an example. So for the soul, the difference between it and you is that you are the same person waking up in the same city, the same bed, the same room, while the soul is a different personality waking up at different times, in different places, as different identities. If you want to understand what the soul is, the soul is this—when we understand it in terms we humans can grasp, it is this kind of thing.

For the soul, all these experiences exist simultaneously, just like all the past days stacked together.

Images Are Essentially Nonphysical

An image is basically nonphysical. And what is the material image we see? It is only the part that can effectively act or be materialized within our system of reality.

Images are essentially nonphysical, but the reality we see is only the part that can be manifested in our physical world, or that can be made visible, or that can effectively act. There is another part of it that cannot be manifested or materialized, or effectively act, in our physical world.

Therefore existence, in its own way, possesses what you would think of as the stuff of future neurological structure.

Here "existence" refers to the entity—the collection of your entire soul. The entity, in its own way, possesses what you think of as the future. What is the future? It is a kind of neurological structure—be sure to remember this. What you think of as the future is, for the entity, actually a kind of neurological structure.

Your own image—your own image is the same as the "image" above—exists within that greater image. The image of each of our reincarnations exists within that greater image.

In other words, the image in your dream exists within the image of your physical world; it is more transient. But it is not lost, nor is it restricted. This day you can freely express yourself; it is not predetermined, nor is it said that you must do certain things on this day; it is entirely up to you. You form one corner of the universe, and within this day it is entirely decided by you.

And this universe itself is in turn a part of another universe.

Within this framework, your physical existence in reincarnation, this you living on Earth—you are only one day of the entity, or of the soul, or one of its dreams—seemingly insignificant, very tiny. But you are not restricted, you are not predetermined, you are not lost, and your individuality will not cease to exist. You form this day; you form this day of the entity.

Within this, one person's actions and beliefs affect the entire universe.

So you can affect the entire universe. Your so-called actions and your beliefs can change your present, past, and future, and at the same time can change the present, past, and future of the whole world and the whole universe.

The Individual Weaves Its Own Web of Probabilities

Every part is extremely important. You must never demean yourself or pity yourself by saying, "I am only a dream of the soul, only one day"—never do that, because every part is very important.

Nevertheless, between the smallest and the largest—between the spider web and the spider, between the person and existence and the stars—there is constant communication.

Each weaves its own web of probabilities.

He uses the spider as an example. The development of your future is completely unrestricted; probabilities are completely open to you.

Other universes continue to spring forth from it.

When you weave each probability, a world of probability comes into existence, and other multidimensional space-times spring forth from these webs of probabilities.

The Inspiration of Athletes and Artists

The performance of a great athlete offers proof of abilities that are inherent in human endowment but seldom used.

For example, running the hundred-meter dash in under ten seconds—this is an ability inherent in human endowment but seldom used—it proves that humans can run this fast. Why do we enjoy watching athletic performances—whether the Olympics or various sports? Because you discover from other people that humans can actually do these things—can jump higher, and so on. These things that others can do represent what humanity can achieve.

The works of great artists show other attributes latent within the entire race.

An artist represents the level of human achievement on the artistic plane. However—

Yet they still represent only single-line designs.

They only represent single-line experiences within a specific time—for example, the 1984 Olympics⁹, who did what, and then what the world record was at what time, and world records keep being broken. All of this is a single-line experience within time.

Within the human experience as you know it, all patterns are inherent, and they need not be single-line.

All things exist simultaneously. All human abilities can be possessed simultaneously, and these patterns point toward a certain fully developed human being. When all these patterns are inherent within human instinct and inner attributes—

They point toward a certain fully developed human being, in whom all natural tendencies are fully developed and brought to fruition.

This means concentrating all human talents, all the excellent talents of humanity, into one person. This person represents the fully developed human being, developed in every aspect—physical ability, athletic talent, artistic talent, linguistic ability—he possesses abilities in all areas.

Wisdom and Foolishness Are Two Sides of the Same Thing

The reality of the emotions will be developed to its utmost.

Not only are his abilities strong, he also develops his emotions to their greatest capacity.

Any human quality or characteristic will be given full freedom.

All human qualities, all excellent qualities and characteristics, are completely released, given full freedom. Then if there were such a person, possessing all the most excellent qualities of humanity—

Wisdom and foolishness would be seen as two aspects of the same thing.

Why? Because he represents the characteristics of all humanity within himself.

In such a person, religion and science would not be hindered by dogma.

For him, so-called science, so-called religion, so-called superstition would have no distinction.

Follow Your Own Traces

In the same way, following your own traces, experiences, and characteristics, you can discover those probable abilities that belong to you.

Seth says the previous part was only an example—that is, if there were a person who possessed all the qualities and strengths of humanity, then for him there would be no such thing as foolishness versus wisdom. Because for him, all of these are attributes of his own, two aspects of one thing, and superstition and science would no longer be so clearly divided, and the boundaries would no longer be so obvious.

To some degree, you can also discover the nature of "your ability to materialize them into that kind of probable action."

In the same way, following your own experiences and characteristics—following the experiences and characteristics of your own traces—you can discover those probable abilities that belong to you. All the probable yous of your past, all the probable abilities—can you actually obtain them? When you can obtain these abilities, to some degree, you will discover that you have already materialized the nature of those probabilities. To materialize is to manifest—whatever ability you want, whatever probable ability you want, you can manifest it.

Every Cell Carries a Brilliant Mark

Within his present experience—within our present experience—there are traces of your probable selves.

Just as within a single individual there are marks of the brilliantly developed great talents displayed by those few people. You carry within you their potential—those very few figures in history, such as certain athletes and artists, with their brilliant great talents. You can bring the traces of these people's brilliant great talents into your experience—you can be a painter, an artist, a composer, an athlete, a genius in all kinds of areas. What is this for? To enrich your life.

The Unconscious Is Already Doing This

Nevertheless, on unconscious levels, the probable selves are already doing this.

Your unconscious is already doing this. It is constantly, in your life, as if giving you opportunities, giving you various challenges, letting you try to develop your various latent potentials. But sometimes we often turn a blind eye; we do not accept these challenges, we avoid them and evade them.

They have already formed, on those unconscious levels, a basis for your choice of present experience.

The reason you are living in your present state, your present experience—all of it is your unconscious laying out before you all the probabilities of your past experiences for you to choose from, and only then did you choose the result you have today.

The Next Chapter Will Provide Methods

This chapter has covered up to this point. It is finished; he is talking about the next chapter—the next brief chapter will provide some methods.

This chapter mainly discusses theory; next will come methods. That will let you make use of some larger choices, and you can use these choices to bring events and experiences that are still potential into your daily experience.

Of course, in each individual case, each person's choices will differ.

You can, however, bring into your present life some knowledge that is closely related to your own probable realities.

On a conscious basis, you can learn to deepen the dimensions of your life by drawing in the rich data of probabilities.

Everyone is different. You can bring some knowledge closely related to the reality of your own probabilities into your present life. On a conscious basis—previously, on your unconscious level, he was already doing this, but unconsciously; now he is letting you do it consciously, so you can enrich your probabilities, and by drawing in the rich data of probabilities, you can make your life deeper and broader, make your life more brilliant, and make your experience richer.

注释与核实

1. Source: Wikipedia "Anal hygiene" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_hygiene) ↩

2. Source: Wikipedia "Peaceful Warrior" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_Warrior) ↩

3. Source: Yu Xiaofei, "Deconstructing the 'Real' World of Ordinary People: A Guide to the Diamond Sutra" (https://books.google.com/books/about/%E8%A7%A3%E6%9E%84%E5%87%A1%E5%A4%AB%E7%9A%84_%E7%9C%9F%E5%AE%9E_%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C.html?id=ZWVczgEACAAJ) ↩

4. Source: Yu Xiaofei, "A Guide to the Diamond Sutra" (Ximalaya audio album) (https://m.ximalaya.com/album/6893131) ↩

5. Source: Jane Roberts, "Dreams, Evolution, and Value Fulfillment (A Seth Book), Volume One" (https://sethcenter.com/products/dreams-evolution-value-fulfillment-1-seth-jane-roberts) ↩

6. Source: Jane Roberts, "The Unknown Reality, Volume One" (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/601894/the-unknown-reality-volume-one-by-jane-roberts-notes-and-cover-art-by-robert-f-butts/) ↩

7. The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events ↩

8. Baoding Chef School ↩

9. This claim could not be verified. ↩