Mike's commentary · The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 2

The "Reading Guide" and "Chapter Highlights" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not things Mike said during the lecture. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the block quotes are Seth's original words (the parts Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This chapter centers on "reality and personal beliefs," pointing out that personal experience is woven from beliefs and expectations, and that people often mistake beliefs for facts. Seth explains the relationship between the conscious mind and the inner self, points out the popular notions of treating the subconscious as dangerous and blaming problems on childhood or past lives, lists common limiting false beliefs, and gives two exercises: feeling the sense-tone and making a list of beliefs. This chapter emphasizes that conscious beliefs are extremely important, that people are not ruled by unknowable causes, and that only by changing beliefs can reality be changed.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Personal experience is woven from one's own beliefs and expectations, yet people often mistake beliefs for facts.
• The conscious mind is responsible for receiving and translating inner and outer data; erroneous beliefs can hinder its discernment.
• The subconscious is not dangerous or negative; the inner self is trustworthy and is the source of energy and creativity.
• Limiting beliefs form walls; only by changing beliefs can one change personal reality.
• Conscious beliefs are extremely important; people are not ruled by unknowable or external causes.

Main Text

Today we continue with the first part of Chapter 2 of The Nature of Personal Reality, "Reality and Personal Beliefs," which is Session 614, September 13, 1972.

First let us look at the main text of the book. Earlier it says that after such a long delay, the work on the book had unexpectedly become steady again, and Jane was greatly pleased. These days she has been full of energy. The day before yesterday she held such a long session, and yesterday's ESP class was even longer than the day before yesterday's. Besides the regular class, there was also the message transmission of Sumari seeing Jane. Today is already the third consecutive day. Today is the third day Jane has spoken for Seth. When he says the day before yesterday's session, he means the second part of Chapter 1, which is the part on the feeling of personal tone we covered the previous two days. That session was indeed quite long. So Jane has been rather excited for three consecutive days, full of energy. Sumari will be introduced earlier on, so I will not go into it here; later there will be a special introduction to Sumari. Sumari is one of nine soul families in total; Sumari is one of the nine soul families.

But Jane said she was not tired. The only thing that made her feel a little uncomfortable was the excessive humidity. She has always been very sensitive to the weather. Today was very hot, and after dinner it rained. Before the session, we stole some time to go out for a walk in the neighborhood and then came back.

Now the session formally begins, and Seth says good evening. Let us return to the book, Chapter 2, "Reality and Personal Beliefs."

Session 614

Your experience is like a piece of cloth, and this cloth is woven through your own beliefs and expectations. The ideas you hold in your mind about yourself and the nature of reality affect your thoughts and emotions. You take the beliefs you hold about reality as truth, scarcely even questioning them, because everything seems so perfectly reasonable. To you, these things are themselves statements of fact, so obvious that even examining them seems unnecessary. There is nothing to explain. So you accept these facts wholesale. It seldom occurs to you to question them. You accept all of this as the inherent characteristics of reality, without realizing at all that these are merely your own beliefs about reality. (Session 614)

Let me emphasize this part. You accept these ideas wholesale. What does that mean? He said quite a lot before this, but there is nothing difficult to understand in it. It is all very simple. In the opening chapters of The Nature of Personal Reality, the writing and descriptions are very simple. You do not have to dig deeply into the wording; it is not particularly difficult. But the principles that come through are indeed profound. The language is simple, but the principles are profound. The principle he is explaining is this: Where does our understanding of the world come from? How do we understand this world? How do we recognize truth? We understand this world through our beliefs. We take our beliefs as facts. We no longer know what the actual facts are; we think these beliefs are the facts. That is what he means. He says you actually do not realize at all that these are merely your own beliefs about reality.

Often these beliefs seem so unquestionable, so much a part of you. So you have never had any doubts about their validity. At this point, your beliefs become invisible assumptions, but they still form and color your personal experience. (Session 614)

These ideas, these personal beliefs of yours, are very important. Although you have no doubts about them and never think of questioning them, you then turn these beliefs into invisible assumptions, and they form and color your personal experience.

For example, some people have never questioned their religious beliefs, simply accepting their faith as truth. Others, when they encounter religious questions, find it easier to recognize certain internal, invisible assumptions of this kind. But once these questions move beyond the realm of religion, the extent of their "clear sight" is still very limited. (Session 614)

This is very normal. Some people never ask, because they grew up in a Christian family. Their parents were religious from the time they were little, and they followed along. Some people grew up in Buddhist families, with someone in the family practicing Buddhism, and they followed that faith from childhood, so they never raise any questions. Many people take their faith as truth. They think whatever they believe is the truth. Some people, when they encounter religion, can see at a glance that it contains many assumptions. These invisible assumptions, these beliefs, the beliefs behind a religion, are actually its assumptions, including assumptions about good and evil, God, and so on. But once these questions move beyond the realm of religion, the extent of their "clear sight" is still very limited. Within religion, they can recognize its limitations and recognize that religion itself rests on substantial premises and assumptions, without which it would not hold up. But once they step outside religion and you ask them to explain for themselves, to say what things should be like if religion has such great limitations, they cannot give a coherent answer either.

Generally, when people encounter questions of religion, politics, or similar matters, they find it relatively easy to identify the beliefs they hold. By comparison, it is much harder to pinpoint their deepest beliefs about who they are and what they are. This is especially true when you try to discover how these beliefs relate to your life. (Session 614)

When religious questions come up, everyone knows their own beliefs: I believe in Christianity, or I believe in Buddhism, or I am an atheist, and so on. It is the same with political questions: I support the Democratic Party, I support the Republican Party, I support constitutional government, I support freedom and democracy, I support the view that China still needs a dictatorial government at present, and so on. Whatever you think, these are all your ideas, all your beliefs. This is very easy to understand, not complicated. But when you want to understand who you really are and what you are, those deepest beliefs are much harder to identify. Especially when you think about how these beliefs relate to your life, they become even harder to find.

Many people have no clear idea of what beliefs they hold about the nature of reality. In fact, their own conscious thoughts can give them excellent clues. For example, you will often find yourself rejecting certain thoughts that enter your mind because they conflict with the ideas you usually accept. Your conscious mind is constantly trying to give you a clear picture, but you often let your preconceived ideas obstruct this information. (Session 614)

Your conscious mind is doing everything it can to help you see clearly, but your preconceived ideas prevent you from seeing this information.

In recent years, this idea has become quite prevalent: blaming every kind of problem and difficulty in a person's character on the "subconscious." This idea holds that these problems arise because certain incomprehensible and intense early feelings have accumulated in the subconscious. In the United States, several generations have already grown up under this idea. They firmly believe that the subconscious is an untrustworthy part of their character, full of negative energy, with unpleasant memories locked away inside that would best be discarded as quickly as possible. (Session 614)

We have been influenced by this all along. In the United States, several generations have held this view, blaming every problem on the subconscious. Now this way of thinking is gradually taking hold here in China as well, becoming more and more popular. This is really just reheated leftovers, bread that Western society has already chewed over. Every problem is attributed, in this mysterious way, to something like this: Your problem must come from your family of origin, must come from your childhood experiences, from things you do not know about that are buried deep in your subconscious, and these are what have caused your present character, your present emotional and psychological problems. They push every problem back into childhood. Some people even, if you believe in reincarnation, push it back into your past lives, into previous lifetimes. These are all part of a basic formula and set of concepts. So from today onward, you need to understand that all of this is wrong.

Under this trend of thought and these academic views, look at what mainstream science, mainstream psychology, and mainstream media are promoting now. It is all this same set of ideas. Look at all the talk shows, whether they are about matchmaking, family relationships, parent-child relationships, or reality shows and the like. At every turn, it is the family of origin; at every turn, childhood trauma; at every turn, the subconscious this and that. Some so-called psychologists sit there rattling on: You are this way because of your family problems, because your family of origin was this or that. They even drag the parents out and criticize them at length, and so on and so on. They have a whole set of explanations ready. Once people hear it often enough, they believe it. They really believe these things are true: This is not my fault; it is a problem with my family of origin. This is not my fault either; it is my childhood trauma. Look at how my parents disciplined me when I was little, forcing me to study, forcing me to attend all kinds of extracurricular classes, and so on and so on. There is a whole pile of reasons. So several generations in the United States have already suffered under this view. Our group, our generation, should stop accepting it.

These people grew up firmly believing that the conscious mind could accomplish very little. They always assumed that adult experience had already been largely set in childhood, and the existence of this idea created a false division. People learned that they should not be aware of the information provided by the subconscious. (Session 614)

What view is this? They think these things are in your subconscious, things you should not learn about or should not gain a grasp of. In other words, the traumas of your childhood and the harm your family of origin brought you fill your subconscious. For example, being bullied by classmates as a child, being picked on at school, or even, in a few rare cases, perhaps being sexually assaulted in childhood, or having a distant relative engage in this kind of sexual assault without the adults knowing. These then become permanent wounds. They think all of this is buried deep in the subconscious. They do not dare look at it squarely, do not dare face it, do not dare touch it, and then they think it must never be touched. This also includes the many people whose relationships with their parents or children are not good. For example, among people born in the 1980s and 1990s, some have very good relationships with their parents, but others have very bad ones. They think all these things are in the subconscious and should not be brought into awareness. They say these things are all bad. You should not become aware of them. That is these people's view.

The doorway to the inner self should remain tightly closed, and only through lengthy psychoanalysis can it be opened again. (Session 614)

These people think the door leading into the depths of your mind should stay closed, because there is nothing good inside, only negative emotions and childhood trauma. Why open it? You cannot deal with it anyway; you will only make yourself suffer. At that point, only with a professional psychologist, under a professional psychologist's guidance, should you go into hypnosis, various psychological counseling courses, or treatment with a mental health professional, who will then take you back into these childhood traumas, supposedly to help you heal and recover. I think many people have encountered this sort of thing. The fees are not low, either. It is very expensive. Try it once. Find someone to hypnotize you and see how much they charge. All these things give you a mistaken idea: You must have professional guidance before you dare open the door to your inner world. If no professional is present, the moment you open it, you are done for. You will be completely unable to control those negative emotions and will be overwhelmed by them. Moreover, all your current dissatisfaction, your dissatisfaction with life, with relationships, with your career, the root of every problem lies in this subconscious. That is the source of evil. You are better off keeping it closed. If you cannot deal with it, do not open it. This is the view all these so-called psychologists and these mainstream perspectives give you. They instill it in you; they lead you to think this way.

So ordinary people feel it is best to stay away from these areas. Because when they cut off these parts of themselves and keep them shut away forever, this also blocks the joy that naturally flows from the inner self. They completely close the channel of communication between themselves and the inner self. These so-called psychologists and mainstream media are frightening you: Do not make contact with the inner self; there is nothing good in it. In fact, the inner self is entirely joy, entirely delight, entirely things of love, but they portray it as a filthy, sordid, dark corner that you cannot bear to face, like a garbage dump in your psyche. They portray your inner self this way and tell you not to touch it. In the end, people become lost. Once they cut you off from your inner self, you become lost, feeling disconnected from your true self, and you can no longer find your source. He emphasized earlier that all your energy, vitality, and liveliness come from the energy of your own inner self. Once you cut yourself off from it, you become a source with no foundation, water with no source, without a continuing, inexhaustible wellspring of energy.

Although the concept of original sin is not very sophisticated, like a little kindergarten storybook in which someone gives up his life for you and washes away your sins with his blood, and although it is both limiting and distorted, the procedures that accompany this concept are quite simple. You need only be baptized to be saved, or you can find redemption through prayer, sacraments, or other rituals. (Session 614)

The story itself sounds, however you listen to it, like a kindergarten fairy tale or a story for little children, yet it is the foundation of Christianity, the largest religion in the world today. Because people are born with original sin, they need to believe in God to wash away that original sin. This concept is not very sophisticated. It is both limiting and distorted, but the procedures that accompany it are quite simple: You only need to be baptized. You only need to join this church, and in a particular church building, they perform a particular baptismal ritual for you. After baptism, you have turned to God. From then on, you only need to do good deeds to go to heaven, and your original sin can be washed away, or you can find redemption through prayer, sacraments, or other rituals.

You can pray, go to a priest to pray. If you have seen the comedy If You Are the One¹ starring Ge You, he prays with a minister in a church in a small European town because he has a deep sense of guilt. He keeps talking until it gets dark, and the other person is impatient to leave, but he is still praying. The minister asks him when he will be finished, and he says, do not rush me, I have only just reached middle school. I have only just gone from elementary school to middle school, recounting all the bad things I have done. It is very funny. So in many churches, people wash away or redeem themselves from what Christianity calls original sin through prayer and various rituals. There were even indulgences in the past. They no longer exist now, but for a time in the Middle Ages they were very popular. You could buy an indulgence to wash away one of your sins. For this, you can look at the New Testament, Mark, Chapter 1, verses 1 through 11², which describes this example. This whole thing is also very childish and ridiculous. Someone once pursued the question seriously. In Conversations with God³, that God once gave an example. When discussing Christianity's dogmatism and rigidity, this God himself gave an example: If you can receive eternal life and the chance to go to heaven only after undergoing this ritual, then suppose a parent is taking a child to be baptized, and on the way they have a car accident. The child dies, and the adult dies too. Should this child, who was on the way to baptism, go to heaven or hell? This person was being argumentative. Specifically, I think it was the God in Conversations with God³. Then they said there was this problem. Apparently the author had asked someone in the church, and the church said that in this situation the child could only go to a third place. They gave it another name, and the child would go there. This counted as a special case. In any case, this is ridiculous. You absolutely have to undergo a certain ritual, and that ritual becomes very important. It is not about whether you change inwardly, or whether your beliefs change. It is only about completing the ritual according to their procedure, and then it is done. So Seth says that although this concept of original sin is very childish and ridiculous, as well as distorted, the way to resolve the problem is very simple: Go to church, get baptized, and participate in some church activities, and you can wash away your original sin. This makes the matter very simple.

The idea that the subconscious is something bad, however, is not so easily shaken off. The few rituals that can free you from it all require years of psychoanalysis. (Session 614)

There is psychological counseling that tells you the subconscious is something good, not the bad thing you think it is. But if you want to shake off this idea, this approach requires years of psychoanalysis, something only very wealthy people have the privilege of experiencing. Because whether in China or abroad, the fees for seeing a mental health professional are very high, very expensive. I am not very clear about the situation in China, but I know that in the United States it is generally several hundred dollars an hour⁴. Do the math yourself. Not one or two hundred dollars, but several hundred: four hundred, five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred, even a thousand are all possible, depending on the practitioner's level of expertise. Just think how much it costs to talk to them for a few hours, and how much it would cost to keep seeing them month after month, year after year. Calculate it yourself and you will know. So many people are deterred.

As the idea that the subconscious is something bad gained ground, the concept of the soul was thrown out entirely. Countless people therefore lived in a world that had no room for the soul and in which they were crushed under an extremely unreliable, or even evil, subconscious. (Session 614)

The concept of the soul was discarded, because if people do not dare touch the subconscious, they dare even less to touch the soul beneath it. These people are pitiful. The soul has nowhere to stay. In their world, the soul does not exist. You cannot talk about the soul; you cannot discuss this matter. If someone talks to them about the soul, their first response is, in our Chinese community, immediately: "You practice Falun Gong, don't you? Are you trying to convert me? Is there something wrong with your head? Of all the things you could do, why do this?" So in the worlds of countless people among us, there is no room for the soul. Although the soul takes up none of your room, none of your space, neither a room nor a single square meter, you still have no room for it. You cannot allow it to exist.

These people think of themselves as a fragile and lonely part within the ego, sailing dangerously and without protection on raging waves beyond their control. (Session 614)

So there are reasons why many people die by suicide. Do not blame them, saying, why would you kill yourself, why not go on living when you are so young? This phenomenon is actually very common, common throughout the world, and especially now, it increasingly involves younger people. Many people say suicide must be due to social pressure, the pressures of life, the pressure to survive. But if you look carefully, you will notice something: The likelihood and rate of suicide among young children today are much higher than before⁵. In the past, suicide did not happen among young people. It happened among people whose lives were truly stressful, people who were really driven by their circumstances and had no way out. Now, instead, it occurs among some children living in comfort, and there are often cases of them going together to die by suicide. Why? It is very simple. After the age of twelve, children generally begin thinking about these questions.

Generally, before the age of twelve, a child's psychological state is more that of a people-pleasing personality, accepting their parents' views and always wanting to appear very obedient before parents and teachers. This is also why you see that the good children in many elementary schools are very obedient. In their value system, winning the approval of parents and teachers is the main goal of life. It is like the experiment with Pavlov's dogs⁶ that we do: Feed them at set times, ring a bell when feeding them, and eventually the dogs begin drooling as soon as the bell rings. This is a famous experiment. Children are the same. Children have it very hard. When they ask core, fundamental questions about where the world came from or where they themselves came from, adults generally refuse to answer or evade the question, making the child feel as though they have asked a stupid question, making them wonder whether they are some kind of idiot for asking such a thing. Adults often give them this message: Why are you asking about this? Finish your homework first. So children are like little dogs, like Pavlov's dogs. When they ask truly valuable questions, adults respond with indifference, disdain, or avoidance. Yet when they do things that are actually meaningless, such as finishing their homework properly, performing a children's song, reciting a couple of Tang poems, or learning a few English words, all of which are really very basic skills, parents instead reward them generously, compliment them, praise them, and give them nice things to eat and drink. Like a little dog, over time the child develops a Pavlovian pattern of response. They no longer pursue those truly deep and meaningful questions, because those things bring no benefit and instead embarrass both them and their parents. They do not want to embarrass their parents or themselves, so they stop asking these questions. But not asking a question does not mean it no longer affects them or troubles them.

After receiving no answers when they were little, generally around the age of twelve, children begin entering puberty. At this point, they change from a child centered on the family into a social personality and begin spending time with classmates and friends. This is when their first rebellious phase appears. That is, they no longer use their teachers' and parents' preferences as the standard of judgment, but instead judge by what their peers and their social circle consider good or bad. For example, if their friends all think they are outstanding, they feel they are impressive, cool, and great. If their friends all think something they did was embarrassing, they feel embarrassed. So this is when their first rebellion appears. Many parents discover that their children stop being obedient when they reach puberty. Previously, whatever the parents said was accepted; now, if the parents say go east, the child insists on going west, deliberately opposing them, insisting on being with classmates and with peers they connect with through various online social media. What they want more is recognition from their peers, rather than from teachers and parents. Recognition from teachers and parents becomes less important in their eyes.

So during this period, if they cannot find value and meaning in their lives, or if they do not receive effective guidance during this crucial period of thinking about the world and forming their values, they really may not find any meaning in living or value in existing. If at this time they encounter negative influences and guidance, or are disturbed by difficult emotions, many children are at their most vulnerable and can easily go down wrong paths in life or directly develop suicidal tendencies. So parents with children at home must pay more attention to them during this period and communicate with them more. Even when children are very young, you should discuss questions about life with them. Do not treat them as just little children. Today you understand that although they are children in age, the soul behind them may be older than yours, and their soul may be more mature than yours. So once you understand this, talk to them about the real, fundamental principles of the world. Tell them everything you know. Share your understanding of the world with them as you would with a friend. It does not matter how much they can accept or understand. If they do not understand something, they can come back and ask you another time, and you can tell them again. Always tell them the truth. Do not deceive children; do not start deceiving them when they are little. You think you are protecting them, but while you tell your child from an early age to be honest and not to lie, you have been deceiving them every day since they were very young. You deceive your child every day. Think about whether you do this. Then you find a high-sounding excuse for deceiving them: I only lied for your own good. I was afraid of you having to face this world, so I painted a fairy-tale, ivory-tower life for you. You have been deceiving your child since they were little while also telling them not to lie. How can that work?

Since we are on the subject, let me say a little more. At this time, each person's ego can be both fragile and lonely. This is very important. When they feel fragile and lonely, they stop communicating with their parents and stop communicating with others, and that is very dangerous. There are also many children who develop tendencies toward autism, which goes without saying.

Completely passive. When they have not found an understanding of, or made contact with, the energy of their ego and inner self, this is what their life is like. It is completely beyond their control. They cannot decide for themselves. They feel they have no autonomy at all, and it is dangerous.

Then there is a break in the middle. During the brief break, Jane says something. Jane lights a cigarette while in a trance state, and she says these sessions are obviously not as spiritual as everyone thought. That is, up to this point, these sessions seem to people to be unlike Seth Speaks, which gave them entirely new ideas and values. What he is talking about seems to be the things of everyday life. But in fact, this book's influence on your life will be far greater than that of Seth Speaks. Let us keep reading. We will not expand on this now; you will understand when you get further into it. It brings a complete transformation to your life, little by little, subtly and gradually.

At about the same time, many intelligent people began to recognize that the so-called God, heaven, or hell of organized religion were all merely distorted, biased accounts with the flavor of fairy tales. Even so, these people had nowhere else to find confirmation. Under these circumstances, asking them to seek within also seemed like an act of courage without wisdom. (Session 614)

Because the education they had always received pointed to the inner world itself as the source of their problems. Because their education told them that the inner world was the source of their problems, if they still looked within for a solution, would they not create more problems the more they tried to solve them?

Those who could not afford psychoanalysis tried even harder to block any messages from the inner self. Their reason was a deep fear of being swallowed up by their own savage, childish emotions. (Session 614)

Most people cannot afford this fee, and the vast majority cannot afford it at all, so they work even harder to block out any information: do not come, I cannot analyze it for you either, I do not know what it represents, and it is not anything good anyway. He denies himself, and he believes that his deepest, most primal impulses are savage and childish, just like a little child. This idea did not come from ordinary people; it was formed through the long-term hypnotic indoctrination of so-called science and psychology. The earliest psychologists, the first generation of psychologists starting with Freud, all believed that the human subconscious is just like a little child, an entirely moody and temperamental little child, completely unworthy of trust. Your subconscious is the least trustworthy thing there is, and you must use your conscious, mature, social wisdom to suppress your subconscious and not let it out. When it comes out, it only causes trouble; when it comes out, it only destroys; its ideas are simply not worth mentioning, just like an infant, just like a child who has not grown up. Do not pay attention to the subconscious. That was the long-term indoctrination of that group of psychologists, and it shaped people's view of this matter.

But then again, first you must understand that the true self of a person is not subject to any limitations, nor does it have any divisions whatsoever. Obviously, for the sake of convenience in explanation, the term ego will be used in some places. In fact, you can indeed rely on that part of yourself that appears on the surface to be unconscious. You will later come to understand that you can become more and more clear in consciousness, and thereby bring more and more of the other parts of yourself into the range of consciousness. (Session 614)

What he says in this passage actually contains nothing new; it is all a summary of previous knowledge.

You breathe, grow, and carry out countless extremely precise and delicate activities moment by moment, without knowing how this work is actually accomplished. Although a person is alive, on the conscious level you do not know how this miracle of bodily perception is maintained in a world of time and flesh and blood. That part of yourself that appears on the surface to have no consciousness draws atoms and molecules out of the air to create your image. Your lips and tongue move and speak your name, but does your name belong to the atoms and molecules in your lips and tongue? These atoms and molecules move about ceaselessly, forming cells, tissues, and organs. How could the name spoken by your lips and tongue possibly belong to them? They can neither read nor write, yet they can produce complex speech sounds that allow you to communicate with other beings like yourself. From the simplest expression of feeling to the most complex exchange of information, including emotional communication, how do they manage it? (Session 614)

In fact, you do not even know how you walk. You do not know; you do not know how you maintain your body's existence in this world. That part of you that appears to have no consciousness is precisely that inner part of you that you do not know, the part that seems to be nothing at all. It draws atoms and molecules out of the air to create your image. You use your lips and tongue and your vocal cords to speak your name, but does your name belong to them? Does your name belong to the cells in your vocal cords and the atoms within those cells? Does your name belong to your lips, to your tongue? Do you belong to them? What he is asking is this: to whom do you actually belong? What is this thing you call "yours"?

These atoms and molecules can neither read nor write, so how can they produce such complex speech sounds that allow you to communicate with other beings like yourself? How can these atoms and molecules, these cells, enable you to communicate? From the simplest expression of feeling to the most complex exchange of information, including emotional communication, with such fine detail, we can all communicate clearly, so how do they do it? If you say your consciousness decides everything, that your consciousness is very clear, then I would ask you in return: can you explain clearly to me how these things are accomplished? How do these atoms and molecules make your voice come out of your mouth, how do they make your consciousness express itself, how do they let you communicate with the people around you? Through what do the two of you communicate? Can you describe that process to me? No one can explain it clearly. So those things you consider unconscious are actually the truly conscious ones; they are the most valuable ones. They are communicating with you; they are speaking on your behalf. It is not your brain. You must never think it is your brain; you can try it and see. If it were your brain, then explain to me how your brain makes you speak. When you speak, do you direct your tongue, or do you direct something else? Do you direct your vocal cords, or do you direct your breathing, letting the airflow of your voice pass through your vocal cords at the right size and in the right way, through the contraction of the muscles of your vocal cords and the different movements of your tongue in your mouth, and the opening and closing of your lips, and the changes in the size of your oral cavity, to produce such a sound that also carries a certain meaning? Which of these movements do you direct? Tell me, which movement is directed by you? Which one is completed under your conscious control? Not a single one.

The atoms and molecules in your lips and tongue do not understand the words or syntax they speak. Usually when you begin a sentence, you have no idea at all how you will complete it. Yet you have great confidence, and you know that what you say will be a meaningful sentence. The meaning of what you want to say also flows out effortlessly. All of this happens because your inner part operates spontaneously, joyfully, and freely. It is because your inner self believes in you, even often when you do not believe in it. (Session 614)

If you observe carefully, you will find that when you talk about something, or when you begin a conversation, you actually only know the beginning; you have only thought of the first half of the sentence, and you have not even figured out the second half, yet you start speaking. But as your language flows, one string after another comes out naturally. You do not even know where you should stop, where you should end, or to what extent you should speak, but you just keep talking along with the communication and exchange, and every day of your life and your whole life has been lived this way. But where do they come from? Where do these thoughts you speak come from? They seem to come from your brain, and yet they seem not to; if you think about it carefully, it is quite miraculous. When you open your mouth to speak, no one thinks, "I am going to stutter," and no one is afraid to speak, not knowing how to wrap things up afterward. No one. And you know that what you say will be a meaningful sentence; you also know that what you say is not meaningless, that every sentence has meaning. The meaning of what you want to say also flows out effortlessly, though as for how it flows out, you do not know either. All of this happens because your inner part operates spontaneously, joyfully, and freely. It is all controlled by your inner self. It is because your inner self believes in you, even when you do not believe in yourself, your inner self still believes in you. So it opens its mouth and speaks without any hesitation, without any lack of self-confidence; it feels that what it says is meaningful, otherwise it would not say it. Now you understand that those things you consider unconscious are often actually your most central part.

These unconscious parts of your life, even when you have extreme misunderstandings about their nature and function, and even under all kinds of strong interference from you based on your own beliefs, still operate astonishingly well. (Session 614)

Of course science has its own set of explanations for all this, and I will not go into them; there are too many. You can search for why humans speak, how thought becomes language, and so on, and you will find many, many scientific explanations. But actually you will find that when you carefully press on certain core questions, he cannot explain them clearly, cannot explain them fully. Even though you misunderstand it so much, completely unaware of how it operates, and have also given it many misunderstandings, saying, "I can speak like this because my vocal cords have muscle memory, my tongue and mouth are all the result of muscle memory training, and then my thoughts direct my tongue through my brain, directing my whole vocal system in such and such a way." You say a whole lot, and scientists give you a whole lot of explanations. But you cannot take these things too seriously; the moment you take them seriously, the discussion cannot continue. If you press further, he will get angry with you; you cannot really press him on it.

Everyone experiences a reality that belongs entirely to oneself and is different from any other person's. This reality leaps outward from the inner landscape composed of your thoughts, feelings, expectations, and beliefs. If you insist on thinking that the inner self will only oppose you and not help you, then you are instead pulling its leg and hindering its function. To put it another way, you are forcing the inner self to change its operation according to your beliefs. (Session 614)

This is many people's view: the inner self is always opposing you, the inner self can only cause trouble, the inner self is just like a little child. If you think the inner self is opposing you, that is wrong; then you are actually pulling the inner self's leg and hindering its function. You are forcing the inner self to change its behavior according to your beliefs. You are using your consciousness every day to control your things, consciously controlling the things of your inner self. You will feel that the inner self is not important, that it is just like a child that must have an adult directing it, and that without an adult's direction it will surely cause trouble, surely do strange things.

The conscious mind was originally meant to allow you to clearly discern your situation in the world, but erroneous beliefs often obstruct its ability to discern clearly. (Session 614)

Your erroneous beliefs, as he said earlier, are what obstruct it, because its vision becomes clouded by those ideas generated through the ego's functioning.

Then he suggested a brief rest. Jane came back from a very deep trance state, and she said that since the weather was no longer as stuffy as before, she felt much better. Rob told Jane that tonight's material, in his view, could be counted as the best product of Jane and Seth's cooperation. From Rob's perspective, today's transmission was the best in all the years Jane and Seth had worked together, by this time already September 1972, nearly ten years since 1963. He said that although it seemed simple, with simple wording, the meaning was profound. Be sure to remember that the content of this chapter is profound. Jane was delighted to hear this, and she no longer felt any pressure about dictating this book.

Ready? Seth asked. At this point Rob was quickly copying down the notes from above, and then Rob said okay, and then she began to speak again. The content that follows gets more and more wonderful.

Your beliefs can become like a wall that surrounds you heavily. First, you must recognize that there is such a wall, otherwise you will not realize that you are not free. It is only because you cannot see beyond the wall. This wall will represent the limits of your experience. However, there is one belief that can break through the false barrier of perception. This is an expansive belief. (Session 614)

Your concepts, your beliefs, your thoughts are like a wall that tightly and heavily surrounds you in the middle. If you cannot observe that these beliefs have become obstacles to the freedom of your consciousness, then you will not have the motivation to tear down these walls. Because you cannot see outside; the wall has enclosed you. This wall is the limit of your world, the limit of your experience, and the limit that your consciousness can explore, because if you look farther into the distance, you cannot see. The wall encloses you in the middle; this is the key point. That is, however large the area enclosed by this wall is, that is the limit of the range of your experience.

Regarding this false barrier, Buddhism has given many examples, and I will not go through them one by one. You can look at many Buddhist viewpoints, about how to break through this kind of prejudice, this erroneous view of intuition; there are many, many formulations, the diseased eye and various other formulations, and I will not go into them.

You yourself are not limited. The self has neither boundaries nor divisions. (Session 614)

This is the first idea, and the second idea. What the sentence above states is a truth; this is a truth, whether you believe it or not, it simply exists.

Three Core Beliefs

You must remember this: you yourself are not limited. On the level of your consciousness, on the level of the soul, in the space of your inner exploration, there are no limitations whatsoever. This is a truth. Whether you believe it or not, it simply exists as it is.

The second idea is that the self has neither boundaries nor divisions. We often speak of the inner self, the outer self, the ego, the entity, the soul -- these are all just names used for the sake of your understanding. In fact, your own inner being has no boundaries and no divisions. To say that one part is this and another part is that -- there is no such thing. All of these are you. The physical body is you, and the soul is also you. This life is you, the previous life is also you, and the future life is still you. The living one is you, and the dead one is also you. So there is no division here. The boundaries and divisions you experience are entirely the result of erroneous beliefs.

The third idea is the sentence he has said countless times: you create your own reality.

If you want to understand yourself, you must know what you are. You can go beyond the beliefs you hold and directly feel yourself. Do not rely on these beliefs, and do not let these beliefs act like a funnel or a sieve, filtering out your perception of yourself. You should go beyond them, cast aside those beliefs, and directly perceive yourself, feel yourself.

The First Exercise: Feeling the Feeling-Tone

At this point, he began to have everyone do an exercise. This is the first exercise in this book. In The Nature of Personal Reality, there are exercises interspersed throughout, and they are all very good methods to help you improve and find yourself.

I want you to actually sit quietly, close your eyes, and try to feel within yourself that deep "feeling-tone" I mentioned earlier.

It is that simple. Quietly settle your mind, sit still, close your eyes, and feel that feeling-tone deep within you. If you have forgotten what the feeling-tone is, or if you only vaguely remember, then go back and listen to the previous lesson again. He talked about the feeling-tone at considerable length, so I will not repeat it here. Repeating it would just mean reading the previous session aloud again, which would be pointless. Go look at Session 613 yourself, which is the content of the previous lesson.

This is not difficult. Everyone knows their own inner feeling-tone. The feeling-tone is the part of you that is pure energy, the part that carries your strong individuality and your energetic attributes. Settle your mind, relax, do not think about too many things, and simply feel what your own inner feeling-tone actually is -- what kind of feeling you yourself actually are, what it feels like when you feel yourself. It is very simple.

Your awareness of their existence can help you recognize the deep rhythms within you.

If you can perceive the existence of the feeling-tone, then you can perceive the deep rhythm of this pure energy body itself, that inner pulse within you. Everyone will feel them in their own way -- it must be your own way, and everyone's way is different. Do not try to force some shared, common way; this is entirely personal. So you do not need to worry about what they should feel like, and do not be influenced or misled by others. This is entirely centered on you.

You only need to tell yourself that they do exist. They are composed of the great energy that forms your flesh and blood body. They are the core part of the energy that you call yourself -- the so-called feeling-tone is that core part within you. Go and try to find where your inner core is, find what the real part that you call yourself is, and then let yourself experience it.

If you are accustomed to sitting in stillness or meditating and so on, then when you do this, try to forget about those things. Do not think "I am meditating," "I am sitting in stillness," "I am entering samadhi," "I am practicing yoga" -- do not use any of these terms, because these are all concepts, all beliefs. Put down all concepts, feel your own existence, and feel the activity of your own life force.

This is very similar to an exercise in one of the sessions in Seth Speaks: it has you sit quietly and visualize yourself on a stage, with the surrounding lights dimmed, and only you standing in the light at the center of the stage. At that time, you focus on your breathing, and from the breathing you move to your life force, to the existence of that vitality at the deepest level of your life. Feel the activity of your own life force, feel your own existence in the present moment, the fact that you are alive.

Many people ask: Am I doing this right? Is my feeling correct? Is the method I am using wrong? Should I cross my legs? Full lotus or half lotus? What kind of environment? Can I practice sitting in a car? Does it have to be in the morning? Do not ask these questions. There is no fixed pattern and no fixed rule; none of these are needed. When you deal with this level of energy, do not be affected by elaborate formalities. You absolutely must not be bound by form, or by specific feelings and specific methods.

This is the first exercise this book teaches you. There is no standard; your own feeling is the standard. He also did not suggest any time limit, nor any restrictions at all. This exercise should be a very enjoyable experience -- you are in contact with your own inner core, feeling your inner core. How could it not be enjoyable?

Any feelings that occur during this exercise, accept them as your own unique experience.

Whatever special feelings you have during this exercise, treat them as an experience that belongs only to you, feel them and accept them, accept them no matter what they are.

This exercise will bring you into contact with yourself, return you to yourself, and let you spend a little time with yourself, in contact.

Whenever you feel tense or depressed, take a little time to feel the "feeling-tone" within yourself, and you will find yourself dwelling securely in the core of your being, free from worry and fear.

When you are tense, depressed, in low spirits, or under great life pressure, you can take a little time to feel the feeling-tone within yourself, which is your own inner core, your center. You will find yourself dwelling securely in the core of your being, free from worry and fear. I hope everyone will find time today to practice this exercise and really feel it.

If you do not quite understand what the feeling-tone actually is, you can go back to the previous session and listen again to the part about the feeling-tone, and then do this exercise right after listening. That might work even better.

Going Deeper into the Rhythm and Radiating Outward

After you have tried doing this exercise a few times, not just once, but after you have practiced it several times, you can slowly go further and begin to feel that deep rhythm. What is meant by the deep rhythm? It is the rhythm of your life, your inner vitality. Look at what the outer rhythms are—your breathing and your heartbeat. Are these not both rhythms? One breath and one heartbeat determine your life. But are your breathing and heartbeat not operated and initiated by an inner self behind them? The inner self is the source of power for your breathing and heartbeat. Now it asks you to find the inner self's inner source of your own deepest level of energy, to feel that deep rhythm, that rhythm of life.

You can set aside some time every day to do this exercise. After you have done it and become familiar with it, you will feel the sensation of contact with the inner self—whatever that unique sensation is like, accept it, for that is your own sensation of contact with the inner self. After you slowly become familiar with it, go a little deeper, and experience the primal rhythm of life at the core of the inner self, that deepest level of rhythm.

Once you can feel this rhythm, then take yourself as the center and radiate in all directions. This is the same as the experiment in Seth Speaks: you feel energy emitted from within outward, passing through your skin, through the top of your head, through the house you are in, through this floor, toward the universe, toward outer space, toward the center of the earth, through this planet, through the earth, spreading toward the entire universe. If you can experience this sensation, it will be very wonderful.

And the truth is exactly this—your energy is in fact radiating in this way; you just do not feel it yourself.

These deep rhythms will radiate outward electromagnetically through your physical body.

It really is radiating outward, not an imagination or anything else; it is in fact radiating electromagnetically. He says he will explain it to you later; for now you only need to know this: the deepest underlying rhythm of life within your inner self will radiate outward continuously. Just as they form your physical image—your body—so too do they create the environment as you know it. It creates both your physical body and the environment outside the body; all of these come from your feeling-tone, that is, from the core of your inner self.

The Environment Is an Extension of the Body

I have already told you that your true self is not limited. But you inevitably think of yourself as confined to the place where your skin meets space. You feel that you are merely wrapped inside your skin, that whatever is outside your skin is not you, and only what is inside your skin is you. That is what you believe.

However, your environment is also an extension of yourself, just like your physical body. If your physical body is a concrete manifestation projected outward by your inner self, then the environment around you is also projected outward by this inner self.

It is still the body of your experience.

Here the word "body" is used, meaning your physical body. It was translated as "entity," probably to avoid misunderstanding. Actually, what Seth means here is that, for you, it forms your physical body, and at the same time it is an extension of your physical body. You can regard the environment around you as an extension of your physical body, or an extension of your experience -- what condenses into physical form is the body of your experience, the body of your experience.

Your inner self creates the objects you know, just as naturally as it creates your eyes and your fingers. When you do not know how the things outside you are created, just think about how your eyes and your body are created -- your inner self can actually create something so precise and complex. The environment around you, for it, is also created naturally.

Your environment is the concrete picture formed by your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. Since your thoughts are a three-dimensional picture, since your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs flow through time and space, they therefore also affect the physical circumstances that seem separate from you.

Your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs flow through time and space, so they also change the environment around you. They affect the material world that appears to be separate from you -- actually, it is not separate from you; it is the outward extension of your inner self.

Energy Exchange Between the Body and the Environment

We start by considering the magnificent structure of your body from a material standpoint. On the surface, your body seems as solid as any other material structure. But when you peel back the layers and probe deeper, you will clearly sense that within your body, energy takes on various individual shapes. Look further down, at your organs, cells, molecules, atoms, electrons, for example -- at each level down, energy exists in a different way. The outermost is the whole body, then further in are organs, cells, molecules, atoms. Each layer is less physical than the one above it.

Each layer combines in mysterious patterns to form matter.

He used the word "mysterious." For instance, how do your organs come together to form your body? Isn't it amazing? You could list a whole bunch of reasons -- the circulatory system, various organs... Fine, then let me ask you this: if you gathered all these organs together, could you build a person? I'll give you all the organs, and you try to build a person and show me. So this mysterious combination of forms is something you don't really understand. You don't understand how the inner coordination among these organs forms a unified consciousness.

The atoms within your body are constantly moving back and forth, and within the flesh there is a continuous existence of all sorts of large and small activities and commotion. The body, which at this moment seems so very solid, turns out to be composed of rapidly moving particles, usually arranged in patterns of spinning around and intertwining with one another, within which energy is constantly being transformed in an incredible way.

If we look at ourselves through a microscope, with higher and higher resolution, greater and greater magnification, the smaller and smaller we look, until finally what we see is a vast emptiness, like the immense starry sky -- made up of a bunch of atomic nuclei, with electrons revolving around them. When you look down into your body, it is just this bunch of stuff, just a bunch of atoms and molecules. This is a fact; no need for analogy, no need for imagination. It's just that your naked eyes can't see it. If you used instruments and placed it before your eyes, you would know. Your body is simply made up of atoms and electrons.

The space outside your body has a basic structure and material that is essentially exactly the same as the material that makes up your body.

Your body is composed this way, and the world around you is also composed of these materials -- composed of over a hundred kinds of elements⁷. Up to now, the world has discovered over a hundred kinds of elements⁷ -- I don't know specifically whether it's one hundred twenty-something or has already reached one hundred thirty, anyway it's over a hundred, just over a hundred. The entire universe is composed of these elements. At the atomic level it is like this, and further down it is even more fundamental, basically composed of a dozen or so elementary particles. Further down it is even simpler -- those dozen or so particles are all composed of one kind of energy segment -- the strings of superstring theory, and then it becomes just one kind. Further down, the string is only the current level of human consciousness; behind it there may still be EE units, and finally units of consciousness, and then it all unifies -- everything is composed of one single thing. So you can't keep digging deeper; once you dig deeper, this is the result you get.

The only difference is one of "proportion," nothing more.

It's just a matter of size, quantity, and changes in combination.

Between this "space" and that thing you call your "body," there is a continuous, ongoing, substantial "exchange" taking place.

In the places you cannot see, it is actually really happening. Your body and the atoms and electrons in the surrounding air are constantly changing, constantly exchanging.

This transformation includes chemical interactions, as well as various fundamental exchanges. Without such exchanges, what you call "life" simply could not exist.

You say, that's not right, I haven't exchanged anything; my body is my body, my cells are my cells, what exchange do I have with nature? That is your understanding. If you carefully analyze further down, you will know that you are deeply exchanging with it. Every oxygen molecule in your cells -- humans cannot survive without oxygen -- oxygen all comes from outside, entering your lungs through your breathing, and then carrying out the carbon dioxide that is produced. Between one inhale and one exhale, how many oxygen atoms and oxygen molecules are carried out? You cannot calculate it. Every cell in your physical body is at every moment carrying out energy exchanges, chemical exchanges, physical exchanges, electromagnetic exchanges. You think you have no contact with the outside world? How could there be no contact? Without air, how would you live? If you don't exchange with the air, how do you live? You are not a closed system; you are an open system. Any cell in the deepest part of your body is, every second of every minute, exchanging with the atmosphere outside and the surrounding air that you think has nothing to do with you. Simply put, it delivers oxygen to your cells and carries carbon dioxide out -- actually it is far more complex than that.

If a person doesn't breathe, they die; this is perfectly normal. In your physical sensations, breathing is the most immediate and indispensable thing.

And it must go from within "what you call yourself," and then be expelled outward into the space outside that "seems not to be you."

From within your cells it is expelled all the way into the air, into that place that seems to have nothing to do with your life. In fact, a part of "you" is constantly leaving your body -- one second it is a certain oxygen molecule or oxygen atom in a cell of your body, and the next second it has gone out into the air. So what seems to be a part of you is constantly leaving your body and mixing with the natural elements outside.

You all know that when adrenaline is secreted into the bloodstream, you become stimulated and ready to take action -- muscles contract, you tense up, you sweat, and you enter a state of excitement. Adrenaline is truly amazing.

On the other hand, your adrenaline does not merely stay within your body; it will, in another way, after being transformed, be cast by you into the air and affect the composition of the atmosphere.

Your adrenaline is emitted into the air, just as the hormones on your body, your hormones, are also emitted into the air. It's just in another form, not the same form as in your bloodstream; it is carried out with your breath. So you have this feeling: when you are with someone you like, you can sense the influence of their hormones on you -- that is a real, tangible influence. Many times you cannot resist this influence; it is the deepest, most fundamental influence. It affects the composition of the atmosphere around you.

Any emotion releases hormones, and these hormones leave you just as your breath leaves you.

In other words, you are constantly releasing these chemical substances into the air, thereby affecting the atmosphere.

Actual storms are caused by such interactions.

Where do you think storms and typhoons come from? They are all caused by these interactions. Here, I once told you that your reality is created by yourself, and this includes your climate. The climate is also created by you -- it is the result of the convergence of each individual's personal reactions, a collective gathering.

So when we get to this point, you can understand why in ancient times there were rain-making rituals and various ceremonies. They were also trying to mobilize this energy, but there was an element of deception in it. Some were genuine, and some people really did have this ability. Think about it: why would it sometimes be real? If every rain-making ritual failed, or if the person was simply a fraud, then people aren't stupid -- why would they believe him? The reason lies in each person's belief -- your beliefs can influence the climate.

On this point, the book will explain in greater detail later. In another book called The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, he tells you how mass events occur -- how social phenomena, group events, a group, a political factor, a political atmosphere, including a kind of climate, are formed. He says there will be additional explanation in Chapter 18, but the most detailed explanation is in that other book.

So what I want to emphasize here is:

You come into this world to learn and understand that your energy, after being translated into feelings, thoughts, and emotions, gives rise to all experience, without exception.

What are we here in this world to learn? To learn to translate energy into feelings, thoughts, and emotions, and then project them outward, and then go and experience these experiences.

Once you understand this, the only thing left for you to do is learn to examine the nature of your own beliefs.

Why? Because your beliefs automatically cause you to think and feel in certain patterns; they become a mode of thinking. It is your beliefs that lead your emotions, not your emotions that lead your beliefs -- be sure to remember this.

Knowing Your Own Beliefs: Three Steps

I want you to get to know your beliefs from several angles.

First of all, you must understand that any idea you accept as truth is actually just a belief you yourself hold.

What you consider truth, what you accept as truth, is actually a belief you firmly hold. This is the first step: you must recognize this.

Then, you must go further and tell yourself that even if I believe it, it is not necessarily true.

That is, even if I firmly believe it, it is not necessarily true. You must tell yourself this, with a spirit of challenging yourself.

After you understand these things, the next step is to be able to cast far away all those beliefs that implicitly carry fundamental limitations. You take what you consider to be truth -- which is your belief -- and then tell yourself: although I believe it, it is not necessarily truth. Let us not first say whether it is true; let us first say it is not certain. First shake it. If you do not shake it, then for you it is truth, something unchangeable and untouchable. First take the step of saying it is not necessarily true, and then let us look at whether it is true.

Simply put, three steps: first, recognize what you call beliefs, or what are called core beliefs; second, tell yourself these core beliefs are not necessarily true; third, find those core beliefs that limit you, and throw them away.

Ten Self-Limiting False Beliefs

All right, later on we will discuss why you hold these beliefs. For now, we will simply tell you to become aware of your own beliefs. I am going to list some self-limiting false beliefs. The following beliefs are all false beliefs. If you find that you agree with any one of them -- not all of them, just one -- then you should be on your guard. If you agree with even one, you should be on your guard, because this is the place where you personally must put in the work. If you answer Yes to all ten of these questions, then you should mark them out even more clearly.

I will now begin with the first question. Take a piece of paper or a pen yourself, and answer Yes or No, and write it down for yourself.

The first question: Life is suffering. In this three-dimensional world, life is suffering. For you, is that a Yes or a No?

The second question: The body is a secondary product. What "secondary product" means is that, as a tool of the soul, it is naturally base and contaminated. You may feel that the physical body is inherently not a good thing -- why? Because it has so many desires, insatiable desires, simply impossible to satisfy. The desires of the flesh are even worse. Christians may consider the physical body to be pitiable, believing that the soul has descended into the body. The word "descend" naturally points to falling from a higher, better condition into a lower, worse condition. And believers in Eastern religions also often think this way; they feel they have a responsibility to deny the physical body, to transcend it, and to enter a state of desirelessness. For example, the "nothingness" of Daoism is like this, and Buddhism also often enters this state of nothingness, of emptiness. We all think this physical body is not good, that we must transcend it, or even abandon it as soon as possible, leap out of the cycle of the three realms as early as possible, no longer wanting this physical body, and enter that state of nirvana as early as possible -- in Sanskrit it is called Nirvana. If the physical body is no good, what use is it?

Although the words they use are different, they still believe that worldly experience is not worth having. Many people, many religions, think this way. The physical body was never meaningful to begin with; the soul is the nobler thing, while the physical body is base, filthy, and overflowing with material desires -- apart from eating and clothing, there is also sexual desire, and all kinds of needs to be respected, to become famous, to achieve self-worth. A man named Maslow divided personal needs into several levels and so on, from the most basic need to eat enough and survive, to the need for security, to sexual needs, layer by layer upward. I will not go into that. In any case, whether in the West or the East, people all think the physical body is not good. What do you think? Do you feel the physical body is good or not good? This is the second question.

The third question: Faced with circumstances I cannot control, I am helpless. For example, faced with the current pandemic, do you feel you are helpless or proactive? Are you passive or active? Are you affected by it, passively affected, powerless to do anything? For this question, do you answer Yes or No?

The fourth question: The reason I am powerless is that my character and personality were already fixed in early childhood, and past experiences have determined everything. The reason I am powerless is precisely because of past events, childhood influences, the relationship with my family of origin, and certain things I have experienced, and so on. My character is not good, my personality is not good, I lack a sense of security, I am suspicious, I lack self-confidence -- all of these were caused in childhood. Do you have this? If you have it, it is Yes; if not, it is No.

The fifth question: The circumstances of past lives dominate everything, and I am powerless over them too. If it is not childhood, then it is the problem of past lives. In this life I have no way at all to deal with what happened in past lives; past lives are already over. In my previous life I did not accumulate virtue, so it is normal for me to suffer in this life, right? Who told me not to accumulate virtue in my previous life? I must receive retribution, punish myself, and seek atonement -- who told you to commit evil in your previous life? What you do comes back to you; the karma you created yourself can only be accepted with resignation. This "karma" is called Karma in English⁸. Is this how it is? Is the reason for everything in this life the evil you created in past lives? This is the fifth one; answer Yes or No.

You must be honest with yourself. In Seth Speaks, earlier on, and also in The Nature of Personal Reality, he mentioned this: if you want to make progress spiritually, the first thing is that you must be honest with yourself. If you cannot be honest with yourself, you cannot be honest with others either. Do not run away from your own beliefs, do not try to beautify them. Yes is yes, no is no. Only when you see this clearly will there be a way to change later. If you will not even admit this, then how can you change?

The sixth question: People are treacherous at heart, and everyone is scheming against me. Do you have this idea? In other words, is human nature originally good or originally evil? Living in this society, are people all scheming against you? Is it a society where the strong prey on the weak?

The seventh question: Truth stands only on my side; no one else has any sense. Do you have this idea? Truth can only be found within my own group -- whether your group is a Christian group, a Buddhist group, or a Seth group, truth is right here with us, and nowhere else has any chance at all. The translation here is quite interesting: "nowhere else has any chance at all." Do you think this way? If yes, then honestly mark Yes.

The eighth question: My energy and health will decline as I grow older, going downhill; the older I get, the more useless I become. Do you have this idea?

The ninth question: My existence depends on my physical body, and when my physical body dies, my consciousness is extinguished.

Of the false beliefs above, I have only roughly cited the most prominent ones, that is, I have picked out the major ones.

Seven-Point Checklist of Personal Beliefs

Next he gives a more explicit checklist related to our personal beliefs. Let us see whether we have any of the following problems -- nine in all (here referring to the earlier major beliefs). Same as before: if it is a Yes, mark Yes; if it is a No, mark No.

First: My body is weak, and it has always been this way. My body is just not very good, it is weak, and it always has problems. Is this true or not?

Second: Money is always something not quite good. Rich people are inevitably greedy, and compared with the poor their spiritual level is always somewhat lower; rich people are inevitably snobbish, and also less happy; rich people have more worries. Do you have this belief?

Third: I lack imagination, and I have no creativity. Do you think this way?

Fourth: I can never do what I want to do.

Fifth: Nobody likes me. Do you have this one?

Sixth: I am fat, and my figure is not good.

Seventh: My luck is always bad.

He simply lists seven items.

All of the above are erroneous ideas held by most people.

People who hold these erroneous beliefs inevitably find that enemies are bound to meet on a narrow road, and they run into their beliefs everywhere. These are wrong beliefs, mistaken ideas -- but in their lives these mistaken ideas are not enemies that never meet; rather, they meet them everywhere, they run into the very things they believe. For example, if a person feels that nobody likes him, then the moment he goes out he runs into several people who do not like him; whether he is chatting in a group, or in daily life, or within his family, he always runs into people who do not like him, which proves that indeed nobody likes him. Therefore, this physical material -- the events that happen in real life -- reinforces your belief, making you say: Right, that is exactly how it is, see, nobody likes me.

But in fact, it is your belief that creates reality. Because you believe it, and you regard it as fact, you then create such a reality. Your world must proceed according to your beliefs; whatever beliefs you hold, you create that kind of reality. If you think you are fat, then when others see you they all say you are fat. That is how it is -- they say, oh, you have gained weight again; the moment they see you, you have gained weight again. Even if you diet every day, it is no use; when others see him, they still think he is fat. He tells himself, see, my belief is not wrong, this is the fact. What he has not considered is this: precisely because you yourself feel fat, you have created the fact that you are fat. This fact is created by you; it is not a fact, it is what you perceive.

So we will try to help you break through these limiting concepts.

First you must understand that no one can change your beliefs for you, and no one forces you to believe a certain belief. Change is your own affair. If you want to change, it changes in one minute, it changes in one second; if you do not want to change, then it will not change for decades. If you say change, it changes the very next second; if you say this is part of me and I cannot change it -- then the world will manifest that to you. If you say, I believe that people's hearts are treacherous and this world is full of danger everywhere, and you think that way, then the world will show it to you, and that is how it is. Seth says, your beliefs create reality; if you do not believe it, it will show you, just like that.

But with knowledge and application, you can change yourself.

With knowledge -- the knowledge we are learning today -- put it into practice, and change these beliefs of yours. Change those wrong beliefs, and see what happens. Just try it; it does not cost a single penny. If you go to some extremely expensive training class or course, and someone teaches you something, then maybe you have been cheated; but right now you have not spent a penny, and you have no loss at all. Will changing one belief cost you your life? What can you lose? There is no loss. Can you try it? See what happens. That is the point.

Look around you. Your entire environment is the result of your beliefs materialized. Your feelings of sorrow and joy, of health and illness, all arise because of your beliefs. If you believe that a certain situation will always bring you unhappiness, then it will, and then your unhappiness further reinforces that situation.

This is a negative cycle, a spiral.

Within you, you have the ability to change this reality and your ideas about yourself, and to create a living personal experience that fulfills your own wishes and those of others.

Create your own living experience, fulfill your own wishes -- whatever you yourself want to do, write it down, and go realize it. These two sentences are very important.

Second Exercise: Make a List of Your Beliefs

I want you, when you become aware of your beliefs, to write down one by one those beliefs that limit you. Later you will find that this list has unexpected uses, and there will be specific uses for it later on. For now, write down all the negative beliefs you can think of, the ones that limit your development, that limit your expansion -- as long as they limit you, write them all down.

This is the second exercise for today. The first exercise was already mentioned just now -- sit quietly with your eyes closed, settle your mind, and feel your feeling-tone. The second exercise is to take a piece of paper and a pen, or use your phone, and analyze for yourself the nine broad beliefs and the seven very specific beliefs that were just asked about: which ones do you agree with, which ones do you not agree with; why do you agree, why do you not agree. Write a few simple sentences, or if you do not write anything, that is fine too -- ask yourself: Why do I believe this belief? First list them all out. Later he will use these lists, and then go through them one by one to change your own beliefs.

Session 615

The Conscious Mind and the Mastery of Beliefs

Seth gets straight to the point at the opening of this session:

Your conscious beliefs direct the functioning of your body.

That is to say, it is your beliefs that determine how your body functions, not the other way around, where bodily functions determine what you believe. This order must not be reversed. Wherever the body malfunctions or falls ill, the root lies in your beliefs -- something has gone wrong with your beliefs at the conscious level.

Your inner self adopted a conscious mind that is aware of and focused in the physical world, as a method of operating within the world you know.

The inner self adopted this mode of the conscious mind, being aware of the material world and focused upon it, using it as a method of operating within the material world. Without the conscious mind, you could not function well in the material world.

It therefore feeds back to the inner portions of itself the beliefs it holds about the nature of reality.

The conscious mind is specifically equipped to direct outer activity, to handle your various experiences in the waking state, and to supervise your work in the three-dimensional world. It feeds back to itself the beliefs you hold about reality -- because your beliefs themselves are projected into the material world, and your perception and experience of the material world are in turn fed back to the various portions of the inner self. So, in fact, what you are feeling is what you yourself have projected outward, which is a part of your own beliefs.

These beliefs are largely dependent upon the conscious mind's interpretation of current reality.

That is to say, these beliefs that are fed back are simply how your conscious mind understands and interprets the current material world.

The conscious mind decides the goals, and the inner self then uses its inexhaustible energy and all its abilities to bring them into realization.

The conscious mind decides what to do, and the inner self uses its inexhaustible inner energy to carry it out. So the preciousness of the conscious mind lies in its role of deciding and setting direction. Once it sets the direction, the inner self goes and implements it.

Yet the role it plays is a double one: it can assess both inner and outer situations.

It can assess both the inner and the outer; it can process data from the outside world, and it can also process data coming from its own inner portions. It is by no means a closed system -- absolutely not a closed system.

To be born as a human being, you must have fine discrimination in the use of this consciousness.

That is to say, as human beings, we must have very fine powers of discernment in the use of consciousness, knowing what problem our consciousness is currently dealing with, at what stage, and why it is handling the problem in this way. In other words, you must have very clear and lucid awareness of your consciousness, of your every arising thought and intention, of your thinking.

Many people are afraid to face their own thoughts, and are unwilling to spend the effort of self-examination. They accept the beliefs of others, and this behavior distorts all the data provided by both the inner and outer situations.

This is a very common occurrence. Many people are unwilling to face their own thoughts, and are unwilling to spend the effort on self-reflection, on observing where their thoughts actually come from, where this particular thought comes from, and why they have such a thought. So they accept the viewpoints of others, hoping that others will hand them a ready-made set of things -- that others will tell them how they should be.

For example, if someone says eating goji berries nourishes health, they steep goji berry water and drink it, carrying a thermos every day; if someone says hydrating is good for a girl's skin, they go hydrate every day; if someone says ultraviolet rays affect the skin, they go out every day with an umbrella and sunscreen. All of their beliefs are given to them by others, and basically most of their beliefs are given by others. This is a limitation of thought.

Between the intuitive self and the conscious mind, there was originally no warfare.

You actually do have intuitive ability, and between your intuitive self and the conscious mind there should be no conflict whatsoever. The reason this conflict appears to exist on the surface is that you have refused to face all the data that the conscious mind has opened up for you -- you have accepted only a portion of the data, only that which comes from the material world, while the other data transmitted to you from within you have not accepted at all.

Doing this sometimes seems an easier way to escape the self-adjustments that must often be faced after self-examination. But the result of this escape is that you collect many secondhand beliefs.

You do this precisely to escape self-adjustment. But the result of this escape is that you receive many secondhand beliefs -- all told to you by others, told to you by other people's experiences, not firsthand beliefs obtained by yourself.

Therefore, some of these beliefs are mutually contradictory.

Because they all come from others and not from yourself, some of them are mutually contradictory. One says exercise makes you younger, another says excessive exercise makes you age faster; one says going to the gym is better, another says fitness coaches die very young. These things leave you very conflicted, not knowing which is right and which is wrong, and this is very painful -- because none of these beliefs were obtained by yourself; they come from different people giving you different ideas.

Because of this contradiction, the signals sent by the body and the inner self are also not smooth or clear; they become a jumbled mess that conflicts with itself.

For this reason, the signals sent by the body and the inner self become unclear and unsmooth, conflicting with each other, turning into a kind of noise.

Once this situation occurs, it immediately triggers your various alarm systems.

What are these alarms? They are your body's inability to function normally, and the impairment of your state of mind -- feeling very bad, feeling very low. Both of these are alarms given to you, and they are the best alarms. When your body sends you signals, it is already uncomfortable -- for example, sub-health, insomnia, aches all over, listlessness, and so on, these bodily signals; including the signals of mood, such as persistent depression, persistent unhappiness, feeling gloomy, life having lost its joy -- these are all impairments of the state of mind. When you see these two kinds of signals, you must change, you have to change. If you still do not change at this point, more serious consequences will arise.

At this time, your inner self will transmit some insights and intuitions into your conscious mind.

When changes occur in your body and your mood, the inner self will also transmit some intuitive, insightful things to you, making you feel them as a kind of intuition. It comes to help you clear your eyes.

But if you believe that the inner self is dangerous, if you believe that the inner self is like an ignorant child, then you will turn your head away and ignore the existence of this assistance.

If you accept this viewpoint, believing that the things of the inner self are all dangerous, unreliable, and untrustworthy, then you will miss it. For example, if you are afraid of dreaming, or afraid of any message that breaks into the psyche -- both dreams and psychic messages are there to give you intuition and give you hints. If you refuse them, you have no awareness of the information provided in dreams, and the intuitive inspiration that breaks into the psyche is also absent; without realizing it, you ignore the existence of this assistance -- it is helping you, but you cannot receive it.

Moreover, if you believe that adversity must be accepted whether you like it or not, then this conviction alone is enough to eliminate every opportunity for solving the problem.

If you think that when things happen to you, you are passive and helpless, with the mentality of an unlucky victim, then this conviction alone is enough to eliminate every opportunity for solving the problem. Because if you believe that these things all happen against you, all come to make trouble for you, and you can do nothing about them, then no problem will ever be solved.

The Framework of Experience Is Created by Belief

Your entire framework of experience is created by your ideas and beliefs.

You must remember this. Your framework of experience — how you handle things, the way you react to experience — is created by your beliefs and ideas. In other words, the same event happening to you and happening to someone else produces different feelings.

For example, facing this pandemic, some people stayed home the whole time and treated it as an opportunity for study and introspection; others became especially irritable, fearful, worried, and filled with terrible imaginings about the future — what will happen to the economy, what will happen to unemployment, whether the world will enter a great depression, and so on. All the negative information came flooding in. Once he holds such negative beliefs, the information he sees is all negative too, the news he sees is all negative, the people he meets, the words he hears, the things he encounters are all negative. All of this is determined by your beliefs and ideas.

You can find your beliefs and the reasons for them in your conscious mind.

You can find your beliefs and the reasons for them in your conscious mind: why do you hold such beliefs? Why do you feel that your current circumstances are a kind of torment, a kind of ordeal for you? Why don't you feel that they are a challenge, an opportunity for you? So this is entirely up to you — your beliefs determine how you feel about the matter.

If you accept that the reasons behind all human behavior are forever buried in the past, in whatever lifetime, then you will never have the opportunity to change your own experience.

If you accept this idea — that the reasons behind human behavior are forever buried in the past, in whatever lifetime — then you cannot change, unless you change that idea. If beliefs do not change, things will not change.

Seth is explaining here that what he is talking about now concerns normal experience, and later he will discuss some special areas — for example, some people are born disabled, what is that about — he will discuss such special cases later. What he is talking about now is the normal situation.

Your understanding that you create your own reality should help liberate you. You are responsible for your own successes and joys.

Mark this sentence. Do not push it onto others, do not push it onto past lives, your childhood, external causes, social causes, or other people's causes. For your successes and joys, you yourself are responsible.

You can change those areas of your life that you do not like, but you must take responsibility for your existence.

You must take responsibility for your existence.

Your soul joined with the flesh, and in the flesh, to experience a world of incredible richness, to help create a reality of color and form.

The purpose of your soul joining with the body is to experience a world of incredible richness — it is the union of spirit and flesh to create a reality of sound and color.

Your soul was born in the flesh to enrich the wondrous realm of sensory perception, to feel the sensation of energy being made into physical form.

You are here to enjoy, to express, to use yourself through the body. That is what you came to the three-dimensional world to do. This is not to say that consciousness is already fully developed — that such an advanced thing as consciousness comes into your body, no. You are here to expand the range of consciousness, to extend it. No matter how powerful consciousness is, it cannot feel the experiences and sensations of the physical world. It needs you to feel them on its behalf, and through these feelings to expand the range of consciousness's extension.

You were not born to add to the wails of human suffering, but to change it when you find you do not like it, through the joyful strength and vitality of your inner being.

You did not come into this world to endure hardships on behalf of humanity, nor to suffer. Rather, when you find that you do not like them, you change them through the joyful strength and vitality of your inner being.

What you must do is create your psyche in your body as faithfully and beautifully as you can.

This sentence is very beautiful. As faithfully as you can — that is, believing in it with great firmness — and beautifully, it must be beautifully, create your psyche in your body.

The Conscious Mind Is a Window

The conscious mind lets you look from the inside outward at the physical universe, and you see the reflection of your mental activity.

What does "the reflection of your mental activity" mean? It means this physical universe is the outward projection of your mental activity. The conscious mind lets you perceive and evaluate your individual and collective creations -- this physical world, this physical universe, which contains both your personal creations and the joint creations of all of you together.

You could say that the conscious mind is like a window that lets you look from the inside outward, looking outward to perceive the fruits of your inner world.

Your inner world projects itself outward and becomes the physical world, and then you perceive it through the conscious mind. The conscious mind is like a bright window that lets you perceive the results of creation, the fruits of creation.

This window was originally clear and bright, spotless, yet you often let your erroneous beliefs cloud this window with dust and mist.

None of your joy, vitality, and achievements comes from outside, and none of them happens because external factors dropped them onto your head. They all originate from inner events caused by your beliefs.

All of your joy, vitality, and achievements originate from inner events caused by your inner beliefs. It is their outward projection that makes you feel joy, vitality, and achievement.

Suggestion and Belief

Many writings have discussed the nature and importance of "suggestion." One of the popular notions lately is that you are governed by suggestions at all times and in all places.

In fact, your own conscious beliefs are the most important "suggestions" you can possibly receive.

You are suggesting to yourself all the time. Whether you accept or reject all other beliefs depends on whether you believe they are true -- and that is determined by the "self-talk" that goes on in your mind constantly throughout most of the day. What is self-talk? It is the suggestions you give yourself, the talking the ego does to itself. You are constantly confirming to yourself every day which things are true and which are false. Such suggestions determine your behavior, determine the trajectory of your life's development, your patterns of behavior.

Whether an external suggestion can be accepted by you depends on whether it meets two conditions.

First, you have to see whether this suggestion conflicts with the general views you hold in your mind about the nature of reality -- if there is a conflict, you will not accept it. Second, you have to see whether this suggestion matches the particular ideas you personally hold about yourself -- that is to say, this suggestion secretly coincides with some of your special ideas, and it happens to agree very much with your own thinking. Such a suggestion you can accept; otherwise you cannot accept it. Because your own conscious beliefs are themselves a kind of suggestion, this kind of suggestion determines what you can accept.

If you can use your conscious mind correctly, you must examine the many-colored beliefs that descend upon you.

What does it mean to use it correctly? It means you must constantly examine those many-colored beliefs that enter your mind. In short, you no longer helplessly accept everything that comes your way -- this is the correct application of your conscious mind. When a belief comes, when a thought comes, you must inspect it, rather than taking whatever comes as it comes. You should not accept whatever belief arises in your mind, or accept whatever belief others give you; instead, you should have a capacity for discernment.

If you can make good use of the conscious mind, you can also perceive the intuitive concepts that come to you from within.

He just said that not only must you discriminate among the beliefs that come from outside, you can also sense the intuitions that come from within.

But if you do not examine the various data that come from outside, or if you simply ignore the various messages that come from within outward, then no matter how you put it, you can only be considered a person in a half-awake state.

If you are not very clear about the data coming from outside or the information coming from within -- neither examining the outside data nor paying attention to the information transmitted from within outward -- then you are a half-awake person.

Therefore many erroneous beliefs are accepted wholesale precisely because you do not examine them.

At this point, you have given the inner self a false picture of reality -- because the inner self needs to know the world of reality through the conscious mind, yet you have given it a false picture, because you have accepted some erroneous beliefs.

Since the function of the conscious mind is to evaluate the experience of reality, the inner self cannot do that job well.

The function of the conscious mind is to evaluate our experience in the three-dimensional world; the inner self cannot do that job well. If your inner portion were supposed to take on that responsibility, then you would have no need for the existence of this conscious mind at all -- if the inner self could do this job well, then what would you need the conscious mind for?

But once the inner self's alertness is awakened, it will immediately take certain self-corrective measures. In particularly serious situations that have gotten out of control, the inner self will even bypass the defenses of the conscious mind and directly send out energy to other levels of your activity, resolving the current predicament.

What does it mean to bypass the conscious mind? What does that mean? For example, the inner self will try to avoid the blind spots of the rational mind, so that it does not know where something came from. It will also often sift through conflicting beliefs, from the rapid-fire barrage -- that is to say, in the midst of extreme conflict among your beliefs -- and select the set that can give a person the most vitality, and send it forward in a manner that at the time appears to be a kind of revelation.

This kind of sudden flash of inspiration can change your habitual behavior and lead you to adopt a new pattern of behavior. Such moments are not common, but sometimes they do occur -- when do they occur? When you are truly in a serious situation, and you have made mistake after mistake, until finally your inner self really has no other choice. You have completely ignored the information from outside, and completely ignored the information from within -- one you have blocked out, the other you have distorted. In such a situation, your inner self has no choice but to rush out and directly intervene to solve the problem; it no longer solves it through the conscious mind, because the conscious mind has already been blinded by you.

To you, the feeling is like suddenly having a completely different method of solving problems, one unlike any of your previous behavior patterns -- like pulling off an unexpected move, a flash of brilliant inspiration, suddenly thinking of a method you would absolutely never have thought of ordinarily, and you will even take action on it. This kind of method is often your inner self coming to help you when it truly has no other way.

You must be thoroughly familiar with what your rational mind actually contains. Know that whatever beliefs you hold in your mind, they will indeed materialize concretely.

Whatever the beliefs, they will indeed materialize concretely. The miracle of your existence cannot escape itself -- escape what? Escape the fact that any belief in your mind will materialize concretely. This is like a magic spell; you cannot change it. No matter what kind of belief it is, it will actualize it.

Your thoughts are like flowers, blooming into the events of your life.

If you think the world is inherently evil, then the events you encounter will show evil everywhere.

It is that simple. If you believe this world is inherently evil, then everywhere you go you will see evil, see bad things, and this will further reinforce your belief.

There are no accidents in the universe, and even in what you consider human life there are likewise no accidents.

Be sure to remember, there are no accidents in the universe. All of this is caused by you. So on this point there is a great divergence from Buddhism: Buddhism holds that these things are all due to your karma⁹, the cause-and-effect relationships that preceded you, the misdeeds you have committed, the results brought about by the pull of various karmic forces. Because some karmic forces are from your past lives and you yourself do not know them, you do not know what will happen next, so Buddhism uses the word "impermanence" to represent accidents -- impermanence is accident, completely uncontrollable.

But Seth's viewpoint here differs from it most greatly in that Seth holds that this world has no impermanence, no accidents; all of this is the outward display and projection of your inner world. Nothing in human life is accidental.

Your beliefs are like flowers, growing surely in time and space.

When you have some understanding of what I am saying, you can even feel their growth -- when you can understand what I am saying, you can even feel the process of growth by which your beliefs are becoming reality.

The True Function of the Conscious Mind

Basically the conscious mind is full of curiosity, and its attitude is also very open. It also possesses the ability to examine its own contents.

Because of the theoretical foundations of twentieth-century psychology, many Westerners have come to believe that the main purpose of the conscious mind is merely to suppress "unconscious" material.

Many Westerners do think this way, but actually that is not the case.

On the contrary, the function of the conscious mind is also to "receive" and "translate" the important material conveyed to it from the inner self.

Not only does it not suppress unconscious material, it actually receives and translates that inner unconscious material, and then transmits it outward. It is exactly the opposite of what people understand.

When it is not interfered with, it does this very well.

It receives and translates all kinds of impressions.

But the problem arises when people teach it to receive only material coming from the outside world, while setting up barrier after barrier against inner material.

We set up layer upon layer of barriers against our inner intuitions and impulses, being extremely careful and cautious, always afraid of our own impulses. In human society there is a common saying: "Impulse is the devil." This saying has already become a belief for many people. Many people believe that impulse is the devil, and that their own impulses must be strangled in the cradle -- they must not be allowed to show themselves, must not be allowed to grow, because once this devil grows up it will be completely out of control. This is the view of most people. They deny impulse, deny this primal inner impulse of the heart, and regard it as a devil.

This kind of situation causes the individual to deny all of the "full power" that he possesses. What is worse, it also causes him to consciously sever "himself" from "this important source of his own existence."

What source? It is the inner self, the source of his existence. He cuts himself off from his own inner self.

This situation especially inhibits creative expression, causing the conscious self to reject the endless stream of insight and intuition that would otherwise have been available.

He shuts off the endless stream of insight and intuition, believing that these things are unimportant, terrifying, and dangerous. In other words, if you are doing creative work, then you absolutely must open it up; if you are doing very ordinary everyday work, like assembly-line work, then not opening it up does not really affect your life. If you want to do any kind of creative work, then you must connect with your inner self, and not let your conscious mind cut that connection.

At this point, thought and feeling seem to split apart. Creativity and understanding were originally a pair of good brothers, yet now they become strangers to each other. The conscious mind also loses its keenness.

What happens after cutting off from the inner self? The conscious mind loses its keenness. It cuts out from its own experience a great deal of inner knowledge that could have been used.

Within the "I," there also appears an illusory "division" that is a false appearance.

Within the whole self, there also appears an illusory division, splitting it into several parts -- inner and outer -- which amounts to completely dividing it apart.

When it is not completely interfered with, this "I" is originally whole and natural, forming a unit by itself, although it is a unit that is forever changing.

The conscious mind listens to all kinds of inner and outer voices, uniting the "I," and forms beliefs from the knowledge received from both visible and invisible sources.

The conscious mind hears voices from the inner self and from the outside at the same time, and then forms a belief from the knowledge obtained from both visible and invisible sources. Its beliefs come from two sides, both inner and outer. This is how it is when there is no interference.

Then the self-examination of beliefs and other activities begin automatically, naturally and simply, with no effort at all.

This examination of beliefs is very simple, requiring no effort at all.

However, once the conscious mind accepts a pile of mutually contradictory beliefs, you must then spend some effort pulling these contradictions out one by one from among them.

What does "some contradictions" mean? It means when you are in a state of inner conflict. For example, you want to make money -- everyone wants to make money -- but everyone also feels that making money is not exactly an honorable thing. If my life only pursues money, saying that out loud seems somehow dishonorable; I should have nobler pursuits. And money and noble pursuits seem to have a slight conflict between them.

Under this kind of belief, you will imagine that: since you do not admit that you are base or lowly, you naturally keep a certain distance from the matter of money. On the contrary, you will instead believe that those who do lowly things are the ones who actually get rich. For example, people in gangs, big drug lords, and even fallen women who become prostitutes also make a lot of money. He will feel that making money is never a good thing, and that those who work hard -- for example, working as an honest little clerk in a company, or working as a salesperson traveling everywhere on business every day -- do not make money, do not make much at all.

You know, last year there was a huge news story: in Shanghai, a male escort at a nightclub was given birthday gifts by a rich woman to make up for his 28th birthday¹⁰, making up for every year from the first year all the way to the 28th year. In the end this male escort showed off about it, and it was immediately exposed. After the exposure, the entire nightclub was even shut down. But in everyone's heart there is a belief: only this kind of dishonorable thing can make money. If I work honestly and diligently, I will not make much money.

This is a kind of conflicted emotion, and it is inherently self-contradictory. He believes he is a noble person and does not want to sink to the level of those people, yet he also wants to make money; and in his heart he also believes that this kind of noble work, this upright profession, will not earn much money. This belief will cause him to be in perpetual inner conflict. He wants to make money, but he does not want to lower himself; he envies the male escort for making so much money, but he cannot bring himself to go into that line of work either. He also thinks, I am not that kind of person, I am an upright person, how could I do that kind of thing. All kinds of factors are tangled together, pulling and conflicting repeatedly in his inner subconscious. This is ultimately where everyone's own suffering lies. Such contradictory beliefs will cause you to get very poor results when dealing with things in your life.

So Seth says, you must pull out those mutually contradictory beliefs. In health, in fitness, in weight loss, we have many self-contradictory ideas of our own; the same is true in your work and career. For example, everyone has a firm belief: only through hard and painstaking work can you make money. Yet he also wants to make money easily, but he also believes that you cannot make money easily. Fine, with that kind of belief, he can only live this kind of miserable life -- working extremely hard every day, and still not making much money. And he also believes that only hard work can make money, so the reality he ends up creating is: hard work makes this much money, and if you do not work you will not even have food to eat.

He also envies those who make money easily, those who can make money lying down, but he insists on making money standing up. Just like Zhang Mazi says in Let the Bullets Fly: I'm going to make money standing up¹¹ -- that is exactly what it means.

So when you dig deep into your own inner beliefs, you must understand that this is not an easy thing. Seth did not start this book with much difficulty, but when you analyze it carefully, its difficulty is greater than that of Seth Speaks. Where does the greater difficulty lie? Seth Speaks is like chatting about everything under the sun -- talking about how the world came to be, what happens after death, what the process of dreams is like -- none of these things touch you personally, they have little to do with you as an individual. They are basically all metaphysical, and can be used as conversation material, or as a framework for constructing your personal values.

But starting from The Nature of Personal Reality, you can feel it: from Chapter One discussing feeling tones, to Chapter Two beginning to discuss your personal beliefs -- which beliefs are wrong, which beliefs are negative -- he finds them one by one for you. This book truly has every blade facing yourself. This blade is not pointed outward, not swung at the universe, not swung at some multi-dimensional space or the levels of consciousness. It has nothing to do with any of that. It is the feeling of every punch landing on flesh, facing the problems you encounter in your daily life, dissecting yourself cut by cut, and it is often bloody. You must be mentally prepared. It is often a state of being completely bruised and bleeding. You must be clear in your heart about this process. It is not something light and breezy, where you brew a cup of tea, sit there leisurely, and then you can create your reality.

You want to use beliefs to create reality? Fine, no problem. First go and see what kind of beliefs you have. If you cannot see clearly what your beliefs are, then look at the life around you, look at your environment. Do you go to work from nine to five every day, working very hard? Do you work overtime until very late every day? Did you create these realities yourself? Do you believe in your heart that in this world only hard work can earn money? If you really believe that, then sorry, that is your life -- your life is that you must work hard to earn money, and the moment you slack off even a little, the moment you show any weariness, you will not earn money. It is that simple.

Working from the Root

As far as physical material is concerned, even if the information is wrong, the belief still seems to be without any problem. The reason is that your outer experience is itself the result of your beliefs being materialized outward.

Whether your perception of the physical world is right or wrong is not important. Why? Because it is your inner self projecting outward.

Even if your senses tell you that a certain belief is plainly a truth, you still have to work from the root.

Where is the root? It is to work inward -- the object of your work is the raw material that forms your various ideas.

Therefore, if you want to change your experience, or any part of it, you must first change your ideas. Since you are always creating your own reality according to your ideas, the results will then follow naturally.

What he means is, do not direct your efforts toward the outside. As far as the outer physical material, the physical world, is concerned, whether these ideas are right or wrong is not important. What is important is what you think inwardly. If you want to change outer things, you must first change inner things. If the inner does not change, and you only want to change the outside, it is useless, and you cannot change it.

Ideas Are Like a Painter's Pigments

You must be certain that you can change your own beliefs, and you must be willing to try.

This book is here to guide you step by step in trying, in changing your beliefs, in creating your reality.

Think of a limiting idea as a kind of mud-colored paint, and your own life as a painting that has been dirtied by it.

If limiting thoughts are like mud, then your whole life is like a painting dirtied by mud. Because you have too many limiting thoughts, too many limiting ideas.

You can change your ideas, just as a painter changes his colors.

You say, I do not want to use this limiting idea anymore; remove these ideas, and all those mud colors are gone, and your painting suddenly becomes bright. It is that simple. Your ideas are like the colors a painter chooses, and that is the painter's decision to make. In other words, your ideas can change at any time -- you can paint with yellow ideas, you can paint with green ideas, you can paint with red ideas; it is entirely up to you.

But many of us do not do this. Many people think, I am that color, I am that idea, this idea is a part of me. That is wrong. Ideas are ideas, and you are you; you must distinguish the two.

Many people say, I cannot change my ideas, because I am who I am -- precisely because I am who I am, I was influenced by this and that from childhood... They go on at length about what they were like as children, what their parents did to them, what their boyfriend did to her, what their husband did to her, and all of this made them who they are today. The result of all this talk is to tell you that they cannot change. Everything said before is meant to explain the thing that comes after -- that they cannot change. Because all these things were caused by other people; they are the victim. Other people wrote negative things all over them, other people trampled all over their heart, other people smeared mud on the painting of their heart, smeared it all over with filthy mud. They say, I cannot change this; someone else did it. Look at this smear of black ink, so-and-so did this to me; look, my whole painting is dark and gray, my mother did this to me when I was little; the reason I am so unlucky now is all because of my husband -- or even my ex-husband. She is already divorced, and she still resents her ex-husband. All kinds of reasons, telling you that they cannot change.

Seth tells you this is wrong; you can change.

A painter does not confuse himself with the colors he uses.

He knows clearly that the color is something he himself chose. That is to say, this "idea" is something you yourself chose, just as the color is chosen by the painter. Putting the color on the canvas is also his own doing; just as you apply ideas to yourself, using these ideas to feel and to observe this world. The ideas you use are like the colors a painter uses.

You could clearly use a very beautiful color, yet you use a very dark and gloomy one, and then you ask why the world does not look good. You are like that painter -- "ideas" are the colors you yourself use, and what kind of color depends on what kind of ideas you use to look at this world. "Personal reality" is your canvas.

You are never your ideas, and you are certainly not "your thoughts." You are the "I" who experiences these ideas and thoughts.

This is very important. Your ideas are only things you use as colors; your ideas and your thoughts are two different things; they are only your viewpoints. You are the "I" who experiences these ideas and thoughts. Thoughts are not you, and ideas are not you. Who are you? You are the one who experiences those thoughts and experiences those ideas. Ideas and thoughts appear so that you can experience them; you are the experiencer, and they are the tools of your experience, the objects of your experience.

If a painter finds his hands covered with paint after a day's work, he can easily wash the stains off.

After a painter finishes painting, his hands and body may be covered with dirty paint -- because he knows that what is on his hands is paint, it has nothing to do with him, it is not him, and he can wash it off at any time.

If you insist on thinking that those narrow thoughts are part of you, and therefore forever connected to you, you will not even think of washing them off.

This is the view of many people. They think this thought is a part of them, a part of this person they call themselves, something they brought with them from childhood. If the thought were taken away, then who would I be? If you took my thoughts out of my body, then who would I be? So they cling tightly to this thought -- you think it is a part of you, and you would not even think of washing it off. That this thought can be changed, can be removed, can be discarded, thrown away, replaced -- you have never even thought of it.

On the contrary, at this point you are like a painter who has lost his mind.

This painter says, my paint is a part of me, it has dirtied my fingers, but I can do nothing about it, because it is a part of me. This is what many people think. Many people let all these messy thoughts, messy viewpoints, messy beliefs occupy their minds, and they firmly believe that those are themselves, a part of themselves -- they cannot be removed, they cannot possibly be removed, and they dare not remove them. Of course, if it is a part of you, how could you dare remove it? Could you saw off your own hand? Cut off a few of your own fingers? Surely you would not. If you think your thoughts and your beliefs are your fingers, then you will absolutely never remove them.

So at this step, Seth first wants to break this apart for you, to dissociate it, to tell you that your thoughts and you are two different things. This is the first point he wants to tell you: you can change your thoughts at any time; they are not you, they are only your thoughts -- they are like a painter's pigments.

Spontaneous Awareness and Active Examination

There is no contradiction between being spontaneously aware of your thoughts and actively examining a thought.

In other words, your spontaneously accepting a thought, and your perceiving a thought with a picky, critical, scrutinizing eye, these two are not contradictory. Although it seems like they are, in fact they are not at all. He is afraid you might say: You keep telling me to examine my own thoughts, but my thoughts should flow naturally, I should just accept my naturally arising thoughts, how could I go about changing them or challenging them? They are a part of me. Who is challenging them? Who is this person challenging the thought? If it is me, then how could I challenge myself? Many people fall into this kind of strange loop.

He emphasizes that this is natural: your naturally accepting a thought, and your using an examining kind of observation to analyze your own thoughts, there is no difference whatsoever between the two.

This does not need to be done blindly.

When you indiscriminately accept all the information that comes to you, taking it as your own, then you are not being spontaneous.

Be sure to remember this. When you accept all beliefs, all the things others have instilled in you, without discrimination, without examination, you are not being spontaneous. This is dismantling another one of your mistaken views. Many people think that this is what being spontaneous means: calmly accepting everything life gives you, accepting whatever life gives me, accepting whatever thoughts come to me. You are insisting that I act against nature, asking me to examine, look inward, and analyze every one of my thoughts, every arising thought and impulse, and that is unnatural.

Seth is emphasizing here: what you think of as natural acceptance of everything, taking in all the viewpoints and beliefs thrown at you, that is what is truly unnatural, that is not being spontaneous. You must understand this. So you can see how deep our mistaken views are on many issues, and Seth is helping us, bit by bit, very meticulously, to unravel them and separate them out.

If you truly could be spontaneous, many beliefs would automatically fall away.

Many beliefs would come and then go, causing no harm at all.

Unfortunately, instead of doing this, you often become a refuge for these harmful beliefs. The various limiting ideas you have previously accepted are like a binding net, specifically gathering other similar information, so that your mind gradually becomes piled up with debris.

This is like a broken fishing net. All your limiting beliefs are like a broken fishing net, and it specifically goes out to net those things that are consistent with its beliefs. Whatever kind of limiting beliefs you have, it nets back that kind of thing, so what it nets back is a pile of debris.

When you are spontaneous, you can accept the free nature of your own mind, and your mind will still naturally, spontaneously, carry out the work of separating the wheat from the chaff among the information it receives.

This is very crucial, it is spontaneous, be sure to remember this. Your mind itself has this ability, it will spontaneously remove the dross from the information it receives.

Returning to the Spontaneous Nature of the Mind

Your mind itself has the ability to discard the dross and keep the essence. As long as you let it act spontaneously, let it freely exercise its free nature, it can remove what is useless from the information it receives and keep only the essence. But when you refuse to let it do this, your mind begins to become cluttered -- you first block out the inner information, then distort the outer information, and in the end it becomes more and more cluttered.

An apple tree cannot produce violets.

This is a metaphor. Because an apple tree knows very clearly what it is, as well as its own true nature and the structure of its existence.

You must remember: the conscious mind is only the most superficial part of the mind. Your entire mind is open to you to a far greater degree than you imagine. The scope of your entire mind is very vast, and therefore the knowledge you possess can be brought into consciousness to a much greater extent.

Here, "the entire mind" can be understood as the entire consciousness, a complete consciousness; and your conscious mind can be understood as a kind of surface consciousness, or the conscious awareness. But you must remember, when we study any of the Seth material -- including other spiritual material -- we must not be bound by these terms. You cannot say, why is it called this name in Seth Speaks, and why is it called something else here? You need to understand one principle: many of its translators are different people. Seth Speaks was translated by Wang Jiqing, and the first five chapters were translated by Teacher Wang Yusheng¹², and these two people are not consistent in many of their terms. Although Wang Jiqing later translated most of the Seth material¹³, when it came to the translation of The Early Sessions, the terms changed again. Now Taiwan has published The Early Sessions, up to the sixth volume -- the English original has nine volumes in total¹⁴ -- and a teacher on the mainland named Wang Xinjian is also translating a mainland version¹⁵. It is said that those six volumes in Taiwan were each translated by a different person, which makes it even harder to reach consistency in the understanding of the Seth material. This is also one of the reasons Teacher Wang Xinjian has always been critical of their translation approach. When terminology is not unified, ambiguity arises. So many people cannot understand the Seth material when they get further into it, because they do not understand what the relationship is between the "conscious mind" here and the "consciousness" spoken of in Seth Speaks.

So I say, sometimes it is enough to understand the meaning; there is no need to nitpick over the wording. Understand the entire mind as: the entire space that your consciousness can explore. The knowledge you possess -- as we studied in Sessions 18 and 19 of Seth Speaks -- there are many levels of consciousness, and within them you can obtain all kinds of knowledge, including knowledge of your past lives, and also knowledge of the human race as a whole. You have all of it, and it is available to your awareness.

But if there is an erroneous or limiting belief, then in relation to your nature, its degree of vagueness is like --

An apple tree that believes itself to be a violet.

You see, if you have a limiting belief, it is like an apple tree thinking it is a violet. It is actually an apple tree, yet it insists on producing violets, and so it cannot be a good apple tree, nor can it become a violet. At this point, the person is entirely tangled up.

What is this example saying? It is saying that you have not made contact with your inner self. Your inner self knows who you are. Your inner self knows that within your feeling-tone, your particular characteristics have already been set, and what attributes you have as energy. But you say: no, I want to become that kind of person -- I do not want to be this kind, I want to be that kind. In many matters, this produces great distortion, because you and your inner self are never in harmony. The inner self wants you to do this, but you insist on doing that.

What Is a Wrong Belief

A wrong belief is one that is inherently incapable of matching the basic situation of your inner self.

What does a wrong belief mean? It means that your inner self itself has its own attributes—every person's inner self has an attribute, just as the soul's attributes differ and the personality's attributes differ—it has its own characteristics and its own mission. A so-called wrong idea, one that is wrong for you, may not be a wrong idea for someone else. For that inner self it might happen to be a suitable idea, but for this inner self of yours, it is a wrong belief, because it limits that part of you.

So he uses the example of an apple tree trying to produce violets: you are clearly an apple tree, yet you insist on bearing pears—how could that be possible?

Therefore, if you believe that you are not in control of yourself and are controlled by external circumstances, you are always holding a wrong belief.

What does this mean? You must seek inward, to make contact with your inner self. If you always look outward, believing that your present results are caused by the external environment, that is a wrong belief.

If you believe that your present circumstances cannot be changed by your own efforts alone, you are holding a wrong belief.

Here he tells you what a wrong belief is.

Childhood Environment and Your Choices

You also had a hand in the development of your childhood environment. You chose that environment.

But this does not mean that you are supposed to be at the mercy of those circumstances. That is not what it means. The point I am making here is to clarify that—

It was you who arranged those challenges, in order to overcome them; it was you who set the goals, in order to achieve them; and it was you who laid out the various frameworks of experience, so that through them you could grow, understand, and fulfill certain abilities.

You need to understand: it was all you.

The creativity with which you form your own experience is still within you now, just as it has always been within you.

You have had it since birth, and it existed before your birth as well. This ability has always been there.

In this lifetime, you may have chosen a particular theme, a specific framework of conditions.

In this lifetime you may have chosen a particular theme, having already selected all your conditions.

But within these conditions, you still have the freedom to experiment and to create, thereby changing situations and events.

Here he emphasizes again: although you may set a particular theme and certain basic conditions for this lifetime, within these conditions you still have the freedom to practice and to create, thereby changing situations and events. This freedom is always in your hands. That is what he wants to emphasize.

Each person chooses for himself an individual pattern, so that within it he can create his personal reality. Even so, within these boundaries there are countless viable directions and infinite available resources.

You must remember this part. What he says is very simple—so you must not believe in any kind of "fatalistic" notion, and do not think, "I am destined to be this way." He has already told you: there are countless viable directions and infinite available resources.

The Inner Self Is Activated

The inner self is activated, and begins to strive toward a stimulating action, learning to translate its own reality into material form.

After the inner self is activated, it undertakes a stimulating action. What action? It translates its own reality into the material — that is, it comes into the three-dimensional world to create, projecting its own inner contents outward and turning them into a material world.

Then the conscious mind is very capable of focusing its attention upon material reality, yet it is often dazzled by the riot of colors and gives rise to all sorts of illusions, mistakenly taking the original "effect" — the myriad phenomena of this world, which are originally effects — as the "cause."

The conscious mind only attends to the level of material reality. Although it can receive some inner information transmitted to it, its attention and focus are both on material reality — this is the main work of the conscious mind. But it has a shortcoming: it is often dazzled by the riot of colors, mesmerized by this glittering, multicolored world. Once mesmerized, it produces many illusions — what kind of illusions? It thinks that the things of this world are the cause, that it is because one sees these worldly things that one has feelings, and therefore these feelings are the effect. It has completely reversed the two.

It does not know that these outer events are actually an outward projection of its own inner emotions — it takes the projected result as the cause of the feelings that arise.

The Reminder Service That Got Turned Off

This is not yet a serious matter, because the deeper part of the "I" is always doing the work of reminding.

He says it is all right if you get it wrong, it is not yet that important. What is important is that this deeper part of your self is always doing the work of reminding, telling it that this is not so, telling it that you have misunderstood.

But—

When the conscious mind has accepted too many erroneous beliefs, especially when it insists that the inner self is a dangerous thing, this reminder service is turned off by it.

The inner self is no good, the inner self is full of dark, frightening, immature, unreliable thoughts, do not accept its information—so it turns off this inner reminder.

When you mistakenly take this effect as the cause, and then turn off the inner reminder—

The conscious mind will then feel that it has been battered by the environment, feeling that its tiny self, under an overwhelming environment, has no choice but to be at the mercy of it.

It feels that the outer environment is too powerful, that it is tiny, that it cannot resist. It does not even know that all these outer environments are created by itself.

At the same time, that deep sense of security upon which it originally rested its life has also been entirely lost.

Why do many people have no sense of security? Because they feel this world is unpredictable, and they are in it with great fear—they do not know what will happen in the next second, what will happen in the future. They are completely out of control, so they have a deep sense of powerlessness and insecurity.

But this deep sense of security is what you should be resting upon. Because this sense of security is built upon the fact that this world is projected by you—a world projected by yourself, with yourself resting safely within it, how could you have a sense of insecurity?

For example: you are a writer, or a director, and you have staged a play, arranging some characters to go in and perform. As the director, how could you have a sense of insecurity? Because you completely know the direction of this play, and you are clear about the ending of every actor. Only when you do not know that this play is directed by yourself will you have a deep sense of insecurity—as a character in the play, he does not know whether in the next minute he will be discovered as a spy and shot, or whether he will successfully escape the pursuit. But as the director, he does not have this sense of insecurity.

Such erroneous beliefs must be eradicated at the root, so that the conscious mind can once again become aware of its own source, and open itself to the inner channels through which it can access various extraordinary powers.

So such erroneous beliefs must be eradicated at the root, without leaving any room for soft-heartedness.

The Conscious Mind and the Camera

The "ego" is a side branch that grows out of the conscious mind.

You could say the ego is a side branch that grows out of the conscious mind.

The conscious mind is like a vast camera, and the ego is directing how this camera frames its shots and uses its focus.

He is giving another example. The conscious mind is like a vast camera, and the ego is like the person directing it: you shoot this, you look at this, put the focus here.

If you do not interfere with it, the various parts of your entity will automatically rise up, form the ego, create a new ego, then break it apart, and then create yet another new ego.

What does this mean? If you do not interfere, this camera will go and shoot different places, photograph different places. So relative to that ego, it is as if a new ego has been produced anew — the old ego had placed the conscious mind's focus here to frame this shot, and a new ego says, no, we are not looking at that anymore, pay attention over there. So he uses this example to say, vividly, that it is as if different egos are created, and then a new one is swapped in.

Throughout this entire process, it also always maintains a wonderful spontaneity, and always maintains its own sense of wholeness and identity.

This "it" refers to the ego. Although it is created and then broken apart, and then created again, this ego always maintains a kind of spontaneity, and always feels that it is itself — although in actual fact every ego is new, its feeling has never changed.

What the "ego" manifests is the "idea" you hold about the "physical image" of yourself as you exist in this world.

What the ego manifests is an idea you hold about the physical image, the bodily image, of yourself as you exist in this world. When you say "who am I," this ego is an idea you have about the physical image of the real you — the whole you — in this world.

Therefore, your self-image is not meaningless. On the contrary, you are quite clear about it.

You are not unconscious of this outer physical image. You are very clear about how it is constructed. But you will have some rejection or acceptance of the ego's image — you will feel that this part is quite good, but you are not satisfied with certain parts of yourself: I do not accept this part, this should not be me. This is a very mistaken idea.

A Rigid Ego

A false belief creates a rigid "ego," which insists on using the conscious mind in only one direction, further distorting its perception.

False beliefs make the ego very rigid, rigid to the point of pushing in only one direction. It was supposed to go around taking pictures everywhere, but now it only photographs one place, only looks at one place, never changes its focus, never changes its framing. This is what rigidity means.

In life you will find that there are often people like this: their life trajectory is quite rigid, and they only cling to one fixed idea. You try to tell them anything else, and they will not listen. Some people believe that money is the most important thing in this world, and all their life goals are about making money -- you talk to them about the soul, about spiritual pursuits, about intellectual pursuits, even about the most basic romantic life, and to them none of it matters, none of it is as important as making money. Their pleasure does not lie in spending money or enjoying themselves; their pleasure lies in making money. Then there are people who focus on relationships, and their whole lives rise and fall, circling around and around in the whirlpool of emotions.

Buried Thoughts

You often consciously bury a concept or idea that might change your behavior, because this concept or idea seems inconsistent with the limiting beliefs you already hold.

You often consciously bury good concepts and good ideas that might bring change to your development. Because these ideas and concepts are inconsistent with the limiting beliefs you already hold, you bury them. Once buried, change becomes impossible for you, and you develop in an even more rigid direction.

I want you, in the midst of your busy daily lives, to listen carefully to the continuous stream of your own thoughts. What kind of suggestions and concepts are you giving yourself? Do not forget that all of these will be materialized one by one in your personal experience.

In the midst of your busy daily life, listen carefully to the inner voice: what kind of concepts are you suggesting to yourself? Because all of these concepts you suggest to yourself will manifest one by one in your life experience.

Restrictive Beliefs Disguised as "Good"

Many quite restrictive ideas will escape your scrutiny under the disguise of the word "good." For example, if you hate evil, or detest what seems to you to be wicked, you may feel that this kind of virtue of yours is rather noble. But if you focus on "evil," or concentrate single-mindedly on "hatred," then you are creating them.

He is saying this very clearly. You think you are hating evil as you would an enemy, standing on the moral high ground to criticize others and attack others, but in fact you are creating evil and creating hatred.

Another example: if your family is poor, you may use poverty as an excuse to look down on those who are rich, telling yourself that "money is not a good thing."

We used to often have this kind of view: this person is rich, so the money surely did not come from a legitimate path; a legitimate path could not bring in this much money -- so money is not a good thing either. In this way, it actually causes you to become poorer on top of being poor.

Another example: if you are ill, you will find that you keep dwelling on this miserable condition, and feel both hatred and envy toward those who are healthy, while at the same time lamenting your own situation, thus through your thoughts making the illness last even longer.

These are all mistaken ideas. Here he gives some very typical ideas that seem good or relatively positive, but in fact behind them are all mistaken ideas -- some restrictive ideas are disguised within your beliefs under the appearance of goodness, or of being good, or of this kind of pitiable state, so that you do not notice that they are wrong.

Running Into Limitations Everywhere Within Limitations

If you dwell within limitations, you will run into limitations everywhere.

If you live within limitations for a long time, your life will be restricted everywhere. This is quite obvious.

Let me still give a simple example, a true story. There was a Christian girl whose relationship with her boyfriend was very good. But Christianity opposes premarital sex¹⁶, it is opposed according to doctrine, so she firmly held her bottom line and resolutely refused to have any premarital sex with her boyfriend. The two of them had a very good relationship, they loved each other, and they often lived together—you can imagine these young people, dry kindling and a raging fire, and at the critical moment she would stop abruptly: no, this is my religion, my belief absolutely cannot change.

You can imagine the result if this goes on: her boyfriend and she eventually broke up. If you have ever been in love, you can know what it would be like in this situation. But this girl would say that this boy completely did not understand her feelings and did not respect her faith. And the boy, when they broke up, said only one thing: "You are too selfish."

From this example you can see how much a belief restricts you in actual life. Such a religious belief will firmly restrict you. Let us not first talk about whether this is right or wrong, we will not comment on that here, only talk about the restrictions on you. Your soul and your life were originally supposed to be without limitations, but you have added so many limitations to yourself.

So what should you do at this time?

You must first create new pictures in your own mind. The new picture you establish will inevitably conflict with the pictures your senses tell you. These differences are exactly where you must put in the effort to change.

What does "new pictures" mean? It means you must change from within, and in your mind have a new picture of the future and of the present situation. This picture should conflict with, or be out of step with, the present moment that your actual senses perceive—because your current beliefs are still creating the present, and your new beliefs have not yet created a new reality. In this situation, there is a gap between the picture in your mind and your actual life. He says this gap is exactly where you must put in the effort: the ideal picture in your mind is like that, the picture in your actual life is like this, and wherever the difference between the two lies, that is where you go to change it.

Hating War Will Not Bring Peace

Then at the end he repeated once more a line he had said in Seth Speaks:

Hating war will not bring peace. Only loving peace can truly bring peace.

The Conscious Mind Is Not a Thing, but a Phenomenon

Let me finish the next session as well, since the next session is relatively short. There wasn't much said before it, just the simple introductions before class and Jane's feelings.

Session 616

We continue with our dictation. I am well aware that much of what I am telling you will conflict with the beliefs of some of you.

These are the people who have accepted the idea that "the conscious mind has relatively little power" and that "the answers to problems are hidden underneath."

Obviously, the conscious mind is not a "thing," but a "phenomenon."

It is essential to remember that the conscious mind is not a thing, but a phenomenon, and it is constantly changing.

The ego can focus it or turn it in countless directions.

This "it" refers to the conscious mind. The conscious mind is a phenomenon; it can perceive outer reality, and it can also turn inward to observe its own contents — it can look outward, and it can look inward.

Within this activity of the conscious mind there are various gradations and fluctuations.

Within the activity of the conscious mind, there are indeed various gradations and fluctuations, and its flexibility is far greater than you assume. Just as consciousness itself has fluctuations and undulations — if you have studied Chapter 18 of Seth Speaks, you will know this.

The ego can almost completely use the conscious mind as a method of perceiving outer or inner reality that conforms to its beliefs.

This sentence is rather long. The ego can almost — he uses "almost," so it is not absolute — completely use the conscious mind as what? As a method. A method of what? A method of perceiving outer or inner reality that conforms to its beliefs. Be sure to remember the qualifier that comes before: it must conform to its beliefs.

He is actually clearly explaining to you what the conscious mind really is.

The problem is not that certain answers are not openly available, but that you often set yourself upon a course of action that you believe in. You do not want to open yourself to accepting any material that might conflict with your current beliefs.

It is not that the answers do not exist; the answers are right there. The problem is this: you set yourself upon a course of action that you believe in, and you do not accept any material that might conflict with your current beliefs. You do not open yourself, you do not open up to accept it — so the answers are right there, and yet you cannot see them.

Illness and the Chosen Route

If you are ill, there must be a reason for it. To recover completely without developing new symptoms, you must find the reason why this illness arose. You may not like your illness -- no need for "may," no one likes their own illness -- but this illness is a "route" and "direction" you have chosen. As long as you believe this direction is necessary, these symptoms will remain with you.

This was very wise in ancient China. In ancient times, when you were sick you had to take medicine and brew Chinese herbal medicine. During the process of brewing the herbal medicine, if you were not bedridden and could still get out of bed, generally the patient had to brew the medicine himself. While brewing the medicine, the patient would think as he brewed: Why did I get this illness? What is the reason I got this illness? At that moment, he was actually doing what Seth is saying now -- reflecting on himself, finding the inner cause.

From another angle, when the smell comes out during the process of brewing Chinese herbal medicine, the medicine relies on that smell to treat the illness. If you understand Chinese medicine, one of the main mechanisms by which Chinese herbal medicine treats illness is using the smell as a guide. So during the brewing process, that smell serves as a preliminary guiding effect for the patient. By the time he finishes brewing, his state of mind has been adjusted, his attitude has been adjusted, and he also knows why he got the illness -- then he drinks the medicine, and the effect is much better.

Speaking of this, let me mention something off-topic. There was a person who got cancer, and he never got better. One day he read some spiritual material, and after reading it he talked to his own cancer cells. He said: "Cancer cells, let's the two of us have a talk. I haven't done much good in this life. Although I made a lot of money and built a big business, between us brothers, privately speaking, I really wasn't a good person. I did a lot of bad things, including some things that went against my conscience. But today I believe that you, cancer cell, were once a good cell -- you were originally a normal cell. Look, you are inside my body, not an infection from outside; you were born from within my own body. I believe you were originally a good cell, and it may be that because I did too many bad things, I dragged you along and turned you into a cancer cell. Now I want to discuss something with you: starting today, I want to be a good person, and I won't do bad things anymore. So let me discuss this with you -- can you also go back to being a good cell, and stop being a cancer cell? Let's the two of us make an agreement."

After saying this, from the next day on he changed. He no longer used that scheming, deceitful approach in business, and every day he began doing kind things. After doing this for a few months, his cancer really got better. There is a video of this; this person has a real name and a public reputation, and he recorded a video of himself. If you want to watch it, I can find it for you.

So this tells you something typical: a cancer that seems incurable can indeed be changed by changing your own beliefs. What he means is that if you do not change the established route of your behavior, that illness will always remain with you.

The reason he developed this illness may be due to one particular belief, or the result of many beliefs compounded together.

It may be one kind, it may be many kinds. Of course, these beliefs will seem like facts to you, not beliefs -- you do not feel they are beliefs; you feel they are facts.

Once you understand that you create your own reality, you must begin to examine these beliefs. And by releasing your conscious mind, let it freely examine its own contents.

What does it mean to release your conscious mind? It means not letting it be too narrow, not letting it look in only one direction, letting it be free, open, and flexible. Do not say, when it examines a certain place: this cannot be examined, leave this alone. Just as he said earlier, you have buried some good ideas -- when it wants to examine them, you do not let it; and some wrong ideas, you also do not let it examine them.

Psychoanalysis Is a Game of Hide-and-Seek

Later in the book I will explain the issue of health and illness in greater detail. But here, I want to point out one thing specifically for you: ordinary "psychoanalysis" is nothing more than a game of hide-and-seek.

Here, "ordinary psychoanalysis" refers to what we usually mean by things in psychology -- for example, going to see a psychologist, and the counseling the psychologist gives you.

In it, you continually give up your own responsibility for your behavior and your circumstances.

You do not admit that these things are your own doing; you do not admit that these things are all projected from within you. You attribute them to childhood, to past lives, to other people -- you give up that responsibility.

And you assign the fundamental cause of what happens to some area of your own psyche.

You assign the cause of things to a subconscious level deep within yourself -- childhood memories, or some other bad thing, something from the past, from past lives, from the dark forest.

You give yourself the task of finding out this secret.

You set yourself a task of uncovering this secret: I must find out what it is in the dark forest that has made me the way I am today.

You never think of looking within your own "conscious mind."

You never think of looking within your present state of consciousness, within your present beliefs. Because you have already assumed from the start that --

All deep answers must be hidden very deep, and your conscious mind not only cannot help, but will constantly set up disguises along the way of the search.

You think your conscious mind not only cannot help, but will also set up layer after layer of disguise during the search.

And so the game goes on and on.

So once you read this, you will understand that actually going to see a psychologist really cannot solve any problem. Seth basically holds a negative attitude toward many of the views in modern psychology -- he thinks you are playing a game of hide-and-seek between the self and itself.

If within this game of self-deception you have some awakening, and change your beliefs, then any appropriately "forgotten" event will serve as a catalyst, and each one will work very well.

What does this mean? In the process of seeing a psychologist, of playing this game with yourself, if one day you suddenly awaken -- awaken to what? That is, you realize that your reality is created by yourself, and that many of your current problems are caused by those wrong beliefs, wrong ideas, wrong thoughts, or limiting beliefs. Once you discover this, you will find that those forgotten things can all become excellent catalysts. What does "appropriately forgotten things" mean? It means the things you deliberately hid away and did not want yourself to see -- in other words, your negative beliefs. Dig them out, and each one works very well.

Basic Beliefs Are Hidden in the Conscious Mind

Yet your basic beliefs are always hidden in your conscious mind, and they have always been the cause of your various actions. You simply have never examined the contents of the conscious mind with this awareness -- that your beliefs are not necessarily reality, but are often your ideas about reality.

This passage is rather long and easily misunderstood. When we generally look at this kind of sentence from Seth, the simplest way is: first set aside the part between the dashes, and look at the core subject-verb-object. The subject-verb-object is: "You simply have never examined the contents of the conscious mind with this awareness." So what kind of awareness is it? The part between the dashes is a definition of that awareness: your beliefs are not necessarily reality, but are often your ideas about reality.

Your beliefs are only one kind of idea you hold about reality; your beliefs are not reality itself. You must examine your conscious mind with this awareness.

At the same time, in the game of "psychological analysis," you have been indoctrinated with a set program, making you deeply believe that the "unconscious" is the source of such dark weapons, and therefore cannot be relied upon as a breeding ground for any creativity or inspiration.

In the game of psychological analysis, you are also told not to trust the things of the unconscious, or not to treat it as a breeding ground for creativity or inspiration. Because it is itself the source of dark secrets, not anything good.

Therefore you also deny that those inner portions of yourself can give conscious assistance.

You also deny the assistance of that part of the inner self that can help you.

Usually when you truly become aware of and carefully examine your "conscious mind," you look at it through the beliefs you yourself have formed.

You will find that you are looking at it through the beliefs you yourself have formed.

Understanding that "your beliefs are not necessarily reality" can allow you to become aware of all the information you receive on a conscious level.

Your beliefs are not facts; they are only one kind of idea you hold about facts. You must make this distinction clearly.

No Need to Examine Yourself Every Spare Moment

I am not asking you to examine your own thoughts so diligently every spare moment you have; that would actually get in your own way.

It is not that you should do this every spare moment. If you scrutinized every single thought, you would not be able to do anything else; you would spend all day analyzing your own thoughts. It is not like that; it is not something to do whenever you have nothing else going on.

Unless you are aware of the contents of your conscious mind, you are merely a walking corpse.

You need to understand the contents of your own conscious mind — understanding it once through analysis is enough; you do not need to analyze it all the time, whenever and wherever you are. Analyze it once, recognize which of your beliefs are mistaken, remove them, and that is enough.

In addition, I want to emphasize another fact: your conscious mind is born with the dual function of "receiving data transmitted from the inner self" and "receiving data returned from the outside world."

He has already said this earlier. The conscious mind is like something riding between the inner self and the outside world, sitting on top of the wall, able to see information from both sides.

I am not asking you to suppress your own thoughts or feelings. What I am asking is this: you need to know what thoughts and feelings are in your own mind.

It is not asking you to suppress them — saying this belief is bad, so I will restrain it. No. I am asking you to know what thoughts and feelings are in your own mind, to truly see them.

I am helping you understand that these are the very things that create your reality. At the same time, I am also asking you to focus your attention on those thoughts and feelings that can bring you the results you desire.

This is stated very clearly — place your attention on the positive thoughts and feelings that can bring you the results you desire.

Looking Outward Works Too

If you find these difficult to do, you can also examine all aspects of your physical reality in detail. Your physical material environment and experiences are all concretizations of your beliefs.

When you cannot observe your own beliefs and thoughts inwardly, just look outward—the environment outside is the projection of your inner beliefs.

If you find that everywhere you look is full of vitality, health, efficiency, abundance, and everywhere you come into contact with are smiling faces, then you can safely tell yourself—your beliefs are beneficial.

If you are not very good at observing your inner self, then just look at your outside. If your outside is full of vitality, health, efficiency, abundance, and everywhere you come into contact with are smiling faces, then you can tell yourself: my beliefs are fine, they are beneficial.

If in your eyes the world appears beautiful, and you also feel that everyone likes you, then you can likewise be at ease—your beliefs are also beneficial.

But if when you look around what you see is illness, depression, lack, a world full of pain and evil, then you should assume that your beliefs have gone wrong, and begin to examine them.

At this point your beliefs have a problem. He says this very clearly: one is to look inward, and if you cannot do that, then look outward—both methods are taught to you.

We will discuss group reality later.

He has a book called The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, which discusses this. But here, he tells us to discuss only the individual level.

Key Points of This Chapter

Here come the key points:

The main point I want to make in this chapter is that conscious beliefs are extremely important. At the same time, I want to show that you are not at the mercy of events and causes far beyond your perception.

The first point: your conscious beliefs are the most important. The second point: you are not controlled by causes you do not know about, or causes you cannot control. Your present circumstances are entirely controlled by causes you yourself can understand -- they are all controlled by your beliefs.

So this chapter comes down to two sentences: conscious beliefs are extremely important, that is the first key point; the second key point is that the things in your present are not caused by those matters you cannot see, cannot touch, and cannot control -- they are caused precisely by the conscious beliefs you can see and touch right now.

Jane's Multiple Channels

Then we come to Jane's summary. Jane's summary is that she had a particularly strange thing happen -- her cat was also acting strange, and the people downstairs were listening to music, the music was especially loud, bothering them to no end. But none of these were very important. What was very important was that Jane had a sudden feeling.

Jane said she was receiving three different channels from Seth at the same time, and these channels even had directions. She sat in her rocking chair, pointed to her upper right, and said: "This channel is about this book." Then she pointed to her lower right: "Over here, ready-made, is material about Seth's comments on you, me, and Willy -- Willy is their cat -- and also the material you asked me about a few days ago regarding that painting you happened to have just done." And in this direction, she pointed to her upper left: "This is about the young man you just mentioned, the peer group issue -- including why young people feel their identification with peer groups, and so on."

She said she had three sets of material open at the same time, three channels coming in simultaneously. This also included the whole background of each matter -- every concept had a huge amount of material attached, all waiting to be transmitted.

For a while Jane really got confused in transmitting the material -- because the three sets of material came at the same time, and she didn't know which was which. Now she could clearly distinguish which was which.

She said Seth had already packaged and prepared the material for all three channels. She laughed and said: "Now you pick. What material do you want? Which channel do you want?" Then Rob and she were joking around. Rob said: "Let's be practical and not ask for anything. How about we get back to the book?" So he picked the channel for the book.

This information can serve as a reference for us: in the process of channeling, Jane's ability had improved again -- she now had the capacity to receive three sets of material simultaneously. This higher-dimensional state is not something we ordinary humans can understand from our usual perspective. People who have never experienced this would find it very hard to understand what it feels like to have three streams of information coming in at once.

As she was talking, a fourth channel came in. Seth said: "Let's not keep talking about this, or it will never end." He said these channels had no static interference, and there was no leakage between them -- each channel was crystal clear. Just as he was saying this, another one came in. She pointed to her lower left: this was a new channel, and this channel was an explanation of the current multi-channel phenomenon itself.

Jane said: "Just call me Radio J-A-N-E. You can tune in to any station you like -- wherever you tune, that's what you'll hear. All four of my channels are open at the same time. Whichever information you want to hear, I'll transmit that information to you."

This part is meant to help everyone understand: in the process of channeling, each person's abilities are different. Jane, at this stage, suddenly opened up this kind of ability to receive more channels simultaneously. In fact, it was more than just these four. We would find it very confusing, but she tells you that the content between these channels is not at all jumbled -- each is distinct, incredibly clear, with no leakage and no static interference whatsoever.

With that, the content of Chapter Two and these two sessions have all been introduced.

注释与核实

1. Source: Wikipedia "If You Are the One (film)" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Are_the_One_(film)) ↩

2. Source: The Bible, New Testament, Gospel of Mark, Revised Chinese Union Version (Simplified) (RCUVSS), Chapter 1 (https://www.bible.com/zh-CN/bible/140/MRK.1.RCUVSS) ↩

3. Source: Wikipedia "Conversations with God" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E8%88%87%E7%A5%9E%E5%B0%8D%E8%A9%B1) ↩ ↩²

4. According to Mike's original words, it was "in the United States it is generally a few hundred dollars per hour"; upon verification, it should be "the price of self-pay psychotherapy in the United States is not universally a few hundred dollars per hour. The national average self-pay rate for a single session with a private practice psychotherapist is about $143 (most in the $100–200 range); only in high-priced large cities or for initial psychiatric evaluations does it reach more than two to three hundred dollars per session." (Source: Zhu et al., "Insurance acceptance and cash pay rates for psychotherapy in the US," Health Affairs Scholar, https://academic.oup.com/healthaffairsscholar/article/2/9/qxae110/7750928) ↩

5. Source: Sally C. Curtin, Matthew F. Garnett / National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), "Suicide and Homicide Death Rates Among Youth and Young Adults Aged 10–24: United States, 2001–2021" (https://cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db471.htm) ↩

6. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ivan Pavlov | Biography, Theory, Conditioning, Dog, & Facts" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ivan-Pavlov) ↩

7. Source: IUPAC, "Discovery and Assignment of Elements with Atomic Numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118" (https://iupac.org/discovery-and-assignment-of-elements-with-atomic-numbers-113-115-117-and-118/) ↩ ↩²

8. Source: Wikipedia "Karma in Buddhism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism) ↩

9. This claim could not be verified. ↩

10. This claim could not be verified. ↩

11. Source: China News Service, "Party newspaper discusses the film 'Let the Bullets Fly': 'Earning money while standing' is very necessary" (https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2011/01-06/2769282.shtml) ↩

12. This claim could not be verified. ↩

13. Source: Fang Zhi Publishing House, "The Eternal Validity of the Soul (Seth Book)" translator introduction (https://www.books.com.tw/products/0010034552) ↩

14. This claim could not be verified. ↩

15. This claim could not be verified. ↩

16. Source: Catholic Church, "Catechism of the Catholic Church," paragraph 2353, "The Vocation to Chastity / Offenses Against Chastity" (https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_two/chapter_two/article_6/ii_the_vocation_to_chastity.html) ↩