The "Reading Guide" and "Chapter Highlights" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike during his lectures. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This chapter centers on the relationship among thoughts, beliefs, and the body. Through the case of Augustus's dual personality, it shows that repressed negative thoughts and aggression do not disappear, but instead accumulate energy, leading to distorted outbursts, illness, or personality splitting. Seth distinguishes natural guilt from artificial guilt, pointing out that the essence of aggression is forceful action and cannot be suppressed; "thou shalt not violate others" is the expression of natural guilt in human society. Demons are born from the projection of unnatural guilt; only by facing and releasing repressed thought energy can distortion be avoided.
Key Points of This Chapter
- Thoughts are electromagnetic structures formed by the convergence of energy; they magnetically attract like to like and directly influence the cells of the physical body.
- The true nature of aggression is forceful action; suppressing normal aggression accumulates energy, leading to distorted, explosive false aggression or illness.
- Natural guilt is a preventive measure, manifesting in human society as "do not violate others"; artificial guilt arises from the denial of negative thoughts and experiences.
- Demons are born from the projection of unnatural guilt, projected onto enemies, other races, or groups.
- Only by facing and releasing suppressed thoughts and emotions, allowing them to flow naturally, can energy blockages and distorted eruptions be avoided.
Main Text
Seth's Open Letter
We continue with our introduction to Chapter 8 of the Seth book The Nature of Personal Reality, "Thoughts, and the Birth of 'Demons.'" Today is the first part of our reading of Chapter 8, Session 633, held on the evening of Wednesday, January 17, 1973.
At the very beginning of this session, Seth first gave Jane and Rob a letter. This was a letter he had promised them in the previous session -- because after many readers saw Jane's book, they wrote in asking for help, and the letters kept piling up. Rob and Jane had to reply to every single letter, which took up a great deal of time; on the other hand, there were some things they genuinely could not resolve, and for certain extremely serious problems it was very difficult to help the person through letters. To help them get out of this predicament and pressure, Seth said: I will write a letter, to serve as a unified reply to all these reader letters. Rob and Jane could send this letter out as their response, and then add some personal views and insights tailored to each person's specific situation. That way they would not have to write so much, and could reply to many letters quickly.
Session 633
Let us look at how Seth wrote this letter:
Dear friend, thank you for your interest in my work and courses. I also know that you want to apply philosophy to daily life and action.
You see, Seth is very modest here -- he does not mention spirituality; he says philosophy, which is very interesting. He knows that for most people, the spiritual viewpoint is unacceptable, so he substitutes "philosophy" for it. Then he says:
However, these ideas are tools provided for your use. You can use them in your own way, and each person uses them differently. The more often you use these spiritual tools, the more skilled you will become in developing and fulfilling your unique talents.
You will find that Seth's emotional intelligence is extremely high. When he writes this kind of open letter or makes this kind of reply, he always uses language that everyone can accept, and he rarely mentions spiritual things. He uses "philosophy" and "spiritual tools" -- he treats his own content as a kind of spiritual tool.
Besides turning to me through this book or asking me for help, you can also turn to the people around you, your friends, your best friends, your close friends, or doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, or psychic people for help. Among these people, some can help you.
Seth says this in a very high-sounding way, but it actually carries a very deep meaning. What he means is that when you turn to the people around you for help, do not think that they have some insight or some level of attainment, or that they can answer your questions -- actually, the fragments of answers they give you may not necessarily come from them; they may be conveyed to you through them by your inner self or higher self. You just need to open your mouth and ask. As long as you ask for help, you should be able to find some of what you want. So when he says "among these people, some can help you," there are two layers of meaning here, and you need to understand that.
Although this kind of help may be more welcome, because they know you better. And the value of the help I offer is of a different nature.
That is to say, the help from the people around you may be more welcome, because those people know you better; while the value of Seth's material itself is different in nature. He says:
Broadly speaking, my most important message is this: you are a multidimensional personality. Within you, there is all the knowledge, challenges, and problems about yourself that you may need to know.
You are a multidimensional personality, a being of a multidimensional world. All the problems are within yourself; you do not need to seek outside. But --
Other people can help you in their own way, and at a certain level of your development, this kind of help is necessary and beneficial.
Be sure to remember that this kind of external help is also needed, and it is necessary, at different levels of your development. Then:
But my task is to remind you of the incredible power within your own existence, and to encourage you to recognize and use it.
Within you, there is incredible power. He has written so much Seth material and so many books, all for this purpose, just using different methods:
For this purpose, I have produced through Ruburt a continuous stream of Seth material and books, each serving these goals in a different way.
What goals? First, to recognize that you are a multidimensional being, and that you yourself live in a higher-dimensional, multidimensional world; second, that the knowledge about yourself can all be found within you, and you do not need to look outside; third, that within you there is incredible energy and power, and you need to discover it, recognize it, and use it.
In this book, The Nature of Personal Reality, there will be included techniques that will allow you and thousands of other people to use these ideas in daily life, to enrich the life you know, and to help you understand and solve problems.
This book is very practical. Then he says:
Although it may not seem so at present, the greatest gift I can give you is to reaffirm the integrity of your own existence.
The so-called integrity of existence is your multidimensional existence -- you have only recognized the physical side, and you have not recognized the nonphysical side at all, so he wants to give you a complete recognition.
I say this because I, like other parts of your own existence, understand your present identity and position.
I am just like your soul; I know the identity and position of this physical existence of yours; but I also tell you that you have other existences.
Then Seth mentions Jane. He says:
Ruburt has only so much time, and must concern himself with many things. I personally am aware of your letter.
Seth knows every letter that comes in, but this is of no use -- because he does not have a physical body; even if he knows, Ruburt still has to reply to them one by one. He says:
However, Ruburt cannot reply to each one personally, otherwise his work and mine would be affected.
Our work of writing books would be affected. Therefore:
I have written this brief letter to let you know that I hold you in my heart. When I receive your letter, I automatically send out energy to you at the same time. This energy will help you release your own ability to understand and heal yourself, or it will be of help to you wherever you need help.
This energy can help you understand yourself, and it can also heal you; wherever you need help, it will be of help to you. He says:
This energy is always available, whether you write to me or not. It will always help you understand yourself and heal yourself in the places where you need it.
Whether you write or not -- if you see this book, or hear this content, it is the same; this energy is always available. I think that those who have studied the Seth material for a long time, for example those who have read the interpretation of Seth Speaks, or those who have followed me in interpreting The Nature of Personal Reality up to this point, each person will have their own experience, and each can feel this energy of Seth's. Everyone has their own feelings, and I will not go into depth here.
This energy is always available, constantly and unvaryingly under your own command.
Once this energy is sent out to you, it is under your command. Then:
If you believe me, you will understand that others can at most serve as intermediaries.
Intermediaries are unnecessary, because the energy is always available in your life. I am only giving you the energy that is originally yours -- the energy I send out is actually the energy that already exists within you, the energy that is inherent within you.
The letter is finished, and at the end it is signed Seth. In this way, Rob and Jane's reply became very simple: attach this letter, and then write some of their own specific views according to the specific situation of the person who wrote in.
A Simple Experiment
After the letter business was over, Seth said, "Please wait for me a moment." Then Jane and Rob discussed the letter for a bit -- they felt that including Seth's letter in the book made sense, because it emphasized the importance of belief. Then Seth began dictating the real content of this chapter.
He said:
Try a simple experiment, and the result will be self-evident.
What kind of experiment?
Think of some sad event in your life. Similar emotions will quickly follow, and they will bring with them memories of other unpleasant events, strung together by association. The sights, the smells, the words, the phrases, the tones of voice -- perhaps already half-forgotten -- will suddenly come back vividly alive.
He described it very vividly. When you recall a sad event, it is as if you are living inside that sad scene again. Every detail of the scene is clear before your eyes, and your mood and your feelings are exactly the same as when you experienced the scene back then -- utterly sorrowful.
Your thoughts will appropriately trigger the appropriate feelings, yet beyond your awareness, they will also trigger the eternal, imperishable memories left by the cellular stimulation that occurred when those events happened.
Here he is talking about cellular memory. This was touched on at the end of the previous section -- cellular memory exists forever. Even if your hand was burned once when you were four years old, by the time you are twenty-seven, the cells in your hand will still remember it. It is not that your brain remembers it; your cells remember it. So this memory is eternal and unchanging. It can call up not only the memories in your conscious mind, but also the memories in your cells.
To some degree, a cellular memory is replayed, and for the body as a whole, it acknowledges the condition it was in at that time.
When a cellular memory is replayed, the whole body will also follow it back to the state it was in at that time. So whatever physical reactions you had then, when you recall them now, your body will still have the same reactions.
If you insist upon pursuing such sad thoughts, you are re-triggering that bodily condition.
Then the reverse:
If you think of the most pleasant event you have ever experienced, then the opposite result will occur. But the process is the same.
That feeling of pleasure, that feeling of happiness, will immediately fill your whole body. Energy will fill your whole body, and the changes in the body will follow accordingly.
The Structure of Thought
Seth continued:
Remember that these mental associations are alive. They are energy formed into invisible constructions.
These mental imaginings and memories of yours are indeed concentrations of energy, real and substantial.
The process you go through is as effective and complex as the organizational process of any group of cells.
Birds of a feather flock together, and people group by kind. The organization of these associations is the same as the process by which cells form into cell clusters. However:
Compared with cells, generally speaking, their duration is shorter.
These emotional associations last much shorter than cells do. Although in certain cases this is not necessarily so -- we know that some people suffer from depression, and that kind of emotion may persist for years or even decades, which is far longer than cells.
Your thoughts therefore form realities as cell-like as any. Their organization is different, and does not involve what you would call solidity.
The formation of your thoughts is the same as the formation of cells, only the organization is different: cells are physical tissue, while thoughts are electromagnetic organization. They do not involve solidity -- they are not solid -- but they are real and substantial, existing as truly as electromagnetic waves.
Just as cells have a structure and respond to stimuli, grouping according to their own kind, so do thoughts. Thoughts breed by association. They magnetically attract like to like.
Just like magnets, the same kind automatically attracts each other. At the same time:
And like some strange microscopic animals, they repel enemies or other thoughts that threaten their survival.
If you have ever seen very tiny microorganisms, single-celled organisms, or plankton, the way they repel enemies is by gathering together and driving other enemies out. A thought works the same way: one kind of thought will exclude thoughts that oppose it. Therefore, when a belief firmly occupies your mind, thoughts that oppose it cannot get in. The reason is that like attracts like -- thoughts are electromagnetic, and they also have this electromagnetic property.
Using this analogy, you can see that your mental and emotional life forms a framework composed of such structures, and these act directly upon the cells of your physical body.
Thoughts and beliefs can ultimately change a person's physical image. To what extent? Augustine had already conjured up two images, two selves had emerged -- all of this was entirely caused by his thoughts and beliefs.
Augustus: An Excellent Case Study
Here Seth returns to Augustus, the young man with the dual personality discussed in Chapter 6. Let us first recall the content of the earlier sessions in Chapter 6. Jane felt that Seth had abruptly ended the topic of Augustus at that time because he might bring it up again elsewhere, so he did not go into depth then. Now, sure enough, he picks it up again.
He says:
First of all, Augustus had been told in various ways: You think too much.
We often encounter this kind of thing in life -- "Why do you think about all this so much? Can't you do something meaningful? Wouldn't it be better to go earn some money? What's the point of studying and thinking about these things every day? Throw yourself into sports, be more outgoing." Such repeated comments, together with other childhood circumstances:
made him afraid of his own mental activity.
Because he felt that people were always saying "you should do something practical, don't keep moving around in the mental world," he neither dared to go deeply into his own mental activity, nor did he feel inferior -- he thought, how could he possibly have any good thoughts?
At the same time, he also felt inferior. Soon, this violent emotion accumulated.
But in his family:
they did not accept any method of releasing normal aggression.
His mother was very strict and did not allow this method of releasing normal aggression. This is the case in many families: children are not allowed to express their normal emotions and feelings; they must behave as obedient, well-behaved children. However:
when this intensified to the point where it could be felt, this violent kind of thing erupted.
The aggression had never been released, and in the end it erupted. If you remember the foreman discussed in the appendix at the end of Seth Speaks -- a worker who slept on the construction site, who kept enduring and enduring, and in the end might erupt -- it is the same principle. A small child's normal aggression, if you do not let him release it, will eventually erupt. But once it erupts, it has certainly gone too far, exceeding normal emotional expression. And this violent eruption made him believe even more that his nature was unacceptable.
This is what we often call "impulse is the devil." Actually, impulse is not the devil -- it is because when you have an impulse, you have not released the energy of the impulse; it has been accumulating there, suppressed to a certain degree, and when it finally erupts, it really is like a devil. If you normally express it well, treating aggression as a normal expression, there will be no final eruption.
Seth says:
In his normal state as a teenager, for a period of time, he tried harder and harder to be good, always expelling those thoughts and impulses.
What he meant by wanting to be good was to drive out those bad thoughts and impulses -- whether they were related to sex, aggression, or were merely unconventional. This kind of imagination is very common among young people today: many children in their teens, under pressure from parents and various external forces, become people-pleasing personalities, suppressing themselves and driving out everything they consider bad from their consciousness.
For example, things related to sex -- the impression and education our whole society gives teenagers tells them that sex is bad, that premature contact with sex is a very bad thing, so bad it is simply intolerable. Some parents, toward their daughters, are so extreme that they regard sex as a flood or a wild beast. The same with aggression: he had some emotions to express, but they were suppressed, because he felt that would be bad for others. Or merely unconventional thoughts -- anything inconsistent with the traditional mainstream would be considered bad. We have given such people a name: "non-mainstream," and we think non-mainstream is also bad, that everyone should be the same.
Augustus excluded all of these. However:
considerable energy was used to suppress this portion of inner experience.
These were all his real experiences, real emotions, real thoughts, but he suppressed them, saying these were all wrong and bad.
The denied mental practices did not disappear; their intensity increased, but they were blocked away from the safer ordinary thoughts.
You think you have driven them out, but actually they have only been suppressed, and they have been strengthened. In this way:
Augustus actually created a mental structure, organized according to the same principles I gave you during your rest period.
Seth explains here: Augustus created another mental structure; whereas another person, one with a different personality in other circumstances, might not do this, but instead:
a person with a different personality in other circumstances might damage a certain body organ, truly attacking, attacking this organ. Just as real as this organ might be attacked by a virus.
Augustus conjured up two personalities; while other people with different personalities might not conjure up two different personalities, but they might attack one of their own organs, causing organ damage. This attack is as real as a viral attack.
Such real examples do exist. I know of one example: a person who was oppressed by his family from childhood formed a people-pleasing personality. He was dissatisfied with many things, but in order to please his parents he kept suppressing himself. The final result was that at a very young age, a giant tumor weighing several kilograms grew on his kidney. Although it was benign, it was so large that his body was constantly ill from childhood -- the reason was actually that he had been suppressing himself all along, suppressing certain things in his thoughts, and had been attacking one of his own organs all along.
But Augustus was different:
However, Augustus's particular temperament and nature were a creativity that was inherently present but had not been developed according to convention.
He inherently possessed a creativity that did not develop according to convention. Therefore:
he formed and then destroyed a structure.
He was different from others: he did not attack organs or destroy things, but instead formed something new -- another Augustus Two was created by him. This is because everyone's personality is different; people with different personalities are different.
In his normal state:
he only accepted beliefs that he thought others expected him to accept.
This is very dangerous. Many of us are accepting "beliefs that others expect them to accept" -- beliefs that parents hope they will accept, that teachers hope they will accept, that mainstream social media hope they will accept. Such beliefs have not been examined or scrutinized. For example, a mother often tells her child: you must study hard, get into Tsinghua or Peking University in the future, and make a name for yourself. This is at the same time an expectation, a suggestion, and a subtle influence -- you can call it mind control or whatever you like, but the result is this: the beliefs he accepts are not his own, and are even beliefs he himself is unwilling to accept. But he has no choice but to accept them, so he accepts them.
Before he became a dual personality, there was a period:
his good-me thoughts and bad-me thoughts were competing for favor.
Just like what we often say: "two little people in the body, one righteous and one evil, fighting back and forth." Your body desperately tries to respond to constantly shifting contradictory ideas -- two little people, one good and one bad, constantly fighting back and forth. Because your beliefs affect your body, when beliefs keep changing back and forth, the body also changes back and forth, constantly switching, and in the end the body does not know what it is supposed to do.
As a result:
conflicting sets of thoughts and emotions finally took turns.
What does "taking turns" mean? It means "let's stop fighting, stop making trouble, stop conflicting -- let's agree, Monday, Wednesday, Friday Augustus, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Augustus Two; or this week you, next week me." Let's stop fighting back and forth, and take turns instead.
Although:
Augustus maintained his own integrity most of the time.
But:
the beliefs he had shoveled away, because like attracts like, were immediately seized upon by another mental structure.
The beliefs that the personality wanting to be good had discarded, because like attracts like, were tightly attracted by another mental structure. And this structure, like his original structure, was also composed of ideas and feelings:
with the same capacity for response as what you might think of as an invisible combination of cells.
That mental structure and cells respond to external stimuli through exactly the same mechanism.
The Separation of Weakness and Strength
In his normal state:
Augustus thought of himself as powerless.
Because he had given up normal aggressive action. Remember, aggression here is not negative—aggression is the source of all our drive, the source of all action. If a person has no aggression, then he has no capacity for action. Because he restricted himself and gave up aggression, he felt weak. And this belief activated the memory in the body's cells:
Making the body weak and thereby impeding its functions.
The belief "I am powerless" would make the body actually become weak, and then this weakness would impede the body's normal functions.
For a time, however, he moved slowly, sluggishly, but steadily, maintaining a balance suited to his present state.
He felt powerless and had no capacity for action, yet the body still had to maintain a kind of balance. At this point he became a person who moved slowly, was dull and wooden, but relatively stable.
Why did he have to maintain this sluggishness of action? Because:
He was even afraid that his body would lose control and commit a violent crime.
He was afraid that his body would lose control and commit violent acts, so he simply made his body weak and powerless—so powerless that even violent acts became impossible. Because he believed that his inner self was terrifying, that his mental world was impulsive and bad. This mental world often produced violent behavior in him—actually this was because his ordinary aggression had not been released, and only when it accumulated to a certain point did it produce violent behavior—and this violent behavior in turn reinforced his belief that "my inner self is bad." The more he suppressed his inner thoughts, the more violent tendencies he had, because he sensed:
The power of the thoughts and emotions he had abandoned.
He had abandoned his aggression, but aggression itself carried the power of thoughts and emotions, and he still sensed this power. So he felt that he might have violent tendencies at any moment. In order to prevent himself from doing anything violent, he simply made his body slow and weak.
You see, this is all negative feedback, linked in a chain, ultimately leading to this result.
Then:
When a crisis situation occurred, he fell into despair and began an acceleration that he pretended not to notice.
When an external crisis occurred, when others bullied him, he entered a state of despair. At this point he began an "acceleration that he pretended not to notice"—he actually did notice it. What kind of acceleration? The birth of a second personality. And so Augustus Two was born.
Augustus Two was filled with a sense of power.
Because he believed that power was wrong, he separated this power-filled Augustus Two from himself: "The power that Augustus Two possesses is wrong power, it has nothing to do with me." In this way he formed a split personality, a second personality—he believed this was not him, that this was an alien from another planet.
However:
Augustus himself knew that the body needed the vitality he refused to give it.
Seth's words are always particularly convoluted. What this means is: his body needed vitality, but his consciousness refused it—"You cannot have vitality. If you have vitality, you will do bad things, you will commit violent acts." So the body could not get that vitality. Therefore Augustus Two had to appear:
With his great ideas of his own extraordinary power, vitality, and superiority.
Then Seth said with a smile:
I keep my two Augustuses quite distinct, and I hope you do too.
The two personalities were kept very clearly separate; they had completely different characters.
And with the special heroic-action fantasies and memories that Augustus himself had denied.
What Augustus Two carried were the special heroic actions and fantasy memories of that personality that Augustus had denied. Augustus had conveniently forgotten the aggressive acts, and now:
They were remembered with great delight by Augustus Two.
Because as was said earlier, these things had not been forgotten; they had merely been suppressed. The moment the personality of Augustus Two emerged, he picked up all the aggressive things. As a result:
The chemical nature of his body immediately revived, muscle strength improved greatly, and even his blood sugar levels changed.
Even blood sugar changed. Blood sugar determines the body's energy, so the energy flowing through the body also changed.
Seth said:
I know that when Ruburt met Augustus, the young man identified his own left side as Augustus Two. In his normal state, that half of himself contained more tension than the right side.
The left side was more tense than the right, because he believed the left side was Augustus Two. In Augustus Two, this tension was released:
And after the initially triggered activity, the flow of energy became smooth. However, the longer Augustus Two stayed, the weaker his position became, a fact that both Augustus and Augustus Two realized.
What this means is: after the crisis occurred, Augustus Two came out to help Augustus solve the problem—he exercised and released the aggression. Once the aggression was released, the flow of energy became smooth. With the aggression gone, the character of Augustus Two was no longer so pronounced. So the longer Augustus Two stayed, the more energy he released, the weaker the aggression became, and the weaker his position became—because this no longer matched his character: Augustus Two was supposed to feel strong and powerful.
Then Seth said a key sentence:
Augustus had to accumulate enough suppressed thoughts and emotions through a situation he could not handle. This threat then brought about the emergence of Augustus Two.
There had to be a situation he could not handle before enough suppressed thoughts and emotions could accumulate, and then this would trigger the emergence of the second him.
The Body Acts as You Believe It Must
Then Seth explained the core principle:
The body acts as you believe it must.
Therefore:
Augustus and Augustus Two, with their alternating behavior patterns, caused the body to react in quite different ways.
They appeared alternately, and the body's reactions were also quite different. Then Seth said, for now, set aside this split situation:
Imagine instead that you have a continuous stream of thoughts and emotions. When you feel weak, you are weak; when you feel joyful, your body benefits and grows strong.
The example of Augustus merely shows, in an exaggerated form, the effect your beliefs have upon the physical image.
Hearing this, you might have this thought: since beliefs affect the body, then we should just think only good thoughts and not bad ones, right? Just want positive thoughts, and stop thinking about the bad ones, or simply ignore them.
Seth said: when you think this way, think carefully — what essential difference is there between what you are doing and what Augustus once did? Aren't you just imitating Augustus, walking down Augustus's old path? Augustus at the very beginning believed that certain of his thoughts were so evil that they must be made nonexistent at all costs. You have merely replaced his "aggressive thoughts" with "bad thoughts," but the approach is the same.
So in spiritual study, you must be subtle and then even more subtle; you must deeply understand the final underlying principle. This is also why the Seth material is different from other materials — he repeatedly goes into the principles behind things, explains why things are the way they are. Because if you don't understand the principle, and only grasp some surface details and forms, what you end up with are actually mistaken views. For example, "maintain positive thoughts, don't think about bad things, be positive and optimistic, be righteous and glorious every day, root out your bad thoughts completely, remove them from your mind, think only good things" — our society is now full of this kind of stuff, the so-called psychologists, psychological mentors, spiritual mentors, positive chicken soup for the soul.
Many people don't understand why this chicken soup is said to be harmful, why it is called toxic chicken soup. It is not an exaggeration to say they are toxic — they really are toxic. Where is the toxicity? Right here: telling you that you can only think good, positive thoughts, not bad ones, and that bad things must be eliminated. Once this belief is deeply rooted in your heart, the eventual development is truly terrifying.
So you will find that the line between right and wrong is extremely blurry. Many people, before studying Seth, think: since beliefs create reality, then we'd better all have positive beliefs — otherwise the reality created would be so horrible, so unsightly, so filthy and vile. Why can't we use hearts like the Holy Spirit, the Holy Father, the angels, to create our world?
Seth in this chapter — whose title is "Thoughts and the Birth of 'Demons'" — tells you exactly this: if you do not make good use of those thoughts you consider "right" and "good," the final result will instead produce demon-like outcomes. This is the key point of this session.
He said:
Thus suppressing those thoughts you consider negative is, like Augustus, or assuming they are so terrible, not the answer.
Why didn't you consider that these negative thoughts might be the answer to certain things? You just didn't dare to look at them.
The Trap of "Perfection"
Then Seth says:
Now, your beliefs about what is desirable and what is not, what is good and what is bad, cannot be separated from the condition of your body.
Your beliefs are a materialized expression of your body. He says:
Your own values can help you achieve health or bring about illness, bring success or failure, happiness or sorrow into your experience.
These are all determined by your values. But:
Yet each of you will interpret this last sentence according to your own value system.
Each person has their own definite ideas about what success and failure, good and bad, are.
Your own value system is built up from your beliefs about reality and those beliefs that form your experience.
Then he gives a key assumption:
Suppose you believe that to be good you must try to be perfect. Perhaps someone told you, or you read somewhere, that the psyche is perfect. So you think it is your responsibility to recreate that perfect psyche in the flesh as best you can.
You have been told by mainstream society or something else: the human psyche is beautiful, it is whole, everyone should maintain the heart of a child. If you believe this, that the psyche is perfect, and then want to recreate this perfect psyche in the body. To achieve this:
You attempt to deny all imperfection.
Because you think the psyche is perfect, your world should be perfect. So you deny all imperfect thoughts and emotions. Your own negative thoughts frighten you -- when you have negative thoughts, they terrify you: "How could I have such negative thoughts? My thoughts should be perfect, I should always be positive and upbeat."
Perhaps you have even come to believe Seth's theory -- that thoughts create reality. But once you accept this theory, you may become even more afraid of mental or physical expressions such as aggression. You are afraid of hurting others, almost afraid to think or move: someone insults me, I want to snap back; someone hits me, I want to slap back -- "Oh no, that won't do. My beliefs create reality, so any arising thought or impulse is bad. I shouldn't be like this."
Seth says:
Trying to be perfect all the time may be far more than annoying.
If we demand perfection in every aspect of life, we may become obnoxious to others. We often joke that Virgos pursue perfection, too fussy, too nitpicky, demanding perfection in everything, and few people or things meet their standards. But Seth's point is that demanding perfection everywhere in life is not just a matter of being annoying:
Because of your misunderstanding, it can bring about great disaster.
Why? He explains below. Then he says about the word "perfect" itself:
The word "perfect" sets many traps. First of all, it presupposes something finished, something that cannot be changed, that cannot be moved, improved, or created.
Because perfection -- so-called perfection is something where "one bit more would be too much, one bit less would be too little." How can you change it, move it, create it, improve it? It is a dead thing, a dead object.
It tells you that the psyche is always in a state of becoming, of change, of flexibility. This is also the natural state. In your terms it has no end, and just as it has no beginning, it also never had a point of beginning.
It has neither end nor beginning.
Then Seth quotes something Jane said recently. Jane said:
If I can be certain of one thing about physical reality, it is that nowhere in this three-dimensional world is anything close to perfect.
Seth says, then let me borrow Ruburt's words, using the same meaning:
The psyche is not perfect either. To meet the demand of perfection, the psyche would have to be fixed in a finished state, with no possibility of going beyond it to further completion and creation.
It would be dead -- not dead in the sense of a person dying, but your psyche would be dead, no longer developing, lifeless.
Thoughts Are Like Weather
Seth says your thoughts are like this too, just as imperfect as the psyche:
You may agree with them or not. If, for example, you leave them alone the way you do your thoughts about a rainstorm, then your thoughts will be as varied as a typhoon, a flower, a flood, a toad, a raindrop, or a patch of fog -- magnificent, trivial, terrifying, splendid, or glorious.
This passage uses a lot of metaphors to tell you that thoughts have many states and are of all kinds. They may be grand and great, or they may be trivial, terrifying, shrunken, and shameful, or they may be splendid and glorious. These are all your thoughts. Some you approve of, some you do not. But:
Your thoughts do themselves perfectly.
Your thoughts do not care about you; they just do themselves. If you do not try to control them, they will come and go freely, drifting in and out as they please. The more you judge them, the more they refuse to leave.
So what is the conscious mind for?
Your conscious mind is meant to sort through those thoughts and decide which ones to form into your belief system.
Which ones you decide to accept and approve of -- that is your value system. What is called a value system and a belief system is determined by a whole series of judgments of right and wrong, from small to large and from large to small. You think this thing is good and that thing is bad, and after this whole series of choices, what finally forms is your worldview. You may never have carefully examined these choices, but the result they ultimately form is your value system and worldview -- or what is also called your belief system; they are all the same thing.
But Seth says:
In so doing, you should not pretend to be blind.
He gives an example:
You may sometimes wish a rainy day were sunny, but you will not stand at the window and deny that the rain is falling, or that the air is cold and the sky is overcast.
You want a sunny day; that is a good belief, a good thought, and there is nothing wrong with it. But you cannot fool yourself into thinking that the rainy weather you are facing is invisible; you cannot deny its existence. You like sunny days, and we hope for sunny days -- that is normal. But you cannot therefore deny the existence of cloudy days, deny the fact that the rain is still falling, deny that the sky is overcast and the air is cold. These are all facts.
What does this example tell you? Having a good thought and a good expectation is perfectly normal; but you also cannot deny that in this process, there are some undesirable elements in your thoughts as well. You have to acknowledge that reality. Cloudy days always pass; it cannot stay cloudy and rainy forever. If you do not fuss over it, in a couple of days it will naturally be sunny again.
Just because you accept the rain as a present reality does not mean you believe there will be storms every day.
Rain is a present reality, but that does not mean you believe it will rain every day. And what turns an obvious misunderstanding into part of the belief in reality is when you take your present feeling and extend it outward, thinking that this is what reality looks like -- that is your belief.
In other words: your thoughts have a bad side, a dark side, an ugly side, but you cannot say that this is your entire thinking. You have to acknowledge that it is the storm in your thinking, the cloudy day in your thinking, the shameful part of your thinking -- that is the first thing: acknowledging its existence. The second thing is this: you acknowledge its existence, but you firmly believe it is not the whole of your belief system. You cannot say that because I have seen the filthy side of my thoughts, my entire thinking is filthy; because I have seen my decadent side, my whole person is decadent. Just as when you see the cloudy side of the weather, you cannot think that every day from now on will be cloudy.
Many great philosophers, including those in Buddhism, often use this example as well. But many people in real life tend to think exactly this way. This is their fear -- they are afraid of these negative thoughts and bad ideas, and the reason is that they are afraid this is part of their thinking. Seth tells you: it is fine, just openly acknowledge it. Who has never had a few cloudy or rainy days in their life? There will always be a few bad days in a year; that is perfectly normal.
Therefore:
You do not have to pretend that a dark thought does not exist, nor do you have to pretend you do not see it.
Nor do you have to ignore it, treat it as nonexistent, or refuse to deal with it. Why do you not dare to look at it? Because you are afraid that all your thoughts will be dark and filthy, afraid that you will take it as fact, so you do not dare to look. You find ways to hide it away, bury it deep -- "This must not be exposed; if others see it, or if I see it myself, I will think, how could I be that kind of person?" -- but it is just a thought. How does it become "you are that kind of person"? What does it have to do with "you are that kind of person"? In this life you have had countless thoughts and countless ideas.
Fear of Snakes and Fear of Thoughts
Seth then gives a very apt example:
Some people are afraid of snakes, even the most harmless kind. And they fail to see their beauty and their place in the universe.
Some snakes are not venomous, but many people are still afraid of them. If you are afraid of them, you cannot see their beauty, nor can you see the place snakes hold in the entire universe. Snakes have a very important significance spiritually — look at all those ancient rituals and kings: the scepters in their hands all had a snake coiled around them, or two snakes, or one snake. Snakes are a very important existence spiritually. We will not go into that here.
He says:
Some people are afraid of certain thoughts, and therefore also forget their beauty and their place in the spiritual world.
Just like being afraid of snakes: when you see a snake, you cannot avoid it fast enough, you cannot even talk about it, and some people dare not even watch images of snakes on television. Because you cannot see its beauty, cannot see its place. It is the same with your thoughts — you cannot see the place of what you call negative thoughts and negative emotions in your spiritual world, their place and their function within the structure of your thinking.
Since you have all kinds of thoughts, they all have their reasons.
You must remember this sentence. Since all kinds of existences are there, each has its own reason, just as you have all kinds of terrain: there are flat plains stretching as far as the eye can see, there are hilly areas, there are high mountains and canyons, there are oceans and deserts, and there are fertile oases. It is the same with our thoughts.
In your world, it is very foolish to deny the existence of certain thoughts.
You must remember this. It is like pretending the desert does not exist. In real life, the desert is certainly not good — barren land, not a single benefit — but if you say, "Let us pretend the desert does not exist" — that is a foolish idea. How could it not exist? It is right there.
When you follow such a path, you deny a dimension of experience and diminish your reality.
When you deny certain bad thoughts, you have already denied the experience those negative thoughts bring, and your reality is diminished — you can only see a part of your life. In other words, if someone thinks chili peppers are bad, that eating spicy food is bad for the body and causes internal heat, then he will forever lose the pleasure of eating chili peppers, and will never understand what the happiness of eating a hotpot feels like. It is the same principle.
But Seth is not telling you to go collect negative thoughts:
Just as you do not like the desert, and you do not like a certain thought, you also do not need to spend a month in the desert.
You do not need to deliberately collect these negative thoughts.
He does mean that within the nature you understand, there is nothing that is meaningless, or that you should pretend does not exist.
Within nature, there is nothing that is meaningless, or that you should pretend does not exist. It is the same with your thoughts — those thoughts you consider bad also have their meaning.
Dwelling Nowhere, the Mind Arises
Finally Seth said: "You may end the session now, or take a break, as you wish." Then he added one more line. Earlier in this book it was mentioned that Jane had thought of another book, a book about the psyche -- The Politics of the Psyche. She wrote an outline, talked with the publisher, the publisher signed a contract, and even paid an advance. At this point Jane was a little worried, afraid she couldn't write it, afraid it wouldn't be good enough, and also worried about the current book. The first six chapters of the current book had already been sent to the editor, and the editor had written back to encourage her. So Seth here was giving her a boost:
I told you, this book is fine. Now Ruburt, tell Ruburt this: Yes, but who listens to me?
This was also, in passing, emphasizing Jane's negative thoughts: no need to keep worrying about whether the book would come out well, whether anyone would read it, whether she could finish writing it, whether anyone would like what Seth wrote. And now the key point of this session -- you should be able to feel it now -- is very simple:
Your positive thoughts and negative thoughts are like storms and weather. You just let them come, let them go. Let them come as they will, let them go as they will.
When I say this, you may immediately think of something very familiar from the Buddhist classic, the Diamond Sutra. Subhuti asked the Buddha: All the good men and good women in the world want to cultivate themselves to the state of a bodhisattva. How should they practice? Shakyamuni said: Very simple. As long as they give rise to the bodhicitta, the mind of universal liberation, that is enough. Subhuti said: Yes, what you say is true. But amid the myriad beings of this world, how can we settle this bodhicitta within ourselves? How can we maintain the mind of universal liberation at all times? If the mind is unsettled, what can we do?
At that point the Buddha spoke the most classic line:
Dwelling nowhere, the mind arises.
It is said that the Sixth Patriarch Huineng attained enlightenment upon hearing this one line.1 The Sixth Patriarch himself was said to be illiterate -- though this cannot be verified -- and when he heard someone expounding the scriptures, upon reaching this line he suddenly awakened to the Way.
"Dwelling nowhere, the mind arises," expressed in Seth's terms, is stated very clearly: whether good thoughts or bad thoughts, you just let them come, let them go. Don't discriminate, saying this is a good thought and that is a bad thought. Coming and going, they come as they come and go as they go.
Here let me tell you an interesting side story. On YouTube you can search for a teacher named Yang Ning -- Yang Ning is a woman, also a lay practitioner, with her own understanding of the Buddhist scriptures. She has lectured on the Diamond Sutra and also on the Shurangama Sutra.2 In one segment, during casual conversation, she said: Many people, upon entering the first stage of practice, will say, "Now I am meditating, now I am entering samadhi. I am like a tree in this valley, able to feel the beauty of nature. I can feel the wind moving through the valley, passing through my branches and leaves," and so on -- he is describing his perception as a tree.
Then Yang Ning said to him with a smile: Then why didn't you ever think of being the wind? Why must you be the tree?
Her words carry deep Zen meaning. What she means is: Why do you insist on becoming something unmoving? Why do you insist on fixing yourself in one place, becoming a tree, a stone? Why do you insist on pursuing that state of perfect stillness? Why can't you be as free and unrestrained as the wind? And the wind itself, it truly is still within its movement.
So now, when you want to understand Seth's viewpoint, just think of what I just said: Are you a tree, sitting fixed in place, unmoving? Or are you the wind -- drifting here and there, formless, traceless, shadowless wind? Do you want to be the tree, or do you want to be the wind? Does the tree better match your true nature, or does the wind better match your true nature? What Seth means is to tell you this: your true nature, the nature of the soul, is like the wind, not like the tree, not like that unmoving thing.
The True Nature of Aggression
The content of this session is very important, because it makes a core point: what kind of guilt we humans should have, and what kind of guilt we should not have.
Session 634
Everyone has a slightly different definition of negative emotions.
Everyone's view of negative emotions is different. For example, one person might find sexually provocative thoughts pleasant, and regard them as one of his favorite pastimes. This is quite normal. If we go to Las Vegas, for instance, we can watch its shows—all kinds of exotic dance performances, very spectacular and beautiful, and the Cirque du Soleil shows as well, all quite stunning. But if these things were placed in certain other countries or places, if performances with too much exposure were involved, they would be considered unclean, bad, unhealthy, and harmful to people. For example, in some Islamic countries, these performances, including advertisements, would absolutely never be allowed to contain such revealing or provocative material. So this is simply different beliefs, with different definitions in different eyes.
Some people can easily and with gusto imagine themselves fighting and arguing with others, mercilessly beating the other person up.
You know there are plenty of young punks who, when they were young, took fighting as a pleasure—gang fights, picking fights over nothing. We often joke that if you walk down the street in certain places, you might just glance at someone, and the other person says, "What are you looking at? What are you looking at?" and a fight can actually break out over that. Why? Because some people find it thoroughly enjoyable to get into a spirited fight with someone and give the other person a good beating.
The same thought, however, fills another person with extreme fear and a heavy sense of guilt.
The exact same thing, in another person's view, is extreme fear, and there is a deep sense of guilt in it: how can you just hit someone? Hitting people is absolutely wrong, and they have been taught this since childhood. So his sense of guilt is very pronounced—even thinking about it is inappropriate.
Yet would this same person, under normal circumstances, consciously entertain fantasies of this nature?
Which person is he talking about? The one who has a deep sense of guilt and fear about the violent thought itself. He detests violence intensely, and is very fearful and guilt-ridden about violent conflict itself. Under normal circumstances he would not deliberately entertain such thoughts; he would not even think about them. But if in a state of war, after he becomes a soldier, he might imagine himself killing the enemy filled with sacred joy and a sense of righteousness.
You know many soldiers are very young, maybe eighteen or nineteen, or in their early twenties. He is actually still a child, and in ordinary times he is a gentle, well-behaved child of his parents. But on the battlefield, he kills with a sense of righteousness and sacredness, kills with joy. Any country will define its own wars as just, and then there will be a great deal of literature, film and television works, poetry, and songs extolling this act of killing the enemy, endowing it with a very lofty sense of righteousness and joy—how many of the enemy were wiped out.
People often forget the true nature of aggression, whose real meaning simply refers to forceful action.
We have forgotten aggression—Seth says the true nature of aggression refers to forceful action; he does not mean actually invading others or killing people. This is a principle we must understand: aggression means forceful action, not killing.
This does not necessarily imply physical force, but only the impelling of energy force into a specific action.
So-called aggression, if we were to define it, is the impelling of energy force into a specific action. This process itself, or this matter, is what we call aggression. It is not the aggression we ordinarily understand—beating someone up, killing the other person, or inflicting a powerful violation on the other person's body and psyche. None of that. We must understand this: the true nature of aggression is forceful action.
In your terms, within your reality system, birth is perhaps the most forceful aggression you can carry out.
The event of our coming out of our mother's womb is perhaps the most forceful aggression we can carry out. You must understand that this is what it means.
Likewise, the growth of any idea into physical realization is the result of creative aggression.
The growth of any idea into physical realization—that is, manifestation—when we turn an idea into something that exists in real life, when a dream comes true, that is also the result of your creative aggression. This matter itself, the manifestation from the invisible world into the visible world, is in itself your creativity acting aggressively.
It is impossible to stamp out true aggression, and to do so would annihilate life as you know it.
You must remember this. If there were no aggression, our lives would cease to exist, because there would be no capacity for action at all.
Any attempt to impede the flow of true aggression results in a distorted, unbalanced, explosive pseudo-aggression.
If you try to impede true aggression, it will result in a distorted, unbalanced, explosive pseudo-aggression. If your true aggression has not been expressed, has not been exercised, has not been released, and you have suppressed it or inhibited it, then in the end it will lead to an even greater explosive pseudo-aggression. This aggression is not true aggression; it is a false aggression built up from accumulation and suppression. But this pseudo-aggression is actually greater and stronger than true aggression. What does it ultimately lead to? War, personal neurosis, and many other problems in various areas.
Normal aggression flows with strong patterns of energy, giving motive power to all of your thoughts, whether you consider them positive or negative, good or bad.
Normal aggression flows along with energy, and when it flows like this, it does not get blocked. Normal aggression, carried by energy, gives your thoughts their motive power, allowing your thoughts to act. Without this aggression, your actions would have no driving force; you would just be fantasizing there every day, without any action.
The same thrusting creative energy brings these thoughts to life.
Our creativity is also stimulated by these thoughts.
When you consider a thought good, you usually do not question it; you allow it to have its life and continue to think it. When you consider a thought bad, or beneath your dignity, or shameful to you, then you usually try to deny it, stop its activity, and hold it back unexpressed.
For thoughts we consider good, we allow ourselves to keep thinking them, to let them continue. If we think a thought is bad, we deny it, keep it from acting, pretend not to see it, or push it down and suppress it.
But you must understand that the moment you have a thought, there is energy behind it driving it. Energy drives your thoughts, and that is what gives you this motive power. Yet you hold it down and press it down, and you cause a suppression of energy. But you cannot suppress energy.
Although you may think you can suppress energy, you are only collecting it, and there it grows, waiting for an outlet.
Regarding this issue, Seth also spoke about it very clearly in the early sessions. Let me give a vivid example: your emotions, including your thoughts, whether good or bad, are all the same. If you let them flow through naturally, they simply pass. But if you suppress a thought, what shape does it become? It is somewhat like being in a place where all four sides are mirrors.
Seth once called such a thing a psychic corral. Whatever we call it, just imagine a container—a sealed container with mirrors on all four sides. Then if one small thought of yours is suppressed, and you plug the mouth of this bottle, the thought will keep reflecting endlessly inside this container.
If you have studied a bit of basic physics, you know that this is how our lasers are produced. The latest laser weapons—many countries have demonstrated them, the United States and China both have—can directly penetrate a steel plate perhaps half a meter or one meter thick from dozens of kilometers away3. You can imagine how strong that energy is. I cannot remember the exact figures, but the energy of these laser weapons is extremely strong.
And how did laser weapons come about? The most basic principle is that there is originally an energy, and inside this sealed container it reflects continuously, countless times, and then under the excitation of special inert gases, this energy produces excitation and generates a stable light of a specific frequency. Because natural light contains all kinds of frequencies, a very broad spectrum—the spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. But a specific laser frequency is fixed, because under the excitation of specific inert gases, the light interacts with that gas to produce excitation. The laser emitter is precisely this: inside this specific container, it reflects continuously and strengthens continuously—each reflection strengthens it once, and if it reflects ten million times, it is strengthened ten million times.
Our emotions, psyche, and thoughts are in exactly this state. Because it is itself an energy—you must think of it as an energy. Your thought is not just a thought; it is itself an energy. You must remember that it is an energy.
At this point, if you give it an outlet and let it out, it passes, and the matter is over. If you insist on suppressing it, then it will keep reflecting and reflecting inside this container. You can imagine that when it reflects to a certain degree, it will explode. In the end, no one can suppress this energy anymore. The bottle mouth you could originally plug can no longer contain it, and with a "bang," even the container will be blown apart—even the person will be blown apart.
This is how many people eventually go mad, lose their temper, and in the end are completely overwhelmed by rage. This kind of thing is very common. We often see cases in the social news: a frail woman, under long-term domestic violence from her husband, may eventually fight back and directly kill her abusive husband. Ordinarily, people find it hard to imagine how a weak woman could kill a big, strong man weighing one or two hundred pounds, but under specific circumstances, perhaps after waiting for her husband to fall asleep, she can kill him. This is a kind of excitation of energy and emotion; after reaching a certain point, it becomes like this.
All right, once you understand this principle, you know that you must give thoughts an outlet. Do not think that you can suppress thoughts, and do not think that you can suppress the energy of thoughts. You think you can, but in fact you absolutely cannot. You are merely putting it in a container and hiding it there. Maybe you have not paid attention to it recently, and it has not done anything yet, but if you encounter something similar in life, or something related to this matter, that gives it new stimulation and lets it keep growing.
Suppose, then, that I feel like killing my boss, or putting poison in my husband's tea, or worse—instead of hanging towels on the clothesline, hanging up my five children—are you saying that I should go ahead and do it?
Seth gives another extreme example. If you have such extreme thoughts as the above, then Seth says, then just go ahead and act according to your thoughts, act according to your energy, carry out your most primal aggression—Seth is giving himself a counterexample here, asking whether in this situation we should actually go and do it.
I sympathize with your predicament. In fact, before you were attacked by such seemingly frightening and unnatural thoughts, you had already blocked out all kinds of far less intense thoughts, any one of which you could have expressed quite safely and naturally in daily life.
In your daily life, you could have released this aggression of yours. For example, when your boss criticized you, you should have talked back the first time; you should have spoken out your dissatisfaction the first time. Many people, when their boss criticizes them—perhaps not intentionally, perhaps the boss does not understand the situation, or out of managerial necessity has to criticize you in front of many people—many people at such times choose to suppress themselves and not act out. Even if the criticism is wrong, they will not refute it, and they just endure it. This kind of forbearance may seem like a wise office philosophy, or a sign of maturity, but in fact it is not. This seemingly mature sign is actually a sign of immaturity, and it causes your emotions to be suppressed.
Then next time, your boss may criticize you again, and you may endure it again. You will think, last time I endured being criticized in front of so many people; this time there are not even that many people, so I will endure it again. Then you will think: I still have a mortgage to pay, and if I lose this job, my finances will fall into difficulty, so to avoid losing this job, I will endure it a little longer. And so, time after time, you accumulate your anger toward your boss until finally even the thought of killing him has appeared.
Actually, what grudge or enmity do you really have? It is all about work. The boss has the boss's work, and you have your work. He has his pressures, his task targets, his KPIs to meet, and you have yours. Conflicts in between are all very normal; deal with the matter at hand, deal with the work at hand. If you are dissatisfied, just say it directly. If the boss misunderstands you, does not understand your current approach, or completely misinterprets what you are doing, then you should speak up. It is also possible that you do not understand the boss's meaning, and the boss has some valid reasoning; you just think he is deliberately making things difficult for you or giving you a hard time—maybe his pressure is far greater than yours. Then you should give him an outlet, and you have an outlet too. In this way, communication is actually beneficial. This is very natural; you should express yourself naturally.
Your problem, then, is not how to handle normal aggression, but how to handle it when it has been unexpressed, ignored, or denied over a long period of time.
But the problems we generally encounter are not normal aggression. Take the small problems between husband and wife in a family, for example: generally, a woman who is a victim of domestic violence—if her husband had been violent toward her from the very beginning, when they were dating, she certainly would not have married him. So at the beginning he must have been good to her, with sweet words and honeyed phrases. Then why did the tendency toward domestic violence appear after marriage? It must be that during this process, she had a pattern of yielding, which made her husband feel that violating her was possible and permissible. So she yielded to him on small matters, and then yielded to him on big matters, and then yielded to him when he verbally insulted her. In the end, it might be a light shove, then a push, and finally it becomes violent assault.
These things are all built up step by step. If at the very beginning, when he first spoke to you disrespectfully, you had fought back, I believe that under normal circumstances he would not have gone further. And if it had gone to the end, it would not have led to the final domestic violence—surely during the verbal attacks, the two of them would have divorced, and none of the later events would have happened.
So in enduring such repeated domestic violence, is there not, deep in your bones, a fear of divorce? Is there not the thought, "Oh, the children are already so grown up, what will we do after a divorce?" If you have this fear inside you, then your abusive husband has seized upon this psychological state, and he abuses you again and again. He knows that no matter how he beats you, you will not dare to divorce him, and you will not dare to resist. This is a normal situation.
So what Seth is saying is that ordinarily we need not worry about how to deal with normal aggression—just express it normally and communicate normally, and we can all handle that. What we need to consider is this: thoughts that have often gone unexpressed, been ignored over a long period, or been denied—how do we handle them? This is the problem we must face. Many psychological problems, problems with our own emotions, and problems in society—many of them are this kind of long-term suppression, the suppression of some form of aggression or some form of expression.
Later in this book we will speak particularly of methods for dealing with such situations.
Here he is only pointing out the distinction between healthy, natural aggression and suppressed aggression, and the emergence of explosive, distorted aggression. In the earlier part here, he just wants to say that natural aggression is actually nothing to fear; what is frightening is this distorted, explosive aggression that comes after suppression.
Each of you must find for yourself those places where you strongly suppress your thoughts, for there you can find many blockages of energy.
You must find them—find for yourself those places where you strongly suppress your thoughts. Which thoughts have you pushed down deep to the very bottom? These will all be discussed in later sessions.
Guilt and Compassion
Now let us consider this blocked energy. The majority of conscious people have already become afraid of these energies. When they use the word repression, they do not mean forgetting, or pushing into the unconscious, or making it unavailable.
The majority of conscious people are afraid of this blocked energy. The reason we toss it aside is because we are afraid of it. He does not feel that this is a kind of repression, but rather feels that it is a kind of social experience, life wisdom, maturity -- being more socially adept and tactful in dealing with people and situations. He thinks this is something a mature adult should do, and that it is a good thing: I should not be like a little child who explodes at the slightest provocation, who immediately speaks up whenever something is unsatisfactory. I should control my emotions -- this is something we often say. So you do not feel that this is a bad thing.
When they use the word repression, they do not mean forgetting it, pushing it into the unconscious, or making it unavailable -- that is not what it means.
You pretend that this material is hidden, but it is actually within your conscious awareness.
We pretend we cannot see it. As long as you honestly go looking for it, and organize what you find, it becomes clearly visible. Here he tells us how to find the thoughts that we have forcefully suppressed -- just go look for them. It is not that they cannot be found; they are very clear. It is just that you do not dare to look for them, do not dare to see them, do not dare to admit this reality.
You may very well ignore this information simply because you have not put all the material together.
Because you have put it together in a scattered way. Of course, no one can make you do that, to do that thing.
You must have a kind of courage and spirit of adventure to tell yourself that you refuse to be intimidated by thoughts that belong to you but are not you.
You must have a kind of courage and spirit of adventure, which is to look at which of your thoughts have been suppressed. Do not be frightened by your own thoughts, do not be intimidated by your own thoughts -- because they are your thoughts to begin with, they are your thoughts, so why should you be intimidated by your own thoughts? Why be afraid of them? Just pick them out, look at them, ask them: why did I suppress them so deeply, why did I restrict them, what is so frightening about them? Let them out and see what happens.
There are so many typical examples of this in reality, far too many stories to tell. For example, many children like to express themselves, and then parents scold them. After being scolded, some children become stutterers at a very young age, which is very common. Also during adolescence, whether boys or girls, they all have this hazy, ignorant sexual impulse and sexual awakening toward the opposite sex. But at this time, if parents harshly criticize and reprimand them, telling them that sex is a very frightening and filthy thing, this will cause many children to grow up with sexual repression and distorted, erroneous views about sex, ultimately leading to major problems in adulthood -- they will think it is a bad thing, and it will affect many of their later life experiences, including their intimate relationships.
So you need to carefully dig into what those thoughts are that you have intensely suppressed. This process truly requires honesty, courage, and adventure. This process is often bloody -- when I say bloody, I mean it is like performing a dissection on your own mind, digging out all those thoughts you cannot bear to show others. Because what you have suppressed and put away are all thoughts that you usually fear, thoughts you do not want to face yourself, things you are afraid to even think about, so you tossed them aside. Now when you are asked to dig them out again, lay them on the table and face them squarely, and moreover admit that they are your thoughts, many people cannot bear it under these circumstances.
Why do many people never change? Because when they are doing this work, when they are subconsciously doing this kind of work, they stop right after they begin; they simply cannot continue. If you cannot even face it squarely, then how can you change it? How can you release this suppressed aggressive energy and avoid causing even more distorted things and even more frightening things to happen?
People often say that man believes in devils because he believes in gods.
Anyone who believes in the existence of devils first believes in gods. So the word "devil" is not something you hear most often from the mouths of bad people; rather, it is from those good people -- those who talk about God every day, about deities, about Buddha -- when they worship their gods, you hear them mention the word devil even more often than normal people do. They attribute every bad thing to the devil.
The fact is that when man began to feel guilt, he began to believe in demons. Guilt itself and compassion arose together.
Remember this for certain: guilt and compassion arise together; they are two sides of the same thing. Where there is guilt there is compassion, and where there is compassion there is guilt. These two are not separate; they arise simultaneously. You absolutely must remember this.
How do demons come into being? Precisely because you have guilt. Only when there is guilt can such demons arise. The arising of demons is in your heart, in your thoughts, in your values. The precondition for the arising of this demon is definitely that you have guilt. So in this session, in order to remove the demons in your mind, Seth must remove your guilt. Because when you believe in the existence of demons, your fear follows. Much inner fear comes from your belief in the existence of demons. Seth handles the problem at its root; he knows where the core is -- the core is that you have guilt.
Animals have a sense of justice that you do not understand, inherent with that innocent sense of justice.
He says that the sense of justice in animals is the same as the natural, innocent sense of justice that we humans have. Every one of us has a sense of justice, and this sense of justice is innate. Many people do not need to be taught -- when they see injustice on the road, they step in to help. This is innate. He calls it an innocent sense of justice, and animals have it too.
It is a biological compassion.
This biological compassion does not mean compassion that only animals have; it refers to a compassion rooted in our cells, in the physical body. In other words, it is our instinctive compassion, a biological compassion. This biological compassion is understood at the deepest, most fundamental level of the cells; it is written into our cellular memory.
The simplest example: go try to kill a chicken right now, and see whether you can bring yourself to do it. Many people have never in their lives dared to kill a chicken, a duck, or a goose, let alone a pig, a sheep, or an even larger animal. They do not dare; they truly do not dare. It is not a matter of courage; they simply cannot bring themselves to do it. This inability to bring oneself to do it is a kind of innate sense of justice. Or when you see someone else in danger, you instinctively want to help them. This instinct is an innate sense of justice, and this sense of justice is present in all living beings, all animals, including humans. We humans also have animal nature; we humans are one kind of animal. This is a fact you cannot deny.
In your terms, man is an animal. In our terms, man is an animal.
Man is an animal, but he has risen out of animal nature, pushing certain animal abilities to their limits through evolution.
In the animal, no new physical specialization is being formed.
That is, our physical evolution has stopped. Physically, we no longer seek further evolution -- we will not grow a pair of wings, will not make our claws sharper, or grow fangs. No. Because we believe that our physical evolution has reached its peak, and we no longer need it. We can use tools; we have things far more powerful than claws. We do not need to grow thick fur; we have down jackets to wear. We have all kinds of ways to solve our own problems. So after using tools, we no longer need to pursue further physical evolution.
But inwardly, we have always been seeking development.
The inner structure is created by man's needs, desires, and blessed natural aggressiveness.
That is, we no longer develop outwardly, but inwardly we have always been seeking development. He sums it up in one sentence: we need desire, and blessed natural aggressiveness. This aggressiveness is natural; this aggressiveness itself is needed; this aggressiveness itself is driven by desire; this aggressiveness itself is blessed -- it is not something that should be condemned. Under this aggressiveness, inner structure is created. We humans no longer seek outward structural expansion; we are seeking inner structure.
That is connected with values, space, and time.
He says it very generally -- by generally, he means that this inner structure is connected with values, and with space and time. In other words, at a specific time, in a specific place, doing something specific that has value or meaning -- this is the inner development that we humans should pursue. So-called inner development is connected with values. Whereas the development of a certain body part in your outward animal nature has nothing to do with values; that is biological evolution. Now humans have begun to pursue spiritual and psychic evolution, and this evolution is mainly connected with the sense of value, and with space and time -- the same thing done at a different time and in a different space has a different value and meaning.
To varying degrees, this impetus is latent in all living beings.
This impetus is not unique to humans; it is latent in all living beings. What kind of impetus? It is natural aggressiveness creating inner structure. Other animals have it too; it is just that humans have gone further in this regard. To varying degrees -- the degree in humans is higher, and the degree in animals may be lower. But would you say animals do not have it? Of course animals have it. If you have ever kept a pet, you know that the emotions and inner world of animals are extremely rich. Its relationship with you, its loyalty, its feelings toward its owner -- anyone who has kept a pet knows that this is no ordinary feeling.
So this is something that both animals and humans have; it exists in all living beings, just to different degrees. What differs in degree? It is the degree to which one uses this natural aggressiveness to create inner structure, to fulfill one's own value, and to fulfill one's own value within space and time.
Man must let go of self-discipline, precision, and those aspects of instinct that are safe yet restrictive of man.
We humans are a kind of animal, and in animals there is an innate biological compassion -- the most basic, inner, cellular, deep compassion that every animal has, a sense of justice that every person and every animal has. But this thing itself is a kind of self-discipline; it is the animal's own self-discipline, and it is precise and instinctive. This thing is safe -- why is it called safe? Because as animals living in nature, this is a safe aspect that restricts us humans.
In this state, the conscious mind was born. What he is saying is how we can reconcile the human conscious mind with this natural biological compassion, or biological sense of justice, and the sense of justice and guilt in human consciousness.
With the birth of the conscious mind, as you think of it, man chose for himself a thing called free will. And those innate procedures that were originally beautiful and sufficient for application have now been replaced; they have become suggestions rather than rules.
Once we have the conscious mind, we have our own free will. And those originally beautiful and sufficient innate procedures -- that is, what should be done and what should not be done -- have been replaced, becoming suggestions rather than rules. Small animals are the same: how many animals they should hunt, whom they should kill, how they should live in the animal world -- they do all of this very well. The balance in our nature, in our animal world, is maintained extremely well, with great precision and beauty.
We humans, as one kind of animal, also have this ability, this innate procedure. But because humans have the conscious mind and free will, this has been replaced. This innate biological compassion and sense of justice has been replaced by our acquired conscious mind and free will.
Compassion was then lifted from biological structure to emotional reality.
This statement sums it up very well. Compassion was originally biological; for animals, compassion is biological. Animals have no thoughts, no things constrained by this kind of morality, but they still have compassion. This innate compassion was directly lifted from biological structure to emotional reality -- because humans have become a spiritual animal, this compassion has been spiritualized, moralized, emotionalized, and even religionized.
The "new" consciousness accepted its newly emerged triumph, and faced the responsibility of action on a conscious level, and the birth of guilt.
Humans will face three things, and these three things are what distinguish them from animals. First, it is free -- it is no longer restricted by this animalistic self-discipline, precision, and instinct, that is, the restriction of that biological compassion written into the cells. We are free; we can do whatever we want. But with the emergence of this freedom, what does it bring? It brings the responsibility of your actions. Because you are on a conscious level, your conscious actions must bear corresponding responsibility. This is very normal -- your actions must bear responsibility. You may be free, but freedom and responsibility correspond to each other. Fine, you can have freedom, but freedom comes with responsibility. And for this reason, you also have the birth of guilt.
The Lesson of the Cat and the Hunter
A cat playfully kills a mouse and eats it, and this is not evil. It is not tormented by guilt.
A cat eats a mouse and is not tormented by guilt. A cat absolutely would not be; a cat is very happy — you have never seen a cat playing with a mouse, or playing with other animals, when it is absolutely delighted.
On a biological level, both understand each other. The mouse's consciousness, knowing full well the pain that was coming, left its body. And the cat made use of that warm flesh. The mouse itself had also been a hunter.
Besides being eaten by cats, mice also eat other animals. When it eats other animals, it is the same — it is both prey and hunter, both hunter and prey. In this way that is very difficult to explain, both the cat and the mouse understand the conditions involved. When a cat catches a mouse, it is the hunter, but when a cat is eaten by another animal, the cat is also the prey. In nature, the creatures of the natural world all understand this principle; they all understand each other.
Sometimes I wonder whether you have ever seen a documentary. A couple of days ago a short clip was shown: a little deer was crossing a river, and while crossing it did not notice the crocodile, and a crocodile came charging at it. At that moment its mother, from far away, leaped into the river at full speed, placing herself in front of that crocodile, letting the crocodile eat her, and then the little deer scrambled frantically onto the shore.
And in some African wildlife programs, you can see antelopes hunted by lions or caught by leopards, bitten to death on the spot and eaten directly. But if some Animal World programs are filmed very clearly, you can see that when antelopes and deer, these herbivorous animals, are hunted by carnivores and bitten to death in the process — we humans feel that it is so cruel, that the natural world is so cruel, that the strong prey upon the weak. We are constantly indoctrinated with the view that the natural world is one where the strong prey upon the weak, that it is a cruel world. But when you watch those animal documentaries, you will find that before the antelope dies, there is not much fear in its eyes, but more sorrow and pain. Although it is being eaten alive — you know this is different from the pork and beef we usually eat, where slaughterhouses quickly end the life through electric shock or other means. Yet these animals are all eaten alive by their predators while still living, and by all reasoning they should be in extreme pain. But animals have this instinct, this ability: before it is eaten, its consciousness has already left its body. The process of being eaten itself is not painful. This is a natural law that they have agreed upon with one another.
On certain levels, both the cat and the mouse understand the nature of the life energy they share.
Why is it called sharing? You must remember this: why are they all one in all things. Animals know better than we humans that they are all one in all things, because they share. Since they share — this whole state of nature in which all things are one — then their own death does not cause them to lose their individuality. Because its life, to describe it in poetic language, is that its life continues on in the body of the predator.
But this does not mean that they do not struggle to survive.
You must remember this: it does not mean that they do not struggle. It runs very fast, runs for its life. If you have watched Animal World, you know that it is not saying, "I know this is how it is for me, so I will not struggle, come and eat me." No, it is not like that.
They have an innate unconscious sense of oneness with nature, knowing that they will not be lost or annihilated.
It will not disappear with the death of the body; it feels that it is one with nature. For animals this is also unconscious — if it were conscious, it would not run. Why would it run? It would be exhausting to run that far. But on the level of its consciousness it does not know this either; yet at the bottom layer of its life, the bottom layer of its consciousness, it knows this.
Humanity pursues its own path, choosing to step outside this framework.
Humanity has stepped outside the framework of the animals, consciously — it consciously chooses not to follow the path of the animals.
Thus compassion was born, replacing the innate knowledge of the animals.
The birth of compassion replaced the natural compassion that animals inherently possess. Biological compassion — that is, compassion on the biological level, the compassion of our cells, the compassion at the bottom layer of our cells — became emotional awareness. When we now speak of compassion or sympathy, we are speaking of emotional things, already detached from the biological level.
The hunter, more or less freed from the courtesies that exist among animals, will be forced to identify emotionally with his prey.
There are courtesies that bind animals to one another, and the hunter is not bound by these. As far as animals are concerned, to kill is to be killed; the balance of life supports everything. This is a basic animal law of nature.
Many people say, "I do not kill living things, how am I," and so on. This is a human idea of its own. Because if you kill living things, it means you also acknowledge that one day you yourself will be killed by others. It is fair: today you kill others, tomorrow you are killed by others; this is a law of nature. If you regard this as a natural law, then do not go around every day saying, "My killing of living things is immoral," and so on. And when others kill you? It is the same. I am referring to animals.
The hunter must then learn on a conscious level what he knew long ago, and this is the inherent and only meaning of guilt and of the natural framework.
The hunter is somewhat different from ordinary people, because he makes his living by hunting. And he does not hunt animals only to eat them; he hunts to obtain more wealth, to earn more money, wanting the animal's fur, meat, or whatever. So he has to enter the animals' ecological circle to hunt. At this point the hunter must identify more, on an emotional level, with the sense of value of his prey — what does this mean? He must identify even more with his animal side. His prey is an animal, and he is a human. If he held himself to human standards, he should not go into the animal world to kill. So in the process of the hunter going to kill animals, he is actually, more than anything, placing himself emotionally and mentally, in his identification with guilt, into the category of animals: there is nothing wrong with me killing you, because in the forest, if I did not have a hunting rifle, and if you were a lion or a tiger and saw me, you would eat me all the same. In any case, he uses this method to convince himself, and only then can he engage in the work of hunting. Therefore, he draws closer to his prey on an emotional level.
As the animals unconsciously uphold life, so should you consciously uphold life.
Animals unconsciously uphold life, so we should consciously uphold life. This is the greatest difference between humans and animals.
Your interpretation and use of this quite natural guilt is truly fearsome.
He says that this is a normal guilt of nature, but our human interpretation and use of this quite natural guilt is truly fearsome. Why is it fearsome? Because it is only when we have guilt that devils come into being, and only when there are devils is there fear; this is a whole chain of things. Here he is dissecting the underlying factors of our human emotional behavior patterns.
So this book, The Nature of Personal Reality, is also called a treasure trove or secret manual of human psychology. I think all psychologists, in fact, should carefully read this book.
Guilt is the other side of compassion. Its original purpose was to enable you to understand yourself and other creatures on a conscious level, so that you could consciously control what had previously been handled only on a biological level.
The reason we humans have guilt is that it is the other side of compassion. Its original purpose is this: after we humans lost that biological compassion of the animal nature, how could we handle things in the natural world, on the biological level? How do we know what we should kill and what we should eat, and how should we get along with other people? In this process, guilt plays just such a restraining and reminding role, giving you an awareness. And this is not needed in animals; animals do not need this guilt to remind them. Animals themselves have no guilt; in animals, it is their own biological compassion and sense of justice that operate.
But humans cannot do this. Because humans no longer have this biological compassion and sense of justice of the animal nature; we have replaced them with emotional things, and they have been sublimated onto the level of emotional activity. And at this point, we humans naturally have to give rise to this guilt. And the purpose of this guilt is to let you know, when dealing with people and when dealing with the natural world, how to get along and how to conduct yourself. To understand yourself and other life is to understand how to conduct yourself, and also to know how to get along with others. Only in this way can you consciously control — previously, on the biological level, things that did not require consciousness to control were controlled by instinct; you have replaced instinct with consciousness.
Guilt therefore has a strong and natural basis.
That is, on the biological level it has its natural basis. When it is destroyed, misunderstood, and misused, it has the tremendous and fearsome energy possessed by any out-of-control basic phenomenon.
Your guilt itself is emotional, but at its bottom layer there is a natural basis — this thing that we have ascended from our animal nature. That underlying basis is itself biological. But if you destroy, distort, misunderstand, or misuse this biological, natural guilt, then what do you become? It will have tremendous and fearsome energy. Why? Because it is out of control; this basic phenomenon is out of control, and whenever a basic phenomenon goes out of control, this tremendous and fearsome energy emerges.
In other words, our human guilt is composed of two parts: one is this innate natural guilt that is engraved in our biological cells and that all animals have; and there is also an artificial guilt that we humans have created ourselves. These two kinds of guilt operate in us at the same time. But the premise of both kinds of guilt is that you cannot destroy your original, natural guilt. When you destroy the original, natural guilt, it will produce a very fearsome and tremendous energy. This is something you cannot control with thought and emotion.
Artificial Guilt
If you feel guilty because you read a certain kind of book, or because you harbor a certain kind of thought, then you run a special risk. If you believe something is wrong, then in your experience of it, it will be wrong.
If you feel it is wrong, then in your experience, it will be wrong. And you will think of it as negative, because you have defined it as wrong.
You will therefore collect an unnatural guilt, one that is most undeserved, yet accepted, and thus created.
So we call this artificial guilt, as opposed to natural guilt. This kind is all artificial guilt.
There is a lot of this. For example, if you are a Christian, and you accidentally read some books whose viewpoints contradict or run counter to your religious views, at that point you will say: this is not acceptable, I should not read such books, this is an evil book. There have also been many periods in history when many books were designated as forbidden books. If you lived in such a period and read such a book, you would also feel guilty.
I remember when we were very young, in school, at that time handwritten copies were popular, handwritten pornographic novels, such as The Heart of a Young Girl (also known as Manna's Memoirs) and so on4. At that time, if anyone read such a book, it was simply the ultimate disgrace. Of course, everyone secretly wanted to read it in their hearts, but once you read it and were found out, or even during the process of reading it, deep inside you actually still had a very deep sense of guilt: I should not read this, I am no longer a good child, how could I read such obscene books, such lewd and lascivious things? All of this is called artificial guilt.
This passage tells you: at this point, activity begins in your mind. Because you feel this thing is wrong, is bad, so the very experience of reading this book, you define it as wrong, and you think of it as bad. And the things you experience through the experience of reading this book are also all negative. At this point you will have collected an unnatural guilt.
Because you have this unnatural guilt, you will not treat it as something to be proud of, and you will not go around showing it off to others. You cannot possibly tell others, especially if you are a girl, you cannot possibly read a pornographic novel and then every day tell your friends, your close girlfriends, "Hey, you know I read The Heart of a Young Girl, do you want to read it? I can lend it to you." Everyone will deny it. Even many people up to the present day still deny these things. Why? Because it is not something to be proud of; he feels it is something shameful. How could such a thing be spread around? It absolutely cannot be spoken of.
If you believe firmly that your health is poor, you may use such a repressed energy to attack some organ.
If you believe your health is not good, you may use such repressed energy to attack some organ; a pancreas may go bad, according to your own belief system.
If you believe your body is sound, and instead project this guilt outward onto others, either onto some person, or onto an enemy, or onto some particular race, faith, or skin color.
When your guilt emerges, when you have repressed certain things, if you feel there is something wrong with your physical health, then you may use such beliefs to attack your own organs. But if you as a person believe your body is good, if your belief system holds that your body is healthy, then because you feel you are healthy, at this point your beliefs will not attack your own organs, and will instead turn outward to attack others, to attack the people around you, or to attack some particular race, faith, or skin color. So essentially all of this is caused by some suppressed emotions within you, and its origin may simply be one small emotion, the feeling that your own body is not good.
If you have religious leanings and believe in the fundamental dogmas of Christianity, you may blame the devil for making you behave in such a way.
If you are a Christian and believe in Christian doctrine, then you will think that all bad things are done by the devil making you do them.
Just as the body creates antibodies to adjust itself.
Our bodies have antibodies. Right now everyone has been researching COVID vaccines; when the vaccine is administered, the hope is that we will produce antibodies against the novel coronavirus.
What we are discussing today is the second part of the interpretation of Chapter 8 of The Nature of Personal Reality, that is, Session 634 of the book, Monday, January 22, 1973.
Mental Antibodies and Instinctual Self-Regulation
In the last episode we talked about how, when you repress certain things, when you feel there is something wrong with your physical health, you may use such beliefs to attack your own organs. But if you believe your body is healthy, your belief system will not attack your own organs; instead, it turns outward and attacks other people -- generating aggression toward a particular race, creed, or skin color.
Essentially, this is all caused by certain repressed complexes within you. Its origin may simply be an emotion of "feeling that one's own body is not well."
Seth goes on to say:
Just as the body creates antibodies to regulate itself, so you also set up mental and emotional antibodies.
This sentence is crucial. Our bodies have antibodies. Just as people have been researching COVID vaccines, hoping that after the injection we will produce antibodies against the coronavirus. Besides biological antibodies, we also have mental and emotional antibodies -- certain so-called good thoughts are our mental and emotional antibodies, used to protect ourselves from being harmed by imagined things, or by ideas you consider bad.
Use the positive to replace the negative, use the good to replace the bad. This is just like your biological antibodies. This is quite laughable, but this is indeed how we operate. This is indeed how our inner world works.
If your innate instincts are not interfered with, they will basically regulate themselves. Our instincts will regulate themselves -- if at some point there are too many red blood cells, your body will not kill off all the red blood cells. Why? Because red blood cells are part of your body. Having too many is not good, but there is no need to kill them all off.
But in your fear of negative thoughts, you often try to deny all normal aggression. Here you must remember: "all" is the key word.
When our red blood cells increase, we know we need to kill off some red blood cells, but we will not kill them all. We need to keep a considerable amount of red blood cells. But when our negative emotions, or this kind of normal aggression, show themselves, because you have defined them as bad, negative, undesirable thoughts, you want to kill them all off -- not a single one of these negative emotions is allowed, not a single negative idea is allowed. Not a single bit of this aggression is allowed; aggression is all bad.
When this aggression has barely shown a shadow of itself, your mental antibodies come out and enter a state of combat readiness. Those good beliefs of yours come out and strangle this newly sprouted thing in the cradle, completely wiping out this thought. And you feel you have done a great job: "Look how good I am. I have wiped out all aggressive thoughts. How powerful my positive beliefs are." He thinks this is a good thing.
This kind of thing is very common. In Seth Speaks, when it talks about the second human civilization, the Lumanians were like this too. And in many of our present-day religions, Buddhism for example, it emphasizes that people must not have aggression. You see all Buddhists are humble and courteous. If someone insults them or whatever, they accept it completely. They feel that our Buddhist realm is very high, that our teachings require us not to insult back, not to say foul words, still less to quarrel, and even less to use force. This is a whole set of restrictions he has imposed on himself. So when this kind of thought first appears, it gets suppressed, it gets held down.
Denying the Reality of Experience
Seth tells us why this is not good. He says:
When you do this, you are trying to deny the reality of your own experience.
You are denying the reality of your own experience. We come into this world precisely to experience, to have experiences. The anger you are feeling right now is exactly what you need to experience; it is a real part of your experience. If you want to lose your temper, to get angry, to argue right now, that is part of your experience. You say this experience is not good, and that you want to experience the good one instead -- constant inner peace, calm and joy, not being moved by external things or by personal gain or loss. If you have reached that state, that is fine, but if you have not reached that state, and inside you are already in turmoil, yet you use emotion to suppress it, saying, "I cannot get angry, I cannot get angry, I am a Buddhist, I took refuge in the Buddha many years ago, how can I be like this" -- he does not release his aggression outward, but instead attacks himself inwardly, saying, "How can you still think this way?" At this point all the positive beliefs, the spiritual antibodies, come rushing out to attack this so-called negative emotion, this bad thought.
The point is this: when you do this, you are actually afraid, and you are denying the legitimacy and reality of your own experience. All of your experience, whatever you are experiencing right now, is exactly what you should be experiencing. If you do not even dare to face it, you deny its reality.
If you do not feel this personal reality, then you will never realize that you created it, and therefore can change it.
What does this mean? Experiencing this thing is not frightening, because it is itself a projection of your inner self. You experience it, and if you feel it is not good, you can change it. But you cannot, before you have experienced it, hold it down and say, "Do not experience it, because it is not good."
In our daily lives, toward ourselves, toward our children, toward the people and things we can control, we often use this kind of tactic. You are afraid of it, and you say that is a bad thing, so why experience it? Why take this detour? But you have not experienced it. You have merely decided in your thoughts that it is bad. How do you know it is necessarily bad?
As is often said, a loss may turn out to be a gain5. Within bad things there is good, and within good things there is bad; everything always has two sides. If you do not experience it, do not learn from it and feel it, and only look at its negative side, then you will choose not to experience it. That is the denial of experience.
Your denial of experience also involves a blockage of energy, causing the accumulation of unnecessary, unnatural guilt -- you pile this unnatural guilt onto yourself, reproaching yourself every day: "I should not have done this. Today I took another life. I lost my temper at so-and-so again." This guilt does not need to exist. Why do you insist on piling it onto yourself?
The body itself cannot understand this blocked information. Your entire experience is not only experienced by your thoughts; your body experiences it too. When you argue, your hormones certainly surge, your adrenaline certainly surges, your whole emotional state rises in fury, and even your hair stands on end. Your body needs to experience these things. But you block this information, not letting the body experience these things, not letting it feel them at all.
At this point, the body wants to express the physical knowledge it has gained from its own direct experience in the present moment, and the body cries out for help. In that moment its emotions are irritable, angry, furious; all its muscles, internal organs, organs, including the endocrine system, all its hormone levels have adjusted to a state ready for a fight. You forcibly hold it back, saying you must not argue. Then your body cries out for help -- "I want to experience this. My body is already prepared, already in combat mode. Why are you holding me back?"
Then on the mental level, Seth puts it very vividly:
You have no feeling for what you feel about yourself.
You will find that those Buddhists, those so-called lay practitioners, before they have truly understood the real meaning of spiritual practice, first pile all the precepts onto themselves, restrict themselves with a whole series of rules, and then you will find that they live like the walking dead, completely without feeling. They just think, "I live according to the precepts, I completely obey these precepts." The same is true of other religions; they all have this problem. The same is true when you hold onto other beliefs.
Living this way, you completely lose your vitality, lose your drive, and live without any liveliness. You do not dare to be angry, do not dare to be happy, do not dare to be furious, do not dare to be sad, always hoping to keep yourself in a mental state as still as a placid lake. But you cannot do that. So at this point what does your psyche tell you? You have no feeling for what you feel.
Think carefully about whether there are people like this. And many students are like this too, forced by their parents to study this and that, constantly suppressed, doing nothing but things they dislike, unable to fight back or resist, until finally they have no feeling for life at all, and even feel that being alive is meaningless. When a person has no feeling, what point is there in being alive?
Repressed Aggression and Initiative
So many parents don't understand why their own children, young boys and girls in the bloom of youth, maybe fourteen or fifteen, even twelve, would take their own lives at such a young age.
Including some recent news stories, everyone has seen a lot of them. A teacher criticized a student a few times -- I forget exactly what happened, the student cheated on an exam, the teacher criticized him, then said go outside first, after the exam is over I'll have your parents come in -- and this student, would you believe it, before the exam was even over, jumped straight off the building and died.
Every year many students commit suicide because of academic pressure, depression, and other reasons. But most people only see the surface-level causes, saying they have too much academic pressure and emotional repression. But I want to say, no matter how great the academic pressure, there are plenty of people under more pressure than students -- working people, people supporting families, people paying mortgages, small business owners, whose pressure isn't great? Whose isn't greater than a student's? So why didn't they commit suicide?
Besides the surface-level cause of student suicide, heavy academic pressure, what is the main reason? Under long-term repression, he has no aggression at all, no initiative at all. His actions are all arranged by his parents, and we have completely wiped out all of his own active initiative. Whatever he wants to do doesn't work; he can only follow the framework set by his parents. And the parents do it under the banner of love: "I'm your mother, could I ever harm you? Isn't everything I do for your own good?" Then in the name of this love they impose it on the child, wiping out all of the child's creativity and all of his initiative.
The final result is what Seth said: he has no feeling for his own life. His food tastes like wax when he eats, and everything he does is like that. The reason he hasn't committed suicide yet is that he still holds a trace of attachment to his family and his parents -- "If I die I'll be letting them down, how heartbroken they would be." Then one day, when his feelings have become so dulled that he no longer feels anything even about that, then he goes and commits suicide.
There are too many cases like this, and I don't want to cite any more; every one of them is a heartbreaking and tragic matter. But in all of this, the parents have never reflected on themselves: what role did you play in the middle of it? Why don't you let your child express his anger, why don't you let your child express his aggression, why don't you let your child show his initiative?
Energy Must Find an Outlet
Seth went on to say:
After a period of accumulated learning, your conscious mind, because of its position, is able to disregard the body's messages.
What position is the conscious mind in? On one side, the conscious mind perceives things in the physical world; on the other side, it listens to your inner self, closely connected with your inner self, listening to your body's voice, to the information coming from your body. But at this point you completely disregard the body's information. The things your body wants to experience have been forcibly suppressed by you. So the conscious mind disregards the body's messages, and then energy gets dammed up.
You cannot suppress energy. It is like a volcano -- you cannot hold it down; it must find an outlet. At this point:
Even the smallest, most innocent symbol representing the repressed material can bring about behavior in a human being that seems like a great overreaction to the stimulus.
We have seen too much of this in real life. Do you think that child would commit suicide just because the teacher called the parents in? Do you think many children commit suicide because their parents criticized them? Do you think many children commit suicide merely because of a broken relationship? It is because, apart from that boy or girl who understood him in the relationship, he could not find a single thing in life worth holding on to. So when the parents forcibly put an end to the relationship, then he truly had no joy left in life, and no hope for living either.
It is that simple. It was just a very small symbol, the most innocent symbol. Many parents say, "I didn't really do anything. I only did one thing. Why would he commit suicide?"
So very often when a couple quarrels, in the end it is always over trivial matters. Would you quarrel with someone over something trivial to the point of divorce? Yes, you would. If you investigate carefully, the final trigger for divorce is always something trivial. The reason is simple: once it has accumulated to a certain point, the final breaking point is often a very small thing, but it sets off a chain reaction behind it, like a fuse that ignites all the accumulated energy behind it, like a pack of explosives, and it all blows up.
Seth said:
There are ten times when you are in the right, when you would like to tell someone to leave you alone, but you hold back and say nothing. You do not want to hurt anyone's feelings, you are concerned about saving face, you are afraid of being too rude. Under those circumstances, your words might have been understood and calmly accepted.
When you are in the right, it is actually possible for your words to be calmly understood and accepted. But you think doing so would be too rude, so you decide not to say anything for now. What does this kind of suppression lead to? Ten times when you are in the right, you say nothing. You are misunderstood, or taken advantage of, and in the end -- because you do not accept your own emotions, let alone express them, you do not even face them squarely. You do not even dare to face your own anger, your own impulse to object, let alone express it. Then the next time, the eleventh time, you may explode for seemingly no reason at all -- over some trivial little thing, or something that is not even a thing at all, you release an enormous amount of energy, completely losing your temper, blowing your top, and starting an unreasonable, terrible argument.
Think carefully: in ordinary romantic relationships, in marriages, or in other matters -- at work, in relationships with colleagues and friends -- is it not always because of this? You have been displeased with him for a long time, but you have kept holding it in. Actually, if you had said something, it probably would have been fine, but you held it in, and held it in until the end, and then you exploded.
After you explode, the other person is also completely baffled, unable to make sense of it: "What is going on? Does what I said really warrant such anger, such a big outburst?" And then he is deeply hurt. Because it is disproportionate. The other person only did something very, very small -- or had not even done anything yet, had merely shown a tendency in that direction -- and that was already enough to set you off.
At this point your sense of guilt becomes even stronger. You say, "The other person really did not do much. Why did I make such a big deal out of it? Why did I blow up? I should not have let my aggression come out. Look, the moment my aggression comes out, it is so hurtful and so destructive. How could I allow it to come out freely?" Instead, you say to yourself that the aggression should not come out anymore, and your guilt increases even more. In fact, all of this is unnecessary.
Moral Values and the Body's Chemistry
The crux of the issue, this is the core, be sure to remember:
Concepts of right and wrong are closely related to the body's chemistry. You cannot separate your moral values from your body.
This is a principle you must understand. Seth has been emphasizing repeatedly, from these earlier chapters onward, the relationship between our body, our thoughts, and our beliefs. You must understand that your moral values and your body are closely related, inseparable, and that your thoughts and your body are inseparable.
When you have thoughts of anger again and again, and you suppress them, not allowing the body to take corresponding action, your body will be affected, inhibited, and suppressed.
What he says next is also very interesting:
If you believe you are a good person, your body will run smoothly.
I know many of you will say: I often try to do good deeds, to be a good person, I often go out and do charitable things, yet my body is in terrible shape, so what is going on there? Many people will ask this question: why do I still get sick? I have done good deeds my whole life, I never curse at anyone, never hit anyone, I am always approachable and amiable with everyone, so how could someone like me get sick? I even go and release captive animals, I often donate money, I often do good deeds. This is unreasonable, unfair, it does not make sense. Why me? Why not those who do bad things? Those who do bad things have vented their own emotions, while you have been suppressing yours all along.
He goes on to explain another reason:
If you examine your own beliefs, your answer is obvious.
This answer is one many people dare not look at directly:
It is precisely because you believe you are so bad or worthless that you try so hard to do so much good.
To be honest, these words are truly piercing. When you read this, think carefully: when you do good deeds, when you do those charitable things, what is the thought behind your intention? Do you dare to dig deeply into your underlying beliefs?
Many people, I cannot say absolutely all, but many people do good deeds with the purpose of, today donating a school, tomorrow doing this or that, appearing on the surface to be a great philanthropist, a great benefactor. Do you know what is really going on in their minds? Many people inwardly feel, "I have done so many bad things myself, I had better quickly do some good deeds to make up for it, to quickly cancel out the bad karma I have created." There is another kind of person who feels, "I am not good enough, so I do good deeds."
Let us turn it around: if you believe you are a good person, if you believe that from head to toe, from the roots of your hair to the tips of your toes, every cell is good, every thought and intention is good, do you still need to do good deeds? Everything you do is already a good deed, you do not need to do good deeds anymore, you do not even need to have the thought of doing good deeds. Only when you feel that what you do is not good enough will you deliberately want to do some good deeds to make up for it, to balance it out.
So what is your underlying belief? It is precisely because you believe you are not that good, because you believe you still lack value, that you go out of your way to do some good deeds, to create something that seems valuable.
I will not go on criticizing this kind of murky business, there is too much of it. Look at all the various Buddhist websites in China, the so-called spiritual practice websites, every day they gather people together: "Today let us group-buy some softshell turtles to release, tomorrow group-buy some carp, the day after group-buy some crucian carp," and you have to spend money on them, and there are specific times, specific days, specific numbers of animals to release, with quantity requirements, all made to look like something real.
Why is Seth's theory so unwelcome, so unliked? It is because he speaks too directly. He turns over all the dark corners of the human heart and lays them out for you, completely exposed, without any mercy. Although he speaks very politely, never using a single vulgar word, look at what he says here: "You do good deeds precisely because you think you are a bad person, so you do good deeds. If you thought you were a good person, you would not need to do good deeds." How harsh these words are, how direct, how piercingly to the point.
I know many people hearing this are probably jumping up now, ready to argue with me, many people have already begun to argue inwardly: "It is not the way you say it is, my heart is truly good, I am compassionate, I do good deeds..." I am not denying here that such people do exist. But I am only saying to those, if these words strike a chord with you, you need to carefully analyze whether you have such thoughts inside. If you have them, correct them; if not, take it as encouragement. If you do not have them, even better, give yourself a pat on the back; if you do, change quickly, you must not do good deeds with such thoughts.
The Birth of Demons
Seth continues:
Any demon, of whatever kind, is created by your beliefs. They are born from unnatural guilt.
Be sure to remember, it is not natural guilt; it is unnatural guilt -- artificial guilt -- that gives birth to them. You can personify them, and you can even encounter them in experience. Even so:
They are still the products of your unfathomable creativity.
Even demons are still the products of your unfathomable creativity -- you created them, after all. Demons are also brought forth by this great creative ability of ours -- this unfathomable creativity. They are formed by your guilt and by your belief in guilt. This is how demons come into being. That is why the title of this chapter is "Thoughts, and the Birth of Demons."
If you let go of the distorted ideas of unnatural guilt, and instead accept the ancient wisdom of natural guilt, there will be no more wars.
You must let go of the distorted concepts of unnatural guilt, and accept the ancient wisdom of natural guilt, and then there will be no more wars. How simple that is.
You will find that many of the social conflicts in our human world come from this artificial guilt. Artificial guilt creates demons, and demons lead to war -- one side will fight under the banner of justice to destroy this demon, and the other side will likewise regard the opponent as a demon. Each side sees the other as a demon, and both are fighting what they believe to be a just war, yet countless people are killed.
There are too many examples of this. For instance, during World War II, the German Nazis believed they were fighting a just war. They believed they were improving the purity and optimization of the entire human race. They felt the Germanic people were the most superior nation in the world, so why should such a superior nation not rule the whole world, and let the whole world be led by such a superior nation, to escape poverty, escape disease, and move toward prosperity and strength? It was the same as Japan's idea back then of establishing the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere6 -- the ultimate goal was to unite all of Asia, to bind it together as one, so as not to be restricted by Europe and America.
Never assume that those who start wars believe their wars are unjust. They themselves believe their wars could not possibly be more just -- they are just beyond just. And the countries being invaded are of course even more just -- I was living my life perfectly fine, and you come and attack me, what are you doing attacking us in our own home? Then naturally I will fight to the death to resist; that is defending home and country, and it is fundamental. The invaded side is absolutely just. So in the end, both sides are fighting for justice. That is how wars come about -- because unnatural guilt leads to the birth of demons, and the birth of demons ultimately leads to the birth of war.
Let us set this topic aside for now. In The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, it will also be mentioned how group realities are actualized and how mass events come into being. This current book is mainly about personal matters.
Seth says:
You will not slaughter one another in confusion. You will understand the living soundness of every organ within your body, and there will be no need to attack any of them.
Once you have this ancient wisdom, you will have this natural guilt, and with this ancient wisdom, you will not slaughter one another in confusion. You will understand the living soundness of every organ within your body, and there will be no need to attack any of them. If we recognize that humanity is an integral community -- like a community with a shared future for mankind -- and that we are one with nature and all things, then under that great premise, is not the mutual slaughter among humans utterly absurd -- killing one another over so-called differences in belief?
He is not saying that the time of physical death will not come. He is not saying that once we have this natural guilt and are free of unnatural, distorted guilt, our bodies will live forever. He is not saying death will not come.
What he does mean is that you will understand that the seasons of your body follow the seasons of the heart, ever changing and flowing.
Words like poetry. Some ailments come and go -- people eat the five grains, so how could they never be ill? Minor ailments come and go; no need to worry about them. But within the body, a splendid unity is always maintained. You will not have chronic, long-term illnesses; you will not be made ill for long periods. There will only be some seasonal flu, colds, catching a chill when the seasons change -- that is perfectly normal.
Generally speaking, and ideally, the body will age gradually, while still having far greater endurance than it currently displays.
In an ideal state, people will still grow old, but right up until the final process before death, their vitality and endurance will be excellent. For example, if a person in this state can live to ninety, then all the way up to eighty-eight, or even eighty-nine, they will be very healthy, with excellent endurance. In the final year, the body ages and declines extremely rapidly, and then death comes -- that is a normal state.
But for humanity today, after people reach forty or fifty, or fifty or sixty -- once they hit middle age -- all sorts of ailments begin to arrive one after another. From their fifties all the way to their eighties or nineties -- from graduating college in their twenties to their fifties, only a little over twenty years have passed, and the good days have barely begun. Then from their fifties to their eighties or nineties, there are still nearly thirty to forty years -- a stretch far longer than the twenty-some years of youthful vitality -- during which they must endure the torment of chronic physical illness. Only those who are ill know what this is like; the torment of chronic illness is very painful.
The Importance of Conscious Beliefs
Seth says:
Although there are many other conditions, all of them are related to your conscious beliefs.
Be sure to remember, related to your conscious beliefs. Many people do not understand: why, after we have learned so much spiritual material, is our conscious awareness still so important? Should it not be that our inner self, those unconscious awarenesses, are what determine the direction of our lives, the blueprint of the future, and the control of the body? Why are our conscious thoughts, our thinking, so important? Why does this thinking appear so important in this process, rather than those unconscious things playing the role?
Actually, the reasoning is very simple: what have you come here to do? You have come to experience and to create. Must you not necessarily bring consciousness to experience, bring consciousness to create? Saying "I want to create something, I want a certain kind of life, I want to experience something" -- that is the purpose of your coming. If you did these things without consciousness, then the purpose of your coming would be gone. In other words, if the unconscious were that important, then you would not need to be conscious; from birth to death you could simply remain in a vegetative state. All states would be completed within the mind, with no need for the body to do anything. Is that realistic? Impossible.
So you must understand, your conscious beliefs are very important, a conscious belief is very important. By no means go thinking that you should seek out those unconscious things.
For example, you might think it better to die quickly of a heart attack.
Every person's thoughts are different, and each individual's purposes are also different, and therefore they arrange the body's experience in various different ways. Some people want to live a long, long life; some people want to live with great intensity.
Generally speaking, you are here to expand consciousness, to learn the methods of creation directed through conscious thought.
We have come to Earth precisely to expand consciousness, to learn the methods of creation directed through conscious thought. In other words, we have come to learn how to create the things in our minds in real life, to make them manifest. We are the fulfillers of dreams; we have come to fulfill dreams, and this process is conscious.
The conscious mind can change beliefs, and therefore it can also change the experience of the body within a very large range.
The conscious mind can change beliefs, and so it can change the experience of the body within a very large range. Your body is controlled by that invisible body, and when you can change your own beliefs, you can change the experience of the body within a very large range.
Natural Guilt
Next Seth explains what natural guilt is:
Natural guilt is the manifestation in human beings of the animal's unconscious bodily sense of justice. It means that you shall not kill more than is necessary to maintain physical survival.
Just this one sentence, applicable to both animals and humans. You shall not kill more than is necessary to maintain physical survival. Simple, right? When hungry, you go hunt prey, and there is no guilt. You cannot kill for amusement, for sport, or for enjoyment. You say, "I just like killing small animals; I don't eat them, and I don't want to eat them" — then you have violated natural guilt.
The animal kingdom all follows this natural guilt, an innate, unconscious bodily sense of justice. No one teaches the animal this, and no one gives it lessons. There is no need to explain it; it naturally knows.
Seth goes on:
Natural guilt has nothing to do with adultery or sex.
You must remember this. In the animal kingdom, there is no shame or guilt about adultery or sex. When they mate, it is in broad daylight, not avoiding people or companions, acting on spontaneous impulse. But humans cannot do this; humans have this guilt. When people want to make love, they must hide themselves somewhere others cannot see. And adultery is even more out of the question — it is absolutely condemned by society and morality, and in some countries it is even illegal, punished by being beaten to death, drowned in a pig cage, or stoned to death. This is normal.
But it does contain built-in questions that apply only to human beings.
You must remember "apply only to human beings" — only humans have this issue. In the framework of experience of other animals, it is meaningless; at the animal level, it is meaningless. But in the framework of our human experience, it is meaningful. Do not get this reversed — do not say, "Oh, so since it is meaningless in the animal kingdom, then it is also meaningless for us humans." No, for humans it is still meaningful.
Seth says:
Strictly speaking, translated from biological language into your language, as given to you in this session. But the finer distinction is that you shall not violate another.
That is, how did our natural guilt come about? It was translated from biological language into our human language. How do we distinguish it? In human society, you no longer need to kill; you can just go to the supermarket and buy what you need. This problem no longer exists. So how do you maintain this natural guilt in your human society? Seth says it has already been translated into our human language. That sentence "you shall not kill more than is necessary for the physical body" is the animal's language, and the translation into human language is the following sentence:
You shall not violate another.
Here he also used an English phrase to explain it, the old English "Thou shalt not violate," equivalent to the "ru" in classical Chinese, meaning "you." You shall not have violence, you shall not use violence, or you shall not use violence to violate another.
A Clue Across Time and Space
What Seth says here is very interesting. I don't know why he said this sentence. Personally, I think he may have planted a clue, an Easter egg.
Because when I went looking for the source and origin of this sentence, I initially thought it might be a line from the Bible, or from ancient Greek or some mythology, but I found that I couldn't locate the source anywhere. If any of you here can find it, please let me know. After searching, what I found was that the source of this sentence appeared in a foreign science fiction novel from 2004.
Let me mention it briefly here. The novel is called The Strange Sky, published only in 2004.7 The general idea of the novel is this: in the twenty-third century, humanity has been thoroughly permeated by artificial intelligence. By then the world's population had reached ten billion -- now it's seven billion -- and the natural resources for living were no longer sufficient. Under this premise, one day, the world's population directly decreased by 90%, from ten billion to one billion people. The next morning, people everywhere, in newspapers and all sorts of places, saw a passage, and the last sentence of it contained this part.
Don't worry about the novel itself. Those four sentences mean this. Let me recommend something: if you are studying English materials, you can use "Youdao Translate." In recent years it has gotten much better than before. Although some places are still not translated accurately enough, it's still usable. Look at how it translates it:
I am eschatology, I am not your god, I am your descendant, existing in your future. You should not violate the causal relationship of my historical light cone.
What does "eschatology" mean? In ancient Western religions, it refers to the final sacred judgment, the last event. This is a message left by artificial intelligence to humanity. It is not your god, it is your descendant, existing in your future, you should not violate my history.
But the translation of this last sentence still has some problems. What would the correct translation or understanding of this sentence be? It says, you should not be within the light cone of my history -- if you have studied physics, or anything related to physics, you know the concept of the "light cone." A light cone is: from a certain person, or a certain point, a certain moment in time, a certain physical point, everything within its line of sight is its light cone, looking up, down, left, right, anywhere, everything within its line of sight.
"You should not be within the light cone of my history, yet use a violent mode of cause and effect." You should not use violent causality, meaning, because you humans are too violent, I wiped you all out -- that simple. He said it in poetic language. Only 10% of the population was left; 90% of the people were killed overnight.
When Seth said this sentence, it was January 22, 1973, which was already 31 years before that. How could he have known? So I think what Seth said here may not have as deep a meaning as I imagined, but perhaps he wanted to prove that he had such an ability to cross time and space, so he placed this sentence here.
We don't need to worry about the source and origin of this sentence. We just need to know that the so-called natural guilt in its expression within human society can be described in one sentence: you must not use violence against other people. Using Teacher Wang Jiqing's translation of this sentence, it is: you shall not infringe upon others. This is the best principle and the best guideline for maintaining your natural guilt.
What Is Aggression
Seth went on to say:
Of course animals do not need this kind of belief. The animal has its own biological compassion and biological guilt. It also cannot really be displaced.
Animals do not understand what this sentence means either; this sentence does not work for animals. Animals do not understand what it means to aggress against another, or what it means that another must not be aggressed against. Because your consciousness is flexible -- we human beings have a flexible consciousness -- it leaves room for you to interpret it yourselves. So "thou shalt not aggress against another" leaves us room: what counts as aggression and what does not -- that room is left for us human beings to interpret.
Seth gave some examples, telling you what counts as aggression and what does not:
An obvious lie may or may not be an aggression.
Lying to someone's face may be an aggression, or it may not. Lies are the same -- it depends on their consequences and results. If no real consequences come of it, it may be fine; but if you make a false statement in court, or you lie, and it may lead to another person being put to death, then that is one.
A sexual act may or may not be an aggression.
This one is simple. If it is mutually desired, then it is not an aggression; if you force someone against their will, then it is an aggression.
A scientific expedition may or may not be an aggression.
For example, suppose we go to the Antarctic continent -- suppose it is a scientific expedition. You could say it is an aggression, or it might not be. If you manage it well, it is not; if you do not manage it well, it is.
Not going to church on Sunday is not an aggression.
This is a point where many Westerners very easily generate artificial guilt. Many people say, if they sleep in on Sunday and do not make it to church, they feel guilty. He tells you, not going to church is not a guilt, not an aggression. Here "aggression" corresponds to natural guilt.
Having normal aggressive thoughts is not an aggression.
If you have normal aggressive thoughts, that is not an aggression.
Physical violence against your own or another's body is an aggression. Regardless of the reason, this is an aggression.
Mark this one down. Physical violence against your own or another's body is an aggression, regardless of the reason.
Violence against another's psyche is also an aggression.
If you constantly abuse another person psychologically, treating them with cold violence, that is also an aggression. But:
Again, because you are conscious, the interpretation is also up to you.
When someone commits violence against your psyche, if you genuinely feel that violence has been done to you, then it is an aggression. If your level of attainment is already very high, and another person's psychological violence against you has no effect on you at all, or very little effect, then it is not an aggression. So whether it is an aggression or not depends on the feeling and interpretation of the party on the receiving end -- in other words, it depends on the level of attainment of the party on the receiving end.
Swearing is not an aggression.
Cursing at someone is not an aggression, whether you curse in your heart or say it out loud. Buddhism says this is an aggression, calls it verbal karma, and says you must not casually curse at people. He says:
If you believe it is, then in your mind it becomes an aggression.
If you believe cursing at people is bad, then in your mind it becomes an aggression. So it depends on you.
Killing another is an aggression.
Killing another person is definitely an aggression.
In hand-to-hand combat, killing in order to defend your own body from being killed is also an aggression.
Be sure to remember this: killing in self-defense is also an aggression. This is something many people do not understand -- "He is going to kill me, so what am I supposed to do?" He will explain below. Be sure to remember, killing in self-defense is also an aggression:
Regardless of whether there is an obvious, seemingly justifiable reason, the aggression exists.
Regardless of whether you have an obvious reason that seems to justify it, the aggression exists. Below he explains why:
Because you believe that physical self-defense is the only method of countering such a situation.
You believe that meeting violence with violence is the only method. You will say: "If I am attacked, are you telling me I cannot use aggressive means to resist his obvious intent to kill me?" This is what many people retort: he is about to stab me to death, and I should not fight back? If I kill him, that is an aggression?
Seth says:
I mean no such thing.
I do not mean that; that is not what I am saying. He says:
You can counter such an attack in several ways that do not involve killing.
First, why is killing in self-defense also an aggression?
First of all, you would not find yourself in such a hypothetical situation in the first place, unless violent thoughts of your own, faced or unfaced, attracted it to you.
To put it simply, if it were not for your negative beliefs -- or this belief that "violence solves problems," or this victim belief -- if you did not have these negative beliefs, you would not find yourself in this kind of scenario.
He says, once this fact is established -- you might say, "Not me, I was just very passive, very unlucky, and the criminal rushed at me" -- first you must understand, that event was also something you wished to happen. Not the conscious you, but your inner self wished it to happen. Many of us do not understand this point.
Well, let us grant that this is a sudden fact that has occurred. Given this situation, you still have many methods available:
Because you equate aggression with violence, you may not understand that aggressive, forceful, active mental or spoken pursuit of peace can save your life in such a situation. But it can.
Do not use violence to counter violence. You must use a forceful, aggressive -- here "aggressive" does not mean violent aggression, but rather a forceful expression of language, a firm holding of belief, a strength of conviction, or initiative in action -- you believe in pursuing peace, and using this method to solve problems is very effective; in this situation it can save your life.
It is not that when someone is trying to kill you, you must kill the other person to solve the problem. You still have many other methods available. But if the education you received from childhood, your beliefs, hold that when faced with this kind of life-threatening situation, you must first kill the other person to save your own life, then you can only adopt that method, because you do not believe other methods can also save your life.
Usually there are various physical actions that do not involve killing, and those will suffice.
You still have many physical actions that do not involve killing, and those will suffice. As long as you firmly believe that these physical actions that do not involve killing can also save your life, they really can solve the problem.
As long as you believe that violence must be met with violence, you are courting its consequences.
If you meet violence with violence, you are courting violence and the consequences violence brings. On an individual level:
Your own body and mind become a battleground.
From your individual perspective, your body and mind become a battleground. But on a collective level, for a race, for a people, for a nation, the earth becomes a battleground.
Natural Aggressiveness and Creativity
Your physical form is alive by virtue of natural aggressiveness.
Your physical body lives by virtue of natural aggressiveness. Only natural aggressiveness has the power to act, only then can there be forceful, dynamic action.
That balanced, forceful, controlled action is the medium for creativity.
Be sure to remember, it is controlled, it cannot be explosive, eruptive action. It must be forceful and also balanced, and this is the medium for creativity.
He then gives an analogy:
If you cut your finger, it bleeds. In doing so, the blood cleanses the wound of any possible impurities that might have entered the body. And the body knows when to stop the flow.
Bleeding prevents toxins from outside from entering, because it is flowing outward, so toxins cannot get into the body. This bleeding is beneficial. If the blood keeps flowing, in your view that would be wrong, but the body does not think it is bad just because the blood keeps flowing, nor does it consider it evil and try to block all the blood. It will make the necessary adjustments so that the bleeding stops naturally.
He uses this as an analogy: when you think aggressive thoughts are wrong, you do not even let that system cleanse itself. Your aggressive thoughts are like bleeding, meant to carry toxins out. If you think aggressive thoughts are wrong, you imprison the toxins inside. Just as toxins can accumulate in the body, the same thing can happen in your psychic experience.
Physically you may end up with a very serious condition.
Many people get sick. When this kind of aggressiveness cannot be expressed over a long period, when it is suppressed by you, the body will become ill.
Mentally and emotionally, this clamping down on your own power may result in sickened mental structures that are isolated from other healthier concepts. These structures can act like tumors, robbing, say, not of oxygen, but of free interchange between other portions of your conscious experience.
This "sickened mental structure" is like a tumor. It is not a matter of lacking oxygen, but because of a lack of communication, a lack of free interchange, your body will eventually develop problems.
How do we understand this analogy? A tumor takes away all the nourishment from your body, so that normal cells cannot get nourishment, as if they were starved of oxygen. Likewise, because you block the natural flow of the emotion of aggressiveness, the natural flow of energy — aggressiveness is the natural flow of emotion, and also the natural flow of energy, because your thoughts are your energy, driven by energy — if you do not let it be aggressive, do not let it act, do not let the body's actions cooperate with your inner aggressive thoughts and act together, then this will lead to energy blockage.
All right, this session is especially long, and it has gone on until 12 o'clock. We will end this session here, and next I will introduce other content.
Chapter 8: Thought, and the Birth of "Demons" (Part Three)
This episode is the final part of the Chapter 8 commentary on The Nature of Personal Reality, which is Session 635, the Wednesday night class on January 24, 1973.
Before the class began, Rob said that they had already made the letter in which Seth dictated replies to readers' letters into a photocopied edition of several hundred pages and had started mailing it out. Then Seth began the class, and he humorously said, you don't need to write down the word "now." "Now" is a secret signal between the two of us. Whenever I say "now," it means I am about to begin the content that follows -- Rob would add the word "now" every single time.
Continuing from the previous section. In the previous section, we talked about how natural guilt in human society evolves into a form of "never infringing upon others." Because in a natural society, humans no longer need to hunt and kill prey in order to survive. Although we still eat meat, chickens, ducks, fish, cattle, and sheep are all prepared by farms, slaughterhouses, and processing plants, and you only need to spend money to buy them. So natural guilt is no longer needed, and in humans it has taken on another form, called "not infringing upon others." This is a continuation of natural guilt in human beings.
From Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 onward, the difficulty of The Nature of Personal Reality is gradually increasing, but everyone need not be nervous. It is all very easy to understand, it just requires a little more thought compared to the earlier parts.
The Relationship Between Natural Guilt and Memory
Natural guilt is also related to memory. When humans, as if on a hike -- the English word is "hiking," just like when we go on an outing -- enter into past, present, and future experiences and roam about, natural guilt appears hand in hand with us and walks along with us.
Natural guilt was originally a preventive measure. Be sure to remember, its essence is a preventive measure. It requires a mature memory system to exist, one in which new situations and experiences can be judged in light of remembered situations and experiences, and evaluated in that reflective moment in between.
Session 635
Natural guilt was originally a preventive measure. It required the existence of a mature memory system, in which new situations and experiences could be judged against remembered ones, and evaluated in that intervening moment of reflection.
The purpose of natural guilt is to make you take precautions. When you are about to do something, you pull up from memory those past instances where you violated natural guilt, and that makes you feel this thing should not be done again. In the middle there is this "moment of reflection," which is a very crucial point, and it will be brought up repeatedly later on. Any behavior that previously evoked natural guilt will be avoided. Because human beings have many paths available to them, we do not necessarily have only one choice, so why insist on choosing something that violates natural guilt? So when you recall that behavior that triggered natural guilt, you will steer clear of it, avoid it.
A Special Balance
Not only was the extremely definite nature of many animal instincts no longer applicable, but a peculiar balance still needed to be maintained. Why do we say that the animalistic natural guilt is no longer needed in human society? Because in real life we no longer need to hunt and kill prey. But if this constraint of natural guilt is gone, does that mean we can do whatever we want, and no longer need to feel any guilt about anything? If that were really the case, then things would be out of balance.
So a special balance must be maintained, through conscious choice. We human beings have a conscious mind, and the conscious mind chooses what we will do today and which things are permissible. Because the human spiritual world has expanded, and it keeps expanding—unlike animals, which have only the needs of survival and reproduction. Our needs are more and more numerous, and the range of choices is broader: in science, in technology, in emotion, in personal pursuits, in value fulfillment, in work, in life—all kinds of aspects, completely different from the needs of animals.
Given so many possible choices, and given that natural guilt no longer applies, there must necessarily be some other way to maintain this balance. How is it maintained? That is to say, on the biological level human beings are already free enough, but necessary control must still be maintained—you cannot do whatever you want just because the restraint of natural guilt is gone. This necessary control is very important; it maintains your balance.
Control was therefore necessary, to prevent the conscious mind, which refused to make full use of the animal's innate taboos, from running wild like a horse that has thrown off its reins.
So finally the constraint of natural guilt is gone, and then you say, so I can do anything? No. Guilt itself is not inherently connected to punishment the way you think—natural guilt has nothing to do with punishment, no relation at all. Let me emphasize again: it is a preventive measure, not something meant to punish you, not something meant to make you feel guilty every day and torment you.
Any violation against nature would trigger a sense of guilt, so that in the future, if a similar situation arose, the person would not repeat the same behavior in that moment of reflection.
The Moment of Reflection
I have used the phrase "the moment of reflection" several times, because it is another distinctive attribute of the conscious mind. This moment of reflection is when we recall those past things we did that made us feel guilty—it is a distinctive attribute of the conscious mind, and an attribute that most other living beings largely do not have. It is not stated in absolute terms here; it is not that absolutely none of them have it, but most do not, and only a small number of living beings also have it.
That is to say, when you do something and then regret it, feel you should not have done it, because you hurt someone else or infringed upon someone else—this remorseful heart, this natural guilt, this moment of reflection, is unique to human beings.
Without the pause—during which man could remember the past from the present and imagine the future—natural guilt would be meaningless.
What is that pause? It is the moment of reflection. In this moment of reflection, a person can remember the past from the present and imagine the future. For example, in the past I did something: I killed a small animal, and the feeling of its extreme suffering made me extremely uncomfortable inside, and produced a very deep sense of remorse. Today, when I encounter another small animal, I can recall that thing I once did, and I can foresee that if I kill this small animal, I will also suffer in the future, and will also feel guilt. You are also able to anticipate the consequences of what you are about to do and the impact it will have on you. So in this moment of reflection, you are simultaneously remembering the past, standing in the present, and thinking of the future.
According to the situation at hand, and in that moment of reflection, you imagine and judge the consequences of those actions, and imagine the guilt that may come in the future. Everyone has this feeling, right? For example, all kinds of people who cheat on their partners—at the moment they are cheating, they definitely think about what impact this will have on their future life once it happens. They have a very deep sense of guilt, and they also know that the consequences it brings may be incalculable—the family falling apart, the girlfriend leaving them, all kinds of possibilities. So at that moment, they have their own deep sense of guilt.
This guilt brings two results. Once it reaches that point, natural guilt projects the person into the future—you are imagining future events. This is of course a learning process. A newborn calf does not consider so much, so when juveniles commit crimes, very serious criminal consequences often occur, but they themselves do not know what those consequences will bring them. By the time they realize it, it is already too late. If the guilt of the present moment can trigger reflection and introspection, allowing you to foresee the terrible consequences of the future, its purpose is to stop your present behavior—it is preventive in nature. Within the time system adopted by human beings, this is natural.
The Accumulation of Artificial Guilt
Unfortunately, artificial guilt also has the same attributes; it possesses both the functions of memory and projection. Wars could go on forever, because they combine natural and unnatural guilt, and memory further intensifies it.
Deliberate killing beyond what is needed for survival is a violation—be sure to remember, deliberate killing beyond what you need to sustain your life is a violation. If war is not stopped, if it is allowed to develop unchecked, it will go on forever. So in history, there are often accounts of a single war lasting several hundred years. Several hundred years may not seem long, but think about it: the United States has only been a country for a little over three hundred years8, and our New China has only been established for seventy years9—then you will understand what a war lasting several hundred years means.
Why can a war last several hundred years? In war, a person's natural guilt is erased. He feels that killing people for justice, for honor, for the country is all reasonable and lawful; not only is there no need for guilt, he can even receive medals and decorations. At the same time, his loved ones may also have been killed; when national hatred and family vengeance are mixed together, it is completely enough to rob him of all judgment, and he completely loses his reason. He believes that killing the enemy is the most meaningful thing in the world—this combines natural and unnatural guilt, and memory intensifies it.
Strengthened through the generations, the accumulated unrecognized artificial guilt led to such a buildup of repressed energy that it was released and finally resulted in violent behavior.
Be sure to remember: this artificial guilt that we have not recognized clearly, its accumulation leads to a massive buildup of repressed energy, to the point that it is released and ultimately results in violent behavior. Therefore, the hatred of a certain generation of adults whose parents were killed in war will trigger the next war. We often have wars fought to avenge one's father or to wipe away the shame of one's ancestors—this is very common. The war may have stopped, but it has already planted the seeds of hatred, and the next war will very quickly break out again on that foundation.
We often dig up history, dig up the war suffering that our country or our nation endured in the past, and amplify it—this is the accumulation of artificial guilt, and these are all things you do not need to have. This is why wars continue from generation to generation. Even today, the war between the Israelis and the Arabs has still not ended, and bloody conflicts continue—this has already gone on for thousands of years.
The Inner Order of the Animal Kingdom
He goes on to say that the commandment "Thou shalt not violate others" must be flexible enough to cover any situation that conscious human beings might possibly get involved in. The phrase "Thou shalt not violate others" is very simple, but when you interpret it, its flexibility is very great—what counts as violation and what counts as non-violation are interpreted differently under different cultures, different races, and different historical backgrounds.
The animals' instincts and their natural conditions kept their numbers within a reasonable range, and through unconscious, unknowing courtesy, they made room for all other creatures.
Animals do not occupy and exhaust all resources; they leave living space for other creatures—if you understand nature, you should know that they are all like this. Very interesting. But who controls this? People never understood it before.
The Mouse Utopia Experiment
Here I will talk about the most famous experiment in history, also called the ultimate doom experiment for humanity. The experimenter was an American biological scientist, who grew up in a state in the middle of America—I think it was Montana or Ohio, anyway an agricultural state, vast and sparsely populated. From childhood he observed field mice in his own backyard.
How did he do it? From a young age, he tried to fence in field mice with wire mesh, observing how the mice inside reproduced and grew in a relatively enclosed environment. He kept their natural predators outside the fence. Assuming there were no predators, he discovered a strange phenomenon: when the mouse population reached a certain range, it began to decline automatically, and they stopped reproducing; until it dropped to a certain limit, then they could reproduce again, reaching another peak, and then stopped reproducing again.
He did this experiment more than once, from childhood into adulthood. He kept thinking: is there an invisible hand in this world controlling the numbers of all species? When it reaches a certain point, it interferes with their thoughts, making them not mate and not reproduce. He did not know; he just speculated whether this kind of thing was happening.
Later he grew up, and kept studying biology and doing scientific experiments. Around the 1940s, after World War II—I forget whether it was 1947 or 194810—he received a grant, and with the support of some American government scientific research institution, he conducted a very important experiment. He built an extremely ideal mouse paradise, which could also be called a possible future paradise for humanity. There are videos and pictures online that you can look at.
He built a very large area in the laboratory, removed from the natural environment. At the beginning he put in about 100 male mice and 100 adult female mice11. The mice inside had food to eat and water to drink, all fully automated, supplied 24 hours a day. He also built all kinds of villas and buildings for the mice, some high-rise, some low-rise, and all kinds of places to play. Every pair of adult mice had its own home and could choose to live anywhere.
He planned this area to be enough for several thousand mice to reproduce—let us say 5,000. Then he put in 200 mice, with temperature and humidity maintained at the constant natural conditions mice like best. According to human understanding, mice reproduce extremely quickly; with no predators, abundant food, and a carefree life, they should reproduce rapidly and reach the maximum capacity of the space in a very short time. He actually wanted to see what would happen.
As it turned out, a very strange phenomenon occurred in this experiment that humanity still cannot explain to this day. He observed carefully: when the mice reached a certain number—about 1,200 or 1,300, I cannot remember exactly12—before that everything was normal, and the mice lived very happily and joyfully. After reaching that number, strange phenomena appeared.
The new generation of young mice became unsociable; they were unwilling to stay with the group and preferred to be alone. Female mice wanted to hide by themselves in a separate little nest, generally in the very high upper levels of the whole space; they would not come down, only coming down to eat, and after eating they would go back, not making contact with anyone. In the social area at the very center of the space, a large number of young male mice gathered. These male mice groomed themselves to be extremely beautiful, sleek and glossy, and gathered together to do what? Just to chat together and play together. They did not need female mice, and did not pursue female mice. Normal animals, like humans, should seek mates and seek the opposite sex under the stimulation of puberty and hormones—but they did not. These male mice got along very well together, and even engaged in some homosexual behavior, forming a kind of partner relationship. The female mice also disliked the male mice and kept far away—actually not that far—but the male mice did not go looking for them either, and just had a great time by themselves.
The entire mouse society, in such a carefree environment with no worries about food and drink, turned into this situation. The mouse population began to decline, because they did not give birth and did not reproduce. Another year or two passed, and these more than 1,000 mice continued until the very end, when the last mouse died—the entire mouse society, from the original 200 at the start to not a single one left, took about three years, a little less than four13. According to the original plan, by this time there should have been several thousand or even tens of thousands of mice; instead, not only did they fall far short of the maximum number, but these bizarre things happened.
Moreover, in nature, when the mouse population drops to a certain level, they will recover their natural mating and reproductive ability; but in this artificial environment, something even stranger happened—not only did they not recover the ability to mate and reproduce, they actually maintained this state of non-reproduction and non-mating the whole time.
This experiment was later shut down by the American government14. He originally wanted to do a second and third experiment, but the results of this experiment were too terrifying—it foreshadowed the future of humanity. That is to say, suppose we human beings were also in a situation where we had no worries about food and clothing and had everything we wanted, what would human society ultimately develop into? Would it make higher progress the way humans imagine? If we consider it purely from the biological perspective—let us not discuss the spiritual realm and ideological pursuits of human beings for now—the result is not what we imagine. If human beings have no higher spiritual pursuits, the result will often tend toward an ending like that of the mice.
This person eventually wrote his research report into a paper, a very long paper, and published it. In the first chapter of the paper, he spent a great deal of space discussing religion and discussing God. He was a rigorous scientist, not a theologian, but through so many years of experiments, especially this last one, he was too deeply shaken. In the first chapter of the paper he spent a great deal of space discussing: does God actually exist in this world? Is there really an invisible hand manipulating all things in the world and all living beings? He was completely stunned; he himself could not explain this phenomenon, and could only record the experimental results.
Let us look back at this experiment and look at today's human society. Take Japan as an example—Japan was the earliest developed country to enter an aging society15, and basic living conditions are all very good. But look at the situation in Japan today: does it not somewhat resemble the tendencies and trends of the later stages of mouse society? Women throughout society are unwilling to marry and unwilling to have children; men do not want to pursue women either, and staying at home playing games and getting by is fine. The two sexes are separated and estranged, no one wants to pay attention to anyone else, and sexual desire has dropped to an extremely low level; in a low-desire society, even sexual desire has decreased. According to surveys around the world, the frequency and rate of sexual activity among young Japanese men and women may be among the lowest in the world16. When material abundance is at its greatest, the need for reproduction and procreation instead drops to its lowest.
So this kind of experiment sends a chill down humanity's spine—the future doomsday scenario is not what we imagine. Let us not talk about that; it is not today's topic. What we are exploring is: is there a natural control in nature? And Seth tells you there is. What controls it? It is unconscious, unknowing courtesy—they must make room for all other living beings. They themselves do not know it; it is unconscious. The mice themselves do not know why either; they do not know they should do this, but this unconscious, unknowing courteous behavior of making room for other creatures leads to the result ultimately observed in this experiment.
There is also such history in nature. If you have watched nature documentaries—I forget exactly which place and which species—there is a kind of mouse-like creature that reproduces in massive numbers, up to hundreds of thousands or even millions, and at a specific point in time, they begin running wildly for hundreds of kilometers, without eating, drinking, sleeping, or resting, all the way to the seaside, and at a cliff they jump straight down, like a collective suicide17. Humanity still does not know why they do this, or who gave them the instruction. Before that point in time, they reproduce as freely as other creatures, and their numbers increase very quickly; at a certain point, every year in a certain season, they collectively commit suicide. My memory is not very good; I forget exactly which species and in what kind of place.
There are actually many more things like this. For example, we sometimes inexplicably find whales that have rushed onto the beach and stranded themselves, committing suicide. Other animals also have similar suicidal behaviors, and humanity still does not really understand why these things happen.
Natural Control and the Metaphor of the Body
Now look at the next part:
Thou shalt not violate natural life and the earth. In your terms, the living world, struggling for survival, though prolific and difficult to control, was not a natural glutton.
They are not gluttons, not the kind that are greedy, never full, never reproducing enough. Animals are prolific and difficult to control, but they are not naturally gluttonous. You must not violate natural life and the earth.
Animals struggle for survival, but they are not gluttons; they follow an inner unconscious order—this is the order that scientist always wanted to understand but could not see. Just as the number of chromosomes is limited, but there is also a certain order and relationship.
A cell that became omnivorous could destroy the body. What is a cancer cell? A cancer cell is actually a normal cell of the human body that has mutated. We know that on the telomeres of each cell's DNA, there is a tail on the DNA chromosome chain that controls the number of times the cell can reproduce. Every time DNA replicates—that is, every time the cell divides—the telomere wears down a little. When the telomere wears down to a certain point, the cell dies18 and automatically breaks down; it can no longer divide. So the telomere on the DNA determines the lifespan of the cell, in other words determines the lifespan of human beings; this is what controls the number of cells.
And the so-called cancer cell is one in which this switch, or telomere control system, that controls the cell's lifespan and number of divisions has malfunctioned. This cancer cell can live forever—let us say for now that this so-called immortality is relative to other cells. Other cells die after dividing 100 or 200 times, but it can divide 100,000 times and still not die19. You can imagine: it keeps dividing and dividing, and the final result is that there are no other cells left in the body, only cancer cells remain. Moreover, it is your own body's own cell, so the immune system will not kill it—how could you kill your own normal cells? But its numbers increase without limit, and some organ grows without limit, and in the end you die; there is only this one road.
So if benign cells reproduce without restriction, they will ultimately kill the entire organism. Just as in nature, if a certain species does not have its numbers restricted, it will harm the entire natural world—the same principle. So nature must have an unconscious order, and this order can control it. With this order, the entire natural world and humanity can develop better.
Life and Violation
He goes on to say that life can kill—what does this mean? It means that death is latent within life, and life is also latent within death. Then he goes on to talk about viruses:
Viruses are alive. Depending upon the other balances within the body, they can be either beneficial or deadly.
We are right now experiencing the harm of viruses; COVID is a type of virus, and Seth's discussion of viruses is so timely.
In cancer cells, the principle of growth has lost control. In the animal kingdom, each species has its own place and occupies its own position—every animal in the entire food chain has its own place. If one of them proliferates beyond its proper measure, then all life and the earth itself will be in crisis.
If we look at it from this angle, overpopulation is a kind of violation. Here Seth is entirely discussing this from the height of the universe and from a higher-dimensional perspective—you can call him heartless or cold, but he is not considering it from the standpoint of individual human survival, but from the standpoint of the survival of the entire earth and the universe. This kind of coldness and callousness is actually a greater compassion, but we ordinary humans generally cannot understand it.
War and Violation
In the two examples of war and overpopulation, people have ignored their natural guilt. When one person kills another, no matter what his other beliefs may be, some part of his conscious mind always knows the violation involved. But he may rationalize it—in war, when one person kills another, no matter what he says or what his beliefs are, the other person is the enemy, if I do not kill him he will kill me, and so on; you can rationalize it in all kinds of ways, but some part of his consciousness always knows that what is involved is a violation.
That is why there is a condition in this world called post-traumatic stress disorder from war. Soldiers who come back from the battlefield all carry some degree of this trauma in their hearts. In China there is less research on this, because domestically they are either packaged as heroes, and the matter is not brought up. But in America, whether from World War II, the later Korean War, the Vietnam War, or the later Iran-Iraq War, a certain proportion of soldiers have this kind of aftereffect. Some are relatively mild, and after a period of psychological counseling they may improve; some are very severe, so severe that in the end they may be unable to live. The reason is very simple—deep in his inner conscious mind, he always knows that killing is wrong. No matter what reason you use to kill, no matter what righteous reason you use, it is still wrong. This is something he can be aware of.
When a woman gives birth to a child into an already crowded world, a part of her conscious mind also knows that a violation is involved.
When you humans see yourselves destroying other species and disturbing the balance of nature, then he is conscious of the violation.
We human beings should have a very deep natural guilt about destroying other species and driving other species to extinction. When this natural guilt is not faced—when you dare not face it directly, or do not want to change it—then other mechanisms must be employed.
At this point, as ordinary people say: Heaven will have to step in. If you cannot reflect, cannot face this matter, do not examine your natural guilt, and do not let it stop you before your next action—if natural guilt has not played its warning role, its preventive role—then other mechanisms must be employed.
Seth again tirelessly repeats:
Many of your problems are the result of your not accepting the responsibility for your own consciousness.
We do these things consciously—you drive other species to extinction, you over-hunt and over-kill, you cut down trees, and so on—you know all of it. When we consciously know that we are driving other species to extinction, but do not take responsibility for this action, then there is what is often called "carrying out justice on Heaven's behalf"—this "Heaven" will come out to solve the problem.
Consciousness is meant to evaluate reality, to evaluate the world around us. And this reality, this physical world, is unconsciously and directly copied out in accordance with your thoughts and expectations. Our consciousness is what evaluates this outer world that our unconscious has copied out, in an unconscious state, from our thoughts and expectations. So your outer conditions—species being driven to extinction, great trees being cut down—are all copied out from your own thoughts and expectations. I do not mean you as an individual, but the common condition of humanity as a whole. Because you want to live better and happier, you have a craving for resources.
When you do not embrace this conscious knowledge—that your outer world is copied out from your inner thoughts and expectations—you reject it. You say the outer is the outer, I do not know how this environment came about, I do not know why these things happen, I am just a nobody, what does it have to do with me. You do not think the outer world has anything to do with your creation, and you do not want to take on this responsibility—you reject it. You are simply not using the most exquisite and most beautiful tool that humanity has created; you are greatly rejecting your birthright and your heritage.
You originally had this ability, to use your consciousness and the expectations of your thoughts to replicate, to make dreams come true. But you say these things were not created by me, these have nothing to do with my thoughts—you reject it, you refuse to take on this responsibility.
When this happens, because humanity does not fulfill its obligations—these are the obligations we were originally supposed to have, the rights and inheritance we are born with—you then have to fall back on the remnants of ancient instincts. When your consciousness refuses to act, you have to bring out that primitive, natural sense of guilt, bring out the things of primitive instinct.
These instincts were not originally suited to work hand in hand with a conscious reasoning mind.
The ancient instincts of the primitive kind are not well suited to work together with our conscious, now so complex, reasoning mind. Because this kind of instinct, this kind of intuition—animals do not kill other animals, and below a certain population they do not reproduce, all of it decided by instinct, not by consciousness. But we humans are unwilling to use the conscious way to change, to take on the corresponding human responsibility, so we can only rely on instinct to solve things. And instinct is not suited to work together with the consciousness that we humans have, with its capacity for logical reasoning; it will twist and turn. You want to work in a logical, reasoning way, but instinct always gives you that most intuitive thing, and the two cannot find a way to explain each other; it is very difficult.
It also cannot understand your experience—only your conscious, aware mind can understand your experience. Remember that the function of the conscious mind is to understand and evaluate your experience, to observe your world. It instead feels that your moment of reflection is an inappropriate denial of impulse—the moment of reflection is a function that only the conscious mind has, yet instinct interprets this more advanced state as a denial of impulsive instinct. So it becomes very twisted.
Therefore man cannot make full use of the animal's regular and graceful instincts.
Animals do these things very naturally. Animals do not condemn themselves; they do not have that deep artificial sense of guilt; they operate entirely according to the natural sense of guilt, so they themselves have very regular and graceful instincts. But we humans, because of the participation of the conscious mind, do these things awkwardly—we can neither make full use of the animal's graceful and regular instincts, nor have we accepted the conscious emotional discernment that was given to us as a replacement. Neither of these has been used well, and this is the problem humanity now faces.
Dilemma and Distortion
What happens in this situation?
The messages sent as a result are so extremely contradictory that you are caught in a condition in which true instinct can no longer take charge, and reason cannot win out either.
Your instinct cannot take charge, and your reason cannot win out either. What does this lead to? The first situation: neither of the two can take charge, and they fight each other. Or the reverse—what is the reverse? The reverse is that instinct begins to take charge, or reason gains the upper hand. But when instinct takes charge, a distorted version appears; when reason takes charge, it will also use rationality in a way that passes the false off as the true, trying desperately to adjust the direction.
One possibility is that instinct has not worked and reason has not worked either; you have no idea what kind of situation you are in, as if you feel very powerless, with no way to solve it. Humanity today is in this state with regard to the natural environment—rationally we feel we should not keep doing it, instinctively we also know this harm is wrong, but we do not know how to use instinct to do the opposing thing, and reason also tells us not to bother with these matters. The final result is a sense of powerlessness, a sense of worthlessness, not knowing how to act.
The second is the reverse: both want to function, and one of them gains the upper hand. If instinct gains the upper hand, a very distorted version of instinct appears; if reason gains the upper hand, reason will use rationality in a way that passes the false off as the true.
Distortions of instinct can be seen a lot in reality. To give a simple example—the Buddhist-style society and Buddhist-style state of mind among young people today, starting health preservation and self-care very early, caring only about themselves, not wanting to take risks, not wanting to struggle—this is a state caused by the excessive use of reason. The distortion of instinct is another situation, and here I have not thought of a better example. If you have better examples, you can leave them in the comments below—I think examples can help us understand this passage better.
Overpopulation and Responsibility
Seth says:
At present you have a situation in which overpopulation is compensated for by war.
If not through war, then through disease. The problems we are encountering now—is there not this possibility? But then who should die? Which people in the world should die?
It is the young generation about to become parents who generally bear the brunt in such cases.
Why is this so? Because only in this way can the population be reduced extremely quickly. So in war, those who die are all young people—the youngest, eighteen or nineteen, people in their twenties, bear the brunt. In disease it is not like this; young people have stronger resistance.
How can we escape this predicament? By understanding the perfection of the nature of the natural sense of guilt, that is, by shouldering the responsibility that we humans ought to shoulder; we should have the bearing of humanity. Humanity is the guardian of the earth—if we imagine the earth personified as a person, then humanity is equivalent to the ego part of the earth, that is, the outer part, the small-self part. Humanity is the earth's small self. The small self should maintain the health and balance of the earth itself; this is the most basic thing. The small self will not get you killed; your small self certainly takes good care of itself; this is the main purpose and value of the existence of the small self.
But have we humans, as guardians of the earth, as representatives of the earth's spirituality, done such things? We push responsibility away completely—this world has nothing to do with me; if I can take care of myself, that is already something to be grateful for; do not talk to me about the world, the universe, peace—it has nothing to do with me.
Yes, you feel it has nothing to do with you, but does today's virus not have something to do with everyone? When you feel a matter has nothing at all to do with you, in the end it will always present itself before you in a way that does have something to do with you. The pandemic we humans now face is like this. Humanity does not want to take responsibility for nature, and in the end you will be made to see the consequences of not taking responsibility: you cannot travel, cannot vacation, cannot leave your home, cannot go to work, companies cannot operate normally, businesses may go bankrupt, jobs may be lost. The simple pleasures of the past—going out for a walk without a mask, gathering with friends for a meal, eating skewers and drinking beer at a roadside stall—how luxurious these seem today. The reason is very simple: all of humanity does not want to take on this responsibility, so there will be other ways to solve this problem.
Demons and Projection
Continuing:
What are demons? Demons are what we project outward, and so they are placed upon the enemy of a nation, or upon the head of the leader of another race.
Are we not often doing this now? When we face war or disease, we still do not reflect on our own problems, and we still point fingers at others—you caused all this, it is all your fault. Why can we not reflect on ourselves?
Seth said these things in the 1970s, and now when you look back at them, are they not all very interesting? This demon is a projection that we project outward; you will place it on the head of a hostile nation—there are such hostile nations accusing each other—or push it onto the head of another race. For example, in the so-called Black Lives Matter movement in American society today, we can see that they direct their anger at another race, at the head of some leader. In fact, these are all problems of humanity itself, but they will place them on other people's heads. We can see in real life that everything is developing exactly in the way Seth described.
Sometimes whole masses of people will project the images of their own unconfronted troubles onto other large groups.
A portion of the masses projects the image of difficulties they have not yet truly faced, and may face in the future, onto other groups. This phenomenon is often encountered in real life—whether in America, China, or other countries in the world, in Europe, South America, Africa, there is this problem.
He also mentions Augustus from Chapter Six, a person with split personality:
Do you remember Augustus? Augustus mentioned in Chapter Six, a person with split personality. In him you found both the hero and the villain.
A person can be so divided, and a nation or a world is the same. One personality can split, and a nation, a race, or all of humanity can also split—we project one consciousness onto the heads of another group of people, tell them that this is what they think, and then identify them as the enemy.
Thus a family can also be so divided, with one member appearing in the form of the hero and another as the villain and devil. You have two children, and roughly speaking, one of them behaves like Augustus One and the other like Augustus Two—one so gentle and obedient, the other so violent and difficult. You may never have seen the connection between their behaviors, but instead consider them so obviously different. Just like in daily life, every family will have one good child and one bad child—some children are filial, another is not; one does well in school, another does poorly; one is obedient, another is not.
Where is the cause? Seth says it is the division you artificially create.
Yet if good manners and gentleness are not the general condition of a normal child, then neither is continuous violent behavior.
Being well-behaved, polite, and gentle is not the normal condition of a child—no child greets every uncle and auntie politely every day, excessively well-mannered; nor does every child come home from school and do homework every day, get an A on every exam, rank at the top, and never talk back to parents. This is not a child's nature and innate character. And if this is not the normal condition, then that continuous violence is not either—no child will use violence to solve problems every day without stopping.
In such cases there is usually a situation in which one child's behavior acts out for the entire family the unconfronted aggressive behavior. This disharmonious, consistent pattern of action also means that love has not been freely expressed.
Observe a family carefully, and there will often be one child who is the most disobedient thorn in the family, the one the parents dislike the most, always doing things the whole family would never do, so rebellious, never following the ordinary path. What is this child doing? He is using his own behavior to act out the behavior the entire family has not confronted. You have suppressed many aggressive things and never let them come out, so someone needs to act these things out, to let you see what you are suppressing.
The core reason for this pattern is that love has not been freely expressed. Many parents' love for their children has not been expressed normally, but is shown through strict discipline or other means. Many children are the same—they love their parents but have not expressed it, and it shows in the form of hate. I have seen too many such cases in real life—and at the moment of reconciliation it is extremely moving. The parent says: I do love you, I just did not know how to love you; I used the way I thought was best to love you, but I did not expect that I hurt you. When the parent suddenly awakens, that is what he will say.
And the child? He is extremely disobedient, extremely rebellious, but he is often silently, without even knowing it, trying to do one thing—to get praise from these parents he does not like, to get their recognition and affirmation. The less affirmation he gets, the more outrageous things he does. His love for his parents has not been expressed normally; he also loves his parents. The more a child was beaten and scolded at home from childhood, the more likely he is to be the most filial child to his parents when he grows up. Is his love for his parents less than that of the gentle, obedient children who were not beaten? Not only is it not less, it is even greater.
So this is a typical case where the love of both sides has not been freely expressed, and this disharmonious, consistent action results. Although parents beat their children for all kinds of reasons, the essential starting point is still for their own good—it is just that the way and method are wrong. This family state is very common; observe carefully and most families will have this phenomenon. Many people do not understand why; now you know why.
Love, Aggression, and Division
Continuing, he says:
Love is outgoing, just as aggression is also outgoing. You cannot suppress one without affecting the other.
Why does this pattern appear? Love and aggression are both outgoing. If you suppress a person's aggression, then his love is also suppressed. It is very simple: either let them all out, or do not let any of them out. In those families where love is very lacking, the parents press down the child's aggression, strangling it in the cradle—but you cannot strangle it to death at all. If you strangle his aggression, you strangle his capacity to love: he does not know what love is, has not felt your love, and will not love others. It is those children with strong initiative, who seem disobedient, whose love in the actual process comes through all the more intensely.
In such circumstances, the obedient good child often acts out for the entire family the repressed love.
Because love has not been expressed. Because he is good, he has no aggression, cannot live and act according to his own ideas, always has to listen to his parents' ideas, and so his own initiative is gone. So the good child is the overall expression of repressed love.
Yet both the villain and the hero will have trouble, because each is denying the other true picture, or true level, of their experience.
Whether you are the hero or the villain, in the overall experience of life there is another side, and if you insist on suppressing it and not letting yourself experience that side, problems will arise. If you always play the hero or always play the villain, in the end problems will arise—the hero denies the villain side of himself, and the villain denies the hero side of himself. This principle also applies to nations; if we extend the family problem to nations, it also applies.
The Natural Sense of Guilt as a Creative Mechanism
The natural sense of guilt is a creative mechanism, intended to be used as a conscious stimulus in problem-solving.
The natural sense of guilt is a very conscious stimulus in problem-solving, letting you see the problem—without this sense of guilt you cannot see the problem. Those problems, in your terms, are ones no other animal has ever had. Other animals will not go to war over religious belief; they will only go to war over not having enough to eat—this is the most typical.
By using the natural sense of guilt, you can leap over further unknown territory and break through into those dimensions of awareness that have been latent since the birth of the conscious mind.
Since the birth of the conscious mind there have been many dimensions, but there are some dimensions we have not perceived. This natural sense of guilt can stimulate you to see those things you have not seen, to feel those levels you have not felt, the levels consciousness has always kept hidden. Without going through these, you cannot reach those dimensions.
In other words, what is the other side of the sense of guilt? It is compassion. Do not forget, it was said earlier that the sense of guilt and compassion exist simultaneously, that they are two sides of the same thing. When you have experienced this natural sense of guilt, or made use of this natural sense of guilt, you can then perceive the existence of compassion. When you perceive compassion, you can in turn use this compassion to see places you could not see before—you will discover that you actually have so much responsibility toward all of humanity, the whole world, all of nature.
For example, watching the news recently, you can see flash floods and mudslides pushing down and burying entire villages, see the fragility of people in the floodwaters. In the face of great disasters, including the pandemic, this natural sense of guilt deeply stimulates you, stings you. Under this stimulation, many things you had never thought of before, never awakened to, never perceived, will appear. If you can follow your natural sense of guilt, face it squarely, confront it directly, and repeatedly seek out your true inner thoughts, you can use this natural sense of guilt to enter a realm your conscious mind has never before entered or developed. In that realm you may have higher discoveries, higher states, new dimensions.
Follow this natural sense of guilt, and it will be a wise guide.
It not only brings biological integrity, but also triggers within consciousness levels of activity that would otherwise remain closed.
The natural sense of guilt is an ability you naturally possess as a biological being; it itself perfects biological integrity, while at the same time triggering within consciousness levels that have never before been active. Without the triggering of this natural sense of guilt, these levels would remain closed forever.
So we find that many people, when they experience great disasters—the Tangshan earthquake, the 5.12 earthquake, great floods—when they experience these things, some people will suddenly burst forth with the radiance of human nature. Including this pandemic response, we find that medical workers all over the world are so great. Normally they are ordinary people, just like us, with joys and sorrows, with their own small families and lives. But when great disasters come, they charge to the front line without hesitation. They are also afraid of death, also want to live, also do not want to take such risks at a young age—yet they radiate the brilliance and light of human nature. The whole person's inner being has undergone a fundamental change; he is no longer that former small self; through this event he has become a larger self. This is the main function the natural sense of guilt brings us.
注释与核实
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Source: Zongbao, "The Platform Sutra of the Dharma Treasure of the Sixth Patriarch: Account of His Life" (Taisho Tripitaka T48n2008) (https://tripitaka.cbeta.org/ja/T48n2008_001) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Mike's original wording was: "Both the United States and China are demonstrating it: it can directly penetrate a steel plate perhaps half a meter or a meter thick from tens of kilometers away"; after verification, this should read: "High-energy laser weapons publicly demonstrated to date have power outputs ranging from tens of kilowatts to approximately 150 kilowatts (the U.S. Department of Defense plans to increase this to 500 kilowatts), with effective ranges of only a few to just over ten kilometers, subject to weather and line-of-sight constraints. Demonstrations under combat conditions have burned through drones, small-boat hulls, or thin steel plates on the order of centimeters thick; no demonstration has penetrated a steel plate half a meter to a meter thick from tens of kilometers away." (Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), "Science & Technology Spotlight: Directed Energy Weapons (GAO-23-106717)", https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106717) ↩
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Source: Wikipedia, "A Young Girl's Heart" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3%E4%B9%8B%E5%BF%83) ↩
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Source: Liu An, "Huainanzi: Lessons from the Human World" (https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%B7%AE%E5%8D%97%E5%AD%90/%E4%BA%BA%E9%96%93%E8%A8%93) ↩
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere (GEACPS)" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Greater-East-Asia-Co-prosperity-Sphere) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Mike's original wording was: "It has only been a little over three hundred years since the United States was founded"; after verification, this should read: "Counting from the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, approximately 250 years have passed since the founding of the United States, rather than more than three hundred years (July 4, 2026, marks exactly the 250th anniversary of its founding)." (Source: U.S. National Archives, "Declaration of Independence (1776)", https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/declaration-of-independence) ↩
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Mike's original wording was: "It has only been seventy years since our New China was founded"; after verification, this should read: "New China was founded on October 1, 1949; by 2026, seventy-six years had passed, rather than seventy." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "History of China — Establishment of the People's Republic", https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-China/Establishment-of-the-Peoples-Republic) ↩
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Source: Edmund Ramsden and Jon Adams, "Escaping the Laboratory: The Rodent Experiments of John B. Calhoun and Their Cultural Influence" (https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/22514/1/2308Ramadams.pdf) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: Ghaznavi et al., "Sexual Behavior among People Aged 20–49 in Japan: Preliminary Findings from a National Quasi-Representative Survey in 2022" ("The Journal of Sex Research", 2023) (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2023.2178614) ↩
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Mike's original wording was: "There is a kind of mouse-like animal that reproduces in enormous numbers, reaching hundreds of thousands or millions. At a particular point, they start running hundreds of kilometers, without eating, drinking, or sleeping, racing to the coast and jumping straight off a cliff, as if committing mass suicide"; after verification, this should read: "Lemmings do not commit mass suicide—their populations surge every few years because of excessive reproduction, after which they migrate en masse in search of food and new habitats. Some individuals drown while attempting to swim across bodies of water along the way. The footage of them 'jumping off cliffs in mass suicide' was staged for the Disney documentary White Wilderness, with lemmings deliberately pushed off a cliff." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Do Lemmings Really Commit Mass Suicide?", https://www.britannica.com/story/do-lemmings-really-commit-mass-suicide) ↩
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Mike's original wording was: "The telomeres wear down a little. When they have worn down to a certain point, the cell dies"; after verification, this should read: "Telomeres gradually shorten as cells divide. When they reach a critical length, the cell does not die as a result but instead enters replicative senescence (the Hayflick limit)—it permanently stops dividing but remains alive and metabolically active." (Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Telomerase" (Telomerase), https://www.britannica.com/science/telomerase) ↩
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Mike's original wording was: "Other cells die after dividing 100 or 200 times, but it can divide 100,000 times without dying"; after verification, this should read: "Normal human cells in culture generally divide only about 40–60 times (the Hayflick limit) before entering senescence. HeLa cells, however, are not subject to this limit because of telomerase activation and can divide indefinitely in culture, rather than a specific 100,000 times." (Source: Wikipedia, "Hayflick Limit" (Hayflick limit), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayflick_limit) ↩