Mike's commentary · The "Unknown" Reality, Session 684

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

Introduction

This session explains that units of consciousness (EE units) and units of meaning are psychic units, prior to matter, forming the mind and cellular structure; the brain is built around the mind. Cells foresee future probabilities, the body's state is determined by its understanding of future possibilities, and heredity working backward from the future is more real; neither the past nor the future is predetermined. The body and the physical universe flicker like light, consciousness chooses across the gaps, and experience is built around significance; belief and reality are inseparable.

Key Points of This Chapter

• EE units and meaning units are psychic units that precede matter; material forms come into being after they accumulate to a certain intensity.
• The mind precedes the brain, and the brain organizes itself around the mind; cellular structures are formed by units of consciousness from outside space-time, and therefore possess precognitive qualities.
• The body's balance is maintained jointly by future and past probabilities; heredity working backward from the future is more real than heredity working from the past into the present.
• Neither the past nor the future is predetermined; the present hangs suspended, simultaneously influenced by probable pasts and probable futures, and the present moment can alter both.
• The body and the physical universe flicker on and off like light; consciousness chooses to leap across the gaps, organizing experience around significance; belief and reality are inseparable.

Main Text

Session 684: EE Units (Units of Consciousness), Units of Meaning, the Body, Cellular Precognition, Heredity and Precognition

This session began on February 20, 1974, Wednesday evening at 9:42 p.m. Last night, Tuesday evening, Jane told the ESP class that Seth had begun writing a new book. Seth also had a few words to say about this book, excerpted from the tape recording of that class:

Now reality has neither beginning nor end.

This is something you can probably understand by now, after having studied the Seth material with me for so long -- the reality of this world has no beginning and no end. There is indeed an expanding universe, but it is formed within the eternal present. Our scientists believe the universe is expanding¹, and there is indeed such a universe, but it was not formed at the point of the Big Bang².

In this book, I will go as deeply into those truths as I can.

Seth is really going all out here, trying to explain things that are fundamentally impossible to put into words. But some of you will not be able to keep up -- because the difficulty of this book is indeed starting to increase. I think this book is suited for those who truly want to study the Seth material, or those who truly want to explore the truth of this universe. For those who want to solve their own problems, or solve the personal and practical issues they encounter in their own lives, the earlier books are sufficient. Starting from this sixth book, the later Seth material is really only suited for an exploration of the truth of the universe and deeper knowledge. Those who simply want to solve their own problems need not read further, because the difficulty has already become very high -- and this is only the beginning; it will get higher and higher.

You create your own reality, but whether or not you choose to follow into these other realms, that statement holds true, and is true.

"You create your own reality" is a real thing. Whether or not you are willing to continue learning, whether or not you are willing to enter those unknown realities -- whether in the reality we are familiar with, or in the realities unknown to us, this statement applies in any reality.

For those who truly wish to accompany me, I promise you an adventure -- I bring you an adventure, a creative alteration of consciousness, and experiences beyond those you have ever known.

Seth is saying that if you want to learn from him, he will bring you a gift. What is this gift? It is an adventure. What kind of adventure? It is to creatively alter your consciousness, and then take you to experience those experiences beyond your experience.

Look at the world around you, and marvel at its richness and variety. Do you think the inner world is not equally rich? Or even richer, and more valuable? Do you think there is only one kind of consciousness?

He is laying the groundwork for everyone -- your world is formed by the vast unpredictability of consciousness. This world is formed within a vast, unpredictable consciousness, and they are formed by your own concepts of importance and your own concept of yourself. We have discussed importance before. What does "your concept of yourself" mean? It means how you think you are, how you think the world is, or how the world should be -- the world is then created according to such beliefs of yours.

You must stop thinking of this in terms of usual ideas of progress. When you worry about how to keep up with Zhang San or Li Si, it is already worse.

In real life, comparing ourselves with others is a very bad thing. Because you are unique, and you should not compare yourself with anyone. But when you start worrying about which self, which consciousness is higher than another, is that not even more hopeless? Seth speaks relatively casually in the ESP class, because he is not writing a book, and there is a lot of colloquial language in it. When in reality you compare yourself with others, comparing this and that, it is already very wrong. But if you compare your probable selves, your reincarnational selves, your various identities, or compare different consciousnesses -- higher consciousness, lower consciousness -- which is higher and which is lower, is that not even more hopeless?

The above is the content from his ESP class. What follows is the content Seth transmitted through Jane that same evening.

Units of Consciousness and the Speed of Light

Now these units of consciousness, that is, EE units, and units of meaning, move faster than the speed of light. But when I say they move faster than the speed of light, this statement is in some respects meaningless.

Why is it meaningless? Because those units of consciousness exist both within and outside the framework in which light itself has meaning. When Seth says units of consciousness move faster than the speed of light, this statement is from a certain angle meaningless -- the reason being that the speed of light has meaning in your world. The speed of light is actually very meaningful in our three-dimensional reality; it defines the maximum speed limit in the material world, and the speed of light is also related to mass and energy -- in mass-energy conversion it becomes a constant. Einstein's E=mc^2³, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared; the speed of light serves as a constant in this energy conversion formula. So is the speed of light important? Of course it is. It is one of the most core elements that allows our material world to be realized, for us to see it or for it to appear the way it does. Can you imagine what kind of world this would be if there were no light?

However, when these units of consciousness approach material structure -- in your terms -- as they begin to become materialized, they slow down.

The premise must be "in our terms" -- from our perspective, it seems as though they slow down.

For example, compared with EE units, electrons become slow idiots.

Electrons basically operate at speeds close to the speed of light⁴, and the scientific community has proven this through countless measurements. Because the mass of an electron can be extremely, extremely small, approximately zero, but even so it cannot exceed the speed of light -- even if it has the slightest bit of mass, it cannot. Seth says that compared with those EE units, electrons are as slow as idiots.

Needless to say, the units of consciousness are definitely mental, definitely not physical -- or if you prefer, without bodies. Although all physical forms emerge from their inner organization.

That is to say, they have no bodies. Although all matter emerges from these bodiless, non-materialized, mental units of consciousness, the units of consciousness themselves are mental.

Before the smallest physical particles, even invisible physical particles, exist, these units must accumulate to a certain intensity.

The most basic material units we see are elementary particles, and there are also some material particles we cannot see. Before these exist, those EE units -- whether units of consciousness or units of meaning -- must accumulate to a certain intensity. That is, they must undergo some process of energization; when this energy reaches a certain level, they will then manifest in the material world as some kind of force or some kind of particle state; only then will they materialize.

The Order of Mind and Brain

These units form what you think of as the mind.

That is, what we call the mind -- your mind is formed by these things.

And the structure of the brain is formed around the mind.

How did our brain come about? It was formed around the mind. These units pervade the brain. Our brain was not formed with the brain first and then the mind -- that is our scientists' understanding, believing that the brain came first, and then thinking, consciousness, and such things emerged within the brain. But Seth tells you directly: this is backwards. It should be that the mind came first -- the mind is composed of these units of consciousness -- and then the brain was constructed and materialized around this mind. And these units have always been pervading our brain.

Within the body, the great communication system depends upon the constant inner pulsations and flows of these units.

Because these units of consciousness are nonphysical and mental, our scientific instruments cannot observe them. Therefore, when we keep asking "where do human thought and consciousness come from," we have long been unable to obtain an effective scientific explanation that can convince ourselves. The only relatively plausible explanation currently is: human consciousness is a process produced when the brain processes these sensory signals and sensory stimuli -- the process of neurons interacting, communicating, and stimulating one another itself produces consciousness. This explanation is extremely far-fetched. Now Seth tells you that the core reason is simply that the units of consciousness are inside the brain, and the brain is also constructed around the units of consciousness.

The Body and Probabilities

On one level, the survival of the body itself depends to a large extent upon the propensity of these units for selectivity and significance.

From a certain level, whether your body can live well depends to a large extent upon the propensity of these units of consciousness for selectivity and significance. Units of consciousness all have propensities -- if they choose death, then your body dies; if they feel that living is more important, then you will continue to live. This is a kind of selectivity.

Yet the physical reality of the body is also an apparent constant within an apparently unchanging physical existence.

That is to say, the physical reality of our body seems as though it does not change much in this material world; the physical body seems as though it has always remained the same.

Only because these units have their source outside of space and time is the present reality of the body a triumph of probabilities.

Probabilities and unpredictability are endless. That our body can manifest in the material world is itself a very small probability among numerous possibilities. That this probability can form a physical existence such as the body in the material world is a triumph of probabilities. Those examples that failed to form a material body also exist, but you are not aware of them. What you are aware of is already a successful human form.

For example, your present image seems to be the only one possible for you at present, at least it is yours throughout your life. And the events that happen to it seem almost inevitable. For instance, if you become ill, you may wonder why I became ill, but once the illness has occurred, it becomes part of the body's reality, and seems almost as if it were an inevitable part of its experience.

We often say that "being human is a precious and rare thing." Many religions or ancient teachings say that obtaining a human body is rare. From the perspective of successfully realizing it from countless possibilities, obtaining a human body is indeed rare. And your present image seems to you to be the only one, and one that will not change throughout your life. Today's facial recognition systems, even if you undergo great changes -- gaining weight, growing older -- can still recognize you. This facial recognition system relies on many algorithms plus artificial intelligence; it calculates this, so your appearance actually follows you throughout your life.

And the things that happen to the physical body seem as though they are inevitable: from birth to death, birth, aging, sickness, and death seem unchangeable and unavoidable. You may wonder, "Why did I get sick?" But once you become ill, the illness becomes part of the body's reality -- after becoming ill, your body is a sick body. This phenomenon or event occurs upon your body and becomes part of your body's reality, always following you. Some people who get chronic illnesses or incurable diseases will carry them for life.

Cellular Precognition

These units of consciousness, independent of space and time, form your cellular structure, and that structure deals with the nature of probabilities in a most basic manner.

The units of consciousness that form your body are outside of space and time; they are not limited by our space and time. Our body's structure deals with the nature of probabilities in a most basic manner. Why? Because the body is composed of cells, and cells are composed of units of consciousness. From the essence of our body, it is itself not something within our space and time. Although it forms an integrated physical body, seemingly a material existence in the material world, the components that make up this material body do not exist within our material world. From the cellular level, from the levels that compose cells, they themselves can transcend space and time, because they are all composed of units of consciousness.

Although from one moment to the next the body appears eternal, basically it is constantly being born from the creativity of probabilities.

You think it is eternal and unchanging -- at least within your short span of time, from this second to the next, you feel the body has not changed. But actually, between this moment and the next, your body is a new body created at any time according to the selection of probabilities or the selection of significance. The body of this second and the body of the previous second are actually no longer the same body, because it determines what the body should be like based on its probabilities, or its significance and predictiveness regarding the future.

Soaring above the present point of your perception and experience.

That is to say, your perception of your body can only remain at the present point. Apart from the present point, the body is constantly changing -- the body of the previous present and the body of the next present are already different from the body of your current present.

And its imagined stability is dependent upon its simultaneous knowledge of future and past probabilities.

Why do you feel it is stable? Why do you feel the body has a continuous, stable sense of continuity? Because your body only lives in the present moment; apart from the present moment it does not exist. But the reason you feel it is stable is that your body simultaneously possesses knowledge of both the past and the future -- what kind of knowledge? Knowledge of probabilities. Its body can simultaneously have knowledge of future and past probabilities; it hangs in between, able to see both the probabilities of the past and the probabilities of the future. Remember here, what it emphasizes is definitely probability -- so the future is not fixed, and the past is not something that, once it has happened, truly cannot be changed. The past can also be changed, and the future can also be changed -- the past is probability, and the future is also probability.

Previously, in The Nature of Personal Reality, Seth mentioned changing the past through the point of power. Many people did not understand, saying, is this not just Ah Q spirit? Is this not a kind of hypnosis? I think it actually does not matter -- no matter how you understand it, as long as you can learn that method, and can change the history that happened in your past, changing the history you do not like, do not want, and want to change, as long as you learn that method, that is enough. What Seth is telling you here is: why this method works. This book is actually an extension of that book. He has said before that The "Unknown" Reality is a more advanced version of The Nature of Personal Reality, or a more thorough version. That book is like a toolbook and is already sufficient, while this book tells you the principles behind those methods.

The Suspended Consciousness

Your present is the result of your own suspended consciousness choosing its perception and the nature of its life from a range. It can still be predicted only because it can utilize a larger range of organization.

What is the "suspended consciousness"? This consciousness can span the present, past, and future. It neither clings to any point nor depends on any point; it is above them, which is why it is called "suspended." Let me use an analogy: suppose your life is composed of a pile of photographs, each photograph being a probability -- at what age you attended this elementary school instead of that one, attended this kindergarten instead of that one, each probability being a photograph. And your consciousness is above these photographs; it selects from these photographs of probabilities what it wants to perceive. All the probabilities are laid out there, but it only selects what it is interested in -- the basis of selection is its propensity, its significance. Whatever idea it has about the nature of life, it will select whatever experience accordingly.

"He can still be predicted" means that within a limited range we can predict the development of the future -- if you go to college, you can roughly predict the series of life events that follow; if you go to work at a company, you can also predict what kind of life state you will have. Why can it still be predicted? Because it can utilize a larger range of organization -- the two vast storehouses of past and future probabilities -- and your selection is based on your significance and your view of the results of the nature of life, so all of this appears predictable.

The Body Is Determined by the Future

At any time, the condition of your body is not so much the result of its understanding of its own past history, but rather the result of its understanding of future probabilities.

This begins to overturn our understanding. The current mainstream understanding of humanity is: the present condition of the body is caused by the past -- it has continued from childhood to the present, and that is why the body has become what it is. But if you understand it this way, it is better to think of it in reverse: your body is the result of its understanding of future probabilities. Your body's cells have an expectation of the future -- cells are composed of units of consciousness, and units of consciousness themselves are not limited by space and time; they can easily go to the future to obtain the information they want. At the level of units of consciousness, they have precognition of the future -- but this precognition is precognition from probabilities. The future is not a fixed thing; they can select from future probabilities one that matches their propensity and significance. When your cells make such a selection, your body will develop in that direction.

Our body is determined by the future. Now do you understand? Why the law of the psyche works, why it insists that you think about the most beautiful things, the things you most want to realize, and why it can be realized and can be effective -- the effectiveness of the law of the psyche has been verified by countless people. Although it is only the smallest, practically applicable method within the Seth material, even such a method is extremely effective. The reason is that your body is determined by future probabilities, and future probabilities are selected by your consciousness -- so this is why we need to train our consciousness to focus on the things we want to manifest.

The Barrier of Time

I am simplifying this now -- the cells themselves are precognitive, and I will explain this more clearly later in this book. But your limited concepts of time create conceptual barriers.

Seth will specifically discuss how cells are precognitive in Sessions 690 and 691 later on. But your narrow concepts of time will make it difficult to understand how cells can be precognitive.

Even when you consider specific life -- the structure of biological life -- that barrier still operates.

What is the structure of life? It is the cell; cells are composed of units of consciousness. When you are considering the structure of life, you are still considering the matter of time. Unless you consciously exclude it from your thinking and theories or from the scope of your consciousness, as long as you use your brain to think about problems, without even noticing it, you will unconsciously bring time into all your modes of thinking as a basic common sense, a constant. The moment you think, you bring time with you, even when you are completely unaware of it -- because you have been thinking this way since childhood, for decades. But when someone points it out, you suddenly realize: oh, right, right, I am discussing the problem within space and time again.

Once you bring time into it, your understanding of many problems is subject to a huge limitation. For example, once you bring time into it, you cannot understand how cells can be precognitive -- you think that future events have not happened, so how could cells know what the future will be like? I myself do not know, yet the cells know. This is your narrow understanding of time, hindering your understanding of the essence of the structure of life. And precisely these cells can be precognitive, and are even smarter than you, making a very effective selection from probabilities regarding the future -- remember, precognition of the future is not precognition from certainty, but precognition from probabilities.

Heredity and the Future

For example, it is more true to say that heredity works backward from the future into the past, than to say that it works from the past into the present.

We humans all say that heredity is inherited from parents, mothers, or ancestors -- that is the usual understanding. Seth says this is wrong -- it is more true to say that heredity works backward from the future into the past, than to say that it works from the past into the present. But it can only be said to be closer to the truth; it is not the truth either. Why is it not the truth? Because whether from the present to the future or from the future back to the past, you are still discussing the problem within a framework of time. As long as you drag time into the discussion, you are not getting to the ultimate. The statement here is only relatively more true -- the future determines our present, not the past determining our present.

But in any case, neither statement is entirely correct. Because your present is a suspended balance, influenced as much by probable futures as by probable pasts.

The true situation is that there is no concept of a timeline. Your present moment is simultaneously influenced by both the past and the future -- past, present, and future occur simultaneously. He is telling you now why past, present, and future are simultaneous -- it is exactly like this: simultaneously influenced by both past and future.

The Flickering of the Body

Generally speaking, there is no time when your body is not here for you. Your experience seems to be concentrated within it, while the rest of the world is safely outside.

This is our usual understanding -- the body is always here, and the entire world is outside your body.

Yet the specific choices of your consciousness leap across gaps that you do not recognize. In a manner of speaking, your body flickers on and off like light. From your standpoint, they seem like fluctuations of reality. In that respect, the physical universe is the same.

You think your body is always here, but actually your body is sometimes here and sometimes not. But because of the choices of your consciousness, it leaps across those gaps -- you do not recognize these gaps. Your consciousness selects from numerous probabilities the next one it wants to go to, one that has significance for it or matches its propensity. From your present reality to the selection of the next probability, it jumps over the in-between -- it is frame by frame, picture by picture, jumping from one probability to the next. In this jumping process, those probabilities that were not selected also exist, but you skipped over them; you did not even look at them. The gaps left in between are not perceived by you. So from a certain angle, your body is like a flickering light -- you can imagine that your life is like those strobing emergency flashlights, or the flash of a high-frequency strobe camera taking continuous shots.

From your perspective, they seem like the rising and falling of reality -- if reality is a kind of energy, like a tide, when it rises you see it, and when it falls you do not see it. From this angle, our material world also flickers like the body; the matter you think exists is actually flickering.

Your consciousness fluctuates, as you can understand; and this applies to atoms, molecules, electrons, and other such phenomena.

Your consciousness has fluctuations; every individual can perceive various different intensities and concentrations. Regarding the periodicity of consciousness, it was specifically introduced in The Nature of Personal Reality -- consciousness has a periodicity of rising and falling, like a sine wave, or like high and low electrical levels. When that chapter was discussed, many people confused the periodicity of consciousness with the levels of consciousness while studying -- these two things are both related and unrelated. What he is talking about is the periodicity of consciousness: in certain situations you are more alert or more conscious than in others; sometimes we are absent-minded, and sometimes we are very alert and focused. Your units of consciousness are the same, and atoms, molecules, electrons, and matter all fluctuate in this way too -- sometimes here, sometimes not.

Between one consciousness and another, there is a very large gulf, a gap there. But ordinarily we do not perceive the existence of that gulf, because the consciousness we are aware of is continuous. Between one consciousness and another we have no awareness, and that space, that interval, that gulf, we call the unconscious or a state of emptiness in which "there is nothing" -- but actually it is not; actually it is something periodic in consciousness.

Your world is indeed something that flickers on and off.

Like stars twinkling in the sky, that feeling of twinkle, twinkle, little star. Yet this fact of fluctuation does not disturb your own consistent feeling in the least -- you still feel that the world is stable and continuous. This question is also discussed very clearly in Buddhism. You can listen to Yu Shiwei's talks on the Diamond Sutra⁵, which cover a great deal of this -- the continuity you regard as constant and unchanging is all an illusion, while the real world is just like this: now here, now not, constantly flickering. From this angle, discussing birth and death and such things is meaningless, because within one second you have already been born countless times and died countless times. But from the standpoint of your conscious cognition, you still feel that a stable and continuous you is alive.

Choice and Importance

Those "holes" that do not exist, that is, the gulf in the middle of consciousness, that gap, are plugged up by the process of choosing. You are making choices -- you choose this, and you give up those other possibilities. Those so-called holes of non-existence, that is, the gulfs between consciousnesses, you can also understand as other possibilities -- the possibilities you did not choose. Because you did not choose them, you are not aware of their existence, while other yous, other probable yous, chose that in other times and spaces.

Again, the process chooses importance, and experience is built up around it.

On what basis do you actually choose? On the basis of importance. Importance to what? Importance to the inclinations of this consciousness of yours. You feel that whatever matches your inclinations, whatever is important to your inclinations, you choose that importance as the next thing your consciousness wants to experience. And the experience that follows is built up around that choice of yours -- if you choose this, it will generate this kind of reality; if you choose that, it will generate that kind of reality. Belief creates reality is born right here, produced by your choice.

And life is perceived around it as well.

"Life" in quotation marks -- our physical life, our bodily life, also takes such a choice as its core in forming the world of reality.

A life's own felt sense, then, automatically sets up barriers against other such world systems that are not relevant to itself.

What does "world system" mean? It means a kind of physical world. To put it simply, you build a new world only around your choice, and as for those you did not choose, you automatically do not establish connections with them, and between you there is also established a barrier -- a barrier by which each cannot know the other's existence. Two parallel worlds are this barrier. The reason is that you did not choose that one, while another you chose that one -- he forms his world around his choice, you form your world around your choice, and these two worlds cannot communicate with each other. The premise of this inability to communicate is on the physical level, while at their underlying level they can communicate.

Except in your present, you cannot examine an atom, a cell, or anything.

You live only in your present moment. Apart from the present moment you are nothing, and you cannot confirm anything either. When you are not in the present, examining that atom, cell, or anything is meaningless -- because none of them are things in this present of yours. Whether past or future, those things are not things in this time and space of yours. Only this point of the present is consistent with your choice and meaningful.

The Ruins of Certainty

All of your sense experience except the present follows a time pattern that you can understand.

Because our senses necessarily follow the pattern of time, you think that a cell is the result of the past, that it arose from the past, and that a fetus growing into an adult was already set by the past. Because we have the limitation of time, we think that a cell develops from past cells.

The fetus grows into an adult, not because it was set in the past, but because it precognitively perceived its possibilities to some extent, and then imprinted that future, that data, into the structure of the past.

This completely breaks free of all the limitations of our time and space. We think that a child begins from a single-celled fertilized egg, divides, and keeps growing -- that is our assumption. But Seth says, rather, that such a fetus grows into that form based on its own prediction of its future -- according to what it wants to become in the future, what it wants to grow into, based on its own prediction. In his words, it imprints the data of the future into the structure of the past, and the past then grows according to the pattern of the future.

All of our science is completely incapable of understanding this statement.

From your viewpoint, however, examining a cell will not show you that.

You want to look and see whether the cell has information from the future imprinted into the information of the present -- you cannot find it. You cannot verify this; it will only show you its present condition. The cell you see is just its present appearance; you cannot see its past, still less its future. In other words, the past you see is not necessarily its past, and the future you cannot see at all, nor do you have that ability.

From what I have said, it should be obvious that neither the future nor the past is predetermined.

You say the future is uncertain, and many people can understand that; but why is the past also uncertain? Now you can understand: the reason the past is uncertain is that your past is written by the future -- your past is imprinted back by the data of the future, imprinting what is foreseen into the data of the past. Since the future is constantly changing, how can the past be fixed? Since the future can modify the past, then can this present moment of yours also change those things of the past? Of course -- this present moment is the future relative to the past. This is the inner principle behind his constant emphasis on the simultaneity of past, present, and future, or the idea that this present point can change the past.

The Suspended Present

From your suspended present, that is, from the platform of your present experience, you alter both the past and the future, and that alteration, that action, gives rise to the point of felt life in your own experience.

Why is the state of this present moment of yours so important -- your feeling of life depends only on this present moment. At this point, both your future and your past can be determined by this present point. If at this present point your heart gives rise to joy, then your past and future also give rise to joy; if at this present point you live in boundless joy and peace, then your past and future also live at the same time in the enjoyment of joy and peace. So if you can realize this point, then in theory you are basically enlightened; but in personal experience you may still need some practice or feeling, and this varies from person to person. At least in cognition, you have understood it.

Your feeling of life: if you feel joyful in the present, then it is joyful; if you feel suffering in the present, then it is suffering; if you feel that life is worse than death in the present, then it is worse than death. If in the present that joy wells up spontaneously and all kinds of joy emerge one after another, then whether past or future, your whole life is joyful.

Seth paused for a long while, indicating that this passage of concepts is very important.

Your existence, and the precious privacy of your universe, is all the more miraculous. It can be said that it is precisely because its probable reality emerges from an infinite range of possibilities, each of which is forever inviolate.

What he means is, how miraculous this is -- that from countless possibilities and infinite unpredictability, there arises a present, current you. How many hundreds of millions of other probable existences there are, but none of them are you -- you are the unique you among so many possibilities, among infinitely many possibilities, and that is how you were born. And the experiences of your life, those private and precious experiences, are precious and private to the universe, because they are all the choices of your consciousness, chosen according to your consciousness's understanding of the importance of its inclinations, and they are absolutely unique. Every choice is sacred and inviolable, and inviolable means unique, never extinguished, never disappearing, eternally existing.

Many people do not understand what enlightenment is. Actually, many enlightened people simply understood one point clearly -- some people just think through one angle or one question thoroughly, and then one thing understood leads to all things understood. It does not matter which point you enter from; you only need to keep thinking, and perhaps at a certain point on a certain day, you will suddenly see through it all. Just think: out of this vast, countless, infinite, indescribable multitude of possibilities, for a you to emerge -- how miraculous that is.

There are 7 billion people in this world⁶. Think carefully, according to Seth's system, think carefully: how low is the probability of such a possibility, that it could produce you. And in this life of yours, again based on your consciousness, you chose this life of yours. How precious and how miraculous the experiences of this life are. The privacy within it means how unique it is, belonging only to you. The meaning of privacy here is this -- experience that belongs only to you, and it is eternal, cannot be extinguished, cannot be violated. Although it is only experienced once, it is an instant that is eternal. He says that as long as you think of these things, as long as you often reflect on this, it can liberate your consciousness and give you a deeper realization. That is what he means.

He said, please wait for us a moment, and then he began to organize his language.

Belief and Reality, Two Sides of One Coin

You cannot separate your beliefs about reality from the reality you experience.

He emphasized this point once again. What he means is that you cannot separate your beliefs about reality from the reality you experience. But the understanding of this statement must be complete, and it operates on several levels. I will speak of its most ultimate level — what you understand may be what you understand, but I will only speak of what he intended to express — which is this: your beliefs about reality form your concepts of what is possible and what is impossible, and these are reflected everywhere. This statement is extremely important, yet it seems plain and unremarkable on the surface. What he means is that your beliefs and the reality you experience are a pair, or they go together, or one gives rise to the other — one could even say they are two sides of the same coin.

Why? Because your beliefs create your reality. We have come back to the most fundamental point again: your beliefs create this reality, and you experience within this reality and gain this experience. Therefore, the experience you gain originates from your most original belief. In other words, it is what you wanted to experience. So how can you separate the world you experience — that is, the environment around you, all the things you are currently going through — how can you separate it from your reality? Because it is produced by your reality, chosen by your reality from among countless possibilities.

And within your beliefs, is there not something about what is possible and what is impossible? And this determines what kind of beliefs you hold. What is possible and what is impossible — that is your belief. When you feel that becoming a billionaire is impossible, then that is your belief, and what manifests in your actual life is that you will not be a billionaire. Can you understand this? So you see, your beliefs and your reality are intimately connected, tightly linked, mutually nested.

Why nested? Because your experience of this reality will in turn give you new beliefs. In other words, when you believe that your life is a state of hardship and suffering, then you will be given such a reality. And when such a reality is given to you, it will in turn reinforce your belief that this world is one of hardship and suffering, and it will make your life even more difficult, to confirm that your belief is correct. If, on the contrary, you feel that life is easy, natural, very happy, and so on, and you hold such a positive belief, then your reality will present itself to you in that way. When it presents itself to you, you will believe even more firmly that your belief is right, that life is beautiful, happy, and abundant. And this strengthened belief will in turn create new realities for you.

Now can you understand why it insists that you have right mindfulness, why it insists that you have correct beliefs? Because if you hold a negative belief, or a limiting belief, you will drag yourself into it and cannot get out — you cannot get out. In the physical world, there may occasionally be opportunities to distract your attention, to pull you out partially, or to keep you from sinking deeper. But if you truly carry such negative beliefs into, say, a meditative state, or a state of entering deeper levels of consciousness, I can only tell you that at that point you will not be able to get out at all. Because when belief creates reality, at that level it happens extremely fast — it is completed in an instant. The moment you think of something fearful, a fearful reality appears; the fearful reality makes you more afraid; then you produce even more fearful beliefs; then it creates an even more fearful reality; then you become more and more terrified, scaring yourself so much that you cannot get out at all.

Because in everyday life, creating these terrifying things or constructing these terrifying events takes time — it is not that fast. And in that process, if you are not living alone, when you come into contact with people around you, others will have an influence on you. Others may be positive, optimistic, and sunny; their lives are like that, and they will influence you, pulling you away or drawing you out of those negative things. But when you are — for example, in a meditative state, or in a deep state of consciousness — or many people with depression, who live in their own small world, in a purely cerebral world of consciousness, they cannot get out. Because they will nest deeper and deeper into it, and it becomes a feedback loop that keeps compounding. And this feedback makes the problem more and more severe. If it is good, it gets better and better; if it is bad, it gets worse and worse.

So what is to be done? I often tell everyone: when you have negative beliefs, or bad limiting beliefs, you do not need to be polite with them, saying let us negotiate, let us change bit by bit, starting from small issues — you will not be able to change them. That negative belief is stronger than you, its force is greater than yours, it knows you better than you know yourself; it knows where your weakest points are, where your most vulnerable spots are, what can affect you. So from that angle, it is very difficult to change it. There is only one way to change it: use forceful means, replace it with a completely opposite belief.

When you feel that this world is evil, then firmly believe that this world is good. No matter how others hurt you, deceive you, or torment you, in the depths of your heart you must firmly believe that this world is good, and then your reality will gradually begin to align with this belief. If you still have fear in your heart, saying, "I want to believe this world is good, but actually this world is evil, so won't I just get cheated in between? Won't I just become a victim? Won't I just be an idiot? This world is clearly evil, and I am just being like Ah Q, pretending it is good" — you see, your belief has not changed at all; in your heart you still firmly believe this world is evil. You are only saying that in order to heal yourself, or to gain some benefit for yourself, you will pretend to believe this world is good, but in essence you still think this world is evil. When you truly believe this world is good, how could things like being hurt or being deceived even happen?

Therefore, I have said the simplest method countless times. Whether you do it or not is your business; whether you change or not is your problem; I am only telling you the method. If you cannot do it, if you say "I cannot do it," that is your problem. For you, there is only one method: use a completely opposite belief to directly replace those negative, limiting beliefs — be forceful with them, be tough with them. When those negative beliefs and those things surface again, curse at them directly, curse them out loud, drive them away, do not be polite to them. Why? As I just explained, why? Because they will drag you deeper and deeper. At the beginning, you can still curse at them and drive them away; if you ignore them, they will drag you to a point where you simply cannot turn things around. At that point you will be in a terrible state — you will not even have the possibility of turning things around, nor the ability to replace them with positive beliefs. So while you still have this ability, you must not be soft-hearted.

Viewing the Soul from a Multidimensional Cosmology

Then it is almost impossible to begin with an isolated universe, a self manipulated by its own past, a concept of chronological time, and arrive at any acceptable theory of a multidimensional soul or godhead—and that theory is not merely a glorified or personalized concept of what you think a human being is.

Seth is saying, if you want to obtain true insight, or if you want to obtain a true understanding of the universe, you must not begin from an isolated universe—just one single universe—nor from the idea that the self is now being manipulated by the past, nor from the concept that time has a sequence. Because if you begin from that place, you will never be able to understand the true multidimensional nature of this universe. The multidimensional nature of this universe can never be understood from our single cosmology and single time framework. That is what he means here.

He says, when you use a multidimensional cosmology—a multiverse, that is, a multidimensional cosmology—to consider problems, then you will not glorify or personalize human beings or gods, you will not deify them, you will not engage in that kind of god-making movement, saying that there is a god who created this universe and so on and so forth. Or how my divinity is such and such, I can become a Buddha, and so on, everyone has Buddha-nature. So what if you have Buddha-nature, what is so great about it? Right. Do you think becoming a Buddha is something glorious? Is it something honorable? Should everyone bow down and worship you? Because you are a Buddha? Because you have become a Buddha, does everyone need to hold a big conference to celebrate, fire a twenty-one-gun salute, or should the United Nations hold some ceremony for you, conferring upon you the title of contemporary living Buddha? Is that the state you want to reach?

Seth did not say this, but his meaning is exactly this. Whether you become a Buddha or not, or whether you can obtain the truth of this universe, whether you can obtain a multidimensional, or higher-dimensional, mode of thinking and this psychological structure—that is your own business, it is your personal matter. Although it is helpful to the whole of humanity and the whole universe, there is nothing in it worthy of glory. The benefit you yourself obtain, the joy you yourself obtain, the feeling you yourself obtain, is far greater than anything any glory could bring you. If you are still lingering at the level of glory, then you are still very far from understanding this multidimensional soul. You have not even entered the door; you may not even have seen the door yet.

Seth makes a reminder here:

It is not only your metaphysics or your science that suffers—whether it is metaphysics, that is, pure theory, pure philosophy, pure theoretical things—whether it is your pure theory or your science, both suffer. And you as a human race, your daily experience is also far more diminished than it could have been.

You humans now live far more diminished lives than you should have lived. Every day of your human life experience should be richer and more colorful, more splendid and more varied. But each of you lives—to put it bluntly—in a way that does not do justice to being a human... saying it this way is a little unpleasant, so I will not go on. Actually Seth did not say it. I am just making it clear: you as a human race, your daily experience is also far more diminished than it could have been. That is, you have not lived out the way a human being, as a person, should live. What you have lived as, go think about it yourself. Whether what you are living as is human, or something else, go think about it yourself.

Possibilities Are Quite Present

Yet possibilities are quite present, and biologically very practical as well. That allows such a great change in the individual's consciousness that it really pushes humanity completely onto another level of experience.

He says, living such a conventional, rule-following life is really not very interesting. Yet in your life, there are countless possibilities all right there. Look at how he puts it in his own words: possibilities are quite present. Why does he say "quite present"? He means possibilities are always there. For every person there are infinite possibilities, and possibilities are always there. You just don't choose them. Seth is getting anxious about it. You don't choose these possibilities. You think your life is like a robot's, like an assembly-line worker's: leave early and come back late, just going back and forth between the company and home, and of course you have to work overtime on weekends. That's your life. And what can you do about it? You say there's no way, no choice. Right, you yourself believe that, that there's no way and no choice, so your life becomes one of no way and no choice. This is a true reflection of your beliefs, not off by a bit. Isn't this belief creating reality? You are creating your own reality. When you believe you have choices, then suddenly one morning you wake up with a flash of inspiration, and you realize that if you think you have choices, then you have choices. Possibilities are always there — the meaning of "possibilities are quite present" is that possibilities are always there. Why don't you go choose the possibilities you want? Right, that's what he means.

Then, biologically it's also very practical. The existence of possibilities is biologically very practical. What does "biologically very practical" mean? It means your body is already prepared. Don't worry that you can't do this or can't do that. No, as long as you want to do that thing, your body will prepare for the future. Can you understand what he meant in the earlier passage? You don't need to worry about whether your current body can handle it.

So now you know why other people have accomplished things that seem impossible. For example, a male fashion model in his eighties — I forget the old gentleman's name, Wang something — that vitality and spirit, at eighty years old he walks with more force than a young man, with a real spring in his step. What is that? Why is his body like that? Why is he not leaning on a cane and tottering at eighty-plus, but instead striding shirtless on the runway with such vigor? It's because his body responded to his choice of a future possibility. Of course he also had the possibility of being a tottering eighty-something, but he didn't choose that one. He chose the possibility of being a male model at eighty-plus, and his body cooperated with that. It's the same for you. When you want to do something, you can go do it. Right? Many people go mountain climbing and think their bodies aren't up to it, that they can't make it up the mountain. That's because you don't want to. For those who really do climb mountains, once they make that decision, their bodies cooperate with it. Right? Of course I'm not saying that professional mountaineering doesn't require training or acclimatization — that's another matter. But I am saying that your body will gradually conform to the possibility you want to achieve. So that's what this sentence means: physically it's also feasible.

It also allows such a great change in the individual's consciousness — you see, within your individual consciousness, no matter what kind of great change you make, your body, as he says, biologically, will also cooperate with you — to the point that it can really push humanity completely onto another level of experience. That is, a completely different level of experience from your current life experience. What kind of experience? One where you live entirely according to your own intentions, entirely according to your own consciousness, according to what you truly want to do in your heart, without being subject to any external restrictions or limitations, without worrying about how I'll survive in the future, how my life will be provided for, how I'll support my family. If you keep worrying like that, if you keep thinking like that, then you are still using your beliefs to create such a reality — one in which your survival is very difficult.

The Cave Dweller Steps Out of the Cave

In your terms, as you say, the cave dwellers, that is, the people of earlier times, lived in caves and then came out into the sunlight of the earth. Therefore humanity had an opportunity to venture out and enter into the greater knowledge of his subjective reality, to explore his own amplitude, the vastness of which he has not finished describing, and which surpasses the small scope he has so far found in the meantime, the small scope in which he has hidden himself.

Seth spoke with great earnestness and great fervor. He truly hopes that we can be like those cave dwellers who lived in caves—the cave dwellers were an ancient branch of humanity, not from the remotest antiquity, and this is something we have been discussing, especially as it was also talked about in Plato. It is an idealized state. There was a group of cave dwellers who lived in caves all along and never went out. They only dared to go out at night, not during the day, as if they were afraid of the sunlight, because they felt the world was unsafe. They felt that if they were exposed to the sunlight, other fierce beasts would see them, whereas at night they were safer. So these cave dwellers never dared to walk under the sunlight.

He says that if you pursue those inner impulses of yours, if you choose those probabilities according to your choices of possibility, if you live according to the inclinations and importance of your consciousness in choosing those probabilities, then it is like a cave dweller—that is, a person in a cave, one who lives in a cave—stepping out of that cave, the feeling of stepping out, and he walks under the sunlight. It is like you have entered a subjective world. What is meant by a subjective world? Subjective reality. He enters subjective reality—why is it called subjective reality? Subjective reality means that it is centered on him, that his subjectivity determines what this world is like, and that is called subjective reality.

But the state in which we now live is a kind of objective world, a state of objective reality. In this world of ours, we believe that the world is outside our bodies, that this world is entirely objective, and that within this world we are tiny creatures, making a living in the midst of it, and it is not easy. This is an objective world. What is a subjective world? The world is entirely created by me; my beliefs create my world—that is called a subjective world. We need to move from living in an objective world into a subjective world, just as a cave dweller steps out into the sunlight. If you make an analogy with that original world, your present world is that cave—dark, small, narrow, and low—and that is your entire world. You do not dare to step out of the cave mouth, because you are used to it, and you are afraid that the outside is unsafe. Only when you truly step out will you be able to see the vast world, the broad heaven and earth. This is once again a call to you: you must believe that you are living in a subjective world, and that the world moves for you.

Abandoning Stability, Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone

According to the account of history as you understand it, man, as a major species under the sun, felt safe and secure, and wanted to have all other existences revolve around him. That framework provided a kind of stability, and when man allowed his consciousness other freedoms, this stability was abandoned. Therefore he must now begin to understand that it was he himself who, out of all manner of possibilities, chose the one he now encounters.

He explains this issue again, from a different angle. How does he put it? He says, in terms of our human history, you originally lived under the sunlight, right? You did not live in caves. That is his first point. And then you would feel at ease. Why would you feel at ease? You feel safe and secure, because you imagine that all other things revolve around your existence. What does that mean? It means that humanity thinks about the entire world with itself as the core. This is reality. People are exactly like this right now, believing the world turns for them, the entire Earth exists for human use, the whole world operates for humanity. The universe, or the cognition of the universe, is all centered on human cognition. He is not humble at all. He never considers, what would this universe look like from the perspective of other species? That does not matter to him. He says the universe is whatever human perception says it is. If I think this universe is competitive, then the universe is competitive; if I think the resources of this universe are limited, then the resources of this universe are limited. He says it operates around this, revolves around its existence. This is what we humans are like right now.

And in this way, it provides a kind of stability, a sense of security. But when man begins to allow his consciousness other freedoms — his consciousness originally had many freedoms, but he did not allow them, he would not let it — when man lets his consciousness attempt other freedoms, then this stability is abandoned, given up. That is, you leave your comfort zone, you leave that safe and secure environment, because you have allowed greater freedom of consciousness. Greater freedom of consciousness means no longer taking yourself as the center, no longer taking your own existence as the core. Because you will discover that there are many kinds of realities in this world, many kinds of consciousness, many varieties of consciousness, and yourself as a human being is only one of them, and human consciousness is only one of them. And human consciousness itself is very rich, yet we have only felt, or used, or explored a very small part of it. When you have this kind of understanding, he says you should also be prepared, because you are about to leave your comfort zone.

So he must now begin to understand that he himself was born from the selection of all those various possibilities, and it is also from those various selections that he encounters the things he now encounters. So when you do this, you need a very strong psychological state. That is, when you can stop taking yourself as the center, and consider all things and the universe as a whole, with yourself as one part of it, you still must not lose your sense of existence and your sense of identity. Only then do you have the ability to attempt this. If you do not have this kind of confidence — the confidence that you exist permanently, eternally in this universe, that even if you are very tiny, you still exist eternally — if you do not have this kind of confidence, you will not dare to explore this realm, because you will be afraid of losing your sense of identity and the meaning of your existence.

Then he recognizes that self as the only part of himself that he is currently aware of.

The self he recognizes is the only part among the many selves he is aware of that he acknowledges.

Because of the focus of this choice, the present mode of operation, the other facets of his consciousness that are accessible to him, as well as parts of his greater nature, may appear unfamiliar or not-self, or outside the self.

Those other probable selves, to him, are not himself, or feel very unfamiliar, or are outside himself. Because he was previously too self-centered, he only regarded the part he perceived as the only self. He did not know he had a greater self, nor the existence of numerous probable selves. When he realizes this, his feeling is that those are not me — those are my reincarnations, those are this or that, those are outside me, that is my past life, or that is my next life, or that is another identity of mine. He can sense them, but he does not identify with them. Can you understand what he means? You do not identify with them, you do not feel that those are you. You cannot think about this issue from the angle of the previous session, you cannot think about it in terms of a multi-person identity. You will not feel that those reincarnated yous are actually you — not another you, but you, and you are also them. This is a limitation in your cognition. You only acknowledge them as — this is my past life, as if it has nothing to do with you, perhaps only some karmic relationship that you yourself imagine. Actually none of this exists, because he is you, and you are him. But you do not identify with this. You only identify with the you of this moment, the you of this reincarnation, the you of the present. You think that one is real.

This obviously does not mean that there are no entities entirely different from your own selfhood, but it does mean that your concepts force you to misunderstand and distort any intruding information and experience. That is part of your own existence, yet you do not recognize it as yourself.

He emphasizes again, which is what I said above. In simple terms, what does it mean? The first sentence is very important. He says "obviously does not mean" — this sentence is very convoluted. Let me put it in plain language for you, otherwise you will not know what he is trying to say. What he wants to say is, there do indeed exist entities entirely different from your own selfhood. That is the first point: there do indeed exist entities entirely different from your present selfhood. What does "different from your selfhood" mean? It means the you that you now think you are, that is what you consider your selfhood. The "selfhood" mentioned here is your nature, with a NESS added at the end to turn it into a noun — that is what you consider your selfhood. He says there really are entities that are different from this thing of yours. Those things exist, but they are truly different from the you of now. You two are so different, right, you are different. But, he says, what I am saying is not that these things do not exist. These probable yous that are different from you, these entities — he calls them entities, probable yous — they really do exist. But because of your concepts, because of the misunderstanding of your concepts, you think only this you is real, and all those other things are external, are intruders. You do not identify them as you or as part of you.

And you are also part of them. All of you, all these probable yous, together make up that greater personality. You are also part of that greater personality, and they are also part of that greater personality. You could also say you are part of a greater you, and it is also part of that greater you. In a certain sense, you are also part of it, and it is also part of you. But you do not have this sense of identity.

Cellular Precognition and the Body's Honesty

This kind of behavior can even lead to a certain kind of physical dishonesty.

What kind of behavior? It is the failure to recognize other probable selves as yourself—this kind of behavior can even lead to a certain kind of physical dishonesty. It leads to physical dishonesty. Why?

Because the cells are not limited by time and space in their representations, at a certain level, the cellular structure is aware of probable future events, as was just said. Therefore the body responds to both future and past activities at the same time, in order to maintain its present physical balance.

Here again you may not know what he is trying to say. He says that your failure to recognize these probable selves may lead to a certain kind of physical dishonesty. What is meant by physical dishonesty? It means that your body, in fact, is capable of sensing the existence of those probable yous, and it can also perceive both the past and the future. It selects from the possibilities on both sides in order to maintain its own balance. Did he not say earlier that this is how the body comes into being: it selects what it wants from the possibilities of the past and the future, and then it uses that to maintain the present body, the balance of this present body. This is how the body comes into being, and this is your present state. What does that mean? It means that your body originates from the balance between these two things, the past and the future. But right now you do not recognize this. You only recognize that your body comes from the past, and you do not recognize those probabilities either.

Then, because your body comes from the past and the future, this innate knowledge of the body will try to transform itself into psychological activity. That is, the knowledge of the past and the future, and the information that it itself comes from both the past and the future—it transforms this kind of thing into a psychological activity. That may then become inspiration, premonition, and so on—these are the hints the body gives you. Your inspiration, or a precognitive sense and perception of past danger—these are all responses your body gives you. So your body is capable of obtaining information, and it is honest. But you, because you do not believe it, cause the body to become confused as well. The body says, I clearly sensed a certain feeling from the future, for example a perception of danger, but you do not recognize it, so the body does not know what to do and becomes confused.

For him, the senses may be used to clarify that information. For example, you might hear a voice in your mind, or see fleeting images flash by, and according to your beliefs, you may interpret this material in any number of ways. And because this kind of experience is not recognized, is not an accepted part of official activity, it is not accepted and not recognized, so they can seem quite frightening. You might assign them to ghosts or messages from the dead. But indeed in such a way, these things get thrown together into a pile of confused dogma or superstition.

He is saying that clearly your body is able to foresee the future—not to mention the past, but also the future—and it gives you some information through inspiration, intuition, or an image in your mind, a picture flashing through your mind. But because of your prejudice against it, you attribute all of it to things given to you by souls, ghosts, spirits, or whatever, and that is how you think of it. Because it does not conform to your mainstream thinking, you turn it into dogma and superstition in this way. So you are dishonest with your body—the body perceived it, but you did not.

There are many examples of this, so I will not list them. You can look through a lot of news stories, and in those stories it says that so-and-so suddenly had a feeling, a very bad premonition, so he changed his plane ticket and did not board that flight, and then the plane crashed. Or so-and-so avoided some disaster simply because he felt very uncomfortable in that environment, so he left, and so on and so forth. Of course, this varies from person to person, and everyone is different. He said earlier that everyone is different, and it is determined by your beliefs. If you do not believe in your inspiration, if you think it is pure nonsense, you will not pay any attention to it at all. Some people care a great deal about their inspiration; they feel that this feeling is very important, and if they feel uncomfortable, they will leave immediately. They trust their inspiration, or this kind of intuition, or this premonition of the future, and so they will avoid those disasters. It is helpful to your body.

If you first understand that you are a soul, if you first consider that you are a soul, do not think of yourself as a physical human being; first consider that your own existence is that of a soul, and the physical body is merely a tool you use for a while. If you think this way, then because you yourself are not constrained by time and space—if you think this way, you will know that you are not constrained by time and space—of course your physical body is—then you can at least consider the possibility that some of this information comes to you from other portions of your own reality.

If you believe that you can be free from the limitations of time and space, if you believe that your essence is a spiritual existence, or the existence of a soul, and you do not take the physical body as the only standard of existence, then you will be able to understand that in fact you can move through time and space and are not constrained by time and space. Then when this information comes, you will think about it: could it be a signal from some future self to yourself? A hint given to yourself? You will consider, is there such a possibility?

This kind of information is often a way of enabling you to avoid certain probable actions.

It may be meant to help you avoid certain things; it comes to remind you. Of course, if you did not feel it, that is another matter. Seth is making this point.

Then it ends after that. He gave some other material afterward, and then the session ended at 11:51. Later a note was added, and in this later note, in some of the later sessions of The "Unknown" Reality, Seth did indeed add material discussing the precognitive nature of cells—cells have precognition, but if we as humans are not sensitive enough, or if we do not change our beliefs, we are unable to believe in our own precognitive ability. In Sessions 690 and 691, in Part Two of Volume One, he will discuss this point.

注释与核实

1. Source: NASA, "NASA’s Hubble Finds Universe Is Expanding Faster Than Expected," 2016 (https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-finds-universe-is-expanding-faster-than-expected/) ↩

2. This claim could not be verified. ↩

3. Source: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Mass-energy equation," 2021 (https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/mass-energy-equation) ↩

4. According to Mike's original words, "Electrons basically travel at speeds close to the speed of light"; upon verification, it should be "The speed of an electron depends on its energy and the environment it is in, and cannot be generally said to be close to the speed of light; in ordinary metal wires, the drift velocity of electrons is usually only on the order of millimeters per second." (Source: Georgia State University HyperPhysics, "Microscopic View of Ohm's Law," https://hyperphysics.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/ohmmic.html) ↩

5. Source: Wikipedia, "Diamond Sutra" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E9%87%91%E5%89%9B%E7%B6%93) ↩

6. According to Mike's original words, "there are 7 billion people in the whole world"; upon verification, it should be "the world population in 2024 was about 8.2 billion, not 7 billion." (Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, "World Population Prospects 2024: Summary of Results," 2024, https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/world-population-prospects-2024) ↩