Mike's commentary · The "Unknown" Reality, Session 700

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

Introduction

This chapter begins with Seth's discussion of the "larger reality": both within and outside the human being there are realities beyond cognition, subjective experience is not limited to the brain, the material and the nonmaterial exist simultaneously, dreams are where the two meet, and the blueprint of reality is within, not without. It then discusses how other civilizations use art as a subtle science to explore reality; points out that the dream world is the source of the outer world; and introduces dream-art training paths such as lucid dreaming, recording dream symbols, and seeking the inner meeting point of consciousness. Finally, it emphasizes that all human-made objects and natural things come from within, that true science must probe the inner rather than only seeking outward, and it includes private material from Jane and Rob.

Key Points of This Chapter

• There is a greater reality both inside and outside the human being; subjective experience is not limited to the brain; dreams are the meeting point of physical and nonphysical existence, and the blueprint of reality lies within, not without.
• Art is also a science; other civilizations have used art as a meticulous science to explore reality, which is more effective than observing only external matter.
• To study dreams, one must begin with one's own dreams and recurring symbols; the dream world is not an appendage of the physical world, but the source of the outer world.
• The art of dreaming is the ability of lucid dreaming; professional achievement requires many years of training, a sense of purpose, dedication, and innate talent, and one can communicate and learn at inner meeting points.
• Human-made objects, natural objects, and concrete events all originate from within; a true scientist must probe the inner rather than the outer, and the physical universe can be seen as an orderly, collectively shared dream.

Main Text

Seth's Original Words

Seth began by addressing two levels of meaning.

You must first of all understand that your own greater reality exists, whether within your physical body or outside of it. And your subjective experience also has a far greater range than the specific brain itself can allow.

The first point is that whether it is your inner world or your outer world, there is a greater reality than the one you are familiar with. Your inner world itself has an even greater inner world, and your outer world is formed by the inner world, so beyond all of this there is a reality that you are not familiar with, a reality greater than yourself.

The second point is that your subjective experience -- you think all subjective experience comes from the brain's thinking, thought, logic, the results of the mind -- is actually far greater than that. For example, experiences in dreams, unconscious experiences, experiences in the subconscious, are all things your brain cannot grasp, and those experiences are also your subjective experiences, not just the experiences you have while awake.

Both of these levels are saying: whether inner or outer, or on the level of your consciousness, there is a reality far greater than the range of our cognition.

While you are still a creature in time and space, in our physical world, beyond this physical life there continues that reality we are not familiar with, which we call the unknown reality. Beyond our physical life, it has always existed. One could also say it represents a parallel, nonphysical existence that your brain has not recorded.

Here everyone should understand this: our physical form and nonphysical form exist simultaneously. Yet in the state of sleep, you are in a connecting region, where some leakage can occur -- the nonphysical form and the physical existence, these two kinds of existence meet in dreams, otherwise they would have no platform for communication and exchange. You can think of dreams as a place where your physical existence and this nonphysical existence intersect, a by-product of their intersection. This was also repeatedly emphasized in the previous session.

The blueprint for reality will not be found in the outer universe. You always want to find this blueprint for reality, but it is not outside, it is within you.

Other Civilizations and the Exploration of Reality

There are some other civilizations that conduct experiments using a kind of science different from the one you are familiar with. Besides our human civilization, there are other civilizations, such as extraterrestrial civilizations. Other civilizations use scientific methods that we are not familiar with to conduct experiments, and their attempts to understand the nature of reality have met with varying degrees of success. More than one civilization — others that we might call extraterrestrial civilizations, or civilizations in other realities — their understanding of the nature of reality, this attempt to understand the nature of reality, has met with varying degrees of success. This kind of success can bring about tremendous leaps for their respective civilizations.

Moreover, their overall purposes are different from yours, because their exploration of this blueprint, their attempt to understand the nature of reality, leads their civilizations to develop in a direction different from ours. The people of such civilizations focus their consciousness in a completely different direction.

And our own human behavior, customs, science, art, and practices are, in a certain sense, unique to you. Our own human civilization — whether in behavior, customs, science, art, or practice — is unique to us humans, and is different from other civilizations.

However, the various combinations of their abilities can provide a reference for the methods by which the unknown reality can be explored and probed. When humans gather together all the abilities they possess — scientific, artistic, practical, behavioral, customary, cultural — and bring all these abilities together, they can become a method for us to explore those unknown realities. We cannot see everything, but we can still catch a glimpse of the general picture.

Art Is Also a Science

In the truest sense, art is also a science. From the standpoint of fact, art is a science, just as biology is. The science you now recognize separates itself from the object of its study. Your science only studies objective facts or objective objects; it treats the researcher and the object being studied as two different things, separated, not as one. In fact, as a part of nature, human beings are one with the objects of their study, but people do not think so.

Art, on the other hand, identifies with its object. Any artist identifies with his object -- a painter identifies with the painting he creates; he considers that painting an extension of his own emotions or an expression of his inner self. Music is the same: music is the flow and inner expression of the musician's inner emotions; he does not consider the music separate from himself.

In your terms, other civilizations have treated art as a refined science. So for young people, I suggest: if you have time, learn more things that cultivate you in the arts; try as much as possible not to go on studying psychology or things related to psychology. Because psychology itself operates on a very superficial level; it is the ego's -- I might call it wishful thinking, or the ego forcing an interpretation -- it is an interpretation by the ego, seeing only a surface phenomenon of human behavior and then trying to understand it. It belongs to an intermediate or transitional state; in the future civilization of humanity, the profession or science of psychology will not exist. What will truly exist are the areas we now consider possibly unreliable, such as art and the study of dreams.

Some extraterrestrial civilizations or higher-level civilizations use art as a science, and use it as a fine, refined science, so much so that it has drawn a very clear picture of the nature of reality, far deeper than humanity's understanding of reality. In that picture, human emotions and motivations play a great role.

So when we want to explore the nature of reality and seek truth, we often overlook human emotions and motivations. We only observe objective things -- atoms, molecules, this planet, such material things -- and set emotions and motivations aside, feeling that they are not the direction of scientific research. This is actually very mistaken.

Your scientists spend many years in training. If the same amount of time were spent learning a different kind of science, you could truly discover many things about known and unknown reality. Seth's statement here is very apt: your scientists have studied too much in this direction -- regarding material things. If you could spend more time on other areas, your human civilization would achieve far greater accomplishments than it does now.

The Study of Dreams

Take the study of dreams, for example. Some scientists have begun to study dreams, working in dream laboratories, but this again involves a biased perception. Because the scientist studies other people's dreams from the outside, emphasizing the bodily changes that occur during the dream state -- treating the dream as a mere byproduct of the physical body. He does not study his own dreams; he goes and studies other people's dreams, still separating the object of study from himself.

Dreams are a very personal thing. If a scientist wants to study dreams, he could study his own. But no, he studies other people's. That is why Jung was so remarkable -- Jung first studied his own dreams¹, and only after achieving some results did he go on to study other people's. If you want to study dreams, you must begin with your own dreams. And then do not emphasize the reactions and changes that dreams produce in a person -- the world within dreams is one world, and the physical world where your body resides is another world; these are two different worlds. If you treat dreams as a product or appendage of this present world, then you have misunderstood them; you have not grasped the true meaning of dreams.

The problem is that many people engaged in science have not understood that an inner reality exists. The scientists who study dreams do not even believe in the existence of an inner world, a dream world; they think the dream world is merely a reaction of the brain. That world is not only as valid as the outer one, but is also the source of the outer world. It is the dream world that provides you with answers and solutions -- the answers regarding the blueprint of this so-called reality, the answers regarding the nature of reality, the answers regarding the future destiny of humankind, all of these actually lie within the dream state.

And it will reveal many of the blueprints that exist behind this world you experience -- that is to say, it tells us that many of the principles operating behind the world are actually explained to us within the dream state.

The Art of Dreaming

The true art of dreaming is a science long forgotten by your world. What is the true art of dreaming? It is the ability to have lucid dreams. The art of dreaming is the ability to dream lucidly—you can create dreams, you can control dreams, you can realize them within dreams, manipulate them, feel them. This is called the art of dreaming.

And when you pursue this art, you will train your brain to have a new kind of consciousness—a consciousness that is equally at ease, equally secure and safe, in both kinds of existence. When you practice lucid dreaming to a certain degree, you develop a sense of ease, not only at ease in the physical world, but also at ease in your dream world. That is, in both states of existence—physical existence and nonphysical existence—in both of these reality worlds, you will be at ease, and your mind will be at peace.

In this art-science, almost anyone can become a satisfactory and productive amateur. Everyone can become an amateur, and be very effective—what you gain in the dream world can be effective in the three-dimensional world, can enhance your three-dimensional world experience, or change the future development of your three-dimensional world. It is productive. But amateurs are still different from professionals, from career practitioners.

True achievement requires years of training—it is not that once you have listened to the Seth books, learned the principles, and had a few lucid dreams, you then possess this ability. Far from enough. You need years of training, a strong sense of purpose, and a devotion of enthusiasm, no different from any true vocation. When you say this is your vocation, it means you have devoted a lifetime of passion, your entire experience. This is what Seth means: when you want to commit yourself to becoming a true expert in the field of dream art, you need years of training, and you also need a strong sense of purpose—to explore the truth of this universe, to explore the nature of reality, to explore the blueprint behind humanity—plus a spirit of passionate devotion, treating it as scientific research.

Some people say this is wrong. Does not spiritual practice require being free of desire and free of striving, achieving through non-action? Is not such a strong sense of purpose, such a strong spirit of devotion, a completely different thing from spiritual practice? This is a deviation in your understanding—you have only seen the outer form of spiritual practice, and have not seen its true purpose at all. The purpose and meaning of spiritual practice do not lie in the tranquility and emptiness you speak of, in a mind as still as water. True spiritual practice is when you invest yourself in this real world, and in two or more kinds of reality—physical reality and nonphysical reality—you are able to move with ease, and in a state of mind that is at peace, safe, tranquil, harmonious, and joyful, you engage in the things that deeply interest you, doing what brings you joy and creativity—in Seth's original words, with creative exuberance—creating in this world those things that refuse to settle for mediocrity. That is true spiritual practice.

But ordinary people do not need this. If you are only interested in changing your present life, changing your current living environment, you do not need to be like him. But if you have a strong sense of purpose and a spirit of passionate devotion, then you must spend time and energy on this, carrying out years of training and research, not merely learning the surface and thinking you have mastered a great deal.

To a certain degree, an innate talent is a prerequisite for a true scientist of dream art. Being an amateur is no problem—everyone can play, and can change your life state. But if you want to become a professional, remember, it requires an innate talent. Some abilities are truly inborn. I have said before that in spiritual learning or on the path of spiritual practice, there is no fairness—some people are born with certain talents that others cannot reach in an entire lifetime. But do not be discouraged, because you have your own talents, you have your own mission, you have your own importance. He has such a talent, and it is an ability he possesses within the whole of human existence or the whole of all existence; and you, in other probable reality spaces, you also have your own abilities. In this probable reality, this parallel world, you may not possess the innate talent he has, so just bring your own potential to its fullest. Never envy or resent others, because your talents are also what others do not possess. If everyone brings their own talents to the fullest, the whole of human civilization will develop greatly.

And a bold, exploratory, independent, spontaneous feeling is necessary. Seth puts forward basic requirements for such a person: first, an innate talent; second, a bold, exploratory, independent, and spontaneous feeling.

Such work is a joy. There are some such people who are quite unrecognized by your society—such people exist, but our society does not recognize them. Why are they not recognized? Because the specific gifted abilities they possess, our society does not consider to be abilities at all. It considers them to be spirit, to be deviant paths, to be strange forces and chaotic spirits, not recognized by the social mainstream. We do not consider it a very special, specific gift; on the contrary, sometimes we even consider him to be ill, in need of care, and in severe cases, to be locked up in a mental hospital. But even so, that talent still exists—even if you regard him as spirit, regard him as not important at all, it does not affect the existence of this ability.

Learning the Art of Dreams

This ancient art, the art concerning the science of dreams, requires the practitioner first to learn how to become, in the normal sense of the term, conscious during the sleep state — that is, lucid dreaming. Then he will become sensitive to the different subjective changes that occur as the current one begins and as it ends — in a lucid dream, he must keenly feel the occurrence of various events, their ending, and the changes in different subjective sensations.

He makes himself familiar with the symbols of his own dreams. This expert, this person who wants to study this aspect, must become familiar with the symbolic signs of his own dreams. This can only be achieved through recording a large number of dreams — every dream is written down, and then from those dreams one finds the symbolic events, objects, or emotions that appear repeatedly, that recur often, and identifies these symbolic signs.

And see whether these are related to the external symbols in waking life that he shares with others. After summarizing the symbolic things in the dream state, he then goes on to correspond these related symbols in his own dreams and in real life. For example, if he always dreams of flooding, and then the next day he wins the lottery — that is a correlation, and if it happens more than once, then he will understand that dreaming of a flood is related to gaining wealth. He must explore this kind of correlation on his own. Then he observes the correlations in other people as well.

Seth said, later I will talk more about these shared symbols. Because we also need to look at people in waking life and people in the dream world, to see whether they have some common elements. For example, if we all dream of snakes, then what does the snake represent? Different psychologists give different interpretations, and under different cultural backgrounds the interpretations also differ. The snake, under different special environmental conditions, different eras and cultural backgrounds, different regions, and different ages and genders of people, also has different meanings. Seth said he wanted to talk to us about these shared symbols, but unfortunately, he never did talk about them later — in this book he never discussed them.

These shared symbols can become agreed-upon signposts. Although dreams are independent and entirely private for each person, there are still some common elements within them. When you have studied dreams enough, you will understand where these commonalities lie. Why are some people very good at interpreting dreams while others are not? It is because the level and ability of their study is insufficient, and their sensitivity is also insufficient. If these commonalities can be extracted, they can become very important signposts or symbolic markers, a list, for when you analyze dreams in the future.

The work that has done this relatively well is The Duke of Zhou's Dream Interpretation². The Chinese people began collecting and recording dreams very early on, and Dream Pool Essays³ also recorded dream content. The Duke of Zhou's Dream Interpretation² reveals some of the commonalities in dreams; sometimes it is very accurate, sometimes not necessarily, because dreams also have an individualized aspect; but those common elements are still very interesting.

The Inner Meeting Place

So, there are inner meeting places. Within the inner world, shouldn't there be a place where one can meet, an inner location that serves as a point for inner contact and communication? Outwardly, we can pick a place to meet and hold a meeting, to exchange the results of our explorations. We split up to explore an unfamiliar area, and after exploring, without cell phones, wouldn't we need to find a place to meet up, to compare the results everyone found, and see whether there are common places and experiences to share? When exploring the inner world, is there such a place? There is.

In an entirely different category, they can be used like any city or marketplace in the physical world. This inner meeting point is like a city or a large marketplace in our three-dimensional world—in a marketplace, everyone exchanges information, exchanges goods, and so on. Such places exist, and they will be explained a bit more later in this book.

Our scientists of dream-art are learning to recognize such points of correlation—meeting points of multiple inner realities. At that point, explorers of multiple inner realities can—that is, what we call our consciousness—can meet at that place. This has already reached the second level, and the difficulty is relatively high. The first stage is the initial body, lucid dreams, and the like—these are elementary abilities, necessary, but they do not possess greater breadth. After reaching a more advanced stage, after entering the second level, only then can you, in the state of the initial body, in lucid dreams, in the different spaces of inner consciousness, arrange with others to meet there. When someone accomplishes this, you know that his level and state have already reached the second level.

They can also become a center of learning. Many people have dreamed that they were attending classes in another reality—whether or not such dreams are distorted, many of them represent a valid inner experience. Many people say, I listen to your interpretation of Seth every day, and as I listen, I often dream that I hear you teaching, or that I return to a university classroom, or a high school classroom, and in some setting I am still studying. Whether or not this dream is distorted, it actually hints that—we are studying in some inner space. This place of study is a meeting point of multiple inner realities.

However, all of this is only a beginning for this scientist of dream-art. Do you think entering the second step is impressive? No, the second step is also only a beginning.

Because he then begins to recognize the fact that man is involved in different levels of many realities and activities, he must learn to isolate these, then separate one from another, and then try to understand the laws that unify them. At that meeting place, those consciousnesses or spirit bodies—in any case, nonphysical existences—they all come from different levels, different realities, different kinds. You must first learn to separate them, to isolate them—to sort out clearly what each person experiences in different realities. Say, this one of yours is at the surface level of consciousness, that one of yours is at the deep level of consciousness. The more surface-level something is, the more numerous and more accurate its symbols are; the deeper-level something is, the more obscure its symbols are, and the weaker their relevance. The same thing, at different levels of consciousness, at different dream levels, carries different meanings. You cannot just hear someone say, I dreamed of a lion, and then directly interpret it according to your own formula; you must first know at what level of consciousness, at what level, he is.

For this scientist of dream and art, this is only now beginning to get difficult. You must separate them, knowing that these people's present feelings, symbols, and dream experiences are different according to the reality spaces and different dimensional levels they are in; you must first isolate him, and see what it symbolizes at that level; then you must also unify them—the different dreams made at different levels of consciousness, what common meanings their different symbols represent, you must understand the laws that unify them, how to bring them together.

When this scientist does this, he learns that some of these realities almost coincide with the physical one. He discovers that what is experienced in some different levels of dreams, or in the realities of different levels of consciousness, is sometimes the same as what happens in the reality of our physical world—it coincides. He also learns that at certain levels, for example, some events become concrete in the future—some dreams are repetitions or coincidences of certain past events; some events happen and at the time you do not know what they are, and then a few days later they become concrete in the physical world, they manifest. And at the same time, other such experiences do not manifest.

So then, he begins to catch a slight glimpse of the blueprint of the world you know—that is, the path of our future. Seth spent a great deal of words, and what he actually wanted to say is this: using the knowledge humanity already has, it is also possible to obtain the blueprint of our reality, and to glimpse it slightly.

Then you understand why Seth says this scientist of dream and art is not an easy thing. Why does he say our scientists should spend more energy on this aspect? This is only one field; there are many other fields. Research in this field is far more important than research in humanity's current scientific fields. At the very least, there should be dedicated people to study it, yet now no one is doing this. All of humanity has no dedicated people, schools, teaching and research institutions, research institutes, or research centers doing anything of the sort—none. This is something of tremendous significance to humanity, something so important to the development of human civilization, yet no one is doing it. Day after day, we repeat the so-called scientific theories and scientific knowledge of several hundred years ago, things that are fundamentally wrong, yet we still make our children learn them over and over again.

Artifacts and Natural Things

Of course we manufacture goods -- cell phones, computers, iPads, satellites, spaceships -- technological achievements that took centuries to reach. We cannot deny it; it took us several hundred years to achieve what we have today. But generally speaking, to you, these things seem to come from outside -- you feel that these creations, these technologies, these manufactured goods all come from outside. After all, didn't you make them in your own factories or laboratories? It is as if artificial or synthetic fabrics were not natural. Every day we talk about being natural, about eating only unpolluted food, about wanting things purely natural. It is as if anything artificial were bad.

But your world is composed of quite natural products. Which of these things you consider man-made was not produced by nature? Humans can synthesize, humans can alter its properties, change its nature; we can purify, refine, change, transform -- but fundamentally we have not created anything. How is it not natural? You say herbal medicine comes from nature and is healthy; medicine made in a chemical factory is artificial, unhealthy, harmful, and has side effects. From a certain angle, you are right. But do you think the medicine produced in a pharmaceutical factory is not natural? How do you define this standard of "natural"? Don't get too caught up in this.

Take clothing fabrics, for example. Nowadays many chemical fabrics have better breathability, moisture-wicking, and dyeing performance than purely natural fabrics. Real silk is lovely, but it is delicate, wrinkles easily, snags easily, and is hard to care for. After Japan researched silk technology, they used chemical techniques to create an imitation silk fabric called acetate silk⁴. Mike says he cannot quite remember if that is the name, but it retains some of real silk's advantages while improving on its shortcomings. You say it is not natural, yet the materials it uses still come from nature.

To you, those things are almost miraculous, floating up from the interior of the earth. We have cars, trains, airplanes -- all man-made. But which man-made thing was not obtained from nature? Doesn't iron ore come from within the earth? Without iron ore, would any of these things exist? If you trace any object in your present life back to the source of its production, it is all natural. The metal chips in computers, silicon -- where does silicon come from? If you don't nitpick, fine; but once you do, you will find that what you consider artificial, when traced back a few production sources, is all natural.

You make use of materials that nature has already prepared there, and you mix, change, and rearrange what has already been given to you. Nature has already prepared all the raw materials. Without these raw materials, what could you bring forth? You say humans are very clever, that we created everything -- never use the word "create." You can at most say we reorganized, rechanged, rearranged things. You cannot create -- not only can you not create a single living cell, you cannot even create a single atom or molecule. You can only change them, rearranging and recombining atoms and molecules; that you are fairly good at. But can you, out of thin air in a vacuum, bring forth a single atom? Even one? You cannot. Humanity is far from having this ability. If you cannot even create one atom, how can you say this world is all your creation? You are merely making use of it.

The entire physical universe emerged from an inner reality. Were it not for those things that appeared long ago as raw materials, your manufacturing industries could not provide a single item. And then wood, plants, all the mineral species on the earth, the four seasons, and the earth itself -- all come from within that nameless existence. Not only do our man-made things come from nature, but the things of nature also come from that nameless inner reality -- you do not know how to name it; it is what the Tao Te Ching calls "the Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao"⁵, that existence which cannot be named. Our concrete events come from the same source as well -- all the things we experience in life, the things we experience in dreams, all emerge from this nameless inner reality. The entire reality, or everything in the entire universe, emerges from this nameless inner reality. It is the deepest core of this universe.

Seth uses examples of products and commodities we are familiar with, examples of man-made things, to tell us this: these wonders and these things are all built upon an inner framework. True scientists understand that they must probe the inner, not the outer universe. That is why many scientists, in their later years, begin to study religion.

Seth's Original Text: The True Scientist Probes Inward

The true scientist understands that they must probe inward, not into the outer universe.

Then what will he come to understand? He cannot isolate himself from a reality of which he is necessarily a part. He will eventually understand that he is a part of this reality. And if you want to study the truth of this reality, as a part of this reality, the answer is often right inside you.

You are this reality. You want to study what the truth of this reality is, yet you keep looking outward. Why don't you take a look at yourself? You are also this reality. Humanity is a relatively advanced product within this reality, though not the most advanced. If you don't study yourself, this most advanced product, and instead go study those low-end external things, studying minerals, studying the primitive, what meaning is there in that? If you can study the human being thoroughly, if you can thoroughly study this most precise, most advanced, most perfect product of the inner nameless existence, then wouldn't you understand what the inner reality behind it is like?

But you don't study it. You turn around and go study those external things. You leave a most advanced, ready-made sample unstudied, and go looking for lower-grade specimens to study. If you study ants thoroughly, will you understand how the universe works? No. If you study lions thoroughly, will you understand how the universe works? No. If you say, "I'll study everything extraterrestrial thoroughly," will you understand then? Still no. If you say, "I'll explore the universe, I'll pilot a spaceship and explore the universe everywhere," will you understand then? Still no. Because this greatest reality, this truest thing, is right inside you, right in your body, right in your inner world.

And if he does that, if he seeks outward, at best he only presents a distorted picture. If he seeks outward, seeking the truth of the universe from the external world, he can only draw a distorted picture.

In quite real terms, your dreams and the trees outside your window have one common element: both are drawn out from within consciousness.

Your dreams are an invisible world, a non-material world; and your trees are a visible, material world. He says that whether it is the visible material world or the invisible inner world, both are drawn out from within your consciousness. This point is very important.

The following words, we can only treat as an analogy. Let's look at it this way. Remember, this is an analogy:

Your present universe is a collectively shared dream, quite effective.

This dream is very effective, different from ordinary dreams, more real than ordinary dreams. You can understand your present material universe as a collectively shared dream, a dream that expresses reality from a certain angle. From what angle? From the material angle, a dream that expresses reality from the angle of material reality.

What is the most important thing about this dream? It is meaningful, it is creative. In our lives, he says, our material world, our universe, has regularity, creativity, and meaning, and is not built upon chaos.

At this point he gives Rob a knowing look, because Rob has recently been reading a book written by a biologist. This biologist set life and non-life in opposition, believing that the bottom layer is chaos. We won't go into detail. From Seth's perspective, the bottom layer is actually disordered, without regularity; but from the human perspective, from the material perspective, it seems as though all of this has its own internal physical laws. So here he specifically emphasizes: you can regard your material world as a dream, and the characteristics of this dream are that it is real, meaningful, creative, and most crucially, it is built upon order, not upon chaos.

However, if you want to understand this reality, understand this dream, understand this universe, since your universe is a dream, you must go to another level of consciousness. At that level, perhaps the dream may temporarily seem not quite so real. What level? For example, from the perspective of inner consciousness, the subconscious, or from a deeper level of consciousness, a higher level, this dream of the material universe no longer seems so real, not as real as it felt when we were in the dream. Why? Because at this point you have already left the dreamscape and shifted into another space of consciousness.

From another angle. What angle? From another angle of consciousness, or from another space of consciousness, another dimension of consciousness, you look back at this material universe, or look back and observe this dream. First, it is no longer so real; second, you see it more clearly. Its unreality is relative to how you felt about the dreamscape while you were dreaming, when you felt it was very real; but when you jump out of the dreamscape and look at this material universe, you feel it is somewhat less real, because it is a dream, but that does not prevent you from seeing it more clearly. This is why the Buddha repeatedly said that our world is like a dream, like dew, like lightning⁶, like a dream, like an illusion, like a bubble, like a shadow. Same meaning.

He compares it to a photograph in your hand. You can condense this universe into a photograph and hold it in your hand. It is then not so real. A photograph has its real side. Of course, it is a real photograph. But does a photograph also have its unreal aspects? Where is it unreal? Through the previous exercises you now understand: the reality in which that photograph exists, all the things behind it, none of that is shown in the photograph. The photograph is only a very, very rough and simple snapshot of that reality, something like a line drawing.

You can further imagine the present universe as a photograph in your hand, and at the same time you are seeing it from that broader perspective. What is the broader perspective? The universe has become a photograph in your hand, so aren't you standing in a broader perspective? Yes, the universe has become a photograph in your hand. When you imagine such a scene, isn't that perspective much broader than your current one? You are indeed standing outside the scope of the dream. From that angle, you are no longer inside this material universe, or inside the dream formed by this material universe. You are outside the dream. You have jumped out.

But then again, you are inside another one. You say, "I've jumped out of this dream, where am I?" This is a very profound question. When you are in the material universe, we can say you are dreaming; then when you wake up, you wake up in the material universe. But what if it is the other way around? If this material universe is a dream, if our three-dimensional world is all a dream, then right now you are in the dream. But now I wake you up. I say, "Wake up, stop dreaming, this is all a dream." Then where do you wake up from? Is the place where you wake up larger than your present material universe? Yes, it is. But where is it? No matter where it is, aren't you still inside it? Right, because there is still a you there. That "you" may be in quotation marks, meaning your subjective consciousness and your subjective experience.

And because of the limitations of the photograph itself, that cannot be shown within the photograph. Where do you wake up? You wake up in those inner realities that should have been shown in the photograph but were not. That is where you wake up.

Opening Important Areas of Consciousness

Now this is the end of the dictation, and the session ends here. Then he transmitted some more personal material. He said, however, first of all, this book will open up many very important areas -- open up some important areas of our consciousness, open up some areas of our brain that have not been used. You remember in the previous part, there were many sessions in which he kept emphasizing that there are some spaces in our brain that have not been opened, areas that have not been used, and then he designed some exercises to enable you to activate those areas that have not been used. So in Sessions 692, 693, and 694, he kept emphasizing this point, that is, from Exercise 2 all the way to Exercise 7, they may all be practicing this -- practicing using those areas of the brain that have never been used before, that is, more layers of consciousness.

And providing some guiding principles for many people to follow. When you want to expand the width, breadth, and depth of consciousness, or raise its dimensions, Seth gives you some guiding principles. This is very important, very, very important. So the Seth material can be seen as a very effective textbook for expanding the breadth and dimensions of human consciousness. You can understand it this way: it is suitable for all human beings to study, so that the overall consciousness of all humanity can be elevated and expanded. What an important matter this is. When the overall consciousness of humanity has been expanded and elevated, human civilization will enter the next stage, and it will no longer be an era dominated by industrial or post-industrial civilization as it is now.

Now Seth really continued transmitting his own three pages of material, related to himself. And then this session ended at 11:02. Most of tonight's private material, that is, the material transmitted for Jane, the things that will eventually appear in Jane's own works, in it there are some hints about certain more general aspects of his abilities. That can be mentioned here.

Jane's Dream Efforts and Faith in Existence

Seth said that Ruburt has just begun his own dream efforts. Jane has been practicing these past two days, because she has tasted the benefits, because in dreams she can relax, and her body gets tremendous relief. The physical symptoms, although very slowly, have been improving all along, but that could not begin in earnest. Jane has recently been learning to make efforts in dreams, but the progress has not been good. His next few sentences say, it is improving, but the speed of improvement is very slow. At this point Seth said, why is it slow? Because there has been no earnest beginning.

Why has there been no earnest beginning? Unless Ruburt first learns to have faith in his own existence. Put the other way around, does this mean Jane has no faith in her own existence? She really does not. Because you can imagine, if you lived in the kind of family environment Jane lived in, how could you have faith? Her mother, from the time she was pregnant with her, all the way until she was born, all the way until the end, until she grew up, until she became independent and lived on her own, was either hitting her or scolding her, or else thinking -- you should not even be alive, I should not have given birth to you. In that kind of environment, she therefore did not have enough faith in her own existence.

And she worried that her mother would come after her. Her mother kept cursing her, saying, when I die and become a ghost, I will not let you off either. And sure enough -- you see, in the previous session Seth talked about the things Jane's mother said, and Jane herself also recalled these things. This matter seemed as if guided by spirits and ghosts, and indeed later on Jane came down with the same illness as her mother. But the reason here, as we all know, has nothing to do with her mother coming after her; it is that she believed this point, it is that Jane believed her mother would come after her. This is one reason she had no faith in her own existence. She had other reasons, namely that Jane herself had many places where her beliefs were pulled and torn.

Seth later said:

In our situation here, Ruburt has almost become -- he receives the material from me -- if certain other favorable changes occur, and if Ruburt on his part also gains further understanding, we may possibly meet on other levels of Ruburt.

For example, meeting in the dream state. When we are no longer producing our books. In our present situation -- that is, the situation in which he transmits the material through Jane -- he has now become the pattern in which Jane receives the material from him, and then Rob writes it down, the pattern in which he speaks and Rob records it. If Ruburt also gains further understanding and makes some progress in that dream practice, and if some favorable changes also occur, we may possibly -- remember, possibly -- meet on other levels of consciousness, for example meeting Jane in dreams.

Jane has never dreamed of Seth, which is very interesting. The closest thing to this situation is that, although she has never dreamed of meeting Seth, she has dreamed of teaching in her dreams, of transmitting the Seth material in her dreams, passing on the Seth material, just like what she does when she is awake. But she has never directly met Seth in dreams.

Rob's Note: The Biologist's Chaos and Seth's Unpredictability

Now, as reference material for part of today's book, the following examples show how The "Unknown" Reality and Jane's daily life are interwoven. He gives some material below to tell you that, in fact, this book and Jane's daily life are tightly interwoven.

At the tail end of the 10:35 passage, when Seth touched on the inner nature of consciousness, I thought that material echoed an idea Jane had in her own work. Then right after 10:39, when Seth brought up chaos, his rather sly emphasis on that word did not escape my attention, because at present Jane and I are reading a book written by a biologist. It contains many good things, but when we came to those passages where the author describes life as an opposite set against non-life, or when he assumes an ultimate chaos — ultimate chaos is entropy. This is like that movie we watched a while back, what was it called, Tenet⁷. When watching Tenet, they talked about entropy. Many people first learned of this word there, but people who study physics know it is a term from thermodynamics — that the universe will eventually become a mass of chaos. This is what scientists currently believe.

But in fact, from the perspective of human civilization, we see the exact opposite. The universe has not become chaos; rather, it is becoming more and more regular, more and more orderly. It is a process of entropy increase and entropy decrease. We won't go into that issue; many people have very different views on it. We won't discuss it further.

Our universe degenerates into a final random distribution of matter, and humanity ultimately becomes chaos. He believes life only happened by chance, and in the end these lives will also disappear, civilizations will disappear, and the universe will return to utter stillness, a void and chaos, and that this is inevitable.

We felt very uneasy, uncomfortable in our hearts. We consider this notion a projection of a narrow human concept, and quite misleading. Indeed, humanity's understanding of the universe is simply too naive, yet humanity believes its understanding is quite correct.

Moreover, when Jane and I each grew up independently, we gradually discarded the traditional scientific concept that life arises by chance. He says that although he and Jane grew up in different environments, they shared a common belief — that the so-called idea that life was born of a series of accidents and coincidences giving rise to human life — neither of them accepted this notion. Our creative nature, our sentient nature, made us question this theory. Because both of them are creators — one does literary creation, the other does artistic painting creation. Because in their creative work they are actually closer to that flow state, or a higher state of consciousness, similar to entering a meditative state. Because when they paint, they know where the painting comes from, and they also know whether the words come out of his own brain or not, so he began to doubt this theory. Because they have this special characteristic as artists, he did not accept the scientists' viewpoint.

Now, even the general scientific method, we do not consider true. Beyond these views, regarding some general scientific theories, as two artists, they still had a certain natural aversion to science. Here we cannot say right or wrong; perhaps this is also why Seth found them. If he had found two scientists to transmit this Seth material, it probably could not have been transmitted at all; it would have ended right after it began, because they would not have thought anything Seth said made sense. But Rob and Jane, you see, were born with the sense that much of science is incorrect; they even questioned whether the general scientific method itself is true. This is very common among artists; it is not unique to the two of them. Many artists are naturally averse to science, not very interested in it, because in the process of artistic creation they understand that the truth of this world is not what scientists say it is.

The biologist's chaos and Seth's unpredictability are not the same thing. Seth says our orderly world comes from a disordered foundation in which all possibilities exist. You should not understand the disordered foundation of unpredictability that Seth speaks of as the kind of chaos those scientists talk about; they are not the same thing.

For example, in Session 681 Seth told us that science likes to think it deals with predictable action, yet it knows it perceives such a small amount of data — the scientist's data sample is too small — that the great inner unpredictability of any molecule, atom, or wave is not apparent. Because his research sample is too small, he can only see those things he considers regular. In connection with this, I suggest readers especially study the material from 10:00 to 10:36 in that same session, where Seth carefully elaborated on how unpredictability gives rise to this order that we humans understand. He emphasized again that this chaos is not the same as that disorder; the order born of disorder — that disorder is different.

Note 1: Seth's Unfulfilled Promise

Look at Note 1 again, the note he added later -- after the book was finished, he added a note. Unfortunately, Seth did not fulfill his own promise to elaborate on the question of the meeting place between dreams and symbols. That is, he did not go on to explain how to establish a meeting place within a dream state or on a level of consciousness, and then explore the question of whether these dream symbols have commonality. He said he would discuss it in this book, but later he did not.

So the Seth material has left behind many clues. Each clue, if developed, could actually become a discipline, or a point worth exploring that could change the progress of human civilization or the development of science and technology. And these points, often because in the process of transmission, amid the vast amount of material, he sometimes forgot to mention them himself, and sometimes Rob did not ask or follow up on the matter, and so it passed. So these things, in our future courses at the Spiritual University, will all need to be slowly filled in, because these things are all very important.

Teacher Xiyu's Commentary

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注释与核实

1. Source: Library of Congress "Before the Red Book" (https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/red-book-of-carl-jung/before-the-red-book.html) ↩

2. Source: Wikipedia "Zhou Gong's Dream Interpretation" (https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E5%91%A8%E5%85%AC%E8%A7%A3%E6%A2%A6) ↩ ↩²

3. Source: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, "Author of the Great Work 'Dream Pool Essays' — Shen Kuo" (https://igsnrr.cas.cn/cbkx/kpyd/dlxj/202009/t20200910_5692671.html) ↩

4. Source: Pan Yuming et al., "An Acetate Fiber Silk-Like Knitted Fabric and Its Processing Method," 2018 (https://patents.google.com/patent/CN107988693A/zh) ↩

5. Source: Laozi, "Tao Te Ching" (https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E9%81%93%E5%BE%B7%E7%B6%93_%28%E7%8E%8B%E5%BC%BC%E6%9C%AC%29) ↩

6. This claim could not be verified. ↩

7. Source: Warner Bros., "TENET: Synopsis" (https://app.powster.com/warnerbros/tenet/tw/synopsis/) ↩