Mike's commentary · The "Unknown" Reality, Session 710

The "Guide" and "Key Points" 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 blockquotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).

Introduction

This session explains that exploring unknown reality must proceed inward from the psyche; the physical world is the result of the concretization of collective concepts. Dreams have levels: the shallower ones directly reflect personal wishes, while the deeper ones involve collective planning. The demons in dreams are mostly the immediate concretization of one's own beliefs about evil, not inhabitants of inner reality. Out-of-body experiences or inner journeys require taking the conscious mind along in order to bring back memories, and to distinguish between inner projections and actual environments. The appendix includes Jane's critique of Eastern religions, touching on the inviolability of individuality and the differences between Eastern and Western beliefs.

Key Points of This Chapter

• Exploring unknown realities must begin with probing into your own psyche; physical reality is the result of collective concepts and beliefs being concretized.
• Dreams have levels; the shallower levels directly reflect personal wishes, while deeper levels involve collective planning, symbols, and different code systems.
• Demons in dreams almost always represent the dreamer's own concretization of beliefs about evil, and are not inhabitants of the inner reality one has reached.
• Out-of-body experiences or inner travels require carrying the conscious reasoning mind along, so that memories can be brought back, and one must distinguish between one's own psychological projections and the actual environment.
• Relying on inner exploration guides written by others will limit original experience, and may cause one to mistake images projected from one's own beliefs for objective reality; in the appendix, Jane's criticism of Eastern religions involves a challenge to ideas that negate individuality.

Main Text

Demons in Dreams and the Exploration of the Psyche

The title of this session is "Demons in Dreams and in Out-of-Body Travel, and How Not to Plan Your Exploration of the Psyche." This session was held on Monday, October 7, 1974, at 9:31 p.m.

At the beginning, Rob said, we have two articles to add to this session, both written by Jane. The following is the very short first one, written yesterday. At the end of tonight's session, Seth briefly discussed it in the excerpted material, and promised to say more about it later. As for the second one, Jane wrote it this evening, after we had finished reading certain material. Since this second one is much longer, we will make it Appendix 15. I suggest you read it now, or at least when you read this session later, or before the end of this session. We will read this Appendix 15 before the end of this session; it is very interesting.

First, let's look at this short passage Jane wrote, on October 6, 1974, the day before this session. Jane said, last night as I lay in bed sleeping, I heard Seth's voice, very loud and powerful, as if he were quarreling. This was the first time she had this kind of feeling, because she had never heard Seth's voice before — previously Seth's voice was in her head, and then she would speak it out. This time the voice came from the next room, or from farther away, but also from above, as if from heaven or something. The voice was not speaking through anyone, not through Jane, nor through anyone else; it was Seth's own voice — not coming from inside her own head, nor spoken through her, unlike the voice she usually used to transmit the Seth material.

In the dream, Jane tried to understand what he was saying. In the dream she still wanted to hear what Seth was actually saying, and those words seemed not to be directed specifically at her, but just there. It seemed as if Seth really was speaking harshly to someone, as if he were angry, throwing a tantrum. At first she thought Seth was angry, but then she realized that she had interpreted the force of that voice in such a way. She said Seth actually probably was not angry, just that his voice was relatively loud. This was not part of a dream; it was like a voice heard in a dream, but not a dream.

But as she tried to make out the words, she woke up almost immediately. Subjectively, she had no way of perceiving Seth's presence. Usually when Seth came, she could feel it — Seth was nearby, she could feel it. But at this time there was none of that; the voice was like a kind of super-voice, perhaps like nature speaking or something, rather than like a person speaking.

Sailing Inward

Now let's look at the main text of this session. It is very wonderful and also very important.

To explore the unknown reality, you must venture into your own psyche.

If you want to explore the unknown, you must begin from the psyche, traveling inward along an invisible road -- an inward journey, just as your physical roads lead you far away, traveling outward. The difference is that the roads outside are tangible, while the road inward is intangible.

Your physical reality is formed through joint cooperation.

Our physical world is accomplished through everyone's collective collaboration.

Your own concepts, once materialized, become part of the physical environment.

You manifest the concepts within your own inner heart, turning them into part of the physical environment of your material life. Others are doing the same thing. Each person projects their own inner world outward, making it part of the external physical world, and together these form our external physical world. All of this takes place within a vast cooperative adventure -- he often uses this word -- we cooperate with one another in a very vast cooperative adventure.

This involves not only human beings, but also the thoughts and feelings of every living creature, all of which have taken root -- not just human beings, but every living thing: its thoughts and feelings are all manifested in the physical world. You could say that they then leap up into becoming concrete, materialized data. What is materialized is what has become physical, and then it emerges.

I have said that each reality system uses its own coded system.

Each reality system has its own encryption and decryption system. This is a system that effectively provides a kind of framework. Generally speaking, at any given time, at any particular time, your private and collective agreements materialize certain inner data. To put it simply, you as individuals and as a collective agree together on what to manifest -- this is a joint decision arrived at through everyone's consultation.

For example, the airplane was materialized in your era, rather than in the year 1500, as the inner airplane-type concept. The concept of the airplane, or the concept of humans building flying machines, actually existed long ago, but it was only truly materialized and manifested in our modern era. Five hundred years ago it could not be done; humanity had not yet formed such a strong collective consciousness at that time. So this is a coded system at work -- this is an encryption system. What can be manifested in what reality is determined by the collective consciousness of everyone, not by any single individual.

You may hear people speak of a concept, saying that its time has not yet come.

In Chinese people often say the timing is not yet ripe, or as foreigners say, the time has not yet come. What does this mean? He says:

This does not mean that there is not enough energy connected with the concept... it simply means that there is not yet enough energy connected with the concept to push it outward into the world of physical experience.

The energy is not yet sufficient to manifest it in the physical world, to make it into a materialized event experienced by the masses. In China there are often many such viewpoints: favorable timing, geographical advantage, and human harmony; going with the flow; the time has not yet come; the situation is not yet favorable; and various other reasons. So there is indeed a question of timing here.

In the dream state and in certain other levels of reality, concepts and symbols are experienced immediately.

In dreams, or in nonphysical realities, concepts and ideas can be realized at once, unlike in physical reality where a timing is required, a collective concept, a collective belief -- not needed there; one person's belief alone is sufficient to accomplish it. Thus:

There is no time lag between the sensing of a situation and its exteriorization.

There is no time involved in exteriorizing a concept. It is automatically experienced by the person who holds it, in whatever manner he is familiar with and finds natural. Moreover, he must find it natural and familiar, yet he experiences it immediately.

The psyche is suited with its own ideas, and those ideas are immediately reflected in dream situations and in other events that will be explained shortly.

Dreams will immediately reflect his own ideas within the dream, and then later he will interpret those other events -- for example, during your meditation, or when you enter an out-of-body state, these are all other events. In these events, the psyche immediately reflects its ideas.

For example, if in the physical world you dream of or desire a new house, then it may take some time before this ideal is realized. Although such a strong intent will most certainly bring about the concrete realization -- it will definitely be realized in the end -- the process of realization requires time. Yet in the dream state, the same wish may cause such a house to be built instantly, at least as far as your dream experience is concerned. Between your wish and its materialization, there is no time lag.

Levels of Dreams

Dreams have levels, as he has explained before. Very apt, but mainly personal — dreams are entirely private, reflecting your own personal intentions and purposes.

There are other levels, which from your standpoint are even farther away.

At a relatively shallow level of dreams, it is closer to our personal intentions and purposes. Farther away, the levels of dreams go deeper, and their connection to our waking life becomes harder to make sense of.

At deeper levels, a psychic-level mass behavior is involved. There, the future world planned together by the inhabitants of the physical world is acknowledged and utilized, and symbols are also used.

What he is saying is that the first level of dreams is related to you personally, reflecting your own personal wishes and purposes. One level deeper, it is no longer like that. The world at that level is jointly constructed by other dreamers — a world planned together, not planned by you alone. At that second level of dreams, probabilities are acknowledged, so all probable events are played out; probabilities are utilized, and symbols are also used. At the first level of dreams, symbols are not needed — things happen the way they do in our daytime experience. By the second level, symbols become necessary, because the meaning has already changed. There, imagery is interwoven in such a way — your imagery interweaves with the imagery of other dreamers — that it becomes very hard to interpret, because it is no longer just your own intention and your own ideas; it is a process of collective construction of a shared dream world.

Private wishes are magnified... when they are felt by others, or diminished as the case may be. So that at any given time, the overall general plan is decided in relation to the species.

Your personal intentions may be magnified or diminished, depending on the circumstances. And at any given time, they must be in line with the development of humanity as a whole. The planned events in that realm are all connected with the development of humanity as a whole.

Again, here, wishes and intents must fit into the coded system of existence.

Just like in our physical world — which things manifest and which do not is also determined by this coded system, that is, the encryption system of consciousness. For example, take the invention of the airplane. People had long had the idea of building something that could fly, but why did it not manifest? What he means is that it did not match the coded system. From another angle, the beliefs of our group consciousness were not strong enough yet. For instance, materials, equipment, engines — without an engine, how could you build an airplane? At that time, everyone thought it was impossible. Later, with the invention of the engine, the internal combustion engine, and so on, people realized that the conditions for building an airplane seemed to be in place.

So at the second level of the dream world, you can imagine it as a dream world collectively created by the people in the dream, not created by one person. At the first level of dreams, it is all your creation.

At these levels, you are still not far from home.

The first and second levels are not too far from the home station of your consciousness — what could be called the old home of consciousness — although there are already differences.

Farther away, however, there are other levels of actuality.

Beyond these levels, farther away, there are the third and fourth levels of dreams.

Your psyche is also deeply involved in them, and you often enter them. And these may or may not seem to have any relevance to the world you know.

At the third and fourth levels of dreams, your psyche or your consciousness is also often drawn in, but what happens there may or may not seem relevant to the world you know. Here, it is not as easy to understand as the first two levels of dreams.

When you travel into such realms, you usually do so through the dream state... but still, you carry your private symbols with you.

Even when you reach the third and fourth levels, you still carry your private symbols with you. These are also automatically translated into experience — at this level, what you experience also becomes your experience, and then it is expressed in symbolic form.

By the third level, it is no longer your coded system. The first level of dreams is entirely your coded system — whatever you think can be realized. The second level of dreams is a coded system jointly created by you and others; you participate in it, so some things manifest and some do not. What manifests and what does not is determined by an overall landscape related to human development; the consideration is more about the whole rather than your personal issues, and probabilities come into play there. By the third and fourth levels and beyond, the coded system is no longer yours either; you are not even participating in it. You can only go there to experience and feel, and when you come back, it can still be helpful to your experience. But because it is not your coded system, operating within it is almost impossible. Your consciousness will not even retain any memory of it; you can only bring back some symbols — because those symbols are still understandable to your coded system.

You may have experienced it, perceived it unclearly, and superimposed it upon the reality you perceive.

You will take that unclear, vague impression and superimpose it upon the reality you are familiar with, treating it as the actual environment. But that is not your true environment.

Your true environment is twofold: one is your outer world, and one is your inner world.

The inner world is also divided into many levels, and at those deeper levels, it is no longer your true environment. The true environment is perceived together by the natural inhabitants of that system — at the third and fourth levels of dreams, it is perceived and created by the inhabitants there, not by you. At the second level of dreams, you perceive and create your dream world; by the third and fourth levels, that is no longer the case. Why? Because your systems of conscious coding are not the same. To put it more bluntly, your frequency of consciousness is not on the same channel as that frequency of consciousness.

The inhabitants of each level cannot operate at your level either, for the same reason — because you are not on the same coded system. Just as those spiritual and soul-level things cannot operate directly when they come into our physical world; they need to borrow a code-conversion system such as our physical body, converting their intentions or thoughts and ideas into the coded system of the human body, in order to operate in this physical world oriented toward materialization. That is why those spiritual things need to take on a physical body, why they need to operate through the body — because they are not on the same coded system.

Demons in the Dream State

Your own symbols, after all, rise up from the deepest levels of the psyche.

By the time you reach the third and fourth levels, you will still carry your private symbols with you. These symbols themselves rise up from the deepest levels of your psyche, and so in a certain sense, you are a part of whatever reality you experience—whether it is the fourth, third, second, or first level of the dream state, or you in the physical world, you are a part of this world.

If your consciousness arrives in a world that is not your own—say, the third or fourth level of the dream state, or if through meditation or other means you enter other spaces of consciousness—you could say you are empty there. Because your feelings and thoughts flow into the experience. If you want to maintain your alertness and explore that environment, you must learn to distinguish between your psychological state and the reality in which you find yourself.

To put it bluntly, when you explore those realms, you have to distinguish between the symbols conjured up by your own consciousness and the things that actually exist in that reality. They often overlap—if at that moment you have fear in your heart, then the demon or monster you conjure up, is it a projection from your own mind, or is it the way things actually are in that reality? Sometimes you cannot tell them apart. You must remain alert, and be able to tell clearly which things are projections of your psychological state and which are the actual nature of that reality, otherwise you will fall into confusion.

Many of my readers, when they are sleeping, find themselves in just such a state... while still dreaming, they suddenly wake up, so to speak, within an environment that seems unreasonable. For example, demons may be chasing them, the world may have turned upside down, the dead and the living may meet and converse.

Like something I mentioned before—he says this kind of inversion is not even the worst of it; there are even more severe inversions. For example, a pizza sitting on top of a person, and then ordering a cell phone as takeout to eat, or having deep-fried law for breakfast, and so on—completely overturning everything you know. In such an environment you will suddenly wake up. What Seth is talking about here is the unknown reality. He wants to tell you what you will encounter when you explore the unknown reality, and that you must distinguish clearly between what is real and what are illusions you have projected.

In almost all instances, the dream demon represents the dreamer's beliefs about evil, immediately materialized.

In almost all instances—remember, in almost all instances—the demon in the dream represents the dreamer's beliefs about evil, immediately materialized into form.

They are not inhabitants of some never-never land or of an underworld.

That demon is not an inhabitant of the inner reality they have traveled to; it is not a local resident of that place. It is something conjured up from within your own mind.

We will give some instructions that will enable the reader to experiment, at least to some degree, with the projection of consciousness.

I will give you some hints and instructions so that you can distinguish between the two, and then allow you to experiment to some degree with the projection of consciousness, so that you can tell the difference between them.

It is highly important that you realize that even in dreams you form your own reality.

You need to understand that the principle of beliefs creating reality does not apply only in the physical world; it can be realized in the dream state as well. Your mental state has detached itself from its usual physical focus—in the dream state, it has already detached from the focus centered on the physical—and creatively expresses itself with all its power and brilliance. At this point, your mind can unfold its full and rich creativity, using all its abilities and strength to express its own creative nature.

The state of mind itself can be used as an image, and propel you into a reality of similar conditions.

Your mental state—whether you are fearful, or inwardly peaceful and joyful, or curious, or filled with a thirst for knowledge, or carrying great distrust—whatever state your mind is in at the moment, that mental state is itself an image, and it will carry you into the image that matches your mental state. For example, if your mind is full of fear right now, then once you enter, it will certainly be a reality of fear, because that image will propel you into a reality of similar conditions.

This is why many people say that spiritual practitioners need protectors, need someone else by their side; otherwise they should not meditate, should not sit in stillness, should not explore the inner world—it is too dangerous. Sometimes this is indeed the case, because the premise is that you have fear in your heart. But I believe that if you have followed me in interpreting the Seth material from the beginning up to now, after more than a year of this, there is not that much fear left in your heart. At the very beginning there may still have been some, but now, after more than a year of this gradual influence, without your even noticing, the fear in your heart has slowly faded. When you no longer have fear of life and death, I do not know what kind of fear could still frighten you.

This is also a process of change from quantitative accumulation to qualitative transformation. Many people, without realizing it, have let go of the fear in their hearts. So Seth's course is progressive in nature. It does not teach you at the very beginning to meditate, to practice, to explore those unknown realities. It is only slowly, toward the end, at this stage, that it begins to let you explore bit by bit under his guidance and direction. If you have not listened to the earlier Seth material, and you are starting with this book, then I suggest you do not continue reading ahead, do not rush into adventure, and do not be too eager or curious about what this unknown reality actually contains. You should start from the beginning and listen through the Seth material once, clearing out the fear in your heart. Otherwise, once you go in, you really will not learn anything; every day you will be running for your life in there, chased by those evil ghosts and terrifying monsters.

Remember what Seth said earlier: in that kind of situation, he amplifies all your beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions—he uses all his strength and power to express himself. To put it even more plainly, he infinitely amplifies the fear in your heart. Whatever you fear most, he will present that very thing before you in an N-fold magnified form, enough to scare you to death. At that point, do not forget what your own mind is doing—your mind has detached from the focus and limitations of the physical, and in a place where it can create completely at will, it will fully exercise its power and brilliance. And if your mind at that moment is full of fear, then it will bring that fearful thing to its extreme. It is something from within your own heart; it gives you a magnifying effect, a complete amplification.

So starting with this book, starting with the second volume of The "Unknown" Reality, the exercises that follow begin gradually—especially from Part Five onward—to lead you in step by step. Before that, I hope everyone will not try to take on too much; just follow along with us one step at a time. If you have not read the earlier material, be sure to go back and fill in everything you have missed. Seth is working from every angle, bit by bit, to help you break down the fear in your heart.

The Camera of Inner Travel

In your world, you travel from one country to another... and you would not expect them all to be exactly alike.

Of course they are not the same. If they were all the same, why would you travel at all? It is precisely because of the differences between them that you go out to explore the varied parts of the world.

So not every out-of-body journey will take you to the same place.

Every out-of-body journey you take will not bring you to the same place, just like when you travel, how could you possibly go to the same place every time? You say the Maldives is wonderful, so you go every day, every year, every month, spending four months there each year. I think eventually you would get sick even of looking at the ocean.

Every night, when you sleep, you instinctively leave the body for varying lengths of time.

When you sleep, your consciousness leaves the body, but those journeys are not designed or planned in advance. The journeys in your dreams are just like your travels: they do not go to the same place, nor are they planned out. They simply keep changing to something new.

In other words, you plan your own sightseeing... just as many people with the same interests might decide to join a tour group and explore the same country together. Therefore, in the out-of-body state, you may be alone, or you may travel with companions.

So if you are alert enough, you can even take some photographs. If you are alert enough during an out-of-body experience, you can even take pictures of the places you visit. It is just that, as far as inner sightseeing is concerned, those photographs include the clear images of the environment taken at the time, which are developed in the unconscious and then presented to the waking conscious mind to view. The process is that the photographs are developed unconsciously, and then shown to the conscious you; otherwise you could not bring them back.

There are certain techniques with cameras... for example, if you are abroad and you leave your camera at home, then it cannot function at all.

If you do not bring your camera abroad, can you take pictures? No, you cannot. So if you hope to understand your inner journeys afterward, the necessary condition for taking those photographs is this: your consciously alert mind is your camera. That is, your waking consciousness, still carrying a thread of awareness, is your camera. Otherwise, if you enter an unconscious state, you simply cannot bring back any photographs.

The conscious reasoning mind must be brought along.

This is a very subtle point. There are two paradoxes here, extremely subtle. Sometimes you need to carry your waking consciousness with you, what we call lucid dreaming or out-of-body experience. You need to travel with your waking awareness. But at other times, as soon as your waking consciousness arises, you immediately come back. When your consciousness is not on that astral body of the out-of-body state, and you want to return to the consciousness of your physical body, you tend to come back easily. So the timing and degree must be mastered precisely.

This is also why, some time ago, during practice, he often had you practice having multiple consciousnesses existing simultaneously. In the previous part there was a session, around Session 692, with an exercise on double dreams, dreaming two dreams at the same time. That exercise of multiple consciousnesses actually helps you do many things later on. One of them is this: during an out-of-body experience, you must have two consciousnesses. One is the consciousness of the out-of-body form itself: what it is doing, where it is, what environment it is in. The other is your physical body's consciousness, what Seth calls the awakened mind, the consciously awakened mind. These two must stay together. That is, you must maintain two states of consciousness existing simultaneously before you can bring those photographs back.

There are many ways to accomplish this... he says it is not very difficult to do it according to the method. Certain techniques can focus on your journey and pack up your conscious mind, just as you pack up your camera. When you need it, it will be there to take the photographs that will give you conscious memory of your journey.

Just like packing your camera, you need to bring your conscious mind along with you when you go exploring the unknown reality. When you want to take a picture, you bring out the conscious mind, just like taking your camera out of your bag. When you do not normally need it, put the conscious mind away. You cannot carry your conscious mind with you at all times. If you carry it constantly, it will very easily bring you back.

I told you a joke earlier about one of our students. He had an out-of-body experience, and it was extremely real. He lived in that city for more than two hours, living in another unfamiliar reality, and he even rented an apartment. Then, amazingly, he asked the owner of a flower shop downstairs a question: "Has your business been affected by the pandemic?" The moment he asked that, he instantly returned to his physical body from the out-of-body state. That is, your awakened consciousness was too clear, too obvious. At that time, you should live using the identity of your out-of-body self. At that moment, do not think about who I am, what identity I have, what I look like after leaving the body, where I am. Do not think about these things. You can ask others and let others tell you, but do not ponder or reason on your own. If you use reasoning or thinking, you will easily be pulled back.

So when you need it, bring out the conscious mind. Normally, keep it in your bag, and act with the consciousness of your out-of-body state.

The Objective World and Psychic Projection

You must remember that the objective world is also a projection of the psyche.

Because our primary focus is concentrated within this physical world, you understand its rules well enough to handle physical events completely. In physical events, a journey simply means deciding to travel on foot or choosing some particular means of transportation. For example, a car will not take you out to sea. If you want to go out to sea, you would not choose a car; you might choose a plane or take a ship.

You would not look with surprise at land suddenly giving way to water.

You would not wonder why land turns into water. The farther you go, the farther you are from land — that is what "land giving way to water" means. As your journey begins, you begin traveling on the sea, and you find that kind of natural change perfectly normal. Of course, no one is surprised by this. You expect time to operate normally. For example, farther ahead the land may give way to water. If you keep walking toward a coastline, once you reach the shore and keep going forward, there is water. At that point you either board a ship or take a plane, but this is normal — you know that beyond the land there is water.

But today you cannot go forward and become yesterday. Land can do that, space can do that, but time cannot. You cannot say, "As my time moves forward, going backward is yesterday and going forward is tomorrow." This afternoon also cannot immediately become tomorrow; you have to pass through more than ten hours before it becomes tomorrow. This is your basic cognition and understanding of the space-time we are in now. Your familiarity with and understanding of this world is perfectly normal, but when you reach the unknown reality, things are quite different.

As you walk down the avenue, you expect the trees to remain in place.

You think the trees will certainly be on both sides of the avenue, forming a tree-lined boulevard, and will not transform themselves into buildings. Trees cannot turn themselves into buildings. Trees are trees, buildings are buildings, walls are walls — you are very clear about this.

And all of these assumptions, in your physical journey, you take for granted.

You do not let your mind wander about them. You may discover different customs and languages — different customs and different languages are normal. Yet in fact these too are accepted within the basic assumptions of that larger whole — different languages and different customs are permissible, but the basic assumptions cannot change. Trees cannot become houses. And physical life occurs within its boundaries; only within these basic assumptions can our physical life grow and occur normally.

You are simply walking down the street... as you travel through your private and mass psyche.

In a certain sense, when you walk down the street, you are actually walking through your personal and collective psychic world. Because this world is created by your personal and collective consciousness — it is a collective creation, a cooperative adventure. Walking down this street is equivalent to walking through a collective psyche of yourself and others.

The physical world, however, appears to be objective... and outside of you.

The physical world appears to be objective, and outside of us — that is what we feel. We feel that we are traveling into an objective world. This concept of externality is one of the assumptions upon which you build your existence — that the world is objective and outside of you.

What is it really? Actually, you are traveling within the psyche. When you walk down the street, you are not walking through an external world; you are walking through a psyche — through your own and the collective psyche. Are not your own psyche and the collective psyche both subjective? You are walking in a subjective world, yet you believe this subjective world is objective and outside of you. You are clearly walking through a subjective world, clearly walking through an inner world, yet you believe you are walking in an external, objective world.

Inner travel, then, is no more subjective than a trip from New York to San Francisco.

If you consider New York to San Francisco objective, then your exploration of the inner world is also objective. If you acknowledge that traveling from New York to San Francisco — passing through streets and alleys, walking along road after road — is a subjective journey, then your inner travel is also subjective. When he says it is no more subjective, he means it is just as objective as your outer travel — except that you think it is objective, but that is in quotation marks; actually it is subjective.

You are accustomed to projecting all goals, all destinations, outside of yourself.

For example, New York is outside of you, San Francisco is outside of you. The concept of inward destinations of all kinds, involving movement and time and space, therefore seems very strange. Outward travel seems perfectly normal to you, because it involves an external goal — there are coordinates, there is space, there is a geographical location, you have to spend time, moving from one space to another, and in between there is a process of movement. But with inward travel, all of these change. First, there is no concept of movement — you do not need to take a train, you do not need any means of transportation, and you do not even need to walk. Moreover, it does not require time; going from one place to another has no concept of time. Most unsettling of all, it has no concept of space — the kind of spatial change and displacement you are ordinarily familiar with is also gone. These three things are all different at the same time, so of course it will seem very strange to you. You will find inward travel far stranger than outward travel. This is all normal; you need to adapt and learn.

Don't Bring Other People's Guidebooks into the Inner World

Generally speaking, you have already explored this physical earth.

For someone who rarely travels abroad or has never been abroad, going abroad is a frightening thing; they will feel a sense of unfamiliarity. For those who travel abroad often, going from one country to another involves no worry, fear, or difficulty adjusting. The more times you go abroad, the less that sense of unfamiliarity you have; you discover that these places also have many things in common, you know very clearly what you will encounter, and you also know that you can completely handle these things.

Before a trip, you probably sketch out a travel plan covering the sightseeing spots and special features of a region.

You probably make a guide plan, so it is not blind travel. It may seem like you just get up and go, but actually that is not the case; you have probably looked over some guide plans, and maybe you have already booked the flights and hotels.

Although any given trip may be new to you, you are not really a pioneer. That place has long since been explored by others, and that land has already been mapped.

Now it is even more advanced; you can use Google Maps or navigation software to take you directly to any place you want to go. The old way of holding a map and asking for directions is becoming less and less common.

By comparison, that inner land has not yet been explored to such a degree.

As far as your conscious mind is concerned, at the very least the inner land is virgin territory that has never been explored.

Others have traveled to some of these inner locations... but since they were indeed explorers, they therefore had to learn as they went along.

Then some people came back and provided guidebooks and travel manuals. Many people have explored the inner reality, and then they wrote you some books, saying you should pay attention to this, you should pay attention to that, you should worry about this, you should worry about that, telling us what we might encounter, creating your own reality. Some people will give you these so-called guide plans, just like someone coming back from abroad telling you what you should pay attention to in that country.

If you came from a foreign country and arrived in America, and you asked someone what New York is like, that person might describe it as fact. That person might say that New York is a rather frightening place, where the crime rate is rampant, gangs run wild, murder and rape are commonplace, and people are not only impolite but ready to attack you at any moment. There are no trees, the air is filthy, and you can only expect violence.

Conversely, if you asked another person, that person would say... New York has the best museums, there are open-air concerts in the parks, there are exquisite sculpted theaters, and it may have the greatest library collections outside of the Vatican. Overall, it has very good weather and a remarkable gathering of cultures, with millions of people coming and going freely.

He says that is how it is; the two people are talking about the same place, but because of their private beliefs, their descriptions differ, and they are colored by the personal focus through which they view that city.

What Seth means is that in exploring the inner reality, do not listen to others; what others give you is all their own. And especially in exploring the inner world—take New York City, for example. This is an outer world, and we consider it objective, yet two people can have two completely different descriptions of it, as if they were two different worlds. If an objective world can be depicted so differently, then in the inner world, where exploration is subjective and what each person sees is what they get, how can you expect someone to give you a relatively objective view?

Therefore, in inner practice, our basic principle is this: do not listen to or read too many of the guide plans and directions others give you, telling you what such-and-such a place is, what such-and-such a place has, what you will encounter in such-and-such a place—do not do that. But some basic travel experience and techniques—those you can listen to, no problem. Do not let others describe landscapes or specific experiences to you; they can give you some experience and techniques, and tell you some things to pay attention to. That is to say, in this book by Seth, later on he will tell you how to explore the unknown reality, and what he gives you is mostly techniques and things to pay attention to; he will not tell you what you might encounter or what you might run into.

One person might be able to give you the precise location of that city in terms of latitude or longitude... while another, by contrast, has no such knowledge... but rather says that at such-and-such a time and such-and-such a place I boarded a plane, taking New York as my destination, and if I took the appropriate flights, I would always get there.

Some people get to that place through latitude and longitude; others say, I do not know the latitude and longitude, I only know that at a certain time I go to the airport and buy a ticket for a certain flight, and I can fly directly to New York. Where New York is, I do not know, and I do not need to know—I do not need to know its degrees west longitude or degrees north latitude; I only need to know which flight to take to get there. This example is meant to tell us that exploration in the inner world is the same; the methods also differ. Some people use the latitude-and-longitude method, some people directly use the intuitive method, and some people use their own unique method. They can get there, but you cannot—that method may suit them, but it does not necessarily suit you.

However, those explorers who traveled to the inner reality at first had no similar signposts.

There were no similar things—for example, there was no flight you could take to get there, and there were no coordinates either.

Many people were so excited about their discoveries that they wrote guidebooks even long before they began to explore the inner landscape. They did not understand that they would go looking for what they wanted to find, or that the phenomena that seemed objective actually came from within.

Some people are too excited, so excited about exploring the inner reality that they want to quickly make their guide plan before setting out, going online or studying to find all kinds of experiences from so-called people who have been there before, copying bits and pieces of other people's experiences, compiling them into a guide plan for inner exploration, and then setting out with such a guide plan. But in that case, how can they know whether the things they explore are the original landscape of the inner world, or the landscape projected from their own hearts?

The biggest difference between exploring the inner world and exploring the outer world is this: the environment of the outer world is formed jointly by you and others. Overall, your role is very small. For example, take the landscape of New York City—the biggest role you can play, to give an example, is that you can kick over a certain trash can in New York City, and then you might have changed a certain part of the landscape of New York City, but what you can change is only that tiny bit. And the overall landscape of New York City is not determined by you alone; it is determined jointly by the more than ten million people living in New York City, and you only play a one-in-ten-million role in it. But exploration in the inner world is completely different; the landscape of the inner world is created entirely by you alone.

At this point it becomes very dangerous. If you bring too many guide plans with you, you cannot distinguish whether the landscape of the inner world is something depicted in your guide plans, projected from the bottom of your heart and then seen, or whether it is the real landscape of the inner world—you can no longer tell the difference.

Perhaps you have talked about what those inner realms are like, and you have read books... telling you what you might encounter in each of them. Many of these books speak of realms with princes, gods, or demons. In a strange way, these books really do provide a kind of service.

What kind of service? Because on certain levels, you will find your own thoughts materialized. And if you believe in demons, then in those terms you will encounter them. But the demons those authors assumed to exist have a reality beyond your beliefs—those demons have a reality beyond your beliefs. Yet this is not the case.

Those demons that seem to exist independently merely represent a state of your own mind that has been objectified.

Therefore, whatever methods the authors used to conquer these demons are often taken not only as evidence of the demons' reality, but also as proof of the effectiveness of each method.

What Seth says here is very meaningful and very important, and I will explain it in simple terms. When you go to explore the inner world, you read books written by others about how the inner world is divided into levels and realms and what kind of states exist there, and then you go explore. These books do have a function: they really will draw out in that place the things they want you to see. If there is fear in your heart, or if you believe what is said in these books, you really will see those things there—because that is the projection of your own heart. And then you will encounter them. And the authors assume that those demons are some other existence beyond your beliefs—that is, an objective existence beyond your beliefs—that is an assumption of the authors, but those demons actually do not exist at all; they are just a projection of your own heart.

And the authors will also describe that when you encounter a demon, what method you should use to defeat it, what mantra to chant, what ritual implement to hold, what means to use to drive it away. Their method not only tells you that the demon is real evidence, it also tells you that the method is effective—the demon is real, otherwise why would you use this method? You only need to drive it away if you treat it as real, and at the same time it tells you that the method is effective. So this book seems valuable to you, but actually it is all useless, all nonsense. But such books are very popular; anyone who wants to explore wants to take such a treasured manual on the road.

Seth is telling you here not to do this; you will only get the opposite of what you want.

If you read such books, you may often plan your activities along those lines, just as a visitor to New York City can plan their experience of that city according to what others have told them about what there is to discover.

Nowadays people travel according to guide plans. Do you not think this is a rather sad thing? You are eating leftovers that someone else has already chewed. The meaning of travel is not like this; it is not about going somewhere and experiencing something. You know that abroad there are people who specifically publish travel guides; this book is called Lonely Planet¹, which is a travel guide for countries all over the world, written by experts and travel enthusiasts from various countries, telling you which places are fun, which places have good food, which sights you must visit. That book is supposedly a good book, and it may be helpful to a stranger, but it also has its bad side; it restricts you completely. Nowadays people in China may not read these books; they read guide-plan websites and the like, and they are willing to travel according to guide plans.

Oh, I saw the internet-famous shops, internet-famous restaurants, internet-famous sights, internet-famous this and that on the guide plan—do you not think that is sad? You are walking the path others have already walked; what is the point?

Exploration of the inner world is the same; you do not need to take an internet-famous guide plan to explore your inner world. Some master walked through some place, some guru explored some inner realm, and you also want to go explore it; some guru or some eminent monk explored some vast void realm, some sacred realm, some pure land, and you want to go explore each one in turn. Then you say, oh, it really exists, there really is such a thing, the things depicted in the book really do exist. Yes, because they are all projected by yourself, of course they exist; it would be strange if they did not. You say it is exactly the same as depicted in the book—of course it is the same. Then you say a demon appeared, and then you say you used the method taught in the book to drive it away, and oh, it really worked—of course it worked, because it is all projected by yourself; if you think it works, it works.

But that kind of framework also causes a kind of damage.

You cannot say it has no benefit at all; it has its uses, but it actually has a kind of damage, and you need to be able to look at it objectively.

Because it prevents you from making contact with your own original concepts.

You are not originally exploring an unknown world; you are exploring using other people's concepts, and you have prevented yourself from using original concepts to make contact with that inner world.

For example, in any trance or out-of-body state, there is no reason to come into contact with any demons or monsters.

Seth has given you a definitive statement here: at any time, whether in trance or out of body, you have no reason whatsoever to come into contact with demons or monsters; you do not need to worry—unless you are fearful inside and you believe in them, in which case it is possible.

In such cases, your own illusions prevent you from seeing the environment into which they have been projected.

Because of your own illusions, you cannot see clearly whether this thing is projected by yourself or whether it was there to begin with.

When your consciousness is not focused on physical reality... the great creativity of the psyche is given full play.

When exploring the inner world, the power of your psyche is very strong.

When you learn to bring your normal waking conscious mind with you, all the dimensions of the psyche are faithful... and immediately become experience.

When you walk with your waking conscious mind, all the dimensions of your psyche are faithful, and immediately become experience—that is, the thoughts in all the levels of your inner heart are immediately manifested on every level, instantly becoming experience.

And when you drag out those limiting concepts, then on those levels you can see the inner power of your own psyche, and observe the interplay of beliefs and symbols unfolding before your eyes.

At this time you can observe and appreciate these phenomena and symbols projected from your own heart; they are all embodied by your beliefs and symbols. You need to learn to observe your beliefs and your symbols, and how they are vividly projected by you when exploring the inner world. What is meant by interplay? The interplay between one belief and another, between one symbol and another—some images in dreams can all be seen as symbols of your beliefs. For example, a monster is a symbol of one of your beliefs, and the appearance of a bodhisattva is also a symbol of one of your beliefs. You need to observe these symbols of your beliefs, the interplay among them, and the interplay between you and these symbols, using another part of your conscious mind to observe what you are doing—this is a very meaningful gain in your exploration of the inner world, and a very important point.

Let me say it again: if you want to explore the inner world, you need to learn this point. When you see the demons and monsters, or the Buddhas and bodhisattvas in the inner world, you need to learn to use another kind of consciousness, standing from the perspective of an outsider, to observe the interaction between that consciousness of yours during the out-of-body experience and these symbols projected from your inner world, and thereby observe the interrelationships between these different beliefs of yours and between them and you. Because it has made these things concrete for you, made them into images for you; it is as if your inner drama is being acted out vividly before you.

Unless you learn to do this, you will certainly have difficulties.

If you cannot learn this kind of analysis, and you cannot see the interactive relationships among them—that is, the relationships among these symbols projected by your beliefs, and their interaction with you—then you cannot distinguish the difference between your projections and what happens in the inner environment. You cannot discover which are the relationships among the symbols you have projected, and which are the relationships that occur directly between you and the environment of the inner world. You cannot tell them apart, because they are all so lifelike. If you cannot distinguish this, then there is no point in going in there; you will certainly have difficulties. You can only come back as if you had watched a horror movie, without having made contact with the inner world—what you made contact with was the drama projected outward from within you; you did not actually go into the real inner environment to experience it.

Any exploration of inner reality on his part will necessarily involve a journey of the psyche. And these effects can be seen as atmospheric conditions, natural at a certain stage, and as you continue you will pass through them.

This is a very crucial step. When you go to explore the inner reality, it will necessarily involve a journey of the psyche, and when your psyche travels, it will certainly encounter those projected things from your inner psychic world; this is normal. Everyone's psyche is different; some people project nothing but bodhisattvas and Buddhas, and some people project nothing but terrifying things; do not pay attention to it. The correct method is to treat it as an atmospheric condition—just as when you travel in the outer world, if you go to a desert it will inevitably be dry and scorched by the sun; if you go into a rainforest, it will inevitably rain every day and you will not see the sun. When you travel to a place, you will certainly encounter various weather conditions; just treat that as a kind of weather condition. Do not be affected by it; will you not go out just because it rains? You finally fly to Paris, and it rains all day; would you say, I will just stay in the hotel every day—impossible; Paris in the rain has its own special charm.

So what he means is, just treat it as weather. But you can distinguish it; it is weather, not the true essence of the real inner world—it is a kind of atmospheric condition of the inner world, a kind of weather. Just pass through it and keep going; do not pay attention to it, do not get entangled with it, and do not try to clear it away. You cannot clear it all away; how could you clear your psyche completely? You cannot clear it all away. You do not need to pay attention to it; just keep walking, and as you go further in, it will gradually disappear.

Appendix 15

Now wait a moment, simultaneously. Seth came back with material that was for Jane, and it was an article Jane herself had written that afternoon about Eastern philosophical thought. The more personal parts of Seth's words are not included here, but what remains is enough to show what his main challenge was, about eleven years after Jane began speaking for him. That excerpt also points out how difficult it is, in our society, to step out of the conventional Western view of reality, or to expand such a framework.

Jane is still in the process of the objective, rational, yet also very emotional movement of her psyche. Rob said I am the same way, so Rob's assessment is very objective. But she has made considerable progress, and neither of us has tried to cast off our Western orientation, but only to understand it more fully.

You see here, actually you don't know what he is trying to say, right. So let's look at what Appendix 15 actually says, and then you will understand.

Today we read a long passage discussing all sorts of Eastern philosophies and Eastern religious philosophies, including the truths advocated by the sages associated with Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and so on. That afternoon they collectively read such an article, and it was a very long one, discussing Eastern religious philosophy, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism — actually Taoism is not exactly a religion, but later it developed into a religion.

As presented below, Jane's reaction, through the speed and intensity of her own writing, was very fierce.

Rob's Session 710 Notes and Jane's Article

Let's look at this long passage he read today, which touched on a wide range of Eastern philosophies and Eastern religious philosophies, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and so on, and the truths advocated by their respective sages. That afternoon they collectively read such a long article discussing Eastern religious philosophy.

Jane's notes reflect feelings deeply rooted in her mystical nature, and also illustrate some important aspects of the content and direction of the Seth material as a whole. Rob's point is that this article also represents a certain direction -- the Seth material necessarily differs from other Eastern philosophies.

Yet for example, I don't think what's involved is simply a choice between the belief systems offered by Eastern and Western cultures.

Rob is saying it's not a question of which Eastern culture is better or which Western culture is better. What he's saying is:

In more basic terms, the kind of choice each personality makes before physical birth.

He's not comparing whether it's better to be born in the East or born in the West. What he's talking about is making such a decision with full awareness of its enormous impact on an entire lifetime.

Obviously, in those linear terms, Jane and I both felt that we had chosen our present circumstances.

If we go by the linear notion of reincarnation, the reason the two of them chose the present was because they wanted to experience this particular thing. So if we put it that way, the two of them preferred this Western cultural spirit. As was said in the introduction, as individualists -- both he and Jane are individualists. An individualist is someone who emphasizes the supremacy of the individual; in heaven, earth, and the universe, the individual is the most sacred and inviolable. Whether it's God or Buddha, no one can violate your supreme individual rights. This is a very mainstream culture in the West. When Eastern and Western cultures often collide, many people cannot understand this point. In fact, fundamentally you haven't understood one of the main ideas of Westerners: they are people who greatly revere the belief in individualism; the individual is sacred and inviolable, and neither the government, the state, nor even the highest authority in heaven can violate my individuality.

We do not concentrate upon whatever similarities may exist between Seth's ideas and those of the Eastern religions, philosophies, and mystic doctrines.

In the introduction they said they would not compare their commonalities. Although we know there are many such similarities, we also know how different Seth's viewpoints can be from theirs.

I added that while we cannot downgrade other approaches to inner reality, we are still, in ordinary terms, firm believers in the inviolability of individual consciousness before, during, and after physical existence.

He says they will not belittle other religions and other schools' methods of exploring inner reality. But the two of them are firm individualists -- not only including individualism in the present while alive, but also including the inviolability of this consciousness before physical existence and after physical death. Because they have studied the Seth material, they place even greater emphasis on consciousness. Taking this as the main thread, it actually becomes easier to understand some of their attitudes toward Seth: why there were things Seth said that the two of them didn't believe, didn't listen to, and didn't follow through on. Because they believed that the consciousness of the two of them as individuals was more important, and even Seth could not change them.

Jane's Attack on Eastern Religions

Let's look at the article Jane wrote. The article is very interesting, reflecting how a contemporary American female writer views Eastern philosophy. Let me state again: this represents only Jane's viewpoint, not Seth's. Jane here brings out her strong literary talent and literary cultivation.

What is this passion for nonbeing that drives so many gurus and self-proclaimed prophets -- this denial of sensory life?

What is that passion? It is the state of nonbeing, that is, the state of no-self. Those gurus, the so-called prophets, pursue this state of no-self.

They speak out against desire, while being driven by the overwhelming desire to lose themselves.

All Eastern religions oppose desire, yet they pursue no-self, pursue enlightenment, pursue nirvana -- is that not desire? Jane asks in return: you say desire is bad, yet you have an even greater desire.

They indulge in a kind of cosmic self-defense, titillating their psyches to various degrees of excitement, then leaping in the climax of ego surrender.

Jane's literary talent is all used here, in satirizing these masters. These people hate desire most of all, especially things like sex -- this is what Eastern religions hate most of all. Jane deliberately uses this way to describe them, to characterize them, which is actually an insult to them.

They bathe in a kind of cosmic steam bath, evaporating all the impurities of individualism and creativity from people's souls.

Don't forget that Jane and Rob emphasize individualism. They think individualism is impure, and then creativity gets evaporated along with it.

Leaving them in what is assumed to be an eternal, indescribable bliss, in which indeed their own experience disappears.

She says these people are in this state of nirvana, the land of ultimate bliss, and then their own experience is gone too, merged with the universe. Then Jane starts thanking God -- actually she no longer believes in Catholicism, but she uses irony:

Fortunately there is a God in the Western world, thank God, fortunately some gods managed to pull themselves free from this psychic unity.

They originally wanted to pursue psychic unity, but Jane thanks God that they separated, that they did not merge together.

Thank God those gods loved their own diversity enough to create themselves in millions of different forms, to multiply, to explode their being inward and outward.

She says God loves their own individuality, endowing the humblest and the greatest, the largest and the smallest with their own unique existence. The greatest, the humblest, the largest and the smallest are all experiences of divinity, all proof of divine existence -- he proves this through diversity.

The guru says let go of everything.

This is true, many gurus have said such things, and they still say this in the West today. For example, Bashar often says² "do what you need to do."

Do not do what you want to do, but do what you should do. Never trust the self you are, but trust the self you should be. And that self should be the self whose desires have been extinguished, who no longer desires and no longer cares.

Yet strangely, this state of no-self without feeling leads to tremendous joy.

The guru says All That Is is within you, yet tells you not to trust yourself. If All That Is did not want appearances, then we would not experience any appearances. Yet the guru says appearances are illusory, changeable, and therefore false.

We won't go into the specifics of this here. First of all, what Jane excerpts are just fragments, and there is indeed a risk of taking things out of context. Any spiritual knowledge, once turned into words, inevitably has its drawbacks. Just like in the Buddhist scriptures, there are often two adjacent sentences that are clearly contradictory. If you ignore what lies behind the words and only look at the surface statements, you can always find a pile of problems. And for someone who grew up in the West, especially a firm supporter with individualism as a preconceived priority, when she looks at these Eastern arguments -- let go of everything, don't trust yourself -- she feels aversion from the bottom of her heart.

Rob's point is important: this also reflects a major Western value, and how difficult it is to give up or change our values. He also feels we should not give them up, but rather augment them, extend them -- rather than saying our values are wrong. There is a strong cultural attribute and background here.

Jane's Defense of the Body

Is my body a facade? Therefore an illusion within an unchanging reality? Then dear body, how lovely and blessed your illusion is.

Your body has feeling; even the hollowest bones have the desire for feeling. The body is blessed. The tiny molecules that come together to walk down an autumn street leap forth alive, gathering to form the sweet discernment of the senses, and that discernment for a moment perceives even the exquisite joy and unity of a brief afternoon.

If the body is an illusion, then we hereby declare that illusion, reality, and the truths of all gurus are lies.

Jane's logic is this: the body that you gurus call illusory nevertheless has real feelings. Are those feelings also illusory? If you say all feelings are illusory, then I can say that everything the gurus say is also a lie. Feelings are real. Without a body, how could there be feelings?

God knows himself through the flesh. God could know himself through a million or a billion other worlds, just as I therefore could as well. But because this world is as it is, and because I live within it, the body is not merely a facade, and not merely a vehicle to be cast aside.

If you revere this world and revere All That Is as supreme, then my physical existence is also a part of All That Is -- the world is as it is, and I am also a part of what is. You cannot say that my being as it is should not be wanted. I am also a part of the universe and should not be cast aside. I am not this shackle, not this bag of skin, not this puppet.

To live here is a privilege, to look out through these personal eyes, from this unique focus, not blurred by cosmic vision.

The universe has its angle, and I have mine. The universe sees the universe; I see the universe from my angle. You cannot say that what I see is wrong. It is through the miraculous connection between soul and flesh that I am able to see a corner of this world. It is not the whole picture, but you still cannot say that what I see is wrong. This is my unique perspective.

Cherish the gifts of the gods, and do not be in such a hurry to hand your personal identity back to the gods.

Your personal identity is the gift the gods gave you. It is each person's unique, one-of-a-kind personal identity. Do not throw it back to the gods.

I hate myself and my personal identity -- it suffocates me.

Do not say such things.

Even the consciousness of a squirrel, suddenly thrust into the body of another of its own kind, would feel a sense of loss and encounter a sense of strangeness.

If you thrust a squirrel's consciousness into another squirrel's body, it would also feel strangeness and loss, because that is not its body.

Wear your personal identity proudly. It is the banner of your divinity.

He again emphasizes the importance of personal identity.

You are a god living a life.

You yourself are a god. Existence desires and creates. By honoring yourself, you honor God -- whatever he is -- and become a conscious co-creator.

Jane's passage has its extreme side. Its understanding of Eastern philosophy is too one-sided and superficial; it did not go deep, only grasping it at the level of words. Second, as Rob said, it also reflects the essential conflict between Eastern and Western cultures. Third, there is something very valuable in it: it emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual, the distinctiveness of the individual, and it emphasizes how divinity expresses itself within humanity. You must honor your divinity through being this person. Do not expect the divine to make your humanity shine. You must stand on the foundation of being human, because right now you are a person. But you have divine attributes within you, and you use your humanity to carry forward your divinity.

In other words, your divinity is expressed through the flourishing of your humanity, through human creativity living out the value of that divinity. You cannot just sit there waiting and say, since I am a divine being, let divinity shine on me, save me, glorify me -- it is the other way around. You were given abilities, you were given all possibilities, but you have to act. You have to embody the creativity with which the divine creates all things. You have to create in your life. If you do not create, how can you say you are a divine being? If you live day after day like a robot -- eat your fill and sleep, sleep your fill and eat, just go to work and earn a wage -- then that creativity has not been fully expressed. Of course I am not saying that such a life has no creativity; that is also a kind of creativity. But is there perhaps a greater creativity within you that has been buried?

Rob's Criticism of Eastern Religions

From any of Seth's books, let alone Jane's books, I could cite quite a number of comments that question much of the thinking behind various Eastern religious systems of thought.

Rob says Seth also often questions what lies behind those Eastern religions. For example, in Chapter 12, Session 642 of The Nature of Personal Reality, Seth said:

You cannot gain spirituality by denying the wisdom and experience of the flesh. And by observing animals, you can learn more than from a guru or a minister, or from reading my books. But you must first divest yourself of the idea that your creaturehood is suspect.

Your humanity does not arise from your refusal of your animal heritage, but is built upon its extension. You inherently possess your physicality, and the desires of your physical existence are normal. It is not by rejecting these desires that your spirituality emerges. Only by first acknowledging it, extending it, and upon acknowledging your animal nature, can your spirituality unfold. If you deny it first, you cannot gain spirituality either.

For us, and even considering Seth's idea of camouflage, Jane and I obviously believe that our physical existence and psychic experience themselves are quite real. We could easily write a book showing the reasons for these particular beliefs of ours, examining them in connection with both Eastern and Western philosophy and religious philosophy.

We think a good general question, one we hope to discuss together with the nature of the inviolability of the individual, has to do with the fact that ordinary everyday conscious thinking and perception are prevalent only throughout much of the world.

A theoretical system with universal value must necessarily be discussed together with the inviolable essence of the individual. You cannot abandon or negate the inviolability of the individual and still claim such a theory is good. Moreover, such a theory must be connected to the mainstream consciousness that is prevalent in our ordinary, everyday lives, with our conscious thinking - you cannot toss conscious thinking aside and only discuss unconscious operations and explorations - and with perception.

What does this mean in simple terms? A good system of thought must be closely connected to every person's life, must acknowledge the value, validity, and legitimacy of every person's existence, rather than denying this physical existence and the individual's conscious awareness. If you deny all of these, then it only applies to a very small number of people, and cannot apply to all of humanity. This is their view of what makes a good theory. Therefore, they are extremely averse to those Eastern philosophies that deny the existence of the small self, pursue selflessness, pursue nirvana, and deny external life.

Buddhist belief, however, insists, for example, that our perception of the world is unreliable and only illusion, and that our ignorance of the basically undifferentiated suchness is what divides reality into objects and concepts. But why call our generalized perception an illusion, rather than viewing it as one of the innumerable manifestations that reality takes?

Rob says Buddhism has always said this world of ours is an illusion, like a dream, a bubble, a shadow. Why don't you consider it simply one of the many forms in which reality exists? Reality has many forms of existence, and this materialized form is one of them. Can you deny it and say it is wrong and meaningless? We acknowledge that behind it there is inner reality, but you cannot deny that this materialized existence is meaningless.

This is also the core difference between Buddhism and the Seth material: Buddhism denies the meaning of this material world's existence. Of course, this is only a superficial understanding. Actually, Buddhism in its later stages is not like this either - it acknowledges the influence of the real world on the inner world. But in some different levels and stages of Buddhism, such strange notions do indeed appear, and especially in modern times, after people's understanding of Buddhism has not been very deep, there are indeed many ideas that are not ultimate.

Recently I told Jane that no one is without some minimal, concrete needs, and the self-oriented thinking that those minimal concrete needs require.

A person living in this material world cannot do without food, and cannot be without self-orientation. You pursue selflessness - how can you pursue selflessness? Don't you have the most basic needs? You can strip away many desires, such as lust, greed, greed, hatred, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt, but do you still have to eat? Can you go without eating? Can you go without a basic living environment? You say you can do without all of these - then is there still a self present? You say there is no self present - then why become a monk at all? Why practice at all? Why chant sutras at all? If the self is gone, who is practicing? Who is becoming a monk? Who is chanting the Buddha's name?

Some of these things do not hold up under scrutiny. But Buddhism is not meant to be understood in such a crude and shallow way either. If you understand Buddhism in this way, then you can only say you have not even grasped its outermost layer. But there is no way around it, because Buddhism can only be understood by the masses in the way they are capable of understanding it. You cannot understand Buddhism the way an enlightened master does - that is his understanding. The masses' understanding of Buddhism is what Buddhism actually looks like in this society. Even if it contains countless truths and values within, the masses' prejudices and biases have already cast such a veil over it.

Regardless of its philosophy, every nation strives to expand its scientific base. On our earth today, would the widespread broadcasting of an Eastern religious education be more practical than the self-knowledge Seth advocates?

In that era - the 1970s - many Eastern religions were very popular in the West. At that time, the so-called Eastern culture was mainly Japanese Zen practice, Zen masters, and Zen schools. Along with Japan's economic development, culture was also being exported, and large numbers of books flowed into America. But Zen itself is a method of transmission that "does not rely on words and points directly at the mind." The books written by Zen masters were not as systematic or complete as those of other Buddhist schools. Westerners also did not have the patience to systematically study any particular Buddhist school, and these Zen materials were actually very much to their liking.

Even granting their undeniable achievements, why did the Eastern nations not create, years ago, that model immortal society which the Western nations could be said to emulate? A culture and a nation in which all the real human vicissitudes had long ago been understood and eliminated - war, crime, poverty, ignorance, and disease?

If Eastern religions and culture were so powerful, why did they not create a modern society like the one the whole world now emulates, one dominated by Western culture? He is using such facts as counter-evidence to say that the values centered on Western individualism are still more meaningful.

Obviously, however, mankind must give its conscious activity a long-term application.

Whether East or West, both must accept the development of exploration and research into consciousness. On this point, the East began very early, while the West started somewhat later.

Even though the endless conflicts and problems born of such behavior, in the many centuries of our known history, those conflicts themselves were, within our limited understanding, and still are, at least achieving a whole - a purpose of the whole of consciousness, to know itself more fully in those particular differentiated ways.

This clash between Eastern and Western cultures has allowed us to experience the diversity of human civilization's development. Although there may be many things the West finds hard to accept, he also acknowledges that the development of Eastern culture has provided human civilization with more possibilities, more branches, differentiations, and particular ways.

Seth's Commentary

Seth said:

Jane is working through some philosophical questions -- questions that really just have not been fully asked.

He had always wanted to ask them, but had never asked them completely and thoroughly.

Everything he wrote today is important, and he is preparing to move forward in all directions.

Seth always sees things so incisively.

There are too many levels to discuss all at once.

If you asked him to discuss Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism, or to compare Eastern and Western religions, he would say there are too many levels to discuss. He only pointed out the most essential point of this article:

One of them is a strengthening of trust in himself.

Previously Jane did not dare to say these things. His trust was accepted, and accepted by himself, because he was finally ready to work through those questions.

Over the years at many times, mostly in personal material, this has been discussed.

Seth and Jane would touch on these things when discussing personal issues, and these issues involved cultural training and religious indoctrination. Jane grew up in a Catholic church school, so religious indoctrination still had an influence on him, and Western culture had an influence on him as well.

He finally began to challenge that old belief that his own spontaneity could not be trusted.

Seth's meaning was that he was not only challenging Eastern philosophy, but in fact also challenging those old traditional beliefs that denied spontaneity.

He emotionally and philosophically challenged those concepts, and united practical action with inner mobility.

Emotionally -- you can tell from Jane's article that he carried a great deal of emotion, tremendous defiance; he was just short of cursing. The practical action was writing the article, and what Jane was best at was writing articles. The inner mobility was that his inner motivation was to do this thing.

In the past he was still afraid to touch those beliefs, and only dared to touch them lightly.

This time he finally set aside his concerns and faced the issue directly. He tore it apart beyond all measure.

What he has written is meaningful, and before he can move ahead at full speed, he must accept the challenges of the past, and this means he must examine those old beliefs. He is only now really beginning to do so.

Not only his private religious beliefs, but also the general beliefs of his contemporaries, and the foundation upon which your present civilization is built.

Those old beliefs were not only his private religious beliefs, but also the beliefs of his generation, the foundational beliefs upon which your present civilization is built. What he is now opposing is precisely this kind of belief.

He must find the courage to boldly face those old beliefs -- the belief that spontaneity is not to be trusted. And he has finally done so.

Seth did not say a word about the question of Eastern versus Western philosophy. He saw directly to the essence of Jane's problem: Eastern philosophy or Eastern religion merely gave Jane an outlet to vent. What Jane really wanted to do, through his mocking and scolding of Eastern philosophy, was to challenge his own old concepts -- not trusting himself, and even more, not trusting his own spontaneity. This belief was not Jane's alone; it was a belief shared by all of your contemporaries, and it is one of the core beliefs upon which your present society is built. Even in our mainstream society today, the emphasis is on not being able to trust yourself, not being able to trust your own spontaneity, and even less being able to trust your own impulses. He finally dared to challenge this, and by using the point of challenging the East, what he was actually challenging was this traditional belief.

Tonight in the dream state I will have more to say to him, and I will later explain his experience with my voice.

Didn't it say earlier that he heard Seth's voice in a dream? He said that this session would continue in another level of communication, continuing in the dream. But before long it would all become written words on paper for you.

The next day Jane said that he had no awareness of any contact Seth might have made with him in the dream state; he did not remember Seth coming to him that night. But he would reveal a little for now: on the following night, Seth did indeed explain the matter of his contact with Seth's voice during the sleep state the previous weekend.

Summary

That is all for our commentary on this session. From the earlier part, we covered how, in exploring the unknown reality, we distinguish inner projections and inner beliefs, how they manifest through different symbols on different levels of dreams, and how we can see the relationships among these different symbols and between you and the symbols, how we can recognize them from the perspective of an observer, and how we can distinguish what is genuine inner reality from what is inner projection. Seth said a great many very important general concepts here about exploring inner reality, laying a very good foundation for truly unfolding inner practical exploration later on. So the knowledge points in this session are very important.

The material written later is only an interlude; you can just get a general sense of it, as it is not the focus of this session. Sometimes Rob added a lot of notes and appendices, and he may have been expanding on a particular point, but in fact, for the book as a whole, it did not serve the purpose he intended. Still, as supplementary material for this book, I think it is quite interesting, and it also gives us a glimpse of Jane's literary talent.

注释与核实

1. This claim could not be verified. ↩

2. This claim could not be verified. ↩