***
Seth on Symbolism
The Physical Universe
"...the physical universe itself is a conglomeration of diverse
individualistic symbols, none of which means precisely the same thing
to any two individuals, and in which even so called basic qualities
like color and placement in space cannot be relied upon. You merely
focus upon similarities. Telepathy could be called the glue that holds
the physical universe in precarious position, so that you can agree on
the existence and properties of objects." The Seth Material, page 183
"Physical objects are the most obvious of your symbols, and precisely
for that reason you do not realize that they are symbols at all."
Session 571
"There are, therefore, mass physical symbols upon which you all agree,
as well as private, personal symbols." Session 594
"Once you understand the symbolic nature of physical reality, then you
will no longer feel entrapped by it. You have formed the symbols, and
therefore you can change them. You must learn, of course, what the
various symbols mean in your own life, and how to translate their
meaning." Session 594
Dreams
"Each dream object is actually double or triple-decked, a symbol for
other, deeper data." The Seth Material, page 184
"In a light trance the meaning of dream symbols will be given to you
if you ask for them." Session 570
The Body
"Now when anything is wrong with your body, it is trying to tell you
something. And when you understand what it is trying to say, and if
you make an effort to do what is needed, the symptoms are no longer
needed as a method of communication. The body is trying to tell you
that you have a problem, and because you did not cope with it, and
denied it mentally, it is physically materialized in symbolic body
language." Session 502
"Your body is your most intimate symbol at this point, and again your
most obvious." Session 571
"Cancer, for example, has become the symbol for the body's
vulnerability, in current years - the proof of man's susceptibility to
the body. It is a disease that people have when they want to die -
when they are ashamed to admit that they want to die, because death
seems to fly against sane behavior. If the species struggles to
survive, then how can individuals want to die?" Session 866
Religion
"The methods, the secret methods behind all of the religions, were
meant to lead man into a realm of understanding that existed apart
from the symbols and the stories, into inner realizations that would
take him both within and without the physical world that he knew."
Session 568
Altered States of Consciousness
"Beyond this are states in which the symbols themselves begin to fade
away, become indistinct, distant. Here you begin to draw into regions
of consciousness in which symbols become less and less necessary, and
it is a largely unpopulated area indeed. Representations blink off and
on, and finally disappear. Consciousness is less and less physically
oriented. In this stage of consciousness the soul finds itself alone
with its own feelings, stripped of symbolism and representations, and
begins to perceive the gigantic reality of its own knowing." Session 571
"Working in the opposite direction, so to speak, the soul divests
itself of all symbols, all representations, and using its
consciousness in a different way learns to probe its own direct
experience. Without symbols to come between it and experience, it
perfects itself in a kind of value fulfillment that you presently
cannot understand except symbolically." Session 571
Race
"This is not the place to go into a long discussion concerning the
significance of races, yet each one is highly meaningful, and
represents a different aspect of humanity as a whole. Therefore, each
race has a symbolic meaning to mankind's psyche. The outside
experience and structure of any given race's experience may change,
but the inner symbolism will still remain, and be creatively grappled
with." Session 648
Mental Illness
"With most mental aberrations, you are dealing with people whose
private symbols are so heavily thrust over prime sense data that even
those data sometimes become almost invisible. These individuals often
use the physical world in the way that most people use the dream
world, so that for them it is difficult to distinguish between a
private and a publicly shared reality." Session 812
***
Seth: Hate vs. Faith in the Greater Good
Seth, session 550: "Through all your lives you will interpret the
reality that you see in your own way, and that way will have its
effect upon you, and in turn upon others.
The man who literally hates, immediately sets himself up in this
fashion: He prejudges the nature of reality according to his own
limited understanding.
Now I am emphasizing the issue of hate in this chapter on
reincarnation because its results can be so disastrous. A man who
hates always believes himself justified. He never hates anything that
he believes to be good. He thinks he is being just, therefore, in his
hatred, but the hatred itself forms a very strong claim that will
follow him throughout his lives, until he learns that only the hatred
itself is the destroyer.
Now you may take your break. Begin your chatter and I will listen.
("Okay.")
Are you following me in this materials?
("Sure. Why do you ask?")
(Humorously, leaning forward): You are my first reader.
(10:51. Break came, to the laughter of Sue and Carl. Jane's pace had
been fast most of the time. Resume at 11:08 in the same manner.)
Now: Far be it from me to interrupt your edifying conversation.
Remember what you concentrate upon, and we will leave it at that. Now
we will resume dictation.
I would like to make it clear that there is nothing to be gained,
either, by hating hatred. You fall into the same trap.
What is needed is a basic trust in the nature of vitality, and faith
that all elements of experience are used for a greater good, whether
or not you can perceive the way in which "evil" is transmuted into
creativity. What you love will also be a part of your experience in
this life and others.
The most important idea to be remembered is that no one thrusts the
experience of any given lifetime upon you. It is formed faithfully
according to your own emotions and beliefs.
The great power and energy of love and creativity is apparent in the
mere fact of your existence. This is the truth so often forgotten-that
[the combination of] consciousness and existence continues and absorbs
those elements that seem to you so destructive.
Hate is powerful if you believe in it, and yet though you hate life,
you will continue to exist. You have made appointments, each of you,
that you have forgotten. They were signed, so to speak, before you
were born in this existence."
***
Seth, session 799
"Now: Physically your body has a stance in space and time.
I will speak of primary and secondary experience. Let us call primary
experience that which exists immediately in sense terms in your
moment of time--the contact of body with environment.
I am creating certain divisions here to make our discussion---or
(with a smile) monologue-easier. Therefore, I will call secondary
experience that information that comes to you through, say, reading,
television, discussion with others, letters, and so forth.
The secondary kind of experience is largely symbolic. This should be
clear.
Reading about a war in the middle of a quiet sunny afternoon is not
the same thing as being in the war, however vivid the description.
Reading about the energy shortage is not the same as sitting in a
cold house.
Reading about the possible annihilation of mankind through nuclear
destruction or other stupidities, while you are sitting calmly enough
in your living room, is obviously far divorced from the actuality
described in an article.
At the levels with which we are concerned, the body must primarily
react to present, immediate, primary existence in space and time.
At other levels it is equipped to handle many kinds of data, in that
I have mentioned before the precognition of cells. But the body
depends on the conscious mind to give it a clear assessment of
precise conditions of the space and time it occupies. It depends upon
that knowledge.
If you are safely ensconced in a comfortable room, in no present
danger, your senses should accurately convey that information.
Your conscious mind should assimilate it. It should be an easy enough
accomplishment to look around you and see that you are in no danger.
Your conscious mind is meant to give your body an assessment of what
I will call cultural conditions, for there are sophistications and
specifications that in your terms consciousness alone can assess.
If, under conditions naturally safe in the terms of primary
experience, you become overwhelmed by unsafe signals from secondary
experience - that is, from your reading or whatever-you show a lack
of discrimination.
You are not able to differentiate between the physically safe present
situation, and the imagined, which is perhaps unsafe, calling forth
the alarms of danger.
The body mechanisms become highly disoriented. The signals to the
body are very contradictory, so that after a while, if such
conditions continue, you can no longer tell whether you are in actual
danger or imagined danger.
Your mind then forces your body to be in a state of constant alert-
but more unfortunately, you train yourself to ignore your direct,
sensual feedback in the present moment.
Your body then might say you are safe, and your senses show you that
no danger is present-yet you have begun to rely so upon secondary
experience that you do not trust your creature reactions.
Because of man's great gift of imagination, however, the alarm
signals not only invade a safe present moment, but go jangling into
the next one and the one following, and are endlessly projected into
the future.
To whatever extent, and in whatever fashion, each individual is
therefore robbed of his or her belief in the personal ability to act
meaningfully or with purpose in the present.
The body cannot act tomorrow, today.
Its sense data must be clear. This resulting feeling of powerlessness
to act leads to a state of hopelessness of varying degrees-and that
mood does not tie itself to specific details, but pervades emotional
life if it is allowed to."
***
Theme: You have a universe formed WITH a reason, Seth by Jane Robert
Theme: You have a universe formed WITH a reason, or a universe formed WITHOUT a reason. And in a universe of reason, there are no victims. Everything has a reason or nothing has a reason. Seth
A. According to Seth we create our own reality--literally--through beliefs we hold. This life is only one of many that we live in a variety of times and places. The experiences--both pleasant and distressful--which we encounter are no more real than a dream and appear within our lives as educational devices to demonstrate the consequences of our actions. Because the essence of the universe is love, we are safe and taken care of now and through eternity. We have on-going access to information about the nature of reality and our personal lives, but we must use our conscious minds to evaluate this information and to make decisions.
B. We are multidimensional beings who inhabit many realms and who exist throughout eternity; developing continually into more creative and fulfilled individuals.
C. The universe is of good intent; evil and destruction do not exist
except as a scenario. Evidence of evil in the world appears to our
senses in order to let us know the consequences of the beliefs we
hold, but mankind will awaken from that sadness as from a bad dream.
D. By acknowledging and, whenever possible, following our impulses,
we can discover the purpose of our lives and learn how to act in
such a way as to benefit both ourselves and the world.
E. There is no authority superior to the guidance of a person's
inner self. Seth's words are merely an attempt to present us with
the knowledge that we ignore when it comes to our psyches. The
entity is the basic self, immortal, nonphysical and the individual
is the portion of the whole self that you manage to express
physically. Desire, wish, and expectation rule all actions and are
the basis for all realities. You create your own reality, there are
no exceptions!
Seth: "You create your reality according to your beliefs and
expectations, therefore you should examine these carefully. If you
do not like some aspect of your world, then examine your own
expectations."
"Realize that your physical experience and environment is the
materialization of your beliefs. If you find great exuberance,
health, effective work, abundance, smiles on the faces of those who
you meet, then take it for granted that your beliefs are beneficial.
If you see a world that is good, people like you, take it for
granted again, that your beliefs are beneficial. But if you find
poor health, a lack of meaningful work, a lack of abundance, a world
of sorrow and evil, then assume your beliefs are faulty and begin
examining them."
"Your world is formed in faithful replica of your own thoughts...If
you think positive suggestions to yourself about a situation you
send telepathic ammunition for positive use. You must learn to erase
a negative thought or picture by replacing it with its opposite."
"You form your own reality. But in forming that reality, you change
other realities of which you do not know. The joy, the challenge,
the responsibility, the creativity is yours. There is no other
message that I can ever give you, or that you can give yourself. You
are, each of you, All-That-Is experienced through your own
individuality, and the transubstantiation of your flesh."
"You should tell yourself frequently 'I will only react to
constructive suggestions.' This gives you positive ammunition
against your own negative thoughts and those of others."
"A negative thought, if not erased, will almost certainly result in
a negative condition. Say to yourself, 'That is in the past. Now in
this new moment, this new present, I am already beginning to change
for the better.'"
"It does not do to repress negative thoughts, such as fears, angers,
or resentment. They should be recognized, faced and replaced.
Recognize resentment when it is felt, and then realize that
resentment can be dismissed. Initial recognition must be made. Then
you must imagine removing the resentment 'by its roots' and
replacing it with a positive feeling."
"You must watch the pictures that you paint with your imagination.
Your environment and the conditions of your life at any given time
are the direct result of your own inner expectations. If you imagine
dire circumstances, ill health or desperate loneliness, these will
be "automatically" materialized, for these thoughts themselves bring
about the conditions that will give them a reality in physical
terms. If you would have good health then you must imagine this as
vividly as you fearfully imagine ill health."
"You create your own difficulties. This is true for each individual.
The inner psychological state is projected outward, gaining physical
reality -whatever the psychological state may be....You cannot
escape your own attitudes, for they will form the nature of what you
see. If changes are to occur, they must be mental and psychic
changes. These will be reflected in your environment. Negative,
distrustful, fearful, or degrading attitudes toward anyone work
against the self."
"Using your free will, you have made physical reality into something
quite different than what was intended. You have allowed the ego to
become overly developed and specialized. You were here to work out
problems and challenges, but you were always to be aware of your own
inner reality, and of your nonphysical existence. To a large extent
you have lost contact with this. You have focused so strongly upon
physical reality that it become the only reality that you know."
Amid the mad scramble, you DO make your own reality. I
admit that sounds too simple, but you will not be caught in an
earthquake if you do not want to be, and no one dies who has not
decided to do so. You make your own reality, or you do not. And if
you do not, then you are everywhere a victim, and the universe must
be an accidental mechanism appearing with no reason. So that the
miraculous picture you have seen of your body came accidentally into
creation, and out of some cosmic accident attained its miraculous
complexity. And that body was formed so beautifully for no reason
except to be a victim. That is the only other alternative to forming
your own reality. You cannot have a universe in between. You have a
universe formed WITH a reason, or a universe formed WITHOUT a
reason. And in a universe of reason, there are no victims.
Everything has a reason or nothing has a reason. So, choose your
side!"
***
Thought is energy. When you are in a state that is not the usual waking one (asleep or "daydreaming") you are conscious and alert. You merely block out the memory of this experience from the waking ego. Electromagnetic energy units are the forms that basic experience takes when directed by the inner self. These then form physical matter and objects.
Energy projected into any kind of construction, psychic or physical, cannot be recalled, and must follow the laws of the particular form into which it has been molded. The self has no boundaries except those it accepts out of ignorance.
Your idea of space and time is determined by your neurological structure. The camouflage is so craftily executed and created by the inner self that you must, by necessity, focus your attention on the physical reality which has been created.
The single line of physical experience is merely the surface thread along which you seem to travel. In actuality, following this analogy, there would be an infinite number of threads both above and below your own, all part of one inconceivably miraculous webwork.
The purpose of existence is, quite simply, being as opposed to nonbeing.
I am telling you what I know, and there is much I do not know.
I KNOW THAT HELP MUST BE GIVEN ONE TO THE OTHER, AND THAT EXTENSIONS AND EXPANSIONS ARE AIDS TO BEING.
Each self, as part of All That Is, retains the memory of the state of agony before their release into actuality, and so each consciousness is driven toward survival, change, development and creativity.
There are answers to some questions that I cannot give you about the origin of All That Is, for they are not known anywhere in the system in which we have our existence.
