Thoughts on The Seth Material

More thinking about the The Seth Material. I am dwelling on what he said about reality. I have problems with thing like The Secret on philosophical grounds, because I just can’t see how it could work in any reasonable way. I mean, just think of what would happen if everybody could, and did, manipulate reality for their own personal benefit? Wouldn’t the world be a total chaos of competing interests? What would happen when the interests of different people clash, like both wanting the same thing? You can see the problem here.

One possible out here, is to say that you need to be enlightened, to a certain point, before you can make any meaningful impacts on outer reality. That way, you will not be totally greedy and will work with the flow, so to speak, aiming for general benefits. Well, Seth says that’s not so: We all constantly construct our own realities, apparently using some template, but filled in using our conscious and subconscious beliefs as the guide. The trick is that each one of us has our own, personal, reality, which implies that how we experience the world doesn’t necessarily correspond to what others see, and that there is no objective reality out there. He uses the example of three people in a room with a book. In this example, there are three copies of the book, one constructed by each person, none more “real” than any of the others. The books are similar, but never identical. He also says that our personal realities only connect at a few points. I am truly not clear about what that means.

Notice that he said that we construct our personal realities. That everything we see and hear and touch and experience is constructed by us, for us, and no one else can see or perceive any of it. This raises a several questions for me.

My first thought has to do with the psychic and paranormal: Are these perceptions part of our constructed reality, or are they “leaks,” as it were, around the edges of our constructed realities, allowing us glimpses of what is behind the curtain? This is certainly logical and makes a lot of sense, given the context, that, no matter how well we construct our worlds, they will still require a certain about of “buy in” from us in order to be accepted fully. Just like in movies and games, where it requires a willing suspension of disbelief in order to become fully immersed, we have to play along with the rules and not notice the flaws and inconsistencies that might ruin the effect. Paranormal perceptions could be one of those flaws, which might explain some of the enormous interest in, and the incredible resistance to, the subject.

If we all construct our on versions of reality, how do they correspond so closely to each other, especially considering that Seth says they barely connect at all? (Maybe they don’t correspond as closely as we think, how would we tell, after all?) Is there some kind of underlying reality or….something…that connects us all and keeps us in sync with one another? It’s said that we’re all connected through our higher selves. That would provide a mechanism for connection, and the fact that we are generally not aware of this connection allows for information to be exchanged between individuals to co-ordinate their realities on a subconscious level. There is still a lot of speculation here, and I plan to keep reading. I’m most interested in information on just how we manipulate this reality that we’ve created. (Isn’t everyone?) Subject of another post.

The Seth Material

I  reading The Seth Material by Jane Roberts. I'm  a little surprised that it's as readable as it is. I suppose that I assumed that it would be dry and esoteric, but Jane makes it quite pleasant. It actually draws you in. I also thought that it would be a bit dated, and it would just be a rehash (to me, anyway)  of ideas and concepts that I was already familiar with. Turns out that I was wrong.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. The field of, what do you call it, metaphysics? Is sort of an underground movement, largely unrecognized by any of our media, which means that there is much less standardization and cross fertilization of ideas between different groups than might otherwise happen. So, despite the fact that this material has been out there for about 40 years, large chunks of it have not wended their way out into the larger community. 

On the other hand, the field is fairly new, in many ways, and still evolving. You could say that it's only been a relatively few decades since the grip of the Big Three religions has loosened to the point where competing ideas can be openly discussed without significant social, legal or religious backlash, so the field is still a bit of a Wild West with lots of ideas striving for recognition and dominance. There are a lot of contradictory, or at least confusing ideas, battling for recognition and dominance. It's also stumbling a bit while trying to find it's roots in ancient traditions. For some, it really is dominance, rather than consensus, that they're after. I would really prefer that we figure out what's really going on, as best we can, rather than set up yet another religion/belief system, but that's just me. Some people like the mystery and exclusiveness of their beliefs too much to contribute to expanding our understanding of what seems to be a greater reality.

In my own explorations, I have discovered a great similarity behind many different belief systems. It's almost like I can see how the same basic ideas were adopted and then morphed to fit in with the pre-existing beliefs. I suppose that always happens, but, to the outside, it makes it appear that there's a confusing pltethora of competing ideas, when it's really variations on a theme. It's like Christen sects that supposedly believe in the same thing, but can be very passionate about differences that, to outsiders, can very subtle and seem unimportant to the overall message.

It doesn't help that the ideas themselves are difficult to wrap you head around, like, for example, reincarnation. On the surface, this seems such a simple idea: You die and are born again. But very quickly the questions start coming: Why do you come back? What is the point? What determines what kind of life you are going to have? Is it wrong to switch sexes? Does it go on forever? If not, how do you get off the merry-go-round? If there's no judgment, no God, no threat of punishment, what incentive do people have to be good? Why is there evil? Why do we remember past lives, doesn't that mess with the plan? Why do past lives "bleed through" in memories, birth defects, phobias and other health issues? Google "Reincarnation" and you will find a whole lot more questions and discussions, from many points of view, that serve to muddy the water still further.

I don't have answers for all of these, just opinions, but I have always felt that the reason it seems so confusing is that there's a bigger picture we just not seeing. This book has given me a glimpse of that bigger picture. It's also reminded me that I still have many prejudices and basic assumptions that make these concepts very difficult to wrap head around.

In the part I'm reading now, Seth says that we all create our own reality. He specifically states that that doesn't mean we create the universe, just our personal reality. He also makes it clear that he's not talking about subjective experience, but creating physical reality. Exactly how that works, with many people interacting with the same objects, is not clear to me. Seth talks about it, that's one of the parts I can't get head around. Maybe in time it will become clearer.

I have no trouble with the idea that how reality appears and how it actually is, can be very different, but really getting it, is something else. Sort of like the idea that the moon and sun appear to go around us, when it's actually the other way around, I'm trying to come up with some kind of framework I can use put all the pieces into, that makes sense to me. No luck so far. I think I have too many hidden assumptions getting on the way, but, by holding to the possibility that it could make sense, I'm allowing for the kind of breakthrough that could change my life.

Speedbumps

Today I confronted some speedbumps, and new ideas, in my path to awaking. I don’t really like the term “enlightenment,” it’s got too many connotations I’m not comfortable with, and, frankly, it really feels to me that I’m waking up and seeing all the worlds around me that I never noticed before.

Fun fact: The book we call “The Egyptian Book of the Dead,” was actually called “The Book of Going Forth by Day,” by the Egyptians. I know, that sound a bit like, “say what?” Other translations I like better are, “The Book of Going Forth into the Light,” or “The Journey to Enlightenment.”

I have been feeling somewhat stalled in my process. You know, we all hit these plateaus, from time to time, where nothing seems to happen. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing golf, music or taking over the world, we all hit periods where we can’t seem to make any progress. Worse, all the we’ve accomplish up to this point seems worthless. Well, maybe not worthless, but, well, you know what I mean. I’ve been facing that for a few weeks now, where nothing seemed to be happening and I wasn’t making any progress on issues and in areas I consider important.

The other day I, for the first time, started to dive into the Seth writings. This is another body of work that I’ve known about since the ‘70s, but had never read. I started to listen to bits on YouTube and started to get intrigued by what it had to say. Then I found someone who has read and recorded the entire Seth book, “The Nature of Personal Reality,” and posted it on YouTube. I started listening while meditating.

Some of the writings in the book triggered things in me. I have noticed, in recent weeks, that I have certain “discomforts” that only appear when I meditate. They show up after I start and disappear when I’m finished. Odd? Yes. I have looked at these with all the tools I have and haven’t been able to make any headway on finding out why I have them or how to get them to go away. This is one of the reasons that I’ve been feeling like I’m not getting anywhere: I’d run up against something that none of my tools had any effect on.

The Seth text was all about personal beliefs, and how they shape your reality. (“Beliefs” are a huge topic. When you get right down to it, they may be the most important concept you need to wrap your head around, if you are going to awaken. Much bigger than I have time for here. There is no way to overemphasize how important this subject is, but, for now, you’ll just have to go with me on this.) His words gave me a spark the evolved into an idea: It occurred to me to talk to the pains.

So I tried it, and what I found, was that looking into the discomfort and asking, “What would you say, if you could?” resulted in me gaining access to beliefs I hadn’t noticed before. That allowed me to process them out, diminishing the discomfort or eliminating it altogether. So far, I must have already spent at least three hours finding and processing beliefs. Beliefs that were holding me back, in many ways, without me even knowing it. I’m going to get a soft copy of one of the books, so I can read it on our upcoming trip. But I definitely want to have hard copies for my shelf. I like reading from paper much more than from screens.