Accepting life on its terms vs. You make your own reality

[Deb]

This has been stuck in a loop in my mind for a month. I'm having a hard time reconciling this:

You have not accepted life on life's terms. You are demanding that it behave in certain ways and take courses that you have consciously decided upon. You are refusing to accept life gladly, as its own reason and cause within you

(from The Seth Material, Chapter 13. I can provide more of the quote, or you can follow the Bumblebee link),

with all of Seth's never ending explanations of how we make our own reality. Demanding that it behave in certain ways?!?

Anyone care to take a stab at it?

[Toronto Sethian]

The "you" in "you create your own reality" refers to the 'greater you'.

Part of what we are here to do is to learn to feel the inner spiritual compass--to do so in a reality where it is denied means that one end up creating a strong inner compass that is of inestimable value in non-physical reality--indeed, one of main reasons as to why we come here.

We do not understand that the true nature of our being is that we are interpenetrating beings with shared, overlapping consciousnesses.

To understand why we have the life we have, we must look at the deepest beliefs we hold--to be sage, to understand how to well-navigate physical reality.  If you wish to patient, eg., then it is no shock that you experience many events that help you to acquire such.  (I can relate!)

Physical reality is a drama, created to best bring create the powers and abilities and wisdoms we desire.  It, of necessity, requires we do not know what is around the bend, in terms of an event--we do not need to know, and that is something we need to learn, also--that if we adhere to our inner compass, it will be fine, no matter what reality we are in, whether physical, now, are after, as we are working towards. 

Enjoin the greater YOU.  You are a multidimensional being.  The answers, as always, are within. 

[Deb]

We do not understand that the true nature of our being is that we are interpenetrating beings with shared, overlapping consciousnesses.

Beautifully said. I do have to add, though, that the overlapping consciousness is becoming more and more apparent to me, with coincidences (there-are-no-coincidences) occurring in increasingly rapid succession daily. I've gotten to the point that when I recognize them I simply smile, shake my head a little in wonder and express my gratitude.

If you wish to patient, eg., then it is no shock that you experience many events that help you to acquire such.  (I can relate!)

A great clarification about how that works! I'm still puzzling over some very difficult things that happened in my life a couple of years ago--What was the purpose? What did I learn? Ever wish for a crystal ball? lol

that if we adhere to our inner compass, it will be fine, no matter what reality we are in, whether physical, now, are after, as we are working towards. 

That's the key, isn't it? Not a day goes by where I don't say to myself, "trust yourself," meaning that inner compass that I constantly remind myself to follow.

Thank you for your input  -- I've been waiting patiently for, oh, a couple of months now on this topic.

[Toronto Sethian]

An earlier sethian opined on this matter:

"Who Is the 'You' in You Create Your Own Reality?"

By Robert Waggoner © 2009

Little noticed in The Nature of Personal Reality is a few paragraphs in which Seth articulates the precise nature of the 'you' in the empowering statement, 'You Create Your Own Reality.' By understanding this definitive point, Seth readers gain insight into many of the profound teachings to follow. This pivotal session reads:

"You make your own reality. There is no other rule. Knowing this is the secret of creativity.

I have spoken of 'you,' yet this must not be confused with the 'you' that you often think you are – the ego alone, for the ego is only a portion of You; it is the expert part of your personality that deals directly with the contents of your conscious mind, and is concerned most directly with the material portions of your experience.

The ego is a very specialized portion of your greater identity. It is a portion of you that arises to deal directly with the life that the larger You is living. The ego can feel cut off, lonely and frightened, however, if the conscious mind lets the ego run away with it. The ego and the conscious mind are not the same thing....

And so it is from your larger identity that you form the reality that you know. It is up to you to do this with joy and vigor, clearing your conscious mind so that the deeper knowledge of your greater identity can form joyous expressions in the world of flesh." (Session 613, NPR) [bold emphasis is mine]

So when you hear, "You create your own reality," take a deep breath and feel the 'you' in its larger sense. Know that your conscious mind exists as the final discriminating portion of a much broader identity, or said another way, the final layer of beliefs, thoughts, feelings and expectations through which creative energy flows to create the reality that you experience.

Why does this definition of 'you' seem vitally important to a proper understanding of the Seth material? Without understanding this crucial point, the idea that "you make your own reality" can sound simplistic and untenable, instead of enlightening and empowering. Consider these examples:

Sally is born blind. What beliefs, thoughts, feelings and expectations led to this? Or stated otherwise, what 'you' created this reality? The answer provided in the Seth material is that the larger identity established this value fulfilling challenge, as a means of personal exploration and growth.

John sits at a bar and meets an interesting woman. As the night goes on, she asks if he would like to walk her home. Just as he prepares to accept, he hears a thunderous 'No!' in his mind. Shaken by this unexpected mental event, he declines and goes over to play pool instead. Who is the 'you' who created that moment in John's reality?

As readers of the Seth classes know, a class member had just such an experience talking to a woman at a bar, where he heard a thunderous 'No!' in his mind. In the class, he asked Jane if the voice was Seth? Seth replied that it was a deeper portion of John, who foresaw the probable unfortunate results that would occur if he went out with the woman. This deeper portion of John's larger self elicited the expression to help create a less troubling reality.

Night after night, Bill dreams a horrific nightmare of escaping from a fire at his workplace laboratory. He wakes up in a sweat, knowing that one of his co-workers lies inside the burning lab in his dream. But hey, 'It's only a dream,' he thinks upon awakening.

Yet days later, the unbelievable happens (and yes, this is a true story). A stray spark ignites some fumes and the lab burst into flames! Bill begins to run for his life, but recalling the recurring dreams, remembers his colleague, Renee – and so against all of his survival instincts, he heads into the flames until he can feel her lab coat and drag her unconscious, severely burnt body out of the inferno. Incredibly, she survives. Both their lives take a new and dramatic turn. So who is the 'you' that provided those recurring dreams? What 'you' created that moment in his reality?

These simple examples suggest that the oft repeated, "You create your own reality" can only be understood sensibly by considering a larger You, which possesses a broader perspective than the ego's and purposes beyond the ego.

As Seth puts it, "And so it is from your larger identity that you form the reality that you know. It is up to you to do this with joy and vigor, clearing your conscious mind so that the deeper knowledge of your greater identity can form joyous expressions in the world of flesh."

Later in the material, we find this idea expressed in a new form: that each person functions as a "co-creator" -- co-creating an experienced reality in which the exterior reality is an expressed representation of the multi-dimensional, interior one of the larger 'you.' In this co-creativity, your conscious mind plays a beautiful, powerful and vital role, as it entertains an infinite realm of possibilities, couched securely in the larger 'you' and selects the ones to be experienced based on its beliefs, thoughts and emotions. Through this, we learn the great joy and awesome education of reality creation.

Robert Waggoner is the author of "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self", Moment Point Press, 2009.

[Toronto Sethian]

What happened a few years back, Deb?  If you wish to discuss it, I'm all eyes.

[Deb]

Thanks for the Waggoner paper, I've printed it out for reading tomorrow. Lucid dreams, one of my favorites...

What happened a few years back, Deb?  If you wish to discuss it, I'm all eyes.

Hah, thanks for the opportunity but I won't bore you with the sordid details. Plus I'm finally beyond rehashing what happened. But I am willing to attempt an encapsulated version: Beginning in the late spring of 2013 and spanning the entire summer, until the end of September, I had several (8!) different traumatic events happen that totally stripped me of everything that I saw as defining who I was—to myself. There were deaths, near-deaths and the complete loss of identity on my part. I know I brought it on myself. Earlier in the season I had taken on the task of reinventing myself and had consciously sent a message out to All That Is that I was ready for change. I was willing and able to take the fast lane to get there. Oops. It was brutal and took its toll on me.

Here are some highlights of what I learned:

1. What I thought defined who I was, was instead the constantly changing roles I am playing in this lifetime. I am not what I do or have or look like. I am much more than that. Regardless of what changes occur in my life, my "me-ness," inner self, core, remains steady and true.

2. I am strong. No matter how many times I was "kicked in the stomach" I was able to get back up, dust the grit off my Teflon body and forge on. Grace under pressure. The old adage, "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger" is the truth.

3. Extreme worry can and will make me sick. Not worrying will reverse the effect.

4. Trust myself. Trust my intuition. Just one example: Encounters with both doctors and vets during that Summer from Hell taught me that they some many times don't know any more than I do, possibly less. If the vets had listened to me from the get-go, three months of treating a critically ill horse could have been reduced to 2-3 weeks. Complications due to misdiagnoses (intentional plural) and mistreatment compounded the situation exponentially. But my input was dismissed because they could not get past the text books and the fact that I am not medically trained. Because I tend to think outside the textbooks and observe reality rather than trying to label it, I was able to see things that they didn't. BTW, that goes for human doctors as well.

5. I should not own an animal that weighs 10X more than I and can rack up a vet bill, in three months, equal to a half year's worth of college tuition (including the cost of text books, taxes and other hidden costs).  But the lessons go beyond money. Seeing a dead horse in a stall next to mine (at the equine hospital) made me realize that my "life-long-dream-come-true" horse would some day die, and I don't have the heart to bear that type of loss.

6. Death happens. There is no real death, but being a human living in this 3D reality, that tidbit is of little consolation. Death hurts, but time heals.

7. Due to my initiation by fire, several doors have opened for me as far as what direction I want to take at this point in my life. For the past two years I've gone underground, "licking my wounds," and had shut myself off from people and life in order to recover and make sense of what happened that summer. Only recently I've felt a renewed excitement for life and the future. The feedback I've sensed from All That Is is that I only need to commit to what path(s) I want to take and I will be fully supported.

Thanks for making me rethink this, I feel I've learned more from the events than I originally thought! Yet I still don't understand why the events I experienced had to be so intense, I've always been quick to learn my own life lessons.

[Deb]

I came across this quote from The Seth Material last night as I was looking for the "life on its own terms" quote. Not only did this make me laugh, but it relates, in a way, with #1 of my list of insights:

"You are not your body. You are not your emotions. You have emotions. You have thoughts as you have eggs for breakfast, but you are not the eggs, and you are not your emotions. You are as independent of your thoughts and emotions as you are of the bacon and eggs. You use the bacon and eggs in your physical composition, and you use your thoughts and emotions in your mental composition. Surely you do not identify with the piece of bacon? Then do not identify with your thoughts and emotions. When you set up barriers and doors, then you enclose emotions within you... as if you stored up tons of bacon in your refrigerator and then wondered why there was room for nothing else."  TSM, Chap. 13, pg. 166

Good old Seth.

[Toronto Sethian]

We exterorize our thoughts and beliefs to look at them from a different angle, so to speak.  I'm glad that doing so with your thoughts has given you more insight as to your recent past.   

Seth says he forces us to take away our own "crutches".  Your path was difficult but the fact that you learned you are not fragile seems to me why you did the crash course.  No need to repeat, thusly.

I was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS 7 yrs. ago.  Healed that and have been off meds that I should need to live.  Been 4 yrs.  Docs say everything will fail but give no scientific reasons as to why.  Since, to them, my health will fail, there is no need to investigate what I have done (Seth, therapy, healing, self-love, etc.)

Can I ask what your health challenges were?  Share or not as you feel comfortable. 

[Deb]

I was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS 7 yrs. ago.  Healed that and have been off meds that I should need to live.  Been 4 yrs.  Docs say everything will fail but give no scientific reasons as to why.  Since, to them, my health will fail, there is no need to investigate what I have done (Seth, therapy, healing, self-love, etc.)

Gotta love medical science, huh? Anything that doesn't fit into what they believe to be true--is dismissed and discarded. They pretend it never happened. It's amazing that you cured yourself, but maybe I mean wonderful more than amazing! I've read enough stories about people who have had spontaneous recoveries (or as the doctors like to call them, "remissions") from various life-threatening illnesses to know the power of the mind. Anita Moorjani's recovery was the most dramatic. I've read her book, Dying to be Me, three times. If you haven't read it, it's worth a look. It's an incredibly inspiring story and her recovery is attributed to, for the first time in her life, learning to love herself, appreciate the individual she is and to stop trying to fit into everyone else's mold for her. My favorite short Seth quote is, "Miracles are nature, unimpeded." That says it all.

My health issues were not life threatening and I was able to treat myself. But partly because of that, at the end of the Summer from Hell doctors were convinced that I had breast cancer in both breasts along with a side order of ovarian, just in case breast cancer alone wasn't enough. All due to faulty radiology. They kept ordering more invasive tests and I finally just had to put my foot down and tell them enough is enough. I am fine. It reminded me of when Anita recovered, very quickly, from stage 4b lymphoma (NDE) and the doctors practically tore her apart because they were convinced the cancer had to be in there, somewhere. My concern for myself was that if I let the doctors have their way with me, they'd convince me that I was riddled with cancer and they would not stop looking until they found something. Or in my fear, if I chose to believe them, I would eventually produce something for them. Nope, I just had to get off that crazy train. I am healthier than ever.

"As I looked at the great tapestry that was the accumulation of my life up to that point, I was able to identify exactly what had brought me to where I was today. Just look at my life path! Why, oh why, have I always been so harsh with myself? Why was I always beating myself up? Why was I always forsaking myself? Why did I never stand up for myself and show the world the beauty of my own soul? Why was I always suppressing my own intelligence and creativity to please others? I betrayed myself every time I said yes when I meant no! Why have I violated myself by always needing to seek approval from others just to be myself? Why haven't I followed my own beautiful heart and spoken my own truth? Why don't we realize this when we're in our physical bodies? How come I never knew that we're not supposed to be so tough on ourselves? I still felt myself completely enveloped in a sea of unconditional love and acceptance. I was able to look at myself with fresh eyes, and I saw that I was a beautiful being of the Universe. I understood that just the fact that I existed made me worthy of this tender regard."

― Anita Moorjani, Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing

[Toronto Sethian]

I heard of Anita.  Ascertained that she was not a closet Seth reader (like Hicks, Anka, etc.) making money by selling a story.

I wrote her about a year ago.  Told her of the Seth Material and how her experiences EXACTLY mirror Seth's comments.  Unlike any other, heretofore.

She kindly wrote back a few times.

She wrote that a few people had suggested such!  She is on quite the mission and busy.  I imagine she will check it out when the time is right for her. 

[Deb]

Wow, I'm impressed that you got a response from her! I hand-wrote and mailed a several-page letter to her (Hong Kong) right after I read her book for the first time, also mentioning Seth. I don't think she had a clue. But she did not reply to my letter. Huh, maybe her mention of people suggesting Seth included me. Smaller world, don't you think? I love the synchronicity feedback.

I did meet her last summer, when the "I Can Do It" conference came to town. I'd had the audio version of her book (I love author-narrated audio books, they are special) but just had to buy a hard-bound copy for her to autograph at the conference (I have a "thing" about collecting signed books). None from Jane so far.  But I just had to tell her, while she was signing, that she was a gift to us--and she gave me the strangest look. It was like she was in book-signing mode and what I'd said to her snapped her out of a reverie. It was a spontaneous and heart-felt comment on my part. My feeling about her is that she is genuine.

[Toronto Sethian]

She had quite an internet presence, website, email contact when I wrote to her.

Perhaps that I wrote of the Seth Material (again, after YOU and others had earlier done so) piqued her interest.

She and only one other so far, and both recently, tell detailed experiences that are 100% in accord with Seth.  Remarkable.

The other is Natalie Sudman.  Her book and NDE is more detailed even than Anita's, remarkably.

I plan on writing her and asking whether she has read Seth.  I think not.

[Deb]

The other is Natalie Sudman.  Her book and NDE is more detailed even than Anita's, remarkably.

Well, that's a book which I've apparently missed. Post Anita, I found Dr. Eben Alexander, another person I've had the pleasure to meet in person. OMG, I suppose I have to order Natalie's book now and add it to the growing mountain of books that I want to read... and don't have time.

I realize now that my insomnia DOES have a purpose. lol

[Toronto Sethian]

lol  So many books, so little time, eh?

What's with the insomnia?  If you want to explore it a bit, Seth had some comments regarding such.

[Deb]

So many books, so little time, eh?

Exactly. Do you remember the old Twilight Zone of the guy who just wanted to be left alone, so he could read as much as he wanted and not be interrupted? Then there was a worldwide catastrophe of some sort, he was the lone survivor. He had an entire library to himself -- and then stepped on and crushed his reading glasses. lol I can see myself in him some times.

What's with the insomnia?  If you want to explore it a bit, Seth had some comments regarding such.

I've had it off and on my entire life. I wake up at 2 or 3 am almost every morning and most times can't get back to sleep. So I read. Or work. Or visit the forum. I think I'm just hardwired that way.

I read in one of the Seth books where he mentions insomnia, not sure which one, but it was brief. I've tried Seth's recommended sleep schedule and that all makes sense to me, but I'm not a napper. If the sun's up, so am I. Solar powered.