Earthquakes, Riots, Session 665 NOPR

[T.M.]

Hi All,

I've been listening to NOPR at night and came across this session; which I think is highly relevant to our current events.
The west coast is having a significant amount of smaller quakes on a daily basis with a 7.5 in Alaska yesterday, with many aftershocks.

" The more "civilized" man becomes, the more his social structures and practices separate him from intimate relationship with nature — and the more natural catastrophes there will be, because underneath he senses his great need for identification with nature; he will himself conjure it into earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods, so that he can once again feel not only their energy but his own.

(Pause.) As nothing else can, a great encounter with the full energy of the elements puts man face to face with the incredible potency from which he springs. For many people, a natural calamity provides their first personal experience with the realities of creaturehood's connection with the planet. Under such conditions men who feel a part of nothing, of no structure or family or country, can understand in a flash their comradeship with the earth, their place upon it and its energy; through suddenly recognizing that relationship they feel their own power for action.

(10:09.) On quite a different level, riots often serve the same purpose, where the release of energy, for whatever reasons, introduces a group of individuals to the intimate recognition that highly concentrated vitality exists. They may not have found it earlier in their lives. This recognition can lead them — and often does — to seize their own energy and use it in a strong creative manner. A natural catastrophe or a riot are both energy baths, potent and highly positive in their ways despite their obvious connotations. In your terms this in no way absolves those who start riots, for example, for they will be working within a system of conscious beliefs in which violence begets violence. Yet even here individual differences apply. The inciters of riots are often searching for the manifestation of energy which they do not believe they possess on their own. They light and start psychological fires, and are as transfixed by the results as any arsonist. If they understood and could experience power and energy in themselves they would not need such tactics.

(Pause at 10:19.) As racial problems may be worked out on many levels, through a riot or a natural disaster, or a combination of both, according to the intensity of the situation on a psychological level; and as physical symptoms can be pleas for help and recognition, so can natural misfortunes be utilized by members of one portion of the country, or one part of the world, to obtain aid from other portions. Obviously, many riots are quite consciously instigated. Certainly thousands of individuals, or millions of them, do not consciously decide to bring about a hurricane, or a flood or an earthquake, in the same manner. In the first place, on that level they do not believe such a thing possible. While conscious beliefs have a part to play in such cases, on an individual basis the "inner work" is done just as unconsciously as the body produces physical symptoms.

The symptoms often seem to be inflicted upon the body, just as a natural disaster seems to be visited upon the body of the earth.
Sudden illnesses are thought of as frightening and unpredictable, with the sufferer a victim, perhaps, of a virus. Sudden tornadoes or earthquakes are seen in the same light, as the result of air currents and temperature, or fault lines instead of viruses. The basic causes of both, however, are the same.
(10:27.) There are as many reasons then for "earth illnesses" as there are for body illnesses."

[leidl]

" The more "civilized" man becomes, the more his social structures and practices separate him from intimate relationship with nature — and the more natural catastrophes there will be, because underneath he senses his great need for identification with nature; he will himself conjure it into earthquakes, tornadoes, and floods, so that he can once again feel not only their energy but his own.

Thank you for posting this, T.M.; I must have read this at one point but it is especially striking in 2020.  Basically I accept what Seth is saying here.  What we perceive to be our environment, the stuff "out there," is the same stuff that is inside of us.  The natural world and our own bodies are made of water, air and minerals, which are in turn made of energy/consciousness.  We, as consciousness, extend outward, and what is out there is "in here."  It makes sense that we as a species will pay a price if we imagine ourselves to be somehow separate from nature.

What I'm not sure I quite get, though, is if we are part of the fabric of nature, and thus can "conjure" earthquakes, floods and tornados, well...that's a lot of creativity and power.  You'd think beings with all that could figure out how to re-connect to their own feelings of power without all the destruction.  Why does this need to involve suffering, terror, rioting?  I wonder why we can't show ourselves our power and connection to the natural world by creating pyramids, rocket ships, cosmic fireworks etc.  Seth talks in other places about the creative power of negative emotions such as anger, and I get that.  But do we really need to create tsunamis that wipe out 230,000 people, tearing babies from their mothers arms, etc. just to show ourselves our power?  I guess we're not good at picking up on subtleties?   

[T.M.]

Hi All,

Hi Leidl,

I agree with you about us not being to good at picking up on subtleties! It really stuck out to me when I heard it last night.
I know I'm still grappling with the mechanics of creation. I do remember a time when I had no clue about it at all. I hope some day it's taught freely to any and all who are interested in the subject. Or at least what's currently understood of the process. I think that would help society immensely.

"What we perceive to be our environment, the stuff "out there," is the same stuff that is inside of us.  The natural world and our own bodies are made of water, air and minerals, which are in turn made of energy/consciousness.  We, as consciousness, extend outward, and what is out there is "in here."  It makes sense that we as a species will pay a price if we imagine ourselves to be somehow separate from nature."  Indeed! 

[Sena]

Seth talks in other places about the creative power of negative emotions such as anger, and I get that.  But do we really need to create tsunamis that wipe out 230,000 people, tearing babies from their mothers arms, etc. just to show ourselves our power?  I guess we're not good at picking up on subtleties?   

leidl, that is a very good question about negative emotions. We are all at the mercy of our negative emotions. G.I.Gurdjieff taught that the first step in overcoming negative emotions is self-observation. You might find this article interesting:

http://www.lightwinnipeg.org/Spiritual%20Writings/EMOTIONAL%20STATES.pdf

This is a quote from that article:

"Negative emotions are pervasive in human life. In grown-up people negative emotions are
supported by the constant justification and glorification of them in literature and art, and by
personal self-justification and self-indulgence."
What is a negative emotion? An emotion that is toxic to the body and interferes
with its balance and harmonious functioning. Fear, anxiety, anger, bearing a
grudge, sadness, hatred or intense dislike, jealousy, envy – all disrupt the energy
flow through the body, affect the heart, the immune system, digestion, production
of hormones, and so on. Even mainstream medicine, although it knows very little
how the ego operates yet, is beginning to recognize the connection between nega-
tive emotional states and physical disease. An emotion that does harm to the body
also infects the people you come into contact with and indirectly, through a process
of chain reaction, countless others you never meet. There is a generic term for all
negative emotions: unhappiness.
The expression of negative emotions such as anger, jealousy, self-pity, mistrust, boredom
and so on constitute one of the major obstacles to harmonious human development:
Negative emotions are a terrible phenomenon. They occupy an enormous place in
our life. Of many people it is possible to say that all their lives are regulated and
controlled, and in the end ruined, by negative emotions. At the same time negative
emotions do not play any useful part at all in our lives. They do not help our orien-
tation, they do not give us any knowledge, they do not guide us in any sensible
manner. On the contrary, they spoil all our pleasures, they make life a burden to
us, and they very effectively prevent our possible development because there is
nothing more mechanical in our life than negative emotions. The strangest and
most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them.
I think that, for an ordinary mechanical man, the most difficult thing to realize is
that his own and other people's negative emotions have no value whatsoever and
do not contain anything noble, anything beautiful, or anything strong.
Children imbibe negative attitudes and emotions from their parents. Negativity can easily be
absorbed from those around us, almost like an infection."

The important point is that Gurdjieff is NOT telling us to suppress or repress our negative emotions. That would be dangerous. In order to use our negative emotions creatively, we need to become aware of those emotions, and the first step in doing that is self-observation. This is an article on self-observation:

https://www.dennislewis.org/articles-other-writings/articles-essays/gurdjieff-the-further-reaches-of-self-observation/

Negative emotions are dangerous if we are not fully conscious of them. Self-observation enables us to become conscious of our negative emotions. Once we are conscious of them, we can use them creatively.

T.M., thanks for starting this useful thread.

[jbseth]

What I'm not sure I quite get, though, is if we are part of the fabric of nature, and thus can "conjure" earthquakes, floods and tornados, well...that's a lot of creativity and power.  You'd think beings with all that could figure out how to re-connect to their own feelings of power without all the destruction.  Why does this need to involve suffering, terror, rioting?  I wonder why we can't show ourselves our power and connection to the natural world by creating pyramids, rocket ships, cosmic fireworks etc.  Seth talks in other places about the creative power of negative emotions such as anger, and I get that.  But do we really need to create tsunamis that wipe out 230,000 people, tearing babies from their mothers arms, etc. just to show ourselves our power? I guess we're not good at picking up on subtleties?

Hi leidl, Hi All,

Based upon my understanding of Seth's comments on this topic, here's my thoughts on this.


Must we create those events that we call natural disasters?

Yes.  It turns out that we participate in creating these events because the planet Earth needs to experience them, in order to grow. This is just like how, at a different level, we humans need to physically grow from our infant size to our adult size. Often these events correct a problem that existed on the planet beforehand.  Here's some of the things that Seth had to say about this in NOME.


(Long pause.) Natural disasters represent an understandably prejudiced concept, in which the vast creative and rejuvenating elements important to planetary life, and therefore to mankind, are ignored. The stability of the planet rests upon such changes and alterations, even as the body's stability is dependent upon, say, the birth and death of the cells. [NOME, CH1, S803].

In those terms, natural disasters ultimately end up righting a condition that earlier blighted the desired quality of life, so that adjustments were made [NOME, CH1, S803].


An earthquake can be a disaster in the area where it occurs, even though its existence corrects imbalances, and therefore promotes the life of the planet [NOME, CH1, S804].


Objectively — whatever the appearances — storms, earthquakes, floods, et cetera, are quite necessary to the well-being of the earth. Both man's and nature's purposes are served, then, though generally speaking man's myths make him blind to those interactions [NOME, CH3, S821].




But do we really need to create tsunamis that wipe out 230,000 people, tearing babies from their mothers arms, etc. just to show ourselves our power?

One of the reasons that people die during these events is because "civilized" man has chosen to separate himself from nature. As a result of this, we "civilized" humans often don't pick up on the intuitive clues from our inner selves that would make us aware of these events, prior to their occurrence.


This kind of reminds me of the stories, I've heard about many animals in India, who moved inland just prior to the 2004 day after Christmas tsunami. According to the stories I've heard about this, apparently many animals sensed that something was coming and responded to this accordingly.


-jbseth

[T.M.]

Hi All,

Hi Sena,

Thank you for the Gurdjieff material. I agree with the article you posted about the damage negative emotions can cause. I tend to think the majority hasn't a clue about that. It's part of the mechanics I still grapple with as well. I call it shadow work. I think it is likely a life time work for most, myself included. It's not always so easy to admit to oneself, or recognize inner negativity either.
I have a funny feeling that conscious reality creation isn't possible until a person learns their emotional landscape, how to recognize and work with emotions, both positive and negative.

NOPR really is an outstanding book in that regard.

[Deb]

The west coast is having a significant amount of smaller quakes on a daily basis with a 7.5 in Alaska yesterday, with many aftershocks.

This has been quite the year. Yes, I heard about that too, and the concerns about a Tsunami. Your post also makes me think about all of the wildfires in the western US. Most of this summer, my Colorado sky has been white with smoke, sometimes ashes falling. Two new fires near Boulder and Estes Park just last week. And so late in the season! Yes, it's been very dry this year, and summer wildfires in CO are not unusual. But THIS year—makes me think of the local and planetary social climate, and of course the ever present pandemic. Wow.

You'd think beings with all that could figure out how to re-connect to their own feelings of power without all the destruction.

You would think that, but I think that's what we are here to learn. How to become aware, how to manage our power, how to positively use creative energy. And apparently the only way we learn, for now, is by painful consequences. Because apparently some, not all of us, don't change until the consequences become blatantly obvious.

[leidl]

Thanks to all!  You've given me so much to think about here.

"An emotion that does harm to the body
also infects the people you come into contact with and indirectly, through a process
of chain reaction, countless others you never meet..."

Sena, thank you for these ideas from Gurdijeff, whom I've never read.  The excerpt above is heavy stuff; it makes becoming a hermit quite compelling.  Who wants to infect countless others with one's negative emotion?  But then I remember that Seth tells us people are not negatively affected against their will, which is a genuine comfort.  Whatever craziness we're up to as a species, we're in it together.  By choice. 

Then this, near the end of the Gurdijeff quote:  "The strangest and
most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them."

That explains a lot about where we are as a planet right now, doesn't it?  Anyone who scrolls through the news feed on their phone looking at the headlines has to admit Gurdijeff is right.  (Well, the word "worship" seems a little strong, but we are attracted to negative emotions like moths to the flame, for sure.)

To the question of whether natural disasters and riots are necessary, jbseth, thank you for your excellent quotes, such as this:

"...natural disasters ultimately end up righting a condition that earlier blighted the desired quality of life, so that adjustments were made [NOME, CH1, S803]."

So, yes, disasters are necessary to correct imbalances.  But only because we lost our sense of power to create the kinds of lives we desire in the first place!  We made a wrong turn as a species, and disasters are a kind of u-turn that gets us back where we want to be.  If we had listened better, like the animals that allegedly left the region before the tsunami, we wouldn't have to go through this stuff.

Deb points out that it wouldn't have to be this way, except that most of us refuse to learn until the consequences are dire.

These are all excellent points, and I buy them.  I acknowledge my own resistance to learning and growing. Pain has been a real motivator for me; perhaps the only one.

But still, gang...we have all the power of nature at our fingertips to create any reality we desire.  We are multi-dimensional beings whose growth is being supported by other multi-dimensional beings with ready access to things we are not conscious of most of the time.  With all this power and support, why would we choose to build and experience a reality where none of us will grow until we hurt like hell?  Why not create a reality where just a small amount of pain causes us to grow?  Or where our being just unfolds effortlessly, like the lily of the field?

I don't know.  The answer that popped into my head just now is that our belief that pain is significant is one of the things we are looking at as a species.  Non-human animals take pain in stride.  Seth talks about the predator/prey relationship as a kind of dance where each willingly plays a part.  Humans, though, do everything we can to avoid pain--we use drugs, shopping, internet, food...all to help us forget.  And it hasn't worked.  The more we move toward our own favored "opioids", the more we suffer.  If we had not forgotten who we are, multidimensional beings of great power, we would accept pain the way the rest of nature does. We would accept the end when it comes, and walk on to the next grand adventure rather than clinging to smoldering remains of this one.  Pain is only significant because we feel trapped by it; we do not realize that we can walk on, leaving nothing of ourselves behind. 

[Sena]

The answer that popped into my head just now is that our belief that pain is significant is one of the things we are looking at as a species.  Non-human animals take pain in stride.  Seth talks about the predator/prey relationship as a kind of dance where each willingly plays a part.  Humans, though, do everything we can to avoid pain--we use drugs, shopping, internet, food...all to help us forget.  And it hasn't worked.  The more we move toward our own favored "opioids", the more we suffer.  If we had not forgotten who we are, multidimensional beings of great power, we would accept pain the way the rest of nature does. We would accept the end when it comes, and walk on to the next grand adventure rather than clinging to smoldering remains of this one.  Pain is only significant because we feel trapped by it; we do not realize that we can walk on, leaving nothing of ourselves behind.

leidl, you have started a whole new topic, that of pain and suffering! Here is a Seth quote:

"Now I have often said that suffering of itself is not "good for the soul." It is not a virtue, yet certainly many individuals seem to seek suffering. Suffering cannot be dismissed from human experience as a freak matter of distorted emotions or beliefs. (Long pause.) Suffering is a human condition that is sought for various reasons. There are gradations of suffering, of course, and each person will have his or her definitions of what suffering is. Many people do indeed equate a certain kind of suffering with excitement. Sportsmen, race-car drivers, mountain climbers—all seek suffering to one extent or another, and find the very intensity of certain kinds (underlined) of pain pleasurable. You might say that they like to live dangerously. (9:29.) Some s-e-c-t-s (spelled) have believed that spiritual understanding came as the result of bodily agony, and their self-inflicted pain became their versions of pleasure. It is usually said that animals, and also man, avoid pain and seek pleasure—and so any courting of pain, except under certain conditions, is seen as unnatural behavior. (Pause.) It is not unnatural. It is an eccentric (pause) behavior pattern. Many children daydream not only of being kings or queens, or given great honors, they also daydream about being tragic figures. They daydream of cruel deaths. They glory in stories of wicked stepmothers. They imagine, in fact, every situation that they can involving human experience. To an extent adults do the same thing. They are drawn to cinema or television dramas that involve tragedies, sorrows, great dramatic struggles. This is because you are alive as the result of your great curiosity for human experience. You are alive because you want to participate in human drama. While I admit that many people will not agree with me (smile), I know from experience that most individuals do not choose one "happy" life after another, always ensconced in a capable body, endowed by nature or heritage with all of the gifts most people seem to think they desire. Each person seeks value fulfillment, and that means that they choose various lives in such a fashion that all of their abilities and capacities can be best developed, and in such a way that their world is also enriched. Some people will choose "defective" bodies purposely in order to focus more intensely in other areas. They want a different kind of focus. (Long pause.) They want to sift their characteristics through a certain cast. Such a choice demands an intensification." (from "Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Volume Two (A Seth Book)" by Jane Roberts, Robert F. Butts)

Kindle edition: https://amzn.eu/1Taj5C7

One could say that Jane Roberts chose a defective body, suffering the pain of rheumatoid arthritis.