Quote that just hit home for me: Accepting life on it's terms

[Bumblebee]

Jane:
"Remember our friend who kept falling in love with men she couldn't have? Finally she grew more and more morose, and attempted suicide several times. One night in her absence we had a session for her, and Seth's advice here has important general implications."


Seth:
"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.

"The idea that you MUST find a man that will love you is a cover to hide this deeper refusal to accept life on life's terms. You are saying, 'Unless existence meets my terms, I will not exist,' and no one has the right to so set themselves against their own innate vitality.

"Once you wholeheartedly accept life on life's terms, then you may indeed get what you are after, but not while you insist upon it as a condition for continued existence. Your own purpose will make life a daily joy when you let your conditions go. You forget what you do have—health and vitality. You forget your intellect and intuitions. You forget what blessings are yours.

"You cannot pervert them by trying to force them to serve purposes that you have set up as a condition of existence. You must live in the faith that your purpose IS, and will be fulfilled, is being fulfilled. You must live in the faith that you have such a purpose and meaning, or you would not be here."

The Seth Material, Chapter 13
(originally italicized words in caps)

I took this from Linda Dahl's Facebook forum. One of the participants answered what follows to someone who needed clarificatiion. I thought it was so insightful!

Marva Leela Weigelt: I used this for my writing prompt this morning and two key phrases stuck out as the pivots on which this passage hinges: (1) Your own purpose will make life a daily joy when you let your conditions go; and (2) You must live in faith that your purpose IS, and will be fulfilled, is being fulfilled.

My goal is to realize that whatever appears in my reality is my creation and I trust it unconditionally even when I don't understand it. This does not mean there are limits on what I can create, only that I unconditionally accept what I DO create.

[Pinky]

Holy moses, Nathalie--the Seth quote and the highlights pulled out by Ms. Weigelt are beautifully worded reminders (like all of Seth's words) of getting our egos to let go of this madness to control.  More in line with our beings is to be joyful, playful, trusting.  I LOVE this.  Crazy, how we can't seem to remember the beauty of this faith in our beings when it's really that simple.

With Stella's post updating us about her father and your post with Seth's quote--I've got my nourishment for today (and tomorrow and the next and onward).

With gratitude to you!

[Bumblebee]

here's another one from Bashar that I think Deb might find interesting 

By acting on your excitment to the best of your ability with no insistance on the outcome or how things should look, your higher self is then given the opportunity to do its job, and use the excitment in you to bring to you, to gravitate and attrack to you what is really needed and necessary as the next step. As long as you keep identifying that as truly the next step, in a positive way, it's going to serve you positively then it will lead you there ( where, when, and with whom you need to be)

Deb, what is your definition of success? Do a lot of people need to be involved or impressed for it to be called a "success"?

[Bumblebee]

My question got me thinking about my definition of success. And I have to honestly say that it is not as glorious as I would like it to be. It is based on my expectations, objectives and ideals. I do understand now that it doesn't go with the flow of things though. Since my view is limited by my senses and beliefs, I have no clue of what the big picture is. Maybe according to my beliefs I failed, but reality might be otherwise. My Greater Self can guide me if I let go of those preconceived ideas of what things should be like.

I am surprised at how much the definition of success that is conveyed by our society influences still my view. Part of me is still trying to achieve a house, a husband, a reputed job with a big title that will impress the gallery. But I've seen a lot of unhappy people living that dream and I never could fit in the mold for very long. Still, I catch myself dreaming of me so happy in my white picket fence with my Ken, hosting great BBQ's  and being seen by everybody as "the one who has it all". The problem is that it isn't my dream: it's what I was taught to try and achieve to be happy. What I really want is to be happy, and happiness doesn't come in that particular package, or at least not for everybody.

So right now I am in a transition period, don't feel attached too much to anything. This is a great platform to change a lot of beliefs that do not serve me and to reinvent my life. It's like a reincarnation within this life. Kind of cool when you think about it. But it is also scary and confusing. Lately I've been hanging on to the idea that when I get my share of money from the divorce, I will buy a house. But for the past 2 days I am asking myself why do I so avidly want to live in a house? I keep thinking that this 2 room apartment is only transitional, that I will be better in a house. But I had to leave my house in France BECAUSE I COULDN'T TAKE CARE OF IT ON MY OWN. The type of houses I like are isolated in the woods and stove heated. A simple house, yes, but a lot of work is involved with it: cutting wood, shoveling, electricity, plumage, etc. I was always asking for help because I didn't have the money to pay professionals.  At the moment I live in a small place, yes, but my driveway and steps are shoveled, my neighbor takes care of my dog and plays freebie, ball and goes on walks with her while I work, cleaning is quick, rent is cheap. I have plenty of time to do whatever I want. But I'm focused on how life will be good when I get a house once more. I wasn't happy when I had a house, why do I think I'll be happier this time? Don't I already have it all right NOW? Which brings me back to my definition of success. It is not impressive to say that at 45 years old you live in a 2-room apartment with a dog. This idea is one who is preventing me from enjoying my life now. Another obsolete idea is the fact t of not being in a long term relationship is a sign of not being good enough, or being to picky, having a bad temper, in other words: you're either weird or uninteresting. Another idea from my childhood. Older people would talk negatively about one of my aunt that never got married and died alone.

I also noticed that what I consider as a sign of weakness or failure for myself does not apply to others. I will admire a single woman that lives in a small apartment and assumes it completely,  that chooses and embraces this situation and lives it to the fullest. What is great to know is I can be that woman if I want to. Just need to focus on the right things and feed a bit less what is keeping me back.

[Pinky]

Nathalie, I read your post this morning and had to come away from it to think about its effect on me.  I thought all day about what you wrote about success, happiness, conflicting beliefs.  I was shopping at Costco today to get new tires for my Prius and to buy food in the warehouse, and the whole time I was people-watching and wondering if this person or that one was living the life they deeply wanted or were they living the life society told them they wanted.

I also ponder ideas about success and happiness, but the focus is on my two kids.  Genni is 26 and Sam is 23, and from the looks of it, they may not be living that "traditional" life of white picket fence, stable career, and grandkids (for me).  Their issues are very different, but each grapples with challenges that seem to consume the bejesus out of me.  I can't tell you how insidious it is to think their lives--or your life or mine, or anyone's--would be great only if it were the way society has defined it.  Wow, I'm realizing after reading your post how much we think we need to live as others tell us--the good school, career, house, perfect spouse, kids.  And if we don't, do others think lesser of us?  Yeah, we convince ourselves that we're not as good as them if we don't have all that.  Pretty brutal.

Nathalie, from what you've shared with us, I think you've lived a fuller and more exciting life with more adventures in different parts of the world in your 45 years than most of us live in a lifetime.  And when you write about the things that you are working through, the ups and downs, the questionings, you add give much for me to think about.  You wrote in one recent post (I think it was under the "Quotes" section) about coming back as a teacher.  Heck, I think you ARE a teacher in this life (and not just in special ed).

You know, I'd actually written a longer and more rambling post--all this train of thought stuff came flowing out.  And then I got timed out and lost everything!  So before I get timed out again, I will post this.  Maybe y'all got saved from my ramblings!

[Deb]

Holy cow, Pinky and Bumblebee! I'm here in the forum cleaning house and just found this topic. How did I ever miss it? I was sure I checked notify in all the boards. I feel like I just walked into my house and saw a door leading to a room that I'd never noticed before! And it's good timing for me, as well. It was like finding a present.

I am a little perplexed by Seth saying, "You have not accepted life on life's terms." I wonder how this correlates with "You make your own reality..." I need to think on that a bit more.

The quote from Marva, though, really sums up what Seth is saying. I love this: "Once you wholeheartedly accept life on life's terms, then you may indeed get what you are after, but not while you insist upon it as a condition for continued existence. Your own purpose will make life a daily joy when you let your conditions go."

I've been struggling the last couple of years with the need to do something more meaningful with this next chapter in my life. My life, my sense of identity, have changed in many ways. I've been feeling like I'm in limbo waiting for something with meaning and purpose to suddenly occur to me, and haven't made much progress. I have not enjoyed limbo; I've always needed a solid goal and sense of direction where I could focus my energies and enthusiasm. But once again Seth puts things in perspective, sort of "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." (John Lennon)

Good call on questioning the definition of success. My perspective of success has changed over the years. I've achieved in some ways what our society considers success, but I've been turning away from who and what society says I should be. And have been criticized for it.

To get to this point: "You must live in the faith that your purpose IS, and will be fulfilled, is being fulfilled. You must live in the faith that you have such a purpose and meaning, or you would not be here" would be an accomplishment I would be proud of. It sounds so simple. I need to stop putting pressure on myself.

Maybe: We get what we focus upon, so if we don't get what we "want" it's because we are focusing on the absence of what we want. Living in faith, that I have a purpose and meaning. Sounds heavenly.

Thanks for this, Natalie.

[eyelive4ever2]

Me: It would be really helpful if everyone was on the same page about the inner self being our own personal gods that are creating us and this reality.
And without a computer to print all the responses, I cannot get to know anyone. Forums online are highly agitating to me. I have written on many of them, finding no one that thinks like me. So I finally give up. Does my inner self want me to give up? Perhaps the play that my inner self is writing for me is meant to have me not write. I think that my inner self wants me to go out into the world to speak so that I can sound mentally ill. Doesn't my inner self know the kind of reality this is? After all, isn't my inner self creating this reality? These inner selves are constantly pulling forth all those EE units to create what is called matter/solidity. So of course I am being constantly created into this reality exactly the way it is.
People that hear voices like me are called mentally ill. At least I am because I am making no money from it. So I am taking it further by letting society call me mentally ill. Just go on, I say. Let us take it to its conclusion.

This is my god's plan. I have been homeless many, many times. My inner self/god made sure that I did not speak from an early age. I was put/am put into a situation where what I say causes people to become violent. People stare at me with contempt. Money Poor and hear voices, too? Wow. And I believe that I am one of the most coherent ones. I take that Hands of Light book out with me on the streets to tell everybody that is talking to themselves that physics has proven there are parallel realities. Then they don't have to feel so alone and mentally ill. But the doctors have got everybody brainwashed. And hearing voices calls forth financial aid. Perhaps my inner god creating this reality just wants me to try. Is that the game? I remember Seth saying that we were not supposed to forget that we are eternal energy beings--EVER.
When I first realized that this is a game, I cried and cried and cried. All that misery in childhood for what? So this inner god self can play a game? Then there is not even a childhood. From the moment right now, that childhood is being created. Wow. So each time that I think of how miserable it was, I am creating it to be miserable--NOW. How hard it is to stop the images of a violent childhood, even when I try to believe that I am creating it from the moment with every thought that I have. And without therapy, too. I have had to be my own therapist, constantly calling my roving thoughts back to the present so that the point of power is in the present. After all, the present all by itself has no violent thoughts--has no room for violent images. The present all by itself is neither good nor bad. It all just is.
Talking about those invisible beings all around me that I call my parents allows me to receive SSI and Section 8. Now I have a place to live. I just received a Section 8 voucher and would love to live with people that think like me. Are there Any people out there that would love to live with me? Seriously !!!! Call me. 210/454-2411

I would like to sell my art, but the child my inner self created me to be became so disfunctional with low self esteem that I think that nobody will like my art. The me that reads Seth thinks everybody should know that they are eternal energy beings literally being created constantly by these inner selves that people call god.
So, when I have listened to my inner self and other invisible beings around me, I am really the healthy one. And all those people that have called me mentally ill are the disfunctional ones. I am being paid SSI and Section 8 to get healthy and I already am and they don't know it. How is that for ironic? My inner god is creating this. This is the way the play is going for me this constant creation of pulsations called one life.

I would love to move to California or Oregon to be near the ocean and rivers and people that think like me. I have written several people living in these areas looking for a bedroom, a boat, a treehouse, with no as a response. I usually say I am looking for people that believe in a safe universe. Even people that read Seth don't understand that this is a safe universe, so how could they accept me? So I continue to live in San Antonio, TX.
The Seth Material page 300------"When the outer ego becomes swept up in a strong emotion it seems to lose itself; there is unity, then, but no sense of apartness."
SO.....with the strong emotions of violence.....there is unity. Is this what war is about? Are people waging wars and prisons and racism and murders so that they can feel a sense of unity? Death brings people back to ONEness. That is surely unity. My whole childhood was violent and caused me to withdraw, so I heard and felt energy beings around me. So I had unity.

The Seth Material

page 304

In a healthy personality, the inner self easily projects all experience into EE units, where they are translated into actuality.

Page 300

The inner ego is the organizer of experience that Jung would call unconscious. The inner ego is another term for what we call the inner self. As the outer ego manipulates within the physical environment, so the inner ego or self organizes and manipulates with an inner reality. The inner ego creates that physical reality with which the outer ego then deals.
All the richly creative original work that is done by this inner self is not unconscious. It is purposeful, highly discriminating, performed by the inner conscious ego of which the exterior ego is but a shadow--and not, you see, the other way around. Jung's dark side of the self is the ego, not the unconscious. The complicated, infinitely varied, unbelievable rich tapestry of Jung's "unconscious" could hardly be unconscious. It is the product of an inner consciousness with far more sense of identity and purpose than the daily ego. It is the daily ego's ignorance and limited focus that makes it view so-called unconscious activity as chaotic.
The conscious ego rises, indeed, out of the "unconscious," but the unconscious, being the creator of the ego, is necessarily far more conscious than its offspring. The ego is simply not conscious enough to be able to contain the vast knowledge that belongs to the inner conscious self from which it springs.
It is this inner self, out of massive knowledge and the unlimited scope of its consciousness, that forms the physical world and provides stimuli to keep the outer ego constantly at the job of awareness. It is the inner self, here termed the inner ego, that organizes, initiates, projects, and controls the EE units of which we have been speaking, transforming energy into objects, into matter.
The energy of this inner self is used by it to form from itself--from inner experience--a material counterpart in which the outer ego then can act out its role. The outer ego then acts out a play that the inner self has written. This is not to say that the outer ego is a puppet. It is to say that the outer ego is far less conscious than the inner ego, that its perception is less, that it is far less stable though it makes great pretense of stability, that it springs from the iner self and is therefore less, rather than more, aware.
The outer ego is spoon fed, being given only those feelings and emotions, only that data, that it can handle. This data is presented to it in a highly specialized manner, usually in terms of information picked up by the physical senses.
The inner self or ego is not only conscious, but conscious of itself both as an individuality apart from others and as an individuality that is a part of all other consciousness. In your terms, it is continually aware, both of this apartness and unity-with. The outer ego is not continuously aware of anything. It frequently forgets itself. When it becomes swept up in a strong emotion it seems to lose itself; there is unity, then, but no sense of apartness. When it most vigorously maintains it sense of individuality, it is no longer aware of unity-with.

Page 302

Matter is the shape of your dreams. Your dreams, thoughts, and emotions are literally transformed into physical matter purposefully by this inner self.
The individual inner self, then, through constant massive effort of great creative intensity, cooperates with all other inner selves to form and maintain the physical reality that your know, so that physical reality is an offshoot or by product of the highly conscious inner self.

Me:

We are supposed to accept life on life's terms? Except that we are shadows, offshoots, far less conscious and ignorant. We are less stable, less aware, frequently forgetting ourselves. Just how much is expected of us anyway? We are frequently forgetting ourselves because we are projections, offshoots, pulsating beams of light. This is why religion says we are children of god. We are literally children, energy beings vibrating as globes of light, enclosed within, just trying to get a glimpse of the constant massive effort of great creative intensity that is creating us constantly.

[Bumblebee]

Eyelive4ever2,

I can feel distress and pain in a lot of your posts and they really reach out to me. I wish I could find the right words to soothe your soul, yet I fear I lack the competence. But I cannot stay silent. I need to at least try.

Violence is never an easy thing to experience. Everybody lives it differently yet no one escapes its scar. There is no magic formula to reestablish peace inside; it is a solitary walk back to recovery that too many of us have to go through.

As far as hearing voices go, I have met a lot of people to whom this happens, or that have visual contacts with spirits, and I do not see how that makes you mentally ill.

I am going to be a bit blunt here and tell you what I do see from your messages. I might be wrong, after all I do not know you well and have never met you, but I will tell you nevertheless. If this can be used in a constructive way for you, please consider it, if you feel it is totally wrong, please discart it. It is only an idea afterall.

I get the feeling that in a lot of ways you despise this walking reality. You describe it as some lower form of consciousness, almost like by  being here we are deprived of the best of ourselves. You also seem to despise people who are completely immersed in it. But this reality is as real as any other reality. The consciousness might be dimmed, yet it is a clever way to slow down the thought process so we can actually deal with each one of them one at a time in a very precise and intense way. Seth also said that the beauty of nature here is uncompared with any other form of consciousness. Each being here is on their own path to master thoughts, thus their reality. They learn at their pace. I believe that by believing that other forms of consciousness are better, you are actually making this reality seem worse, thus attracting negative experiences to yourself (and this is not a reference to your childhood experiences, but the ones that you are living now). Also, if you think you are different from others, you will also accentuate the gap with this world. It's the idea that brings forth the experiences, not your inner self.

I am sorry if this sounds harsh. My intent is not to hurt you, on the contrary, it is hopefully to maybe help you see what might be blocking your path to serenity in this walking life.

We are beings of light. We remain pure even in this reality. We are beautiful here too. We are so amazingly powerful to be able to create all of this. Eyelive4ever2, take your light and make it work for you here. I know you are strong enough to discart those thoughts that are preventing you to shine in this walking reality. Keep posting here. Don't isolate yourself further. You are not alone. I care, and I'm pretty sure other people on this site care too.


Suggest to yourself often...
« I am an excellent creature, an excellent part of the universe in which I exist. My experience enriches all other portions  of life, even as my own being is enhanced by the rest of creation. It is good, natural, and safe for me to grow and develop and use my abilities and by doing so I also enrich all portions of life. » Seth , The Way Towards Health, session 1/27

Keep posting!!!

Sending you a great big hug!

Nathalie

[strangerthings]

Jane:
 "Remember our friend who kept falling in love with men she couldn't have? Finally she grew more and more morose, and attempted suicide several times. One night in her absence we had a session for her, and Seth's advice here has important general implications."


Seth:
 "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.

"The idea that you MUST find a man that will love you is a cover to hide this deeper refusal to accept life on life's terms. You are saying, 'Unless existence meets my terms, I will not exist,' and no one has the right to so set themselves against their own innate vitality.

"Once you wholeheartedly accept life on life's terms, then you may indeed get what you are after, but not while you insist upon it as a condition for continued existence. Your own purpose will make life a daily joy when you let your conditions go. You forget what you do have—health and vitality. You forget your intellect and intuitions. You forget what blessings are yours.

"You cannot pervert them by trying to force them to serve purposes that you have set up as a condition of existence. You must live in the faith that your purpose IS, and will be fulfilled, is being fulfilled. You must live in the faith that you have such a purpose and meaning, or you would not be here."

The Seth Material, Chapter 13

*big bump*