~Speaking of Seth~

"Each life influences each other life, and some portion of the personality retains memory not only of past lives, but of future lives also.

When reincamational studies are embarked upon, on occasion people remember some instance of past-life experience, but conventional ideas of time are so strong that so-called future memory is blacked out.

The inner self is aware of all of your existences, in other words. It sees where and how your many lives fit together. It is only because you are so oriented outward from birth that this inner self can sometimes seem alien or distant and unrelated to the self that you know. It would be impossible to be consciously aware of all of the infinitesimal details that exist in even one life; your consciousness would be so full and cluttered up that you would be unable to make choices, or to use free will.

It would be even more difficult to try to handle the information of many lives at one time. In your terms, "it" takes time to think, and you would be so caught up in thinking itself, that action would be impossible. The inner knowledge of all of your lives, from your point of view, is in the same category as those automatic processes that underlie your existence.

That is, you know about your other lives, basically, in the same way that you know how to breathe or digest your food. A different kind of knowing is involved.

This does not mean that all conscious knowledge about your own reincamational existences is forever beyond you — for through various exercises you can indeed learn to recall some of that information. It does mean, however, that you are innately aware of all of your existences, and that the knowledge gained in one life is automatically transferred to another, whether that life be present, past, or future.

You may therefore be trying out many different kinds of experiences, sometimes endowing yourself with super attributes and strength, relying upon the body's powers above all other considerations, while at the same time in another life you use and develop unusual mental abilities, enjoying the triumphs of creative thought, while largely ignoring the body's agility and strength.

I do not mean to imply that you necessarily deal with opposite kinds of behaviors, for there are endless variances — each unique — as consciousness expresses itself through physical sensation, and attempts to explore all of the possible realms of emotional, spiritual, biological, and mental existence.

I want to stress that within each life full free will operates once the conditions of that life are set."

— "The Way Toward Health" Part Two: Chapter 12: June 17, 1984

"That is, if you have been born in poor or depressed circumstances, then free will will not alter the conditions of that birth.

It can help you become wealthy in adult life through the choices that you make. It should be helpful, and certainly somewhat comforting, to realize that even unfortunate birth conditions were not forced upon you by some outside agency, but chosen at inner levels of your own reality.

The same applies to almost any situation. Religion holds some ideas that are in complete opposition to each other in regard to the nature of suffering in general. Some believe that suffering is a punishment sent by God for past or present sins, or even omissions, while other religious schools insist that suffering is sent by God as evidence of his particular love for the individual involved: 'God must love you very much, because he sent you so much suffering.'

That remark, and similar ones, are often made to ill persons. The idea is supposed to be that suffering is good for the soul, is a way of atoning for one's sins, and in some fashion the implication is made that such suffering in this life will be more than compensated for in heaven.

Such concepts encourage individuals to feel like victims, with no control at all over the conditions of their own lives.

Instead, it should be realized that as uncomfortable as suffering is, it does somehow have a meaning in the context of your entire existence — again, that it was not thrust upon you by some unjust or uncaring exterior force or nature.

To some degree, that kind of understanding can help alleviate suffering itself to some extent. I am not advocating a fatalistic approach either, that says more or less: 'I have chosen such and such an unfortunate condition at some level I do not understand, and therefore the entire affair is outside of my own hands. There is nothing I can do about it.'

For one thing, again, almost all situations, including the most drastic, can be changed for the better to some extent, and the very attempt to do so can increase a person's sense of control over his or her own circumstances. This does not mean that those adverse situations can be changed overnight in usual terms (though ideally that is also possible), but that the sense of control over one's life encourages all of the mental and physical healing properties.

In terms of 'starting over' at such a point, the main thing to remember is not to expect too much too fast, while recognizing that instantaneous cures are indeed probabilities.

Again, mind games, the insertion of humor and diversion, are extremely valuable, so that you are not trying too hard. Some people try too hard to be spontaneous, while others are frightened of spontaneity itself. The knowledge of reincarnational lives is spontaneously held, and you can receive profound insights from that knowledge. This occurs when you are not looking for it, but when you are familiar enough with the entire concept, so that you realize such knowledge is available."

— "The Way Toward Health" Part Two: Chapter 12: June 17, 1984

I wonder what he means by free will. Yes you can make a choice but your choice is largely determined by your innate/inner self. If you see people starving and go to help this is because your consciousness is at a certain level so you have empathy and therefore help them. If you don't help it's because you are unable to perceive their pain because your level of consciousness is too low - to a great degree you are only interested in self interest. So you act in accordance with your level of development, you cannot act otherwise.

Quote from: Bora137 on November 26, 2023, 12:18:57 PMI wonder what he means by free will. ... So you act in accordance with your level of development, you cannot act otherwise.

To me, free will means that my choices aren't predetermined, or made by something else than the conscious me, the one conscious me at the moment of that decision.

This conscious me at the moment of that decision, is one of the several me, and as you wrote, it is at a certain level of development, but it is free to decide from the choices it sees available.

This conscious me perceives inner and outer stimuli through the filter of its beliefs, and responds at various levels (instincts, emotions, intellect, intuition) according to its level of evolvement.

The major problem this conscious me faces is that in this instance of reality (that it freely chose to incarnate in, when it was in a different state than it is now) it doesn't have a good connection with the other selves of its personality, with its subconscious, with its inner-guide, so it isn't aware of what it has to do, what the purpose of its existence is, and it makes mistakes, learning slower and more painfully than it could.

Free will is such a complicated area. Like you say you might choose but not be in full awareness of your complete reality. Also there is a choc ice and a lolly - you choose in accordance with your innate preference so is the conscious thinking mind then choosing or is it simply opting for its predetermined preference? The conscious mind might say 'god damn it I demand free will!' and choose the lolly against its innate preference and then not eat it and throw it away. But at least it can say it exercised its free will even if by doing so it lost out..

The physical reality that we perceive is a materialization of a psychic reality filtered through our beliefs, some of which we might even be conscious that they're beliefs and not truths and facts.

In the example you suggested, we perceive a situation in which we are offered a choice: "choc ice" or "lolly", maybe also: neither or both.

We can respond to it instinctually, picking the one that attracts us, or another criteria we aren't consciously aware of.

We can take a little more time and allow emotions to kick in, like / dislike, fear for health, or scarcity, anger that we don't have money to get both, sacrifice to give both away, ...

We can take even more time and think about the choice, remember other experiences, goals, probabilities of not having one of those choices in the future, giving one of them to somebody who, we think, would like it even more then we do, ...

We can approach it intuitively: get in touch with our inner senses, our subconscious, which have clairvoyant access to probabilities, maybe one of those deserts will stain our clothes, or has salmonella, or it is on spoonful away from an infarct, ...

Depending on our individual level of abilities we make a choice, freely. Not having the capability to make the better choice isn't lack of free will.

All these things are not free will I would say. Given your inner state you cannot choose otherwise to what you do choose, be it to give the choc ice to someone else (your innate kindness here influencing your decision) or that it makes you fat (your innate negative self image in play directing your choice). Only once you spiritually awaken do you have free will because only then can you decide on what beliefs you want to hold. Changing your beliefs is an act of free will I'd say. In turn these new beliefs direct your everyday choices.

This is informative:


"There are no ends that must be accomplished by any given personality, no ends that must be gained by a personality for the entity.

There are only various planes of existence in which energy wishes, or may wish, to manifest itself. The entity then projects a personality within that plane of existence, equipping it with whatever camouflage senses, mechanisms, and protections that are necessary for survival on that plane.

The personality is on its own, with what you may call the power of self-determination and free will. If you had thoroughly remembered our material on value fulfillment, you would know that the only detriment to so-called free will is the built-in necessity for value fulfillment. The personality must gain experience, in other words, on a particular level of existence, on which or within which it operates, and it cannot choose otherwise. It must experience existence on the particular level on which it has been projected.

No child, no infant commits suicide. It is impossible. The adult who commits suicide has still gained experience to some degree within your plane. This law, the necessity for experience, operates only after complete materialization and orientation within your plane.

A child is not completely materialized upon your plane, nor is he oriented. A personality may refuse to gain such experience before actual birth upon your plane. This necessity for value fulfillment through experience upon a particular existence plane, is the only detriment, if you wish to think of it that way, to free will.

Now. No other commands are built-in, no other prohibitions given. But built-in of course into this necessity for experience, is the compulsion toward value fulfillment, and as you know this does not apply alone to growth, which is in itself a camouflage materialization of value fulfillment along one line only.

Personalities may indeed become entities. One personality may not be but one personality in your terms, as I have mentioned a man being one personality may be seen in terms of a father, a teacher, an artist, a community member and so forth.

The father does not negate the reality of, say, the artist. The father does not rob the artist of free will, nor does the entity rob the personality of free will. It is the personality who makes the choices. The entity may not either aid or prevent any choice that the personality may make. The entity may not like any particular choice made by the personality, but he, the entity, cannot change the course that the personality chooses to take.

If you say that the personality cannot take any choice of which the entity is not aware, then this is true; but it is also true that the entity is utterly incapable of changing that choice made by the personality, even though the entity knows about the choice ahead of time, so to speak.

With his superior knowledge the entity must leave hands off. His, the entity's, only hope is to allow the personality complete independence, for it is the personality who understands more clearly than he the conditions of the particular plane upon which his existence happens.

There is here no puppet, and there is no hand that moves the strings. If there were you see, you would indeed have a much more perfect world, but you would not have that one built-in prerequisite: complete as possible existence within all facets, and manipulation within all facets, of a given plane.

Now. What you call karma has meaning only in basic terms within your particular plane. I do not want to get too complicated. Nevertheless personalities on your plane work out individual problems within that plane through various existences. Here we have also free will, but a continuity so to speak of purposes. No purpose is forced upon any personality. He, the personality, adopts in various reincarnations upon your plane those purposes most in keeping with his own needs."

—TES3 Session 95 October 7, 1964