Elias on the "bird cage"

[Sena]

Elias compares our belief systems to a bird cage filled with birds. To my knowledge, this analogy is not found in Seth:

"Let me express to you, a belief system is as a bird cage. I have expressed this analogy previously, but I shall repeat it presently. The bird cage is the belief system, but the bird cage holds many, many, many birds, and you may include many more birds into the cage, as many as you choose, for the cage expands and is accommodating of however many birds you choose to be placing in it, and it shall continue to expand, for it is quite accommodating. This is the belief system, as the cage. The birds are all of the elements of the belief system, all of the aspects of the belief system, and I shall express to you that each belief system that you hold holds very many birds and may be quite tricky with you, for many of the birds are hiding behind other birds that you may not even allow yourselves to view. The point of acceptance is to open the door of the bird cage and allow the birds to fly away. Therefore, you continue to hold the cage, but it is empty. The cage remains before you. You have not eliminated the cage, but the cage serves no purpose, for the birds are not contained, and in this it is merely a cage, an object for you to view and not maintain and not interact with, but merely just view, and in this you may express your opinion of the cage: "I view this cage to be quite lovely. I view this cage to be quite distasteful." But it matters not, for it holds no purpose. It holds no function. There are no birds contained. And as the birds are allowed to fly away, they are transformed within energy and are no longer birds. Therefore, what shall you replace in the cage? There are no birds to put in the cage. It is merely an ornament. (Intently) This be an action of your shift. This be one of your most affecting aspects of this shift in consciousness which shall be the most liberating of you, for in this action you allow yourselves to divert your attention, which has been held so singularly to your belief systems, away from the cage, which is merely ornamental. Therefore, in opposition to viewing this one cage within your room, you allow yourself to view the room. You allow yourself to view the vastness of all that is around the cage that you have not allowed yourself the openness in your attention to view, and all the wondrous creative elements that reside in that space, so to speak, that you have not viewed, for your attention has been directed to the cage and all of its birds." (from "The Shift In Consciousness. A Time of Change: An Elias book" by David Tate)

Kindle edition: https://amzn.eu/cw2f5QG

The following example of a belief system is NOT from Elias. It is something I have worked out, and I am open to correction:

Bird cage - Belief that every human being dies.

Birds - Death is a terrible thing.
I have no choice in the timing of my death.
Viruses are terrible things.
Covid 19 is one of the most terrible viruses.

What Elias seems to be saying is that if we look at our beliefs objectively, the "birds" will fly away, but the bird cage will remain.

[leidl]

What Elias seems to be saying is that if we look at our beliefs objectively, the "birds" will fly away, but the bird cage will remain.

Sena, since I first encountered the birdcage metaphor a few days ago I've become a big fan of it.  When Bookmark mentioned that Elias gave her the "nuts and bolts" necessary to really help Seth's concepts transform her thinking, I'd bet this is exactly the sort of thing she was talking about.  Thank you for this thread.

The point of acceptance is to open the door of the bird cage and allow the birds to fly away.

To me, what Elias is saying here is that acceptance of the present moment, acceptance of the reality you're currently standing in, is the key that opens the birdcage allowing the birds to fly out.  I wonder if one of our errors is thinking that we have to look at each belief in order to dismantle it.  We may have access to a shortcut: acceptance of the present moment as it is.  This allows the door to open and ALL the birds to fly out, even the ones that are hidden by others.

I read the whole quote you included through several times, and finally the word "acceptance" popped out at me.  Spiritual teachers throughout the ages have emphasized the importance of acceptance, but it hasn't been a focus in the threads I've participated in here.  I don't think Seth particularly emphasizes it either, but here's something from him:


"Once you wholeheartedly accept life on life's terms, then you may indeed find what you are after, but not while you insist upon it as a condition for continued existence in this life. You have no right to set such terms, any more than a flower would insist upon sunny ground and a preferred spot within the garden as a prerequisite for its own existence.

[... 6 paragraphs ...]

Now I tell you this to clear the air, and show you that your conditions will not be met while you hold them as conditions. Only when you accept life and do not hold conditions..."

—TES9 Session 440 October 7, 1968

I can try to "believe" myself into being protected from the virus, for example, by imagining myself healthy and thus creating that reality.  But a more effective approach might be total acceptance that this virus is here, and that I do not know how I will be affected by it.  By "not holding conditions" I allow the birdcage to empty out, and I am left holding the cage.  Once this happens I am intrigued by the reality of the virus--I am no longer afraid.  All the birds (my belief that death is bad, that viruses are terrible, etc.) have flown away.  I become free of the fear of death not by looking at my beliefs about death, but by accepting reality as it appears to me.  In the present moment, I see that I don't know if the virus will be a good thing for me or a bad thing.  I don't know if death will be a good thing for me or a bad thing.  I've moved from looking at the world in a binary, good/evil kind of way, to a place beyond good and evil.

(The above is an example.  I do not claim to have actually done this! )

[Sena]

To me, what Elias is saying here is that acceptance of the present moment, acceptance of the reality you're currently standing in, is the key that opens the birdcage allowing the birds to fly out.  I wonder if one of our errors is thinking that we have to look at each belief in order to dismantle it.  We may have access to a shortcut: acceptance of the present moment as it is.  This allows the door to open and ALL the birds to fly out, even the ones that are hidden by others.

I read the whole quote you included through several times, and finally the word "acceptance" popped out at me.  Spiritual teachers throughout the ages have emphasized the importance of acceptance, but it hasn't been a focus in the threads I've participated in here.  I don't think Seth particularly emphasizes it either, but here's something from him:


"Once you wholeheartedly accept life on life's terms, then you may indeed find what you are after, but not while you insist upon it as a condition for continued existence in this life. You have no right to set such terms, any more than a flower would insist upon sunny ground and a preferred spot within the garden as a prerequisite for its own existence.

leidl, thanks for your interpretation of Elias' words, which is significantly different from how I first saw it. Your Seth quote above, "wholeheartedly accept life on life's terms", is very relevant.

Creating one's own reality does NOT mean trying to force reality. It does not mean gritting my teeth and saying to myself, "I will not die from the virus". It means rather accepting that viruses are a necessary part of life in Earth.

[LarryH]

I can try to "believe" myself into being protected from the virus, for example, by imagining myself healthy and thus creating that reality.  But a more effective approach might be total acceptance that this virus is here, and that I do not know how I will be affected by it.  By "not holding conditions" I allow the birdcage to empty out, and I am left holding the cage.  Once this happens I am intrigued by the reality of the virus--I am no longer afraid.  All the birds (my belief that death is bad, that viruses are terrible, etc.) have flown away.  I become free of the fear of death not by looking at my beliefs about death, but by accepting reality as it appears to me.  In the present moment, I see that I don't know if the virus will be a good thing for me or a bad thing.  I don't know if death will be a good thing for me or a bad thing.  I've moved from looking at the world in a binary, good/evil kind of way, to a place beyond good and evil.

leidl, that is very close to my viewpoint. I am not in denial about the reality of the virus as some people are. I am not afraid of the virus or of death. I do not see the virus as "evil". I see the virus as a mass event brought about by the need for us to make necessary social and personal changes. While it is at least "inconvenient" in the short term for most, it will result - and has already resulted - in many shifts for the better.

[wanderer]

Yes, acceptance is what I latch onto also.  For me, it's the accurate identification of beliefs as beliefs, as opposed to misidentifying them as absolutes.

Beliefs are flavours we add to life...or lenses through which we experience life.  We can remodel them, or we can cease taking them so seriously.

It's interesting that Elias states that we shall not and cannot eliminate beliefs from this reality, because they are a fundamental part of it.  They shall remain, but they can be as empty bird cages if we so choose.

One offering from Bashar: often, if we delve inside ourselves and identify a belief we have been hitherto unconsciously holding on to, we may discover that it's quite irrelevant to us now.  And so it loses its power...the bird cage empties.

If we hold tightly to a belief, it shall reciprocate!

[Sena]

It's interesting that Elias states that we shall not and cannot eliminate beliefs from this reality, because they are a fundamental part of it.  They shall remain, but they can be as empty bird cages if we so choose.

One offering from Bashar: often, if we delve inside ourselves and identify a belief we have been hitherto unconsciously holding on to, we may discover that it's quite irrelevant to us now.  And so it loses its power...the bird cage empties.

wanderer, thanks for your clarifications.

[jbseth]

Hi All,

Here's some thoughts that I thought I'd share on this topic.



Beliefs:

I think that Elias, "bird cage" idea here is a great teaching and reminder to us that just because some channel (Seth, Elias, Bashar, etc.) proposes some idea, this doesn't necessarily mean that the idea is a good one.

We, individually, are responsible to ourselves, for the beliefs and ideas that we "accept" from others. If some channel tells us that we would be OK if we were to jump into a lake, swim down 20 feet, open our mouths and take in deep breath, then that would be one thing. However, if we were then to do this, because we believed in what this channel has told us, then "we" not the "channel" would be responsible for our own drowning. Nobody forces us to believe anything that anyone else tells us. We always ultimately make that decision for ourselves.


We all have many beliefs. Some of these beliefs are really good and they work for us, while others, maybe not so much. But beliefs are useful in that they help us navigate through life and make decisions good or bad about what we do and don't want in life.


Seth tells us that we can help ourselves by taking a look at our beliefs. He wrote almost an entire book, NOPR, about this topic. In taking a look at our beliefs, we can accept the ones that work for us. We can also however identify and either drop or change the ones that don't. This I think is good advice.

To open up your bird cage however, and let the birds fly free accomplishes what? You end up with a belief system that contains no beliefs. OK, so is that really a good thing?

If you eliminated all of your beliefs, in a similar fashion, where exactly would that get you? Have you actually thought about that? Is this good advice?






TES9, S404:

The quotes taken from this session, certainly seem to be indicating that we should accept life on life's terms.  However, I think that these quotes can be extremely misleading given the context of what's going on in this session.


In this session, Seth was talking to Rob, as if he, Rob, were Pat Norelli, who was a friend of Jane's. 

Pat Norelli, who was single at the time was seemingly obsessed with the idea of getting married. However, she seemed to want to accomplish this task by both: 1) focusing her attention on finding a perfect mate and at the same time 2) railing against life, because she was finding it difficult to do so.

Seth tells us that we can create our reality if we focus on what we want. He also tells us that if we focus upon the negative, we will draw the negative to us. This occurs because it is the focused attention that draws a thing to us.

In this session, S404, it is my understanding that Seth was trying to tell Pat that she couldn't have it both ways. You can't meet someone, fall in love and get married if you're going to both: 1) focus your attention on it, while at the same time, 2) railing on about why it's so hard to do.

Life (reality creation) doesn't work like that.

It is from this context, that Seth was telling Pat that she should accept life on life's terms and not insist that life must conform to terms (she should be allowed to focus on it and rail against it at the same time).

Now, from this context, perhaps what Seth was saying here about accepting life on life's terms, may come across from a very different context than what you may have initially though he was saying.






Acceptance:

It seems to me that the concept of "acceptance" has at least two sides to it.

In some situations, the "acceptance" of a situation is reasonable. For example, I don't believe that there is anything wrong in "accepting" that in 2020, we appear to have created a COVID mass event scenario for some reason. We may not personally know how or why we created it, but it is definitely a fact of 2020. To me, this type of "acceptance" of a situation is perfectly reasonable.

On the other hand, there are some situations, where the "acceptance" of a situation is not OK.  For example, consider the situation where a woman is married to a man who has anger management issues. Furthermore, on occasion he gets angry at her, and in some situations, gets verbally and physically abusive to her.  This woman's "acceptance" of this situation, that this is her lot in life to bear, that she can do nothing to change it, is an example, where the "acceptance" of this situation, is not a good thing. This woman can opt to change her life situation, if she wants to. 


- jbseth

[jbseth]

Hi All,

Out of curiosity, I decided to go back and read Session 440 in its entirety.  Wow, there appears to be a lot more going on in this session than I realized.


It appears that Pat Norelli was perhaps quite upset about her seeming inability to find a guy, fall in love, get married and experience a happy married life. She desperately wanted to achieve and experience this. 

However, it also sounds like she may have been of a mind-set of thinking that if she couldn't have this, then she planned to end her life. These then, are the very serious "conditions" that Seth was talking about here in this session.

In this session, Seth tells Pat that she will not be able to achieve what she wants, as long as she sets up these "conditions" as a part of it (either she gets what she wants or she'll end her life).  Basically, what Seth seems to be saying here is that we can't get what we want, by threatening to end our own lives, as a part of the condition of it not getting it. Seth says that life doesn't work like that.


In this session, Seth also seems to be trying to talk Pat out of the idea of ending her life.  This is one of the most powerful messages from Seth that I have ever come across.

Thanks leidl, for pointing this session out to us. 

- jbseth

[wanderer]

To open up your bird cage however, and let the birds fly free accomplishes what? You end up with a belief system that contains no beliefs. OK, so is that really a good thing?

If you eliminated all of your beliefs, in a similar fashion, where exactly would that get you? Have you actually thought about that? Is this good advice?

The birds are aspects of a belief, not beliefs in themselves.

I view the empty cage as an idea; an option for a particular attitude or approach to life.  It's something I can engage in, or not, as I choose.  Emptying out the cage gets me to that point where I can make that choice, consciously.

To reiterate: we are not going to eliminate beliefs.  The idea is just to stop engaging them automatically and as absolutes.

I would offer another reason why attempting to eliminate beliefs will not work: if we try to tackle beliefs head-on, they will fight back.  They are designed to do that.  You just end up pumping energy into something you're trying to escape from.

The trick is to 'sneak round the back' and find the dimmer control that's connected to the belief.  (You did know about the dimmer, didn't you?) :-)  You turn down the power, by as much as you feel comfortable with, whenever you want.  Eventually, the power is at zero.  Job done.

[leidl]

I think that Elias, "bird cage" idea here is a great teaching and reminder to us that just because some channel (Seth, Elias, Bashar, etc.) proposes some idea, this doesn't necessarily mean that the idea is a good one.

jbseth, nice job pointing out that we shouldn't believe these teachers' ideas unquestioningly.  If we do, we're just stuffing the cage again, aren't we! 

I agree that beliefs aren't something we should try to eradicate from our lives completely.  But it's pretty clear to me that some of my beliefs are not serving me. 

Sena listed some above that aren't worth holding.  Let's consider an example of a belief that at first glance seems more benign.  You've mentioned that you live in Oregon, and Oregon is a place I know and love.  Once I knew you were from Oregon, I got a certain image in my head of what you are like--what your politics are likely to be, what kind of car you are likely to drive, what kind of food you are likely to eat.  The problem with believing that  an Oregonian is a certain kind of creature, is that when I look at you I'm seeing my own concepts rather than you!  When I talk with you, I am talking with the concept of you I hold in my mind, rather than the person you actually are. 

The way I see it, slowing down the mind so that we aren't looking at the world through a filter of beliefs is a way of coming out of Plato's cave.  We realize that those beliefs were really just shadows on the wall.

I'm not clear on why it seems to you that my quotes from Pat's story were misleading without the full context.  To me, her belief about needing a partner is just another shadow on the wall.  If she quieted her mind and studied her life with some detachment, rather than believing all of her thoughts about it, she might see evidence that her pain is coming from believing the stories she is telling herself about her reality, rather than reality itself.  Her beliefs are making it difficult for her to experience the simple joys.  Her beliefs are the source of her painful experience. Whether Pat believes that she needs a husband to make her life complete or that a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby would do the job, either way, beliefs are limiting her ability to be in the moment, experiencing the joy of being. 

I agree with you--beliefs are inevitable, and some of them are quite benign.  But none of them are worth getting attached to, including the concepts presented by Seth and others.  I want to wear them all lightly, and I appreciate your reminder to do that.  wanderer, I like that dimmer control metaphor!

[jbseth]

I'm not clear on why it seems to you that my quotes from Pat's story were misleading without the full context. 

Hi leidl, Hi wanderer, Hi All,


Seth quote from TES9, S440:
"Once you wholeheartedly accept life on life's terms, then you may indeed find what you are after, but not while you insist upon it as a condition for continued existence in this life. You have no right to set such terms, any more than a flower would insist upon sunny ground and a preferred spot within the garden as a prerequisite for its own existence.



Hi leidl,

In regards to your comment above, I wasn't referring to you or me, but I could see how other people, someone new to Seth and new to the forum could interpret this statement from Seth as saying that we should just accept life as it is.

In my made up story about acceptance and the woman with the abusive husband, I could see how a person like her could interpret this Seth statement as meaning that she should just accept her lot in life and that she has no right to attempt to change it.

That is what I meant by this statement.



Hi wanderer,

In regards to beliefs, it's been my experience that we can accept them as they are. However, we can also change them and we can drop or eliminate them as well.  Actually I think that most people, throughout the course of their lives, do these things, all of the time.

For example, someone comes up to me and tells me that "Columbus", wasn't the first person to discover the new world. They tell me that Leif Erikson, a Viking, discovered it several hundred years earlier. Now, if I believe this person, then I change my belief. I no longer believe that Columbus was the first to discover the new world. I completely eliminate that belief and replace it with a new one. I now believe that Leif Erikson was the first to discover the new world

(This understanding of history, coming from a stance of being in complete obliviousness to the fact that humans were already living in the new world, when it was supposedly "discovered" by Leif Erikson    ).


I don't however think that it would necessarily be a good idea, if we were to drop or eliminate all of our beliefs, all at once. I'm not sure that this is even possible. Is this what you were referring to when you said that we couldn't eliminate our beliefs?


- jbseth