Reading versus Meditating on the text

[Vladimir]

This is a big topic for me but I just want to give you a glimpse and get people to think this over for themselves or better yet to try doing it...
What is reading of books for? - Solely for the purpose of acquiring knowledge in terms of understanding the given subject. This is the only modern understanding of the word.  It is NOT the Knowledge as the term used in the ancient scriptures as in Plato, Hebrew scriptures or Upanishads where category of Knowledge always meant the knowing of the heart - or experiential knowing - or feeling of knowing through whole body, or a "gut feeling",  etc.
But this "reasoning" or rational knowledge, Seth speaks about, is not something which actually evolves us. Instead only the intuitive feeling, the "Magic" approach which actually does ... indeed, the real magic.

But if we are talking about books which belong to the category of the spiritual revelation (and the Seth books are certainly among those, because, in a way, all Divinely inspired books ARE the result of different degree of channelling), which purpose is to help us evolve into the higher consciousness, all such books could be meditated upon instead of reading from the start. Seth books were not the first I started this meditation experiment but by the time I discovered Seth I was well experienced with this practice and Seth transmission was overwhelming from the first reading ("Seth Speaks")... meditation on this text immediately felt that I am receiving directly from Beyond as I call it...
(Note: in small prints ...  ... the way of the Robert Butts comments not always consistent with " meditative" reading. To maintain the meditative "flow" and stick with Seth, I had sometimes skip all his comments, but this is not a big problem...)

To understand the difference we have to understand the phenomenon of meditation. It is by definition means to concentrate, to focus the mind upon the object (in this case a text of the book) with a complete exclusion of anything else. True meditation involves a complete surrender of "I AM" to the topic discussed.
If you meditate on the topic discussed then, in your mind, there is no you - the reader, but there is only the subject discussed and nothing else.
To a degree you are capable to "loose yourself" in the topic, to that degree you reveal the COMPLETE information which comes from the text, through the text and also from beyond the words.
The amount and depth of information can be explained by being in direct contact with another dimension. It is a life changing experience, once again, to a degree of "loosing your self", loosing the "reader" personality.
Like any other development it needs practice, and with it, gradually, instead of just acquiring knowledge, you ... experience it.

How does it feel? As being in the powerful flow...
From the first sentences I intuitively know what he wants to say and my only goal is to use his transmission to allow this flow to get DIRECTLY INTO my subconscious mind! Allow to become THAT (the knowledge flowing into you) and perceive it directly with every cell of the body... (using the Seth' symbolism - using the "Magical approach" ). To allow not only your brains to "read" this text but also every cell of your body to get this wisdom directly.
Sometimes I directly "see" the incoming information as current happenings in my own life running through the mind just as a display to show what Seth is talking about...
Sometimes I see Jane Robert talking as Seth, sometimes, unexpectedly I visually see events from ... Bible or Bhagavat Gita, flowing through mind to provide yet another example of the same revelation which Seth is talking about (even though Seth does not mention those books at all - the parallel vision is happening in my mind only) .
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I am not sure that all these I succeeded to explain in logical way, but I hope that those of the readers who had any past experience of their own "Magic" working for them, will understand and try this meditative approach instead of simple reading the Seth books.
Sincerely
Vladimir

[John Sorensen]

Hi Valdimir, I agree with pretty everything you have said, which is written quite beautifully.


The only thing I would add is that in my experience it is essential to develop both intellect and intuition in equal measure. One without the other can create an unbalanced personality.
For example a hyper-rational materialist at one extreme, or a fundamentalist religionist or spiritualist at the other.


There are many types of intelligence, and I see no reason to limit development in any of them.


Reading Seth books, well any one of the books for the first time often there are time where it will take me up to an hour to get through even a few pages, as the information sends me off in different directions and new experiences, such as you have described, where you focus has changed to another realm etc.

[BethAnne]

I've heard of people being able to "get" a book by just holding it.    Pulling information out of the air is sort of like Seth's book on Cezanne and for quite awhile after I read that book I was getting art inspiration.

Hmmm.  I can see why your mom may not understand you.   

[Sena]

Seth repeatedly stresses the importance of conscious thought in creating one's own reality. Meditation as I understand it is the suspension of conscious thought. A great emphasis on meditation would take one in the direction of Buddhism and away from Seth's teachings. For some people at a certain stage of their development, Buddhism may be the correct option.

[John Sorensen]

I disagree. Well for some people it may make sense.
But for me, I happily pilfer anything that works from any sort of system and apply it to my daily life, without necessarily having to take on the cultural traditions, dogmas, superstitions etc that go along with it.
I've used different meditations from different systems including Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Tibetan and Western secular.


I started meditating around the same time I started reading the Seth books, which was around the year 2000. They have been two parallel lines of development that work wonderfully together and enhance each other.
If not for my meditation habit, I would not have gone so far with the experimental parts of the Seth material - that is the exercises.


To me it's no different that say you do strength training, yoga, martial arts - once you have a foundation of some type of movement system or theory, it is much easier to learn similar systems etc. For example I did ju-Jitsu for several years and when I went years later to some Tai Chi Chuan classes, it was much easier to learn a new system because of the basis in other similar things.


Likewise, having a base in meditation (of all types, but I use 1-2 main methods), its made it much easier to experiment with the various Seth exercises in his books.


It's like if you have smartphone, and you download "apps". Once you have the phone, you can download all sorts of useful apps, you don't have to learn how to build a phone, phone towers or a network, you have the base system of "smart phone" and you just add apps as you go.


It's the same for me in life, I can find any useful idea, technique etc from any philosophy or world religion and take what is useful and use it, "download the app", without having to take on all the baggage that traditionally goes along with any system.


Some people find this sort of thing abhorrent, but from my point of view, mankind does not NEED belief systems, belief systems need people to keep them going. They are like training wheels. One day they will come off.


And while I don't say it out loud, I try to avoid being obnoxious but I am not always successful at it, when people say things like "you can't do THAT!" or any variation of that idea, all I can think is
"I can and I do, I do and I dare".

[BethAnne]

For some people at a certain stage of their development, Buddhism may be the correct option.

Why?

[Sena]

For some people at a certain stage of their development, Buddhism may be the correct option.

Why?

If one's mind is over-active, it would seem logical to try and calm it with meditation. Buddhism provides tried and tested methods of meditation. I know many people who are happy to be Buddhist. They would not like to be told of Seth's ideas.

[Vladimir]

Before I get kicked by many  I want to thank John Sorensen for his help to shrink my task significantly .
To Beth:
Why Buddhism? - Because it is the same as Seth teaching and ALL OTHER SYSTEMS.... because they are all different aspects of what Seth is teaching, different methods to develop those particular aspects and different cultural expression of the discovery process and development practice.
They all represent different street signs pointing to the SAME destination from different directions and in different languages. (This quote came not from me but through me  )

To Senafernando:
You are a great display of Seth' teaching that human mind filters out everything which does not fit into the belief system already installed. You correctly recognized importance of the "conscious thought" from his teaching because you "are there" at this point but you completely missed importance of another piece of puzzle - the "magic approach"... No wonder you see Buddhism as something for those "down the line". Buddhist practices help develop exactly that which your belief does not even see as real - the "Magical approach" - in straight forward direct way, introspectively . Same way as Yoga does  (Raja Yoga, Patanjali ) . I think  this is exactly what you need the most now... I'd recommend you to focus on the "Magical Approach" book by Seth and then "The Nature of Personal Reality".

For all those who see "differences" instead of the "sameness" among different approaches to self-development, who don't see their ONE goal as aimed at in their original form (before they got distorted), I dare to say - you are yet to discover Seth in his fullness, from logical approach to Magical approach........

What systems do I mean? Here is a short list  of the teachings and practices in their ORIGINAL FORM (original meanings, none of which survived in the mainstream ideologies today) stripped of all the "after market" theologies and institutionalized distorted meaning of the word "religion":
Taoism, Yoga (Advaita Vedanta), Buddhism, Hebrew scriptures (Tanach but not Talmud) and New Testament (not commentaries, yet include apocrypha testaments in this list plus writings of Christian mistics), Sufi (but not traditional Islamic commentaries), Sri Guru Grant Sahib (Sikh, Guru Nanak) and all the flavours of New Age, from Josef Benner and William Atkinson to Walter Russell and Seth/Jane Roberts and hundreds of others in between, and today living teachers Eckhard Tolle, Mooji, Penney Peirce and many others ... I have many more in my library that I can mention in this short post..........
Indeed thousands of them - my list is only  tip of the iceberg...
..............but I know the iceberg now..........
Sincerely want ya'll to experience THAT
Vladimir

[Sena]

Vladimir, you wrote:

To Senafernando:
You are a great display of Seth' teaching that human mind filters out everything which does not fit into the belief system already installed. You correctly recognized importance of the "conscious thought" from his teaching because you "are there" at this point but you completely missed importance of another piece of puzzle - the "magic approach"... No wonder you see Buddhism as something for those "down the line". Buddhist practices help develop exactly that which your belief does not even see as real - the "Magical approach" - in straight forward direct way, introspectively .

You may well be correct. I have not read "The Magical Approach".

[John Sorensen]

An interesting side note on historical religions: the majority of world religions were founded on the teachings a saint, avatar, holy person or what have you.
The so called founder had genuine mystical experiences, cosmic consciousness, self as all that is etc etc, then often later on followers of that saint/mystic/avatar write down the oral teachings into written form.
Fast forward to modern day religion, and many systems have lost any conscious contact with genuine bodily enlightenment in the here and now, and some religious systems actively discourage any sort of activity that will lead to personal enlightenment or non-dual awakening experiences.

The solution is not to criticise or throw away religion but expand the cultural practice's and tradition to include the lost practice's that lead to direct personal awakening to a higher reality that their founders and saints experienced, in this way an incomplete system can reincorporate what the founders were trying to pass on through parables and metaphors.