Are we less?

[usmaak]

Please don't think less of me because of my posts.  Though it might not seem it based on my posts, I am not a particularly negative person.  I like to debate points like the one below because I learn through other's opinions and ideas.

One aspect of the Seth Material that's always rubbed me the wrong way is summed up by this quote from The Seth Material.

"Individual life, or rather the life of any present individual, could be legitimately compared to the dream of an entity. While the individual enjoys his given number of years, these are but a flash to the entity. The entity is concerned with these years in somewhat the same manner with which you are concerned with your dreams. As you give inner purpose and organization to your dreams, and obtain insight and satisfaction from them though they involve only a part of your life, so the entity to some extent directs and gives purpose and organization to his personalities.

Roberts, Jane. The Seth Material (p. 71). New Awareness Network, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

This, of course, is how I'm choosing to interpret this.  It makes me feel less.  Since coherent thought the world has revolved around me in many ways, just as it does for all of us.  We think about how things impact us.  We work to make our lives happier and better.  We work for ourselves.  I've lived this life and have been consumed with it my entire life.  Quotes like this make me feel like I'm just a blip on the radar.  If I am like a dream to some entity somewhere then I am as important as the jumbled up dream that I had last night that I can barely remember and couldn't care less about.  This idea does not give me peace.

Entities bring up the whole God concept where I am just a haphazard creation.  In what way should this not make me feel like there's no point in really doing anything at all?  Instead of "you're born, you live, you die", it's "you're born, you live, you fade into obscurity as some dream from a god that means as much to it as what it had for dinner three weeks ago."

[T.M.]

Hi All,

Hi Usmaak,

I recall Jane having the same questions and feelings. Seth reassured her that wasn't the case. I just cant recall which book that was in. I think it was one of Jane's. Perhaps God of Jane, or Adventures in Consciousness. I could be wrong about that too.

I tried to find it in the Seth search engine with no luck. I did find this though.

2. Long before this, Seth was concerned that Jane said I might feel insignificant once we attempted to grasp the endless ramifications of consciousness as he was explaining them to us. As he said in the 29th session for February 26, 1964: "Later I will attempt to show you where the boundaries are — though (with a laugh) there really are no boundaries — that form a variety of such planes [realities] into a sphere of relation in which, to some extent, cause-and-effect operates as you understand it. Beyond that for a long time there will be no need for me to go any more deeply. I will speak of the entity, the personalities, the reincarnations, the diverse personality fragment groupings, the planes with which you are similar or can understand, and ultimately try to deal with your questions, implied if not spoken, as to where entities came from to begin with."

—UR1 Section 1: Session 681 February 11, 1974

I admit at times I have those feelings too.

[jbseth]

Hi usmaak, Hi All,

I think a person could choose to view this Seth quote from multiple different perspectives.  It's kind of like the question, is the glass of water half empty or half full.

For the water example, viewed from one perspective we might say, "Wah. The glass of water is half empty. I dying of thirst and there's only half a glass of water for me, wah, wah, wah."  On the other hand, as viewed from a different perspective, we might say, "Yea, the glass is half full.  I dying of thirst and there's half a glass of water for me. Yea, for me. I'm saved. I'm not going to die of thirst."


Likewise, this quote from Seth can also viewed from multiple different perspective.

From another perspective, we could say that because of my entity, I get to experience the wonderful experiences of life.  Furthermore, since my entity doesn't try to control or interfere with my life, I get to choose what I want to do and I get to make it my own.



The choice of how we choose to view things is often up to us. That is, typically we are the only ones involved in that choice. Nobody else typically forces us to view something one way or the other.

Sometimes the real work that's involved in a situation like this, is for us to take a look at ourselves and ask ourselves why we view things the way we do. Sometimes, when we do this, we can begin to grasp the various things (events, issues, beliefs, etc.) that are behind all of this.  Then, once we figure this out, we can begin to make changes to our life (such as changing thoughts, ideas and/or beliefs) if we want to.  By doing this, we can change our life.  All of this is up to the individual involved.

Many years ago, following the Seth book, "The Nature of Personal Reality" I worked on identifying and changing some of my beliefs and it really seemed to work for me.

A person "can" change their beliefs.

-jbseth

[usmaak]

You guys are the best.  I could talk about this stuff for hours.

The choice of how we choose to view things is often up to us. That is, typically we are the only ones involved in that choice. Nobody else typically forces us to view something one way or the other.

Now I may not appear to believe a lot of things but this is one that I can agree with 100%.  I accept complete responsibility for the way in which I view things.  I may view things in a negative manner and ask myself what that is so while still accepting it.  Views can change.  I have a couple of examples that prove this.

Wind chimes.  As silly as it is, I used to hate wind chimes.  I think it was less about the chimes themselves and more about being forced to listen to them because neighbors felt the need to break the neighborhood's rules about wind chimes.  Then one day I decided to just listen and I realized that they sounded beautiful.  Now I love hearing them when I am outside.  There are so many varieties of them and every one sounds magnificent in its own way.  Just by altering my view on it, wind chimes turned from something I hated to something that I actually looked forward to hearing.

Road rage.  I used to be a big road rager.  And I used to spend a lot of time on the road and that made it even worse.  I hated it when people would cut me off.  I found ample reason to be pissed at everyone on the road.  Everyone seemed like an inconsiderate jackass, except me of course.  I was one of those people who would speed up to keep someone from cutting in front of me, making me at least as big of a jackass as anyone else.  Saying it now, it still seems strange to me.  It sometimes got to the point where people wouldn't want to drive with me.  One day as I was buzzing down the road, all pissed off, someone cut in front of me.  Instead of getting angry though, I sat there and thought it through.  I realized that none of these people doing these things that I perceived as a slight on me were actually directing their actions at me.  Without exception, they were all about the driver and not about me at all.  My ego (for want of a better term) was making it all about me.  It's like I flipped a switch and instantly changed my perception of driving and people on the road.  Over the weeks following, I noticed myself no longer getting angry at other drivers even a little bit.  I became more peaceful.  I was less annoyed at traffic slowdowns.  People even commented on it and said it was like driving with a different person.  When asked, I'd just say that nobody really ever does anything to me.  They do things that I perceive are about me.  Not everyone got it, but that's ok.  In an instant, quite literally, my view changed and it change me.

So yes, I do know that a change in my view on something can dramatically change my life.

I'd love to change my view on this.  What I'd like would be to feel happy in life.  Content and not concerned about the future.  I'd love for things that bother me to not bother me.  I'm not there yet.  Not even close.  The examples above were "light bulb moments" where sudden awareness of a different way of viewing a situation changed my life in an instant.  It's human to get annoyed at things, I suppose.  I have along list of things that I consider nuisances.  I'd love to shift my perspective on them.  So I would like to feel happy and content about the future.  As I've gotten older, I've found myself weighing out how much time I have left in this world (though nobody really knows the answer to that) and it wears on me.  I understand the draw to religion.  Knowing that death is not the end and that good people are rewarded with a spot in heaven must be such a relief.  People feel comfortable with the idea of a creator who watches over them and guides them.

To me, that idea makes me feel small and, well, less.  I mean if you are the product of a creator, there is nothing that says that you can't just as easily be eliminated.  The end product of that would be exactly the same as "you're born, you live, you die."

[jbseth]

I mean if you are the product of a creator, there is nothing that says that you can't just as easily be eliminated.  The end product of that would be exactly the same as "you're born, you live, you die."

Hi usmaak, Hi All,

Yes, you can believe that if you want. I would call that the glass half empty scenario.

On the other hand, the following just might be the glass half full scenario.

If you are the product of a creator, there is nothing that says that this creator wouldn't love you because this Supreme Being really did love all of its creations. Furthermore, the end product of this would be that "you were born, you lived your life and then when you died, you discover that you still existed. Furthermore, when you died you also discovered that many of the world's religious beliefs some of which you feared during your life, weren't in fact, true, at all. Instead they were all largely either just misunderstandings of the nature of reality and, in some cases, just psychological manipulations that were used to keep their believers from leaving their church. Finally, along with all of this, you'd also find that there is no Hell and nobody who dies is ever harmed or destroyed in any way.

This, is my personal understanding, of what Seth says about what happens after we die.


-jbseth

[usmaak]

Well I hope that there's a good promotion structure in place.  Because I want to get a promotion to "Entity." 

[Sena]

"Individual life, or rather the life of any present individual, could be legitimately compared to the dream of an entity. While the individual enjoys his given number of years, these are but a flash to the entity. The entity is concerned with these years in somewhat the same manner with which you are concerned with your dreams. As you give inner purpose and organization to your dreams, and obtain insight and satisfaction from them though they involve only a part of your life, so the entity to some extent directs and gives purpose and organization to his personalities.

Roberts, Jane. The Seth Material (p. 71). New Awareness Network, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

This, of course, is how I'm choosing to interpret this.  It makes me feel less.  Since coherent thought the world has revolved around me in many ways, just as it does for all of us.  We think about how things impact us.  We work to make our lives happier and better.  We work for ourselves.  I've lived this life and have been consumed with it my entire life.  Quotes like this make me feel like I'm just a blip on the radar.  If I am like a dream to some entity somewhere then I am as important as the jumbled up dream that I had last night that I can barely remember and couldn't care less about.  This idea does not give me peace.

usmaak, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.

Western philosophy in the past two centuries has developed into the Cult of the Individual:

"John Beverley Robinson wrote an essay called "Egoism" in which he states that "Modern egoism, as propounded by Stirner and Nietzsche, and expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all these; but it is more. It is the realization by the individual that they are an individual; that, as far as they are concerned, they are the only individual.""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism

I am attaching a document which asks the question, "Is modern Western culture a health hazard?"

Some quotes from that document:

"Twenge and her colleagues found increases in trait anxiety
(or neuroticism), self-esteem, extraversion, and, in women,
assertiveness, while sense of control over life had declined (that
is, locus of control had become more external). To give two
examples of the extent of these shifts, the average American
child in the 1980s reported more anxiety than child psychiatric
patients in the 1950s, and the average college student in
2002 felt less control over their lives than 80–90% of college
students in 1962."

"In high-income
countries, depression and other neuropsychiatric conditions
account for more of the disease burden than heart disease or
cancer. Suicide, which has been called the mortality of
depression, ranks in the 10 leading causes of death in these
countries."

"There is evidence that resistance is growing, that increasing
numbers of people in Western nations are rejecting this
dominant ethic of individual and material self-interest, and
are making a comprehensive shift in their worldview, values and
way of life as they seek to closed the gap between what
they believe and how they live."

Seth offers us a way out of the Cult of Individualism.

[usmaak]

I'll try to get that read today.  It looks like an interesting paper that it going to take some time to read and understand.

I do like being an individual above all else.  Yet it wasn't always the case.

When I was younger, I was part of several large groups.  Anywhere I was, I fell in with a group of people.  I had lots of friends at college.  Any job I had came with groups of people.  As I've gotten older, I've strayed from that to the point where I have no actual friends other than my wife.  When I was younger, I moved from my area to an area where the only person I knew was my wife (before we got married).  I built a life there, got my degree, got a job and made work friends and all that, but any close friendships faded.  Seven years ago my wife and I moved to an area where we knew nobody and in the seven years since, that hasn't changed.  The result of this is that we literally only have each other and that's it.

And I am 100 percent fine with that.  I live in a larger town now (they call it a "city", though it's not) and I don't like all of the people around.  I made a mistake regarding where I moved and wish that I'd done it differently.  We moved to a different state after only a few visits and it turns out that it was not what I wanted.  Now I want to move to a more remote location and be away from the people and lights and sounds and noise because it's almost always overwhelming to me.  I really want to get rid of most of what I own and live a simpler life somewhere more remote, where there aren't people everywhere I look.  Somewhere that it gets quiet and dark at night.  Somewhere where I can sit outside and see the stars at night.

Maybe someday I'll get there.

In a way, it feels like a rejection of western culture.  I don't want any part of it or, really, any part of society at all.  I constantly find myself pushing against the messages put out by culture, and advertising and other forms of media.

If you'd have asked me if this was what I would become when I was younger, I'd have said that it wasn't possible.  Yet here I am. 

[T.M.]

Hi All,

Hi Usmaak,

There's lots of people and couples that get class A or C Rvs and just travel around.  They aren't stuck in any one area. Lots of them like going out in mostly uninhabited areas for weeks at a time, or however long their food supply holds out. They call it Boondocking.  They go to some beautiful places!
Class A is usually a pretty big rig. Class C is smaller and much more mobile. Throw a few solar panels on a rig and it can help one be more self sufficient too.
There's a ton of vids on YouTube about it. Most of the vids I watch the people say essentially the same thing you said in your post 

[usmaak]

Hi All,

Hi Usmaak,

There's lots of people and couples that get class A or C Rvs and just travel around.  They aren't stuck in any one area. Lots of them like going out in mostly uninhabited areas for weeks at a time, or however long their food supply holds out. They call it Boondocking.  They go to some beautiful places!
Class A is usually a pretty big rig. Class C is smaller and much more mobile. Throw a few solar panels on a rig and it can help one be more self sufficient too.
There's a ton of vids on YouTube about it. Most of the vids I watch the people say essentially the same thing you said in your post 

I could see that being my future.  For now, though, I still need to work.  I am a programmer and I work 100% remotely, even long before the pandemic.  I need my home office and my ultra fast internet connection for now.

One time my wife and I were driving up into the mountains and we found this cute little diner to have lunch at.  We were talking to the waitress.  She and her husband own an RV.  They go from place to place in it.  They find jobs that helps to pay for food and a place to park the RV.  I guess that there's an entire network like this.  They have all kinds of jobs available in these remote communities and you can arrange to take one for a while.  It's kind of a nomad/barter lifestyle.  It was one of the coolest things I've ever heard.  The waitress and her husband, who had a different job, were going to be there for a couple of months more and then they were moving on to somewhere else for a while.  It's not a way to make millions or to have a permanent life somewhere.  But the simplicity of it is so appealing.

[Sena]

Now I want to move to a more remote location and be away from the people and lights and sounds and noise because it's almost always overwhelming to me.

usmaak, that is a fine choice, and it may well be that your entity is impelling you in that direction. At present I live in London, England, which is very crowded. People are reserved, but I feel  they are friendly, and I feel comfortable.

[usmaak]

Now I want to move to a more remote location and be away from the people and lights and sounds and noise because it's almost always overwhelming to me.

usmaak, that is a fine choice, and it may well be that your entity is impelling you in that direction. At present I live in London, England, which is very crowded. People are reserved, but I feel  they are friendly, and I feel comfortable.

The biggest problem is that my wife and I are on different sides of this.  If I was unattached, I'd have already done it.  I wouldn't have even lasted a year in this place.  She's happy with where she's at, which is something I admire about her.  She's always able to be at peace wherever she is.  But "compelled" is a fine word to describe how I feel.  It's like a force that is pushing me.

That latest mass shooting that happened a few days ago here was just too close to me.  I live 12 miles away from where it happened.  I know that according to Seth, we are not unsafe unless we believe that we are and that according to him, nothing happens without our agreement.  But mass shootings, pandemics, overcrowding, violent crime...  It all makes me want to live away from the mass.

[T.M.]

Hi All,

Hi Usmaak,

If that happened 12 miles from me I would be unhinged!  I thankfully haven't lived in a highly populated area for a long time. Going forward into the foreseeable future I think those areas are likely to be very dangerous, for a number of different reasons.

[Deb]

I'm a bit behind the times with this topic. I'd started this reply yesterday and just couldn't get out what I wanted to say, so I set it aside. I took another stab at it below.

I know what you mean about wanting to get away. I've been wanting to go off grid to a degree for a while, but I also really appreciate the conveniences in my life right now. I'm not as close to Boulder, about a 45 minute drive, but my son went to CU Boulder and I have spent a lot of time there. I'm about half way between the Columbine and Aurora area shootings, and was almost in an Albertsons back in '95 with my newborn where there was another shooting. I was running late and decided to skip that errand the last minute. It just seems endless.

So, anyway, hopefully this makes sense:

I like to debate points like the one below because I learn through other's opinions and ideas.

We all interpret the Seth materials differently, and one of the things I love about this forum is that I learn from other people's perspectives. "Why didn't I think of that?" stuff happens all the time.

In what way should this not make me feel like there's no point in really doing anything at all?

https://youtu.be/5U1-OmAICpU

Sorry, I had to share that because I tend to be irreverent. Or so I've been told.

I understand your feelings about that quote, I don't find the concept discouraging, because the idea that I can do my best to make this life count, in the present... and still retain what I accomplished into the next realm or entity, is actually reassuring. Kind of like the way I look back at the child me, or the teen me, or any "roles" I've played in life up to this point. While those versions of me are gone in a sense (Seth would say otherwise), they are not forgotten and exist in me. Throw in simultaneous time, and they are still alive and well.

I'm still working out the concept of being a fragment of the entity and when we've ended our reincarnation cycle, returning to the entity while still somehow retaining our individual consciousness. Seth was done with his cycle, and yet he came across to us as an individual with independent thought. Although he was privy to a lot more information and vision than we are. Seth even talked about being able to expertly manifest in his current existence, such as the office and desk. He must have been communicating from the perspective of his entity.

I should start a topic asking others what their interpretation is of "life" in Framework 2, and their analogies of how we exist in our entities, and yet still somehow apart. Should be interesting.

"Environments are primarily mental creations of consciousness thrust out into many forms. I have a fourteenth-century study, my favorite, with which I am very pleased, for example. In your physical terms it does not exist, and I know quite well it is my mental production. Yet I enjoy it, and often take a physical form in order to sit at the desk and look out the window at the countryside."
—SS Chapter 3: Session 520, March 25, 1970

[LarryH]

It makes me feel less.

I found this Seth quote in The Unknown Reality, Vol 1 (note for Session 681):

"This material should not make you feel unimportant or insignificant. The framework is so woven that each particle [of consciousness] is dependent upon every other. The strength of one adds to the strength of all. The weakness of one weakens the whole. The energy of one recreates the whole. The striving of one increases the potentiality of everything that is, and this places great responsibility upon every consciousness.

"I would even advise a double reading of the above sentence, for it is a keystone, and a vital one. Rising to challenges is a basis for existence in every aspect of existence. It is the developer of all abilities, and at the risk of being trite, it is the responsibility of even the most minute particle of consciousness to use its own abilities, and all of its abilities, to the utmost. Upon the degree to which this is done rests the power and coherence of everything that is."

[Bora137]

Hi all hi usmaak

For me I kind of like the insignificance. We are children of the universe and always will be. The heavy lifting being done by the logos and entities etc Sometimes I worry that allthatis must be lonely or bored because it is the only one like it. But it can experience what we experience. We are its escape, we are a fragment of it. Placed behind the veil we are the ones that really live in a sense. Seemingly with no safety net or second chances just a flame soon snuffed out. That is true unbridled experience. We believe we live then are gone so we live at full throttle and empty the last drop from that glass. To me nothing can be better than that.

[Sena]

For me I kind of like the insignificance

Bora, thanks for your post. I am not sure that Seth is implying that we are insignificant. He is describing a different kind of sinificance where the minutest particle is conscious.

"The cells of your physical body incidentally also have their awareness, which may seem minute and insignificant to you, but they make independent decisions upon which you depend in very important degrees. Your term, instinct, is a very unfortunate one, and coined to begin with because you insist that no organism except man has any consciousness.

[... 36 paragraphs ...]

This material should not make you feel unimportant or insignificant. The framework is so woven that each particle is dependent upon every other. The strength of one adds strength to all. The weakness of one weakens the whole. The energy of one recreates the whole. The striving of one increases the potentiality of everything that is, and this places great responsibility upon every consciousness."

—TES1 Session 29 February 26, 1964

[usmaak]

Bora, thanks for your post. I am not sure that Seth is implying that we are insignificant. He is describing a different kind of sinificance where the minutest particle is conscious.

When I read this, I thought of "insignificance" more as a feeling, than an actual insignificance.  There are many times where this stuff makes me feel insignificant.  I don't like the feeling at all but I can see how some might find it comforting.  In this way of looking at life, everything is taken care of and we just need to live our lives and not worry about it all.  There is a certain peacefulness to this idea, I think.

[Sena]

In this way of looking at life, everything is taken care of and we just need to live our lives and not worry about it all. 

That is an interesting observation. Being a part of an Entity means one is not isolated. Click on the link below for Jean-Paul Sartre's view of existence. The Sethian view is different.

https://quotefancy.com/quote/1030011/Jean-Paul-Sartre-Nothingness-lies-coiled-in-the-heart-of-being-like-a-worm

[raz]

I always saw the glass half full / half empty thing as , if the glass started out full and you drank half or poured half out , then it is half empty.If it started out empty and you filled it halfway , then it was half full.

[Deb]

It depends on what I'm drinking too. If it's wine, it's half empty. If it's a warm diet coke, it's half full. 

[Mark M]

In the very early sessions, Seth is pretty "mean" about Frank Watts/Withers:

"'Now the hand changes again,' Seth said. 'It becomes a stubby fat one. Frank Withers had a hand like that, just like that. Frank Withers was a fathead,' he said, with great satisfaction, even though Frank was, according to Seth, a personality fragment of his own entity."

—TSM Chapter Three

But:

"I was Frank Watts to learn humility."

—TES1 Session 4 December 8, 1963

And:

"I'm afraid I haven't learned humility yet."

—TES1 Session 14 January 8, 1964

[inavalan]

In the very early sessions, Seth is pretty "mean" about Frank Watts/Withers:

"'Now the hand changes again,' Seth said. 'It becomes a stubby fat one. Frank Withers had a hand like that, just like that. Frank Withers was a fathead,' he said, with great satisfaction, even though Frank was, according to Seth, a personality fragment of his own entity."

—TSM Chapter Three

But:

"I was Frank Watts to learn humility."

—TES1 Session 4 December 8, 1963

And:

"I'm afraid I haven't learned humility yet."

—TES1 Session 14 January 8, 1964

If we look at Frank Watts in light of this quote ...:

...
"Individual life, or rather the life of any present individual, could be legitimately compared to the dream of an entity. While the individual enjoys his given number of years, these are but a flash to the entity. The entity is concerned with these years in somewhat the same manner with which you are concerned with your dreams. As you give inner purpose and organization to your dreams, and obtain insight and satisfaction from them though they involve only a part of your life, so the entity to some extent directs and gives purpose and organization to his personalities.

Roberts, Jane. The Seth Material (p. 71). New Awareness Network, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
...

We can look at Frank Watts as at a dream character, a dream that Seth had and wasn't pleased with it. If we consider that Seth was supposed to learn something from that incarnation / dream, which by his own confession he didn't, it is understandable that he didn't look favorably at that experience. I don't enjoy my mistakes either ...

[strangerthings]

WOW
WOW


Man I'm so glad you brought this up but where did you go why did you leave where are you get back in here

Wonderful topic I look forward to getting back to it in a day or so and I am even so tempted to read all the posts right now but I'm fixing to go to bed.

I just want to say that when I started the Seth material and came across this it really bummed me out too and I felt the same as you ...

I would not ever think less of you because you're asking these questions.

I bet a lot of us thought this as well... it's good to know we are discussing this.