Tuesday, March 5, 2013
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Seth
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From 1963 to 1984, a psychic named Jane Roberts "channelled" a soul or spirit who called himself Seth. The texts of the "readings" are referred to as the "Seth material". Seth addressed almost every major issue facing humanity, and also set forth a complete theology that is unlike any other religion. Among other things, he said that there is a "multidimensional" God (which he referred to as "All That Is" to distinguish it from more conventional concepts), that we are part of God, that we are immortal, and that we reincarnate. Other articles on this blog explain the Seth material in more detail.
As stated above, one of the things that Seth said is that we are immortal. Actually, I don't think he said it exactly that way, since the word "immortal" has certain distortions built into it. Nonetheless, he made it clear that we never die. The question then arises: Do we get tired of endless life?
As I have gleaned from the Seth material, there are two basic reasons why we never become tired of living. Our natural state of being is a spiritual one. We are beings of energy, composed of the same mental energy that composes God. According to Seth, it takes so much energy and effort for us to express ourselves in physical form that there is a significant amount of fatigue built into human existence (even the young have to rest every day). Thus, when we are in our human form, we do indeed become tired of living, especially as we age. Seth said that the 'time limit' on human lives is around 120 years.
In contrast to physical life, existence in our spiritual state is so effortless that we experience no exhaustion and have no need for rest. Since we don't become fatigued from living, there's no reason for us to want to die. That doesn't mean that there is no such thing as exertion; but we control the exertions that we make. In other words, we may rest from the exertions that we make, but we never need to rest from simply existing.
The second reason we don't get tired of living is much more interesting and compelling. Seth said that time, as we experience it in our physical universe, is an illusion. In the greater spiritual universe of which our physical universe is a part, there is no time. Thus, we don't feel the passage of time when we are in our spiritual state. Seth said that in our physical (human) state, we experience time as the electrical impulses jump the nerve endings in our brains. In fact, this neural activity causes us to experience life in slow motion when compared to our spiritual state. It is impossible to have any sense of time in our spiritual state because we don't have a brain to measure out our existence in increments. In other words, it is our human brains which cause us to experience time.
You may have heard of near-death experiences in which people's lives flash before their eyes in an instant. That's possible because the mind (or the "soul") has separated from the human brain, and the brain is no longer filtering experience in slow motion.
Seth said that in the spiritual universe, past, present and future occur simultaneously in what he called the "spacious present". Since we experience none of the effects of time in our spiritual state (i.e., no sense of time passing, and no past or future), the concept of time is meaningless. There is no beginning or end to our existence; there is only existence in an ageless present moment.
Now, some readers may object and say that if the past, present and future exist simultaneously, then each person's future must be pre-determined (since it already exists). But Seth said that existence is always fluid and changing. We can't understand these concepts now, but Seth said they would become clear to us after we "die". However, I will try to explain them below.
At the top of the article I said that the word "immortal" has distortions built into it. The word "immortal" suggests an endless passage through time, from some fixed point into infinity. If we are journeying through time, then it seems logical to us that something might halt our journey at some point. But as I've just explained, there is no time. We are not passing through anything; there is only the here and now. In our spiritual state, our "past" is simply those things we are no longer focussed on, and the "future" is those things we have yet to focus on.
It helps to understand this timeless state if we compare it to physical space. Imagine a great landscape. Your past would be that portion of the landscape that you have already explored; your present would be that portion that you are exploring now; and your future would be that portion that you have yet to explore. Yet all portions of the landscape exist simultaneously. Your future isn't set because the as-yet-unexplored landscape may change before you reach it. Indeed, according to Seth, all portions of the landscape are constantly growing and expanding, so much so that no individual (save God, who is the Total) can hope to ever experience it all. As the landscape expands, the possibilities for "future" exploration multiply tremendously.
If you had the ability, you might look ahead to that portion of the landscape that represents your future, and you would see your future self. But once you actually got there, you might discover that you are not the person you thought you would be. Your choices along the way might have caused you to take a different route. Indeed, you might never arrive at the portion of the landscape that you thought represented your future, but instead end up in another portion altogether. So as you can see, free will is always functioning.
In the Seth material, Seth identified a future self of his whom he dubbed "Seth Two", and Seth Two occasionally spoke through Jane Roberts, the psychic who channelled Seth. However, it is uncertain whether Seth will actually become Seth Two as his existence unfolds.
It should be pointed out that it isn't just your future which can change, but your past can change as well. Those portions of the landscape which you have already explored, and therefore see as your past, are growing and changing just as the unexplored portions are growing and changing. The universe doesn't know which portions are your past, so it cannot fix them immutably. (As to whether your memories of the past also change as your past changes, I don't believe so.)
My central point is: past, present and future are all the same thing when there is only a "spacious present", and all portions of the spacious present are in flux. That portion of existence that you have already explored doesn't stop evolving any more than the portion you haven't explored yet. Thus, even if something could block your movement into new portions of the landscape (which isn't possible, according to Seth), your "past" selves still exist, and they are still evolving.
This is a little like what we already experience as human beings. You remember your childhood town in a certain way; but when you return to it as an adult, you will find many things changed. The difference here, however, is that when you revisit your past in your spiritual state, you are revisiting the actual past, and not just the location of your past. To put that in human terms, if you grew up in Anytown, USA, and you decided as a 50-year-old to return to Anytown, you would not just find Anytown changed, you would find your young self living a life that wasn't quite the same as the one you remember.
(This entire discussion can be confusing because each of us is not just one individual, but a group of individuals. Each of us has an inner self which experiences all these things differently from the way that we, the incarnational selves, do. The inner self is aware of much more than we are. The inner self is aware of all of its incarnated selves, and of the evolving past and future of each incarnated self, etc. In this article, I've been using the word "you" to sometimes mean you, the incarnated self, and sometimes you, the incarnated self after you die, and sometimes you, the inner self. The relationships of all the selves who compose a soul is beyond the scope of this article -- but let me say that this hierarchical structure is common to the entire universe. There is no "whole" which is not composed of "parts", and there is no "self" who is not composed of lesser selves. Indeed, God is at the top of the hierarchy, and contains all other selves within Him/Her/It.)
In short (to get back to what I was saying three paragraphs above), you either exist or you don't exist in the greater universe. You can't cease to exist by "dying" because your "past" self still exists, and is still evolving. Seth said there is no force in the universe which can eradicate you.
Let me add that no portion of the "spacious present" is ever destroyed; it just keeps growing and changing, a non-destructive change which does not destroy any portion that already exists, but merely adds to the totality of existence. In fact, "destruction" is one of the "root assumptions" of our physical universe and is essentially illusory. Every individual, thing and event that has occurred is actually still occurring (in the spacious present). The universe's constant expansion without the framework of time is what we human beings cannot grasp because we are presently fixed in time and cannot imagine existence without it.
Once we finish reincarnating on the Earth, we may choose to exist in another universe (or "sub-universe", as I prefer to call the universes that exist within the greater spiritual universe), and our next universe may or may not have time as one of its natural laws. The choice is ours. However, our primary existence is always in the spiritual universe, and that is the true reality. The sub-universes that we inhabit are formed by their inhabitants, and they are not, in a sense, natural.
As I stated above, time is essentially illustory. Since there is no time in the greater, spiritual universe, time as we experience it in this universe is an artificial construct. Thus, the past, present and future exist simultaneously in our universe as well as the greater universe, though it may not seem that way to us. Similarly, our reincarnations are all lived simultaneously, though they may seem to exist one after another.
As stated above, one of the things that Seth said is that we are immortal. Actually, I don't think he said it exactly that way, since the word "immortal" has certain distortions built into it. Nonetheless, he made it clear that we never die. The question then arises: Do we get tired of endless life?
As I have gleaned from the Seth material, there are two basic reasons why we never become tired of living. Our natural state of being is a spiritual one. We are beings of energy, composed of the same mental energy that composes God. According to Seth, it takes so much energy and effort for us to express ourselves in physical form that there is a significant amount of fatigue built into human existence (even the young have to rest every day). Thus, when we are in our human form, we do indeed become tired of living, especially as we age. Seth said that the 'time limit' on human lives is around 120 years.
In contrast to physical life, existence in our spiritual state is so effortless that we experience no exhaustion and have no need for rest. Since we don't become fatigued from living, there's no reason for us to want to die. That doesn't mean that there is no such thing as exertion; but we control the exertions that we make. In other words, we may rest from the exertions that we make, but we never need to rest from simply existing.
The second reason we don't get tired of living is much more interesting and compelling. Seth said that time, as we experience it in our physical universe, is an illusion. In the greater spiritual universe of which our physical universe is a part, there is no time. Thus, we don't feel the passage of time when we are in our spiritual state. Seth said that in our physical (human) state, we experience time as the electrical impulses jump the nerve endings in our brains. In fact, this neural activity causes us to experience life in slow motion when compared to our spiritual state. It is impossible to have any sense of time in our spiritual state because we don't have a brain to measure out our existence in increments. In other words, it is our human brains which cause us to experience time.
You may have heard of near-death experiences in which people's lives flash before their eyes in an instant. That's possible because the mind (or the "soul") has separated from the human brain, and the brain is no longer filtering experience in slow motion.
Seth said that in the spiritual universe, past, present and future occur simultaneously in what he called the "spacious present". Since we experience none of the effects of time in our spiritual state (i.e., no sense of time passing, and no past or future), the concept of time is meaningless. There is no beginning or end to our existence; there is only existence in an ageless present moment.
Now, some readers may object and say that if the past, present and future exist simultaneously, then each person's future must be pre-determined (since it already exists). But Seth said that existence is always fluid and changing. We can't understand these concepts now, but Seth said they would become clear to us after we "die". However, I will try to explain them below.
At the top of the article I said that the word "immortal" has distortions built into it. The word "immortal" suggests an endless passage through time, from some fixed point into infinity. If we are journeying through time, then it seems logical to us that something might halt our journey at some point. But as I've just explained, there is no time. We are not passing through anything; there is only the here and now. In our spiritual state, our "past" is simply those things we are no longer focussed on, and the "future" is those things we have yet to focus on.
It helps to understand this timeless state if we compare it to physical space. Imagine a great landscape. Your past would be that portion of the landscape that you have already explored; your present would be that portion that you are exploring now; and your future would be that portion that you have yet to explore. Yet all portions of the landscape exist simultaneously. Your future isn't set because the as-yet-unexplored landscape may change before you reach it. Indeed, according to Seth, all portions of the landscape are constantly growing and expanding, so much so that no individual (save God, who is the Total) can hope to ever experience it all. As the landscape expands, the possibilities for "future" exploration multiply tremendously.
If you had the ability, you might look ahead to that portion of the landscape that represents your future, and you would see your future self. But once you actually got there, you might discover that you are not the person you thought you would be. Your choices along the way might have caused you to take a different route. Indeed, you might never arrive at the portion of the landscape that you thought represented your future, but instead end up in another portion altogether. So as you can see, free will is always functioning.
In the Seth material, Seth identified a future self of his whom he dubbed "Seth Two", and Seth Two occasionally spoke through Jane Roberts, the psychic who channelled Seth. However, it is uncertain whether Seth will actually become Seth Two as his existence unfolds.
It should be pointed out that it isn't just your future which can change, but your past can change as well. Those portions of the landscape which you have already explored, and therefore see as your past, are growing and changing just as the unexplored portions are growing and changing. The universe doesn't know which portions are your past, so it cannot fix them immutably. (As to whether your memories of the past also change as your past changes, I don't believe so.)
My central point is: past, present and future are all the same thing when there is only a "spacious present", and all portions of the spacious present are in flux. That portion of existence that you have already explored doesn't stop evolving any more than the portion you haven't explored yet. Thus, even if something could block your movement into new portions of the landscape (which isn't possible, according to Seth), your "past" selves still exist, and they are still evolving.
This is a little like what we already experience as human beings. You remember your childhood town in a certain way; but when you return to it as an adult, you will find many things changed. The difference here, however, is that when you revisit your past in your spiritual state, you are revisiting the actual past, and not just the location of your past. To put that in human terms, if you grew up in Anytown, USA, and you decided as a 50-year-old to return to Anytown, you would not just find Anytown changed, you would find your young self living a life that wasn't quite the same as the one you remember.
(This entire discussion can be confusing because each of us is not just one individual, but a group of individuals. Each of us has an inner self which experiences all these things differently from the way that we, the incarnational selves, do. The inner self is aware of much more than we are. The inner self is aware of all of its incarnated selves, and of the evolving past and future of each incarnated self, etc. In this article, I've been using the word "you" to sometimes mean you, the incarnated self, and sometimes you, the incarnated self after you die, and sometimes you, the inner self. The relationships of all the selves who compose a soul is beyond the scope of this article -- but let me say that this hierarchical structure is common to the entire universe. There is no "whole" which is not composed of "parts", and there is no "self" who is not composed of lesser selves. Indeed, God is at the top of the hierarchy, and contains all other selves within Him/Her/It.)
In short (to get back to what I was saying three paragraphs above), you either exist or you don't exist in the greater universe. You can't cease to exist by "dying" because your "past" self still exists, and is still evolving. Seth said there is no force in the universe which can eradicate you.
Let me add that no portion of the "spacious present" is ever destroyed; it just keeps growing and changing, a non-destructive change which does not destroy any portion that already exists, but merely adds to the totality of existence. In fact, "destruction" is one of the "root assumptions" of our physical universe and is essentially illusory. Every individual, thing and event that has occurred is actually still occurring (in the spacious present). The universe's constant expansion without the framework of time is what we human beings cannot grasp because we are presently fixed in time and cannot imagine existence without it.
Once we finish reincarnating on the Earth, we may choose to exist in another universe (or "sub-universe", as I prefer to call the universes that exist within the greater spiritual universe), and our next universe may or may not have time as one of its natural laws. The choice is ours. However, our primary existence is always in the spiritual universe, and that is the true reality. The sub-universes that we inhabit are formed by their inhabitants, and they are not, in a sense, natural.
As I stated above, time is essentially illustory. Since there is no time in the greater, spiritual universe, time as we experience it in this universe is an artificial construct. Thus, the past, present and future exist simultaneously in our universe as well as the greater universe, though it may not seem that way to us. Similarly, our reincarnations are all lived simultaneously, though they may seem to exist one after another.
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