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Post by steven on May 30, 2018 5:34:56 GMT -5
Reefs and Laughter:
Both of those responses seem to come from within either a reactionary paradigm or a reactionary/seeker paradigm.
Meaning that it’s view of the world based in either being able to react to a world percieved outside of your inner being or looking for something deeper from an outer ring into a deeper inner being.
What I was pointing to with the phrase “infinite possibility” is our capacity to create versus react or discover.
For me the whole spiritual search that we discuss at this forum seems to be geared toward uncovering the true or most basic nature of our self....the discovery of which can open into inner peace, a greater gnosis of the nature of existence and our place in it etc...and to some extent getting to this gnosis IS an end unto itself.
But there is more if one is interested...it’s kind of like you just discovered a fundamental property of the Universe....the discovery of which is at the same time enlightening and transformative, but also now seems so simple and obvious that you are surprised that you missed it before....but here’s the thing...it’s like discovering electricity...
Electricity has always been there...but now you discovered this property of the Universe....the discovery of electricity can be a wondrous end unto itself....but, there is more, one can begin to explore what can be done with electricity, how electricity may be utilized.
At first this exploration will start out slow, maybe a few bits of entertainment can be won by seeing how electricity can ark between two pieces of metal and you can make a tiny bit of man made lightning that you can turn on with a switch etc.
But the more you use and play with electricity the more your vision grows about what might be possible...and as that vision grows you try new things and soon you are sending messages through wires via electricity...then your vision grows even more and you try new and bigger things with electricity...years go by, decades go by, all the while your vision of what electricity can do is expanding and soon we have superconductors and coded molecules of data accessed by electricity storing all the information we have in humanity and sharing it on every part of the planet...it goes on and on as our vision of what can be DONE with this discovered property of the Universe expands.
The same is true with what so many have discovered here, or what many here are trying to discover....
The primordial base nature of yourself...that field of pure awareness that’s aware of itself is a property of existence...a field from which infinite possibilities of creation are possible and manipulatable.
The discovering of which can be and end to itself....or just a beggining.
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Post by laughter on May 30, 2018 9:31:20 GMT -5
gotcha'  --- heh heh .. well, like I said I stopped reading because of the focus on "life-after-death" and the suggestion of different levels of consciousness.  Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts on the different points though. What really rezzes for me about that quote, as a whole, is how it is at once both so value-neutral, and yet at the same time, so profoundly expressive and evocative of the void, in motion and appearance .. of the space between, that's never not there. So Niz and Seth agree after all. Who would've thunk?! The common language of Love is one that anyone and everyone can always understand. All it takes, is to listen. |
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Post by laughter on May 30, 2018 9:47:44 GMT -5
From what I can tell, a common trap folks fall into from material like this is the hope that they can cultivate psychic powers. Every instant is a new beginning, Steve.  Eternity is constantly dying to itself, never to recur exactly the same way again. Can you feel it? Actually, one of the main goals of the Seth material is to help you cultivate so-called 'psychic powers'. Because that's the only way to go beyond the camouflage. Our normal senses are part of the camouflage (as is our thinking, logic and reasoning), the inner senses are not. And so only the inner senses can see what's prior to/beyond the camouflage. That's why Seth spends so much time on the inner senses and astral projection. In fact, those 'psychic powers' are our natural abilities. So we don't actually have to acquire or even cultivate them. As A-H say, what is usually called miracles or supernatural powers is really just the art of natural living in action. That's how it's supposed to be. It's the natural result of total alignment. I think even Shankara may agree there. It's just that the more we are sucked into the camouflage of our universe, the more ridiculous this all sounds. Reminds me of a funny story by Tolstoy, The Three Hermits. Ok, interesting. So this is a polar opposite to what I hear in the Zen material about the natural state as ordinary mind, ordinary life -- just. this. That's fine, I can discern the unity of opposites. I can see how the mind would spin things (and obscure with "camouflage") and see past that. Just the commonality between exploring the inner senses and zazen alone is enough, but synchronicity and other experiential changes that happen with the ongoing informing of mind are also undeniable eye-opener's. But I'd add a caveat that the message of ordinariness is one that's better suited to a householder with a continuity of ongoing responsibilities -- like, say, Niz for example (again). Also, most of the occult marketplace is so obviously populated by charlatans, the modern cult phenomenon is an increasingly visible happening here in the States ... doesn't the promise of special powers always have the potential to be a bright and shiny distraction? I express this not so much to call into question your interpretation or the validity of the material, but rather, as to highlight what I see as a genuine pitfall for someone reading it before having developed into what Jed calls human adulthood, and to describe my own conditioned reaction as I see it happening. |
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Post by zin on May 30, 2018 10:04:43 GMT -5
Re: on inner senses.. I had saved a paper by Paul M. Helfrich on Seth material, and saw a section about inner senses there as: "Inner senses – deep intuitions or what's commonly called the 'sixth sense' that complement the five physical senses. (...)
1. inner vibrational touch
2. psychological time
3. perception of past, present, and future
4. conceptual sense
5. cognition of knowledgeable essence
6. innate working knowledge of the basic vitality of the universe
7. expansion or contraction of the tissue capsule
8. disentanglement from camouflage
9. diffusion by the energy personality [essence]"
I haven't read specifically on any of them yet.
! This is great. In terms of Seth, I'm quite impressed .. very nuanced, very rich. I have to admit that my interest in the Seth material trailed off from my first reading of it at least in part because of the focus on "life-after death" and what I was reading as the implication of "spiritual planes/levels/realms/worlds" etc (I know Seth might not have used some of that exact language). It's not that I found the material to be without value, it's just that my prioritizing led my current focus elsewhere. I get the impression it was kind of the opposite for you along these lines?  But the insight suggested by the way these are expressed is undeniable, and this is piquing my interest again. Yes it was kind of opposite for me along those lines.. because the Seth material was/is much much less 'organized' info for me compared with my earlier readings on spiritual matters. Much of what I read in Seth made the 'boundaries' less sharp in my mind. About spiritual planes, yes he talks on 'frames' but actually I am interested in only frame 1 and 2 and for me the good thing is I don't have to know about the others - in order to form a general picture (of matters) in my mind. But in Gurdjieff material for example, that was different for me.
Imo translations are a bit problematic because of the things you've just written - one is there may be new concepts and the other is you may not find everything you're looking for. But I think one factor is, what are you interested in, about life, for example? Or, does a non-seeker have NO questions? What drives me towards such material is mostly my curiosity in 'creation'.
As I still haven't read on the nine items I left that part out. But I will come to them as soon as possible.
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Post by zin on May 30, 2018 10:19:08 GMT -5
From what I can tell, a common trap folks fall into from material like this is the hope that they can cultivate psychic powers. Every instant is a new beginning, Steve. Eternity is constantly dying to itself, never to recur exactly the same way again. Can you feel it? Actually, one of the main goals of the Seth material is to help you cultivate so-called 'psychic powers'. Because that's the only way to go beyond the camouflage. Our normal senses are part of the camouflage (as is our thinking, logic and reasoning), the inner senses are not. And so only the inner senses can see what's prior to/beyond the camouflage. That's why Seth spends so much time on the inner senses and astral projection. In fact, those 'psychic powers' are our natural abilities. So we don't actually have to acquire or even cultivate them. As A-H say, what is usually called miracles or supernatural powers is really just the art of natural living in action. That's how it's supposed to be. It's the natural result of total alignment. I think even Shankara may agree there. It's just that the more we are sucked into the camouflage of our universe, the more ridiculous this all sounds. Reminds me of a funny story by Tolstoy, The Three Hermits. Haven't read the hermits story, will look. But I laughed at the bolded part... I think here what you had mentioned some time ago is important, ie this material was not given wholly within a short time. It took many years, many sessions, and several books to explain, and the ones following it did have much time to ponder and experiment on each bit. So, when one looks at the index of even one of the books now, it may look like a complicated theoretical 'structure' but my impression after actually reading is different. |
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Post by zin on May 30, 2018 10:26:40 GMT -5
Reefs and Laughter: Both of those responses seem to come from within either a reactionary paradigm or a reactionary/seeker paradigm. Meaning that it’s view of the world based in either being able to react to a world percieved outside of your inner being or looking for something deeper from an outer ring into a deeper inner being. What I was pointing to with the phrase “infinite possibility” is our capacity to create versus react or discover.(snip) The same is true with what so many have discovered here, or what many here are trying to discover.... The primordial base nature of yourself...that field of pure awareness that’s aware of itself is a property of existence...a field from which infinite possibilities of creation are possible and manipulatable. The discovering of which can be and end to itself....or just a beggining. I think an exploration about a "capacity to create versus react or discover" is a VERY important thing. Probably the 'problem' is, it may sound "against non-volition" etc.. But maybe there really is a way to talk about creation free from selfishness (selfishness may not be the rightest word here!). |
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Post by laughter on May 30, 2018 10:53:48 GMT -5
Thanks! This is great. In terms of Seth, I'm quite impressed .. very nuanced, very rich. I have to admit that my interest in the Seth material trailed off from my first reading of it at least in part because of the focus on "life-after death" and what I was reading as the implication of "spiritual planes/levels/realms/worlds" etc (I know Seth might not have used some of that exact language). It's not that I found the material to be without value, it's just that my prioritizing led my current focus elsewhere. I get the impression it was kind of the opposite for you along these lines? But the insight suggested by the way these are expressed is undeniable, and this is piquing my interest again. Yes it was kind of opposite for me along those lines.. because the Seth material was/is much much less 'organized' info for me compared with my earlier readings on spiritual matters. Much of what I read in Seth made the 'boundaries' less sharp in my mind. About spiritual planes, yes he talks on 'frames' but actually I am interested in only frame 1 and 2 and for me the good thing is I don't have to know about the others - in order to form a general picture (of matters) in my mind. But in Gurdjieff material for example, that was different for me.
Imo translations are a bit problematic because of the things you've just written - one is there may be new concepts and the other is you may not find everything you're looking for. But I think one factor is, what are you interested in, about life, for example? Or, does a non-seeker have NO questions? What drives me towards such material is mostly my curiosity in 'creation'.
As I still haven't read on the nine items I left that part out. But I will come to them as soon as possible.
I can't speak for all non-seekers, but me, I'm just like every other peep in that my attention follows my interest, and there's lots of things in life I find interesting. My specific interest here is very similar as to how you've described yours: the patterns of appearances as they appear, iow, "creation". |
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Post by steven on May 30, 2018 12:21:32 GMT -5
Reefs and Laughter: Both of those responses seem to come from within either a reactionary paradigm or a reactionary/seeker paradigm. Meaning that it’s view of the world based in either being able to react to a world percieved outside of your inner being or looking for something deeper from an outer ring into a deeper inner being. What I was pointing to with the phrase “infinite possibility” is our capacity to create versus react or discover.(snip) The same is true with what so many have discovered here, or what many here are trying to discover.... The primordial base nature of yourself...that field of pure awareness that’s aware of itself is a property of existence...a field from which infinite possibilities of creation are possible and manipulatable. The discovering of which can be and end to itself....or just a beggining. I think an exploration about a "capacity to create versus react or discover" is a VERY important thing. Probably the 'problem' is, it may sound "against non-volition" etc.. But maybe there really is a way to talk about creation free from selfishness (selfishness may not be the rightest word here!). Certainly there is a basic non-volitional ground of being that is the substrate of our nature. But i’ve also come to see that as one becomes the master of their own mind one seems to evolve into more and more of a creative being...and this capacity grows as our vision expands. in the beggining one seems to be very locked into a set of specific paradigms of thought and movement that seem to be our individualized part of the patterns of nature...we also do not have much awareness of or mastery of our own thoughts as they arise...so in some ways we are creation unfolding within a greater organizing intelligence....but as we evolve, and as we exert mastery and control of our own thoughts we seem to be granted more capacity for volition in what we create. its almost like the Universe has safety measures in place so that each of us cannot simply create whatever whim that passes through us as a thought because that would be chaos...like you dreams are....but as you exert more control and direction over your thoughts you are granted more volition and a bigger vision. i think ultimately we are all in preparation for and in the process of first becoming self aware, then evolving into creative beings with increased capacity to create. just my two cents |
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Post by Reefs on Jun 2, 2018 20:35:52 GMT -5
Basic reality
Seth: The basic reality is indeed within the illusions. Look beneath them and within them and you will feel it. But they are themselves composed of it, and you cannot really separate the two. Basic reality cannot know itself without creating diversity. The diversity is the various forms that reality takes, the various systems within which it expresses itself through projecting itself into infinite individualized experience.
Each inner self is a portion of the basic inner reality. It cannot know itself, however, except through experience, and it must create in order to experience. The experience constantly deepens the value fulfillment of basic reality itself. There is no alternative between diversity and nothingness.
That which is, is constantly aware of its growing, surging existence, through the diversity of experience which it creates constantly and simultaneously. You are part of that which is, you are that which is. It is impossible for any part of that which is not to be individualized. Every part of that which is, is alive, and knows itself.
(Session 305)
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Post by Reefs on Jun 5, 2018 1:21:54 GMT -5
Actually, one of the main goals of the Seth material is to help you cultivate so-called 'psychic powers'. Because that's the only way to go beyond the camouflage. Our normal senses are part of the camouflage (as is our thinking, logic and reasoning), the inner senses are not. And so only the inner senses can see what's prior to/beyond the camouflage. That's why Seth spends so much time on the inner senses and astral projection. In fact, those 'psychic powers' are our natural abilities. So we don't actually have to acquire or even cultivate them. As A-H say, what is usually called miracles or supernatural powers is really just the art of natural living in action. That's how it's supposed to be. It's the natural result of total alignment. I think even Shankara may agree there. It's just that the more we are sucked into the camouflage of our universe, the more ridiculous this all sounds. Reminds me of a funny story by Tolstoy, The Three Hermits. Ok, interesting. So this is a polar opposite to what I hear in the Zen material about the natural state as ordinary mind, ordinary life -- just. this. That's fine, I can discern the unity of opposites. I can see how the mind would spin things (and obscure with "camouflage") and see past that. Just the commonality between exploring the inner senses and zazen alone is enough, but synchronicity and other experiential changes that happen with the ongoing informing of mind are also undeniable eye-opener's. But I'd add a caveat that the message of ordinariness is one that's better suited to a householder with a continuity of ongoing responsibilities -- like, say, Niz for example (again). Also, most of the occult marketplace is so obviously populated by charlatans, the modern cult phenomenon is an increasingly visible happening here in the States ... doesn't the promise of special powers always have the potential to be a bright and shiny distraction? I express this not so much to call into question your interpretation or the validity of the material, but rather, as to highlight what I see as a genuine pitfall for someone reading it before having developed into what Jed calls human adulthood, and to describe my own conditioned reaction as I see it happening. Seth actually has a similar concern. His focus on the inner senses will make a lot more sense when you look at it in the context of the vedic yuga theory and what Seth has said about early man. Anyway, here's a quote where Seth explains his approach: |
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Post by Peter on Jun 5, 2018 6:17:17 GMT -5
Reminds me of a funny story by Tolstoy, The Three Hermits. Ah, I'd heard that one in a Buddhist context where the Abbot of the monastery rows out to visit a hermit and tells him that he's pronouncing "om mani padme hum" incorrectly. On his way back the hermit runs over the water to his boat and asks "How does it go again?" |
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Post by Reefs on Jun 8, 2018 7:09:43 GMT -5
Reminds me of a funny story by Tolstoy, The Three Hermits. Ah, I'd heard that one in a Buddhist context where the Abbot of the monastery rows out to visit a hermit and tells him that he's pronouncing "om mani padme hum" incorrectly. On his way back the hermit runs over the water to his boat and asks "How does it go again?" Interesting. I thought walking on water stories was mostly a phenomenon of the west. |
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Post by laughter on Jun 10, 2018 7:48:46 GMT -5
Frank Herbert wrote about a fictional class of mutated, substance-addicted and even substance-enveloped people who could fold space with their minds. Dune was published in 1965. Here's Lynch's screen rendition of the characters, which embellished quite a bit from Herbert's descriptions:  The wiki describing the characters doesn't do justice to my memory of Herberts very explicit writing as to how they initiated travel by the power of their mind alone. Obviously different from what I take as Seth's suggestion that there won't be any physical component to the travel, but I found it a fun parallel anyway. |
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Post by Reefs on Jun 10, 2018 9:47:12 GMT -5
Frank Herbert wrote about a fictional class of mutated, substance-addicted and even substance-enveloped people who could fold space with their minds. Dune was published in 1965. Here's Lynch's screen rendition of the characters, which embellished quite a bit from Herbert's descriptions: The wiki describing the characters doesn't do justice to my memory of Herberts very explicit writing as to how they initiated travel by the power of their mind alone. Obviously different from what I take as Seth's suggestion that there won't be any physical component to the travel, but I found it a fun parallel anyway. It seems to me you are a bit struggling with Seth's take on science. What Seth calls camouflage is basically what others call Maya. If you look at it that way, maybe it will make more sense. According to Seth, there are no alien life forms in our solar system. He says contact will be made via psychic means. The kind of space travel he is talking about is more of the kind you had Yogananda writing about in his book when his (dead) Master visited him or when his Master seemed to have been seen in several places at once. So there won't be any physical component traveling from A to B but there will be something like a physical component appear at B. |
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Post by zin on Jun 12, 2018 18:14:02 GMT -5
How worlds are created
When you change your ordinary television set from one station to another you may encounter snow or distortion. If something is wrong with the set, you may simply tune in patterns that seem meaningless and carry no particular program. You may have sound without a picture, and sometimes even a picture but sound from another program. So when you begin to experiment with states of altered consciousness you often run into the same kind of phenomena, when nothing seems to make sense. (....)
Nothing exists outside the psyche, however, that does not exist within it, and there is no unknown world that does not have its psychological or psychic counterpart. Man learned to fly as he tried to exteriorize inner experience, for in out-of-body states in dreams, he had long been familiar with flight. All excursions into outer reality come as the psyche attempts to reproduce in any given 'exterior' world the inner freedom of its being. (....) While all of this may sound quite esoteric, it is highly practical, and we are dealing with the nature of creativity itself. Your thoughts, for example, and your intents, have their own validity and force. You set them into motion, but then they follow their own laws and realities. All creativity comes from the psyche. I [recently] suggested a project to Ruburt's class – one that will ultimately illuminate many of the points I am making in [the book] 'Unknown' Reality. I suggested that Ruburt's students create a 'city' at another level of reality. This is not to be a pie-in-the-sky sort of thing, or some 'heaven' hanging suspended above, but a very valid meeting place between worlds. A psychic marketplace, for example, where ideas are exchanged, a place of psychic commerce, a pleasant environment with quite definite coordinates, established as on 'orbiting satellite' on the outskirts of your world. Initially, all worlds are created in just that fashion. In certain terms, then, this involves in a very small way the creation and colonization of a different kind of reality – consciously accepted, however, from your perspective. On an unconscious level, the world as you know it expands in just such a fashion.
**********
Several students have had dreams involving their participation in such a project. Ruburt found himself in an out-of-body state, looking at a jacket. It had four rectangular pockets. It was giant-sized. As he looked at it the front flap was open. In the dream he flew through this flap literally into another dimension, where the point of the flap was a hill upon which he landed. From that second perspective, the pockets of the jacket in the first perspective became the windows of a building that existed in a still-further, third dimension beyond the hill. Standing on the hill, he knew that in Perspective One the windows of the building in Perspective Three were jacket pockets, but he could no longer perceive them as such. Looking out from the hill in Perspective Two, Perspective One was invisibly behind him, and Perspective Three was still 'ahead' of him, separated from him by a gulf he did not understand.
He knew, however, that if the shades were pulled in the windows in Perspective Three, then the jacket-pocket flaps would appear to be closed in Perspective One. He also realized that he had been directing the erection of the building in Perspective Three by making the jacket (in Perspective One). When he approached the hill in Perspective Two, he spoke to the contractor who was there before him. Ruburt said that he wanted to change the design. The contractor agreed, and shouted orders to people who were working in Perspective Three, where the building stood. Now: Ruburt was validly involved in the erection of that building, and he did indeed travel through various dimensions in which the objects in one represented something entirely different in another. He used the particular symbols, however, simply to bring the theory home to him, but it represented the fact that any object in one dimension has its own reality in another. You cannot move through time and space without altering the focus of your psyche. When you so alter that focus, however, you also change the exterior reality that you then experience.
(session 713)
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Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts on the different points though. 
Eternity is constantly dying to itself, never to recur exactly the same way again. Can you feel it?
