Seth on “Before the Beginning” (8)

Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Session 883, October 01, 1979:

“You live your lives through your own subjective knowing, to begin with, and I will try to arouse within your own consciousnesses memories of events with which your own inner psyches were intimately involved as the world was formed – and though these may appear to be past events, they are even now occurring.

“Before the beginning of the universe, we will postulate the existence of an omnipotent, creative source. We will hope to show that this divine subjectivity is as present in the world of your experience as it was before the beginning of the universe. Again, I refer to this original subjectivity as All-That-Is. I am making an attempt to verbalize concepts that almost defy the edges of the intellect, unless that intellect is thoroughly reinforced by the intuition’s strength. So you will need to use your mind and your own intuitions as you read this book.

“All-That-Is, before the beginning contained within itself the infinite thrust of all possible creations. All-That-Is possessed a creativity of such magnificence that its slightest imaginings, dreams, thoughts, feelings or moods attained a kind of reality, a vividness, an intensity, that almost demanded freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom to do what? Freedom to be what?

“The experience, the subjective universe, the ‘mind’ of All-That-Is, was so brilliant, so distinct, that All-That-Is almost became lost, mentally wandering within this ever-flourishing, ever-growing interior landscape. Each thought, feeling, dream, or mood was itself indelibly marked with all of the attributes of this infinite subjectivity. Each glowed and quivered with its own creativity, its own desire to create as it had been created.

“Before the beginning there existed an interior universe that had no beginning or ending, for I am using the term ‘before the beginning’ to make matters easier for you to assimilate. (That same infinite interior universe exists now, for example.)

“All-That-Is contained within itself the knowledge of all existences, with their infinite probabilities, and ‘as soon as’ All-That-Is imagined those numberless circumstances, they existed in what I will call divine fact.

“All-That-Is knew of itself only. It was engrossed with its own subjective experiences, even divinely astonished as its own thoughts and imaginings attained their own vitality and inherited the creativity of their subjective creator. [Those thoughts and imaginings] began to have a dialogue with their ‘Maker.’

“Thoughts of such magnificent vigor began to think their own thoughts – and their thoughts thought thoughts. As if in divine astonishment and surprise, All-That-Is began to listen, and began to respond to these ‘generations’ of thoughts and dreams, for the thoughts and dreams related to each other also. There was no time, so all of this ‘was happening’ simultaneously. The order of events is being simplified. In the meantime, then, in your terms, All-That-Is spontaneously thought new thoughts and dreamed new dreams, and became involved in new imaginings – and all of these also related to those now-infinite generations of interweaving and interrelating thoughts and dreams that ‘already’ existed.

“So beside this spontaneous creation, this simultaneous ‘stream’ of divine rousing, All-That-Is began to watch the interactions that occurred among his own subjective progeny. He listened, began to respond and to answer a thought or a dream. He began to purposefully bring about those mental conditions that were requested by these generations of mental progeny. If he had been lonely before, he was no longer.

“Your language causes some difficulty here, so please accept the pronoun ‘he’ as innocuously as possible. ‘It’ sounds too neutral for my purpose, and I want to reserve the pronoun ‘she’ for some later differentiations. In basic terms, of course, All-That-Is is quite beyond any designations having to do with any one species or sex. All-That-Is, then, began to feel a growing sense of pressure as it realized that its own ever-multiplying thoughts and dreams themselves yearned to enjoy those greater gifts of creativity with which they were innately endowed.

“It is very difficult to try to assign anything like human motivation to All-That-Is. I can only say that it is possessed by ‘the need’ to lovingly create from its own being; to lovingly transform its own reality in such a way that each most slight probable consciousness can come to be; and with the need to see that any and all possible orchestrations of consciousness have the chance to emerge, to perceive and to love.

“... All-That-Is, then, became aware of a kind of creative tumult as each of its superlative thoughts and dreams, moods and feelings, strained at the very edges of their beings, looking for some then-unknown, undiscovered, as of then unthought-of release. I am saying that this mental progeny included all of the consciousnesses that [have] ever appeared or will appear upon your earth – all tenderly couched: the first human being, the first insect – each with an inner knowledge of the possibilities of its development. All-That-Is, loving its own progeny, sought within itself the answer to this divine dilemma.

“When that answer came, it involved previously unimaginable leaps of divine inspiration, and it occurred thusly: All-That-Is searched through the truly infinite assortment of its incredible progeny to see what conditions were needed for this even more magnificent dream, this dream of a freedom of objectivity. What door could open to let physical reality emerge from such an inner realm? When All-That-Is, in your terms, put all of those conditions together it saw, of course, in a flash, the mental creation of those objective worlds that would be needed – and as it imagined those worlds, in your terms, they were physically created.

“[All-That-Is] did not separate itself from those worlds, however, for they were created from its thoughts, and each one has divine content. The worlds are all created by that divine content, so that while they are on the one hand exterior, they are on the other also made of divine stuff, and each hypothetical point in your universe is in direct contact with All-That-Is in the most basic terms. The knowledge of the whole is within all of its parts – and yet All-That-Is is more than its parts.

“Divine subjectivity is indeed infinite. It can never be entirely objectified. When the worlds, yours and others, were thus created, there was indeed an explosion of unimaginable proportions, as the divine spark of inspiration exploded into objectivity.”

“The first ‘object’ was an almost unendurable mass, though it had no weight, and it exploded, instantaneously beginning processes that formed the universe – but no time was involved. The process that you might imagine took up eons occurred in the twinkling of an eye, and the initial objective materialization of the massive thought of All-That-Is burst into reality. In your terms this was a physical explosion – but in the terms of the consciousnesses involved in that breakthrough, this was experienced as a triumphant ‘first’ inspirational frenzy, a breakthrough into another kind of being.

“The earth then appeared as consciousness transformed itself into the many facets of nature. The atoms and molecules were alive, aware – they were no longer simply a part of a divine syntax, but they spoke themselves through the very nature of their being. They became the living, aware vowels and syllables through which consciousness could form matter.

“But in your terms this was still largely a dream world, though it was fully fashioned. It had, generally speaking, all of the species that you now know. These all correlated with the multitudinous kinds of consciousnesses that had clamored for release, and those consciousnesses were spontaneously endowed by All-That-Is with those forms that fit their requirements. You had the birth of individualized consciousness as you think of it into physical context. Those consciousnesses were individualized before the beginning, but not manifest. But individualized consciousness was not quite all that bold. It did not attach itself completely to its earthly forms at the start, but rested often within its ‘ancient’ divine heritage. In your terms, it is as if the earth and all of it creatures were partially dreaming, and not as focused within physical reality as they are now.

“For one thing, while individualized consciousness was within the massive subjectivity of All-That-is, it enjoyed, beside its own uniqueness, a feeling of supporting unity, a comforting knowledge that it was one with its source. So in the beginning of [your] world, consciousness fluctuated greatly, focusing gently at the start, but not quite as willing to be as fully independent as its first intent might seem.

“You had the sleepwalkers, early members of your species, whose main concentration was still veiled in that earlier subjectivity, and they were your true ancestors, in those terms.

Session 884, October 03, 1979:

“Even though this book is being dictated within time’s tradition, therefore, I must remind you that basically that tradition is not mine – and more, basically, it is not yours either.

“I used the term ‘before the beginning,’ then, and I will speak of earth’s events in certain sequences. In the deepest of terms, however, and in ways that quite scandalize the intellect when it tries to operate alone, the beginning is now. That critical explosion of divine subjectivity into objectivity is always happening, and you are being given life ‘in each moment’ because of the simultaneous nature of that divine subjectivity.”

© Robert F. Butts, All Rights Reserved.

Summary of Concepts:

(Reminder: All-That-Is means Causal Consciousness as used in the Foreword, and is a substitute for the baggage-laden “God”).

– Seth opens with a reminder that we each perceive the world through our own “subjective knowing” and an appeal to use our intellects “thoroughly reinforced by the intuition’s strength ... as [we] read this book.” In other words, our subjective knowing and intuition utilize first person perspectives (I/We) and our intellect utilizes third person perspectives (It/Its). All four perspectives provide important subjective and objective insights into this creation story.

– “Before the beginning” All-That-Is contained the infinite thrust of all possible creations. In physical terms, the potential for galaxies, solar systems, planets, ecosystems, species, genders, etc. – all things, all processes – have ALWAYS existed in latent form within some kind of nonphysical field.

– “Before the beginning” All-That-Is created nonphysical ‘generations’ of thoughts and dreams. These thoughts and dreams had such creative vitality that they manifest their own ability to think and dream. As such, they yearned for other states of being. Thus, “before the beginning” also includes the creation of an intermediary field, a subtle “dreamtime” that “preceded” the creation of the physical field (to borrow an Aboriginal creation myth term from Australia. More on this later).

– Though Seth employs the pronoun “he”, All-That-Is is genderless, being the source of all genders. “It” is too neutral for Seth’s purposes here and “she” is being saved for other references.

– Seth calls our early, nonphysical ancestors “sleepwalkers.” “Before the beginning” they were created by the thoughts and dreams of All-That-Is. “Before the beginning” they functioned in an intermediary field or “dreamtime” that “preceded” the creation of the physical field.

Seth closes with a reminder that there is no beginning or end to Consciousness, though by design there are beginnings and endings in the physical field.

Comments:

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines paradox as:

“1. a tenet contrary to a received opinion, 2a. a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true, 2b. a self-contradictory statement that at first seems true, 2c. an argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises, 3. one that possesses seemingly contradictory qualities or phases.” (9)

Seth’s “before the beginning” provides a great example of what I call “the Zen of Seth.” The Zen aesthetic promotes the use of paradox and contradiction to force the intellect (rationalism) out of the box of five-senses-only perception (empiricism) to include our deep intuitions (mysticism). So Seth sometimes uses contradictory statements to make us think about what he’s really saying “beneath” his words. This is called “subtext” and is an element found in many premodern, perennial wisdom teaching styles.

According to writer Aldous Huxley:

“The subject matter of the Perennial Philosophy is the nature of eternal, spiritual Reality; but the language in which it must be formulated was developed for the purpose of dealing with phenomena in time. That is why, in all these formulations, we find an element of paradox. The nature of Truth-in-Fact [All-That-Is] cannot be described by means of verbal symbols that do not adequately correspond to it. At best it can be hinted at in terms of non sequiturs and contradictions.” (10)

The key paradox at this point in our story is All-That-Is experienced a Primordial Birth Agony as The One became The One-In-Many. In the subjective moment point that All-That-Is conceived a way to release the building tension of Its divine creativity, our physical universe simultaneously manifest in “an explosion of unimaginable proportions, as the divine spark of inspiration exploded into objectivity.” Thus, some kind of Big Bang literally occurred. (We’ll return to these important points later.)

To further understand the paradox of Seth’s “before the beginning” we need to develop our deep intuitions (inner senses) to experience our own remembrance of these events. Seth stated that we all hold the “memories of events with which [our] own inner psyches were intimately involved as the world was formed.” A Zen koan asks, “show me your Original Face before your mother and father were born.” Likewise, do you remember your Original Face “before the beginning?”

(8) Rather than footnote all of the following excerpts, I’m putting the session number and date after each one so that they’re easier to find. All excerpts are from Jane Roberts, Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Amber-Allen, San Rafael, CA, 1997, chapters 1-5.

(9) Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary, December 22, 2000.

(10) Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, Harper & Row, New York, New York, 1944, p. 128.

© 2005 Paul M. Helfrich, All Rights Reserved.

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Kris Workshop - Discover Your Passionate Self
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Saturday & Sunday February 11-12, 2006, 10 AM-4 PM
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"Remember your dreams,
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Avatar Yoga,
will be a blast!"

There are still some places available for those who wish to come at the last minute!

Kris just announced that he will be introducing Avatar Yoga (yoga of remembrance), something never presented before by any system of yoga. Essentially, it will provide exercises to connect directly with our own essence.

"Most yogas consist of various teachings and philosophies and practices to assist the participant, the devotee, the adept, the disciple, in realizing a certain level of awareness of its own divine origins. That is from the ego construction's perspective. All yogas work from that perspective and try to go back UP the ladder, so to speak.

"... Now this is simply a figure of speech, to go up or to go down the ladder. You could even say that this type of yoga is recognized as a practice BEFORE there are physical incarnations, physical expressions, or avatars of Essence."

This will employ meditative techniques that involve dreaming and altered states rather than asanas (postures). It will build upon material that Kris has delivered in the past three years available at: /library/Helfrich_P_Kris_Seth_Elias_Comparative_Overview.html

As always, bring your sense of humor, and expect to meet birds of a feather.

Cost
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Announcing the Adventures in Consciousness Forum – A NewWorldView forum moderated by Sean Foreman.

Sean is a long time Seth reader who is working his way through the Seth material book by book with an emphasis on the material on dreams, lucid dreaming, and projections of consciousness. He began with Book 1 of The Early Sessions and is creating a self-guided course of study that anyone can follow.

How far you go is entirely up to you, but Sean will be sharing various tools, practices, and tips to assist in your own exploration of what Seth calls the "unknown" reality. Read Sean's Welcome & Overview

Sethies Now Have Their Own Playing Field!



Explore your beliefs! Stretch your imagination! Delve into your dreams! Challenge your creativity!

Seven years in the making, I am so pleased to be able to offer you SethWorld - The Game of All That Is! SethWorld is a totally unique game, the first metaphysical board game based on the Seth material - maybe the first metaphysical board game, ever! It is designed to explore and uncover beliefs while having fun. There are no winners, no losers, and NO RULES! A 24-page pamphlet included with the game gives a probable framework for play, 6 sample "moves," and a glossary of 61 concepts.

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"SethWorld is a board game like no other. The possible outcomes are limitless. Probabilities are explored. One truly gets a feel for creatively constructing their personal reality while being given an opportunity to closely examine their personal belief system. I'd recommend this game to anyone with an interest in the Seth material as a delightful way to explore and deepen understanding. The best part is, everybody wins!" --Jimbo9,(James Thames) Curator of The Sethworks Mooseum

"SethWorld provides us with a unique opportunity to explore the nature of beliefs, and to have fun while doing so. I BELIEVE Seth would highly approve." --Richard Kendall, original member of Jane's ESP class

SethWorld will bring you hours of learning and fun, whether you use it at meetings, to introduce others to the concepts, as an ice-breaker at parties, or just for a fun and exciting evening of play with friends.

SethWorld -- You've never played anything like it!

Marion the Magnet’s First Mission
By Sharon Hackleman
Illustrated by John Blair Moore

Available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com
www.marionthemagnet.com Makes a great children's gift for the holidays!

Marion the Magnet is chosen to travel to the planet Earth with his wise grandfather to teach the children about their own magnetic powers…the magnetic power of thought!

In the book Marion helps a young girl, Katie, understand the importance of thinking and daydreaming about what she wants to attract with her magnetic powers of thought. When the other children are using their magnetic powers to attract fun things such as skateboards and new video games Katie is trying to use her magnetic powers to help her family through a challenging situation. Her father has been out of work for sometime and they are close to the point of becoming homeless.

NOW AVAILABLE

WHAT A COINCIDENCE Understanding Synchronicity In Everyday Life
by Susan M Watkins

Overview:

What if all those seemingly insignificant little What a coincidence! moments you've experienced were actually connected, were part of a larger, more complex coincidence story?

What if they were hinting at something very personal and important about yourself—and about the workings of human consciousness?

Would you listen?

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A former newspaper reporter and the author of five books, Watkins has always been intrigued by coincidences—what they mean in our everyday lives, and in the grander scheme of things. What, she asks, do these coincidence clusters say about human consciousness and human connection? In What a Coincidence! she presents coincidence clusters that are utterly astounding. What they reveal is life- altering.

What a Coincidence! is an exciting, groundbreaking journey. Along the way Watkins offers profound insights as well as practical pointers on how to become aware of the coincidence clusters in our own lives. She also shows us how to document coincidences so that we, too, can reap their valuable rewards. We'll never brush off those What a Coincidence! moments again.

Bay Area Seth Group 2005-06 Season!

After a lovely but too-short summer we are ready to ramp up again for even more lively gatherings of the Bay Area Seth Group. We meet the 2nd Saturday of each month from 3-6pm in the Excelsior District of San Francisco (we take off December and June-August). The next gathering is Saturday, September 10th. You can read a general overview at: http://www.consciousnessarts.com/seth_group.html

This year we are going to be even more experiential and will be using the Practice Elements from The Unknown Reality as a jumping off point. We also plan to do some explorations into group dreams. Of course, we are SPONTANEOUS beings and often don't follow our plans at all, so anything can happen!

If you are interested in attending or getting notices of upcoming meetings, please send me your email address and I'll put you on our Evite list.

Blissful Blessings, Kerstin

Something Old, Something New

Sethnet Speaks, January 2006 – compiled by Paul Helfrich.

Seth Sessions Overview – compiled by Shawn Regan & Rick.

See what we look like. Add your own picture! – John M. set up a webpage where we can add our photos. It also features a global map that shows where folks are located.

The Personal Sessions, Vol. 5/6 – The series deleted sessions dealing with personal material are now available. Vol. 7, now in process, will complete publication of ALL the Seth Material! By Rick Stack and New Awareness Network.

The Classic Seth Portrait by Rob Butts This is a low resolution scan for those interested.

Check out the Mindscapes Music CD - Listen online to 22 tracks of music from Paul Helfrich. Also available for purchase.

Concscious Creation Links – Conscious Creation Publishers, Book Stores, Websites, Journals, Newsletters, Mailing Lists, Message Boards, and more.

The Elias forum - website by Paul & Joanne Helfrich contains an expansion of many of the conscious creation concepts introduced by Seth/Jane Roberts, channeled by Mary Ennis.

What if the Seth material was a foundation to be expanded later by other channeled sources? Can any perennial source ever be considered complete AND infallible?

Seth readers will want to check out:
Introduction & Overview
A Seth, Elias Comparative Overview (Updated!)
Digest: Seth, Jane Roberts

The Kris Chronicles - an expansion of many of the conscious creation concepts introduced by Seth/Jane Roberts, channeled by Serge Grandbois.

A Kris, Seth, Elias Comparative Overview (Updated!) - a preliminary comparison of core concepts in the Seth material, information offered by Elias, and Kris Chronicles

NewWorldView - provides a forum to explore the practical applications of integral conscious creation, dream-art science, and more.

Otherfocus.com the personal website of Donald R. Johnson

Explore the creative worlds of John McNally and Kristen Fox Cofounders of the Conscious Creation Website and Email group John and Kristen share interests in writing, art, photography and cooking which they explore on a variety of websites:

John's weblog: Parabolic Mirror
Intuitive Astrology site: Psychic Weather
Writing: Mind Altering Fiction
Photography: Telepathicfrog
Cooking: Food Follies
Shop: Telepathic Frog Designs
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