Hi Chriss,
When I think about this Pandemic, as a situation that effects only myself, as if it were a personal dream I was having and analyzing, it takes on a very different tone.
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I’ve noticed that this pandemic has forced the happening or non-happening of a number of events or activities that general populations in different locations* seemed to want yet not get e.g.
- reduced migration and tourism;
- tighter borders;
- lower pollution;
- less ‘busywork’;
- more awareness and criticism of China’s political practices, including the manipulation and surveillance of ordinary Chinese people;
- more respect for essential work and workers;
- more consideration of repatriation of work to bolster local economies and reduce reliance on Chinese manufacturing in particular;
- more willingness to consider major changes to health and unemployment insurance or support (depending on current norms in a given nation);
- more sense of community (i.e. knowing the neighbours);
- lower commercial activity in less essential areas, leading to greater awareness of what we require, minimally, for a good life;
- more awareness of the politically expedient use of power in times of crisis, for good or for ill.
*I’m mainly aware of so-called First World perspectives, especially in the English-speaking nations.
All true. The energy around this situation does seem pretty literal. Also, then, interesting is that all the very sick and old are dying. I wonder if we, as a group, are also commenting on old age and ill health (all those underlying health issues that are leading to death in combination with the virus). Also, seems the cause is from Live Meat Markets in combination with intensive, large over crowded domesticated animal farms. So it would seem that vegan movement plays a role in this as well.
I just finished The Magical Approach. In it Seth encourages Jane to focus on her successes and her positive moods to better facilitate her healing. I want to be sensitive to the grief of loved ones of the nearly 100,000 people who have lost their lives in our own country alone feel. I know that grief is an expression of love. And I know nothing is ever lost in Love. So there are some real positive aspects of the virus, many already mentioned. Focusing on that, perhaps, will allow us to learn what this experience has for us to learn. Taking Seth’s advice, we can focus and embrace more fully those positive outcomes.
Surely everybody has the right to their opinions, but I have to state my strong disagreement with your:
“So there are some real positive aspects of the virus”
There is nothing positive about this crisis!
I can’t but assume that it wasn’t your intention, but statements like yours are an offense to the memory of those who died, to their families, and to all those that suffered, suffer, and will continue to suffer because of this.
This is a tragedy!
“Taking Seth’s advice, we can focus and embrace more fully those positive outcomes”
There is no Seth’s advice as you stated. His advice was to be joyful, to not accept suffering. There are no outcomes brought on you. You create your reality. Always! You do it to yourself. Nobody does it to you!
This kind of crises are the result of defectuous mass thinking, when people succumb to fear, anger, and accept less than their natural right to happiness. You accepted the reality you experience.
Well, one positive thing about this virus, it seems to have presented everyone with an opportunity to rethink a great many things and in a much more deep and profound way. How we treat each other, how important family and community are, universal health care for all, perhaps treating animals with more respect and dignity, taking better care of one’s own health, and the impermanence of life and how precious it is.
I have lost many loved ones over the many years of my life and it always brings heartache. I get that all life is impermanent, that we are all just a whisper on the wind. But I am sure Seth would have some interesting things to say about this Covid-19 virus and why, we have brought this upon ourselves.
“The experience had meaning on many levels…but any accident—and this applies to each of you—is no accident,” Seth continued. “Your good health or your poor health is no accident. All of this has meaning to you.
Our friend did not happen to walk through a plate-glass window. It was no cosmic or particular accident in which he was involved.
“If you cut your finger, it is no accident. If you stub your toe, it is no accident. If you come down with the flu, or with a virus, it is no accident. If you have a chronic physical difficulty, it is no accident. If you are creative, it is no accident. If you get good news, it is no accident. If lovely things happen to you, it is no accident.
“You form your reality. And this applies all the way down the scale—from your consciousness that you think of, to the tiniest molecule in Lauren’s eye!”
On immunity
“The viruses and infections were of course present. They always are. They are themselves fragments, struggling small fragments without intention of harm. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗿 𝗻𝗼𝘁, 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘃𝗶𝗿𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. Ideally you can inhabit a plane with them without fear. It is only when you give tacit agreement that harm is inflicted upon you by these fragments.” -Seth, Early Sessions, Vol 1
"Give us a moment … In those terms, thoughts move far quicker of course than viruses. The action of the virus follows the thought. Each thought is registered biologically. Basically (underlined), when you have an immunity to a disease you have a mental immunity.
You think of viruses as evil, spreading perhaps from country to country, to “invade” scores of physical mechanisms. Now thoughts are “contagious.” You have a natural immunity against all thoughts that do not fit in with your own purposes and beliefs, and naturally (pause, groping), you are “inoculated” with a wholesome trust and belief in your own thoughts above others. The old ideas of voodooism recognized some of these concepts, but complicated and distorted them with fears of evil, psychic invasion, psychic killing, and so forth. You cannot divide, say, mental and physical health, nor can you divide a person’s philosophy from his bodily condition."
—NoME Chapter 6: Session 841, March 14, 1979
“The patient, therefore, often feels relatively powerless and at the mercy of any stray virus that might come along. The facts are that you choose even the kind of illness that you have according to the nature of your beliefs. You are immune from ill health as long as you believe that you are.”
—NoPR Chapter 5: Session 624, October 30, 1972
“small fragments without intention of harm. You have general immunity, believe it or not, to all such viruses and infections. Ideally you can inhabit a plane with them without fear. It is only when you give tacit agreement that harm is inflicted upon you by these fragments. To some degree, lesser, dependent lives such as household pets are dependent upon your psychic strength. They have their own, it is true, but unknowingly you reinforce their energy and health.”
—TES1 Session 17 January 20, 1964
“Oh, god,” Richie Kendall groaned as Diane paused for a sip of wine. “What really gets to me about this – what really, really gets to me – is how simple it all is. Your beliefs form reality, right? No bullshitting around – that’s it! But if it’s that simple, what happened? Why did we forget it all? Why aren’t people aware of it? I mean, so much of the world is so fucked up! And Seth saying that ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS CHANGE OUR BELIEFS . . .”
“Yeah, right – all,” Jane yukked. Her chuckles fell like a shower of rocks. “Just think about it!” Richie hurried on, caught up in the throes of thinking about it. “Just think about it! THIS is what the whole world comes from and we FORGOT IT ALL!” His voice rang out with real passion, and the rest of us were feeling it too. “How the hell could we have allowed ourselves to do that?!” Richie wailed. How could we have allowed ourselves to create a reality with all the pain and suffering, and wars and starvation, disease, cruelty, the whole bit? It’s insane, that’s what it is – it’s just insane! I mean, how could we have allowed it to get this way? What justification can there possibly be?"
Silence, for once, reigned supreme. Jane shrugged; what could she say? “I don’t know, Richie, who knows? But maybe it’s that we wanted to-”
“What it means is that we all have a great responsibility now,” Allan Demming suddenly pronounced. “It means that we have the responsibility of disseminating Seth’s ideas to the world at large, so that people can understand the truth.”
Jane screwed up her face in protest. “No, I don’t know, Allan, I just figure we do the books, and if people want to read them and use the ideas, fine. I certainly don’t feel ‘responsible’ about it in the way you mean-and I’m not about to start a crusade that I’ve got the truth and nobody else has.”
“But you do!” Allan wailed, ignoring the expression of dismay on Jane’s face. “You say that we create our own reality, and I think it’s up to the people here to get others to read the Seth material! It’s our responsibility to the world, before it’s too late and we destroy . . .”
Swiftly, Jane was yanking her glasses off, Seth’s voice ringing out loudly in his familiar, “Now!”
“Uh, oh,” Richie grinned, “here it comes!” He leaned forward in anticipation of a Sethian scorch. What actually followed has been labeled by those members who heard it as one of the most belief-shattering “milestone” Seth sessions in the ten years of class.
“Listen to me!” Seth roared at us, "I thrust no responsibility upon you to carry my message to the world! I have, in those terms, a responsibility that I give you – if you must start thinking in terms of responsibility – the responsibility of being yourselves to the best of your capacity; and if you fulfill that responsibility, the things within your lives will be right, and your actions and your feelings in the world will speak for themselves. For in being yourself you bring forth the message of freedom and creativity!
"The world will go its way. It may not be your way. It may
not be my way. But, it may! The world will take these ideas as it will. I give them playfully, joyfully, and humbly, that they may fall as the seeds fall from a gigantic oak tree. I do not say that every man must pick up one of those seeds for himself and use it. I say merely, ‘I am.’ And, to you, I say, ‘You are.’
“AND WHENEVER THESE CLASSES ARE NOT FUN, DO NOT COME TO THEM! AND WHENEVER YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING YOURSELVES THAT IS NOT FUN, STOP IT!”
“STOP IT?!” Richie screamed, shutting Seth off in midbreath, “Stop it? You mean, just like that – just stop it? Anything – anything that’s not fun?! Just like that?! Just --stop it?!”
Seth nodded, smiling broadly at Richie. “Creativity and the joy of the gods does not involve responsibility – in your terms, now,” Seth said. "Being knows its own actions, and when you are yourself, you fulfill any responsibility that any god or man could lay upon you from the outside.
“Now, back to the book, or your questions,” Seth said, and blithely withdrew.
“Anything that’s not fun – just quit doing it?!” Richie was screaming as Jane emerged from trance. everybody was talking and yelling at once. “Anything?! But the only thing that’s fun for me is playing paddleball!” Richie shouted. “So does that mean I should just drop everything else, don’t bother getting a job, and just play paddleball for the rest of my life? That’s it?!”
“Hold it!” Jane finally yelled above everyone. “Hold! It! What WAS this?”
“I don’t believe it!” Richie yowled in exaggerated disbelief. “Seth just said that we should stop doing anything that isn’t fun!”
“Well, I’ll go for that,” Jane said lightly, reaching for her wine glass.
“Yeah, but --” Richie looked around at his friends and forced a loud, nervous laugh. “But – anything? What if nobody wanted to work anymore? What if you just wanted to screw all the time? What if you decided it wasn’t fun being a parent anymore and you threw your kid out the door? What if…”
“Yeah, or what if you had to take care of your old mother or something, and THAT wasn’t fun anymore?” chimed in Rudy. “What if you thought it was fun to be a flasher in Central Park? What if LIFE wasn’t fun anymore and you decided to kill yourself?”
In a way, it was really funny – the group of people among us with the least number of responsibilities, conventionally speaking, were protesting this dictum of fun the loudest. Was it because they feared that fun was only a right of the chronologically young, which they couldn’t hold onto? Or that the world was really out to get them in its jaws?
Jane lit a cigarette. “I don’t know; it just seems to me that if we really were spontaneous enough to follow our impulses, that we’d just naturally do what was necessary. I mean, maybe if people were really spontaneous and understood the inner self, the person who’d thought all along that being a parent wasn’t fun wouldn’t have had kids in the first place. Or maybe when you got to it, some things you thought were so much fun wouldn’t be. Maybe screwing would turn out to be a lot of work.” Jane rolled her eyes and laughed. “Maybe Richie, after you played 800 games of paddleball you wouldn’t want to anymore; you’d find that you’d worked through all this pent-up desire from being too afraid of the impulse to let yourself go and play paddleball for three hours, or whatever.”
“Well --” Richie began, doubtfully. But with that Seth appeared again with the advice that each of us explore our beliefs about fun versus responsibility by writing down our definitions of those terms during the coming week.
“In some instances, you will find that you feel one way, it seems, and believe another,” Seth said. “In those instances, privately follow your feelings, and they will lead you to your beliefs. I want you to deal with these questions on an intimate precept. You may find that they spill over into your ideas of good and bad [and] poverty – spiritual and non-spiritual – and, of course, bring those tender papers to class! It is your playful responsibility!”
During the readings of those papers in the next class, Ira Willis began by stressing “the need for responsible action in a world capable of blowing itself up.” Within seconds, Seth sprang to life with more remarks on fun and responsibility.
“My heartiest greeting to you all, and I knew I could count on you [Ira] to do it!” Seth began humorously. "[But] he is not alone in posing these beliefs. Now, I tell you that in basic terms, civilisation is dependant upon the spontaneity and fulfillment of the individual. Your civilisation is in sad straits – not because you have allowed spontaneity or fulfillment to individuals, but because you have denied it, and because your institutions are based upon that premise.
"You think that, left alone, the natural inclinations of man would destroy civilisation. Then what, indeed, started civilisation, if not the natural inclinations of man? What began the cooperation that allows people to unite even in tribes, if not the natural inclinations of man?
"If you learn to trust your being, then you will be able to trust your institutions and your civilisations. You equate spontaneity with irresponsibility; abandon with evil. If you abandon yourslves to yourselves, then what good would seem to spring out of the heavens of your being!
"Your world is not in dire straits because you trust yourselves, but preciesly because you do not. Your social institutions are set up to fence in the individual, rather than to allow the natural development of the individual!
“I come here because it is fun. I have fun when I come here. I do not come here because I feel that I have an great responsibility for your beings or your welfare. Who am I to set myself against the innate wisdom of your individual being, or take upon my invisible shoulders the great privilege or joyful responsibility fr your behaviour and destiny?”
A strange question, perhaps, if you were looking to Seth for definition of your being. But a very good point from someone who emphasized above all the authority of the individual self."
Conversations with Seth, book 2, chapter 7: “If It Isn’t Fun, Stop Doing It!” 25th Anniversary Edition
your concepts of good and progression are extremely distorted
“Now: Dictation. In one way or another you are all travelers before you begin even your first reincarnational cycle. To make it as simple as I can, I will say that you do not have the same backgrounds, necessarily, when you enter the physical system of reality. As mentioned earlier, earthly existence is a training period; and yet as far as possible I would like you to forget your ordinary ideas of progression.
Ideas of good, better, best can lead you astray, for example. You are learning to be as completely as possible. In one way you are learning to create yourselves. In so doing during the reincarnational cycle, you are focusing your main abilities in physical life, developing human qualities and characteristics, opening new dimensions of activity. This does not mean that good does not exist, or that in your terms you do not “progress,” but your concepts of good and progression are extremely distorted.”
—SS Chapter 11: Session 541, July 13, 1970
Diets
"Now: each body is of course individual, and while there must be similarities in the ways bodies utilize substances, still there are differences—and sometimes the differences can be more than considerable. Not only in the case of a given substance in many bodies, for example, but any given body may utilize any given substance in quite diverse fashions, according to varying circumstances.
The dietary methods given in the book Ruburt read have indeed worked for many, and for the following reasons: as you suspected, a kind of conversion was attained. The people involved first of all had been told by doctors—medical doctors—that they themselves had no control over their own disease, that the symptoms could be lessened somewhat—perhaps—but that there was no hope for recovery.
They were frightened and angry, their condition such that they were often in constant pain. When they visited the author, however, he was optimistic and brusque. He said “You do indeed have control,” and his personal manner was such that he convinced them. Now that was all to the good. They were given hope and thrown back to a feeling of self-reliance.
Now, however, the story becomes trickier. The patients had various beliefs, of course, behind their conditions. Many felt unworthy. Because of this many were unable to express normal aggression. Some were frightened of the world, and so forth. The author gives such people a specific enemy, or evil: no more must they be battered with formless fears, but these become gathered together and focused into the dietary area. Unhealthy foods become the villain.
This means that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the person, which many of them have believed. They are good (as of course they are). The trouble is what they take into their system. Those who are cured are at a certain state when they approach the author, as mentioned earlier, feeling helpless after medical treatments that did not work—feeling that there is something wrong with them. They are in their own eyes “bad”—and in one way or another that kind of belief was behind the condition to begin with.
(4:13.) To that degree, the author offers them salvation: “You are good, but the food is bad.” The fasting is symbolic, as is the emphasis upon enemas and elimination, for these are meant to flush the impurities from your system.
You are as empty, symbolically, open and vacant, as a newborn child, ready now only to partake of God’s pure foods, determined to avoid technology’s poisonous effects. You are taking in goodness, then, and becoming better and better. You accept dietary limitations—say a limited environment of food—rather than the limitations earlier felt in motion. The exterior environment opens up. Oftentimes the previously withheld normal aggression now can be legitimately expressed—against the food companies, the technological environment, the medical profession, and so forth.
The cured person becomes a convert to a new way of life. When there are no cures, or patients do not respond, or they slide back into old ways, the doctor-author simply says they are not ready to take the steps necessary, or they have taken them half-heartedly. And many who are cured, of course, come down with other conditions if they have not succeeded in identifying their own fears sufficiently with the author’s.
[… 5 paragraphs …]
(4:28.) Now give us a moment… Your diets are adequate. You could stand more green vegetables. Fresh potatoes are good. You do fairly well, however, with a moderate diet. Ruburt does not take to citrus fruits. That is simply characteristic of his body."
—TPS5 Deleted Session November 15, 1978
Hi Inavalan,
Lots of cutting and pasting, but I am not sure I understand what you are meaning to say. Would love to hear your thoughts though, in your own words or the point you are making.
Personally, I am not afraid of the virus. But I do miss spending time with my friends, who it seems are very much afraid of the virus and getting it. I get the feeling that this virus is going to be here for quite a long time and I look forward to people making peace with it for the purely selfish reason of once again spending time with my friends and being out and about.
You asked what would Seth have to say, and I quoted passages that I thought to be relevant. I probably misunderstood, and wasted my time and yours …
I thought I posted my thoughts, and generally don’t like to get in polemics.
Please ask again what is the subject you’d want to hear my thoughts about.
Regarding the following, I disagree with your take (see my replies), and I intended to paste one more Seth quote, but it seems that it isn’t what you asked for.
Hi Inavalan,
Your replies are never a waste of my time and I am always happy to have a Seth conversation. I asked you for clarity because I did not understand that you were sharing Seth quotes as a reply to what you thought was a question. My comment was rhetorical / observational. So, sorry I was being so confusing … My meaning; I bet Seth would have a lot to say on this Pandemic if he were here to currently comment on it.
Yes, he has commented a lot on other very similar issues, and the advice is pretty much the same.
May I ask you a few personal questions? Where are you from? How are you doing with the Pandemic? How are you and your family holding up with all of this?
My main interest is to learn what I am, why I am here now, what I am supposed to do, and to understand as much as possible the nature of the wider reality. After a number of years, I consider that I pretty much can trust the answers I have. I’m looking at what’s happening around me from this perspective.
I browsed several collections of quotes from the Seth books, but read cover-to-cover only his first one: Seth Speaks. I read Seth for confirmations and inspiration, from the perspective that not everything I read is completely accurate, and not to form opinions about how the reality is, but more to get inspiration how to find out for myself.
I look at the current crisis as I look at all the other crises, and at human behavior and physical reality. I formed opinions about what caused this, what does it mean, where it goes. So far, this crisis hasn’t affected me or any one that I personally know as dramatically as I learned from media. I don’t trust most media and most politicians, and find them disgusting.
But I feel for the pain that affected so many people, and for what they’ll have to bear from now on. There were major problems in the world before this crisis, and we’ll likely get out of this worse than we got in.
If find regrettable that ordinary people are so easily manipulated, and taken advantage of their ignorance and fear. But we’re all here to learn. If we knew better we wouldn’t be here-now.
Hi Inavalan,
Well said. That pretty much sums it up for me too. I do get frustrated sometimes with the media and the situation in general, but to be honest, I think my angst is mostly boredom as very few people I know are not afraid of this virus. Truth is, even my Seth conversation friends in my city, seem to be afraid of this virus. My gut feeling is that I am not in harms way and am just going with that feeling. Looking forward to meeting up with everyone once this has passed.
I have read all the Seth books, but it was so long ago, that I should probably read them again, seems more and more interesting things happen when I spend time with Seth.
If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend Susan Watkins’ “Conversations with Seth, Volumes 1 & 2”.
She attended Jane Roberts’ weekly classes for several years, and her book has an introduction written by Jane, which is a seal of approval.
The book is a collection of accounts from those classes, in which Seth repeatedly participated, answering the kind of questions we all ask when we get exposed to the Seth material.
Those Seth quotes aren’t included in any of the books published by Jane and her husband, and are based on the recordings and notes taken during those classes.
I didn’t get any glimpse that Susan tried to promote personal views, and I’m quite suspicious about such things. I believe that what Seth is quoted to have said, in this book, has the same degree of credibility / authenticity as the whole Seth material has.
Hi Inavalan,
Funny you say that, because I ordered Conversations with Seth 1 & 2 this morning. I left all my books back in California when I moved up here to Washington, and after reading that quote you posted about the lady and her cat, I realized that not only did I not remember that, I don’t seem to remember much of that book, so time for a re-read!
That was interesting. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
greetings. I’m new to this forum, but have been reading Seth since 1974. The material has been the rudder on my ship. That said I do see a gift from this pandemic. It has given us the opportunity for deep reflection, to look closely upon our society, our politics, our families, our work and our personal lives and beliefs. In “The individual and mass events” Seth notes that pandemics are sometimes a protest, by those who sicken and even die, against conditions that have not been dealt by other means. I look at the parallel agonies of George Floyd and the BLM protests calling out “I can’t breathe”, and I see people in the hospitals on ventilators reaching out with “I can’t breathe” .I wonder if this whole drama is an outpicturing of people around this country and around the world feeling suffocated by everything from crushing debt, to exploitation of their work, and lives, to crushing wars and the powers that promulgate them…and to the BELIEF (peddled by trump, the hard right ,and the media) that it’s all about WINNING in a ruthless arena of competition. I believe that Covid 19 asks us the question “Do we want to stand With people or On people?” I choose WITH🌺
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“Now: If you expand your sense of love, of health, and existence, then you are drawn in this life and in others toward those qualities; again, because they are those upon which you concentrate. A generation that hates war (Jane looked at Carl) will not bring peace. A generation that loves peace will bring peace.”
—SS Chapter 12: Session 550, September 28, 1970
“He was a far more gentle man, and yet in his own way as fanatical as any of the other main characters of that day. He was much more against what he was against, than for what he was for. Christ, you see, was to deliver the message and John was to prepare the way for it.”
—SS Appendix: Session 592, August 23, 1971
“(Pause at 9:21.) Those given to such practices — constant examination of the past in order to discover what is wrong in the present — too often miss the point. Instead, they constantly reinforce the negative experience from which they are trying to escape. Their initial problems were caused precisely as a result of the same kind of thinking. A great many unsatisfactory conditions result because individuals become frightened at various periods in their lives, doubt themselves, and begin to concentrate upon “negative” aspects.”
—NoPR Chapter 15: Session 657, April 18, 1973
session:657 ask “wrong question”
Well said Teal P.
Yeah, well said! I also do not think it a coincidence that all this chaos is up in so many peoples faces right now. It will be interesting how this all plays out. No pain, no gain. That does seem to be the way we learn the bigger picture understanding of how the metaphysical universe works.
I was introduced to the Seth writings by a friend back in 1984 or there abouts. He and his wife and myself and a friend of theirs, Jane, would get together and discuss all Seth had to say and how we were relating it with our lives and life experiences. We would try the suggesting and experiments in consciousness and discuss our dreams, out of body and other things like that. And like you, seems to have been the insight that for me, made it all make sense.