The Ego and the Soul (part 2)
Session 528, May 13,1970
Seth Speaks
The Eternal Validity of the Soul
Pages 80-84
Now: Good evening.
It is the writer’s hour, and we will resume dictation.
The Soul perceives all the experience directly. Most experiences of which you are aware come packaged in physical wrappings, and you take the wrapping for the experience itself, and do not think of looking inside. The world that you know is one of the infinite materializations taken by consciousness, and such it is valid.
The Soul, however, does not need to follow the laws and principals that are a part of the physical reality, and it does not depend upon physical perception. This Souls perceptions are of acts and events that are mental, that lie, so to speak, beneath physical events as you know them. The Soul’s perceptions are not dependent upon time, because time is a physical camouflage and does not apply to non physical reality.
Now it is difficult to explain to you how direct experience actually works, for it exists- a total field of perception, innocent of the physical clues such as color, size, weight, and sense, with which your physical perceptions are clothed.
Words are used to tell of an experience, but they obviously are not the experience that they attempt to describe. Your physical subjective experience is so involved with word thinking, however, that it is almost impossible for you to conceive of an experience that is not to thought-word orientated.
Now, each event of which you are aware is already a translation of an inner event, a psychic or mental event that is perceived by the Soul directly, but translated by the physically orientated portions of the self into physical sense terms.
It goes without saying then that the Soul does not require a physical body for purposes of perception; that perception is not dependent upon physical senses; that experience continues whether or not you are in this life or another; and also that the Soul’s basic method of perception are also operating within you even now even as you read this book. It also follows that your experience within the physical system is dependent upon a physical form and physical senses—again, because these interpret reality and translated into physical data. It also follows that some hints of the Soul’s direct experience can be gained by momentarily switching the physical senses off--by refusing to use them as preceptors, and falling back upon other methods. Now you do this to some extent in the dream state, but even then in many dreams you still tend to translate experience into hallucinatory physical terms. Most of the dreams that you recall are of this nature.
At certain depths of sleep, however, the Souls perception operates relatively unhampered. You drink, so to speak, from the pure well of perception. You communicate with the depths of your own being, and the source of your own creativity. These experiences, not being translated physically, do not remain in the morning. You do not remember them as dreams. Dreams, however, may later the same evening be formed from the information gained during what I will call the “ depth experience.“ These will not exact or near translations of experience, but rather of the nature of dream parables-an entirely different thing, you see.
Now this particular level of consciousness, occurring in the sleep state, has not been pinpointed by scientists. During it, energy is generated that makes the dream state itself possible. It is true that dreams allow the physically orientated self to digest current experience, but is also true that the experience is then returned to its initial components. It breaks apart, so speak. Portions of it are retained as “past “ physical sense data, but the whole experience returns to its initial direct state.
It exists then, “eternally,“ separated from the physical clothing that you need in order to understand it. Physical existence is one-way in which the Soul chooses to experience its own actuality. The Soul, in other words, has created a world for you would to inhabit, to change—a complete sphere of activity in which new developments in indeed new forms of consciousness can emerge.
In a manner speaking, you continually create your soul as it continually creates you.
Now, the Soul is never diminished, nor basically are any portions of the self.
The Soul can be considered as an electromagnetic energy field, of which you are a part. It is a field of concentrated action when you consider it in this light---a powerhouse of probabilities or probable actions, seeking to be expressed; a grouping of nonphysical consciousness that nevertheless knows its self as an identity. Look at it this way: The young women through whom I speak once stated in a poem, and I quote: “ These atoms speak, and call themselves my name. “
Now your physical body is a field of energy with a certain form, however, and when someone asks you your name, your lips speak it-and yet the name does not belong to the atoms and molecules in the lips that utter the syllables. The name has meaning only to you. Within your body you cannot put your finger upon your own identity. If you could travel within your body, you could not find out where your identity resides, yet you say, “this is my body,“ and, “this is my name. “
If you cannot be found, even by yourself, within your body, then where is this identity of yours that claims to hold the cells and organs as your own? Your identity obviously has some connection with your body, since you have no trouble distinguishing your body from someone else’s, and you certainly have no trouble distinguishing between your body and the chair, say, upon which you may sit.
In a larger manner, the identity of the Soul can be seen from the same viewpoint. It knows who it is, and is far more certain of its identity, indeed, than your physical self is of its identity. And yet now where in this electromagnetic energy field can the identity of the Soul as such be found?
It regenerates all other portions of itself, and gives you the identity that is your own. And when it should be asked, “ Who are you? “ it would simply answer, “ I am I,“ and be answering for you also.
Now in terms of psychology as you understand it, the soul could be considered as a prime identity that is in itself a gestalt of many other individual consciousness-an unlimited self that is yet able to express itself in many ways and forms and yet maintain its own identity, its own “I am-ness,“ even while it is aware that its I am-ness may be part of another I am-ness. Now I am sure that may seem inconceivable to you, but the fact is that this I am-ness is retained even though it may, figuratively speaking, now merge with and travel through other such energy fields. There is, in other words, a give-and-take between Souls or entities, and no end of possibilities, both of development and expansion. Again, the soul is not a closed system.
It is only because your present existence is so highly focused in one narrow area that you put such stern limits upon your definitions and the self, and then project these upon your concepts of the Soul. You worry for your physical identity and limit the extent of your perceptions for fear you cannot handle more and retain your selfhood.
The Soul is not frightened for its identity. It is sure of itself. It ever seeks. It is not afraid of being overwhelmed by experience or perception. If you had a more thorough understanding of the nature of identity you would not, for example, fear telepathy, for behind this concern is the worry that your identity will be swept away by the suggestions or thoughts of others.
No psychological system is closed, no consciousness is closed, regardless of any appearances to the contrary within your own system. The Soul is a traveler, as has been said so often; but it is also the creator of all experience, and of all destinations in your terms. It creates worlds as it goes, so to speak.
Now this is the true nature of the psychological being of which you are a part. As mentioned earlier, later in the book I will give you some practical suggestions that will allow you to recognize some of your own deeper abilities, and utilize them for your own development, pleasure, and education.
Consciousness is not basically built upon those precepts of good and evil that so presently concern you. By inference, neither is a Soul. This does not mean that in your system, and in some others, these problems do not exist and that good is not preferable to the evil. It simply means that the Soul knows that good and evil are different manifestations of a far greater reality.
Now; I want to emphasize again that while all this sounds difficult in the telling, it becomes much more clear intuitively when you learned to experience what you are, for if you cannot travel inside your physical body to find your identity, you can travel through your psychological self.
There are far more wonders to perceive through this inward exploration and you can possibly believe until you begin such a journey for yourself. You are a Soul; you are a particular manifestation of a Soul, and it is sheer nonsense to think that you must remain ignorant of the nature of your own being. You may not be able to put your knowledge clearly into words, but this will in no way negate the value or the validity of the experience that will be yours once you begin to look inward.
Now you may call this a spiritual or psychological or psychic exploration, as you prefer. You will not be trying to find your Soul. In that respect there is nothing to find. It is not lost, and you are not lost. The words that you use may make no difference, but your intent does indeed.