In the Beginning

Here is a lengthy quote from Session 95 of the Early Sessions of The Seth Material found in Book 3. It talkes about our mistaken concept of things having a beginning (e.g. a big bang for the universe) and that leads into a fascinating perspective on the personality, free will, and the over-arching universal law of Value Fulfillment. Enjoy!


"Earlier I mentioned that your concept, distorted concept of cause and effect, led to the idea that all things must have a beginning and an end.

"Also I mentioned that the spacious present knows no beginning or end, and that energy, of which everything is composed, can never be withdrawn. Nor can individualized energy ever lose its individuality, nor in a very actual sense can anything which has ever existed go out of existence, but merely change its form.

"Since energy cannot be withdrawn but only change its form, then there can be no ending, but only a contraction such as that which I have earlier explained. And expansion must then follow, the expansion in your terms bringing a new beginning."

... "Energy is self-perpetuating. The universe and all planes and universes of existence, come indeed from what you may call energy, vitality, idea; or ... from a personality essence or psychic gestalt which you may refer to as God if you prefer. And this statement is an extremely simplified version of actuality.

... "Before any universe as you know it, or as I know it, existed, there was first a striving. To make this as simple as possible is difficult, since it has been simplified for me. In ultimate terms, there is and never was a beginning ... This strains the intellect, and so I will say that in your practical terms, of which we have somewhat spoken in the past, there was what you may all refer to as a beginning, when strife and striving and a wish to be formed itself and gathered itself sufficiently together to form a contracted whole in which all possibilities were latent.

"You will ask me, then, the source of the wish to be. You will of course ask me the source of the source, and I will say again that only within the framework of your intense but limited camouflage universe does such a question have any meaning or validity.

... "I must however substitute the word God for energy, but still say that energy always was and always will be.

"It is not to minimize the importance of the intellect that I once again repeat: Inner reality will only be known directly through the inner self, and the inner senses. The intellect must deal and interpret the realities of camouflage existence, this being its purpose.

"There is a constant, ever-enfolding and ever-expanding reality. The pyramids of psychic gestalts of which I have spoken represent in your terms all beginnings and all endings, which again expand into new beginnings and new forms.

"... read the sessions dealing particularly with the laws of the universe, that is with the inner laws of the universe, appreciating then the facts that this universe within all universes is spontaneous while having durability. It would be backtracking to repeat that long discussion, but as the inner universe has as its attributes spontaneity and durability, and as the spacious present is simultaneous while containing with it all pasts and all presents and all futures, and ... understand the meaning of expansion in terms not of time or of space but of value fulfillment, so ... no contradiction occurs with actual reality when I say that there is no beginning and no end.

... "As there is in actuality no beginning or end to a dream, so there is no beginning or end to any reality. A dream does not then begin and end, only your awareness of a dream begins and ends.

"You come into awareness of a dream, and you leave awareness of a dream, but the dreams that you seem to dream tonight have been long in existence, in your terms of time. They seem to begin tonight because you are aware of them tonight, so you think that reality must begin and end.

"You indeed create your own dreams ... Nevertheless, you do not create your own dreams during a specific point in time. The beginnings, to use that distortive term again, the beginnings of dreams reach back into past lives of which you are not aware, and beyond even this the origins are part of a heritage before your planet even existed.

"For every consciousness on your plane, or any other plane, existed simultaneously and in essence even before what you may call the beginning of your world. And what you are yet to be existed then and still exists now; and not as some still unfulfilled possibility, be exists in actuality.

"What you will be, ... , you all are now, not in some misty half-real form, but in the most real sense. You simply are not aware of these selves anymore on a conscious level than you are aware of what you refer to as past selves.

"The material that I have given you concerning the nature of planes will be quite handy here. I have told you that a plane is not necessarily a planet, nor a place, but even a mere focus of awareness. A dream is an awareness of and existence in another plane, whereby the self changes focus to keep in touch with the various portions of itself so that inner communication can be maintained.

"... read the material dealing with the perspective universe, in which the dream is projected into a changing but durable and quite real existence, independent of the dreamer.

"Now. I have said that any of you and all of you create a dream universe of validity, actuality, durability, and ... self-determination, in the same manner that the entity projects the reality of its various personalities. As there is no contact between the entity and the ordinary conscious ego, so there is no contact on a conscious level between the self who dreams and the dream world which has its own independent existence.

"And in the same way that the dream world has no beginning or end, neither does the universe with which you are familiar. No energy can be withdrawn, and this includes the energy used in the continuous subconscious construction of the dream world. You continually create it, have always created it. It is a product of your own existence, and you can neither consciously call it into existence nor destroy it.

"We will now come to one main attribute then of all reality, and of that that is as ultimate as anything I know - that energy gestalt which may be called God.

"For a compulsion is here that becomes an attribute, and this compulsion gives its opposite face a human character. For the one main and ultimate attribute or characteristic of this infinite energy is the compulsion to be. This is the driving force, the one main law from which value fulfillment then flows.

... "My dear friends. There are no ends that must be accomplished by any given personality, no ends that must be gained by a personality for the entity.

"There are only various planes of existence in which energy wishes, or may wish, to manifest itself. The entity then projects a personality within that plane of existence, equipping it with whatever camouflage senses, mechanisms, and protections that are necessary for survival on that plane.

"The personality is on its own, with what you may call the power of self-determination and free will. If you had thoroughly remembered our material on value fulfillment, you would know that the only detriment to so-called free will is the built-in necessity for value fulfillment. The personality must gain experience, in other words, on a particular level of existence, on which or within which it operates, and it cannot choose otherwise. It must experience existence on the particular level on which it has been projected.

"No child, no infant commits suicide. It is impossible. The adult who commits suicide has still gained experience to some degree within your plane. This law, the necessity for experience, operates only after complete materialization and orientation within your plane.

"A child is not completely materialized upon your plane, nor is he oriented. A personality may refuse to gain such experience before actual birth upon your plane. This necessity for value fulfillment through experience upon a particular existence plane, is the only detriment, if you wish to think of it that way, to free will.

"Now. No other commands are built-in, no other prohibitions given. But built-in of course into this necessity for experience, is the compulsion toward value-fulfillment, and as you know this does not apply alone to growth, which is in itself a camouflage materialization of value fulfillment along one line only.

"Personalities may indeed become entities. One personality may not be but one personality in your terms, as I have mentioned a man being one personality may be seen in terms of a father, a teacher, an artist, a community member and so forth.

"The father does not negate the reality of, say, the artist. The father does not rob the artist of free will, nor does the entity rob the personality of free will. It is the personality who makes the choices. The entity may not either aid or prevent any choice that the personality may make. The entity may not like any particular choice made by the personality, but he, the entity, cannot change the course that the personality chooses to take.

"If you say that the personality cannot take any choice of which the entity is not aware, then this is true; but it is also true that the entity is utterly incapable of changing that choice made by the personality, even though the entity knows about the choice ahead of time, so to speak.

"With his superior knowledge the entity must leave hands off. His, the entity's, only hope is to allow the personality complete independence, for it is the personality who understands more clearly than he the conditions of the particular plane upon which his existence happens.

"There is here no puppet, and there is no hand that moves the strings. If there were you see, you would indeed have a much more perfect world, but you would not have that one built-in prerequisite: complete as possible existence within all facets, and manipulation within all facets, of a given plane.

"Now. What you call karma has meaning only in basic terms within your particular plane. I do not want to get too complicated. Nevertheless personalities on your plane work out individual problems within that plane through various existences. Here we have also free will, but continuity so to speak of purposes. No purpose is forced upon any personality. He, the personality, adopts in various reincarnations upon your plane those purposes most in keeping with his own needs. ... levels of existence do not necessarily imply higher or lower levels, but concentric levels, even as the layers of the subconscious do not imply upper and lower levels, but are merely terms used for the sake of simplicity."