Moment Points

Seth from Volume 4 of the Early Sessions:


Session 150

Moment Point

"A moment point basically consists not of any particular given time division, but is within your system a convenient term that expresses or represents the range of reality that can be conveniently embraced without undue strain.

"Within what you call one moment, many such perceptions flash through to affect any given individual. However there is within your system a lapse before the organism can effectively organize these perceptions. My idea of a moment point is only an approximation of your physical moment. I am trying to make it plain here that the range of action is what is important. A moment point is a range of action."

Session 151

Moment Point (continued)

"There is much to be explained along many lines which we have only begun to touch upon, for all things are correlated; and there is indeed a correlation between our moment points of which we have spoken, the spacious present, and that portion of the whole self which you call the subconscious.

"We are dealing here principally, and in the main, with the essence of action, and essentially all apparent divisions are arbitrary for the sake of explanation. The moment point is in itself arbitrary, an artificial division. As we have said, the moment point for you is actually composed of the amount of action which your are capable of assimilating within your present framework, for the moment point is indeed a portion of the spacious present.

"(For a more graphic interpretation of what a moment point might be, see Jane's description of the concept she received from Seth in the 149th session.)

"The subconscious, and in fact all portions of the self with the exception of the ego, are capable of assimilating a wider area, so to speak, of action. Therefore to these other portions of the self, time has a much different essence than it has for the ego. The ego is indeed many things. It can be defined in relationship to many other aspects of reality. In relationship to action, and moment points, the ego is indeed that portion of the self which stands at the apex of the moment point, and is limited by the moment point. The ego is in this context the portion of the self which is utterly focused upon, and imprisoned by, the moment point.

"The ego is that portion of the self which experiences time as continuity, and to whom experience is a series of stimuli and responses carried on one after another. And yet this is in itself a division, so to speak, or a kind of value fulfillment, for the simultaneous nature of a given action is here experienced in slow motion, as a child must learn to walk before the child can run.

"The subconscious however is not so limited. If you consider the ego at the apex of the moment point, and imprisoned therefore within the realm of its own before-and-after, cause-and-effect experience, then you can imagine the subconscious reaching further outward and seizing upon many other moment points. It should be easy to see then why the focus of the ego is so sharp and brilliant. Within its limited scope there is intensity of stimuli and response. Indeed, the ego is that portion of the personality which is plunged into a specific and intense preoccupation with a given field of action or dimension.

"The subconscious, reaching outward, reaches also inward. For while there is no real past or present or future within the spacious present, there is indeed an infinity of inward and outward; and again, of actions within actions, and there is no end to these actions for they are self-generating. The other portions of the inner self reach then even further in all directions, and they therefore envelop many moment points. To many portions of the inner self then, what you would call a moment would correspond to an almost limitless number of moments, for even physical time has no meaning without experience without action.

"Your whole concept of time is built about your own capacity for perceiving action; as this capacity for perceiving action grows, so indeed do the dimensions of time grow. Conceivably therefore one moment of your time would indeed be experienced by the whole self as centuries.

"This should lead you to understand why physical time is basically meaningless to the subconscious, and why the inner self has at its command a knowledge of past lives and past endeavours; for the inner self, dear friends, these lives are not in the past, nor is the life of the ego necessarily present to the whole self.

"For to the whole self all personalities that compose it exist simultaneously, and personalities that would appear to you as future personalities are experienced by the whole self in the same dimension as it experiences personalities that you would call past personalities. For all your ideas of time are illusion, not merely philosophical illusions, but delusions as far as any basic reality is concerned.

"It is only the ego that steps from moment to moment, as a man who walks from puddle to puddle. It is only the ego who drowns in time. Therefore, since only the ego is momentarily imprisoned within the focus of your plane, it is only the ego who probes so slowly into simultaneous action, perceiving it bit by bit and sip by sip. So now you will see what I meant when I spoke about the limitless self, for the whole self is not so bound. The whole self could and does perceive a limitless number of such moment points simultaneously. And now hear this:

"The whole self not only perceives these limitless moment points, but being a part of action, each whole self projects fragments and personalities from itself to all these points, creating therefore other egos, other intense focus points which are independent, which work out their own destinies and experiences, which in turn perceive any given moment point ins slow motion.

"It must be stressed that there are no sharp boundaries, however, between the various portions of the whole self.

"There are shadings and variations and that is all. The inner ego is that part of the inner self which is closely allied with the outer ego, in that it is to some degree a director of function and activity. But it is not sharply focused. It looks inward. Here we run into some language difficulty.

"The inner ego looks inward, yet in looking inward it looks outward toward those vast portions of the self. Because there is always action within action, and because of the three dilemmas of which we have spoken earlier, the new personalities projected outward into other fields of perception, or other moment points, these other personalities in turn create new ones, and the cycle is again repeated.

"Time, physical matter, these are but portions of action as perceived in one particular fashion. The basic stuff, or the basic action of the universe, is one. It is perceived differently, and therefore reality constantly wears a different face. It is speeded up or slowed down according to the scope of perception.

"(It might be interesting to note here that Seth began talking about action in the 13th session, January 6, 1964: "Love and hate, for example, are action," and "In your plane, action is the main word of importance," etc. See Volume 1, page 71.

"(See the 138th and 141st sessions for material on the three creative dilemmas.)

"It is almost impossible to explain clearly, through the use of words, this massive complexity, for all fields of activity are self-generating. Even the dream field is self-generating. No consciousness can bring itself to destruction. It can only cease experiencing a certain portion of action. This is a rather important point.

"The multiplicity of human experience would be impossible were it not for the inner self, and for the heritage that speaks through the cells of every human being. The perspectives and psychic relationships that make up the human personality simply could not have resulted through action within your field alone. It cannot be stressed too strongly that experience within the self can lead to at least some understanding of the nature of action in its pure form, for within your physical universe action is to some extent frozen, insofar as your perceptions of it are concerned.

"Yet within your own psychological experience you can perceive its fluid nature. The material that I have given you concerning the three dilemmas will be most helpful here.

"There is much that you simply cannot perceive at this point. There is much that mankind as such will never learn, simply because such knowledge is beyond the reach of the ego. But there is much that you do not know that you can learn.

"Now, Each moment point is a field or dimension. You perceive certain very limited aspects of a given number of such moment points. The same moment points may simultaneously be experienced in an entirely different fashion, and to a different set of perceptions. These moment points would appear quite different than they appear to you.

"There is a delicate connection here with the dream universe that is somewhat difficult to explain. The dream universe, however, pervades many other fields. It does not exist outside or apart from your own universe, but simultaneously with it. It appears, and is a reality, to all aspects or portions of the self, and often it is only within the dream universe that the personality can change focus easily or efficiently enough so that he can perceive the variety of roles that he himself has played.

"I mentioned the chemical relationship between your universe and the dream universe. There are like relationships of one kind or another that tie together all fields and systems, from the largest to the most minute. The freedom of the inner self, then, is never determined by time as you know it. It is determined by time as you do not know it.

"There are such manipulations within various systems that change other systems. Your own behaviour and action within the dream universe definitely affects the physical universe. From one field of activity then you have changed another, and without ever knowing, in many cases, that you have done so. In the same manner do the activities of the physical universe alter the dream system. It is virtually impossible for me to explain all these inner workings. We will have to wait until you can experience concepts for much of that.

"These moment points may, for simplicity's sake, also be thought of as reference points from one system to another. Do you see now a connection here with camouflage, as explained in earlier sessions?

"The moment point will be seen as camouflage, which simply means that it will be perceived differently according to the perceptors. Definitions have little meaning unless they are related to other issues. For that reason I will try whenever possible to relate terms with which you are familiar in ways so that their relationships will be clearly seen.

"There will be much more here also concerning moment points and value fulfillment. For this, value fulfillment, is the reason behind the existence of all systems, and of all experience within your field. I mentioned that value fulfillment seems, and is to some small degree, dependent upon time as you know it, but this merely reflects upon the manner in which you perceive time, and in no way alters the simultaneous nature of value fulfillment, which grows in dimension but is not dependent upon time as you know it."