Playing the Game

Seth Early Sessions, Vol 7, Session 303

Playing the Game

Indeed you form the patterns in the sense universe, but when you have formed them, you must know them not only as your own creations.  You must know their nature for the physical chasm represents a mental chasm within the self.

…  It is a means for the whole to know itself.  But in knowing itself, more of itself is constantly created.  ...  The “moment presents” are constantly created by you and then probed and yet they have existed and will exist.  You make the divisions.  You are part of the whole, but you constantly enlarge the experiences of the whole.  It is not done and finished in the terms of which you think.

… To begin with in your terms:  What is, is not static.  Therefore it cannot in those terms be considered complete and done with.

But always in a state of becoming.  However in the Spacious Present, All That Is does exist.  The becoming can never be completed and yet wherever you choose to draw a line, you will think of it as an end.

([Gene]: “The earlier seminars were on the theme of cocreation and an image of a vessel kept reappearing.  The idea of the seminar was essentially that the act of cocreating was to provide a vessel out through which something could be continually becoming.  What was it, do you think, that flowed through this vessel?  What is the way?  This is the thing I’m looking for.”)

You already possess it, of course.

([Gene]:  “What would you call it?”)

To give it a name is unfortunate.  We have not used a name in our sessions.  I would call it IGNAPTHA, which is a poor approximation of the term I am trying to express.  In your terms perhaps the whole self constantly expressing itself and that which is knowing itself in all its possibilities.

([Gene]:  “Is this not also an emotional expression?”)

You must indeed read our early sessions.  You recall the basis of those sessions, Joseph.

([Gene]:  “What emotions should I call this?”)

You should call it love.

([Gene]:  “And the thing to which you referred – IGNAPTHA – is that what I should understand Baba to mean by the world “love”?”)

This is what he would have you believe he refers to.  Indeed.  And if I have ever given a double-tongued answer, I have given it now.  For I know him, you see.

…  If you realized thoroughly that your physical world was an illusion, you would not be experiencing sense data.

([Gene]:  “Can’t I experience an illusion that I create for myself?”)

You can experience the illusion, but when you experience the illusion as an illusion, you no longer experience it.  You are running ahead of yourself.

([Gene]:  “But there’s nowhere to go.”)

You do not know.  You think it.  You will not be where you are.

 ([Gene]:  “Is there anywhere else to be?”)

No and yes.

([Gene]:  “Is there anywhere else to be that is not illusion?”)

I say this to you and I tell you, yes.

([Gene]:  “ How would I know the difference?  Is there any way to distinguish between illusion and reality other than by a creation of my own mind?”)

You do not know it now.  When that point is reached, you will be able, if you prefer, to experience any “Reality-Illusion” at your will, but the self who experiences these “Reality-Illusions” will know itself as reality.  There is no place for it to go, because it is the only reality and will create its own environment.

… ([Gene]:  “We have come full circle.  I am one with what reality I create.  There is nowhere to go.”)

You must still be able to experience any one of these illusions.  Knowing they are illusory with full knowledge of their nature and still know that the basic reality is yourself.  There is no place to go, because you are the place, in those terms, and all places.  But the joke is relevant.  The most important thing I have said to you this evening is that the joke is relevant.

([Gene]:  “Yes, I would agree.”)

You must be free enough to explore the nature and experience of every living thing within your own system knowing that it is yourself and then leave your system.  These must be direct experiences.

([Gene]:  “But I can’t leave the system because I am in all systems simultaneously.”)

I am speaking in physical terms.  Even in physical terms, in very limited physical terms, you are still dealing with other systems.

([Gene]:  “I have no choice.”)

I am using terms of continuity now simply for explanation.  First there must be a period, and then it has passed, when you are completely immersed in a given system as if no other existed.  Value fulfillment AS A RULE being achieved in this manner.  This does not mean you are not dwelling in other systems simultaneously.  The illusion must be probed to its depth.

([Gene]:  “Of which it has none.”)

You create the depth.

([Gene]:  “Right, and in so doing the probing has been done.  There is nothing to probe.”)

The probing is necessary.  Some games are necessary and always relevant.

([Gene]:  “Isn’t the object of the game to play the game – not to create or probe?”)

You are yourself in these terms the game.

([Gene]:  “In all other terms also.”)

You are creating your own limitations.  (Too fast to follow word for word.  Seth admits he is part of the game and was, in a sense, created by Gene.  He says that Gene is dealing in artificial terms, not real ones.)  You and I are part of the same reality.

([Gene]:  “Is there really more than one viewpoint?”)

Yes.  You are not granting the diversity which exists.

([Gene]:  “I would be willing to grant a multiplicity of illusory forms of the same thing – namely you and I.  All one.”)

The experience is in every way real.

([Gene]:  “Yes indeed.  We’re all Buddhas, but we won’t admit it.”)

This is a tragedy.  The game is different.

([Gene]:  “Is there tragedy in this game?”)

Overall there will be none, speaking in terms of continuity.

([Gene]:  ?  “The discontinuous tragedy is an illusion, isn’t it?”)

Overall, there is no tragedy.  There must be an overall commitment.

([Gene]:  “To what?”)

There must be an overall commitment to the self.

([Gene]:  “Which is to everyone else too, of course.”)

And there can be no self-betrayal.

([Gene]:  “Right.  Nor any betrayal of others.”)

But the idea of self-betrayal can lead to distortions.

([Gene]:  “But these distortions are part of the game that Shiva plays with yourself [me] and conversely.”)

I would prefer to call it a loving endeavor.

([Gene]:  “Of course.  Think of the classical statue of Shiva standing on the crushed baby – a loving participation in the illusion of tragedy.  Even in the illusion of self-delusion.”)

You are trying to cut out many steps for yourself.

([Gene]:  “But there aren’t any steps, are there?”)

For you, now, there are steps.

([Gene]:  “Aren’t they illusory?”)

They are indeed.

([Gene]:  “If they are artificial barriers which I create in my own path, surely I can remove them.”)

Theoretically it is so indeed.  Practically it would behoove you to watch your footing.

([Gene]:  “Yes.  That was the comment to Siddhartha.”)

These are tender children we lay to rest.  We should mourn for them though they be but (blank space, missing word?)  We must feel for them though they be cow dung.

([Gene]:  “We must love them for they are ourselves.”)

You cannot do less.  You can hardly do more.

([Gene]:  “To do that is to have opened an eye to see that there is but one short step to take.”)

You are playing a game.

([Gene]:  “Of course.  So are you.  We say that Shiva is playing a game and who is Shiva besides yourself.”)

You are indeed now playing a game with yourself, but it is not relevant, and it may be irrelevant.  But you had better play it reverently.

([Gene]:  “With reverence for whom?”)

With reverence indeed toward the self.

([Gene]:  “O.K.  We’re not talking at cross purposes.”)

There is a holy irreverence and a flighty irreverence.  You are playing a game.  They are both one.  But you had better be certain that you know this thoroughly.