Admit it, you really don't believe that you create your own reality...

[iraro]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Seth also tells you that there are many "you's" existing in parallel universes and "you" are unconsciously or subconsciously tapping on their experiences, knowledge etc in those parallel universes.

Also Seth's theories incorporate reincarnation. So simplistically, we could say that you are born into a particular reality, as a result of thoughts held in the previous lifetime. That deals with the "babies can't think" point.

I use the word "simplistically", because Seth also explains that time is an illusion, and in fact all realities exist simultaneously, so technically there is no such thing as a "past life".

Incidentally, the explanation for why Seth always refers to Jane Roberts as a man (using the masculine pronoun "he" and "him" to refer to Jane) is that Seth knew Jane from another life (or existence) where Jane was a man.

I agree that Seth says the foregoing, and that he also says there are no "separations of self." Does this conflict, however, with his description of "how we create our reality?" I don't recall him including the foregoing in the list of elements, such as thoughts, beliefs, emotions, expectations, etc. which create our reality. It's hard enough to figure out reality without having to contemplate other dimensions or simultaneous lives.

Do you believe that what is going on in another dimension or in another life plays a part in our creation of this reality? If so, what part and how?

[Acting Like Godot]

Oh dear. I would like to answer your questions as fully as I can, but I fear I would be typing all night .... And it is late, in my part of the world now ....

[iraro]

Originally Posted by sk8joyful

Excellent question! - what do you believe?


Another Good question

Unless I can pin it on somebody else, I have to accept responsibility for creating my own reality; good, bad or indifferent. As much as I don't like accepting responsibility for the unwanted events in my life, the alternative would be even worse. If something else or somebody else was responsible for my reality then I would be like one of those steel pinballs in the old pin-ball machines; getting wacked around out of the blue by an unknown controller and powerless to do anything. At least by believing I create my reality, I have the opportunity and hope to master the principles by which I do so. Hopefully soon.

[sunshineXTC]

Originally Posted by iraro

Unless I can pin it on somebody else, I have to accept responsibility for creating my own reality; good, bad or indifferent. As much as I don't like accepting responsibility for the unwanted events in my life, the alternative would be even worse. If something else or somebody else was responsible for my reality then I would be like one of those steel pinballs in the old pin-ball machines; getting wacked around out of the blue by an unknown controller and powerless to do anything. At least by believing I create my reality, I have the opportunity and hope to master the principles by which I do so. Hopefully soon.

You've made a wonderful step forward here.

Might I suggest reading Seth's Nature of Personal Reality again if you've already read it? Seth focuses on Beliefs as the crux of everything, and no other material I've come across yet has such clarity regarding that. In this book, he really gets into the nitty gritty of it and points out how we very often have conflicting beliefs about things or things that cross into the same areas like an underlying belief in unworthiness would relate to pretty much everything. He also has practical tools of how to work through changing those beliefs you no longer find work for you. I've been surprised at how I've intuitively worked through a certain belief then later read that technique or principle in NOPR. It was pretty mind blowing actually, and most helpful because I've never found one tool or technique provided by any other teacher to be so effective. This is just my personal experience mind you, but it's helping me to release a lot of old counterproductive beliefs I've had for decades, which is something I have not found the tools to do with any other material.

Either way, I wish you a wonderful journey!

[James81]

Maybe the future has been written, I don't know, all I know is what the terminator taught me. Never stop fighting, and I never will. The battle has just begun.

[sunshineXTC]

Originally Posted by James81

Maybe the future has been written, I don't know, all I know is what the terminator taught me. Never stop fighting, and I never will. The battle has just begun.

I think that's the best attitude to have.

[SkylightMT]

If you create your own reality, can you create a reality in which you don't create your own reality?

[sunshineXTC]

Originally Posted by SkylightMT

If you create your own reality, can you create a reality in which you don't create your own reality?

Yep. Your beliefs would be that your are powerless and then your reality would continue to show you that you are powerless.

[iraro]

Originally Posted by sunshineXTC

Yep. Your beliefs would be that your are powerless and then your reality would continue to show you that you are powerless.

Interesting question with potentially profound implications. If one creates their reality through their beliefs and one of their beliefs is that they do not create their reality then what are the implications? Firstly, they still have a "reality." Are there any models where such a belief fits? Yes, there's one model I can think of, it is called "prison"--the one with bars. But one can also create a prison for themselves without bars. The guards may be invisible, or visible in the case where its a spouse directing your every move. Either way one is powerless if they fully subscribe to the belief that they do not create any portion of their reality.

Consider for a monent a "hybrid." Here one is only "partially powerless." That is, they can create their own reality but when something unwanted occurs then they "disclaim it." It's not what they wanted but it occured anyway; they were powerless to prevent it.

This hypotheses that one "creates their reality except for the unwanted things" seem quite prevalent. Apparently, for many people, it bridges the conflict sufficiently for them to maintain temporal sanity. They are quite happy to avoid responsibilty for an wanted event by descibing its cause as anything other then they; the cause is "him, her, fate, randomness, stuff happens, God's will, etc."

While I can not deny the short term usefulness of such a belief, the question is, "Is it ultimately the most useful? Does it advance or retard long term personal development of smart people."

[truant]

Originally Posted by iraro

This hypotheses that one "creates their reality except for the unwanted things" seem quite prevalent. Apparently, for many people, it bridges the conflict sufficiently for them to maintain temporal sanity. They are quite happy to avoid responsibilty for an wanted event by descibing its cause as anything other then they; the cause is "him, her, fate, randomness, stuff happens, God's will, etc."

While I can not deny the short term usefulness of such a belief, the question is, "Is it ultimately the most useful? Does it advance or retard long term personal development of smart people."

This is, in fact, the way most people behave: accepting responsibility for their successes and disowning their failures. Every time they disavow responsibility for an area of experience, they give away their power over that area and become weaker. Even if parts of our experience were beyond our control, it would still be better to accept responsibility for them: that's only way to ensure that we are maximizing our personal power. The cost is an inflated sense of responsibility and guilt if we are not in control; but the cost of not accepting responsibility is a loss of power and freedom. For myself, the contest is easily settled. In any case, I have yet to encounter anything in my own experience that I couldn't have had some impact on. I find my 'fingerprints' on everything, good and bad.

[iraro]

Originally Posted by truant

This is, in fact, the way most people behave: accepting responsibility for their successes and disowning their failures. Every time they disavow responsibility for an area of experience, they give away their power over that area and become weaker. Even if parts of our experience were beyond our control, it would still be better to accept responsibility for them: that's only way to ensure that we are maximizing our personal power. The cost is an inflated sense of responsibility and guilt if we are not in control; but the cost of not accepting responsibility is a loss of power and freedom. For myself, the contest is easily settled. In any case, I have yet to encounter anything in my own experience that I couldn't have had some impact on. I find my 'fingerprints' on everything, good and bad.

So true...Here's how Seth says it:

"The Nature of Personal Reality" page 99:

"If all of your beliefs, not just your 'fortunate' ones, were not materalized, you would never thoroughly underand on a physical level that your ideas create reality. If only your 'positive' beliefs were materalized then you would never clearly comprehend the power of your thought, for you would not completely experience its physical results."

[sunshineXTC]

iraro, your clarity on Seth is very good.

Any belief that allows you to abdicate your power is counterproductive, unless of course you do want to be powerless, but in general, it seems people just want to be able to place the blame somewhere because they're angry/hurt that things didn't go as they wanted them to go or as they would have preferred.

[SkylightMT]

Seth also says that randomness is the basis on which all things exist (as opposed to determinism). I wish I could remember in which book he talked about this.

To me, this makes sense. If the purpose of being is to expand (i.e. closed systems are inherently pathological; pathology cannot be tolerated for any duration; stagnant systems are closed systems; therefore expansion is law) then the only way to expand into something new is to have random things happen. Everything non-random is determined - and if its determined, it can't be expansion. Yes, God plays dice with the universe - it cannot be any other way. Its not possible to properly expand when you know the outcome in advance (or something knows the outcome. That's not expansion, that's setting up a marble run and letting the marbles run through their course. No matter that the marble run is new for the marble - its not new for the setter-upper of the marble run).

If randomness is required in order to expand, and expansion is what its all about, then it follows that sometimes things will happen that we did not create.

I don't see any way around it. Even Abraham hints that "contrast happens." Its supposed to.

[lilarose]

I create all of my reality. When I say, "This law of attraction business is bogus!!!" in frustration, it's only because I don't want to take responsiblity for all of me! Law of attraction responds to all of me as a whole. It's simple and complicated.

If I'm focusing on attracting wealth, on being a millionarie, and that feels good, but then I start worrying about something I see on the news, then I believe I am powerless, and that others are too. Powerlessness is my vibe. I don't believe in good. That will affect my ability to attract wealth.

If I want a beautiful relationship, but then I also believe men are jerks, I have to work on believing men are awesome. I may not want to let go of my belief..."Men are jerks!" though, and that's when things become complex. I have to ask myself...what have I needed from men that I haven't gotten? Why can't I give that to myself? I can. So men do not have to be a certain way for me to be happy. I am then clear enough to attract a beautiful relationship.

To attract something you have to become it inside. You have to feel like a millionaire before it manifests. Any frustrations about money not manifesting, mean that you do not believe you are a millionaire. It's good when that happens, because then you can see where your belief is shaky, and stabilize it. You learn a lot about yourself.

[lilarose]

Originally Posted by SkylightMT

I don't see any way around it. Even Abraham hints that "contrast happens." Its supposed to.

"Free will" creates the contrast. We learn as a result.

[James81]

Originally Posted by SkylightMT

If you create your own reality, can you create a reality in which you don't create your own reality?

I am someone who has actually done this.

It's kind of interesting how it happened. The key is to make decisions that give your power away in key areas of your life. For example, what I did was create a situation in which there was only one job that I felt could support me, that I felt was the only job I could work, and then I created a situation in which I had obligations that didn't allow me the opportunity to quit that job and go get qualified to do something else.

And then I forgot that I chose that and started believing that fate/God/luck just wouldn't or couldn't go my way.

The choice was to create a lack of choice...and the lack of choice perpetuates itself in a seemingly endless loop. If you ever watched Inception, then you would recognize it as this:



The infinite staircase. An illusion that you create that seemingly is an endless loop...until you find the boundary that has been disguised.

[SkylightMT]

Originally Posted by lilarose

"Free will" creates the contrast. We learn as a result.

Define free will.

I define it as the ability to make a choice. I can make a choice based on:

1. eeny meeny miny mo (randomness)
2. What my culture and family have told me is the right answer (determinism, since my brain and thinking was shaped by my culture and family)
3. Logic (determinism, since my ability to make a choice is dependent on my I.Q.)
4. Intuition (determinism, since my intuition is the result of my mind to fearlessly consult intelligence)

I can't see how free will is in any way free. The most it implies is that we get to choose what "tool" we want to use when making a decision. The ability to choose a tool is limited by what tools we have.

[SkylightMT]

Originally Posted by James81

I am someone who has actually done this.

It's kind of interesting how it happened. The key is to make decisions that give your power away in key areas of your life. For example, what I did was create a situation in which there was only one job that I felt could support me, that I felt was the only job I could work, and then I created a situation in which I had obligations that didn't allow me the opportunity to quit that job and go get qualified to do something else.

And then I forgot that I chose that and started believing that fate/God/luck just wouldn't or couldn't go my way.

The choice was to create a lack of choice...and the lack of choice perpetuates itself in a seemingly endless loop. If you ever watched Inception, then you would recognize it as this:



The infinite staircase. An illusion that you create that seemingly is an endless loop...until you find the boundary that has been disguised.

I thought this was really insightful.

[lilarose]

Originally Posted by SkylightMT

Define free will.

I define it as the ability to make a choice. I can make a choice based on:

1. eeny meeny miny mo (randomness)
2. What my culture and family have told me is the right answer (determinism, since my brain and thinking was shaped by my culture and family)
3. Logic (determinism, since my ability to make a choice is dependent on my I.Q.)
4. Intuition (determinism, since my intuition is the result of my mind to fearlessly consult intelligence)

I can't see how free will is in any way free. The most it implies is that we get to choose what "tool" we want to use when making a decision. The ability to choose a tool is limited by what tools we have.

We can choose to see limitation or freedom. Yes, we may be conditioned to see limitation, but our real nature is freedom/expansion. "Contrast" is just an idea. I can be stuck in traffic and see it as contrast, or as nothing. I can resist it, or relax in it. My (your) true being is grander than all of the commotion in life. This human life is a game we play. We are not truly human, we are everything...everywhere. It's joyful and funny!

I do understand what you are saying though.

[SkylightMT]

Originally Posted by lilarose

We can choose to see limitation or freedom. Yes, we may be conditioned to see limitation, but our real nature is freedom/expansion. "Contrast" is just an idea. I can be stuck in traffic and see it as contrast, or as nothing. I can resist it, or relax in it. My (your) true being is grander than all of the commotion in life. This human life is a game we play. We are not truly human, we are everything...everywhere. It's joyful and funny!

I do understand what you are saying though.

I completely agree with you

[iraro]

Originally Posted by SkylightMT

Define free will.

I define it as the ability to make a choice. I can make a choice based on:

1. eeny meeny miny mo (randomness)
2. What my culture and family have told me is the right answer (determinism, since my brain and thinking was shaped by my culture and family)
3. Logic (determinism, since my ability to make a choice is dependent on my I.Q.)
4. Intuition (determinism, since my intuition is the result of my mind to fearlessly consult intelligence)

I can't see how free will is in any way free. The most it implies is that we get to choose what "tool" we want to use when making a decision. The ability to choose a tool is limited by what tools we have.

What about emotion? I define free will as the right to do what I "feel" like doing, consistent with my guidence from "source" as Abraham puts it. Also, when people can't make a decision, I frequently say, "if its not fun, don't do it." As for logic, I've never bought a car based on logic yet.

[SkylightMT]

Originally Posted by iraro

What about emotion? I define free will as the right to do what I "feel" like doing, consistent with my guidence from "source" as Abraham puts it. Also, when people can't make a decision, I frequently say, "if its not fun, don't do it." As for logic, I've never bought a car based on logic yet.

I should have included emotion, though I kinda just grouped listening to your heart in with intuition while I was writing. I like this tool for making decisions the best. I agree with you that if it isn't fun, stop doing it.

I'm only arguing the existence of free will. Every choice is based on something, and that something directed the choice. So what is free will? It doesn't matter. My point, obscure though it is, was that free will is mere epiphenomenon, if that. Doesn't matter one iota if free will exists or not - what matters is that we have a healthy, positive, spiritual means of making decisions, and that we make decisions out of love or expansion and not out of fear.

[Acting Like Godot]

According to the best available science, free will probably doesn't exist. Check out the seminal research by Benjamin Libet, now backed up by modern technology which allows us to examine human beings' brains under experimental conditions, as they make decisions.

However, the illusion of free will is very strong. So effectively there is no difference. You'll still have to make decisions, even though they are already made.

[Irisha]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

According to the best available science, free will probably doesn't exist. Check out the seminal research by Benjamin Libet, now backed up by modern technology which allows us to examine human beings' brains under experimental conditions, as they make decisions.

However, the illusion of free will is very strong. So effectively there is no difference. You'll still have to make decisions, even though they are already made.

Oh, here it is, the name Benjamin Libet!! This is what I couldn't recollect when I needed it in the discussion about free will!
Thank you, Acting Like Godot, sssooo much!

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

However, the illusion of free will is very strong. So effectively there is no difference. You'll still have to make decisions, even though they are already made.

I have wondered what it would be like to live as if we know there is no free will, and how much easier decision-making would be then. Take a small thing, like choosing a meal from a restaurant menu. People pore over the menu for like 10 minutes and narrow their choices down to a few things and then still can't decide and ask others what they think. Knowing we've got no free will, we could just close our eyes and point at something on the menu, read it and say, "I'll have the cheesy artichoke wrap!"

[lycan]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

I have wondered what it would be like to live as if we know there is no free will, and how much easier decision-making would be then. Take a small thing, like choosing a meal from a restaurant menu. People pore over the menu for like 10 minutes and narrow their choices down to a few things and then still can't decide and ask others what they think. Knowing we've got no free will, we could just close our eyes and point at something on the menu, read it and say, "I'll have the cheesy artichoke wrap!"

What stops you from doing that freely?

[iraro]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

I have wondered what it would be like to live as if we know there is no free will, and how much easier decision-making would be then. Take a small thing, like choosing a meal from a restaurant menu. People pore over the menu for like 10 minutes and narrow their choices down to a few things and then still can't decide and ask others what they think. Knowing we've got no free will, we could just close our eyes and point at something on the menu, read it and say, "I'll have the cheesy artichoke wrap!"

Granted our free will is shacled by mis-information, mis-education, self-serving religions and institutions, self-serving people and manipulators, terrorism threat levels, bad experiences, bad news, slick advertisers. well-meaning indivinduals, etc.

However, we have a conscious mind with which to examine any belief, message or idea thrown at us. Then we may accept, reject or modify same. If we fail to use our conscious mind, then we truly risk being used as somebody elses' "tool" and forfeit our free will and power to chose.

When I was a child my mother would bake liver for dinner. By the time she was done, it was so dry that I could "snap it in half" like a month old chocolate chip cookie. Perhaps, as a result of this expericence, I do not eat liver, nor have I ever ordered it in a resturant. I would not agree to any method of chosing an entree at a resturant which could result in me eating liver. Thus, some might argue I have no free will here; I am shackled by my past experience. Perhaps I could change my belief about liver but I feel no inspiration or need to since it is a matter of so little importance. I always find something I enjoy eating.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by lycan

What stops you from doing that freely?

Nothing. I just haven't ever bothered to try it. But I might!

[James81]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

According to the best available science, free will probably doesn't exist. Check out the seminal research by Benjamin Libet, now backed up by modern technology which allows us to examine human beings' brains under experimental conditions, as they make decisions.

However, the illusion of free will is very strong. So effectively there is no difference. You'll still have to make decisions, even though they are already made.

Free will isn't about what decisions you make, or what situations you find yourself in....free will is about how you respond to the situations you are in. Effectively, every last bit of our lives may have been mapped out the moment we were born, but the one thing we will always have a choice in is how we respond to and perceive a situation.

It truly is the one freedom that nobody can take from you....not even YOU.

[James81]

And today I finally *get* what it means to create your own reality. I had a pretty interesting insight (at least it was interesting to *me* anyway)...

I had a dream last night that was kinda weird. I dreamed about the Matrix, but I can't remember what the details were. All I knew was that we kept going in and out of the Matrix for something. (And when I say Matrix, I *do* mean the movie versions of the Matrix and not some weird philosophical thing )

As I was sitting at lunch kind of pondering my dream, it sort of hit me very starkly that I could, in fact, find evidence right now that this is all a computer program. I know I could.

When I left lunch, I went out to the car (which is parked on the student dorm lots), and, for the past several days, I've been noticing this truck parked out there that has a flat tire. And every time I walk past it I think about how they probably don't even know it's flat yet because it hasn't moved and the flat tire has been there for days.

Today, however, I walk up to my car and I notice right away that *I* have a flat tire. And you know what my mind did? It created a reality in which there is somebody intentionally flattening tires in the parking lot.

And here is my evidence:

There are two cars with flat tires in the lot (my car and this truck).
Both flat tires are the same tire (the right rear tire).
Both vehicles are black in color.
Both vehicles are in the same row of cars.

And I remember getting really pissed about that, thinking that I was going to sit out in the lot all night waiting for the bastards who are doing this and I was going to **** them up.

Then I pulled the tire off and I noticed that there was a nail in it. Or, rather, part of a nail. In other words, I couldn't imagine that IF someone was flattening tires in the lot, that they'd be doing it with nails that don't have heads on them.

But for a while there, I was CONVINCED that this was done by some ****face bastards who were flattening tires. And for a while there, that reality felt pretty damn real.

And it was then that I realized that I can gather evidence to create whatever reality I want. And I think that's rather amazing.