The natural self

[vanmerlow]

In winter 79-80, Seth talked about the 'natural man' (Jane/Seth's term) through several deleted sessions. Here's a little of that; I'll post more as I have time.

1/23/80

Every animal wants to know what is going on in the area of its perception. That is a normal reaction. People are the same way. That is why they chase fire trucks, so to speak--not necessarily because they are looking for tragedies, but because of life's great curiosity, and also because life enjoys variety and the unusual. It is quite natural then, for example, to want to watch the news on television, and in the same way and for the same reason.

In news watching--which does satisfy a natural need--you also run into a barrage of cultural beliefs and attitudes that are secondary. They are secondary in that they are interpretations placed upon events. The events come first. The body consciousness, watching the news, would think--if it thought as you do--"What activity, what commotion, what excitement (almost laughing), what a conglomeration of smells and sights, what a congregation of my fellows, running and chasing, rising and falling, even living and dying. What a sensual barrage of activity--and how juicy it all is, since, relatively speaking (underlined), I sit here in my cozy cave, gnawing my supper bone, peacefully, with a rug at my feet. My belly full and my bed nearby." (All with gusto and emphasis.)

[vanmerlow]

12/5/79

Give us a moment... You have vast reservoirs of energy in particular, both of you, that have been blocked simply because the natural person was simply ignored, and the beliefs of the social person taken as the indisputable ones.

The natural person uses creative abilities spontaneously, and those abilities, as I have said often, will show themselves... when you allow them play and leeway.

The natural person... looks at the world and tries to see how his or her abilities can best be utilized and fulfilled. That person grows through its knowledge and experience with the world, as long as there is no attempt to make the natural self over to fit the world. When you make that kind of attempt, it seems you are always between selves, and always disapprove of the self that you are.

The natural self approves of itself as an animal does.

[vanmerlow]

11/12/79

The creative product is a remnant, then, a glowing fragment of a larger sensed whole.

...As in the case of Cezanne, masterpieces would justify all else. Even relationships would make no difference--and Ruburt in his way made the same judgments about the "writer".

Cezanne, as you know, was not a happy man. He could have been a far better artist still, for if his vision was intense, my dear friend, it was cramped, and it moved within itself in an agony to find a creative release that could never be found in the creative product alone, but in the psyche from which that product emerges.

[Fontine]

These are great--keep sharing. I can relate....

[vanmerlow]

These are great--keep sharing. I can relate....

[vanmerlow]

7/16/79

To some extent, creativity involves you (pause) in a contradiction with the evidence of reality within your world. It puts you in a peculiar state of being--or in a peculiar relationship with the accepted world of factual evidence...

...The creative act involves you in a process whereby you bring from a mental dimension new events into the world that were not there before...

To some degree, creativity always involves a denial of life's daily official evidence, for creativity deals with that which you are about to bring into being. You are quite aware of the absence which you intend to fill. Period... Creativity involves productive change.

In your painting, you are constantly involved with bringing some event into the world that was not there before. You fill the gap. You recognize the absence in the present of the physical painting you want to produce, and your creativity brings that painting into reality... There is so much physical evidence in the world. It has been put together through the centuries, in your terms, in countless ways, bringing pictures of reality, each vivid, each contradicting the other to some extent. When man believed the world was flat, he used his thought processes in such a way that they had great difficulty in imagining any other kind of world, and read the evidence so that it fit the flat-world picture.

The world's evidence, the objects, sensations, and so forth, should be respected and enjoyed. It should not be forgotten, however, that such evidence gives a composite picture--not only of patterns of perception, but of habits of perception.

Typical quote at first, then became strange when I looked at it a bit. It's a curious place to be, engaged in physically manifesting. Imagination must meet the evidence of the physical senses, F = 1 in concert with F > 1, more than creaturely but that also. The quote, let's see, I use the evidence of the physical senses to reject the evidence of, uh, how's that work again?

However one wants it to, I suppose. To me, here, it's a reminder from Seth to loosen, to realize that both what-is-now and any and all secondary interpretations (beliefs) are not what-can-be. It's not the rejection of data, it is to recognize what is and what is not data; manifestation makes little sense except in terms of it. Half-full or half-empty have their uses; but they don't fill or empty the glass, or show how marvelously different things look when I peer through it.

[vanmerlow]

8/13/79

I bid you the fondest of good evenings--and I would enjoy it if you truly became, both of you, a trifle less provincial--

("Okay.")

--in your thoughts. Try to realize that even in your terms there have been multitudinous cultures upon the face of the earth, each one defining for all time, with great moral rectitude, the roles of men and women. There have been freer, more exuberant beliefs systems, and there have been more limiting ones, so look at those of your culture as they influence you as simply one of the ever-varying social fabrications by which a man colors his days.

Your eternal worth, and even your daily worth, is intrinsically far separated from such manufactured values. Live with a sweeter touch.

(Quietly:) End of session.

("Thank you, Seth.")

My viewpoint is, I admit, more cosmopolitan than yours, but your own inner knowledge is also far-reaching in those terms, and that knowledge can indeed be shaken loose from social confinement. You can often follow social mores quite easily, when you realize they are mores (intently), and not moral pronouncements--and that is all. I think you are learning.

("Good night.")
(10:48. "I had no idea if that was the stuff I was getting this morning or not," Jane said. "I was pretty far out of it. It was fun--as if you were looking at another culture and seeing that that was how those people were living. Yet you didn't have to pay that much attention to it...")

[vanmerlow]

9/13/79

Ruburt has been a poet all of the time in the most profound meaning of that term. For the poet did not simply string words together, but sent out a syntax of consciousness, using rhythm and the voice, rhyme and refrain, as methods to form steps up which his own consciousness could rush.

(8:53.) Early artists hoped to understand the very nature of creativity itself as they tried to mimic earth's forms. Poetry and painting were both functional... and "aesthetic." But poetry and painting have always involved primarily man's attempt to understand himself and his world. The original functions of art--meaning poetry and painting here specifically--have been largely forgotten. The true artist in those terms was always primarily--in your terms again--a psychic or mystic. His specific art (pause) was both his method of understanding his own creativity, and a way of exploring the vast creativity of the universe--and also served as a container or showcase that displayed his knowledge as best he could.

I've been thinking lately about what Elias has said about the beauty of this dimension. I have to agree. The intensity available here is simply exquisite. If forgetting be the price, I'm a buyer. When I leave this place, as I surely will one way or another, if I have the chance, maybe a breather first and I'll look for a place intensifying even this, designing it if I have to and am at all able.

For me, forget LOTR-type wonders, all it takes is to be in it and walk the dust and feel how it feels...

http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/pj-harvey/send-his-love-to-me--2145917

"...this is actually a fascination that you generate within your physical dimension, for it is unfamiliar. In this, you allow yourselves to explore the tremendous diversity and creativity that you may manifest in physical expressions..."

[Sharee]

this really fit into my day. thanks.

[wanderful]

Amazing stuff! I love the distinction between the natural self and the social self. I miss the days when I used to roll as natural self only! hehe