Richie Kendall asks Seth about a woman he's dating that's not into Seth

 

"You know, watching Sumari again brings up a point that I wonder about a lot," Richie Kendall said as Jane came out of trance.  "It's that I've been going out with this woman who's never read the Seth books, and she doesn't want to talk about it, and when I try to, she doesn't know what the hell I'm talking about; and so it makes me wonder, I mean, does having come to this class mean that in order to maintain any kind of meaningful relationship, I'll have to find somebody who's into Seth's ideas?”  Richie paused for breath.  "I mean, what do I have to do, send out a multiple-choice test before I—"

From his sitting position on the floor, Richie looked up at Jane and gulped.  Seth was looking back, Jane's glasses in his hand.

"Now," Seth said, with emphatic softness, "there are people who are quite involved with my ideas who do not know my name!   There are people, believe it or not, on the face of the Earth, who are very content with their lot, and they do not know my name!   They know themselves.  They are aware of the vitality of their being, and they do not need me to tell them that they are important.  The flowers and the cats and the frogs and the trees do not need me to tell them that they are important, and there are people who do not need me either, for that reason.

"For they recognize the vitality of their own being, and they have ignored the belief systems of their times.  They are ancient children.  They may not read philosophy.  They listen to the wind.  They watch the behavior of the seasons, and they listen to their hearts.  They do not need to read my books! They could have written my books, if they could write.

"They are the voices of nature and of the seasons, and they recognize their origin though they are not educated in your terms.  And their heart speaks information that their intellect cannot possibly interpret, and in your terms would they seem indeed ignorant.  They tend a tiny garden.  They speak words that would make no sense to you.  Rich, for they would not be intellectual.  They would babble nonsense that in intellectual terms would make no sense!

"Yet would you recognize such a person, and the love within their being!  They do not have to recognize Seth's ideas, but to recognize and enjoy the validity of their being.  I speak to those who do not recognize the validity of their being.  Those who recognize it have no need of me!"

"Well, yeah, I guess so," Richie said, "but don't you speak for more reasons than just for people who don't recognize the validity of their beings?  I guess I find it hard to believe that we all don't—"

"There are those, my dear friend, who do not need me, for they are content," Seth interrupted.  "They are content because they realize in the depths of their heart the joy of their own being.  There are those who recognize the authority of their own psyche as it speaks to them in their private experience, and they do not necessarily even know the term 'psychic experience.'

"They, in your terms, may be ignorant.  They may prattle—or sound confused.  They are as wise and as crafty as a flower.  They do not need intellectual concepts because they understand the nature of love and the nature of the soul.  If you were satisfied with the nature of your existence, you would not be here! There are those who are satisfied, and they do not need my voice.  They find sufficient reinforcement from the dawn and the twilight.  They find sufficient reinforcement in their parents and in their children.  They find sufficient reinforcement from their dreams and from their waking experience, and they may seem simple to you.

"They may build ditches, or throw sawdust hour after hour, as you did [in reference to a job attempt that Richie had described].  And yet they trust the simple authority of the twilight and the dawn.  Speak to them of Seth, and the word is meaningless.  They do not need me.  They do not need my voice, because they heed the voices of the oak trees and of the birds, and of their own being; and, let me tell you, in certain terms, I am a poor imitation of the voices of your own psyches to which you do not listen!

"I speak to the world with it, and try to arouse within your beings the great exaltation that you realize is your own.  If you had it, you would not be here!  You sense it and you want it and I have it—but so do you!  But the child does not need to listen to me.  He is his own Seth and his own Sumari.  And you have your own Seth and your own Sumari within you!

"I will be unneeded as all the ancient gods are unneeded, and gladly so, when you realize that the validity and the reinforcement and the joy is your own, and rises from the fountain of your own being; and when you realize that you do not need me for protection, for there is nothing that you need to protect yourselves against.  You are as innocent as the dawn or as the twilight; as innocent as if you were created in this moment.  You are innocent!   There is nothing—no crime you are guilty of, no penance you need do [to Lauren], dear Pan!

"Do not insist, therefore, as you [Richie] have been, that a woman understand my words—only that she understand the messages that spring from her own soul."

Richie shook his head.  "The question in my mind is—will that be enough for me?"

"If a woman understands the messages of her own soul, what is there that you could require?”  Seth roared.  "Understand the messages from your own soul, and then when you have so understood, put the question to me again!”

"Now, we are about to close the unclass," Seth said to the rest of us.  "But when you are afraid of your own authority, then you will accept almost anything rather than face the authority of your own psyche.  A Mickey Mouse will do!”

"The power of your own psyche, the authority of your own psyche, has brought you easily into the life that you know.  When you were a fetus, you did not question, 'Where am 1? Where am I going?' You exalted in the fantastic vitality of your own being.”

"I tell you then, now, to listen to the authority of your psyche—of your beings.  To listen to the voices that you remember when you were children; the voices that spoke to you as you fell off to sleep.”

"I ask you to recapture the courage and joy and expansion you felt as children—when each new day was a miracle to be explored, and there were no authorities to tell you how to explore it.  Even your parents were but guides that had nothing to do with the reality of you in relationship to the day, or a flower, or a raindrop.  I ask you only to rediscover your wonder.  To look, even at the world that you know, from a different viewpoint, where there are no authorities but the joy and authority of your being; where time is not separated into moments; where you waken each moment as you did when you were a child—each moment a new birth, a new fantastic reality in which you had your place and your part to play; where the miracles were your own, and rose from the fantastic joy of your own being.  That is what I ask you to do: recapture those moments that existed before you were educated.”

"There were times, in your childhood, when you heard the voices of the Speakers—when, as you fell asleep, the very miracle of your own being came upon you, and you felt it in the very depths and fibers of your being.  Then feel it now!”

"The most I can do is to acquaint you with the authority of your own psyche—to give you a trust in the nature of your being.  For, if you trust what you are, you can never go wrong, in whatever terms you use.  You can fly through belief systems as a butterfly flies through backyards.

"Some of you, more clearly than others, understand what I am saying, and so your dreams will multiply with glory, and comprehensions will come to you.  You will begin anew the building of your City—the City* you began to build in your dreams as children.  All of those childish, unintellectual, joyous dreams that were yours will be materialized in vitality.

"Not only that, but they will be beacons for others to use, if only—if only—if only! you trust the authority of your own psyche.  And that psyche dwells in a world and a universe that is safe, in which you cannot be smothered or destroyed or ruined, in which you are always free."

Seth withdrew, leaving many of us considerably more humble.

CONVERSATIONS WITH SETH

 

Volume Two

by Sue Watkins

 

pp.513ff