Popular Personal Beliefs

SESSION 614

Now: Later we will discuss some of the reasons for your beliefs, but for now I simply want you to recognize them. I am going to list some limiting false beliefs. If you find yourself agreeing with any of them, then recognize this as an area in which you must personally work.

1. Life is a valley of sorrows.
2. The body is inferior. As a vehicle of the soul it is automatically degraded, tinged. You may feel that the flesh is inherently bad or evil, that its appetites are wrong. Christians may find the body deplorable, thinking that the soul descended into it — “descent” automatically meaning the change from a higher or better condition to one that is worse. Followers of Eastern religions often feel it their duty, also, to deny the flesh, to rise above it, so to speak, into a state where nothing is desired. (“Emptiness” in Taoism, for instance.) Using a different vocabulary, they still believe that earth experience is not desirable in itself.
3. I am helpless before circumstances that I cannot control.
4. I am helpless because my personality and character were formed in infancy, and I am at the mercy of my past.
5. I am helpless because I am at the mercy of events from past lives in other incarnations, over which I now have no control. I must be punished, or I am punishing myself for unkindnesses done to others in past lives. I must accept the negative aspects of my life because of my karma.*

*In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma is thought of as the total moral sum of an individual’s acts in any one life — thus determining the person’s fate or destiny in the next. Seth sees reincarnational lives as all existing at once, so there is constant give-and-take among them. A “future” life, then, can affect a “past” one, so karma as it is usually considered does not apply.

6. People are basically bad, and out to get me.
7. I have the truth and no one else has. Or, my group has the truth and no other group has.
8. I will grow frailer, sicker, and lose my powers as I grow old.
9. My existence is dependent upon my experience in flesh. When my body dies my consciousness dies with it.

Now: That was a rather general list of false beliefs. Now here is a more specific list of more intimate beliefs, any of which you may have personally about yourself.

1. I am sickly, and always have been.
2. There is something wrong with money. People who have it are greedy, less spiritual than those who are poor. They are unhappier, and snobs.
3. I am not creative. I have no imagination. Next: I can never do what I want to do. Next: People dislike me. Next: I am fat. (“That would be number 6. “)
Then 7. I always have bad luck.

(12:15.) These are all beliefs held by many people. Those who have them will meet them in experience. Physical data will always seem to reinforce the beliefs, therefore, but the beliefs formed the reality. We are going to attempt to knock down such limiting concepts.

First of all, you must realize that no one can change your beliefs for vou. nor can they be forced upon you from without. You can indeed change them for yourself, however, with knowledge and application.

Look about you. Your entire physical environment is the materialization of your beliefs. Your sense of joy, sorrow, health or illness — all of these are also caused by your beliefs. If you believe that a given situation should make you unhappy, then it will, and the unhappiness will then reinforce the condition.

Within you is the ability to change your ideas about reality and about yourself, to create a personal living experience that is fulfilling to yourself and others. I would like you to write down your beliefs about yourself as you become aware of them. Later you can use this list in a way that you do not now suspect.

流行信念

第六一四节

现在：往後我们将讨论你们为什麽会有这些信念，现在呢，我只要你们去”认识”你们自己的信念。

我将要列出一些令人自限的错误信念。如果你发现自己同意其中任何一项，那麽你就应当知所警惕，认知这正是你个人必须加紧努力的地方。

1．人生是苦。

2．身体是个次级品。作为一个灵魂的工具，它自然是下贱而污染了的。 你可能觉得肉身先天上就不是好东西，至于肉体的欲望更是糟之又糟。基督徒可能认为肉身是可悲的，以为灵魂是”降”到肉体里去–”降”这个字自然是指由一个较高较好的情况落入到较差较糟的。 东方宗教的信从者也常会以为，他们有责任去否定肉身，去超越它，而进入一种无欲的境界。（例如，道家的”无”。）他们所用的语汇虽不同，但是他们仍相信世间经验是不可取的。

3．我是无助地面对我无法控制的情况。

4．我之所以无能为力，原因是我的性格、个性早在孩提时就已定型，过去的境遇决定了一切。

5．前生的际遇主宰了一切，我无能为力，因为今生我对前世发生的事情一点办法都没有。我必须受报应，或自我惩罚以求赎罪，谁叫我前世作孽。自作终归自受，自己造了”业” （karma）* ，只好逆来顺受。

*注 在佛教与印度教里，”业”是一个人在前世所作、所为、所思的总合–因此，在下一生， 一个人前世所造的业就决定了这个人的命运和方向。在赛斯眼中，所有的轮回转世全都存在於同一瞬间，所以在施、受、取、舍间并无先後，而是一直在彼此相互取予、相互影响的。那麽”来生”也可以改变”前生”，所以一般定义中所解释的业便不能适用了。

6．基本上人心险恶，人人都在谋算我。

7．真理只站在我这边，别人都没道理，或，真理只能在我这个团体里才能找到，别处 门儿都没有。

8．我的精力、健康会随著我的年岁增长而消退，而走下坡。年纪越大越不中用。

9．我的存在乃因我的肉体而有。当我的肉体死亡的时候，就是我意识灭绝的时候。

以上所列的错误信念，只是略举荧荧大者而已。

再下来，我列出的是与你们更切身的信念的更明确的清单，你很可能自己就有这种毛病。

1．我身体很弱，一向如此。

2．钱这个东西总是不怎麽好。有钱人不免贪婪，比起穷人来，他们的精神境界总要差一些。有钱人难免势利，也比较不快乐。

3．我缺乏想像，没什麽创造力。 其次：我永远不能做我想做的事。 其次：大家都不喜欢我。 再其次：我很肥。 （”那该是第六条。”） 对。第七条：我运气总是不好。

（十二点十五分。）以上所说全都是大部份人多具有的谬见。有这些谬误信念的人总是难免会冤家路窄地处处与他的信念碰头。因此，实质资料似乎强化了你的信念，但实际上是信念创造了实相。我们将试著助你们打破这种局限人的观念。

首先，你必须了解没有人能替你改变你的信念。也没有人能把某种信念逼你相信。可是，靠著知识和实行，你就能自己为自己改变。

放眼看看你的四周，你整个的环境都是你信念物质化了的结果。对哀乐、健康或病痛的感受，也全都因你的信念而起。如果你相信某种状况是会为你带来不快，那么它就会如此，然後你的不快又更加强了这种状况。

在你内，你有能力来改变你对实相和对自己的观念，而创造一个个人的活生生的经验，一遂自己及他人的心愿。我要你在觉察到自己信念时，把这些信念逐条写下来。以後你会发现这单子有意想不到的妙用。

信念的例子 example of your beliefs

第六一四节 一九七二年九月十三日                     SESSION 614, SEPTEMBER 13,1972

“意识心并没有什麽大能为” 这种观念的存在造成了一种假性的分野，人们学到他们不应该觉察到潜意识所提供的资料。正常人觉得他最好别沾这种领域，因而当他把自己的这些个部份切除之时，也障碍住了内我所自然流露的欢悦。到最后，人迷失了，觉得自己与真正的自己脱了节。

“原罪”（original sin）的观念虽然并不高明，既谬误又害人，但同时，它至少提供了一些比较简单的”解脱”方法，比如说：人可以经过”受洗”而获救，或可经由祷告、圣礼或其他的某些仪式而找到救赎。

当 “潜意识不是个好东西” 这观念变得很强的时候，对灵魂的观念就飞出窗子去了。因而就有无数的人活在一个既容不下”灵魂”又被极不可靠的”潜意识”压得死死的世界中。这些人把自己看作是一个脆弱而又孤单的自我，危险而毫无保障地航行在 “不由自主的过程” 的惊涛骇浪上。

They grew up believing that the conscious mind was relatively powerless, that adult experience was set in the days of infancy. These concepts themselves set up artificial divisions. People learned that they should not be aware of “subconscious” material. The normal individual felt that he had best leave such areas alone, so in cutting off these portions of the self, barriers were also set up against the joy of die inner spontaneous self. People felt divorced from the core of their own reality.

The concept of original sin was a very poor, limited and distorted one, but at least along with it went rather simple procedures: Through baptism you might be saved, or through certain words or sacraments or rituals redemption could be found.

About the same time that the idea of the unsavory subconscious arose so strongly, the idea of the soul went out the window. Millions of people therefore believed in a reality in which they were deprived of the idea of a soul, and burdened by the concept of a very unreliable, if not definitely evil, subconscious. They saw themselves as vulnerable solitary points of egos, riding perilously and unprotected upon the tumultuous waves of involuntary processes.

~.~

整理这段文字时，想起了，和蓝天为别人排列时，做的那段 “身心灵” 整合排列。
现在，觉得 “身心灵” 分开的原因，该是有以上信念的。因为他们已经切断了本身的一体性。我认为觉得小我应该被灭掉的，也会出现以上的状况。