VARIOUS STAGES OF CONSCIOUSNESS,
SYMBOLISM, AND MULTIPLE FOCUS

The next chapter will be called: “Various Stages of Consciousness, Symbolism, and Multiple Focus.”

[...] You may focus upon one object almost to the exclusion of everything else at times, so that you literally are not conscious of the room in which you sit.

[...] Your consciousness is not fully focused within physical reality, even during those intervals when you exist within it. The focus varies considerably, and in certain rhythm.

The amount of focus and the intensity varies according to the individual, but consciousness is never entirely focused within physical reality. [...]

The specific concentration, however, results in an exquisite focus. Ego consciousness lost part of that focus in comparison. [...]

[...] Abilities focused upon in one life may be recognized as your own now, for example, but not strongly utilized.

[...] (Intently:) The solution is simply the problem’s other side, upon which you may not be focusing. [...]

There may be physical circumstances involving birth defects that are beyond alteration, where experience must be focused along other than usual pathways, yet even here those talents and characteristics that are available will open up vistas of experience and achievement.

[...] Its attention and focus is, rather, directed elsewhere, so that it appears to be dormant. [...]

[...] While this is necessary, the whole remainder of the self could not be left to an organizer or caretaker who did not focus his attentions within the depths but sat, as it were, on the front porch of the house, leaving the inner workings unattended. [...]

At death on your plane the ego merely changes the focus of its awareness. [...]

I have spoken often of consciousness also as being merely the direction of focus. Action implies infinite possibilities of focus. [...]

(Seth-Jane had some material on consciousness and the direction of focus in the 94th session, among others.)

I will let our friend (Ruburt) rest—but I will stay in focus—and you had all better stay in focus! [...]

[...] You can then use inner reality as a secure basis from which you can look outward and see the world’s problems more clearly and in better focus. [...]

[...] You have been taught to focus all of your attention clearly, ambitiously, energetically in a particular way — so daydreaming, or mixing and matching modes of consciousness, appears passive in a derogatory fashion, or nonactive, or idle. [...]

The idea, then, is not to annihilate normal consciousness, but quite literally to expand it by bringing into its focus other levels of reality that it can indeed intrinsically perceive and utilize.

[...] All of these exercises should be followed by a return to the present: You focus your attention outward in the present moment as clearly as possible, letting the sounds and sights of the physical situation come into your attention.

[...] There is one self and it focuses its attention in various dimensions. In the waking state it focuses in physical reality. In the dream state it is focused within a different dimension.

[...] If a man could actually focus upon those unrecognized elements in the physical universe upon which no agreements can be reached, if he could focus upon the dissimilarities rather than the similarities, then he would wonder what gave anyone the idea that there was even one physical object upon which man could agree.

[...] You merely focus upon the similarities. [...]

[...] But the objects are useless unless you are focused within the dimension for which they were specifically formed.

[...] You could see, for example, your present living room not only as a conglomeration of permanent-appearing furniture, but switch your focus and see the immense and constant dance of molecules and other particles that compose the various objects.

All of your attention is focused in a highly specialized way upon one shining, bright point that you call reality. [...]

[...] They are focused so strongly within physical reality and physical reality is far more painful than was originally intended. [...] You have focused so strongly upon physical reality that it has become, indeed, reality. [...]

Now, in the three-dimensional reality in which your ego has its main focus, becoming presupposes arrival, or a destination — an ending to that which has been in a state of becoming. [...]

[...] In its intense focus in physical reality, however, it pretends not to know, until it feels able to utilize the information in physical terms.

[...] She is focusing less and less upon this plane and will, again gradually, begin to focus upon another plane. [...]

The shock of birth of course is worse, since the personality is not entirely focused as a personality, and it must make immediate and critical adjustments of the strongest nature. [...]

From your viewpoint such a disintegration is, of course, not pleasant, but as the personality loses its focus on your plane it gathers itself together on another plane, and such a gradual gathering together is much more favorable than the surprise of a complete and sudden departure. [...]

You can learn, even a Jesuit can learn, to change the focus of your attention within seconds. [...]

As soon as your focus of awareness is switched the physical symptoms will vanish. [...]

[...] Jane, he said, could use the practice of switching focus; and we did have the effect of a conversation among five people instead of four. [...]

[...] You see now we are using a very speedy change of focus. [...]

[...] This proved to be the end of the session. I suggested to Jane that she train herself to focus upon external objects while doing things like getting up and down, that had bothered her. [...]

There would be no experience of what Ruburt (Seth’s “entity” name for Jane) calls “the dear privacy of the moment,” so if one portion of your being wants to rise above the solitary march of the moments, other parts of your psyche rush, delighted, into that particular time-focus that is your own. [...]

These magical brushstrokes, however, are not simple representations on a flat surface, but alive, carrying within themselves all of the artist’s intent, but focused through the characteristics of each individual stroke.

[...] I write my books, but because my primary focus is in a reality that “is larger than your own,” I cannot appear as myself fully within your reference.

[...] Their “objectivity” happens at a certain point of focus, and as —

— that focus changes, so do the events.

[...] Your mother, incidentally, has largely given up focusing upon your artistic career in any way. [...]

[...] The overall concentrations should not be on ridding yourself of any particular symptom, but on directing yourself properly toward your goals, for this direction and proper focusing will automatically result in the disappearance of symptoms.

[...] Its focus was sharp and clear, and contained.

[...] It is the official line of consciousness that has become horizontal, yet in so doing it has also opened up questions to which it would have been blind otherwise—and because of its focus your news events, of course, show only one side of the picture.

[...] For one thing, any focus point of physical life is caused by a merging of probabilities. [...]

Because you focus upon the similarities in experience, and play down the variances, then the oftentimes greater dissimilarities⁴ in so-called experience escape you completely. [...]

[...] You might realize that the flowers you pick are not the same flowers that you picked last year at the same spot, but the very nature of your focus would cause you to concentrate upon those differences only when you were forced to. [...]

Dictation: You view the heavens and the universe, the planets and the stars, from your own focus — a highly limited one in certain terms.