Seth: Physical Objects Transmit Meaning Just Like Text

SETH SPEAKS

Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul

Seth: As you read the words upon this page, you realize that the information that you are receiving is not an attribute of the letters of the words themselves. The printed line does not contain information. It transmits information. Where is the information that is being transmitted then, if it is not upon the page?

The same question of course applies when you read a newspaper, and when you speak to another person. Your actual words convey information, feelings, or thoughts. Obviously the thoughts or the feelings, and the words, are not the same thing. The letters upon the page are symbols, and you have agreed upon various meanings connected with them. You take it for granted without even thinking of it that the symbols - the letters - are not the reality - the information or thoughts - which they attempt to convey.

Now in the same way, I am telling you that objects are also symbols that stand for a reality whose meaning the objects, like the letters, transmit. The true information is not in the objects any more than the thought is in the letters or in words. Words are methods of expression. So are physical objects in a different kind of medium. You are used to the idea that you express yourselves directly through words. You can hear yourself speak them. You can feel the muscles in your throat move, and if you are aware, you can perceive multitudinous reactions within your own body - actions that all accompany your speech.

Physical objects are the result of another kind of expression. You create them as surely as you create words. I do not mean that you create them with your hands alone, or through manufacture. I mean that objects are natural by-products of the evolution of your species, even as words are. Examine for a moment your knowledge of your own speech, however. Though you hear the words and recognize their appropriateness, and though they may more or less approximate an expression of your feeling, they are not your feeling, and there must be a gap between your thought and your expression of it.

The familiarity of speech begins to vanish when you realize that you, yourself, when you begin a sentence do not know precisely how you will end it, or even how you form the words. You do not consciously know how you manipulate a staggering pyramid of symbols, picking from them precisely those you need to express a given thought. For that matter, you do not know how you think.

You do not know how you translate these symbols upon this page into thoughts, and then store them, or make them your own. Since the mechanisms of normal speech are so little known to you on a conscious level, then it is not surprising that you are equally unaware of more complicated tasks that you also perform - such as the constant creation of your physical environment as a method of communication and expression.

It is only from this viewpoint that the true nature of physical matter can be understood. It is only by comprehending the nature of this constant translation of thoughts and desires - not into words now, but into physical objects - that you can realize your true independence from circumstance, time, and environment.

Now, it is easy to see that you translate feelings into words or bodily expressions and gestures, but not quite as easy to realize that you form your physical body as effortlessly and unselfconsciously as you translate feelings into symbols that become words.

You have heard the expression before, I am sure, that the environment expresses a particular individual's personality. I am telling you that this is a literal and not symbolic truth. The letters upon the page have the reality only of ink and paper. The information they convey is invisible. As an object, this book itself is only paper and ink. It is a carrier of information.

© Laurel Butts.

Abraham on Traumatic Injuries

Jerry: What is the role of thought in traumatic injuries? Abraham, are traumatic injuries created in the same way that diseases are created? And can they be resolved through thought? In other words, like a breakage of something that happened in a momentary incident as opposed to a long series of thoughts leading up to it.

Abraham: Whether the trauma to your body seemed to come suddenly as a result of an accident or whether it came from a disease such as cancer, you've created the situation through your thought and the healing will come through your thought as well. Chronic thoughts of ease promote wellness while chronic stressful or resentful or hateful or fearful thoughts promote disease. But whether the result shows up suddenly as in falling and breaking your bones, or more slowly as in cancer, whatever you are living always matches the balance of your thoughts. 

Once you've experienced the diminishment of well being, whether it has come from broken bones or internal diseases, it is not likely that you will suddenly find good feeling thoughts that match those of your Inner Being. In other words, if before your accident or disease you were not choosing thoughts that aligned with well being, it's not likely that now that you are faced with discomfort or pain or a frightening diagnosis, you will suddenly find that alignment. 

It is much easier to achieve great health from moderate health than to achieve great health from poor health. However you can get to wherever you want to be from wherever you are, if you are able to distract your attention from the unwanted aspects of your life and focus on the aspects that are more pleasing. It really is only a matter of focus.

Sometimes a frightening diagnosis or a traumatic injury is a powerful catalyst in getting you to focus your attention more deliberately on things that do feel good. In fact, some of our best students of Deliberate Creation are those who have been given a frightening diagnosis where doctors have told them that there is nothing more that can be done for them, who now, since they have no other options, deliberately begin to focus their thoughts. 

It is interesting that so many people will not do what really works until all other options have been exhausted, but we do understand that you've acclimated to your action-oriented world and so action does seem to most of you to be the best first option. We're not guiding you away from action, but instead, encouraging you to find better feeling thoughts first and then follow with the action that you feel inspired to.

© Abraham Hicks Publications