What is ‘Negative’?
Many discussions about the merits of different worldviews, war and peace, One or All, good intent or deception, in the end all revolve around some kind of duality. My question here is whether this duality is a fundamental part of reality, or only a secondary construct that we can leave out and still live here as humans.
Words such as ‘war’, ‘deception’, ‘the dark side’, ‘limitations’, ‘fear’ are often viewed as ‘negative’. Many in the Seth community have strong feelings about this, and since most of us want to be ‘positive’ and happy, any association with such negative asepcts provokes strong reactions. This is why this forum sometimes looks like a war zone. And not just this list… the Seth section on Compuserve has had its scurmishes, too - some pretty nasty.
Over the years, I have come to a much more neutral point of view with regard to these terms. ‘Negativity is bad’ is an element in the ‘vertical’ world view of religion, in which ‘higher is better’, and the goal is to get as high as possible, ultimately to re-unite with God. The ascension movement, in which the ‘separation’ is called a mistake is similar. The scientific view is different in that it is open-ended, but there, too, the drive is towards better, higher, more complex…
Now is a time of great changes. And that is why ‘healing’ is such an important part of the lives of so many. It is a time of transition, where we learn how to actively work with those beliefs. We are learning how our beliefs create our reality. This is why we need to see the contrast: how some beliefs can severely limit our creativity. And… how we can just as easily choose new beliefs of love, abundance and joy…
The issue is indeed compounded by the fact that we are in a period of transition towards greater personal freedom. This appears to validate at least some aspects of the vertical world views. It appears to be in line with its drive towards higher and more evolved. This shift is a transition between two different world views. One is not ‘better’ than the other. In that sense, there is no motivation behind it other than to have the experience of a transition and to provide the connection between these two eras.
After all, time is simultaneous.
These three words have far reaching consequences, because they directly contradict the one root assumption of any vertical world view: things get better with time. You can no longer put all the bad stuff ‘behind you’, call it primitive or unevolved. The creator of your greatest and most glorious achievement also creates the most horrible, cruel acts you can imagine now, as you read this. There’s no way out.
Ultimately, this leads us to the reasons for Creation in this way. Seth goes into this at length in “the Seth Material” and in “Dreams, ‘evolution’, and value fulfillment.” Essentially, All That Is wanted direct experience. We all want direct experience. We all make wonderful plans all the time, but there’s nothing like seeing them realized.
And in the mechanism for making this experience possible, we find the reasons why the ‘negative’ terms I listed earlier aren’t just neutral, but in some cases absolutely necessary. Borrowing a lot from Kristin’s “notes from the edge” last June, our experience is only possible by ‘deceiving’ us to believe that our experience is all there is, through an artificial ‘separation’ of the One into many, through setting ‘limitatioins’ within which to have experiences, and through a mechanism called ‘fear’ that keeps ux within those boundaries at least temporarily.
In other words, there is nothing ‘bad’ about the ‘negative’ or the ‘limiting’ beliefs we have. They’re just beliefs, and they have served a purpose. Our collective movement towards greater freedom is not ‘fixing something that’s not working properly’, but an expansion into a new, broader, more creative awareness. It is not about shuffling a ‘lower ego’ away to make room for some ‘higher’ consciousness. There is nothing ‘bad’ in or about us. It is about embracing each and every part of ourselves and opening them up to the Love that is the source of everything so that our Whole Self can more fully express itself in all its splendor.