目 录 上一节 下一节 
“26日我起了个早，以便包好邮寄包裹，这时，我注意到比利好象不舒服。我去邮局时，简在照看他。当我回来时，他并未好转，快到中午时，我们发觉他撒尿有问题。下午，我带他到我们的兽医那里，兽医把他留下诊治；问题很严重；那时猫非常痛苦。简和我都感到惊讶：为什么比利会生病？如此一个看起来完美而年轻的动物为什么突然病成这样，毫无明显的的原因？…… 星期二，兽医打电话告诉我们，比利好些了，我们“大概”第二天下午能带他回家了，我准备穿过市区去接他之前先打一个电话。星期三下午，在我准备打电话前一小时，电话响了……是兽医打来的，他遗憾地向我解释，比利一个小时前已经死了。 "We were shocked because Billy's unexpected--and serious--illness reminded us of the almost universally accepted view that life is terribly vulnerable. Any kind of life. Billy was a replacement for our previous cat, Willy (who'd died in November 1976 at the age of 16), and we'd found him at an animal shelter the next weekend after Willy's death; as far as having a pet to love went, we'd thought ourselves "set" for a number of years. At first we'd called the newcomer Willy Two, but soon automatically shortened that to Billy. “我们无比震惊，因为比利的意外的--也是严重的--疾病提醒我们，正如众所周知的，那就是生命多么不堪一击。任何一种生命。 比利是我们先前养的一只猫的代替, 威利 (死于1976年11月，死时16岁)，在威利死后一个星期，我们在一个动物收容站发现了他。由于一只我们喜爱的宠物的死去，我们也想到自己余年不多。起初，我们叫他威利二世，但不久我们自然而然地简称他为比利。 "During the 836th session, Seth reminded us that "animals do not 'think' of long lives or short lives, but of a brilliant present, which in a way, compared to your framework, has no beginning or end.., time, in your terms, does not exist for them--and in the deepest of terms a life's quality on a human scale cannot be judged primarily in terms of its length, either. “在第836 课，赛斯提醒我们：动物不“考虑”生命的长短，只考虑一个闪亮的出场，相较你们的框架而言，这没有开始或结束……时间，用你们的话说，对他们来说并不存在--终极而言，一个人的生命的质量并不能用它的长度来衡量。 Seth: "My dear friends: Existence is larger than life or death. Life and death are both states of existence. An identity exists whether it is in the state of life or in the state of death. Your cat's consciousness never was dependent upon its physical form. Instead, the consciousness was itself choosing the experience of cathood. There was nothing that said: 'This consciousness must be a cat.' 赛斯:“我亲爱的朋友们：存在大于生或死。生和死两者都是存在的状态。一个身份总是存在，无论它处于生的状态或处于死的状态。你们的猫的意识从不依赖于它的肉身形式。相反，意识本身选择猫的生活的经验。没有任何东西说：“这个意识必须是一只猫。” "Billy belonged in another probability, and in a fashion you switched probabilities for him, though without his consent, when you took him from the animal shelter, where he would have soon been 'done away with.' His three years with you represented a grace period for him...He did not make this probability his own because of what you may call 'other commitments' --or rather, other purposes. “比利属于另一个或然性，你以某种方式为他转换或然性，尽管没有征得他同意。你将他从动物收容站带回家，否则他很快会在那里被“消灭”。他与你们相处的3年代表了他的一个优雅的时期。由于你们会称作“其他的承诺”--或更是由于其他目的，他没有自己选择这个或然性。 
总的说来，没有像一只猫的意识，或一只鸟的意识这么回事。如此说来，相反，只有选择集中某个焦点的意识。我们还没在接触过其中一些问题，我们希望避免造成曲解，某些问题同样极其难以解释。这些与罗伯本身没关系，只与在此发展阶段中你合成这些概念的方式相关 "You both knew Billy was about to die. So did the plants in your house, and the trees outside your door. The cellular announcement was made that the strong possibility existed, for the birth and death of each cell is known to all cells in the world...Cellular communication is too fast for you to follow. The cat could have changed its mind, of course, but the signals were sent out, and ahead of time. [Several people who wrote to you] picked up on that probability.... “你们俩都知道比利要死了。你们屋里的植物也知道，你们门外的树也知道。细胞已宣告强大的可能性存在着，因为世界上所有细胞都知道每一个细胞的生死。细胞交流太快，你们根本无法跟上。当然，猫可能已经改变了主意，但是信号已发送，而且是提前发出。（几个给你写信的人）提供了这个或然性……" " ....The quality of identity is far more mysterious than you understand, for you assign an identity in a blanket fashion, say, to each living thing. Now your dead cat, Billy, exists in the following manner: The units of consciousness that organized to form his identity as you knew it, still form that pattern--but not physically. The cat exists as itself in the greater living memory of its own 'larger' selfhood. Its organization--the cat's--exists inviolately, but as a part of the greater psychic organization from which it came. “……身份的性质比你所理解的要神秘的多，可以说，你赋予每一个有生命的事物一个身份。现在你们死去的猫，比利，以这种方式存在：构成你们所认识的他的身份的意识单位，依然构成它的身份--不过并非以物质形态。猫作为它自己存在于它自己的“更大”的自我的更大的生活记忆中。它的组织--猫的--不受侵犯地存在着，但是作为其所来自的的更大的心灵组织的一部分。 "That identity of Billy's remains vital, known to itself whether or not it is reactivated in your terms. This is not necessarily always the case--and there is great variation--but Billy identified with 'the larger organization' of the litter [that is, with his brothers and sisters, all of whom are also dead], and the consciousnesses of that litter are now together. They are forming a gestalt, where the five consciousnesses will merge to form a new identity." “比利的身份依然充满生机，用你们的话说，他自己知道他是否恢复活力。这并不一定如此--并且有着巨大的多样性--但是比利认同了它的一窝（它的兄弟姐妹，它们也都已死去）的“更大的组织”，这一窝的意识现在在一起。他们正在形成一个完形，五个意识将以一个新的身份出现。” | 
