Seth:
In the beginning, there was not God the Father, Allah, Zoroaster, Zeus, or Buddha.
In the beginning there was instead, once more, a divine psychological gestalt – and by that I mean a being whose reality escapes the definition of the word "being", since it is the source from which all being emerges. That being exists in a psychological dimension, a spacious present, in which everything that was or is or will be is kept in immediate attention, poised in a divine context that is characterized by such a brilliant concentration that the grandest and the lowliest, the largest and the smallest, are equally held in a multi-loving constant focus.
Your conceptions of beginnings and endings make an explanation of such a situation most difficult, for in your terms the beginning of the [universe] is meaningless – that is, in those terms there was no beginning.
The [universe] is, as I explained, always coming into existence, and each present moment [brings] its own built-in past along with it. You agree on accepting as fact only a small portion of the large available data that compose any moment individually or globally. You accept only those data that fit in with your ideas of motion in time. As a result, for example, your archeological evidence usually presents a picture quite in keeping with your ideas of history, geological eras, and so forth.
The conscious mind sees with a spectacular but limited scope. It lacks all peripheral vision. I use the term "conscious mind" as you define it, for you allow it to accept as evidence only those physical data available for the five senses – while the five senses, of course, represent only a relatively flat view of reality, that deals with the most apparent surface.
The physical senses are the extensions of inner senses that are, in one way or another, a part of each physical species regardless of its degree. The inner senses provide all species with an inner method of communication. The cells, then, possess inner senses.
Atoms perceive their own positions, their velocities, motions, the nature of their surroundings, the material that they compose. [Your] world did not just come together, mindless atoms forming here and there, elements coalescing from brainless gases – nor was the world, again, created by some distant objectified God who created it part by part as in some cosmic assembly line. With defects built in, mind you, and better models coming every geological season.
The universe formed out of what God is.
The universe is the natural extension of divine creativity and intent, lovingly formed from the inside out – so there was consciousness before there was matter, and not the other way around.
In certain basic and vital ways, your own consciousness is a portion of that divine gestalt. In the terms of your earthly experience, it is a metaphysical, a scientific, and a creative error to separate matter from consciousness, for consciousness materializes itself as matter in physical life."
Session 886, Dreams, "Evolution, and Value Fulfillment, Volume 1.