The Seat of the Soul: 25th Anniversary Edition with a Study Guide

by Gary Zukav

When perception of the physical world is limited to the five-sensory modality, the basis of life in the physical arena becomes fear. Power to control the environment, and those within the environment appears to be essential.

The need for physical dominance produces a type of competition that affects every aspect of our lives. It affects relationships between lovers and between superpowers, between siblings and between races, between classes and between sexes.

Brothers and sisters quarrel for the same reason that corporations quarrel—they seek power over one another.

The power to control the environment, and those within it, is power over what can be felt, smelled, tasted, heard, or seen. This type of power is external power. External power can be acquired or lost, as in the stock market or an election. It can be bought or stolen, transferred or inherited. It is thought of as something that can be gotten from someone else, or somewhere else. One person’s gain of external power is perceived as another person’s loss. The result of seeing power as external is violence and destruction. All of our institutions—social, economic, and political—reflect our understanding of power as external.

Anything we fear to lose—a home, a car, an attractive body, an agile mind, a deep belief—is a symbol of external power. What we fear is an increase in our vulnerability. This results from seeing power as external.

When a husband and a wife compete for power, they engage the same dynamic that humans of one race do when they fear humans of another race.

Authentic power has its roots in the deepest source of our being. Authentic power cannot be bought, inherited, or hoarded. An authentically empowered person is incapable of making anyone or anything a victim. An authentically empowered person is one who is so strong, so

empowered, that the idea of using force against another is not a part of his or her consciousness.

Our five senses, together, form a single sensory system that is designed to perceive physical reality. The perceptions of a multisensory human extend beyond physical reality to the larger dynamical systems of which our physical reality is a part. The multisensory human is able to perceive, and to appreciate, the role that our physical reality plays in a larger picture of evolution, and the dynamics by which our physical reality is created and sustained. This realm is invisible to the five-sensory human.

From the perception of the five-sensory human, the physical world is an unaccountable given in which we unaccountably find ourselves, and we strive to dominate it so that we can survive. From the perception of the multisensory human, the physical world is a learning environment that is created jointly by the souls that share it, and everything that occurs within it serves their learning. From the perception of the five-sensory human, intentions have no effects, the effects of actions are physical, and not all actions affect us or others. From the perception of the multisensory human, the intention behind an action determines its effects, every intention affects both us and others, and the effects of intentions extend far beyond the physical world.