Inquiry · “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
The Point of Power Is in the Present
Recognize, experientially, that your power to change your life is located only in the present moment — not in the past — so you stop experiencing yourself as the helpless product of prior conditioning.
Point of power: Sit, eyes open, and feel that this moment is where spirit meets matter — the one place you can act from. Notice where you’ve handed your power to the past, and refuse it: “I am not at the mercy of the past unless I believe I am.” Plant the counter-suggestion — “I create my reality, and the present is my point of power” — then take one small action now.
What it is
One of the most quoted ideas in the Seth material, and the principle underneath every other Seth exercise: “the point of power is in the present.” Seth’s argument is that people hand their power to the past — to old beliefs, old failures, even (for those who think in those terms) “past lives” — and so feel themselves to be at the mercy of what already happened.
The corrective is to feel, directly, that the present moment is the one place where consciousness, spirit, and matter intersect, and therefore the only place from which anything can actually be changed. It is less a manipulation than a reorientation: a felt recognition that you are not a finished product of your history but a chooser standing now.
The Method
From The Nature of Personal Reality, ch. 15 (faithfully described; short quotes only):
- Sit and look. “For an exercise, sit with your eyes wide open, looking about you, and realize that this moment represents the point of your power, through which you can affect both past and future events.” No special posture or trance — ordinary alert attention.
- Feel the intersection. Dwell on the sense that “your present is the point at which flesh and matter meet with the spirit.” All of your physical, mental, and spiritual abilities are focused, right now, in this concentration of present experience.
- Refuse the past’s authority. Remind yourself: “You are not at the mercy of the past, or of previous convictions, unless you believe that you are.” Notice where you have been assigning power to what is over.
- Install the breaking suggestion. Seth gives one sentence designed to cut through old conditioning: “I create my reality, and the present is my point of power.” Hold it as the deliberate counter-suggestion to “I am the way I am because of what happened.”
- Act from now. Having reoriented, take some small action in line with what you want — because the recognition is meant to be lived, not merely thought. (This flows directly into the seth five minute point of power drill.) (Sourcing note: attributed quotation and paraphrase from ch. 15 / the 656th session; not a reproduction.)
Source & Lineage
Delivered in trance by Jane Roberts (1929-1984), The Nature of Personal Reality (1974) is the practical heart of the Seth books. The “point of power” teaching is Seth’s answer to deterministic readings of psychology and of reincarnation alike: rather than being shaped helplessly by the past, the self is continually re-choosing from the present.
It rhymes with the present-moment teachings of Tolle and the contemplative traditions, but Seth frames it specifically as the seat of creative agency, not only of peace.
The Traditions' versions
The move — withdraw power from the remembered past and locate it in the living present — appears across traditions; Seth’s version uniquely fuses present-moment awareness with active reality-shaping: - The present moment as the point of power (Tolle, contemplative present-moment work) — but oriented to presence/peace rather than creation. → present-moment practices.
- The dichotomy of control (Epictetus) — power lies only in what is up to you now.
- Correcting the belief in a determining past (cognitive therapy) — disputing “my history made me this way.”
Common refinements
Turning it into denial. “The past has no power” can be misused to bypass grief or unprocessed trauma. Reorienting to the present is not the same as pretending the past didn’t hurt.
- Staying in the idea. The recognition is meant to issue in action now; pair it with a concrete present step.
- Assigning power back to the past by checking. Re-litigating old failures re-empowers them; notice and return to now.
- Using it on other people. It is a stance for your own agency, not a way to tell someone their suffering is a present-moment choice.