“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

For ourselves, and even considering Seth’s concept of “camouflage” (in Volume 1, see Note 3 for Appendix 11), Jane and I certainly believe that our physical existences and mental experiences are quite “real” in themselves. We could easily take a book to present the reasons for our particular beliefs, examining them in connection with both Eastern and Western religious philosophies. A good general question, we think, and one we’d like to see discussed with our own ideas of the inviolate nature of the individual in mind, has to do with the prevalence of ordinary, daily, conscious-mind thinking and perception throughout much of the world. In historical terms this situation has always existed for the human species; and we think it applies almost equally in Eastern lands, especially among the political leaders and ruling classes within them.

Yet Buddhist belief, for instance, maintains that our perception of the world is not fundamental, but an illusion; our “ignorance” of this basic undifferentiated “suchness” then results in the division of reality into objects and ideas. But why call our generalized awareness an illusion, instead of regarding it as one of the innumerable manifestations that reality takes? No one is free of certain minimum physical needs or of self-oriented thought, I remarked to Jane recently, and each nation strives to expand its technological base no matter what its philosophy may be. Would a widespread use of Eastern religious doctrines be more practical on our earth today, or the kind of self-knowledge Seth advocates? Even given their undeniable accomplishments, why didn’t the Eastern countries create ages ago the immortal societies that could have served as models for those of the West to emulate — cultures and/or nations in which all the mundane human vicissitudes (in those terms) had been long understood and abolished: war, crime, poverty, ignorance, and disease?

(Today we read a long treatise on the “truths” advocated by “holy men” associated with various Eastern religious philosophies — Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and so forth. Jane’s quick and impassioned response through her own writing, as presented below, reflects feelings deeply rooted within her mystical nature, and also illuminates important aspects of the body and direction of the Seth material as a whole. Given those points, she’s bound to have differences of belief with other views of reality.

(Yet I think more is involved than choosing among the belief systems offered by Eastern or Western cultures, for instance — that is, in more basic terms each personality would make that kind of choice before physical birth, with the full understanding of the vast influence such a decision would have upon a life’s work. Obviously, in those terms of linear time, Jane and I each feel that we chose our present environments.

Eastern Roads.

[...] The words Eastern and Roads were received twice. [...]

(“Where is Eastern Roads?”)

The Eastern religions exaggerated the importance of unity, almost losing the concept of individuality in the process. As popularly understood, Eastern religions can lead to spiritual exhaustion, as the individual tries to level himself out, again, so to speak — and the popular understanding of a religion is far more important than the priests or the gurus understand it, for people directed their lives by following their own versions. [...]

So some Americans have become tired of this badge of individuality, and they are ready to throw it over, either to fundamental Christianity, which is again rising, or to a number of various Eastern religions. [...]

A SET ESGDP REED RE GREAT WAR ETPQQAEFRNAEROA ERR REST EAR EAR RCRGTGURE ROADS EASTERN TO HTA TORN OSP SOP A EASTERN ROADS GQURTIGG ERA EST FIGHTS VEST GIP SEYSV IT AH RAN TST SET ROAD V ASS T BATTALION

(Note that the words EASTERN and ROADS appear twice, and that they tally with an answer given us by Frank Watts during the second session, December 4/63. [...]

[...] The same unfortunately applies to the Eastern concept of nirvana, and to the Christian idea of heaven. [...]

[...] Now you may believe in the theories of Buddhism, for example, or of another Eastern philosophy.

[...] Many such Eastern schools also stress — as do numerous spiritualistic schools — the importance of the “unconscious levels of the self,” and teach you to mistrust the conscious mind.

(Since Greece and Italy are close to each other geographically in the eastern Mediterranean, it was an easy matter for the citizens of both countries to meet, even in those ancient days.)

[...] The two Eastern exercises, done occasionally by Ruburt, should be adopted by you both as a matter of routine daily.

Later other such Eastern exercises should be added. [...]

[...] I explained the position that Iran is in geographically now, however, what with Russia occupying Afghanistan on Iran’s eastern border. [...]

The message blazes across your television screens at a time when fundamental religion has begun to sprout again, both eastern and Christian. [...]

[...] We discussed the amazing facts that the American civilizations had existed for centuries concurrently with the European and Far Eastern ones, but with each totally isolated from the other. [...]

[...] Eastern religions are the only ones that even remotely try to approach such a principle, and they do so in highly distorted fashions. [...]

[...] It was situated near Eastern Roads. [...]

[...] For your information Joseph, I was born in that existence in the year approximately 1486, and lived most of that life in the town called Triev, in the eastern part of the country, as a merchant dealing in spices.

[...] (A simile I often think of here compares Eastern and Western life and thought with the right and left hemispheres of the brain; they’re separate, yet united; each half performs functions that complement and to some extent overlap those of the other, and together they operate as a whole.) But we dislike the idea of nirvana in Buddhism and Hinduism, which calls for the extinction or blowing out of individual consciousness, and its absorption into a supreme spirit, usually after a series of lives. [...]

[...] And whenever I read about conventional Eastern conceptions of a supreme spirit, I remember what Seth had to say in the 596th session in the Appendix of Seth Speaks: “I have used the term ‘expansion of consciousness’ here rather than the more frequently used ‘cosmic consciousness’ because the latter implies an experience of proportions not available to mankind at this time. [...]

[...] We aren’t satisfied with the answers to our questions that our social orders, whether Eastern or Western, give us. [...]

[...] The generally explosive predicament in Iran, for example, has been considerably aggravated by Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan over the recent Christmas season: Now the unbending revolutionary government of Iran, following its own fanatical interpretation of the Moslem religion, must contend with at least an implied threat on its eastern border as the godless Russians occupy Afghanistan. [...]

[...] They included a projection through the eastern wall of our living room, and a “visitor” who returned with her; the Latin title of a book; her awareness of a third eye; some material, with diagrams, of me as a monk who wrote manuscripts in an underground chamber that he later sealed; a vision of Seth in a brown robe, looking as I’ve painted him—but the brown robe was “too easy,” Jane said suspiciously. [...]

[...] Gene had questioned Seth in what I guess you could call “professional philosophical jargon,” making frequent references to esoteric Eastern theories with which I was totally unfamiliar. [...] He also had an excellent knowledge of Eastern philosophy and religion. [...]

[...] A look at a map will show what I mean: Iran has Iraq and Turkey on its western border, with Russia to its north and Afghanistan on its east; Pakistan lies on Iran’s eastern border also; south of Iran, across the narrow Persian Gulf, cluster the mix of large and small wealthy states on the Arabian peninsula. The Moslem Kurds of Iran and Iraq, minority peoples with strong roots in eastern Turkey, are rebelling against the military forces of their respective countries; and Pakistan has become a place of shelter for refugees from Afghanistan. [...]

[...] See Note 1 for Session 919, in Chapter 7 of Dreams, wherein I reviewed not only Iran’s concern over the Russian invasion of its eastern neighbor, Afghanistan, in late December 1979, but also Iran’s border clashes with its western neighbor, Iraq, during the past year. [...]

[...] That material was new to us, and included information on the Egyptians’ use of “inaudible” sound to help build the Pyramids; according to Seth the Romans also employed such sound in erecting the enormous, truly awesome city of Heliopolis at Baalbek, in what is now the Middle Eastern country of Lebanon. [...]

[...] On March 31, children and pregnant women were advised to evacuate an area within five miles of the plant, and today city and county civil defense directors in eastern Pennsylvania were given plans for a precautionary evacuation of everyone within a 25-mile radius of Three Mile Island. [...]