“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] Therefore to be proud of oneself seems a sin, and in that frame of reference true affirmation of the self is impossible. Genuine self-pride is the loving recognition of your own integrity and value. True humility is based upon this affectionate regard for yourself, plus the recognition that you live in a universe in which all other beings also possess this undeniable individuality and self-worth.

(9:40.) Regardless of what you have been told, there is no merit in self-sacrifice. [...] The self grows and develops. [...] Usually, self-sacrifice means throwing the “burden” of yourself upon someone else and making it their responsibility.

[...] It often hides a distorted, puffed-up, denied self-pride, because no man or woman can really accept a theory that denies personal self-worth.

[...] True self-pride allows you to perceive the integrity of your fellow human beings and permits you to help them use their strengths. [...]

You think that the self must begin or end someplace. [...] I have said many times that there are no limitations to the self. You seem to be afraid that the self will bleed out and lose “itself” in a maze in which all identity is lost. Yet you recognize that your self is a far greater dimension than you usually suppose, so you speak in terms of reincarnation. [...] You think of being one self after another, each identity being neatly separated from the others by a passage of years, an obvious death and an obvious birth.

6. See the 565th session as it’s continued in Chapter 16 of Seth Speaks. Seth talked about the myriad probable actions available to any self. After 10:19: “To the extent that you are open and receptive, you can benefit greatly by the various experiences of your probable selves … often what seems to you to be an inspiration is a thought experienced but not actualized on the part of another self … Ideas that you have entertained and not used may be picked up in this same manner by other probable you’s. Each of these probable selves considers itself the real you, of course, and to any one of them you would be the probable self; but through the inner senses each of you are aware of your part in this gestalt.”

Once you free your consciousness from limited concepts of time and self, then you can begin to explore the unknown reality that is the unrecognized self.

The idea of counterparts¹ somewhat shatters that old concept, yet you still want definitions for the self so that you know where you “stand.” [...]

[...] When that point is reached, you will be able, if you prefer, to experience any “Reality-Illusion" at your will, but the self who experiences these “reality-illusions" will know itself as reality. [...]

There must be an overall commitment to the self.

And there can be no self-betrayal.

But the idea of self-betrayal can lead to distortions.

(Long pause at 8:00.) In a manner of speaking, the Sinful Self created the superhuman self-image that demanded so much, and it encased Ruburt’s body as if in concrete. [...]

[...] The super-perfect, impractical self-image simply fell away: it could not survive such a situation. [...]

(We were very encouraged by two points especially that Seth had mentioned this evening: that Jane’s thyroid had repaired itself before—which event now could free her from dependence upon medication—and that the Sinful Self’s superhuman image had “cracked and crumbled in the hospital experience.” [...]

[...] The body finally became so desperate to free itself of that rigid Sinful-Self superhuman image that it took itself into the hospital for a month—even if it did almost die in order to get itself in there. [...]

Physical time, or that is clock time, was invented by man’s ego to protect the ego itself, because of the mistaken conception of dual existence—that is, because man felt that a predictable conscious self did the thinking and the moving, and an unpredictable almost automatic self did the breathing and dreaming. He set up boundaries to protect the predictable self from what he considered the unpredictable self, and ended up by cutting the whole self in half.

[...] It is after all only a means of reaching the whole self and of acquainting the ego, through effects, with the abilities of the whole self, of which it is but a part.

[...] For one thing, psychological time is so much a part of inner reality that even though your inner self is still connected to the physical body, you are in the dream framework free of some very important physical effects. [...]

Nor is the invention of clock time the only such mutilating device mistakenly invented and used to protect one part of the self from the other. [...]

[...] [See session 472 in Volume 9 of The Early Sessions.] Material on Jane’s symptoms, interior and exterior illness, inner-self constructions and challenges, recognizing problems, etc. The viewpoint of the inner-self. [...]

[...] There is no reason, however, why you must be blind to the whole self of your present personality, which is part of the entity, and which can be glimpsed in terms of the breathing and dreaming ‘self of which I have spoken.

Time to your dreaming self is much like ‘time’ to your waking inner self. [...]

I cannot say this too often — you are far more than the conscious mind, and the self which you do not admit is the portion that not only insures your own physical survival in the physical universe which it has made, but which is also the connective between yourself and inner reality. … It is only through the recognition of the inner self that the race of man will ever use its potential.

If man does not know who breathes within him, and if man does not know who dreams within him, it is not because there is one self who acts in the physical universe and another who dreams and breathes. [...]

1. In larger terms Seth’s ideas as to what the “whole self” is take in a great deal — with reincarnation and probable personalities, for instance, being only two of the concepts involved. The safest thing to say would be that each session, even, adds to our knowledge of what a constantly expanding whole self can be. [...]

[...] In addition to Seth’s volume, these sometimes resulted in very creative products of her “own”: Some of the psychic experiences connected with her book of poetry, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time, which she began in November, 1972, are described in the 639th session in Chapter Ten. [...]

[...] The whole self, the inner self, moves within the concept of infinity as you move within physical reality through space. [...]

[...] But each self must go its own way and develop its own abilities and explore the possibilities which it creates itself, otherwise the whole would stagnate.

[...] The inner self forms all systems and all places. [...]

Each inner self is a portion of the basic inner reality. [...]

[...] If they were not pursued by the self you recognize, then they were by a self that is probable in your terms. In your mind follow what directions that self would have taken, as you think of such events. [...]

[...] The picture can be from the past or the present, but try to see it as a snapshot of a self poised in perfect focus, emerging from an underneath dimension in which other probable pictures could have been taken. That self, you see, emerges triumphantly, unique and unassailable in its own experience; yet in the features you see before you — in this stance, posture, expression — there are also glimmerings, tintings or shadings, that are echoes belonging to other probabilities. [...]

[...] If the photograph is dark, for example, and shows shadows, then in this exercise see those as belonging to the self in the picture.

[...] Each probable self has its own free will and uniqueness. [...]

[...] You simply do not identify with your greater self now. [...] Your greater being also possesses its own originality, yet there will be what you may think of as a family resemblance, and so overall you and your other self often choose the same kinds of challenges, if in dissimilar ways.

[...] In the 152nd session he stated: “The whole self of which Ruburt is a part is an extremely elastic one. The various portions of this whole self reach outward and inward with much more resilience than most. [...]

[...] The present self does not exist in isolation.

Vague yearnings toward certain accomplishments may be clues that the necessary characteristics are inherent but untrained in the self that you know. [...]

The paintings already exist however as definite potential forms, already created by your whole self. [...] You can only fail in not giving them physical form, and you can only fail to give them physical form by refusing to open up your inner channels to the intuitions of the whole self.

[...] You are already the self who will paint that portrait. [...]

[...] In not developing your abilities to the point where you can tune in on these paintings, that belong to your whole self, you impede your progress, and to that extent deny portions of creativity.

[...] (Pause.) Great artists are those who materialize physically the paintings already created by the whole self in potential form.

You may tell Ruburt he has not lost his bright self, and it has gone nowhere.

[...] He just denied expression to his bright self. [...]

It was a welcome to the spontaneous self, expressed creatively. [...]

The act of writing the poem at this time, regardless of the poem’s message, you see, represents a willingness to allow the spontaneous self expression. [...]

[...] When this occurs and he sees himself for example running, to some extent this makes the mental image of a nonrunning self less vivid. [...] And the will, now, can be used to initiate a series of actions that will be spontaneous; and the motions now, the physical motions, in turn set up mental images of spontaneity that become self-generating. [...]

[...] The spontaneous self is being given more and more freedom, yet under a cautious eye, and with the symptoms in the background, again just in case.

[...] Remind him, for the 100th time, that he can trust his inner self implicitly, and does not need to set up guards against its spontaneity, for spontaneity is his life, and the source of his creativity; and underline that sentence.

One reason, you see, that I suggest the running is that any running at all prevents him from projecting into the future a nonrunning self. [...]

[...] It is not a lessening of self but an extension of self, so that the self-awareness can include not only self but independent (you may call this other) self experience, to include a value that is usually lacking in your ordinary behavior patterns.

[...] It protects the inner self by acting as a barrier that keeps the whole self’s energy controlled, and keeps it from seeping away. At the same time it protects the whole self from certain radiations which do not here concern you. [...]

[...] The whole self is never completely constructed on your plane. [...] A camouflage plane, merely by being what it is, makes it impossible for the whole self to find expression. [...]

This value, or this particular extension of self to include other self experience, is one of the attributes that can be expected through the use of psychological time. [...]

Ruburt’s sense of worth came from his writing self. [...] It carried him through all of his early years, this belief in the writing self that automatically justified his existence and more (underlined) than made up for any other lacks, he felt. [...]

The writing self had always been both highly intuitional and highly questioning. [...] The writing self therefore led the way also to the psychic developments. [...]

Though this was true, the writing self for the first time began to question itself, its achievements, and the new field it had entered. [...] This brought forth some conflicts, for the writing self had been Ruburt’s justification of your love. [...]

The writing self knew it needed something to write about, and greater maturity if it were to fulfill its abilities, and here again the psychic development fulfilled a need. The writing self was led to examine its own substance; since Ruburt felt your love was dependent on the outcome, this brought about certain difficulties.

Many of the contradictory beliefs and negative ones discussed in yesterday’s session led to strong feelings of self-disapproval. [...] Hence, no matter what you did you were both left with strong feelings of self-disapproval.

[...] This is the matter of self-approval.

[...] A feeling of self-approval is absolutely necessary for any true sense of well-being; it is not (underlined) virtuous in any way to put yourself down, or to punish yourself, because you do not feel you have lived up to your best behavior at any given time.

[...] The field reaches out from you, say, as a self, to all the things that you perceive —and physical time does not enter in.

This highly intricate web or field obviously reaches out from you as a self to all the persons you perceive, and you also participate in the same sort of web, projecting outward from the other individuals. [...]

[...] The pathways are carriers of telepathic thoughts, impulses and desires that travel outward from any given self, altering and changing the seemingly objective events.

Whether or not such an activation into physical actualization occurs or not, nonphysical portions of the self will to some extent react. [...]

Self-disclosure and the desire for perfection are each involved, then. You know that no self-disclosure will lead to perfection, and yet self-disclosure and perfection can seem to be like opposites. [...]

[...] Creatively you see the photographs’ value, but they still caused a conflict between your ideas of perfection and self-disclosure, particularly as they were related to your mother’s attitudes.

[...] But the inner self of the woman knows that in facing such a condition and finding nevertheless some moments of joy, even some compassion for others, that the personality has satisfied many of those feelings of inadequacy from the past existence. [...]

[...] But the choice is with the inner self, which is the real identity. [...]

[...] He decides to take the role for various reasons of his own, and the inner self knows that the role was chosen.

The inner self does not feel threatened, therefore, only the part of the personality that is momentarily unaware of the true situation. [...]