“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

At such times I’m apt to think about ideas of reincarnation and counterparts. Right here I’m dealing with just two of Seth’s larger concepts. But without dwelling upon them too heavily, I may consider the notion of my larger, nonphysical “whole self” or “entity” being made up of a number of other psychically related physical selves projected into time. For Seth, basically there is no time, only a great “spacious present” that’s a manifestation of a sublime, indescribable All That Is. Our gross physical senses, and indeed our very bodies, insist upon interpreting the spacious present in linear terms, however—through the inevitable processes of birth, aging, and death—so to help us get his point here Seth advances his ideas of reincarnational selves and counterpart selves in ways we can understand sensually.

Before proceeding I want to make clear just what I mean by “reincarnational selves” (while confining this discussion to “past” lives for the moment). For it’s also contradictory to say, for example, that “I was a serf in the 12th-century Germanic state of Bavaria.” As Seth and I both noted in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, each of us has our focus of identity now—not in some other portion of the spacious present, just as each reincarnational self has his or her own historical focus of identity. How could it be otherwise?

There’s so much I could discuss here that the lack of time and space is very frustrating. I can only hint at what I consider to be important points. The books and magazines dealing with reincarnation—and the tapes, too, these days—swarm with tales of journeys to past lives, and some of those accounts are most spectacular. Yet, even given ancient concepts like that of Seth’s spacious present, the participants in such adventures usually quite happily ignore the conclusion that reincarnation should also operate from the opposite direction—the future—just as well! As a very perceptive young lady wrote Jane and me recently, why can’t people be progressed to their future lives just as successfully as they’re regressed to their past lives? Indeed. Our rather copious mail brings us questions like that very rarely. (The key word there, I think, is “successfully.”)

All of this is most simplified. One ought to be very careful about assigning past and future status to various portions of a self, for ultimately, as one moves further into the spacious present, such constructions as the past, present, and future begin to melt away. And, as in Seth’s case and Jane’s case, probabilities and choices come much more prominently into play.

For Seth, Framework 1 is simply a term representing the everyday, linear, conscious “working reality” we take for granted, the one in which “time” and events automatically unfold in moment after undeniable moment. It’s the milieu in which most of us unthinkingly live out our physical lives. Beyond Framework 1, however, exists Framework 2, and it represents the great timeless or simultaneous spacious present that’s so dearly a manifestation of All That Is. All of our dreams, plans, thoughts, actions, and choices live in Framework 2; all flow from Framework 2 into Framework 1 according to our beliefs.