“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause.) In one way or another, that inner information had to connect each consciousness on the face of the planet. Earthly creatures must be able to react in a moment, yet the inner mechanisms that made such reactions possible were based upon calculations that could not be consciously kept in mind. In your time scheme, for example, you could never move as quickly as you do if you had to consciously work all the muscles involved in motion—or in speech, or in any such bodily performance. You certainly could not communicate on such a physical level if you first had to be aware of all of speech’s mechanisms, working them consciously before a word was uttered. Yet you had to have that kind of knowledge, and you had to have it in a way that did not intrude upon your conscious thoughts.

Basically there are no real divisions to the self, but for the sake of explanation we must speak of them in those terms. First of all you had the inner self, the creative dreaming self—composed, again, of units of consciousness, awareized energy that forms your identity, and that formed the identities of the earliest earth inhabitants. These inner selves formed their own dream bodies about them, as previously explained, but the dream bodies did not have to have physical reactions. They were free of gravity and space, and of time.

(Pause at 9:23.) As the body became physical, however, the inner self formed the body consciousness so that the physical body became more aware of itself, of the environment, and of its relationship within the environment. Before this could happen, though, the body consciousness was taught to become aware of its own inner environment. The body was lovingly formed from EE units through all the stages to atoms, cells, organs, and so forth. The body’s pattern came from the inner self, as all of the units of consciousness involved in this venture together formed this fabric of environment and creatures, each suited to the other.

[Each] cell, then, as I have often said, operates so well in time because it is, in those terms, precognitive. It is aware of the position, health, vitality, of all other cells on the face of the planet. It is aware of the position of each grain of sand on the shores of each ocean, and in those terms it forms a portion of the earth’s consciousness.

At that level environment, creatures, and the elements of the natural world are all united—a point we will return to quite often. Your intellect as you think of it operates so clearly and precisely, so logically (with amusement), sometimes so arrogantly, because the intellect rides that great thrust of codified, “ancient,” “unconscious” power—the power of instant knowing that is a characteristic of the body consciousness (all very intently).

(All with emphatic rhythm:) The inner self was too aware of its own multidimensionality, so in your terms it gave psychological birth to itself through the body in space and time. It knew itself as a physical creature. That portion of the self is the portion you recognize as your usual conscious self, alive within the scheme of seasons, aware within the designs of time, caught transfixed in moments of brilliant awareness, with civilizations that seem to come and go. That is the self that is alert in the dear preciseness of the moments, whose physical senses are bound to light and darkness, sound and touch. That is the self that lives the life of the body.

(Long pause at 9:57.) Give us a moment…. To one extent or another, these three systems of consciousness operate in one way or another in all of the species, and in all particles, in the physical universe. In your terms, this means that the proportions of the three systems might vary, but they are always in operation, whether we are speaking of a man or a woman, a rock or a fly, a star or an atom. The inner self represents your prime identity, the self you really are.

(All very intently:) That environment, in your terms, certainly includes suffering. If joy has always been one of the characteristics of earth experience, so has suffering, and the subject will be covered in this book. Here, however, I only want to mention one facet, and that is the importance of physical sensation, of whatever kind—for the life of the body provides you, among all things, with a life of sensation, of feeling, a spectrum that must include the experience of all possible sensations within its overall range.

Now as you will see, all creatures, regardless of their degree, can and do choose, within their spheres of reality, those sensations that they will experience—but to one extent or another (underlined) all sensations are felt. We will later discuss the part of the mind and its interpretation, for example, of painful stimuli, but I want to make the point that those attracted to physical life are first and foremost tasters of sensation. Outside of that, basically, there are all kinds of mental distinctions made [among] stimuli. The body is made to react. It is made to feel life and vitality by reacting to an environment that is not itself, by encountering what you might call natural stress. The body maintains its equilibrium by reacting against gravity, by coming in contact with other bodies, by changing its own sensations, by glorifying in the balance between balance and off-balance.

The entities, or units of consciousness—those ancient fragments that burst into objectivity from the vast and infinite psychological realms of All That Is—dared all, for they joyfully abandoned themselves in space and time. They created new psychological entities, opened up an area of divine creativity that “until then” had been closed, and therefore to that [degree] extended the experience and immense existence of All That Is. For in so abandoning themselves they were not of course abandoned, since they contained within themselves their inherent relationship with All That Is. In those terms All That Is became physical also, aroused at its divine depth by the thrusting of each grass blade through the soil into the air, aroused by each birth and by each moment of each creature’s existence.

All That Is, therefore, is immersed within your world, present in each hypothetical point, and forms the very fabric from which each portion of matter is created.

By “what else,” Jane referred to a call she’d received today: Three young members of the ESP class we’d disbanded almost five years ago are in town from New York City, visiting a local friend from the old class. All four are dear friends of ours too, of course, and want to see us.