“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

And our dear Lady of Florence: you have not yet put one tippy-toe in the clear waters of the inner self. You have not even danced about the shore. These inner realities represent your freedoms and your triumphs and your strengths—they represent the wonders that are within you—they cannot be given to you by another. No man’s reality is the same, whether it be physical or spiritual reality. You close the door to your own heritage when you do not look inward.

You close the door to your own strength when you look for it in another (to Brad). If I solved your problems for you, there would be no need for you to use your own inner resources. There would be no need for you to look inward and recognize your own abilities. And it would indeed be a betrayal of you on my part to treat you in such a manner. You have had easy solutions offered you in the past and they were not solutions, they were threats. I tell you that you have within yourself the ability to solve your problems. You have within yourself the ability to stand up and make your way. You also have the responsibility to discover who and what you are. The answers to your problems lie within yourself and you can discover them—and in discovering them, you use your strength. To rely upon others will only encourage weakness. Therefore, I will not allow you, you see, to use me as a crutch. I will throw your crutches away—and give you a good hard push and make you stand up and face your problems alone. And that is the only way I can help you. And that is the only way you can ever be helped and you know it, and you know it well. And I mean it kindly.

When (to Florence) there is a mathematical problem in which you are interested, you try to solve it. You do not solve it by standing in front of it with your arms crossed and closing your eyes and saying, “Surely the solution must be fearful.” Now again, if our Lady from Florence did not have the ability to look inward, I would not try to force her to do so. But you do have the ability.

Now, to prove to you that I am a good and hearty fellow and that I do not always wear a long disastrous face with a chin upon the floor, I will leave you and let you partake of your social discourse. And if you can be merry after this, then all the more power to you. And if you had more of a feeling of joy, you would look inward more easily and if you approached it as a child again, you would find some freedom.

Now, perhaps I do not use the correct approach with you (Florence) when I speak of responsibility, but you are responsibility oriented. But a flower does not feel the responsibility to bloom in the sun, it blooms because it is natural to bloom. And it is natural to look inward—it is only you who have set up these barriers and now find it so difficult to break them. And when you begin, I can hear you now—”Why didn’t I know earlier. Instead of hells, I find meadows—instead of darkness, I find light! Why did you not tell me?” Well, I am telling you now—and I will say I told you so.

You are the flower that is telling itself not to grow. You can counter this—and to some extent your attendance in class does counter it. You can counter this by changing your attitude. Where is your courage? You are extremely courageous in the exterior environment. We take on racial problems—we deal with the weighty issues of our community. We tend to look boldly and courageously into the problems of our society—but lo and behold, what happens to our courage when we think of looking into ourselves. Now, you are not being intellectually honest by refusing to look into yourself. You are using your intellect instead as an excuse. You are saying, intellectually I will not operate in this particular area. You think you are saying, I am too intellectual to operate in this particular area—my intellect impedes my progress. Your intellect does not impede your progress, your attitude towards your intellect does. Your intellect can be used to examine your progress. It can be an aid and it can help you in your achievement. Your intellect is not afraid of the inner self. It will grow with you gladly and as a friend if you will allow it to do so. Pretend then that the inner self is another land—and that you are a tourist—and highly curious—that you are intellectually and intuitively curious—pretend that all this courage you use in your daily endeavors is an aid to help you find your way in this new and strange and wondrous environment. Imagine yourself using all the abilities, as you look inward, that you use daily in looking outward.

And if you would work, and if you would look inward, and if you would explore the levels of your own reality and the levels of your own consciousness, then you would know what this state is—and you would remember it—and you would always have its reality as a guide.