“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You are playing games with yourselves. You are using your mind, but you are not using it correctly. You are using it to mask the true questions. You are setting up a game of checkers—one part of you is playing one game and another is playing another game. And I will have more to say to you.

Do you want to know what freedom is? Then I will tell you. Freedom is the inner realization that you are an individual. That you do create your reality, that you do have the freedom and the joy and the responsibility of forming the physical reality in which you live. Then you can change the reality. Then you are free to move. Then you are free to misplace violence and you are free from it. You are not free when you say: “The idea works for everyone but me—but my symptoms are caused by something else—and when I am violent, different rules apply. Everyone else forms their own physical reality but not me—my reality is caused by heredity or environment. Every other nation, every other people form their own violence and is responsible for their own miserable condition, but my people—they are right! Any problems that they have are caused by other agencies beyond them.” Then you are not facing yourselves individually or as a people.

There is a beauty and a strength and a joy in looking within yourselves and a freedom from bondage. And I hope that when I am finished with you all, you will taste some of that joy and freedom. You will not get it from a book. You will not get it like your chocolates (indicating the box on the table) wrapped up in a merry box. You will not get it by making exceptions. You will not get it by saying: “I am the exception to the rule!” You will not get it by running away from yourself. You will find this joy and this freedom by learning to look inward and by realizing that you create the reality that you know.

There are no exceptions to this rule. Your successes and your failures alike, you have yourselves created. If you would but understand, this is the truth that would make you free.

I would prefer to be jolly with you. And my invisible and nonexistent heart goes out to you in understanding. But this does not mean that you are not doing yourselves a grave disservice—for you are not utilizing what you know. And each of you, in your heart, thinks you are an exception to the rule. And there are no exceptions to the rule. And I was no exception to the rule. And Ruburt is no exception to the rule.

You will not find truth neatly wrapped. You will not find it in the shelves of some store—and you will not find it chocolate-coated. Now, welcome to you (Oliver F). I am sorry that you came in on a night when I am not at my jovial best. But if I do not call you to line, who else will call you to line? You are very poor at calling yourselves to line.

Words are but symbols! Words are not truths. You must seek through the words for the reality that they represent. And you must seek within yourselves for the reality that you represent. There is no security in ignorance—there is only fear.

Now I come to you often with playful characteristics—like a benign bishop who comes for a cup of tea and discusses realities with you. I come complete with characteristics that you can understand. I come complete with human characteristics to which you can relate and you can smile usually when I am here and smile when I am gone. But you must understand that they are the characteristics that I show you—there are other realities of personality and identity that are mine—just as there are other realities within your own personalities and you cannot laugh these away. You are but symbols of yourselves. I can tell you how to meet your own identities, and I have told you, but no one can make you look into yourselves. I can look within you and beyond you into the selves that you really are. I can see your potentials and your abilities and your promise—and you could see your own potentials and promise if you would open your inner eyes, if you would look within yourselves.

Each consciousness, regardless of its physical form, is filled with creativity and joy and possibilities—each is unique. You are at a certain level of development or you would not be here. Because you are at this level of development, you are ready and able to use your abilities more. You are able to look within yourselves. There is nothing stopping you but you. And it is for this reason that I speak severely with you this evening.

And so I hope the baby talk [here] is not obvious!!! It is time for you all to understand the material as I have given it, to use your mind. You have been in this class long enough to pass now beyond kindergarten. And I [no] longer feel that it serves that I speak to you in the most simple of terms. You have been here long enough now. When I speak to you, I shall therefore expect on your part some effort to understand me if necessary. I shall expect more of you, and you must expect more of yourselves.

Now the truck (the sound of one can be heard outside on the street) pauses at the corner. It is a method of communication—a vehicle. And in many ways I am a vehicle, for I am the means by which information is given to you. You are yourselves vehicles—as you move through experience and through moment points. Now you do not know what moment points are because I have not explained them in class and you have not read the material. But now it is time for you to be challenged. It is time for you to challenge your own mind and your own intuition. I shall cease speaking to you as kindergarten children, and I shall expect that you will cease thinking like kindergarten children.

Now, imagine this: Within you, there are sounds, colors, sights that stretch backward into infinity. Your faces face this room, your eyes look out upon physical reality. Imagine, however, that you have innumerable faces, for our analogy. And that these faces look out into other realities quite as varied and quite as real. For this is indeed the cause. You can close your physical eyes and focus upon these other realities in which you also have your existence. And you can learn to manipulate in physical reality the better, because you understand your full potential. I challenge you to use all of your abilities and all of your senses. I challenge you to open your inner eyes, to use your minds, to use your inner intuitions. I challenge you to be yourselves and it is the greatest challenge that could be given you, and it is the only way that you will learn.

I can only begin to hint at the freedoms available to you if you will but open your eyes. You must act. You can easily open within yourselves those channels to creativity. You can use these. You can attain a true sense of identity. You have only a shadowy understanding of what the world means.

When I see the shadows that you accept as yourselves and when I see the brilliant and free identities that you are, then it is impossible for me not to speak to you in such a manner.

But you are being given a road into yourselves that you would not have otherwise. And you are being given instruction that you would not have otherwise. And you were led here for a reason and you came for a reason and the reasons were yours, rather than mine.

You must begin to change the reality that you know. Theses ideas must go through you and outward to others. You cannot take yourselves as exceptions.

There is a purpose for each one of you. It is your own purpose and it is up to you to fulfill it, and it necessitates the full use of all your abilities—your mental abilities—and your intuitional abilities. You must demand the most of yourselves, for some of you will be involved later in asking others to demand the most of themselves and you must serve as examples. You (Florence) are meant to teach other classes, but you must develop you own abilities to do so.