“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In that case it would have, indeed. You must remember that in this case we were not thinking of a hypothetical question but of one individual and one individual incident, and there lies the difference for we cannot really generalize in that area. Do you follow me?

([Joel:] “We appear quite vulnerable though. I was thinking of the fish again. When you say the lilies of the field may, lose a leaf or two, but still have a great deal of protection, I was wondering had Ned’s fish, perhaps. In his case it was only an image, but in my case, suppose I had a probable fish. Now what kind of protection would that fish have had against my violent acts?”)

Now, in the first place, there are several things you must understand. Some of these things you can misinterpret, and so I go lightly in class with them because some of you are not ready to understand them as yet. You hear the words and yet you do not understand what they really mean, but basically, you do violence to no one. Basically, you cannot hurt anything, but as long as you think that you can, then you must dwell within that reality. Now, in that reality, as you understand it now, there are reasons that you do not as yet perceive. I am not saying that you cannot perceive them, I am saying that you do not perceive them. No one, therefore, could hurt our friend’s fish, even if it were a live one, in your terms. And there are interconnections between you that you do not understand and that can be misinterpreted and these, also, I go lightly with in class and for the same reasons.

Now, not only human beings form their own reality, but all consciousness forms its own reality. Now, to fill out what I say, your own personal experience must come. You will understand what I say when the inner self is ready to understand, and I am not speaking in intellectual terms. The answers are within you and even when I speak those words that I have spoken many times, they are simply words until from within you comes the experience that gives them life.

Now (to Ned) I will let you take your break and one word to our friend here. I am not frail. I may have to put up with Ruburt’s long hair nowadays, and flouncy skirts, but we all have our troubles.

([Arnold:] “We don’t really do violence against an identity or whole self, but only against a self-created camouflage system.”)

But, you cannot use this as a rationalization in this plane of activity, which is why I said that this could be misinterpreted. I just wanted to make sure that you all remembered. You have to look out for African gods, you know, they can twist around every word that you say.

Violence, in your level, is the other face of creativity, but you do not realize it and it is you who have set up the separation. All life, in certain respects, involves what you call violence. Breath is a violence, it is simply where you draw the line. All living is a thrusting out toward, and joyful thrusting out toward, the energy that you have not learned, as yet, to use creatively, you call violence. It has great potentials for creativity, and it is up to you now to learn how to use it creatively for it is another face of creativity.

There was a civilization, and I am writing this in my book and some of you know of it—a civilization, in your terms, in your dim past, in which a group of human beings tried to form a physical body that could not act violently and when violence was threatened the body automatically closed off from action. It could not, literally, act. These people thought then that violence would be wiped away from the face of the earth, and they hoped to begin a race of people that would not know violence. It would seem perhaps to you, that this was a highly idealistic race and that they grew in strength and beauty, but they were not facing the issues clearly, you see.

They lived upon the physical planet with its wind and rain and storms and violence and animal [sic] but they would not show violence, they could not commit a violent act. They did not learn how to project their energy outward constructively. They blocked large portions of energy, rather than learn how to use it and so, in many ways, denied themselves facets of creativity. They became so terrified of the natural earth, with its pounding rains and wind that they literally crept into the bowels of the earth and lived there feeling as triumphant, when they set up a civilization within the earth, as you will feel when you set one up outside of the earth.

This does not mean I am saying kill, kill, kill. You do not understand the holy and sacred nature of life or energy and that you cannot misuse it. You may think you misuse it, but you are not allowed to misuse it. You are not allowed to destroy. While you live with these things you must deal with them and bear their consequences. If you kill, and believe that you kill, you will bear those consequences at this level of your development, but to think that you can destroy a consciousness would make the gods laugh. You cannot destroy one flower seed, much less a man.

The cannibals, in one way, were far more discerning, far more religious, and far more sacred in their attitude than many of you here in this room. They ate, for example, both human beings and animals, but they did not eat indiscriminately, nor did they eat without a knowledge of what they did. They realized that their life was a portion of all this life. They were at one level, and you are at another level. But at their level, and in their level of experience, they partook of the sacrament of life as they ate those things that they slayed. They gave thanks to the body that they consumed. They hastened the spirit that had been in the body on its way with thanks. They prayed that their hearts would be as strong and brave as the hearts that they devoured. Many of them, in their own environment, knew that those who were not eaten by them, for example other warriors, would die of hunger in any case. They ate them, therefore, also with thanksgiving and joy.

Animals consume one another, and in that consumption also, and at their level, there is again the innate knowledge of a sacrament, and animals understand this among themselves. You, however, eat indiscriminately with no thought of the living animal that you consume. Now as you consume the animals so one day will your physical body return to the earth and help form other animals. And portions of the atoms, themselves, that compose your body will run across the fields in Iowa a hundred years from now, changed and altered, but remembering their backgrounds.

It is a lack of development, spiritual development, and so it will automatically lead them into trials that they will have to face. Not in terms of punishment, however, but in terms of understanding. The ignorance will cause them sorrow until they learn to rid themselves of it.

I told him to give up cigarettes a long time ago, but it is his mark of independence that he is not letting any spirit tell him what to do.

You were never a cannibal. The cannibals knew this sacrament subconsciously. It was built around a religious ritual. It was subconscious, but it was also consciously learned and followed. Their rituals were as strict as they are in your church and they were as religious as they followed them.

I also have some of your dreams which we will interpret, but beside this, you have class experiments that you should do here and at home. It takes a lot of courage and a lot of determination, and the desire to let go and let yourself have some fun, in order to find out who you are and why you are here, and I expect you to put forth the effort.

Because you still feared the idea of letting yourself go but you will find other methods and try them out in the same way, and you will find those that are suited for you. Now, I did not forget you. Goodnight to you all.