“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The dream served several purposes. It allowed him to release aggression in a much less violent manner than he would have in the past. It also, however, allowed him to see the picture of his own aggression as it existed on a subconscious level of his mind. The aggression that he feared was not so great and big and powerful and black and hairy and threatening as he thought. Instead, it was a part of himself and very small, fish size, you see, and easy to squash and kick. It was not this giant that you feared, and it was easy to rid yourself of this. Now, in this case, the fish was not a probable fish in another reality. It was a portion, however, of his own energy.

Now, it would have been far more beneficial had he been able to use that energy, keep it as a part of himself and transform it into a more constructive nature. However, the dream taught him that the violence within himself was not big and threatening and did not need to be feared. He could use it as a symbol to see how small it was in comparison to the whole inner self and how easy, therefore, it was to rid himself of it. He cried however because, you see, he realized that this was part of his priceless energy that he had expended, uselessly, and in the tears lay the lesson.

The meaning behind and the object lesson to be learned. Now, give us a moment. Each individual life, all life, has its own built-in mechanisms against danger.

Now, the point that our friend over here (Sue) was trying to make earlier is related, to some extent, along these lines in that you can become so afraid of violence that you overemphasize its effect. And if you will excuse me, in so doing you are taking on the guise of the devil. It is the same thing you see, as projecting upon a hypothetical devil all kinds of powers of destruction. You can do the same thing without realizing it by projecting into the idea of violence, all powers, and then it seems to you that life itself has no ability to protect itself and that any stray thought of violence or disaster will immediately zoom home and that the recipient has no way to protect himself. If this were the case your race would not have lasted out one day.

Now when I talk to him I am always drawn back to the lilies of the field. Your poor little innocent flower, when it rains and thunders and storms come, does our little flower look up and say, “Here comes that evil lightening and thunder?” It does not think that the thunder and the lightening and the wind and the rain are out to get it. It realizes that the strength and vitality of life is as much in lightening and thunder and the storm as in the sunshine. And it has the sense to realize that it needs the rain, even though the rain that comes down may rip off a couple of its leaves. You have much more protection than you realize.

([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.

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.

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.

They ate the brave and the strong. Now, some tribes ate the elders. When the old could not care for themselves, if they were very wise and brave men, then they had a dance about them and this was known by all involved. They then killed and ate the wise elders. Both as a method of ending their lives, in a quiet manner, for they killed them easily when they were too old to run from jungle animals or from hunters or from warriors from other tribes. They killed them mercifully, and then they ate them so that the wisdom could become a part of the brave and so that, in one way, immortality could be achieved, in that the elders would then feel that they were a part of the tribe and part of the flesh and blood of the tribe. And this was believed by all, and this was not feared by the elders. The elders preferred it rather than to be banished and left the prey of animals or to die of starvation and slow death outside of the tribe.

Now you are getting a lot of goodies out of me tonight. Now I am going to end our session and go home, you are all too spooky for me. I do not need any reason. I will have more to say on the nature of violence and the different civilizations and how they have handled it in later class sessions.

Now, I bid you all a fond good evening, fish, cannibals and all.

And (to Theodore) I expect some action at the Great Hall. The time is now.

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.