“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now. If I thought you were a sheep then I would try to lead you. And I would tell you where to go and what to do. You could ask me questions about your personal life and I would not require that you think for yourself. Instead, I would be quite happy to tell you what to do and to sit here and receive your thanks. If I thought you had no abilities of your own, and this applies to all of you, if I did not know that you were multidimensional personalities with all kinds of abilities at your disposal, then I would not tell you to think and feel for yourselves. I would not say you have the ability within you to solve your own problems. I would solve them for you.

I want each of you to know yourself—to solve your own problems—because they cannot be solved otherwise. And no one can tell any of you what to do! If one problem is solved seemingly in such a manner, then you will simply have to set a new problem of a similar kind and begin again from scratch, in another life or other circumstances in this life. Therefore, it does not serve you, although it may seem initially kind, to help you in such a manner.

Now. What I am trying to do is to awaken within each of you knowledge, intuition, abilities that are a portion of your entire personality. Now, once these are awakened, you can use them and they become a part of the physical self that you know. They become real to you. These abilities will help you solve other problems. You are being changed in this class and through your own experiences in that you are learning and you are expanding your idea of reality and of consciousness. Each small advance quickens other advances within you and each knowledge leads to other knowledge. Sometimes you are on a plateau and then you climb from the plateau to new awareness. Sometimes your greatest moments of understanding come to you in the dream state. Then, in the morning, it seems to you that they are fresh and new for you do not recall their origin.

It is indeed. What you do not realize is that when you are dreaming, you are writing the script for your physical life—you are solving simple problems, but lifetime problems you are trying out—probable actions. And in your daytime existence, you materialize those realities that you have already settled upon when your body sleeps.

Now. We do not want a cult here. I have seen to it that our friend Ruburt acts in such a way that this will not happen. What we want instead is something entirely different—a place of permissiveness where the inner self can grow and develop; where you can meet your own greater reality.

Whenever you seek from others the answers to problems, then you take it for granted that within yourself there is no greater strength. And each time you accept answers from others you reinforce the attitude that you do not have the knowledge within yourself to find the answers. And, therefore, such answers easily given do not help you in the long run.

You think of yourself (to Brad) as a “closed physical personality”—weak and helpless—in a world that you do not understand. You do not realize that you have as much energy available to you now as Ruburt is now showing or as this voice now shows.

It does indeed if you do not use the remark as an excuse. It means that you must give up some of your precious misconceptions. The misconceptions are these, and they apply to each of you: 1). “I am a limited self.” For no matter what I tell you, you still seem to fear as if you are limited and as if your self is something within your head bounded by your bony skull, and enclosed within your physical body. This is an erroneous conception. 2). The belief that you are limited in energy and that you are inferior, and that you are helpless. As long as you believe you are helpless, you are helpless. As long as you believe you are limited, you are limited. These misconceptions are what inhibit you from using the energy that is your own.

Imagine your image of yourself as an old garment. It no longer serves your purposes—throw it away! Do not say, “It is miserable, but it is mine and I love it!” Throw it away!

You form the physical reality that you know! Then form a better one! I am telling you that you can do it! As long as you insist upon the misconceptions, then you will have the kind of experience you have been having. For it follows, as the night follows the day, you form your reality. This also means that you can change it!

It is to demonstrate that you have the same vitality within yourself, and if I have this vitality and I do not have a body, then how much vitality do you have that you should be using that you are not using. It is to demonstrate that you are no more physical than I am, and it is also to demonstrate that consciousness is a joyful and a vital thing. Though my voice does not often sound joyful it is a matter of mechanics. It is to show what is possible.

If you do not give up the misconceptions, then your emotions will be those of self-pity and despondency and they will lead you astray.

Now. If you realize that you create your physical reality through your own thoughts and desires, then you have learned the most important aspects of reality. This is what you have been setting out to do in your other lives, in your past existences. The realization of these truths nullifies any so-called debts from other lives. When you realize this and act upon it, there is no reason for you to come back here again unless you want to. Any of your difficulties in past lives were caused because you did not realize these basic truths. Your reincarnational pasts can help you if you know of them—only if they make these truths evident to you, only if you learn from them. Otherwise, they exist within you subconsciously and unconsciously in any case.

It would indeed. And you would think that all you had to do was to solve the problem that had existed in the past... or endure. All you have to do is realize that you are free, that you form reality as you know it... through your most intimate desires and thoughts and fears. You change the exterior circumstances by changing your thoughts and your desires and by forgetting your fears. There is no other way. There has never been another way.

Now. It is said that some primitive peoples did not connect the fact of intercourse with the fact of birth. Now I will tell you to begin with that the saying is wrong—they did make the connection. But, in the same way, many of you do not connect the fact of thought and desire with the fact of birth in the physical universe. You do not realize that your thought is literally the parent of the physical reality that you know. You must change your innermost reality if you will change physical reality.

When an artist paints a painting, you can look at the painting and say, “Ah, the artist was in a certain frame of mind” or: “Look at the dull colors and the dreary landscape” or: “Look at the wild colors and the fantastic forms” or: “See, there is no form and yet there is marvelous vitality.” ...And so are each of you artists and you create the world that you know. And when you look at the world you know you can say, “Look, this is what I have created!” And if you do not like what you see, then there is no point in ripping apart the painting or ripping apart the framework of your life. Instead, you change your pigments. And, in this case, your pigments are your thoughts and your imagination. And then you change your painting.

You can indeed provided it is within the abilities of the physical self. Now, the teaching abilities are within your capabilities. However, you are at present imprisoned within this false conception of yourself—and within this prison, you do not think of others except as they are related to yourself. Do you follow me?

(During the break the discussion centered on the last part above. Seth added:) When you do that, you see, when you relate all others to yourself initially, when you are imprisoned within yourself to that degree, then you are also imprisoned by others because you project your own reality into them where it does not belong. Do you follow me?

Your imagination works in negative ways. Change it, so that you imagine in a constructive fashion. You do not dream along the same ways that you have just spoken. Whenever you imagine something you want, you always do it with the idea that “I cannot get it!”

Now. My prescription immediately is to think in terms of motion. Do not say again, “I think in terms of immobility.” Instead, immediately change your imaginative image of yourself. You must and you can do this. You must first change your image in your imagination and act upon it immediately. You must refuse, and absolutely refuse, to accept any more excuses from this superficial portion of yourself. You must imagine that within yourself—for this is the truth—there is a stronger and more powerful self, a larger self.

(A discussion ensued during the break centering about the above, the fact we create our realities, and the book The Magic of Believing [if you believe something you can do it] when Seth interjected the following.)

You would do much better if your attitude followed thusly: I am in such a position that my seriousness has given me no benefits. My imagination has brought me fear. And I seem to be in a prison. All my hard work has brought me nowhere, and therefore I shall change my tactics and I shall play. I do not care, for I am playing, which game I try first. So today I shall call up and make an appointment immediately as a teacher and I shall pretend with all my might that I am an excellent teacher. And today I shall be a teacher as no teacher ever was! And I will think of all those students that I do not know yet and how I can help them and what fun it shall be! And so I shall call up and make this appointment. And it does not make any great difference whether I get this particular job or not—for if I do not get it, tomorrow I shall be an artist. And I shall call up and make an appointment as an artist—but I shall be free in whatever I do—and spontaneous.

And you will do much better than with these mazes of decisions that lead nowhere.

([Theodore:] “But do it in joy.”)

You were afraid because you were hiding some very basic feelings about your wife, and therefore you closed it off from yourself. And in so doing, you also closed off vitality and creativity.

Now, you said that you would still like the answer given to you as to which road you would travel. And to me this means that you still do not realize that the answer is within yourself, and that you are the one to answer it.

No matter what you do at this point, you will break the thread of activity by taking any step, and you must take the step.