“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.

I have told you and I have told each of you here—that you are basically no different than I am. You are a consciousness in your time—dwelling within flesh. Presently, I have no body with which to manipulate in your physical system. And yet, regardless of that fact, each of you knows me well—you feel this vitality. And as I have said time and time again—such demonstrations should show you, since they are coming through Ruburt, that this energy is a portion of the energy that is your own—you have as much energy as I have—you have as much energy available to you as Ruburt has available to him. You each have as much energy within each of you as is being shown now in this room. My message is to use your own energy—to open yourself so that it can be known through you. The answers that you want reside within you. They will sweep out as easily and as clearly as air... if you let them! I repeat again: physically, Ruburt dwells within the same world as each of you. He has access to no more energy than you each possess! Then use your own energy! When you finally feel what I am saying, then you will ride above your own energy!

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.

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.

(What Seth said was repeated to Jane—ending with the fact that he would be here for a “social time.”)

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 be of value only if you realized that you create your physical reality now. If you knew that you had a karmic tie with your wife and did not realize that you formed your own reality through your own thoughts and desires, then it would serve you not at all. You would still be imprisoned.

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.

Unless you realize you are free, you cannot use your freedom! Unless you realize that the life force is manifest now in every atom of your being, then you cannot form the physical reality that you want to form. For instead, you form physical pictures that are replicas of your fears.

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.

The whole self is involved not only in this reality but in other realities. The whole self sends a portion of itself into various realities. These portions of the whole self are to learn to materialize as best they can the strength and energy as they know it in whatever camouflage they find themselves. The whole self gives you, therefore, a responsibility—and it leaves it mainly up to you.

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.

([Brad:] “Assuming that I wish to be a teacher, can I create that reality by simply desiring it?”)

No. There is a point where you are so imprisoned within yourself that you cannot feel the reality of others. Now, as a teacher, you must be able to sense the reality of others and in teaching relate the self that you are to the selves you sense they are, independently of you and therefore give their integrity full freedom. You can to some extent escape this prison, personally, by attempting several exercises.

One is to relate to your animals. For a brief time think of them as they are—unrelated to you. Imagine what it is like also to be a tree, to be a nail, and then to be an entirely different consciousness. Then after many trials, make an attempt at a bridge from their consciousness to the self that you think of as you. This will allow you some freedom.

(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?

(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 see, what I have to tell you is not just the conglomeration of fine words with no practical meaning. You must put the words to the test. And no one can put them to the test for you. And they represent your salvation.

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.

(To Brad.) You became afraid of the inner self, and what was hidden there, and so you denied 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.

Now. I will not give you what you (Brad) want, but to show Laurie what a jolly fellow I am, I will make a compromise. You must make the first step. I will be with you when you make it. I am aware, as Ruburt keeps reminding me, of your (Theodore) question. However, it is complicated in answering but not important, and this was more important.

Now. I bid you all good evening, for my friend Ruburt is wondering how late I will keep the session and worried about his neighbors. I give you what blessings are mine to give you and what vitality is mine to give you.