“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now, when it seems to you that you are powerless, it is because you are denying the authority that lies within yourself, closing our mind to the answers that are as free as air. When you do not believe that the answers are within you, you cannot act upon them.

Why should another man know better than you what is within your own consciousness? With what power do you invest him that he should know better than you the feelings that are within your own heart? And why do you find it so difficult to realize what those feelings are?

It would be easy for me to tell you what you should do.

Now I will tell you something to do. I will give you some advice to follow. And it is very simple. This is what I want you to do: I want you to make a list of your good points, of your abilities. I want to see this in black and white. I want you to take some care in making up the list. I want you to put it in front of you and look at it three times a day.

Ruburt, in the past, has given you some good advice. No one, and I repeat this, no one can or should make decisions for you. However, I hope to reinforce your inner knowledge that you do have the ability to make decisions, and good ones. You have progressed, you have progressed in the appointments that you have made and kept. But your inner problem does not have to do with work, but why you did not find work in the past. It does not have to do with your marriage. It has to do with those needs of yours that were satisfied within that marriage.

I do mean emotional needs.

Now as I look upon you all in spirit, I will let you take a break. The trouble is however that you do not often enough look at yourselves in spirit.

It does indeed. It means that you use your strengths however; it means not only that you refuse to be a doormat, but that you accept yourself as a worthy personality, willing to give and to take, willing even to be used at times as you use, but not willing to be a doormat. It means that you must accept your worth and also the responsibility for it. It means that you say, “I come to this marriage as an individual, willing to give and take, with my own good points and failings—but, I do not come to this marriage as a worthless individual willing to take from you whatever you are willing to take and to give. But you must know yourself to do this, and you must be willing to look into yourself.

You are endowing her with what you imagine to be highly efficient masculine qualities. You are endowing yourself with what you imagine to be feminine qualities. Now the human being is a gestalt of perception. There are no qualities as such that are masculine or feminine. You are knocking down those abilities that are your own because you conceive of them as feminine. And in your mind you are setting Margo up as highly efficient because she has those abilities that you think should be your own because you think that they are masculine qualities. So you are allowing yourself to behave in what you imagine to be a subservient, feminine behavior. Now this is all a result of your own attitude, and she has reacted to that attitude, and reinforced it, because she wants to be dominant. One portion of her wants to be dominant; the other portion looks to you as a man, and there you fail her, because you refuse to assert the independence that is your nature. It seems to contradict your artistic nature and there is no contradiction. The contradiction only exists in your mind. She looks to you for direction and you do not give it, and therefore—if all within this room will excuse me—she turns into a bitch.

Now you must forget such ideas—that a male has certain abilities and a female has certain abilities. You must realize your worth as an individual and her worth as an individual. You have allowed her, in the past, to take full control of your life and destiny, and this no individual can do. For your destiny is within your own hands.

I do not appreciate being called a horse and I will not “neigh” for you now. You are asking such deep and ponderous questions and you all want answers within a split instant.

Now, in your terms, this takes centuries. When you have learned the lesson, it seems as if you have always known it. As I have told you again, and time and time again: Basically there is no such thing as murder, for consciousness continues. But as long as you believe that you kill a man and that you kill him forever, then you must work out that problem. You will learn, you are learning. Some of you will face two generations from now problems that you do not now accept, and you will be the younger generation once more, out with fine, bright and gaudy banners to show your elders and fight for right, and I wish you luck! You will need it.

You will learn that you are a part of the webwork of consciousness. You will learn to be conscious cocreators. You will learn, or you will destroy the planet which you now inhabit! And if you do, your consciousness will begin in another reality. You will learn to recognize within yourselves the joy and the true reality of being. You will learn to distinguish between the reality of joy and pseudorealities that you have created, or you will begin again. But you will learn. You are indeed as blessed as any god and as gifted. When you learn to honor yourselves, you will be free. And you will create with joy and spontaneity when you recognize that within the leaf of a flower the consciousness that is within it, and relate it to yourself, and honor it and treat it as a little brother, you will be free.

When you look within yourselves and dare to face your responsibilities and your potentialities, you will be free. But you will be free! Any consciousness will develop and will learn. How long it will take you in your terms is up to each one of you individually. But the answers do not come to you soberly. They do not come to you in the guise of equality. They come to you in those things that you seem least to recognize. They come to you in your moments of play and spontaneity and art. They come to you in your dreams. The answers come to you when you accept them. And you are beginning to accept them (to Theodore).

They do not come to you necessarily in church or when you are playing the fine banker’s role; or when you (Brad) are playing the failure’s role, for you play the role of the failure as beautifully as he plays the role of the banker, and with as much finesse if that makes you feel any better.

Now. I have been in one life not only black but a woman in a civilization where neither was appreciated. As I believe I told you before I have been both a man and a woman many times. Both young and seductive and old and wise. I have also been extremely ignorant and unlettered and uncouth. And I believe that I learned very much in those lives in which I was both unlettered and uncouth. I have been ignorant many times. And through being ignorant, I learned the joy and the wisdom that has nothing to do with the intellect.

(To Theodore.) The impetus of your emotional affection for a... consciousness to that of your son’s aboard the ship—that is the meaning of reality and consciousness. And it cannot be taken away from you. You learned to do that.

Creativity is always discontent—and always about new surprises. Therefore, the entity itself is never completed. You are learning to be conscious cocreators. But you do not always know what the creation, in your terms, will be.

Let me emphasize again that in any terms of which you can conceive of a god, such a god is not static. And as soon as you say, “God is this” or “God is that,” God is already something more. And as soon as you say, “My entity is this,” or “My entity is that,” it is already something more. You cannot keep track of your own thoughts. Why do you think you can keep track of your entity or of a god? Even your thoughts are created and they affect realities of which you do not know. Your thoughts have electromagnetic realities in dimensions that you do not even perceive. Your dreams are realities in dimensions that you do not now perceive. Your entities have realities and dimensions that you do not perceive. The gods not only have surprises for you, but you have surprises for the gods and it can be no other way.

Now here we have a fine and substantial figure (Brad). If this much energy can come through this small frame, then why do you not use the energy that is available through your own.

And I still enjoy childlike games. I do not skip a rope or dance through the hula but I amuse myself with thoughts and games that you have long forgotten. And in the ancient nature of my mind, there is still the childlike early wonder about the nature of reality. And if you all wonder who you are and the nature of your reality, then I still astound and surprise myself with my own wonderings for there is much that I do not know.

(To Natalie.) You are ready to begin anew. You will do so and with success.

Now in bidding you all good evening, again I encourage you to find within yourself the source of your own energy and consciousness and strength and to let it sing within you as a vitality of your being. And do not cower and do not cry, but sing in pure joy that your consciousness knows itself and that even in your ignorance you create and give joy to others. And know that there is no end to your consciousness or to the reality of which you are a part.