“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now, when you spoke of your friend last time, I told you to distrust easy answers. And in a way, I am not kind to you, for I would have you question before you are ready to question. It is easy to take the advice of others. It is easy to look outward and accept an authority. And there is no authority but the authority that is within your own consciousness—the legitimate reality that is your own!

You may be a follower, and there are many followers, and it is necessary at times to follow. But in important ways, follow the wisdom that is within yourself.

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.

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.

([Theodore:] “I have been reading Revelations for twenty years and don’t know any more now than the first time I read it. “)

That is because you did not look inward for the answers. You are beginning to look inward now. And it is about time!

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 must learn what it is like to be male and female, to be parent and child. And you will go through the cycles until you can relate with others. And if you cannot understand them from your own viewpoint, then you will become them. And from their viewpoint you will see yourselves. This is the meaning of learning. You will extend your consciousness, as you know it, from the self that you know outward and relate to others and understand them. Or you will take their positions and from their consciousness observe the selves that no longer exist in your time. But you will learn.

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.

Now, you have been what would now seem to you to be chaotic energy—forming universes. You have drifted through interstellar space, not knowing yourself. You have traveled for eons without attaining the knowledge of your identity. You have traveled without knowing who or what you were as elemental particles of consciousness. You have gathered your strength and individuality. You have learned to handle energy. You have added to your consciousness. You have become more aware. You have learned to some extent, some small extent to this time, the responsibility of creativity. You are evolving. Each of you is evolving the forms by which you will manifest yourself. You have come a long way from undifferentiated chaos, in your present terms, to what you are. Notice, I did not say you came from undifferentiated chaos, but what you would now regard as that.

The atoms and molecules within a cloud create the cloud; the atoms and molecules within your body create your body. And you within the body create the world that you know. The realization is there anytime you are ready to admit it. You are ready my dear friend... and dragging your feet (to Theodore), you are ready to travel farther in your Great Hall and it is about time you did so.

([Florence:] “Were we conscious as our entity at that time?”