“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!

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?

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 consciousness is sacred. And until you learn that truth, you will not be free. You cannot kill another man, you cannot kill another woman and be free. You cannot even eat the meat of a cow, not nonchalantly. Not without thanking the cow for the food and the nourishment which it has given you, not without realizing that the cow, like yourself, is a part of the chain of life without which physically you would not exist and be free.

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).

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, 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.

Within you is the elemental and vital consciousness that gives birth to all realities. You can feel this within you when you turn your backs upon the roles that you presently play. Then you can learn the meaning of those roles, for there is meaning in them. And there is no reason why it must escape you.

(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.

([Florence:] “When we were elemental particles—was this before we formed our consciousness?”)

You were conscious then; you did not know how to utilize consciousness and you were in a process of learning but even then you were creative.

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

Reality and consciousness are in the state, always, of becoming. God himself, in your terms, is in a state of becoming. A state of completion would be an end, and the end of all realities. Therefore, at no particular point is your entity, your inner self, done and completed.

Yet consciousness, and your individual consciousness, always was and always will be, in your terms. But you must cease thinking in terms of completion. For in your terms, God himself is not completed. And if he were, that would be the end of creativity and the end of any kind of existence or consciousness.

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.

Instead you see, your individuality is used and developed. For your individuality means that there is one more highly unique, original way by which consciousness can express itself. And to lose that individuality, my dear friend, would mean that God had lost one of his voices, and that God had become deaf in one way and that one tone was forever lost.

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.