“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I am being maligned. I have spoken to our Lady of Florence over here many times and you could have explained to our new student what I mean. I should be quiet and let you do so. You do indeed choose your own environment and your own life circumstances. And before this life you have already set those challenges that you will meet. But you also are endowed with free will and there is no punishment except [for] those of you who choose to punish yourselves. There is no punishment in those terms. You grow in understanding, and if you kill, then it is necessary that you learn what it means to be a victim and so you become a victim if you choose. You may indeed learn what it is to be a victim in other ways. You must learn how to use the consciousness that is yourself.

You said earlier that everyone is looking to find themselves, and as our regular students should know, there is only one place to look, and you begin with yourself. All That Is is not male or female, and I am sorry to upset anyone. All That Is is indeed energy and yet all energy is individualized so you are not dealing merely with impersonal energy but neither are you dealing with a personality in the terms usually used. For you do not understand as yet what personality is, and when you understand what you are, then you will have some small glimmering of what All That Is is and basically you will find All That Is within yourselves.

I have said many of these things in my own way before and will undoubtedly say them again—not only through this physical image. For when this physical image makes the transition to other realities, then I will speak through another form as each of you has spoken through other forms. I remember the forms through which I have spoken and you do not, but look at it this way: The child that you were in this life has a far different form than the person you are now, and yet you spoke through that form.

If you would feel better about it, we can shut off all the lights and I will have Ruburt dress in a white robe. You are stereotyped, do not stereotype your thought. The emotions are never stereotyped.

Now I do not want to monopolize your conversation and so I will let you take a break and when you are ready for new material I will give it to you.

I do not wish to make that kind of impression upon young ladies. Now I am indeed a harmless gentleman. A gentleman without a body must be harmless, so why do I meet such fear as I always do in this class. I’m trying to make one basic point and the point is that energy and being are not sober, that the personality continues to exist, that those characteristics of mine which I considered mine, in your terms, at one time still continue to exist, and that your personality will also continue to exist. Now when I make such efforts to be jolly, then I do not understand how I can possibly frighten you. Young women always frighten me, but you do not see me quaking in terror. I hide my feeling.

(To all.) Trust where your intuitions lead you. Do not trust those who say, “I have the truth.” For I tell you frankly, truth takes many forms and wears many masks. There is no whole truth to be given you like a package that you can open like a child on your birthday. You can only get glimpses of truth and you can only understand and interpret these glimpses if you trust your inner self and your intuitions.

(To Arnold.) (Words lost) he gets confused, but I do not get confused. He is in a trance, but I am not in a trance. You are all in trances, however, for you believe in this improbable physical existence and therefore I must couch all my language so that it makes sense to you, who believe in this fantasy in which you now live.

(Florence wanted to know when Seth speaks to other personalities in his realm does he do so mentally.)

It is always mental and emotional. But then you do not need words either. It is always telepathic. But your own communication is telepathic. (This sentence was written in the margin of the Yale copy.) It is only you that believe you need words, otherwise I would not have to deal with them and words can be very deceiving and quite confusing. I should tell you that while I use the word telepathy we do not communicate in mental words. We do not need words, mental or otherwise. Thoughts in your terms suggest words and we do not need words. We communicate whole concepts and emotional states. Now I am having an entire chapter on that subject in my book.

If it were not for these energies you would not have children; if it were not for these energies you would not be alive. You worry and all of you worry at one time or another about that which you do not know consciously. Yet you do not know consciously how you breathe and if you did you would be dead, because you could not consciously handle the millions of manipulations that must take place in order to assure one breath. These are the energies of which you speak. These are the energies that allow you to sit as you do upright in the chair when you do not consciously know how your muscles hold you up; and when you begin to speak you do not know consciously with what word your sentence will end; nor do you consciously know how you speak nor indeed from where the thought comes.

He has a body a lot longer than I do. Now I am joking because I never could miss a good joke, so do not take that seriously.

But they have no way to treat me. Because they are behind me, the scene is too good to miss and they have never seen a psychology like your own. For if my reality now seems strange to you—your reality seems very strange to me and do not forget that these now familiar characteristics by which you know me are only those that I use as teaching methods. The portion of myself that I show to make my point.

The joy that All That Is rings through every consciousness that lives. It rings through your wineglass. It rings through the atoms and molecules of the table. Why then do you think it does not ring through your own body? And through the inner selves that you try so hard to hide?

What you do not realize is that in other ways that you may not understand I am also graded on your progress and I am not doing very well on you. It is well known that these classes are held.

I am graded by someone else. You have not attended any classes so you do not have the background to understand this. Our friend over here will know who grades me.

([Gert:] “Do we all have someone such as you assigned to us—like the Catholic Church says each person has a guardian angel—watching over us so to speak?”)

Now I do not know if I should answer that question seriously for you or give in to my humor.

It is the idea behind the Catholic conception of guardian angels. Now why these personalities should be envisioned as overgrown birds is beyond me for everyone knows what birds do on rooftops.

Lately you have begun to awaken. Each of you do have a personality assigned to you but it will be awhile—either attending classes or reading before you realize the nature of these personalities.

You may not at this particular point of development have the rapport, in your terms, that Ruburt and I have. But you are constantly being instructed and guided whether or not you realize it. But then you will also instruct and guide others and all of you in the sleep state do this.

You all do indeed, at a lower development than your own. I would make a remark here but I shall not to show you that I am pure of heart, invisible heart or otherwise.

Do not tempt me. I will bring Ruburt back and let him face that one. —any of my nature.

There are many gradations and distinctions, however, you see. Now since all of you are white, when you see a black man you think of a black man and forget his individual characteristics. So when you think of spirits, in your terms, you think of spirits without the individual characteristics and there are many that would be comparable in terms of an analogy only. Do you follow me?

([Arnold:] “I’m not sure I do.”)

If you are speaking in terms of that particular statement—those statements—if you cannot avoid making those particular statements, then you will do the children harm. If you can still teach while avoiding those particular statements, then you can teach.

Then you are doing your physical life a service.

A service. Now this is too complicated to handle in an evening. However, since I have nowhere made any statement on such a weighty problem, I shall here do so for the statements are needed regardless of humor. Simply on a physical level the animals have sometimes more sense than you do. They listen to the inner voice, and they do not overproduce. They set up safeguards that are automatic and instinctive. Any true evolution of your species as such is dependent on evolution of consciousness and spirituality. If your world is overpopulated, you can reduce yourselves to a state of consciousness that existed, in your terms, eons ago from which you would then again have to learn to emerge. Only certain persons are tempted to return when the world is over-populated. They are not stable. They are persons who returned too soon. They are then already erratic.

Now many of these matters do not concern you. You are well-dressed and well-fed. But many men and women are indeed starving. You cannot consume your planet. You will not be allowed to consume your planet. Free will is yours, however, and if you decide to ignore these inner realities you can destroy your planet and it will do you no good to cry to a God, for the God would not have destroyed your planet. You will have done so because you do not realize the sacred nature of consciousness.

([Gert:] “Do you condone abortion?”)

We do not use such words as condone. The problem is an individual one. If you believe that abortion is evil and have one—it will be an evil. It is not basically evil, but that makes little difference to you if you believe that it is.

It will now or later and the child who will be born, will be born. If an individual is meant, in his terms, to be born to you as a child, if he has decided to do so and if you have decided to have him as a child, if your past relationships for example have set up this situation, then the situation will take place.

([Gert:] “When you say see, do you mean with my physical eyes?”)

You could have seen him with your physical eyes at that time. Now you could not for he is resting and he deserves it—but it was your fear that prevented your receiving the proof of the immortality of his personality. There was nothing to fear. He was trying to tell you that he was free and to do it by a characteristic gesture that you would understand. Instead, you see, you gave in to those superstitions regarding the dead and you were afraid to look. Fear—because fear sets up barriers. Now life and vitality are joyful and it makes no difference whether or not you have a body. Your existence is not dependent upon a body and your father tried to tell you this.

To him he is resting but in his dreams, for he dreams as you do, he attempts to reach you, and only your fear prevents you from realizing his presence more fully. Any person who is in another dimension is saddened when they realize that you think that because they are dead they are frightening, and they do not understand—for always before you have treated them in an entirely different manner and now you find them something to fear.