“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 have a different form every seven years. The atoms and molecules of your body have completely changed. There is not one small vestige within your physical body at this moment that was within it eight years ago. Your forms are completely new and different, and yet I see that you carry on quite effectively and it does not seem to bother you. Look at your friend over here (Doug). It does not bother him. And so if you change your physical form without knowing it as the years go by, why should it surprise you that at one time you leave the present form that you call your own for another. For if I am speaking through the body of a woman, so have the three men here present spoken through the bodies of women when those bodies were their own, and the women spoke as men.

([Florence:] “I’m sorry, Seth. Wake me up next time.”

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.

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.

Now as class members should know, our friend Ruburt is not possessed and no energy has taken him over. There is instead a corner within his personality that is open like a transparent window, a warp into other times and dimensions. He has abilities that he uses. He realizes that from me he gets information that he would not otherwise possess and he can be here in a moment.

For of real love, you know very little; of real understanding, you know very little; but you will learn and you are learning and learning itself is discovery and joy. Remember also, that any abilities that you see displayed by the personality of Ruburt are abilities of human personality, latent in each of you, are to be used as you will and as you wish for you are possessed, possessed by ideas that are limited and that restrain you. Ideas that prevent you from using your own splendid energy and abilities. I have said this many times and doubtlessly I will continue to say—when Ruburt’s familiar body is some 40 years older and my voice in comparison to Ruburt’s sounds like quite a young man (shouts)—That my energy should remind you of the energy that is inherent within yourself and that any energy that sweeps through this small frame comes from the same energy that gives you your vitality and strength and that should bring you joy and fulfillment.

It would be easy for me to give you a set of rules. Some of you would be only too glad to follow them for you would not have to face your own responsibility and your own responsibility is to look within and to use your own abilities. For you, each of you, will develop in your own way through endless eons in your terms. You think that an atom is beneath you or a flower. You have 500 times as far to go. You will develop in ways you cannot now understand and you develop as you unfold, as you use your abilities. You will find your own road. You will even make your own truths. For you are expected to make new ones. Truths are not trees that you discover in the forest. They spring up ever new. All That Is is not static or it would be dead; it is ever changing as you are.

If you preach or teach the existence of a definite, physical hell existing as a place—this is not true and you have known it for some time.

Now. There can be a hell—I’ve been there several times—and there can be a limbo. But these are not places, they are spiritual states and even in those terms, hell is not eternal. They are the results of ignorance. Hell, for example, could not exist unless you have the concept of a heaven. There would be nothing to compare it with. Hell is being blocked and knowing you’re being blocked from using your abilities; your abilities of creativity.

You will learn that it is cruel to bring into existence new consciousness when your planet cannot support it. For your planet will not be able to support it and spiritual growth cannot be achieved through starving bodies nor through the agonies of mothers who must watch their children starve. (Nigerian civil war at this time.)

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.

([Gert:} “You say he is resting, yet at different times I’ve had the feeling in the house that he might try to make the same contact.”)