“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(To Derek.) And I have a comment to the young man in the mirror and it is this. I have lived many lives and I cannot prove, in your terms, my own existence. The fact that you are worrying about proving your own existence, however, proves that you exist. Now, I do not want to deflower your ego. However, a flower has better sense than to ask whether or not it exists. It accepts what comes to it. It takes joy in the vitality that belongs to it.

Now, let us take for argument’s sake, a poor unintelligent flower in the middle of a garden. Now, there the poor thing is, and it cannot move back nor forth. It cannot run up the garden path and it is. Now, when the rain falls it gratefully accepts the droplets. It does not turn its head upward and say, “Yes, but does the rain exist, or does it not? And wherefore does it come, and how, indeed, do these elements reach into my beings and down into my roots? And unless I understand how this occurs, then I will not accept the rain.” And when a sunny day comes, the flower does not lift its idiotic head and say, “Now, this appears to be the sun. How is it that the sun keeps me alive and brings the green to my leaves and branches and makes me flower? I do not understand, and since I do not understand, therefore, I will not accept the sun and I shall stand here and deny that it exists for how do I know that I exist, much less the sun does. Perhaps it is a fancy tale told by other idiots as stupid as myself.” But if it is a fancy tale, it would behoove you to listen, for the moment that the flower says, “I deny, therefore, I deny the sunlight or the rain,” then the flower, indeed, would deny the grace of existence.

Now the answers and the meaning are within yourself.

Now, in the winter time our poor idiotic flower seems, indeed, to be dead. The seed goes into the earth, however, and in the wintertime in any of your suburban gardens here beneath the snow are all these seeds. They are being nurtured, but do they in this darkness, therefore, look about them and say, “This is a time of death? There is nothing else for me and my existence is meaningless? How is it that I remember a time in which I blossomed? How is it I vaguely remember a summer in a time in which I was strong and spontaneous and free? What has happened to the summertime, and will it never come again for me?” That is what you are doing now. Our seed, however, who does not have this fine intellect that sits so nicely beneath your hair and within your skull, our seed without the intellect, rests joyfully within the earth knowing it is in the midst of creativity and that from within it, again, another flower will spring. And it does not deny the earth that gives it birth. It knows within itself, and it is this knowledge that you can find again. It is within you now.

Now, the seed cannot yell out to a scientist who happens to pass and say, “Hey, look at me, I exist. Take me home to your laboratory for within me is the kernel of life.” For the scientist, if he would heed the call and if he would take a spade and dig in the middle of February perhaps down into the earth to find our seed, would find simply a shell. He would not find the reality of the seed. And though you speak and exist and have your being, the emotions that you feel, that make you you, cannot be packaged in a laboratory, cannot be proven by any scientist, you exist. He can only weigh the body and the elements that compose you. He can tell you how much your brain weighs. He cannot tell you what you are feeling or thinking or touch the reality of your subjective experience and herein lies your reality and your proof and your existence and your feeling.

Now, I will let you all take a break. I give my greetings to our two guests here. I do not consider you two (Mack and Garrett) guests, you see. You have been on your own journeys.

(To Babs.) I did not ignore you. You are not a guest, in those terms, in that you are not a stranger. On the other hand, you are not a student either, so I saved you until later. Now, if none of you mind, I would like to take a moment here and if you want to turn your face to the wall, then do it before I begin to speak.

There are a series of projections on the part of your husband toward you and on the part of you toward your husband. You are using the same words in some of your conversations but the words mean different things to both of you, and so you are not communicating properly. Now, you can learn to communicate if you open up your mind. You earlier mentioned, you see I do not lose anything, semantics, and the confusion of words, and this is what you are involved within your relationship with your husband. And so it is why you noticed when this happened in class. So that you must get beneath words.

Now, I will tell you something else that you will not necessarily want to hear, but you must also learn to relate to outside physical reality. You need physical work to do. This will improve your painting, your creative life, and your psychic life, but you are turning inward too much without knowing what you are doing, at this time. You need to compensate by direct and aggressive physical action, either in a job that will relate you with others or in some aspect along those lines that will allow you to untangle the inner self and release your creative abilities.

You badger your creative abilities too much. You are at them all the time. You want them to produce. You need to do physical work outside of your home and you need this now, in a very desperate way. This will take your conscious mind away from your subjective problems and allow your great vitality, for you have great vitality, to rush up from the unconscious and solve whatever problems that you have.

Now, you are like a dog with a bone, at your problems, at them every moment, and you must get away from them. The sense of accomplishment involved in physical work will do wonders for you. It will take away the sense of unworthiness that you now have. You are quite competent to deal with physical reality. There is nothing you have to fear. This will automatically release your inner abilities. Allow your creative feelings to emerge into realistic work. You are running down alleys of despair and you need this doorway into physical reality of which I have told you. Now, how is that for a starter?

(To Janice.) Now, to you, the panic has always to do with deep anxiety. Now, a situation in your life can serve to trigger it as a relatively minor situation. The other evening served to trigger it, but working with the pendulum you can discover the basic reason, and I suggest that you do this.

(To Arnold.) Now, to our friend here, you are worried about being aggressive in your psy-time. You can allow yourself aggression in your psy-time. You can trust yourself to go forward actively. You must be receptive and yet alert and it is that point of alertness that you sometimes lose.

Now, you may all take your break and I will return.

(To Kyle.) Now, our friend here is pleased with his new joy and I am glad for him. Trust it and follow it. Your brother, you see, must follow his own way and into the paths it will lead him, and it will be a different way than your way. So in your joy, allow him that privilege. Do not expect his road to be your own, therefore.

Now, this has happened to each of you, or will happen, for it is indeed, as Ruburt said earlier, it is the night of the sword. And yet it is a time that you cannot ignore and it is a crossroad that you cannot avoid, for it is there for a reason. And all the answers that have been given, and all those answers you have told yourself, will be as nothing. And it will seem that all your friends are but ghosts that pass in the night with no meaning.

([Derek:] “Is that what my life is going to be, here and now?”)

Now this crisis has a meaning and a purpose. It does you no good to avoid this crisis through drugs, through tranquilizers, or through material possessions, for you must face certain facts, and the facts are these. The high and mighty intellect that deals with the world of sense is not all. The validity and the vitality of your existence is far more than this. And when you find your intellect, alone, cannot give you the answers, and that it cannot bring you joy and that it brings you no closer to the fountain of existence, then you begin asking the proper questions. Then you are like the flower who accepts the sunshine, and in accepting the sunshine knows far more about the reality of sun than any scientist who measures the spectrum of light without feeling. Your soul, your inner self, your reality, is experience. It is this upon which you must base your life.

([Derek:] “I don’t understand the crossroads. Is that the crossroads I am at now? Something I must go through?”)

It is the crossroad which you are at now. It is, indeed, and it is constructive and you will pass through it far richer and with greater understanding, but it will not be the only crossroad for as soon as you think you know yourself, you have already changed. And as soon as you think you know yourself, you have already changed. You are not a static being. You change constantly. And All That Is, or in your terms, God, is not a static being but always creative and always changing, so do not put yourself at a particular level of experience and stay there but allow yourself growth and freedom.

(To Garrett.) Now, you are achieving some growth and freedom in your dream state.

Now, I wanted you to know, as always, that there is a reality beyond the reality in which you are presently focused.

(To Derek.) Now, as far as proofs are concerned, any of you can measure. Any of you can measure the painting on the wall that is of me in a previous life. You can measure the dimensions. You can prove a painting exists on the wall. You cannot measure the psychological impact of the painting, however, nor the psychic reality that is within it. Nor can you measure the inner reality that you know is within yourself. And as I have said before, when you look into a mirror you do not see yourself. You see the physical form. You do not see your ego or your subconscious or your spirit or your unconscious. You see the molecules and atoms that spin about you. You cannot prove, therefore, that you exist, much less that I exist. Be thankful then that the atoms and molecules that compose your chairs seem as if they were solid.

Now, consciousness is a quality of the soul. You can turn your consciousness in many directions. It is like a tool that belongs to you, but you are more than your consciousness is. It is a quality inherent in the nature of the spirit or soul, but it is far more.

I am writing a book called, The Eternal Validity of the Soul. Now, top that one.

That is an adequate analogy. We are making some limited progress. You did not wink at me, yet, this evening. Now, I feel better.

Now, you are taking advantage of what you are learning, whether or not you are consciously and egotistically aware of what you are doing. There is nothing wrong with the ego. If there is nothing wrong with a flower, why should ego be a dirty word?

Now, I remember clearly each ego that was my own. I have a long memory. But in the dream state each of you are acquainted with the other selves that you have known. You simply forget when you awaken in the morning. This sort of experience is direct cognition. I cannot tell you what it is. I can only hint to you that certain experiences can be expected. And when you receive them, then you know for yourself and you have your own proof, as our friend in the corner has her own proof.

And now, I do, indeed, bid you all a fond good evening and what blessings are mine to give, I give to you.