“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now if you had all been really paying attention to what I have said for some time about the simultaneous nature of time and existence, then you would have known that the theory of evolution is as beautiful as a tale as the theory of Biblical creation. Both are quite handy and both are methods of telling stories and both might seem to agree within their own systems, and yet, in larger respects they cannot be realities. I am addressing this to our friend over here (Arnold) and partially to our friend over here because you should understand what I am speaking of. But, then, no one asked me about the nature of evolution before until recently when our friend, Joseph, read a book. No—no form of matter, however potent, will be self-evolved into consciousness no matter what other bits of matter are added to it, but without the consciousness, the matter would not be there in the universe floating around waiting for another component to give it reality, consciousness, existence or song.

There is, indeed, but I will not tell you now.

Now within your reality, as you think of it and as you understand it, the population at any given time is seeded by certain particular entities. In your reality, as you think of it then, you are all closely connected much more closely than you realize. You are working toward certain kinds of development that can happen, in your terms and in your terms only, only in your space and in your time. If you understood me, you would realize then that you are highly unique, and that those problems and challenges that you have can be met by no others, and that those private elements of your personal life that seem so uncosmic are, indeed, of great importance. Not only to you, but to other realities that you do not presently understand, and that in working out one simple challenge in this existence you work out other challenges for other selves in other realities. And you help untold numbers of personalities in other realities.

Now think physically again of our onion, but imagine instead, psychic realities forming its skin, each interconnected with the other. Or imagine an orange, each atom of it connected with each other and yet each one individual and each representing a reality. It may seem that there would be no way to get out of the reality of the orange if you were forced upon its surface, but to go round and round, and you might seem isolated. And so, in your reality, you might seem isolated, and yet that orange is in another basket of oranges, and the skin of it touches another. And so your subjective lives touch lives that you do not know, and yet each of these are unique. In all of these realities, there are no exact duplicates.

Now some of this material is new and when you get it written down, I would like you to read it and ponder it. You have this information, use it. Your own subjective experience can lead you through many paths that interconnect this reality and other realities. It is up to you as to how far you want to go, now, in your terms. The journeys lead to an understanding of your own uniqueness and, therefore, to an understanding, not of relative unimportance in the universe, but to your absolute importance to it, and the knowledge that your each act ultimately affects the movement of the most minute molecule and the action of the most distant star that you can perceive.

...But it was not more than Seth usually does. Now, you are acquainted with those portions of self that you are ready to accept at any given time and he knows when you are ready to accept certain concepts, and when you are ready to accept certain experiences. And so your own development follows your inner dictates, both when you are alone, and when you are in class.

The trouble was that you wanted to hide in concepts, and so he brought you out of them so that you could acknowledge the self that deals in concepts, and then give you some relief and release. He leads you back into concepts again. There is nothing wrong with concepts at all as long as you do not use them as hiding places or as steps of security from which you will not leap, one into the other. Or unless you use them to hide your own emotional reality. Within you concepts and actions are one, and you recognize this, and your inner lives are based upon it, but your mental lives are often based upon ideas, until recently, have been considered very modern and very in, such as the idea of evolution. And yet, if you had listened to what I have been saying, again, you would have known the theory to be a pretty tale. Life bursts apart in all directions as consciousness does and explodes in all probable directions. There is not one steady stream of progress.

(To Florence.) Now last week when Ruburt was speaking about the natives who are such expert dreamers, you asked, our Lady of Florence, then why are they not more progressive? And yet I know that you realize that your own progress as a civilization, in your terms, will come to a halt unless you progress in other directions. This is what your civilization is learning. That you cannot rape your planet. And life did not begin as some isolated single organism that in the great probabilities of existence meant another, and then another, and then another, until a chain of molecules could be made and selves formed. Neither does consciousness exist, using an analogy, as simple organisms separated by vast distances, but as a complicated gestalt.

You are getting your first very small lesson in, what I will humbly call, multidimensional communication. It is the first time we have used the phrase here, but it will not be the last, for when I speak to you I address you mentally, psychically, spiritually, and even biologically for there is a strange spirituality that exists within your own atoms and molecules that accepts what I say. And eventually that message gets through to you also, and I speak often to each of you separately while I seem to address you as a group, and yet I do address you as a group also.

Now I have adopted this measure simply because it is impossible to speak to each of you individually with any depth or meaning, but (to Valerie) I want you to realize that you are not alone, and that isolation is a manufactured thing. You manufacture it in your mind. It has no meaning in any terms. You will learn to feel it and not simply accept it intellectually, but you must begin to tell yourself emotionally that you are not isolated, and you must divorce yourself from self-pity.

I have one point before I close, and it does not deal with concepts except as emotion is concept. Some of you will know to whom I am speaking, but I am speaking also to each of you in this room. There are human beings on the face of this earth who do not know what love means, or companionship. Who so not have parents, who do not have sisters or brothers who understand an isolation that is bleak and cold even if it is of their own making. Each of you in this room who has the opportunity to share with another then know that is grace and be thankful for that which you experience. And do not underestimate what you have. There are personalities who have traveled through the centuries, literally, without an understanding, and if this was their reality and if it was their own making, still be glad that it is not yours and accept those relationships that you now have and realize their potential and do not close yourselves off to stupid pride and through barriers of your own making.

Now the atoms and molecules that compose you are glorious impermanent things, and through the leadership of your consciousness have you led them to consciousness and song and through you do they experience what you experience. And through your organization do they understand realities that would otherwise be denied them. And when each of you come together in a personal relationship are you then glorifying and adding to the reality of the consciousness that is within those atoms and molecules. You know each other in each life a brief time. What joy and comfort you can give, then give. What support you can render, render. Do you not realize that by doing this you become more than you think you are? And I am not speaking to any of you in terms of self-sacrifice for there is no such thing, and there is no such road, and I do not advocate it. But if you demand the best that is within you then you become more than you realize that you are, and you must also demand more from the other persons within your relationship. Allof you, therefore, that are married and have such relationships must inspire each other regardless of what you all know of the nature of reality.

The bones that you call your own will lie a long time in the grave. The physical beings of those that you know change even as I speak. What joy and creativity you can give, then give. What affirmation you can speak, speak. This life is as important as any other life, and none of you attempt to deny the abilities of another for in doing this you speak against creativity. Therefore, it behooves all of you, on a part of all that you are, to expect the best of yourselves and the best of those with whom you are in contact. But the moment is intimate and the voice that speaks beside you in the night, in your terms, will not speak for long, therefore, comfort it when you can. And remember, all of you, again, I am not speaking in terms of self-sacrifice. It is impossible to sacrifice the self, and when you try to do this, it is betrayal. This is not divorced from the material I have been giving you in terms of evolution or the nature of reality but highly intertwined. You live and breathe these concepts.

But also that you should not attempt self-sacrifice. It should not be expected of you. You should not accept it.

You should never attempt to deny yourself at the expense of another, but if you fully realize the nature of your identity this would never seem necessary.

([Mark:] “But sometimes, in self-pity, we think of it as self-sacrifice but really it’s a chance to gain humility or give service to other people?”)

(To Joel. Words lost)...as well as young ones but with much greater emphasis upon the older. If probabilities continue as they now are.

Older, living, in this system, but not now. That is, this is not an immediate alternative. It is an eventuality. And you cannot, it seems, continue to do as you are doing. You are realizing, beginning to realize, some of your own abilities and they are being misdirected, in the position of which you speak. For several reasons, not all of them are religious, many of them simply cultural, you do not relate on a deep level to some of the people with whom you deal, the ordinary, square parishioner with quite conventional religious ideas. You cannot explain your ideas in his terms, and you cannot accept his interpretation. You have felt for some time, as you know, that you are living a lie in that regard, and yet you do not know where to turn your abilities or into what field. When I spoke to you it was obvious that you would leave, and that you would not continue. But you will work with organizations and as a director within them. Those even that seem to have a secular nature you will mold. There is no real doubt in your mind as to which course to follow. And I will not tell you what line you will follow with. That is for you to work out with other... But you must find a position in which your full energies can be directed rather than scattered as they are now in several endeavors. And that is most important for in that way you can feel progress and a concentration of energy. Now your energies are scattered, and you do not feel accomplishment.

What Ruburt told you applies, but those instructions must be carried through completely. And you can do it. You do direct your own thoughts. You can control them, you can stop the conscious worrying. When you find yourself worrying about this matter, tell yourself, instead, that there is nothing to worry about, that the answer is within you. See your mind within your mind as a clear sky or a blank board upon which the answers will come. Now be assured that the answers will show themselves there for they are there now. And simply relax and see what is already written. The answer has been there, in your terms, long before you requested it. And it is there now. Simply allow yourself to see the answer and freely accept it. And let the turmoil go.