“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now unless you come to terms with your own doubts about yourselves then you will have no idea what faith is and when I use the word faith, I am not speaking in religious terms. When you look at your physical reality and see what it is this does not take faith, it is a simple matter of physical perception. When, however, you begin to have glimpses about the nature of reality and realize that you are more than you know that you are now, then it takes faith to bring that inner image close to some actuality, in your terms. You are all hampered, in other words, by doubts. Now your physical perceptions operating alone are often responsible for these doubts for you think you are all that you can see of yourselves, or you think your life is all that you presently perceive of it, and so if you trust in your physical senses alone then you must, indeed, be filled with doubts for you know, instinctively, that you are more than the self that you are presently able to materialize or to give expression to. If you judge yourself according to the physical self that you know, then you must be filled again by doubts because again instinctively, you know that you are more.

Now when you begin to sense the interior invisible self then in physical terms you begin to act upon what you call faith. Belief in that which is not at this point physically real. Faith, however, is not believing in a unreality, it is believing in realities that you cannot, at this point physically, perceive. It is banking on those portions of your own personality that you feel but cannot see in the ordinary mirror. It is banking on the invisible self that, as yet you have not been able to actualize in physical reality. Now each of you in your own way, particularly in the dream state, are intimately acquainted with this invisible portion of yourselves.

Now in world’s terms, you can be a realist and you can say, I am the self that you see and smell and touch. I am the self that I see in the ordinary mirror and that is all, or you can realize that the mirror only captures a small portion of your entire image. That there is far more that is not seen by the mirror, and it is not seen by other eyes and you can choose to bank upon those abilities that you know are inherently your own.

Now these are your abilities as members of what you now call, simply, the human race. They are inherent abilities that belong to consciousness no matter what form it adopts. You can look in the mirror and take your image for granted and brush your teeth and stare at yourself and think, I am a sorry picture, indeed, or I am quite a beautiful thing and smile, but in either case you are taking it for granted that only physical perceptions are real.

I am not telling you that you should ignore the body. I am not telling you to lose touch with your own feelings or deny them. Your body is your method of perception at this time, but I am telling you that if you identify your entire reality with your body then you are heading for severe feelings of depression and desolation and also letting yourself in for some surprises in the future. You are not imprisoned, as you know, within the form that you wear. Now, there is no reason therefore that you should be imprisoned within it when you are finished with that form.

Each of you in this room can free your own consciousnesses, expand your awareness of identity now, and in your own ways you are beginning to do so. Now in your quiet moments you still identify with the body and think, I am this flesh and I am imprisoned within it and when it is gone then I am done, and these thoughts inhibit your freedom. This will also inhibit you at the time of death for to the extent that you hold them, your emotions will cling to the flesh when instead you should be free of it.

Now none of this is new to you and yet it cannot be said too often.

Now you are used, to some extent, to studying your dreams for precognitive information and checking dream events against future events, but you are not used to checking your reactions in the waking state today against the information that you learn tomorrow.

Now I will give you some information with which you can confound Ruburt at our break. Yesterday, on two occasions, he was quite surprised, but mildly so, to find strong phlegm in his throat. On one occasion he was on the phone to you (Janice) and on another occasion he was in another man’s office. Now he worked with his pendulum and discovered one reason for the phlegm and the cough when he was speaking to you, having to do with the fact that his own writing hours were not done. But he did not search any more deeply than that. Instead, you see, yesterday on two occasions he picked up the fact of his father-in-law’s illness, the phlegm in the father-in-law’s lungs and eschewing heart difficulties. On both of these occasions he reacted physically to information that was psychically perceived and all without recognizing the stimulus or the reason for the physical symptoms.

Now the future, in your terms, to that extent affected the present but this is something that you all do all of the time. You must remember that there are no divisions between past, future, and present and that you do not react simply to the present. Your reactions occur in a multidimensional context whether or not you know it. Now you may all take a break.

(To Gert.) Now you do direct and apply some of it and you are coming along well but a good deal of it goes out willy-nilly. You are getting out of the habit.

Now if you must project your ideas upon me, then instead of projecting upon me the image of the wise old man, I would prefer, instead, you project upon me the image of a skylark in the morning.

Now I am not trying to tell you what to do, I am trying to release the portion of you that knows playfully what to do. You are not to come here each week simply to listen to my deathless prose, for it is not deathless you know, and Ruburt wonders if it is prose. You are to come to release portions of your own reality and then watch yourselves run or fly or soar.

True wisdom, true wisdom, true wisdom does not need thought and true wisdom does not need intellect. Now in the meantime, you will have to get by with thought and intellect because you rely upon it so strongly and there is nothing wrong with it. In the meantime it is an excellent tool but the true wisdom within you, once again, allows your body to spontaneously breathe as you listen to me, refreshes yourselves as you listen to me, collects from realities that you do not perceive, infinite potentials of energy that fill your being as you listen to me. That is wisdom and it does not need words and it formed your intellect. Upon its wisdom your intellect rests and the security of your intellect rests upon that support which is the wisdom of the inner self.

I am glad to hear it. Now, it is there, however, underneath the topsoil of your mind and yours (Alison) and this one (a student) and at times, Ruburt, and to some extent, this one (Sue). You see, I want you to use the tools and abilities that you have and the intellect is one of them, but I do not want you to concentrate so intently upon using one tool that you forget the others. And I am telling you this because I do not want you to so intellectualize your present experiences that you become overly concerned and lose their spontaneity.

Now what I am telling you, is not easy and it is not simple unless you realize that it is. It is as spontaneous as being. You do not realize how much energy you have used to produce these props in your personal thinking and how these props hold you back from the realization of what you are.

Now all take your break but remember what I say is not general. I have each of you in mind.

Not really, feel it through. Now you do not realize what effort I go through, to come through with such warm human characteristics. It is something you never have to think about. In many ways it is a fun thing. I have many banks of personalities upon which to draw but there was, indeed, in the beginning initially, the dilemma upon which of these personalities should I draw and which would be the most effective. And so like any good teacher, I adapted those means best suited for my purpose.

([Joel:] “Is that what Bill is doing now?”)

It is indeed, on a different level quite legitimate and using those means available to him and adapting those characteristics which will make sense to you in this place and in this time. He can change in many respects, however, as he feels you are able to understand and accept those changes. Now from him you would not take many of the things that I can say to you and he knows that.

You contact them in a state which is not waking or dreaming. Now this is something that I do not believe any of you understand. You are familiar, to some degree, with your own state of consciousness but you do not examine these too closely. You assume you are awake under certain conditions, and you assume that you are asleep under certain conditions. Now there is, what I can describe as a mean of consciousness, that is a constant between the waking and sleep states. It is yours whether you are awake or asleep and this is the state you are reaching them in.

Now I wish you a fond good evening, props and all, and I hope that you will look into yourselves and discover what these props are. A hearty good evening.