“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now no one asked me what it was like when I go in trance. Now to go into a trance is simply to focus intensely in a highly specific area of reality and, therefore, I throw or project a part of what I am here because I am able to utilize greater areas of my personality than those with which you are now acquainted in yourself. I can do this in a conscious manner and yet still, as I am here and as I have mentioned, I find a difficulty in looking at you and relating to the selves that you think you are within your given moment of time for I see the composites, so it takes some training on my part to pinpoint you in the time and space with which you are acquainted.

You are aware of the selves that sit in this room on a particular evening of a snowstorm with certain members of the class present, certain members of the class absent, and some new people here, but I am familiar with the inner portions of yourselves that you also know but that the egotistical self has hidden from you. And so I must think constantly to myself, oh, yes, our Lady from Florence thinks that she sits in this specific room at this specific hour and is wearing a blue outfit but I am aware of a Lady of Florence you see, in several different manifestations in various existences all occurring at once. And so I must remember that she is not aware of these, and when I speak to her I must use a designation that will make sense to her at this particular time.

You have been much given to thoughts of death this evening. Now, I have been a very lively corpse many times, but then, so have you all. And the inner portions of yourselves know this well. You have walked away from more graves than you can remember and will, indeed, many of you, walk away from more. Why then do you worry about justifying your own existence in this hour?

(To Sue) Only those areas that mean— only those areas that mean to you safe justification have meaning and the others will begin to disappear. If you write, therefore, to justify your existence then in time other aspects of reality will lose their meaning for you. You do not have to justify in any terms.

Now, when I come here to speak I focus my energy, not toward this room as a destination, for this room, in your terms, does not exist to me but in these terms, this room does not exist to you. You pretend to agree that the room exists and so we meet in no place of space or time. The true meetings that take place here have nothing to do with the room or the people that you think you are. You know that you hallucinate the room. You know that you are as much in trance here as you ever are when you are in psy-time or when you are making an effort to look inward. I simply want you to realize that if this life is a trance you can turn the direction of your consciousness in other ways and perceive greater realities that presently exist. That you can be aware of your own greater identity even as I am aware of it. That you sit within the miracle of yourselves and then ask for signs, it is your inner eyes I would open.

(After break, Seth responded to a question that was not recorded.) It means this particular personality, otherwise you lose all aspects of free will. You, as you know yourselves, only accept those suggestions and ideas and concepts and hangups that suit your purposes at this time. You are not, therefore, at the mercy of any neuroses from a past life any more than you are at the mercy of any neuroses from this life. There are no fears from your present life that you cannot escape and conquer. I have not said that you will necessarily escape and conquer them, but it is within your ability to do so. The decision is your own according to your understanding as the individual personality. You cannot be hounded from one level of reality to another by a fear that you do not understand. You cannot be threatened in this life by fears from your early childhood in this life or by so-called past existences unless you believe so thoroughly in the nature of fear that you allow yourselves to be conquered by fear. Each of your personalities are free to develop, to accept, from the miraculous bank of reality those experiences and emotions that you want and to reject those that you do not want.

The problems you set for yourself for this life you set in the hope that you will solve them. You do not set them for yourselves like millstones about your neck hoping ahead of time that you will drown. All you have to do is realize your own freedom. To cease being afraid of the fear of water, it is not water that you fear, but the fear, so face the fear and conquer it.

Now there is not time, in your terms, it is all simultaneous and yet, in your terms, you can become aware of what you would call a future self. No act of yours predisposes a future self to act or forces him or her to act in a particular manner. These are banks of activity from which you can draw or choose not to draw.

This particular individual was quite aware of what would occur, on what you would call an unconscious basis. He was not predestined to die. He chose both the time, in your terms, and the method for reasons of his own.

He knew in his mind that he was ready to go on to other spheres of activity. Subconsciously, or unconsciously then, he looked about for the means and chose those immediately available. This particular individual, three days earlier, had made the plan. There was no predestination involved. Because a tree branch falls this does not mean that it was destined to fall in either the particular manner of its fall nor in the timing of the fall. There is a great difference between free choice and predestination.

Now you must realize again, that we are speaking of division for convenience sake when none exists, so at the same time, so to speak, that this personality is born in a minority race, poor, etc., in a completely different era it may be born rich, secure and aristocratic. It is searching out different methods of experience and expansion. Do you follow me?

You will find there is nothing to be frightened of and much to be gained but do not feel yourself rushed either for there is plenty of time.