“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You have no problem relating to other people. You have your greatest difficulty in relating to yourself, and you avoid meeting yourself in your sensitivity sessions, and you only use them as an excuse so that you can tell yourself that you are going as far as you should. You are telling yourself that you are a good girl. Now, until you are ready to look deeper within yourself that is fine, but I want you to realize what you are doing. You are avoiding your inner life as completely as you can afford to.

If you would look within yourself you would find out why, or if you ask for a private session sometime I might give you some hints, but you have not asked for one, and you have not asked for one for a good reason.

Now, our friend back here (Ned) has tried his disappearing act for some time and a good deal of the time he does it without knowing that he does it, and on occasion he tries it deliberately. Now it is theoretically possible, for example, theoretically possible for him, or any of you, to disperse your consciousness and become a part of any object in the room or to fly apart, for example, disperse yourself out into space without leaving your sense of identity. Now this is not practical, in your terms, and yet many of you do it to gain refreshment while you are sleeping.

You can, indeed, but do not deny the part of you that wanted to wring the other man’s neck. But you were so frightened of the thought that you immediately inhibited it. Now let us consider that thought and why were you so terrified of it. You were terrified of it because you are terrified of the idea that evil is more powerful than good, and that one stray violent thought of yours was more important and more powerful than the vitality of good. I am using your terms now. Now, say the following happened, at least you were aware of the thought, but say, in your terms, you progressed to the point where you were no longer aware of the feeling.

([Joel:] “You don’t just automatically think good things about this fellow and then repress the negative thoughts and never even become aware that I felt...”)

Indeed, so that your muscles tensed, your adrenaline production increased, you wanted to wring his neck and you stood there and said, God bless you my fine young fellow. May you live a long and merry life. Now, telepathically, our fine young fellow knows exactly what you are feeling at the time. You are the one who is out of contact with your feelings and emotions at that point, however, for at this point of your “spiritual progression” you only imagine that you wish him good. The muscles are already contracted in your body. They are contracted because you have not admitted, in this point admittedly of future spiritual progression, that you wanted to wring his neck, so you say nothing but wish him well.

Now three weeks later we have another encounter and our poor ignorant workman falls asleep again at his chore and our good minister comes by and he looks and he sees the idle one upon the floor snoozing and he thinks, I would like to kick you in the you know where, but he thinks, oh no, I cannot think such an unChristian thought and violence is wrong, so before he even admits to himself what he feels and hiding from himself any acknowledgment of aggression. Instead, he bends down and says, my good man, et cetera, may you live long and hearty and God bless your life and then he pats himself on the back and thinks, I am growing more spiritual day by day. In the meantime, the muscles have contracted ten times because they could not be put into activity before, as the thought behind them was denied.

I do not define bad and when I use the term, hopefully, I am using it according to your own inferior definition. Now you have some idea in your head that good is gentle and bad is violent and that no violence can be good and this is because in your mind, violence and destruction are the same thing. Now by this analogy, you see, the soft voice is the holy voice and the loud voice is the wicked voice and the firm step is the bad voice and the soft step is the good voice and a strong desire is the bad desire and a weak one the good one so that you become afraid of projecting ideas outward or desires outward, for in the back of your mind you think that what is powerful is evil and what is weak is good and must be protected and coddled and prayed for and begged for.

Instead, I am telling you that the universe is a good universe. That it knows its own vitality and that vitality is within you. You can encourage it freely. It does not need to be coddled. Your own nature is a good nature and you can trust it. Because something is difficult does not mean it is good.

It does, indeed, in your terms, but that knowledge is also available to you. Now we cannot cover one topic in an evening clearly, much less 101 topics. I am not Scheherazade nor am I a handy father image or a handy granddaddy image. In reference, however, to one remark you made earlier, you have always been involved strongly in what you would call religious endeavors in almost all lives. Those lives that were not involved with religious endeavors were religiously involved in the opposite endeavors, in your terms, and we will go into that later. The holy soul turned inside out is some fleshpot, let’s put it that way, but you have always been involved with questions concerning good and evil and you had two existences in two civilizations in Egypt. And in one of these your friend over here (Daniel) was involved. Now, I cannot go into that reincarnation this evening, it is too late, and you would not benefit from it for you are not ready, either of you. It is not a fascinating story to be told for your edification and enjoyment so I hope you will enjoy it when it comes, but it will help when you can understand it.

I am much more concerned, however, with your reaction to the material that Ruburt read this evening and with all of your reactions to it. Now if it seems to any of you that one class member is monopolizing a session, then remember what I have said earlier. The questions that are spoken here by one are the unspoken questions of many, and so it has seemed to many of you that you were in some way from your birth tinged by evil. And in one of your particular past lives you not only believed this but taught it, and you believed it heartily.

Now, as Ruburt would call it, your sidekick over here (Joanne) did not go along with your ideas at all, in that life. She was at that time, a male however, and you were a female, and a priestess, and so were you (Daniel). She had an expanding effect upon your personality but you were very given to ritual and to a belief in magical acts and to the idea that existence in itself was evil and wrong and you were, indeed, a member of the sect now called Gnostic.

Now I am going to bid you a fond good evening.

I bid you all, now, and to our disappearing friend behind me (Ned) a fond good evening.

(To Joel)... she (reference to Alison) was a male, however, at the time, and when I said you were not ready I meant that you were not ready. In that time you were very concerned with the idea of power, and it is one that you are still deliberating with. Not political power but personal power and as to how far you should go to convince others of ideas in which you believe and how far you should go in propagating ideas in which you no longer believe. And in dealing with the sense of power that you also realize you experience in both instances. Now, when you are ready to deal with that problem, then I will give you the rest of the reincarnational material. And I mention this only to show you that I was not making an innocuous general remark to put you off. And now, dear friend, I bid you a blessed and a fond and a violent good evening .

... bid you to reexamine your definition of the word violent and all the connotations that you have placed upon it. According to your terms, God never would have created any creature or any reality or any universe. He would have been too passive to do so. You equate violence with evil. Now, when I speak to you, I do not equate violence with evil anymore than I equate a summer storm which is violent with evil. And that is what I want you to understand.

I do not think much of those terms either. Think in terms of creativity. Your last try was horrendous. And (very loud voice) I will not tell you this is creative violence. Now, the very sound of my voice, as our dear friend knows, assaults the silence of the room and yet it is creative. And the vitality that sweeps through this form assaults the silence and yet it is creative. And that is what I want you to understand. Good, in your terms, can be as noisy as I can be noisy. And guilt can be a very silent and quiet and passive and gentle thing indeed. And that is what I want you to understand. And now, after having said good evening many times, out of the goodness of my heart, for I am not weary, I bid you once again a blessed and violent good evening.