“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Once again now, Jane was quite relaxed. She had been most of the day, and by supper time she’d even thought of skipping the session. The situation wasn’t without its humorous aspects, however, for Seth himself seemed eager to go: As we sat for the session Jane said she was getting material from him on several topics. “Over there — to my left — he’s talking about the limitations of our kind of personality. That is, why would we say we’re limited if we didn’t feel there was more to begin than we usually think there is?” It was another of those ideas that are quite obvious, once mentioned. Jane was also picking up on Seth’s dictation for tonight. “But I don’t care what he talks about,” she said, “as long as he starts out with something and keeps me going.”

Overall, whether or not you are conscious of it — for some of you are, and some of you are not — your lives do have a certain psychological shape. That shape is formed by your decisions. You make decisions as the result of feeling impulses to do this or that, to perform in one manner or another, in response to both private considerations and in regard to demands seemingly placed upon you by others. In the vast arena of those numberless probabilities open to you, you do of course have some guidelines. Otherwise you would always be in a state of indecision. Your personal impulses provide those guidelines by showing you how best to use probabilities so that you fulfill your own potential to greatest advantage — and [in] so doing, provide constructive help to the society at large.

Many people in a quandary of indecision write to Ruburt. Such a correspondent might lament, for example: “I do not know what to do, or what direction to follow. I think that I could make music my career. I am musically gifted. On the other hand (pause), I feel a leaning toward psychology. I have not attended to my music lately, since I am so confused. Sometimes I think I could be a teacher. In the meantime, I am meditating and hoping that the answer will come.” (Pause.) Such a person is afraid to trust any one impulse enough to act upon it. All remain equally probable activities. Meditation must be followed by action — and true meditation is action (underlined). Such people are afraid of making decisions, because they are afraid of their own impulses — and some of them can use meditation to dull their impulses, and actually prevent constructive action.

(9:35.) Impulses arise in a natural, spontaneous, constructive response to the abilities, potentials, and needs of the personality. They are meant as directing forces. Luckily, the child usually walks before it is old enough to be taught that impulses are wrong, and luckily the child’s natural impulses toward exploration, growth, fulfillment, action and power are strong enough to give it the necessary springboard before your belief systems begin to erode its confidence. You have physical adult bodies. The pattern for each adult body existed in the fetus — which again, “luckily,” impulsively, followed its own direction.

As the body wants to grow from childhood on, so all of the personality’s abilities want to grow and develop. Each person has his [or her] own ideals, and impulses direct those ideals naturally into their own specific avenues of development — avenues meant to fulfill both the individual and his society. Impulses provide specifications, methods, meanings, definitions. They point toward definite avenues of expression, avenues that will provide the individual with a sense of actualization, natural power, and that will automatically provide feedback, so that the person knows he is impressing his environment for the better.

(Long pause.) Those natural impulses, followed, will automatically lead to political and social organizations that become both tools for individual development and implements for the fulfillment of the society. Impulses then would follow easily, in a smooth motion, from private action to social import. When you are taught to block your impulses, and to distrust them, then your organizations become clogged. You are left with vague idealized feelings of wanting to change the world for the better, for example — but you are denied the personal power of your own impulses that would otherwise help direct that idealism by developing your personal abilities. You are left with an undefined, persisting, even tormenting desire to do good, to change events, but without having any means at your disposal to do so. This leads to lingering frustration, and if your ideals are strong the situation can cause you to feel quite desperate.

(10:15.) The job of trying to make the world better seems impossible, for it appears that you have no power, and any small private beneficial actions that you can (underlined) take seem so puny in contrast to this generalized ideal that you dismiss them sardonically, and so you do not try to use your power constructively. You do not begin with your own life, with your own job, or with your own associates. (Louder:) What difference can it make to the world if you are a better salesperson, or plumber, or office worker, or car salesman, for Christ’s sake? What can one person do?

1. Jane originated the key portion of the new title early last Sunday morning, when she got up at 4 A.M. to have breakfast and make some notes for her book. Through the open patio door she listened to the first bird calls, summoning her outside to watch the foggy dawn unfold. She was entranced. “No one else was watching what I watched from my personal viewpoint that morning,” she wrote an hour later. “I felt as if I were being privileged to view a beginning of the world … or of my edge of it.

“So, in that moment, I named that part of me the God of Jane, and that designation makes sense to me, at least. In those terms, we each have our personal ‘God,’ and I am convinced that the universe knows us no matter who or where — or what — we are. I think there is a God of Mitzi, and a God of Billy, for each of our cats, and that each consciousness, regardless of its status, possesses this intimate connection with the universe….”