“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Louder, when I asked Seth to repeat a phrase:) I believe that man runs the mile much quicker now (by about 12 seconds) than he did, say, thirty years ago. Has the body’s effective speed suddenly quickened? Hardly. Instead, mental beliefs about the body’s performance have changed, and increased physical speed resulted. The body can indeed run faster than the current record (of 3:49). I merely want to show the effect of beliefs upon physical performance. All people do not want to be expert runners, however. Their creativity and their ideals may lie in quite different fields of endeavor, but individual performance always adds to the knowledge of the species. Good, better, best. Is it bad to be a poor runner? Of course not, unless running is your own particular avocation. And if it is, you improve with practice.

Your searches toward understanding excellent performance in any area — your idealisms — are all spiritually and biologically ingrained. If many of the conditions we have mentioned in this book are less than ideal in your society, then you can as an individual begin to change those situations. You do this by accepting the rightness of your own personhood. You do this by discarding ideas of unworthiness and powerlessness, no matter what their sources. You do this by beginning to observe your own impulses, by trusting your own direction. You start wherever you are, today. Period.

(9:42.) You do not dwell upon the unfortunate conditions in your environment, but you do take steps in your own life to express your ideals in whatever way is given. Those ways are multitudinous.

Do the exercises in my book, The Nature of Personal Reality, to discover what conditions of a mental nature, or of psychological origin, are causing you distress. Instead of taking an aspirin for a headache, sit down, breathe quietly, and remind yourself that you are an integral part of the universe. Allow yourself to feel a sense of belonging with nature. Such an exercise can often relieve a headache in no time. But each such experience will allow you to build up a sense of trust in your own body’s processes.

(Pause.) Your impulses are your closest communication with your inner self, because in the waking state they are the spontaneous urgings toward action, rising from that deep inner knowledge of yourself that you have in dreams. (Intently:) You were born because you had the impulse to be. The universe exists because it had the impulse to be. There was no exterior cosmic Pied Piper, singing magical notes or playing a magical tune, urging the universe into being. The urge to be came from within, and that urge is repeated to some extent in each impulse, each urge toward action on the part of man or molecule. If you do not trust the nature of your impulses, then you do not trust the nature of your life, the nature of the universe, or the nature of your own being.

(Long pause at 10:10.) Natural attributes show themselves quite clearly in early childhood, for example, when you are allowed greater freedom to do what you want to do. As children, some people love to work with words, some with images, some with objects. Some show great ability in dealing with their contemporaries, while others naturally lean toward solitude and private meditations. Look back toward the impulsive behavior of your childhood, toward those activities that mostly pleased you.

If you painted pictures, this does not mean that you necessarily should be an artist. Only you know the strength of those impulses — but if they are intense and consistent, then pursue them. If you end up simply painting as a hobby, that will still enrich your life and understanding. If your impulses lead you toward relationships with others, then do not let fears of unworthiness stand in your way. It is very important that you express your idealism actively, to whatever extent you can, for this increases your sense of worth and power.

Such action serves as a safeguard so that you do not overemphasize the gaps that may exist in yourself or in society, between the reality and the ideal condition. Many people want to change the world for the better, but that ideal seems so awe-inspiring that they think they can make no headway unless they perform some great acts of daring or heroism, or envision themselves in some political or religious place of power, or promote an uprising or rebellion. The ideal seems so remote and unreachable that, again, sometimes any means, however reprehensible, eventually can seem justified (see Session 850, for example). To change the world for the better, you must begin by changing your own life. There is no other way.

For a start you will acknowledge your existence in the framework of nature, and to do that you must recognize the vast cooperative processes that connect each species with each other one. If you truly use your prerogatives as an individual in your country, then you can exert far more power in normal daily living than you do now. Every time you affirm the rightness of your own existence, you help others. Your mental states are part of the planet’s psychic atmosphere.

A note: Your exterior civilizations do indeed mirror and reflect the great cellular civilizations, so that you try to exteriorize that kind of order and creativity.

Do you have any questions?

(“Yes. Tonight I just did it to do it,” Jane said. “I have sessions now at times when I wouldn’t have bothered to in the past. I was getting stuff from Seth before the session, but I haven’t the slightest idea of what he said in the session itself — I don’t remember anything. But it was good, huh?”)