“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In some animals, for instance, the rising of such conscious memory is apparent, yet still highly limited, specialized. A dog may remember where he saw his master last, but without being able to summon the memory, and operating without the kind of mental associations that you use. His connections will be of a more biological nature and will not provide the leeway (pause), that your own mental conditions allow you.

The dog does not recall joyful appreciation of his own state of grace from a past, nor anticipate a recurrence in any future. With the large freedom provided by the conscious mind, however, man could stray from that great inner joy of being, forget it, disbelieve in it, or use his free will to deny its existence.

The splendid biological acceptance of life could not be thrust or forced upon his emerging consciousness, so to be effective, efficient, to emerge in the new focus of awareness, grace had to expand from the life of the tissue to that of the feelings, thoughts and mental processes. Grace became the handmaiden of natural guilt, then.

Man became aware of his state of grace when he lived within the dimensions of his consciousness as it was turned toward his new world of freedom. When he did not violate, he was aware of his own grace. When he violated, it fell back into cellular awareness, as with the animals, but he felt consciously cut off from it and denied.

Now: Artificial guilt is still highly creative in its way, an offshoot made in man’s image as his conscious mind began to consider and play upon the natural innocent guilt that originally implied no punishment.

Man is innately good. His conscious mind must be free, with its own will. He can, therefore, consider himself bad. He is the one who sets those standards in his own image.

The mind is also equipped to see its own beliefs, reflect upon them and evaluate their results, so using this tool as it was meant to be used would automatically help man in recognizing both his beliefs and their effects. Part of this great permissiveness has to do with the fact that man is to realize that he creates his own reality. Free will is a necessity. The leeway given allows him to materialize his ideas, meet them in physical experience, and evaluate for himself their particular kind of validity.

The animal moves, say, through a forest. You move through psychic, psychological and mental areas in the same way. Through his senses the animal gets messages from distant areas that he cannot directly perceive, and of which he is largely unaware. And so do you.