“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A man who makes a statue uses his conscious mind, his creative abilities, his physical body, and the inner resources of his own being.

Deliberately he decides to create a sculpture, and automatically focuses his energies in that direction. When you form the living sculpture of your body, which is far more important to you than any work of art, you should certainly follow the same course. In other words, direct your energies toward the creation of a healthy functioning body. You form your image constantly; as many of the artistic processes are hidden, so the inner mechanisms by which you create your material self lie beneath the surface of your conscious mind. They are highly effective, nevertheless.

(9:54.) Again, there can be a useful analogy in the field of art. While artists all use the same “material” — the human experience — it is still the brilliant uniqueness or individuality pointing out and riding upon that shared human performance that makes a work “great.” Afterward the critics may point out patterns, assign the work to a certain school, connect the images or symbols to those in other paintings — and then make the mistake of believing the symbols to be general, always apt, meaning the same thing wherever they are found. But all of this may have little to do with the artist’s interpretation of his own symbols, or with his personal experience, so he may wonder how the critics could read this into his work.

With dreams the same is true. No one really knows their meaning but yourself. If you read books in which you are told that a certain object always represents such and such, then you are like the artist who accepts the critic’s idea of the symbols in his own work. You will feel alienated from your dreams since you are trying to make them follow a pattern that is not yours.

As you come to understand the nature of your own beliefs, you can learn to use the dream state more effectively for your conscious purposes. It is one of the most efficient natural therapies, and the inner framework in which much of your physical body building actually takes place.

Obviously there are many ramifications here, and in your society your own belief systems must also be taken into consideration. If you do not believe in the natural healing processes you will simply block them. Your fear of not seeing a doctor then will only cause more damage. On the other hand, if you have faith in medical help, this alone will bring therapeutic benefit.

(10:49.) The same applies to mental conditions, which have a way, sometimes, of working themselves out better without your professional therapies than with them — often cures happen in spite of your best-intentioned treatment. One of the latest ideas is that certain mental conditions are caused by chemical imbalances. Supplying these does result in some improvement, but such inequalities do not cause any disease. Your beliefs about the nature of your own reality do. If medication of that sort improves the immediate situation, the inner problem of beliefs must still be worked out. Otherwise other illnesses will be substituted.

It is extremely difficult to work with yourself in the natural manner when you are surrounded everywhere by the belief that certain drugs, or foods, or doctors will provide the answers. So, in the barrage of mass ideas to the opposite, those who try to allow themselves the benefit of their own innate healing must usually face the stress of wondering whether or not they are right.

Unfortunately, the more you rely upon exterior methods the more it seems you must rely upon them, and the less you trust your own natural abilities. You will often become “allergic” to a drug simply because the body realizes that if the drug was accepted, all recourse to the solution of a particular problem would be cut off, or another more severe illness would result from the physical “cover-up” of the dilemma.

Now. (Pause.) Mental “diseases” often point out the nature of your beliefs as they agree or conflict with those held by others. Here the belief systems are different than those of society to such a degree that obvious effects show in terms of behavior. There are crisis points here as with many physical illnesses, and left alone an individual may well work through to his own solution.

Even with so-called mental disorders, however, orientation with the body is very important, as are the individual’s beliefs about his own form and its relationship with others and with time and space. (Pause.) There will often be chemical imbalances in such a situation, unconsciously produced by the individual, sometimes in order to allow him to work out a series of hallucinatory events. Such sustained “objectified dreaming” necessitates a change, chemically, from the normal state of waking consciousness. It is important to note that regardless of the mental or physical illness adopted, it is chosen for a reason, and is a natural method that the individual himself knows he is physically and mentally equipped to handle.

Personality differences then obviously have a great deal to do with the kind of illness adopted, or the “mars” you may inflict upon your own living sculpture.

It reflects the seasons of the earth and of the flesh. In what you think of as you, it mirrors one condition with great faithfulness and abandon. In old age it does the same thing. It shows you in flesh, both as you come into it and leave it, and here you see great variation. Many cease creating their bodies and die at a young age for a great variety of reasons, of course, but some die because they believe that old age is shameful and that only a young body can be beautiful.