“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

It is only when you dam them up that they appear to be opposed to the intellect, or overwhelming. It is of the utmost importance, however, that you understand the power and directing nature of your conscious mind, for otherwise you will believe yourself to be forever at the mercy of conditions and situations over which you feel you have no control.

Now I tell you: That intensification, appreciated and understood, and the experience of life and living, accepted unconditionally, can bring you in this lifetime another birth in which the doctor’s pronouncements are meaningless. Spiritually the death sentence given you is another chance at life, if you are freely able to accept life with all of its conditions and to feel its full dimensions, for that alone will rejuvenate your spiritual and physical self.

You felt before, unconsciously, that you were drifting and that life had little meaning. Beneath the surface of events you felt unfulfilled, and felt that you had great courage and abilities with never a chance to use them, and no “heroic” episodes then to rouse you to fuller understanding, and no real impetus to lift you or to bring excitement into your days. Unconsciously, therefore, you chose a situation in which a crisis was precipitated, rousing all the greatest elements of heart and soul, so that they must strain to understand, to perceive, to triumph. And so you shall, in whatever way is most important for you, and you will learn more and be more fulfilled than you would have been had those conditions not been initiated.

This does not mean that there were not other ways available that you could have chosen. You chose the set of conditions that you did because in past existences you were so terrified of death that you tried to hide its knowledge from yourself, and this time you placed it in the forefront of your attention.

Thus far I have rather frequently mentioned the state of grace (in the 636th session in Chapter Nine, for instance), because while it has many dimensions it is, practically speaking, the cause of your sense of well-being and accomplishment. It is a condition of your existence. Each of you may put the following in your own terms, but often it may seem as if your conscience tells you that you have “fallen out of grace,” and that some inner, mysterious, joyous sense of support no longer sustains you. Unfortunately, conscience as you think of it is an untrustworthy guide, speaking to you through the mouths of mothers and fathers, teachers and clergy — all perhaps from distant years, and each of whom had their own ideas of what was right and wrong for you and for humanity at large.