“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane was tired after supper, so I didn’t ask her about having a session. Then at about 9:00 a neighbor couldn’t get her door unlocked and asked us for help. By the time this episode was resolved Jane had come alert, and surprised me by saying she wanted to hold the session. She began speaking for Seth very quietly.)

No man or woman consciously knows for sure which day will be the last for him or her in this particular life, that each calls the present one. Mortality with its birth and death is the framework in which the soul, for now, is expressed in flesh. Birth and death contain between them the earthly experience that you perceive as happening within a given period of time, through various seasons, and involving unique perceptions within areas of space — encountered with other human beings, all to one extent or another sharing with you events caused by the intersection of the self and time and space.

Birth and death then have their function, intensifying and focusing your attention. Life seems more dear in your terms, corporeal terms, because of the existence of death. It seems, perhaps, easier to have no conscious idea of the year or time that death might occur. Unconsciously of course each man and woman knows, and yet hides the knowledge.

The experience that you wrote of was significant on several levels, and of course was meant to reassure you ahead of time because of the events you knew would occur. The experience was to inform you emotionally and spiritually of the great meaning of each individual, portray the lovely brilliance that is within each human being, and let you know that the integrity of the self and the soul exists beyond the possibility of annihilation, as you yourself will continue to exist regardless of which path you choose to take — dying within two years, or living physically on for many more. In other words, you will continue to exist and to be fulfilled within that love you sensed.

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.

It portrays the new consciousness seeing itself unique and separate, evolving from the tree of life and therefore able to examine its fruits, to see itself for the first time as different from others, like the serpent who crawled upon the surface of the earth. Man came forth as a creature of distinctions. In so doing he quite purposefully detached himself, in your terms now, from the body of his planet in a new way. A part of him very naturally yearned for that primeval (louder) knowing unknowingness that had to be abandoned, in which all things were given — no judgments or distinctions were necessary, and all responsibilities were biologically foreordained.

The refusal of particular foods, therefore, became a symbol for the avoidance of certain beliefs, so that for a while the beliefs were not faced while the foods were not eaten. This is done with many such methods on a consistent basis by people all the time. In your friend’s case, the realization that he can eat those foods means that he understands that he can encounter those beliefs in himself, as he is now beginning to do.

His rejection of the foods for this length of time persisted as a symbol that he was still not facing his beliefs. With each “triumph,” now — and there have been several with your help and Ruburt’s — he shows himself that beliefs and not food are important, and reinforces his independence and freedom.