“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause at 11:15.) In many “native” cultures an individual is not considered in terms of his age at all, and the numbering of years is regarded as insignificant. In fact, a man may not know his age as you think of it. It would do you all good — young, middle-aged and old alike — to forget the number of your years, because in your culture so many beliefs are limiting in those ways. Youth is denied its wisdom and old age is denied its joy.

To pretend to ignore your age, to act young because you fear your age, is no answer. (See the 644th session in Chapter Eleven.) In your terms your point of reality and power is, once more, in your current experience. A realization of this would allow you at any age to draw upon qualities and knowledge that “existed” in your past or “will exist” in your future. Your ages are probable [simultaneous].

Although time does not basically exist as you “know” it, you are neurologically forced to perceive your life as a series of passing moments. As creatures you are born young and grow older. Yet the animals, as creatures, are not as limited in their experience in that regard. They have no beliefs in old age that automatically shut down their abilities; so left alone, while they do physically die as all creatures must in those terms, they do not deteriorate in the same way.

You do not understand the communications between your selves and pets, for example, where in their own way they interpret and react to your beliefs.¹ They mirror your ideas, then, and so become vulnerable as they would not be in their natural circumstances. In greater terms their relationship with you is natural, of course, but their innate realization that the creature’s point of power is in the present is to some degree undermined by their own receptivity and translation of your beliefs. A young kitten is treated differently than an older one. The cat responds to such conditioning. In the same way your own conclusions about age become fact in your experience. In line with them, if you could convince yourself that you were ten years younger, or ten years older, then it would be faithfully reflected in your personal environment.

(11:37. Seth rather suddenly launched into a page of data for me. It was about some limiting attitudes I had concerning painting and age; it was very perceptive, and I was somewhat surprised to realize that the ideas had been right there before me all along. The session ended at 11:45 p.m.