“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

THE PRESENT IS THE POINT OF POWER.

The above is one of the most important sentences in this book in practical terms, and working within the framework of time as you understand it. As mentioned earlier (in the 653rd session in Chapter Fourteen), you actualize events from the present intersection of spirit and flesh, choosing them from probabilities according to your beliefs.

All of your physical, mental and spiritual abilities are focused together, then, in the brilliant concentration of “present” experience. You are not at the mercy of the past, or of previous convictions, unless you believe that you are. If you fully comprehend your power in the present, you will realize that action at that point also alters the past, its beliefs and your reactions.

In other words I am telling you that your present beliefs, in a manner of speaking, are like the directions given to the entire personality, simultaneously organizing and reorganizing past experience according to your current concepts of reality.

You are structuring your earlier life through the dissatisfactions of the present, and therefore reinforcing your problems.

It is as if you were reading a history book that was devoted only to the failures, cruelties and errors of the race, ignoring all of its accomplishments. Such practices can lead you to use your own “history” so that it gives a very distorted picture of who and what you are — a picture that then paints your present circumstances.

(Pause at 9:21.) Those given to such practices — constant examination of the past in order to discover what is wrong in the present — too often miss the point. Instead, they constantly reinforce the negative experience from which they are trying to escape. Their initial problems were caused precisely as a result of the same kind of thinking. A great many unsatisfactory conditions result because individuals become frightened at various periods in their lives, doubt themselves, and begin to concentrate upon “negative” aspects.

If he journeyed through his memories trying to find a different kind of proof instead, then in that same past he would discover instances when he did relate well with others. Your present beliefs structure the memories which will parade before you now — and what you remember will then seem to justify the beliefs.

In almost all cases of present limitation, there is one main theme in that particular area: The individual has schooled himself or herself to stress “negative” aspects, for whatever reasons.

You have been taught that you are at the mercy of previous events, so your idea of looking for the source of personal difficulty is to examine the past, but — to find what you did wrong there, or what mistakes occurred there, or what inadequate interpretations were made there! Again, regardless of what you have been taught, the point of power is in the present; and again, your present beliefs will be used to structure your recollections.

Those memories will be used to reach any conclusion, as statistics can be used, for example. Along the way you may settle for a given remembered event or two, and assign to them the reasons for your present behavior. If so, you are already prepared to change your current beliefs and mode of action, and simply use the occurrences or habits of the past as a stimulus or motivation. (See the 616th session in Chapter Two.)

The question, “What is wrong with me?” will only lead you to create further limitations, and to reinforce those that you do have, through exaggerating such activities in the present and projecting them into the future.

Which you? Which world? These questions are to be answered in the “now,” as you understand it, through the realization that your power of action is in the present and not in the past. Your only effective point of changing any aspect of your world lies in that miraculous instant connection of spirit and self through neurological impact.

(“No.” Pause at 9:56. Then, intensely:) To rid yourself of annoying restrictions then, my dear friend, you repattern your past from the present. Whatever your circumstances, you use the past as a rich source, looking through it for your successes, restructuring it. When you search it looking for what is wrong, then you become blind to what was right, in those terms, so that the past only mirrors the shortcomings that now face you.

You are not at the mercy of past beliefs, therefore. On the other hand, the sooner you begin to act upon new ones the better. Otherwise you are not trusting them in the present. If you are poor and want to have more money, and try to maintain a belief in abundance — while still faced with the fact of present poverty — you must in your reality make some symbolic move that shows you are willing to accept a change.

You perform habitually in certain manners as a result of your beliefs. Now if you willfully change some of those habits then you are also getting the message across. The initiative must come from you, and in the present. In a very real manner of speaking, this means changing your viewpoint, that particular perspective with which you view your past and present and imagine your future.

You must look within yourself for evidences of what you want in terms of positive experience. Examine your past with that in mind. Imagine your future from the power point of the present. In such a way at least you are not using the past to reinforce your limitations, or projecting them into the future. It is only natural to contrast what you want with what you have, and it is very easy to become discouraged in so doing, but looking for errors in the past will not help you. A correctly utilized five-minute period of time can be of great benefit, however. In this period concentrate upon the fact that the point of power is now. Feel and dwell upon the certainty that your emotional, spiritual and psychic abilities are focused through the flesh, and for five minutes only direct all of your attention toward what you want. Use visualization or verbal thought — whatever comes most naturally to you; but for that period do not concentrate upon any lacks, just upon your desire.

In health terms, it involves conducting yourself once a day as though you were not sick in whatever way given you. But the belief in the present, reinforced for five minutes, plus such a physical action, will sometimes bring literally awesome results.

Those of you who believe in reincarnation in more or less conventional terms, can make the error of using or blaming “past” lives, organizing them through your current beliefs. It is bad enough to believe that you are at the mercy of one past, but to consider yourself helpless before innumerable previous errors from other lives puts you in an impossible situation; the conscious will is robbed of its power to act. Such lives exist simultaneously. They are other expressions of yourself, interacting, but with each conscious self possessing the point of power in its own present.

(10:45.) It is for this reason that “past-life information” is so often used to reinforce current personal social situations — because, like the past in this life, such memories are constructed through present belief.

The truth as far as it can be stated is this: YOU FORM YOUR REALITY NOW, in capital letters, through the intersection of soul in flesh, and in your terms the present is your point of power.

In a way that will be explained in another book for those interested in such matters, there is a kind of coincidence with all of these present points of power that exist between you and your “reincarnational” selves. There are even biological connections in terms of cellular “memory.” (See the 653rd session in Chapter Thirteen.) So through your current beliefs you can, in your own space and time, attract tendencies toward certain experiences shared by these others. There is a constant interaction in this multidimensional point of power, therefore, so that in your terms one incarnated self draws from all of the others what abilities it wants, according to its own specific, localized beliefs.

In quite real personal and racial terms, the past is still happening. You create it from your present according to your beliefs. A removed appendix will not reappear physically. There are certain frameworks that are accepted, built into your creaturehood. There is far greater freedom, however, even on the cellular level.