“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” Turn this around and say, “Love yourself as you love your neighbor,” for often you will recognize the goodness in another and ignore it in yourself. Some people believe there is a great merit and holy virtue in what they think of as humility. Therefore to be proud of oneself seems a sin, and in that frame of reference true affirmation of the self is impossible. Genuine self-pride is the loving recognition of your own integrity and value. True humility is based upon this affectionate regard for yourself, plus the recognition that you live in a universe in which all other beings also possess this undeniable individuality and self-worth.

False humility tells you that you are nothing. It often hides a distorted, puffed-up, denied self-pride, because no man or woman can really accept a theory that denies personal self-worth.

Fake humility can cause you to tear down the value of others, because if you accept no worth in yourself you cannot see it in anyone else either. True self-pride allows you to perceive the integrity of your fellow human beings and permits you to help them use their strengths. Many people make a great show out of helping others, for example, encouraging them to lean upon them. They believe this to be a quite holy, virtuous enterprise. Instead they are keeping other people from recognizing and using their own strengths and abilities.

(9:40.) Regardless of what you have been told, there is no merit in self-sacrifice. For one thing it is impossible. The self grows and develops. It cannot be annihilated. Usually, self-sacrifice means throwing the “burden” of yourself upon someone else and making it their responsibility.

Nor was the idea of self-sacrifice then involved. The myth became more “real” than the physical event, which of course is the case in many so-called important historical events. But even the myth was distorted. God did not sacrifice his dearly beloved son by allowing that son to be physical. The Christ entity desired to be born in space and time, to straddle creaturehood in order to serve as a leader, and to translate certain truths in physical terms.

The man called Christ was not crucified. In the overall drama however it made little difference what was fact, in your terms, and what was not — for the greater reality transcends facts and creates them. You have free will. You could interpret the drama as you wished. It was given to you. Its great creative power still exists and you use it in your own way, even changing your own symbolism as your beliefs change. But the main idea is the affirmation that the physical being, the self that you know, is not annihilated with death. This comes through even in the distortions. The whole concept of God the Father, as given by Christ, was indeed a “new testament.” The male image of God was used because of the sex orientation of the times, but beyond this the Christ personality said, “…the kingdom of God is within (among) you” (Luke 17:21).

There are indeed lost gospels, written by men in other countries in that time, relating to Christ’s unknown life, to episodes not given in the Bible. These formed a quite separate framework of knowledge that could be accepted by people who had different beliefs than the Jews at that time. The messages were given in other terms, but again they reflected the affirmation of the self and its continued existence after physical death. Love was always stressed.