“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Love does not demand sacrifice. Those who fear to affirm their own being also fear to let others live for themselves. You do not help your children by keeping them chained to you, but you do not help your aged parents either by encouraging their sense of helplessness. The ordinary sense of communication given you through your creaturehood, if spontaneously and honestly followed, would solve many of your problems. Only repressed communication leads to violence. The natural force of love is everywhere within you, and the normal methods of communication are always meant to bring you in greater contact with your fellow creatures.

(Pause.) Love yourselves and do yourselves just honor, and you will deal fairly with others. When you say “no,” or deny, you always do so because in your mind and feelings, a present situation, or a proposed one, falls far short of some ideal. The refusal is always in response to something that is considered, at least, to be a greater good. If you do not have too-rigid ideas of perfection, then ordinary denial serves a quite practical purpose. But never negate the present reality of yourself because you compare it to some idealized perfection.

Perfection is not being, for all being is in a state of becoming. This does not mean that all being is in a state of becoming perfect, but in a state of becoming more itself. All other emotions are based on love, and in one way or another they all relate to it, and all are methods of returning to it and expanding its capacities.

Now: Sometimes you may think that you hate mankind. You may consider people insane, the individual creatures with whom you share the planet. You may rail against what you think of as their stupid behavior, their bloodthirsty ways, and the inadequate and shortsighted methods that they use to solve their problems. All of this is based upon your idealized concept of what the race should be — your love for your fellow man, in other words. But your love can get lost if you concentrate upon those variations that are less than idyllic.

Many people who consider themselves truth seekers and spiritual are filled with it. They often use religious terms to express themselves. They will say, “I am nothing, but the spirit of God moves through me, and if I do any good it is because of God’s spirit and not my own,” or, “I have no ability of my own. Only the power of God has any ability.”

If you are a part of God then He is also a part of you, and in denying your own worth you end up denying His as well. (Pause.) I do not like to use the term “He,” meaning God, since All That Is is the origin of not only all sexes but of all realities, in some of which sex as you think of it does not exist.

With every translation the Bible has changed its meaning, being interpreted in the language of the times. Christ spoke in terms of good and bad spirits because these represented the people’s beliefs. (See the 647th session in Chapter Twelve for related material.) In their terms he showed them that “bad” spirits could be vanquished; but these were, then, symbols accepted as realities by the people — sometimes for quite “normal” diseases and human conditions.

(Long pause, eyes closed, at 10:55.) The very term, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19, Mark 12:31), was an ironic statement, for in that society no man loved his neighbor, but distrusted him heartily. Much of Christ’s humor has been lost, therefore.

Thoughts of peace, particularly in the middle of chaos, take great energy. People who can ignore the physical evidence of wars and purposely think thoughts of peace will triumph — but in your terminology the word “meek” has come to mean spineless, inadequate, lacking energy. In Christ’s time, the phrase about the meek inheriting the earth implied the energetic use of affirmation, of love and peace.

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 “substitute” was a personality seemingly deluded, but in his delusion he knew that each person is resurrected. He took it upon himself to become the symbol of this knowledge.

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).

(11:18. Jane remembered only that Seth had talked about Christ and given some Biblical quotations. She knows little about either — or about the Bible itself. As an example, she didn’t think “…the kingdom of God is within you” was from the Bible, but I located several versions of this saying by Jesus easily enough later: “For lo, the kingdom…”; “…for in fact…”; “For behold…”

(Many people have written or called us to ask about Seth’s unpublished data on Christ, Biblical events and times, but practically all such material has either been published verbatim or referred to. See Chapter Eighteen of The Seth Material besides Seth Speaks and this book.

(In a private session on September 3, Seth discussed some of the reasons behind Jerusalem’s unceasing fascination for certain segments of mankind. These included probabilities, geography, and unusual interactions involving the past, present and future. Some aspects of the Christ phenomenon were also explained. Then in the next session — which concerned other subjects — Seth unexpectedly added this aside: “You can have more material on Jerusalem or Christ now, or when you want it. You can have the Christ Book when you want it….” But we weren’t ready to embark upon such an endeavor at this time.

Christ was the symbol of man’s emerging consciousness, holding within himself the knowledge of man’s potential. His message was meant to be carried beyond the times, but this interpretation is often not made.

He “consorted” with prostitutes (Luke 7:33–50) and the poor, and his disciples were hardly men that would be called the city fathers. Yet, many who consider themselves religious people hold on to respectability most of all. Christ used the vernacular of the times and in his own way spoke out against dogmatic ideas, as well as temples that pretended to be repositories of holy knowledge but were instead concerned with money and prestige. (Mark 11:15–18). Yet many who consider themselves followers of Christ now turn against the outcasts that he himself considered brothers and sisters.

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.