“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Affirmation means acceptance of your own miraculous complexity. It means saying “yes” to your own being. It means acquiescing to your reality as a spirit in flesh. Within the framework of your own complexity, you have the right to say “no” to certain situations, to express your desires, to communicate your feelings.

If you do so, then in the great flow and sweep of your eternal reality there will be an overall current of love and creativity that carries you. Affirmation is the acceptance of yourself in your present as the person that you are. Within that acceptance you may find qualities that you wish you did not have, or habits that annoy you. You must not expect to be “perfect.” As mentioned earlier, your ideas of perfection mean a state of fulfillment beyond which there is no future growth, and no such state exists. (See the 626th session in Chapter Five, for instance.)

“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.

(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.

A mother who says to her child, “I gave up my life for you,” is speaking nonsense. In basic terms such a mother believes, no matter what she says, that she did not have that much to give up, and the “giving up” gave her a life that she wanted.

(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.

By accepting yourself and joyfully being what you are, you fulfill your own abilities, and your simple presence can make others happy. You cannot hate yourself and love anyone else. It is impossible. You will instead project all the qualities you do not think you possess upon someone else, do them lip service, and hate the other individual for possessing them. Though you profess to love the other, you will try to undermine the very foundations of his or her being.

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.

(Intently:) Now: In those terms you are the power of God manifested. You are not powerless. To the contrary. Through your being the power of God is strengthened, for you are a portion of what He is. You are not simply an insignificant, innocuous clump of clay through which He decides to show Himself.

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.

Christ meant, “You form your own reality. Those who think thoughts of peace will find themselves safe from war and dissension. They will be untouched by it. They will escape, and indeed inherit the earth.”

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).

He affirmed the reality of the individual over any organization while still realizing that some system was necessary. His whole message was that the exterior world is the manifestation of the interior one, that the “kingdom of God” is made flesh.