“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Let me give you a more concrete example that each of you can use in your own way. Suppose the worst, that in this life you have the following background: You are poor, you are of a minority race, you are not intellectual, you are a woman, you have a severe physical defect and you are no beauty. Now you set these challenges for yourself in a so-called past life. This does not mean that you cannot use all of your courage and resolution to solve these problems. You set them in the hope that you will solve them. You did not set them like millstones about your neck, hoping ahead of time that you would drown.

The personality is given the greatest gift of all; you get exactly what you want to get. You create from nothing the experience that is your own. If you do not like your experience, then look within yourself and change it. But realize also that you are responsible for your joys and triumphs, and that the energy to create any of these realities comes from the inner self. What you do with it is up to the individual personality.

Indeed. Remember, this is your entire identity of which we are speaking. It is only you who are presently aware of but one portion of it; and this portion you insist upon calling yourself. You are the self who makes these decisions.

Your main point of contention is brought about by the emotional barriers that are caused by the difference in terms. It is as if you choose to work for a day in the slums. It would be ridiculous for you to choose to do this, and then say to yourself, “Why did I choose to work in the slums? I would prefer to work on Fifth Avenue.” You know the reason, and your entire identity knows the reason. You hide it from the present self simply to insure the fact that the present reality is not a pretended one.

A rich man who tries to be poor for a day to learn what poverty is learns little, because he cannot forget the wealth that is available to him. Though he eats the same poor fare as the poor man, and lives in the same poor house for a day — or for a year or five years — he knows he has his mansion to return to. So you hide these things from yourself so that you can relate. You forget your home so that you can return to it enriched.