“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Since we have mentioned animals, let me say here that they do possess a kind of consciousness that does not allow them as many freedoms as your own. Yet at the same time, they are not hampered in its use by certain characteristics that often impede the practical potential of human consciousness.

Consciousness is a way of perceiving the various dimensions of reality. Consciousness as you know it is highly specialized. The physical senses allow you to perceive the three-dimensional world, and yet by their very nature they can inhibit the perception of other equally valid dimensions. Most of you identify with your daily physically oriented self. You would not think of identifying with one portion of your body and ignoring all other parts, and yet you are doing the same thing (smile) when you imagine that the egotistical self carries the burden of your identity.

I am telling you that you are not a cosmic bag of bones and flesh, thrown together through some mixture of chemicals and elements. I am telling you that your consciousness is not some fiery product, formed merely accidentally through the interworkings of chemical components.

You are not a forsaken offshoot of physical matter, nor is your consciousness meant to vanish like a puff of smoke. Instead, you form the physical body that you know at a deeply unconscious level with great discrimination, miraculous clarity, and intimate unconscious knowledge of each minute cell that composes it. This is not meant symbolically.

Now because your conscious mind, as you think of it, is not aware of these activities, you do not identify with this inner portion of yourselves. You prefer to identify with the part of you who watches television or cooks or works — the part you think knows what it is doing. But this seemingly unconscious portion of yourself is far more knowledgeable, and upon its smooth functioning your entire physical existence depends.

This portion is conscious, aware, alert. It is you, so focused in physical reality, who do not listen to its voice, who do not understand that it is the great psychological strength from which your physically oriented self springs.

All necessary information is given to you through these inner channels, and unbelievable inner activities take place before you can so much as lift a finger, flicker an eyelid, or read this sentence upon the page. This portion of your identity is quite natively clairvoyant and telepathic, so that you are warned of disasters before they occur, whether or not you consciously accept the message, and all communication takes place long before a word is spoken.

Since we are addressing individuals who do identify with the “normally conscious self,” I bring such matters up in this first chapter because I will be using the terms later in the book, and because I want to state the fact of multidimensional personality as soon as possible.

You cannot understand yourselves, and you cannot accept my independent existence, until you rid yourself of the notion that personality is a “here and now” attribute of consciousness. Now some of the things that I may say about physical reality in this book may startle you, but remember that I am viewing it from an entirely different standpoint.

I hope, quite frankly, to do far more than this. I hope to take you on a tour through the levels of reality that are available to you, and to guide you on a journey through the dimensions of your own psychological structure — to open up whole areas of your own consciousness of which you have been relatively unaware. I hope, therefore, not only to explain the multidimensional aspects of personality, but to give each reader some glimpse of that greater identity that is his own.

I can tell you, for example, that there is consciousness even within a nail, but few of my readers will take me seriously enough to stop in midsentence, and say good morning or good afternoon to the nearest nail they can find, stuck in a piece of wood.

Nevertheless, the atoms and molecules within the nail do possess their own kind of consciousness. The atoms and molecules that make up the pages of this book are also, within their own level, aware. Nothing exists — neither rock, mineral, plant, animal, or air — that is not filled with consciousness of its own kind. So you stand amid a constant vital commotion, a gestalt of aware energy, and you are yourselves physically composed of conscious cells that carry within themselves the realization of their own identity, that cooperate willingly to form the corporeal structure that is your physical body.

I am saying, of course, that there is no such thing as dead matter. There is no object that was not formed by consciousness, and each consciousness, regardless of its degree, rejoices in sensation and creativity. You cannot understand what you are unless you understand such matters.

For convenience’s sake, you close out the multitudinous inner communications that leap between the tiniest parts of your flesh, yet even as physical creatures, you are to some extent a portion of other consciousnesses. There are no limitations to the self. There are no limitations to its potentials. (Pause.) You can adopt artificial limitations through your own ignorance, however. You can identify, for example, with your outer ego alone, and cut yourself off from abilities that are a part of you. You can deny, but you cannot change, the facts. The personality is multidimensional, even though many people hide their heads, figuratively speaking, in the sand of three-dimensional existence and pretend there is nothing more.