“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Your own environment includes far more than you may have supposed. Earlier I referred to your environment in terms of the daily physical existence and surroundings with which you are currently connected. In actuality, you are aware of very little of your larger, more extensive environment. Consider your present self as an actor in a play; hardly a new analogy, but a suitable one. The scene is set in the twentieth century. You create the props, the settings, the themes; in fact you write, produce, and act in the entire production — you and every other individual who takes part.

But there are other plays going on simultaneously, in which you also have a part to play. These have their own scenery, their own props. They take place in different periods of time. One may be called “Life in the twelfth century A.D.” One may be called “Life in the eighteenth century,” or “in 500 B.C.,” or “in A.D. 3000.” You also create these plays and act in them. These settings also represent your environment, the environment that surrounds your entire personality.

Four o’clock in the afternoon is a very handy reference. You can say to a friend, “I will meet you at four o’clock at the corner,” or at a restaurant, for a drink or a chat or a meal, and your friend will know precisely where and when he will find you. This will happen despite the fact that four o’clock in the afternoon has no basic meaning, but is an agreed-upon designation — a gentlemen’s agreement, if you prefer. If you attend the theatre at nine o’clock in the evening, but the actions of the play take place within the morning hours, and the actors are shown eating breakfast, you accept the time as given within the theatre’s play. You also pretend that it is morning.

They all exist basically at one time. Those who are still involved in these highly complicated passion-play seminars called reincarnational existences, find it difficult to see beyond them. Some, resting between productions, as it were, try to communicate with those who are still taking part; but they themselves are merely in the wings, so to speak, and can only see so far.

You may smile and think to yourself that it is quite difficult to imagine a Roman senator addressing the multitudes through a microphone, for example; his children, watching his performance on television. But all of this is highly misleading. Progress does not exist in the terms that you consider it to, any more than time does.

(9:51. Jane left trance quickly. “Wow,” she said, “Seth’s going to have an awful lot to say about that — I can feel it up here.” She touched her forehead. “Every so often I get a huge sweep of something that I can’t put into words; do you know what I mean? But he’s going to break it down for us.

(“It’s funny,” she continued, “I didn’t feel particularly psychic tonight but the material’s good. That’s happened before, too. When there’s someone here that I don’t like, or they turn me off for some reason, then we won’t have a session — the material won’t come through. But I don’t need to feel psychic when we’re here alone; the material just comes through no matter what, and it’s always good.”

Periods of renaissance — spiritual, artistic, or psychic — occur because the intense inner focus of those involved in the drama are directed toward those ends. The challenge may be different in each play, but the great themes are beacons to all consciousness. They serve as models.

(10:17.) Progress has nothing to do with time, you see, but with psychic and spiritual focus. Each play is entirely different from any other. It is not correct, therefore, to suppose that your actions in this life are caused by a previous existence, or that you are being punished in this life for crimes in a past one. The lives are simultaneous.

It is learning the art of actualization. It has within it infinite sources of creativity, unlimited possibilities of development. But it has yet to learn the means of actualization, and must find within itself ways to bring into existence those untold creations that are within it.

In these periods he understands that he had his hand in the writing of the play, and he is freed from those assumptions that bind him while he is actively concerned with the drama’s activities. These periods, of course, coincide with your sleep states and dreaming conditions; but there are also other times when each actor sees quite clearly that he is surrounded by props, and when his vision suddenly pierces the seeming reality of the production.

(11:08.) To the extent, therefore, that you allow the intuitions and knowledge of the multidimensional self to flow through the conscious self, to that extent not only do you perform your role in the play more effectively, but also you add new energy, insights, and creativity to the entire dimension.

(11:24 P.M. Seth’s production of his book had come to be a natural part of the framework by now. He was also beginning to deviate somewhat from the outline he’d given in the 510th session on January 10, 1970, but we had expected this. Seth was on his own, Jane said. Many people knew about his book by now.