“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(9:19.) Words are used to tell of an experience, but they obviously are not the experience that they attempt to describe. Your physical subjective experience is so involved with word thinking, however, that it is almost impossible for you to conceive of an experience that is not thought-word oriented.

Now, each event of which you are aware is already a translation of an inner event, a psychic or mental event that is perceived by the soul directly, but translated by the physically oriented portions of the self into physical sense terms.

It goes without saying then that the soul does not require a physical body for purposes of perception; that perception is not dependent upon physical senses; that experience continues whether or not you are in this life or another; and also that the soul’s basic methods of perception are also operating within you now even as you read this book. It also follows that your experience within the physical system is dependent upon a physical form and physical senses — again, because these interpret reality and translate it into physical data. It also follows that some hints of the soul’s direct experience can be gained by momentarily switching the physical senses off — by refusing to use them as perceptors, and falling back upon other methods. Now you do this to some extent in the dream state, but even then in many dreams you still tend to translate experience into hallucinatory physical terms. Most of the dreams that you recall are of this nature.

At certain depths of sleep, however, the soul’s perception operates relatively unhampered. You drink, so to speak, from the pure well of perception. You communicate with the depths of your own being, and the source of your creativity. These experiences, not being translated physically, do not remain in the morning. You do not remember them as dreams. Dreams, however, may later the same evening be formed from the information gained during what I will call the “depth experience.” These will not be exact or near translations of the experience, but rather of the nature of dream parables — an entirely different thing, you see.

(9:35.) Now this particular level of consciousness, occurring in the sleep state, has not been pinpointed by your scientists. During it, energy is generated that makes the dream state itself possible. It is true that dreams allow the physically oriented self to digest current experience, but it is also true that the experience is then returned to its initial components. It breaks apart, so to speak. Portions of it are retained as “past” physical sense data, but the whole experience returns to its initial direct state.

(Pause at 10:20.) Now in terms of psychology as you understand it, the soul could be considered as a prime identity that is in itself a gestalt of many other individual consciousnesses — an unlimited self that is yet able to express itself in many ways and forms and yet maintain its own identity, its own “I am-ness,” even while it is aware that its I am-ness may be part of another I am-ness. Now I am sure it may seem inconceivable to you, but the fact is that this I am-ness is retained even though it may, figuratively speaking, now merge with and travel through other such energy fields. There is, in other words, a give and take between souls or entities, and no end of possibilities, both of development and expansion. Again, the soul is not a closed system.

No psychological system is closed, no consciousness is closed, regardless of any appearances to the contrary within your own system. The soul is a traveler, as has been said so often; but it is also the creator of all experience, and of all destinations in your terms. It creates worlds as it goes, so to speak.

Consciousness is not basically built upon those precepts of good and evil that so presently concern you. By inference, neither is a soul. This does not mean that in your system, and in some others, these problems do not exist and that good is not preferable to the evil. It simply means that the soul knows that good and evil are but different manifestations of a far greater reality.

There are far more wonders to perceive through this inward exploration than you can possibly believe until you begin such a journey for yourself. You are a soul; you are a particular manifestation of a soul, and it is sheer nonsense to think that you must remain ignorant of the nature of your own being. You may not be able to put your knowledge clearly into words, but this will in no way negate the value or the validity of the experience that will be yours once you begin to look inward.

Now you may call this a spiritual or psychological or psychic exploration, as you prefer. You will not be trying to find your soul. In that respect there is nothing to find. It is not lost, and you are not lost. The words you use may make no difference, but your intent does indeed.