“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A belief in heaven or hell, under certain conditions, can be equally disadvantageous. Some will refuse to accept the idea of further work, development, and challenge, believing instead that conventional heaven situations are the only possibility. For some time they may indeed inhabit such an environment, until they learn through their own experience that existence demands development, and that such a heaven would be sterile, boring, and indeed “deadly.”

Either state, however, puts off the time of choosing and the next existence. There is one point I would like to mention here: In all cases, the individual creates his experience. I say this again at the risk of repeating myself because this is a basic fact of all consciousness and existence. There are no special “places” or situations or conditions set apart after physical death in which any given personality must have experience.

(9:38.) The conditions connected with an act of suicide are also important, and the inner reality and realization of the individual. I mention this here because many philosophies teach that suicides are met by a sort of special, almost vindictive fate, and such is not the case. However, if a person kills himself, believing that the act will annihilate his consciousness forever, then this false idea may severely impede his progress, for it will be further intensified by guilt.

Again, teachers are available to explain the true situation. Various therapies are used. For example, the personality may be led back to the events prior to the decision. Then the personality is allowed to change the decision. An amnesia effect is induced, so that the suicide itself is forgotten. Only later is the individual informed of the act, when he is better able to face it and understand it.

Obviously, however, these conditions are also impediments to the time of choosing. It goes without saying that an obsession with earthly concerns also acts in the same manner. In such instances, often the personality will insist upon focusing his perceptive abilities and energies toward physical existence. This is a psychic refusal to accept the fact of death. The individual knows quite well that he is dead in your terms, but he refuses to complete the psychic separation.

The mechanics of transition therefore are highly variable, as the mechanics of physical life are highly variable. Many of the impediments that I have mentioned impede progress not only after death, but during your own physical existence. This should certainly be taken into consideration. An overly strong identification with the sexual characteristics can also hold back progress. If an individual considers identity strongly in terms of male or female identity, then such a person may refuse to accept the fact of the sexual changes that occur in reincarnational existences. This kind of sexual identification, however, also impedes personality development during physical life.

It may outrage your intellect, and the evidence of your physical senses may shout that it is untrue, yet a belief in good without a belief in evil is actually highly realistic, since in physical life it will keep your body healthier, keep you psychologically free of many fears and mental difficulties, and bring you a feeling of ease and spontaneity in which the development of your abilities can be better fulfilled. After death it will release you from the belief in demons and hell, and enforced punishment. You will be better prepared to understand the nature of reality as it is. I understand that the concept does indeed offend your intellect, and that your senses seem to deny it. Yet you should already realize that your senses tell you many things, which are not true; and I tell you that your physical senses perceive a reality that is a result of your beliefs.

At the time of choosing, therefore, the personality is already preparing itself to leave for another existence. In your terms of time this in-between period can last for centuries. It can last only a few years. Again, however, there are exceptions. There are cases in which a personality goes very quickly into another physical life, in perhaps a matter of hours. This is usually unfortunate, and is caused by an obsessive desire to return to physical life.

Such a quick return, however, can also be taken by a personality who is charged with a great purpose, who disregards or discards an old physical body, and is reborn almost immediately into a new one in order to finish an important and necessary project already begun.