“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Your friends and acquaintances will be concerned with the same problems, for you will draw to yourself those with the same concerns. I am telling you again, therefore, that many of your ideas of good and evil are highly distortive, and shadow all understanding you have of the nature of reality.

(9:45.) Now: From within your point of reference it is often difficult for you to perceive that all events work toward creativity, or to trust in the spontaneous creativity of your own natures. Within your system, to kill is obviously a moral crime, but to kill another in punishment only compounds the original error. Someone very well known who established a church — if you will, a civilization — once said, “Turn the other cheek if you are attacked.” The original meaning of that remark, however, should be understood. You should turn the other cheek because you realize that basically the attacker only attacks himself.

Now all of this can be applied to your relationships in your reincarnational existences, and of course it also is highly pertinent to your current daily experience. If you hate another person, that hate may bind you to him through as many lives as you allow the hate to consume you. You draw to yourself in this existence and in all others those qualities upon which you concentrate your attention. If you vividly concern yourself with the injustices you feel have been done you, then you attract more such experience, and if this goes on, then it will be mirrored in your next existence. It is true that in between lives there is “time” for understanding and contemplation.

It is useless then to say, “When this life is over I will look back upon my experience and mend my ways.” This is like a young man saying, “When I grow old and retire, I will use all those abilities that I am not now developing.” You are setting the stage for your “next” life now. The thoughts you think today will in one way or another become the fabric of your next existence. There are no magic words that will make you wise, that will fill you with understanding and compassion, that will expand your consciousness.

(Humorously): I do not keep you busy all the time, because you are such a good friend.

Let me try to throw some light upon what I am trying to tell you. First of all, love always involves freedom. If a man says he loves you and yet denies you your freedom, then you often hate him. Yet because of his words you do not feel justified in the emotion. This sort of emotional tangle itself can lead to continued entanglements through various lives.

If you hate evil, then beware of your conception of the word. Hate is restrictive. It narrows down your perception. It is indeed a dark glass that shadows all of your experience. You will find more and more to hate, and bring the hated elements into your own experience.

To die with hatred for any cause or people, or for any reason, is a great disadvantage. You have all kinds of opportunities now to recreate your personal experience in more beneficial ways, and to change your world.

Through all your lives you will interpret the reality that you see in your own way, and that way will have its effect upon you, and in turn upon others. The man who literally hates, immediately sets himself up in this fashion: He prejudges the nature of reality according to his own limited understanding.

What is needed is a basic trust in the nature of vitality, and faith that all elements of experience are used for a greater good, whether or not you can perceive the way in which “evil” is transmuted into creativity. What you love will also be a part of your experience in this life and others.

(11:25.) This is a matter of psychological feeling. Some individuals are more at ease, more assured, and more capable working with others in this case. You could consider an analogy in which John Doe follows his kindergarten class all the way through high school. In a reincarnational situation, he would always choose to return with associates. Others, however, would rather skip from school to school, appearing alone, relatively speaking, with greater freedom, more challenge, but without the comforting framework of security chosen by the others.

Now: Give me a moment here. (Pause.) First of all, as a species, in the context of normal usage, you have considered yourselves as apart from the rest of nature and consciousness.

Your own survival as a species was your main concern. You considered other species only in the light of their use to you. You did not have any true conception of the great sacredness of all consciousness, nor of your relationship within it. You were losing your grasp of that great truth.

Now: Some individuals are being reborn at this time simply to help you understand. They are forcing the issue, and forcing the crisis, for you still have time to change your ways. You are working on two main problems, but both involve the sacredness of the individual, and the individual’s relationship with others and with all physically oriented consciousness.