“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In each life you are meant to check the exterior environment in order to learn your inner condition. The outer is a reflection of the inner.

You are meant to understand the nature of your inner self, and to manifest it outward. As this is done, the exterior circumstances should change for the better as the inner self becomes more aware of its own nature and capabilities. Theoretically, then, in each life you would become stronger, healthier, wealthier, and wiser, but it does not work that way, for many reasons. As mentioned earlier, many personalities adopt different kinds of experiences, focusing upon development in certain specific areas, and ignoring others perhaps for a series of lives.

(9:25.) This realization, however, should go hand in hand with a deep intuitional knowledge of the capabilities of the inner self. These two factors together can release you from any difficulties that have arisen in past lives. The entire structure of your existence will begin to change with these realizations, and an acceleration of spiritual and psychic growth will develop.

There is an inner logic to your current relationships, attitudes, and experiences. If in one life, for example, you hated women, you may very well be a woman in the next life. Only in this way, you see, would you be able to relate to the experience of womanhood, and then as a woman face those attitudes that you yourself had against women in the past.

If you had no sympathy for the sick, you may then be born with a serious disease, again now self-chosen, and find yourself encountering those attitudes that once were your own. Such an existence would usually also include other issues, however. No existence is chosen for one reason only, but would also serve many other psychological experiences.

Jointly, each generation has its own purpose. It is this — to perfect inner knowledge, and to materialize it as faithfully as possible outward into the world. The changing physical scene throughout the centuries, as you know them, represents the inner images that have flickered through the minds of the individuals who lived within the world through the various ages.

Knowing your reincarnational background, but not knowing the true nature of your present self, is useless. You cannot justify or rationalize present circumstances by saying, “This is because of something I did in a past life,” for within yourself now is the ability to change negative influences. You may have brought negative influences into your life for a given reason, but the reason always has to do with understanding, and understanding removes those influences.

Each individual is not at the same level of achievement even at the end of the reincarnational cycle. Some possess certain qualities that do not find a counterpart within human experience. Physical existence itself has a different effect upon various individuals. Some find it an excellent medium of expression and development. They are suited to it. They have the knack for expressing themselves in physical ways and objectifying inner feelings faithfully. Others find this difficult, and yet these same individuals may do much better in other levels of reality.

Others of a more placid nature will take their problems one at a time. Rest periods may also be taken, and they are highly therapeutic. For example, an excellent, satisfying life with a minimum of problems may be chosen either as a prelude to a life of concentrated challenge or as a self-adopted reward for a previous difficult life. Those that thoroughly enjoy the physical medium, without being obsessed by it, however, do very well indeed. The “laws” of reincarnation are adapted by the individual personalities to suit themselves.