“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

No consciousness has the same experiences or interprets them the same, and so each individual utilizes reincarnational opportunities in his own way. Sex changes, for example, are necessary. Some individuals alternate their sex in each (succeeding) life. Others have a series of female lives and then a series of male lives, or vice versa, but the entire reincarnational framework must involve both sexual experiences.

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.

A chronically ill existence, for example, might also be a measure of discipline, enabling you to use deeper abilities that you ignored in a life of good health. The perfectly happy life for example, on the surface, may appear splendid, but it may also be basically shallow and do little to develop the personality.

Groups of individuals come together in various lives for certain purposes, separate, and may or may not come together again in a different time or place. Again, however, there is no rigid rule. Some families are literally reincarnations of their ancestors, but this is not the general case by any means. Deep relationships will continue in one way or another. Others will simply disappear.

The point I want to make is that the opportunity for development and knowledge is as present at this moment, in this life, as it will ever be. If you ignore day-by-day opportunities for development now, no one can force you to accept and utilize greater abilities after death, or between lives. The teachers are there in after-death experience, but there are also teachers here in your existence now.

Some families come together in a particular life not because of great attraction or love in a past existence, but for the opposite reason. Families may be composed, then, of individuals who disliked each other in the past and come together in a close relationship where they are to work together toward a common goal, learn to understand each other better, and work out problems in a different kind of context.

(9:48. Jane’s delivery had been fast but even so, she said, her trance hadn’t been as deep as it usually is. She had been bothered by the sounds of people walking back and forth in the hallway outside our apartment. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have noticed anything like this. Resume at 10:05.)

If you examine your own life now carefully, the challenges that you have set for yourself will become apparent. This is not easy to do, but it is within the grasp of each individual. If you release yourself from hatred, then you automatically release yourself from any such relationships in the future — or any experiences that are based upon hatred.

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.

(10:13. Once again Jane’s trance was broken when our cat, Willy, jumped up into her lap. Once more I put him in the closet while Jane gave me an “oh, well” look. Actually Willy doesn’t interrupt us very often; but now I made a mental note that after this we’d go back to our old routine, and put him in another room before session time. Willy used to react strongly to these sessions when they began in 1963. Resume at 10:15.)

(10:47 P.M. At last, Jane’s trance had improved. “I was just beginning to feel that I was getting into a deeper state,” she said. “At least I wasn’t aware of anything — but now it’s all over….”)