“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Only a portion of your entire identity is “presently” familiar to you, as you know. Therefore, when you consider the question of a supreme being, you imagine a male personality with those abilities that you yourselves possess, with great emphasis upon qualities you admire. This imagined god has therefore changed throughout your centuries, mirroring man’s shifting ideas of himself.

God was seen as cruel and powerful when man believed that these were desirable characteristics, needed particularly in his battle for physical survival. He projected these upon his idea of a god because he envied them and feared them. You have cast your idea of god, therefore, in your own image.

In a reality that is inconceivably multidimensional, the old concepts of God are relatively meaningless. Even the term, a supreme being, is in itself distortive, for you naturally project the qualities of human nature upon it. If I told you that God was an idea, you would not understand what I meant, for you do not understand the dimensions in which an idea has its reality, or the energy that it can originate and propel. You do not believe in ideas in the same way that you believe in physical objects, so if I tell you that God is an idea, you will misinterpret this to mean that God is less than real — nebulous, without reality, without purpose, and without motive action.

Now your own physical image is the materialization of your idea of yourself within the properties of matter. Without the idea of yourself, your physical image would not be; yet often it is all you are aware of. The initial power and energy of that idea of yourself keeps your image alive. Ideas, then, are far more important than you realize. If you will try to accept the idea that your own existence is multidimensional, that you dwell within the medium of infinite probabilities, then you may catch a slight glimpse of the reality that is behind the word “god,” and you may understand why it is almost impossible to capture a true understanding of that concept in words.

For example: There was no beginning, and there will be no end, yet parables have been given telling you of beginnings and endings simply because with your distorted ideas of time, beginnings and endings seem to be inseparable, valid events. As you learn to turn the focus of your attention away from physical reality and therefore experience some slight evidence of other realities, your consciousness will cling to old ideas that make true explanations impossible for you to understand. Multidimensional awareness is available to you in your dreams, however, in some trance states, and often even beneath ordinary consciousness as you go about your day.

(9:46.) Your Christ figure represents, symbolically, your idea of God and his relationships. There were three separate individuals whose history blended, and they became known collectively as Christ — hence many discrepancies in your records. These were all males because at that time of your development, you would not have accepted a female counterpart.

(Long pause at 9:52.) The events as they are recorded, however, did not occur in history. The crucifixion of Christ was a psychic, but not a physical event. Ideas of almost unimaginable magnitude were played out.

The lessons were made plain, as all the ideas behind them were personified. If you will forgive the term, this was like a local morality play, put on in your corner of the universe. This does not mean it was less real than you previously supposed. In fact, the implications of what is said here should clearly hint at the more powerful aspects of godhood.

(10:12.) The same kinds of dramas in different ways have been given, and while the drama is always different, it is always the same. This does not mean that a Christ has appeared within each system of reality. It means that the idea of God has manifested within each system in a way that is comprehensible to the inhabitants.

(Pause at 10:41.) Other religions were based upon different dramas, in which ideas were acted out in a way that was comprehensible to various cultures. Unfortunately, the differences between the dramas often led to misunderstandings, and these were used as excuses for wars. These dramas are also privately worked out in the dream state. The God-personified figures first were introduced to man in the dream state, and the way then prepared.

God can only be experienced, and you experience him whether or not you realize it, through your own existence. He is not male or female, however, and I use the terms only for convenience’s sake. In the most inescapable truth, he is not human in your terms at all, nor in your terms is he a personality. Your ideas of personality are too limited to contain the multitudinous facets of his multidimensional existence.

(10:55.) On the other hand, he is human, in that he is a portion of each individual; and within the vastness of his experience he holds an “idea-shape” of himself as human, to which you can relate. He literally was made flesh to dwell among you, for he forms your flesh in that he is responsible for the energy that gives vitality and validity to your private multidimensional self, which in turn forms your image in accordance with your own ideas.