“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In your daily life at any given moment of your time, you have a multitudinous choice of actions, some trivial and some of utmost importance. You may, for example, sneeze or not sneeze, cough or not cough, walk to the window or the door, scratch your elbow, save a child from drowning, learn a lesson, commit suicide, harm another, or turn your cheek.

It seems to you that reality is composed of those actions that you choose to take. Those that you choose to deny are ignored. The road not taken then seems to be a non-act, yet every thought is actualized and every possibility explored. Physical reality is constructed from what seems to be a series of physical acts. Since this is the usual criterion of reality for you, then nonphysical acts usually escape your notice, discretion, and judgment.

(9:30.) Let us take an example. You are reading this book when the telephone rings. A friend wants you to meet him at five o’clock. You stand considering. In your mind you see yourself (A) saying no and staying home, (B) saying no and going somewhere else instead, or (C) saying yes and keeping the engagement. Now all of these possible actions have a reality at that point. They are all capable of being actualized in physical terms. Before you make your decision, each of these probable actions are equally valid. You choose one of these, and by your decision you make one event out of the three physical. This event is duly accepted as a portion of those serial happenings that compose your normal existence.

The other probable actions, however, are as valid as they ever were, though you have not chosen to actualize them physically. They are carried out as effectively as the one you chose to accept. If there was a strong emotional charge behind one of the rejected probable actions, it may even have greater validity as an act than the one you chose.

All actions are initially mental acts. This is the nature of reality. That sentence cannot be emphasized too thoroughly. All mental acts therefore are valid. They exist and cannot be negated.

(10:01.) From any given point of your existence, however, you can glimpse other probable realities, and sense the reverberations of probable actions beneath those physical decisions that you make. Some people have done this spontaneously, often in the dream state. Here the rigid assumptions of normal waking consciousness often fade, and you can find yourself performing those physically rejected activities, never realizing that you have peered into a probable existence of your own.

Go back to our man at the telephone, mentioned earlier. Let us say that he tells his friend he will not go. At the same time, if he imagines that he took another alternative and agreed on the engagement, then he might experience a sudden rift of dimensions. If he is lucky and the circumstances are good, he might suddenly feel the full validity of his acceptance as strongly as if he had chosen it physically. Before he realizes what is happening, he might actually feel himself leave his home and embark upon those probable actions that physically he has chosen not to perform.

Such an experiment will not carry you too far, however, and the probable self who has chosen the action that you denied, is in important respects quite different from the self that you know. Each mental act opens up a new dimension of actuality. In a manner of speaking, your slightest thought gives birth to worlds.