“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Seth had told us last time that he was near the end of the chapter, but we hadn’t realized of course that he was to finish it with a sentence or two in the next session. Nor did we know why he chose this method. It was as though the break between sessions didn’t exist for him.

(I meant to quiz him about this tonight, but regretfully never did so. Since Jane doesn’t look at the book, she is unable to remind me of such points unless I happen to discuss them with her, and I forgot to do that, too.)

(9:33.) A mental picture of a fire automatically tells you that another kind of consciousness is involved. A fire mentally seen that has warmth but does not burn destructively obviously means something else. All symbols are an attempt to express feelings, feelings that can never be expressed adequately through language. Symbols represent the infinite variations of feelings, and in various stages of consciousness these will appear in different terms, but they will always accompany you.

(9:41.) What he sees, however, is still physical, the objects of the material world. Pretend now that he begins to daydream and falls into a reverie. Into his inner mind come pictures or symbols of material objects, people or events, from perhaps the past as well as present and future imaginings, the joy now being expressed with greater freedom mentally, but with symbols.

The joy stretches out, so to speak, into the future, sheds also its light into the past, and may cover greater areas of expansion than could be shown in physical terms at that moment. Now imagine that our individual from his reverie falls either into a trance state or into a deep sleep. (Long pause.) He may see images that are highly symbolic to him of joy or exuberance. Logically there may be little connection between them, but intuitively the connections are clear. He now enters into his mental experiences far more deeply than in the reverie state, and may have a series of dream episodes in which he is able to express his joy and share it with others.

He is still dealing with physically oriented symbols, however. Now since we are using this discussion as a case in point we will continue to follow it even further. He may form images of dream cities or people that are of a very joyful nature, translate the emotion itself into whatever symbols are pertinent to him. An exuberance may be translated into images of playing animals, flying people, or animals or landscapes of great beauty. Again, the logical connections will be lacking, but the entire episode will be connected by this emotion.

It feels direct experience. If we use joy as our example, all mental symbols and images of it would finally disappear. They had emerged from it, and would fall away from it, not being the original experience, but by-products. The soul would then begin to explore the reality of this joy in terms that can hardly be explained, and in so doing would learn methods of perception, expression, and actualization that would have been utterly incomprehensible to it before.

(10:23.) You will use the idea of a body in most stages of consciousness. When you leave your physical body in any kind of out-of-body experience, you actually leave it in another that is only slightly less physical. This in turn is “later” discarded for one still less physical, but the idea of the form is so important a symbol that you carry it through all of your religious literature, and stories of hereafter.

At one point it will vanish with the other symbols. Now there was a time, speaking in your terms, before the making of symbols; a time so divorced from your idea of reality that only in the most protected areas of sleep does any memory of it ever return. It seems to you that without symbols there would be nonbeing, but this is a natural enough deduction since you are so symbol-oriented.

Those stages of consciousness that occur after death still all deal with symbols, though there is much greater freedom in their use, and greater understanding of their meaning. But in higher stages of consciousness, the symbols are no longer necessary, and creativity takes place completely without their use.

Obviously you cannot become aware of that stage of consciousness now, but you can keep track of the way symbols appear to you in both waking life and the dream state, and learn to connect them with the feelings they represent. You will learn that certain symbols will appear personally to you at various stages of consciousness, and these can serve as points of recognition in your own explorations. When Ruburt is about to leave his body from the dream state for example, he will often find himself in a strange house or apartment that offers opportunities for exploration.

This of course is obvious, but the same sort of symbol changing may occur within dreams. The dog’s accident may be a dream experience, for that matter, that then changes your conscious symbolic feeling toward dogs in the waking state. One person may symbolize fear as a demon, as an unfriendly animal, or even as some perfectly simple ordinarily harmless object; but if you know what your own symbols mean, then you can use the knowledge not only to interpret your dreams but also as signposts to the state of consciousness in which they usually occur.

These symbols will change, therefore, in various stages of consciousness. Again, the logical sequence is not present, but the intuitive creation will change the symbols much in the way that an artist might change his colors.

The nature of the symbol, therefore, can serve as an indication not only as to your environment but your state of consciousness within it. In normal dreaming within the context of an ordinary dream drama, the objects seem permanent enough to you. You take them for granted. You are still physically oriented. You project upon dream images the symbolism of your waking hours.

Actualization does not need to wait for hours or days. Experience is free from a time context. In this realm of consciousness an entire book may be written, or one’s life plans thoroughly scrutinized. Your present time is one of many dimensions that help form this particular stage of consciousness. Therefore your past, present and future exist within it, but only as portions of that interior environment. You have to learn your way about, for the states of consciousness and their environment stretch out in their own way as your world stretches out, say, in space. It is not difficult, however, to be aware of yourself in this stage through giving yourself proper suggestions before sleep. (Pause.) End of dictation. We have a good start….

(“So am I, Seth, but you know I was busy. Thank you and good night.”