“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Let us take a particular feeling and follow it through as it might be expressed at various levels of consciousness. (Pause.) Begin with a feeling of joy. In normal consciousness, the immediate environment will be perceived in a far different manner than it would be, say, if an individual were in a state of depression. The feeling of joy changes the objects themselves, in that the perceiver sees them in a far brighter light. He creates the objects far more vividly and with greater clarity. In feedback fashion, the environment then seems to reinforce his joy.

(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.

(9:51.) The physical body all the while is greatly benefitted, because the beneficial feelings automatically renew and replenish its recuperative abilities. The feelings of joy now may lead to images of Christ, Buddha, or the prophets. These symbols are the changing scenes characteristic of consciousness at various stages. The experiences are to be considered as creations; creative acts all native to consciousness at various stages.

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.

(10:36.) Some such symbols stay with you for life. Some in periods of great change may also alter their character, bringing forth a certain feeling of disorientation as these unconsciously familiar symbols undergo transformation. The same sort of thing applies to your physical living. A dog may be a symbol to you of natural joy, for example, or of freedom. After seeing an accident in which a dog is killed, then dogs may mean something entirely different to you.