“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I did want to answer Ruburt’s question as to the expanding universe, though we will not go into all the details now. Your camouflage idea of time is no help, and until you realize that time as you think of it does not exist in any real terms, then you will not be able to understand the true nature of your universe.

Their time measurements, based on camouflage to begin with, are almost riotously inadequate and bound to give distortive data, since the universe simply cannot be measured in these terms. The universe was not created at any particular time, but neither is it expanding into nowhere like an inflated balloon that grows forever larger, at least not along the lines now being considered. The expansion is an illusion, based among other things upon inadequate time measurements, upon the limited cause and effect theories; and yet in some manners the universe could be said to be expanding, but with entirely different connotations than are usually used.

This is much too difficult to go into deeply now. It might help you to reread the little material on mental enclosures. Expansion you see is a word that implies movement or enlargement in space, and space itself in the way the word is usually used, is a camouflage. Space, I have said, is the fifth dimension, but you have seen that this true space has little in common with the space that you usually think of. That is, fifth dimensional space is not an emptiness to be filled, being itself alive and vibrant, and changing its outer nature according to the plane which is composed of it.

Therefore the expanding universe implies a universe expanding in a more or less empty space, and this is not true. The phenomena that are given as evidence of this kind of expanding universe are the result of camouflage instruments, distortive ideas of time, and the resulting cause and effect theory.

If many of the inner senses behave as if your conception of time and space do not exist, then the obvious reason is of course that they do not. You are merely allowing yourself a momentary release from the limitations of camouflage ideas, and release of these ideas brings a corresponding release from the physical camouflage patterns themselves. There is a breaking through. Now this breaking through is a release of the inner self from the camouflage, and the resulting camouflage laws of any particular plane. The barriers to such experiences are mainly those set up by the ego. The sort of experience Ruburt had last night is one of the simplest along these lines.

For one thing levitation as such has little value. However the ego instantly stiffens its control when it feels that any physical law is being disobeyed, because the ego is concerned with your physical universe, and your existence upon your plane is definitely determined by your recognition and obedience to camouflage necessities.

These effects will be experienced as necessary distortive boundaries, in some cases resembling a flow as if a plane were surrounded by water, in some cases a charge as of electricity, but on each plane the resulting effects of this interchange, interaction and constant motion of energy will take on the camouflage of the particular plane.

Using the senses developed on a particular plane to perceive its characteristic camouflage patterns, it is almost impossible to see beyond these boundary effects. The inner senses are inherently equipped to do this, but for many reasons they do not. The appearance of an expanding universe is also caused therefore by this distortive boundary effect, resulting from the interaction of which I have just spoken. In some cases the distortive effect could be likened to the reflection of a solid tree in water.

I do want to add one note. The camouflage effect surrounding a plane, and apparent in your universe, can be measured. But it must be recognized first as a camouflage distortion, and then translations of the camouflage measurements must be made.