“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There are, as you know, actions within actions, thrusts forward and backward, in and out and in all directions. And so in Ruburt’s manuscript there existed a vitality that of itself would bring about other actions, as indeed I foresaw.

We have here an excellent focus of energy, an excellent use of action, that of itself propels itself onward; I might say, somewhat sarcastically: Oh, ye of little faith. Nevertheless, that which is obvious to me is not obvious, often, to you, and it is not too difficult for me to see why at times you appear to be lacking in faith when such predictions are made.

Action does not always move in what you would consider a straight line. Because you view action in narrow terms, usually seeing it in physical terms only, you are inclined to think of it, or any effort, as a straight line from one point to another. This is hardly the case.

Any action that affects the physical individual also has its reality within many other fields, and its effects and its nature are felt within them. A manuscript, or indeed any art form, contains action and sets up its own climate, either of psychological acceptance or rejection. This climate is more than the result of the materials or subject matter or nature of which the work is composed. It goes without saying that such a work actually contains a portion of focused psychic energy, which is action, and which has its effects.

This again concerns the nature of action, and I will in our next session begin to discuss the emotions as they are related to, and part of, action. Ruburt’s momentary exhaustion this evening is a simple, natural result here of ordinary counterthrusts of emotional action and reaction.

It is most important, again, to realize that action does not move in a straight line. Action may have mass. It may not have mass in other instances. Action will never have one effect only. This is a rather important point. Whenever an action seems to have but one effect, then there is a lack in perceptive abilities.

Action within your field may appear to be affected by your time, but only that part of action which is physically materialized will be so affected. Action may appear to be at rest, but is never at rest, or stationary, or permanent. Action may appear to have a beginning and an ending but this is, again, an error of perception.

Action which is materialized within your plane appears within your field, and disappears from your field. This in no way affects the basic nature of action itself. That is, it does not change the basic laws of action. Action will change both within your physical field and outside your physical field. You are only aware of a small part of action, that portion which is materialized within your system.

You say that an action has begun when it enters your system. You say that an action is completed when it passes beyond your system. But the action, in those terms, began long before; and the action, in those terms, is never completed. Yet even the action as it occurs within your system is constantly changing in the ways which we have described, and this changing in itself implies infinities of beginnings and endings within action itself, with no ending, a real or permanent ending, and no beginning, a real beginning out of nothing. For each beginning carries within it action which has come before.

Again here, when I speak in terms of before and after, I speak only for your convenience, for there is no before or after, only all action within the spacious present, occurring out of itself, spontaneously, into all directions, and forming of itself all the infinite fields and systems of actuality.