“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now. We will deal directly with the matter at hand. Yet we will also consider it in the light of some other material that may help you put it into perspective.

The idea of—not perfection, now, but excellence—is presented to consciousness in many ways and in many guises, and the ideal of excellence serves as an impetus for consciousness, an excellence of pattern. The pattern is used as a standard by the individual consciousness. Members of your species are at various stages, and if you ignore stereotypes, historical connotations, then you can see traces of all of the areas of man’s so-called past development now in the present, and also examples of future development. Because of your time concepts and beliefs, the examples from the future even in this exercise will not appear as clearly as those of the past.

There are many still waiting to be sparked, whose lives are, relatively now, unenriched by a mental and psychic environment that you two take for granted. There are those who do not even as yet “enjoy their creaturehood,” thinking it beneath them while still being unable to reach through and beyond it.

Now: I want to speak directly about Ruburt’s written statement of today.

Again, many have not been able to attain that kind of relationship even in which to work out problems. The methods that must now be changed, misguided as they were—and they were misguided—still worked for your benefits in large ways. They could have been far more disastrous. The situation is as you both saw it this evening (while reading Jane’s list), except that you did not see it in perspective.

When new “threats” arose, Ruburt reverted to the old pattern. (The new threats being the death of my mother; our freedom to travel, now that we have finished Personal Reality; the absence from home and the interruption of routine, etc., as we talked about tonight.) Reading our book however kept some improvements alive, and it was but a matter of time before he would read again the sessions of work that I gave him (as Jane did today). The beliefs for a while fell back into invisibility because he wanted them to, of course. Those particular sessions are highly important.

Now. Let’s return to the basis: the dedication to “work.” This in itself is good, but his idea of “work” was what limited him, and what is still limiting him. His life is his “work.” This includes his particular, unique, extraordinary abilities; but these spring out of his life, and even out of his relationship with you.

Now both of you have to some extent the false belief that you must protect your abilities against the world and its values, and distractions. You therefore place yourselves in a framework of threat in which your abilities must be cautiously presented, and yourselves in an environment against which you must take self-saving methods.

(A quick, and probably partial answer: I do not know how much I may have counted upon Jane’s symptoms in the past to furnish a private world in which I could work. If I ever felt this way it was quite hidden from myself. I do think that the point of no return there was passed some time ago—several years, in fact. Now I think that any such benefits as isolation cannot compare with the price paid to achieve such a state. How could watching my wife hobble along possibly be considered a fair price to pay for privacy? The time spent in performing such simple chores as limping down the stairs and out to the car, for example, is far more on a daily basis than any that would be spent chatting with a neighbor, or even visiting, etc. And above all, the symptoms are not worth it to achieve isolation, for ironically the resultant time to work has lost the one ingredient that is important above all: peace of mind in which to carry out the appointed tasks.)

Now: for you this question: what do you still get out of Ruburt’s symptoms?

(An added note: I now also realize that my not having an outside job helps Jane perpetuate her symptoms—the idea of “protecting” me against the world, etc. —see page 12. I’m very afraid now that my not “working” signifies my tacit approval, to her, of her course of action. I may have to get outside work to break this pattern—for break it I must, if only for the sake of my own feelings and reactions. I may even go so far as to sell paintings—but something will be done.

6. Now I feel I should be working at Aspects instead of poetry... I put up with that conflict and do poetry anyhow now and then; sloppy thinking in here and feel Tam won’t really go for poetry.

9. Yet R.’s work as painter may be greater than either of us know, so on the other hand I feel he should hang onto them, rather than scatter his work, put them in one large room—bedroom?—to show them off well and sell them at high prices; he doesn’t sell many now anyhow and his prices may reflect his ideas of art value in society. Is there a correlation between my conflict between poetry and book contracted for, and Rob’s attitude toward art and money?