“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(9:40.) You have built up the idea of free time being wrong, sinful, no matter what you tell yourself about wanting more of it. That is one thing. Deeper, however, is the fact that the belief in an unsafe universe sets up certain habits of resistance, and more practically, of self-protection. The resistance is protective. It shows itself in fears that seem perfectly realistic, and indeed highly practical—the feeling itself is not let go of easily, for you and others rely upon it. It is a state of alarm and readiness. You are so used to feeling unsafe that you consider alarm of one kind or another as a realistic approach to life.

When you begin to realize that you do indeed live in a safe universe, these patterns of reaction begin to break up. To some extent however as they do you can feel weaponless, or unprotected. Then you read the newspaper and you see that New York City is in great financial difficulty. In a certain way this is almost reassuring, because it correlates with the old habitual belief system that says “Aha, yes, there is a threat. I was right all along.” Thus the older beliefs momentarily feel their old unity, and it is, again, realistic behavior to feel yourself also threatened.

The body is then pushed in different directions, with resulting strain. Before, you would accept that threat as realistic. The entire context of the unsafe universe protects itself by comments such as “It is too good to be true,” where any good is immediately suspect, while bad effects are considered quite natural.

This is highly important, because it means that you have been taught to accept, for example, bad conditions as appropriate and realistic, while immediately suspecting so-called good events. Waiting then for the ax to fall, so to speak.

(To me:) Your symptoms have been reassuring to the portion of you that habitually followed the old line of thinking. The reasoning falls thusly: “Everything is going well. The books are selling. Ruburt is definitely improving. With so much right, something must go wrong, or things would not go right,” meaning realistic. Beside this the dis-ease serves to protect you from the frightening “fear” that if everything goes well something must be wrong, because in an unsafe universe that is a belief. So you provide a “little” wrong to preserve the larger good.

In your world, however, and according to your beliefs, some “realistic” events had to prove out the practicality of the safe universe in publishing terms —so you have a creative conflict.

Now our books themselves released their own energy into your world. The ideas were and are needed. Their richness brings about the financial richness, which is as you know assured. It is not virtuous to remind yourself of the poverty of others. In the old line of thinking such a remark would be considered unfeeling. When you dwell upon, for example only, New York’s economic status, you keep the feeling of threat going. In realistic terms this applies to some extent to you and New York City as well. As inappropriate as this might sound, thoughts of your own fortunate financial situation help you increase that abundance—but it also helps to increase the abundance of others.

Worrying about taxes, again to whatever degree, is the same sort of thing. It is as if you can trust your abundance only if you can prove to yourselves that there is a threat connected with it, or say “After all, it is not all that good.” These are all examples, yet they point out habitual reactions that belong to the unsafe universe, that seem appropriate and realistic there.