“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Because of the nature of your society, a large number of people cultivate what I will call an outside-attuned consciousness. Naturally, sensation and knowledge must of course come through enjoyment and use of the physical body, and through the data received from the physical environment, with which the body must necessarily react.

The outside-attuned consciousness, however, is almost dependent upon exterior stimuli for its sense of life and enjoyment. I do not want to oversimplify, yet such a type of consciousness is far more interested in exploring the nature of itself as it relates to exterior conditions or circumstances. It becomes, relatively now, opaque to subjective personal conditions, since it has no secure exterior framework against which the inner condition can be judged.

Primarily, such a consciousness knows itself, or tries to know itself, only in relationship to others or exterior conditions. It avoids introspection. No consciousness is purely tuned into outside conditions only, of course. This type, however, is a cultivated specialization of consciousness in which its nature is known through the impact of exterior rather than interior conditions. Generally speaking, and only generally, it represents the consciousness familiar to many in your society—most likely, the majority.

If you believe, however, that you must have one at the expense of the other, then you will always face a dilemma between exterior and subjective activity. Your friends the Gallaghers inhibit their subjective natures strongly, both of them (as I was speculating about the other day). They are indeed afraid of aging, and so press onward in more and more exterior activity, because they fear that age will show itself there first. They forget the nature of “youthful thoughts.” They believe there is a polarity, and they have chosen the other side.

You felt you could not merge the separate groups of attributes because they were diametrically opposed in your minds. Instead, of course, there are gradations of behavior, and patterns or rhythms in your lives that would naturally flow one into the other, released from the artificial polarities. The polarities are artificial, but there is no doubt that in your society and times the exterior-tuned consciousness is the most paramount. It, of course, by its nature, is not given to introspection, so it does not question its stance as deeply. So some of this disapproval has to do with your own attitudes about the attitudes of others as they view your lives.

Much of the propaganda is nearly invisible. It appears everywhere. The body and mind are one. Bates’s book, or rather philosophy, suggesting that the eyes were not made for reading, is an example of a different kind, implying that there were no books when the eye was created—and so therefore it is not natural for the eye to see letters—while it is natural for the eye to see, say, trees. The body adjusts its rhythms in a quite healthy manner to your activities, and without polarized habits of thought, periods of deep creativity will automatically be followed by periods of walking, natural exercise of one kind or another, in which subjective thought and body motion are synchronized.

By nature, leaders are not so much at odds with their world as they are ahead of it. The Bumbalos, for example, envy you, as do the Gallaghers, but they are afraid of subjective reality. They have taught their consciousnesses to conform.

The Gallaghers trust spontaneity only when it is expressed through physical motion. To some extent, again, Ruburt trusted it only when it was expressed through subjective motion. I suggested that you take walks, Joseph, some time ago, simply to rearouse your natural love of that activity.

Give us a moment.... You can see how Ruburt’s body responds when he suspends self-disapproval, and when he allies himself with his nature, and when you both suspend your sense of hopelessness in that area. If you continue as you are, you can indeed expect quite startling improvements—but you are not to compare, either of you, Ruburt’s condition with the Gallaghers’ skiing, anymore than they could compare their attempts at subjective journeying with Ruburt’s inner soaring. Avoid absolutes.

Ruburt stands taller—observably. He is using muscles in new ways. Gaining strength and vitality. Your body is already in excellent shape, in general terms—we are not speaking of athletes. It would need, naturally, some period of training if you were thinking of climbing mountains, or expected to ski down a good slope tomorrow—but it is well prepared for normal activity. Only your beliefs impede it—so work with those beliefs before you shovel the drive. It is the dilemma behind the whole thing that is important, the implied conflicts between subjective and objective activity. And the responsibilities you feel this entails.