“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

Many men and women in the same fashion, who do not fit the conventional sexual frameworks, take stands in the same way. A man may decide he wants to be a homosexual because he cannot fit into the usual pattern. There is obviously, however, no contradiction between habits of subjective thought and creativity and the physical enjoyment of the body and its abilities.

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.

When you were both children, to some degree each of you felt that you were different because of your intense subjective activity—and to some extent, and different for both of you—you felt that you had to “fight for” the freedom to pursue subjective reality.

Since you are obviously able to enjoy physical activity at times, you chose to remain alone rather than “play with the others.” As you matured you each to some degree carried beliefs that physical activity and subjective activity were somehow, and to varying degrees, opposed to the other—one being accepted by society, and the other frowned upon.

(10:05.) I do not want to duplicate material. At one time, however, you briefly curtailed physical activity for what you considered the sake of your subjective freedom. You quickly dismissed that idea after a taste of it. Ruburt accepted that idea, believing he must make a choice. All of this, you see, must be considered in the light of our last session, for it involves varying degrees of self-disapproval and polarities of thought, so that the contradictions occurred in your experience—though there were more, of course, in basic terms.

When you were both working outside with jobs, out in the community, going to bars and dancing, seeing neighbors often and having parties, you disapproved of yourselves because you were not sufficiently subjective, isolated, et cetera.

This does not mean that you should begin shoveling walks tomorrow, with your attitude. There are classic, distorted stories of the weakly scholar as opposed to the hearty sportsman. To some extent the same applies to Ruburt. You are surrounded by propaganda saying that the body will not perform in a healthy, vigorous manner, if you indulge primarily in subjective activity—if you sit at your desk, for example.

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.

These ideas, with the last session, have to do with Ruburt’s partitioning of his spontaneity, for he also felt that you had to choose one way or the other, and that to protect your subjective freedom you had to inhibit the externally oriented spontaneity that was sanctioned by most of the society, because you could not do both. This is, again—and to some extent—on both your parts, black-and-white thinking.

You have fallen for the same conventionalized beliefs that they have, only you chose the subjective side. They were so afraid of subjective thought that they ran willy-nilly in the other direction, and they envy your choice—again, to some degree. In summer, you think you should do the lawn. You feel that conflicts with your subjective interests, and that the two are not compatible. You see Joe frantically mow his lawn. You are contemptuous—somewhat—and envious at the same time. The same applies to the snow, so you disapprove of yourself whether you have the grass or the snow taken care of—or whether you try to do it yourself.

This summer, you compared your way of life with those polarized ideas, with the way of life of the construction men, for example. The disapproval causes you to exaggerate the differences, rather than glorify them as you should —though glorify may be too strong a word. Ruburt’s physical condition becomes a materialization of those concepts, exaggerated, so that he is not able to go forth in the world, believing the polarity so great, with him and subjective activity having the disadvantage.

(11:09.) You believed to some degree—varying degrees, but jointly—that subjective activity and creative activity must be achieved at the expense of some physical expression. You obviously did not fall for that to the extent Ruburt did —and all of this must be considered also in the light of the religious and scientific views, with Ruburt particularly, in which the spontaneous self was considered the psychological villain of the society and the individual. The spontaneous self is the guardian—that is what Ruburt is learning.

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.