“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In a sense, to “give up all effort” is almost blasphemous in the light of predominating beliefs to the contrary. Eastern religions are the only ones that even remotely try to approach such a principle, and they do so in highly distorted fashions. Western religion and science promote the ideas of competition, effort, the emphasis upon the will, divorced from the imagination, so that to “give up all effort” can be read as an abdication of responsibility, an indication of laziness and sloth; or in fundamental Christian terms, the devil finds work for idle hands.

Parts of original Christianity did indeed speak of this “letting go of effort.” In a curious fashion, such letting go of effort might well result in an increased abundance of creativity, for example, but the mental and psychological set allows an individual to become more aware of the basic motivations of the personality, that show themselves quite clearly through the impulses, and through desires—particularly when they are not overlain by layers of “I must,” “I should,” or “I must do this or that.” Such thoughts cut down on both impulses and action, by setting up invisible barriers.