“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Yet in a way you each do the same thing, taking it for granted as a fact of existence that there is something wrong with each of you. You should have produced much more and much better art than you have. This seems to be a fact, so that you find yourself blaming yourself at times. There is definitely something wrong with Ruburt. Otherwise he would be walking properly. Ruburt would be walking properly if he did not believe there was something wrong with him.

It seldom occurs to you that you might be fulfilling your purposes quite beautifully despite all of your convictions—for they are indeed convictions—that you are not doing so, or that in some way or another each of you should be different in important ways than you are.

In the terms in which I am speaking here and tonight, it is a delusion to believe that you should be other than you are in any important manners. Against that delusion you have no recourse, for you cannot be different than you are.

When you hold such a conviction you are always convinced that something is wrong, and your belief brings about a condition which gives you justification for feeling that. Ruburt can say “Of course there is something wrong with me. Look at my condition.” But the condition began when he began to believe that he should be different than he is.

Your own chest feelings emerge when you feel you should be different than you are. We are not speaking of perfection, yet you are each perfectly yourselves. The feeling that there is something wrong then begins to become a strong significance in your lives. Without check, it begins to gain its own momentum, so that you become less and less aware of what is right, and more and more begin to focus looking for proof of your conviction.

Almost in every instance, when you are upset in any way, this is a reflection of your feeling that you should be different than you are—your conviction that you have gone wrong in an important area. That conviction closes off your understanding, so that your own rightness is not apparent, so that a vital dimension is lost, practically speaking.

Give us a moment.... The same applies to Ruburt’s condition, of course, for he constantly concentrates on what is still wrong. But the material that I have just given should hopefully show him that he has been putting the cart before the horse.