“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Your body consciousness is like the consciousness of any animal—alert, above all optimistic, focused in the present, as you understand it, glorifying in motion and in rest, in excitement and in quietude. The body seeks to use itself. The body consciousness enjoys its own expression.

Mitzi, running up and down the stairs (as she was doing even now, chasing her wadded-up paper ball), is an example of the love of excitement and activity with which both man and animals are innately endowed. Animals enjoy being petted, stroked, loved. They react in their own ways to suggestion to the tone of your voice, to your expectations of their behavior, to your treatment of them—and in that regard your body consciousness responds to your conscious treatment of it. For this analogy alone, meant to further develop your joint understanding of the relationship between your conscious mind and your body, we will make further points. Think of your body, for the purpose of this discussion, as a healthy animal. Think of the human animal, only let the word “animal” carry all of those beneficial colorations that you hold when you think of other species.

If you treated your body as well as you treated your animals—your pets —there would be little difficulty, relatively speaking. There is no need here to again outline the barrage of negative cultural beliefs with which indeed your civilization has an overabundance.

There is certainly no point either in belaboring the fact that you are still, individually and jointly, affected by some of them. Animals and your own body consciousness have little concept of age. (Pause.) In a fashion almost impossible to describe, their consciousnesses—the body’s and the animals’—are “young” in each moment of their existences. I must perhaps here clear up a point: I am taking it for granted that you understand that I am referring to the “mental attitude” of animals and of the body consciousness, for they both do possess their own mental attitudes—psychological colorations—and above all, emotional states.

You can learn much about your own body consciousness, and therefore to some extent about the natural man, by observing the behavior of your pets or other animals, and you can to some extent learn from their behavior, and therefore to some extent counteract any susceptibility to negative beliefs. I have given some material like this in the past—but on such occasions try to return to the moment, to the present. Perceive it as clearly as you can from the standpoint of the stimuli present before you. Mentally say “This is my present experience now.” Then, if you find yourself exaggerating any unpleasantness within that moment, and projecting it into the future, you stop and say “That is not a part of this present moment. In the terms of my bodily reality, those dire imaginings, whatever they are, are not real. My body can only respond to the present. I will not overload that present by borrowing trouble that in this moment has no reality” (all very emphatically). Such imaginings frighten the body consciousness, as you might frighten an animal.

In news watching—which does satisfy a natural need—you also run into a barrage of cultural beliefs and attitudes that are secondary. They are secondary in that they are interpretations placed upon events. The events come first. The body consciousness, watching the news, would think—if it thought as you do—“What activity, what commotion, what excitement (almost laughing), what a conglomeration of smells and sights, what a congregation of my fellows, running and chasing, rising and falling, even living and dying. What a sensual barrage of activity—and how juicy it all is, since, relatively speaking (underlined), I sit here in my cozy cave, gnawing my supper bone, peacefully, with a rug at my feet. My belly full and my bed nearby.” (All with gusto and emphasis.)

In any case, the body consciousness innately makes that distinction. It knows that it is related to those events, but it is also impeccably realistic in animal terms. If the skirmish is not at the front door or in the neighborhood, the animal consciousness simply watches all with a wary or amused mental attitude.

Any normal process or feeling of the body can then be magnified or dwelled upon until it seems to provide only further proof of the same fears—which are then projected into the future. Some few people in your world expect to work productively through their 90’s at hard work, and do so. Not because hard work keeps them alive and healthy, but because their beliefs do. They are kind to their bodies. They give their bodies (pause) credit for having an animal’s good sense, vitality and endurance. They do not think their bodies are out to get them.

Now Ruburt has managed to find a platform, lately, that has allowed him a good deal of freedom from his usual worries. This has allowed more body relaxation, and agility. In exercises his legs are indeed more flexible, his knees more agile, and relaxation of mind is the key, for it allows the body to express its own animal wisdom.

(As we went to bed Wednesday night, I told Jane that I thought the material on the body consciousness was excellent—the kind of thing we’d never heard before. It reminded me also of a comment Seth had made months—years—ago, to the effect that he had reams of material, untouched, on the body consciousness. I’d always been interested in asking him about that, had we the time.)