“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Both of us have been rereading Seth’s own resolutions for the New Year frequently, as given on January 1, 1979. Before tonight’s session Jane read over the questions I’ve written out, derived from my reading of the 367th session. We discussed them briefly. I could list many more, but probably won’t. I still don’t think Seth would want to spend much time discussing that old material in any detail, since he’s said many times that focusing on what was wrong in the past is negative and self-defeating.

Many needs were seemingly met by the physical condition. A lack of understanding is behind the issue, of course, but the spontaneous self was also taken into consideration, so that inner mobility—the acceleration of ideas and experience—was allowed for. Some dampers were put there also, but not because one part of the self conspired against another part. It was a give-and-take situation; protection being used where it was felt it was needed.

Ruburt’s codicils represented a point of intuitional understanding, but he has not caught up to them in practical living.

When you disapprove of yourselves, for example, again you rob yourselves of comforts meant to support you. The psychiatrist’s letter (Dr. Beahrs) represents but one communication, but many others read the material and use it, and do not write you, any more than you write to other authors. And again, a book may sell in the millions, and still go in one mental ear and out the other while our books literally do change lives—and to that extent the world—for the better.

A man who makes shoes may see his customers, but he will not know what roads his customers walk in his shoes—and you cannot know the mental and psychic changes for the better that the books are making in parents and their children. When you disapprove of yourselves, such factors escape you entirely, or become lost in other worries.

You must remember also that greater context in which you live. When you do this, you can indeed see the overall purpose of your life—but you cannot do so until you approve of yourself, and recognize that you as an individual are unique, and uniquely a part of all reality.

(9:48.) Give us a moment.... You must always remember that the self is not static, but a living gestalt of experience. It is best not to say, for example, “I have always been thus-and-so,” or whatever, and still better not to identify yourself with any characteristics that you deplore. Your purpose is in what you are, and when you do not approve of what you are, you cannot see it. You can then, as I have said, lose sight of your own grace, but you cannot fall out of grace.

To paint pictures or write books is only the topmost cover for a life’s purpose, for the paintings or the books contain the purpose, but are not the purpose itself. The meaning is within the paintings, but the paintings are not the meaning.

I have a suggestion, and it is that you mentally speak to what I will call “the basic creative self”—and remember, these are terms. That “self” is a portion of your being that creates all characteristics, and that can therefore help unify them. It is also the Framework 2 self, but the word “creative” is more potent for the two of you to use. It knows of its innate goodness.

Now these are psychological manipulations, but manipulations that work. You must also realize that I must deal with you as you think you are—that is, with both of you, and for that matter with the world at large. In my greater viewpoint I see your lives—many of them, and the emergence of overall patterns of achievement and challenge, and I hope that you will progress to your own visions of such realities—at least in dreams, for they will sustain you.

Ruburt is near a breakthrough, but that is all I will say on that.

The answer to that is simple. You both insist upon applying quite intellectual concepts to creative work, and ignoring Ruburt’s natural rhythms. He works in great bursts of activity, but instead of understanding this, and trusting the quiet periods and the creative self, he is up in arms. The creative self is playful and spontaneous. It follows his natural rhythms. The fear of not producing, however, can inhibit his productivity, and wear him out with worry.

(“He’s been trying to recall the identity of a certain individual in the dream, but can’t quite get it.”)