“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This applies—again, generally speaking—whether or not actual book dictation is involved. Difficulties arise, however, in book dictation on those occasions when he becomes too heavy-handed and worries about the responsibility of helping to solve the world’s problems—about his or my capacities in that regard, and when he considers the possible and various objections that any given subject matter might activate on the part of any given group of people. So if the area becomes too sensitive we let dictation go for a while. Sometimes I insert the particular material in your private sessions first of all, so that he becomes somewhat acclimated to it.

The only other times there is any such difficulty also involve responsibility when he concentrates upon his responsibility to hold the sessions—that is, when he focuses upon need, function, or utility as separate from other issues involved. Such feelings can then for a while override his natural inclinations and his natural enjoyment and his natural excitement with which he otherwise views our sessions.

It seems to him as if he would—if he were using all of his abilities as he should—be a public figure. He would also be far more capable of helping people solve their problems through some kind of therapeutic framework. (Pause.) He would see to it that as many persons as possible had the opportunity to see a session, and he would furthermore also be developing his own psychic experience at a far greater rate. Against that kind of image, he feels inferior.

(Pause.) You had some time ago an old newspaper article you had saved, on the dangers of using the words “should” or “would” too often—and there is perhaps nothing else you could do that is as detrimental to the true development of the natural self. Part of the difficulty in what Ruburt thinks of as the development of his abilities, or the more frequent insertion of inspirational work of his own, is the very fact that he feels so responsible to so thusly perform. All of these issues are highly important. The idea of responsibility, as described here, blocks creativity, hampers natural psychic and physical flow: “I should be doing thus and so.” “What do I like to do? What do I feel like doing? What makes me feel good?” Those questions are far more pertinent. When you want to do something truly there are usually few real impediments. Desire flows freely into action.

Ruburt’s own material of late is excellent, and will help enlarge the picture. It came spontaneously and clearly. His body has been attempting to relax. When he feels like so doing, then such activity or lack of it is precisely what is needed at the time, and he need not feel that he should be doing something else.

I will go into the question of Ruburt’s attitude toward me very shortly, as per your own question in a note. There is some application there, but the larger one applies to his own ideas of what someone in his position should (underlined) be doing, and the idealized image is partially a construct to which you also added details unwittingly in the past.

An organization is obviously not characteristic of two people who are very largely loners. Any kind of extensive public life cannot be reasonably expected from two people who value privacy to the extent that you both do. This does not mean, again, that black and white thinking is not involved. Ruburt has been straining to live up to an unreasonable image—sometimes with your unwitting assistance—an attempt that certainly has made him drag his feet, and one that is exhausting.

It is further inhibited if that sense of responsibility is wedded to solving the problems of the world or of correspondents, or when such an attempt is allowed to tinge any book sessions. I am not here referring to Mass Events, which was indeed directed toward the condition of the world, but to matters—whatever they may be—where Ruburt feels a responsibility on his part (underlined) for me to dictate specific material that might answer questions he thinks scientists or others might have in mind about any given subject matter; for I write from a different viewpoint, and our material is of course not to be dictated in any (pause)important way by the statement of your official knowledge at any given time. It is to rise beyond such categories. It is to present a larger thematic framework, which then can be used to put the world together in a different fashion for those who want to do so.