“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

For example: You were pleased, Joseph, with the portrait you did and showed Ruburt, remarking, however, that you wished you had done such work earlier, and on other occasions you have made similar remarks. You will compare your own life and work often in a critical fashion to artists who were obsessed with one art from the beginning of their lives, or who pursued what is really a kind of straight and undeviating course—a brave courageous one, perhaps, and highly focused, but one that must be in certain respects (underlined) limited in scope and complexity, not crossing any barriers except those that seem to occur strictly within painting’s realm itself (all intently.

(Pause at 9:35.) Such ideas, then, prevent you from enjoying your own accomplishments, as you should more properly do, and from enjoying their growth through time, from the background that was your own. The same applies to Ruburt.

Both of your minds are doing more than fulfilling their promises: they are being used to excellent capacity. Your emotional understanding has also deepened greatly through the years. This applies to both of you. Ruburt does beautifully with people, individually and with groups—particularly for someone who is (underlined) largely so given to solitary work.

All of these issues are important. You should always address yourself to the natural person, and when Ruburt becomes confused about images, it is because he is relating himself to other composite versions that he thinks he should live up to.

(Long pause at 9:48.) Give us a moment.... (Long pause.) The strain of trying to live up to such images causes tension, of course. It also causes feelings of self-disapproval, where a constant reminder of one’s background puts current situations at least into perspective. Now Ruburt’s body is trying to rid itself of those tensions, and he is learning to let go of them, and with your help, which lately has been considerable.

This is all apart from the considerable accomplishment of holding your own in the society while doing your own things, and in achieving a good deal of freedom in that regard. Your psychological growth is not something you can look at in the mirror, yet it is that growth that is also responsible for your painting and writing Ruburt’s books and his connections with me. In a fashion Ruburt’s symptoms are caused because he tries to understand his abilities and his life in a too-limited context, with definitions still too narrow. We are trying to broaden those definitions.