“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“But as I think the word is interpreted, I’m not a mystic. In usual terms the state implies a far greater compassion and goodness than I possess; an inner graciousness that I sense but rarely achieve; and a patience with people that I lack. A piousness that I dislike, too. These are the Christian versions; but a certain fanaticism often goes with them that I would find most distasteful. Some forms of Zen extoll the virtues of good rambunctious humor, which I favor, but then ideas of renunciation clutter up both Eastern and Western mystic philosophies, as far as I know …

Besides normal reasons, he was psychically inclined, at a time when Jane was young and herself close to a past life. She sensed his deep and personal inner awareness. It confused and haunted him, since his inarticulateness applied also to thoughts within himself. He felt strongly but could not explain. In his solitary nature he came close to being a mystic, but he was unable to relate his personality as Joseph Burdo with the social world at large, or even to other members of the family. There was a block, regrettably. He felt strongly his connection with the universe as a whole and with nature as he understood it. But to him, nature did not include his fellow human beings. The solitariness that besieged him — because it did besiege him — is dangerous to any personality unless it comes after identification with the human race.

(April, 1976. In this appendix I’ve put together some material on mysticism from Jane, Seth, and myself. I wrote the first tentative notes for it shortly after the 679th session was held, in February, 1974, with the idea of adding to them later if necessary. As events worked out, Seth was halfway through Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality before I realized that these supplementary notes would work well as the first appendix in the first volume. The notes may have their own kind of order, but unlike most appendix material aren’t presented in a chronological sequence. As in the Introductory Notes, I want to stress Jane’s role as the creative artist, disseminating her personal view of a larger inner reality, and her intuitive and conscious comprehension of at least some aspects of that reality; for such understanding can easily elude our Western-oriented, materialistic, technological outlook.

(I’m not interested in knocking our technology, however, but in pointing out coexisting inner factors that I’m sure are just as important. After all, our technology is responsible for the very existence of this physical book, thereby making it possible for Seth, Jane, and me to communicate with many others.

[...] But for a long time I’d been aware of other feelings connected with them. [...] But what of all the other paths our probable selves had embarked upon since those pictures had been taken? [...]

(Picking up the photo of me:) Not in this picture, but quite alive, was your brother Linden. [...] Finally you grew outside of the structure.¹⁰ When you did, you made the artificial division in which good art would not sell — but you would do it anyway.

[...] Very simply, probable realities flow from the multitudinous actions — or events — we may envision, but choose not to actualize physically. But any motion of ours remains quite valid once it’s conceived, and is carried out in all of its variations by probable selves in other realities. [...]

[...] Among them were the resolution of some old family relationships — and nowhere in this note am I talking about past lives or probable lives, but just the working out of hard questions rooted in this present physical reality. [...] But I also think that in many ways it would be her most illuminating work. [...]