“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Today I showed Jane the finished version of my “ghost image” portrait of her as a male in another probability. The painting represented a new approach in art for me, and had caused me a good deal of puzzlement at first. I began it early in February. I won’t take the space to describe the series of mistaken efforts I went through in producing the work, except to say that finally I came to the rather simple conscious understanding that I was trying to paint a probable Jane. All at once, as I watched her delivering the 684th session on February 20, I saw strong resemblances between my painting and certain poses she repeatedly took while in trance.

(Then came Jane’s projection-probability experience involving her home town of Saratoga Springs; she described this episode in her notes preceding the 685th session, in Section 1, and Seth elaborated upon it considerably in the next session. The ghostly qualities in that event fit in with what I was trying to do in the painting: By leaving the thick gray and white underpainting of my “portrait” of “Jane” without color, I realized, I could express not only a probable interpretation of her, but the colorless qualities of the Saratoga experience itself. Once I made those conscious connections I was able to finish the painting very easily. I intend to do more work in this manner.

The CU’s, or units of consciousness,^l are literally in every place and time at once. They possess the greatest adaptability, and a profound “inborn” propensity for organization of all kinds. They act as individuals, and yet each carries within it a knowledge of all other kinds of activity that is happening in any other given unit or group of units.

As there are insides to apples, so think of the ordinary moment as an apple. In usual experience, you hold that apple in your hand, or eat it. Using this analogy, however, the apple itself (as the moment) would contain infinite variations of itself within itself. These CU’s therefore can operate even within time, as you understand it, in ways that are most difficult to explain. Time not only goes backward and forward, but inward and outward. I am still using your idea of time here to some degree. (Pause.) Later in this book I hope to lead you beyond it entirely. But in the terms in which I am speaking, it is the inward and outward directions of time that give you a universe that seems to be fairly permanent, and yet is also being created.

This inward and outward thrust allows for several important conditions that are necessary for the establishment of “relatively” separate, stable universe systems. Such a system may seem like a closed one² from any viewpoint within itself. Yet this inward and outward thrusting condition effectively sets up the boundaries and uniqueness of each universal system, while allowing for a constant give-and-take of energy among them.

(10:04.) No energy is ever lost. It may seem to disappear from one system, but if so, it will emerge in another. The inward and outward thrust that is not perceived is largely responsible for what you think of as ordinary consecutive time. (Pause.³) It is of the utmost and supreme importance, of course, that these CU’s are literally indestructible. They can take any form, organize themselves in any kind of time-behavior, hyphen, and seem to form a reality that is completely dependent upon its apparent form and structure. Yet, disappearing through one of the physicists’ black holes,⁴ for example, though structure and form would seem to be annihilated and time drastically altered, there would be an emergence at the other end, where the whole “package of a universe,” having been closed in the black hole, would be reopened.

There is the constant surge into your universe of new energy through infinite minute sources. The sources are the CU’s themselves. In their own way, and using an analogy, now, in certain respects at least the CU’s operate as minute but extremely potent black holes and white holes, as they are presently understood by your physicists. Give us a moment …

Now: This means that biologically the cell is aware of all of its probable variations, while in your time and structures it holds its unique position as a part, say, of any given organ in your body. (Pause.) In greater terms the cell is a huge physical universe, orbiting an invisible CU; and in your terms the CU will always be invisible — beyond the smallest phenomenon that you can perceive with any kind of instrument. To some extent, however, its act can be indirectly apprehended through its effect upon the phenomenon that you can perceive.

The experience of your species involves a certain kind of consciousness development, highly vital. (Pause.) This necessitated a certain kind of specialization, a certain “long-term” identification with form. Cellular structure maintains brilliant effectiveness in the body’s present reality, but knows itself free of it. Man’s particular kind of consciousness fiercely identified with the body. This was a necessity to focus energy toward physical manipulation. To some important extent the same applies to the animals. The cell might gladly “die,” but the specifically oriented man-and-animal consciousness would not so willingly let go.

Man’s consciousness, and to some extent that of the animals, is more specifically identified with form, however. In order to develop his own kind of individualized awareness, man had to consciously ignore for a while his own place within the structure of the earth. His experience of time would seem to be the experience of his identity. His consciousness would not seem to flow into his body before birth, and out of it after death. He would “forget” there was a time to die. He would forget that death meant new life. A natural message had to replace the old knowledge.

Give us a moment … In the body certain cells “kill” others, and in so doing the body’s living integrity is maintained. The cells do each other that service (with gestures). In the exterior world certain animals “kill” others. You had for centuries, then, speaking in your limited terms, a situation in which men and animals were both hunters and prey. In those misty eras⁷ — from your standpoint — these activities were carried on with the deepest, most sacred comprehension. Again, the slain animal knew that it would “later” look out through its slayer’s eyes⁸ — attaining a newer, different kind of consciousness. The man, the slayer, understood the great sense of harmony that existed even in the slaying, and knew that in turn the physical material of his body would be used by the earth to replenish the vegetable and animal kingdoms.

Even when you lost sight — as you knew you would — of those deep connections, they would continue to operate until, in its own way, man’s consciousness could rediscover the knowledge and put it to use — deliberately and willfully, thereby bringing that consciousness to flower. In your terms this would represent a great leap, for the egotistically aware individual would fully comprehend unconscious knowledge and act on his own, out of choice. He would become a conscious co-creator. Obviously, this has not as yet occurred.

The physical universe serves then as a threshold for probabilities, and all possible species find their greatest fulfillment within that system, each of them neurologically tuned into their own reality and their own “time.” So the body itself, as it presently exists, is innately equipped with other neurological responses that to you would seem to be biologically invisible. Nevertheless, your consciousness and your beliefs are what direct this neurological recognition. At birth, and before structured learning processes begin, you are far freer in that regard.

2. In general, given the nature of the CU’s — Seth’s postulated “basic” units of consciousness that make up all realities — closed systems cannot exist. From Session 581 in Chapter 20 of Seth Speaks: “Basically, however, no system is closed. Energy flows freely from one to another, or rather permeates each. It is only the camouflage [physical] structure that gives the impression of closed systems, and the law of inertia does not apply. It appears to be a reality only within your own framework and because of your limited focus.”