“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Yet I think more is involved than choosing among the belief systems offered by Eastern or Western cultures, for instance — that is, in more basic terms each personality would make that kind of choice before physical birth, with the full understanding of the vast influence such a decision would have upon a life’s work. Obviously, in those terms of linear time, Jane and I each feel that we chose our present environments.

“What is this passion for nonbeing, this denial of sensual life, that drives so many gurus and self-proclaimed prophets? They speak out against desire while propelled by the overwhelming desire to lose themselves. They luxuriate in a kind of cosmic masturbation, titillating their psychic organisms into pitches of mindless excitement; cavorting in orgasms of self-surrender. They bask in a sort of universal steam bath that drives all impurities of individuality or creativity from their souls, leaving them immersed, supposedly forever, in a bliss beyond description; in which, indeed, their own experience disappears.

“Cherish the gifts of the gods. Don’t be so anxious to throw your individuality back into their faces, saying, ‘I’m sick to death of myself and of my individuality; it burdens me.’ Even one squirrel’s consciousness, suddenly thrown into the body of another of its kind, would feel a sense of loss, encounter a strangeness, and know in the sacredness of its being that something was wrong. Wear your individuality proudly. It is the badge of your godhood. You are a god living a life — being, desiring, creating. Through honoring yourself, you honor whatever it is God is, and become a conscious co-creator.”

2. From any of Seth’s books — let alone Jane’s — I could cite a number of comments that question much of the thinking behind different Eastern systems of religious thought. Seth, for example, in the 642nd session in Chapter 11 of Personal Reality: “You will not attain spirituality or even a happy life by denying the wisdom and experience of the flesh. You can learn more from watching the animals than you can from a guru or a minister — or from reading my book. But first you must divest yourself of the idea that your creaturehood is suspect. Your humanness did not emerge by refusing your animal heritage, but upon an extension of it.”

[...] If you dream of or yearn for a new house in physical life, for instance, it may take some time before that ideal is realized, even though such a strong intent will most certainly bring about its physical fulfillment. [...]

[...] You may find different customs and languages, yet even these will be accepted in the vast, overall, basic assumptions within whose boundaries physical life occurs. [...]