“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Being individualists, then, as I wrote in the Introductory Notes for Volume 1, we don’t concentrate upon whatever parallels exist between Seth’s concepts on the one hand and those of Eastern religious, philosophical, and mystical doctrines on the other; while we know of such similarities, we’re just as aware of how different from them Seth’s viewpoint can be, too. I added that even though we have no interest in putting down other approaches to inner reality, still we’re firm believers in the “inviolate nature of the individual consciousness, before, during, and after physical existence, in ordinary terms.”¹ So, here, we leave it up to the reader to make the intuitive and overt connections between Seth’s philosophy and the material Jane wrote today. The interested reader will also be able to compare her composition with certain passages in her long poem, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time, when that work is published in book form in September 1975.

“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.”

For ourselves, and even considering Seth’s concept of “camouflage” (in Volume 1, see Note 3 for Appendix 11), Jane and I certainly believe that our physical existences and mental experiences are quite “real” in themselves. We could easily take a book to present the reasons for our particular beliefs, examining them in connection with both Eastern and Western religious philosophies. A good general question, we think, and one we’d like to see discussed with our own ideas of the inviolate nature of the individual in mind, has to do with the prevalence of ordinary, daily, conscious-mind thinking and perception throughout much of the world. In historical terms this situation has always existed for the human species; and we think it applies almost equally in Eastern lands, especially among the political leaders and ruling classes within them.

Certainly the species must be putting its conscious activities to long-term use, however, even with the endless conflicts and questions that grow out of such behavior. During the many centuries of our remembered history, those conflicts in themselves have been — and are — surely serving at least one of consciousness’s overall purposes, within our limits of understanding: to know itself more fully in those particular, differentiated ways.