“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause.) It might help here if you imagine the psyche again as some multidimensional living television set. In what seems to be the small space of the screen many programs are going on, though you can tune in to only one at a time.

Now imagine that the picture on the television screen shows your own universe. Your idea of space travel would be to send a ship from one planet, earth, outward into the rest of space that you perceive on that “flat” screen. Even with your projected technology, this would involve great elements of time. Imagine here, now, that the screen’s picture is off-center to begin with, so that everything is distorted to some extent, and going out into space seems to be going backward into time.

Ruburt directed his will in certain areas. Your will is your intent. All of the power of your being is mobilized by your will, which makes its deductions according to your beliefs about reality. Each of you use your will in your own way. Each of you have your own way of dealing with challenges. Ruburt used his will to solve [a series of] challenges.

He was determined to find the kind of mate that would best suit him and his own unique characteristics. That intent was in his mind. When that challenge was met he used his will and mobilized all of his power to fulfill his abilities, and to bring about conditions in which he hoped Joseph (as Seth calls me) could also fulfill his. The will, again, operates according to the personality’s beliefs about reality, so its desires are sometimes tempered as those beliefs change. In his own way Ruburt always concentrated upon one challenge at a time — boring in, so to speak, and ignoring anything else that might distract him.

You [Joseph]] were determined to find the kind of relationship you have with Ruburt, the kind of bond your parents never had,¹² and you applied the power of your will in that direction. At the same time you were determined to set yourself apart from the world to some extent, while still maintaining and developing an emotional contact with a mate that would be unlike any in your earlier experience. Creativity would have to be involved. You were also intrigued, determined to travel into the nature of reality, and at least glimpse a vague picture of what it could be. In this probability you provided yourself with a background that included sports and the love of the body, knowing [those qualities] would sustain you.

One of your beliefs, then, was a strong joint one that you had to protect your energy at all costs, and block out worldly distractions. Ruburt with his practical mind interpreted this more literally than you did, and physical restriction was a part of his natural early environment [because of his mother’s chronic illness], as it was not in yours. But he is amazingly resilient … The power of his will is indeed awesome, and he is just now beginning to feel it. With that awareness, it can be used in a new physically oriented directive. The altered directive is all that is necessary. The rest will unconsciously follow…. The point of power is in the present;¹³ this kind of material and its understanding [by Ruburt and others] is more important than “past” causes.

Ruburt wanted to go in one particular direction, but with no clear-cut known ways of getting there. He wanted to pursue a course that was unconventional. He felt he needed protection while he learned, and until he attained enough wisdom.¹⁴ The search itself would lead to a completely different set of values and a new belief system.

You see about you others dealing with life’s challenges, following the old beliefs. They must see for themselves that those beliefs do not work.

The universe is with you and not against you. Your fellow men are with you and not against you. When [each of] you realize that, then you reach those portions of your fellows that are with you. You meet them at a different level that is illuminating to them also, and starts them developing…. The will’s power is impressive, and it is “distributed” throughout the body. The body depends upon it for direction. The will’s beliefs, again, activate the body’s automatic resources.