“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Give us a moment … In your terms, the land changes through the ages. Mountains and islands arise, then disappear, to reemerge in new form. The oceans rise and fall also, and in some cases the floor of the ocean becomes the surface of the planet, only to be covered again by water. Yet through all of these changes the earth retains a landscape, and at any given time the features of the land are quite dependable and permanent enough for your purposes.

A mountain is composed of many layers of rock that serve, as you think of it, as its foundation. The top of the mountain represents the present to you, and the tiers of rock beneath stand for the past. The mountain itself is not any one of those rock layers that seemingly compose it, however. There is a relationship between the mountain and those strata but the term “mountain” is one that you have applied. In greater terms the mountain and all of its components exist at once, of course. You can examine the various levels of rock structure. Geologists can tell when, in terms of time, certain sedimentary deposits formed. The rocks themselves still exist in the geologists’ present time, or they could not make such an examination. The mountain would not be a mountain without that “foundation.” Again, however, it is not any one of those rock layers.

Now: In somewhat the same manner, the self that you know is the mountain, and the rock layers forming it are past lives.

You are not any of those past selves, even though they are a part of the history of your being. They are themselves in their own space and time. They exist simultaneously with your own life, even as the strata of rock exist simultaneously with the mountain.

Your present existence, however, is highly related to those other levels of selfhood. Now what happens at the top of the mountain affects all that goes on below, and so everything that you do affects those other realms of selfhood, and there is an interchange that occurs constantly. Physical conditions may be quite different in the valley, in the foothills of the mountain, and at its top. The very climate and vegetation may vary considerably, and yet all life and vegetation within the area are interrelated. Each layer of life that composes the mountain —

Yes … life that composes the mountain is equally valid and important, and each concentrates upon its own reality at its own level.

Like the mountain, therefore, you have a history in terms of the present that is yours, and yet not yours. It does not control you, for you alter it with each thought and action, even as each motion at the mountain’s top affects its base. The layers at the bottom, however, are also constantly changing, so that the whole area is a gestalt of relatedness.

(Pause.) When it rains, water rushes in great exuberant gushes down the sides of the mountain, bringing life and vitality to all of its parts. In somewhat the same way, your own experiences flow down and into the cracks and crevices of all the other times and centuries that compose your present lifetime.

(With a smile:) I have a surprise for you, however, for I have been speaking of you as the top of our mountain — for it certainly seems to you that you are at the top, so to speak. Instead, your vantage point and your focus is such that you cannot turn your head to look higher. Perhaps you are like a fine sunny cliff on the side of the mountain, jutting out, looking down to the valley beneath, not realizing that the mountain itself continues [up] beyond you. You are, then, in the position of any of the other levels “beneath,” many also thinking themselves the top of the mountain, looking only downward.

The past is obviously built into words in terms of time. When you speak a given word you may not know the history of its changes through the years, yet you speak it perfectly. You seldom realize that the present state of your language, whatever it is, will for others someday seem to be an archaic version. In whatever terms, again, you think of yourselves as being at the top of the mountain. In your terms, language presupposes a particular kind of development of mind, and when you think of language you tie the two together.