“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You think that the self must begin or end someplace. There must be a fence around it, a yard of identity in which you can feel safe. I have said many times that there are no limitations to the self. You seem to be afraid that the self will bleed out and lose “itself” in a maze in which all identity is lost. Yet you recognize that your self is a far greater dimension than you usually suppose, so you speak in terms of reincarnation. This allows you to imagine greater realms of identity while still holding your concepts of selfhood intact. You think of being one self after another, each identity being neatly separated from the others by a passage of years, an obvious death and an obvious birth.

The idea of counterparts¹ somewhat shatters that old concept, yet you still want definitions for the self so that you know where you “stand.” You are so taken with the idea of labels that many follow astrology blindly. You are born at a certain time, at a certain place, under certain conditions — but consciousness always forms the conditions. If it is to some extent affected by those conditions, then, it is because the effects follow in the same way that a painter is affected by the landscape that he has himself created. So you decide to be born, say, in a certain month when the planets are thus-and-so. Ahead of time, you choose the seasons of your birth.

Once you free your consciousness from limited concepts of time and self, then you can begin to explore the unknown reality that is the unrecognized self.

(Very intently:) In the same manner, the self knows ahead of time the best conditions for its own development, in light of the time and the place of its chosen birth. It has, however, literally endless probabilities to choose from, to fulfill its abilities while maintaining a workable selfhood.⁶ Consciousness chooses the best overall conditions available for its own purposes of growth. It then preconditions its own organism to respond or not to respond to the time and place of birth, to exaggerate or minimize, to negate or accept.

The self is not limited. The true meaning of that statement may sometime dawn. The idea of one personhood still closes your eyes to the greater multipersonhood that is your true reality. Often your dreams give you a hint of this kind of existence.

6. See the 565th session as it’s continued in Chapter 16 of Seth Speaks. Seth talked about the myriad probable actions available to any self. After 10:19: “To the extent that you are open and receptive, you can benefit greatly by the various experiences of your probable selves … often what seems to you to be an inspiration is a thought experienced but not actualized on the part of another self … Ideas that you have entertained and not used may be picked up in this same manner by other probable you’s. Each of these probable selves considers itself the real you, of course, and to any one of them you would be the probable self; but through the inner senses each of you are aware of your part in this gestalt.”