“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

So you look back through the historical past. All of the counterparts alive as contemporaries then form, together, a musical composition in what you think of as a present; and once that multidimensional song is struck then its past ripples out behind it, so to speak, and its future sings “ahead.” But the song is being created from its beginning and its end simultaneously. In this case, however, it is as if each note has its own consciousness and is free to change its portion of the melody. Yet all are in the same overall composition, in “time,” so that time itself serves as the scale (gesturing) in which the [musical] number is written — chosen as a matter of organization, focus, and framework.

(All very intent, leaning forward, eyes wide and dark:) In some manner, even a tragic composition of merit transcends tragedy itself. The composer was exultant in the midst of the deepest emotions of tragedy, or even of defeat. In such cases the tragedy itself is chosen as an emotional framework upon which the psyche plays. The framework is not thrust upon it, but indeed chosen precisely because of its own characteristics — even those of despondency, perhaps.

Tasting those qualities to the utmost, from that framework the psyche probes the fires of vitality and being as experienced from that specific viewpoint, and the despondency can be more alive than an unprobed, barely experienced joy. In the same manner, certain individuals can and do choose life experiences that involve great tragedies. Yet those tragic lives are used as a focus point that actually brings into experience, through comparison, the great vitality and thrust of being.

He picks, or she picks, victims as intuitively as the victim seeks out the slayer. On the other hand, Mary’s experiences in life may make her change her mind, so to speak, so that at 17 she encounters a severe illness instead, from which she victoriously recovers. Or she might narrowly miss being murdered when a bullet from the killer’s gun hits the person next to her. On an entirely different level and in a different way, she might have no such experiences but be a writer of murder mysteries, or a nurse in surgery. The particular variations that one person might play are endless. You cannot consciously begin to alter the framework of your life, however, unless you realize first of all that you form it. The melody is your own. It is not inevitable, nor is it the only tune that you can play.

(The phone stopped ringing — at last.) As contemporaries, counterparts choose a particular time framework. The time format alone makes certain focuses clear, that in your terms could not be made in another context. What you learn in your present about industry — “progress” — and the equitable sharing of the earth’s products, could only be learned in a context in which industrialism was experienced as going too far, where technology was seen and known as a growing jeopardy.