“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause.) If you are a “reformer,” a “reformer by nature,” then the Sumari characteristics, brought to the surface, could help you temper your seriousness with play and humor, and actually assist you in achieving your reforms far easier than otherwise. Each personality carries traces of other characteristics besides those of the family of consciousness to which he or she might belong. The creative aspects of the Sumari can be particularly useful if those aspects are encouraged in any personality, simply because their inventive nature throws light on all elements of experience.

(9:45.) Give us a moment … A young man was here last evening. He possesses great mastery of the guitar. As he played, it was obvious that any given composition “grew” from the first note, and had always been latent within it. An infinite number of other “alternate” compositions were also latent within the same note, however, but were not played last night. They were quite as legitimate as the compositions that were played. They were, in fact, inaudibly a part of each heard melody, and those unheard variations added silent structure and pacing to the physically actualized music.

Sometimes you act as though one ability contradicts another. You think “I cannot be a good parent and a sexual partner to my mate at the same time.” To those who feel this way a definite contradiction seems implied. A woman might feel that the qualities of a mother almost stand in opposition to those of an exuberant sex mate. A man might imagine that fatherhood meant providing an excellent home and income. He might think that “aggressiveness,”⁶ competition, and emotional aloofness were required to perform that role. These would be considered in opposition to the qualities of love, understanding, and emotional support “required” of a husband. In actuality, of course, no such contradictions apply. In the same way, however, you often seem to feel that your identity is dependent upon a certain highly specific role, until other qualities quite your own seem threatening. They almost seem to be unselflike.⁷

Now in music the pauses are as important as the sounds. In fact, they serve to highlight the sounds, to frame them. The sounds are significant because of their placement within the pauses or silences. So the portions of your psyche that you recognize as yourself are significant and intimate and real, because of the inner pauses or silences that are not actualized, but are a part of your greater being.

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.

To some extent you can actualize portions of your own unknown reality, and draw them into the experienced area of your life. There is an obvious relationship between one note and another in a musical composition. Now in terms of physical families and in larger terms of countries, there is a relationship between realities, which constantly change as the notes do. To some extent your reality is picked up by your contemporaries. They accept it or not according to the particular theme or focus of their lives.

(From its position on a bookcase some 10 feet away, the telephone began to ring — to faintly buzz, actually, since we’d turned down its bell before the session. Still, I was afraid the repetitious noise might bother Jane as she sat quietly in trance. Her eyes were closed.)

(Actually, she now had many channels open from Seth. It seemed that every topic we mentioned engendered another one. Seth even had “a bunch of stuff” available on Jane, myself, and music. This included data on my starting to take violin lessons when I was eight years old — an event I hadn’t thought of for what seemed to be decades [it took place in 1927], but which I was able to instantly recall as soon as Jane mentioned it.)