“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Today we read a long treatise on the “truths” advocated by “holy men” associated with various Eastern religious philosophies — Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and so forth. Jane’s quick and impassioned response through her own writing, as presented below, reflects feelings deeply rooted within her mystical nature, and also illuminates important aspects of the body and direction of the Seth material as a whole. Given those points, she’s bound to have differences of belief with other views of reality.

(Being individualists, then, as I wrote in the Introductory Notes for Volume 1, we don’t concentrate upon whatever parallels exist between Seth’s concepts on the one hand and those of Eastern religious, philosophical, and mystical doctrines on the other; while we know of such similarities, we’re just as aware of how different from them Seth’s viewpoint can be, too. I added that even though we have no interest in putting down other approaches to inner reality, still we’re firm believers in the “inviolate nature of the individual consciousness, before, during, and after physical existence, in ordinary terms.”¹ So, here, we leave it up to the reader to make the intuitive and overt connections between Seth’s philosophy and the material Jane wrote today. The interested reader will also be able to compare her composition with certain passages in her long poem, Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time, when that work is published in book form in September 1975.

For ourselves, and even considering Seth’s concept of “camouflage” (in Volume 1, see Note 3 for Appendix 11), Jane and I certainly believe that our physical existences and mental experiences are quite “real” in themselves. We could easily take a book to present the reasons for our particular beliefs, examining them in connection with both Eastern and Western religious philosophies. A good general question, we think, and one we’d like to see discussed with our own ideas of the inviolate nature of the individual in mind, has to do with the prevalence of ordinary, daily, conscious-mind thinking and perception throughout much of the world. In historical terms this situation has always existed for the human species; and we think it applies almost equally in Eastern lands, especially among the political leaders and ruling classes within them.

Yet Buddhist belief, for instance, maintains that our perception of the world is not fundamental, but an illusion; our “ignorance” of this basic undifferentiated “suchness” then results in the division of reality into objects and ideas. But why call our generalized awareness an illusion, instead of regarding it as one of the innumerable manifestations that reality takes? No one is free of certain minimum physical needs or of self-oriented thought, I remarked to Jane recently, and each nation strives to expand its technological base no matter what its philosophy may be. Would a widespread use of Eastern religious doctrines be more practical on our earth today, or the kind of self-knowledge Seth advocates? Even given their undeniable accomplishments, why didn’t the Eastern countries create ages ago the immortal societies that could have served as models for those of the West to emulate — cultures and/or nations in which all the mundane human vicissitudes (in those terms) had been long understood and abolished: war, crime, poverty, ignorance, and disease?

[...] Many people are involved, however, with various religious ideas and philosophies, whose effects are quite unfortunate in personal experience. [...]

You cannot divorce philosophy from life, for your thoughts and opinions give your life its meaning and impetus. [...]

[...] Such philosophies do not give man a stake in nature, or in the universe.

[...] You cannot divorce philosophy from action, and the cruelty in slaughterhouses would not be perpetrated if it were not for distorted philosophies dealing with the survival of the fittest on the one hand, and the egotistical assumption that God gave man animals to do with as man wished.

[...] Any philosophy that promotes the idea that life is meaningless is biologically dangerous. [...] Such philosophies are extremely disadvantageous creatively, since they dampen the emotional spirits and exuberance, and sense of play, from which creativity itself emerges.

Such philosophies are also deadening on an intellectual basis, for they must of necessity close out man’s great curiosity about the subjective matters that are his main concern. [...]

[...] It grows out of Seth’s philosophy, obviously, yet it also reflects my own, and concerns man’s attempts to both fight and grasp his heritage. [...]

[...] The others will begin to change the philosophy within the enterprise, so that the climate is more to your liking.

[...] There will be two other men also of a like philosophy, and the four of you will exert considerable force within the company in the future, and will shape its policy eventually.

[...] Simply that from four corners your philosophies will meet, and each will see advantage for themselves in the promotions of the others.

[...] Now you may believe in the theories of Buddhism, for example, or of another Eastern philosophy.

Philosophies that teach denial of the flesh must ultimately end up preaching a denial of the self and building a contempt for it, because even though the soul is couched in muscle and bone it is meant to experience that reality, not to refute it.

(11:43.) However, these philosophies can lead you to a deep mistrust of both your body and mind. [...]

[...] Now I do not expect the question to be answered in a general manner, that is far too safe, and we are not dealing with philosophies. We are dealing with realities from which you may weave whatever philosophies suit your fancy. [...]

[...] All philosophies that stress the idea of the body’s impurity or degradation should also be seen as detrimental to bodily and spiritual integrity. [...]

The official world has its answers, methods, philosophy, standards, all set. [...]

(Long pause.) To some extent it means that you try to live your lives in accord with a philosophy not yet completed, methods not yet completely achieved or stated, and this of course involves you with uncertainty. [...]

[...] Even those people, therefore, who deny the validity of anything but the most materialistic philosophy, sometimes dream unmaterialistic dreams, and in their unguarded moments they sense the greater source from which their materialistic world springs. [...]

Men and women who insist that emotions are simply psychological mechanisms cannot stop themselves now and then from a soaring of emotional comprehension that later makes their materialistic philosophy quite dull, dreary, and uncreative. [...]

[...] For many people will accept the same philosophy when expressed as it was in the 725th session, and yet be quite upset when those ideas are discussed in the vernacular, in language that certainly cannot be considered ambiguous in any fashion.)

Through the ages, again, underground philosophies have tried to combine the two concepts, usually going from one extreme to the other in combating the current ideas in historical terms. In some of these philosophies the daylight is seen as pallid, for example, in comparison with the true brilliance of knowledge that illuminates the dream state, and black is the symbol then of secret knowledge that cannot be found with normal consciousness, or be scrutinized in the light of day.

[...] (Long pause.) It cannot value life, and so in its search for the ideal it can indeed justify in its philosophy the possibility of an accident that might kill many many people through direct or indirect means, and kill the unborn as well.²

[...] As a group the scientists rigorously oppose the existence of telepathy or clairvoyance, or of any philosophy that brings these into focus. [...]

[...] Your technology, however, as it stands, has to some important degree—but not entirely—been based upon a scientific philosophy that denies the very idea of value fulfillment. [...]

[...] But that intent was sabotaged because the philosophy behind it denied the validity of the very subjective values that give man his reason for living. [...]

[...] You cannot divide, say, mental and physical health, nor can you divide a person’s philosophy from his bodily condition.

[...] Your world view must include your beliefs about the body and the mind, about religion, history, and philosophy—and you stand as an entity, a psychological entity, in the center of this inner world.

(Gnosticism was a selected system of religion and philosophy, uniting features of Platonism, orientalism, Christianity, and dualism. [...] In all of them its central doctrine held that knowledge — gnosis — was the means of salvation from the tyranny of matter, more than philosophy or faith.

[...] I also am aware of your quite natural and human need to translate philosophy into daily life and action.

[...] It was about philosophy and religion in India. [...]

[...] The session began after we had had some time for an informative, get-acquainted talk, on parapsychology in general, methods of conducting tests, personalities, Seth’s particular philosophy, etc. [...]

[...] We knew a year ago she was writing this for her doctorate in philosophy. [...]