“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I bid you all now a fond good evening and I ask you to be adventurous, to be spontaneous, to follow the ways of your own consciousness. I cannot follow the ways of your own consciousness. Only you can travel that route, for there is no other consciousness like your own, and no one can understand the truths as you can understand them, and in understanding them you create new truths. [...]

But remember, all of you, that your reality is structured not in logical terms as you think of logic, but that your most chaotic dream, our redhead over here (Sheila), the most important symbolic episode and experiences that you have that seem so unstructured to you, and you do not understand them; that these have their own inner structure that is intuitive and you understand that structure very well whether or not you consciously admit that recognition. [...]

([Bette:] “Now when you talk about ancient tonight are you talking about before consciousness, like the physical reality that we are now? [...]

[...] You know that when you milk the goats, to some extent you partake of the universe of which you are part. [...]

[...] It allows some communication between the conscious and the “unconscious” portions of the self. [...]

[...] When using the pendulum, it is a good idea to mentally place a distance between your conscious mind and the pendulum, in which fears are allowed to dissolve, so that body and mind are smooth-enough. [...]

[...] It deals very well with how we create our scientific views of the universe. [...]

[...] Alive or dead in usual terms, you are always conscious and aware of yourselves, and you are always a part of universal ventures in which you have always been involved, whatever your states of consciousness.

[...] As no action is meaningless, so the dream universe and the physical universe constantly replenish each other, and mental actions are performed in both universes, being camouflage acting symbols for inner action.

Clock time is one prop that even in our usual sessions Ruburt is accustomed to rely upon, though not of course to the extent that he relies upon it in the periods of more ordinary consciousness.

[...] I also suggest, merely as a matter of discipline, that he contemplate his part in the universe, so that he senses an enlargement of self in which personal worries and obsessions will not loom so large.

Discipline then should not only be considered, as it is by some schools of thought, as a mere mental discipline over the muscles, or various portions of the body by the inner self, but indeed a discipline in terms of training of the ego by the inner self, so that the ego as a personality achieves a well-balanced relationship with the physical universe.

I suggest that they follow the lines of expansion rather than contraction, in that the personality projects itself outward toward All That Is, hence drawing upon the energy of the universe, and extending the reaches of the self.

[...] Perhaps playing about his apartment while instructing his subconscious to work for him in the interval, and completely divorcing his conscious mind from his writing for that period of time. [...]

[...] Your cat’s consciousness never was dependent upon its physical form. Instead, the consciousness was itself choosing the experience of cathood. There was nothing that said: ‘This consciousness must be a cat.’

“There is no such thing as a cat consciousness, basically speaking, or a bird consciousness. In those terms, there are instead simply consciousnesses that choose to take certain focuses. [...]

[...] If there is no consciousness ‘tailored’ to be a cat’s or a dog’s, then there is no prepackaged, predestined, particular consciousness that is meant to be human, either….

[...] This is not necessarily always the case — and there is great variation — but Billy identified with ‘the larger organization’ of the litter [that is, with his brothers and sisters, all of whom are also dead], and the consciousnesses of that litter are now together. They are forming a gestalt, where the five consciousnesses will merge to form a new identity.”

The more actively and fully such a diversion can be indulged, the better, of course, and yet the mental playing of games can be quite fruitful, and serve to give the conscious mind a needed rest.

[...] The patient may also feel abandoned by God or the universe, and may feel unjustly attacked by the disease, thus arousing a whole new tumult of anger, and it is most important that the anger be expressed, and not repressed.

[...] In Note 1 for that session I described a most vivid dream experience—one in which, Seth told me in the session itself, I had viewed the many-faceted light of my own being and of the universe. [...]

[...] [I read later that females and the young live in groups, the adult males usually alone—perfectly suitable accommodations of consciousness for raccoons!] “Coons can’t run fast,” Floyd told us, “and big dogs will attack ‘em if they catch them out in the open in the daytime. [...]

[...] Such a creature could not be the puppet of a genetic engineering accidentally manufactured in a universe that was itself meaningless. [...]

[...] It dealt with the idea that imperfections in the universe gave birth to life and all we know—that if the “big bang” had expanded perfectly uniformly there would be no life in the universe, merely a perfectly uniform cloud of lifeless hydrogen gas. [...]

(Long pause at 9:20.) New sentence: if you cannot put your disillusionment aside, then you can at least use the idea of such a program as a creative exercise, a creative game that you play with one portion of your consciousness —a game that might just possibly have some creative benefits whose effects might just possibly crop up in the middle of your more practical considerations. [...]

[...] It has seen the birth and death of many physical universes such as your own; and the entities within it, in quotes, “at one time” were the inhabitants of such universes. [...]

[...] (Pause.) The inner self can play more than one role at once, consciously in other words. [...]

In the same way, however, your consciousness fluctuates—it is here and then it is not here—but the physical self focuses upon only those moments when consciousness is focused in physical reality so your conscious self only has memory of the physical moments that it has known. But because consciousness fluctuates, other portions of yourself have memory of those times “when it is not focused in physical reality” and this is also a portion of your entire existence. [...]

Now the question cannot be answered simply in one evening, but each living consciousness has its own defense system and its own vitality, and you should trust your own. [...]

[...] In our sessions I have explained something that I have not mentioned in class and it is this— for every moment of time that you seem to exist in this universe, you do not exist in it. [...]

[...] Have I been trying to hold this conscious level with the mirror trances?”)

[...] The necessity for immediate conscious exterior action at a “definite” point of intersection with events was left to the emerging ego consciousness.

[...] When ego consciousness reached a certain point of biological and mental competence, when experience in the present became extensive enough, then ego consciousness would be at the stage where it could begin to accept greater data. [...]

(Intently:) At that point, consciousness in those terms could not handle focused concentration, the emergence of ego consciousness, and simultaneously experience powerful feelings of oneness with other large groups. [...]

As part of the work on this book, Ruburt is just beginning to experiment with the conscious recognition of probable material, and the conscious acceptance of kinds of experience usually tabooed according to the selectivity already mentioned.

[...] Certain important kinds of creativity demand incubation periods, during which the conscious mind cannot follow the inner processes. [...] The “results” then emerge to the conscious mind, and you have inspiration, and a creative “product.”

[...] To some extent that kind of activity gives his conscious mind something to concentrate upon during creative periods of incubation. [...]

The mystic is primarily concerned with a one-point relationship to the universe. [...]

[...] In the beginning of our sessions I spoke in a general manner, for example, saying that trees and plant life had a consciousness, but not a developed ego system. The tree, therefore, is conscious of the pain connected with, say, the severing of a limb.

[...] It still fights for survival, of course; but the consciousness of plant life involves a consciousness of self as it operates within action. [...]

[...] The personality, as you know, has also a reality within the dream universe. [...]

[...] Consciousness of self, alone, is unaware of your physical time. [...]

The consciousness so attuned however is only a small portion of the individual’s total consciousness. [...] However they are also aware and conscious of huge portions of themselves that are not so imprinted. [...]

As I have mentioned many times, at present you focus your attentions and consciousness within the physical system. [...] The imprinting simply involves an adjustment whereby consciousness is attuned to a particular station, so to speak.

[...] All of these do imply a whole, but the very term whole would again be meaningless if the whole, through self-conscious individual parts, were not conscious of itself.

[...] We have been and we are expanding consciousness, and this consciousness includes the ego.

[...] In the discussion of “primitive” and “civilized” man that followed, Warren presented his opinion that some civilizations, such as those of Babylonia, Egypt, the Incas, and so forth, had been founded by initiate groups from Atlantis⁴ … that while “primitive” man may have had a kind of gestalt consciousness, he had no individual consciousness. As Warren made similar remarks about the development of individual consciousness through historical times to our point of civilization, Seth suddenly and unexpectedly came through loudly and forcefully:

(Warren: “But isn’t this stuff all about the development of ego consciousness?”)

[...] For they are indeed the sounds of insects through the centuries, of stars swirling through the universe, of the blood pounding through your veins.

[...] To keep the discussion simple, I will answer you in reincarnational terms; but as Ruburt is discovering as he writes his Adventures in Consciousness,⁶ many more elements are involved.

9. A note added two months later: In retrospect it’s easy to see that while discussing his ideas of counterparts here, Seth was also preparing us for the families-of-consciousness material he was to start giving in January 1975. [...] In that session Seth was quickly at pains to say that belonging to a certain family of consciousness did not come first in our reality: “Your individuality comes first.”

[...] They are utilized to some extent in daydreaming, however, and in certain alterations of consciousness while you perceive as real, or nearly real, events that are not immediately happening within your space-time structure.

In your physical universe such particles are invisible components, deduced but never directly encountered. [...]

Give us a moment … I am putting this as simply as possible; but when your “original self” enters [part of] itself into three-dimensional life from an inner reality, the energy waves carrying it break — not simply into one particle, following our analogy, but into a number of conscious particles. [...]

[...] Your consciousness and its consciousness are merged; yet it is composed of the multitudinous individual consciousnesses that form the tiniest physical particles within it. [...]

[...] They also possess consciousnesses of their own. That [kind of] consciousness unites all physical matter.

(“Right now I think I’m getting that everything on the face of the earth is related — that your consciousness is in an ant, or a rock⁸ or a tree, but that we’re not used to thinking that way. Not that one is superior to another — just that we’re all connected — that there’s some kind of weird familiarity, biologically and psychically, that we’ve never gotten consciously … What I’m getting is that your father could do any of the things that you wrote about [in Note 4], without invading anything or anyone. [...]

[...] That arithmetic¹¹ of consciousness is not annihilated. [...] Reminiscent within each form is the consciousness of all the other combinations, all of the other alliances, as identity continually forms new creative endeavors and gestalts of relatedness. [...]

[...] Through your physical image the energy of the universe expresses itself. You, as an individual, as individualized consciousness, are a part of this, and you cannot express yourself fully, nor fulfill your purpose as an identity if you are not in good health. [...]

[...] It is only when it becomes compartmented, so to speak, in the highly differentiated consciousness that such refinements occur. I am not saying that unpleasant stimuli will not be felt as unpleasant and reacted against in less self-conscious organisms. I am saying that they will rejoice even in their automatic reaction, because any stimuli and reaction represents sensation, and sensation is a method by which consciousness knows itself.

“For one thing, while pain is unpleasant, it is also a method of familiarizing the self against the edges of quickened consciousness. Any heightened sensation, pleasant or not, has a stimulating effect upon consciousness to some degree. [...]

According to Seth, each case of senility is different, but generally speaking, the personality transfers the vital parts of consciousness into the next area of existence, and is often fully aware there, and functioning. [...] People who are terrified of physical death might take this path, since when physical death occurs, consciousness is already acquainted with its new environment and the organism’s death is relatively meaningless. [...]

[...] Because you are physically oriented, you early got it into your heads that goodness must have a place in the physical universe and evil must have a place within it. [...]

[...] While you believe that to murder a man is to destroy his consciousness forever, then you cannot murder, and in your terms it is an evil. [...]

[...] If we can fix one tree, surely we can do something with the universe. [...]