“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Yet in a way you each do the same thing, taking it for granted as a fact of existence that there is something wrong with each of you. You should have produced much more and much better art than you have. This seems to be a fact, so that you find yourself blaming yourself at times. There is definitely something wrong with Ruburt. Otherwise he would be walking properly. Ruburt would be walking properly if he did not believe there was something wrong with him.

You are both quite in the habit of asking what is wrong—not only in terms of Ruburt’s difficulties, but generally speaking. It is difficult to explain what I want to because of your own beliefs and significances that you sometimes form. The young man (see the 816th session proper) was really comparing his life and the earth unfavorably with an idealized imagined world, to which he could never return. Just about everything in his experience seemed wrong, and his experience seemed thrust upon him—an exaggerated case, of course.

(10:32.) Your young man, your visitor, does indeed suffer torments because he is so thoroughly convinced he is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and all of his unfortunate experiences follow that conviction, which so far he has refused to give up. Incidentally, you both handled that affair very well. You avoided the kind of direct confrontation that would have resulted had you said, for example “I do not believe your spirit,” or “I do not believe he could do thus and so.” Your whole attitude showed the young man, however, that he was the one who must examine his own beliefs, and without immediately panicking him you showed by inference your own belief that his delusion was doing him considerable harm.

When you hold such a conviction you are always convinced that something is wrong, and your belief brings about a condition which gives you justification for feeling that. Ruburt can say “Of course there is something wrong with me. Look at my condition.” But the condition began when he began to believe that he should be different than he is.

[...] It is wrong to curse a flower, and it is wrong to curse any man. And it is wrong not to hold any man in honor and it is wrong to ridicule any man. [...]

[...] For it will come when every man realizes that killing is wrong, and when every young man in every country refuses to go to war, and when he refuses to curse any man or any flower. [...]

[...] There is nothing wrong or inferior about the people at Prentice, who made the “improper” artistic decision. It is not immoral or wrong not to have excellent artistic judgment. [...]

[...] The conscientious self groups about ideas of right and wrong. [...]

[...] In a certain fashion you began to apply the “wrong kind” of moral judgments. [...]

[...] You see it as morally wrong, not simply a physically poor condition, but a morally reprehensible one, reflecting upon Ruburt’s integrity, his knowledge, his understanding.

[...] Realized I was in bed, in a particular position and making certain motions that were self-conflicting, leading to the discomfort; and that I was in this position because I thought I’d done something wrong that somehow necessitated the position. [...] At the same time almost I realized quite clearly that I’d made a mistake; I hadn’t done anything wrong and the position was needless. [...]

(Pause at 9:21.) Those given to such practices — constant examination of the past in order to discover what is wrong in the present — too often miss the point. [...]

You have been taught that you are at the mercy of previous events, so your idea of looking for the source of personal difficulty is to examine the past, but — to find what you did wrong there, or what mistakes occurred there, or what inadequate interpretations were made there! [...]

The question, “What is wrong with me?” will only lead you to create further limitations, and to reinforce those that you do have, through exaggerating such activities in the present and projecting them into the future.

[...] When you search it looking for what is wrong, then you become blind to what was right, in those terms, so that the past only mirrors the shortcomings that now face you.

Above all, Ruburt must not concentrate upon what is wrong. In the deepest of terms, if you understand my meaning, nothing is wrong. [...]

[...] Who’s to say it’s right or wrong, as long as one doesn’t injure another, or steal, and so on.

[...] I discovered today that I could have been wrong at times — strange.

(I understand Seth’s declaration that in the deepest of terms there is nothing wrong. [...]

[...] Indeed I suspected that they were all wrong. [...]

(Wrong.

(Wrong.

(Wrong.

[...] It is important however to realize that to some extent he feels that long hours of writing are now wrong, because of the physical condition in which he finds himself. [...] If he wrote, steadily even, and did not go out for two or three days he would not think that there was anything wrong in that—nor would there be. [...]

[...] As you have told him, there is nothing wrong with working all day, and all night, as long as he is physically free, and is not working under enforced conditions.

[...] Part of the conflict has arisen however also because he feels that what he often wants to do—write many hours—is physically wrong.

[...] Ruburt believes now that it is wrong not to go out each day. [...]

[...] Ron and I could find nothing wrong. [...] He told me to keep in touch if anything went wrong. [...]

[...] I thought it might be ice, and could see nothing wrong.

[...] Nothing wrong with that of course but we’re still in the same arena only our explanations are better than official ones. [...]

[...] I’ve felt that I should “push” the material, go on television or whatever to demonstrate and promote it, but that is the “wrong” level for me.... [...]

[...] There is nothing wrong with Ruburt’s body. [...]

Now: in a way the game is up—for Ruburt finally realizes that there is nothing organically wrong with the body. [...]

[...] There is nothing wrong with ambiguous feelings. [...]

[...] With so much right, something must go wrong, or things would not go right,” meaning realistic. Beside this the dis-ease serves to protect you from the frightening “fear” that if everything goes well something must be wrong, because in an unsafe universe that is a belief. So you provide a “little” wrong to preserve the larger good.

(9:40.) You have built up the idea of free time being wrong, sinful, no matter what you tell yourself about wanting more of it. [...]

Again, there is nothing wrong with you physically. [...]

(At the end of her outburst about reading, Jane ended up by saying something important — that her failure to read was another example of her doing something wrong — “And that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it? All those things I’m doing wrong?” Too true. [...]

[...] Nor have I forgotten Seth’s statement a few months ago that basically neither of us have done anything wrong.

[...] It is wicked and lazy and wrong of me to even think of such a thing. [...] They do not stop, first of all, to decide whether it is right or wrong. [...]

Now, if there ever was a puritan remark it was the one that just escaped our friend, Ruburt’s lips, for in his mind still, you see, you must have this purpose and be active and it is wrong to simply go back to bed for no better reason than that you want to go back to bed. [...]

Now, in all of your minds there is still this conception that what you want to do automatically, because you want to do it, must be wrong because it is too easy. [...]

([Theodore:] “If I have a thought some person has wronged me in some way, and I would like to slug him, am I doing that person harm in this reality or in another, and if so, how do I handle this responsibility?”)

[...] I am waiting to see how you do, and Ruburt will be mad at me because he will say that you will not be spontaneous if you know I am around and, you see, you must prove him wrong. [...]

[...] He could have been in any instance right or wrong, but he met you squarely and spontaneously, and you felt that aliveness and responded to it. [...]

Now: it is fruitless to go back to old sessions seeking to find out what is wrong, or what was wrong and self-defeating. [...]

[...] I could list many more, but probably won’t. I still don’t think Seth would want to spend much time discussing that old material in any detail, since he’s said many times that focusing on what was wrong in the past is negative and self-defeating. [...]

[...] To argue aggressively that war is wrong is ironic stupidity, for such an individual already displays those characteristics that lead to war.

It is wrong to think that restraint under such circumstances or discussions is cowardly, though of course, it may be. [...]

[...] You are checking to see how you are doing—again, quite necessary when you believe that there is indeed something wrong with the body. In Framework 2, there is nothing wrong with the body, again. [...]

[...] In Framework 2, and in the terms of Framework 1’s understanding, such body work is not really necessary, since the body itself has nothing wrong with it except the application of beliefs.

Even if you think the body does have something wrong with it, then the necessary adjustments would be made in another kind of time that in Framework 1 would take no time at all—or, the amount of time you thought required.

In your efforts both of you often put the concentration upon the things that are wrong. [...] It is a method that is wrong. [...]

He began to think that just about everything he did was wrong. [...]

[...] He has been tearing himself down psychologically in an effort to find out what has been wrong, that the symptoms persist. [...]

In the back of your minds, your main point of concentration has been “What is wrong with Ruburt?” Now, I gave you this information a while ago, and I have said it in various ways at different times.

[...] Unfortunately, conscience as you think of it is an untrustworthy guide, speaking to you through the mouths of mothers and fathers, teachers and clergy — all perhaps from distant years, and each of whom had their own ideas of what was right and wrong for you and for humanity at large.

[...] Now: The natural consideration given to the body during such “therapy” is highly beneficial because the body’s rights are taken into consideration, without the value judgment of right and wrong carried by the health foods.