Seth Classic: Choosing a Painful Life Situation

Seth, NOPR, Session 667

Seth: The situation Is one of danger, yet is chosen by those involved, and is not inflicted upon them. In somewhat the same way, entire life contexts are selected that might appear to be incomprehensible, foolhardy, or even insane to an observer.

(9:38.) These lifetime organizations may involve very drastic physical disabilities from birth. From the outside it seems impossible that anyone would choose such a background, such a highly restricted or even painful situation in which to live. From that viewpoint birth defects, or lifetime diseases of any kind, make no sense.

No one begins a race with a handicap, you may say, but that is obviously not the case. Individuals have often chosen such situations precisely as incentives, and many great men have done so. This does not mean that such disabilities are necessary. At any point that an individual realizes his point of power in the presents he will not need a barrier to test himself against, or to focus him in what he thinks of as the proper direction.

You live many lives simultaneously. You often think of these as reincarnational existences, one before the other. If you are severely ill and believe that the reasons for your symptoms exist in a past life, that you must "put up with it," then you will not realize that your point of power is in the present, and you will not believe in the possibility of recovery.

Again, even so-called incurable diseases can be healed as long as this does not involve regenerations not possible within the context of creaturehood.

In your terms, birth defects of whatever kind are chosen before this life. This is done for many different reasons ( just as people choose to be ill In life, regardless of the duration involved). That is, a certain psychic framework is set up through which an individual decides "ahead of time" to experience an entire life situation. Some information on this has been given in my other writings.*

A person with several existences stressing intellectual achievement might purposely then decide upon a life in which mental abilities are beyond him, and the emotions allowed a full play that he had denied them "earlier."

(9:54.) Since all existences are simultaneous, this simply means his stressing certain aspects in this life--at the expense of others, you would say--and setting up a frame of reference that may seem to be limiting. On the other hand the personality involved may see this as a most rewarding and expansive experience, in which the emotions are allowed freedoms ordinarily denied. Characteristically, some personalities prefer lifetime experiences in which accomplishment and development follows an even course. Others demand great contrast. One of the latter may be miserably poor in one life, luxuriously rich in another, an intellectual giant in still another, a great athlete, and then a complete invalid. Individual differences operate then in the kinds of life situations chosen.

In many cases it is the family, rather than the incapacitated member, who questions and does not understand as in cases of severely mentally retarded children, for example. Yet in all instances not only do children choose their parents ahead of time, but parents choose their children, of course.

In such a situation, there are fulfillments to be gained from the parents' standpoints. There are always opportunities of growth and unusual creativity possible under those conditions for all involved. That is why the framework was chosen. The same applies to seeming tragedies such as accidents, or severe illnesses that come at any time.

(Very emphatically at 10:03:) On an individual basis a grave illness, for instance, will represent the adoption of a particular highly intense focus in which a given aspect of usual experience is deliberately cut out or denied; the context of life itself must then be magnified along other lines. In somewhat the same manner, this also applies to those born in extreme poverty or in the most seemingly unfortunate of family situations. The life challenge is inherent within the problem itself and springs from it. Usually, though not always, a peculiar personal achievement results precisely because of the given difficulty (intently).

Now this accomplishment need not involve some great artwork or invention, or political leadership, for example, though it may. Often the successful activity represents a challenge on the part of the personality who set it in terms of psychological creativity, and the overall enrichment of experience. Those involved, such as family, will have acquiesced to the situation "earlier." Often, particularly in the case of mental or physical birth defects, the incapacitated person will be accepting that role not only because of personal reasons; he or she will also be choosing that part for the family as a whole.

Highly intelligent parents, therefore, may find themselves with a retarded child. If they place a great value upon intellect at the expense of the emotions, then the child may be acting out for them the emotional spontaneity of which they are so afraid themselves.

(10:15. Peculiarly, in spite of her deep trance and the mass of material she'd delivered, Jane remembered one line--Seth's remark about her using the radio as a point of reference while she worked with states of consciousness. See the session at 9:32. This was an obvious thing that neither of us had realized before.

(Jane plays the radio often while writing, too. She joked now that she must use it as "a lifeline between realities. "Resume in the same intent manner at 10:47.)

A birth defect is obvious, and sets up certain conditions that cannot be ignored.

Many ordinary illnesses also involve the family group to some degree. The predominating beliefs of the sick person will always be paramount, however. The group situation will encompass an acquiescence on the part of other family members.

Now understand that the same thing applies in the case of unusual achievements. In those instances the achiever's beliefs predominate, and yet apart from this he may also be acting out the unrealized aspirations of his family members, or of the group in which he is intimately involved. There will always be reasons for such interrelationships.

(Pause.) Many great contrasts of a social nature have the same kind of inner meaning; here whole groups of individuals chose particular life situations in which, for example, poverty and illness predominate, while other areas of the world (or of any given nation) enjoy the highest technological advances, wealth and prosperity. Separately each personality has a private reason for such an affiliation. But on other levels, through the contrasting focuses of poverty and wealth, scientific accomplishments or the lack of them, opposites are brilliantly apparent. Technological progress, followed as a main focus, automatically portrays its benefits and its disadvantages. 

A nation which pursues this course is like one individual who primarily follows a strictly "objective, male," externally oriented path in terms of your Western understanding. Certain values have been stressed in your country, particularly in the recent present. These attributes were pursued at the expense of others for individual reasons and those en masse. The rest of the world agreed to such actions, however, and various portions of it took entirely different courses, so that in your experience global society would show a kaleidoscope of varying focuses and their results.

(Pause at 11:05.) On a much smaller scale and to different degrees, any tribe, town, family or group will show the same tendencies, and from the shared experience each individual will learn and grow.

A person may choose a great talent instead, through which he or she will perceive reality and concentrate all experience. This will serve as a formidable focus, yet by its nature it may often preclude other experiences that many individuals find quite normal. Some artists with great ability may shut out intellectual maturity, utilizing native emotional qualities to such an extent and with such intensity that the mental reasoning faculties are largely shunted aside. (Pause.) Without rational illumination, the emotional elements may be so unwieldy that the artist, for all of his spontaneous expression, cannot relate in any kind of permanent situation of an intimate nature. For reason and emotion are natural counterparts.

Someone else may choose to focus upon intellectual achievement to such a degree that he shuts out all true closeness, and though he can accept a permanent relationship, he will not experience the emotional richness that others may derive from a much briefer encounter. Therefore each of you choose ahead of time, in your terms the kind of framework through which you will contend with this life situation. This applies personally and collectively.

Those who believe in reincarnation will ask, 'What about past-life beliefs? And even if I forget the idea of guilt, am I bound to follow the rules of karma?" (See the 614th session in Chapter Two.) 

Since all is simultaneous, your present beliefs can alter your past ones, whether from this life or a "previous" one. Existences are open-ended. Now with your ideas of progressive time and the resulting beliefs in cause and effect, I realize this is difficult for you to understand. Yet within the abilities of your creaturehood, your current beliefs can change your experience; you can restructure your "reincarnational past" in the same way that you can restructure the past in this present life (as explained in sessions 657-58 in Chapter Fifteen.

(With gestures:) In the center of the page:

The Point of Power Is in the Present.

This experienced present also represents your psychic touchstone to all of your other existences. You are consciously aware of certain events, and unconsciously aware of much more that in one way or another you are learning to bring into conscious focus.

The same applies to all of your other "reincarnational selves." They are unconsciously aware of your conscious experience, as you are unconsciously aware of theirs.

The interaction is constant, however, and in all of your presents, creative. You draw on their knowledge as they draw on yours, and this of course applies to personalities that you would consider future. You have a gigantic pool of information and experience to draw upon, but this will be utilized according to your present conscious beliefs. If you understand that the point of power is in the present, then you have an inexhaustible realm of ability and energy at your command.

© Laurel Butts

Seth: The Results of a Belief in Inferiority or Unworthiness

Blogger's Note: Sue Watkins was a member of the Seth Classes and close to Jane Roberts and Rob Butts. I changed the formatting slightly to match the blog's typical format.

Sue Watkins, Conversations with Seth, Volume I, p. 112


Sue: As the weeks passed and the belief assignments continued, it appeared that more of us were indeed starting to listen to what we were constantly telling ourselves. In fact, some of us started to construct a whole new vale of tears out of what we thought we were hearing. Diana, for example, read a belief essay filled with self-recrimination for what she saw as endless areas of "lousy beliefs." It seemed to her that all of her beliefs contradicted themselves! "I can't seem to get it together no matter what I do," she read. "I'm just doing a rotten job of projecting my beliefs, I guess. I've got a pretty inferior reality!"

To this, Seth responded with great good humor: For all of you, on your papers, or the papers in your head, write down what I hope will be your prime belief -- and it is hardly original, you have heard me say this often: I am a worthy, deserving person. I have a right to my life in this universe. I have a right to be because I AM!

Now, as you examine your own beliefs, any beliefs that contradict that one, scratch them out. If you do that, you will have no difficulties. And do not compare yourselves with the idea of perfection! You are perfect as you are. You are happening!

When you believe that you are unworthy, and when you interpret this particular belief, for example, to mean that you are fat, or that you are lonely, or that you are poor, you are following through with your beliefs perfectly! It is a beautiful example of your beliefs in action, in your terms!

If you believe that you are inferior, Diana, and you find before you the result of your belief, then you have done an excellent job of projecting the belief outward! Pat yourself on the back! But if you do not like the results, then change your beliefs. There is nothing wrong with you. You did a good job of projecting your beliefs.

There is nothing wrong with any of you, with your being, and with what you are. And do not ever let anyone tell you that there is! You are simply using your abilities and learning how to do it. And you continue to learn. But there is nothing wrong with the self that is learning, and that is what I want you to know.

There is nothing wrong with the selves that you are. Do not identify beliefs that you do not like with the self that you are. 


© Robert and Laurel Butts

Seth pwns the Left and the Right back in 1973

Blogger's note: I can't emphasize enough, btw, that if you only get one Seth book, get this one. I can post bits and pieces, but the whole picture becomes viscerally more clear from reading the book in its entirety and having it around as a reference. Mine is in tatters. 

Seth, The Nature of Personal Reality,  Session 650

Many believe that it is “good” and morally superior to be Christian, white, wealthy and in excellent health. Now, the word “male” can also be added to this list of preferred attributes. These people may be of any age. They may come from any economic environment. Now if you happen to be Protestant, male, white, American, rich, and healthy, at least within the framework of your beliefs you can look at yourself with “clear” eyes. Your foundation is shaky, indeed, but at least you fit within it for the moment. You will notice that I added “Protestant” to our value system, as well as “American.” If, however, you hold this group of beliefs and you fall short - that is, if in some way you do not fit in - then even within that system you are in trouble.

In that chart of belief, disease, poverty, femininity to some extent, non-Christian concepts, and a non-Caucasian racial heritage, are all considered wrong to one degree or another.  Now: Any intrusion of other beliefs here will be considered threatening. Both racial problems and religious dissension will be rationalized from the standpoint of these beliefs. Some of my readers may consider themselves quite enlightened, believing, for example, in reincarnation as a series of consecutive lives.  However, they may then use that concept to justify their belief in the inferiority of other races. They may say that since an individual chose his or her problems in this life-deciding for instance to be born black, or poor, or both-that karma is being worked out; therefore such issues should not be adjusted through a change of law or custom. Period.

On the left side, looking at a second diagram, you will find people in this case, and in this country, of a more “liberal” frame of mind. But you will not find them quite as liberal if you understand that they are as prejudiced in one direction as the first group is in another.

Here we have a system of belief in which it is wrong to be white, American, or wealthy, or even at all well-off in financial terms. All of the distortions in Christianity are apparent, where the first group is blind to them, of course. Here, though, wealth and a white skin are not only bad, but obvious symptoms of moral deterioration. If the first system of beliefs sees money and goods as a sign of God’s blessing, the second group views all material possessions as evidence of spiritual decay.  Here the exotic is romanticized, the foreign held up, the picturesque seen as the real. Black skin or brown skin becomes the criteria of spiritual perfection, and poverty as a badge of honor to be worn not only proudly, but often to be used as an aggressive tool. The people who follow these belief systems think that they are right. Their living style, community affiliations, and political leanings will be in direct opposition to the “white-wealthy” ethic.

Now, if you happen to be black or brown, poor, and believe in this system, you will at least feel secure within it. If you are instead white and wealthy and hold such beliefs, you will think yourself quite inferior indeed, and do everything in your power to show how picturesque and liberal and open-minded and black or brown you can be while still being white, fairly well-off, and perhaps secretly addicted to your Christianity.  You will doubtlessly have Buddhas tastefully displayed, and Indian beads.”

Seth on Susan Boyle

[Not really, but this is Seth on those with difficult life situations from birth, often genetic, saying that they set those as challenges in a previous life. I don't know about this. Maybe. It'd be nice, but... I don't know if I'm buying it. Personally, I think I'm going to call bullshit on this one.]

"Suppose the worst, that in this life you have the following background: you are poor, you are of a minority race, you are not intellectual, you are a woman, you have a severe physical defect and you are no beauty. Now you set these challenges for yourself in a so-called past life. This does not mean that you cannot use all of your courage and resolution to solve these problems. You set them in the hope that you will solve them. You did not set them like millstones about your neck, hoping ahead of time that you would drown.

All you have to do is realize your own freedom. You form the reality that you know, not esoterically, not symbolically, not philosophically. Some great oversoul doesn't form it for you — you cannot put the burden there, either. You have in the past, collectively and individually, blamed a god or a fate for the nature of your personal realities—those aspects, indeed that you did not like.

The personality is given the greatest gift of all; you get exactly what you want to get. You create from nothing the experience that is your own. If you do not like your experience, then look within yourself and change it. But realize also that you are responsible for your joys and triumphs, and that the energy to create any of these realities comes from the inner self. What you do with it is up to the individual personality."

(During break class members discussed fate and pre-destination.)

"Some evening I would like our lady over here to talk to me about predestination."

(Bernice M.: "I would like you to talk to me about it.")

"You are not 'programmed.' Nothing happens because it must happen. Every thought that you have now changes reality. Not only reality as you know it, but all reality. No act of yours predisposes a future self to act in a particular manner. There are banks of activity from which you can draw or choose not to draw."

(Bernice M.: "Do we make instantaneous decisions? For example, I was thinking of the Los Angeles earthquake today. A man walked out into the street and was killed by a falling brick. What made this one person in the entire building walk out?")

"This particular individual was quite aware of what would occur, on what you would call an unconscious basis. He was not predestined to die. He chose both the time, in your terms, and the method, for reasons of his own."

(Bernice M.: "Regardless of who chose, it was destined that he die.")

"It was not predestined. He chose. No one chose for him."

(Bernice M.: "But he had made the decision before.")

"Before when?"

(Bernice M.: "Before he was killed.")

"He knew that he was ready to go on to other spheres of activity. Unconsciously, he looked about for the means and chose those immediately available. This particular individual, three days earlier, had made the plan. There was no predestination involved. Because a tree branch falls, this does not mean that it was destined to fall in either the particular manner of its fall nor in the timing of the fall. There is a great difference between free choice and predestination."

(Jim H.: "Didn't you say earlier, referring to the woman who was born in a minority race, that here challenges had been set up by a previous personality, in our terms?")

"By the whole self."

(Jim H.: "The decision was made when that previous personality had returned to the whole self for a period of reevaluation?")

"You must realize, again, that we are speaking of divisions for convenience's sake, where none really exists. At the same "time," so to speak, that this personality is born into a minority race, in a completely different era it may be born rich, secure and aristocratic. It is searching out different methods of experience and expansion. Do you follow me?"

(Jim H.: "I understand. I thought you probably meant the challenges had been set up by the whole self.")

"Indeed. Remember, this is your entire identity of which we are speaking. It is only you who are presently aware of but one portion of it; and this portion you insist upon calling yourself. You are the self who makes these decisions."

(Bert C.: "What recourse would the poor individual who was born with all of these seemingly insurmountable handicaps have, were she to say consciously, at the ego level, 'I just don't want any of this. I would have much preferred to have been born aristocratic'?")

"The inner self realizes, however, that potentials are present that would not necessarily be present under other circumstances—abilities that can not only help the present personality but other individuals, and even society at large.

Your main point of contention is brought about by the emotional barriers that are caused by the difference in terms. It is as if you choose to work for a day in the slums. It would be ridiculous for you to choose to do this, and then say to yourself, 'Why did I choose to work in the slums? I would prefer to work on Fifth Avenue.'

You know the reason, and your entire identity knows the reason. You hide it from the present self simply to insure the fact that the present reality is not a pretended one.

A rich man who tries to be poor for a day to learn what poverty is learns little, because he cannot forget the wealth that is available to him. Though he eats the same poor fare as the poor man, and lives in the same poor house for a day—or for a year or five years—he knows he has his mansion to return to. So you hide these things from yourself so that you can relate. You forget your home so that you can return to it enriched.

Consciousness is not made up of balances so much as it is made up of exquisite imbalances, and the focus of awareness is to some degree the result of this state of excitability. In this state all elements are never known because new ones are always being created. I am not speaking of physical elements, but of the psychological characteristics of consciousness, for even those continually merge and change.

You are not now what you were ten minutes earlier. You are not the same being physically, psychologically, spiritually, or psychically, and ten minutes later you will be different again. To deny this is to try to force consciousness into some rigid form from which it cannot ever be freed, to apply rules to it that make a very neat psychological landscape."

from Seth Speaks