“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Love perceives the grace in another. Like natural guilt, the state of grace is unconscious in the animals. It is protected. They take it for granted, not knowing what it is or what they do, yet it speaks through all their motions and they dwell in the ancient wisdom of its ways. They do not have conscious memory, again, but the instinctive memory of the cells and organs sustains them. All of this applies in degrees according to the species, and when I speak of conscious memory I am using words that are familiar to you — I mean a memory that can at any time look back through itself.

In some animals, for instance, the rising of such conscious memory is apparent, yet still highly limited, specialized. A dog may remember where he saw his master last, but without being able to summon the memory, and operating without the kind of mental associations that you use. His connections will be of a more biological nature and will not provide the leeway (pause), that your own mental conditions allow you.

The dog does not recall joyful appreciation of his own state of grace from a past, nor anticipate a recurrence in any future. With the large freedom provided by the conscious mind, however, man could stray from that great inner joy of being, forget it, disbelieve in it, or use his free will to deny its existence.

The splendid biological acceptance of life could not be thrust or forced upon his emerging consciousness, so to be effective, efficient, to emerge in the new focus of awareness, grace had to expand from the life of the tissue to that of the feelings, thoughts and mental processes. Grace became the handmaiden of natural guilt, then.

Man became aware of his state of grace when he lived within the dimensions of his consciousness as it was turned toward his new world of freedom. When he did not violate, he was aware of his own grace. When he violated, it fell back into cellular awareness, as with the animals, but he felt consciously cut off from it and denied.

Now: Artificial guilt is still highly creative in its way, an offshoot made in man’s image as his conscious mind began to consider and play upon the natural innocent guilt that originally implied no punishment.

The conscious mind is a maker of distinctions. It brings to the surface of awareness whole gestalts of previously unconscious material, then assembles and organizes it in ever-changing form. Through purposeful focus, a literally infinite amount of such data can be unconsciously sorted; then only the desired elements will emerge.

The conscious mind is endlessly creative. This applies to all areas of conscious-mind thinking. It is also the organizer of physical data, so natural guilt became the basis for all kinds of variations. These closely followed man’s religious and social groupings. The latter are also the result of the aware mind’s capacity to play upon, mix and merge, and rearrange perception and experience.

Man is innately good. His conscious mind must be free, with its own will. He can, therefore, consider himself bad. He is the one who sets those standards in his own image.

The mind is also equipped to see its own beliefs, reflect upon them and evaluate their results, so using this tool as it was meant to be used would automatically help man in recognizing both his beliefs and their effects. Part of this great permissiveness has to do with the fact that man is to realize that he creates his own reality. Free will is a necessity. The leeway given allows him to materialize his ideas, meet them in physical experience, and evaluate for himself their particular kind of validity.

(Pause at 10:34.) The animal has no such need. It nestles safely within the confines of its instincts while exploring other aspects of awareness with which man is not so intimately familiar. Yet natural grace and natural guilt are given you, and these will also grow more fully into conscious awareness. If you can sit quietly and realize that your body parts are replacing themselves constantly — if you turn your conscious mind into the consideration of such activity — then you can realize your own state of grace. If you can sense your thoughts steadily replacing themselves then you can also feel your own elegance.

You cannot feel guilty and enjoy such recognition, however; not on a conscious level. If you find that you are berating yourself because of something you did yesterday, or ten years ago, you are not being virtuous. You are most likely involved with artificial guilt. Even if a violation occurred, natural guilt does not involve penance. It is meant as a precautionary measure, a reminder before an event.

We have mentioned reincarnation hardly at all (but see the 631st session in Chapter Seven), yet here let me state that the theory is a conscious-mind interpretation in linear terms. On the one hand it is highly distorted. On the other hand it is a creative interpretation, as the conscious mind plays with reality as it understands it. But in the terms used there is no karma to be paid off as punishment unless you believe that there are crimes for which you must pay (as indicated in the 614th session in Chapter Two).

(10:56. Jane didn’t have “the slightest glimmering of what that was all about.” Since she was so curious, I read the last few paragraphs to her. Nor do I always try to keep material in mind. Instead I’m usually concentrating on recording it, checking with Seth when I’m in doubt about a word, asking that worthy to repeat a phrase when I fall behind in the notes….

These multiple existences, however, are simultaneous and open-ended. In your terms the conscious mind is growing toward a realization of the part it has to play in such multidimensional reality. It is enough that you understand your part in this existence. When you fully comprehend that you form what you think of as your current reality, all else will fall into place.

“At once” does not imply a finished state of perfection nor a cosmic situation in which all things have been done, for all things are still happening. You are still happening — but both present and future selves; and your past self is still undergoing what you think is done. Moreover, it is experiencing events that you do not recall, that your linear-attuned consciousness cannot perceive on that level.

No one atom of air is like another. Each in its own way is aware and capable of entering into greater transformations and organizations, filled with infinite potential. As your breath leaves you and becomes part of the world, free, so do your lives leave you and continue to exist in your terms. You cannot confine a personality that you “were” to a particular century that is finished and deny it other fulfillments, for even now it exists and has fresh experience. As your moment of reflection gave birth to consciousness as you think of it — for both really came together — so then can another phenomenon and kind of reflection give birth to at least some dim conscious awareness of the vast dimensions of your own reality.