Generally speaking then, individual entities choose the system which suits their personalities and general leanings. Your system presents a rather abrupt, explosive entrance into largely organized consciousness, but on an individual basis.
Those in your system are relatively impatient, have decided to work with large amounts of energy. Your physical system itself rapidly responds and mirrors the use of this energy. Results are seen quickly. Large groupings and re-groupings occur within the mass psyche, huge waves of energy as the race makes important decisions. All of this is done on an unconscious basis. But as a teaching method the results must be seen physically.
Because you respond as physical creatures you respond best of all to tangible physical results. You do not know how far you can go in any given waves of activity until you see it objectified or nearly so.
If you knew how to handle energy effectively, if you fully realized that your thoughts were the motivating factor, were the realities, then you would not need a physical existence, for that is the reason for the physical environment.
It is the clay which you form so that you can see the results of your mental work. You become extremely engrossed in the activity. But you also know in deeper layers of your personality that your existence and the existence of the race will continue.
Quite frankly, your earth is expendable, for it will be created again as often as it is needed. I use the term again, speaking in terms of time, again, for you. But understand [smile] that others are forming their own clay of realities simultaneously. If they do not like what they have created often they throw it away – but always with the idea of learning from their errors and forming another from the knowledge they have gained.
Not one portion of consciousness is lost in this process, you understand. When you think of a possible destruction of your planet, you imagine perhaps the mutilation of nature as you know it, the species changed. Or you imagine the race of man vanishing or starting all over again as it were from scratch.
Each epoch that ever existed within your planet in one way you see still does exist. And any consciousness that was involved with it still exists. Each consciousness retains memory of all its experiences, of each gestalt of which it has been part, and of the errors {and} of the successes in which it has been involved.
In one way, all of this happens in the blinking of an eyelid. But in terms of value fulfillment, you see, you explore it thoroughly. As you know, there is no destruction. And yet in other terms, you must believe for a while that there is, if you are going to work for the good of yourselves and others, as you must.
There are many roads leading to that goal, however. Various personalities will find various ways. You help others whether or not you realize that you do, whether or not others realize that you do, whether or not you plan to help. You help others even when your intentions are precisely the opposite.
Many who would seem to set a very poor example for others, help others for exactly that reason. Quite simply, they are examples of what not to be, precisely for this reason. In their avarice and hatred they serve a purpose.
This does not mean that they will not have to progress, that they will not have to learn.
But it does mean that they will not be allowed to pass through without helping others regardless of their own intent. In some cases, such a situation may be set up by a portion of the personality itself, though this is not usual.
Some automatically soak up the hatred of others like a sponge. They have quite hateful characteristics. In some cases, they have chosen these roles, attracting aggressions that others can not handle.
There is so little that you do know that many situations appear meaningless or chaotic.
Session 491, The Early Sessions, Book 9