“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Action can be experienced directly, however, but only when no effort is made to tamper with it. It must be plunged into. Once more, action is not a function of structure. Action is inseparable from structure. Structure is action. Identities are action, as I have explained. Your idea of action as it occurs within dreams comes closer to the real nature of action than does your idea of muscular force. For in dreams the ego makes little attempt to impede action. Though in dreams you see or feel your arm move, your legs run, still the arm and the legs of the physical body may not move.

But ego’s seeming independence from action is basically meaningless, since ego is also action, and can never be otherwise. Any such separation of action from itself only adds to the totality of action, in that it increases action’s ability to perceive itself from as many viewpoints as possible. Perspectives represent action’s action upon itself. Any one dimension must result in another dimension, for the action within any given dimension can never complete itself, but will continue.

You cannot touch the action. You cannot touch the action, now, of your own arm as you write. You see the results of the action. You can feel effects of the action, but you cannot directly perceive the action itself. Since identity is dependent upon action, then it should be seen that it is impossible for an identity to attain stability, since total stability would destroy it.

A note now concerning thought, as it is a form of action with which all men are familiar. Here you can see that your ego accepts thoughts as a part of its identity. Thought’s actions are accepted by the ego, yet the ego seems to stand apart from them; and because of ego’s nature it fears to plunge into the action of a thought. For it, the ego, has but recently pried itself from action, and so perceives action now as if action were a province of the ego, and not the other way around.

Action can never be considered apart from that which is seemingly acted upon, for action becomes a part of structure. Action begins from within, and is a result of inner vitality inherent within all realities. Some action is always present. Action itself is not a thing alone. [...] Action is a dimension of existence.

Action is more like growth than force. [...] Again, action involves more than movement, as you think of movement, for value fulfillment is action. A dream involves action. Not only the action within the dream, but the action of dreaming itself.

You may here get a glimmering of the connection between certain types of action and distance, as I have mentioned it briefly. There is always action within action, and any reality or any experience is instantaneous action. Motion is the type of action with which you are most familiar, but motion attains its importance within the physical field only because of your particular outer senses. For much action is entirely unperceived by you, particularly on a conscious level.

Action is not affected by time as you know it. Action also takes place within the spacious present. You may, however, only perceive parts of action in your time breakdown. Ideally, psychological time experiences will allow you to perceive action more clearly and directly. The ego attempts to control action by standing apart from it. Any such division is arbitrary, and in no way affects the nature of action itself. [...]

[...] We are now studying it in relation to its basic reality as action. While it may seem that the personality would be a result of a series of actions, this is not basically the case. The personality in actuality is simultaneous action, that is composed of actions within actions. Portions of it are conscious of its awareness as a part of action, and portions of it attempt to stand aside from action.

The longer the impeding action is accepted as a part of the self, the more serious the problem. The impeding action or illness however is not a part of the basic personality structure, or action gestalt, which is composed of action patterns formed since birth. Compared to this truly astounding structure, that is the result of the memory of every atom and molecule, this impeding action is relatively unimportant, and when correct methods are used, it can be dislodged without too much difficulty.

Impeding actions represent actual blockages of energy or of action, dead-end accumulations. In one manner of speaking this does not mean that the action is terminated, however.

[...] The ego may attempt to ignore or escape from such experiences, but the basic nature of action itself is the knowing of itself in all aspects; and in a basic manner, in a very basic and deep manner, action does not differentiate between pleasant, painful or enjoyable actions.

Identities may be termed action which is conscious of itself. For the purposes of our discussion, the terms action and identity must be separated. However basically no such separation exists, for an identity is also a dimension of existence, action within action, an unfolding of action upon itself; and through this interweaving of action with itself, through this reaction, an identity is formed.

The reality of such an identity then exists within the action. The energy of the action, the workings of action within and upon itself, forms identity. [...] Yet although identity is formed from action, action and identity cannot be separated. You will remember our previous definition of action, for this will make this evening’s discussion easier to understand.

Consciousness of self involves a consciousness of self within, amid, and as a part of action. Ego consciousness, on the other hand, involves a state in which consciousness of self attempts to divorce itself from action, an attempt on the part of consciousness to perceive action as an object. Here we see that ego consciousness, in this attempt, strives to perceive action not only as separate, but to perceive it in such a fashion that it appears to ego that action is not only separate from itself, that is separate from the ego, but that action is initiated by the ego, and a result rather than a cause of ego’s own existence.

Identity then, is action’s effect upon itself. Without identities action would be meaningless, for there would be nothing upon which action could act. Action must, therefore, of its very nature, of itself and from its own workings, create identities. Again, action and identity cannot be separated. [...]

An illness, as an impeding action for example, may nevertheless be a constructive action at any given time, in that it may prevent action within the personality from following more destructive actions. When this destructive possibility has passed however, an illness that is still maintained would therefore become a definite impeding action; for any seemingly impeding action cannot be judged alone, but in the context of other action elements of which any given personality is involved.

What you call suggestion then is but a small aspect of a larger directive characteristic that is ever part of action itself. It is indeed in the nature of an impetus, an inner impetus that belongs to action, and is not some force separated from action, and acting upon it. This impetus is a natural and spontaneous movement that springs from within action itself. It can even be termed the direction, or the various spontaneous directions, in which action itself moves.

Once such a pathway has been constructed, we have what you may call an action pattern or habit. Therefore, when cross currents of action are constructed, action will continue in those directions unless it is diverted back to other channels. [...] But all action must be withdrawn from it, for as long as the channel remains, then the possibility remains that the impeding action will reoccur.

These directions are not forced upon action by any laws. [...] These motions are merely the flow which action takes. What you term negative suggestions are usually impeding actions, or directions of action which impede the main directive inner flow. [...]

Your experiments with the pendulum are quite helpful to you, in that the subconscious is allowed, through its own action, to make itself more readily available. Your own conscious awareness is increased because you are then aware of inner actions with which the conscious mind had not been familiar. Here we have a coming together of actions, a joining and an immersion of one action within another: the action of the subconscious in answering questions put to it by the conscious mind, (use brain rather than mind), and the acceptance, which is itself action on the part of consciousness, of the answers received.

Here the self, by becoming part of greater action, increases its own ability to deal with action. The principle that action acts upon itself is extremely important when we are dealing with psychological action. The principle that action is self-generating, and that it cannot be withdrawn, is also vital in connection with psychological action.

[...] The very attempt to deny an action automatically changes the nature of the action, and also changes the nature of the individual who attempts to deny it. All energy seeks to materialize itself, which is another way of saying that action must act.

What you have here is an attempt to objectify, or stand apart from action in such a refusal. This is not the fault of the subconscious, but a fault of the ego, which refuses to assimilate or accept a given action. [...] When the ego however refuses to accept an emotion as a part of itself, it tries one of two actions.

We mentioned that there are always actions within actions, and made it clear that all action does not necessarily involve motion that is apparent as motion to you. Actions may be thresholds or openings for other actions. To one extent or another all actions involve unfoldings. The action of dreaming itself is partially a physical phenomena. There is then, comparatively speaking, the outside action that makes dreaming possible, the action that is dreaming.

[...] Development comes not from a series of actions strung out along a single line, one before the other in lengthwise fashion. Instead development is largely a matter of value fulfillment, which is achieved through the perspectives of action, through traveling within any given action, and following it and changing with it. To make this clearer, I have said that action exists within limitless perspectives, and that you are mainly familiar with it as it is materialized along a single line of continuity within the physical system. You experience action then as if you were moving along a single line, each dot on the line representing a moment of your time. But at the imaginary point on your line that represents any given moment, action moves out in all directions. From the standpoint of that moment point, you could imagine action forming an imaginary circle with that point as an apex. [...]

I will have more to say concerning the connection between the two fields and their manifestation in action, for one of the closest glimpses you can get of pure action is action as it is involved within the dream universe, and in this mobility as the personality passes into and out of the dream field. Within your own universe you deal with the transformation of action into physical manipulations, but this involves but a small portion of the nature of action, and it is my purpose to familiarize you with action as it exists more or less in its pure form.

This is in itself, you see, a form of value fulfillment, since you are perceiving one simultaneous action as if it were a series of separate actions. You are delving into one action, and within it continually creating action within action. [...]

It is when significant actions, important to the whole personality, are so rejected that the difficulties arise. It is also true however that these refusals to assimilate action on the ego’s part are also an integral part of the characteristics of the personality as a whole action. In each individual, certain categories of action may be habitually denied. As the characteristics of a personality may be somewhat deduced from those actions which the ego accepts, so also much may be learned about any given personality by a study of those actions which the ego habitually denies.

I spoke, for example, of the acquiescence of action at certain levels to any kind of stimuli, indiscriminately, whether painful or pleasurable. Without this basic acquiescence, actions would not have been given the freedom to break patterns down and evolve new ones of them. [...] It is simply a basic characteristic of action at certain levels, and the human personality, with its complicated ego structure, is nevertheless composed of many actions that operate at this level.

Such a rejection is definitely an impeding action. [...] The fault is not that a particular action has been buried by the subconscious. The fault is that the ego has refused to accept the action from the subconscious, therefore impeding the natural flow of energy. Naturally, all actions are not recognized by the ego, nor is it necessary in any case.

[...] It still fights for survival, of course; but the consciousness of plant life involves a consciousness of self as it operates within action. It sees or feels itself as a part of continuing action, and because of this inner atomic knowledge it does not fear destruction, basically, knowing that it will be changed into other kinds of action.

You say that an action has begun when it enters your system. You say that an action is completed when it passes beyond your system. But the action, in those terms, began long before; and the action, in those terms, is never completed. Yet even the action as it occurs within your system is constantly changing in the ways which we have described, and this changing in itself implies infinities of beginnings and endings within action itself, with no ending, a real or permanent ending, and no beginning, a real beginning out of nothing. For each beginning carries within it action which has come before.

Action which is materialized within your plane appears within your field, and disappears from your field. This in no way affects the basic nature of action itself. That is, it does not change the basic laws of action. Action will change both within your physical field and outside your physical field. You are only aware of a small part of action, that portion which is materialized within your system.

It is most important, again, to realize that action does not move in a straight line. Action may have mass. [...] Action will never have one effect only. [...] Whenever an action seems to have but one effect, then there is a lack in perceptive abilities.

Action within your field may appear to be affected by your time, but only that part of action which is physically materialized will be so affected. Action may appear to be at rest, but is never at rest, or stationary, or permanent. Action may appear to have a beginning and an ending but this is, again, an error of perception.

The inner self would be then any given outthrust of original action outward, as explained earlier. [...] And because it is action, and because no action can complete itself, and no action can completely materialize, then each outthrust or materialization would result in an in-thrust; not into the original action from which it came, but into itself.

It acts upon itself, being action. [...] However, the entity can be partially defined as the sum of all the selves within a given range of action, the simultaneous totality which on the one hand then cannot yet exist, since action can never complete itself, yet representing that impetus forever frustrated on the part of action for complete materialization.

Lest we forget, action is another word for inner vitality. [...] They cannot be contracted, for action cannot wipe out comprehension of itself. The electrically coded data of which we have spoken cannot be removed, for an action cannot withdraw a previous action.

Because there is no time, as you think of time, we will not say that action retains a memory of all its previous actions or selves, for this would be misleading. Action is aware of itself in all of its spontaneous and simultaneous workings. [...]

It is therefore obvious why one action affects all others, so intimately that it is basically impossible to speak of one action in isolation. Tension is a condition of action, and an inherent quality of action. The possibilities of action are limitless. Regardless of the origin of any given action, it will never be entirely dissipated. [...]

The action involved in these sessions, for example, changes us all, yet truly none of us perceive the nature of the entire action of which we are a part. I, for example, cannot perceive the entire future consequences of any one action. I may perceive the entire consequences of any given action within your system or my own, but it is impossible for me to perceive a given action’s consequences as it is felt within all systems, for each action occurs within all systems simultaneously.

The inner ego, however, while conscious of itself, has returned to a subjective position within action, and views itself as a part of action. The outer ego, if you recall, views itself as apart from, or separate from, action. [...]

To some extent it also acts like a director of experience and action. [...] The inner ego, as action, thrusts in an inward direction; that is, back toward the originating impulse. [...] They are two faces, therefore, and form one of many spheres of action, one pulling inward and one outward.

We will continue our discussion concerning action and identities. I have said that identity is a part of action, and basically inseparable from action. Identity attempts to form meaningful patterns and relationships from action. Consciousness is action that perceives itself. The ego is action’s attempt to stand off from itself.

Action may show itself as motion, but it is much more than motion in the terms which you usually use, and motion is but one small dimension within action’s realm. [...] There is no past or future to action. All action is simultaneous. [...]

The deeply and strongly dimensioned sphere I used as an analogy for an action, if you recall, for any portion of action; you can now indeed further imagine one entity being composed of such an action, with egos like many faces looking outward in all directions, and each perceiving vastly different fields of reality; looking inward and outward, backward and forward as it were, through and beyond. And yet each action, or entity, is a part of another, and is both within and without another. [...]

There is no one particular pattern followed by consciousness in its perception of itself as action. [...] Any action changes itself. [...] This rule is not forced upon action from some outside agency, but is simply a part of its own nature.

[...] When the ego, therefore, becomes too overbearing it attempts to impede the flow of action. It cannot so impede action directly, for the very act of forming such impediments involves action. Nevertheless such impediments often set up actions that block the overall movement or direction of the action that composes the whole personality.

This in no manner affects the nature of those actions which you ignore. However, to all intents and purposes it changes action in so far as you are concerned with it. [...] For you can then choose to perceive advantageous action, as well as you can choose not to perceive action which for any reason or another you choose to ignore.

Your own experiments in psychological time have allowed you, to some extent, to experience within yourselves such unimpeded action. You know now that the ego, because of its nature, attempts to set itself aside from action. [...] The ego, being part of action, nevertheless affects the nature of action as seen in the various manifestations of the whole self.

When we have gone into the nature of action still much more thoroughly, then you will be able to use such knowledge for quite practical purposes, and to your advantage. For as you know, you do not perceive all aspects of action by any means, and it can indeed to some extent be up to you to choose those aspects of action with which you will be concerned, and those which you would ignore.

“The energy of action, the workings of action within and upon itself, forms identity. Yet though identity is formed from action, action and identity cannot be separated. Identity, then, is action’s effect upon itself. Without identity, action would be meaningless, for there would be nothing upon which action could act. Action must, by its very nature, of itself and its own workings, create identities. [...]

“Identity may be termed action which is conscious of itself. For the purposes of our discussion, the terms ‘action’ and ‘identity’ must be separated, but basically no such separation exists. An identity is also a dimension of existence, action within action, an unfolding of action upon itself—and through this interweaving of action with itself, through this re-action, an identity is formed.

“This first dilemma results in action, and from action’s own workings upon itself we have seen that identity was formed, and that these two are inseparable. Action is, therefore, a part of all structure. Action, having of itself and because of its nature formed identity, now also because of its nature would seem to destroy identity, since action must involve change, and any change seems to threaten identity.

“Every action changes every other action—we go back to our ABC’s. Therefore, every action in your present affects those actions you call past. [...] Remembering what you know of the nature of time, you realize that the apparent boundaries between past, present, and future are only illusions caused by the amount of action you can physically perceive.

[...] These inner events are the results of action’s own characteristics. Action continually working upon itself creates more action.

Initially this is mental action, an action-event. This action-event will then affect all other events, spiral inward and outward in all possible dimensions, and may be perceived in these dimensions in quite a different form from its original nature. [...]

Your physical image and your environment are exterior materializations that represent your interior action-events at any given time. [...] Such checking always involves action, however, that already changes that which is perceived. All of these seeming separate actions belong together, you see, and occur at once. [...]

Your psychological life is dependent upon your ability to perceive and react to such action-events. [...] Your identity, your inner self, is a main action-event, forming other such events that are the various portions of your personality.

[...] It can indeed be examined but the examination itself, being action, changes it. For the personality, true to the roles of action, will seize upon the new action and form of it new realities and unities with itself.

[...] Personality changes and acts upon all other action. Personality, then, can be seen to operate as a field of action in identity; but identity that is conscious of its relation to action as a whole.

I mentioned earlier that the personality is an excellent example of action as it is sometimes projected into the physical field, while not appearing within it in tangible form. For here we see many of action’s characteristics: the mobility that does not necessarily involve space, the thrusts outward, and the corresponding thrusts inward. We see action acting upon itself and constant change.

A thorough study of the personality will be an excellent exercise, and will lead you close to the nature of action itself. The experiences about which you asked, for example, involved actions of the personality and not, of course, of the ego. Expansion and contraction occur constantly as characteristic of action, as I have explained.

[...] Moment points are indeed composed of action, action experiencing itself. [...] Action is, and yet forms its own experience. [...] Your physical body is a series of actions, though the word series is being used for simplicity’s sake only.

[...] You cannot stop action even in your mind, for the attempt to stop action is in itself an action. What you term death is an action. [...]

[...] Action divides itself into various selves, and then explores the moment points of experience, for each new self is indeed a new action, an original act.

The inner senses allow you to follow some of these actions into other realities. The moment point on the one hand is of course a minute division of action. [...]

[...] For while there is no real past or present or future within the spacious present, there is indeed an infinity of inward and outward; and again, of actions within actions, and there is no end to these actions for they are self-generating. [...] To many portions of the inner self then, what you would call a moment would correspond to an almost limitless number of moments, for even physical time has no meaning without experience without action.

Inner action, in terms of psychological reality, is every bit as important as physical action; more important. It would be most unfortunate if either or both of you let physical action on the part of others stand in the way of beneficial action on your own parts.

(It might be interesting to note here that Seth began talking about action in the 13th session, January 6, 1964: “Love and hate, for example, are action,” and “In your plane, action is the main word of importance,” etc. [...]

[...] The perspectives and psychic relationships that make up the human personality simply could not have resulted through action within your field alone. It cannot be stressed too strongly that experience within the self can lead to at least some understanding of the nature of action in its pure form, for within your physical universe action is to some extent frozen, insofar as your perceptions of it are concerned.

The personality is simultaneous action; it is composed of actions within actions. Portions of it are conscious of its awareness as a part of action, and portions try to stand aside from action. This attempt forms the ego, which is itself action.

[...] When action is allowed to flow freely, then neurotic rejections of action will not occur. … An illness is almost always the result of another action that cannot be carried through. When the lines to the repressed action are released and the channels to it opened, such an illness will vanish. However, the thwarted action may be one with disastrous consequences, which the illness may prevent.

Illnesses can be seen as impeding actions representing actual blockages of energy, action turned into channels that are not to the best interests of the personality. [...] They represent offshoots; not necessarily detrimental in themselves, except when viewed from the standpoint of other actions that form the personality framework. [...]

[...] The ego may attempt to escape such experiences, but the basic nature of action itself is the knowing of itself in all aspects. In a very deep manner, action does not differentiate between enjoyable and painful actions.

Action and consciousness are forever bound together, and we discussed the structure of the personality from this viewpoint. Action is perceived within your system electromagnetically, in terms of intensities. The personality as you know it is merely the result of action as you perceive it in certain groupings at any given time.

[...] It is action highly aware, and quite able to change its components. It consists also of course of the probable selves of which we have spoken, and it unites and directs infinitely larger portions of action than possible for the physical personality.

We spent many sessions in the past discussing the nature of action.

You understood, when we were done, that you perceive but a very brief glimpse of a small part of action as it exists. [...]