“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The ego attempts to maintain a clear point of focus, of stability, so that it can direct the light of the conscious mind with some precision and concentrate its focus in areas of actuality that seem permanent. As mentioned (in Chapter One), the ego, while a portion of the whole self, can be defined as a psychological “structure,” composed of characteristics belonging to the personality as a whole, organized together to form a surface identity.

The ego, while appearing to be permanent, then, forever changes as it adapts to new characteristics from the whole self,¹ and lets others recede. Otherwise it would not be responsive to the needs and desires of the entire personality.

Basically it understands its source and its nature. It is the portion of the mind, then, that looks out upon physical reality and surveys it in relation to those characteristics of which it is composed at any given time. It makes its judgments according to its own idea of itself.

(11:10.) When you find these thoughts in yourself you may say, and rather indignantly: “But those things are all true. I am poor. I cannot meet my bills,” and so forth. In so doing, you see, you accept your belief about reality as a characteristic of reality itself, and so the belief is transparent or invisible to you. But it causes your physical experience.

(“I realized that Seth had a great amount of information all gathered and there, including the biological foundations of both characteristics. Take the amoeba, a one-celled microscopic animal, for instance: I knew that the protoplasm in the amoeba, the essential living matter, represents the individual needing-to-go-out quality. Yet the protoplasm must conform to its environment — in this case the amoeba’s ‘body,’ which can only move as a unit when directed by the individualistic need to react to stimuli.