“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

When man’s ego turns instead into a shell — when instead of interpreting outside conditions, it reacts too violently against them, then it hardens and becomes an imprisoning form that begins to snuff out important data and to keep enlarging information from the inner self. The ego’s purpose is protective. The ego is also a device to enable the inner self to inhabit the physical plane.

If, for example, our tree bark grew fearful of stormy weather and began to harden itself against the elements, in a well-meaning but distorted protective spirit, then the tree would die. This is what the ego does when it reacts too violently to purely physical data. As a result, it stiffens, and then you have, my well-meaning friend, the cold detachment with which you at one time faced the world.

Neither should the ego react so violently that it remembers and reacts to past storms in the midst of clear and sunny weather. You can understand the analogy, Joseph. You know that such a tree bark would be death to the tree. What you must still understand is that the same applies to any individual and the ego. It applies to you. And Ruburt must learn that it is equally ridiculous to act as if it is a summer day in the middle of wintertime. The tree has enough sense not to show blossoms in a blizzard.