“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Many individuals imagine the soul to be an immortalized ego, forgetting that the ego as you know it is only a small portion of the self; so this section of the personality is simply projected onward, ad infinitum, so to speak. Because the dimensions of your reality are so little understood, your concepts are bound to be limited. In considering “immortality,” mankind seems to hope for further egotistical development, and yet he objects to the idea that such development might involve change. He says through his religions that he has a soul indeed, without even asking what a soul is, and often he seems to regard it, again, as an object in his possession.

It continues to grow and develop, but its growth and development is highly dependent upon its realization that while it is distinct and individual, it is also but one manifestation of the soul. To the extent that it realizes this, it learns to unfold in creativity, and to use those abilities that lie inherent within it.

(9:42.) Your soul therefore — the soul that you are — the soul that you are part of — that soul is a far more creative and miraculous phenomenon than you previously supposed. And when this is not clearly understood, and when the concept is watered down for simplicity’s sake, as mentioned earlier, then the intense vitality of the soul can never be understood. Your soul, therefore, possesses the wisdom, information, and knowledge that is part of the experience of all these other personalities; and you have within yourselves access to this information, but only if you realize the true nature of your reality. Let me emphasize again that these personalities exist independently within and are a part of the soul, and each of them are free to create and develop.

There is however an inner communication, and the knowledge of one is available to any — not after physical death, but now in your present moment. Now the soul itself, as mentioned earlier, is not static. It grows and develops even through the experience of those personalities that compose it, and it is, to put it as simply as possible, more than the sum of its parts.

(9:50.) Now, there are no closed systems in reality. In your physical system the nature of your perceptions limits your idea of reality to some extent, because you purposely decide to focus within a given “locale.” But basically speaking, consciousness can never be a closed system, and all barriers of such a nature are illusion. Therefore the soul itself is not a closed system. When you consider the soul, however, you usually think of it in such a light — unchanging, a psychic or spiritual citadel. But citadels not only keep out invaders, they also prevent expansion and development.

One prerequisite for such an intuitive understanding of the soul is the desire to achieve it. If the desire is strong enough, then you will be automatically led to experiences that will result in vivid, unmistakable subjective knowledge. There are methods that will enable you to do this, and I will give you some toward the end of this book.