“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Man’s ego causes him to interpret everything else in the light of himself. He loses very much in this manner. The ego is definitely an advancement, but it can be compared to the bark of the tree in many ways. The bark of the tree is flexible, extremely vibrant, and grows with the growth beneath. It is a tree’s contact with the outer world, the tree’s interpreter, and to some degree the tree’s companion.

It is the physical materialization of the inner self, but it is not meant to snuff out the inner self. If for example our tree bark grew fearful of the stormy weather and began to harden itself against the elements, in a well-meaning but distorted protective spirit, then the tree would die. The sunlight and so forth could never penetrate. The sap could not move upward for the trunk would solidify through and through, trying all the while to protect, and killing the tree with its obsessive kindness.

This is what the ego does when it reacts too violently to purely physical data on your plane. As a result it stiffens and you have, my well-meaning friend, the cold detachment with which you have faced the world. I do not want to digress here. I have certain points in mind for this evening. Nevertheless lest Ruburt thinks he is getting off scot-free, let me remind him that the tree’s bark is quite necessary, cannot be dispensed with—but I will get into that and into Ruburt at a later time.

Take a break, and then I will have more to say about the bark which barks too loudly.

The idea of dissociation could be likened to the slight distance between the bark and the inside of the tree. Here we do not have a rigid bark, as you should not have a rigid ego. We have instead a flexible bark, changing with the elements, protecting the inner tree or the inner self, but flexible, opening up or closing in rhythmic motion. The bark is so to speak outside our tree; and there is a small space between the inner tree and the bark. This small space is our dissociation.

The inner tree continues to grow because the bark is flexible. Man lets his ego face the outer world as does the tree bark, and this is its purpose. Nevertheless the inner self, like the inner tree, must have room to expand. The tree bark makes allowances for good weather (here Jane pounded the table) though bad weather is repulsive to the bark. Nevertheless the bark makes whatever adjustments are necessary and is flexible. Forgive me if this is a trite analogy, I almost hate to say it, but it bends with the wind. It does not bend when there is no wind. Nor does it solidify, stopping the flow of sap to the treetop for fear the dumb tree, not knowing what it was up to, would bump its head against the sky.

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 this 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 yourself.