“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

However in some other manners the experiences of the tree are extremely deep, dealing with the inner senses which are, and properly, also properties of treedom. There is something here difficult for me to explain clearly. The inner senses of the tree have strong affinity with the properties of earth itself. They feel their growing. They listen to their growing as you listen to your own heartbeat. They experience this oneness with their own growth, and they also experience pain. The pain however while definite, unpleasant and sometimes agonizing, is not of an emotional nature in the same way that you might experience pain.

The tree makes adjustments as you make adjustments. The tree listens to its growth up from the earth and listens also to the murmur of the growth of its roots beneath. It adjusts each root ending according to what impediments might lie in its way. Without the so-called mind of man, it nevertheless retains this inner consciousness of all its parts above and below the ground, and adjusts them constantly.

The tree is also innerly aware of its environment to an astonishing degree. It maintains contact awareness and the ability to manipulate itself in two completely different worlds, so to speak, one in which it meets little resistance growing upward, and one composed of much heavier elements into which it must grow downward. Man needs artificial methods for example to operate effectively on land or in water, but the so-called unconscious tree manages very nicely in two worlds as diverse certainly as land and water, and makes himself a part of each. I am speaking now of a tree as a “he” for reasons that I will go into in a further discussion.

And as far as motion is concerned, the tree moves upward and downward. It is quite unfair to say that it cannot transport itself since it does so to an amazing degree, the roots and limbs moving in all directions. The inner senses of all plant life are well attuned, alert and very important. All these fragments have consciousness to a rather high degree, considering that man holds them in such ill repute.

In some fragments such as much plant life and vegetative life there is strong use of certain inner senses. Your rocks, Joseph, I will call vegetative. Rocks are far from lifeless. Other types of life, including your own, rely on the recognized outer senses. The ideal of course is a consciousness that is adept at using both the inner and outer senses fully.

Your tree lives through its inner senses, experiencing many sensations and reacting to many stimuli of which you are unaware. Minute earth tremors, even the motion of small ants about its lower trunk, are recognized and experienced by tree consciousness. Such invisibilities as humidity, radioactivity and all electrical earthly values, are felt as quite real things by your tree and recognized as being separate from the tree itself.

The tree does not even build up an image of man, which is why this is difficult to explain. I have no intention of going deeper into this matter than you can follow at this time. Nevertheless the tree builds up a composite sensation which represents say an individual man. And the same tree will recognize the same man who passes it by each day. Beside the recognized outer senses, and the inner senses of which you are just now beginning to gain knowledge, there are other inner and even outer senses, which you are not quite ready to understand.

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

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.

(She said she senses that Seth is hiding some material from her tonight, concerning the inner senses. Her voice has been pretty much her own tonight. She resumed dictating at 10:35.)

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.

When you start out by trying to be practical in cold terms you rarely succeed, because you close yourself away from what does not seem to be practical in your terms. But your terms are not the only terms that apply. The inner self, and I will make these differentiations for you clearly either now or later, the inner self is nourished by many springs. To cut off one is a danger. To cut off many is disastrous, and prevents any sort of practicality, since half of your abilities will not be used.

The confident inner self will let the ego manipulate in the physical world, but will not allow it to become fiercely overprotective. Your work contains the strength of your inner self in many ways. Your particular ego’s function is to show this work to the world as you know it. I hesitate, and I mean this, to offer practical advice to one who tries to be so practical. But my dear Joseph, there is no true practicality in smothering your abilities by working in a position where you cannot use your abilities. You will not be paid for abilities you cannot use, since I know you must think in financial terms. Your ego’s job is to help you trade your true abilities for your daily bread.