“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I am sorry that your tree has vanished, yet we all know that the tree has not really vanished. And I hope that you will use your inner senses to create the tree in your mind for the painting that you have begun. Now it will be a better tree in the painting, for you will be able to create the essence of the tree.

The fact is that the whole self is constantly experiencing data from all of the inner senses. The inner ego is of course aware of this. The subconscious is sometimes aware of this, and the outer ego is aware of very little. I have explained the reasons for this in past sessions. The outer ego must concentrate much of its energy toward survival in and manipulation of the outer camouflage world. This world has already been created by the inner self, and its continuing existence is determined by the constant vigilance of the inner self.

Through experience in the various levels of existence the inner ego and the outer ego come closer and closer together. The subconscious eventually disappears, as it is no longer needed as a necessary buffer zone. At your stage of development the inner ego is by far the most self-conscious part of the whole self, and has the greatest ability for perception and organization. It alone is capable of experiencing inner and basic reality directly and immediately. It alone can cope with the tumultuous nature of such direct reality experience.

In the various levels of existence the inner and outer egos begin to merge. Gradually direct experience of inner reality is spoon-fed by the inner ego through the mouth of the subconscious to the outer ego. The division between the inner and outer egos is necessary for other reasons than the nature of direct experience itself. That is, the outer ego is shielded from direct experience of reality because it could not take the impact of such experience. But this is not the only reason.

The subconscious—to finish what I began—the subconscious cushions the outer ego really against the shock of true reality. If sometimes it seems to you that you are living in a dream world, in many respects you are. You are not strong enough yet to bear the brunt of basic reality, and you construct complicated dream worlds in order to find shelter from what would appear to you as savage, uncontrolled and undisciplined chaos.

Basic reality is not uncontrolled, savage, undisciplined or chaotic, but if you were suddenly confronted with it at your present state of development you would be like a straw in a hurricane. But because of your weakness, the various levels of existence merely prepare you and equip you for the experience of true reality, of which you have but a glimmering.

I do not mean to mislead you. Basic reality is not by nature terrifying. It is however vibrant and direct to the extreme, and you must be prepared before you experience such an ultrasonic action. A direct experience of reality involves complete use of all the inner senses to an integrated cognizance field. A very weak analogy can be found if you imagine at one time hearing the most exciting and moving music imaginable, while simultaneously smelling the strongest but not necessarily unpleasant odor, viewing the most emotionally-charged scene while feeling intense and vivid bodily sensations. In normal life you even turn down outer-sense stimuli for the sake of simplicity, and to enable you to focus upon those stimuli close at hand.

As the intense experience of great joy or pain often blots out everything else, so would the direct experience of reality blot out, only completely, the outer ego who experienced it directly. At your level the sieve of the subconscious is a necessity and that is one of the main reasons why Ruburt dissociates during our sessions, even though his experience of inner reality is received secondhanded, so to speak, through me.