“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The gestalt patterns of which I have spoken is the basis here, and yet all members within such gestalts are themselves independent, possessing identity and separation even while they cooperate in a complicated pattern. It is arbitrary; that is, from your viewpoint you arbitrarily choose certain portions of reality and call them units, marking them off. But your divisions do not affect the nature of these gestalts, as my discussion speaks of separate universes without affecting the nature of any universe one whit.

It makes no difference to the frog, to the nature of the frog, and it changes no smallest cell within him, if you choose to enclose what you call him, as an idea unit called frog, or whether you consider instead the complete picture. The identities still remain the same.

And again, dreams are themselves never completed, but continue on whether or not your perception of them continues. For dreams also are gestalts. When you look into the mirror you see the camouflage image. You do not see the ego, though you know that it exists. But the idea, ego, is in itself an arbitrary unit chosen for particular reasons. It is not a thing. You have drawn lines, imaginary lines, and made an arbitrary boundary. This does not mean that the ego does not exist.

The ego then, is only part of a much larger self, but because consciously you do not perceive the whole self you arbitrarily make a unit from a truly indivisible identity, and call this the “I.” This designation, this classification, in no way affects the nature of that indivisible self. It merely affects your own conscious attitudes. You succeed in cutting off, in theory, one portion of the self from the whole self.