“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The ego would if it could, stop personality’s motion and development for the security of stability. The ego would drive the personality into preconceived channels. This consciousness-of-self—I suggest hyphens between consciousness-of-self—this consciousness-of-self is seen in man as personality, as the human personality. It appears, however, in all types of consciousness to one degree or another.

Because of its nature ego does not want to adjust. It wants adjustments to be made to it. Because ego is another manifestation of action, it is of course impossible for its aims to be realized. For all its attempts at stability and control, ego itself constantly changes. Ego most of all resents and fights against time as you know it, yet ego is to a large extent responsible for your conception of time. Basically, ego fears both the past and the present. It fears the past because it has already lost control of the past. It fears the future because it is not yet in control of it. It seeks continuity of identity, yet it is forced to realize that the “I” of today is hardly the “I” of thirty years ago.

It is the ego which fears death so strongly. And yet the stability which ego so urgently seeks would, indeed, result in a death, since no further action would be allowed.

Ego also fears spontaneity, for it cannot control action; being a part of action, most of its efforts of necessity are thwarted. Yet it is precisely this struggle between ego’s struggles for stability, and the personality’s attempt to expand spontaneously, that is at the basis of much of mankind’s achievements, and that is certainly the basis for much of his art.