“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I have often said that all these divisions and separations are arbitrary. All exist one within another. Apparent boundaries are not boundaries, but only differences in the focus of attention. Even this inner ego is not the same from one given moment to another, for it is not a static thing, but is a part of continuing action. It is much more familiar with the subconscious and with the dream universe, and with the inner self, than it is with the outside ego, however.

As the outer ego is constantly creative, so is the inner ego. The focus in which the creativity occurs is merely different. The subconscious could be thought of as a nucleus, surrounded by the inner and outer egos. Certain tensions are maintained here, and all communications, incidentally, are the results of tensions.

Tension is action’s inherent impulse to know itself through further action. All actions are the result of tension. Without tension there would be no existence. Tension therefore is a creative state. A lack of understanding concerning tension will always lead an organism to fight against itself.

The ego, the inner ego, the subconscious, the whole self, and even the entity, these are all states of tension.

No action can be considered by itself. There is no solitary action. Such a possibility is basically meaningless. Nor does a tension exist in isolation. In all of these matters there is also constant pulsations of action within the outer ego, the inner ego, and all the other aspects of the whole self.

It is therefore obvious why one action affects all others, so intimately that it is basically impossible to speak of one action in isolation. Tension is a condition of action, and an inherent quality of action. The possibilities of action are limitless. Regardless of the origin of any given action, it will never be entirely dissipated. It may pass beyond or through the system in which it originated, but its existence will not cease.

The reality then tries to recreate itself in identical fashion, fails, and is again distorted into a further facet of basic reality. This holds true under all circumstances and under all conditions. Recall here the material concerning identities in general.

Such a landscape would have to be composed of the actual elements that compose the original landscape. The artist would have to assemble mountains of rocks, an infinity, that is infinity of molecules, all equally impossible. The best he can do is create a distortion of the original landscape—a creation of an approximation that can comfortably exist within the limited perspectives with which he can work, and using the materials that are at his own command.

However his painting contains new realities, and distinctive ones, that would be alien to the original landscape. The actual trees, had he really been able to reproduce them, would then undergo their seasonal changes. The trees in his painting, being artificial reproductions, do not undergo the same physical changes, even while the atoms and molecules that compose the canvas itself, and all the pigments, constantly themselves change.

The painting, therefore, is both a distortion of reality, and the creation of a new reality. Likewise all realities are formed.

In a like manner for example, the act of dreaming itself changes both the dreamer and the dream. The act of doing anything at all automatically changes the doer. The reality of any action automatically determines that the action will change.

The creative dilemma, the creative distortion, is of course itself an action that is resolved in further acts. These are basic principles concerning the nature of action, principles that are carried through within any system. They are valid therefore within your own system, within the electrical system, within the dream system, and among all others.

The action involved in these sessions, for example, changes us all, yet truly none of us perceive the nature of the entire action of which we are a part. I, for example, cannot perceive the entire future consequences of any one action. I may perceive the entire consequences of any given action within your system or my own, but it is impossible for me to perceive a given action’s consequences as it is felt within all systems, for each action occurs within all systems simultaneously.