“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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 outer ego is very seldom aware of the inner ego, and the subconscious is indeed a vast area dividing them. We are discussing now the outer ego in relation to the inner ego, and describing a situation in terms of relationships. Other relationships would show both the outer and inner egos in a different light. Relationships are also the result of tensions, and each action sets up a new tension.

Tension is infinite. Your time system is indeed the result of tension as it is distorted within your own system, yet the distortion itself, as you see, creates a new reality. And that reality then continues to operate, forming like realities of the sort that can exist within the given conditions already set up by the original distortion.

Distortion, in this respect, has a different meaning than the sort of distortion arising from a misreading of information. Yet in some respects it is similar. An original action can never repeat itself in an identical fashion. Its attempts to do so, never successful, result in a kind of distortion, and this distortion then becomes the basis for a new reality.

The painting that results is a new reality, but it is also a distortion of the original landscape. The artist may hint at time within his painting, but he cannot capture the physical eons that might be contained in the mountains themselves, which he wishes to reproduce.

Mankind is to some intimate degree acquainted with this attempt of action to recreate itself, for human reproduction is here a case in point, each individual attempting to create a replica, the attempt doomed to failure, but the attempt itself resulting in a distortion of the original action; that is, a distortion of the original individuals, and in the creation of a new reality, this process then being repeated indefinitely.

We come therefore to the fact of creative tension. The individual in his psychological state is familiar with creative tension, often in its pure state. So quickly however is the tension transformed into a distortive creation that the sensation of creation is mistakenly accepted as the tension itself, rather than seen for what it is. Creation is the result of tension, though instantly new tension is set up, since tension is a characteristic of action. And each creation, being action, will instantly set up new tension.

The creation is, therefore, the relaxed fulfillment of a tension. This can have practical results, for you will be able to recognize and use the tension itself toward purposeful goals. It can be dissolved or set at rest in any action. Recognizing the tension itself will allow you to choose the action that will result, to some degree.