“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This situation can be serious in varying degrees, according to the impetus and intensity of the original propelling cause behind the impeding action. If the impetus is a powerful one, then the impeding action will be of more serious nature, blocking up large reserves of energy for its own purposes. It obviously becomes part of the personality-psychological structure, the physical structure, the electrical and chemical structure, invading to some extent even the dream universe.

For one thing, while pain is unpleasant it is also a method of familiarizing the self against the edges of quickened consciousness. Any heightened sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, has a stimulating effect upon a consciousness to some degree. It is a strong awareness of activity and life. Where the stimulus may be extremely annoying, and humiliatingly unpleasant, certain portions of the psychological framework accept it indiscriminatingly because it is a sensation, and a vivid one. This acquiescence to even painful stimuli is a basic part of the nature of consciousness, and a necessary one.

Even a quick and automatic rejection or withdrawal from such stimulus is in itself a way by which consciousness knows itself. The ego may attempt to ignore or escape from such experiences, but the basic nature of action itself is the knowing of itself in all aspects; and in a basic manner, in a very basic and deep manner, action does not differentiate between pleasant, painful or enjoyable actions.

Action accepts all stimuli in an affirmative manner. It is only when action becomes compartmented, so to speak, in the development of highly differentiated consciousness, that such refinement occurs. I am not here saying that unpleasant stimuli will not be felt as unpleasant, and reacted against, by less self-conscious organisms. I am saying that less self-conscious organisms will rejoice even in their automatic reaction against such stimuli, because any stimuli and reaction represents sensation, and sensation is another method by which such action knows and expresses itself.

On a very basic level, as consciousness with a self (but no conscious “I” exists in the most minute division of consciousness), all action and all sensations and all stimuli are instantly and automatically and joyfully accepted, regardless of their nature. At this level no knowledge of threat exists.

Action at this level is conscious of itself, but the “I” differentiation is not definite enough to fear destruction or painful stimuli. Here we merely have action knowing itself. And knowing itself, it knows its basic indestructibility, knows its own oneness, and has no fear of destruction, for it is also part of destruction itself, from which further action will evolve.

The complicated organism which is the human personality with its physical structure, has evolved, along with many other structures, a highly differentiated “I” consciousness, whose very nature is such that it attempts to preserve the apparent boundaries of identity. To do so it chooses between actions, for the very choice, or act of choosing, and ability to do so, represents the nature of identity. But beneath this sophisticated gestalt are the simpler foundations of its being, and indeed the very acceptance of all stimuli without which identity would be impossible.

It is therefore impossible to consider an impeding action, such as an illness, without taking into consideration the particular structure-unifying devices, subconscious and conscious personality tendencies.

The personality structure can be studied from many viewpoints. We are now studying it in relation to its basic reality as action. While it may seem that the personality would be a result of a series of actions, this is not basically the case. The personality in actuality is simultaneous action, that is composed of actions within actions. Portions of it are conscious of its awareness as a part of action, and portions of it attempt to stand aside from action.