“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The very nature of the ego and of the personality is formed by the ability to choose between actions or stimuli; but life as it is not connected to a highly differentiated ego, rejoices in all stimuli, as sensation, whether it is pleasurable or painful, for these distinctions do not exist in your terms. In the beginning of our sessions I spoke in a general manner, for example, saying that trees and plant life had a consciousness, but not a developed ego system. The tree, therefore, is conscious of the pain connected with, say, the severing of a limb.

It does not fear destruction however, as the ego does. It still fights for survival, of course; but the consciousness of plant life involves a consciousness of self as it operates within action. It sees or feels itself as a part of continuing action, and because of this inner atomic knowledge it does not fear destruction, basically, knowing that it will be changed into other kinds of action.