“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There are as I have told you no limitations to the self. It grows by growing, and by constant use of its abilities. It can be said that all consciousnesses and all identities are but one. This in no way negates the existence of any given identity however. All identities are more dependent upon each other, and yet more independent, than you imagine.

Later you may be able to follow this inner self even while the physical ego operates in its normal manner, but this is much more difficult if overall personality balance is to be maintained. It should be fairly obvious that identity hardly resides exclusively within the physically-oriented ego. In one sense, identity is always a becoming, and it can never be a static, finished thing. For it knows itself through change, and that which is finished cannot change.

Your own personalities will set the pace, for they are well-balanced ones. All of this demands spontaneity and control. This is the motion of consciousness. It is unfortunate that identity is considered generally as a rather static and permanent acknowledgment, for it is not.

Consider this analogy: The self as a moving circle, such as a Ferris wheel. A tree in front of the wheel will represent physical reality. The whole self, or the whole wheel, is composed of many selves in various positions, as the many people who sit on the Ferris wheel. As the wheel turns you call the person or the self who faces the tree the ego, simply because this is the portion that faces physical reality, represented by our tree. But the self who faces the tree one moment is not the self that faces it the next moment, and the operator of the wheel is never in evidence, you see.

The selves who ride the wheel therefore also provide some of the power that runs the wheel. It is only because you stress similarities rather than differences that you do not realize that the self that you call the ego is but the appearance, in one particular perspective, of many quite different aspects of the personality.

Perhaps if you imagine a spotlight directed on the seat in front of the tree, you will see this more clearly. You cannot see the other selves on the wheel, you only see the one spot that is lit, and the light is that of physical perception. There are different lights, however. If others watched and saw only that portion of the self that was clear in their perspective, then they would imagine that they saw the primary self also.

The psychology of personality cannot be grasped unless reincarnation is taken into consideration, but even then this only represents energy operating within one system. The personality operates simultaneously within many systems. Projection represents practical application. Such experience allows you to unite various aspects of the self, and to bring the whole self into sharper focus. As a rule projection in some areas can only be achieved by those who are living their last earthly cycle.

However, the personality as it is manifested can never be understood if it is taken alone. There are sufficient hints and signs that do appear, to give evidence of these other portions of the self. Now there is one important point in particular in all this that should be emphasized, and I will repeat it: Certain portions of the self do not manifest themselves directly within physical reality. They do not operate directly within physical reality, and the word directly is significant.

(“Something to do with a dying out or fading away, as a score.” There is a possible connection with this data and the letter to Jane from her mother on May 10,1966. This letter too is written on a card. The front of the card contains a picture of three cherubs singing. One of them plays an accordion, the other two hold sheets of music on which the scores are clearly visible. Note the mention of music also in the data on pages 274 and 276. Besides telling Jane about the sweater, Jane’s mother wrote in the May 10 letter of the death of a family friend, Father Ryan, and enclosed a news clipping account of the funeral, which was to be held shortly. Father Ryan died of leukemia and his death was expected; it could correspond to “dying out” or “fading away”.