“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

If you compare the whole self with an ocean, then the topmost wave at any given time would represent the ego. It is not by or of itself a separate thing, but part of the whole, forever changing, to return to the whole and be tumbled under and emerge again in new form.

Various portions of the self therefore face physical reality at any given time as the ego. The process is constant. An attempt to maintain the status quo is of course natural on the part of the ego, but when this becomes a stubborn effort to maintain dominancy then the difficulties arise. The self throws up those portions of itself that it considers most able to handle the changing physical environment at any given time.

The characteristics of the ego therefore change as various situations are met. The term ego, implying one phenomena, is therefore confusing. What was ego today may belong to the subconscious tomorrow. Any attempt at rigidity is therefore defeating.

The situations had changed but the ego framework had grown rigid, rigid enough so that it could in a large degree dominate certain normally subconscious processes, bringing forth the physical symptoms. Now there is always an imprinting process within the personality, belonging to past experience. A previous inclination to gluttony had once led him to some slight gout, and in the present case there was a swelling of the feet.