“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.

When it attempts to hold the upper position indefinitely, there is frozen motion and built-up pressures, but there will be the inevitable tumbling under. For the tumbling under is the motion that forms the ego itself, and without it the ego would be meaningless.

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.

Now to some extant Ruburt’s ego wanted to stay where it was also: hence, comparatively speaking, the frozen motion.

It attempted to stop other portions of the personality from entering into the ego framework. This ego that so behaved was then simply a group of particular qualities belonging to Ruburt, that were given control for a while to meet particular circumstances, and then stubbornly refused to return to the whole personality.

There had been a tendency, as given, for a rigid personality ego framework in any case. The qualities thrown up to the surface were those in the past most capable to handle highly difficult situations, and in some of these stubbornness was, comparatively speaking, a virtue.

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.

Give us a moment here. (Pause.) To some extent the symptoms did represent caution. He did not want to move until he was sure of his direction once more. It was the stubborn ego in this case that prevented him from seeing clearly the direction which had been given by other portions of the self.

Previous ego patterns can still operate under various circumstances. Ruburt was often a male, and he sometimes attempts to manhandle the feminine aspects of his present personality, to inflict upon it literally qualities that go against its grain. Force, logic over intuition, for example, or intellect over psychic awareness. The psychic abilities in his case are, among other things, aided by that balance of characteristics, and these should not be tampered with.