“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The inner self will see to it that he does. Health should be considered then —and this is important—as a means to a desired end; full productive creative work; full use of abilities; daily enjoyment; helping others. When he focuses upon health itself as such, he overconcentrates. Health as a means to excellent performance in fields that are important to him; health as a means to use those abilities with which he has been honored; health as a means to bring joy to himself and hence to others; health as a source of strength that is available always to help him use those abilities and to fulfill his destiny here, now...

(My question had to do with the various kinds of experience sought by the inner self. I wondered, with some apparent irritation, why Jane’s inner self would permit such a detriment as the symptoms to continue for so long. Once the experience of the illness had been gained, it seemed to me, it made better sense for the inner self to terminate the particular experience and move on to others. I thought there were many more valuable kinds of experiences to be had in many kinds of healthier, more creative endeavors, instead of letting the symptoms interfere with Jane’s attempts to perform such creative endeavors.

Now. I told you in our last session that the inner self will not take over entirely. In this particular case built-up negative attitudes of years’ standing set up negative patterns that prevented the most creative parts of the self from using their natural potential.

Now there are distinctions to be made. The negative patterns, many of them, came from conscious deductions made about the nature of reality. They seeped down into the personal subconscious layer, causing blockages here that prevented even deeper areas of the self (pause) from giving necessary help.

The subconscious—personal subconscious layer – became blocked with debris that seeped down from the conscious layer. The personal subconscious then acted like a lid, blocking off the healing energies that came from below. Now your book uses the term subconscious to cover the whole inner self. Those healing abilities, that exuberance and love of life, is from a deeper layer of the self.

There is no doubt in this deeper layer that full abilities will be used, and potentialities carried out, and there is no time to this portion of the self. There is no desperation there.

(More irritation on my part. I felt, and still do as this is written, that Seth gave only a partial answer to the original question, concerning the purposes and awarenesses of the inner self; I intend to press for a more complete answer.)