Inner Ego

Seth's Early Sessions, Vol 6, Session 270

Inner Ego

… You are your subconscious self, and oftentimes what makes no sense to the ego makes good sense to the overall personality.  Still, there are psychological balances that always operate when the overall personality gestalt is operating effectively …

The overall needs of the personality are always taken into consideration by what I have called in the past the inner ego.  Now this portion of the self is indeed self-conscious in the highest meaning of the term – aware of the subconscious portion of the personality, aware of the primary conscious framework that you call your ego, and constantly directs the overall activities.  This portion is aware of the complicated workings of the nervous system and all bodily functions.  It is the overseer.  It knows when to allow subconscious needs and wishes their fulfillment.  It knows when to put fulfillment off for a time.  It is this part of the personality that is in charge of overall stability.

Now.  This inner ego can also operate within the dream state, and in certain awake-seeming dreams, it is the portion that realizes that the personality is not in its normal waking condition.  It is this portion of the self that is with you in the most excellent projections.  The inner ego is the part of the personality that contains the highest aspirations and capabilities.  It has been called by psychologists the subliminal self.

When in such dreams your perceptions seem exceedingly clear, you can be certain that the inner ego is operating.  Now all portions of the personality, of the present personality, belong to this inner ego.  It functions constantly, and yet it is always in a state of becoming.  It is more than what you are at any given moment in your time.  It contains, and is, the psychological blueprint containing the full potential of the present personality within any given incarnation.

It is the director of all the subsidiary psychological subpersonalities that form the acting-present primary personality.  It gives and takes.  It prevents unconstructed aspects from gaining control, unless of course there are strong reasons why such control is necessary in the long run.

It dabbles in both your future and your past, speaking now in your terms.  As you create a painting, and the painting is still an aspect of yourself, so it creates the whole personality, which is an aspect of itself.  It operates in both the waking and the dream state.  It often forms the content of each.  It is more knowledgeable than any one aspect of the personality.  It is more knowledgeable than all other aspects of the personality, for it forms them together into a cohesive whole.

It is therefore the director of all activities, both in the waking and dream condition.  It is the inner ego from whom you receive your inspiration, and it is the inner ego which gives consent to our meetings.

I told you from the beginning that the inner ego is aware of data that is received through the inner senses as well as data from the outer senses.

It is the prime identity of the whole present personality.  In many cases it is the I of your dreams.  It is definitely the I of your creative activity.  It is the I, you see, which survives physical existence, and the physical, physically-oriented ego is only a part of it.

If only the physically-oriented ego survived, very little indeed would survive at all.  The physically-oriented ego is hardly aware of your experiences in their entirety.  The physically-oriented ego, if it alone survived, would contain only your conscious memories.  Even now, in physical existence, you operate on a much deeper and more complicated level than this.  Events and experiences which are forgotten, or which escaped the physically-oriented ego, still affect your activities in this life, and if they did not your physical existence would be brief indeed.  Any survival that was based upon the survival of the physically-oriented ego alone would be as shallow as a paper cutout.  These things escape you.  You take it for granted that the physically-oriented ego represents your own psychological identity, you see, and this is an illusion.  It contains a portion of your psychological feeling of identity, but only that.

Feelings and sensations and memories that it knows nothing of have built up your psychological identity, and given you a sense of continuity.  Of these this ego knows but little.  Intimacy with your self and with your own identity, that is intimate knowledge of your own identity, resides in all portions of the self, and is not dependent upon a survival based upon the survival of the physically-oriented ego.  This would represent a sham of a survival indeed.

There is a basic difference you see between a survival personality, and the personality as you know it.  The individual in physical life shows his surface face, so to speak, outward.  Inner psychological realities are hidden beneath the physically-oriented ego simply because it cannot afford to deal with them.  Its one main purpose is simply to allow the personality to operate effectively within its physical environment.

The surviving personality has a different psychological balance.  The outer ego no longer shows its outside face, so to speak, but takes its place with the other aspects of the personality.  You might say that it becomes the subconscious, although I am speaking now simply to get the idea across, and this is not precisely the case.

It is true however to say that the memories of the physically-oriented ego take their place with memories that were once subconscious.  I am speaking now of the psychological makeup of the survival personality.  The memories remain in physical existence.  There is no real distinction between psychological reality and physical reality.  The physically-oriented ego manufactures this distinction of necessity.

The survival personality does not need to do this.  To him all realities are psychological realities, a thought as real as a chair – in fact, much more real.  Therefore, communications between survival personalities and physically-oriented personalities are bound to suffer difficulties, and these difficulties are the result of the change in psychological frameworks.