This article will continue our discussion of psychology and the Mind. We will review the levels or layers to the mind then we will discuss many of these layers in great detail.
A Map of the Mind from Deepest Levels to Surface Levels
“You must understand that there are no real divisions to the self, so we speak of various portions only to make the basic idea clear. One is a part of the other; there is no point where one begins and another ends.”1
“The physical world,” writes Robert Lawlor, “like the inner world of mind, is a complex system of interpenetrating sequences of hierarchical, structural levels – yet amidst this diversity of overlaid patterns all structures, as well as all dynamic processes, are characterized by order and symmetrical relationships.”
- The Cosmic Mind, Infinite Mind, or All-Mind
- The Archetypical Mind (Galactic Mind)
- This is a refinement of the ‘All-Mind’ in a pattern peculiar to each Galaxy.
- Planetary (Akashic) Mind
- This is a repository of biases and knowledge of all who have existed upon the planet.
- Racial Mind
- Not only did each race add to the planetary mind but also each race possesses a racial mind.
- The Individual Unconscious Mind (OverSoul or Higher Self)
- This is a portion of you, the deeper identity who forms both the inner ego and the outer ego, who decided that you would be a physical being in this place and in this time. This is the core of your identity, the psychic seed from which you sprang, the multidimensional personality of which you are a part.
- The Inner Ego
- There must be a psychological chamber between the unconscious and conscious — these seemingly undifferentiated areas in which back-and-forth translations can occur – this chamber is the inner ego.
- The Subconscious
- This is a meeting place, so to speak, between the outer and inner egos.
- The Individual Conscious Mind
- The Outer Ego
We will now examine these layers in detail beginning with the inner ego.
The Inner Ego
“The inner ego is fully conscious. It is a portion of you that deals with the formation of events, that glories in a rather rambunctious and creative activity that your specifications of time and place physically preclude.
Because your conscious mind is not aware of unconscious activities, you do not identify with this inner portion of yourselves. You prefer to identify with the part of you who watches television or cooks or works – the part you think knows what it is doing. But this seemingly unconscious portion of yourself is far more knowledgeable and upon its smooth functioning your entire physical existence depends.
This portion is conscious, aware, alert. It is you, so focused in physical reality, who do not listen to its voice, who do not understand that it is the great psychological strength from which your physically-oriented Self springs.
I call this seemingly unconscious the “inner ego” for it directs inner activities. It correlates information that is perceived not through the physical senses, but through other inner channels. It is the inner perceiver of reality that exists beyond the three-dimensional. It carries within it the memory of each of your past existences. It looks into subjective dimensions that are literally infinite, and from these subjective dimensions all objective realities flow.
All necessary information is given to you through these inner channels and unbelievable inner activities take place before you can so much as lift a finger, flicker an eyelid, or read this sentence upon the page.
This portion of your identity is quite natively clairvoyant and telepathic, so that you are warned of disasters before they occur, whether or not you consciously accept the message, and all communication takes place long before a word is spoken.
The inner ego is aware of your reincarnational activities. It is the part of you that exists outside of time, yet simultaneously lives in time.”2
The Outer Ego & Inner Ego
“The “outer ego” and the inner ego operate together, the one to enable you to manipulate in the world that you know, the other to bring you those delicate inner perceptions without which physical existence could not be maintained.
The ego that you are aware of obviously could not form your body for you, or grow your bones. It knows how to assess the conditions of the world. It makes deductions.
Your reasoning is highly important, yet alone it cannot pump your blood or tell your eyes how to see.
The inner ego does the actual work that brings about the events you have decided upon.
In very simple terms, if you want to pick up a book, and then do so, you experience that event consciously, though you are quite unaware of all of the inner events that occurred to bring the motion about. The inner ego directs those activities.
The energy of the inner self is used by it to form from itself – from inner experience – a material counterpart in which the outer ego then can act out its role. The outer ego then acts out a play that the inner self has written.
This is not to say that the outer ego is a puppet. It is to say that the outer ego is far less conscious than the inner ego, that its perception is less, that it is far less stable though it makes great pretense of stability, that it springs from the inner self and is therefore less, rather than more, aware.
The outer ego is spoon-fed, being given only those feelings and emotions, only that data, that it can handle. This data is presented to it in a highly specialized manner, usually in terms of information picked up by the physical senses.
The inner self or ego is not only conscious, but conscious of itself, both as an individuality apart from others and as an individuality that is a part of all other consciousness. In your terms, it is continually aware, both of this apartness and unity-with.
The outer ego is not continuously aware of anything. It frequently forgets itself. When it becomes swept up in a strong emotion it seems to lose itself; there is unity, then, but no sense of apartness. When it most vigorously maintains its sense of individuality, it is no longer aware of unity-with.
The inner ego is always aware of both aspects and is organized about its primary aspect, which is creativity. It constantly translates the components of its gestalt into reality – either physical reality through the electromagnetic units [mentioned in earlier articles 140-141], or into other realities equally as valid.”3
The Conscious Mind
“The conscious mind is a phenomenon, not a thing. It is ever-changing. It can be concentrated or turned by the ego in literally endless directions. It can view outward reality or turn inward, observing its own contents.
The conscious mind sees with a spectacular but limited scope. It lacks all peripheral vision, for you allow it to accept as evidence only those physical data available for the five senses—while the five senses, of course, represent only a relatively flat view of reality that deals with the most apparent surface.
An examination of your conscious thoughts will tell you much about the state of your inner mind, your intentions and expectations and will often lead you to a direct confrontation with challenges and problems.
You have the conscious mind for a good reason. You are not at the mercy of unconscious drives unless you consciously acquiesce to them. If you do not like your experience, then you must change the nature of your conscious thoughts and expectations.
Humans have been endowed, and have endowed themselves, with a conscious mind to direct the nature, shape and form of their creations.
All deep aspirations and unconscious motivations, all unspoken drives, rise up for the approval or disapproval of the conscious mind, and await its direction. Only when it abdicates its functions does it allow itself to become swayed by “negative” experience. Only when it refuses responsibility does it finally find itself at the seeming mercy of events over which it appears to have no control.”4
Functions of the Conscious Mind
“The conscious mind is meant to make clear judgments about your position in physical reality. Often false beliefs will prevent it from making these, for egotistically held ideas will cloud its clear vision.
Your conscious beliefs direct the functioning of your body. It is not the other way around.
Your inner self adopts the physically conscious, physically focused mind as a method of allowing it to manipulate in the world you know.
The conscious mind is particularly equipped to direct outward activity, to handle waking experience and oversee physical work.
The conscious mind sets the goals and the inner self brings them about, using all its facilities and inexhaustible energy.
The great value of the conscious mind lies precisely in its ability to make decisions and set directions.
Its role is dual, however: it is meant to assess conditions both inside and outside, to handle data that comes from the physical world and from the inner portions of the self.
The conscious mind then acts like a filter for the physical sense data coming from the outside world and your intuitive sense data coming from your inner world.
There is no battle between the intuitive self and the conscious mind. There only seems to be when the individual refuses to face all the information that is available in the conscious mind.
The conscious mind is basically curious, open. It is also equipped to examine its own contents. Because of the psychological theories of the last century, many Western people believed that the primary purpose of the conscious mind was to inhibit “unconscious” material.
Instead it is meant to receive and interpret important data that comes to it from the inner self. Left alone, it does this very well.
It receives and interprets impressions.
What has happened is that humans have taught it to accept only data coming from the outside world, and to set up barriers against inner knowledge.”5
The Outer Ego
“The word “ego” is much bandied about, and in many circles it has a poor reputation. It is, however, as I use it, a term meant to express the ordinarily conscious directive portion of the self. It is your conscious version of what you are.
The ego is your idea of your physical image in relation to the world.
The “you” you often think you are – the ego alone, is only a portion of You.
The outer ego is that expert part of your personality that deals directly with the contents of your conscious mind, and is concerned most directly with the material portions of your experience.
You are aware, alert, and participating in many more realities than you know as your soul expresses itself through you.
That consciousness of your usual daylight hours, the ego consciousness, rises up like a flower from the ground of the “underneath”, the unconscious, from which another ego then rises as a new bloom from the springtime earth.
You do not have the same ego now that you had five years ago, but you are not aware of the change.
Ego rises out of what you are.
It is a part of the action of your being and consciousness, but as the eye cannot see its own shifting colors and expressions, as it is not aware that it lives and dies constantly as its atomic structure changes, dies, and is reborn.”6
The Eye and the Ego: An Analogy
“The eye rises out of the physical structure. The ego rises out of the structure of the psyche. It cannot see itself, as the eye cannot.
Both look outward – in one case away from the physical body, and in the other case away from the inner psyche to the environment.
The creative body consciousness creates the eye. The creative inner psyche creates the ego.
The body forms the eye in the splendid wisdom of its great unconscious knowing.
The psyche brings forth the ego that perceives psychologically as the eye perceives physically.
Both the eye and the ego are formations focused toward perception of exterior reality.”7
Functions of the Outer Ego
“The ego is a very specialized portion of your greater identity. It is a portion of you that arises to deal directly with the life that the larger You is living.
The ego tries to organize all material coming into the conscious mind, for its purposes – the egos’ are those that have come to the surface at any given time in the self’s overall encounter with physical reality.
The ego attempts to maintain a clear point of focus, of stability, so that it can direct the light of the conscious mind with some precision and concentrate its focus in areas of actuality that seem permanent.
The ego, while a portion of the whole self, can be defined as a psychological “structure”, composed of characteristics belonging to the personality as a whole, organized together to form a surface identity.
Generally speaking, through the period of a lifetime, this allows for the easy emergence of many tendencies and abilities.
It permits many more potentials to emerge than would otherwise be possible. If this were not the case, for example, your interests throughout life would not change.
The ego, while appearing to be permanent, forever changes as it adapts to new characteristics from the whole self, and lets others recede. Otherwise it would not be responsive to the needs and desires of the entire personality.
Because it is intimately connected with other portions of the self it does not basically feel alienated or alone, but proudly acts as the director of the conscious mind’s focus.
Basically it understands its source and its nature.
It is the portion of the mind that looks out upon physical reality and surveys it in relation to those characteristics of which it is composed at any given time.
It makes its judgments according to its own idea of itself.
It is the most physically oriented, “exterior” portion of your inner self; but it is not alienated or apart from your inner self.
It sits on the window sill, so to speak, between you and the exterior world.
It can also look in both directions.
It makes judgments about the nature of reality in relationship to its and your needs.
It accepts or does not accept beliefs.
The ego which must manipulate most directly with the everyday world takes time, clock time, quite seriously.
Even the ego however realizes to some extent that clock time is a convention; but it does not like such conventions broken.
It manipulates with rules of cause and effect and consecutive moments.
It deals with an objectified reality.
It can stretch its capacities, becoming far more aware of inner events than it is normally allowed to do, but its main purpose is to deal with the world of effects, to encounter events.”8
The Outer Ego and the Conscious Mind are Not the Same Thing
“The ego is an offshoot of the conscious mind, so to speak.
The conscious mind is like a gigantic camera with the ego directing the view and the focus.
Left alone, various portions of the identity rise and form the ego, regroup and reform, all the while maintaining a marvelous spontaneity and yet a sense of oneness.
The ego is composed of various portions of the personality – it is a combination of characteristics, ever-changing, that act in unitary fashion – the portion of the personality that deals most directly with the world.
In certain terms, the ego is the eye through which the conscious mind perceives, or the focus through which it views physical reality.
But the conscious mind automatically changes its focus through life.
The ego, while appearing the same to itself, ever changes.”9
The Dilemma of the Ego
“The ego looks outward for answers because this is its nature: to manipulate within physical reality.
It also senses, however, a deep and abiding connection that it does not understand without other portions of the self that are not under its domain.
It is also aware that this inner self possesses knowledge upon which its own existence is based.
As it grows, in your terms, it looks outward for confirmation of this inner knowledge.
The inner self upholds the ego with its support. It forms its truths into physically oriented data with which the ego can deal.
It then projects these outward into the areas of physical reality.
Seeing these truths thus materialized, the ego then finds it easier to accept them.
The ego, having its birth from within, therefore, must always boast of is independence while maintaining the nagging certainty of its inner origin.
The ego fearing for its position can become frightened that it will dissolve back into the inner self from which it came.
Yet in its emergence it provided the inner self with a new kind of feedback, a different view not only of itself; but through this, the inner self was able to glimpse possibilities of development of which it had not previously been aware.”10
The Ego Blocking Out Information from the Inner Self
“The outer ego cannot shut out information from your conscious mind – but it can refuse to pay attention to it. It can refuse to focus directly upon it.
It will often neglect any clairvoyant or precognitive material that comes into the conscious mind from the deeper portions of the self. On occasion, when the ego recognizes that such data can be highly practical, it then becomes more liberal in its recognition of it – but only when such information fits in with its concepts of what is possible and not possible.
The ego’s concepts are your concepts, since it is a part of you.
If you dwell on ideas of danger or potential disaster, if you think of the world mainly in terms of your physical survival and consider all those circumstances that many work against it, then you may find yourself suddenly aware of precognitive dreams that foretell incidents of accidents, earthquakes, robberies or murders.
Your own idea of the perilous nature of existence becomes so strong that the ego allows this data to emerge, even though it is “out of time”, because your fearful beliefs convince it that you must be on guard.
The incidents do not even have to involve you. From all the unconscious telepathic and clairvoyant data available, however, you will be aware of this particular grouping, and it will only serve to reinforce your idea that existence is above all perilous.
You seem to perceive exclusively through your physical senses, and yet you have only to extend your egotistical idea of reality, and you will find even your egotistical self-accepting quite readily the existence of nonphysical information.”11
The Danger of the Ego Taking Over the Conscious Mind
“It is only when the conscious mind becomes rigid in its direction, or allows the ego to take on some of its own functions, that difficulties arise.
Then the ego allows the conscious mind to work in certain directions and blocks its awareness in others.
The ego can feel cut off; lonely and frightened if the conscious mind lets the ego run away with it.
Your self-image is not unconscious. You are quite aware of it, though often you reject certain thoughts about it in favor of others.
False beliefs can result in a rigid ego that insists upon using the conscious mind in one direction only, further distorting its perceptions.
Often you quite consciously decide to bury a thought or an idea that might cause you to alter your behavior, because it does not seem to fit in with limiting ideas that you already hold.
Listen to your own train of thought as you go about your days. What suggestions and ideas are you giving yourself? Realize that these will be materialized in your personal experience.
The ego can use the conscious mind almost entirely as a way of perceiving external or internal realities that coincide with its own beliefs.
It is not that certain answers do not lie openly accessible, but that often you have set yourself on a course of action in which you believe, and you do not want to open yourself to any material that may contradict your current beliefs.”12
Transcending Ego Consciousness Nourishes the Ego, It does not Destroy It
“Throughout the ages, some have recognized the fact that there is self-consciousness and purpose in certain dream and sleep states, and have maintained, even in waking life, the sense of continuity of the inner self.
To such people it is no longer possible to identify completely with the ego consciousness. They are too obviously aware of themselves as more.
When such knowledge is gained, the ego can accept it, for it finds to its surprise that it is not less conscious, but more, that its limitations are dissipated.
Now: it is not true – and I emphasize this strongly – that so-called unconscious material, given any freedom, will draw energy away from the egotistically organized self in a normal personality. Quite the contrary, the ego is replenished and rather directly.
It is the fear that the “unconscious” is chaotic that causes psychologists to make such statements. There is also something in the nature of those who practice psychology: a fascination, in many cases, already predisposed to fear the “unconscious” in direct proportion to its attraction for them.
The ego maintains its stability, its seeming stability, and its health, from the constant subconscious and unconscious nourishment which it receives. Too much nourishment will not kill it.
Only when such nourishment is for some reason cut off to a considerable degree is the ego threatened by starvation.”13
Conclusion
In this article we have examined some of the various levels of the mind, including the ‘ego’. It is very common in spiritual circles for the idea of the ‘ego’ to be feared and even damned. This is because of the great misunderstanding people have of the nature of their minds.
The ego is simply the lens of the camera on our outer focus of reality. There is nothing negative about it. It is an important part of how we focus in a physical reality and we need to stop condescending to it.
What we see here, is the danger arises when people believe they are only their outer ego, and they refuse or are unable to see themselves as a greater human, higher self, or whole soul (oversoul).
The danger is in people believing that the only reality is what they perceive with their five senses, ignoring all inner input and intuition, unable to believe they are a multidimensional being living out many lives along a spiral of spiritual evolution.
When the outer ego is the only aspect of a human that is accepted as real, egotism, as we know it, as well as elitism, arrogance and selfishness arise, and consequently destroy.
We all have an ‘ego’. We are able to manipulate ourselves through physical reality because of this ego. We do not want to destroy, kill, ignore or fear our ego. It is a part of our self, like our eyes. We only need to recognize that there is more to us – that we are connected to all in reality – and that our current lives are only one part of our greater existence.
This recognition of unity nourishes our ego so that it is able to accept information that comes from within: dreams, intuition, visions, inspiration…etc., becoming more, not less.
We must love and accept all parts of our selves, including our bodies and our egos. We must also learn how to access other parts of our minds. This is all a part of discovering the ‘truth that lies within’.
- Roberts, Jane, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1972
- Roberts, Jane, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1981
- Roberts, Jane, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1972
- Roberts, Jane, The Nature of Personal Reality, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1974
- ibid.
- Roberts, Jane, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1981
- Roberts, Jane, The Nature of Personal Reality, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1974
- ibid.
- ibid.
- Roberts, Jane, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1972
- Roberts, Jane, The Nature of Personal Reality, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1974
- ibid.
- Roberts, Jane, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1972
Recent Comments