Getting to Know the Self

 

The self as you know it is many things, and contains many more vestibules and rooms than you now imagine. Even the outer ego contains multitudinous chambers and interconnections of which you are unaware.

The important point here is that identity cohesion is projected upon the human physical structure from within, that is, from the inner ego by way of the inner senses. This of course includes the consciousness also, that is inherent in the separate molecules and atoms that compose the cells.

The physical structure alone is simply not divided from other structures in the manner which you perceive it to be through use of the outer senses. The outer senses are usually considered mainly as perceptive organs, enabling you to experience reality as it is. My dear friends, I have been waiting to tell you for some time that in a very true sense, the outer senses can be regarded as inhibitors.

The fact remains that the outer senses induce a conscious focusing along certain limited lines, grouping perceptions and comprehensions in a narrow fashion, and limiting the practical and imaginative range that consciousness might otherwise take. With these sessions you are yourselves broadening the range of your own consciousness, and therefore of your own abilities, with my help.

Using the outer senses, you are more or less forced to conceive idea groups only within the scope of perceptions received by the outer senses. It is true that use of the outer senses, and full joyful use, is necessary on your plane. Not only necessary but beneficial, and the means toward various kinds of value fulfillments. Nevertheless, their range is severely limited.

It is as if you were sent into some strange and fascinating meadow, and given only the sense of sight. Imagine what you would miss: the odor of the fresh earth, the sounds, the touch of earth beneath your feet, of sun upon your back; using only the sense of smell, you would also be severely limited.

Yet you are more limited than this by far. It is important for the race of men now to begin to use and experiment with the inner senses, since for the potentialities of humanity to be fully realized, new concepts must arise which cannot arise in the limited scope he now permits himself. Because the cells and molecules in general have consciousness, because they contain within themselves a capsule comprehension of the universe as a whole, and because they contain the ability to form into an almost infinite variety of form, there is a kinship between every atom and molecule, a basic enduring connection, regardless of the separate appearance which is seen using the outer senses.

from The Early Sessions: Book 2; Session 55, May 20, 1964, by Jane Roberts and Robert F. Butts