138 Reality Is An Exquisite Imbalance

Session 138 from The Early Sessions, Book 3 of the Seth Material, recorded on March 8, 1965.

This session is a total vibe, delivered by Seth through Jane Roberts while she was hanging out in a quiet back bedroom, feeling light as a feather and basically ready to float out of her shoes.

The Action-Identity Mashup

Seth starts things off by telling us that identity isn't some static thing you can just pin down. It’s more like a movie that’s also the screen and the projector.

• Identities are Action: Seth defines identities as "action which is conscious of itself." You can’t pull action and identity apart; they’re two sides of the same cosmic coin.
• Gestalt Vibes: Most identities aren’t loners—they contain other identities within them. It’s like a Russian nesting doll situation, but with consciousness.
• The Power Source: Action is the "inside vitality of the inner universe." It’s the energy that’s constantly trying to turn into "stuff" (matter), even though it can never fully finish the job.

The Three Creative Dilemmas (Or, Why Existence is Messy)

Seth breaks down reality into three "creative dilemmas" that keep the universe from getting bored and stagnant.

• Dilemma One: The Struggle to Materialize. Inner vitality wants to fully turn into matter, but it can’t quite get there. This tension is what kicks off action and identity in the first place.
• Dilemma Two: Stability vs. Change. This is the big one. Identity is always trying to stay the same and be stable, but action—the very stuff identity is made of—is always changing. Seth notes: "Identity, because of its characteristics, will continually seek stability, while stability is impossible."
• Dilemma Three: The Ego’s Big Ego. This happens when your "consciousness of self" tries to divorce itself from action. The ego wants to look at life like it’s an outside observer, pretending it’s the one calling all the shots.

The Ego’s Little Delusion

Seth gets pretty funny about how the ego operates. It’s basically the part of you that thinks it’s the boss when it’s actually just a result of the process.

• Separation Anxiety: The ego tries to perceive action as an object separate from itself.
• The "I Did That" Lie: The ego likes to believe that "action is initiated by the ego, and a result rather than a cause of ego’s own existence."
• Consciousness as a Focus: Consciousness isn't a "thing"—it’s just where you’re pointing your focus. You can point it at your ego, or you can point it at the "action gestalts" that Jane was starting to experience.

Jane’s "Out of Body" Adventures

During this session, Jane was having a wild time. She reported feeling "excellent," light, and separated from her physical self.

• Psychic Travel: Jane felt she was on the verge of traveling out of her body, though she was taking it slow so she didn't go "too far, too fast."
• The Conceptual Sense: Seth calls this the "fourth inner sense." Jane wasn't just hearing words; she was having a "visceral knowledge of concepts," experiencing them as a "whole concept" rather than just a string of sentences.
• Step Back from the Ego: By the end of the night, Jane felt she had given "tacit consent" to step back from her ego to let the deeper material through.

Visiit up the New Awareness Network website and bookstore at sethcenter.com/the-early-sessions.