The mind has different layers between the outer surface consciousness and the inner fundamental consciousness. Those intermediate layers do not represent the true Self, and are, therefore, to be crossed and passed in the effort to know the true Self. For instance, some of the layers are conscious and others are subconscious; there are layers of memory and layers of desire; there are layers which are storehouses of the results of past experiences in earlier re-incarnations--they contain the habits and trends, complexes and associations which have come down from those earlier times. There are other layers which contain the past of the present reincarnation with its suggestions from heredity, from education, from upbringing, from environment, and from childhood. There are layers which are filled with the desires and hopes, the wishes and aspirations, and ambitions and passions of the ego. All these layers must be penetrated by the mystic and he must go deeper and deeper beneath them for none of them represent the true Self. He is not to permit himself to be detained in any of them. They are all within the confined sphere of the personal ego and in that sense they are part of the false self. Too often they detain the seeker on his path or distract him from his progress: to know the true Self is to know a state of being into which none of them enters.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 1 : What Am I? > # 30
