SOUL chapter 4
Our most general description of the soul is it’s three-fold, that the soul is a consciousness, a substantial being, and a creative will or power. All souls have the same three-fold essence. The difference between souls is in the degree of these essences and how expansive each is. There are also differences in soul qualities, which means that souls have uniquely different combinations of soul qualities, whereby certain qualities are more emphasized than others. This has to do with the being aspect of a soul. As well, there are differences in soul-interest, or what could be called soul-motivation. But these difference of qualities and interest will be discussed later.
For now, let us just consider differences in consciousness. As far as soul-consciousness goes, the only difference between you and other friends and teachers is a difference in spiritual degree. There is only one essential energy of consciousness. There is only one ‘kind’ of consciousness. That is, consciousness is consciousness. You may be conscious and I may be conscious, but the only difference between your consciousness and mine is in its degree and in its expansion.
In any person there is consciousness, more or less, relative to the other degrees or to the other expansions of others. So first, we need to give up the illusion that our consciousnesses are different, like personalities and objects. Personalities are different. Manifestations, behaviors, emotional complexes and belief-systems can be quite different, like faces and thumb-prints. But there is no such difference in consciousnesses; only a difference in degree, in frequency, and in expansion. We are not speaking about differences in the contents of consciousness. There are lots of different possible contents, like many possible thoughts, feelings and sensations. But consciousness in-itself has no such different possibilities, just different possible degrees.
So from the angle of the soul, there is no difference between soul consciousnesses, other than this difference of degree, frequency and expansion. It is a difference of higher and lower, greater and lesser, larger and smaller. It is not that certain souls have some thoughts or knowledge, while other souls have different thoughts or knowledge. This describes the mental bodies, not the soul. And it is not that some souls feel certain feelings, while other souls have different feelings. This describes the emotional bodies, not the soul bodies. All souls are essentially the same, however boring that may first appear. It is not like some souls are pisces and others are capricorns, which are, again, ways to describe personalities and general behaviors. Souls are essentially the same, while personalities are usually different, though a lot of personalities are pretty much the same as other ones, even if each person prides themselves on being so very unique.
Think of consciousness as a capacity for insight and intelligence, for learning knowledge and for creative thinking. The greater is the power or degree of consciousness, the greater is one’s ability to gain insight, to use intelligence to gain knowledge, and to use creative thinking. Thus, a greater degree of consciousness, being like a power or ability to use in some way, will increase the intelligence ability and so result in more use of intelligence in anything. A very high degree of intelligence might produce a fine scientist, or maybe a ranking chess-player, or maybe this or that kind of behavior or personal destiny. A well coordinated body may become a professional footballer or maybe a dancer. Who knows?
In other words, the soul, being a certain degree of expansive consciousness and creative power, is like a capacity of intelligence or coordination, in that the capacity makes certain results possible but does not necessarily define those results.
Imagine a given intelligence landing in a certain set of circumstances and influences. Then imagine the same intelligence landing in different circumstances and influences, Each will come into different fates; that is different outcomes will result. This is like the soul. Your soul may be almost the same as mine, in its learning and creative capacity, but our soul’s fate and how it expresses through personality and what will happen in that life will be different because of our different circumstances and influences. This is circumstances and influences are so very significant. A soul landing up in one set circumstances will not have the same fate as if that same soul were to have landed into a different set of circumstances.
This description will obviously be distasteful to many spiritual thinkers who have regularly taken on the belief that each soul is distinctly unique, like different personalities, and each has a distinctly unique purpose and destiny which is assumed to definitely occur no matter what the circumstances are. This belief is simply false.
Souls are essentially the same, except in their degree of consciousness, cohesiveness and power. All souls are essentially the same Being, with all the same spiritual qualities and capacities, in potential. This can be a liberating fact, rather than distressing. The greater the soul, the more universal is its self-realization. The greatest soul-consciousness is the self-realization that I am the same essence as all others. From here, true com-passion, com-unication and com-unity begins.
Thus, souls are not so different, because essentially they are all like capacities which will make various destinies possible, but will not determine the exact outcome. Moreover, having the capacity does not guarantee that it will ever be developed in life, or used, or expressed. In fact, the actual life-outcome is as much caused by social circumstances and unexpected events, as it is caused by the relative power of the soul.
Being different, as we ordinarily understand this, is more of a personality description rather than soul description. Our souls do not necessarily have unique purposes nor unique plans. Souls have general universal purposes, the same essential ones as other souls; such as: to learn, to love, to build beauty and harmony in the world, and we could add more to this list. These general purposes are the same for all souls. It is not like one soul is here to just learn but not love, while another is here to just love but not learn. There are general, universal purposes which all souls share.
The only reasonable answer to what the soul is and what carries on, in essence, is a certain capacity for learning, for insight, for creative expression, and for experiencing spiritual qualities of love, joy, peace, compassion, etc. It is not like the soul is full of thought. It is not always thinking. Rather, its intelligence uses the thinking-mind to develop understanding and thoughts representing truth. The soul is a capacity to learn, to ‘think truth’ and to acquire real knowledge. It is not a collection of thoughts but a capacity to discriminately acquire or formulate true beliefs, ideas and ideals. This it will do again and again, through different personal lives, and its capacity or power to do this will gradually evolve, increase, expand.
Again, it is like intelligence. The intelligent mind is not constantly reviewing its knowledge, but rather, appropriate knowledge and ideas come to mind according to the need or circumstance. High intelligence is not some huge collection of ideas and knowledge. It is an advanced ability to acquire and make use of knowledge. Thus, natural intelligence is not something acquired by conditioning or education. Intelligence is a soul-power. Knowledge is like a possession of things, but intelligence is like an ability. Someone can give you knowledge but no one can give you intelligence. Either you have it or not. Each person has some degree of intelligence, which is an aspect of the soul. Genetics and the health of the body is condition of intelligence but not the sole determining factor. Intelligence is primarily given by the soul, though this is limited by generic and physical conditions. And intelligence does not determine exactly what will be done with it, but will only determine what possibilities can be done. A small intelligent capacity has many limitations, but a greater intelligence has the capacity to learn or accomplish many possible things. The greater this ability, the greater is the freedom.
The soul is, essentially, the bringer of spiritual insight and qualities into manifested expression. Each soul is a certain capacity for doing this. We could also say that the soul is a ‘capacity for learning’ and a ‘capacity for spiritual expression.’ Each soul has a certain degree of intelligent and creative power. And each is evolving or increasing this capacity or power. The intelligent capacity ranges from the ability to learn worldly knowledge to the ability to comprehend spiritual or universal principles. There are different levels of intelligence, such as practical know-how, such as scientific understanding of natural laws, and finally such as insight into interrelated patterns and universal unity. All these levels of intelligent capacity are dependent on the soul’s capacity. The expressive capacity ranges from the ability to coordinate and make good use from the physical body, to the ability to feel and share through the emotional body, to the ability to reflect and ‘think through’ the mental body. So, the soul can be thought of as a capacity or power, a power to know and a power to express or work through the bodies and the world. It is like an expanding ability.
All of this can be related to our first definition of the soul as consciousness, for a greater consciousness will be as a greater capacity for learning and expressing spiritual truth. The greater the consciousness, the greater is the capacity of intelligence and the capacity for learning. The greater the spiritual consciousness, the greater is the capacity for expressing spiritual truths and qualities. This consciousness, or this soul-capacity, does not dictate what exactly will be learned or what exactly will be the order of spiritual expression, for this learning and expression will be at least somewhat dependent on unforeseen circumstances of the world in which learning and expression occurs.
So, you see, the soul is a capacity or power for using and expressing through the three bodies. How this actually occurs is dependent on the particular development of these bodies, a development which is very influenced by factors other than the soul, and dependent on the particular world circumstances into which the soul incarnates. Also, no soul is ‘perfect’, for we should reserve this term for the absolute Being, whereas each soul is a limited body-of-expansion within the Infinite Consciousness. No soul has omnipotent power to spiritually express. No soul has an infinite capacity for immediate wisdom.
In truth, every soul is limited to some degree, in its consciousness, in its intelligent capacity and in its expressive power. Though each soul has all spiritual qualities within it, each is limited in the actual insight of these and in the actual power to express these qualities. Thus, all souls are evolving, expanding, or at least this is part of our purpose and possibility. The more perfect the soul, the more ability it has to comprehend and experience its inherent spiritual truths and qualities, through the three bodies. The greater or more perfect souls know more of their spiritual self, know more of who they truly are and are more able to express these truths and qualities to others and in the collective world.
Most of what has been discussed here so far is the universality of the soul and the essential sameness of souls, and avoiding confusing the soul with ordinary personality differences. First realize the sameness, our sameness; which is the sameness of our essence. But now let us reflect on some possible differences in souls. In essence all souls are much more the same than they are different, but individual souls do have certain kinds of differences. Souls can have different types of creative inspiration, creative interests, and creative dispositions. Remember that one major aspect of a soul is creative power (or creative energy), which also refers to its power of will and its guiding purpose.
Each soul has a particular color mixture of creative energy. These are also types of expressive service. Of course, these are quite general categories. There are no perfect exact terms for these types, but the following terms seem appropriate.
There are leaders and also devotee types. There are educators and also scientist types. There are healers, or we could name these more generally as care-givers which would also include motherly care. Also, this would include all souls who are genuinely motivated to help heal others, whether it be ohysically, emotionally, or mentally. Then also there are artist or creative types, which is not limited to any particular artistic field, but rather includes all those who are naturally motivated to blend together new mixtures of creativity, not merely copying the standard norm. Included in this also would be anyone genuinely motivated to create beauty by some new arrangement or new change in things, or even to help the world appreciate a new way of harmony. And seventh, there are builders, or anyone who is mostly motivated to construct or make things, which is fundamentally a will to manifest, and this also includes those who's main interest is to fix things.
All of these types of motivating energy might be in a particular individual soul, but some energies will be stronger than others which is the reason why souls are of one type over another. So keep in mind that all souls have some of all these, but not in equal degrees, which results in these types - each having a more dominant coloration. Also understand that these seven types, or seven types of expression, will often overlap whereby two or even three might blend into one kind of service in the world.
In conjunction with these seven types of creative interest are three possible areas of interest for soul-expression and experience in the world. These are: intellectual, emotional and physical creative interests. Each soul will tend to focus more of its creative energy on one of these three fields. In other words, a soul is essentially interested in experiencing and expressing through all three spheres, but souls will usually have a more predominate interest in one sphere more than the others.
This results in some people being more physical, thus more expressive with the physical body and in the physical world. This would include those who mostly use their body to be expressive or use their physical skills to manifest. Next, others might be more heart oriented, thus more expressive with heart and emotion, and also more social and interactive and into building relationships. Next are the mental types, such as those who use and express mostly with the intellect or mind, and these will tend to be more successful in intellectual fields or in work especially requiring mind.
All souls will have at least some of all these three; but just not exactly the same mixture as everyone else. For this is a general principle, as each soul generally has a will to learn and use the mind, to love and communicate, and also to express in the physical world. So we are really speaking of predominance.
Also understand that these different types will probably not be recognized until the soul develops more in the person, or emerges in the person. And since most people are simply expressing what has been conditioned into them from social and cultural influences, it should not be presumed that the real soul type is knowable from merely knowing how the personality tends to be. Remember that the soul has to emerge into and through the personality - which means through the personality layers of social influences. So it is sometimes difficult to distinguish soul (which is independent of the current social environment) from personality dispositions. Yet these soul type differences are more recognizable in more advanced souls and in more spiritually mature people. From the perspective of ordinary thought and ordinary ego, the soul within is a vast universal potential with vast possibility. And really, this is the best view to take anyway, regarding one’s soul; rather than make some kind of limiting label about oneself, such ‘my soul is... (this way or that).’
Do not make the common mistake of personal astrology, which is to naively label oneself, or someone else, as being this or that. Any simple labels, typology, or preconceptions that we hold about our self, or another, is like a prison or a chain that we wrapped around our self or another. This is bad enough, but what makes it even worse is that this chain of preconceived labeling is based on quite dubious foundations, mostly invented a long time ago. There are real celestial influences and certain aspects of astrology are useful; but the main problem is in how so many people pretend to know with certainty about things, or about people, while not really knowing much at all. The very Best practice is to always see oneself and others how it really is -- that is, by using one’s observational intelligence in direct encounter; in other words, learn what is true about oneself or another, by way of really getting to know oneself or another, instead of simply assuming things or believing in some sort of simple method to calculate what is true in order to avoid the longer and more difficult process of learning by direct encounter.
In general though, any experienced predominance of sphere-interest or predominance of service-type is probably an effect of socially influenced personality development, rather than true soul disposition. What people ordinarily recognize, regarding individual uniqueness, is of the personality and is mostly caused by circumstances of which the soul is not responsible. Generally, then, each soul has all the universal dispositions and creative urges, and personal differences in interests and expressions are mostly the result of various influences independent of the soul. For example, it is usually not the case that a soul chooses to express as a doctor, lawyer, politician, school-teacher, architect, or whatever. Rather, the soul brings into the personality a very general creative and expressional urge or inspiration, such as seeking to learn, experience, be of service, and express its general spiritual qualities, as much as possible and in whatever way is made available by the unique abilities and circumstances of the personality life.
To repeat again, the uniqueness of personal interests and expression is usually and mostly influenced by factors other than the soul. We call these the lower influences, which are most determining in the early stages of personal development, in the development of the mental, emotional and physical bodies. Soul influences, called higher influences, can be determining to some extent, but this extent is dependent on how much the body-conditions are capable of being pervaded by soul-consciousness, purpose and expressive power.
The ideal case for a developing person would be spiritual and healthy influences by the surrounding social sphere, along with a certain degree of soul influence, and then with time the personal bodies are more and more influenced by the soul and less by circumstances and social factors. The usual case is that the personal bodies are too influenced by world forces and too unconnected with the soul, for the soul to effect much influence. If the person is influenced by a higher quality of social factors, such as a spiritual education, the personal ego may open up to the soul influence, opening the channel so to speak.
In general though, the soul-influence is quite small relative to the influences of the social sphere and the developing ego-power or personal-will. The person must evoke a good degree of effort in reversing the predominating influence from lower to higher. This personal effort, primarily of self-observation and higher aspiration, is supported and given strength by the soul, but the soul’s higher influence is always limited by the body-conditions and decisions by the personal ego-will.
No spiritual progress can be absolutely forced, because of the pervading power of freedom. The three bodies, if just left to their own working, would mostly succumb to influences of the world, either patterning in line with them or reacting to them. These patterns and reactions are usually much more mechanical, automatic and conditioned, than one would ordinarily think. People generally believe that their emotional and mental life is unified in one self-consciousness. But usually there isn’t much unity in the person, and neither is there much consciousness. Neither is there much freedom, because these bodies are usually so conditioned by lower influences.
The personal ego is often regarded in less than favorable light, but here we will discuss the ego as resulting from a spark from the soul, and how the true function of ego is positive and necessary. A spiritual spark from the soul begins to develop in a centre connecting the mental and emotional bodies, which then brings into creation a centre of consciousness, feeling and will. This makes possible a developing power of self-observation, a feeling of being whole, and the will to unify and purposefully direct the three personal bodies. This is the power of the personal ego, or self-will.
Being a spark of the soul, this ego has inherent within it the higher energies and powers of the true soul. Thus, the ego adds a higher degree of consciousness to the mental and emotional life, and it attempts to bring unity and common direction to the often fragmented mind and emotions. The mental and emotional bodies would be quite dis-unified and virtually mechanical, if not for the ego.
But this ego is not necessarily fully reflective of the soul’s expressive purposes. The ego begins from a seed given by the soul, but this seed will often grow primarily by social and physical influences. It may still do some good preliminary work for the soul’s purposes, such as better unifying the mind and emotions, but it might nonetheless direct the personal bodies toward unspiritual ends.
Various beliefs and ideals have power in the mental body. So the ego, fueled by basic emotional desires for self-achievement and social admiration, sets course for at least one of these mental ideals. It is very usual for an ego to accept as most worthy the ideals of economic gain and superiority over other possible ideals. Some egos seek to achieve a control over groups and sometimes whole nations. This is not a discourse on ethics, but we should be able to see that many possible and actualized paths of personal egos are not along the spiritual purposes of the true soul. Not every expression of a person is of the good, nor is every expression of the person always an expression of their soul. Teachings which simply say that the soul is always guiding the way, or creating the personal path, are incorrect teachings which neglect the very possible problems of the ego and possible neurotic social conditionings.
It is certainly possible for the ego and personal life to reflect the soul-purpose, but often this does not happen. For without certain external spiritual guidance and influences, the ego will often follow the more powerful influences of the lower social spheres.
The ego begins gaining strength in a stage of selfish interest and trials of manipulating the world around them. We see this in early childhood. Later, the ego moves into a stage of self-fixation and narcissism, as if seeing oneself in a mirror, and often an imagined self importance, which is found in the teens, and of course the self-interest has not gone away either. Then, the natural stage of ego is to realize responsibility or at least the need to work hard for one’s chosen goals. And this realization of responsibility and needed work tends to bring the earlier ego out of its self-fixation, because the ego consciousness is now expanding to include more of the world around and interests associated with this larger world of possibility. Next, the ego might realize an importance in submitting to a higher purposes and influences of the spiritual soul. But this later stage is a rarity, unless the person gains some influence from teachers or spiritual books or something outside of the normal social influence.
Now what is needed, from the soul point of view, is the ego must collect and unify all the personal present abilities and energies, using its power of self-will or self-control, and then encourage receptivity in the emotional and mental bodies to soul-qualities and soul-insight. This receptivity is connected to the questions, "Who am I?" and "What are my deepest and true purposes?" which are key themes in meditation practice.
From the view of the soul, the ego’s purpose is mostly in this collection and unification of the personal energies, acting as a kind of deciding mediator between lower energies and soul energies. The ego organically develops from the three bodies, becoming the natural unifier and self-identity of the three bodies. This natural development does not need the soul and, in fact, it usually proceeds without any significant soul-connection. Because of this, the ego is the ‘main player’, of which the soul must eventually enlighten and gain its submission. At some point of initiation, the ego and soul unite together as one will.
Without the ego, the three bodies would not have much unity. This is because the bodies are mostly conditioned by non-unified and fragmented influences. For example, the mind tends to collect an assortment of different beliefs and ideas, many of which contradict one another, some of which are rationalizations for certain habits and others are rationalizations for other habits. The mental body would be a collection of scattered and unconnected ideas, if not for the ego demanding some coherent logic. The emotional body is a collection of different reactions and desires, many of which contradict each other. If it were just left to mechanical conditionings, the emotional body would be a collection of fragmented desires and reactive patterns with little unity and harmony. The physical body itself, though much more naturally unified, becomes a collection of habits and these may not be harmonious with one’s desires or ideals.
The point being made is that the three bodies are often fragmented disunities in themselves, and each is often disharmonious with the others. Self-unity is certainly lacking in the average person, but the bodies would be much more chaotic if there were no developed ego, for the ego seeks to build unity and common direction.
Without some degree of existing unity in the three bodies, the soul could not actually build its contact and infuse the bodies. Since the three bodies mainly develop in disconnection from the soul-will, and also develop in fragments, the soul’s enable-ness to guide the personal life is relatively small. Only with help and cooperation from the ego can the soul accomplish its purposes of incarnation. It is the ego which becomes the necessary unifier and connector of the bodies with the soul. The ego can achieve what the pure soul cannot, because the ego organically develops from the bodies, though its powers originally come from the soul. The ego-self is like a seed from the soul, developing in the soil of personal and earthly conditions.
The ego inherently has certain soul-powers, such as a degree of pervading consciousness, a degree of substantial being, and a degree of manifesting power. Yet still, the ego may be, for the most part, disconnected from the soul and from spiritual insight. A certain sense of consciousness and self-identity pervades the ego. The ego ‘thinks about itself’ and has a kind of ‘sense about itself,’ yet the ego is basically a will-power pervaded by some degree of consciousness, and it is tied into influences of the three bodies. It may sense or think itself as independent of the bodies it seems to control, but it is usually interdependent with these bodies, tied to dominant thought-forms, desires and physical instincts. In fact, the ego is basically the most dominant ideal and desire, which seeks to bring all other ideals and desires into cooperation. You can see, then, how the ego could create trouble, depending on its dominating factor, or it may turn out to be very positive.
From the soul perspective, the ego is intended to be the captain in charge of mind, emotions and body. But two possible problems can occur. First, the ego might be disconnected in communication with the soul, even though it actually gains its power from the soul. Second, the ego might get too wrapped up in the dramas and reactions of the mind, emotions, and body.
Therefore, the ego is mostly responsible for evils and man-made troubles in the world. It is not a soul which creates evil or suffering, but rather a lack of soul or lack of soul-connection and insight. All souls have some insight to redeem evil and suffering, and direct energy to spiritual ends. We should blame the ego and social conditions, rather than the soul, for unnecessary troubles in the world. The ego, when disconnected from the soul and dominated by imbalanced desires and selfish ideals, can be a disruptive force in this world. Usually the ego is limited in this disruptive possibility by moral social conditioning imposed on the early developing mental and emotional bodies, and it is also limited by other egos in the world. Yet it remains possible for some egos to direct the abilities of their bodies towards purely selfish ends, disregarding the good and harmony of other people and the planet. In this sense, we can say that ‘evil’ is possible.
We do not need elaborate explanations why evil is, or why some people intentionally harm others, but rather all we need to say is that such things are possible, due to the law of freedom and due to various mistaken paths embarked by ignorant persons and social groups. The traditional problem of explaining world evil arises from doctrines saying that all is God’s Will or that all things are from the good intentions of the soul. Then one needs an explanation for how evil could arise from good or from God. Instead, realize there is freedom and no ultimate dominating power.
There is freedom and uncertainty in the universe, and these are not evil. Freedom allows for ignorance, and ignorance leads to possible harm. And ignorance must be inherent in the universe, to varying degrees, for otherwise all of life would be of One Omniscient Mind, and if this were so then there would be no possibility of wonder and surprise. Thus, for wonder and surprise to exist, there must be degrees of freedom and ignorance. As for evil, we say simply that ignorance causes mistakes and harm, like crossing a busy road blindfolded. Ignorance may cause either unintentional or intentional harm. There are always possibilities in life, and no Plan is absolutely forced, so there are possibilities of harm and possibilities of joy. There is the possibility of an ego-power directing its energies against the better good of other people and the planet, and there is the possibility of an ego-power directing its energies for the better good of all. So the choice is here, the choice is yours, and this is basically the choice of the ego.
There are no ‘evil souls’. Some teachings speak of ‘evil spirits’, but these are disbalanced forces, desires or thought-forms, temporarily in the planetary spheres until they are no longer fed by human attraction. ‘Possessive spirits’ are not really souls but are ‘living thought-desires’ wandering in the spheres, which may be inadvertently attracted by a person. These are not souls, for they are without soul-insight and soul-consciousness and spiritual purpose. There should be an important distinction between these ‘spirits’ and true souls. A soul may be more or less evolved, but all souls have at least some degree of spiritual insight, empowered by spiritual purposes and made of divine qualities. All souls are of the Good, of the Spiritual Light. It is only through the three bodies and three lower spheres that distortions of the Good exist. What people call ‘discarnate spirits’ or mistaken as deceased souls are, in fact, desire-bodies or floating thought-forms, which are maintained in the planetary spheres by vital energies of persons who allow them into their bodies and awareness.
The ego is an identity and power which is dependent on thoughts, ideals and desires conditioned in the mental and emotional bodies. The ego is involved in trying to control and direct the three bodies, but most often it is wrapped up in forces of these bodies. Whereas the soul-consciousness is experienced as independent from thought and emotion, having an immediate power or capacity to use the mind, reflect through the mind and express its spiritual qualities through all the three bodies.
It should eventually become apparent that what one usually identifies as ‘oneself,’ this unique personality in this unique circumstance of time and place, is not an eternal soul and will never be again as it was before physical death. Recognize that most of your thoughts and emotions, which comprise your unique personality, are completely dependent on this unique time and place of your physical life, for these are mostly reactions to circumstances and relations of this unique physical life. Even your knowledge of spiritual systems or universal principles are necessarily related to the particular language you have learned and the particular book you have read. Something is soul-learned by experience and reflection, but it is not words or thoughts. Rather, it is related to an increase of intelligence and consciousness, an expanded ability to learn and reflect through other bodies, through other lives.
This truth is related to what occurs after death to the physical body, to ‘life after death’. After the physical death, the emotional and mental bodies can continue in their planetary spheres. Usually these bodies break apart into a number of fragments, due to their usual in incohesive disunity. In other words, if these bodies have never been completely unified, they will naturally break up into various parts. We have already made note of the usual case of the emotional and mental bodies, being composed of many disconnected beliefs, ideals, desires and reactions. Various systems of thought-forms and complexes of emotions usually develop and become like distinct communities in the person’s mental and emotional world. Or, in other words, certain thoughts and certain emotions stick together but are mostly disjoined from other groups of thought and emotion. Thus the average person is more of a disunity than a unity, and the only thing which keeps these complexes together is the singular physical body within which they all live.
So when the physical body dies, these other bodies usually break apart into their more cohesive emotional complexes and thought-systems. These then ‘live on’ as entities in the non-physical spheres, living on as reactionary complexes, as desires, as beliefs and ideals. These may appear to be ‘spirit entites’ when they are more cohesively complex, or they may seem as just floating desires and thoughts when more fragmented. For the most part, ‘this’ or ‘these’ is what lives on after physical death. Gradually a process of dis-integration occurs, as the cohesiveness gradually breaks down. That cohesiveness was built and maintained by the physical life and its vital energies, but now after death this maintenance will naturally break apart, unless re-held together by another physical life or incarnation. All these thoughts and emotions, which once comprised ‘the personality’, no longer have the same circumstance of being together in one physical life, so the break-down is immanent. It was only this physical circumstance which caused these disconnected beliefs and desires to bump into each other, so to speak. And now this circumstance is gone.
For the more evolved and cohesive bodies, those with greater unity produced by the ego, there is a kind of ego impulse to quickly incarnate or possess another physical body, or at least be vitally fed by mediumship. They cannot maintain themselves without some relationship with physical life. Many reincarnate into, or re-possess, a physical body, but many fail to maintain what we might call ‘personality’, a unique complex of thoughts and emotions. For the less cohesive bodies, there is basically an immediate break down into the fragmented thoughts and emotions that filled the previous physical body, and these fragments simply merge with similar others in the planetary spheres. In other words, the break down of the mental and emotional bodies into their simple elements of thoughts and emotions will basically add to what is already being maintained in the collective spheres.
All of this is, of course, less romantic than spiritualist teachings. First, what they consider as ‘discarnate souls’ are usually discarnate complexes of thoughts and emotions, in the process of breaking down or making a frantic attempt to maintain some cohesive permanence by some relation to the vital physical energies of life. Collectively speaking, the ‘discarnate entities’ either live through us or begin disintegrating into their elementary parts. Many ‘succeed’ for a long time, through many generations, and others simply fade away or disintegrate into collective energy or collective elements. Personalities, self-identities, or combinations of beliefs and desires, are fundamentally temporal and ever-changing, and not eternal or permanent. This is a basic buddhist principle and realized by the enlightened ones. We are not speaking here of souls, but rather elements and complexes of mental and emotional bodies, which can live on for some time, in their collective spheres and through physical lives, but these ‘entities’ are not the eternal spiritual being, the true you.
The soul lives on in the collective spiritual sphere. The soul is not made of beliefs and desires, thoughts and emotions. It is essentially independent of these complexes and bodies, though expressive through them. What the soul is is a ‘capacity’ or ‘subsisting power’. For example, the soul is not a system of belief, thought or knowledge. The soul is not a containment of knowledge, for knowledge is thought. Neither is it a sum of ideas, for ideas are thoughts. Rather, the soul is a certain capacity for understanding and insight. As analogy, we can say that intelligence is a capacity for knowledge, rather than a collection of knowledge. A certain ‘capacity of intelligence’ might acquire this or that knowledge, or develop certain ideas or certain other ideas. Let us imagine a child with a certain ‘capacity of intelligence’ being placed in one part of the world, and so by this existential circumstance the child acquires a collection of knowledge which would probably be very different from the ideas and knowledge acquired if he had been placed in some other circumstance or society. In a similar manner we can understand the soul as a certain capacity for learning, acquiring true knowledge, and for creatively expressing in the world. The soul is also a capacity for joy, for realizing and expressing love, and for enriching the emotional life with many spiritual qualities.
Some will argue here that the soul is a kind of collection of ideas and knowledge, and some will also say it is a collection of desires and karmas. The reason this may seem true is that the soul can only reflect upon its truth and the universal principles through the mental body, through ideas or thoughts. And the soul can only feel its qualities and expressive-will through the emotional body which may seem as a kind of desire. Many teachings virtually view the soul as a mind. This is partly correct, since we cannot really understand the soul without mind. Also, the soul is consciousness which we naturally associate with mind, for it is in mind that consciousness is realised. Some teachings distinguish between a higher and lower mind, whereby the soul is of the higher. These are useful teachings, but only if it is understood that this higher mind is as a capacity for spiritual insight and intuition. Higher mind is the realm of spiritual gnosis and intuitive wisdom, while the lower mind is the realm of thought which requires language. The higher mind is the Knower, or ability to directly know truth, while the lower mind is the collection of personal and cultural ideas. What needs to be clear is that the spiritual soul is not the same as the usual thinking mind, nor is it the same as the personality identity.
It is quite incorrect to think of the soul as a kind of personality. People tend to hope that their unique personality will live on after death, for it is this personality which one identifies as oneself. But what is this personality? It is a unique collection of beliefs and desires, ideals and emotions, most of which are completely related to this particular physical life, this physical body and the particular circumstances of this unique time and place. These ideas and beliefs were formed together from a unique personal history and education in a unique time and place, and the ideals and desires are mostly related to, or reactions of, the particular people and things effecting this particular physical life. If you truly consider what you are, then you might also see how so very much of this is completely dependent on this particular physical life in this particular time and place with these particular friends and relatives, etc. What of this will have any use or meaning after death? And if so much of one’s awake life is but reactions to external things and people, unique to this particular time and place, then what will life be like after all these stimulations and problems are gone?
One thing is certain, which is that ‘life after death’ could not be at all like this particular life and the self-experience could not be like it ordinarily is at present. And what about all that knowledge? Do you think there is any carry-over of knowledge about cars, computers, mother, wife, trees, physics, or even spiritual systems and universal principles? Even if there were, it very much appears that a reincarnated soul must re-learn all this. If you would reflect just on the soul, be just in soul-consciousness, you would know that this is not a bundle of ideas or thoughts, and that this soul is certainly not the same as the unique but troubled personality.