The soul can also be looked upon as a guide; meaning that our inner soul can be our love-wisdom guide. We don't need anyone else, though of course we can be helped by teachers and various spiritual teachings. This means that we can look to our inner being, our inner soul, for true guidance in love and wisdom. And as we succeed in this, we will gradually build greater trust in our own being.
Our soul is the divine truth in us, the divine love, and the divine goodness. It is that within which we know is truth, love and goodness. Our soul is also known, in eastern teachings, as the jewel in the lotus. So discover the jewel within you, which is beauty and light, love and goodness. This is the most important and sacred discovery anyone can make. Find the jewel within you -- which sparkles its brilliant radiant light and brings us peace and comfort. But our soul is too often unrecognized, unacknowledged, and even forgotten. And thus, the jewel remains hidden within, and its light only latent in the dark.
Our inner soul is the same as our true I, our true self. Our soul is the Spiritual-Light reflection in us. It is the Divine Self reflecting through this particular centre - the centre of our being. The Divine Light, Love, Good-will and Creativity is within each person. This is our divinity within, our divine nature at the very core of our being. This is the meaning of soul.
So, it is possible for our divine soul to guide and direct our life, which will mean that divine love, wisdom and goodwill will be guiding our life. This would be good. It is better than our life being directed by social conditioning and habits, or by personality ego desires and reactions. Our life would be better if we were guided by love, wisdom and goodwill, and everyone around us would benefit as well. So we must first see how this is a beneficial ideal to work towards, and then we can agree to this within our self. Self agreement is important, because we are often lacking in self-unity due to the variety of divergent desires and conditionings within us, in the psyche.
Then, as well, we need to understand the structure of our self and what is usually going on. If the divine soul was consciously active at this moment, then this soul would be the conscious I, or the I am, of this moment, and it would also be the directing mind and will of the moment. This is the ideal, which is quite possible, but also difficult to maintain in daily life. Initially, it is more possible in times of meditation.
But the more usual circumstance of our self is when the conscious I, or I am, is not the true soul. Instead, I, who is at the forefront of consciousness and also at the helm as captain, is the personality ego rather than the divine soul. There is a false I-dentification with personality-ego, instead of with our inner divine soul.
True conscience is soul-guidance, or guidance from the soul. Yet this needs to be distinguished from a false-conscience, which is guidance from one's culture or parents. Of course, guidance from culture or from parents may well be good guidance, and it may actually reflect the soul's true conscience. But the point here is that until one's own soul conscience is in our knowing, we are susceptible to simply being conditioned by the moral opinions of others and thus not really guided by our own soul truth.
True conscience comes from the soul, while false-conscience comes from others who hold a position of moral authority. False-conscience formulates in the psyche during early childhood, as parents and culture give moral direction and precepts to children. This may be a needed phase in life, but later on in adulthood we need to distinguish this parental and cultural (and often religious) moral guidance from our true inner conscience of the soul. I only call the former a false conscience because it often poses as coming from within, yet it really came from the moral beliefs of others.
[Freud named this the 'super-ego', because it appears in the psyche as being morally superior in relation to the ego. It could actually be morally superior, of course, but not necessarily because it comes from cultural or religious perspectives, and different cultural/religious perspectives often have different moral beliefs.]
So everyone seems to acquire a culturally imbued moral conscience from early childhood. This is usually what we hear inside as 'should' and 'ought to'. It is often the voice of a parent or religious authority or text, and it comes with an implication of being morally good or bad, depending on one's dutiful following, or not, of the given moral rule. Again, these moral rules and guidances might well be from the Divine Itself, but not always. So what we need to do is to first self-observe these shoulds arising in us and posing as our own inner conscience. Then we need to sincerely consider whether or not this guidance is true according to our own deep moral wisdom [of the soul], or if instead this is a false moral guidance that was simply based on a narrow moral perspective of our parents or culture or religion.
Soul conscience enters into the higher levels of our mental and emotional bodies, or in more general terms it develops into a higher level of our psyche. [footnote: psyche is the complex of mental and emotional contents, or those 'bodies' interacting.]
In the higher levels of the emotional body, soul conscience develops into moral feelings, moral sensitivity, and moral desires. These higher feelings are ways to experience what is morally good - in relation to the well-being of others and the planet. Moral feelings help distinguish between good and bad, in relation to well-being. What is morally good is whatever helps improve the physical and spiritual well-being of others, our environment and the overall planet. What is morally bad is whatever harms or degrades such well-being. Moral sensitivity feels injustices and unfair pain inflicted on others, and also it is a sensitivity to the needs of others. Moral desires are desires to love and care for others and the planet, and to help improve the physical and spiritual well-being of others, our environment and the overall planet.
In the higher levels of the mental body, soul conscience develops into true moral understanding and moral guidance. These higher levels of thought help us know and choose morally what to do. Moral understanding is intelligently knowing what is good and the principles of good as well. Moral guidance is the divine intelligence guiding us toward the better moral action in any situation, as guided by love and caring.
This all comes from our inner soul, which is a conscious holographic portion of the Universal Being, God. Each soul has two main purposes. One purpose is to express and manifest its realized divine qualities through the three manifesting planes - mental, emotional, and physical. The other purpose of each soul-being is to realize more and more of the Universal Being, and thus continually progress into the whole Unity of Being.
If we envision two triangles, one pointing up and the other pointing down, yet intersecting; then the individual soul is in the very middle, while the lower planes (mental, emotional, and physical) are below, and the higher planes above (these pertaining to Love, Wisdom, and Spiritual Power).
Divine Power influences our will-to-good. Divine Love influences
our caring qualities and moral feelings. Divine Wisdom influences our
higher understanding and moral guidance. The love-wisdom qualities of
our soul will influence our mind and emotions. It influences the
higher levels of mind with metaphysical intuitions, moral ideas, and
wise decisions. It influences the higher levels of our emotions with
love, moral and aesthetic sensitivity, caring, and gratitude.