Talking about the Soul /1

edited by Adriano Nardi

© copyright by Esonet.it - Esonet.com

 

from the writings of Alice A. Bailey and the Master D.K.

 

Summary: The Constitution of Man - The fact of the Soul - Some synonyms for the "Soul" - Recognition of the Soul

 

The Constitution of Man

The constitution of man, as considered in the following pages, is basically threefold, as follows:

 

I. The Monad, or pure Spirit, the Father in Heaven.

This aspect reflects the three aspects of the Godhead:

1. Will or Power - The Father

2. Love-wisdom - The Son

3. Active Intelligence - The Holy Spirit

and is only contacted at the final initiations, when man is nearing the end of his journey and is perfected. The Monad reflects itself again in

 

II. The Ego, Higher Self, or Individuality.

This aspect is potentially

1. Spiritual Will - Atma

2. Intuition - Buddhi, Love-wisdom, the Christ principle

3. Higher or abstract Mind - Higher Manas

The Ego begins to make its power felt in advanced men, and increasingly on the Probationary Path until by the third initiation the control of the lower self by the higher is perfected, and the highest aspect begins to make its energy felt.

The Ego reflects itself in

 

III. The Personality, or lower self, physical plane man.

This aspect is also threefold

1. A mental body lower - manas

2. An emotional body - astral body

3. A physical body - the dense physical and the etheric body

The aim of evolution is therefore to bring man to the realization of the Egoic aspect and to bring the lower nature under its control.

 

The fact of the Soul

We shall, from the outset, accept the fact of the soul. We shall not consider the arguments for or against the hypothesis of there being a soul - universal, cosmic, and divine, or individual and human. For our purposes of discussion, the soul exists, and its intrinsic reality is assumed, as a basic and proven principle. Those who do not admit this assumption can, however, study the book from the angle of a temporarily accepted hypothesis, and thus seek to gather those analogies and indications which may substantiate the point of view. To the aspirant, and to those who are seeking to demonstrate the existence of the soul because they believe in its existence, this expression of its laws and tradition, its nature, origin and potentialities will become a gradually deepening and experienced phenomenon.

I shall seek to make this treatise upon the soul relatively brief. I shall seek to express these abstract truths in such a way that the general public, with its profound interest in the soul, may be intrigued and won to a deeper consideration of what is as yet a veiled surmise. The Aquarian Age will see the fact of the soul demonstrated. This is an attempt, carried forward in the difficulties of a transition period which lacks even the needed terminology, to aid that demonstration.

The soul is as yet an unknown quantity. It has no real place in the theories of the academic and scientific investigators. It is unproven and regarded by even the more open-minded of the academicians as a possible hypothesis, but lacking demonstration. It is not accepted as a fact in the consciousness of the race. Only two groups of people accept it as a fact; one is the gullible, undeveloped, childlike person who, brought up on a scripture of the world, and being religiously inclined, accepts the postulates of religion - such as the soul, God and immortality - without questioning. The other is that small but steadily growing band of Knowers of God, and of reality, who know the soul to be a fact in their own experience but are unable to prove its existence satisfactorily to the man who admits only that which the concrete mind can grasp, analyze, criticize and test.

Back of the outer form of a human being, responsible for its creation, its maintenance and its use, lies, we know, the soul. Back of all activity for the furthering of human evolution as well as of other evolutionary processes stands the Hierarchy. Both represent centers of energy; both work under Law creatively; both proceed from subjective activity to objective manifestation and both are responsive (in the great sequence of graded lives) to vitalization and stimulation from higher centers of energy.

The soul is not a twelve-petalled lotus floating around in mental substance, but is in reality a vortex of force or twelve energies held together by the will of the spiritual entity (the Monad on its own plane).

"Soul" … is a word used to express the sum total of the psychic nature - the vital body, the emotional nature and the mind stuff. But it is also more than that, once the human stage is reached. It constitutes the spiritual entity, a conscious psychical being, a son of God, possessing life, quality and appearance - a unique manifestation in time and space of the three expressions of the soul as we have just outlined them:

1. The soul of all the atoms, composing the tangible appearance.

2. The personal soul or the subtle coherent sum total which we call the Personality, composed of the subtle bodies, - etheric or vital, astral or emotional, and the lower mental apparatus. These three vehicles humanity shares with the animal kingdom as regards its possession of vitality, sentiency, and potential mind; with the vegetable kingdom as regards vitality and sentiency; and with the mineral kingdom as regards vitality and potential sentiency.

3. The soul is also the spiritual being, or the merging of life and quality. When there is the fusion of the three souls, so called, we have a human being.

Thus in man you have the blending or fusion of life, quality and appearance, or spirit, soul and body, through the medium of a tangible form.

In the process of differentiation these various aspects have attracted attention, and the underlying synthesis has been overlooked or disregarded. Yet all forms are differentiations of the soul, but that soul is one Soul, when viewed and considered spiritually. When studied from the form side, naught but differentiation and separation can be seen. When studied from the consciousness or sentiency aspect, unity emerges. When the human stage is reached and self-awareness is blended with the sentiency of forms and with the tiny consciousness of the atom, some idea of a possible subjective unity begins dimly to dawn on the thinker's mind. When the stage of discipleship is reached, a man begins to see himself as a sentient part of a sentient whole, and slowly reacts to the purpose and intent of that whole. He grasps that purpose little by little as he swings consciously into the rhythm of the sum total of which he is a part. When more advanced stages and more rarefied and refined forms are possible, the part is lost in the whole; the rhythm of the whole subjects the individual to a uniform participation in the synthetic purpose, but the realization of individual self-awareness persists and enriches the individual contribution, which is now intelligently and willingly offered, so that the form not only constitutes an aspect of the sum total (which has always and inevitably been the case, even when unrealized), but the conscious thinking entity knows the fact of the unity of consciousness and of the synthesis of life. Thus we have three things to bear in mind as we read and study:

1. The synthesis of life - spirit.

2. The unity of consciousness - soul.

3. The integration of forms - body.

These three always have been at-one, but the human consciousness has not known it. It is the realization of these three factors and their integration into the technique of living which is, for man, the objective of his entire evolutionary experience.

Man's form nature reacts in its consciousness to the form nature of Deity. The outer garment of the soul (physical, vital and psychic) is part of the outer garment of God.

Man's self-conscious soul is en rapport with the soul of all things. It is an integral part of the universal Soul, and because of this can become aware of the conscious purpose of Deity; can intelligently cooperate with the will of God, and thus work with the plan of Evolution.

Man's spirit is one with the life of God and is within him, deep seated in his soul, as his soul is seated within the body.

This spirit will in some distant time put him en rapport with that aspect of God which is transcendent, and thus each son of God will eventually find his way to that center - withdrawn and abstracted - where God dwells beyond the confines of the solar system.

Men will know, and know soon, that the soul is not an imaginary fiction, that it is not just a symbolic way of expressing a deep seated hope, and is not man's method of building a defense mechanism; nor is it an illusory way of escape from a distressing present. They will know that the soul is a Being, a Being that is responsible for all that appears upon the phenomenal plane.

 

Some synonyms for the "Soul"

These terms, Lower Self, Higher Self, Divine Self, are apt to be confusing until the student apprehends the various synonyms connected with them. The following table may be found helpful:

Recognition of the Soul

The first step towards substantiating the fact of the soul is to establish the fact of survival, though this may not necessarily prove the fact of immortality. It can nevertheless be regarded as a step in the right direction. That something survives the process of death, and that something persists after the disintegration of the physical body, is steadily being proved. If that is not so, then we are the victims of a collective hallucination, and the brains and minds of thousands of people are untrue and deceiving, are diseased and distorted. Such a gigantic collective insanity is more difficult to credit than the alternative of an expanded consciousness. This development along psychic lines does not prove the fact of the soul, however; it only serves to break down the materialistic position.

It is among the thinkers of the race that the first assured recognition of the soul will come, and this event will be the result of the study and analysis, by the psychologists of the world, of the nature of genius and the significance of creative work.

Science, … gives no place to the electrical force of the soul, which is steadily growing in potency. A few of the scientists among the most advanced are beginning to do this. The next step ahead for science is the discovery of the soul, a discovery which will revolutionize, though not negate, the majority of their theories.