What is the Soul? Can we define it? What is its Nature?
Here I shall give but four definitions which will serve as a basis for all that follows.
A. The soul can be spoken of as the Son of the Father and of the Mother (Spirit-Matter) and is therefore the embodied life of God, coming into incarnation in order to reveal the quality of the nature of God, which is essential love. This life, taking form, nurtures the quality of love within all forms, and ultimately reveals the purpose of all creation. This is the simplest definition for average humanity, being couched in the language of mysticism, thus linking the truth as found in all religions. It is necessarily inadequate, for it fails to emphasize the truth that what can be posited of man can also be posited of the cosmic reality, and that just as a human appearance on Earth veils both the quality and purpose (in varying degree), so does that synthesis of all forms or appearances, within that unity which we call a solar system, veil the quality and purpose of Deity. It is only when man is no longer deluded by appearance and has freed himself from the veil of illusion that he arrives at a knowledge of the quality of God’s consciousness and at the purpose which it is revealing. This he does in a triple way:
- He discovers his own soul, the product of the union of his Father in heaven with the Mother or the material nature. This last is the personality. He then, having discovered the personality, discovers the quality of his own soul life, and the purpose for which he has “appeared.”
- He finds that this quality expresses itself through seven aspects or basic differentiations, and that this septenate of qualities colors, esoterically, all forms in all kingdoms in nature, thus constituting the totality of the revelations of the divine purpose. This, he finds, is essentially a septenary aggregation of energies, each energy producing differing effects and appearances. This discovery he makes by finding that his own soul is tinctured by one of the seven ray qualities, that he is identified with his ray purpose – whatever it may be – and is expressing a particular type of divine energy.
- From this point he proceeds to a recognition of the entire septenate, and upon the Path of Initiation he gains a glimpse of a Unity, hitherto unrealized, nor even sensed.
Thus from a consciousness of himself, man arrives at an awareness of the interrelation between the seven basic energies or rays; and from that he proceeds to a realization of the triple Deity, until at the final initiation (the fifth) he finds himself consciously at-one with the unified divine intent lying behind all appearances and all qualities. It might be added that initiations, higher than the fifth, reveal a purpose wider and deeper than that which is working out within our solar system. The purpose of our manifested Logos is but a part of a greater intent. It might also be noted that in the fourth kingdom of nature, on the path of evolution and of probation, a man arrives at a knowledge of his individual soul, and glimpses the quality and purpose of that soul. On the path of discipleship and of initiation, he glimpses the quality and purpose of his planetary Life, and discovers himself as a part of a ray Life, Which is appearing through the form of a planet and is embodying an aspect of the divine purpose and energy. After the third initiation he glimpses the quality and purpose of the solar system; he sees his ray life and energy as a part of a greater whole. These are but modes of expressing the emerging quality and the hidden purpose of the graded Lives which inform all appearances and color them with quality.
B. The soul can be regarded as the principle of intelligence – an intelligence whose characteristics are mind and mental awareness, which in turn demonstrate as the power to analyze, to discriminate, to separate, and to distinguish, to choose or to reject, with all the implications conveyed in these terms. As long as a man is identified with the appearance, these aspects of the mental principle produce in him the “great heresy of separateness.” It is the appearance of the form nature that glamors him and completely deludes him. He regards himself as the form, and then proceeds from a realization of himself as the material form, and as identified with the outer appearance, to a realization of himself as an insatiable desire. He then becomes identified with his desire body, with his appetites, good and bad, and considers himself as one with his moods, his feelings, his longings, whether they ray out in the direction of the material world or inward toward the world of thought or the kingdom of the soul. He is torn by a sense of duality. Later, he becomes identified with still another of the appearances, – with the mind body or nature. Thoughts become to him so tangible that he is swayed, turned and influenced by them; and to the world of material appearances, and to the world of the great Illusion is added the world of thought forms. He is then subjected to a triple illusion, and he, the conscious life behind the illusion, begins to unify the forms into one coordinated whole, in order the better to control them.
Thus the Personality of the soul makes its appearance. He stands then on the verge of the probationary path. He enters the world of quality and of value, and begins to discover the nature of the soul and to shift the emphasis from the appearance to the quality of the Life which has produced it. This identification of the quality with the appearance grows steadily upon the path until the fusion of quality and appearance, of energy and that which it energizes, is so perfect that appearance no longer veils the reality, and the soul is now the dominant factor; consciousness is now identified with itself (or with its ray) and not with its phenomenal appearance. Later, the soul itself is superseded by the Monad, and that Monad becomes, in verity, embodied purpose.
The process can be expressed by a very simple symbology, as follows:
o.o.o. or o.o.. .o or o.. .o.o., thus portraying the separateness of the three aspects. The union, then, of the aspects of appearance-quality-purpose or life, results in an abstraction from the appearance, and therefore the end of phenomenal existence. Ponder on the simple arrangement of these signs, for they portray your life and progress:
This is true of the human being, of the Christ in incarnation; it is equally true of the cosmic Christ, of God incarnate in the solar system. In the system a similar fusion and blending is going on, and the separated aspects are entering into an evolutionary relationship, resulting in an eventual synthesis of appearance and quality, and then of quality and purpose. It might be noted here that the Hierarchy as a whole is distinguished by the sign o..oo; the New Group of World Servers by the sign oo..o; and the unevolved masses by o o o. Forget not, that in all three groups, as in nature, there are the intermediate stages composed of those who are on their way to a transitional accomplishment.
The work before all students of this Treatise on the Seven Rays is the fusion of quality and appearance, and therefore they need to study the nature of that quality in order to produce a true appearance. In the ancient rules given to mystics in Atlantean times we find these words:
“Let the disciple know the nature of his Lord of Love. Seven the aspects of the love of God; seven the colors of that manifesting One; sevenfold the work; seven the energies and sevenfold the Path back to the center of peace. Let the disciple live in love, and love in life.”
In those olden days no thought of purpose entered into the minds of men, for the race was not mental nor was it intended so to be. The emphasis was laid upon the quality of the appearance in all preparation for initiation, and the highest initiate of that time endeavored to express only the quality of God’s love. The Plan was the great mystery. The Christ, cosmic and individual, was sensed and known, but purpose was as yet veiled and unrevealed. The “noble eightfold path” was not known, and only seven steps into the Temple were seen. With the coming in of the Aryan race, the purpose and the plan began to be revealed. Only when the appearance is beginning to be dominated by quality, and consciousness is expressing itself in directed awareness through the form, is the purpose dimly sensed.
I seek in various ways to convey through the symbol of words the significance of the soul. The soul is therefore the son of God, the product of the marriage of spirit and matter. The soul is an expression of the mind of God, for mind and intellect are terms expressing the cosmic principle of intelligent love, – a love which produces an appearance through the nature of mind and thus is the builder of the separate forms or appearances. The soul also, through the quality of love, produces the fusion of appearance and of quality, of awareness and of form.
Part 2 of 3 here.
