The Soul and Its Nature [1 of 2]

“Philosophers say the Soul is double-faced, her upper face gazes at God all the time and her lower face looks somewhat down, informing the senses; and the upper face, which is the summit of the soul, is in eternity and has nothing to do with time: it knows nothing of time or of body.”
– Meister Eckhart

In detailing the technique whereby it is claimed the educated intellectual can become the intuitional knower it might be well to state the hypotheses upon which the science of meditation is based. In the process the various aspects (in nature, or of divinity, whichever is preferred) of which man is the expression have to be recognized, but the basic connection which holds him together as an integrated unity must never be forgotten. Man is an integrated being, but existence means more to some men than to others. For some it is purely animal existence; for many it connotes the sum total of emotional and sensory experience; for others, it involves all this, plus a mental awareness which greatly enriches and deepens life. For a few (and those the flower of the human family) Being stands for a recognition of ability to register contacts that are universal and subjective as well as individual and objective. Keyserling says that:

“When we speak of the Being of a man in contradistinction to his ability, we mean his vital soul; and when we say this Being decides, we mean that all his utterances are penetrated with individual life, that every single expression radiates personality, and that this personality is ultimately responsible.”
– Keyserling, Count Hermann, Creative Understanding, page 180.

It might be stated here as sine qua non that only those people who are responsible thinking beings are ready for the application of those rules and instructions which will enable them to make that transition and to come to that consciousness which is the hallmark of the illuminated mystic and the intuitional knowers. The beautiful lines found in Dr. Winslow Hall’s Illuminanda point the goal:

“In all men lurks The Light; yet, in how few
Has it blazed forth, as rightfully it ought,
Illuming, from within, our fleshly lamp,
And kindling cosmic flame in nigh-brought souls!
Splendor of God, how few! And ours the blame;
For, ever, crassly, by routine and wrath,
We undiscerningly damp down and choke
The spark of God that glints in every child.
All children are, by nature, bits of God;
And God, if they but had their freedom, would
Unfold Himself in them, would burgeon forth
Tinting and moulding, till, as perfect flowers
They bloomed, fulfiled of loveliness unveiled.”
– Hall, W. Winslow, M.D., Illuminanda, page 218.

This is the goal of the meditation process – to lead men forth into the Light that is within themselves and enable them, in that light, to see Light. This work of revelation is based on certain definite theories as to the constitution and nature of the human being. The evolution and perfecting of the mind faculty in man, with its keenness and capacity for concentration gives the West at this time the opportunity to put these theories to the test. An intelligent experiment is now naturally in order.

“The new synthesis of mind and soul,” Keyserling says, “must originate from the mind, on the height of supreme intellectuality, if something decisive is to happen.”
– Keyserling, Count Hermann, Creative Understanding, page 125.

But to do this, there must be a clear understanding of three points upon which the Oriental position is based, and which, if true, validate the entire contention of the student of the Oriental technique of meditation, never forgetting, however, the proverb of the Chinese which says that,

“If the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.”

These three premises are:

First: There is a soul in every human form, and that soul uses the lower aspects of man simply as vehicles of expression. The objective of the evolutionary process is to enhance and deepen the control of the soul over this instrument. When this is complete, we have a divine incarnation.

Secondly: The sum total of these lower aspects, when developed and coordinated we call the Personality. This unity is composed of the mental and emotional states of being, the vital energy and the physical response apparatus, and these “mask” or hide the soul. These aspects develop sequentially and progressively, according to the eastern philosophy, and only on reaching a relatively high state of unfoldment does it become possible for man to coordinate them and later to unify them, in consciousness, with the indwelling soul. Later comes control by the soul, and a steadily increasing expression of the nature of the soul. This is sometimes symbolically expressed as a light in a lamp. At first the lamp gives forth no radiance, but gradually the light makes its presence felt, till the meaning of the words of the Christ becomes clear. He said, “I am the light of the world,” and enjoined upon His disciples to “let your light shine that man may see.”

Thirdly: When the life of the soul, acting under the Law of Rebirth, has brought the personality to such a condition that it is an integrated and coordinated unit, then there is set up between the two a more intensive interaction. This interaction is brought about through the processes of self-discipline, an active will towards spiritual Being, unselfish service (for that is the mode in which the group-conscious soul manifests itself) and meditation. The consummation of the work is the conscious realization of union – called, in Christian terminology, the at-one-ment.

These three hypotheses must be accepted, at any rate, tentatively, if this process of education through meditation is to be rendered effective. In Webster’s Dictionary, the soul is defined in line with these theories, and the definition runs as follows:

“An entity conceived as the essence, substance, or actuating cause of individual life, especially of life manifested in psychical activities; the vehicle of individual existence, separate in nature from the body and usually held to be separable in existence.”

Webster adds the following comment which is appropriate in its application to our theme that

“some conceptions, such as that of Fechner, that the soul is the whole unitary spiritual process in conjunction with the whole unitary bodily process, appear to stand midway between the idealistic and materialistic views.”
– Webster’s New International Dictionary, Edition of 1923.

The strictly Oriental position is given us by Dr. Radhakrishnan, of the University of Calcutta, as follows:

“All organic beings have a principle of self-determination, to which the name of ‘soul’ is generally given. In the strict sense of the word, ‘soul’ belongs to every being that has life in it, and the different souls are fundamentally identical in nature. The differences are due to the physical organizations that obscure and thwart the life of the soul. The nature of the bodies in which the souls are incorporated accounts for their various degrees of obscuration… The ego is the psychological unity of that stream of conscious experiencing which constitutes what we know as the inner life of an empirical self.
“The empirical self is the mixture of free spirit and mechanism, of purusha and prakriti… Every ego possesses within the gross material body, which suffers dissolution at death, a subtle body, formed of the psychical apparatus, including the senses.”
– Radhakrishnan, S., Indian Philosophy, Vol. II, pages 279, 283, 285.

This soul, we are told, is a fragment of the Oversoul, a spark of the one Flame, imprisoned in the body. It is that life aspect which gives to man – as to all forms in manifestation – life, or being and consciousness. It is the vital factor, that integrating coherent something which makes the human being (composite, yet unified, as he is) a thinking, feeling and aspiring entity. The intellect in man is that factor or quality of soul-awareness which enables him to orient himself to his environment during the stages in which his personality is under development, but which later, through proper meditation, enables him to orient himself towards the soul, as detached from the mechanism, and thus, therefore, towards a new state of awareness of being.


join us on instagram @esotericteachings
This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Error: No feed found.

Please go to the Instagram Feed settings page to create a feed.