Impression from the World of the Soul

 I have often mentioned that the higher powers, those I call the Masters in my books, seek to communicate with us through impression. Despite my experience they do not use trance mediums except on the rarest of occasions because they are not seeking to provide spiritual information but to bring us up to the spiritual level, and this they do by requiring us to stretch up and become responsive to that level. So although they did use a medium in my case for a period they always said that was not their preferred means of communication, and was just intended to start me off. That is why the communications became less and less as time went by.

This is how the process works. The Master's mind functions on the plane of the intuition which is above the mental level as we understand it. The original communication or impression therefore starts off as a pure idea or formless pattern of meaning. Formless means it's not in any language or even symbol but is a pure spiritual truth which might be envisaged as a lightning flash. 

This must be picked up by the disciple on this intuitional plane, a plane to which he is becoming responsive but is by no means fully established, and transferred down to the level of his own soul where it starts to take on a kind of form but still not in words or conventional thoughts. Here we might think of it in terms of light vibrations which I realise is an annoyingly vague phrase but does imply something of the nature and quality of the process. The soul here acts as an intermediary between the pure intuition and everyday mind, transforming or stepping down the light to a form that the mind can engage with and interpret. Note that the soul or spiritual self is on a lower level to that of pure intelligent intuition. It does not automatically have access to that but must grow into it, something to consider for those who think being in the moment is all there is to the spiritual path. 

The concrete mind of the disciple then translates these spiritual ideas into words and sentences in a form drawn from his pre-existing knowledge which is why it is good to have a well-stocked, well-informed mind. You then have the wherewithal to present the pure idea in a form which can express it in the highest sense it can be expressed in human terms. The risk is that a well-stocked mind can become the enemy of intuition if it gets seduced by its own knowledge. This is something the spiritual aspirant must be aware of and guard against.

So, the idea appears in the quietened mind of the disciple. It must be quiet to receive the spiritual impression hence the need for some kind of meditation or upward directed aspiration as in prayer. The mind functions like a radio receiver, taking the formless spiritual vibration and clothing it in the language and concepts already existing in the disciple's brain. It's a four-step process. From Master to soul to mind to brain or from the intuitive plane to the soul and thence from the mental plane to the physical. The message will inevitably degrade on its way down and our task is to prevent that happening as much as possible which we do by inner purification and the constant stretching up of the mind to the higher level with an openness towards increased rarification of concepts. 

 

Our understanding of spirituality is very crude. Love, wisdom, beauty, the good. These are things that have deeper and deeper levels of reality. Our task is to become aware of those and never rest content with the limited forms of them we currently respond to which are usually but shadows or reflections of the real thing. That real thing we can say exists on the intuitional plane and that is where we should be directing our spiritual attention. It is where God and his dedicated messengers wait to talk with us.

The Voice of the Soul

 When you come to one of those occasions in your life when you must make a real decision that will affect your future or even your spiritual state how do you discriminate between what comes into your thoughts on the matter from God or the higher powers or your own soul, that is to say, your spiritual being, and what is self-generated as in coming from your worldly mind which includes desires, fears and ego or put there by the counter-evolutionary powers, as we might term them, those forces that would hold you back or misdirect you? Incidentally, both these powers exist. The old and slightly comical image of an angel on one shoulder and a devil (usually a red one) on the other have a lot of truth in them. The mind is a receiving station and, depending on its tuning, can receive impressions from the forces of both light and darkness.

To get back to the question. If something comes from God, using that term very loosely because God delegates and most people are not directly in touch with him but one of his hierarchical intermediaries, you don't worry about whether you should be doing something. You know you must do it. If a situation arises in your life and you are genuinely uncertain as to how to respond, the spiritual significance of your decision may not be great. But when you come to a fork in the road and one of the paths is a destined path that you are required to take for the benefit of your spiritual growth then you know. 

Which is not to say you do not doubt. The mind will often come up with all sorts of reasons for avoiding taking the right decision. There will be rationalisations about why you shouldn't be doing a particular thing or should be doing something else. Outer circumstances and other people, even family members, might try to deter you from the correct choice. But inside you will know. You will know that you have to do a certain thing or take a certain course. That doesn't mean you will do it. The outer mind can suppress that inner knowledge which means the connection you have to the inner voice will be weakened from then on. But, nevertheless, at a deep level of your being you will know. The worldly self might overwhelm that deep knowledge, even to the extent of posing as a deeper knowledge itself, but if you are true to yourself then you will know. An honest person will feel guilt for doing the wrong thing and relief for doing the right thing even if it is the difficult thing and brings worldly problems. A spiritual slacker will brush off this guilt and dismiss it as societal conditioning or impractical romanticism or even disguised selfishness, but that person is killing the voice of the soul inside and it will be easier for him to ignore it next time a similar situation arises until the point is reached where there is no connection at all.

Listen out for the voice of the soul. It will not always tell you what you want to hear, but it will unerringly direct you to the truth.

Psychology and the Soul

 For many people in the modern materialistic world psychology has replaced religion, but how can you heal the mind if you don't acknowledge the soul? And most forms of psychology, despite the name, do not acknowledge the soul except sometimes when it is envisaged as an aspect or extension of the mind.

Human beings consist of a body, a mind and a soul, all three of which must be aligned and interacting harmoniously for an individual to be in a healthy state. All three are important to the whole but there is a hierarchical relationship between them which is to say the soul has a mind and a body rather than the other way around. So, I do not have a soul. I am the soul.

If the spiritual is not taken into account a person will be not be in a healthy psychological condition, and while not everyone will feel the impact of this there will still be damage. To attempt to heal the mind without acknowledging spiritual factors is superficial at best.

Some forms of psychology do attempt to integrate a spiritual element into their thinking but they do this by making the spiritual a subset of the psychological so giving a false idea of the spiritual by reducing it to the psychological.

But the spiritual exists at a level of being beyond the psychological and the psychological cannot touch it. All it can do is create a conceptual framework for it but if that is mistaken for the real thing any true connection to the soul is lost.

The soul is sometimes described as beyond form but this is not strictly true. It does not have material form but it has a spiritual form which is its quality. It takes on form in order to express itself in the material world but then it mistakenly identifies itself with the form assumed. It forgets its true nature. Psychology addresses itself to the mind but the mind is part of the form the soul takes in order to interact with the world. If there is not a clear understanding of the difference between mind and soul psychology cannot address deeper problems when they arise and they will even if one is not aware of it with the outer self.

We can go further than this and apply the same line of reasoning to religion. Does religion bring us into relationship with the soul or does it supplant that relationship with itself? It depends on how an individual views his religion. Does he see it as a path to God and the soul or a replacement for God and the soul?  Often it is a bit of both but we must, especially now when all religions are spiritual shadows of their former selves, recognise that religion belongs to the world of form and that true spiritual understanding must lie beyond that. 

In the End Times religions lose their power for two reasons, one bad, one good. The bad reason is the prevailing atheism and egotism of a large section of humanity. The good reason is that an increasing number of people see that the form of religion is an inevitable limitation on the higher understanding. That is not to reject religion because if that limitation is recognised one can go beyond it while still using the good in religion as a guide and support. But a religion is rather like one of those rockets that enable a spaceship to escape the earth's gravity but must then be jettisoned if the ship is to advance deeper into space. This may not always have been so but has become so in our day when End Times energy affects everything in the world.

Spiritual Atmosphere

 Certain places, even in today's world, retain an atmosphere that speaks of a reality beyond the everyday and the mundane. There are natural sites that have this quality and these were often adopted as sacred places in bygone days by our pagan forefathers. Springs, wells, mountains, caves and many other naturally occurring features were marked out by a sense of presence which indicated that a god or spirit of some kind was in attendance. Nowadays we might be inclined to think of this, if existing at all, as a phenomenon associated with earth energies, perhaps coming from a geological peculiarity or even mineral deposit of some sort, but our ancestors always associated sacredness with spirits. That is to say, with beings either from another world or another dimension of this one.

Some places have a sacred aura but others can acquire that aura by the action of human beings who gather there to worship and pray. I say action but contemplation might be a better word as the spiritual power engendered by contemplation can build up and imbue its environment with a special quality that is detectable to the sensitive soul. Places of worship can have this property, and they are often designed to help in its creation with their high ceilings and vaults on the one hand and enclosed sanctuaries on the other, bringing to mind the open sky on a mountain top or a deep, dark cave representing respectively the Father and Mother of Creation. These spaces can then receive and hold the power built up the worshippers. This was the genius of architects of the past that their descendants in our day have either lost or failed to understand. The atmosphere is not created by the architecture but can be supplemented by it, and it does not depend just on the ritual but the ritual and attitude of the worshippers, both together. A ritual can be designed to build up power but it will only be properly effective if the participants attend with their heart and spirit as well as their mind and body.

I suppose it is possible that a modern church can have a spiritual atmosphere, but it is unlikely due to its construction being based on secular/materialist principles and its lack of connection to the transcendent principle. Not to mention, its ugliness. I once met a monk who told me that it doesn't matter what the outer form in which you worship is like, it's the worship that counts. The silly fellow meant well but he was ignorant. In that case why did people put so much energy into building stone hymns to the Creator? Of course, a loving heart can worship anywhere but the outer affects the inner just as the inner affects the outer, and to dismiss beauty as irrelevant shows a dead spirit. The grandeur of a Gothic cathedral is not required as a pure simplicity can be just as effective in its own way, but harmonious proportions and natural materials are important if one wishes to create a holy space in which to connect to the divine. Beauty is part of God just as much as love and wisdom.

Three places come to mind for me as environments where I have felt a strong spiritual atmosphere. There are many more I could add, but these three form a good cross section, being illustrative of different types of atmosphere. I am referring to man-made places only here so leaving out examples from the natural world.

The first is the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza. The first time I went there was 1978 and I was fortunate enough to be left on my own for a while in the dark centre of the structure. There was a slight artificial light but I shut my eyes and was absorbed by the stillness and silence around me. There was a sense of extraordinary antiquity as though one had been taken back to the beginning of things before form of any kind developed. This was the very ground of creation, but also the seat of the tiny seed of spirit at the core of the heart from which all life grows. For a moment I felt myself to be entering the originating point of mystery and returned to where all things began.

The second place was Akbar's Tomb which is the mausoleum of the Mughal emperor Akbar in Sikandra just outside Agra. When I first went there in 1979 I felt as if part of me knew this place and I had a right be there, though I am not claiming a past life as a Mughal courtier. This was just a feeling, but it was a happy one and it came over me as I walked along the path that led through the quadrangular charbagh, representing the garden of paradise, up to the mausoleum. At the southern entrance to the tomb there was the most beautifully decorated vestibule with geometrical patterns picked out in delicate blue and vivid gold and then, in stark contrast, you entered a dark passage leading to the plain, unadorned central chamber that was Akbar's cenotaph. Here in the dim light under a high vaulted ceiling an attendant sounded the Muslim call to prayer. It echoed and resounded throughout the chamber, lasting for several seconds before gradually dying away, and, in that environment, seemed like the voice of God calling all the worlds into being out of the darkness of primeval space. If the inside of the Great Pyramid was like the time before creation, this resembled a microscopic scale version of the creative moment at the beginning of time.

The vestibule ceiling

The cenotaph chamber

My third example of spiritual atmosphere comes from Verona in 1987. It was in one of the numerous old churches in that city though unfortunately I can't remember which. There are a few examples here. I was there as a tourist, visiting the various sites as tourists do. There is a 1st century Roman amphitheatre in an excellent state of repair and still used for opera performances, and then there is the Casa di Giulietta with its balcony that is certainly not authentic but serves as a touching homage to young love. There are also several Romanesque and Gothic churches such as the Basilica di San Zeno Maggiore and the Chiesa di Santa Anastasia which is stuffed full of extraordinary artworks. But it may have been while visiting one of the city's smaller churches that I opened a door to a little side chapel and was hit by a wave of such power that I almost fell back. It was rather like exiting the air-conditioned interior of a plane in the tropics when the outside heat suddenly crashes into you. A guide told me that monks had conducted a service there shortly before, and the after-effects of that service were certainly a testimony to the intensity of their worship. 

Although I had once encountered something similar at Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight I had not previously appreciated the extent to which true worship can build up an atmosphere so strong it seems almost a physical thing. If the previous experiences had brought to mind the early days of the universe this one was different in that it spoke of the reciprocal love of God and Man. It also seemed noticeably Christian and was a reminder that not all experiences called spiritual are necessarily the same thing.

Basilica of San Zeno

God, the World and the Soul

 The three realities of human existence are God, the world and the soul which is to say the inner subject, the outer object and that from which both of these derive. These can be seen as three points of a triangle with God at the apex. The tragedy of modern man is that the apex point is either denied or, if accepted, seen in the light of some part of the base line. In fact, this point is the only thing that can give meaning and reality to the other two points. Without not just acknowledging God but seeing him as the root of the other two, these two, Man and the World, amount to nothing but confusion and chaos, hence the nihilistic state in which we live even if we cover that up with all kinds of distractions.

Man can only know himself through interaction with the world of objective existence. In his early stages he remains embedded in nature and does not know himself as a free agent. He is still in the arms of the Mother, subject to her moods and seasons. It is the great achievement of Western man that he broke free of Nature and began to master it. The initial phases of this are recorded in myth as the hero fights various monsters, many of these symbolic of the devouring mother that would drag him back down to the pre-conscious state of non-individuality. The rupture with nature brought freedom but also separation and loss. What humanity has achieved is extraordinary but it comes at a cost. When Odin, who can be said to represent Western man, memorably in his guise as Wotan as depicted in Wagner's Ring Cycle, sacrifices his eye in return for wisdom, this signifies the closing down of clairvoyant faculties as the intellectual mind starts to awaken and the free individual asserts himself in subjective consciousness. This is a necessary and vital stage in the evolution of the soul and it was achieved by Western Man more than any other grouping of human beings. However, although it is an evolutionary advance, it leads to eventual calamity, the Gotterdammerung suffered by Wotan and the gods, as individuality goes too far and mastery of nature leads to destruction. Man has conquered the world but lost himself in the process.

We are at that twilight of the gods stage now and all the remedies proposed are useless because they come from within the system. Remaining where we are is alienation and death, but restoring past religion is no good either because it was religion for the herd not the full individuals we have become.  A return to nature is not feasible for the self-conscious beings we now are, and if we try that it will be fake, performative. We cannot go back to the mother and the embryonic bliss of unselfconsciousness. We cannot go back, we cannot stay where we are, we must go through and on. The only solution is to reach for transcendence which means to acknowledge God, but this acknowledgement needs to be twofold. We must see God as the transcendent Creator but also as the ground of our own being and we must align our individual self with that ground. In this way, we eventually become gods ourselves. Not in the way promised by the serpent which offered the temptation of the perfectibility of the separate self, but in and through Christ who raises the self sacrificed in his name up to his own divine state.

The world as we know it is coming to an end. The soul can follow the world or it can follow God. It can identify itself with the world and take the path the world is taking or it can start to identify itself with God and so move out of this world into divine being. This is the choice of our time.

Kingship

 On some level every man feels himself to be a king and every woman a queen. Potentially so, at any rate. Is this just egotism or psychological compensation for felt inadequacy or is there something real behind it?

We are created in God's image. That means we are individual. An individual is a unique and complete being. A whole and, in a certain sense, perfect being. Ultimately, no individual can be compared to any other even if in the manifested or created world individuals are very similar, not very interesting for the most part and decidedly imperfect. But in an ideal state and at root each one is perfect. Life is to bring that perfection out into full expression.

This is what a king is. The crown of creation. We all have it in us to become that. None of us are that but we are all working towards it. Our destiny and goal is to become lords of all we survey. Under God, of course, but all worldly kings also know they serve under God.

God is the King of kings. Pilate said to Jesus, “So you are a king?”, Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this purpose I have been born, and for this I have come into the world: to testify to the truth." A king exists not just to rule but to manifest God in the world. All kings believe in divine right which means their right to rule comes from God and God has invested them with his power. The first quality of Divine Being is Will and a King manifests this divine will in his person.

When Christ was in this world he appeared as a humble servant but as Pilate recognised he was a king really. The image on the Turin Shroud is the most regal image I know of which points to its authenticity. Christ is the King of Heaven, and he said that what he did we can too. This means that we too are kings, or will be when we have reached the end of our spiritual journey. 

Note the stillness in this face. It is the face of a man of power who is in perfect possession of himself, completely centred in the true reality of his being. That is what a king is.

To be a king is to reach the point where you can manifest God's glory, where base metal has been turned into gold. It is what the soul was created to be, the male, a king, the female a queen.

Why Leftism is Wrong in One Sentence

Leftism collapses the vertical to the horizontal. That's it. That is its great error or sin as you might well call it since it deforms reality. This is why it can only really infect human consciousness in a time of materialism, and why when it contaminates spirituality, you get a false spirituality that reduces the transcendent to the immanent. It is why it favours egalitarianism over hierarchy and the female over the male, the male being associated with the transcendent.

This world must be seen in the light of it being the outermost part of a far greater reality or else as the furthest removed from the centre. When seen as real in its own light, as it is now, it becomes very hard for anyone sensitive to truth to function in it properly. Its values are false, its priorities absurd. Such an attitude strips meaning from life and real purpose from human endeavour. To renounce the world in such circumstances is only right for what you are renouncing is not the world as God's creation but the world as its own be all and end all with material ends and goals supreme. The material has no meaning apart from the spiritual, but this is the crazy situation in which we find ourselves in the 21st century. All human societies and cultures are focused exclusively in the material, and practically all religions and spiritual approaches, where they do exist, function in that paradigm and defer to it. It is the master and they must obey their master if they wish to be allowed to exist.

It is coming to the point at which a serious person must reject everything in the world. Not just the obvious evil but the public attempts to contest or resist that evil. These are not as bad as the evil itself but they are the products of it in that they arise in response to it. Hence, they still bear its mark. The only true good can have nothing to do with any of this as it must exist absolutely independently. The world has now separated itself from the divine. To encounter the divine in anything like a pure form you must separate yourself from the world. You don't have to run off to the desert or remote northern islands (the world is in those places nowadays anyway), but you must separate yourself psychologically, spiritually even, from the world. It is a fact that no church or spiritual group can help you now. You are on your own or with a few like-minded companions.

But that is the point of living at this time. You are being tested in the fire for your spiritual integrity. So many people use the spiritual to further themselves. They are not bad people so much as people who wish to have a foot in both camps. They see the reality of the spiritual but they only see partially and they still see through worldly eyes. You must train yourself to see with the spiritual eye, the eye of the heart. Only then will you see truly.

Christianity with its democratisation of spirit has given a false idea of the spiritual path due to its idea that all you need to be saved is to believe. I realise this is a simplification of what Christianity really says but it is a common idea both outside and within the religion. It fits in very well with the modern ethos that we are all equal, an ethos, by the way, that is only encouraged by the elite to keep the masses subjugated and pull back all those who might seek to separate themselves spiritually from the mass. It may be true that all you need to do to be saved is to believe but the how, why and what of that are essential. It is not mere human belief but belief that comes from the whole person and consequently transforms being. And then it requires belief in the real as perceived by the inner eye not some manmade spiritual idol of which there are many, including many in the Christian faith. 

Ultimately, only those willing to walk into the fire will be saved. Today those truly on the path are called to a kind of inner martyrdom but to be so called is a gift so if you are one of those in that position be grateful, though know it will involve suffering for that is what purges the soul and renders it a fit habitat for God into which he may enter.

The Pain of Exile

 Every person who has any real spiritual sensibility suffers from being in this world, and the more sensibility you have, the more you suffer. As much as you may love certain aspects of this world, you know it is not your real home. For that matter, the 'you' you appear to be in this world is not the real you either. You know there is a greater self somewhere beyond the one you experience in the here and now.  There is always this existential ache but you are fortunate for it is this that drives you to seek out deeper levels of truth than what the world has to offer, even in most of what it provides in terms of religion.

Your spiritual pain has another purpose too, one beyond the impetus towards personal growth. This world is sunk in darkness and separated from its source. The suffering of those who are aware of the soul helps lighten some of that darkness by aiding in reconnection. This is because it is a transmuting element that opens up the world through you as a part of the world to the higher spiritual that you can sense. Therefore, whenever you may feel particular pain or anguish know that you are bringing light into the world through that pain because you are, in however small a degree, piercing the shell of materialism that surrounds the totality of human consciousness. You are letting some light into the world. While you are in the world you are part of it and as a part that is somewhat conscious of higher reality you help to bring that reality into the world as a whole. In this way your pain helps in the healing of the world which may be a small comfort but should be some consolation. You are serving a purpose beyond yourself.

Those who have a foot in both worlds can act as channels between the two in a manner that benefits and uplifts, though they may not know it, many souls on the cusp of spiritual awakening.

Why pain, why suffering is the cry of humanity to God. Usually there is no answer and that causes the faith of many to fail. But if you looked on the fact of pain and suffering as evidence that this is not your natural state, and used it as a motivation to seek that state, you might be better reconciled to it. I am not saying this justifies or fully explains suffering, but the deepest love comes from the knowledge of suffering which breaks open the self. God himself suffers through his incarnation in matter and yet he joyously gives himself so that his creation might grow and become more like him.

The topic of initiation is one which the modern world, egalitarian, democratic, materialistic, has quite forgotten. However, in many traditional societies it was an important concept which could be applied on a variety of levels from the everyday, the movement from boyhood to manhood, for instance, to the deeply spiritual. Fundamentally, initiation means the transition to a different mode of consciousness and it always involves a kind of death. In other words, there is no initiation without suffering and the further one progresses on the spiritual path, the truer this is. The suffering comes about as part of the outgrowing of a previous phase of being and indicates you are being prepared to move to a higher phase. Suffering leads to death which in turn leads to rebirth. There is no proper initiation without suffering so let those who do suffer spiritually understand that this is a sign they are being prepared for a new and higher state of being.

The Solar Principle

By No Means Equal was published a couple of years ago and I've noticed since then there have been many more books and articles questioning the validity of the modern egalitarian ethos. I would love to think it was because of my book but I'm not that deluded, especially since it hasn't sold very much. The fact is this is an idea whose time has come. The flaws of egalitarianism are just becoming more and more obvious, and in every sphere too. Most people approach this from a political perspective but the real issue is a spiritual or metaphysical one and everything else follows on from that. As always, get first principles right and correct understanding will generally follow. Get them wrong and one mistake leads to another. Don't we see that everywhere now?

Sometimes Christianity is blamed for inspiring this ideology and there is some truth in that even if traditional Christians would point to Masonic influences, the French Revolution, Marxism etc, all the usual suspects. And they are not wrong. But a Christianity emptied of its transcendent qualities can also be blamed and there always was this seed within in it even if it took many centuries to grow fully. Christianity is not specifically a religion of spiritual aristocrats which is at once its strength and its weakness. Christianity is a religion of love and it's very easy to think that love means equality if that's what you want to think. It doesn't but it can be misunderstood as doing so. Christianity externalised the Mysteries, making them potentially accessible to everyone. This is its glory but also its flaw. I'm not saying it was wrong to do this. That clearly is not the case but it is something that was right which carries certain risks.

A previous post referred to the collapse of the vertical to the horizontal that takes place during the end times. This is almost the perfect visual image of egalitarianism. The pole that points to the transcendent is chopped down and lies flat on the ground with the result that hierarchical values are abandoned and replaced with those that promote and sustain equality. But the attempts to enforce a spurious equality lead to the loss of individuality and freedom, and also to the curtailing of growth beyond the material. With an irony that would be amusing if it weren't so destructive the insistence on diversity in the modern world is leading to an increasingly bland conformity. There is probably less real diversity now than there ever has been, partly because of the pressures applied by modern technology, but also because the obsession with equality forces everyone into the same box.

The question of equality is something about which it is futile to argue or debate. Those who believe in it do not do so for rational or intellectual reasons, still less those of common sense. They are ideologically committed, and the real question is why do they wish to deny reality? For some it is because of resentment, for others the search for power and for many now it is because that is what good people are supposed to think. But ultimately it is because of the rejection of the solar principle in man. What I mean by this is that divine spark that lies hidden in the darkness of the self and which, when discovered, tended and brought to full flame makes of man a god. We completely neglect this essential principle now and even many of those who would say they believe in it substitute man-made imitations, more in keeping with their worldly beliefs, for the true inner light. 

The solar principle is the connection to transcendence within the human heart. And yet though it exists within it must also be conceived high up above us, us as earthly man, like the sun which is its symbol. Normally it is obscured by clouds of delusion and ignorance but when these part it shines with majesty and glory. No egalitarian can ever find it because egalitarianism never leaves the earth, the flat ground. The solar principle can only be seen by those who take their eyes off the earth and look up to the sky.

Humility and Pride

 Look in any spiritual textbook and it will tell you about humility and self-abnegation, particularly if it is a Christian one. Humility is an important virtue that shows one is not dominated by the ego or separate self which is a materialised expression/distortion of the soul. Self-abnegation likewise indicates that the disciple has overcome the ego. But are things really as simple as that? Is humility the only quality the spiritual self should possess?

There are two aspects to the soul which are to do with expansion and contraction, and both must be realised if the soul is to be complete. What, after all, is the point of the soul? What is its purpose? You may say that the soul just is as an individualised expression of divine being which is true enough, but that just refers to its raw state and there must be more or else there would be no need for the soul to descend to the phenomenal world, the subject/object world of duality in which the keywords are experience, expression and experiment. This relates to the self-actualisation of the soul which means its development from a more or less blank cipher to a glorious star being of many colours.

Humility relates to the awareness of the oneness of life and the supreme reality of God, the knowledge that all that you are comes from God. It is not yours. It is his gift to you. But the soul is also called to become great. The soul is not a servant or slave, and any religion that teaches this is not worthy of your spiritual allegiance. The soul has the potential to be a king or queen, and this is the path it must follow. The more you have, the more you can give. The soul should strive to have everything and to be everything. This is its destiny, and this is where pride comes into the the equation.

The spiritual person is proud. He seeks the exaltation of the self. He strives to express the majesty of God in his person. This is right and proper and what we are called to do. We are kings of the universe if only we knew it. We can wield powers that could destroy planets. We can master and direct the pure force of spiritual will.

At the same time, the spiritual person is humble. He knows that everything comes from God. He knows that all he has, others can have too. He is bound to the rest of life with bonds of love. He lives in a permanent state of gratitude to his Creator.

Humility and pride relate to love and will, and the two are not mutually exclusive but part of the whole. Christianity has focussed, to excess some might say, on humility, while the old pagan religions, especially those of the Indo-Europeans, sought the path of the hero. There is no contradiction between these two if one understands that they relate to different aspects of the spiritual path, the push forward of the undeveloped self to mastery and its subsequent return to the inner knowledge of God. The problem has been the expression of humility and pride in the wrong spheres. The spiritual self should have pride and the worldly self humility. Some Christians have made the mistake of transferring humility to the soul and some pagans in the past made the opposite error, but if you understand the nature of the inner and outer aspects to your being you will see that both humility and pride (of the right sort) have their place in the spiritual life.

Resentment and Nobility

 If I were the devil what sin would I most try to stimulate? What sin would be most spiritually corrupting for those who succumbed to it, and most damaging for the integrity of any culture in which it took hold amongst a sufficient number of the people? 

Resentment is the perfect sin from the demonic point of view because it can be disguised as a virtue, both to the one who holds it and to the society into which it is introduced. One can clearly see how resentment has undermined the Western world and is causing the West to allow itself to be destroyed. It is not only resentment, of course, because there are many factors at play, but this is a prime driver of the spiritually debased condition of our day. 

Resentment is behind the push for equality, and equality is the tool used to bring down the West and all it strove for which was excellence. For equality always does bring down more than it raises up as it inevitably reduces to the lowest common denominator the standards and culture of any society in which its pernicious influence takes hold. No egalitarian culture strives for nobility of soul and that is the preeminent spiritual quest for Western man. The very word nobility is meaningless in the egalitarian world, but if I had to pick one word to describe the goal of the spiritual path that would be it.

What is nobility? It is a spiritual condition of dignity, authority, responsibility, sacrifice and love, though love understood in its fiery rather than watery context. Nobility is the sun shining in solitary splendour in the heavens, the light by which everything else sees and to which everything else aspires. It is the fully realised individual soul that is able to express the power and majesty of God. It is Christ on the cross and Christ resurrected. It is that which stands at the top of the hierarchical ladder and the justification for that ladder which, be it noted, has height but also steps whereby to mount. Climbing is harder than falling and to be noble is harder than to resent but the noble soul knows God whereas the resentful soul has completely lost sight of God. It was resentment that caused Satan's fall and he uses it to bring us down if he can find anything anti-noble in us which he can stimulate. Therefore, cultivate the noble in your heart and shun the petty. That way you will find the path to the true God who loves absolutely but is no egalitarian. He is too big for that.

Good and Bad Seeds

 I have used the analogy of human beings in this world as comparable to seeds planted in the earth before. Given that the same patterns repeat themselves at all levels of creation, the basis of symbolism and a key to deeper understanding, this seems reasonable. We are gods but gods in potential just as seeds are plants but only potentially so. The dark earth is this dark (spiritually considered) Earth, and the light of the sun to which the seeds grow upwards through their equivalent of aspiration is like the light of God to which the human soul should aspire. 

But this comparison contains a warning. Not all seeds germinate. 

I have just looked up the factors that might prevent germination. Here are some.

• • Dormancy:

  Many seeds naturally enter a dormant state to protect themselves from unfavorable conditions like cold, drought, or predation. 

  • Seed Viability:

  Seeds can degrade over time, losing their ability to germinate. Factors like storage conditions, temperature, and humidity can affect seed viability. 

  • Environmental Factors:

  Even viable seeds require specific conditions for germination, including moisture, oxygen, temperature, and sometimes light or dark. Some seeds may not germinate if planted too deep or shallow, or if the soil temperature is not optimal. 

  • Internal Factors:

  Some seeds may have internal factors, such as a thick seed coat or chemical inhibitors, that prevent germination until those factors are overcome. 

  
  

   It is not hard to equate some of these with human barriers to spiritual development. For instance, dormancy. In many people the spiritual sense does lie dormant. The stuff of which they are made is not robust enough to overcome world conditions. In others there can be a degradation of the soul as the lower self allows itself to be caught up in sin. Environmental factors must also be taken into consideration, and internal factors such as the intrinsic quality of the soul in the first place cannot be ignored.

  
  

  However, human beings are different to seeds in that we have free will. We can, if we set our minds to it, overcome obstacles. A particular environment might hinder but it cannot prevent. 

  
  

  A natural question to ask would be what percentage of seeds germinate, and the answer is it depends. It depends on the species, it depends on weather conditions and it depends on the time of planting. Modern science tells us that human beings all belong to the same species, and biologically we may do even if there are different categories within that species. But spiritually we may not. It is an unsubstantiated assumption that because we are all children of God we are all the same sort of children. We might well have different spiritual origins, and even where there is similarity of origin we know that the same parents can have quite different children. The weather conditions relate to the spiritual climate when we are alive. It may be fair as in some periods of history or it may be foul as now though if we are born at a foul time there will be a reason for that. A hardier strain might be produced by inclement weather.

  
  

  Then there is the time of planting. Most traditions would agree that we are not now in spring. Indeed, most would say we are deep in winter. It may be that the harvest is not great at such a time but this analogy should not be pushed too far. If we are alive now it is because the greater difficulties can produce a more intense growing season. What is lost in terms of quantity may be gained qualitatively speaking. The seeds that do sprout might produce a better crop. Those that don't might be held back for another season.

  
  

  There is good seed and bad seed. Both can germinate but the good seed is more likely to do so. What makes a good seed is love of God. This produces the pushing up through the earth towards the light of the sun. A bad seed can be characterised by rejection of God, a very bad seed by hatred of God. It seems that few people today love the Good. The Good is the same as God. God is Being which is a transcendental thing. That means it is beyond this world. If you do not look for the meaning of life beyond this world you are rejecting God and, ipso facto, rejecting the Good. That is why personal goodness, or goodness as the world judges it, is less important than the orientation of the soul. A conventionally good person who does not seek to strive upwards through the earth to the sun is not aware of the true Good and is therefore is on the wrong side when it comes to spiritual good and evil. His seed will not sprout. He may claim to love God but if he gives precedence to any worldly conception of good then his claim is false. He doesn't love God but an imagined idol of his own making.

  
  

  We live in an egalitarian culture which believes everyone will be saved because everyone is basically good. There is no bad seed, all is good. However, egalitarianism is a poisonous doctrine because it sacrifices truth for a perversion of love. Without hierarchy there is no higher or lower, no better or worse, and this means that everything sinks to the same level. The vertical collapses to the horizontal. It is clear that the egalitarian ethos has been put through by the dark forces to shut mankind out from the spiritual heights. It is a justification for resentment, making a vice into a virtue, and a major contributory factor to the degradation of seeds.

  Note: I could have described this in terms of healthy and poor quality seeds to remove the sense of moral judgement. But there is moral judgment involved when you are speaking in human terms. Healthy is good, spiritually speaking.

Soul Loss

 The well-known Alice Bailey books are a development of Theosophy though with greater emphasis on Christ than Blavatskian Theosophy, even if he is still not the Christ that Christians know but a kind of grand hierarch. But then, since the assumed source of these books is Buddhist, that might be expected. Also, we must remember that Theosophists were often reacting against the 19th century version of Christ, a time when he was well on his way to his conversion to humanitarianism and starting to lose his purely spiritual qualities. So, when they downgraded Christ that may have been part of an attempt not to be bound by the developing materialism of Victorian Christianity.

That admittedly large failing aside, by most other criteria these books are impressive. Their sheer volume for one. Then their wisdom. Yes, I do think there is much spiritual wisdom in them though that doesn't mean I agree with all that is there. I also think they come from a reputable spiritual source though I would guess that there is a fair amount of Alice Bailey and her own ideas in there too. Maybe she was impressed on a non-verbal level and clothed the ideas in her own words. Or something along those lines. But there is a happy medium between complete acceptance of these writings on their own terms and total rejection. I accept what makes sense, and a lot does, reserve judgement on what seems to me to be doubtful, and reject what I think is wrong. I haven't looked at the books for a long time, and I'm not sure I've ever read one all the way through, certainly not A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. But using the index to pick and choose was a helpful way to approach them for me, and the compilations that condense the several thousand pages to manageable proportions are also useful.

I bring this up because in a recent comment on Bruce Charlton's blog in response to a post on AI I wrote that "the real basis behind all these developments (in AI and computer technology in general) is spiritual destruction, going beyond mere atheism up to and including the destruction of the spiritual component of our being which I believe is possible when we reach the point that we totally deny all that spirit is."

My point was that for a long time many developments in technology and thought have supported the denial of the soul, the aforementioned spiritual component of our being. AI is the latest and most serious. Every time we get on board with one of these developments, all the way from simply not rejecting it to accepting it gladly as a real advance, we play into the hands of the forces of spiritual destruction. To a certain extent, it doesn't matter if we think we don't believe in God as long as we act, both mentally and in day to day life, as though there was some kind of spiritual reality to our being. For example, we might revere beauty or believe in free will. These are something though probably not enough. But they are something. But every step we take away from the soul, and embracing AI is a giant step in that direction, the more we lose contact with what it stands for, and the more we do that, the closer we are to severing our connection to it completely. To losing our soul.

After I wrote my comment I was reminded of something in the Alice Bailey books so I looked it up. Here's what she says. It actually comes from A Treatise on Cosmic Fire though I took it from The Soul, the Quality of Life which is one of the compilations I spoke of above. I've edited it slightly.

"If man neglects his spiritual development and concentrates on intellectual effort turned to the manipulation of matter for selfish ends, and if this is carried on for a long period, he may bring upon himself a destruction that is final for this cycle. He may succeed in the complete destruction of the physical permanent atom and sever his connection with the higher self for aeons of time. We must emphasise the reality of this dire disaster."

This warning comes in the context of discussing occult work and saying it must be undertaken in the light of spirit and guided by love and unselfishness. Consequently, it might be considered irrelevant in terms of the current scenario. But I would maintain that computer technology is a form of magic, and its development is motivated by the same ungodly impulses that motivated the black magician. Any attempt to bend matter to our will that is not guided by spirit is illicit. By the same token, any behaviour that denies the soul is selfish which may be an unusual definition but is true on a deeper level than the normal one. From a spiritual perspective, selfishness is acting according to the earthly self - even if the earthly self considers itself to be spiritually motivated, a common phenomenon. That aside, the more we deny spirit, and AI is the denial of spirit almost by definition, the more we cut ourselves off from it, and there may come a time when certain people who go all the way into this dark place cut themselves off entirely. The tragedy of the modern world is that the whole culture is sending us in that direction.

The Soul's Origins

 We've long been told, against any common sense observation, that all human races are the same with any perceived differences being merely cultural. This is one of the justifications for the mass immigration inflicted on Western populations over the last two to three decades. However, modern DNA analysis has now shown that ideological fantasy be the nonsense it always was as Europeans and Asians are known to have around 2-4% of DNA from Neanderthals, acquired when Homo Sapiens moved out of Africa some 65,000 years ago and interbred with another species of human already living in Europe. Neanderthals used to be thought oafish brutes, but we now know they were intelligent and had a reasonably developed culture. In fact, their brain volume was slightly larger than ours. At the same time, those humans who remained in Africa bred with earlier species of human and apparently have between 2-19% of their DNA from an archaic 'ghost' population which would likely be a form of Homo Erectus or Home Habilis. Either way a very primitive human that had not make any substantial progress for a million years.

So, no one can rationally claim any more that all human races are genetically identical. That is just untrue and has been proved such, and the differences are more substantial than skin colour which is largely irrelevant.

However, this post is not about human races but human souls. Do they all come from the same place? Are they all, hold your breath, the same? Clearly in one sense they are as they all come from God, but do all the souls that are born on this planet have the same origin before they came here?  A Christian would not normally entertain the possibility that we have an existence before birth or conception if you prefer, but this is a flaw in Christianity and probably responsible for the equality misunderstanding though it also serves to balance out the opposite error, that the differences between high and low overcome their shared humanity.

I believe that several different types of human souls incarnate on planet Earth to further their spiritual evolution. Some come from backgrounds of greater development than others which surely should be obvious. All, however, have to learn the lesson of overcoming the ego and lovingly surrendering their soul to Christ. This planet is a very specialised environment, home to many differing types of soul in a way that other places in the spiritual universe are not. This causes problems but it also provides opportunity.

The Soul and the Earthly Self

 Please forgive me but I am going to talk about myself. But then what else can we talk about? Isn't everything we perceive and experience filtered through the self?  We can know nothing except through that self. So really every post of every blog is about the self of the writer. More, every book written, every painting painted, even every word spoken is about the self of the one through whom it comes.

I have found in recent years that I am seeing myself more and more from the outside. I have always felt that the me I know here in this world is not the real me or only an aspect of the real me. It's a personality I am functioning through and by means of which I am experiencing the world but it is not who I really am. Sometimes I have found that frustrating, sometimes encouraging. This doesn't mean I am not William Wildblood but he is just my earthly persona and behind that persona, which will die in the fullness of time, first the physical body and then its psychic elements, there is the soul which is my spiritual self and a much more expansive being.  

Before I stand accused of monstrous spiritual egotism I would say that is true for many people. Probably most though possibly not all as some humans are relatively unevolved as in undeveloped. Certain schools of thought have posited that some souls come down to Earth as descending spiritual beings seeking physical experience whilst other rise up through the material world. These latter will have a spiritual core but it waits to be developed by their actions in this world. This is why some groups of people are much more oriented to the physical side of things.

Be that as it may, my experience as I grow older is that the centre of my consciousness, while still firmly in the worldly persona, has started to move out of that and occasionally look at it from outside. I am no longer particularly attached to the desires and opinions of that person. He is me and I am him but there is also a sense that there is something more going on, and I am not as identified with him as I was. There's no need to call in the men in white coats as this is not some kind of psychological breakdown and I am not becoming two people, but the sense of self is detaching somewhat from the local manifestation of it. It has not transferred elsewhere and this is only an early stage in the process but I suspect it is what happens to all of us when we die. Then we disengage from the earthly self and start to become that higher self. Those who fail to do this would remain what we call earthbound. Some will do this faster than others but in the end all of us have to cast off the "coats", that's to say the psychic and mental bodies as they are called in some schools, that we have donned in order to function in the physical world. Incidentally, it is these cast-off bodies which still have some residual life in for a while that are probably what is contacted by spiritualists. Hence, the banality of most of what they have to say.

I recognise I have a long way to go in the process but I think that those of us who have some slight understanding of the spiritual world, and no one has more than a slight understanding, in my case it's more of a belief in than an understanding of, can do some of our dying before we die. I don't expect to die anytime soon but a friend of mine died recently and he was relatively young so death has been in my thoughts of late. The death of the body is just the first stage. We must disengage from the other vessels of the earthly self before we can return completely to the spiritual world. We can begin that operation while still alive by seeking to centre ourselves in God rather than our worldly ego, and this has both a positive and negative component to it. The negative is detaching ourselves from our personal aims and ambitions, worldly wants etc. A chopping away. The positive, which is more important and if done properly will take care of the negative side by itself, is lifting the mind away from self and up to God. This will pull you up towards your own soul which is where the life of God intersects with your own life. You will start to become your true self.

Bad People

 What can we do if we get involved with a bad person? I ask the question because this is a common experience for people who seek to become closer to God.

First of all, we have to admit that there are such things as bad people. The sentimentalised modern idea is that everyone is basically good until proved otherwise whereas the traditional Christian belief was we are all basically bad until saved. But that is not what I mean here. I am referring to something over and above the Christian concept of original sin or, as some might just call it, the ego. I am talking about people who are spiritually rotten rather than just undeveloped, unawakened or run of the mill self-centred which is most of us.

Jesus described such people when he called the Pharisees a brood of vipers, specifically associating them with the serpent, Satan. He went on to say, "How can you, who are evil, say anything good?" (Matthew 12:34). Then in John 8:44 he says that their father is the devil and they do their father's desires. These are the fallen beings who come to this world already in league with or corrupted by dark forces. Christianity errs in thinking that souls are newly created when they come into this world. We all have a prior existence in the spiritual world and we have already been through many experiences before coming here which have made us the sort of person we are. Some may have spent previous lives in the physical world, others may have known existence in other dimensions. No human soul in this world is freshly hatched, and what I am calling a fallen being is one who has largely already chosen the path of God rejection and ego before all else.

I believe there are a large number of such souls around at the present time for one of the peculiarities of our age is that it is a summing up of a cycle when all the negativity of the past is released and that includes human negativity. These are hard words but look around. Can you call them unfair? Naturally, all souls can be saved. All are God's children and Jesus came to save sinners not the righteous, but it cannot be denied that it is hard to save a fallen being.

One of the reasons it is hard is because bad people genuinely have no idea they are bad. They even consider themselves to be good and that others who may get in their way are the bad ones. They are the best of self-justifiers. They can consistently behave appallingly to someone but if that person reacts just once then it is he who is at fault and anything the bad person may have done is explained and excused by that one reaction, even if it took place beforehand! I know someone who regularly abuses and insults her husband but if he ever reacts and responds in anger then he is the one at fault, never mind the fact that he puts up with a great deal most of the time. In her mind his one moment of anger justifies her constant aggression and rudeness.

A bad person completely lacks self-knowledge and does not even want it despite claims to the contrary. Most people will strive to understand their shortcomings up to a point but fallen beings are not interested in that. They seek only what bolsters their ego and are oblivious to anything that might show them up as self-concerned monsters. It is a psychological block which they have acquired over time, I am tempted to say over lifetimes, and generally speaking nothing can penetrate it. Perhaps in certain cases, suffering or an extreme experience of some kind, some light may dawn but that is not guaranteed by any means.

These fallen beings are souls that have chosen the wrong path over a long period. They come to this world already spiritually damaged goods, self-damaged, that is. Perhaps some of them are here now as a last opportunity to progress spiritually before being consigned to experiences elsewhere. They are being given another chance to repent. Of course, there is something of this in all of us. We all bear the burden of a corrupt ego as part of the human experience and we all need to repent, but these souls are ones who have consistently failed to do so and, as a result, embedded themselves further in the fallen self.

What, then, can we do if we are in similar position to the husband of the person just mentioned? If, that is, fate has thrown us together with a person of this sort, perhaps someone we might nowadays say suffers from narcissistic personality disorder which is a spiritual as much as a psychological sickness. We might start by accepting that there is a life lesson here. Jesus suffered abuse uncomplainingly. Perhaps we are being given a similar lesson, hard as it might be. Just as God can bring good out of evil, in some cases greater good than there would have been without the evil, so he can use such fallen beings as mediums through which to test us, test our self-control, our ability to remain detached and calm and not react in the face of attack, and our capacity to forgive. The Lord's Prayer asks God to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." To be forgiven we must show that we ourselves can forgive, and how can we do that if there is nothing to forgive? Forgiveness purifies the heart. Without a cause to draw forth this forgiveness such purification is much harder.

Bad people exist and those on the spiritual path will frequently be thrown into close proximity with them. The task is to endure without responding in kind. This is the test to which we must be equal if we would follow the example laid down for us by Jesus. At the same time, it is foolishness to pretend that bad people are not bad. The devil loves to be thought misunderstood rather than wicked. He can pursue his ends that much more easily. As always we must balance love with wisdom and wisdom with love.

Heaven is More

 Many people have the idea, either consciously or as a kind of automatic assumption, that the spiritual world is somehow less substantial than the physical. After all, we get there by shedding the solid material body. In our minds, we rise. Ghosts can pass through walls. They presumably are not over bothered by density or gravity. They seem wispy, immaterial, bodiless. And if even ghosts have less substance than earthly men and women how much more would that apply to those who have gone further and not lingered in an earthbound state? We say that Jesus ascended into heaven which implies his body became light in both senses of the word. Does that mean he became less substantial?

A moment's reflection shows that to be absurd. Less substantial means less real. When Jesus rose from the dead he became more real because now his body operated at a higher level than the merely physical. Our material world is one of three dimensions but the higher worlds contain more dimensions and are thus more real. They include more of reality and so are more, not less, substantial. A line has everything a point has but more. A plane contains more of reality than a line and a cube more than a plane. And so on though we currently lack the conceptual framework to understand that other than in a theoretical sense. But we can imagine that Heaven has numerous dimensions and this makes it real in a way that is inconceivable to us. Anyone of a mystical temperament knows that the world in which we currently live lacks full reality, certainly considerably less than we intuitively know exists. This is because our multi-dimensional soul has been squashed down to exist in a three dimensional state of being. This world is certainly real but it is much less real than the higher worlds which contain more and more of reality.

Gravity and Levity

 What stops a soul ascending to the heavenly realms after death? It is its weight. A soul is literally held down by its weight or rises because of a lack of weight. In the physical world gravity is the dominant force but in the spiritual world levity takes its place and your spiritual lightness draws you upwards. 

What causes this weight? Several things but chief among them are attachment to the material world and sin. Sin is the main deadweight that holds the soul down. Lack of sin, or minimal sin since no one is entirely free of sin, allows the soul to rise. There must also be the positive qualities of aspiration and imagination which is the capacity to respond to the higher worlds, but attachment to sin and to material things are the major weights that pull the soul down and prevent it rising

Thus, you could say that gravity operates in the next world too but it operates in terms of consciousness.

What is the main anti-matter force? It is alignment of the mind with the spirit of Christ. This is something much more than belief in Christ. It is the assimilation of your soul with his.

The Human Form

We can speculate that our original spiritual form may have been one of light. If it had a shape it might have been something like a sphere or that's the closest we can imagine with our three dimensionally based minds. This is the only way we can conceive of the appearance of the soul, a spiritual being, on its own plane of existence. But when we come to Earth we acquire the human form we know with eyes, ears, a head, hair, limbs and so on.  However, all these are to perform material functions or developed in response to a physical environment. Eyes, ears and nose are to enable sensory response, their shape and structure determined by that requirement. Hands, fingers, legs and feet are to allow us to interact with and manipulate the environment. None of these  have a spiritual purpose as such and so my question is what is the form of souls in heaven? Do they revert to spheres of light with a luminescence determined by the degree of spiritual unfoldment or do they retain an earthly appearance?

Beauty is one of the major attributes of God. A major reason for creation is to allow for the expression of beauty, and, as we currently know it, beauty reaches its apogee in the human being. It makes no sense that this beauty be discarded simply because the functions on which it was initially based are no longer necessary. Therefore, I suggest that one of the reasons for our incarnation as spiritual beings in a material world is to acquire the imprint of the human form which we can take back to our soul selves in the higher worlds in order to beautify these. This would mean that our souls would still be spheres of light (again conceived in three dimensional terms), though now greatly expanded and much brighter than they were before if we have succeeded in our spiritual tasks, but they can be expressed in human form. In this physical world we have an outer form and an inner corporeal composition, blood, guts, bodily organs and the like. In the spiritual world we may have something similar except that that the inner body is now the soul, the being of light. This, I submit, is why we all feel a degree of disgust for the inner physical body but not its outer form. We know that our true inner self is the soul.

When visionaries see higher beings, whether it be Jesus or Mary for Christians or some of the saints, other traditions record similar phenomena, they see a figure. A figure glowing with light but still an individual human figure and one of great beauty. It is sometimes claimed that it is the visionary's own mind that creates the form or else that the spiritual being manifests in this way to appear more familiar. This may be true but it does not mean that the form is not real as well. We tend to think abstract spirituality is more advanced than a concrete representational sort but why should both not be included in the perfected end product? After all, God looked at creation and saw that it was good. I think it is a grave error to reduce the spiritual to the formless. There is the inner and the outer and both together make the whole. The perfection of life is in the perfection of spirit, soul and body, not just one as in spirit but all three, though naturally with spirit in the hierarchically superior position. But if God is a trinity so are we and all parts of the trinity require completion. The outer form may have been constructed in the physical world and according to physical needs but it is made beautiful by the developing soul and then remains as a spiritually perfected union of the two in the higher worlds.

No Self

 Is the highest spiritual state one in which the sense of separation between the soul and God has been so obliterated that there is no separation at all and the soul has, in effect, become God? There remains no self at all. This is the basic theme of Buddhism and certain forms of Hinduism. As it is of the modern derivation of ancient Eastern mysticism which is Oneness spirituality though that is usually an excessive simplification of its inspiring models. There are Christian versions of this too which I suspect are heavily influenced by Zen with a dash of Meister Eckhart and a pinch of Plotinus. In these beliefs (and they are beliefs notwithstanding the fact that there is some kind of experience in which self seems to be dissolved), self is the cause of sin and what needs to be eradicated is not just sin but the very possibility of it. This can seem to be the highest form of mysticism, the one at the apex of the triangle on the base line of which stand all the different religions. But is that really so or is this just a particular mystical experience which may point to an aspect of the soul's relationship with God but by no means covers it in its totality or indicates its intended destiny?

Are we not here just killing the patient in order to save him? Self may be the cause of everything bad but it is also the cause of so much that is good, including goodness itself. And love. God created for a reason and that reason was for the joy of relationship. The no self advocates would deny the purpose of creation. They would return us to the non-manifest state of darkness or limitless light. It makes no difference how you envision it as it is the boiling down of everything to nothing. It is possible to return consciousness to the pool of infinity whence it arose but that is not what God wants and nor is it what Christ offers and why he came to redeem the world from spiritual darkness. Christ came to heal the soul rather than kill it. God and creation is more than just God by himself and no self means no love, no beauty, no goodness, no expression and growth through time. Nothing but resting in eternal peace. That is fine if you have a limited view of spiritual life but there is so much more and to know this so much more the self must not be destroyed but transformed. The no self advocates are turning their back on God in his creative, expressive mode and retreating to a passive form of consciousness which is really just the spiritual womb. But God wants us to be born and to be alive and to partake in his creative glory. He wants us to know day as well as night and then add to the beauty of creation ourselves. This we cannot do if we do not have a self. Then we add precisely nothing.