On of the most perplexing question we've grappled with at times is that of our survival (or not!) after death. We are so used to our privileged status of having life, consciousness and free will when we encounter death at a funeral or as a witness to a fatal accident, its mystery and finality impresses itself upon us with great force and urgency. For some people the experience is traumatic, and they are left emotionally scarred for months or even years to come . For other it is a sobering wake-up realization that we have no guarantee we will see tomorrow. But for others, and probably most of us who are mystics, it spurs us on to deep reflection on what may happen after death and whether or not we are, as religions say, truly immortal.
The Essentials;
As this article wrote primarily from a western spiritual perspective, i find it convenient to divide my attention between the Jewish and Christain religions, and addresses religious viewpoint in future article. Each religion has its ideas about the qualities of what is generally called the soul. In Judaism the Soul is believed to be dual in nature: on the one hand it is active, for "...breathed into his nostrils the breath of life..." (Genesis 2:7 ); on the other hand, it is the vital spirit with which God inspires His human wards. I believe that this led to the confusion responsible for the emergence of the spiritualist movement in the 19th century. Christians, including Spiritualist and the catholic Encyclopaedia,see the Soul as the "ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel and will, and by which our bodies are animated". They identify with the universal idea of the Soul as not only a ' vitalizing essence " but also as the human seat of consciousness and mind.
The author compare these ideas to those of mystic students as expressed through mystical revelation. He reminds us that all mater, regardless of how inanimate it may appear to be, is quite fully living. The only, but big, difference is between traits of life as opposed to traits of consciousness that all beings possess in some form.
Spirit energy permeates everything and maintains the expression of matter;but it is not the same as the Soul. The Soul is the Divine consciousness or infinite mind and it is what connects us with one another on earth and continues to link us till in the spiritual realm. This connectedness of everything through a common source, the divine consciousness, has immense ramifications which everybody reading this article should ponder deeply.
The Soul consciousness added to the physical consciousness in the body of man during incarnation here on earth gives man his character or personality'. This is a key point and one that is ultimately bound up with the subject of karma,commonly referred to by mystic students as the Law of Compensation. There are three reason to support reincarnation. First, the soul must have earthly experiences; second, the human body must have spiritual knowledge and illumination; and third, the human personality must eventually be brought to a state of perfection.
PERSONALITY
What is character and what constitutes personality? The character, composed of one's ethical and moral principles, is ephemeral and changes easily; the personality is subtly different from one's character. We tend to disguise our true personality by adopting different behavior in our character. Someone, whom we know is by profession a banker, may exhibit the characteristics of a banker by his mannerisms, his style of clothing, even his businesslike conversation. When we think of him, we think the word" banker'. But in the evening we may be surprised to find him engaged in a pastime we wouldn't have though him to be associated with, such as carpentry, music, amateur dramatics and so forth. Our personality is in fact drawn to those things in life with which we have a natural affinity, and is the result or function of our evolving soul personality.
"'The tendency if the inner self is to build up a personality progressively towards a higher degree of perfection rather than towards a lower one,'This progressive development of the personality is inexorable associated with the divine consciousness. Consciousness is a factor here ; the voice of the inner self or personality challenging the conduct of the outer self. Both seem to put humans at the mercy of fate, thus relieved of all personality for their birth. From a theological point of view, we come up against the doctrine of predestination by which some people would reach everlasting death. This has given rise to the introduction of a character called Satan on whom to shift accountability for all human evils.
Karma and Personal Evolution
The Soul has a continuity if experience through successive incarnations that moulds and perfects the mind and memory of the soul personality, thereby giving it greater comprehension and power. It is free to choose how it wishes to handle the debits and credits it has acquired throughout its cycle of evolution. This brings into play the law of karma or compensation. We discover in reincarnation and karma the only rational and acceptable explanation and cause of for the seeming injustice of the inequalities of life,.
Succinctly, inequalities in life are karma and are according adjusted. Each person is responsible for his or her own fate. We are an aggregation of our past personalities, drawing upon the lesson and experience of the past to' express them as the fundamental element of our present character, while at the same time learning, through lesson and experiences, new principle and new elements out of which we decorate and modify, shade, blemish or improve the beauty of our character,.
To be continue ....
The Essentials;
As this article wrote primarily from a western spiritual perspective, i find it convenient to divide my attention between the Jewish and Christain religions, and addresses religious viewpoint in future article. Each religion has its ideas about the qualities of what is generally called the soul. In Judaism the Soul is believed to be dual in nature: on the one hand it is active, for "...breathed into his nostrils the breath of life..." (Genesis 2:7 ); on the other hand, it is the vital spirit with which God inspires His human wards. I believe that this led to the confusion responsible for the emergence of the spiritualist movement in the 19th century. Christians, including Spiritualist and the catholic Encyclopaedia,see the Soul as the "ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel and will, and by which our bodies are animated". They identify with the universal idea of the Soul as not only a ' vitalizing essence " but also as the human seat of consciousness and mind.
The author compare these ideas to those of mystic students as expressed through mystical revelation. He reminds us that all mater, regardless of how inanimate it may appear to be, is quite fully living. The only, but big, difference is between traits of life as opposed to traits of consciousness that all beings possess in some form.
Spirit energy permeates everything and maintains the expression of matter;but it is not the same as the Soul. The Soul is the Divine consciousness or infinite mind and it is what connects us with one another on earth and continues to link us till in the spiritual realm. This connectedness of everything through a common source, the divine consciousness, has immense ramifications which everybody reading this article should ponder deeply.
The Soul consciousness added to the physical consciousness in the body of man during incarnation here on earth gives man his character or personality'. This is a key point and one that is ultimately bound up with the subject of karma,commonly referred to by mystic students as the Law of Compensation. There are three reason to support reincarnation. First, the soul must have earthly experiences; second, the human body must have spiritual knowledge and illumination; and third, the human personality must eventually be brought to a state of perfection.
PERSONALITY
What is character and what constitutes personality? The character, composed of one's ethical and moral principles, is ephemeral and changes easily; the personality is subtly different from one's character. We tend to disguise our true personality by adopting different behavior in our character. Someone, whom we know is by profession a banker, may exhibit the characteristics of a banker by his mannerisms, his style of clothing, even his businesslike conversation. When we think of him, we think the word" banker'. But in the evening we may be surprised to find him engaged in a pastime we wouldn't have though him to be associated with, such as carpentry, music, amateur dramatics and so forth. Our personality is in fact drawn to those things in life with which we have a natural affinity, and is the result or function of our evolving soul personality.
"'The tendency if the inner self is to build up a personality progressively towards a higher degree of perfection rather than towards a lower one,'This progressive development of the personality is inexorable associated with the divine consciousness. Consciousness is a factor here ; the voice of the inner self or personality challenging the conduct of the outer self. Both seem to put humans at the mercy of fate, thus relieved of all personality for their birth. From a theological point of view, we come up against the doctrine of predestination by which some people would reach everlasting death. This has given rise to the introduction of a character called Satan on whom to shift accountability for all human evils.
Karma and Personal Evolution
The Soul has a continuity if experience through successive incarnations that moulds and perfects the mind and memory of the soul personality, thereby giving it greater comprehension and power. It is free to choose how it wishes to handle the debits and credits it has acquired throughout its cycle of evolution. This brings into play the law of karma or compensation. We discover in reincarnation and karma the only rational and acceptable explanation and cause of for the seeming injustice of the inequalities of life,.
Succinctly, inequalities in life are karma and are according adjusted. Each person is responsible for his or her own fate. We are an aggregation of our past personalities, drawing upon the lesson and experience of the past to' express them as the fundamental element of our present character, while at the same time learning, through lesson and experiences, new principle and new elements out of which we decorate and modify, shade, blemish or improve the beauty of our character,.
To be continue ....
