Tämä on ääneen puhuttu ote kirjasta Ponder on This, joka sisältää otteita Alice A. Baileyn eri kirjoista, aina yhden topikin alle yhdistettynä. Laitan nyt seuraavaksi saman tekstimuotoisena…
THE SOUL
(1) Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of soul on this plane of existence, and soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the manifestation of spirit, and these three are a trinity synthesize by life, which pervades them all. Through the use of matter the soul unfolds and finds its climax in the soul of man.
(2) The soul is as yet an unknown quantity. It has no real place in the theories of the academic and scientific investigators. It is unproven and regarded by even the more open-minded of the academicians as a possible hypothesis, but lacking demonstration. It is not accepted as a fact in the consciousness of the race. Only two groups of people accept is as a fact; one is the gullible, undeveloped, childlike person who, brought up on a scripture of the world, and being religiously inclined, accepts the postulates of religion - such as the soul, God, and immortality - without questioning. The other is that small but steadily growing band of Knowers of God, and of reality, who know the soul to be a fact in their own experience but are unable to prove its existence satisfactorily to man who admits only that which the concrete mind can grasp, analyze, criticize and test.
(3) The soul is the quality which every form manifests. It is that subtle something which distinguishes one element from another, one mineral from another. It is the intangible essential nature of the form which in the vegetable kingdom determines whether a rose or a cauliflower, an elm or a watercress shall come into being; it is a type of energy which distinguishes the varying species of the animal kingdom, and makes one man different from another in appearance, nature or character.
(4) The soul . . . is neither spirit nor matter but is the relation between them. The soul is the mediator between this duality; it is the middle principle, the link between God and His form. Therefore the soul is another name for the Christ aspect, whether in nature or in man . . . The soul is the form-building aspect, and is that attractive factor in every form . . . which drives all God’s creatures forward along the path of evolution, through one kingdom after another, towards an eventual goal and a glorious consummation.
(5) The qualities, vibrations, colors, and characteristics in all the kingdoms of nature, are soul qualities . . . The qualities are brought into being through the interplay of the pairs of opposites, spirit and matter, and their effect upon each other.
(6) The soul of mankind is not only an entity linking spirit and matter, and mediating between Monad and personality, but the soul of humanity has a unique function to perform in mediating between the higher three kingdoms in nature and the lower three.
(7) I . . . seek to assure my fellow pilgrims that the passing things of the senses are but trivial, and of no value compared to the rewards, here and in this life, to the man who seeks to merge his everyday consciousness with that of his own soul. He enters then into the community of souls, and stands not alone. The only lonely periods are the result of wrong orientation and the holding on to that which hides the vision, and fills the hands so full that they cannot grasp what has been called “the jewel in the lotus”.
(8) The light of the soul is like an immense searchlight, the beams of which can be turned in many directions, and focused on many levels.
(9) The outer garment of the soul (physical, vital and psychic) is part of the outer garment of God.
Man’s self-conscious soul is en rapport with the soul of all things. It is an integral part of the universal Soul, and because of this can become aware of the conscious purpose of Deity; can intelligently co-operate with the will of God, and thus work with the plan of Evolution.
Man’s spirit will in some distant time, put him en rapport with that aspect of God which is transcendent, and thus each son of God will eventually find his way to that center - withdrawn and abstracted - where God dwells beyond the confines of solar system.
(10) Along these various lines, proof of the soul will accumulate. In the massing of testimony and of evidence, a fruitful field of activity lies. In the training of the higher types of men in the use of soul force and soul powers, and in the trained control of the mechanism, that evidence so produced will be seen to be of so high an order, and will be so scientifically presented, that it will be regarded as of as much importance, and as justifiable, as any views presented by our leading scientists in their various fields of research today. The study of the soul will before long be as legitimate and respectable an investigation as any scientific problem, such as research into the nature of the atom. The investigation of the soul and its governing laws, will before long, engross the attention of our finest minds. The newer psychology will eventually succeed in proving the fact of its existence, and the paralleling intuitive and instinctive response of mankind to soul nurture, emanating from the invisible side of life, will steadily and successfully prove the existence of a spiritual entity in man, - an entity all-wise, immortal, divine and creative.
(11) Humanity is an expression of two aspects of the soul - the animal soul and the divine soul - and these two, blended and fused in man, constitute the human soul. It is this fact that is the cause of man’s special problems, and it is these two factors which involve him in the long struggle which eventuates in the liberation of the divine soul, through the sublimation of the animal soul. In these words lie much food for thought.
(12) On the plane of soul existence, there is no separation, no “my soul and thy soul”. It is only in the three worlds of illusion and of maya, that we think in terms of souls and bodies.
(13) This joy and serenity is not an astral condition, but a soul reaction. These qualities are not achieved as the result of disciplining the emotional nature, but demonstrate as natural, automatic reaction of the soul. This is the reward of a definitely achieved alignment. These two qualities of the soul - serenity and joy - are the indications that the soul, the ego, the One Who stands alone, is controlling or dominating the personality, circumstance, and all environing conditions of life in the three worlds.
(14) The disciple knows, or is learning to know, that he is not this or that, but Life itself. He is not the physical body or its emotional nature; he is not, in the last analysis (a most occult phrase) the mind, or that by which he knows. He is learning that that too must be transcended and superseded by intelligent love (only truly possible after the mind has been developed), and he begins to realize himself as the soul. Then, later, comes the awful “moment in time” when, pendant in space, he discovers that he is not the soul. What then is he? A point of divine dynamic will, focused in the soul, and arriving at awareness of Being through the use of form. He is Will, the ruler of time and the organizer, in time, of space.
(15) The power wielded by those who are seeking to live as souls, and in touch with the soul and the world of spiritual realities, is out of all proportion to their registered sense of power and usefulness. You are, as you endeavour to wield spiritual force constructively and selflessly, far more potent than you realize.
(16) You should learn always to think of each other as souls and not as limited human beings.
(17) Live, therefore, always above your physical body, ignoring how you feel, and seeking to dwell as far as is possible, with your waking consciousness blended and fused with that of the soul. Even if you feel it not, then know that it is there.
(18) Just in so far as a person comes under soul impression, then soul control, and final identification with the soul, just so far does he move towards the center of fusion. As your love for humanity increases, and your interest in yourself decreases, so will you move towards that center of light and love where the Masters stand in spiritual being.