According to Cayce, our spirit self is, has been, and always
will be “before the throne of God.” It is perfect,
unblemished, made in the image of Elohim, as recorded in Genesis
1. Cayce says that it is “a thing apart from anything
earthy,” and does not descend into the realms of Earth
unless we lift ourselves up to it and connect with it. Even
then, it remains shielded from earthly influences.
That
“spark” Cayce spoke of is the light and life of
mind, or consciousness. Within the one, universal, collective
mind of God are infinite points of consciousness, spirits like
the Great Spirit. The consciousness of our spirit is the superconscious,
a level of consciousness that is nearly indistinguishable from
God’s consciousness. Psalm 82 expresses the situation
in the spirit realm this way: “God stands in the congregation
of God; He judges among the gods”; and later, “You
are gods, sons of the Most High.” It’s important
to realize that these “sons” are spirits, not bodies;
male and female energies are combined. As Jesus explained, “In
heaven there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage.”
The phrase the congregation of God reflects how intimately
connected the godlings are to their Creator. This collective
nature of the Creator is also expressed in the use of the plural
word Elohim for the name of God. The Creator includes all of
life; nothing exists outside of the Whole. Fascinatingly, the
author of Genesis changes the name of God in the second chapter
to Yahweh Elohim, which most English Bibles translate as “Lord
God.” It is this aspect of God that creates our soul self,
different from the spirit self that Elohim made in Genesis 1:26.
Yahweh Elohim forms us from the dust of the ground and breathes
the breath of life into us, and we become living souls (Genesis
2:7).
SOUL
Cayce sees soul as the developing portion of our whole nature.
It is ever changing, growing, and learning, and uses free will
to explore, create, test, discover, and more. Soul is the ultimate
companion to the Creator; a true companion, because it has the
free will to choose to be a companion or not. The soul
is also uniquely able to bridge the gulf between the spirit
realms and the physical realms, between our divine, godly self
and our earthly self. The mind of the soul is the subconscious.
It may operate independently of the Collective Consciousness
of the Creator. (At least, it is allowed to think it does. After
all, there is no way to actually be outside of the Whole.) Or,
it may act in harmony and conscious at-one-ment with the Collective
Consciousness.
“Q: Mr. Cayce, what is the soul of a body? A: That which
the Maker gave to every entity or individual in the beginning,
and which is seeking the home again or place of the Maker. All
souls were created in the beginning, and are finding their way
back to whence they came. Q: Where does the soul go when fully
developed? A: To its Maker.”
From Cayce’s perspective, “the study of subconscious,
subliminal, psychic, soul forces, is and should be the great
study for the human family. Through self man will understand
his Maker when he understands his relationship to his Maker.
He will only understand that through himself. What one thinks
continually, they become; what one cherishes in their heart
and mind they make a part of the pulsation of their heart, through
their own blood cells, and build in their own physical, that
which his spirit and soul must feed upon.”
I found Cayce’s comments on death and communicating with
the dead to be helpful in understanding spirit and soul. For
example, consider this reading: “When the soul passes
from the physical body, the subconscious mind, which never forgets,
is then as the sensuous mind of the soul body; the spirit or
superconscious mind” becomes “the subconscious”
of the soul. While incarnate, the sensuous mind is what we call
the conscious mind. But after death or, for that matter, even
during sleep (for Cayce says, “sleep is a shadow of death”),
the active mind becomes the soul’s mind, the subconscious.
“Q: Is it possible for this body, Edgar Cayce, in this
state to communicate with anyone who has passed into the spirit
world? A: The spirit of all that have passed from the physical
plane remain about the plane until their development carries
them onward or are returned [reincarnated] for their development
here. When they are in the plane of communication or remain
within this sphere, any may be communicated with. There are
thousands about us here at present.” That’s an unsettling
thought, isn’t it? But the key point here is the phases
of development that may lead us back into incarnate life or
on beyond this sphere altogether and out of the reach of communication.
I remember a reading he gave to Mort Blumenthal in which Mort
was regularly communicating with his deceased father through
his dreams. On one occasion, Cayce informed Mort that his father
had actually moved beyond this world, but Mort could still use
the dream image of his father as a symbol for good advice. In
another reading for Mort, Cayce explained that the waxen figures
Mort had seen in one of his deeper dreams were the remnant casings
left behind by entities that had moved beyond this world and
the realms around it.
EXPERIENCING SOUL
A few years ago I decided to follow Cayce’s example and
try to get into a deep attunement to the Universal Consciousness
to better understand the difference between my soul and me.
Over a period of a month I came to “feel” (that’s
the best word I can use to describe how the knowing or understanding
came to me) what the difference was. It was paradoxically a
significant difference, and yet these two aspects of myself
were very, very close to one another. One morning as I was awaking
from a dream, I experienced firsthand the difference between
my outer self and my soul self. I’ve shared this many
times, but it seems appropriate to repeat here.
I was dreaming a fascinating dream. As I came closer to waking
consciousness, I realized how full my bladder was and decided
to go empty it, then come back to bed and process the dream.
Of course, when I returned to bed, the dream was gone. I had
absolutely no recollection of its content. As I lay there, wondering
how this could be possible, the dream content returned! At that
very moment I knew I had slipped back into my soul-self, my
subconscious, and there was the dream. So subtle was the veil
between my inner and outer self that I did not notice when I
moved from one to the other. Yet, so opaque was the veil that
I could not see back through it to my dreaming soul-mind. That
was a great breakthrough for me. From that day on I worked at
developing my ability to distinguish when I was shifting from
conscious self to subconscious self, from earthly person to
soul. But I also wanted to know firsthand the difference between
my soul self and my spirit.
EXPERIENCING SPIRIT
A Cayce reading explaining the biblical book of the Revelation
helped me understand the nature of our spirit. In his explanation
Cayce noted that twice in the revelation the disciple John saw
an angel appear, whom he bowed down to worship. But the angel
would have none of this, saying, “Do not do that. I am
one of your brothers in this work. Worship God.” Cayce
explained that that godly-looking being, that angel, was in
fact the spirit-self of Peter, who had promised John that he
would endeavor to contact him after his demise. If we could
see one another in our true spirit-self, we would appear so
godly that we would bow down and worship. Yet, our spirit-self
would retain enough of its individualness to speak to and guide
us, as Peter did to John. Amazing, isn’t it? Of course,
it is just this kind of talk that gets the evangelical Christians
upset with us. We are saying that some aspect of us is in the
image and likeness of God and is a godling within the one Most
High God. The subtle but key point here is that we are not saying
that we are God. Rather, we are a portion of God, our Creator.
Cayce put it this way for Mort: “Know that not only God
is God, but self is a part of that Oneness.”
In my effort to personally experience my spirit self, I used
the methods and maps that Cayce gave for going from physical
consciousness through dimensions of consciousness to spiritual
consciousness. I published an article on this in Venture Inward
several years ago, subsequently wrote a book about it (Spiritual
Breakthrough), and later wrote an illustrated manual (Passage
in Consciousness). By practicing these methods I did experience
what I perceived to be superconsciousness, a level of consciousness
in proximity to or in oneness with God’s Universal Consciousness.
During these sessions, which can be compared to deep meditation,
I at times retained a sense of individualness while in the collective,
universal condition. But at other times, I lost all sense of
individualness and only after attempting to regain a sense
of myself did I realize that I had lost individual consciousness,
which caused me some concern about this practice. However, Cayce
reassuringly explained to the practitioners he guided that they
would indeed lose consciousness at times but that if they kept
practicing, they would ultimately maintain semi-consciousness
or even full consciousness during the transitions into the higher
states of consciousness.
For me, it was as if my consciousness turned off a gravitational
force that somehow maintained selfness, allowing my mind to
slip into an infinite vacuum much like the difference
between a contained planetary atmosphere and infinite, airless
outer space. I assume this is what the Eastern seekers mean
by entering “the Void.”
Miraculously, I was somehow able to turn the gravitational
force of self-consciousness back on and recompose myself in
a relatively sane and Earth-relevant condition. But, as so many
near-death-experience people report, once having touched the
dimensions beyond this world, you are never quite the same.
Some sessions contained imagery beautiful, ethereal imagery.
But some sessions were simply a matter of feeling a shift from
individual, finite perception to universal, infinite awareness.
Some sessions were quite energizing, invigorating, and inspiring;
while other sessions were as still, quiet, and lifeless as death.
Coming out of one of these death-like sessions required long
transition times before normal consciousness and physical activity
could be regained. It could take me from twenty minutes to two
days to get back to my normal self again, depending, I suppose,
on many factors, including how much I really wanted or needed
to get back to my normal self.
The effects of these practice sessions were profound. Though
I still had my daily personal issues to deal with my weaknesses
and strengths, and certainly my karma I always felt that
I had seen the other side of the mountain. Therefore, nothing
could keep me from knowing that all was going to work out well
in the end, despite how hard or disappointing the journey might
be now. Paradise did exist. I knew it firsthand.
Stuart Dean, the manager of A.R.E.’s Study Group department,
had a similar experience. He explained that he simply wanted
to attune to the Source, had about ten different ways to describe
that, but decided to just ask God to do it for him. And He did.
Dean described what happened.
“I immediately found myself in a beautiful place, right
next to the Light and Presence of God, where we are all living
traces of His movement, yet still Him in essence. We are ourselves,
yet also Him. I could feel it! All unique, but still Him. We
all were open both to God and to connecting with each other,
and there was nothing else except this! This was prior to inner
and outer worlds, prior to space and time, prior to existence
itself! This is the place where there are no limits, where peace
is not yet disturbed, where surrender is natural, and where
our life is wholly our relatedness to each other and to God.
Then it came to me that these are our spirits, as opposed to
our souls, which grow and develop. As spirits, we are eternally
young, perfect, innocent, and happy. We are completely light
and completely love. I felt like the first generation of the
Sons of God, and that we still are, at our core, these spirits
‘around the Throne.’ Creative energies before creation;
with feelings of perfect willingness to cooperate with every
other spirit, knowing that we are all units of One Love.
“I have always felt fairly close to my soul, but I never
thought I would actually connect with my spirit. Now that I
have, I can hardly get over how childlike and unafraid my spirit
is, and how perfectly open it is to other people, recognizing
them as Pure Selves, like itself. This is like having a little
piece of God with me all the time.”
I think this is the distinctive difference between the spirit
and the soul. The soul is on a journey with many twists and
turns in the road of life. But the spirit is high above the
road, overarching it from beginning to end, and knows the peace
that passes understanding, the contentment that is never shaken,
the Paradise that is ours to enjoy forever. The great thing
about this is that we may experience the Paradise while still
on the road! The flesh is heavy and weak, but the spirit is
willing and waiting. With a few simple techniques, a longing
heart, and trust in God’s promise to meet us if we seek
Him/Her, we can take a break from the often lonesome road and
enter into “the congregation of God.”
-END
