World of the Soul

World of the Soul

Author's Introduction
Chapter 1: The Search for Truth
Chapter 2: The Soul
Chapter 3: Life and Form
Chapter 4: The Constitution of a Human Being
Chapter 5: Awakening to the Soul
Chapter 6: Masters of the Wisdom
Chapter 7: Spiritual Hierarchy
Chapter 8: Hierarchies of Life
Chapter 9: History of the Soul
Chapter 10: The Path of Initiation
Chapter 11: First Initiation
Chapter 12: Second Initiation
Chapter 13: Third Initiation
Chapter 14: The Continuity of Revelation

Chapter one

The Search for Truth

Let us begin in the way that so many people begin their spiritual life, with the search for truth. We begin with the individual desire for knowledge, for certainty, and for wisdom.

Typically we feel that we must choose a teaching or a teacher out of the myriads of teachings and teachers that exist in this world. And the task seems daunting. There are so many teachings - masters and mediums, religions and sciences, and philosophers and charlatans. How can we tell if we have chosen the right teaching or whether we are wasting our time? How is a person to choose which of these is the "truth"? How can a person decide which teaching is right and which teaching is wrong? How can we tell if we can trust a teacher or a guru?

These questions may have their answers, but we will eventually see, in this discussion, that there is another path and a higher way to determine the truth. For this matter of finding truth is not an issue of choosing one teaching over another, or finding the best teaching or teacher. This is a matter of choosing, out of all the teachings, the truth that is right for you.

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In the beginnings of our search for truth, perhaps in our youth, we may have belonged to one of the many religions of the world. We may have been brought up to believe in a God or in no God, in the salvation of Jesus or the enlightenment of the Buddha, the good of society or the value of the individual, or the need for religious ritual or the value of worldly success. In any case, we took what was given to us as "truth," and associated that truth with the science, religion, or philosophy that we were brought up within. "Truth," then, was associated with a particular kind of teaching. one kind of teaching was "true" (our teaching, of course) and all others were "false," as that's the way the world seemed to work.

Still later, as we grew up both physically and spiritually, we may have awakened to our condition. Our inner mind awakened. We discovered that the teaching that we grew up with was ours primarily by right of birth, and not because we entered into the teaching of our own free will. If we had been born in India, we might have been a Hindu. If we had been born in an Arab country, we might practice Islam. If we were born in Europe or North America, we might have been brought up in one of the many sects of Christianity. If we had been born in China, we might be Buddhist or Confucian, or believe that Communism held within itself the highest ideals. Or perhaps we were born into an agnostic family who taught that science was the highest truth. Or perhaps in our schooling, scientific thoughts were presented alongside religious ideas, creating an apparently unsolvable conflict. It may have seemed that one of these had to be true at the expense of the other, and the goal was to find which teaching had within it the truth that no other teaching could have.

These are of course generalizations, but it is clear that large portions of humanity adhere to particular spiritual beliefs simply because people were born into them. This gives us some perspective on the matter, allowing us to become more detached from the traditions that we have grown up with. But people's minds eventually awaken, and other teachings, religions, sciences, and philosophies dawn upon the consciousness.

The negative result of this awakening is often a blind rejection of any other truth and an attack on any other viewpoint. Here we have the cause of the fanaticism that is so much a problem today; minds are awakening, and are no longer asleep. The result is a conflict of ideas and ideals. If the minds remained asleep and aware only of their own spiritual world, the conflict would not occur. We can see, then, that the conflict of religions, philosophies, and political ideals over the last several hundred years is a sign of encouragement. People no longer blindly accept what the world presents to them as truth, and many are in active rebellion against other people's truths. In either case, people are aware of a wider world than in the past.

The awakening of our minds, in the positive sense, often leads to a quest for truth, a seeking, and an unfoldment of our awareness. We discover that we want to find out what is true by making up our own minds. We realize that we need to make some kind of decision, regardless of what any authority has to say. Indeed, the concept of "authority" itself now becomes suspect, for how should any authority be aware of the nature of "truth" while we are not aware? Therefore there is often an indiscriminate rebellion against authority of any kind. We seek what we believe to be "freedom" at all costs.

The authority, of course, intends to hold its position. Scientists will tell us that their authority is the scientific method and the practical results of their investigations. Religious priests, rabbis, gurus, ministers, and channels might tell us that their authority arises through a sacred scripture from God; by doctrine, dogma, and tradition; or from being divinely chosen by a Spirit, Angel, or Christ. Yet we may still look upon these authorities with some measure of skepticism, for while they believe that they know, we cannot apparently easily share their experience. We feel, somehow, that we must know the truth for ourselves, and that no other knowing is adequate or sufficient for our purpose. We need to experience the truth for ourselves, and not just be told the truth.

Feeling that we have to find the truth, that we cannot endure life without that quest for truth, we begin to investigate one teaching after another. Religions, sciences, philosophies of the East and West, cults of all kinds, gurus, mediums, channels, new age teachers of all stripes — we investigate one after the other. Each teaching falls under the illumination of our minds, and we decide which has the truth for us.

At this point we may, having searched and searched, come to the conclusion that one of these teachings is indeed the truth. We might say to ourselves, "This teaching has a truth that no other teaching has." So we join the organization, accept the teachings, practice the philosophy, study the science, or sit at the feet of the guru of our choice.

This period of belonging is often, in the beginning, a very happy and joyful time in our lives. There is no longer that frantic need to find something — our doubts are resolved and we sit contentedly inside the bounds that the philosophy of our choice has set for us. We are no longer alone and lonely; we have found our group and can live contentedly.

Many of us are indeed content with this situation for the rest of our lives. But more and more often these days we discover that this new teaching is not enough for us either. We see, perhaps, that our church buildings are gilded with gold while the homeless suffer in the streets. Or perhaps we see the leader of our group grasping for power, money, or fame, in contradiction to the organization's spiritual teachings. Or we see the bickering, jealousy, envy, and hatred of the various members of the group, and wonder how this kind of action can be reconciled with the teaching's spiritual truths. Or perhaps the issue is purely philosophical; we see that our teaching, however exalted its beliefs, cannot explain the whole universe to us - that science cannot explain the nature of spirit, just as western religion cannot explain the nature of matter. Perhaps we find that our sacred book is filled with things we consider contradictions and impossibilities, or it lacks the spirit of sacredness we formerly ascribed to it. Perhaps we get to the point where we see beyond the boundaries set by our sacred books, or perhaps we see a different kind of truth than the guru, priest, or channel, and we decide that there must be a still wider truth that is yet to be found. We decide that we need to find something more inclusive, something more universal, and yet something even closer to our hearts than what has as yet been uncovered.

The end of our relationship with our teaching can happen because we withdraw from it, or because the teaching withdraws from us. Sometimes it turns out that the whole organization which we have sincerely joined and laboriously worked for over many years has suddenly fallen to pieces around us. The leader may have died, or the teachings may have been twisted out of all recognition, or perhaps a new leadership has taken power and the organization has lost all the inner life and vitality that was originally there.

In any case, we are once more apparently cast back into the wilderness, out into a realm in which the truth has not yet been found, the ideal has not yet been attained, and the quest has not yet been achieved. The hunger in the heart for unity, truth, and wisdom remains unsatisfied.

We may, at this point, find yet another organization, and live for a period of time in that teaching. We may then find again that this new teaching is equally unsatisfactory or temporary, and proceed to hop from one philosophy to another, driven by our mind's quest for a sense of having the truth, a feeling of belonging, and indeed, often a sincere desire to be of service to others and to aid humanity. But we are never truly at rest, never utterly at peace with the group that we are in, for nothing seems to be the absolute, ultimate truth that the heart searches for.

We may, at this point, give up on all organizations and teachings, and say, "This quest is hopeless, there is no truth in this world to be found." This decision to give up can be made with great cynicism and despair, or it can be made with a sense of compassion and completeness. Nevertheless, we will reach a dead end if we simply let the quest go, for the quest is the driving urge of our soul, the inner wisdom of our life. To give up on our search for truth is to give up on ourselves.

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What, then, is the solution? If we choose a teaching or a teacher to be our truth, the limitations of that teaching or teacher eventually become apparent. If on the other hand, we decide that no teaching or teacher can have the truth, then we fail in our quest to find the truth. What can the solution to this dilemma be?

There is in fact a third path that may be taken. Instead of looking outward to any teaching or teacher, we need to look within ourselves, to the soul or the higher self within us. We need to look for the truth that lies within our hearts. This is, after all, the only truth that we can really know for ourselves.

We can then look at our quest for truth in a broader light. We can see that we were led to a particular place and a particular teaching in order for us to grow, for our minds to expand, and for our understanding to flower. We can see that when we joined a group it was for the lessons that would be learned, the experience that we would gain, the insight that we could achieve, and the service that we could render. When we reached the point where we had done our duty and fulfilled our task, when we had learned the needed lessons and performed the needed service, then we could move onward to new truths and new concepts that were otherwise impossible for us to contact and perceive.

We can see, too, that if we gave up and decided that no outer organization could possibly have the "truth," that this was perfectly correct - indeed, no "outer" teaching could possibly have the truth, for the truth is something that we find within ourselves, not outside of ourselves. The outer teaching is only there to let us know what we need to know, to remind us of what we have forgotten, and to liberate us into our true nature, our soul nature. Then we can see that it is our soul that is our true teacher, it is our own higher self that is our true Master. The only "organization" that we can then "join" is the "Kingdom of Souls" - the company of those individuals who know that they are souls and who live, work, and act from the level of soul.

We may then look at any given religion, science, and philosophy - any teaching whatsoever - and can see that it, by its very nature, cannot be the complete "truth." For all outer organizations and all human teachers are subject to the denseness of the physical world, the distortions of human desire, and the limitations of mental illusion. No teaching and no teacher can escape these problems, for even if the teacher were a perfected Master of the Wisdom - an individual who has been liberated into full knowledge of the Kingdom of Souls - that Master would still have to deal with the limitations of the human students and of humanity. The teachings of truth have to be translated, or brought down, from the pure, abstract, and symbolic levels of the soul to the realm of human reason, logic, and language. In being brought down, there is inevitably distortion.

Therefore, the process for us as students of soul wisdom is to build a structure of truth based upon our own experience. We take the wisdom of one teaching, add the knowledge of another, include some concepts from a third, and so forth, until a system and a wisdom is built within ourselves that accurately reflects, for us, the wisdom of the soul. As it is said, we build the "Temple of Solomon (the temple or body of our inner wisdom) by our own hands." We determine with our own minds, hearts, and souls what the truth is for us.

This focus on the individual discovery of truth is, of course, challenging to the various world teachings, and to practically every religion, science, and philosophy. The leaders and representatives of some teachings wish that their authority would remain secure. They may wish to foster the idea that only outer teachings represent truth, and that we must choose between one teaching and another in order to find the truth. Whereas, in fact, no teaching is totally true, and no teaching is totally false. This is not being vague, but is a precise description of the human problem, for each teaching is only an imperfect reflection of the wisdom of the soul. We, as individuals, must and will inevitably do the sifting out of the true from the false in all these teachings. We can do this because the soul of our heart holds within itself the truth of our lives. Worldly truth must match the truth of our soul, and not the other way around. It is not in the power of any outer teaching to be the truth that we as individuals must be attached to. Our ultimate allegiance must be to our own soul, and not to any outer organization.

This truth is, of course, a truth that is true for us and not for others, but is, at the same time, universally true, for it is formed out of the wisdom of the soul. This seems to be a contradiction, but in fact it is essential. Here is an easy example: some of us are devotional in nature, and others are scientific. Those who are devotional will and should approach and express the truth differently than those who are scientific. Those who are devotional, aspirational, and mystical will view the truth much differently than those who are scientifically minded and logical in nature. Nevertheless, in the world of the soul, the truth of the devotee and the truth of the scientist are one. For while the devotional and scientific people may approach the soul differently, they both approach the same soul consciousness, the same inner light, and the same higher wisdom. The quality expressed by our soul may be devotional, scientific, philosophical, religious, or agnostic, but the essential nature of every individual soul consists of the same love, truth, and wisdom.

The idea that we must find the truth for ourselves can also be uncomfortable for us as individuals. Not everyone has the courage to believe that they themselves must determine what the truth is. They would rather give that responsibility to some teacher or organization, which will make all the effort of discovery and solve the problem of truth for them.

Nevertheless, we must inevitably find our own soul nature; no one else can do this for us. In the discovery of our own soul we will also discover the truths that we have found for ourselves - those truths that we have, despite all authority, determined to be true. We will then build upon those truths and formulate our own understanding of the universe.

Therefore let us look to our own souls for truth. We have the right to choose what the truth is, for us. It is our own decision to join or not to join an organization, a teacher, or a teaching (unless by some chance we were forced into one). As one Sufi poem goes:

Since thou decidest who is fit to take
Or not to take for Teacher, thou thy-Self
Must surely than all teachers greater be.

Since thou dost judge that this is True, this Not,
Maker of Truth, most True, thy-Self must be.

Since thou determinest whether God is
Or is not, surely thine own Self must be
The inmost being of Godhead, Greatest God.

Bhagavan Das, The Essential Unity of all Religions. (Wheaton, Theosophical Publishing House) p. 162.

Conversely, we do not have the right to determine what the truth is for anyone else. For other people will find their own truth, in their own way. We may offer suggestions, we may share our own realizations, and we may seek to persuade others. But we need to let other people find the truth that is right for them, and never expect that this truth is going to be exactly the same as ours.

This works the other way, too. No other person has the right to force us to believe or think in a certain way. Nor does any teaching or teacher have the right to determine what the truth is for us. This is not simply a statement about "freedom of religion." This is an ｅxpression of the fact that each individual must find the truth for themselves regardless of any religious or non-religious teaching.

For the truth does not lie in any outer teaching or any outer teacher; it lies in the world of the soul. The various world teachings - the religion, science, and philosophy of humanity - are only better or poorer reflections of this world.

We may come to some point in our studies, then, where we imagine that we have the whole truth, but this cannot be so. No one outer teaching, however good, can encompass the reality that lies within us and the subjective aspect of the whole universe. The world of the soul that lies behind all form is so vast and so high that no mind, however evolved, can grasp it, let alone set it into a teaching that may be understood by humanity. Further, humanity is evolving, the world of the soul is evolving — indeed the whole universe is in constant change. What is the whole truth today is but an incomplete fragment of the truth tomorrow. Thus, all truth is necessarily incomplete - but this is a strength, not a weakness. For a complete and final truth - if there could be such a thing - would be death to our evolving spirit, which seeks ever greater and higher revelations.

It is our purpose to find those truths that are meaningful to us, and to help us build that inner bridge "from darkness to Light, from the unreal to the Real, and from death to Immortality." We perceive each religion, science, and philosophy so that it is seen as a part of a still larger Whole. Our inner wisdom is a tool that may be used to gather the building materials, put them together, and raise them up so that the soul within us all may appear. Readers are therefore asked to come to their own conclusions and to recognize no higher authority than their own souls. Use the ideas and concepts of this book as a springboard to find that truth that is true for you, and for no other person on the planet.

Indeed, the various teachings in the world today all use different terminology and present the universe and the human being in sometimes startlingly different ways. Some say that there is a soul, and some say there is no soul. Some say there is a God, and some say there is no God. The differences seem insurmountable. Nevertheless, their fundamental, essential principles are identical, and they are in inner harmony with each other on every significant point. Human terminology and mental concepts stand in the way of our understanding the truth that is beyond concepts, beyond mind, and beyond intellect. But when the terminology is stripped away and we experience what the words really mean for ourselves, we find a unity that melts away all the outer differences.

So do not be concerned about terminology, or the words being used to describe things, either here or in any other teaching. If you do not like the word "God" then use "Reality," "Spirit," "the Universe," "energy," or whatever suits your fancy. If you do not like the use of the word "soul" then replace it with "higher self," "spiritual ego," "spiritual mind," "Solar Angel," "inner consciousness," "the observer," "the perceiver," "pure mind," or any other phrase you may choose. For it is not the terms, which are specific to a given teaching, but the essential concepts, which are universal, that are of importance here. once we understand the underlying concept behind "God" and "soul" then we can see them in every teaching, even those that deny their existence, and see how to fit them into our inner concepts of truth. For we are the ones who decide what is true, by the power of the soul, our true self, the God of our heart.

It is our task, and our joy, to unfold our own soul nature and discover and live within the world of the soul.

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