THE SOUL AND THE NATURE
OF ITS PERCEPTION

With the little background given so far, we can at least begin to discuss the subject of this book: The eternal validity of the soul. Even when we are exploring other issues, we will be trying to illustrate the multidimensional aspect of this inner self. There are many misconceptions connected with it, and first of all we shall try to dismiss these.

First of all, a soul is not something that you have. It is what you are. I usually use the term “entity” in preference to the term “soul,” simply because those particular misconceptions are not so connected with the word “entity,” and its connotations are less religious in an organizational sense.

The trouble is that you frequently consider the soul or entity as a finished, static “thing” that belongs to you but is not you. The soul or entity — in other words, your most intimate powerful inner identity — is and must be forever changing. It is not, therefore, something like a cherished heirloom. It is alive, responsive, curious. It forms the flesh and the world that you know, and it is in a state of becoming.

Now, in the three-dimensional reality in which your ego has its main focus, becoming presupposes arrival, or a destination — an ending to that which has been in a state of becoming. But the soul or entity has its existence basically in other dimensions, and in these, fulfillment is not dependent upon arrivals at any points, spiritual or otherwise.

The soul or entity is always in a state of flux, or learning, and of developments that have to do with subjective experience rather than with time or space. This is not nearly as mysterious as it might sound. Each of my readers plays a game in which the egotistical conscious self pretends not to know what the whole self definitely does know. Since the ego is definitely a part of the whole self, then it must necessarily be basically aware of such knowledge. In its intense focus in physical reality, however, it pretends not to know, until it feels able to utilize the information in physical terms.

You do have access to the inner self, therefore. You are hardly cut off from your own soul or entity. The ego prefers to consider itself the captain at the helm, so to speak, since it is the ego who most directly deals with the sometimes tumultuous seas of physical reality, and it does not want to be distracted from this task.

Channels, psychological and psychic, always exist, sending communications back and forth through the various levels of the self, and the ego accepts necessary information and data from inner portions of the personality without question. Its position in fact depends in a large manner upon this unquestioning acceptance of inner data. The ego, in other words, the “exterior” self that you think of as your self — that portion of you maintains its safety and its seeming command precisely because inner layers of your own personality constantly uphold it, keep the physical body operating, and maintain communications with the multitudinous stimuli that come both from outside conditions and inside conditions. The soul or entity is not diminished but expanded through reincarnations, through existence and experience in probable realities — something that I will explain later.

It is only because you have a highly limited conception of your own entity that you insist upon its being almost sterile in its singularity. There are millions of cells within your body, but you call your body a unit, and consider it your own. You do form it, from the inside out, and yet you form it from living substance, and each smallest particle has its own living consciousness. There are clumps of matter, and in that respect there are clumps of consciousness, each individual, with their own destiny and abilities and potentials. There are no limitations to your own entity: therefore, how can your entity or soul have boundaries, for boundaries would enclose it and deny it freedom.

Now: Often it seems that the soul is thought of as a precious stone, to be finally presented as a gift to God, or considered as some women used to consider their virginity — something highly prized that must be lost; the losing of it being signified as a fine gift to the receiver.

In many philosophies this sort of idea is retained — the soul being returned to a primal giver, or being dissolved in a nebulous state somewhere between being and nonbeing. The soul is, however, first of all creative. It can be discussed from many viewpoints. Its characteristics can be given to some degree, and indeed most of my readers could find out these characteristics for themselves if they were highly enough motivated, and if this was their main concern. The soul or entity is itself the most highly motivated, most highly energized, and most potent consciousness-unit known in any universe.

It is energy concentrated to a degree quite unbelievable to you. It contains potentials unlimited, but it must work out its own identity and form its own worlds. It carries within it the burden of all being. Within it are personality potentials beyond your comprehension. Remember, this is your own soul or entity I am speaking of, as well as soul or entity in general. You are one manifestation of your own soul. How many of you would want to limit your reality, your entire reality, to the experience you now know? You do this when you imagine that your present self is your entire personality, or insist that your identity be maintained unchanged through an endless eternity.

(10:43.) Such an eternity would be dead indeed. In many ways the soul is an incipient god, and later in this book we will discuss the “god concept.” For now, however, we will simply be concerned with the entity or soul, the larger self that whispers even now in the hidden recesses of each reader’s experience. I hope in this book not only to assure you of the eternal validity of your soul or entity, but to help you sense its vital reality within yourself. First of all, however, you must have some idea of your own psychological and psychic structure. When you understand to some extent who and what you are, then I can explain more clearly who and what I am. I hope to acquaint you with those deeply creative aspects of your own being, so that you can use these to extend and expand your entire experience.

Now: Remember in your portrait the sense of play, and a light hand. Otherwise you lose your sparkling colors and end up with a murkiness that you do not intend. Remember that the soul is plain behind the facade that you see — that even the body is in a constant state of almost magical activity, even though as you paint it in its chair, it is physically motionless.