Many people who have absorbed my Message very well are nevertheless not yet quite clear about the expression “soul”! But it is necessary that there be clarity about this too.
It is just about the soul that mankind have always talked much too much, thus forming an everyday picture which in its superficiality has become a common concept without any substance at all.
When the word soul is mentioned, an image similar to a washed-out, time-worn painting arises before man. Faded and devoid of meaning, it passes quietly by them. It tells the individual nothing because it has been used too much.
For this very reason, though, since it can no longer mean anything, it was gladly appropriated by those people who, with meaningless eloquence, wish to let their false light shine in areas that could not be opened to human knowledge because the human being of today keeps himself closed off from them.
Those people who pretend to deal seriously with the subject also fall into this category. They keep themselves closed off on account of their wrong way of seeking, which is no seeking, because they approach such work with preconceived and much too narrowly limited opinions, wanting to confine it to the perception of the earth-bound intellect, which on its own, can never attain to the possibility of absorbing anything of this.
Give a magnifying glass which has been ground for short-sightedness to a far-sighted eye... you will realize that the eye cannot recognize anything with it.
It is no different with the activity of these seekers whose work is based on erroneous principles from the start. If they can find anything at all it will only appear blurred and distorted, and in no case will it correspond with the facts.
The term “soul” was relegated into this unknown area which appeared blurred and always distorted for lack of adequate tools, but it was presented as if it were based on firm knowledge.
Man dared to do this by telling himself that there was no one to refute the assertion anyway.
However, all this has become so deep-rooted that nobody wants to let go of it now, since this unfounded and undefined picture presents itself ever again in connection with the word soul.
In this regard men probably think that as long as they leave as broad a picture as possible, they cannot go wrong as easily as when strict boundaries are drawn.
At the same time, however, a broad picture does not convey anything specific, it is confusing, if not unfounded and blurry, as it is in this case. It does not mean anything to you, because it is not right in itself.
For this reason, I will explain once more in clear words what soul actually is, so that at last you will see it absolutely clearly and no longer flounder in the use of expressions the true meaning of which you do not really know.
The fact that people have been speaking so much of soul is partly due to the fact that the spirit of man was not sufficiently active to show that it exists, too.
That people have always spoken of their soul only and preferred to think of the spirit as being a product of the earthbound intellect was really the best and most striking evidence of the true and sad condition of all mankind of the present time!
The soul was considered to be the deepest, the innermost, and it went no further than this, since the spirit is indeed asleep, or at least much too weak and indolent to make itself noticeable as such. For this reason, it played a subordinate role with apparent justification. The spirit itself which is really everything and the only thing that really lives within man or, better said, that should live but alas, is asleep.
That the spirit had to be content with a subordinate role is clearly shown in many of the known terms. For example, spirits are primarily understood as ghosts, we say that they “ghost” around.
Wherever the expression “spirit” is used in common parlance the connotation is always either of something unwelcome and which one would rather avoid, or of something a little dubious, not quite clean or even malicious, in short, something which manifests and works in an inferior manner. That is unless the term “spirit” is associated with the intellect.
In such cases, where the expression is used in connection with the intellect, it even contains a kind of respect. So badly distorted is the pseudo-knowledge in these fields. You only need to consider these two expressions by interpreting them according to today’s conceptions:
Spiritualized and soulfull!
Here too, according to old habit you will instinctively place the expression “spiritualized” closer to earthly, i.e., masculine activity, namely to intellectual knowledge, and you will intuitively perceive the expression “soulful” as being more feminine, more elevated, but at the same time also vaguer, not to be bound in words, and as being less earthly. In other words: more introverted but vaguer, and therefore without strict boundaries, being more unearthly. Just try it, you are sure to find the confirmation within yourselves!
These are the fruits of men’s present opinions, which have been so wrong and bound to produce wrong conceptions, since the spirit’s connection with its spiritual home had been cut off, and consequently it was also cut off from the supplies of power from the Light!
It was bound to become stunted and also forgotten, because here on earth it remained immured in the physical bodies, and thus as a matter of course all views were also bound to be altered correspondingly.
A person who disappears in lifelong imprisonment is soon forgotten by the public, while all those who did not at one time live in his immediate vicinity know nothing about him whatever.
It is the same with the spirit during its captivity on earth!
However, from the Message you already know that it is the spirit alone which makes man a human being, that only through the spirit can man become a human being!
This again is proof to you that all creatures on earth today who keep their spirit imprisoned, cannot be regarded as human beings by the Light!
The animal has nothing of the spirit, therefore it can never become a human being. And a man who buries his spirit and does not allow that which makes him human to be active is in reality not a human being!
Here we touch on a fact which has so far has not received adequate consideration: I say that it is the spirit which marks a man as a human being, which makes him one. The expression “to make a human being” implies that only through its activity does the spirit form the creature into a human being!
Therefore, in order to be human it does not suffice to carry the spirit within, rather a creature becomes a human being only if and when it allows the spirit as such to work within!
Take this as the foundation for your life on earth! Take this as the basic conception for your future life here on earth! Outside of the coarse World of Matter it will become evident automatically, as soon as you no longer wear your physical body.
But whoever allows his spirit to work as such within himself will never again be able to allow the Darkness to arise anew, nor would he allow himself to be ensnared by the Darkness.
You were allowed to recognize, and you must now also see the end to which everything leads when the spirit within men cannot become active, because it is suppressed and kept away from any supply of power from the All-Holy Light of God!
Just as only he who allows the spirit to work within himself is considered a human being by the Light, so shall it also become henceforth on this earth! This is the foundation for ascent and for peace!
For whoever enables the spirit to become active within himself can only walk on the path to the Light, which ennobles and uplifts him ever more, so that finally he will spread blessings around him wherever he goes.
Now I wish to repeat once more what the soul is, so that you will drop all the old views and have a firm support in this matter henceforward.
It is best if you first of all tell yourselves that it is the spirit that makes man a human being before all the gross material creatures on earth.
We may equally well and justifiably explain that the spirit is the real human being, which must develop in various cloaks from germ to completion, since it always carries the urge to do so within itself.
The outermost point of its development, namely that point, which as being the furthest away from the Light, is thus also the point where the spirit, under the pressure of the heaviest, densest cloak, must develop its own volition most intensely, whereby it can and is meant to become aglow, so as to be able to ascend again, closer to the Light, is in Ephesus the gross-materiality of the earth.
Through this, the sojourn on earth becomes the turning-point of all the wanderings! Thus it is quite especially important.
And it was just here on earth that the spirit was fettered and walled-in by men themselves through wrong volition, under the influence of the creeping Darkness, so that at the very point where it was meant to achieve the most resplendent radiance through the most intense, animated activity, the spirit was compelled to inactivity from the very outset, which brought in its train the failure of mankind.
Therefore, the activity of the Darkness is most intense at this turning-point which is so important for the human spirit, and consequently the battle is fought here, the end of which must bring the complete defeat and destruction of Darkness if humanity on earth is ever to be helped again at all, so that they will not be lost completely.
Thus the activity of the Darkness has always been most intense here on earth, for it is here that the turning-point of the wanderings of the human spirit forms itself; and secondly, it was easiest for the Darkness to interfere just here, since it is here that man is furthest away from the origin of the helping power of the Light, and can therefore become more easily susceptible to other influences.
Nevertheless, this is no excuse for the falling human spirit; for he only needed to have the volition in genuine prayer in order immediately to receive a pure connection with the Power of the Light. Besides, it is exactly his physical body which, on account of its density, gives him a special protection against influences of a nature different than those which he himself seeks to attract through his desiring.
However, you are already familiar with all this through the Message, if you wish to find it therein.
Therefore, think of the spirit as being the real essence of man, which as being the core wears many cloaks for the purpose of development and of unfolding its inherent strength, which must increase to withstand the most severe endurance test through the physical body in order to attain to victorious perfection.
Through their reciprocal action, however, these ever-increasing endurance tests are at the same time also the furthering stages of development, in which the earth is the outermost turning point.
Thus let us simply say that the spirit is the actual human being, all else being only cloaks; by wearing them the spirit becomes strong, and through the consequent need to bestir itself it becomes ever more aglow.
The glow into which the spirit is thus transposed does not die once the cloaks are laid aside, but it raises the spirit and leads it upwards into the Spiritual Realm.
For it is just through the need to bestir itself under the weight of its cloaks that the spirit finally grew so strong that it can bear the stronger pressure in the Spiritual Realm and remain conscious, something it was unable to do as a spirit-germ.
Such is the course of its development which proceeded for the sake of the spirit. The cloaks themselves are to be considered merely as the means to an end.
Therefore, nothing changes when earth-man lays aside his physical body. He is still the same human being, only without the physical cloak and the so-called astral body which remains with the physical body and which is necessary for forming the gross material earthly body and originates from medium gross matter.
As soon as the heavy earthly body together with the astral body has fallen away the spirit remains clad in the more delicate cloaks only. In this condition the spirit is called “the soul” in contradistinction to the earth-man of flesh and blood!
In his further ascent the human being also gradually lays aside all other cloaks, until finally he only keeps the spirit body with a spiritual cloak, and thus enters the Spiritual Realm as a spirit without cloaks of any other species.
This is a natural happening, for no alien cloak can then keep him back any longer, and consequently he must in the natural course of things be uplifted through the nature of his specific species.
This, then, is the difference which very often causes you difficulty in your desire to understand, since you lacked clarity and thus the conception of it remained vague.
In reality, in the case of human beings, it is strictly a matter of spirit alone. All other designations depend purely on the cloaks he wears.
The spirit is everything, the essence, thus the human being. If together with the other cloaks he also wears the earthly cloak he is called earth-man; when he lays aside his earthly cloak he is thought of by earth-man as soul, and as he sheds even these delicate cloaks he remains solely spirit, which species he had always been.
Thus the various designations merely refer to the species of the cloaks which could not be anything without the spirit, which sets them aglow.
It is different with animals; for they have something of substantiality in them as their soul, a species that man does not possess!
Perhaps so many errors arose through men thinking that animals also have a soul which causes them to act. For this reason, they think that, since man has spirit in addition, spirit and soul should be separate and perhaps should even be able function separately.
However, this is wrong, for man does not possess any of the species of the animal soul. In the case of man, it is the spirit alone that sets aglow all the cloaks, even when it is walled-in and bound. When the spirit is fettered through the intellect, the animating warmth of the spirit is directed into wrong channels, which the un-perverted spirit itself would never choose if left a free hand.
However, the Message gives clear information about all the distortions and faults of men, especially about how man must think and act if he wishes to reach the Luminous Heights.
Today it is only a matter of clarifying the expression “soul” once more, so that wrong ideas about it may come to an end.
It would be best for human beings if I now go another step further in this, and tell you that only the animal has a soul that guides it. Man, however, has spirit!
This describes the difference precisely and in the right way.
If up until now I have still used the expression soul it was only because it is so deeply rooted within you that you cannot give it up so quickly.
Now, however, I see only errors will remain unless I make a sharp, separating cut in this matter. Therefore, as a foundation, impress firmly upon your minds:
The animal has soul, but man has spirit!
In this way it is correct, although it now appears strange to you because you have often extolled the soul. But, believe me, it is only a matter of being tied to the known expression which gives an uplifting feeling when you hear the word soul, as a consequence of the songs which you always sought to weave around the expression soul.
Now sing praises to the spirit instead, and soon this expression will rise brilliantly before you, much clearer still and purer than the expression soul ever could.
Accustom yourselves to this and you will have advanced another step further in the knowledge leading to the Truth!
However, it is only as the foundation of your thinking that you shall now carry the knowledge of this difference within you. Otherwise you may continue to also use the expression soul in connection with man, since otherwise it would be very difficult for you to keep the necessary steps of development properly segregated.
The soul is the spirit already detached from the World of Gross Matter with ethereal and substantiate cloaks.
For your conception the spirit must remain soul until it lays aside the last cloak, and then is able to enter the Spiritual Realm, being purely spiritual.
If you carry the knowledge within you in this way, then the expression soul may also be used and retained in connection with man.
It is best if you form the development of the spirit-germ into these three sections:
Earth-man – human soul – human spirit!
As long as you have the right conception thereof it may be alright, otherwise it would not be advisable, since in reality the animal alone possesses a “soul” in the truest sense. A soul which is something all by itself! Besides his spirit, however, man does not have a soul which is independent in itself.
However, in connection with man, you cannot very well say instead of soul: man’s spirit with cloaks, or the cloaked spirit; nor can you say later the spirit without cloak, the uncovered spirit.
Although this would actually be right, it is too cumbersome for the purpose of forming a conception.
Therefore, we will retain the former expression, just as Jesus did when He spoke of the soul. You will now understand even better His reference to the necessity for the soul to detach itself; for to sever the soul means nothing other than to lay aside the still existing cloaks which hold back the spirit and severing it from their heaviness so as to free it for further ascent.
However, Jesus could not speak to earthmen of that time in such an intellect-adapted manner; He had to express Himself in a simpler manner and therefore He retained the customary way.
It may remain in this way even today as long as you are familiar with the precise facts.
Engrave upon your minds:
Animal has soul, but man has spirit!