Читать книгу Edgar Cayce and the Kabbalah - John Van Auken - Страница 17

Our Soul Being—Neshamah (from nasham, meaning “to breathe”)—is our soul self, the ghost self of our whole being. It is the bridge between the physical incarnation and the heavenly tiers of our being. It is both in the body and beyond it. This is the portion of our being that is striving to save the Living Being from the wheel of desire and karma, to free it from its servitude to self-seeking entanglements. Edgar Cayce called this our individuality, in contrast to our outer self’s personality. It is our higher nature, in contrast to our human or animalistic nature. He referred to the Soul Being as our “better self.” (EC 1662–2 and many others)

This is the breath of the glassblower.

These first three divisions are often considered to be the human being. As such, it is developing, changing, and ever moving toward earthliness or toward heavenliness, often somewhere in between. The body is its temple and is either filled with the fires of self-seeking and gratification or the incense of love, kindness, and helpfulness toward others, and a sense of the godly connection and destiny. In many cases, there is a battle waging between these two opposing interests. Living Being (Nefesh) is often pulling in one direction and Soul Being (Neshamah) in the other. The Soul Mind (Ruach) is analyzing and correlating the activities and thoughts, giving its conscientious insights to help minimize the struggle—leading the two toward a cooperative effort to make the most of the immediate incarnation.

Cayce illustrates and explains this, as well:

The entity finds self a body, a mind, a soul; in a three-dimensional world. In the physical or material we see, the more often, the manifestations of the mental and the material successes, failures, or confusions in the experience of individuals. Life—as manifested in this three-dimensional plane—is a combination not only of the present experiences, the present problems, the present urges (as has been indicated for the entity), but of all the experiences; and the awareness of same is only manifested through that phase or portion of the mental self as it seeks to know its source of activity—or the spiritual or soul self.

The spiritual or soul self is the eternal. Hence the mental is both of material and of spiritual, or divine origin.

Hence, the individual who aided man in setting forth laws, rules or regulations—or who is known as the lawgiver [Moses]—gave expression to that which, if it is wholly understood in the consciousness of an individual, puts before him all the problems and yet the answers to same, day by day.

Then, as he gave, it is not who will descend from heaven to bring you a message, or who will come from over the seas or from without to make you aware; but lo, the whole answer is within thy own consciousness. For, as ye become aware of this, in thy relationships, there is the realization within self of that spiritual awareness which may enable self to do that which is ever the constructive exercising of the will in materiality; for: “Today there is set before thee good and evil, life and death; choose thou.”

That factor of the spiritual self, or of the soul (the will), then enables the individual to cooperate with that spirit, that truth, that fact which has ever been set before man—“If ye will be my son, I will be thy God—If ye call, I will hear—Behold, I stand at the door and knock; I will enter, if ye ask.”

Then, these are not mere sayings! They are facts, truths, life itself! but the individual is not made aware of same through the material things nor material-mindedness; rather through spiritual-mindedness, as to purposes and activities of the soul in its lessons, its tenets that it has carried through its expressions in the earth.

EC 1797–3

Body, mind, and soul are commonly understood to be parts of our being and are comparable to Living Being, Soul Mind, and Soul Being. Let’s now move beyond these and consider two portions of our being that are not common: Spirit Mind and Spirit Being. These are significant concepts in Kabbalah and Cayce.