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CHAPTER 3

Your Inner Soul

What Is Your Soul, Really?

There’s been a lot of discussion about souls, and “inner consciousness,” and similar-sounding concepts, but do we really understand what these ideas mean? The soul is known to be the essence of a human being, the repository of thoughts, memories, stimuli, and dreams. It is the core that animates us, propels us to action, or causes us to hang back and linger. It is the seat of reason and understanding, the fulcrum of our thoughts, words, and deeds.

But this still doesn’t fully describe what souls are.

The soul is thought to be indestructible, no matter what fate confronts the body or mind that it inhabits.

Buddhism calls the soul the “Greater Self,” while the lesser self disappears at death. This greater self is the life force, or will to live, that survives successive rebirths. According to Eastern philosophy, the soul pushes forward, ever-evolving, growing, and seeking, unless meeting with stagnation. When a soul stops learning and expanding, it may wither, but it will never die. Knowledge gained through experience is the soul’s fuel, and through this it changes and expands, effortlessly or heavily, always probing, and hopefully, always growing. For when we stop learning, we leave this life.

In the phase of our experience we call death, in which we depart one plane of existence and head for another, the soul takes its leave of the body. It may stay around the earth plane for a while; often this is a period of adjustment before it accepts it is no longer “alive” in the earthly sense. After this adjustment it can move on and reunite with those out-of-body beings it has known in the past, and who have assisted and nurtured its development over this, and many, many incarnations.

Once, at the time of creation of man, we were God-like. Through the use of free will, we chose to experience coming into physical bodies for our greater understanding. As we became increasingly stuck in the delights of the flesh—how we like those foods and other physical experiences!—the vibrations of the earth became denser, holding us closer. We eventually lost our ability to come and go as free spirits. We could no longer leave our physical bodies at will and return to the Creator. Thus the pattern of creating Earth karma began, and it became increasingly difficult for us to give up what we enjoyed in the physical. This does not mean we have to give up all our earthly passions and become nuns or monks. It is meant to trigger the awareness that who we are encompasses much more than what is apparent here on Earth’s surface. We are also capable of much more than what is apparent. In fact, we are potentially capable of anything.

A majority of the world believes in reincarnation, with a rising number of Americans thinking it might be possible. The purpose of reincarnating perhaps hundreds or thousands of times is soul perfection-godliness-growing to a state of wholeness and understanding, so that we may become complete and rejoin the Creator as co-creators. To do this, we must become completely cognizant of our actions and how they affect other people. You may, as you become more aware, begin to act in a wholly unselfish manner. This does not mean, however that you cannot still enjoy the fruits of the earth. Maybe Earth’s fruits are put in place for us to help others and ourselves enjoy, as long as we are not hurting others or ourselves in doing so.

We all are co-creators to some extent at this stage of our evolution, because of the gift of free will. Proceeding through life, we use that free will through each and every choice. As we interact with others and create new karmic situations or work out old karma, we are ever-evolving and growing toward that ideal state of perfection.

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.—Kahlil Gibran

The Temporal Zone

A few weeks after my mother’s sudden death, she appeared to me during meditation. During this, the first of many visits, she told me about a place she had visited called the Temporal Zone. This is the holding place for purification, in which the soul is cleansed of the earth’s dense vibration before moving on to a higher level. Here, souls are given a period of therapy and rest along with healing waters of rejuvenation. Gently, they are helped to move beyond the travail of Earth. Astral hospitals are available for people who need additional healing—to mollify their trauma or help them to forgive—if they would otherwise be unable to move on.

At any point after reaching the astral, or ethereal, level, the soul is confronted with the karmic implications of the life it left behind. Every word, thought, action, and intention is reviewed. With master teachers, strengths and weaknesses are analyzed, and together a determination is made about the individual’s needs. This process occurs within a calendar based on cosmic time, and so may ensue over a period of decades, centuries, or a millennium. With the masters’ guidance, lifetimes are reviewed to choose what karma can be worked on. It may be in an accelerated or difficult manner, or more cautious and easy.

Parents who can provide the proper lessons are selected, and to some degree, the individual’s experiences for its next incarnation are charted and decided upon.

Only Enlightenment, according to Buddhists, eliminates new karma and the need to reincarnate. The earth is seen as a place of great turmoil, and lifetimes spent here can be difficult and unpleasant. But the earth is also a place of learning, and when the lessons are received and successfully implemented, we may move on. If we choose not to learn or receive, we stay in a place of darkness, and the lessons become harder, more difficult to bear, and occasionally, life-altering.

The Sleeping Prophet, Edgar Cayce, describes an apparent out-of-body trip to the Akashic Records to get information on a client.

He said he felt himself leave his body and travel in a narrow, straight shaft of light. . . .

Finally, he arrived at a hill, where he saw a mount and a great temple. Inside was a large room like a library, filled with books of people’s lives.

All he had to do was pull down the book he wanted.—Hugh Lynn Cayce and Noel Langley, Edgar Cayce on Reincarnation

It is nature’s kindness that we do not remember past births . . . Life would be a burden if we carried such a tremendous load of memories.—Mahatma Gandhi