As we delve into the nature of the soul and its personality, we’ve established that there can be no inherent evil in the causal envelope or soul. However, if there is a gap in the causal envelope, it creates the potential for the lower vehicles to engage in negative actions. For instance, the emotional elemental may take control of a person and compel them to commit a crime. In such cases, the soul is not fully alert to intervene and prevent the action or perhaps doesn’t grasp that the passion or greed of the emotional envelope can drive the lower self to commit the crime. Consequently, evil does not originate from the Higher Self; rather, it arises from a deficiency in the Higher Self. If the soul were more developed, it could deter the individual from entertaining evil thoughts, preventing the commission of the crime. Can we fully blame this on the elemental? I think not. After all, the elemental is a creation of the persona or personality and that unit of consciousness is part of the soul. The soul in the casual envelope is as good as asleep to us, so who else can we blame for our actions? Oh yes, that pesky elemental. So, let’s be clear: the persona makes the elemental in the first place. It then says to the judge, in this case, it may even be the Lords of Karma; I was not paying attention to what my elementals were getting up to, naughty elementals. The reply you are going to get from the judge is your fingerprints are all over the crime scene, and you are the one that is going to be held accountable. Bear this in mind.
The ordinary person’s soul does not have a firm grasp on their personality or a clear understanding of its purpose. As a result, the personality develops its own ways and opinions. It gains experience and passes this on to the soul but also acquires prejudices that are not true knowledge. It takes time for the personality to recognise these as prejudices, and it is not until a person reaches Adeptship (45) that they become entirely free of these limitations. Considering an adept is as far away from us in evolutionary terms as we are from cabbage, it is going to take a long time to get rid of all our prejudices.
To help the soul control their impulses and use them for their own benefit, parents and teachers can do a lot during infancy and childhood. It is crucial to first awaken the positive tendencies in a child’s envelope. By being very careful before and after the child is born, parents can encourage the development of good habits in the child. This makes it easier for the child to express positive behaviour. Even when faced with negative influences, the child’s momentum in the direction of good will be strong, making it difficult for negative tendencies to take over.
If a person’s inclination toward doing wrong is stronger, then it will be a struggle for them to incline towards doing good. In this scenario, the person is more likely to have a liking for wrongdoing and be ready to engage in it. On the other hand, if the inclination towards doing wrong is weak, it will be easier for the person to do what is right.
For the average person, there is a constant conflict between their emotional and mental states, and neither of these states is in harmony with the true self or prepared to act in its service. What is necessary is the cleansing of the individual’s character, along with the establishment of a clear and open connection between the individual and their true self. Without this connection, the individual’s understanding of everything and everyone is limited. The true self is unable to perceive reality accurately. Instead, it sees only the distorted image created by the individual’s limited perspective, much like a malfunctioning camera that distorts light and produces blurry and indistinct images.
Most people’s souls cannot find satisfaction in their personality until they reach the heaven-world (47). The soul can distinguish truth from falsehood and reject the false. However, when looking at the personality, it often sees a confusing mess of inconsistent thoughts and cannot find anything definite. It waits for the peace of the heaven world or devachan before attempting to make sense of the chaos.
In the peaceful state of Devachan, the emotions and thoughts from recent physical life are examined clearly in the bright light of that world. The unwanted parts are discarded, and the valuable ones are kept. Unfortunately, to achieve this clarity, you need to die first! The disciple should strive to achieve this state while still in the physical envelope by purifying the personality and harmonising it with the soul.
The soul is only partially expressed by the physical envelope, but it is not separate from the envelope. If we imagine the soul as a solid envelope and the physical plane as a surface, then when the solid is placed on the surface, the resulting figure would be a limited representation of the solid. Different impressions may arise when different sides of the solid are placed on the surface. However, all these representations would be imperfect and partial because the solid extends in different directions, which cannot be fully expressed on a flat surface.
In the case of an ordinary person, we can imagine the solid as conscious only to the extent that it is in contact with the surface. However, the results of such consciousness would be present in the solid as a whole and would be present in any later representation, even if it differs from previous ones.
When the soul is undeveloped, it can only respond to a few of the higher mental plane vibrations. It requires powerful and coarse vibrations to affect it, and since these vibrations do not exist on the soul’s own plane, it has to descend to lower levels to experience them. Hence, full consciousness comes to the person at first, only in the lowest and densest of its vehicles. The soul’s attention is focused for a long time on the physical plane. So, although that plane is much lower than the soul’s own and offers much less scope for activity, yet in those early stages, it feels much more alive when it is working there.
As the soul’s consciousness increases and widens its scope, it gradually begins to work more and more in matter one stage higher, i.e., in emotional matter. At a much later stage, when it has attained clear working in emotional matter, it begins to be able also to express itself through the matter of its mental envelope. Still, later, the end of the soul’s present effort is achieved when it works as fully and clearly in the matter of the causal envelope on the higher mental plane as it does now on the physical plane.
When a soul becomes sufficiently developed to come under the direct influence of a Master, the amount of that influence which can be passed on to the personality depends upon the connection between that personality and the soul. This connection varies greatly in different cases; in fact, there is an infinite variety in human life.
When the spiritual force influences the soul, some of it must flow through to the personality because the lower is connected to the higher, similar to how the hand is attached to the envelope by the arm. However, the personality can only receive what it has made itself able to receive.
Another important factor comes into play here. The Master often emphasises the qualities in the soul which are less apparent in the personality, resulting in very little reaching the personality. Just as only those experiences of the personality can be transmitted to the soul, which aligns with the nature and interests of the soul, only those impulses that the personality can respond to can express themselves in it. It’s important to note that while the soul tends to exclude the material and receive the spiritual, the general tendency of the personality, at least in the initial stages, is to exclude the spiritual and receive the material.
A clairvoyant may sometimes observe these influences in action. For instance, on a particular day, they may notice a characteristic of the personality greatly intensified without any apparent reason. Often, the cause can be attributed to what is happening at a higher level—the stimulation of that quality in the soul. For example, a person may find themselves overflowing with affection or devotion, unable to explain why on the physical plane. This is usually due to the soul being stimulated, or alternatively, it may be that the soul is taking a special interest in the personality at that time.
The relationship between a pupil and their Master is not entirely unlike that of the personality to the soul. Just as the soul can be seen as imparting a small part of itself into the personality and manifesting itself – albeit imperfectly – through that personality, in a similar way, the pupil not only represents the Master but is, in a very real sense, the Master under significant limitations. These limitations consist not only of the conditions of the lower planes themselves but also, of course, the personality of the pupil, which is by no means transcended.
Moreover, even if the pupil’s soul had gained perfect control of its lower bodies, there would still be a difference in size between the soul of the pupil and that of the Master because the pupil’s soul is naturally smaller than the Master’s soul, whom they follow, and therefore can only be an incomplete representative of Him.
So, how do we better establish communication between the personality and the soul? Find out in the next presentation.