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-====== The Inner Life 1938 ======
+====== The Inner Life ======
-== THE HERALD OF THE NEW AGE ==
+== THE HERALD OF THE NEW AGE | JANUARY 1938 ==
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+<WRAP centeralign>
+==== EDITORIAL ====
+=== THE SOUL AS A SEED ===
+</WRAP>
+<WRAP justify>
+THOSE who have difficulty in clearly distinguishing the soul from the Spirit of man are asked to consider carefully what follows.
+Think of a seed—any seed—and try to visualize how contained within its protective shell is something very wonderful, something that no human mind can fully comprehend. For therein is confined the almighty power, life and intelligence of what is called God, which when that seed is planted in fertile soil, under favorable conditions, will grow it into a bush, a shrub, a tree; and whatever is the object and purpose hidden within its stalk, when maturity is reached, will blossom forth that phase of life expression intended for that particular seed.
+Let us study what is taking place within that seed and its stalk, branches, and blossoms. We know, if the seed is alive, that within its shell is a mysterious force which we call life and which has marvelous intelligence and the power, when the seed is planted, to gather to itself from the soil and air what will grow that seed to its final destiny. Season after season it grows, building for itself a strong, sturdy stalk, putting out more and larger branches with an ever increasing number of leaves, until maturity is reached, when there appears on the branches some buds which the warm sunshine finally causes to open into blossoms.
+Then for the first time the life within the stalk is able to express its particular nature and to show forth the purpose of all its effort. For in the heart of the blossom appears the nucleus of one or more seeds, duplications of the parent one, that hide themselves in the fruit, which gradually grows around this nucleus during Spring and Summer until it is ripened; when the crowning work and purpose of the life in the original seed and stalk is accomplished—the bearing of its fruit.
+We want you to see that the life within the seed and the stalk is doing all this; that hidden within the seed is an idea and an image of what is to be the destiny of the life and consciousness constituting its nature, along with an intelligence and a will to create and bring that idea to fruition.
+And we want you also to see that this individualized consciousness and life within that seed constitute the soul of the bush, the shrub, the tree, or whatever it is to become; while the stalk, branches and leaves constitute its body; whereas the overshadowing and directing Intelligence with which its consciousness and life are connected constitute the spirit of the seed.
+When the above is clearly seen in the mind, it should not be difficult to perceive that exactly as with the soul of the seed of a bush or a tree, so would it be with the soul of man; for when the seed of man is deposited in the soil of a mother’s womb, in it is hidden the blue-print—so to speak—of what is to be the destiny of that soul, and with it is confined the intelligence and will to bring its plan and purpose to fruition. In other words, the consciousness and life of the seed, having within itself the full plan and destiny of that particular expression of life, along with the intelligence and power to bring it to fruition, constitute the soul of man. Think on this until its full import is comprehended.
+When all is clear you will see that the soul is not the body of man and its brain mind, and that these are but as the stalk of personality that the soul is growing season after season (or more strictly, with the soul, lifetime after lifetime) and developing it to the state when the soul of man can blossom forth and show to the world his real nature, and then can finally accomplish that which all the past it was preparing for—to bear fruit, to express the Christ Life, the same Life Jesus expressed on earth.
+In other words, it would seem that Jesus Christ is the perfect fruit of all life expression. He is unquestionably the perfect fruit of humanity, even as humanity is the fruit of the stalk of life growing the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms. Through these kingdoms the One Life that we will call Spirit or God is unfolding consciousness to where it can be individualized in a soul—the fruitage of the lower kingdoms; even as the One Life has unfolded the individualized consciousness of the soul to its fruitage—the Christ; when it returns again to the One Consciousness and the One Life—its Father’s Home.
+From this it can be plainly perceived that the soul must have had a beginning, and was created as shown in Genesis in the sixth day—or vast period of time indicated therein as a day, and could not be born or blossom forth until the stalk of consciousness had been grown up through the lower kingdoms in the five preceding periods to the human kingdom. From then, individualized centers of consciousness during the past million or more years, the consciousness of humanity had been unfolding up to the birth of Jesus Christ, who was the outmanifestation of its first fruit. But after Him it must be that many other blossoms have appeared on the branches of the stalk of humanity and have ripened into His same kind of fruit.
+When the soul is thus seen to be an individualized center of the One Consciousness and Life planted in the soil of earth and hidden in its confines as is the seed when planted, and there unfolds its latent potentialities as it grows and develops its stalk of expression in body after body, it need not be confused with the Spirit or God, because the soul is a growing and unfolding consciousness; while God, Spirit, the One Life is all-inclusive and complete and perfect now.
+While, of course, God or Spirit is expressing through the soul and is all that it is, yet necessarily only in a partial or limited way, governed by the capacity of the soul to receive and give forth, can it express and outpicture God. In other words, the soul has to grow, develop and unfold all of its potentialities, as well as round out and perfect its means of expression, before it can outpicture what was originally intended in the blue-print within its seed.
+We have only to study the soul of a man to determine its age or stage of unfoldment. We do not mean by soul his personality or his intellectual attainments; but we mean his inherent character and nature. If a man is selfish, weak, cowardly, petty and irresponsible, he is undoubtedly a young soul. While a hottentot, a bushman or a savage is unquestionably an infant soul. But when we see a wise, gentle, loving, poised, selfless and deeply understanding man or woman, we at once recognize that such a one is an old soul.
+Only one who is not a student of life would believe any soul could attain such inherent qualities as the last mentioned in one lifetime; we have only to look about us and see the selfishness, weakness, cowardliness, pettiness and irresponsibility manifest in our fellowman everywhere, and to note how very exceptional it is to find for instance a kindly, selfless, deeply understanding soul. And then when we realize how hard it is—how many lifetimes it must take—to overcome one outstanding weakness in our nature, can we wonder that in a million years so few have attained the understanding as souls that would be equivalent to the intelligence of the average ten year old boy, as claimed by psychologists?
+Remember, it is the soul that grows and unfolds in understanding gained from experiences gone through lifetime after lifetime in many different bodies in many different environments, conditions, countries and ages. The essence of the lessons learned by the mind in each body from the various experiences is built into the consciousness of the soul, thus enabling it in each new incarnation to build a better and more refined body with a more capable and understanding mind, that eventually will be able to receive conscious directions from the soul. For do not forget that it is the soul that is doing the growing and the building of each successive personality or stalk, and that necessarily it is responsible for all the outer man does and thereby is gradually learning what is right and best to do and what not to do.
+In the course of many lifetimes the soul grows to its maturity—after it has passed through all experiences of life, has learned all that can in the outer world, what it is and is not, and what it cannot supply; and that only within, in the Kingdom, where self and its desires do not exist, can it find happiness, peace and completion—when it surrenders wholly to the One there Who is its True and Only Self, its Father in Heaven.
+IN SUCH study of the growth and enfoldment of the life in a seed, noting just how it builds and develops its stalk or body season after season up to maturity, and then puts out blossoms and bears fruit in ever increasing quantity each succeeding year, will be seen how the soul of man unfolds its potentialities lifetime after lifetime, from its first expression as an infant soul in the “cave man,” a million or more years ago, through all its succeeding expressions up to the average modern man—now, comparatively speaking, only ten years old in Spiritual unfoldment.
+For remember, it is God, the One Life, or Spirit, that is unfolding in man and that it, as the I AM or Divine Self, is the intrinsic nature of his soul ever working to round out and perfect Its channel of expression, even as the soul of man, or I AM, his Inner Self, in the baby, child and boy, ever works to grow and unfold its channel of expression.
+And remember, this Spirit of man, this I AM or Divine Self, is the Light hidden in his seed or soul which has lighted him and has grown and unfolded him from the beginning, and that Light is the idea or image of Jesus Christ, or his Spiritual nature, that from the beginning has purposed to come into expression as the perfect fruit of man.
+From this study of the seed you can now also see how the seed of man, when first placed as a soul in the Garden of Eden in the image and likeness of God as a future Jesus Christ, having all the potentialities of God, could not grow and unfold its potentialities there—that was but the creation and completion of man as an idea in consciousness. Before that seed or idea could be of any value or accomplish its intended destiny it had to be planted in fertile soil, and of course that soil was the soil of humanity, or of the outer human consciousness—which contained all the nutriment of experience which would call forth, develop and unfold the vast potentialities and powers of the soul, or of Jesus Christ, hidden deep within the darkness of the human or outer consciousness, and unknown to it.
+In other words as the sole purpose of planting any seed is to bring forth all the potentialities and possibilities hidden within it, so the planting of the soul of man as a seed in the consciousness of humanity was to grow man and all human souls into their fruitage as Jesus Christs. Therefore, when man was “driven” from the Garden of Eden was when he was first planted as a seed in the soil of humanity, and all these million years he has been but growing his stalk, branches and leaves, and now being as an average human being but ten years old, he is far from his maturity as Jesus Christ.
+Of course, however, there have been some seeds that were planted in humanity’s soil that, through special cultivation, care and nourishment, have grown much faster than others, accounting for the many different stages of unfoldment in the various stalks; while a very few, comparatively, have reached the blossoming stage and are bearing fruit, indicated by Jesus of Nazareth being called the “First fruit of them that slept.” As before stated there must be a considerable number since who have followed Him into the fruitage stage.
+But how may one know when the fruitage stage of the soul is reached? Only when selfless, impersonal Love blossoms forth in the outer life, or when the Christ is born in the soul and from then on Love begins to influence the outer man in all that he does.
+Try to realize that the souls of most men are “asleep,” and therefore, having not yet wakened up, they are not ready as yet or able to express their true nature because they have not reached the blossoming time of life. That time arrives only when the outer mind has been taught, trained and disciplined by much suffering and experience fully to understand the meaning of Love and Selfless Service. Then, as with a flower, the bud of the soul opens, and the pure consciousness of something far greater than what formerly appeared to the world begins to express itself, and the beauty, fragrance and perfection of the Life within—the Love-life of Jesus Christ, is now born into the outer world.
+Then as with the flower, within the heart of the blossom of selfless service grows to ripeness the fruit of the Love-life—the Wisdom, Power and Loveliness of Jesus Christ. This must result, once the mind of man is open so that the Light and Life hidden within from the beginning can freely express.
+From all this you can now understand what constitutes Spiritual unfoldment; that it does not actually begin until the soul’s maturity or the blossoming time of man’s life, when Selfless Love begins to express. It also explains why so comparatively few of humanity are grown up, and the vast majority are still as ten year old boys Spiritually. It is because all of their forces are being used to grow and build strong, sturdy stocks of self, wherein their souls are reaching out and striving to get every possible thing—food, substance, light, air, power—that will satisfy the desires and needs of the personality. In this they are concerned only with self’s not with others’ needs. Concern about others’ needs does not come until the soul has gained Spiritual understanding, has reached maturity and has grown beyond selfishness.
+We have tried to give you a clearer understanding of what is this mysterious soul of us, which is nothing but the invisible and real self of man. The soul is the real and only man, is that which is living in his body and which discards it at so-called death and disappears into an inner world only to come forth again in another body when all the essence of the experiences of the previous life has been digested and assimilated and thereby has been built into its consciousness.
+In time when the soul has learned all that it can learn about the meaning and purpose of human life, so that there is nothing more to be gained from physical experience, it reaches maturity, and the results of the Spiritual knowledge and power gained from such experience blossom forth in the life in the teaching of its truths to others and thus helping their Spiritual growth.
+This unfolds and ripens the soul to its perfect fruitage—a period similar to that shown to the world by Jesus after His baptism in the Jordan, when in His Christ Consciousness He performed all the wondrous works of His Father in Heaven.
+Then, having accomplished the full redemption of His lower nature, the flesh could no longer hold Him, as proven by His crucifixion of self and His resurrection from it. So will it be eventually with all souls, when they first understand the full meaning of His Life, and then prove they are willing and able to follow Him all the way to union with Him.
+</WRAP>
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