The Inner Life

AS AN ANSWER to our Editorial on The Soul of last month we received a four page closely typewritten “Open Letter” from the Brother whose statements contradicted the teachings given in these pages, and requesting that we publish same in the Magazine.

But as nothing could be gained by so doing, and as what was stated in the Editorial was intended to clarify the subject for our readers and especially for those of his students who were receiving the Magazine and who naturally would be confused by the conflicting statements, we feel, inasmuch as his “Open Letter” will reach all of the latter and speak for itself, that it would be useless to take up our space with such personal arguments in which our readers would have no interest, having no knowledge of who was the Brother mentioned.

Instead we will leave the matter as it stands, allowing all receiving the “Open Letter” to compare the conflicting statements, asking them however to read our Editorial again carefully and then take up his arguments paragraph by paragraph, and decide for themselves dispassionately which to accept. Our statements were plain enough for anyone with an open mind to get their full intended meaning. If any are unable to accept their truth, then they must believe what better suits them.

And really what matters is what anyone believes? It is what one knows that alone counts. And each one must sometime know for one’s self. Study carefully all that appears in this issue on the subject of the soul, and it will help everyone to know.

Let all students keep in mind that the doctrine of the soul as a living entity, whose consciousness enters the body at birth and leaves it at death, and reincarnates in successive bodies until freed of all desires of earth, has been taught in all ancient religions from the beginning, and is one of the foundation principles of the “Secret Doctrine”; as all true inner teachings testify. Therefore, let no modern teachings or authorities that claim differently disturb you, if something within confirms this existence of your own soul.

Surely the Impersonal Teachings have made clear that God is All in all, and that everything but expresses some phase of His Being. Those of us who really know this are trying to lead all souls, from the most ignorant to those who have but an intellectual concept of its meaning, to a clear understanding of the next stage of unfoldment awaiting each, and to help each aspiring one through that stage. But we know that no one can reach the Kingdom before he has earned it, and he cannot earn it until he has developed his mind and all his faculties so that it has become a selfless and perfect instrument for the use of his Christed soul.

Neither can one really know this until he is able to “step down” from the “heights” of his knowing to the consciousness of the one he would help, to see clearly through the latter’s eyes, and can lovingly and patiently explain all that is necessary for such to take the next step—instead of trying to lift him into the Kingdom, or into a consciousness and understanding for which his mind is no more prepared than is a baby’s to understand algebra.

THE following letter came just as the above was finished.

The Soul Articles in THE INNER LIFE Magazine are very lovely, but their inner meaning is reserved only for those who are willing to pay the price—the price of persistence and earnest striving to overcome (come up over).

“A certain teacher in trying to explain the meaning of the soul in the Impersonal Lessons persists in dealing with forms, instead of with consciousness. He says that man always was Spirit (this is true), and that man did not evolve through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms (Of course not). But (this is my idea) “That” which evolved through the three lower kingdoms was not yet man; it was “dust” (consciousness in dense form) and this “dust” was now about ready to take on a higher form.

It was at this stage that the Elohim (Rays of Love) vibrated God’s Spiritual Essence of the Life Stream into the “dust,” which was now beginning to respond to the Law of Being by becoming an individualized form of Spirit—the soul (like sand takes on geometrical forms on a plate when vibrated by a violin bow, or when frost takes on the form of ferns on the window).

And it was at this stage that God said, “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness” (make him an immortal being).

God did not say, “Man is already made, as We the Elohim are immortal).” Hence the “dust,” blessed with the Spiritual substance of the Life Stream, was the beginning of man—the soul.

Man and soul are inseparable. Man as we see him is a form, but his consciousness or soul is what he really is—a consciousness inhabiting a form. And his consciousness is but the “stepped down” consciousness of a Son of God, his Highest Self—a formless Being.

THIS friend, through her persistence, has attained a very clear understanding of the beginning of man—of the soul, and has been rewarded thereby. We tell you again, dear readers, that not only a right understanding of the soul must be gained, but the ability to retire into the consciousness of the soul and know for oneself; and this is the next step to be taken by every earnest seeker of the Kingdom. For the Kingdom cannot be found until one is able to go inward in consciousness to that of the soul, know it for just what it is, and then as a conscious soul follow the Christ into the Kingdom, and there become One with Him in the Father.

Let all who can search out the true meaning of these words, and profit by them.—The EDITOR.