THE TEACHINGS on the Soul in this Magazine, which have received such a wide response because of their satisfying many questioning minds that are beginning to realize they are more than their bodies and human personalities, have at the same time caused confusion in other minds that are following other teachings, similar in many respects to what are given herein, but which are definitely contrary to what is taught about the Soul.

There has been a great deal of hazy and incomplete information—so-called—given out about the Soul in the past, but it has remained for the Sun Center to put into printed form for the first time complete and authentic information that satisfies both the mind and the soul—that authority within which must be satisfied before anything can be finally accepted and known to be so. And in this article we propose both to ask and to answer certain questions that will help those who are thus confused to see clearly the error of certain statements given out as facts by some “teachers” looked up to as authorities.

We recognize that undoubtedly such teachers believe they are stating truths, but as all expressed truths come through human minds, until these minds have become perfect and selfless instruments and have first been taught all the truth about any subject, what is expressed is naturally colored and limited by the accepted beliefs of such minds.

What is stated herein, should be in no way construed as criticizing or condemning such teachings, for its sole purpose is to help clear up the confusion in the minds of earnest seekers on this most vital subject, hoping that it will enable all such as well as the teachers themselves to round out and perfect their understanding of it.

Above all things we urge in reading the statements that follow, that each one be studied and meditated upon, always listening to the quiet voice within for corroboration, confirmation and possible application of what is stated, before accepting anything as so; or if it cannot be accepted as yet because of disturbance of conflicting ideas, so that the quiet voice cannot be heard, lay the statement aside and wait until the disturbance subsides, when the voice will speak and show you just what it wants you to accept.

Of course, nothing should be accepted on the authority of another, no matter how high in understanding you deem him to be—even though you should consider him a Master; for nothing is really true to you until your own Master, the God-Self within, approves it, and when alone you should accept it as so. Anyone who asks you to accept something solely on his authority is trying to influence you to his way of thinking for selfish ends. You may be sure of that.

A CERTAIN teacher who issues weekly messages and for whom we have a high regard because of his constantly turning his followers to the Lord within, has made definite statements about the soul that need to be discussed and corrected so that all of his followers who read this Magazine may fully understand and there may be no uncertainty about it. As you will see he positively states that there is no such thing as a soul, as taught in these pages—that there is only the outer human mind and body, and the perfect God-Self inhabiting the body. We feel that the taking up the statements which follow and explaining each in detail will help make the whole subject clear to all of our readers as well as to those confused by such statements:

(1) “Many have taught that there is some sort of a ‘soul’ between the human being, with his mind and body, and the inner God-Being. Such an idea is utterly false. The ‘soul’ about which the Bible speaks IS the human being, (our emphasis). The human being, as the ordinary man knows himself, is simply a physical body with a conscious mind and a vague idea that he has some sort of connection with what is vaguely called ‘God’.”

(2) “There is no such thing as a young soul or an old soul; for all inner souls are eternal, not subject to age, without beginning and without end; and are perfect in wisdom, knowledge and understanding, having no need of experience in human form to teach them anything.” You will note that he seems to think there is an inner and an outer soul—the outer soul being the imperfect human being and the inner soul being the perfect God-Being.

(3) “The God-Being incarnates into the human being for one purpose, namely, to learn eternal life and perfect functioning so that human being, if he will only respond and let it be so. The God-Being does not come into the body to ‘learn’ something or to gain ‘experience’.” The awakened (our emphasis) human being knows that it is in accordance with the Divine Plan that his physical body, with its mind, should Ascend with the Divine Body and Christ Mind of his God-Self. And he also knows that he can live now in the ascended conscious state, and still live among men . . . so that he does not look to death nor to the end of physical life for the time of Ascension.”

(4) “That which leaves the body at death is perfect—no matter what the body and its mind may have done contrary to the direction of the God-Self. There are no evil entities other than the visible, physical, ordinary, human beings known as mankind.”

We have numbered these statements for reference, and (1) shows how vague is the general understanding about the Soul, especially as used in the Bible, and naturally so; for sometimes as used it refers to the life in the body, sometimes to the outer physical man, and then again to something that is other than the life or the man, and must mean something within and different from the outer personality.

Our brother, however, seems to think that the Bible intends that we believe the soul is meant to refer to the “outer man or human being,” although in many places it speaks of the soul as being something much more than the human part. So we must not take just his word for it. Look up the Bible references in Deut. 11:13, Job 10:1 and 33:22, Psalms 16:10, Is. 55:3, Mat. 10:28, Acts 2:31, and carefully consider each statement; when you will plainly see that the soul must be something “in between” the human being and the inner God-Being.

In (2) is definitely stated that he believes that all souls are “eternal” and “perfect,” without beginning and ending, despite we are definitely told in the first chapter of Genesis that all men were made in the sixth era, and that not until the second chapter and in the seventh era did the Lord God breathe the “breath of life” into man and make him into a living soul and then place him in the Garden of Eden.

All of which is highly symbolical, but is clear evidence that the soul, once it becomes a “living” soul, has to attain or earn immortality; because the Lord God said, “Behold the man has become as one of us (through eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil); and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever, Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.”

Are not all men now trying to win their way back into the Garden of Eden by facing the Cherubim and Their flaming swords and proving their right to live therein, and thus gain eternal life? And remember it is the soul only that was ever in the Garden of Eden, for immediately after breathing the breath of life into him and thus making man into a living soul, God placed him in the Garden, which He newly created for him as a soul. We all know that the Garden of Eden is an inner state of being or consciousness, and we have shown in these teachings that it is the soul consciousness created by God for man as that higher state to which he may turn whenever he has earned his ability to do so.

THIS brings us now to the consideration of just what is the soul. Our brother as you can see claims our “inner” souls are the God-Selves of us, although any thinker after considering the above and what follows will quickly decide it is not intended that we so believe in the Bible. For did not the Lord God, or man’s God-Self, talk with the soul of Man in the Garden and command him what and what not to do. But man’s soul disobeyed, and so man was driven from the Garden or his soul consciousness into his outer consciousness, with only his now separate mind henceforth on which to depend.

And that was way back in the beginning of the race, and we have shown in the article on “Ancient Skulls” in the November issue how man has since lived in his outer or mind consciousness about a million years—the time determined by Science. This being so, and if “inner” souls are “perfect” in wisdom and understanding as claimed, of which in the Garden man certainly did not give much evidence—from his yielding so easily to temptation, what has become of these million years; and why are so many people still in little better condition than animals—consider the savages of Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands, the coolies of China, not to speak of many of the peasants of Europe?

If there are no young or old souls, let the believers of this explain the vast difference between the souls of such savages, coolies and peasants, and the aristocrats of Europe, the great captains of industry of America, and the intellectual giants of the twentieth Century; and also why are the former here on earth at all, if (3) the God-Being incarnates only to bring eternal life and perfect functioning to all human beings? In a million years their God-Selves have not gotten very far with their expressions. Why? And how many more millions of years will it take to make them into intellectual giants—or to bring to them eternal life and perfect functioning?

But our brother says, “The ‘awakened’ human being knows that it is in accordance with the Divine Plan that his physical body, with its mind, shall ascend with the Divine Body and Christ Mind of his God Self.” What is it in man that “awakens,” and how can it awaken in the savage and in the low-type minds, and how can the physical body and mortal mind of such or of anyone “ascend,” and where do they “ascend?” What is it that then lives in an ascended state? Can our brother answer clearly these questions?

He claims there is only the God-Self and the human mind and body. If this is so, where is the God-Self of the savage; where is it in the savage, and what is it in the savage and in all other men that has to be “awakened?” Of course, the answers to these questions must refer to the inner soul or consciousness, but not to the God-Self that is always awake and is the life and spirit of him.

And now again just what is the Soul? Let us go back to that part that was driven out of the Garden of Eden, or out of the soul consciousness. That part our brother rightly calls man. But then just what is man? Man—that particular part of him—is only a center of awareness manifesting in a human mind on the plane of being where his consciousness happens to be established at the time. Think carefully on this statement. But that part is only half of the man—the other and inner half must be the soul, still dwelling within—in the Garden of the Soul—man’s real consciousness.

Almost all men are conscious only of the outer physical plane of being, depending entirely upon the consciousness of their human minds. But there is this inner plane of being, called the soul plane, where the higher part of their consciousness dwells, and from which all the activities of the outer physical man are directed. When man was driven from the Garden, he was separated from his soul, this ever present higher consciousness. In the Garden, mind and soul were one and all the inner powers were his—he had “dominion over all the kingdoms.” Being now out of the Garden and dwelling in his mind consciousness, he is conscious only of outer things and no longer of his soul and the powers or things in the Garden.

The soul and its powers have remained always within, in the Garden, however, and but await man’s recognition to function for him consciously, and to direct, guide and teach him in all that he does. But that has now to be earned “by the sweat of his face;” which means by life’s experience—by many, many lives’ experience (witness the million years already spent at it), until man grows sufficiently in understanding and comes to his “awakening.”

What is it that awakens? Why, his soul, of course, which all these million years in the vast majority of human beings has been sleeping, while it was growing and unfolding in consciousness to its blossoming or awakening time, even as with the trees and plants until they come to their blossoming time.

But there are some—only a very few so far—who have awakened and who are yearning and seeking to gain the ability to get back into their soul consciousness and to regain the Garden of Eden, their heavenly home; by equipping themselves with all the wisdom and understanding obtainable in the outer life; by learning from experience what the material world cannot provide; but much more important than all this, by mastering and transmuting the forces of their human natures that drew and held them in the outer physical plane of consciousness.

The real man then is a soul which created for itself an outer center of awareness in a brain-mind, for the sole purpose of mastering and lifting up these forces, thus permitting their perfect functioning and the gaining of eternal life, as our brother says. But this could not be accomplished alone. Even as the outer mind in each earth body has been directed, guided and taught by the inner soul, so has the soul from the beginning been directed and taught by the Higher Self—the God-Being within, and has had built into its consciousness the essence of knowledge and power gained by the mind in each lifetime on earth; thus gradually developing soul understanding and powers that cause man’s outer expression to be what it is today—the savage, the coolie, the aristocrat, the intellectual giant, or the saint—according to how the God-Being within has been able to get the soul and the outer mind of His particular expression to respond to His leading. (3).

The fact that it has taken a million years for many God-Beings to bring their outer expressions no farther than the savage and coolie states of intelligence, and only a very few of them to the saint stage, should give us cause to pause and wonder how many million years it will take to bring all humanity to the saint stage—or to full maturity. All this despite our brother’s saying that “the God-Being does not come into the body to ‘learn’ something or to gain ‘experience’,” with which we fully agree. But He must come into human expression in order through experience to develop and teach the consciousness in the body—which we know is the soul—everything needed to enable it to respond to and ascend into the consciousness of the God Self.

Now here comes the strange logic of our brother. After admitting that the human being has to be brought to the stage where it will respond to and let the God-Self have full charge, yet he says (4) “That which leaves the body at death is perfect—no matter what the body and its mind may have done contrary to the direction of the God-Self.”

One immediately asks, “What about the savage, the criminal and the idiot? Why does the God-Self of them incarnate in such at all? And how does such incarnation in such bodies bring to them eternal life and perfect functioning? Also, if it makes no difference how one disobeys one’s God-Self because after death one will be perfect anyway,—what is the use of trying to be good; why not indulge one’s self in all the lusts of the flesh and enjoy to the full the pleasures of this world by taking what one wants, regardless?”

Our brother tried to answer this last question which he himself stated would possibly be asked, but he became so involved that his answer brought only more confusion. We therefore will leave these questions to our readers to answer, feeling in the light of what has been shown that everyone should now be able to answer them intelligently and satisfactorily to himself, without regard to anyone’s beliefs.

IN THE first year’s issues of this Magazine were published very clear and complete teachings on the Soul that have been supplied under the title of The Inner Life Study Course, and in which will be found detailed and satisfying explanations of all the points on the subject brought out by the statements and questions herein. We refer all interested readers to these teachings.

The 1933 bound volumes containing this Course, however, are now exhausted as well as are all the April and December issues of the Magazine that are a part of the Course. But all of the rest of the individual issues are available as well as are the January to June 1934 issues, at the $3.15 price, for those who wish them, including typewritten copies of the two missing articles.

It is the purpose to publish these articles on the Soul, revising and extending them and adding much new material into a book entitled “The Soul,” and preparing with it a Study Course available to all who wish it. It will be the most complete and satisfying text-book on the Soul in print, and will in time be looked upon as an unquestioned authority on the subject. We hope to have it ready sometime in the Spring.

FOR the information of many who are interested in the Jesus Christ Message concluded in the November issue, and in the Mind articles that began in the June 1934 issue, it is intended to publish the former in booklet form, similar to the The Impersonal Life in style and binding, and as a companion volume thereto, available at the same prices.

The Mind articles will be published as a book on “The Mind,” which will be used as an advanced Course on both the Mind and the Soul, in that it will contain definite and practical instructions for entering the soul consciousness and for working therefrom.

When it is understood that all real Healing and all Inner Work is done from that consciousness, it can be seen how valuable and important will be its teachings. The book will probably be the most complete text-book on the Mind and its workings in print, especially so as it will be devoted to the use of the mind and to the wise development of its powers.

As with the book on “The Soul,” a Study Course will be prepared with many questions for careful study and application of its truths, which will be supplied separately to those applying for it.

It is planned to publish these three books during the coming year.