There are certain words that are used by different people to mean so many different things, that the words almost become useless. One example of this is the word “soul.” It has been used for centuries by different religious and spiritual teachings to mean many different things. And it is often used without clearly defining it, based on the assumption that people know what it means.
In previous teachings, the ascended masters used the word “soul” pretty much like most other teachings use it, meaning without defining it clearly. Yet, today they offer us a more nuanced understanding by breaking the soul, or the lower being, into different components.
Many spiritual people accept the concept of reincarnation, and it is commonly assumed that it is the soul that reincarnates. This also leads to the common assumption that the soul was created in a higher realm and then descended into the material realm. Which means it is the soul that ascends back to the spiritual realm.
This then leads to two common ideas about what you need to do in order to get your soul to qualify for reentry into the spiritual realm:
- The soul has “fallen” or descended into a lower state, so it no longer qualifies. Thus, you need to compensate for the errors you have made and purify or raise the soul.
- The soul is meant to be perfected, thus it is your task to raise your soul to a state of perfection (however it is defined).
What can revolutionize your understanding of the soul is the concept of the Conscious You. The core understanding is that it was the Conscious You that originally descended and started the process of you being in embodiment in the material world. Thus, it is the Conscious You that has the potential to ascend back to the spiritual realm.
Yet this ascension process does NOT happen by the Conscious You compensating for an imperfect state or seeking to attain a state of perfection based on earthly or man-made criteria. On the contrary, the Conscious You can ascend ONLY by fulfilling its highest potential, which is to be in a state of pure awareness, where it can function as an open door for the Presence.
This has two aspects. First, the Presence can express itself through the open door of the Conscious You, by letting its light flow into the material realm. Secondly, the Presence can experience the material world through the clear pane of glass of the Conscious You.
In other words, in its highest state the Conscious You has no individuality or sense of self as a separate being. It sees itself as nothing more and nothing less than an open door for the Presence to express itself in this world and as a clear pane of glass for the Presence to experience this world. The Conscious You in this state sees itself as the I Will Be aspect of the I AM Presence.
The Conscious You in its highest state has no perception filter. Thus, it does not block or hold back any expression from the Presence and it does not block anything it experiences from reaching the Presence. The Conscious You does not judge after appearances, but allows the Presence to evaluate its experiences, and then learn from them, storing the results in the causal body. Compare this to how often we evaluate our intuitive insights to see whether they are appropriate according to an earthly standard and how often we seek to hide something from God.
It is now important to understand that the Conscious You did not originally descend in this state. Let us look at why.
How the Conscious You descended
As explained in 36 Ideas, the material world is created from spiritual light that was reduced in vibration by the reduction factors represented by the seven rays. This means that the material world was originally at a certain level of vibration, meaning it was made from energies that had a greater density than the spiritual realm. This accounts for the fact that we do not directly perceive the spiritual realm through our physical senses. The senses are attuned to the vibrations in the material frequency spectrum, and they are currently so much lower than the spiritual vibrations that our senses cannot bridge the gap and “see” the spiritual realm (many spiritual people can sense spiritual energies intuitively, but generally not through the physical senses).
The purpose of creating the material realm with a higher density is to facilitate the growth of self-aware beings—us. By descending into a realm where there is no direct perception of the spiritual, we have the opportunity to gradually raise our consciousness, until we can serve as an open door between the spiritual and the material realm. By going through this process, we also help to raise the vibrations of the material realm, until it vibrates at the level of the spiritual realm. This process is explained in greater detail in the article LINK about the creation of the spheres.
For the purpose of the present discussion, the important point is that the Conscious You does not descend with its highest self-awareness. The Conscious You is created with a point-like sense of self that it has the potential to raise through many levels, until it attains the same omni-present sense of self as the Creator.
In order to descend into the denser vibrations of the material universe, the Conscious You needs a vehicle, meaning a sense of self that is made from the same vibrations as the material realm. Here is the important realization: the Conscious You takes on this vehicle; it does NOT become the vehicle. The Conscious You is NOT changed by this process; it is only its sense of self – its perception – that is changed. Again, it is like an actor who puts on a costume and makeup in order to play a role in a theater performance—meaning that the actor can take off the costume as easily as it is put on.
Originally, the Conscious You descended into a sense of self that was made from the same base vibrations out of which the material universe was first created. It is this self, this vehicle, that is what we – from a higher perspective – can call the soul.
Yet take note that this soul was NOT created in the spiritual realm, nor was it created from the vibrations of the spiritual realm. It was, as the Bible says, created from dust, meaning material energies. Thus, the soul – according to this definition – did not descend and consequently cannot ascend. It is the Conscious You that can ascend, but only when it stops identifying itself with or as the soul and instead attains its highest potential—the state of pure awareness in which it sees itself as one with the Presence.
However, there is a subtle distinction to be made. The soul has what most people call individuality or personality. Yet this was created based on the conditions found in the material universe when the Conscious You first descended. The personality and individuality you have today is a product of the experiences you have had during your sojourn in the material world. So things have likely been added to the original soul into which the Conscious You descended.
Yet all of this outer personality and individuality is NOT who you are. You truly are the individuality anchored in your I AM Presence. This individuality can potentially be expressed through the Conscious You, but the outer personality you have created as a reaction to conditions in the material world will block or color this expression.
Thus, it is NOT a matter of perfecting the outer personality; it is a matter of transcending it. This means two things. The soul is created from certain beliefs that then qualify the spiritual energies with a lower vibration. We might say that the ideas or beliefs that define your soul create a matrix or mesh, and the energies you qualify through those belief fill up the “cage” with greater and greater density. The more dense the energies become, the more the Conscious You will identify itself with the soul, and the more difficult it will be for you to extricate yourself from this identification.
Thus, the key to spiritual growth is to begin to raise the vibration of the energies stored in your soul, as transcendence tools are designed to do. As the density becomes less, the Conscious You will begin to have glimpses of higher state of awareness. First, they will be intuitive flashes or a sense that there must be more to life. Then there will be a sense of being connected to something greater. And finally, you will begin to have glimpses of pure awareness, where you directly experience that the Conscious You is MORE than your lower individuality.
This is when you can begin to seriously question the beliefs that make up your soul, gradually raising your sense of self until you attain a sense of oneness with your Presence. In the process of doing this, you will also help raise the vibration of the material universe and you will help question the beliefs in the mass consciousness, making it easier for other people to raise their consciousness. Eventually, as enough people do this, the entire planet will be raised to a higher level, where it becomes obvious to most that life has a spiritual side.
Yet, let us return to the central idea here. The outer personality and individuality – the outer self – that you currently have was created over many lifetimes as a reaction to the imperfect conditions in the material world. Thus, it can NEVER be perfected so that it can ascend to the spiritual realm. What can ascend is the Conscious You that first descended. Yet the Conscious You can ascend only by coming to disidentify itself from the outer self.
It does so by transcending the limiting beliefs and raising the energies that make up the soul. Thus, in a sense one can say that the soul is raised, but it is not raised as a separate self. The limiting beliefs are dissolved and the lower energies are accelerated to a higher vibration. If you put a pot of water on the stove and let it boil until all the water is gone, would you say the water was raised into a higher realm? Or would you say the water was accelerated to a higher state—steam?
The point being that most of us have been tricked into following an outer path, where we seek to use a spiritual teaching to perfect the soul according to some standard. Yet the soul can never be perfected; it must be allowed to die gradually. Saint Paul said; “I die daily,” meaning that a bit of his soul died as he let go of limiting beliefs. jesus himself allowed himself to be crucified in order to illustrate that the Conscious You is crucified (immobilized) by its identification with the outer self or soul. The last act of Jesus on the cross was to “give up the ghost,” which was a symbol for the last remnant of his soul/outer self.
So as Jesus said: “No man can ascend back to heaven, save he that descended from heaven.” And the “man” that descended was the Conscious You, which ascends by becoming aware of its true identity—as the I Will Be aspect of the I AM Presence. In other words, the “soul” is NOT what originally took embodiment. It is something that has been created and added on to over many lifetimes. Thus, what reincarnates is both the Conscious You and the soul. Yet what originally incarnated was the Conscious You only.
On the following pages, we will look at some of the other aspects of your lower being, some of which are part of your soul.
Copyright © by Kim Michaels