We have discussed in the first two parts of this series, what I perceive as the misconceptions about death and the possible sources of these traditions and misconceptions. Then we covered what the Ageless Wisdom teaches on the process of the death of the physical body and the staged withdrawal of the indwelling consciousness or Soul. I would like now to address the reverse process that occurs when after a period of repose the Soul seeks again to venture into the physical world to gain more experience and also to put into practice what it has learned about functioning in that world.
The soul on its own plane does not record experiences per se. It has no gender or nationality. It has no personality and is not simply a disembodied person. It really only registers growth and is increased in its capacity to create on the physical plane through experience. Memories are available through access to the storehouse known as the Akashic Records, but as it incarnates it does not bring with it any recollections of those experiences accept in fairly rare cases where children recount events of past “lives” they have lived. This formed the basis for much of the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson. He found that in these cases physical attributes seemed to carry over as well. There are likely many more cases of this that are written off by parents as fantasy or suppressed by them for the same reason until the child is convinced that these things are dreams that never happened. It is actually fortunate in a way that we do not remember our distant past. Memories of past wrongs could impede progress just as memories of past accomplishments could lead to an inflated sense of self, another impediment.
My father used an analogy of a computer and its programmer as a utility to express the function of the Personality (the computer) and the Programmer (the Soul). Imagine a programmer who has had as his task the tracking of inventory in a company in the past (life) and now is tasked with the tracking of payroll records. His new computer has no need for the inventory records in its memory and although his expertise increased through the experience he gained and his capacity to understand computers was enhanced through that process, even the programmer has no direct use for the information that was imperative in his last assignment.
So the Soul enters a new episode with the fruits of the past in capacity of expression without the un-necessary and cumbersome information about every detail. Residing in the causal body, a sheath of very fine and rarified matter on the upper mental planes it extends from itself a thread of light known as the anthakarana. Strung upon this thread are the Physical, Astral, and Mental “permanent atoms” containing all of the capacities it has gained in the experiences of the past and that it will use in constructing the new mental, emotional, and physical bodies of the coming incarnation. Don’t get hung up on the word atom as it is represented by science. That picture in your head is a cartoon anyway. The word is simply a representation of an indivisible unit of some substance. Having split atoms in the laboratory for decades, science itself admits this is a misnomer. We are talking about the smallest possible remnant of each of the three aspects of personality that is carried with the Soul in order to create a new form. I know it is hard to wrap your head around a concept like this but your physical body was created from a single cell and all the instructions to create a multi-billion celled infant in the course of nine months was held in a strand of DNA. Think of this as “Psychic DNA”.
This foray into the “three worlds” of evolution is done with purpose and in order to accomplish certain ends or growth, so it chooses a situation that will foster the possibility of that growth. Souls are said to incarnate in groups with so called “karmic ties”. A child born into a family today may have been that family’s matriarch in generations past, or someone with particularly close ties to one of the family members. If you have heard the complaint that some child has not chosen his or her parents, the Ageless Wisdom teachings contradict that notion directly. You are where you are out of your own choice and creation. This is true within a single incarnation and the much longer all encompassing life of the Soul as well.
In the perfect economy of nature nothing is lost and the new bodies will reflect the capacities and level of refinement acquired through previous incarnations. So, if I am eating and living in a way that is really purifying my body, I will theoretically carry over that purity into the creation of the next one. For this reason, it is never too late to do anything to make amends for past wrongs, even on one’s death bed. It is never too late to begin purifying the physical body, strengthening the mind or subduing the emotions. “I’m too old to change” doesn’t hold water here.
The Soul broods over an essentially useless body through the age of infancy and appropriates the physical body between the ages of four and seven. This corresponds to western psychology’s assertion of the formative years. These are the years in which outside influences of environment set the stage for all further development. The second crisis in the development of the individual happens between 14 and 17 years when the emotional body is appropriated. Anyone who has had a teenager in their home can attest to this as an emotional turmoil of the highest degree. The lower self always rebels against the imposition of control by the Soul and discipline is needed to further development. In these early stages there really is no choice. The mental body is appropriated between the ages of 25 and 28. This does not mean that the personality is fully integrated. Far from it. What is happening up to this point is really a re-capitulation of the previous spiritual development.
The soul now has a vehicle which is fully capable of responding to its impressions, if it is interested. Now is when the personality’s choices really come into the picture. You have to grow up. You don’t have to behave as a grownup. I know men in their 50’s who act like (and think like) they are still 12. If it is going to happen, the Personality really opens the door to this impression, either voluntarily or as the result of some crisis. The person has to begin to identify with the inner thinker rather than the outer expression. Sometimes this is a result of dissatisfaction and sometimes it comes as a result of the loss of all that with which it had previously identified itself. Life crises are often the focal point of revelation.
Eckhard Tolle points to being about to lose everything and in deep despair when he describes going down a tunnel in his consciousness releasing everything and emerging into bliss. He spent the better part of the next five months homeless and on park benches in what he describes as pure presence; a state of open, non judgmental consciousness or enlightenment. All that had been the source of “self”, the mental constructs and associations was gone, leaving just the witness or Soul.
I don’t believe that it is necessary to lose everything to gain enlightenment. We just have to lose our unhealthy and unproductive attachments to the material world. Revelation is said to come as a series of recognitions leading to a change in identification. You are a soul. Recognition of this and then the subsequent functioning as a Soul in the world but not of the world is the task at hand. Your level of accomplishment at this task will represent the foundation upon which the next one will be constructed.
