In narrowing the concept down to the microcosm, the ego or
soul acts verily as the middle principle connecting [48] the Hierarchy of Monads with
outer diversified forms which they use sequentially in the process of:
- Gaining certain experiences, resulting in acquired attributes.
- Working out certain effects, initiated in an earlier system.
- Cooperating in the plan of the solar Logos in relation to His (if one may use a pronoun
in speaking of a life which is an existence and yet is an extended concept) Karma - a
point oft overlooked. This Karma of His must be worked out through the method of
incarnation and the subsequent result of the incarnated energy upon the substance of the
form. This is symbolized for us, if we could but grasp it, in the relation of the sun to
the moon. "The Solar Lord with his warmth and light galvanizes the moribund Lunar
Lords into a spurious life. This is the great deception; and the Maya of His
Presence." - So runs the Old Commentary oft quoted by me in earlier
books. The above concept has in it truth for the individual soul likewise.
This middle principle is in process of revelation now. The lower aspect is functioning.
The higher remains unknown, but that which links them (and at the same time reveals the
nature of the higher) is on the verge of discovery. The structure, the mechanism, is now
ready and developed to its point of usefulness; the vital life that can guide and motivate
the machine is likewise present, and man now can intelligently use and control, not only
the machine, but the active principle.
The great symbol of the soul in man is his vital or etheric body and for the following
reasons:
- It is the physical correspondence to the inner light body we call the soul body, the
spiritual body. It [49] is called the "golden bowl" in the Bible and is
distinguished by:
- Its light quality.
- Its rate of vibration, which synchronizes always with the development of the soul.
- Its coherent force, linking and connecting every part of the body structure.
- It is the microcosmic "web of life" for it underlies every part of the
physical structure and has three purposes:
- To carry throughout the body the life principle, the energy which produces activity.
This it does through the medium of the blood, and the focal point for this distribution is
the heart. It is the conveyor of physical vitality.
- To enable the soul, or human yet spiritual man to be en rapport with his environment.
This is carried forward through the medium of the entire nervous system and the focal
point of that activity is the brain. This is the seat of conscious receptivity.
- To produce eventually, through life and consciousness, a radiant activity, or
manifestation of glory which will make of each human being a center of activity for the
distribution of light and attractive energy to others in the human kingdom, and through
the human kingdom, to the subhuman kingdoms. This is a part of the plan of the planetary
Logos for the vitalizing and renewing of the vibration of those forms which we designate
subhuman.
- This microcosmic symbol of the soul not only underlies the entire physical structure and
thus is a symbol of the anima mundi, or the world soul, but is indivisible, coherent and a
unified entity, thereby symbolizing the unity and homogeneity [50] of God. There are no
separated organisms in it, but it is simply a body of freely flowing force, that force
being a blend or unification of two types of energy in varying quantities, dynamic energy,
and attractive or magnetic energy. These two types characterize the universal soul
likewise - the force of will, and of love, or of atma and buddhi, and it is the play of
these two forces on matter that attracts to the etheric body of all forms the needed
physical atoms and that - having so attracted them - by the will force drives them into
certain activities.
- This coherent unified body of light and energy is the symbol of the soul in that it has
within it seven focal points, wherein the condensation, if it must be so called, of the
two blended energies is intensified. These correspond to the seven focal points in the
solar system, wherein the Solar Logos, through the seven Planetary Logoi, focuses His
energies. This will be later elaborated. The point to be noted here is simply the symbolic
nature of the etheric or vital body, for it is by understanding the nature of the energies
displayed and the unified nature of the form and work that some idea as to the work of the
soul, the middle principle in nature, can be grasped.
- The symbolism is also carried forward when one remembers that the etheric body links the
purely physical, or dense body with the purely subtle, the astral or emotional body. In
this is seen the reflection of the soul in man which links the three worlds
(corresponding to the solid, liquid and gaseous aspects of the strictly physical body of
man) to the higher planes in the solar system, linking thus the mental to the buddhic and
the mind to the intuitional states of consciousness. [51]
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