The Changeless Soul

[Note: the following is my response to a question raised yesterday on this blog.]

You say the soul does not change. What then, is the purpose served by the changing self image? Say one begins believing themself to be a lowly worm of the dust. Through a series of experiences (both good and bad) and helpful teachers their self image changes and they come to accept they are essentially good, indeed, a child of God, made in God’s image and likeness. Correspondingly, their countenance changes, their whole persona changes and they exude a positive, loving, helpful spirit.

There are many advantages to improving the self-image. In our interactions with the world, a buoyant, effervescent self-image will obviously open doors that a dreary, self-loathing attitude will not. A flashlight with fresh batteries is preferred over one with very low batteries. The light produced by the first is more useful than the dim, yellow circle of light put out by the weaker batteries.

One who believes him or herself to be a lowly worm of the dust will feel undeserving. What, after all, does a worm have to offer the world? The light of their self-image will be dim and yellow and only others with the same dim, yellow light will find them attractive. Misery loves company, as we say.

On the other hand, the self-image that is built upon the belief that its owner is a child of God made in God’s image and likeness, enjoys a level of confidence that will brighten the room when they enter. Their batteries are new, fresh and cast a strong white light of confidence. Without saying a word about their spiritual beliefs, this person will be most attractive to others. As misery loves company, so does self-confidence. This person will get the jobs, get the promotions and generally find their path through life much easier.

So we think of the self-image as a flashlight with varying levels of battery power. One suffering from a very low self-image can indeed have their batteries recharged. They too can learn, through a positive lifting of self-esteem, that the job, the promotion and the easier path of life may be theirs as well. The entire multi-billion-dollar industry of self-improvement is based on this fact. And it is a good thing. Or at least it is until something higher begins knocking at one’s inner door.

If we compare a bright flashlight to a dim one, it is not difficult to see which is better and actually more useful. But let’s make another comparison. Let’s compare the sun to the brightest flashlight. The sun is so brilliant that even the strongest beam from the best flashlight pales in its radiance. And the batteries of the sun are never depleted. The earth moves in relation to the sun and we have day and night, winter and summer, but the sun itself does not change. The sun and its light are far superior to the best of flashlights.

The self-image is the flashlight. The sun is the soul. A bright flashlight is preferred over a dim one, but the sun is preferable to both. It is an entirely different thing. If I were born and raised in a room lighted only by the flashlight, my preference would be to have the best batteries I could afford. If someone told me about this abstract notion of sunlight, I would do my best to imagine it. It would be something like the greatest flashlight in the world.

If the day came, however, when someone would show me a door leading into the sunlight, and I stepped out into it, the experience would be so overwhelmingly powerful I would have to go back into the darkness. My eyes could not stand that much light. From that day forward, a strange thing would happen. My brightest flashlight would not seem so bright. Why? Because I moved from holding a concept of the sun to having an actual experience with it.

When Jesus referred to the seed that is dropped into the soil and dies before it can become the fruit-bearing plant, he was stating what must happen to the self-image. The self-image is the world of flashlights, which is good until we experience the soul. Then we understand that the self-image, no matter how bright it is, is still a bushel that covers the radiance of the soul. We do not willingly die to it if we still value our world of flashlights. But the moment that even a slim shaft of sunlight breaks into our awareness, our values instantly shift. I realize I have been making my light, but there is a greater light that is self-existent, self-sustaining. Yes I can brighten my world with my flashlight, but the flood of sunlight that streams in when I throw open my windows and doors changes my world. It changes my world because it changes me. I move from a self-creation to a divine expression that is not dim one day and bright the next.

Why do we study, scouring our books for truth and greater wisdom? Is it not because we intuitively know there is something better than the best we have yet experienced? Is not our quest for enlightenment the quest for greater peace and freedom? That which we seek is not found in even the brightest self-image. It is found only in the soul.

Those gifted to see auras attest to some auras being dark and of a low, repelling vibration. Other auras are light, pleasing, and vibrate at a higher frequency. As one’s self image improves, it stands to reason that the attending aura likewise improves, becoming lighter. If the aura is connected with, and shows the ‘state’ of the soul (as some clairvoyants claim,), it would seem that the soul can, and DOES change in correspondence to the changing self image. If it changes it is, logically speaking, not complete. Your thoughts, and thanks.

I do not have the gift for seeing auras, but like most people, I have the ability to discern a light countenance from a dark one. Same thing though less refined. In addition, most of us read more about a person than what they say in words. We see things in their body language, in the inflection of their tone, in the glance of an eye or many other signals. Sometimes we will not buy what they are trying to sell even when it sounds wonderful. Other times we trust them for no apparent reason.

Yes, a brighter self-image produces a brighter countenance. But let’s return to our dark room for a moment. Does the fact that our blinds are drawn have anything to do with the sun shining outside? If we decide to open the blinds and let the sunlight stream in, are we making the sun do something it was not doing moments earlier? Does the sun change because we open the blinds? No.

In this case, the blind is like the self-image. Some people keep their blinds drawn, some crack them open a bit and others open them all the way. The fully enlightened individual leaves the room altogether and goes outside.

The soul, like the sun, is complete. It is our level of experience with the sun that changes. The time comes when I see greater value in the sun than I see in maintaining and fortifying the self-image. In that day I can truthfully say, If you have seen me, you have seen the sun.