The Concept Of Soul (cont.)
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Cayce surprised himself and everyone around him, when at a reading of an individual in 1923, he closed the session with the words, ″He was once a monk.” Though Casey had been successfully treating and diagnosing physical ailments under hypnosis for years, accurately and specifically detailing care and cause for which he had no education or waking knowledge, Cayce had never considered the possibility of reincarnation, nor had he studied other religions. He was, after all, a strict Protestant. He had already struggled mightily with his peculiar ″psychic” ability in regards to his religion; yet he was convinced of its goodness and its help for people even if it didn’t have a place in the strict orthodoxy of Christian Protestantism. This new reference, then, demanded an explanation and exploration that he would not shy from.
Building and structuring questions designed to clarify and illumine the initial readings, Cayce pursued a course of readings for information that could be verified, and for which he had no knowledge, and which would indicate knowledge of past lives. Looking for first Biblical substantiation, he then turned to philosophers of the ages, and after some years came to the personal conclusion that reincarnation was a valid philosophy. Upon his conclusion, he began an entirely new type of reading for people, and these specifically centered on reincarnation and past lives. Over the next 21 years he gave a total of 2,500 readings for approximately 1,500 people.
These readings offered discourses, comprehensive portraits of personality traits and mental, emotional and physical patterns that arose from past lives. The readings wove a tapestry of connectedness among people who ″…returned to earth again and again in an ever-changing configuration of relationships with one another.” At the very least, Cayce’s readings provide one of the largest collections of written material in support of the theory of reincarnation. Cayce’s intent (as well as that of the Association For Research And Enlightenment, an institute based on his work) was that the readings and the promotion of the idea of reincarnation help people lead healthier, happier and more constructive lives by illustration of the laws of karma and ″understand and to claim a spiritual heritage far richer than most of us would dared to have imagined for ourselves.”
Cayce’s readings would indicate that we are connected to the God who has made us…that our essential selves are not alone and have not to do with us alone. At the essence of each individual is ″spirit,” which is that part made in the image and likeness of God.
The second major premise is that we are individuals—not only part of the larger reality from which we derive our being, but also with an individuality of consciousness. With this consciousness we have the capacity to shape and pattern our spiritual essence into unique expression, through the use of mind. That is, with mind we literally create our reality. The third aspect of our nature is that we are endowed with free will, that we choose which of the mind’s creations we will activate at every moment of experience. (Note that the questions put forth are never really concretely answered).
Throughout Cayce’s readings, the predominant concept iterated again and again, is that “thoughts are things” and that “mind is the builder.” Another huge point in Cayce’s understanding, is that the soul bonds to the material/physical body. That is, becoming incarnate means temporarily being one with the physical form; and as long as we are one with the physical form and the subsequent material existence, then the only direct knowledge we have of ourselves comes through our consciousness while we are in our body. So, then, can the soul really be harmed by physical damage? For those not conscious (or “aware”) of their soul and true self, the temptation is to know themselves only through the physical existence, that is, position with a company or corporation, status within a community, name, and etc. These physical/material labels, for such they are, are not our true selves. Only through conscious awareness of our true selves can we shed the limitations of experience that we are creating around us. This idea of “submerging spiritual identity in matter” rather conflicts with most traditional reincarnation doctrines that are more along the lines of “infusing materiality with spiritual identity.”
According to Cayce, we incarnate to become companions and co-creators with God, and God wants peers who have chosen him freely just as he has chosen them. Reincarnation provides the opportunity for us to become such companions and co-creators. God creates us in ″immature form” so that we may ″grow up” spiritually into unique, adult companions to Him. All of our experiences, life after life, are an opportunity to grow into our fullness as spiritual beings. ″When we remember that it is God whom we are growing up to join, can we wonder that it takes more than the span of one life?” Lynn Sparrow, a student of Cayce’s work and an author of several books based upon his readings, writes in Reincarnation: Claiming Your Past, Creating Your Future (1988) that the soul should be thought of in a child/parent analogy, where the child inevitably takes a detour into rebellion. This rebellion is [in essence] the physical lives that we live before yielding and rejoining the Creator.
Some other Cayce particular points are as follows: ″The arena of choices.” This experience put into the analogy of a practicum, where we have the chance to practice skills learned in spirit mode, within a ″real-life setting.” We learn through experience that the constructive act is that of love and harmony; “The Guidance system of Love.” Karma is not “bad karma” or “good karma,” rather it is neutral. We don’t say that the Law of Gravity is punishing us when we fall. However, the law of cause and effect is the natural expression of the ultimate goodness and harmony of this universe. Our destructive choices run natural to the harmonious flow and thus are discordant and bring discord into our lives. Because we are ignorant of our spiritual selves and our past lives while in the body, we cannot see always the immediate effect on our actions. For example, helping out a neighbor with your last ten dollars doesn’t insure that next week you’ll win the lottery. The two points essential to understanding karma is that 1.) we have chosen all that happens to us, and 2.) we can grow through every experience that life brings our way; “The Destiny of Soul” To be “spiritual companions of God” is the ultimate goal. There is no annihilation of self, but rather that we come to know ourselves as our true selves, devoid of the material and physical limitations, we know ourselves as God knows us, losing the false selves of ego and personality, and become spiritual beings who share the love, creativity, peace and joy with God.
“In the beginning all souls were as a unity to the God-Force. …There is no law causing man to separate himself from his Maker. There is no cause except man’s own indulgence or neglect.” Cayce 3660-1. “In the beginning…” Sparrow and the A.R.E. (the Association for Research and Enlightenment) encourage us to read the following as either a myth of great proportions or as the literal truth. Either way, she claims, the message and values communicated are the same.
We were created as souls before the physical universe came into being. We were given formative power over ourselves “…in order that we might be fully realized.” We were free to create, play and explore the universe, endowed with the creative capacity of mind and the choosing freedom of the will. We could literally create with our minds. As we moved through God’s creation we came into contact with the physical world that was coming into form. “Throughout the planes of reality were four, five, six and untold others of dimensional universes.” “Coming into the earth…” But we were fascinated with the earth. “Perhaps it was the thrill of seeing the creations of our minds take three dimensional form.” Interjection: why would spiritual beings that existed beyond our known limits of time and space become fascinated with the smallest, most limiting situation. “The allure was irresistible to our souls.” Our desire to participate in materiality became an obsession, and we lost our awareness of ourselves as souls. “Adam…” God “adapted” a pre-human physical form to be the perfect vehicle for souls entering material existence. Thus, Adam and Eve became the first two souls to inhabit human bodies.
“What is truth today may be tomorrow only partially so to a developing soul.” Cayce 1297-1. The soul may return as many times and as often as it chooses. The presence of other souls with whom an experience began may be a kind of condition for choosing. Cultural and political climates also have to do with the lesson at hand.
Cayce insists that our experience in reincarnation is limited to the human form. The number of souls…conditions on Earth suggest that this experiential plane is providing the best arena for working out current problems, but there are other planes.
Sparrow wrote in Reincarnation: Claiming Your Past, Creating Your Future (1988), a section entitled, “The Human Body: Key and Clue to the Human Soul.” It begins with idea that a club foot, blindness or some other physical deformity “…naturally gives rise to the inference, in the thinking of a reincarnationist, at least, that there was some past-life cause, probably cruelty, that gave rise to it.” It goes on to say that it also might, “….be indicative of some correspondingly disproportionate or proportionate use of it in the past, and hence some disproportionate or proportionate attitude deep in the psyche.” This runs counter to what we know of Cayce’s religious convictions, as well as to most reincarnationist doctrine, as well as the teaching of Christ, particularly in his healing of the maimed and crippled. For example, in healing the “man who was blind from birth,” Jesus says, “neither this man hath sinned, nor his parents, but that the glory of God might be made manifest.” This sentiment is more along the lines of most spiritual teachers holding reincarnationist beliefs. While the Law of Karma might often bestow an ailment or physical disability with karmic retribution, they would not be speaking in terms of “attitude of the psyche” or necessarily draw a direct correlation of a club foot with someone who “kicked people around” in a previous life.
The Concept Of Karma
The word and the concept seem to arise from the Eastern Indian Hindus, who hold that “Karma is the idea of a completely moral universe in action and practice.” The present condition of each individual’s life is the exact product of what he has wanted and got in the past; and equally, his present thoughts and actions determine his future states.
The Cayce readings (or at least his students’ and followers’ authorized interpretations of his readings) present a list of “propositions that can be regarded as fundamental to the understanding of human destiny and to a system of reincarnationist psychology:
- Karma must not be regarded as purely negative. It has two aspects: continuative and retributive.
- According to the continuative aspect, any action that does not go counter to cosmic economy or cosmic law tends to continue in its effect. Effort is never wasted.
- Thus: Talents and abilities, cultivated in one life, tend to persist in succeeding lives. Sometimes their expression may be inhibited, however, by other karmic life circumstances.
- Also: Traits of character, interests and attitudes toward religion, race, politics, sex, animals, etc. tend to persist in succeeding lives. Introversion and extroversion tend to persist also, unless karma steps in or unless efforts are made for ambiversion.
- According to the retributive aspect of karma, any action that is “evil,” or harmful to the well-being of any other unit of life, is exactly “punished” in a manner proportionate to and appropriate to the original harm done.
- Three kinds of retributive karma could be distinguished in the Cayce readings: Boomerang a man who blinded others in the past finds himself blind in the present; Organismic, a man who eats to excess in one lifetime can suffer from digestive weakness in the next; Symboloic, a person who “turned deaf ears to cries for help in a past life is literally deaf in the present.”
- Retributive karma operates at both the physical and the psychological level.
- Mockery and criticism of others can invoke psychologocia and physical retribution; one suffers the same thing that one has mocked or criticized in others.
- Infidelity to a mate in the past can result in one’s experiencing infidelity from one’s mate in the present.
- Great loneliness or isolation can result from suicide in the past.
- Karma is sometimes “in suspension,” so to speak, for several lifetimes. Cruelty committed in Atlantis, for example, may remain unpaid in five or six intervening lives, and may finally be met in the present life.
- The suspension of karma seems to be necessary for three basic reasons: 1) the cultural epoch must be appropriate to the payment of the debt. 2) The entity needs to develop sufficient inner resources and strengths to handle the karma. 3) The entity may be able to pay the debt only in association with other entities and therefore must wait until such time as they are incarnated also.
- Mental abnormalities can be traced in some cases to past-life experiences. Thus phobias of animals, closed places, water, and so on, are sometimes due to terrifying experiences or even death associated with those phobia objects. Mental disease is sometimes due to possession or obsession by discarnate entities (entities, that is, who are not currently in earth incarnations).
- Every soul has freedom of will. Freedom of will is interfered with by the karmic laws of life only when the will has been misused, selfishly or in excessive sensuality.
- A soul is magnetically drawn, so to speak, to parents who can give it the bodily heredity and the environment it needs for the fulfillment of its new life task. Physical heredity exists, but it is subservient to psychic heredity.
- The unconscious includes the record or the buried memory of every experience the entity has ever been through, in all of its many existences.