Friday, June 3, 2016
5:10 a.m. Well, Rita, let’s go back to work. Souls and Greater Souls and Greater Soul Communities, if I’m not mistaken.
These are concepts, a way of seeing things, not absolute and not intended to be absolute. They are intended to help you clarify your ideas, to clarify your relationships in your minds.
Don’t turn your words into scripture, in other words.
Well, don’t turn them into scripture or any other form of dogma. Use them as signposts, or stepping-stones. That is what ideas are, really. Given that any combination may be seen from innumerable viewpoints, which will change their relative relationships, nothing may ever been seen as absolute.
So with that limitation held firmly in mind, let us examine the difference between a Soul and a Greater Soul as I am defining them. Other people’s road maps may differ, or may overlap, or may sometimes agree, sometimes overlap and sometimes disagree. In comparing descriptions, bear in mind that what you see depends upon where you stand when you are looking at it, and sometimes apparent contradictions are only apparent, and not actual, and in any case are not absolute. The map is not the territory. Description is always relative.
Understood.
We have been at some pains to describe the Soul, or mind, and we have had to ignore many aspects of reality that would have blurred the picture. The purpose of any higher concept is to reconcile seeming discrepancies among lower-level descriptions.
I know it doesn’t matter, but this doesn’t have the feel of Rita.
As you say, it doesn’t matter.
No, but I noticed.
You will find, upon self-examination, that different strands come front and center according to different tasks and situations. The part of you that talks to your young child is not the same as the one that engages in technical discussions or holds political views or experiences a novel or a movie. It is the same thing “here” in non-3D, only perhaps more obvious, once you clarify your discernment.
So, the soul, or mind: a collection of threads, coexisting in a body, a unique collection assembled in one time/space location, experiencing life sequentially and in relative isolation. [The expression “time/space location” became awkward enough that upon transcribing this, I derived the acronym TSL.] This soul is not confined to one time and place except physically, for its threads extend to other TSLs (other lives), and these lives interconnect to a larger extent than is usually obvious to the conscious 3D personality living the life. Usually, not invariably. And not at all times even when the interconnections are relatively obvious.
I got the word “porous” but I couldn’t figure out where it belonged.
The barriers between lives are relatively more porous or less, differing with the individual. But still, most 3D lives are experienced as in one TSL, with at most extensions or glimpses into other 3D lives.
Now, the soul we are discussing extends into all dimensions, however little it may understand what it experiences of the higher dimensions. It knows more, experiences more, than it can understand or absorb on any conscious level. At some point, any 3D personality has to reach a limit of understanding, and the rest is mystery to it.
This somewhat rough-and-ready description of a soul leaves many reports and many concepts without explanation. Old souls, young souls, for instance.
Remember always, “as above, so below.” This will serve you well in examining any new reports, so long as you do not let it become a strait-jacket by assuming that any new level must look like that you have absorbed to date. It is the reality, not the appearance, that will always be repeated. But different contexts and different viewing-points will alter appearance, so that what is fundamentally similar may sometimes appear contradictory, or, at least, not similar. When you find yourself at a loss, ask yourself in what respects any new data may be similar to what you already knew – similar in essence, not necessarily in appearance.
So now, this line of inquiry began with the request that you ask Rita what about a soul’s progress. Is life nothing but running in place? If the larger being continually creates new souls out of its own substance, incorporating (in effect) bits of this and bits of that, then what of perfection? What of relative awareness or attainment? What of a sense of purpose for the 3D soul? You understand, in this as in the answers to any question, the answer is aimed to provide direction to many, not just to one. Therefore it is not so much tailored as off-the-rack.
That is an analogy, or metaphor, rather, that I wouldn’t have expected!
Off-the-rack versus tailored? If you will look at it, you may find it unexpectedly useful. The reason racks are filled with various sizes of the same item is so that many may find something that will fit well enough, even if none find something that fits exactly. What is that but any teaching?
In order to proceed beyond the dead-end that New Age philosophy has come to, it was necessary to redefine and redefine, until the similarities between levels could be seen more clearly and the differences between reality and appearance at the 3D level could be laid out. Now that this has been done, we may proceed in the opposite direction, adding complexity to complexity until we return to our starting-place – your everyday experience – with new understanding. So the first layer of complexity to add is the next-higher level of organization over the soul, which as said, is not the larger being directly but, really, the Greater Soul. Beyond the Greater Soul is the level of belonging, of integration, that fits it into the scheme of things. And that level of integration we are going to call the Greater Soul Community, but we cannot talk of it very meaningfully until we clarify the nature of the Greater Soul itself.
So, in order to examine the Greater Soul, let us begin by holding in mind what we know of the Soul, remembering “as above, so below.” The Greater Soul is to the Soul as the Soul is to any of its threads. Let’s begin there, again remembering that we are looking for continuation of essence, not of appearance.
The Soul is a collection of strands developed in isolation in a single TSL situation. So a Greater Soul is a collection of Souls. But the various strands of a Greater Soul either must be considered to exist in each TSL or must be considered as living in no one TSL.
Yes, I can see that. And I gather you want us to remember that just because we choose not to think of it as existing in many, that doesn’t mean it isn’t in a sense true nonetheless.
Very good. Quite right. Hold that caveat in mind for another time.
So, we begin with this definition. As the soul is a collection of strands assembled in one TSL for the purpose of development, so a Greater Soul is a collection of Souls assembled from many TSLs, presumably still for the purpose of development. We say “presumably” because we haven’t yet begun to establish it.
The first question in both cases is, who assembled them, and, according to what law of development or organization? And it is no answer to say God, or The Creator, or to give a name to a process and think that providing a name is the same as providing greater clarity.
I see that. So–?
So what provided the continuity when you went from considering your own lives as experienced and the next level of organization?
Continuity of consciousness. If I can connect with other lives, I must be more than I experience myself to be otherwise.
Not really true logically, although as it happens it is true factually. You will recall, the fact that you have resonance with a lifetime does not demonstrate that you lived it, nor even that any of your strands lived it. It means only – there is resonance.
What resonance means, though –
And we will need to break off here and continue another time.
Very well. And as to your identity?
The expression TGU has served you well to date. No need to abandon it now.