Your Ticket to the Next Life
The soul has long been recognized as a spiritual component of human life. Indeed, all major religions acknowledge the concept of a soul, which is often defined as an immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life. There is some truth to these notions, but they are hazy concepts that say little about the real nature of the soul.
One of the most important things to know about the soul is that it is partly your own creation—it is your spiritualizing self. Just as you have a material body (your physical self) and a mind (your intellectual self), you also have a spiritual counterpart. The soul originates from the spirit potential of your mind, eventually emerging as a separate entity—an act of personal creation.
But this creation is not yours alone. Indeed, without the Spirit of God within you, your soul would not exist. Whenever you (personality) make a moral decision that is consistent with the Spirit Way—the lead of your inner Spirit—you foster and further the growth of your soul (see The Will of God Is Sharing Your Life with God).
Your Spirit Teacher is continuously attempting to spiritualize your mind, to adjust your thoughts and, thereby, foster a new being—a spirit complement—essentially a new you that can survive death. In truth, your soul is your immortal self.
From its earliest inception the soul is real; it has cosmic survival qualities.
– The Urantia Book
When we speak of body, mind, and spirit, the spirit part of us is the soul. But this is not the same entity as the inner Spirit, which is the presence of God. Nor is the soul the personality, although personality encompasses the soul.
The soul is semi-spiritual and alive. It’s a growing spirit body that intervenes between physical reality and the spiritual level of existence. Scientific inquiry and philosophical discourse cannot prove the existence of the soul but, as a morally conscious individual, you can discover it through your own spiritual experiences.
Most of us go through life unaware of the presence of our souls. But that’s primarily because the soul is always with us, an integral part of us. We are so accustomed to its presence that we fail to see it as a separate, progressing, spiritual self. But as we advance in spiritual perception, we become more aware of it.
Essentially, the degree of our spirituality is correlated with the degree of our soul consciousness. And as our soul evolves, we begin to feel an overwhelming urge to contact the Divine Presence within us.
The Soul Grows
The creation of your individual soul, as well as its continuing existence, depends on your moral (spiritual) choices. The soul is born when you make your first moral choice—one that denotes your capacity to determine right from wrong. It is a joint creation between you and God.
Moral choice and spiritual attainment, the ability to know God and the urge to be like him, are the characteristics of the soul.
– The Urantia Book
The creation of the soul in this way inspired the prophets of old to declare that we truly are children of God, true sons and daughters of a Creator Spirit. And if we accept our spiritual origins in both personality and soul, it logically follows that we are all spiritual brothers and sisters.
The soul, once created, does not remain in a static state for our entire lives—it is continually evolving as we make spiritually progressive choices. Metaphorically, the soul grows just as the material body grows, or as the mind grows in intellect and wisdom. The body grows when it is nurtured and exercised, as does the mind. The spiritual self is no exception in this regard—the more we nurture it and the more we exercise it with moral decisions, the more it progresses in both quality and quantity.
Whenever we make a moral decision that agrees with the way of God, we are nurturing the evolution of our soul. Whenever we help others in any way, such spiritual activity exercises our soul with love. The process of soul growth is one of harmonizing our choices with the Spirit Power within us, thereby making an eternal alliance with this gift of God.
The evolving soul is not made divine by what it does, but by what it strives to do.
– The Urantia Book
The Soul Reflects
The soul is self-reflective—a uniquely human trait. Self-reflection differs from the self-consciousness of personality. While self-consciousness provides us with self-awareness and an awareness of other selves, the self-reflection of the soul enables us to examine and evaluate ourselves in such a way as to objectify our thoughts, feelings, and actions. It’s the ability to examine ourselves at arm’s length—to be morally mindful.
The soul is the self-reflective, truth-discerning, and spirit-perceiving part of man which forever elevates the human being above the level of the animal world.
– The Urantia Book
Being morally mindful is being morally self-conscious. It is courageous and sincere self-reflection—an essential meditative exercise for distinguishing moral meanings and choosing divine values. Such contemplations lead to even more soul growth and an increasingly spiritual life. (See Meditation – Its Mystic Roots and Divine Meditation – A Working Method).
When aided by the Spirit of Truth, all reflective thought of a spiritual or moral nature helps us to discern truth in any situation and is, therefore, always linked to wisdom. The ongoing process of self-reflection and moral choosing, when done in harmony with the way of God, opens up a wider spiritual channel within us, thereby increasing the amount of divine love, wisdom, and energy we receive.
The Soul Survives
The soul is our celestial shuttle to eternal life—our living connection to the spirit world. As we all surmise, the material body and the material brain do not survive death. But as many spiritual and religious visionaries have taught over the ages, the soul does.
The spiritual self (soul) survives death simply because it is not material, and also because it has eternal purpose; namely that the soul, along with the personality, goes on to form the nucleus of our new, immortal selves.
The soil of the evolving soul is human and material, but the destiny of this combined creature of mind and spirit is spiritual and divine.
– The Urantia Book
Whether or not you choose life after death is your own prerogative. But one thing is certain—without a developed soul, there will be nothing of you to resurrect on the worlds to come. And even if you do possess a mature soul, you can still choose not to go on. If you do not wish to survive, your personal identity will simply dissolve in the great pool of universe energy. However, if you choose to move forward, you can fully anticipate an amazing life of eternal wonder!
But don’t expect your new life to be a bed of ease. You start just where you left off. There is no jumping the queue. All that we achieve in this life or the next will be through our own efforts and experience, not by some magical transformation into a perfect being.
A complaining soul complains even in Paradise.
– Baha’u’llah
Nothing is more important for the moment than what you can accomplish in this life and on this world. Wherever and whenever you are, nothing is more important than how you live your life at any given moment.
For related posts, see Personality and You and Your Mind – Make It Spiritually Receptive.
