Seat Of The Soul

by Gary Zukav

  Teachers operate on a more personal plane of involvement, so to speak, although they are impersonal energies that we personalize, that we feel a personal relationship with. A nonphysical Teacher brings you ever closer to your soul. It draws your attention to the vertical path, and to the difference between the vertical path and the horizontal path.

  The vertical path is the path of awareness. It is the path of consciousness and conscious choice. The person who chooses to advance his or her spiritual growth, to cultivate awareness of his or her higher self, is on a vertical path. The vertical path is the path of clarity. The potential for the creation of clarity and the experience of interacting with your nonphysical Teacher are one and the same.

  The horizontal path is the path that satisfies your personality. A businessman or a businesswoman, for example, who devotes his or her life to the accumulation of money is on a horizontal path. No matter how diverse his or her ventures may become, they are essentially identical. If they make money, they please the personality, and if they lose money, they distress the personality, but they do not serve the higher self. They do not serve his or her spiritual growth.

  A person that seeks relationships only to gratify his or her own needs, such as his or her own emotional or sexual needs, will find that each relationship is essentially identical, that the people in his or her life are replaceable, that experiences with the first and experiences with the second are essentially the same. This is the horizontal path. Each new experience is not really new. It is more of the same thing. To experience relationships of substance and depth requires approaching and entering into relationships with consciousness and concern for the other. That is the vertical path.

  This does not mean that learning does not occur in all situations, and that when a horizontal path is no longer appropriate to a soul’s learning, that soul will not leave it behind. Sooner or later, each soul will turn toward authentic power. Every situation serves this goal, and every soul will reach it. The vertical path begins with the decision to do that consciously.

  Guides and Teachers assist the soul in every phase of its evolution. The number of guides and Teachers that a soul has depends upon what it seeks to accomplish and its level of awareness. Souls that take upon themselves projects of your soul know its guides and Teachers. It drew upon their wisdom and compassion in charting the incarnation that became you, and that part of your soul that is you will be gathered into their waiting arms when the incarnation that is you comes to an end-when you go home. You receive loving guidance and assistance at each moment. At each moment, you are prompted and encouraged to move into Light.

  The decisions that you make are yours to make. Nonphysicals Teacher cannot, and would not, live your life for you. It will assist you through the learning experiences of your life. The answers that it can provide you depend upon the questions that you ask-by questioning your own motivations, by praying or meditating and remaining open for the answer, or by asking directly, as in the case of the multisensory human that has developed this ability. When you ask one set of questions, one set of doorways opens before you, and when you ask other questions, other doorways open.

  In each instance, your Teacher, or Teachers, will advise you with impersonal compassion and clarity. It will help you to examine the probable results of each choice that you make. It will touch your feelings in ways that bring your awareness to areas that need to be healed. It will answer your questions, but you must ask them, and, therefore, give direction to your own energy. It will advise you as to which courses will most likely lead to which results, and it will continue to advise you with wisdom and compassion no matter what choices you make.

  A Teacher can neither create nor remove karma for you. No being, not even a nonphysical Teacher, can assume use your energy, but a nonphysical Teacher can help you to understand what your choices and your experiences represent. It can provide you with the knowledge that will allow you to choose responsibly, and hopefully, choose wisely. Therefore, the ability to draw consciously upon your nonphysical guidance and assistance, to communicate consciously with a nonphysical Teacher, is a treasure that cannot be described, a treasure beyond words and value.

  Every decision that you make either moves you toward your personality, or toward your soul. Each decision that you make is an answer to the question, “How do you choose to learn love?”, “How do you choose to learn authentic empowerment through doubt and fear, or through wisdom?” This is the heart of the Garden of Paradise story. The Tree of Truth, given unto the entire human species, said, “Learn! Which way do you wish to learn?”

  This is the ultimate first act of free will: How do you wish to learn? The question continues in every one of your life situations. It is the eternal question. It is the longest running show on Broadway, so to speak. No matter what situation, no matter what moment, the Garden of Eden question continues and continues and continues. Each time the opportunity in every circumstance in miniature is, “Will you choose the way of doubt and fear, or will you choose the Tree of Wisdom?”

  The Tree of Life, of Knowledge, of Truth, of Wisdom, is an opportunity, an archetypal question. Adam and Eve, the male and female principles within the Garden of Eden, took the apple symbolically, and misused knowledge. Their choice was to misuse knowledge, and, therefore, they created shame. That was not part of the human design up to that point. The misuse of knowledge, of truth, of wisdom, produced embarrassment and shame. That gave rise to guilt. Guilt gave rise to fear, and so began the evolution of the human species.

  The decision to take the apple was a decision of the highest order of evolution, an order that cannot be conceived, or even grappled with, in the same context that we would use to understand a human decision. To speak of decisions in terms of an individual human life, or in the terms of a larger body of individual human lives, is very different from speaking about how the role of evolution and learning began billions of years ago with the human species.

  The decision to take the apple in the Garden of Eden story does not refer to one decision that was made by two humans who really existed in such a setting. It was not a decision such as you or I would make in terms of, “Do I choose this or that?” The Garden of Paradise story describes the beginning of the whole experience of earth and the human species. It refers to principles of energy that were brought to bear upon larger bodies of group consciousnesses that had stress, that had formation energies, creation energies. In their process of forming their own polarities, polarities that would become the polarities of the human experience, doubt and fear stood opposing to trust and Light, and so they came into being.

  Yet, it is not inappropriate to understand the Garden of Eden story in terms of human choices between doubt and fear on the one hand and wisdom on the other, because the choice to learn through wisdom or through doubt and fear is very much part of every single challenge that every single human comes up against within every minute of every day, and this challenge reflects the dynamics that, at a larger level of evolution, were brought to bear upon our evolution.

  This brings us to the relationship between choice, Light, and physical reality.

  CHAPTER 7: INTENTION I

  Not all forms are physical. A thought, for example, is a form. What is a thought formed out of?

  A thought is energy, or Light, that has been shaped by consciousness. No form exists without consciousness. There is Light, and there is the shaping of Light by consciousness. This is creation.

  Energy continually pours through you, entering at the top of your head and descending downward through your body. You are not a static system. You are a dynamic being of Light that at each moment informs the energy that flows through you. You do this with each thought. with each intention.

  The Light that flows through your system is Universal energy. It is the Light of the Universe. You give that Light form. What you feel, what you think, how you behave, what you value and how you live your life reflect the way that you are shaping the Light that is flowing through y
ou. They are the thought forms, the feeling forms and the action forms that you have given to Light. They reflect the configuration of your personality, your space-time being.

  You change the way that you shape the Light which is flowing through you by changing your consciousness. You do this, for example, when you challenge a negative pattern, such as anger, and consciously choose to replace it with compassion, or when you challenge impatience and consciously choose to understand and appreciate the needs of others. This creates different forms of thought, feeling and action. It changes your experience.

  Every experience, and every change in your experience, reflects an intention. An intention is not only a desire. It is the use of your will. If you do not like the relationship that you have with your husband or with your wife, for example, and you would like it to be different, that desire alone will not change your relationship. If you truly desire to change your relationship, that change begins with the intention to change it. How it will change depends upon the intention that you set.

  If you intend that your relationship with your husband or your wife become harmonious and loving, that intention will open you to new perceptions. It will allow you to see the love that your husband or wife expresses for you in his or her own way, if that is the case. It will allow you to see the absence of that love, if that is the case. It will reorient you toward harmony and love so that you can see clearly from that perspective what is necessary to change your relationship, and if that is achievable.

  If you intend to end your relationship, that ending begins with the intention to end. This intention will create in you a restlessness. You will feel less and less fulfilled with your mate. You will feel an openness to others in a way that you have not felt before. Your higher self has begun the search for another partner. When that partner appears, you will be drawn to him or to her, and, if you accept that partner, which also is an intention, a new path will open for you.

  If you have conflicting intentions, you will be torn because both dynamics will be set in motion and oppose each other. If you are not aware of all of your intentions, the strongest one will win. You may have a conscious intention to improve your marriage, for example, and, simultaneously, an unconscious intention to end it. If the unconscious intention to end your marriage is stronger than the conscious intention to improve it, the dynamic of restlessness, lack of fulfillment, etc., eventually will overcome the conscious intention to become loving and harmonious within your marriage. In the end, your marriage will terminate.

  If the conscious intention to transform your marriage is stronger than the unconscious intention to end it, and if your husband or your wife is essentially supportive, you will succeed, but the dynamic of opposing intentions within you will produce confusions and anguishes, perhaps for both of you, as you become open to new perceptions of love and harmony within your marriage, and, simultaneously, experience restlessness, lack of fulfillment and openness to other partners.

  This is the experience of a splintered personality. A splintered personality struggles with itself. The values, perceptions, and behaviors of a splintered personality are not integrated. A splintered personality is not conscious of all the parts of itself. A splintered personality is frightened. It fears aspects of itself that threaten what it seeks and what it has attained.

  A splintered personality experiences the circumstances within its life as more powerful than itself. A splintered personality that has a conscious intention to improve its marriage, and a stronger, unconscious intention to end it, for example, will feel, after the collapse of its marriage, that despite its efforts, despite even its best efforts, things did not work out as it intended. This is not so. They worked out exactly as it intended, but, because she or he held conflicting intentions, much turbulence, so to speak, was created in the flow of the Light through that person.

  If conflicting intentions are nearly balanced, and if a personality is not willing or able to acknowledge that an aspect, or aspects, of her self or his self stand opposed to her or his conscious intention, severe stress and emotional pain result. These can cause states of schizophrenia and physical illness. In less severe cases the anguish can be just as painful.

  A splintered personality is a personality in need of healing. As a personality becomes conscious and integrated, it heals those parts of its soul that incarnated in order to be healed. The Light that flows through a whole personality is focused into a single, clear beam. Its intentions are powerful and effective. It becomes a laser, a phase-coherent beam of Light, and a beam in which every wave precisely reinforces every other.

  A whole personality is not like a laser. A laser is like a whole personality. Lasers are the reflection in physical reality of an energy dynamic that, until very recently, has not been central to the human experience. The development of the laser in the middle part of this century reflects within the physical arena a dynamic that is central to what our species is evolving into.

  We are evolving into a species of whole individuals, individuals who are aware of their nature as beings of Light, and who shape their Light consciously, wisely and with compassion. Therefore, the physical phenomenon of phase-coherent light, light that does not struggle with itself, so to speak, has come into being. It is a new phenomenon to the human experience, and it reflects the new energy dynamic of the whole human. The achievements of science, in other words, do not reflect the laboratory capabilities of individuals, or nations, but the spiritual capabilities of our species.

  Intentions affect more than relationships. Intentions set into motion processes that affect every aspect of your life. If you desire to change your job, for example, that change begins with the intention to change. As the intention to leave your present job emerges into your consciousness, you begin to open yourself to the possibility of working somewhere else, or doing something else. You begin to feel less and less at home in what you are doing. Your higher self has begun the search for your next job.

  When the opportunity appears, you are ready to accept it. You may require additional time to step into the new situation consciously, to make it your own, because it is human nature to resist change, but, if you accept it, your intention will manifest physically. It will assume a physical form.

  Decisions such as where to work and whom to partner with and where to live are not the only type of decisions that you make, nor are they the decisions that have the most influence upon your life. At each instant you make decisions in the form of your attitudes about the Universe, about other people, and about yourself. You make these decisions continually and your experiences at each moment are created by them. You are a decision-making being.

  A single choice to challenge your anger and replace it with understanding does not immediately change these attitudes, but it brings them, through your feelings, into awareness, and as you make the decisions of your life consciously and responsibly and wisely, your attitudes come to reflect your decisions. Eventually, the deepest decision making processes within you-those that shape from moment to moment the Light that flows through you become aligned with what you choose consciously, just as they are aligned, before you choose awareness, with what you choose unconsciously.

  You create your reality with your intentions. How does this happen?

  Intentions shape Light. They set Light into motion. Each intention-anger, greed, jealousy, compassion, understanding-sets energy into motion, sets patterns of Light into motion. Physical matter is the densest, or heaviest, level of Light.

  Physical reality is not a dead and empty stage on which Life evolves. Every physical form, as well as every nonphysical form, is Light that has been shaped by consciousness. No form exists apart from consciousness. There is not one planet in the Universe that does not have an active level of consciousness, although it may not be what we recognize as consciousness.

  Physical reality and the organisms and the forms within physical reality are systems of Light within systems of Light, and this Light is the same Light as the Light of your sou
l. Each of these systems of Light is shaped by consciousness. The physical reality of the Earth school is shaped by the decisions of those who are in it.

  What is the relationship between physical reality and the choices that you make in your life?

  Reality is a multi-layered creation. No two people have the same reality. The first layer of your reality is your personal reality. This is your personal life, your personal sphere of influence. Here your decisions are most effective, and are felt directly. By choosing to feel kindness instead of coldness, you change the frequency of your consciousness, and this changes your experiences. Within your personal reality, you can choose to be selfish or to be giving, to look upon yourself and others brutally or with compassion, to serve yourself or to serve others and the Earth. Each of these decisions shapes the Light that flows through you, and creates the reality within you. This reality spills over into the realities of those around you.

  The second layer of your reality is your family. When individual human souls come together, they form a group energy field, a merger of soul energy in a group. Therefore, the decisions that you make within your personal reality, such as the decision to be giving or to be selfish, or the decision to be angry or to be understanding, contribute to the shaping of the reality that you share with your family. The same is true for each member of your family. Your father’s dependability or drunkenness, for example, contributes to this level of your reality, as does your mother’s timid-ness or assertiveness, and your sister’s jealousy or support, etc. As you move into this layer of your reality, you move into an atmosphere that includes others within your life. While it is also personal, you are beginning to move outward from the intimacy of your personal reality.