[ Setting: A campfire. ]
PHILIP: Well, this is comfortable. Getting out into nature was always a way for me to see the bigger picture. Thank you. My name is Philip, or did you already know that?
ALLEGENTIA: I am able to glean some basic facts from your soul-mind and a person’s earthly name is one of the things usually available.
PHILIP: Can I keep my name in heaven or will I be given a new one?
ALLEGENTIA: You will be Philip as long as you wish. Although you will earn new names as you go through the various stages of your future life, but you will always be you. That is to say your personality and experience are unique and you will always be recognized as the person you are no matter how much you grow and change, or what name you are known by.
PHILIP: I understand this setting is only a mental fabrication – and it feels insubstantial in some way – but I want to ask where I am (not physically – I know we are out in space on our way to the next life) what I mean is, where is my self? How can my consciousness be here when I do not have a real body?
ALLEGENTIA: You are here because your consciousness, at least a fragment of it, is here. It cannot stand on its own without the rest of your identity but we, you and I, can activate this small piece jointly for this limited time and purpose.
The ego-entity of your human identity was only viable as long as your mind/body connection was working. Throughout your earth life you made many decisions, some more valuable than others. The situations you found yourself confronting, the people you had relationships with, and the thought processes and attitudes you employed all contributed to what choices you made and how you made them. During all of this you were actually building a new place for your self to reside. This place is called the soul. Your soul is an interlacing of the supra-material and the semi-spiritual. Yet your soul is only part of your total identity. As you were growing your soul you were gradually transferring the seat of your identity, your consciousness, from your temporary human system to this more permanent soul system.
While on Earth, your self was primarily associated with your physical being, but as you can see, there is more to reality than your body alone. Your identity also includes your personality, your mind, and your Spirit.
PHILIP: Okay, that covers just about everything.
When you were talking about soul building, I was reminded of a wallet I found. I was tempted to take the cash, there was quite a wad in there, but I turned it in to the police and got a thank you note back from the owner. I remember thinking with all of that cash he could have at least given me a reward for my good deed. But I also thought I would rather have good Karma on my side than something I would regret.
ALLEGENTIA: Good example, every moral dilemma either helps or hinders the building, or more accurately the growing, of your soul. How you act and react in the face of difficulties is all important.
You can easily imagine the many crossroads and every imaginable decision with differing results. This, of course, makes soul growth very singular for each person.
PHILIP: Yes, I can see how it would. So my soul is my self but not all of it?
ALLEGENTIA: Right, you are not exclusively the soul. Let me give you a brief explanation of those other components. The first one is your unique personality, where among other things, is found your freewill. The next one is the innate structure of the mind. It is designed for everything from unconscious self-preservation on up to the superconscious interface with Spirit reality. One of the mind’s main purposes is to integrate meanings after the choices you make culminate in experiences. The last one is the Spirit of God within you. No one would be able to make much spiritual progress without the guiding light of this Spirit providing a sense of Pattern Reality. This helps to clarify your options, always pointing to the best among them.
All outside pressures or inside impulses are just that. In the final analysis you are you because of your inner choices. You are the one who turns your ideas into ideals.
The soul is a singular reality with all manner of inputs, but they are all combined into one seamless and cohesive soul-self. You created your soul by the good choices you made. That is, the more you followed the leadings of the various spirit influences, the better were your choices.
Your soul is also the relationships between the mind and the Spirit, the mind and the personality, and the personality with the Spirit. But do not be confused with all of these aspects; you are an integrated identity. Put all of the elements together and voila: your total integrated SELF – very simple.
PHILIP: I see, simple after fusing all of the complexity together. But you could see I would know that. I spent some time as a professor of comparative philosophies at University. Yet, for now, it all sounds a bit segregated, these different parts. I know my body died but you are saying I am still made up of these other facets?
ALLEGENTIA: Just so. I see in your previous life your interests were peaked by the joy of discovery indicating you would not be put off by complexity. In order to communicate about complex systems it is easier if we identify and inspect the individual features.
Of course, internally you are not separate entities. You are one identity with a personality unifying an encircuited mind, a Divine Spirit Guide, and a soul – soon all be housed in a new semi-physical energy form, a body.
PHILIP: You mentioned conscious and superconscious. Can you simplify these?
ALLEGENTIA: The conscious, or more accurately the self-conscious, mind can think about what the self is and what it means to be alive. It can reflect about why it exits, what it is, where it is going, and its purpose. And rest assured, the answers to these source, process, and destiny questions are discoverable.
The superconscious is your higher mind’s connection with spiritual knowledge, facts, and values beyond the brain; and even beyond normal mental processes. It is the farthest shore’s abutments of the mind’s bridge between mundane reality and spirit reality. And if you wander with wonder off of the far end of the bridge, it will sustain your recognition of reality there too.
PHILIP: How can the mind go “beyond normal mental processes”?
ALLEGENTIA: You are experiencing how it works even now. Your soul-mind is the key. Spiritual reality has innate intelligence. The mind you left behind was the arena for standard human thinking. Soon you will begin to be increasingly exposed to the higher mind and lower spirit capabilities.
PHILIP: I see this is a topic I will be very interested in when I get to heaven. But there was something else you said a bit ago that I was intrigued with. How does one turn ideas into ideals?
ALLEGENTIA: The best way to idealize an idea is to live it personally. It is a simple three step process (and this time it really is simple): first recognize value, second decide to act on it, and third take action.
As mentioned, life presents you with abundant ideas to investigate. Your first step is to assess relative value. This can be an in-depth investigation or an intuitive one. During this assessment the idea is often modified to better fit your sense of what you think it should be. (Will it help me or others?) By infusing an idea with the positive values, you give the idea more “substance” – spiritual substance. It has to appeal to you. Rounding out an idea to your satisfaction, sometimes with the help of a friend, solidifies your understanding of it and gives you an outline of how to act upon it. Humans are all familiar with this procedure, you have done it hundreds of times. If you decide to act on the idea, you complete it. This is where a lot of ideas die because this final, very important, step is not taken. There is a big difference between knowing something is worthy of action, and taking the necessary steps to bring it into reality. Once you do take action you are transforming a mental construct into an experiential fact. You have personalized your idea by acting on it; you have made it yours. And the value contained therein will always be a part of your soul.
PHILIP: I think I get it. So this soul-self is the essential version of myself and I am changing as I choose?
ALLEGENTIA: That’s it! Each person is able to future-cast; to see themselves in circumstances worse, the same, or better than they are currently. If you choose ‘better’ then it is a simple (but not always easy) matter of taking constructive steps to connect the dots from the present ‘you’ to your future idealized self. While moving into the future you make decisions along the way. You are determining the course, tenor, and character of your life. These choices shape who you are when you get there. Better choices are your current-self being hospitable to your future-self.
PHILIP: Fascinating. So it is a way of making potential reality into actual reality?
ALLEGENTIA: That’s right, it is. And not just mundane reality, but exceptional reality. Look at it this way. Reality is first a pattern and then a sensation or an observation. This is turned into an idea so the mind can hold on to it. All ideas can be idealized. But there are degrees. There are always degrees. For instance democracy is an exciting idea beginning to be turned into a complex ideal by millions of people. An individual can turn an idea into an ideal with their decisions and actions, but if it is a big enough idea, it may take centuries for a whole society to work it out.
PHILIP: Thank you for your explanations. I am looking forward to better integrating these ideas – and ideals – once I am resurrected.
ALLEGENTIA: I’m sure you will have fun following your imaginative curiosity.