The Soul...

The soul is more than the body
To fully understand the soul, we have to not only question the scientific view of our identity; we also have to question the Christian view. Most mainstream Christian churches claim that you are a soul but that this soul has some very strict limitations. One such limitation is that the soul did not exist before the conception of your physical body. Another limitation is that your soul is, by its very nature, a sinner. Yet are these claims true, or is there more to understand about the soul? As a starting point for this discussion, let us look at Jesus’ teaching to Nicodemus:

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?
10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.
12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. (John, Chapter 3)

This teaching tells us several things about Jesus’ view of the soul. Here are a few important points:

•The soul has the potential to enter (see) the kingdom of God. Yet before it can do so, it must be born again. This rebirth is not a worldly rebirth (of the flesh) but a spiritual rebirth (of the Spirit).

•When the soul is reborn of the Spirit, it is no longer “of the flesh;” it is now spirit, “that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

•When the soul is reborn, it can ascend to Heaven. Yet according to Jesus, this means that the soul originally must have come from Heaven, because, “no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven.”

This clearly tells us that the soul originally came from Heaven, meaning from a realm of higher frequencies. The soul was created in that realm, it was created by or of the Spirit, and it descended into the material realm to abide in a physical body for a time. Yet the soul can free itself from the body, be reborn into a new sense of identity, and ascend back to the spiritual realm. The conclusion is clear. According to Jesus, your soul is not a creation of matter (of the flesh), it is a creation of Spirit. Therefore, your soul can exist independently of your physical body, meaning that your soul is a spiritual being. This can help us resolve the question of whether our souls are sinners by nature.

Are you a sinner?
If you accept that the soul is of the Spirit, then you have two options. You can reason that there must be sin in Heaven or you can reason that the soul was not created as a sinner, and thus the Christian doctrine is incorrect. Obviously, the idea that there could be sin in Heaven would contradict everything Jesus said about Heaven, and thus we must conclude that your soul was not created to be a sinner. This is supported by Genesis, because Adam and Eve obviously were not sinners until they ate the forbidden fruit.

As Jesus explains on this website, your soul was not created as a sinner. However, you were given free will by God, and that is why you have the option to sin. Jesus also explains that original sin is a sense of separation from God. The story of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man is really a symbol for what has happened to every soul. The “fruit of the knowledge of good and evil” is a symbol for a state of consciousness, namely what Paul called the carnal mind.

The soul “fell” into this state of consciousness because it separated itself from its spiritual source—it decided to hide from God (Genesis 2:8). This caused the soul to build a new sense of identity, and the soul now sees itself as a mortal human being instead of the immortal spiritual being that “descended from Heaven.”

This new sense of identity is based on the illusions of this world, namely the consciousness of duality that causes souls to see themselves as separated from God. This sense of identity is “born of the flesh.” Because a soul has free will, it has the potential to create an entirely false sense of identity, and the soul can then see itself as a mortal, human being, as a sinner or as nothing more than a blob of tissue. When the soul identifies itself this way, it cannot see Heaven because, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” The soul has now become spiritually blind, and it thinks it is a mortal soul instead of an immortal spirit.

In reality, you are who you were created to be, namely a spiritual being. Yet in the “here and now,” in time and space, you are, for all practical purposes, who you see yourself as being. If you identify yourself as a mortal sinner, you will act as a mortal sinner, thereby denying your spiritual origin and your potential to reclaim your true identity.

The only way out of this false sense of identity is that the soul must be reborn. This means that the soul’s sense of identity must be reborn, so that it is realigned with the reality that you are – and always have been – a spiritual being. You must be reborn by the Spirit, whereby you realize that you always were a spirit, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” It is only after you regain your true sense of identity that you can ascend back to Heaven.

When did you lose your true identity?
As explained above, we have fallen or descended into a state of consciousness in which we see ourselves as separated from God. Yet when did this happen? Most of us probably don’t remember feeling connected to God, so when did we lose the connection? Did it happen in early childhood, when we did not have any clear understanding of what we were doing? If so, it would seem God has dealt us an unfair hand. Yet what if we were born without a clear connection to God, what if the fall happened a long time ago?

To fully understand our identity, we need to question another Christian doctrine, namely the one that denies the preexistence of souls. There is good historical evidence that this doctrine was not part of early Christianity. In fact, there is some evidence that Jesus taught the concept of the preexistence of souls. This has been explained in several places on this website, Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4.

The very fact that Jesus considered the soul as a spirit shows that it can exist independently of the physical body. A spirit does not depend upon and is not limited by anything in the material world. Thus, there is no reason to assume that your soul came into being when your body was conceived. And when your body dies, the soul does not necessarily have to either ascend to Heaven or descend to Hell.

Why is it important to consider that your soul has lived before? The reason is that you cannot fully understand who you are unless you realize that your soul has a long history on this planet. In other words, your false sense of identity was not simply created in this lifetime.

You also need to know that when God gave you free will, he did not put unreasonable demands on you. For example, God did not demand that you qualify for salvation in just one lifetime, a lifetime that for some people is very short. How could a child that dies in infancy ever have an opportunity to rise above the consciousness of duality and be reborn in Spirit? Yet is it fair that such a soul would be lost?

In reality, God created a world that serves as a schoolroom for our souls. Originally, our souls lived in a realm of higher vibrations than the material universe. This realm, this spiritual schoolroom, is what the Bible describes as the Garden of Eden. In that realm, we had direct contact with a spiritual teacher. Some of the souls in the garden decided to experiment with the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. This is a symbol for the consciousness of duality, and by descending into this state of consciousness we lost our sense of identity as spiritual beings.

When we lost that sense of identity, we could no longer remain in the garden, so we descended into physical bodies. We also lost contact with our spiritual teachers, so the world became our teacher. As explained elsewhere, God created the material world as a mirror that reflects back to us what we send out. Therefore, we create our outer reality as a reflection of our state of consciousness, meaning that the way out of human suffering is to raise our consciousness.

After we fully learn the lesson that we need to rise above the consciousness of duality and reclaim our true identity, we can ascend back to the spiritual realm. Yet until we learn that lesson, we cannot go back. So what happens if you have not learned your lesson after one lifetime? The reality is that your body is dead, but your soul cannot permanently ascend to the spiritual realm. Therefore, you receive another opportunity by coming back into another body, another lifetime. This process can go on for a long time.

Why is it important to know that you might have lived many lifetimes on Earth? You need to know that you might have had many lifetimes to reinforce certain incorrect – dualistic – beliefs, thereby building a very complex mortal sense of identity that covers your spiritual identity. If you really want to be free, you might have to make a serious effort to free yourself from these beliefs, so that you can be reborn into a new sense of identity.

Finally, it can be helpful to realize that you have had many lifetimes to enjoy the pleasures of the Earth. The fact that you are now interested in the spiritual side of life means that your soul has had its fill of “the things of this world,” and it is beginning to long for something higher, something more. What your soul is really longing for is to regain your true identity as a spiritual being.


What does it mean that you are a spiritual being?
What does it really mean that your soul was created in the spiritual realm? It means that your soul is an extension of a self-conscious being that permanently resides in the spiritual realm. This being could be called your spiritual self, but on this website Jesus generally calls it your “I AM Presence.”

The consequence is that you are not a mortal human being. Your true identity is an immortal spiritual being, and no matter what your soul has experienced or gone through here on Earth, nothing has damaged or negatively influenced your I AM Presence. Nothing from the lower vibrations of the material universe can hurt your spiritual self because it is sealed from this world by a barrier that cannot be penetrated by the lower vibrations of fear and anti-love.

One consequence of this fact is that your I AM Presence cannot descend into the lower vibrations of the material universe. Your I AM Presence is not just some faceless, nameless angel. It has a unique individuality, a unique spiritual flame, and it is different from any other being in God’s creation. Therefore, your true self can express a unique creativity and bring forth a unique gift. At some point in the past, your I AM Presence decided that it wanted to share its unique individuality by bringing a gift to the material world. Therefore, it created your soul as an extension of itself that was designed to descend into the lower vibrations of this universe. Your soul is therefore an extension of the unique individuality of your Presence.

Your soul is not just a clone of your Presence; it is not a robot. Your soul is an individual being, and it has free will and its own sense of identity. One might say that at its very core, your soul is a sense of identity. It is a self-conscious being that has the ability to know that it exists and to identify itself. The central question for the soul is, “How does it identify itself?”

Your soul contains the unique individuality of your Presence, and thus it has the creative potential of your Presence. Your soul was literally designed to be a co-creator with your Presence, a co-creator with God. Your soul was sent here to bring a unique gift that would contribute to the manifestation of God’s kingdom on Earth. One might say that because your soul was created as an extension of the Presence, it was never created to be alone. It was designed to be a planet orbiting the sun of your I AM Presence. What keeps your soul from fulfilling this original role, its reason for being?

The taskmaster of the ego
When the soul descended into the consciousness of duality, it lost its connection to the I AM Presence, and it eventually lost the memory that it is a spiritual being. Because the soul was not designed to be alone, this was an unbearable loss for the soul, and the soul simply could not live with that aloneness. To make up for the “paradise lost,” your soul created a new sense of identity, a new self. This pseudo-self is what many spiritual teachings, and even many psychologists, call the human ego.

The ego also has a certain individuality, but it is a reflection of the consciousness of this world rather than your true individuality. Your ego was created out of the sense of separation, and its reasoning is based on the consciousness of duality. The ego cannot accept the fact that you are a spiritual being because it is “born of the flesh.” As Jesus said, “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” The ego simply cannot understand your “heavenly” identity, and that is why so many people deny their spiritual potential.

Furthermore, the ego has a survival instinct. and it knows that it can continue to exist only as long as your soul thinks it needs the ego. Therefore, your ego does not want you to reclaim your true, spiritual identity. It wants you to remain trapped in the dualistic sense of identity created by your ego, so that the ego can continue to survive. Therefore, your soul must decide to actively fight the ego in order to reclaim its true identity.

One might say that the process of reclaiming your true identity is a process of putting off the old man of the ego and putting on the new man of your spiritual identity. Paul described it this way:

22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians, Chapter 4)

Throughout the ages, the Ascended Host have given many spiritual teachings and tools in their efforts to help us overcome the ego. Behind all outer religions is a universal path, often called the spiritual path. This website is dedicated to presenting this path in a universal form designed for modern people. You will find here many tools that can help you successfully walk the path.

The way out
It is the process of overcoming the ego that will lead you to be reborn in Spirit. Your ego has created a new sense of identity that is based on a number of dualistic lies. It is impossible for your soul to see through these lies by using the human intellect because the intellect is a relative faculty; it is “of the flesh.” So to see through the illusions of the ego, your soul must reach for a higher mind, a higher faculty of reasoning that is “of the Spirit.” That higher faculty is the mind of Christ in the form of your individual Christ self. Jesus has described the Christ self in more detail in an important discourse.

As you begin to put on the new man of the Christ mind, you will follow Paul’s call to,

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:5)

You will gradually overcome the dualistic illusions of your ego, and you will begin to gain a higher understanding. This will lead you toward a breakthrough point, and you will then be able to accept the fact that your are a son or daughter of God.

And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2Corinthians 6:18)

This will empower you to fulfill the original purpose for which your soul was created and for which you were sent into this world. At that point, it will be as true of you as it was of Jesus,

And behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son [or Daughter], in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. (Matthew 17:5)

You will then be here below the spiritual being that you already are in Heaven
.........from askrealjesus.com