I love meeting new people. Spiritually, it feeds me. As I travel, by continually confronting the diversity in humankind, I’m reminded to patiently accept the vastness of my experience. Tolerance is best developed, after all, not by learning how we are the same, but by learning how we are different. Apart from physical conditions that shape a person, like ethnic background, number of siblings, or upbringing, there is something deeper, a quality on the inside that makes one originally different from anyone else, a completely unique self. This difference is what I feel for in others.
The self that lies underneath all experience as the experiencer, is to me what comprises the “soul” of a man or woman. The soul–whether as described by the mystical figures or philosophers in history, or understood from the knowledge passed down by societies and personalities that have dedicated their existence to its illustration–the soul has been my favorite subject of study, because I want to draw closer in my own mind to the understanding of that subtle essence that makes an individual a separate, truly original being.
“For words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.”
However, despite the fact that our separateness makes each of us a sovereign individual, lords of our own lives and masters of our fate, it is the feeling of separation which is responsible for a large part of our suffering and delusion. It is becoming more and more obvious with scientific research that the interconnectedness of everything in the universe is a reality, and that the main illusion is our apparent separation from each other. Those mystics who have seemed to access the soul describe a sense of splendor in which separation dissolves, and the soul is felt as one with all souls. By diving into what makes us unique, can it be that we emerge on the other side to find what makes us One with all life?
In occult and religious literature, the soul is described as the “Middle Principle,” that which is the mediator between spirit and matter, all three of which are synthesized by Life. There is a world of causes, a world of effects, and an inseparable link between them. Spirit is the Cause in this diagram, which is the real identity of a human being. This paradigm puts us in the place of the responsible creator, rather than the poor victim being at the whim of the momentous impulse of the physical universe to create more beings. In this conception of an intelligent and purposeful universe, the function of the soul is to unite our lower mind, a personal sense of self, with the higher, transpersonal sense of existence.
Every year, all year long, individual spirits are being born into bodies. The time and place and environment to which they come characterizes their existence here, but they also bring characteristics of their own, with which to shape environment. At the moment of birth, these inborn character traits are symbolized divinely by the dance of the planets above them, which make new combinations to each other (aspects) every hour. The most outer bodies of light in space correlate with the most inner energies of the human, creating the maxim of the Magi, “As above, so below.”
The Magi of old were astrologers, and the Astrologer does not have such a strange point of view, but only believes that everything is meant to be, that everything happens by divine order, and that by a study of cycles we can see the work of the Spirit in nature. As an astrologer, I am afforded a new way to know my fellow man. Everyone has a birthday, a name, and a purpose. When I meet someone new, I like to ask them what the first two are, and allow the third one to become felt as the true expression of who they are.
Who you are, is Why you are here. “Man, know thyself.”
~ Christian Klausner
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