Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

Understanding Biblical Symbolism


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SOUL (HIGHEST ASPECT), WORLD-SOUL, OR OVER-SOUL

A symbol of the manifested Higher Self on the planes of atma and buddhi, in relation to the cosmic causal-body on the buddhic plane, which is the centre of emanation.

"From One Soul, the All-soul,- come all these souls which are made to revolve in all the cosmos, as though divided off" Corpus Hermeticum, The Key, 7). - G. R. S. MEAD, T. G. Hermes, Vol. II. p. 145.

"The soul has its origin in the Supreme Intelligence, in which it is asserted, the forms of the coming existences already can be distinguished from each other, and this Supreme Intelligence can be termed the Universal Soul." - I. MYER, Qabbalah, p. 110.

"So the Soul is asserted to descend here below; and so it is restored to the bosom of the Deity when it has fulfilled its mission, and adorned by its virtues, is prepared for heaven; and raising itself by its own action and the assistance of Divine Love, which it incites by that which it feels, to the highest degree of emanation, to the real existence, and thus places itself in harmony and affinity with the ideal form." - Ibid., p. 111.

The One Soul, or Self, descends, as it were, into the matter of the lower planes during the process of Involution, and afterwards re-ascends in the many souls in the process of Evolution to its Divine source. This ascent of the Soul is accomplished through its own Divine Life, supplemented by the Love-energy responding from above to its aspirations below. It rises with enhanced powers and virtues, and realises the Ideal from which it emanated.

That Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart, of which all sincere conversation is the worship, to which all right action is submission; that over-powering Reality which confutes our tricks and talents, and constrains everyone to pass for what he is, and to speak from his character, and not from his tongue, and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand, and become wisdom, and virtue, and power, and beauty. We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Mean-time within man is the Soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE." - EMERSON, Essays.

"Men need, it is true, a lofty, spiritual conception in order that they may be encouraged to enlarge the narrow circumference of their personal life, and merge themselves within the universal. But unless it be that the personal aspect of life be duly insisted upon, until it is realised that the universal lives, moves, and acquires its reality from what we severally impart and communicate to it, the raison d'être of that conception must be missed. The end, the aim, the purpose of life for man is the soul. But the soul must remain a mere symbol until man translates his loftiest imaginings into true, noble impulses and deeds, which shall serve to transmit to others, and to posterity, the flame of immortal life, and so kindle within their hearts the passion for the pure, the beautiful, and the perfect. Therein lies the germ of all that is eternal. Therein lies the solution, ay, the very nature, of the soul." - R. DIMSDALE STOCKER, The God which is Man, p. 79.

 

See Also

ARCHETYPAL MAN
ATMAN
BIRTH OF ZOROASTER
CHRIST'S 2nd COMING
COSMOS
CREATION
EVOLUTION
GOD-HEAD
HIGHER-LOWER (Self)
IMAGE OF GOD
INCARNATION (Souls)
INCARNATION (Spirit)
INVOLUTION
ISVARA
MACROCOSM
MONAD
NESHAMAH
SEED
SELF
SERVANT of God