Recognizing the Soul

2004-12-14 05:48:00

John Z writes:

The issue raised in the section you cited below ("Religious Feeling and Truth") is profoundly valid, for it is the foundation upon which all spiritual experiences are justified (by the individual receiving them). I would like JJ to address this issue in more depth. We've all read about "soul contact", but at the end of the day, my guess would be that most on this list would still be uncertain as to whether any "promptings" they've received would qualify as "soul contact". Put another way, when one receives a "burning in the bosom" or "the still small voice" -- how CAN they be certain of the source, or the truthfulness of the message? If it were that easy, why would we have hundreds (if not thousands) of religious denominations out there?

John C gave some excellent comments on this with which I agree, but we can never seem to say too much on this subject.

If you go to the archives and type in "soul contact" you will find an enormous amount of material come up. At one time I gathered many of the writings into a series on the subject. This could be further updated and expanded.

John C writes:

"If a person can't tell the difference between a feeling, a thought, and a flash of intuition, then they've probably never experienced anything other than feelings, or else they would know the difference."

There is a lot of truth to what John says here. If a person has never felt anything above the astral feelings then when he hears others who talk of soul contact, the Spirit, Christ Consciousness, higher intuition, Still Small Voice and other items he will search his astral experiences for references. The odd thing is that he will usually find these references and believe that he has experienced as much as anyone.

On the other hand, those sincere seekers who are at the beginnings of soul contact will often have some wrong perception and interpretation of true messages from the soul. They may ear the Still Small Voice and then question themselves: "Did I really hear that or did I imagine it?" Such a person may receive his first flash of the intuition and again ask the same type of question.

But when the seeker learns to correctly perceive soul communications, John's statements apples. He will then know for a surety the difference between emotional feeling and soul communications.

When I used to go to the Mormon Church, a lifetime ago, I remember that about every time someone got up and cried as they were speaking someone usually followed up with the comment that there was an outpouring of the Spirit.

While it is true that touching the true spiritual energies can make one weep, it is also true that everyone who sheds a tear is not feeling the Spirit, but is usually strongly touched in his feeling nature alone.

I marveled when I was young of how many in the church claimed to feel the spirit, yet this never caused any feelings of the spirit to resonate within me. Even so the feelings of the Spirit did resonate within me, not from church, but from reading the scriptures, from reading Alice A. Bailey and other writings and from my own contemplations.

How can you be certain you have attained soul contact? You can't until you have and once it is attained and properly registered by the physical brain consciousness then there will be no question.

I think that Grant Palmer, who John quoted about spiritual witnesses, has only contacted his feeling nature himself and this is why he equates all spiritual contact on this level. He is not only missing out on the next level up, but there is a next and then another next.

I have found in my life that the guidance from the soul is to be trusted one hundred percent. How we use that guidance may be in error, but the direction from the soul and revelation of principles is as close to infallibility as we will get in the world of flesh and blood.

On another note there is something I have been meaning to ask John C.

I know you have studied Scientology and I also have read some of L Ron's material and have a question for you. He talks about a great conflict between the good and evil (using his own terminology) and seems to think that none of us here on the earth know the real story and if anyone did find out their very existence would be in danger.

Do you know anything about his teachings on the history of life in the universe and what he saw as the major conflict and why we are supposed to be so in the dark?

Is this type of material in any of his books?

I am wondering if he has stumbled across some truth or if he was just using the same imagination that made him a good science fiction writer.

We say that God Himself is a self-existent being. Who told you so? It is correct enough; but how did you get it into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Joseph Smith