The Human Soul (by Albert Hoffmann -Dec. 2023

The Human Soul (by Albert Hoffmann - Dec. 2023) [1] When starting this article about the human soul, I was quite tempted to talk about the currently heavily debated mind-body problem which in essence can be reduced to dualism vs monism. In this debate dualism refers to the idea that the body (specifically the brain) and the mind are two separate entities, whereas monism pertains to the notion that the brain and the mind are one and the same. But since this discussion has so many open-ended branches, it would just confuse the subject at hand, and it is therefore much more expedient to tackle our topic about the human soul as it really is, without burdening ourselves with hundreds of complicated terms and definitions. The plain truth of the matter is that the soul keeps on living in the beyond in very much the same manner it has lived here on earth, however with a much greater degree of freedom. The main difference being that in the afterlife the soul lives in a world of correspondence based on its deepest inner desires, passions, convictions, perceptions, beliefs, love inclinations, motives, etc. which manifest in the soul's spiritual surroundings it lives in. It goes without saying that the more the soul has followed the teachings of the Lord on earth with an inner, unselfish passion of love, the more extensive and brightly illuminated its afterlife surrounding. On the other hand, a very selfish person only concerned about his own wellbeing, is going to find himself in a very limited, dark, misty surrounding. After all, light comes from the heat produced by the passion of unselfish love; so how, where and when could a selfish person have obtained the light to illuminate his afterlife surrounding? [2] Even the most hardcore, materialist, reality scientist, who really only believes in what can be experienced by the five senses of the body, has to admit that there was a time when not a single atom of matter existed in the whole realm of existence. And many theoretical physicists will also agree to the fact that somewhere in a far distant future, all matter will cease to exist. So, in essence there was a period when no matter existed, then for a temporary time frame matter came into being, developed into a well-organized universe with an infinite multitude of phenomena up to an intelligent human being, after which all matter dissolves again into an everlasting nothingness. And all this is supposed to be happening for no purpose at all? All I'm saying here is that this line of thinking leaves the door wide open for a very intelligent consideration of a grand design by an unfathomable, all wise Godhead. Now that the Big Bang has come to a sudden death, one wonders what comes next. Some scientists even go so far as to postulate that matter originated from nothing at all. Or perhaps the even more farfetched multiverse concept will now be used to salvage a quickly sinking ship. But let us explore the above idea a little further. At some point, irrespective the explanation of scientists regarding the process, the first particle emerged from "nothingness". This particle was "born" with some properties, giving rise to its consistent future behavior. These properties range from gravity, hardness, color, electromagnetic properties, reaction to heat, radioactivity, centrifugal and centripetal behavior, spin, chemical affinities and many more. All these properties are regarded as physical laws. But all these physical laws are in essence nothing else than a form of intelligence. If for example a particle does not have the intelligence of gravity, it will not know to be attracted to other bodies of mass. Science actually progressed to the point where the existence of this hypothetical intelligence unit was mathematically calculated (Blokhintsev and Galperin - 1934) and named "graviton". One thing is certain, namely that all the intelligence of the various property characteristics of all physical particles, must have existed before the first particles came into being. If this does not hold true, no particles could ever have come into existence by whatever process. And if this is the case, it is even more logical to assume that all subsequent intelligence of the universe must have existed before matter started to emerge from the ether. So, the by far more pressing question is not how matter was formed, but who or what created the intelligence for these particles to form in the first place, and why did this intelligence start to harden and transform itself into matter. This applies to time and space as well. Time and space cannot exist without matter. Only a temporary existing matter can be the foundation for space and time. [3] The same line of reasoning also applies to energy. It is common knowledge in science that every atomic or subatomic particle contains, or better stated, is made up of bundled energy in one form or another. This energy could not have formed at the same time when the first particles emerged from the ether, but must have been present long before the formation of matter (first law of thermodynamics). That this energy existed in another state than in physical particles, is not at all disputed here. So, what does this mean? It means that intelligence and energy have preceded the formation of matter and are in fact the prerequisite for the formation of matter. It also means that intelligence and energy can exist without a material shell, while matter [4] on its own cannot exist without intelligence and energy. So, what is it that we have achieved here with a very simple line of pure scientific contemplation? We have in fact proven the existence of a metaphysical dimension, consisting of intelligence and energy or power. By doing so, we again have proven scientifically the existence of a Godhead, since who other than God could have created not just a disorderly, random, everlasting metaphysical realm, but in fact a so highly organized metaphysical realm that it by far surpasses the physical dimension. The time has now come for us to update Einstein's equation from E=mc 2 to (E + i'll) = mc2, where 'i'll' stands for intelligence. The brackets indicate that intelligence and energy are inseparable, so that the one cannot exist without the other. How intelligence is to be quantified, we can leave to the mathematicians to sort out. [5] At this point the reader is encouraged to also read the articles "Intelligence, the foundation of matter" and "Structure of the universe" by the same author. The former is a description of the micro-cosmos while the latter explains the macro-cosmos. Based on the above contemplation, we can now move on to an all-encompassing framework of God's creation and beyond, implying a complete setting of the Godhead Itself, for the formation of evolving souls. This complete universal setting of the Godhead consists of three dimensions: a primary background dimension called the divine dimension, then we have the spiritual dimension and lastly the physical space/time dimension, which is actually just an extension of the spiritual dimension. [6] DIVINE DIMENSION: The attributes of the divine dimension are the purest divine love, unfathomably deepest divine wisdom, infinite divine power, divine order, infinity and eternity. The attributes can also be expressed as omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence. The divine dimension has no beginning and no end, and of course has no 'outside'. The divine dimension is everything. It can be described as the everlasting fire of God with the purest of love as the innermost essence of God and the light emanating from this fire of love is divine wisdom, both, the warmth and the light penetrating all creation as an infinite force. Note, nothing prevents this infinite fire of love, wisdom and power to present itself in the form of an ordinary human being. [7] [8] SPIRITUAL DIMENSION: From the fire of God (the divine dimension) the spiritual dimension was created. The spiritual dimension still forms part of the divine dimension, but has been created within the Godhead as a separate dimension, in which all God's thoughts and ideas can develop to fruition. The spiritual dimension thus has a beginning, but not an end and is going to last forever. The countless legions of beings present inside the fire of God for eternities, were given their freedom, so to speak outside the Godhead, namely inside the spiritual dimension, although the spiritual dimension still occurs inside the divine dimension, but so to speak at a distance. In this newly created spiritual dimension the beings are free to develop themselves with the aim to freely recognize and in all humility love their Creator and each other. This very notion of love, already for eons in the making, still prevails today in every parent/child relationship, and meant to evolve into a loving God/child relationship. The attributes of the spiritual dimension are form, intelligence, consciousness, life, utter freedom, limitless creativity, all subject to divine order. According to this divine order the created beings can grow in love, wisdom, and freedom infinitely when adhering to the divine order of expressing humble, unselfish love, while at the same time they would lose their wisdom and freedom and eventually be imprisoned in matter when choosing the road of self-love and haughtiness. [9] Many books can be written about the arrangement of the spiritual dimension, but suffice to say here is that it can be divided in three levels of heaven and three levels of hell. The lower heaven is the heaven of wisdom, the middle heaven is the heaven of wisdom and love, while the highest heaven is the heaven of the purest unselfish love. At the same time the levels of hell range from selfishness to evil selfishness to haughty evilness. Note that heaven and hell do not denote some kind of spatial locality anywhere in the universe, but are states inside of every soul. This means that in one and the same soul both heaven and hell can be present, as is the case with most people. Acting with great compassion and self-sacrifice towards a person in need, places us in heaven, while acting selfishly and expressing a notion of revenge, is an act of hell. [10] PHYSICAL DIMENSION: Just like the spiritual dimension, also the physical dimension as a whole, has the form of a human being (the Cosmic Man - see "Structure of the universe"), made up of nearly countless universes of which our universe is one of the smallest. When the free-willing spirits of the spiritual dimension during the pre-cosmic-man period started to distance themselves from divine love and turned to self-love, according to divine order they began to harden (being imprisoned), giving rise to the creation of the physical dimension (the cosmic man). The physical dimension provides another platform for the fallen spirits to regenerate themselves and return to the freedom of the spiritual dimension. The main attributes of the physical dimension are: confinement of free spiritual content to time and space and physical must-laws. This means that the freedom of choice was taken away from the free-acting spirits of the spiritual dimension and subjected to 'must laws' in the physical dimension. Unlike the spiritual dimension which has a beginning but no end, the physical dimension has a beginning and is going to end, and is therefore finite. Our short physical life is already a strong indicator of the temporary usefulness of matter in general. The main purpose of all matter is that it serves as a very suitable cleansing machine for all soul matter. [11] Now that we have defined a universal divine setting, we can turn our attention to the soul and see how it fits into this divine framework. While still living on earth, at every moment of our lives we live in all three dimensions at the same time. In Genesis 1 we read that in the beginning God created heaven and earth, where in the ancient language of correspondence heaven means divine spirit and earth means soul. But the divine spirit was not yet united with the soul, which is why it says the spirit of God hovered above the waters. Note that the whole of Genesis 1 has nothing to do with the physical creation of heaven and earth, but serves as an allegory for the creation of man by God and man's subsequent schooling by the Creator (see the article "Understanding Genesis" by the same author). Thus, the seven days of creation as given in Genesis 1, took place eons of years before the first physical sun began to appear in space. [12] God created man out of the deepest, purest love with the intention that the beings would become His equals and love their Creator in return, and also love each other because each was carrying a spark of the Divine Spirit inside of him. For exactly the same reason of love, we still today procreate children to love them and be loved in return. But the perfect, humble, all-loving God did not want to create beings like string puppets, who were filled with His love and could not do otherwise than to love their Creator. No, he created man with a completely free will, so that the beings had to choose to follow the order of God voluntarily in order to love Him. But the beings were also free to choose differently, reject the order of God and by doing so reject their Creator and follow their own selfish, short-term goals. Take note that for the first six 'days' in Genesis 1 it says "and it was evening and it was morning, the first day" or the "...second day", and so forth. But it does not say so about the seventh day, a clear indication that the seventh day of creation is not yet completed and will take many eons to reach full redemption. And in fact, as it turned out to be, the created beings rejected their Creator and followed the road of selfishness and haughtiness of the first born, the most powerful of them all. The result of this epic fall was that the soul of the beings dissolved into their primordial substantive particles and the divine spirit spark was removed from the soul. But with God there can be no final destruction. Not one single electron can ever be destroyed in God's creation, because if this would be allowed to happen, the whole of creation would start to crumble apart. So, the endless mercy of God took all the primordial substantive soul particles and remolded them into matter, thereby creating a new platform for the beings to reconstitute themselves step by step over many eons of years. Try to imagine the following period from the time the physical cosmic man came into being until now: Imagine the whole earth being a huge diamond, including the oceans. Once every million years a bird comes flying by and chips with his beak only once at the diamond and flies off again. By doing so the bird would chip away a few atoms from the diamond. Now imagine how long it would take for the bird to chip away the whole diamond by returning to earth once every one million years. And this staggering time period would still not be enough to indicate the age of the cosmic man. [13] Forgive me if I repeat myself, but it is imperative to clearly understand the difference between the soul and the divine spirit in man. The soul of a human being consists of trillions of substantives, separate, indestructible intelligence particles called specifica, very similar to the physical body which also consists of trillions of atoms or even subatomic particles, each of which is also made up of specifica, either singularly or as clusters. The specifica of the soul are clustered together and forming a unit as a whole, thus acting not as individual particles, just as one cannot say that some carbon atoms in the physical body are acting independently from the whole organism. However, the soul on its own of a human being would not have more intelligence than a monkey and would rather act as a passive, devouring force without understanding what to absorb and why. But these specifica are very susceptible to absorb life. All specifica, whether bound in matter or free roaming, have form. The freeing of the bound spiritual content in matter takes place through the endless cycle of growing and decaying as can be observed everywhere in nature around us. Plants, [14] animals, mountains, planets, suns, galaxies and even entire universes are born, growing to maturity and eventually dying again. We humans are no exception. Every time a physical life is ended, a consolidated cluster of specifica (substantive soul matter) emerges from the decaying physical remnants, which then amalgamates with other freed spiritual life entities to form a new higher-level life, to be again born into a new physical body to continue its consolidation/ripening journey to ever higher levels of intelligence, until it reaches its perfection in a human soul. No soul is ever forced to enter a cycle of incarnation, but does so on a voluntary basis. Some emerging human souls are roaming the earth for decades before deciding to enter the flesh. A soul loses its complete pre-life memory and spiritual freedom when entering a body and needs to begin to build a new life from the ground up. But in time the so to speak raw souls realize that they cannot make any significant spiritual progress without an incarnation and eventually all of them ask to be placed in a physical body. In fact, every soul born into a body is accompanied by seven guardian angels whose job it is to protect us from all kinds of hardships. But from time to time, we move outside the protective reach of the guardian angels. Being given a free will to use our unlimited intelligence as we see fit, places an immense obligation on man to act responsibly. All hardship befalling mankind always prevents even greater and more severe hardship to take place in the future. The long-term spiritual advantages for a soul always outweigh all hardship endured on the school grounds of life, many times over. [15] [16] The divine spirit on the other hand, is an actual living force, its inner essence is pure love, it has consciousness, has an almost limitless intelligence and is always seeking for freedom, either by orderly or also disorderly means. The divine spirit can be viewed as a tiny independent spark of the Godhead, containing all the properties of the Godhead. It can be compared to a mirror which reflects sunlight. The reflected sunlight of the mirror has all the characteristics of the sun as to intensity and heat, but it is not the sun itself. The spirit does not have form itself but it is the reason for form. The spirit on its own cannot express itself, but always needs some form of specifica, either bound or unbound, to manifest itself. For example, a volcanic eruption is the work of spirits trying to forcefully work their way up from deep down in the earth where they are held captive. To do so they agitate trillions of primitive clusters of specifica imprisoned in rocks, which in turn create heat and pressure to melt the surrounding rocks, turning it into lava which forces its way upward in the earth's crust and erupts on the surface as a volcano. All this is of course always supervised by very powerful good spirits, who make sure that these rogue operations are not getting out of hand, and that something good is achieved by it. In man however, the spirit is kind of a sleeping partner in an almost invisible tiny bubble inside the heart of the soul. The soul compares to the spirit inside of itself as the earth to the sun. Just imagine what will happen to the earth if all of a sudden it is placed next to the sun. It will just disintegrate instantly. The same would happen to an immature soul if the spirit in man is not held tightly bound by very powerful bonds. However, despite these powerful fetters, a small amount of light and power is allowed to escape from the spirit and penetrate the soul, which enlivens it, increases the intelligence of the soul manyfold, gives it consciousness, a free will and provides it with a feeling of independence and everlasting life. Equipped with this enhanced intelligence it is now the task of the soul to strengthen itself to such an extent that it can begin to withstand the very powerful divine spirit inside of itself. The soul achieves the awakening of its spirit through a life of self-abnegation and searching, acknowledging and eventually loving its Creator and its brothers and sisters. This is why it says in the scriptures: "and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy thought and with all thy strength: this is the principal commandment. And Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31) Note the reference in this text where it says "...with all thy heart and with all thy soul...", underscoring the difference between the spirit (heart) and the soul. The spirit provides every human being of past, present and future with a direct link to God, which also applies to the atheist. Man could not live for one moment without the constant inflow of love and power of life from its divine spirit. The text of Mark 12:30-31 is the only true church in the heart of every human being and supersedes any external manmade ceremonies, rituals, religious customs and traditions, holy places, special clothes, church dogma, religious artwork and relics. God is only pleased by a loving, God fearing, humble, forgiving, caring heart. [17] [18] In one of the books by Jakob Lorber the difference between the mind of the soul and the disposition of the heart is explained as follows: "Behold, every human being has a double ability of recognition: an external one, which is the mind of the head or the actual external mind of the soul. The divine essence can never be grasped and understood with this faculty of recognition, because it was given to the soul for the very reason to temporarily separate the spirit in it from the divinity, and to hide it from it for some time! Now if a person, or rather a soul, wants to seek and find God with this sole negative faculty, it will only move further and further away from its goal the more persistently it pursues it in this way! But the soul also has another faculty that does not reside in its head but in its heart. This faculty is called the disposition and consists of a will all of its own, of love and of an imagination corresponding to these two elements of the disposition. Once it has absorbed the concept of God's existence, this concept is immediately embraced by love and held on to by its will, which holding on to is then called 'believing'. Through this faith, which is alive, the true spirit is then awakened, and it then contemplates its waker; it recognizes and seizes it immediately, then rises up like a mighty light from God and then penetrates the soul and transforms everything in it into light. And this light is then the actual faith through which every soul can be saved. In order to be able to think in the heart, requires its own exercise; and this exercise consists in the constantly renewed awakening of love for God. Through this awakening the heart is strengthened and enlarged, whereby the spirit's bonds are loosened, so that its light (for every spirit is a light from God) can gradually develop more and more freely. If the spirit's light then begins to illuminate the heart's actual chamber of life, then the countless archetypes in purely spiritual forms on the likewise countless walls of the chamber of life will also become more and more clearly and distinctly marked and made visible to the soul. And behold, this contemplation of the soul in its heart is then a new way of thinking; the soul arrives at new concepts, at great and clear ideas; its circle of vision widens with every beat of the pulse; the hurdles of misconception disappear to the extent that the mind of the head falls silent. - There is then no more questioning for evidence. For the light of the spirit illuminates the inner forms in such a way that they cast no shadow in any direction; thus, everything that would resemble a doubt even in the faintest whiff is banished forever. And so, a faith that is thus entirely based in the heart and not in the head is to be called a true and living faith; 'true' because it comes from the infallible light of the spirit, and 'living' because only the spirit is alive in man in the truest sense! But in this faith also lies that extraordinary power which is mentioned twice in the Gospels." (From Hell to Heaven 1 chapter 35:2-8) [19] Someone might now raise the question and say: If this spirit/soul relationship is so important, then why did the Lord not emphasize this in the Bible more clearly and make the implications of this known to mankind? Let him know that the Lord indeed did so in the most spectacular manner. After the Lord created Adam and Eve, He explained to them that He planted two trees in the garden of Eden, a tree of life and a tree of knowledge. Again, it must be understood here that Paradise or the garden of Eden are not referring to a geographical location on earth, but designate a state inside the soul of man. The tree of life refers to the spirit in man, while the tree of knowledge refers to the mind or intellect of the soul. The snake symbolizes the desires and passions in the soul, and Eve, tempting Adam with the apple, represents in this allegory the selflove in both of them. The Lord advised them to first develop/awaken their spirit before exploring the intellect of the soul. But Adam, with his free will, began to love his ability to reason in his mind and thereby fostering his desires and passions through self-love, and the voice of the spirit inside of him became softer and softer and he distanced himself more and more from the Lord. The result of this act of self-love was Cain who eventually completely killed the spirit (represented by Abel). The consequence of this act of self-love eventually led to the Deluge, and is still visible in a magnified state today, where hardly anyone is aware anymore of a divine spirit inside of himself. To dampen the illness of intellectual self-love of the soul, the Lord incarnated Himself to teach mankind the way of unselfish love and even sacrificed Himself by allowing to be slaughtered by the selfishness of man. But man, still in love with his intellect and material self-interest, did not understand the message of love brought to us by Christ, and caused the most horrifying atrocities during the past two millenniums in the name of Christianity, so that it again became necessary for God to re-issue the message of love untarnished (the New Revelation by His scribe Jakob Lorber). We all have this garden of Eden or Paradise inside of us, in which the tree of life and the tree of knowledge are planted, and the fall of Adam and Eve still continues to occur to this very day in all of us, by giving credence to our desires and passions through self-love. More than ever before does the Lord also today ask everyone, "Adam, where are you?" But the response is very sparse, and everyone has an excuse of being busy with the fruits of his external mind. So, what then needs to be done, because we all have to eventually return to the tree of life (inner spirit), in order to become alive again. [20] [21] Ignoring the divine spirit inside of us has of course far-reaching consequences for the development of the world as a whole. Although the intelligence of the soul is significantly increased by the presence of the divine spirit in the heart of the soul, there is no comparison to the intelligence and power of the divine spirit. The intelligence of the soul appears in comparison rather stunted and can be described as incoherent, segregated piece thinking on a material level only, fostering selfishness and greed on an epic scale. How can we hope to solve anything, without recognizing the existence of the Lord and a spiritual world around us, and thereby ignoring the very actual forces that influence our daily lives. The proof for this is that our intellectual way of thinking has brought the world to the brink of total destruction with regard to pollution of the environment, global warming, etc. Now we are under the impression that we just need to upgrade our technology to a greener level and the problem is solved. What a great misconception! If we want to address our global problems, we first have to take a very critical look at our selfish, materialistic lifestyle and in all humbleness recognize the presence of God inside of us. [22] All matter, from the smallest subatomic particle up to the largest animal, contains substantive soul matter. Even all of the ether in the universe is made up of specifica. There doesn't exist one single tiny speck of space anywhere, where one could say that it is really empty space. In the mineral-, plant-, and animal kingdom the soul clusters can be referred to as incomplete. In humans however, all innumerable types of specifica of the whole universe are present, thus we are fully intelligent. What makes us different from each other are the variable quantities of different types of specifica and the degree to which these specifica are exposed to the inner spirit. Furthermore, only humans have a dedicated divine spirit, while all minerals, plants and animals are enlivened and guided by group spirits, which is the reason for us having a free will and being able to assess and understand things on a higher level. The soul is connected to the body through the body's neural system by means of what is called a neural spirit. The soul, a substantive entity, cannot see the physical world, and therefore makes use of the five senses of the body to function in the physical world. The body collects the information and impressions of the physical world by means of its five senses and stores this information in the brain. The soul has the ability to see and interpret these stored pictures in the brain to draw conclusions and make decisions. The soul then directs the body to act accordingly. Important to note here is that the physical brain has no means to see and interpret its own pictures and impressions. All thinking is done in the brain of the soul greatly supported by the spirit. [23] [24] When the soul is separated from the body, the body dies. The last string that ties the soul to the body is the neural spirit. The soul itself could already be outside the body but as long as it is connected via the neural spirit to the heart of the body, the person is strictly speaking physically alive. And in rare cases the soul can actually return to the body, giving rise to the so-called 'tunnel light' which people remember in some near-death experiences. I personally had an out-of-body experience when a few years ago I had a car accident. The car overturned in the air and fortunately hit the ground with the left front first, which caused the airbags to explode saving my life. A few kilometers back I was taking a series of landscape pictures causing me to stop and drive and get out of the car several times. When we got going again, I forgot to put on my seatbelt. But the airbags worked perfectly. I remember nothing about the accident itself, but somewhere during the accident I very vividly saw myself from just in front of myself. Because of the great shock my soul must have started to abandon ship, causing me to see myself as if in a mirror. Years later when sharing this with my brother, by the way a non-religious person, he told me that he had exactly the same experience when he had a similar car accident. Once the neural string is severed, there is no going back anymore and the body immediately starts to decay. The soul does not age but only matures. Therefore, the soul in the beyond looks like a person of 25 years of age, even if its body was ninety years old. [25] When a soul separates its body, there are always angels present to receive the soul, irrespective whether good or bad, with the greatest love, compassion and care. When speaking here of angels, I'm not referring to beings with wings, but to ordinary beautiful, friendly, highly educated, loving people, who once lived on earth and spiritually matured by loving and fulfilling the will of the Lord. The confused soul is then told that it has physically died and is now living in the spirit world. With very hardened atheists it can actually take many years to convince them that they in fact have died and are now living in the spiritual world. When the soul awakens on the other side, it is free from any kind of illnesses and worldly suffering, remembers every smallest detail of its earthly life, up to every subtle thought ever conceived, has a very sharpened mind and its senses are manyfold enhanced compared to the physical senses when still living on earth. All political, masquerading behavior of the physical life vanishes instantly and the soul speaks and acts from the deepest inner desires, passions, convictions, perceptions, beliefs, love inclinations, motives, etc. without being able to pretend otherwise. Also, the soul's communication skills are greatly enhanced. Normally deceased souls are quite surprised, even sometimes annoyed, when told that their loved ones left behind on earth are mourning their departure, because they now feel so much better in the beyond than ever before while still living on earth. A soul in the beyond is constantly extremely busy, to such an extent that if it would be possible for you to interrupt its actions, you would receive a blunt, impatient response. A not yet fully matured soul cannot see the physical world but only its own world created by the soul's imagination from its deepest desires, passions and love inclinations. If allowed by the Lord, it is possible for the soul to meet with other like-minded people in this self-created world. The amount of light, versatility and extent of the soul's surroundings will greatly depend on its inner belief of our Lord Jesus Christ. Any external belief behavior is entirely ignored. It is not possible for a soul to lie on the other side, only the bluntest truth can prevail. The angels will advise the soul to follow them to the Lord Jesus if it wants to do so, but it is not in any way coerced to follow their advice. Any wrong perceptions the soul might have, which the angels can tell by just looking at the soul and seeing its inner state, the angels will tell the soul the truth about how things really are, but in most cases, this is in vain and the soul will follow its own beliefs. It is so much easier for the soul to better itself here on earth than to do so in the beyond where it practically lives inside its own convictions. The best the surviving loved ones can do for a departed soul is to preach to it the Gospel and to ask it to turn to the Lord Jesus for help in all circumstances. One can hardly talk about the soul without touching on the issue of reincarnation. From all I have read on this subject it appears to me that reincarnation occurs, but not as often as it is sometimes made out to be. Once a soul has completed the journey in the flesh, and has moved on to the free world of the spirits, there exists no motive for the soul to ever return to the material world. It would be the same as with someone who was locked up in prison for twenty years, and after his release enjoying a full free life, he wanted to go back to prison again. Only people who misused their trial life here on earth and instead of trying to rid themselves of all love for matter, they very selfishly have embraced matter and in fact increased their love for material things or worldly power. For these kinds of people, it might be necessary to return to the material world under conditions of great poverty to cleanse their souls of material love and learn to adopt humility. This can even take place more than once. It also happens that spirits from other planets, who already completed a life in a physical body elsewhere, are coming to this earth to endure a much harsher physical life than before. They are prepared to undergo any such suffering just to obtain the actual childhood of God, which can only be accomplished on this planet. All the harsh living conditions which might await them here on earth, are read to them in a temple of tuition on the planet from which they are originating, which motivates them even more to take up the challenge. [26] [27] Much has already been said about where we are coming from, and that the origin of our souls goes as far back as the pre-cosmic man era. So, what is the purpose of the soul here on earth? The soul and the divine spirit are brought together again when a human being is born on to this earth. The soul, with the disguised support of the divine spirit inside of the soul, is supposed to strengthen itself by distancing itself from all material love, and instead focus its love in all humility on the Lord and its fellow brothers and sisters, in order to fully unite with its divine spirit. This does not mean living a life in seclusion, but to fully participate in life and follow the example set by our Lord Jesus. Jesus lived a normal life, was raised by Mary and Joseph and worked as a carpenter until His thirtieth year, after which He began His teaching mission for three years. The Son of Man Jesus was not different from any other person and also carried a soul in Him just like any other human being. The only difference was that Jesus carried the full divine spirit of God inside of himself and not only a tiny spark of the divine spirit like we do. When God incarnated Himself as Jesus Christ on earth, and taught man the way to live, He opened the door for all to achieve the everlasting life of the soul. For without the full unification of the soul and the divine spirit, the soul resides in a state of a kind of spiritual death. The full unification of the soul with the divine spirit in it is called the spiritual rebirth, after which the soul cannot fall back again and is given a blessed everlasting life. Jesus was the first person to have accomplished the spiritual rebirth, and afterwards became a visible, tangible God for all of us with Whom we can interact and Whom we can call "dear Father". In the Old Testament it says: Nobody can see God and live. But this changed after the crucifixion of the Son of Man Jesus. Together with our Lord Jesus and countless already saved souls, the soul will then participate to save other souls awaiting salvation and to build a new creation, eternally growing in bliss and happiness. By this we have answered the three fundamental questions of life: Where are we coming from, what are we doing here and where are we going to. End of article.