The Ethereal Soul of Man – Part Ii

THE WAY OF THE GRAIL – SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS – December 2, 2024

Czech original: Jemnohmotná Duše Člověka – Část Ii. · cesta-gralu.cz

It is strange how the greatest part of men have no inkling at all of all that belongs to their inner being

Although many now and then divine something, in general nothing is known of the ethereal part which, as one of the components of man, forms the soul covering for the spark that is of a still finer, spiritual kind

Thanks to science men know their earthly body down to its smallest particles, yet concerning the soul, which is in reality many times more important for them than the earthly body, there prevails only a misty groping and delusive supposition

The ethereal soul covering of the spark of the spirit is borne within himself by everyone who finds himself in the Subsequent Creation

Every man in an earthly body therefore also has this covering within him, whether he is aware of it or not

Therefore in the present time of spiritual enlightenment it is needful to speak ever more of this inward part to be found in man

The knowledge of the soul, and also of how the soul covering is connected with the acting and the deciding of those who are on Earth, is a very important stage of development for the new age of mankind

It is to become an inseparable awareness in everything that man does here on Earth, in how he acts and to what he gives preference in his decisions

If man occupies himself with this earnestly, it will bring him a many times greater value for his whole existence than the present state can bring him, which in the case of many appears as a stubbornly childish covering of eyes and ears against everything that lies outside this world of gross matter

Although the soul covering is of a wholly different kind from the earthly body and is therefore not to be grasped materially on Earth, its importance lies in this, that for the dimension of man's existence it reaches beyond earthly life and in its duration offers the spiritual inner being a soil upon the further stages of development

The substance of etherealness offers the spiritual spark the possibility of movement in the ethereal planes of the Subsequent Creation

Through its constitution it offers support for the exercise of volition and of longings in places which here on Earth are variously named by men, for example the other world, the other shore, or also the beyond

However often this ethereal covering is named similarly to the earthly body, namely the soul body, in its ordering it has nothing in common with man's gross material shell on Earth

It has no need of organs nor of all the bodily processes such as are found in the earthly body, which through the creative power of the animistic servants in the long forming of organisms was developed to a masterly result for movement and activity in this gross materiality

This alone should indicate how great a difference prevails between these two coverings of the spirit

The ethereal soul body is of a wholly different kind

The soul body does not need the organic parts which are the condition for the life of the earthly body, for it is formed for other conditions, which prevail in the ethereal planes

That means no impoverishment, as it might seem

Neither is it any indeterminate fluid of a nebulous kind, but on the contrary the soul body is of an entirely definite form and shape, having at bottom always a human appearance

Through the nature of its kind it lies more closely about the spiritual core, which is the actual original essence of human consciousness

In this close adherence the soul body is formed in proportion to the development and the ripening of the spiritual inner being, for it is directly irradiated by the spiritual spark

In a living forming the ethereal body carries over into its visible shape all the vibrations of the spiritual volition

If the spiritual inner being longs for purity and for a beautiful harmony with the Light, then the soul body also, in following this volition, is formed into beauty

If, however, the spiritual inner being of man turns away from a volition of a good and pure kind, then after a short time the soul body undergoes changes which finally show themselves as unloveliness or even hideousness and as a besmirching of the originally purer features in its whole appearance

In contrast to the earthly body, which apart from rare exceptions of fate is almost unchangeable and follows only the gross material law of ageing, the soul body is subject to the changes of the inward volition far more

In the earthly body the spiritual expresses itself most of all in the eyes of man, and then also in part in the features of his countenance

Everything else in the earthly body is unable to reflect the direction of the spirit's volition so immediately as is the case with the soul

Precisely through its substance the soul body makes something of the kind possible in everyone

It may be said that, seen from the standpoint of earthly time, the soul changes with every moment

Not perhaps as a whole, in the entire form of the soul body, but in the smallest details it is something quite self-evident

Especially in the visible luminosity and brightness of the covering, fundamental changes can take place in a very short time

It naturally holds good that after a longer time of a strong direction, for example in some volition that is not good, this penetrates the whole appearance of the soul, whereby in the end a complete distortion of the original beauty may come about, that beauty which every young soul bears within itself at the very beginning of its path of ripening

The distortion can show itself so strongly that under the pressure of something unlovely the soul body finally loses the human shape and becomes in its constitution a deformed monstrosity, pitifully far removed from its original appearance

The strength of the volition, and also the long duration in which the attunement of the soul body is held, subjects the fine substance of the soul to itself in such a way that in the end it re-forms it completely in a direction corresponding to the aim and also to the duration of the longed-for tasting of the spiritual inner being

We may therefore divine that the outward earthly body of some man, which appears outwardly quite ordinary or perhaps even bodily beautiful in a certain sense of earthly men's comprehension, is bound with a soul that is very unlovely

And conversely the outward earthly body which is not of ideal appearance and perhaps even suffers from some ailments is not seldom bound with a soul body of very beautiful constitution

What the soul is able to do, the earthly body in its ponderousness can never imitate

We may say that the ethereal soul is a covering closely adhering to the spiritual spark, which adapts itself entirely to the vibrations of the spark's volition

In these transformations and in this development there takes place the needful ripening of the soul

There arise the qualities and the inclinations to which the soul is near, for in them it feels itself best able to unfold

That is right, for it belongs to the spiritual ripening of the spark, which therein can come to know the great Laws of Creation, that is the Will of the Creator

In a certain sense it is similar to when an earthly man tries on clothing in which he either feels well, so that it becomes a favourite of his, or which perhaps does not suit him, so that he longs to change it quickly

Perhaps we could also liken this to the seeking and the finding that occurs with the earthly kind of work with which a man longs to occupy himself

Put still otherwise, it is also possible in part to see it as the theatrical roles with which an actor upon the stage identifies himself more or less

At bottom it is always a longing-filled tasting which in the reciprocal effect imprints itself upon the ripeness and also upon the whole state and appearance of the soul

Thereby the inward spark too gains an ever stronger consciousness of itself, and can thus develop and form itself upon the plane of purely spiritual substance, which will perhaps one day enable it to enter the planes of the spiritual home

The experiences of the soul in the way it moves and unfolds under ethereal conditions imprint themselves back upon the spiritual spark, and thereby it becomes more conscious itself

None of this happens without being always in some way subjected to the effects of the Laws of Creation

Every longing to taste in the unfolding of the spiritual spark within the work of Creation gives rise, under the pressure of the Laws of Creation, to threads of fate, so that responsibility for the expression and the manner of its unfolding always arises at once

On all the planes of the path of development of the spiritual spark the corresponding kinds of threads are formed in the hands of the weavers, in which the connection of the soul with all that is past remains

The good which in these threads could be caught up in the soul helps and strengthens it further on its path in the right direction, that is towards the Light, towards the spiritual home

That, however, which in the Laws of Creation showed itself as wrong, as harmful and as disturbing to the harmony of Creation, remains in the threads as something demanding a still deeper degree of recognition, which comes about through the experiencing of the Law of Reciprocal Action

Only through the right comprehension and acceptance of the fact that all that is not good will one day return to man in order to bring him the necessity of a homogeneous experiencing, but from another side, can progress arise, and with it the liberation from the threads mentioned

This is also at once reflected in the soul which had been burdened with something not good in its longing-filled tasting

If in the experiencing, or in an independent striving in advance, it lays this aside, a becoming luminous swiftly comes about and the soul thereupon takes on a nobler appearance

The experiencing also imprints itself upon the spiritual essence itself and thus forms, out of what was at first only a basic spiritual seed, step by step an ever more distinctly shaped, bright and beautiful spiritual figure

Everything is gloriously interwoven, and this again and again only proves how the Wisdom of God created for that spiritual part most distant from the Light, to which men belong, the most natural and at the same time the most fabulously beautiful soil for their development

Nothing is left to chance, but everything is wisely guided along courses which, in the livingness of the Laws of Creation, make possible the most just progress for every human spirit

The awareness of the soul should therefore be for every man something strengthening, which brings into the great mosaic of the knowledge of human existence an important part, without which the development and the ripening of the spiritual core in man could never continue

This knowledge would also bring answers not only as to what follows after the departure from this world of gross materiality, but as to all that preceded the coming to Earth

It would be discovered that both before and after the earthly life a development of an inward kind unwinds as one great path

Thereby for many men the fear-filled unrest hitherto surrounding the concept of the soul would vanish

This because it would simply be understood that the soul covering is a natural part of the equipment of the human spiritual spark, and that it is a covering vitally needed for the exercise of that spark's volition in the planes of the ethereal part of the Subsequent Creation

These planes are many times more comprehensive than the whole gross material universe is conceived to be

In these planes there prevails on all levels an active life which is experienced far more completely and far more fully in value than the present earthly way of life can offer men

The soul body works in a very important way for the ripeness of the spiritual spark

The field of this work is the capacity of receptivity in every moment of experiencing

If the receptivity is living, then at once there forms in the soul a more vigilant ability to distinguish all that is good from what is not good in the tasting of the varied directions of human volition

We may call this a vigilant experience of the soul, which is never lost, provided of course that the flame issuing from the spiritual inner being does not slacken

Only when the spirit becomes weak within itself and ceases to irradiate the soul body with a sufficiently living vibration does lukewarmness and indifference towards all life then permeate everything

Here we may speak of the indifference of the spiritual spark, which is a very dangerous state for it

The indifference of the spiritual spark brings about a weakening of the soul, which thereupon ceases to exert itself in receptivity and falls into a deep sleep

If, however, the radiation of the spark still suffices to keep the soul and the earthly body alive, then such men can earthly still appear quite normal in their daily repetition of habits

Yet together with the weakening of the soul's vigilance all earlier experience falls into oblivion in them, and thereby there shows itself in them ever more an insensitivity and an incapacity for the receptivity of anything finer and more cordial in dealings with other men

In them also the pernicious influence of an intellectually cold conduct more easily comes to the surface

Outwardly it appears that such men lack conscience for all their conduct, which is narrowly material and purposeful within the framework of earthly advantage

In today's world this unhappily lends them the ability to make their way in the wider life of society, and we often find such men in many leading positions of public life, where they cause much harm to other men and also spin for themselves in their own threads of fate only new and ever new necessities of redemption in a future experiencing

It may be seen in the fact that everything of a more intuitive nature literally slides off men who show spiritual indifference, for the weakened receptivity of their soul disables the experiencing of compassion with others or of conscience for their own conduct

Very often too, alongside the weakening in the perception of finer happenings, there gradually develops in such souls the turning about of originally unfolded virtues, which become defective in the form of many vices

The reason for this lies in the suppression of the receptivity mentioned

Such a soul ceases to be a helper for the development of the spiritual inner being, and on the contrary becomes, through its distortion, harmful to the spirit

Nevertheless even in such men there remains somewhere deep within a glimmer of the first awakening consciousness, in which all that is dear and beautiful to the spirit remains permanently contained

This glimmer then not seldom causes an inner tension which shows itself as an inner rift, or also as opposing forces within the soul emerging according to the conditions working upon the soul or upon the earthly body

Better conditions can strengthen those memories and thus support the already greatly weakened will of the spiritual inner being towards an awakening

Conditions which lead predominantly to the encouragement of conduct that is not good, on the contrary, stifle these distant memories and thus permit the heaping up of further and further threads bearing within themselves the necessity of redemption

All this then means one thing only

Namely that, together with the deforming of the soul body, the ethereal covering moves ever further from the possibility of one day completing its path of development towards that ripeness which alone makes it possible to attain entry into the spiritual home

This, however, is very painful for all the rest of the more luminous life in Creation to behold

Therefore there are often to be found in the work of Creation great hosts of those who, being only a small step further than the souls belated in their development, strive with all their strength to help them, for their receptivity calls forth in them the experiencing of pain over the lost share of the erring ones in that whole happiness and harmony which would otherwise be granted them by the Graciousness of God

Precisely in this it is made possible by the Will of God for souls to ripen and to grow strong, for it demands of them the work and the effort which help to a weaker one always demands

Although in the case of millions of souls the Will of God would often be fulfilled otherwise, it is granted to all who in their enlivened receptivity have a great volition to help, that conditions form for them in the ethereal worlds for something such as the beneficent longing to render help to the weaker

It is work, and in a certain sense also a learning through the gaining of experience in such striving of souls that will the good

This already leads the souls thus voluntarily working to the unfolding of an inner radiance, and thereby to their ripening in the recognition of the Laws of Creation, by which all who take part are compelled to order themselves

And precisely this kind of help to all weaker fellow men still groping upon the path is, together with the recognition of the Laws of Creation, to become a significant part of the coming time on Earth

It is the content of the spiritual enlightenment which comes to mankind as a refreshing tide of a new outlook upon the meaning of life

Upon the parched soil of the earthly world of men there now flows down the life-giving power of the Light, in which is contained the Truth out of the Divine Principle of Life

From this Truth not only men living in a material body may draw, who are now permitted through the world of thought to change completely the setting of the concept “earthly life”, but also the souls around the Earth who have a fervent striving to help

Earthly life, newly perceived, will be closely bound with the knowledge of the spiritual essence contained in man

Thereby everything that men have hitherto established on Earth under the pressure of intellectual volition will change completely

The abyss between the earthly world and the other planes of the Subsequent Creation will be closed

Among other things the concept of the soul will become far more familiar in the recognition of its significance for the ripeness of the spiritual spark in man

From this there arises for every earnestly reflecting man the recognition of how important a thing it is for everyone to hold a steady direction in a pure attunement uplifting towards the Light, for it is precisely this that binds together all the components in man

It needs to become a complete matter of course, out of which alone everything further in the new building up of life on Earth will then unfold

Around earthly men there is already today much help of a spiritual and of a soul kind

Besides this there is also the working of the animistic servants, who bind together all the planes mentioned in man into one whole and thereby shape for the human spirit the path upward to the spiritual home, to Paradise

Over all this there arches the radiance of an incomprehensible kind of Light, which issues from the Ray of Parzival

Such is the prospect for all those who long to draw near to the spiritual enlightenment

It is a prospect full of the blessed working of the Primordially Eternal Will of God in Creation

Whoever is living within may perceive all this and also rightly receive it for the upward flight of his spirit to the Light

For such men there now comes that which in the near future will enter into their life as an echo of the spheres of the soul

Thanks to this they will be able to see and to hear more from the planes which have hitherto been closed to them

Many will then meet with those whom they have long known, but whom in the deafening of the intellect they have forgotten here on Earth

Thereby this earthly world will become more beautiful for many, for in it they will behold the effects of higher happenings

Their life will be transformed into a path filled with wonders, in which at every single step they will in the end want nothing else than joyfully to glorify their Creator, for at last they will recognise what His work of Creation truly looks like