7. The Spirit's Descent into Human Life
Updated: Jan 10, 2021
(Part 7of an ongoing series of posts on the creative process of life.)
Today we’re going to take a closer look at how Spirit is translated into human form. Understanding the charts pictured here will help make things a bit clearer as we go, so let me take a moment to walk you through them.
[Click here to see enlarged images - Figure 1 and Figure 2]
This is a diagram of the Cosmic Physical Plane of the universe – the lowest plane. It’s comprised of seven types of energy and divine activity, called the systemic subplanes.
Each of the systemic subplanes (which I will now refer to as planes) is also subdivided into seven subplanes that mirror the larger subdivisions. So, there are 7 planes and 49 subplanes on the Cosmic Physical Plane.
Adi – God the Father
Monadic – God the Son
Atmic – God the Holy Spirit
Buddhic – the plane of at-one-ment
Manasic – the mental plane
Astral – the desire plane
Dense – the physical plane
You can study the charts to learn more about each plane. (Allow your higher intuitive mind to guide you rather than your analytic, concrete mind.)
Human beings occupy the lowest 3 planes (mental, astral and dense,) spanning a total of 18 subplanes. Let’s take a look:
The dense physical body dwells on all 7 subplanes of the dense plane.
The astral body dwells on the all 7 subplanes of the astral plane.
The lower concrete mind dwells only on the lowest 4 subplanes of the mental plane. 7+7+4=18
The abstract and higher intuitive levels of human consciousness bring us into contact with the domain of the Soul. If you study the chart, you’ll discover that the incarnated human personality and the indwelling Soul merge on the 4th subplane of the mental plane. It’s worth noting that the 4th subplane of every plane is the gateway of Buddhic energy and consciousness – or, love-wisdom, which is unifying. The quality of divine love is attractive and bonding in nature; divine wisdom provides a larger context wherein seemingly disparate parts are seen as unified within a larger oneness. It is from this subplane on the Manasic plane that the Soul is able to extend life and consciousness into the lower 18 subplanes to give rise to the human experience. In the lower three worlds, the Soul functions as:
Discriminating mind on the mental plane
Sensitive consciousness on the astral plane
Active participation on the physical plane [1]
Hopefully this short introduction will help make things a bit clearer as we go.
Creating Human Life
Monads working on this planet, distribute themselves into various energetic centers or units of conscious activity on the lower five planes of the Cosmic Physical Plane. All of the forms emerging from these centers – the Spiritual Triad, Soul, and Personality – serve as vehicles for learning and evolving.
The Spiritual Triad
As the Monad extends energy onto the Physical Plane, the first level of beingness to appear is the Spiritual Triad (also called Spiritual Man, pure Spirit, and Atman.) The Triad manifests through energy centers created on the Atmic, Buddhic, and Manasic planes. You might think of these spiritual centers as something very much like chakras. The Spiritual Triad is a purely spiritual level of being. No dense forms exist on these levels, only the interaction of pure energy of life, love, and mind.
Let’s take a closer look at the formation of the energy centers of the Spiritual Triad because it is from the divine lifestream flowing through these centers that the Soul manifests and then the incarnated human being.
The energy of divine will flows from the Monad onto the Atmic plane to form a living center of energy on the highest – or Adi – level this plane. (Note: All three energy centers of the Triad manifest on the Adi subplane of each plane involved because the Son is always a co-creator with His Father.)
The divine love of the Monad forms an energy center on the highest level of the Buddhic plane.
The active intelligence of the Monad forms a center on the highest level of the Manasic plane.
These three centers create a mighty triangle of force through which life, love, and consciousness pour forth onto the fourth level of the Manasic plane forming the causal body of the Soul.
The Soul
The Soul is the integrating agent between the incarnated personality and the Monad. It serves as the lowest point of directing divine intelligence on the Physical Plane; it remains fully aware of our connection in God and is not subject to illusion. The personality is the lowest level of self-aware consciousness; it has a sense of self, but is subject to illusion. The Soul serves as a reservoir of divine life, love, and intelligence for the incarnated personality to draw upon as the personality awakens consciously to its divine potential. Life and consciousness are extended into, and withdrawn out of, the lower three worlds via the Soul.
In the early phase of human evolution, the directing intelligence of the Soul remains quiescent. The human personality is focused on pursuing its own personal desires with little discriminating wisdom to mediate its activity. Eventually, however, human beings become aware of the Soul and begin to seek out the healing guidance it provides. This connection changes human perception and leads the personality back to its divine nature. For those of you who study A Course in Miracles, the Soul is the means by which the Holy Spirit (the third aspect of God Who is in everyone) is able to communicate with the ego of the incarnated personality.
Each lifetime offers opportunities for the spiritual growth. Anytime the personality turns toward the guidance of its indwelling Soul, it learns to recognize spiritual values and develop spiritual intelligence. As the personality integrates its identity into the perspective of the Soul, it learns how to live, love, and create as a divine Son of God in the tangible world.
From the Soul’s perspective, the life experience of the human being either develops the personality’s divine potential or it doesn’t. Anything that doesn’t reveal truth is by definition illusion. Thus, any human experience that fails to reveal the divine qualities of the Son does not affect the Soul, the Monad, or God in any way. It only affects the personality’s experience of life. All of that experience is stored in the Akashic Records (which is why we can access past-life memories) but not in the causal body of the Soul. The records stored in the Akashic library can be used to guide or hinder the personality depending upon how it relates the information to its current situation. If the personality’s sense of identity is still wrapped up in the glamour of the past experience, it will most likely hinder it. If it has moved out of the story and can review it neutrally, it may find an important key to a current issue that holds a similar challenge.
Here’s an example from my own life. As a child I was tormented by a recurring nightmare of being burned at the stake as a heretic by the Inquisition. This terrifying past-life memory was part of my unfinished business in this lifetime. My current incarnation afforded me an opportunity to finish the work, but I didn’t understand this for many years. My personality subconsciously resonated with this fearful memory whenever I was in a position of wanting to speak my own truth, especially if I felt others would dislike it and particularly if it was spiritual in nature. And so, it remained difficult for me to speak up.
When I realized this was due to an unresolved past-life experience I needed to heal, I was able to move beyond the terror the previous personality experienced into the point of view of the Soul. In meditation, I followed my spirit as it arose out of the body and merged with a higher level of being that filled my heart with unconditional love and forgiveness for everybody involved in the experience. I felt an especially deep compassion for the men who hated me so much they took pleasure in watching the pain and fear the personality experienced. I saw how terribly afraid and disconnected they were from love. Once I moved into this impersonal soulful place, the qualities of unconditional love, compassion, and forgiveness flowed into my awareness and dissipated the traumatic memory. In the past life, those qualities were activated during the personality’s transition out of the body but not actuated on the dense plane. In this lifetime, I was able to access those qualities and learn how to bring them all the way through to the personality level.
The Causal Body of the Soul
The causal body serves as the seat of the Soul for the entire human evolutionary process and is only dissipated once the evolved human being has reached a certain stage in the ascension process where this body of energy is no longer required. The causal body is not a physical body; it is a center of creative energy much like a chakra.
It’s helpful to picture the causal body as a lotus flower.
The core is comprised of the lifestream generated by the Monad via the Spiritual Triad as it extends onto the fourth level of the mental (Manasic) plane. (See figure 2.) The petals of the lotus emerge from that lifestream.
The outer petals are an extension of the active intelligence of God and house our potential to know God and share in God’s knowledge. It is through this line that we are able to consciously connect with the Holy spirit.
The middle petals are an extension of the love and wisdom of God and house our potential to love God and to love our brothers as God does. It is through this line that we are eventually able to become aware of our Christ consciousness, or the awareness of oneness.
The inner petals are an extension of the will of God and house our potential to live as God in complete accord with His will because we recognize it is also our will as His Son. When the personality develops the full potential stored within all of the petals, the soul-infused personality is able to function as a conscious creator in the world.
The first evolutionary goal of the human personality, then, is to awaken to the existence of the indwelling Soul and allow it to heal the mind. As this healing process progresses over time, the personality learns how to let go of its delusions and remember the truth of our perfection and innocence as the Sons of God. The personality’s purpose and motivation change quite a bit during this process. The loving, wise, and peaceful orientation of the Soul becomes more and more pronounced until the personality eventually becomes completely fused with the Soul. Once this happens, the soul-infused personality no longer needs the causal body and works directly with the energy and consciousness of the Monad flowing onto the Physical Plane through the Spiritual Triad. As you might imagine, tremendous change ensues as the evolving human being expands into increasingly loving and powerful levels of creative activity in the planetary scheme.
In Sum
The purpose of the Soul is to help the incarnated personality learn how to embody the life of God in order to reveal the loving quality and nature of God in a tangible way. Everything human beings think and do at the personality level is a lesson in either the cruel effects of a delusional paradigm of separateness, or the healing effects of the truth of our divinity. At the point in human evolution when the personality turns its attention inward towards the Soul, it enters into an intensive phase of learning that teaches it how to decentralize its sense of identity out of the ego and accept its actual identity as the Son of God. When this happens, God is able to extend outward into physical reality unimpeded as His creative will flows freely into the Monad, the Spiritual Triad, and finally into the Soul-infused personality.
As each individual lets go of the separation paradigm and turns to the guidance of the Soul, the collective whole is healed because, in truth, we are all interconnected within a larger whole Being.
Food for Thought
Self-reflection exercises – 2 variations.
1. Several times each day stop and ask yourself:
What is my thinking teaching me right now? Is this a peaceful, loving, compassionate lesson or a lesson in fear and separation?
2. Imagine your mind is like a huge shopping mall, but everything on offer in this mall is a thought. Just as you would never buy everything you see in a mall, realize that you don’t have to “buy” any thought here. Ask yourself:
What is the value of this current thought? What agenda does it serve? What emotion comes with it? Is this what I want to “buy” or can I select a better thought?
References
[1] Susan Schirott, Esoteric Glossary, Susan Kaye Schirott, 2011
[2] Figures 1 and 2 are my renditions of charts published by Alice Bailey in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
Cosmic Physical Plane - Figure 1
Cosmic Physical Plane - Figure 2
This post is an updated excerpt from my book The Divine Journey. Available for purchase on Amazon.com