July/August 2003 Spirituality
Soul Transformation

by Dalibor Zaviska

What is a Soul?

The common view of the soul is that it is a non-physical aspect or essence of a human being, which portrays individuality and humanity, partakes of divinity and is often considered to survive the death of the body. It is often thought of as the mind or the self.

Throughout history, all religions and philosophies have defined the nature of the soul in their own ways; even prehistoric peoples believed in an aspect distinct from the body in which it resides.

Among ancient peoples, both the Egyptians and the Chinese believed in a dual soul. The Egyptian ka (breath) survived death but remained near the body, while the spiritual ba proceeded to the region of the dead. The Chinese distinguished between a lower, sensitive soul, which disappears with death, and a rational principle, the hun, which survives the physical death.

Ancient Greek concepts of the soul varied considerably according to the particular era and philosophical school. The Epicureans considered the soul to be made up of atoms like the rest of the body and believed that both body and soul ended at death. For the Platonists, the soul was an immaterial and incorporeal substance, of divine origin, akin to the gods and existed before and after death. Aristotle's concept of the soul was a form inseparable from the body.

The early Hebrews apparently had a concept of the soul but did not separate it from the body. Old Testament references to the soul are related to the concept of breath and establish no distinction between the ethereal soul and the corporeal body.

Christian concepts were of a soul representing the "true" person, separate from the body, immortal, created by God and infused into the body at conception. They originated with the ancient Greeks and were introduced into Christian theology by St. Gregory of Nyssa and by St. Augustine (4th century) – so they were obviously not the concept of the early Christians, who believed in the pre-existence of soul and reincarnation.

From the Middle Ages onward, the nature of the soul continued to be challenged by western philosophies. To René Descartes, man was a union of the body and the soul, each a distinct substance acting on the other; the soul was equivalent to the mind. To Benedict de Spinoza, body and soul formed two aspects of a single reality. Immanuel Kant concluded that the soul was not demonstrable through reason, although the mind inevitably must reach the conclusion that the soul exists because such a conclusion was necessary for the development of ethics and religion. To William James at the beginning of the 20th century, the soul as such did not exist at all but was merely a collection of psychic phenomena.

The Muslim concept, like that of the Christians, holds that the soul comes into existence at the same time as the body; thereafter, it has a life of its own, its union with the body being a temporary condition.

In the Hindu religion, each atman ("breath," or "soul") is considered to have been created at the beginning of time and imprisoned in an earthly body at birth. At the death of the body, the atman passes into a new body, its position in the Chain of Being determined by karma, or the cumulative consequences of actions. The cycle of death and rebirth (samsara) is eternal according to some Hindus but others say it persists only until the soul has attained karmic perfection, thus merging with the Absolute. Buddhism negates the concept of atman, asserting that any sense of the individual soul or self is illusory.

There are also concepts of multiple souls. Especially in central and northern Asia and Indonesia, it is believed that an individual's life and personality are made up of a complex set of psychic interrelations. In some traditions, the various souls are identified with the separate organs of the body; in others they are related to character traits. Each of the different souls making up a single individual has a different destiny after death. Among many northern Asian peoples, for example, one soul remains with the corpse, one soul descends to the underworld, and one soul ascends to the heavens.

The most famous example of multiple souls is the belief of the Apapocuva Guaraní of Brazil that a gentle vegetable soul comes, fully formed, from the dwelling place of the gods and joins with the infant at the moment of birth. To this is joined, shortly after birth, a vigorous animal soul. The type of animal decisively influences the recipient's personality: a gentle person has received a butterfly's soul; a cruel and violent man, the soul of a jaguar. Upon death, the vegetable soul enters paradise, and the animal soul becomes a fierce ghost that plagues the tribe.

Science struggles to explain such things as thoughts, memories or beliefs. It has no instruments to measure and research the nature of soul.

In the New Age movement, the soul of a human is mostly seen as an eternal, indestructible energy, created through individuation from Source (God), incarnated on Earth in physical body, evolving through countless incarnation cycles until it achieves maturity for ascension into higher planes of existence. This view is based on eastern and western mystics and esoteric knowledge. It is supported by well documented near-death phenomena and out-of-body explorations, clearly proving that the soul exists separate from the body. Past life research using hypnosis supports the reincarnation concept.

Even though most of us have a concept of the soul we feel comfortable with, we lack a deeper understanding of its function.

Model of the soul

What is the soul? The truth is, it is as easy or as difficult to explain as what is God since, in fact, souls are created from God. To answer the question more specifically, let me propose a working model: The human soul is the incarnated part of Self. It encompasses all the subtle energy bodies that are incarnating with the soul and carry karmic imprints. It registers all experiences and learning as it moves from lifetime to lifetime. The Soul is anchored in the higher heart chakra, also called the sacred heart.

It has three distinctive parts. The first one is the core of the Soul, the indestructible, eternal, inherently pure Inner Being that exists God-alike, as a conscious energy without form. You can think of it as a sun-like ball of conscious light. It was created from and by intent of God. A part of God became self-aware and individuated. From this original individuated consciousness, another part of energy became self-conscious and was separated. This process of individuation, the birthing into denser and denser planes of existence, continued down to the level of the Inner Being incarnated in the human body. Through the higher parts, the Inner Being is always connected to the Source. This part of us communicates with the conscious mind through feelings.

The second part of the soul is the outer layers of the energy - the subconscious mind, which determines to a wide extent our personality. This is the ego. It is the storehouse of the products of the egoic mind: beliefs, sub personalities, thought forms, stacked emotions and karmic imprints. From here our emotions originate, and here they are suppressed. Emotions, as a product of the egoic process, have a storyline attached to them. This is different from feelings, which come from the Inner Being and are pure, whether positive or negative.

The conscious mind, the third part of the soul, can be thought of as the surface of a pool of energy. The thoughts are like ripples on that surface. Each thought originates on the interface between the Inner Being and the subconscious mind. While moving to the surface, the thought interacts with parts of the ego triggering memories, beliefs and emotions. What we perceive as a thought with our conscious mind, is just like the tip of an iceberg. The process in our subconscious mind, as the name suggests, is out of reach to our waking awareness.

Body-Soul

Another not well known aspect of the human being is the body-soul. It is the sentient consciousness of the physical body. It is anchored in the sacrum. The body-soul holds the energetic genetic imprints of the body – analogous to the karma of the soul. It is tied to the DNA and the subconscious mind. It plays an important role in health and reality creation. The body-soul procreates with the birth of a newborn, passing the imprints to the next generation. It ceases with the death of the physical body, when the soul leaves.

Why Soul Transformation?

All chronic physical, emotional and mental disorders originate in the subconscious mind and the misalignments of the body-soul. Also lack of means is a reflection of a disease of the soul. One of the biggest contributors to problems in life is the fragmentation of the personality and foreign energy interferences, also called entity or spirit attachments. An example of a soul fragment is the sub-personality, like the inner child or the inner warrior. Attached entities act as sub-personalities, feeding thoughts to the conscious mind of the host. They can create vast range of physical, emotional and mental disorders.

To achieve well-being, joy and prosperity in life, it is necessary, at least to a certain degree, to clear the clutter in the subconscious mind. Work on soul healing and soul transformation accelerates this process significantly.

That includes releasing of toxic emotions, letting go of obsolete, limiting and self-sabotaging beliefs, integration of sub-personalities and clearing of foreign energy interferences. Through the soul transformation work, the subconscious or egoic mind becomes clearer and more fluid. All the memories remain, however the negative emotional charge of past traumas and wounds is released.

To achieve full enlightenment, one must clear the subconscious mind, the ego, totally, including the karmic patterns and align the energies with the Higher Self. When this happens, the Inner Being reclaims the territory of the ego and merges with its transformed essence. This is the completion of soul transformation.

Dalibor Zaviska, CHT, HEFT, is a spiritual teacher and counselor with an office in Lake Oswego. He is the creator of Human Energy Field Therapy and conducts workshops on Soul Transformation and Soul Alignment. (503-697-3232) www.HigherLight.net