Soul Perspectives On ...

Personality Knowledge

Some may think that personality knowledge is really not necessary in order to be soul conscious and to express that consciousness. This perspective is consistent with the old spirit-based spirituality, but totally inadequate for the new soul-based spirituality.

Soul uses the personality for its expression. Knowing the personality is like developing the technical or artistic skills of a craftsman or artist. Without these, inspiration is badly expressed, and cannot be communicated in a way that is sensitive to others.

When we don’t know our personality well, soul energies get distorted – and the sad part of this is that one doesn’t even know it. When we are ignorant, we also do not know what we are ignorant of.

The personality is but a projection of the soul into time and space. The incarnating entity (the individual) then identifies with the projection and loses sight of what is being projected, thereby causing distortion in one’s true identity. The projected personality is the mirror image of what is being projected – i.e., the soul. As a mirror image it is opposite the reality.

This means then that when the soul is not identified with or known, we emphasize the negative rather than the positive in our feelings and experiences, we suspect the worst rather than the best, we perceive weakness rather than strength, we see chaos rather than order, we look for and support separativeness rather than unity, we fear rather than love unconditionally, we miss the beauty because of our superficiality, and we create problems to solve rather than immersing ourselves in unsolvable mystery.

It is through the partial, the negative, and the separativeness that we learn what we need to learn to eventually lead us to the positive, the wholeness, the unity that can be experienced in soul consciousness. This is the normal and natural route of development of awareness and consciousness.

The Soul Journey is a process of transformation. Transformation is a merging of soul and personality being caused by the energies of the soul. We have to know both personality and soul well before transformation is possible. But we cannot merge what we do not know.

This merging of personality and soul is not emotional identification in which you lose yourself. It is, rather, a process of becoming more than you previously were. It is an expanding of identification. It is a shifting of your centre. It is a significant change of attitude and of motivation. These changes require awareness and consciousness of self at both personality and soul levels. The degree of transformation is limited, therefore, by both your awareness and your consciousness.

An essential part of the Soul Journey is an ever-growing ability to differentiate between personality and soul. This is essential because if you do not know the difference you might be giving undue emphasis upon one aspect when what is required is a lessening of emphasis on that aspect. For example, it is very useful to be able to recognize when you have a desire and when you have a need. Whenever you fulfill a desire that is not a need, you tend to omit the soul energy and remain personality focused. This can block greater integration. However, when there is a desire and you recognize it as an expression of real need, fulfilling the need will enhance our integration.

Exercises: 1. What negative experiences do you consistently or frequently have? 2. What do you not know about yourself that is manifesting in a negative way? 3. What soul energies or qualities do you need to express that would, as a result, remove the need for these negative experiences?

***The above newsletter is one of over 50 archived at The Soul Journey web site. Explore the 50 Soul Perspectives on many topics.