Soul, as the Principle of Integration

Rational discussions on metaphysical and abstract topics.
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Nefastos
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Soul, as the Principle of Integration

Post by Nefastos »

Before my daily prayer practice I use a simple ritual to purify i.e. dedicate my "spirit", "soul", and "body" for the Great Work. So these three old terms are quite constantly present in my life, even though the brotherhood uses the more extensive sevenfold schema of human principles for a system of micro- and macrocosmic study.

Yet only in the last week it really dawned me what the "soul" actually means. There have been so many different interpretations of its meaning, that this simplest of all had somehow eluded my understanding. The soul is simply the integrating principle, and thus it can be seen in any system as the principle of oneness and wholeness of that system. To perceive that integrity one needs the organ to sense unity, and this is buddhi. This comes to perfect circle, for buddhi is the name for the soul as a certain aspect of one's innermost intellect in the old Sanskrit literature. It has just travelled wide in Western mindset, which basically is the culture of and from the challenges of dis-integration. (I.e. creation that accepts no limits.)

Similarly, the "spirit" in the threefold system is, for me, practically ethics, because spirit is geometry or intellectual balance in (and thus from) the macrocosm, which is both the Self and the Other. "Body" or matter is substance, or the way how cohesion and entropy unite in space-time: thus it is denseness of energetics as potency. In these three sublime differences of unity I found the three aspects of several kinds of systemic triads. Each of them is also a separate aspectual face of the final Oneness.

I thought that sharing this simple idea could have some value for the members who also might use the mentioned dedication from the Rosary practice, or otherwise ponder upon the similarities and differences between the three- and sevenfold principle systems. In this some very long stairs of thought, about the fundamental challenge between unity and separateness, reached a certain realization in me. In hindsight, I am sure the same thought must have been present in many Jungian texts, not to mention others, but I had never fully grasped this basic interpretation.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Cerastes
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Re: Soul, as the Principle of Integration

Post by Cerastes »

Thanks for sharing this thought.
Last week I was thinking about the meaning of „soul“ too, mainly because of this:
Nefastos wrote:I have noticed that there are also energy shifts and burdens of a collective kind that are also extremely good for one's soul
Concretly I was thinking about why the change of spiritual environment and collective burdens are good for the soul and what the soul is actually doing.
The soul as the integrating priciple of unity makes sense to me because every (energetical) change provides something new which can be integrated into the whole/unity/oneness. Energetical changes are feeding the integrative principle, so to say and therefore (spiritual) isolation is comparable to soul starvation.

Just one more question. Can you give an example what is meant by „system“? I’m not sure if I get that right.
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
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Polyhymnia
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Re: Soul, as the Principle of Integration

Post by Polyhymnia »

Interestingly enough I sat down at my altar just now to perform my rosary and something urged me to log on to the forums first. Very interesting thoughts to accompany my day, and this rosary in which I'm about to partake. This impromptu logon has proven to be very valuable indeed!
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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Nefastos
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Re: Soul, as the Principle of Integration

Post by Nefastos »

I'm glad to hear that it gave some ideas. I was a bit hesitant to start a topic without an actual question in the first message to help participation.
Cerastes wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:56 pmCan you give an example what is meant by „system“? I’m not sure if I get that right.


By systems I meant different approaches to micro- and macrocosmic constitution. For example, in Christianity we have trinities of body, soul and spirit on humane level and Father, Son, and Holy Ghost on theological level – these trinities belong to the Christian "system". Similarly, we have systems of Buddhist or Hindu schools, or theosophical schema, adopted for the use of the Star of Azazel with slight modification in interpretation. Anything which gives any kind of systematic tools for the principles and/or aspects with which to approach human or world constitution as a whole. Such a system may be axiomatic and/or heuristic, but I would say there are working methods which cannot be regarded as "systems" in this sense, e.g. scientific approach, which simply doesn't have enough tools yet to take a human being as a whole, but focuses intensely on somatic aspects.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
obnoxion
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Re: Soul, as the Principle of Integration

Post by obnoxion »

There is something in the air about the soul. I wrote a letter last week, where I think I contemplated similar ideas. I was discussing my focusing on the soul, and the idea of it as the Chaldean Hekate, the flower of fire whose pedals I imagined as vesica piscis-shapes, formed by the intersections between the soul and soma and the soul and spirit.

Have you got any ideas about this? I mean, if in the Chaldean Oracles Hecates' invisible fire is from the Noetic above and the visible nature is suspended from her, this does sound like what you wrote above. But if this is so, is there then an independent center of soul, outside of intersections with spirit and matter?

I hope I'm making sense..
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Nefastos
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Re: Soul, as the Principle of Integration

Post by Nefastos »

obnoxion wrote: Wed Aug 14, 2019 11:51 amThere is something in the air about the soul. I wrote a letter last week, where I think I contemplated similar ideas. I was discussing my focusing on the soul, and the idea of it as the Chaldean Hekate, the flower of fire whose pedals I imagined as vesica piscis-shapes, formed by the intersections between the soul and soma and the soul and spirit. Have you got any ideas about this? I mean, if in the Chaldean Oracles Hecates' invisible fire is from the Noetic above and the visible nature is suspended from her, this does sound like what you wrote above.


I am unsure whether I grasp the nuances of your subtle emblem correctly, but I will try & answer from an associative point.

Thus the flower would be the "Matripadma", Mother Lotus herself, Magna Mater, spoken of lately in the Secret Doctrine reading group. In case we have need to separate macro- and microcosmic Great Mothers (which perhaps we do not, since the very idea of Hers is to be equally present in and as both, as 'the great embrace'), the Lotus for the adept aspirant would be the Padme just spoken of here in the thread about psychic phenomena. The flower itself, as One, would be the cohesion of auric buddhi, as I suggested here in the discussion about searching after wisdom (unifying understanding) for its own sake.

obnoxion wrote: Wed Aug 14, 2019 11:51 amBut if this is so, is there then an independent center of soul, outside of intersections with spirit and matter?


This precisely was the great Aha! of mine: that as the principle of integration, or integrity, the soul actually is present always and in everything, from first to last, to spirit to matter. In spirit and in spirits, the soul is already present as their principle of integration, and the same goes with matter & bodies. From the human viewpoint the ultimate and most meaningful "soul" would be buddhi – or perhaps buddhi-manas or âtma-buddhi, depending on situation – but actually there is a "soul" in every principle. We might call it the buddhi of linga, or buddhi of kâma, and so on. Completely soulless being would be non-existent, because it would be complete entropy, devoid of cohesion, & therefore instantly nulled. But the "lack of soul" is gradual, and means the process of disintegration. "Becoming soulless" would be to lost the essential, focusing unity. But soul can also become very strong in idealism of evil, very "pure" and "whole" in some separated "Oneness" which will be forced to disintegrate only much later. Once again I understood better also the workings of the downward path and the horizontal path(s).

From this paradox, "soul already is present already even though it cannot be seen, even though soul is the means and form of seeing", comes a bit more understandable the first chapters of the Book of Dzyan, and the first chapters' evading difference from each other. I guess I was helped by understanding the ultimate insubstantiality (supersubstantiality?) of the soul: as such, it can and will function even when it hasn't yet come to phenomenal being. A bit like spirit as a metaphysical law, it exists in a different ontology, but is yet the very thing that makes ontologies understandable at the first place. It is superior Being-ness of anything, and thus equally present in any hologrammatic point of even a metaphysical emblem than it is in the whole of it.

If the petals of the Absolute Mother draw souls in their meeting points of curved lines, I think that these souls cannot be but the thousand hands of the same Mother, and I am She and nothing else. This perhaps brings us back to the Jewel of the Maras' King and the hubric idea of being something else, as a snare which becomes the greater the more one advances. This Jewel would once again be the emerald of Lucifer, which came off when he fell, and was made Grail to hold the blood of remanation...
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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