The Soul Attributes

Knowledge is the effect or the product of the discriminatory capacity of the Universal Mind. Discrimination is the natural and automatic response of Mind, either human or divine, to awareness of the energies of Matter. This awareness leads to a classification of all energies into a hierarchy of categories whose importance is relevant to the one who experiences the awareness. The mental activities involved in this process and its product are Knowledge — in the Wisdom Teachings, “Knowledge” is also known as “Active Intelligence”.

During the human stage of evolution, the Self that we essentially are uses “Active Intelligence” as the main means to contact and handle the energies of Matter. The assimilation of these contact experiences with Matter permanently modifies the energy of the Soul imprinting on it memories and karmic tendencies (that is, usual ways of reacting to contact with certain energies).

As time passes and one acquires knowledge, this in turn conditions the type and the quality of any additional knowledge that one acquires. For this reason, until we develop the capacity to remain focused as Spirit and to think as the Universal Mind our knowledge is, therefore, relative and conditioned by our capacity to use the different aspects of the mind.

For the average human being, the usual fields of contact, experiment and experience are constituted by the energies or substances of the physical, astral and mental realms. For the enlightened human being, the fields for gaining knowledge also include the plane of “Ideas” or Archetypal Patterns of creation and the realm of the Soul itself where the souls of all beings can be contacted.

Love is the natural quality, color or mode of behavior of the light substance that constitutes the Universal Mind. Love is the omnipresent Divine Psychic Energy that holds together the many facets of the Universal Mind as a harmonious, coherent whole. Because the human Soul is a fragment of the Universal Mind, the human Self, at its center, can also realize the omnipresent power of Love and express it at will.

The realization of Love empowers the human Self with Omnipresence and Omniscience — that is, the power of focusing the consciousness everywhere in time and space and of knowing everything. This kind of knowing is not the product of direct experiences with Matter as it is the case with Knowledge.

Knowing is the faculty of instantaneous intuition and rightful interpretation, void of the limitations that the mind's processes usually impose; analysis, discrimination and memory do not intervene here.

The human being who can focus the consciousness on the omnipresent power of Love experiences that which is symbolically known as “the Heart of God” and in a flash of vision sees everything: the purpose, the causes, the means and the results of everything that is desired.

The realization of Love is very necessary in the human experience because it is the basic motivation of will-to-good, goodwill, understanding and right action. This motivation naturally colors the souls of all beings, human and otherwise, allowing everyone to be harmoniously integrated in the environment. By realizing Love, the human Self knows Its rightful place in the divine scheme of things.

Love is also known as Pure Reason, Spiritual Intuition or Buddhi in the Wisdom Teachings. This Soul attribute enables the “I AM” that we are to express the essential characteristic of Divinity in our Solar System as this was exemplified by the Christ and Gautama the Buddha (to mention only two well known cases). The sentimental and romantic attraction commonly found between human beings is a narrow and limiting expression of Love (yet it is still a lesser aspect of Love, very much useful and uplifting in the stage of growth in consciousness that most of human beings can sustain today).

Sacrificial Will is the name given to the dynamic energy of Divinity that compels the contents of the Universal Mind to manifest in time and space in full beauty and perfection. This dynamic energy is present in the human Soul and enables each of us to realize the goodness, the beauty and the perfection of the Mind that creates the evolutionary Plan. Conscious and willful collaboration with the Divine Will as the Source of all good and progress is the result of this realization. In the Wisdom Teachings Sacrificial Will is also known as Service.

The term “sacrificial” used here could be misleading for some. Most religions teach that “sacrifice” means to experience situations painful to the human form and painful to the human feelings because there is a need to expiate the deeds of a “sinful humanity”, or to do offerings of all sorts that may purchase the “favors” of Divinity — what a mean concept of humanity and Divinity these ideas show! The term “sacrifice” in its oldest and true meaning is not connected with the idea of sin at all. It is related to Love. Sacrificial Will is a joyful state of mind or inner attitude based on the firm realization of one's divinity and the divinity of all and based on the recognition of the goodness, the beauty and the perfection of the Divine Plan for all creatures without exception. Love cultivates a willingness to give of oneself for others, a willingness to serve the needs of others without thought of reward.