Also, what is the underlying basis of the mind and body? What is a human being?
People see themselves as different, but are they really? Don’t people all over the
world desire love, happiness, peace and joy? These are similarities, are they not?
“The soul belongs to heaven, the body belongs to the earth” —Ancient Egyptian Proverbian Proverb” A human being is a complex entity composed of a soul, a mind and a body. The mind and body con- stitute the psychophysical personality of a human being. The soul is the eternal part while the body is the transient part of a human being. The soul is the essence of the Spirit, which sustains and manifests as every human being, and indeed, all life. However, when human beings forget their eternal nature, they identify with the body and with the mind through its desires, complexes and ignorance. A person sees himself or herself as a physical body possessing a mind, and the underlying essence, the Spirit, 129/524
becomes as if veiled or forgotten. Nevertheless, a human being has an innate desire to discover his or her true nature, but when this is pursued through the limited mind and body, the soul aspect of a per- son becomes caught in, and conditioned by, the illusions, misconceptions, prejudices and cravings of the mind and body. These ultimately lead to illnesses of the body, mind and or soul.
In addition, the individual soul of a person is in reality one with the Universal Soul, the Supreme Be- ing, just like each wave in the ocean, though temporarily extending away from the ocean, is neverthe- less essentially one with the whole ocean, always. The goal of mystical spirituality is to realize that you are not an individual, but in fact, that your true nature is universal. When you realize this goal in your own life, you will have attained enlightenment. As you move towards enlightenment, all virtu- ous qualities will bloom in your personality. All will be understood and loved by you as the Self, and you will have perfect health. You will become the embodiment of supreme peace (hetep) and joy (bliss). You will realize that you were always the abode of peace and bliss, even when you were iden- tified only with your psychophysical personality.
The ego in a person develops as a result of this identification with the psychophysical personality as being who you are. Instead of realizing your true nature to be like the blue sky, expanding into infin- ity, you identify yourself with a small patch of blue sky created by clouds of mental delusion and ig- norance. Identified with that little patch of blue, when the mental clouds darken around you, (negative thoughts, dullness, depression, etc.) you feel gloomily. When the mental clouds are soft and fleecy (positive thoughts, elation, optimism, mind is agitated by many desires and expectation), you feel happy. When the mental clouds drift apart a little (release of tension due to agitation, contentment, harmony), you feel expansion and become peaceful. When the clouds contract again you feel wor- ried, unsettled and miserable. The inner experience of those who are unenlightened is always condi- tioned by the mental clouds of ignorance and egoistic desires surrounding them, which are all of their own creation, based on wrong ways of looking at and thinking about the world. However, even then, you are really always one with the Self (blue sky), completely unaffected by the mental clouds, and always will be, deep down.
So it is the Self which sustains your psychophysical personality and is the ultimate reality behind it. This innermost Self within you is completely unaffected by any condition which affects the psycho- physical personality of an individual. It feels no pain, sadness, or sorrow, but experiences these through the mind and senses of the personality. It remains always completely blissful and peaceful. It always exists in the awareness of its universal nature, but the mind and soul are as if ignorant of this deeper essence. This ignorance leads them to experience countless episodes of gain and loss, happi- ness and sorrow, success and failure, etc., in a never ending cycle of life, death and life again (rein- carnation). However, there is a way to end the cycle, by learning the truth about one’s innermost self, the Divine Self. So, the goal of true mystical spirituality is to identify more and more with your true nature, and less and less with your ego-personality. When you do this, you will be able to go beyond all the egoistic concepts, which you have tied to your existence as a psychophysical personality. This includes anger, hate, greed, envy, jealousy, fear, insecurity, and attachments. Instead you will bathe in 130/524
the elixir of virtuous qualities such as compassion, universal love, understanding, peace, bliss, and these will lead to supreme fitness. You will truly “Know Thyself.”
It is very important to understand that in reality, the soul within you is not affected by any happening in this world. It is only a witness. In Kemetic terms this is symbolized by the Neter (god), Amun. To understand this, think of yourself when you are dreaming. The you, you consider to be real is ever asleep on the bed, safe, peaceful, and calm. The dream you experiences all kind of situations, some very painful and some pleasurable, yet, the you asleep on the bed is not really experiencing any of these situations of pleasure or pain. But still, you feel that the dream character is the “real” you. Like- wise, the real you, the Self, like that sleeping personality, is always resting on that bed of peace, bliss and absolute existence, remaining ever unaffected by the experiences of the psychophysical personal- ity. If a lion is chasing you in your dream, though seemingly you have several choices of what to do such as running away, finding shelter to escape it, picking up a stick to fight with it, etc., there is in reality only one real choice which will take care of that problem for you, that is, to wake up. Like- wise, the only way you will be able to deal with the problems in your life right now is to wake up from the dream of yourself being a limited psychophysical (ego) personality to realize your higher nature. Otherwise, trying to battle the forces of egoism afflicting you in life by reinforcing your exist- ence as an ego-personality would be like deciding in your dream to turn yourself in to a lion in order to beat the lion chasing you. Even if you become a bigger lion and even kill the other one, you will still have suffered injury in the battle and in the end you have gained no real victory because another one can come out in the next moment. The only real solution is to wake up. Why go through all that pain and suffering when you could just wake up?