Question
If the multitude of phenomena is universal energy-consciousness, and if
our ego is a kind of memory parasitizing that whole,
then what is the soul? Could you please give me a
definition?
Luc
Answer from Master Kosen
OK. I will try to offer my understanding poetically or metaphorically, based on my masters’ teaching. Bear in mind that the words or names I must use are limited and inadequate. Do not be shocked to hear words such as God or soul, which have been so distorted or misunderstood for so long.
Each human entity can be defined as a trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Not very Buddhist, all that.
Let us say: God, soul, personality (the personality commonly called ego in Buddhism). So we are this trinity.
Why God? Because we are God’s experience. There is no need to believe in God; call it what you like, the Big Bang if you prefer. But the fact is that we passed from oneness to multiplicity through time and space, and none of us is separate from that single origin we might call God, if you will. Each of us is thus God’s own experience, extending to the farthest reaches of matter and the complexity of our present personality. This fabulous adventure, this fabulous experience, has been God’s own experience from the beginning. And because everything has the same origin, we are each a different experience of the same God.
What is the soul? I would say it is the memory of God’s specific experience through us, from the beginning.
What is ego or personality? I would say it is God’s ultimate experience of becoming embodied at the densest frequency in hertz and evolving within matter in an extremely slow space-time. But what a delight: we can smell flowers there, taste the four elements, fall in love, even get a tan. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! What a program. To succeed in this experience, God uses a body: a kind of ultrasensory suit connected to a central computer called a brain. At first it is not very comfortable, but we get used to it. Over time, we can no longer do without it.
Note that at birth the brain is preprogrammed: Zen people call that the ego (the idiots), and unless we learn to crack the code, we are condemned to live on autopilot all our lives. In fact, this central computer is fabulously powerful. Naturally: God designed it and improved it little by little over a very long time. Used correctly, it can do everything God desires on this material plane. The problem is that at birth the central brain’s hard drive is blank. There are only the basic programs needed for minimal functioning: eating, shitting, bawling. Then parents and the social environment install updates. But the fact remains that we have no memories from before birth, and we even completely forget what we are. We end up identifying entirely with the suit. No, I am not joking; that is the great danger of this experience. Often we see gods reincarnating in a loop, life after life, completely forgetting who they are. They become like robots with a little basic preprogrammed consciousness and, as people say, have lost their souls for an eternity. Yes, God too must surpass his limits and learn to tame his humanity and materiality. Then he will have come full circle and accomplished a magnificent work. But actually, if I am telling you all this, it is because God has already invented the scenario, and the work has already been created by him and therefore already realized.
All that remains is for us to live the experience.
Kosen