What is a Human Being?

A Spiritual Being

In previous pages we have met with the supreme truth which was taught in all the Mystery Schools - every human is essentially a spiritual being whose highest aspect of consciousness is one with the Universal Consciousness which is our concept of God.

We are made in God's image. The Will, Wisdom and Intelligence of the Supreme Deity are reflected in the spiritual nature of each of us. Although imprisoned in the personality and physical body, all the Divine Powers are latent in us waiting to be unfolded in the evolutionary process.

We are 'Gods in the Becoming' and our future splendor, wisdom and power are entirely without limit.

Man, the Thinker

The importance of the human mind in the evolutionary process is explained by Theosophical writer, Dr Annie Besant –

"Man is that being in which highest Spirit and lowest matter are united by intelligence".

The mind is, therefore, the link between the spiritual nature (sometimes called the Higher Self) and the personality self, where consciousness is limited in the physical body.

But when its restless activity is stilled, the mind can always open to the spiritual levels of consciousness, which are its essential nature.

Through the 'bridge of mind’ we can break through to creative ideas and inspiration from a realm beyond our normal experience.

Poets, philosophers, seers, inventors, composers and artists by mak­ing this link with the spiritual world have been, throughout the ages, the driving force in the cultural progress of humanity.

The Personality and the Spiritual Self

The thoughts and feelings, which are waking consciousness in every­day life, are largely built up from memories of sense impressions - what we have seen, heard or read - and collectively form the habitual ways of thinking and behaving which become our personalities.

The word 'personality', which comes from 'persona' meaning 'mask’, implies falseness.

Behind the mask is the true Spiritual Self but its reflection into the thought-feeling worlds of limitation is usually distorted. However unaware we may be of the Spiritual Self, its life-force is, never­theless, the power within our personality, which ceaselessly strives to express its higher level of understanding in the confusion of ever-chang­ing thoughts and feelings.

Sometimes it is called 'conscience'.