Humanity’s Origins and Future
The following is the origin and future of humanity as revealed by the Cayce readings and Tom Sugrue's excellent book "There is a River.”People demand a beginning and a boundary, so in the beginning there was a sea of spirit, and it filled all space. It was static, content, aware of itself, a giant resting on the bosom of its thought, contemplating that which it was.
Then it moved. It withdrew into itself, until all space was empty, and that which had filled it was shining from its center, a restless mind. This was the individuality of the spirit; this was what it discovered itself to be when it awakened; this was God.
God desired to self-expression, and desired companionship. Therefore, God projected the cosmos and souls. The cosmos was built with the tools which humans calls music, arithmetic, and geometry; harmony, system, and balance. The building blocks were all of the same material, which humans calls the life essence. It was a power sent out from God, which by changing the length of its wave and the rate of its vibration became a pattern of differing forms, substance, and movement. This created the law of diversity which supplied endless designs for the pattern. God played on this law of diversity as a person plays on a piano, producing melodies and arranging them in a symphony.
Each design carried within it, inherently, the plan of its evolution, which was to be accomplished by movement, growth, or as humans calls it, change. This corresponds to the sound of a note struck on a piano. The sounds of several notes unite to make a chord; chords in turn become phrases; phrases become melodies; melodies intermingle and move back and forth, across and between and around each other, to make a symphony. The music ends as it began, leaving emptiness, but between the beginning and the finish there has been glorious beauty and a great experience.
(The terms "light", "heat," and "electricity" with regard to the cosmos are of no use in this type of discussion, since they are effects observed three-dimensionally through the physical senses. The physical senses do not operate in the same manner in other dimensions, such as in the spirit world. At death, the sun might be to the surviving individuality an idea, an influence, or even an angel.)
Everything moved, changed, and assumed its design in various states of form and substance. Activity was begun and maintained by the law of attraction and repulsion: positive and negative, attracting each other and repelling themselves, maintained the form and action of all things.
All this was a part of God, an expression of God's thought. Mind was the force which propelled and perpetuated it: mind did everything God imagined; everything that came into being was an aspect, a posture, of mind.
Souls were created for companionship with God. The pattern used was that of God's very Being: spirit, mind, individuality; cause, action, effect. First there had been spirit; then there had been the action which withdrew spirit into itself; then there had been the resulting individuality of God.
In building the soul there was spirit, with its knowledge of identity with God; there was the active principle of mind; and there was the ability to experience the activity of mind separately from God.
Thus a new individual, issuing from and dependent upon God, but aware of an existence apart from God, came into being. To the new individual there was given, necessarily, the power to choose and direct its own activity; without free will it would remain a part of the individuality of God. Mind, issuing as a force from God, would naturally fulfill God's thoughts, unless directed otherwise. The power to do this - to direct otherwise the force of mind - is what humans calls his free will. The record of free will is the soul. The soul began with the first expression which free will made of its power, through the force of mind. The first thought which it generated of itself, the first diversion of mind force from its normal path, was the beginning of the soul.
The nucleus of the soul was in balance, positive and negative force in equal power, producing harmonious activity: the positive initiating, impregnating, thrusting forward; the negative receiving, nourishing, ejecting. The steps of this action were the stages of thought: perception, reflection, opinion.
Thus the soul consisted of two states of consciousness: that of the spirit, bearing a knowledge of its identity with God, and that of the new individual, bearing a knowledge of everything it experienced.
The plan for the soul was a cycle of experience, unlimited in scope and duration, in which the new individual would come to know creation in all its aspects, at the discretion of will. The cycle would be completed when the desire of will was no longer different from the thought of God. The consciousness of the new individual would then merge with its spiritual consciousness of identity with God, and the soul would return to its source as the companion it was intended to be.
In this state the soul would retain its consciousness of separate individuality and would be aware that of its own free will it now acted as a part of God, not diverting mind force because it was in agreement with the action toward which this force was directed. Until this state was reached the soul would not be a companion in the true sense of the word.
The idea that a return to God means a loss of individuality is paradoxical, since God is aware of everything that happens and must therefore be aware of the consciousness of each individual. Thus the return of the soul is the return of the image to that which imagined it, and the consciousness of an individual - its record, written in mind - could not be destroyed without destroying part of God. When a soul returns to God it becomes aware of itself not only as a part of God, but as a part of every other soul, and everything.
What is lost is the ego - the desire to do other than the will of God. When the soul returns to God the ego is voluntarily relinquished; this is the symbology behind the crucifixion of Christ.
The plan for the soul included experience of all creation, but it did not necessarily mean identification with a participation in all forms and substance. Nor did it mean interference in creation by souls. It did not mean that they were to spin their own little worlds, twisting and bending laws to make images of their dreams.
But these things could happen. The soul was the greatest thing that was made; it had free will. Once free will was given, God did nothing to curb it; however it acted, it had to act within God's reality; by whatever route, the soul had to return to God.
The fact that man's body is a speck of dust on a small planet leads to the illusion that humans are a small creation. The measure of the soul is the limitless activity of mind and the grandeur of imagination.
At first there was little difference between the consciousness of the new individual and its consciousness of identity with God. Free will merely watched the flow of mind, somewhat as humanity watches his fancy disport in daydreams, marveling at its power and versatility. Then it began to exercise itself, imitating and paralleling what mind was doing. Gradually it acquired experience, becoming a complementary rather than an imitative force. It helped to extend, modify, and regulate creation.
Certain souls became bemused with their own power and began to experiment with it. They mingled with the dust of the stars and the winds of the spheres, feeling them, becoming part of them. One result of this was an unbalancing of the positive-negative force, by accentuating one or the other; to feel things demanded the negative force; to express through things, and direct and manage them, required the positive force. Another result was the gradual weakening of the link between the two states of consciousness - that of the spirit and that of the individual. The individual became more concerned with, and aware of, it's own creations than God's. This was the fall in spirit, or the revolt of the angels as described in the Bible.
To move into a portion of creation and become part of it, a soul had to assume a new, or third aspect of consciousness - a method of experiencing that portion of creation and translating it into the basic substance of mind by means of thought. Humanity refers to this aspect of awareness as the "conscious mind". It is the device by which he experiences earth: the physical body, the five senses, the glandular and nervous systems. In other worlds, in other systems, the device differed. Only the range and variation of man's own thoughts can give an idea of the number of these other worlds and systems and the aspects of divine mind which they represent.
When a soul took on the consciousness of a portion of creation it separated itself temporarily from the consciousness of its own individuality, and became even further removed from the consciousness of its spirit. Thus, instead of helping to direct the flow of creation and contributing to it, it found itself in the stream, drifting along with it. The farther it went from the shore, the more it succumbed to the pull of the current and the more difficult was the task of getting back to land.
Each of the systems of stars and planets represented, in this manner, a temptation to the souls. Each had its plan, and moved toward it through the activity of a constant stream of mind. When a soul leaped into the stream (by immersing itself in the system through which the stream was flowing) it had the force of the current to contend with, and its free will was hampered. It was very easy, under these circumstances, to drift with the current.
Each solar system also represented an opportunity for development, advancement, and growth toward the ideal of complete companionship with God - the position of co-creator in the vast system of universal mind.
Our solar system attracted souls, and since each system is a single expression, with its planets as integral parts, the earth came into the path of souls.
The planets of the solar system represent the dimensions of consciousness of that system - its consciousness as a whole. There are nine dimensions to the consciousness of our solar system. The earth represents the third dimension.
The earth was an expression of divine mind with its own laws, its own plan, its own evolution. Souls, longing to feel the beauty of the seas, the winds, the forest, the flowers, mixed with them and expressed themselves through them. They also mingled with the animals, and made, in imitation of them, thought forms: they played at creating; they imitated God. But it was a playing, an imitating, that interfered with what had already been set in motion, and thus the stream of mind carrying out the plan for earth gradually drew souls into its current. They had to go along with it, in the bodies they had themselves created.
This entanglement of souls in what humanity calls matter was a probability from the beginning, but God did not know when it would happen until the souls, of their own choice, had caused it to happen.
Of the souls which God created - and God created all souls in the beginning; none has been made since - only a comparative few have come into the experience of our solar system, though many have gone through or are going through a similar entanglement in other solar systems.
A way of escape for the souls which were entangled in matter was prepared. A form was chosen to be a vehicle for the soul on earth, and the way was made for souls to enter earth and experience it as part of their cycle. Of the forms already existing on earth, one of the anthropoid apes most nearly approached the necessary pattern. Souls descended on these apes - hovering above and about them rather than inhabiting them - and influenced them to move toward a different goal from the simple one they had been pursuing. They came down out of the trees, built fires, made tools, lived in communities, and began to communicate with each other. Swiftly, even as humanity measures time, they lost their animal look, shed bodily hair, and took on refinements of manner and habit.
All this was done by the souls, working through glands, until the body of the ape was an objectification - three dimensional - of the soul that hovered above it. Then the soul descended into the body and earth had a new inhabitant: man.
Humanity appeared as a consciousness within an animal, a consciousness which was felt on the earth in five different places at the same time, as the five races. When the soul first incarnated into flesh, this began the first incarnation of the divine consciousness into an animal. Cayce referred to this divine consciousness as the "Christ Consciousness" and the evolved human that resulted was the human referred to in the Bible as "Adam".
The problem was to overcome the attractions of the earth to the extent that the soul would be as free in the body as out of it. Only when the body was no longer a hindrance to the free express of the soul would the cycle of earth be finished.
In a smaller field this was the drama of free will and creation. In a still smaller field each atom of the physical body, being a world in itself, is a drama of free will and creation. The soul puts life into each atom, and each atom is a reflection in flesh of the soul's pattern.
Humans became aware, with the advent of consciousness, that sex meant something more to them than to the animals. It was the door by which new souls entered the earth, a door unnecessary elsewhere in the solar system. It was the only means the trapped souls had of getting out of their predicament - through the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. They represented the ideal vehicle for the soul on earth.
The plan for the earth cycle of souls was a series of incarnations, interlarded with periods of dwelling in other dimensions of consciousness in the solar system - the planets, until every thought and every action of the physical body, with its five senses and conscious mind, was in accord with the plan originally laid out for the soul. When the body was no longer a hindrance to the free expression of the soul - when the conscious mind had merged with the subconscious, and the atomic structure of the body could be controlled so that the soul was as free in it as out of it - the earth cycle was finished and the soul could go on to new adventures. This conquest of the physical body could not be attained until there was perfection in the other dimensions of consciousness in the solar system, for these made up, with the earth, the total expression of the sun and its planets. Whichever state of consciousness the soul assumed became the focal point of activity. The other states of consciousness receded to the position of urges and influences.
The race of humanity was fostered by a soul which had completed its experience of creation and returned to God, becoming a companion to Him and a co-creator. This is the soul human known as the "Christ", or the "anointed one" as described in the Bible. Adam, the first incarnation of the Christ Consciousness in flesh, was the first incarnation of the divine consciousness. Jesus, the final incarnation of that same soul, was the first human to fully manifest the Christ Consciousness in the flesh.
The Christ soul was interested in the plight of its brother souls trapped in earth, and after supervising the influx of human souls into flesh, the Christ soul took form itself, from time to time, to act as a leader for the people.
Though at first the souls but lightly inhabited bodies and remembered their identities, gradually, life after life, they descended into earthiness, into less mentality, less consciousness of the mind force. They remembered their true selves only in dreams, in stories and fables handed down from one generation to another. Religion came into being: a ritual of longing for lost memories. The arts were born: music, numbers, and geometry. These were brought to earth by the incoming souls; gradually their heavenly source was forgotten, and they had to be written down, learned, and taught to each new generation.
Finally humans were left with a conscious mind definitely separated from his own individuality. Humans now call this individuality the subconscious mind; awareness of the physical world is the conscious mind. The subconscious mind influenced the conscious mind - gave it, in fact, its stature, breath, and quality. It became the body under the "suit of clothes." Only in sleep was it disrobed.
With his conscious mind humans reasoned (for all mind, left to itself, will work out the plans of God). Humans built up theories for what they felt - but no longer knew - to be true. Philosophy and theology resulted. Humans began to look around and discover, in the earth, secrets which they carried within themselves but could no longer reach with consciousness. The result was science.
The plan of humanity went into action. Downward humanity went from heavenly knowledge to mystical dreams, revealed religions, philosophy and theology, until the bottom was reached and humanity only believed what they could see and feel and prove in terms of their conscious minds. Then they began to fight their way upward, using the only tools they had left: suffering, patience, faith, and the power of mind.
The Christ soul helped humanity. As the Biblical characters named Adam, Enoch, and Melchizedek, the Christ soul took on flesh, to teach and lead. Enoch and Melchizedek experienced neither birth nor death. The Christ soul realized after these assumptions of human flesh that it was necessary to set a pattern for humanity, to show them the way back to God. The Christ soul assumed this task and was born of a woman, beginning voluntarily a new individuality, a new soul record; though behind this new individuality shone the pure Christ soul. But once born as a human, the separation of consciousness from subconsciousness occurred and the Christ soul began his pilgrimage. The Christ soul's last incarnation was as the humble carpenter from Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, triumphant over death and the body, became the way, laying down the ego of the will, accepting the crucifixion, and returning to God. He is the pattern to follow. The perfect life lead as Jesus and his subsequent unjust murder, reversed the negative karma that came from his first incarnation as Adam.
At present, humanity is in a state of great spiritual darkness - the darkness which precedes dawn. Humanity has carried their skepticism to the point where it is forcing them to conclusions they know intuitively are wrong. At the same time humanity has carried their investigation of natural phenomena to the point where it is disproving all it seemed to prove in the beginning. Free will is finding that all roads lead finally to the same destination. Science, theology, and philosophy, having no desire to join forces, are approaching a point of merger. Skepticism faces destruction by its own hand.
Humanity is at all times the total of what they have been and done, what they have fought and defended, what they have hated and loved. In the three dimensional consciousness of earth every atom of the human body is a reflection of the soul - a crystallization of their individuality. Their emotional and nervous structures, their mental abilities, their aptitudes, their aversions and preferences, their fears, their follies, their ambitions, their character, are the sum of what they have done with their free will since it was given. So every personality - the earthly cloak of an individuality - is different from every other personality.
This has been true from the beginning. The first independent thought of each soul was a little different from the first independent thought of every other soul.
So people are different in their likes and dislikes, in their desires and dreams. The law of karma - which is the law of cause and effect - likewise makes them different in their joys and sorrows, in their handicaps, their strengths, their weaknesses, their virtues and vices, their appreciation of beauty, and their comprehension of truth. Transgression incurred in the flesh must be met in the flesh: earth's natural law, not humanity or God, demands an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
The same law applies to groups of people, as they act together. There is karma for families, for tribes, for races, for nations. When the souls who committed a war die and are born again into the physical world, a war will be committed upon that nation. Only when defeat is endured by a nation with humility and understanding, only when victory is dispensed by a nation with justice and mercy, will the karma of war be lifted from them.
Every person's life is shaped to some extent by karma: their own, that of their associates and loved ones, that of their nation and race, and that of the world itself. But these, singly or together, are not greater than free will. It is what the person does about these influences and urges, how they react to them, that makes a difference in their soul development. Because of karma some things are more probable than others, but so long as there is free will anything is possible.
Thus free will and predestination coexist in a person. Their past experiences limit them in probability, and incline them in certain directions, but free will can always "draw the sword from the stone."
No soul takes on flesh without a general plan for the experience ahead. The personality expressed through the body is one of many which the individuality might have assumed. Its job is to work on one or several phases of the karma of the individuality. No task is undertaken which is too much for the personality to which it is assigned - or which chooses it. Some souls choose their own entrances and set their own tasks; others, having made too many mistakes and having become dangerously subject to earthly appetites, are sent back by law, at a time and under circumstances best suited to help them. The task is seldom perfectly fulfilled, and sometimes it is badly neglected.
Choice of incarnation is usually made at conception, when the channel for expression is opened by the parents. A pattern is made by the mingling of the soul pattern of the parents. This sets up certain conditions of karma. A soul whose own karma approximates these conditions will be attracted by the opportunity presented. Since the pattern will not be exactly their own, they must consider taking on some of the karma of their parents.
Things other than pattern concern the soul in its selection of a body: coming situations in history, former associations with the parents, the incarnation, at about the same time, of souls it wishes to be with and with whom it has problems to work out. In some cases the parents are the whole cause of a soul's return - the child will be devoted to them and remain close to them until their death. In other cases the parents are used as a means to an end - the child will leave home early and be about its business.
The soul may occupy the body as early as six months before birth, or as late as a month after birth, though in the latter case it has been hovering over the body since birth, deciding whether or not to occupy it. Once the decision is made and the occupation completed, the separation between the conscious mind and subconscious mind takes place between the new personality and the soul, and the earthly record of the child begins. The fact that a baby is born dead does not mean that it was refused as a vehicle for a soul. Just the opposite is true: the opportunity is taken away from the soul due to natural forces and no occupation of that body was possible.
The personality is a high-lighted portion of the individuality, experiencing three dimensional consciousness. The rest of the individuality remains in shadow, giving tone to the personality; urges, appreciations, tastes, avocations, and what is loosely termed "charm" - the background to which intuition responds.
The personality is shaped by three or four incarnations, the portions of the earthly experience on which the individuality wants to work. The emotions and talents of the person reflect these incarnations. The dreams, visions, meditations - the deep, closely guarded self-consciousness of the personality is the pattern of experience among the other states of consciousness within the solar system. The intellect is, roughly speaking, from the stars: it is the mind force of the soul, conditioned by its previous experience in creation outside the solar system, and dimmed or brightened by its recent experiences within the solar system.
Thus a personality is only an aspect of an individuality. A soul, deciding to experience earth again, might assume any of several personalities, each of which would express a portion of itself. As a soul approaches completion of the solar cycle the personality becomes more many-sided, expressing greater portions of the individuality. This is because each incarnation has less adverse karma, requiring less attention. Finally the personality is a complete expression of the individuality, and the cycle is completed.
As an individuality succumbs to earthiness, abandoning intellect for emotion and emotion for sensuality, it becomes more and more one-sided.
The incarnations which influence the personality reflect their patterns in the person's life. Sometimes they intermingle: a child's parents may re-create the environment of one experience, while his playmates will re-create the environment of another. Sometimes the influences work in periods: home and childhood may re-create the conditions of one incarnation, school and college those of another, marriage those of a third, and a career those of a fourth. Usually the people and the problems of the incarnations have interlocking relationships, so that the pattern of the personality's experience is a rational development, and the problems are presented to them as they are prepared to meet them. Because the incarnations only reflect their problems (their blessings as well as their handicaps), usually the karma of more than one can be undertaken in a single life; if the life is successful, considerable progress is made toward freedom from the flesh.
When a life is finished the personality vanishes. Its pattern is absorbed into the individuality. Its record is retained, but it becomes a part of the individuality, which at all times is the sum total of what it has been: all it has thought, all it has experienced; all it has eaten, drunk, and felt through the ages.
Here is an example of how extremes may meet. Both the atheist and the religionist seem to be right. The atheist says the personality does not survive after death; the religionist says the soul is judged after death and returns to its Creator. Substituting personality for soul, both are expressing a truth. The personality is judged, returns to its creator - the individuality - and is absorbed, giving up its own independent existence.
The general plan for perfecting the individuality in its experience of this solar system then proceeds. Another state of consciousness is assumed, as a trial or as a means of reinforcing the character of a future personality.
So the problems of individualities, the problems of groups, the problems of races and nations, are worked upon time and again until, by free will, they are solved, and the souls go on to other worlds, other solar systems, other universes.
