The body is the vehicle of the mind, formed by the mind. As the mind, which is the vehicle for the soul, is formed by the soul. The body, in other words, may be called a vehicle of the vehicle. The soul is the life and personality in both. The mind seems alive, not by its own life, but by the life of the soul. So it is with the body, which appears alive by the contact of the mind and the soul. When both are separated from it, it becomes a corpse.

The question of whether the mind works upon the body or the body works upon the mind may be answered thus: it is natural that the mind should work upon the body, but usually the body works upon the mind. This happens when a person is drunk or when he is delirious with fever. In the same way the relation of the soul and the mind may be understood. It is natural that the soul must work on the mind, but usually the mind works upon the soul.

The mind cannot do more than create an illusion of joy or sorrow or knowledge or ignorance before the soul. What the body can do to the mind is only to cause a slight confusion for the moment, to accomplish its own desire without the control of the mind. Therefore, all sin, evil, and wrong is what is forced from the body on the mind and from the mind on the soul. All that is virtuous and good, and right is that which comes from the soul to the mind and from the mind into the body. This is the real meaning of the words in Christ's prayer, 'Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.' It means in other words, 'What Thou thinkest in the soul, the mind should obey, and what Thou thinkest in the mind, the body should obey.' This is so that the body may not become the commander of the mind, and the mind may not become the leader of the soul.

The soul is our real being, through which we realize and are conscious of our life. When the body, owing to loss of strength and magnetism, has lost its grip upon the mind, the seeming death comes; that which everybody calls death. Then the soul's experience of life remains only with one vehicle, that is the mind, which contains within itself a world of its own, photographed from one's experience on earth on the physical plane. This is heaven if it is full of joy, and it is hell if it is filled with sorrow. Feebleness of mind, when it loses its grip on the soul, is purgatory. When the mind has lost its grip, that is the end of the world for that soul. But the soul is alive. It is the spirit of the eternal Being, and it has no death. It is everlasting.


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