Portions of the Master Course lesson of the day from both Dancing with Siva and Merging with Siva are about the soul body. The soul body gives us an important attitude about ourselves and others. Everyone is intrinsically good. Some express it, and others don't. But all will express their divinity eventually. That certainly takes the sense of conflict and opposition out of what's going on in the world, doesn't it? What's even more relaxing is to think about the fact that you are a divine being and only your outer nature has flaws.

Unedited Transcript:

Today's 'Master Course' lesson is interesting in the terms of what it has combined. As you know, 'Dancing with Siva' repeats a few times because it is short. So we go through the 'Dancing with Siva' lessons multiple times while we are going through the 'Living with Siva' and 'Merging with Siva' lessons just one time. You never know how 'Dancing with Siva' will combine with 'Living with Siva' and 'Merging with Siva', unless you went through it once.

Today, 'Dancing with Siva' is all about the soul body and 'Merging with Siva' is all about the soul body. Both. Different statements but reinforcing one another, so powerfully. I was very surprised. I think you will enjoy it, if you haven't read it yet.

I couldn't help but think about the soul body after I read that this morning. Gee, I have to say something about the soul body in the talk this morning because it is really in the message of the day somehow and it is so powerfully reinforced.

I think that the soul body gives us an attitude toward life that is very important, both regarding ourselves and others. As you know, when it comes to President Bush and his perception of evil, it differs from our theology. He sees evil in certain people. That person is evil whereas I am good. That person is evil. So, it creates this dualistic sense of the world, this conflict sense regarding the world that some people are evil and some people are good.

I like our perspective much better. Everyone is good, intrinsically. It is just that some people express that good and others don't. But it is in there, everyone is good. To me, it is more hopeful. The fact that the good is in there. Just for some reason, it is not coming out at this particular point in time. But it will eventually. So all people are intrinsically good. You relax about the world in a different way when you see it in that sense. It takes out the sense of conflict and opposition, when we see everyone as the soul. It also helps us understand what they would need to do to make future spiritual progress, what lessons they would need to learn from the experiences they are going through in order to move up to a higher level of consciousness in a future life to express more refined qualities.

The concept of the soul when we apply it to our selves is even more relaxing because we say, "Gee, I am a divine being! This is pretty good." Any sense of inferiority, any sense of serious flaws that we may have picked up along the way goes away. It is not our essential being that has those flaws, it is just our outer nature. We are a spiritual being, a divine being that learns through experience. No matter what experiences we have gone through, we are still a divine being. It does not touch us spiritually. We are a spiritual person. We need that sense to move forward. The fact we are a spiritual person gives us the strength, gives us the motivation to move forward spiritually.

If we don't have that, where does our direction in life come from? It comes from external motivation which comes and goes. If our external motivation is money and we lose our money, our life could be pretty meaningless. If our external motivation is to have a big house which a hurricane blows down and we were not properly insured, we can get pretty discouraged.

Having a spiritual identity helps us give spiritual meaning to life. The soul body cannot go away. We can't lose it in a hurricane. We can't lose it when the stock market goes down. We can't lose it by mistake. It is a permanent possession, it is us. We can't give it away. It is us. We are that. So, it is our permanent reality which is worth refining and refining, from life to life, a permanent possession.

Those are just some thoughts. I think you will all enjoy, if you haven't already, reading these lessons on the soul body. I am sure, it will inspire additional thoughts in all of you. Have a wonderful day!

Aum Namah Sivaya.