Jesus said, “Wretched is the body that is dependent upon a body, and wretched is the soul that is dependent upon these two.”
You are more than the physical body and the name and form of this present life. Your personality and life-display, your Nefesh, is but the surface of your being. Deeper within you, and higher than the Nefesh, there is your Ruach (human spirit), and yet deeper and higher than your Ruach is your holy Neshamah, your supernal and heavenly soul. It is through your higher intelligence (Ruach) and within your heavenly soul that you will discover your true self and find fulfillment. Although this body and world may be a vehicle of expression and experience of that Divine fullness, neither the physical body nor material world, in and of themselves, have in them the perfect joy you seek. Rather, the peace, joy, and fulfillment you seek comes from deep within yourself—from the Christ-self that is the secret and Divine center of your consciousness and being.
It is not a question of whether or not there is the potential of the holy Neshamah and Christ-self in you, or whether or not your holy Neshamah exists in the world of Supernal Light. It is the Truth of every living soul that this Divine potential exists within it, just as the potential of a whole life exists within the fertilized embryo. It is a question of drawing out what is within you, giving expression to your true and inner self, so that you actualize and experience the enlightenment and liberation of that Christ-self. Until there is the activity of growth, development, and evolution, a life come into being and lived, the fullness of the Life-power in the embryo remains unmanifest and unknown. What is inherently within it must be drawn out and come into substantial being, must transpire, in order to be. Only having transpired and passed by is the Life-power actualized and realized and fulfillment attained. It is the same with regard to your higher intelligence and heavenly soul. You must draw out what is within you. In this way, you will find your fulfillment.
The right order of our consciousness is manifest when the Nefesh is dependent upon Ruach, Ruach upon Neshamah, and the holy Neshamah is dependent upon the Lord, the lower is linked to the higher, forming the Sacred Unity of an authentic individual. Your fulfillment lies within your individuality, individuality being the gate to universal and transcendental consciousness. In order to be an authentic individual, you must go within yourself and live within, from the Divine center of your being. Here, the Master is indicating this attainment of Divine fullness through a contemplation of how such fulfillment is hindered or obstructed.
Let me share a basic truth with you. If I live dependent upon my present name and form and the world for my fulfillment, living only on the surface and shaping myself by images of an unenlightened society, then I do not live as myself and am not myself, but live as the idea or image of someone or something other than who and what I most truly am. Surely, there is great pain and suffering in such falsehood and any true fulfillment or satisfaction becomes impossible for me. Not only is my life unfulfilling to me, it is identified with an existence that is by nature transitional and temporary; the end can only be sorrow and suffering. I can only attain a true state of health and happiness being the individual I am in Spirit and Truth. I must depend upon that which is within me if I am to experience a lasting peace and joy—real satisfaction.
If you look and see and understand this, you will realize why the Master would speak of the lost soul, dependent upon name and form and the material world for satisfaction, as “wretched,” that is to say, in bondage to great pain and suffering. Such a soul, lost to its true self, and therefore lost to God, can only invoke compassion in one who knows and lives according to the Spirit and Truth.
While the Master is giving a teaching regarding living from within and the necessity of it for our fulfillment, he is also giving a teaching on the birth of love and compassion in ourselves, which is the sacred heart of enlightenment. Basically, he is saying, having awakened to something of the mystery within you, let compassion for those as yet unawakened dawn in you and live in such a way as to manifest a Spirit-connectedness for yourself and others, and so be satisfied in the Spirit.