TWO

What Is the Spirit?

Do you not clearly notice a difference between the form and your “ego”? Between the body that is subject to change and yourself, the spirit, which is eternal?

ABD-RU-SHIN, IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH: THE GRAIL MESSAGE

Today we find mainly two different points of view regarding the nature of the spirit. For some the spirit is something nonmaterial that resides within the physical body during its life on Earth. For others it is material in nature and resides within the brain. Resides is not exactly the right term, because in this second point of view, the spirit and brain are not seen as being two different things, but rather one and the same thing.

This identification of the spirit with the brain is implied in certain expressions. It’s often said of great thinkers, scientists, or intellectuals, that they are “men of great spirit” or that such a person is “rich in spirit” if she impresses us with a highly intelligent way of speaking. Scientific studies of the brain seemingly support this point of view.1

Researchers have in fact discovered that the brain is divided into different areas, or “brain centers,” and that each brain center has a specific function. For example, there is a brain center for vision, one for hearing, one for moving the fingers or the legs, a brain center for writing, for reading, and so on. Sensitive electroencephalogram (EEG) instruments show us that when a person writes, only the brain center responsible for written language is activated, but no other brain center. In addition, experiments conducted with the help of minute electrodes inserted into the brain demonstrate that stimulating a specific part of the brain with a small electric current triggered a response corresponding to that brain center. For instance, in one study test subjects started to speak when the speech center was stimulated or lifted the right arm when the motor center for the right arm was stimulated.2

Those who advocate this second way of looking at the spirit will ask what more proof do we need in order to accept that all human attributes are based in the brain and that the brain and the spirit are one and the same, especially since we know that the destruction of anyone brain center leads to a simultaneous loss of the corresponding conscious ability, as when, for example, the speech center is damaged after a stroke and the patient loses his ability to speak. And although the brain centers for the will and the personality have yet to be discovered, some scientists contend that it is only a question of time before we will finally be able to discard once and for all the “hypothesis” of the existence of a nonmaterial spirit that is distinct from the body.

This contention, however, will ultimately lead to disappointment, not only for various reasons that we shall cover later on, but also for one primary reason that science itself has already discovered. Sir John Eccles, a 1963 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his research on the brain, writes in his book The Self and Its Brain, “The brain, which is a machine comprised of neurons, is absolutely incapable of carrying out the required integrations (uniting and processing all the elements that make up our human condition). For this, an active and independent spirit, which uses the brain as an instrument, is needed.”3 In other words the brain, because of its very structure, is not capable of being the center of the conscious personality and therefore cannot be synonymous with the spirit. It is simply not capable of it.

The Brain, a Tool

The brain is only a machine, albeit a highly developed machine, but all the same a machine, one that serves a higher principle that is independent and distinct from the brain’s purely mechanical abilities: it serves the spirit, the true core of our personality.

To understand the abilities as well as the limitations of the brain, we can compare it to a computer, because the functions of the two are quite similar. A computer can do absolutely nothing until we supply it with data or information to work on. In computer jargon we must feed it with data. But that still does not suffice. The computer must also be programmed or instructed as to what to do with this information; after all, it is only a machine that cannot think independently. By programming it with software, we tell it what to do. Only then can the computer perform its work of assembling data, sorting, adding, subtracting, or performing other operations. The work it performs is carried out in logical sequence, step by step, mathematically relating one piece of information to another in order to obtain a result, and each new result is added in turn to the database. And so the answers that a computer can give to our questions are derived from supplied data and a program. What it can do for us therefore always depends on what we first give it, and this always has to be the same category as the information we want back from it. A computer cannot possibly produce anything totally new or of a different category than its input. It has no creative ability; it can only process the data provided to it.

Our brain works the same way. Bit by bit, little by little, through education and the experiences of daily life, our brain gathers the information that forms its “database.” It is also through education and experience that the brain acquires its ability to work on this data, that is, its program.

A computer can produce impressive results, but there are a certain number of things that it just cannot do. It cannot enjoy its work, it cannot become stirred up by an idea, and it has no sense of responsibility. By itself it can never imbue its work with a sense of beauty or any of the higher values that we humans possess, such as a sense of justice or a sense of right and wrong. Nor can it become inspired or obtain a sudden intuition about how to solve a problem. It is also impossible for it to become impatient with its operator—it cannot become annoyed over the work that it is asked to do, and it cannot refuse to do it either.

Love, hate, patience, a sense of what is good and beautiful—all these are not qualities that a machine can have, but they are specific attributes of the human being, or more accurately, the human spirit. Neither can the brain, which has similar capabilities to a computer, recognize beauty, goodness, or justice. These abilities belong to the spirit. People love with their hearts, are annoyed, moved, or rebel with their whole being, not with their brain.

The Subordination of the Brain to the Spirit

If the brain and the spirit are indeed two entirely different things, and if the brain is but the tool of the spirit, it must be possible to find examples or circumstances that confirm this. For instance, how about when the tool (the brain) follows its own logic (the program), but the user (the spirit) overrides it; or how about when the user becomes involved in something with out any participation from the tool, in the same way that a person who works at a computer can lead a life completely independent of her computer when she leaves work.

Examples of this can be seen in the experiment mentioned earlier, where brain centers were stimulated by microelectrodes. In this case the electrical stimulation was activated from a distance and without the knowledge of the test subject. In the experiment the researcher could induce specific reactions in the test subjects by stimulating well-defined areas of the brain. For instance, he could make the subjects lift one leg, tell a funny story, cry, feel afraid or aggressive, all according to the area of the brain stimulated. On one occasion something totally surprising happened during the course of the experiment. One of the subjects whose brain was being stimulated in a certain area became aggressive and threatening toward the researcher during the session, clenching his fists and shouting, “Fortunately for you, doctor, I don’t want to hurt you, because otherwise . . .” This person found himself compelled to become violent, but he held himself back. In other words the electrical impulse triggered an aggressive reaction at the level of the brain, but there was something else within this person that helped him restrain his aggressiveness and control his brain’s reaction. The brain had become subject to a superior authority: the spirit, which itself could not be affected by the electrical impulse.

Clear evidence of the fact that the spirit is distinct from the brain and is not affected by what happens to the latter can be found in cases of damage to certain areas of the brain. As is generally known, damage to any brain center brings about the loss of the corresponding physical ability. There is one report of a man who underwent total ablation of the left hemisphere of his brain. Because of the loss of function in the speech center, which is situated in that hemisphere, the man lost his ability to speak. Yet despite this, and contrary to all expectations, eight months later he was speaking normally again.4

The first question that arises is how could his ability to speak be restored after his speech center had been destroyed? We could also ask ourselves where the man’s restored ability came from, since the “data” for it had disappeared. If the spirit and the brain are one and the same, then these kinds of questions would remain without any satisfactory answers. The permanent destruction of the speech center would make it impossible to ever restore the man’s ability to speak. As the restoration was not due to a transfer of information from one part of the brain to another, how then did it happen?

But if we look at these questions in a different light and acknowledge that the brain is but a tool of the spirit, subordinate to it, then everything becomes clear. The so-called speech center located within the brain is merely a place where information about speech is stored but is not the true speech center. The actual ability to speak lies in the spirit of the person. In other words it is not the tool that thinks and speaks, but rather the user (the spirit), who, by means of its tools (the brain and speech organs), speaks.

Again, let’s look at the computer metaphor: the deletion of data stored in a computer does not simultaneously delete the knowledge of the user, who can easily reenter the data and the program into the computer. In our example above, the spirit was able to re-create the speech center in another part of the brain because the basic ability continued to exist within the spirit. It is less a question of relearning than a transfer of information from the spirit to another part of the brain.

The Eternal Spirit

Let us now consider some examples of the spirit experiencing something without the participation of the brain. We begin with a report of an event that occurred during a patient’s stay in a hospital, an out-of-body experience, which is more common than many would believe.

I was in the hospital in Sion because of a diabetic crisis. I had received treatment and was feeling better. It was in the morning, I no longer remember all the details. What I do know is that I was wandering around the room, feeling detached. I distinctly felt that I was floating. I felt light. Suddenly I saw from above an elderly woman stretched out on a bed, appearing to be asleep. I did not immediately recognize that it was my own body. There was a loud noise; I don’t know where it came from. I was startled, and then I realized that I was the one lying on the sheet, dressed in my badly stained dressing gown. I thought, So I’m now supposed to get back again into this broken-down, overweight body of a woman? But do I really have to? This was not expressed in words but in thought. I had to reenter my body. The time had not yet come for me to abandon it. I carefully let myself slide inside, as if I was a cloud of vapor that entered through the pores of the skin of this person, who was me. After a moment I opened my eyes. I saw the room and the sick woman in the next bed. I was lying on my bed, in my stained dressing gown. How did this excursion happen? How did I leave my body?5

If this person had asked herself how she was able to leave her body, we might also ask ourselves what it was that left her body. It was certainly not her brain. Nevertheless, the woman was still alive and was able to experience something: She saw her body stretched out on the bed. She heard a loud noise and was startled by it. She then thought that she should reenter her body, and so she slid back into it again.

Someone who would question the truthfulness of this account or its explanation might say that it was all just an illusion. He would perhaps say that the woman only had the impression that she had left her body, that in reality she was just dreaming and had actually remained in her body the whole time, and that all this took place “in her head.” If everything that happened was only in her head, then it would mean that she had experienced this situation with her brain, something an EEG would have been able to show. Yet there are many cases in which EEGs were taken of persons that showed no brain activity, although the individuals in question later reported having experienced situations that for them were very real and powerful.

In medicine a flat EEG and no heartbeat are sufficient evidence to pronounce a person dead. Such tests are undertaken, for example, in the emergency room of a hospital to see whether accident victims or someone seriously ill is still alive, to determine whether or not resuscitation efforts should be undertaken. If these tests show that an accident victim is no longer alive, nobody would expect that she would be able to see, move, or feel anything because, after all, she is dead, right? And yet there are shocking examples of hundreds of people who have had just such experiences of being pronounced clinically dead and then revived, as reported by the American physician Raymond Moody.6 In his groundbreaking book, Dr. Moody cites numerous instances of people who told him what they experienced while they were dead, that is, during the short or even longer periods of time between the moment their hearts stopped beating and their brains stopped functioning, and when resuscitation attempts were successful.

These stories are undoubtedly true, because they were recounted—and experienced—by people of different ages and sexes who did not know one another, had no contact with one another, and who belonged to very different social and cultural groups. What is striking in all these accounts is that all of these people provided similar accounts of how their lives continued right after their physical deaths. But what is most remarkable—and this is the main point here—is that while these people were living the events they described, their EEGs remained flat. Their brains played no part in what happened. They were clinically dead.

For those who would think that despite this evidence the brain must still have been in some way or other connected with the events, let us consider another example, in which the experience of the spirit continued on through more than one lifetime and obviously through more than one physical body.

In every part of the world, in every country, race, ethnic, and cultural group, there are cases of children who have reported events that they claim to have experienced, but which did not take place in their current lifetime.

The following is a typical story:

A girl named Maria, who lived in a small town in Illinois, died at the age of fifteen. Three years later her mother moved to another town and gave birth to a little girl, to whom she gave the name Nellie. Nellie, however, insisted that people call her Maria, maintaining that this was her real name, the name her parents had given her.

One day, visiting for the first time the same small town in Illinois where the family had once lived, little Nellie immediately recognized the house in which her family used to live and also recognized different people, even though she had never met them, at least not in this lifetime. Nellie then gave an exact description of the school in the town and expressed the wish to go to see it. When she got there, she proceeded, without any hesitation, to her classroom and pointed out the desk where Maria had once sat.

A story of this kind could be dismissed as a product of pure imagination if the numerous reported facts, especially the details given by Nellie, could not have been checked on the spot and verified in the presence of the parents and neighbors who had surrounded the child in her previous life as Maria. The task was taken on by Ian Stevenson, a research professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, to conduct stringent and systematic examinations of more than 2,500 cases of this kind. Stevenson concluded that these reports were authentic and that they described real events experienced by the subjects in their previous lifetimes.7

Some people have difficulty accepting this conclusion because it is generally accepted that the memory of events is stored only in the brain. Therefore, returning to the aforementioned story, according to conventional belief everything that had been recorded in Maria’s brain would have been lost with it at the time of the dissolution of her body at death. But Nellie was able to recount events from her past life as Maria, even though her present brain had played no part in experiencing these events and consequently could not have recorded these memories. The conclusion must be that Nellie’s recollections were not stored in Maria’s brain, but rather in something that survived Maria after her death, which was now part of Nellie. This “something” is not physical or material; it is spirit.

The Nature of Spirit

The preceding examples demonstrate that the spirit and the brain are two distinct things. As the brain is unquestionably material in nature, the spirit itself must be composed of something different, something nonmaterial. So what is the spirit, really?

In the Light of Truth: The Grail Message describes the spirit as “the only truly living part of a human being.” Abd-ru-shin continues:

Spirit is not wit and not intellect! Nor is spirit acquired knowledge. It is erroneous, therefore, to call a person “rich in spirit” because he has studied, read, and observed much, and knows how to converse well about it, or because his brilliance expresses itself through original ideas and intellectual wit.

Spirit is something entirely different. It is an independent consistency, coming from the world of its homogeneous species, which is different from the part to which the earth and thus the physical body belong. The spiritual world lies higher; it forms the upper and lightest part of Creation. Owing to its consistency, this spiritual part in man bears within it the task of returning to the Spiritual Realm, as soon as all the material coverings have been severed from it. The urge to do so is set free at a very definite degree of maturity, and then leads the spirit upwards to its homogeneous species, through whose power of attraction it is raised.

Spirit has nothing to do with the earthly intellect; only with the quality which is described as “deep inner feeling.” To be rich in spirit, therefore, is the same as “having deep inner feelings,” but not the same as being highly intellectual.8

This definition not only states that the spirit is not part of the body (and is therefore not synonymous with the brain), it clarifies the origins of each. The spirit comes from the spiritual plane, whereas the body belongs to the earthly plane. This definition is in complete agreement with the teachings of Christ. When Christ said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” does that not mean that since the spirit is not weak like the flesh, it must be of a different nature? In other words the spirit is not made of flesh and therefore cannot be part of the brain.

Abd-ru-shin says the spirit issues from the spiritual realm—Paradise—and can return there after a path of development that, among other events, leads it to incarnate in a physical body. Between the spiritual and earthly planes, there exist other planes of different kinds, as Christ mentions briefly when he speaks of the many dwelling places (planes) in his father’s house (Creation). On its journey through the different planes to incarnate on Earth, the spirit puts on, one after another, different cloaks, or bodies, belonging to each of the different planes, the last one being the earthly body we know. The best known of these finer coverings, or bodies, is the astral body. It is the best known because its species is most closely related to our material, earthly body.

The Descent of the Spirit into the Body

The need to incarnate, that is, to enter (in) a body of flesh (carne) of the same nature as the plane into which the spirit wishes to penetrate, is logically understandable. The spirit needs this physical human body to be able to experience the plane in question; the physical body therefore serves it as a tool to enable the spirit to see, feel, and to move around. Without the physical body, the spirit would have no connection with this plane and could not therefore become active in it; the difference in species would not permit it. Thus the goal of incarnation, which is for the spirit to live through the experiences of life on Earth in order to mature, could never be achieved.

The spirit does not play a secondary role in our life; it is not just an accessory put at our disposal. The spirit is who we really are. The physical body, the astral body, and the finer bodies are only cloaks or tools used by the real I, which is spirit.

The Grail Message describes the spirit further:

The spirit is everything; it is the true being, thus man himself. When, together with the other cloaks, he also wears the physical body, he is called earthman. If he lays aside his earthly cloak, he is considered by earthman to have become a soul. When he finally lays aside the finer coverings which still surround him, he remains spirit alone, this being his true nature, which he has always been.

Thus the various designations are merely adapted to the species of the cloaks covering the spirit, which could not exist on their own if they were not embraced by the spirit, which glows through them.9

And since the physical body belongs to the plane of dense matter, the spirit therefore bears no more similarity to this body than it does to the material plane itself. How then is it possible for the spirit to incarnate in the body, take possession of it, animate it, and control it? What gives it the ability to form a bridge over the gulf created by the huge difference in composition between itself and the dense physical body?

Actually, this bridge is composed of the different bodies in which the spirit cloaks or envelopes itself during its descent through the different planes, from the spiritual plane down to the earthly plane. However, it should be noted that each different body belongs to a different plane and consequently has a different composition. The question therefore remains: How can the spirit, surrounded by its different coverings, connect with the dense physical body? The answer to this question, The Grail Message says, is through the blood. This is the secret of the blood.