The Seat of the Soul: 25th Anniversary Edition with a Study Guide

by Gary Zukav

We see through our five senses that every action is a cause that has an effect, and that every effect has a cause. We see the results of our intentions. We see that rage kills: It takes away breath—the Life force—and it spills blood—the carrier of vitality. We see that kindness nurtures. We see and feel the effects of a snarl and a smile.

We see that when the activities of life are infused with reverence, they come alive with meaning and purpose. We see that when reverence is lacking from life’s activities, the result is cruelty, violence, and loneliness. The physical arena is a magnificent learning environment.

Brothers and sisters quarrel for the same reason that corporations quarrel—they seek power over one another.

An authentically empowered person is incapable of making anyone or anything a victim. An authentically empowered person is one who is so strong, so empowered, that the idea of using force against another is not a part of his or her consciousness.

Maybe but I think it’s always possible for even the most enlightened soul to do so.

The decisions that you make and the actions that you take upon the Earth are the means by which you evolve. At each moment you choose the intentions that will shape your experiences and those things upon which you will focus your attention. These choices affect your evolutionary process. This is so for each person. If you choose unconsciously, you evolve unconsciously. If you choose consciously, you evolve consciously.

When the personality comes fully to serve the energy of its soul, that is authentic empowerment. This is the goal of the evolutionary process in which we are involved and the reason for our being.

The personality and its body are artificial aspects of the soul. When they have served their functions, at the end of the soul’s incarnation, the soul releases them.

Non-judgmental justice is a perception that allows you to see everything in life, but does not engage your negative emotions. Non-judgmental justice relieves you of the self-appointed job of judge and jury because you know that everything is being seen—nothing escapes the law of karma—and this brings forth understanding and compassion.

When our actions create discord in another person, we, ourselves, in this lifetime or in another, will feel that discord. Likewise, if our actions create harmony and empowerment in another, we also will come to feel that harmony and empowerment. This allows us to experience the effects of what we have created, and thereby to learn to create responsibly.

Evil needs to be understood for what it is: the dynamic of the absence of Light. It is not something that one should prepare to battle, to run from, or to outlaw. Understanding evil as the absence of Light automatically requires that we reach for this thing called Light.

Well… not sure I accept this as true. Evil can be much more insidious than this.

Evil is an absence and, therefore, it cannot be healed with an absence. By hating evil, or one who is engaged in evil, you contribute to the absence of Light and not to its presence. Hatred of evil does not diminish evil, it increases it.

Intuition is a walkie-talkie, so to speak, between the personality and the soul.

All of the energy of the soul does not incarnate. To incarnate, the soul creates a personality from those parts of itself that it wants to heal in the physical environment, and from those parts of itself that it lends to the process of healing in that lifetime.

As we created the tools to see, that which was once considered nonexistent became existent, but we had to expand first. The challenge, and the task, for the advanced or expanding mind is to expand to a level at which questions that cannot be answered from within the accepted understanding of truth can be answered.

You are not a static system. You are a dynamic being of Light that at each moment informs the energy that flows through you. You do this with each thought, with each intention.

Your intention and attention shape your experiences. What you intend, through the density of matter, through the densest level of Light, becomes your reality. Where your attention goes, you go.

When you interact in terms of the perceptions of your personality, in terms of your five senses, there is an illusion that you do not see. A disagreement between two friends, for example, is not so much a disagreement as aspects of each surfacing in order to be healed. If they were not souls in agreement, they would not be together at all.

You are constantly receiving guidance and assistance from your guides and Teachers, and from the Universe itself. When you choose consciously to move toward the energy of your soul, you invite that guidance. When you ask the Universe to bless you in your effort to align yourself with your soul, you open a passageway between yourself and your guides and Teachers.

Temptations are not traps. Each temptation is an opportunity through which the soul is able to learn without creating karma, to evolve directly through conscious choice.

Temptation is the gracious way of introducing each individual to his or her power. When you are seduced or threatened by external circumstances, you lose power. They gain power over you. With each choice that you make to align yourself with the energy of your soul, you empower yourself.

When you have worked hard, take the time to appreciate what you have done. Do not always look at the distance that you have yet to travel.

The soul process moves through degrees of awareness. Animals, for example, do not have individual souls. They have group souls. Each animal is a part of a group soul. Each horse is a part of the group soul of horse, each cat is a part of the group soul of cat, and so on. A group soul is not the same as an individual soul.

Wait, what? Bold yet unproven and spurious claim.

Within the animal kingdom, there are graduations of intelligence and awareness. For example, dolphin, horse, and dog are not on the same wavelength. The consciousness of the dolphin is closer to the consciousness of the ape, and then closer to the consciousness of the dog, but the consciousness of the horse is on a level beneath them.

Spurious claim at best.

Likewise, it is possible, and it does happen, that human beings’ souls come from the advanced soul energy of the dolphin soul or the ape soul, and begin their process of evolution into the human soul.

?

There are many forms of Life that exist as advancements of this one. There are literally millions of options. There is life in numerous galaxies. There are millions, indeed, billions of other life-filled planets.

Speculation disguised as fact

Spiritual psychology will bring to light those situations that would shatter the spirit if seen clearly. Brutality, for example, shatters the human spirit. The soul cannot tolerate brutality. It cannot tolerate abundances of pain and irrationality. It cannot tolerate being lied to.

Let us not run from the unattractiveness of a shattered soul.

Bubonic plague is transmitted by fleas on rodents. This is known now but it was not known then. By keeping his or her environment clean, by avoiding all that attracts rodents, and by practicing personal hygiene, such a person could not only survive, but also keep others safe as well.

The human emotional system can be broken down into roughly two elements: fear and love. Love is of the soul. Fear is of the personality.

Nonauthentic needs belong to the personality. They are what you adopt in your physical life in order to maneuver the space you claim and walk in upon the Earth.

It is not possible for you to experience the complete emergence of your soul when you are clouded over by artificial needs. When that happens all you can see are artificial needs, and you see them as being ever so important, ever so significant, but are they really?

Forgiveness means that you do not hold others responsible for your experiences. If you do not hold yourself accountable for what you experience, you will hold someone else accountable, and if you are not satisfied with what you experience, you will seek to change it by manipulating that person. Complaining, for example, is exactly that dynamic of wanting someone to be responsible for what you experience, and to fix things for you.

Clarity evaporates fear.

There is no single optimal path for the soul. There are many optimal paths. With each choice you immediately create numerous paths within a choice, one of which is then optimal.

Prayer brings grace and grace calms you. That is the cycle. Grace is the tranquilizer of the soul. With grace comes a knowing that what you are experiencing is necessary. It calms you with a sense of knowing.

it is impossible to create any action that does not have value. You may not see it, but that is irrelevant. Live in the trust that when it is appropriate, pieces will fall into place and you will see clearly.

Rather than a soul in a body, become a body in a soul. Reach for your soul. Reach even farther. The impulse of creation and power authentic—the hourglass point between energy and matter: that is the seat of the soul. What does it mean to touch that place? It is exciting to come of age spiritually.