Jim Eshelman wrote:
""Fourth: This leads to the definition I have long used for the word - when I'm originating the usage rather than simply joining in a conversation where others are already using it differently. I define faith as the means of direct perception through Neshamah.
The language of Ruach is literal language - letters, words, and their combination. These form the framework of the internal mathematical relationships of reason. However, the language of Nephesh is composed of symbols. Symbols are the actual units of receiving, communicating, and otherwise exchanging information within the subconscious mental processes that we include in Nephesh.
Similarly, Neshamah - superconsciousness - has its own units of language. The "words" of Neshamah are neither literal words nor symbols but are archetypes. But as reason and feeling are the means of perception within, respectively, Ruach and Nephesh, the means of perception within Neshamah is faith.
"Faith," which at root means "certainty," is exactly what we mean when we speak of the direct knowing of true intuition or gnosis. It is not accepting things without evidence or direct perception - not at all! Rather, it is the the evidence of things not seen - nor, for that matter, felt - certainly not merely believed! - but the evidence of things coming neither from the senses nor from reason nor from emotion.""
I am wondering how this applies to us who have not yet attained to a conscious awareness of the level of Neshamah? For example, what is it that drives people to seek out initiation into the Mysteries? What leads people to begin the practices of magick and/or yoga when initially we have nothing to go on but what we have read in books or heard from another person? Yet we touch upon something that awakens a desire within us and we “know” sometimes without explanation that we have found a spiritual path and that we must explore it. Is this compulsion, this awakened desire to learn more, an expression of that faith? And when we find the tradition that speaks to us, there is also that sense of certainty. And as we move through a program of instruction, often through a particular expression of the Mysteries, an Order or Mystery School, we often know just when it is time to move forward. There is a point where we recognize that it is time move forward. So it seems that some sense of certainty or faith is with us throughout our journey on the path of initiation, which may be the same as what you speak of but on a lower arc, perhaps filtering through our subconscious. This is not to say that we have direct access to it or that we have that sense of certainty all the time. For me at least, there are brief moments of clarity, when that knowing shines through. This is often followed by periods of doubt and uncertainty and it is the initial clarity that carries me through. I must admit that this is not always the case and sometimes I falter and sometimes fail. I accept that throughout all of this, it is the Holy Guardian Angel guiding me even when I feel I made a wrong turn.
This leads me to a question. Would you say then, based upon your initial discussion in this post, that this faith, and archetypes as units of language of Neshamah, is the language of the Holy Guardian Angel? You mention that the archetypes are the units of language of Neshamah.
Love is the law, love under will.
Howard