God only knows which is which.
-Algernon Charles Swinburne
Who the heck are you?
Who the heck are you?
Who the heck are you?
Do you even know?
You know your name. You know your vital stats. You know your life. You know what you look like. You know what you like. What you love. What you hate.
But…
Who the heck are you?
Are you more than a bunch of memory cells tied together by strands of protein?
Are you more than a programmed bio-machine? Do you have volition?
Are you all material? If not, what are your other parts made of?
Are you what others tell you that you are?
Or what others tell you that you should be?
How much are you the product of circumstances?
How much control do you have to determine what kind of life you have?
Most likely, you have some control over your life, but not as much as you'd like. The human life vehicle is quite a complicated piece of equipment and it requires many years of practice and experience before we can begin to master it.
The human vehicle, with all its endowments unified and coordinated by the personality matrix, is indeed awesome. Human cultures have thrived on this planet in the coldest places to the hottest, we have penetrated into the deepest parts of the ocean, have climbed the highest mountains, learned to fly and have even transcended our planet to step foot on the moon.
The most amazing thing about the human vehicle is that we can actually change a negative into a positive. We can return good for evil. We have the ability to countermand our physically hardwired responses to environmental forces. We have the ability to limit our personal gain for the benefit of others, such as in freely giving goods and services without thought of personal gain. We have free will to take the spiritual route over a purely mechanical one. We do not have to return tit for tat. We can "turn the other cheek". It is this ability that truly separates us from animals with their slavish obedience to their physical demands.
The vehicle used to accomplish all this, that we ride through in the ever changing vicissitudes of luck, energy manipulation, strength and brainpower does not consist of just the physical body; the human body is but the chassis which holds the patterns and systems of forces that transcend the material.
The Personality Matrix
From the omniscient view of the Creator spirit, you are soul, from the viewpoint of the material, you are body, from the logic of the intellect, you are consciousness. From the total perspective, you are all of the above, a package consisting of body, mind and soul held together by the Personality matrix. This thread of Personality holds you together, so that you can be identified as a unified human vehicle.
The word Personality is used differently here than what is normally accepted. It does not mean character traits or surface behavior patterns, but goes much beyond that. It is an unchanging essence that is the basis of the person's makeup. Personality is changeless. The body changes as we evolve spiritually. The mind and soul and even our spirit changes. The Personality is the one unchanging factor in our life vehicle. Through spiritual evolution, a person may change drastically in a million years, but that person would be recognizable by the flavor of the unchanging Personality.
This concept of a never changing aspect of ourselves is important because our relationships with others is built upon knowing who they are. If there is nothing constant about a person, we cannot have a deep, lasting relationship with that person. It is difficult, if not impossible, to have the same relationship with a person that we had affection for and loved years ago, if
