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that person is no longer the person that we knew. The human is a complex creature and we are constantly changing.
The body changes. A ten year old looks little like a thirty year old. Even at twenty-five and forty-five, the person could have changed drastically in weight, health, and other things that affect the body. For instance, if one were to fall in love just with someone's physical characteristics in their twenties, the love may no longer be there after the person's material beauty had faded in the fifties.
The mind changes also. Idealism may be replaced with pragmatism or vice versa. A warrior mentality could be replaced with a sage mentality. An agnostic or atheist could become religious. The mind's position on reality could flip-flop more than once depending on life's circumstances.
Even the soul changes and evolves. A young person often grows up to become wiser. The soul learns and evolves over time and from experiences. A soul that you knew in his teens might be totally different from the same soul in his forties and fifties.
It is thought by some that the spirit within does not change nor evolve, but in certain ways it does. The divine spark within us adapts to the changes in our body, mind and soul in order to guide us better. It evolves by becoming more accommodating to us, as we become more accommodating to it. This divine spark, this still, small voice within us is a conduit, a connection to the eternal Creator. The Creator does not change, but as we evolve, our connection to it/he/she does. We develop a clearer and faster connection, a wider conduit, a better tuned amplifier so to speak, linking us with the Creator and Source of All. So in this sense the spirit does change.
With all these changes going on, what remains constant? How can we maintain our own identity if practically everything that is in our makeup changes?
The word Personality, used here, is the seat of our identity. The Personality is the one thing that does not change. There are some analogies that can be used to better describe this concept. One is that of a thread or a string within a jeweled necklace. The jewels may change and more could be added but the thread remains the same. The jewels are like the body, mind, soul and spirit. They change and evolve but the thread, the Personality remains constant.
Another analogy is that of soup. Chicken soup can be made in a variety of ways and the ingredients may be different in each rendition, but it remains a soup with chicken broth as the base. Whatever additional material is put into it, the essence of the soup remains unchanged; it is still chicken soup and recognizable as such.
The Personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit; neither is it the soul, but a matrix that unifies them all. Personality is the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience; and it unifies all other associated factors of individuality. The Personality is the unique package which the Universal Creator makes of the living energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the survival of the soul. The Personality is the matrix which holds the unified self.
Mind, Soul and Spirit
There is some confusion in the world about the distinctions between mind, soul and spirit. As we need to be clear on these terms, mind will mean the electro-chemically based consciousness of the intellect. Soul will refer to the consciousness based on our self-awareness of the spirit, and the spirit to the spark of divinity within us which guides us to perfection. The difference between the electro-chemical intellectual consciousness and spiritual soul consciousness is that while the intellect may be aware of itself and it's surroundings, the soul is aware that it is aware (that it is aware). The soul is a product of intellectual consciousness guided by the leadings of the spirit. Another way of looking at it is to say that spirit is the essence of the Creator, while soul is the essence of our human self.
This is a very important distinction. Until you can truly differentiate within yourself the concepts of your soul and your spirit, not just on paper and in your intellectual comprehension of the words, but truly have a grasp of the reality of your soul and the reality of your spirit within yourself, these concepts will merely be formless mental constructs that will have little meaning and value. However, reading this book will greatly help you in getting a better idea of your soul and spirit, and upon doing this, your mind will flex and expand and a deeper understanding of the nature of spiritual reality within yourself will ensue. Having these concepts down on paper help the mind to have something to refer to in order to think and re-think the ideas involved. These thoughts are on one level simple and elegant, but on other levels are very intricate, inter-related and multi-dimensional, so that having a written source as such, with diagrams and graphs, help as visual aids to the mind in grasping intangible realities.
Mind
The mind is the mechanism of the human organism that thinks, perceives, and feels. It is
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