First of all, this gives us a sense of responsibility. I must build this lighted house; it is not just pre-done for me. Secondly, this shows us a great aim in life, to build a lighted house and therein dwell. Next, we need to understand two meanings in this; one is to do with our personality house and the other meaning is to do with our soul. Our mental, emotional, and physical parts of self can be filled with light. Yet the higher level of our self, our soul, needs to also be filled with light, and in fact, our soul is built of light.
Our soul itself is a light-body. But to be manifestly expressed in this living world, our soul needs a three level house -- with mental, emotional, and physical levels. So this house is the composite of 'three bodies' – mental, emotional, and physical – which we are calling the 'personality', or sometimes called the vehicle(s) of soul. Maybe we should call this our mobile home.
It is our responsibility to build and shape these three bodies. In physical terms, this might be seen as body-building, or getting in shape, or simply physical health. But people often neglect a responsibility to build and shape their mental and emotional bodies as well. Most people have never even considered this as being possible, especially with the emotional body. Yet it is certainly possible to shape and refine both the mental and emotional bodies, as well as the physical.
The building of these bodies began at birth, so this has already been going on before we were consciously aware of it all. In other words, before our conscious-will developed, our personality bodies had been developing according to physical, social, and educational influences. So in the beginning of our lives, our three lower bodies - the physical, emotional and mental - are built mostly by unintentional processes. For example, with good food and exercise our physical body grows naturally, without much thought or intention. Our emotional and mental bodies somewhat grow naturally as well, if one grows up in a healthy emotional environment and develops the mental body with education and intelligent thinking.
But now that we are conscious and self-responsible, we can work on this with conscious-will. Our mental and emotional bodies were first developed without really our own intentional consent, but now we have an opportunity to re-build or re-model some this emotional and mental structure that was built for us, earlier on, by our family, society, religion or culture.
We can build a healthier physical body with good food and exercise. But also important to work on are our emotional and mental bodies. Our emotional body is built or shaped by the emotions we consistently remain in, either positive or negative, so our work is to transform negative reactions and live in higher positive emotions. Remember that emotions are not simply energies that come and go; but instead, any emotions we consistently remain in will gradually become our emotional body.
Our mental body is built of the thoughts we dwell in. So with conscious intention we can keep in our mind truthful and beautiful thoughts, in order to build or rebuild our mental house. In building any of these parts of oneself, use the energies of love, truth, goodness and beauty. Also helpful in this building process is knowing the Spiritual Purpose for doing so and having a sense of need and desire to work on this, also having intent and perhaps developing a plan.
Now generally, to build light into these levels of our self, the best materials are needed. Essentially needed are the spiritual substances of Love, Intelligence, and Good-Will, all of which are aspects of Divine. As well, any of the higher spiritual Virtues will become strong building blocks for this house.
Another level of work, which is more esoteric yet of utmost importance, is to build our light-body, which is our soul. This is a 'higher level' of building; it is a higher 'story' of the self, as it were. This is a work of building our soul of light.
Our light-body is made of essential consciousness. Consciousness is what makes the light and what makes the light brighter and more expansive. For consciousness and light are essentially the same. In the esoteric western tradition, the Light of God is synonymous with the Consciousness of God. In the language of esoteric Buddhism, the soul (or Diamond Core of being) is made of Buddhic Consciousness or also called the Buddhic Light, which is on the Intuitional plane above ordinary mind. Higher ideas and insights, divine archetypes and symbols, as well as higher wisdom and guidance, come from this Intuitional plane. Thus, higher wisdom (or divine wisdom) comes from 'The Light'.
The soul exists in the Intuitional plane, which is the fourth plane or also in the middle of seven planes; this is the dimension of existence for all souls. Thus, it is often stated that the soul exists 'above' the ordinary mind – above the mental, emotional and physical levels. Yet the notion of 'above' is really symbolic and metaphorical, rather than literal. So we can also understand the soul as being deeply within us, deep in our own mind and in our heart. Even the three levels of self, as discussed here, are not literally above or below, but rather they actually interpenetrate one another.
We each already have a spiritual soul, which in its core essence is like a great seed of spiritual potential. Or perhaps, one might say that one is already a spiritual soul. This soul is made of light, a very sublime and high frequency form of light. Yet this light can range, from very small and dim, to being very large and bright. Therefore, even if we understand that we have already a soul, or that we are already a soul; it is evermore possible to be a larger and brighter soul, a larger and brighter light.
Our soul has immediate knowingness of its spiritual being and spiritual qualities. Yet every soul is in further progress towards greater realization and of being a greater expansion of light. Thus, every soul is a soul-in-progress; since every soul has a potential to progress in its divine realization – in realizing its Divine Essence, or God. There are always opportunities to build a more expansive and stronger soul-consciousness – and with more permanent connectivity to our mental, emotional and physical bodies – thus infusing greater light into the lower bodies and then into the whole world.
So, even though we have a soul right now, we can develop our soul even more, further expanding our soul and making it ever brighter, which is the further building of our soul, our 'body of light'. As well, our inner soul can become more conscious in everyday life, or in other words, how our soul can emerge from being 'latent in our unconscious' to being 'actual in our consciousness' – whereupon we realize that this soul is who we really are (who I am).
In some teachings this is all known as building our permanent 'body of light', which will then continuously expand in its soul journey. We build our light body with consciousness, with pure consciousness, by bringing more clear and pure consciousness into life. Meditatively, we build our body of light by increasing our consciousness, which is to increase our light. Thus, the answer is quite simple. We build further our soul of light by increasing our light of consciousness. We increase the light of our soul by increasing the light of our consciousness.
Another key in soul-building is meditation – in just-being, consciously. This is the practice of conscious being. Our soul is built with Light, which means that our soul is built with the energy essence of consciousness, but not a consciousness filled with everyday thoughts, desires, daydreams, or emotional reactions. Rather, our soul is built with pure and clear consciousness. This is also related with our heart, because our heart needs to be pure and clear as well. The innermost essence of our heart is light. Look for this light. For in this light of our heart is our soul. But in order to experience this light in our heart, which is our soul, we need to surrender everything in our heart (surrender all that occupies our heart) so that nothing obscures the light of soul emerging from our heart. Consciously surrender all clouds covering the heart, so that the sun may shine, the sun that is the real you.
One special secret in realizing and developing the soul is breath. Conscious breath helps to focus our mind and will help keep consciousness stable, rather than flutter too easily into ordinary thought and emotion. The process of building light cannot get very far at all, if our mind continually flutters into ordinary (habitual and routine) patterns of thought or emotion. In fact, this is the overall problem that prevents the pure light of consciousness from stabilizing for a sufficient amount of extended time that is necessary in order for the light to coalesce into a permanence.
So conscious breath helps one stabilize the mind and bring awareness to our emotional energies, so that mental thoughts nor emotional dramas do not simply preoccupy consciousness. For so often in ordinary-regular life our great gift of consciousness is absorbed into mechanical subconscious patterns; in other words, our patterns of thoughts and emotions occupy our whole stream of experience and there is no room for other possibility. But a continuity of conscious breath defeats the usual dominance of subconscious patterns.
Breath is also significant in what it brings to the alchemy of energy transformation. Conscious breath will bring life energy into this work, life energy from the energies of nature, which will vitalize and strengthen our consciousness. Esoterically and alchemically, the life energies of nature can be used for the building and expansion of consciousness, as this life energy is transformed into light. Breath can bring into our being the life energies of prana, which then transforms into light energy for the soul, but this demands conscious breath. Through conscious breath we can bring into us the life energy of earth and transform this into light for our soul. We can also bring into our being the light of Divine Presence, which is everpresent, breathing in light to feed our soul within our heart. For our soul is like a divine seed within, which needs love and light in order to develop and become strong.
Also, with conscious breath we have more freedom of intention, or freedom of choice, rather than always just flowing downstream asleep in the raft. Be conscious in the breath. Breathe consciously. Then you will understand. With conscious breath we can choose our quality of being. We can really choose how we shall be in this very moment. We can choose to be a higher quality of being. With conscious breath we can feel and sense the Divine Presence and also tune into higher impressions from higher dimensions. Also with conscious breath we can tune into any of the Divine Qualities – the Qualities of God which are always present in the space of every moment. With conscious in-breath we can receive any energy in the world or universe, and with conscious out-breath we can send out any quality of energy to any place or person.
So, we have an inherent potential to build a higher body, which is the soul. This higher body can only be built consciously and intentionally. It cannot be built by environmental forces; it cannot be built by society or the people around us. This level of building completely requires intentional work and choice. The capacity for this is natural within us, but it is not simply developed by the forces of nature, nor by anyone other than our own conscious being.
This higher body is known by different names. In some esoteric teachings it is called the intuitional body, and it exists in a fourth level called the Intuitional-Buddhic Plane (fourth in relation to the three levels or 'worlds' – of the physical, emotion, and mental). It is also known as the Buddhic body, the Diamond body, or the Light body. It is also known as the soul body.
In reincarnation teachings, we come into this life with a transmigrating soul. So we already come into life with a soul, but this inherent soul doesn't have much power or influence in our lives, until we mentally and emotionally realize it and allow it into our consciousness. In other words, our inherent soul is at first unconscious to us, and we can rightly say it is also disconnected from our thoughts and emotions -- and thus it is not really yet an integrated part of who we are as a person.
Once we do actually realize our soul, if this even happens, then we are starting with something already present. However, this present soul of who we are was, at some time, self-developed with conscious intention and choice, for this is how every soul is built. Anyway, we will hopefully awaken to the soul we already are; and then proceed to build our soul even further, in a process of refinement and expansion.
So, we each already have a soul, inherently, but every soul is in further progress towards greater realization or being a greater expansion of light. And thus, there is an opportunity, in this present life, to build a more permanent and stronger soul-consciousness -- with clearer connectivity to our mental, emotional and physical bodies -- infusing greater Light into the lower bodies and then into the whole world.
This possible building of our soul will require intentional effort and also cooperation from our three lower bodies - comprising our 'personality'. Developing and refining our physical, emotional and mental bodies will still be important, of course, since these are the very foundational levels of our being. And we can refine these three levels of our self with light – bringing in and using the power of Light to transform our bodies and make them into a lighted house.
But now, in addition, and as an extra-ordinary work, we shall also build our soul-body, our light-body. So, another level of meaning in 'building a lighted house' is to build our light-body, which is a 'higher level' of building. We develop our spiritual soul with the energies of spiritual light and higher consciousness, and in doing so we are building our house of light. When we hold our mind steady in pure spiritual light, or in pure consciousness, then we are building this soul-body made of light.
Allow Light into the physical body... purifying and clearing any problems.
Allow Light into the emotional body... purifying and clearing any disharmonies.
Allow Light into the mental body... purifying and clearing any unnecessary thoughts and dispelling illusion.
Allow Light into our soul-body, becoming a Diamond body of Light.