By Lazaris

This article is an excerpt from a Weekend seminar Lazaris gave on the Soul’s Path. Far from being some remote, untouchable concept, the Soul journeys with us through our lives, appearing with us and to us as seven distinct energies — the Seven Faces of the Soul. The first part of a two-part series which gives a brief overview of all of them, this article covers the first three of the Faces, the ones we experience in our childhood.

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The Faces of the Soul … We have talked of them before, and many of you know them already, or know the words, know the names, know the intellectual descriptions of what goes on. Some of you may even have glimpses and clues, and may have gained communication from your Soul from each of these various faces, certainly so.

The Soul is such a nebulous thing. For most people it is a non-thing. It is a persona non grata, if you will, that doesn’t really seem to have much play in your life. Oh, yes, it has influence, and it will demand reckoning from everyone, whether they will admit they have a Soul or not. But for most, the Soul isn’t anything more than some sort of nebulous something that is of God, something that cannot be understood.

The Soul is a being — living and vibrant — and it is so much more. It has several specific Faces — seven of them to be very precise. And your Soul is with you from the moment of death to the moment of birth, and all the time in between. And each of these faces comes to you and gives its many gifts to you. Not by vocal expression, but by communicating in their way: through the cracks and crevices of your life, in the silences, in the stillness, in the cherished moments, and in the enchanted times of your life, your Soul communicates all the information you need to know.

Sadly, because the Soul is denied in your world and is given so few avenues of communication — because its particular tools have been turned into shams of silliness or of embarrassment — the communication to so many is very difficult. Because of the inbred chauvinism, because of the impact of an arid spirituality that exists for many only within the rigidity of religion, these messages are missed. They are lost. And people flounder. They flounder in delusion, they flounder in a negative ego that turns against them. They flounder imprisoned in their own shame, in their own pain, in their own sorrow continuing to punish themselves, never finding their power and never using it — never finding their talent, never using it.

It does not have to be this way. It was never meant to be this painful. If you can hear the messages of your Soul, so many answers can come. So many new directions can be found and so much pain can be relieved and healed. It is not a panacea, yet there is so much magic if you can listen to your Soul … if you can know its Faces.

The Name

The first face of the Soul is called The Name. Its element is that of earth. It is the grounding. It is what brings the etherium of you into this body, this infant’s body. Certainly so, the Spirit, the fire, the light, the breath of you enters that fetus at various points. It may be at the point of conception, at the point of birth, or even a slight bit after birth, that is so. No one is ever going to be able to pinpoint it exactly because, there is not a rigid rule about it. It is not a system. Souls enter the body at conception, at 3 weeks, at 9 weeks, at this week, at that week. There will be those who obviously theorize about it. There will be those who want judges to decide for them. But it can never be decided. Each Soul enters at its own chosen time, and that can range from the point of conception to three days after the birth.

There is a time then that the naming takes place. And when you make entry into the physical realm — cut umbilically out of the womb, out of the placenta, out of safety into the world — it is your Soul who catches you.

It is your Soul who names you, regardless of how your name came about — regardless whether melodrama was attached to it or whether it was a simple decision. It doesn’t matter where the name may have logically or tangibly come from, it is your Soul who chose the name. It gave you your name. Even if you don’t use it as the name you go by, even if you have changed it, it is still the name that your Soul gave you which grounded you into the earth, which made you physical, which kept you here.

So very early in life, at the infancy, long before you could ever know that name, long before that name could mean anything to you, it was given to you by your Soul. It may have come through your mother, through your father, through a grandparent, a mother-in-law, a grandfather-in-law of whatever side, through the history of the family, or out of the Dell book of baby names. However, it was, in fact, given by your Soul.

And in that name are the first clues, the first hints, the first riddles, the first mysteries that reveal your destiny. Now the clue to the destiny may be obvious by the naming. It also may be very, very truncated, and may be very hidden. Do not to assume that if your were named after some Greek god or goddess that that is your destiny — or that if you have the same name as some religious saint, that that is your destiny.

But rather, hidden in that name, hidden within the meaning — not just the phonetics of the name, but in the meaning of the name — is a first clue to your destiny.

This face of the Soul stays with you during the first many months of your infancy. It watches over you, and in a sense it supervises the development of your brain, nervous system, endocrine system, digestive system, and immune systems that must take place. All these systems that develop in those first many months are overseen, in a sense supervised, by this Soul. Tangibly, physically, certainly so, they are taken care of by those of the parenting influences. And you bond, certainly so, with that physical form. But what you’re really seeking, even in that bonding, is your Soul. It gives you your name. It gives you your first clue of your destiny, your identity.

Power

The second face of the Soul is that of power. It is the time when you are emotionally born. After the physical birth, you are still connected. Then you are emotionally born, discovering that you have separate emotions than your mother, or the mothering force — that you have separate emotions, that you have your own emotions, that you have your own desires even at this infant stage. They’re very rudimentary, they’re very primitive desires, but they are yours.

Certainly so, an infant, when placed to a mother’s breast, will automatically begin to nurse. But it’s not aware that’s its desire. However, in that sense, at the time of power, which can begin as early as 15 months to 18 months — when the naming is complete and the grounding is done, when the seed of destiny has been laid, when the identity has begun to form — when the Name retreats, giving way to that of Power. And an emotional birth occurs where you have your own feelings. You have your own desire. At that point the desire to nurse is YOUR desire, conscious. However primitive, it is your desire.

You start exploring and discovering that there is a world outside yourself. You start looking for your power. You start looking for your power. You already begin to explore it, to see: Am I powerful in this way? Am I powerful in that way? Am I more powerful in this way?

And little children of this sort become incredibly explorative as you know, become reaching and touching everything, wanting to know everything they can know in their limited way. It is the Soul. It is within the Soul that you seek the power. And it is in this time that the power is born.

Identity, now grounded, now begins to develop. It begins to develop and flow like water. And infants of this age, children in this time, are like water. Here one moment, gone the next. Over there, under here. ‘How’d they get in there? How’d they do that? How did they? It’s like they flew. It’s like they teleported. It’s like …’

The face of your Soul is the face of Power. Its element, water. You begin to develop the powers that will be yours in later life. It is at this very early stage that the idiosyncratic behavior that in 20 or 30 years will be your blessing, your power, begins. Bizarre things, strange things, very ‘out-of-character’ things do occur. You say things, and your mother and father wonder where you got that phrase, where you got those words. You understand things. You communicate. At this point, your Soul is very talkative inside of you as you begin to develop the talent that will be your own.

You also explore powers that your mother and father expect you to develop — powers that the system is holding for you, expecting you to develop — that grandparents have in mind for you, that godparents (if they are significant in your life) somehow have in mind for you — their dreams, their visions blur and interfere, and you explore those powers as well. Whether they belong to you or not, you explore them.

And you begin to develop identity, you begin to develop personality. This stage is when your personality drive begins. That personality drive does not begin as a stamp, but begins as a survival mechanism, an expression of your power. You figure it out, how to survive. What powers do I need to use?

Survival: For some it is to figure out who’s in charge and to figure out how to nurture and how to take care of them — how to love them so as to get them to love you.

Others survive by figuring out what’s going to please the most people the most of the time and how to maneuver and connive and manipulate and to actually, literally achieve in order to please, in order to get them to approve (and therefore love) you.

And yet for some, survival is figuring out early on that these two grown-ups are not able to raise you, and therefore, you must raise yourself. You realize: I must parent myself. I must be my own source of love. Living in fantasy, you decide you are special. If you could just figure out your deep and hidden flaw, and then fix it, your specialness would show.

In order to survive, some decide: ‘If I can just get away from the world, if I can just find one of my ivory towers, one of my secret places, then there I can have my own world, private world.’ You decide to understand how the world works. Then you can function. Then you can survive.

Others recognize that those authorities, those people who are supposed to take care of you can’t or won’t, and therefore, you’d better make yourself safe. You’d better chart your own terrain. You’d better be prepared for any contingency and know how to handle it. And you’d better be searching for that one that you can totally rely upon, and totally depend upon.

Others learn at that early age that it’s better to have many irons in many fires so that if one of those irons breaks or if those fires go out, you won’t be hurt or left out in the cold. It’s better to have a lot of things happening, lots of projects, lots of plans. You’d better have lots of influences in your life, because you can’t count on those one or two or three. You’ve got to avoid pain at all cost. You’ve got to avoid pain at all cost in order to survive.

Others realize that you are indeed immensely powerful, and that if you assert your will others will crack and will step back, creating a wide berth for you to pass. You learn that the best defense is an offense, the best way to get your way is to bully, and to be powerful in the way of taking charge.

Others of you learn that your role is to make peace and to make everybody happy, to bring harmony, to make a perfect world. And if you cannot, you are worthless, and therefore should retreat — not to a private world, but to sit on the edge of everybody else’s world.

And some of you come to know at this very early time that if you can just learn the rules, if you can just figure out the system and learn those rules well and do them right, that you can be happy, that you can survive, and maybe even change the world.

Early on, your survival mechanisms are messages from your Soul, clues to your power, identity, personality. The powers that you use come at this time, beginning at 15 months, others at 18, some of you a little later than that, and developing through that childhood time — through the second year, the third year, the fourth, and into the fifth year, and the sixth and seventh for many of you as well. Usually, from that time up until the time of the beginning of your teen years — or for some it comes sooner -you learn how to manipulate, you learn how to get your way, you learn how to ‘work’ people, yes you do. You learn what works -you learn what works with mom, what works with dad, what works with your friends’ parents, what works with your teachers, what works with your friends themselves.

Power. You’re exploring. You’re flexing. You’re testing.

Eternal Youth

Somewhere in your late childhood — often associated with puberty — comes a time of the Soul called the Eternal Youth. Its element is that of fire.

First it is earth, you see. And then the water. And now the fire. The passion is born. And those of you who remember that time of your life, or those of you who have children who have entered that time of life, they were and they are hell on wheels. Yes, you were, too. Depending, of course, on what has happened up to this point, that fire takes different forms. But the fire is ignited. The melodrama begins. And in this time of always’s and never’s you start testing what you’ve learned in your world. You start testing those powers, seeing what works. And in that testing, a passion is born, a fire is ignited, and you are consumed.

Your hormones begin to flow, faster and more fully, and they rage, hot fire burning in your veins, flowing into every cell of your body. Every part of your body begins to be fired up. This is when children will spurt up in their growth, growing many, many inches — five, six, seven, eight inches in a matter of no time at all. This is a time when certainly the hormones flow, and the body extends itself, bringing in sexual energies, sexual desires, and primal creative desires (not just sexual, but primal creative desire as well). The chakras, 1st chakra, 2nd chakra, 3rd particularly, are on fire, burning up, consuming you. This is where adolescents become consumed with thought, obsessed with thoughts. The littlest detail becomes the most important thing. They are driven. They are on fire. They are burning up inside. This is where many — often the boys more than the girls — will feel that kinetic energy where their bodies simply can’t sit still. They’re got to move. They’ve got to move. They’re jiggling, they’re moving.

‘God, can’t you sit still. You act like your pants are on fire.’ They are, in that sensing.

‘I can’t sit still. I’m just hopping. Ooh, everything … Everything’s this way, and everything is alive and burning, and everything matters, and everything is life or death.’

And in this time of eternal youth, in this time of fire, you reach that point of invincibility. There comes a moment of truth, often a moment of ecstasy, when you know: I am invincible. It might be for some, so riddled with shame and pain, only one afternoon, or just an hour early one morning before the whole family began their dysfunction once again. But there was that time when you felt so alive, you felt so on-top-of-the-world, you felt so powerful. It is often a time when you felt the reverie. It is often a time when you are proud of who you are — despite everything that has happened, despite the nightmares you have lived through, despite the pain that you have been known. All of a sudd
n you are YOU.

Now again, for some of you it might have been just a moment when you felt: ‘All of a sudden I am me.’ But you nonetheless felt it. You nonetheless felt that invincibility, that sense of total control, total awareness. For some of you it was a tremendously mystical experience, where you all of a sudden understood how the world worked. You understood God — because you didn’t have any reference to a Goddess then. Regardless of any religious background, regardless of what that religious background may or may not have taught you, you had a sense of the presence, and you understood. And you had that sense of invincibility that nothing could stop you, nothing could get in your way.

For some of you, it was a mystical and mysterious experience. For many, it was a time of tremendous arrogance. For each of you, it was a glorious time of fire — of unlimited, unbridled energy – of aliveness called Eternal Youth. It was a time of your Soul.

Continued … In Part II: The Soul’s Path continues with The Wounding,The Shadow, The Double, and The Remain.