… And now let’s interpret this little story. The house is the physical body; the maid is the heart, the man-servant is the mind; the mistress of the house is the soul and the master is the spirit. The spirit often leaves us, and when it is away the soul is lonely and feels abandoned. But when the spirit comes home again it brings with it an abundance of inspiration and light. When the soul and spirit leave home together, then the heart and mind can’t wait to commit every possible kind of folly in the company of other foolish hearts and minds!
continued from yesterday’s post…

And now, if we look at this story a little more closely, we will see many details about the respective roles of the heart, mind, soul and spirit. As you know, a maid usually attends to the needs of her mistress, whereas a man-servant looks after his master. Masters are set apart from their servants by their way of life, their behaviour and their interests, and they do not usually share the secrets of their work or their personal plans with them.

The soul and spirit, too, act without necessarily revealing their motives to the heart and mind. But if a maid always behaves herself perfectly, her mistress will begin to trust and confide in her and talk to her about her plans, her happiness and her love for her husband, the spirit. When this happens the maid, that is, the heart, is overjoyed to know that her mistress trusts her enough to confide in her.

Similarly, if the man-servant works so well that he earns his master’s trust, he too will begin to benefit from revelations from his master and become more enlightened and more clear-sighted. But before this can occur, the maid and the man-servant have to live together in perfect peace and harmony in the service of their masters. If they quarrel, if one of them wants this and the other wants that, their lack of harmony will disturb the work of the soul and spirit.

There are a great many more combinations and applications of this image which you should meditate on, for every condition of health or sickness, happiness or suffering, can be explained by the relations that exist between these four occupants of your ‘house’.

So now, this is quite clear: the couple formed by the heart and the mind on the lower level is a replica of that formed by the soul and the spirit on the higher level. Mind and spirit are masculine principles, whereas heart and soul are feminine principles. The union of these two couples, heart-mind and soul-spirit, produces children. The union of mind and heart gives birth to actions on the physical level, while that of soul and spirit gives birth to actions on the divine level.

The relationship between these four principles explains why the heart and the mind are incapable of doing things right if they are not subject to the soul (which represents divine love) and the spirit (which represents divine wisdom). When they have developed along the lines of love and wisdom, then they will become the son and daughter of God, but at the moment they are no more than servants.

If the mind is not purified by the light of the spirit it becomes a prey to pride. If the heart is not purified by the warmth of the soul it lets itself be led astray by passions. And this is precisely where human beings have gone most seriously astray: they have broken off communications between the lower level of the heart and mind and the sublime regions of the soul and spirit, so that now, deprived of this life-giving link, their hearts and minds are ravaged and tormented. Only one thing can save them and that is to restore the bond with their masters and become honest, faithful servants. Then, once again, the heart will become a conductor of the soul, freeing the way for divine love to pour through it, and the mind will be a vessel filled with divine wisdom through which the spirit can manifest itself.

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Izvor Book 222, Man’s Psychic Life, Elements and Structures,
Chapter 3, Several Souls and Several Bodies

Image courtesy Josephine Wall