Spiritual Development and the Power of Symbols

Returns to the water of the collective soul. Therefore, the personal soul returns to the collective soul. Unless this soul has a body or a body capable of remaining through various incarnations. This is why in Antiquity there were doctrines, such as the Tibetan one that said there is reincarnation, individuality, the fact of maintaining oneself through various reincarnations, was not for everyone, but was simply for those who developed a sufficient causal body. In general, we are in a different situation. So, we all have something of this causal body, but the more we develop this individual body, the more our individuality can become strong and remain through various incarnations. The same difference that passes from a mineral to a lion. There is a substantial difference in the physical body that is exactly the difference that can pass from the causal body to an empty ball of air, there is a causal body of an initiate, of an adept. For example, it was said that Buddha's causal body could be felt awakening kilometers away and was represented as an aura - the halos of Saints represent the activity of this causal body, which is represented as something brilliant, like a brilliant sun because it is visible only to clairvoyants, but in some conditions even normal people can see, have an intuition, an experience of these bodies. **The Power of Symbols** *Conference in Alvor, March 3, 2020.* Everything we see, everything we use, is a symbol. For example, the words we use are effectively a coding of symbols that we accept, such as Portuguese which is a formula we accept, Italian is different, French is different. This coding of symbols we use allows us to transmit and concretize a thought, and understand each other what we are saying, but there are other symbols that possess equally strong power. For example, if we think of a flag: a flag in an emergency situation, or in a war, the flag awakens forces in our interiority that allow us to reach forces we didn't think possible. Symbols effectively possess a power that is the key to transmute us. That is, generally we find symbolism as a dictionary of symbols, a notion we must learn. In general, when we think of a symbol, we think of the meaning this symbol has. In truth, symbols are keys that we must learn to use. That is, keys that allow us to act on the unconscious and subconscious, and reach superconscious forces, spiritual forces. Symbols connect the informal, the superior, the spiritual, the invisible to what is visible. This is the power of symbols. To get an idea of how it works, let's make a very, very simple example. Let's make the example of an artist. An artist who must create a work of art. Let's see how it works: in general, we have seen that man, woman, ourselves, we are very complicated, very complex compounds. We have an individual aspect, without form, a deeper interior aspect that has no image, no form, that is free like the spirit; and we have an aspect, or various aspects, that are more formal: for example, we have a physical body, an astral or emotional body, emotive, we have the mental body, formal images. So, when we want to create a work of art (...) Let's suppose that a sculptor must create a work of art - our whole compound will be involved. So let's go, first of all, the will. That is, I want to conceive a work of art. Therefore, the first activity, above all, is something that I still don't know what the work of art will be, I know nothing, I don't know the form, I know nothing at all. The only thing I know, the only thing that is active at this moment, is the aspect of will - I want to make a work of art. And here there is also an individual aspect, because this of the will is actually associated with the spirit, in a more abstract, deeper aspect of men and women and we also have the aspect of the soul: we can say that it is capable of conceiving this work of art. That is, when we begin to say ok, I want to make a work of art, we haven't decided yet. There is a long period, or shorter - it depends on the artist's capacity for deliberation - there is a period of time where the artist simply must conceive the fact of