Jesus Delivers a Discourse on the Soul 

As part of their tour of the Mediterranean world, Gonod, Ganid, and Jesus went to Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia. While at Ephesus, they visited the famous temple of Artemis, a mother goddess of ancient times. It was also here that Paul resided for over two years, making tents for a living, and lecturing on religion and philosophy each night at the school of Tyrannus and later returned to introduce Christianity to the people of Ephesus.

In this same school of philosophy, Jesus had several talks with a learned Greek philosopher and used the word "soul." This progressive thinker immediately asked Jesus for clarification.

When asked what he meant by the "soul," Jesus said the following to the Greek philosopher:

The soul is the introspective, truth-seeking, and spiritual aspect of humans that distinguishes them from animals. Self-awareness alone does not constitute the essence of a person. Moral self-consciousness is essential for genuine human self-fulfillment and serves as the basis of the human soul, which embodies the potential enduring significance of human experiences. The soul is characterized by moral choice, spiritual attainment, the ability to know God, and the desire to emulate him. Man's soul is inseparable from moral contemplation and spiritual engagement. An inactive spirit is a fading spirit. The human soul is separate from the divine spirit that resides in the mind. The divine spirit emerges when the human mind engages in its initial moral activity, marking the birth of the soul.

The saving or losing of a soul depends on whether the moral consciousness achieves survival status by forming an eternal connection with its corresponding immortal spirit endowment. Salvation is the process by which moral consciousness is spiritually elevated through self-realization, granting it the ability to endure and persist. All soul conflicts arise from the disharmony between moral or spiritual self-awareness and purely intellectual self-awareness.

When the human soul reaches maturity, refinement, and spiritual development, it becomes closer to a state resembling the divine, acting as a bridge between the physical and spiritual realms, connecting the material self with the divine spirit. Describing and demonstrating the developing essence of a human being is challenging because it cannot be uncovered through material or spiritual methods. Material science and pure spirit testing cannot prove the existence of a soul. Despite the inability of material science and spiritual criteria to confirm the presence of the human soul, every morally aware individual is aware of their soul's existence through personal experience.

According to the insights offered by Jesus, the essence of our connection to the divine begins with God, who is spirit and serves as our universal Father. It is from God that we receive a fragment of his spirit, a divine spark, which resides within us from an early age, marking the inception of our potential for spiritual growth. This divine presence is more than a mere philosophical abstraction; it's a living connection to the infinite, initiating our soul's journey at the moment of our first moral choice, akin to a significant historical milestone that defines a new beginning.

Our soul, then, is likened to a crystal forming in a saturated solution, where the indwelling spirit acts as the seed around which our spiritual identity crystallizes. This growth is contingent on our willingness to align our wills with the divine will, fostering a union with this fragment of God's spirit that is both intimate and transformative. Should we fully embrace this alignment, we achieve an eternal fusion with this divine fragment, becoming a reflection of God's spirit endowed with unique individuality and enriched by human experience.

We are comprised of three substances: material, spirit, and soul. Our physical body, transient and chemical in nature, contrasts with our spirit, a fragment of the divine essence, eternal and seeking expression. The soul, emerging from the interplay of material reality and spiritual presence, embodies our true form beyond physical death. It represents a confluence of the material and the spiritual, visible in a spectrum that ranges from the opaque to the translucent, indicating the depth of spiritual integration.

In the event of an early demise, before the soul's formation, the individual is given the opportunity for resurrection in a spiritual form, to make a moral choice, receive a soul, and continue their journey within the divine governance, adhering to the principle of resuming their spiritual evolution from the point of interruption.

Jesus offers us a profound understanding of our existence as a blend of the earthly and the divine, where the soul stands as a testament to our spiritual journey and the potential for eternal progression.