The Difference Between the Personality of Our Lower Nature and the Identity of Our Higher Nature

Posted On April 5, 2022 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

An “idea”, which originates in an invisible and generalized state, can only be understood in the practical sense by forming it into a working mental concept that serves to demonstrate how it functions as a fundamental part of our everyday reality. In order to understand the dual nature of our own mind-body system, we have to first form a basic understanding of what’s called our Triune or 3-fold nature. We all have what we can think of as “three aspects” of our mind and soul, called our superconscious, conscious, and unconscious or subconscious, each of which operate on different levels to perform different functions in creating what we perceive as a single reality. These three aspects of our mind and soul exist in a “coherent energetic state” that manifests as a “fourth element”, forming what we perceive as our physical body and the outer material world of reality, shaped through our perception of it. We all have 3 aspects of our mind that play different parts in forming a single reality that provides us with the basis for not only experiencing ourselves, but for shaping ourselves based on how we sense ourselves through our own self-made experiences.

This idea is what’s also called the “3 in 1 Law”, which is 3 aspects that form One Essence, also known as the Triad or Trinity, often represented in spiritual doctrine as a person with 3 heads and faces on a single body. One person is comprised of three fundamental aspects that exist on higher and lower levels of the same continuum or Astral Sheath, which can be thought of as form of vibratory scale that moves from a higher level of vibration (invisible) to a lower one (visible), forming a gradation or “range of vibration” as a frequency, similar to musical scale or light spectrum. This idea is also represented by the 4 states of matter, where an electrical charge that contains a holographic pattern within it as a form of “intention”, acts on what appears to be an invisible field of empty space, to form itself into a material form as a solid body of light. This is the fundamental process of creation undertaken by the soul (consciousness), which exists fundamentally as an invisible force that fashions its own outer image or garment out of astral light in order to perceive itself and come to know itself through it’s own mental projection. This fundamental process of creation can be easily understood by simply observing how it is you take an invisible idea and shape it into an image in your imagination as a means of first perceiving it internally, and then forming an experience of it through your own mental creation. The 4 states of matter, which are commonly described using the terms electrified (charged) plasma, gaseous, liquid, and solid, represent the different stages that an invisible idea undergoes in becoming a solid form. Again, these aren’t 4 different things or processes that occur independently of each other, but 4 states of being as phases of development systematically undergone in forming the same thing. This is how something emerges out of what appears to be nothing.

Each aspect of our mind and soul exist as an energetic state or “mode of consciousness” that form a scale of vibration as a single frequency that’s cohesive in nature. This model provides the basis for understanding how our soul shapes itself into a physical outer form by descending from a higher level of consciousness to a lower, more dense level of the same frequency. These states also represent the 4 aspects of the soul and self, known as the archetypal soul, the conscious creative soul, and the subconscious animal soul, which combine to form our physical body and outer reality, both of which are formed out of the same frequency, providing us with the means for experiencing ourselves, and shaping ourselves through our own experiences. Our Superconscious can also be thought of as our universal self (archetypal matrix), our conscious mind as our evolutionary ego or Higher Self, and our subconscious as our personal ego, or lower self. Our higher self is eternal in nature due to it being able to create itself by taking on many different bodies and personalities, whereas our lower self is mortal, and whatever identity we form out of our personal existence “dies” with our body. The term ego is synonymous with identity, and is the “I” and “I Am” commonly used in spiritual texts, which can be more accurately stated as “I am becoming”, because the soul is never fixed or finished. It exists in a constant state of growth and development as life-cycles, and is self-creating and eternal in nature. Our lower self is formed primarily out of our subconscious and is what we tend to call our body consciousness, which is primarily instinctual in nature and non-creative in terms of being able to create itself or form novel ideas that aren’t inherent in the collective unconsciousness of humanity. This aspect of ourselves is a fundamental part of the “group mind” governed by the natural processes associated with the animal kingdom, operates primarily out of the “herd mentality”, only “knows” and does what it’s taught or trained to do, and is primarily driven by instinctual tendencies which come as emotional impulses that form the basis for reactive behaviors.

While we’re in our physical existence, we typically only work with the two lower aspects of ourselves in terms of our daily life, which are the conscious and subconscious aspects of our mind. This is because the range of vibration that flows in a descending and ascending motion between higher and lower planes requires a medium or middle point (range of vibration) to move through that serves as a transducer for stepping-down the higher vibration and translating into a lower frequency where it can be conceived by the lower aspect of the subconscious. The movement of conscious energy between higher and lower planes comes through resonance as sympathetic induction, and the middle mind vibrates at a range that can reach the lower vibration (level) of the higher plane in order to draw in the energy of that plane, assimilate and transmute it, and then project it into the highest level of the lower mind, where it can be conceived through a form of transmission or communication. While in our physical body, governed by our subconscious, we’re unaware of our higher mind and our ability to create ourselves using our higher mind, and we live primarily out of the story that emerges from our formative conditioning. While manifest in our physical body we lose all memory of who we truly are in terms of our eternal soul and higher, creative mind, and come to believe that we are our body and exist as a form of intelligent animal.

While in the plane of formation (incarnate in a body) our conscious and subconscious are polarized aspects of each other and work in unity to produce what we perceive as our outer world and reality. Our conscious mind is our masculine-positive aspect and our subconscious is our feminine-negative aspect of the same mind. These two operate in polarity with other as complementary opposites on both the same plane, as an inner and outer, and as an interaction between higher and lower planes. On the higher plane of the conscious mind, it draws in the archetypal ideas from the higher plane of the superconscious, assimilates them into its existing identity, while simultaneously projecting them into the lower plane as pictures that act to seed the subconscious with new ideas. The conscious mind forms an idea into an image comprised of astral light (primordial matter) and introduces it into the etheric body of the lower self, which is a more concentrated and denser form of astral light that takes on a more fluid-like form and motion. The Higher Self is what originally forms and projects the etheric double used to inform the lower self, and then uses it as the means of regulating its own evolution by introducing memory that serve as metaphorical themes that are injected into the lower mind where they function in the same way memory does.

The Two Aspects of Our Lower Nature

While many people have been taught and formed a belief that our conscious mind is the aspect of our material mind that’s self-aware and is what perceives the outer world being formed and maintained by our subconscious, this is merely an aspect of our true conscious mind that’s contained within our subconscious, where it’s birthed fully within the material plane through a natural process of growth and development. Our true conscious mind exists outside of the material plane on a higher or greater level, and just as the conscious aspect of our mind is contained within our subconscious, the entire lower plane of what we call reality is contained within our higher conscious mind, which is the aspect of us that’s creating and maintaining it. This idea is symbolized through the Yin-Yang symbol, where the masculine contains an aspect of the feminine within it, and the feminine contains an aspect of the masculine within it, and together they form a greater whole as a unification or coherent state. This idea is also represented in the concept of the Madonna (Mother) who births a male child (Son), where the mother is also a virgin, which simply means that the child was conceived from a higher (spiritual) plane and level of consciousness, rather than a product of the material plane. This is giving us a clue to the fact that our conscious mind is not of this plane and is actually an aspect of our higher self, which is also called the Lord (Tiphareth of the Kabbalah) and is ultimately our savior.

The lower self of our subconscious is also referred to as our animal-nature, which is born into the world as a product of our genetic make-up where we’re naturally imbued with a personality. Our subconscious is also what’s referred to as the group mind of the collective Unconscious where we exist as a species where the only thing that sets us apart from each other and makes us unique is our personality. This is easy to understand when you simply look at dogs, for example, where all dogs are dog-like and display the same type of general behaviors and work through a pack mentality where they function as a single unit, yet each also has their own personality and unique way of doing the same behaviors. Our personality is something we’re born with and it comes in a completely natural fashion. Most of our natural behaviors and idiosyncrasies, like our physical appearance, stems from our genetic make-up where we inherent similar tendencies from our parents and ancestors as inherent or group memory.  It’s not something we create intentionally but comes in an automatic and spontaneous way where we don’t have to think about it or make a decision about how we’re going to be.

We’re born exclusively into our subconscious mind with a pre-formed personality, and as we begin growing and maturing, our conscious mind begins slowly developing. It’s an aspect of us that starts off in a latent and potential state and gradually becomes more active and prominent as we develop and mature. Our conscious mind starts becoming active around the age of 6 or 7, which is when we begin thinking, developing ideas in our imagination, and problem solving. At around 12 to 14 years, our conscious mind starts becoming even more prominent where we begin thinking for ourselves, forming our own ideas about things that are different from our parents, and we start coming into ourselves in terms of forming our identity. We do this by trying on all kinds of styles, ideas, and ways of being to see how they feel. We begin forming an image ourselves as being different from our parents and siblings, and we begin making our own decisions for ourselves that lead us into all kinds of new situations and experiences. As we begin having new experiences that came from our own decisions, we sense ourselves through our experiences by how we identify with them and begin shaping ourselves accordingly. Our identity begins naturally taking shape out of our personality in a completely harmonious and congruent way.

In the energetic sense, our higher self is formed of astral light in its gaseous state, and our lower self is comprised of the same light in a more concentrated form of astral light that moves and morphs more like a fluid that’s very malleable. The Higher Self is what originally forms and projects the etheric-double of the lower self as a form of blueprint for constructing an equivalent material reality, and then acts to regulate and evolve it by creating thought-forms that represent metaphorical themes that work in the same way memory does. If you simply observe the nature of your thoughts compared to your actual memories, you’ll realize that on the inner planes of your mind they appear the same way. This is because they’re both created the same way in our imagination. Our memories don’t just come or form by themselves, we actually create our memories by how we think about the events of our life that were emotionally impacting to form them into a story that takes shape through the meaning we gave them. While the subconscious operates almost exclusively out of memory in the same way animals function through instinct, it doesn’t have the ability to create its own memory and has to be given memory as the means of creating new types of experiences. Memory is created as a function of the higher mind which uses it as the means for directing the subconscious in an automatic fashion. Our higher conscious creates itself by forming memories of itself that it gives to the subconscious as a means of experiencing itself.

The lower self absorbs the soul memory being projected into it by the higher self, which is reflected within as an inner vision or dream-like image, that’s then gestated by building it into its current mental model, which is formed out of synthesized memory, modifying it to be a natural and harmonious part of its outer perception of reality. Once it can be perceived as a natural part of our reality we can form an experience of it, and it becomes a catalyst for producing a whole series of correlated experiences which propagate naturally out of it, setting a new phase or stage of development into motion. The subconscious of our body is our lower, animal soul which is not creative in the sense of being able to generate a new idea as an imaginary thought process, yet is the aspect of our mind that builds the thought into a corresponding material formation through our ability to perceive it within the outer world of our environment. This is the aspect of our mind that’s a part of the group mind of mass consciousness where all our activities are emotionally driven through natural inclinations. It functions out of memory as instinct, prompted by emotional impulses, and maintains a consistent perception of reality out of memory formed into habits.

Our personality is formed out of our genetic memory that’s not only comprised of a collective group of qualities that we share in common with all our family members that cause us to form the same natural behaviors, moods, and activities, but also contains the memory of our ancestors experiences that were emotionally charged and intense in some way. We can inherit memory of the traumas, obsessions, and emotional dynamics played out as the life experiences formed by our ancestral bloodline. This is the automated aspect of us that comes naturally without having to think, analyze, reason or make a decision. This is the part that’s mortal and dies with the body. Each time our higher soul incarnates into a new body it acquires a different personality and life situation that’s ideally suited for its identity to naturally take form out of through a natural process of growth and development. This is the part of us that serves as a vessel, vehicle, and house for our higher self to inhabit as a means of taking on a physical existence that’s necessary in order to experience itself, and then creates itself through how it associates with its own self-produced experiences.

Our subconscious is commonly associated with and represented as being our heart, and when we think using our heart (body consciousness) it comes as a lower form of intuition which is based on all of our experiences formed as feelings and memory, because all our experiences are permanently recorded within the etheric body as memory, and memory is the basis for instinct. When we’re living out of our lower nature from a semi-unconscious state, we live out of the story we formed about ourselves through our formative conditioning as memories of the past that are always playing out in our mind as habitual thoughts and internal processes that are driven primarily by feelings and emotions, where we simply repeat the patterns of the past as a way of creating the present to be of the same nature as a type of experience. We use the past as the basis for the story we start telling ourselves, which was formed before our rational mind was fully developed, and out of our story we form our identity. This is how we form what’s commonly called our ego as an identification with our past, personality, material belongings and the social position we find ourselves in or work to achieve, that acts to bond our soul to its own material form. This idea can be more accurately called our false ego because it’s created through a form of false identity, and our higher soul isn’t a physical body or material reality of our body, it’s the essence that inhabits the body as a means of experiencing and evolving itself through it’s own mental creation.  

When we fail to recognize that we also have a higher, conscious mind that’s willful in nature and able to create by directing our own thoughts and making decisions that break habitual patterns while forming new ones in their place, we begin identifying with our lower nature and how we’re trained and shaped by others and our life situation, and never learn how to step into our higher mind and ability to create ourselves in whatever way we choose. Shaping ourselves according to our unconscious conditioning forms what we can call our false identity, where we believe we’re our body and personality, and as a result we render ourselves mortal in the sense that “who we are experientially” and materially, dies with our body and life situation. Our soul is our identity, which can also be thought of as our character, and when we don’t wake up and remember who we are in terms of being our higher mind bestowed with the ability to decide who we’re going to be and what kind of story we’re going to tell by how we live our life, we remain locked into our animal, physical, unconscious existence. Because we only know ourselves to be our body, when we die and our soul separates from our body, we don’t exist in the sense of knowing who we are without a body, and we immediately look to reincarnate as a means of existing. Only the part of us that we create using the higher capacity of self-realization, choice, and will, remains immortal and transcends the material plane after death of the body, because while in a conscious state we’re fully aware that we are the creator, rather than the creation, and it’s only the creation that dies.

Our conscious mind is the part of us that’s creative, and not only what informs the personality of its own material creation, but also has the ability to grow and evolve it by seeding its own lower self. This aspect of our soul exists on a higher or outer plane and is what’s not only producing the entire lower plane as a mental construct of itself, but also maintaining and orchestrating it, while never fully entering into it. It’s the aspect of our mind that’s projecting the lower plane as a reflection of itself, with the term self referring to pure mind and spirit, rather than a body with a personality. Once we leave our body, we exist outside of and apart from it as a mental state or energetic field of highly organized information (synthesized memory) that remains self-aware, self-conscious, and self-sustaining. The only purpose our body serves is in providing our true, higher soul with an avatar it can use as the means of experiencing itself through its own mental projection. It does this by impregnating its own subconscious with a conscious, self-aware aspect that’s slowly birthed within its own creation as a means of perceiving it from within it, and forms what we have come to call our conscious mind. The conscious mind of our body can be more accurately referred to as our self-conscious mind because it’s only aware of the material world and body in which its born. This is why we naturally perceive our self as being our body rather than the creator of our entire reality within which we live as a fundamental part and have our being.

Our higher, creative mind is the aspect of us that creates by thinking. On the higher level of our mind we create in the most basic sense by drawing on an idea from an even higher plane of universal archetypes, where we use that idea to form a corresponding reality within our imagination. The idea exists on the higher plane in a latent, unformed state of pure potential, and is turned into a possibility by how it’s adapted and conformed to the already existing paradigm being used to project and maintain the lower plane, where it’s transformed into a personalized version of the same idea. Ideas exist in their raw form as metaphors that produce reality as a theme that’s designed to give you a certain type of feeling. The conscious mind is what gives form to an invisible idea by imbuing it with sensory attributes that cause it to come alive with sensation, causing it to vibrate as an astral formation, clothing it with light that makes it perceivable internally as a sensory reality that acts to naturally invoke a correlated emotion in response to it when it’s viewed by the subconscious mind. The vibrating, sensationalized idea formed as an image that represents a particular type of experience is then projected into the subconscious, where it acts as a seed that begins growing within an ovum, and is systematically grown into a natural part of the existing outer reality.

This is what quantum physics is referring to when it states that all ideas exist as and within a greater waveform, and creation comes by collapsing the wave into a single possibility, where it becomes clothed in an outer garment of light. Reality exists in a fundamental state of probability. This is also the principle described in wave-particle duality, where an idea exists simultaneously as both a particle and wave. On the higher plane of the universal mind all ideas exist as a wave, comprised of infinite possibilities in their potential state, and the conscious mind of our Ego Soul, chooses an idea which exists as a metaphorical theme and draws it into the imagination where it’s modified to be a natural aspect of its existing formation. It’s shaped into a 3-dimentional material form through sensory attributes that bring it alive with qualities, forming its character, out of which natural behaviors and operations form through the activity it naturally takes on.

 Our lower, material reality exists in what we can think of as an embryonic state that’s constantly being seeded with new information that facilitates how it naturally develops as it moves through different cycles. Our reality, like our body, is undergoing a constant state of evolution facilitated by forming new types of experiences that are translated into memory on the higher plane of the conscious mind. Our immortal soul is comprised of memory attained through its own experiences and maintained as a permanent record within the astral field of light, also called the Akasha field or “Book of Life”. Every aspect of our own creation is translated into a permanent record where it forms the basis for our karma, which becomes the memory for all proceeding incarnations. Our karmic seed is formed out of the memory formed through how we experienced our own creation, and is what forms our basic personality for all succeeding lifetimes as our inner nature, character, and predisposition. We’re born into a life situation where the same basic model is activated, established through our conditioning as our family dynamic, and set into motion as the basis for a continuous process of soul-evolution performed by how we use complementary aspects of our mind to grow ourselves through our own creation.  

Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Personal Transformation Coach, and Spiritual Mentor