A soul without a mind and a consciousness is a ghost soul! A soul with a mind and consciousness is an Immortal or a Buddha.

“Vi-Kien” Meditation Center – Seminar 3 – 5 April 1986 – Q&A Session with Master Vi-Kien

Question: In your lecture, you mentioned “the self is close to the soul”, i.e., the soul and the body are different. Can you explain what is the “self” and what is the “soul”? Why is there a difference?

Answer by Master Vi-Kien: 

The “self” means the CONSCIOUSNESS. We cultivate ourselves spiritually with our mind and our consciousness. Now, you want to perfect yourselves spiritually, so why do I need to talk about the “self”?

If I talk about the soul, you will not understand it. What is the soul? I am here, but you are talking about the soul. 

You must cultivate yourselves spiritually with your consciousness. Once you liberate your CONSCIOUSNESS, it will become light and nimble, so it can return to the soul. A soul without a consciousness is a ghost soul.  A soul without a mind and a consciousness is a ghost soul! A soul with a mind and consciousness is an Immortal or a Buddha.

Therefore, a ghost is wandering aimlessly, and it clings to whichever support it can find.  It is unable to analyze things clearly. It has neither a mind nor a consciousness. In contrast, we are perfecting ourselves spiritually with a mind and a consciousness. When I talk about the “SELF”, I mean that we want to return to our soul by educating our consciousness through spiritual practice. In reality, we possess a soul, but we are not aware of it!

We should strive to perfect ourselves spiritually, to release our impurities and preserve our pure energy, so that our soul can exit the body. When we enter the state of meditative contemplation and close our eyes, our soul can exit the body, and only then will we recognize that we have a soul.

If I talk about the soul now, you will not understand. Therefore, I must talk about the consciousness or the self. My “SELF” or my consciousness wants to see my soul, therefore, I must perfect myself spiritually. We cultivate ourselves spiritually in order to see our soul. We must perfect ourselves spiritually, in order to see our soul. You want to do so.

When you nurture this consciousness, you are cultivating a field of goodness in your heart to evolve higher, and you will become lighter and lighter through your spiritual practice. You will then realize how the body is being controlled.  It is through your consciousness, which is tiny!

While sitting, if you order your body to stand up, it will stand up noisily. If you use a recorder, you will hear the shuffling noise. When you order it to go to sleep, it will drop the heavy body onto the bed with a thump!

Our consciousness is very small. But a profane person who just started his spiritual practice will not understand this point. Therefore, I must explain in this way, so that people can understand that they also have a soul. Talking about the “SELF” vs the SOUL is clearer. The Vietnamese language is very rich and very precise.

The SELF also means the BODY. We have been infatuated with this BODY since a long time, and we are not aware of our SOUL. So now, we must cultivate ourselves spiritually to see our SOUL. When our BODY follows the spiritual training, it will become light and no longer agitated. So, the SOUL will become pure and light, and will exit the body easily.

We practice a spiritual method to become aware of our soul. For that purpose, we submit our body to spiritual training. Therefore, we use the word SELF to make it clearer. We submit our body to the concentration of spiritual energy exercise, to the cyclical breathing exercise, to the meditative contemplation exercise. We submit our body to a strict discipline. We force it to make sacrifices and to nullify its demands.

Then naturally, « The sea must be calm, before the pearl of light appears”. “When one’s consciousness is serene, the soul will exit the body.”

Our soul will exit the body and no longer reside there. In the future, when your soul is able to exit the body through the central point on the top of the head, you will only come back there momentarily, and you don’t want to descend lower, because it is too hot and unpleasant.

When we are used to reside in the sphere of purity, we no longer want to integrate with this body. We only reside there temporarily because our mission is not yet over, and God does not yet allow us to leave. If God wants us to leave, He only needs to pull us a little bit at the central point of the head to bring us back to Heaven.

If you are pulled at the soles of your feet, you will be brought to Hell. You will feel weaker and weaker each day, and finally, at your last breath, you won’t be able to differentiate between black and white, you will exit through your big toe, which means that you will go to hell. Do you understand?

Therefore, we know the path to go downward, the path to go upward, how to focus our energy, how to rectify ourselves. The more we cultivate ourselves spiritually each day, the greater our mental clarity will be. We will be able to examine our path clearly, and we will put it into practice within calmness.

However, why can I not put it into practice?

To put it into practice, I meditate, but after one hour, I feel tired and want to stop! This is the fault of the Master-Soul. Why can you take your “SELF” to spend time doing idle talk, drinking and partying for 3 hours without feeling tired, but if you demand your “SELF” to stay focused and sit alone, it will complain and feel tired? Isn’t it the responsibility of the Master-Soul? Where is this responsibility?

This is the responsibility of your consciousness. Your consciousness refuses to focus and explore your existing potential. Do you see that you are blocked there?

So, we must turn within and develop ourselves to the maximum. We must work for our own benefit, instead of working for the benefit of others. From morning till night, we keep doing trivial things such as being calculating, angry, infatuated, doubtful, and so on, which is useless.

Now, we must do what is necessary. Therefore, I advise you to practice the silent invocation of Nam-Mo-A-Di-Da-Phat, which is essential. Similar sounds synchronize with each other. Similar energies harmonize with each other. When your body breathes in, the whole body must follow the same directive. When you practice the silent invocation of Nam-Mo-A-Di-Da-Phat from the top of your head, your lower body must follow the command.  It will behave in an orderly manner in accordance with your command. Only then, will it transform itself to return to oneness. By focusing your energy on the top of your head, you will learn how to HARMONIZE with the pure spiritual energy from the World Above.

At that time, you will truly make progress. You will easily arrive to the place where your thoughts are taking you. You will no longer depend on the physical body. You reside on earth, but you are not polluted by earthly desires, because you no longer have a profane character filled with calculations and doubts. You will live in joy and harmony. Wherever you look, whether with open or closed eyes, you will see the heavenly sceneries. You will arrive at the place you want to go whether your eyes are closed or open. So why would you still be calculating? You are much richer than ordinary people, so it is senseless to continue the path of fighting, intransigence, and rivalries.

Therefore, we are practicing the Vô-Vi method in order to unlock our innate potential and develop it fully to attain HARMONY.

Currently, you are practicing PATIENCE in order to discover and unblock all your inner weaknesses. You must be patient and persevere in your inner development and unblock the energies in the multiple complex layers of your body. The Master-Soul must be patient, very patient to discover its shortcomings. For example, you must be patient in order to fix a radio. Once you have fixed it, you will feel relaxed because you are able to listen to any wavelength you select.

Your body is no different. The central point on the top of your head is a dynamic engine. From there, you communicate directly with the center of energy of the universe. Thus, you must concentrate on this point. This central point is very important. It relates directly to the center of energy of the whole universe. The more we direct our thoughts upward toward purity and lightness, the more easily we will be able to resolve any philosophical reasoning that we encounter.

Only when our spiritual energy harmonizes with the energy from above, our mind will be able to store the Enlightenment from The World Above.