“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul?” -Mark 8:36
Understand that true education is not putting information into someone, but drawing nature out of someone. Putting information in is indoctrination. The prefixes ex- and in- are what truly set the two apart. Ex, the actual root of education, is to draw out, while in, is to put into.
I love the way the Talmud explains the gestation period. It is said that an angel sits in the womb with a baby and teaches it everything it needs to know, and just prior to birth, the angel touches the baby above the lip, creating the fulcrum, and the baby then forgets everything, only to rediscover it all within itself after delivery.
We, instead, have been inundated with external information, that makes it that much greater a task to distinguish between what is genuinely us, and what is just the influence of others outside of us. Oftentimes, it is our attempt to return to ourselves (repent) amidst the mire of human governments, organized religions, and schooling that drives many to depression, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses.
The key to healing is to cast off our conformity to the world around us, and discover the perfect love for ourselves again that casts out all fear. The ego in society seeks to convince us that failure is not living according to its standards, but the only real failure is living an entire life only to please everyone else.
So, our souls are actually righteous all along. You are not actually born in sin. You are indoctrinated into sin. Sin is truly to betray your own soul, especially in an effort to please or serve someone else. This is why the royal law is to love your neighbor as YOU LOVE YOURSELF. Sadly, we become lost trying to satisfy a kingdom apart from us, when the kingdom of God is explicitly within.
When we are consumed with meeting the standard of our indoctrination, we lose ourselves. The soul is the true self, and children maintain the purity of the soul… until adults get ahold of them, and begin teaching them to judge right and wrong. Instead of us maintaining that childlike faith in our own purity, we begin to believe that we have to do what makes everyone happy but ourselves, and it is from that mindset that our souls need saving. But each of us is accountable for working out our own soul’s salvation.
