A
human life is a series of experiences. When we have little awareness of our
predicament, experiences feed our attachments and condition our desire for more
experiences. Our perspective changes when we begin to sense, even momentarily,
the unity of all things and our identity with the Self.
- Ram Dass (Be Love Now)
The
word and concept “soul” has so many meanings and variations that things can go
the wrong way quickly when we mention it.
Do we “have” a soul? When we ask
this way then “soul” might seem to be some kind o abstract metaphysical
mumbo-jumbo. Certainly this was the way
I tried to understand it as a kid growing up in the Catholic Church. What is this “soul” that I am presumed to “have”
and can lose? I was worried more about
losing my toys. Such was my Catholic “education.” Still the patter of the priests made me
uneasy. It wasn’t until my teens when I
began to deviate into the “Hindu” scriptures that I got a clue as to what my “soul”
might really be.
And
actually the Church had it kind of right but was teaching it very badly. “Soul” is not something that we have but the
deepest essence of who we are. Many,
many years later this was pointed out by Chagdud Rinpoche on a retreat. Someone asked about “soul” and he replied
that the Buddhist perspective does have a concept of soul but that it is not
something that can ever be lost or gained.
On our most immediate level we are soul-beings. We are, in Yogic language, purushas – the Divine
Indwellers. Pure awareness is our home
and our essence. Everything else is just
phenomenal appearance.
Don’t
get upset. Don’t think that you have to
remove yourself from everything and everybody.
Instead we can appreciate the unfolding reality as it is – with love and
understanding. We are souls who are
beyond the conditions of time and space.
At the same time we seem to love to play in this theatre. And why not?
Compassion is the central resonating, identifying and stabilizing aspect
of our soul-beings. “Love is all and
love is Everything,” thus spake the Beatles.
