Do we all have a soul? What is it? Where is it? Why do I care?

Locating the soul is like a game of hide and seek. Maybe no one can find it because it’s not a separate part of a person, maybe we don’t have souls, or maybe we are souls?

@paulocoelho said, ‘’I’m not a body with a soul, I’m a soul that has a visible part called the body.’’

Ancient Greeks were the first to separate soul from body, influencing the thought of most western religion even to this day. Outside of religion people have been interchanging soul with mind and consciousness. This is an imperative step in the process of collective consciousness. 

People often think of the soul as something that’s added to a person at conception and leaves them at death. Then there’s the comical belief called “Frisbeetarianism” 

Frisbeetarianism ~ June 26, 2008 Urban Dictionary Word of the Day
The philosophy that when you die, your soul goes up on a roof and gets stuck. (George Carlin)
"I don't believe in reincarnation I am a strong Frisbeetarianist."

Like a Frisbee on the roof, the soul has proven itself hard to find. There is talk, it has even been argued that our soul is located near the center of the brain in the pineal gland. The evidence for this theory is about as wobbly as a poorly thrown Frisbee.

In Hebrew it is thought, the soul was the whole of a person, their life force. I’m guessing George Lucas was aware if this. It wasn’t one thing isolated from the body, but the body itself in complete harmony. ‘’ May the force be with you?’’

The closest thing to evidence for a soul is the experience of near death, where some sort of memory sensation seems to carry on after the brain stops functioning. People report some common experiences of outer light and inner peace. If we could strip away all the layers while living would we experience the same light and peace? This could be the ultimate goal of meditation. 

I'm guessing that the soul does not leave the body when one passes. I’m thinking the soul is all that’s left when you strip away everything that is non-essential. Maybe the soul isn’t added to a person at birth. I see soul as another word for the essence of who you are. Waking up to this essence is when we really come alive.

We spend so much energy in life doing and being things we thing we are supposed to be, not being true to ourselves. Often, the essence of who we are gets buried under layers of pretense and protection, like layers of an onion. 
Maybe death is the final stripping away of these layers, of all the pretense. After all the words, there is just breath - after the breath, there is just silence - nothing to prove and nothing to fear – only love left to our own self – finally.

I think the soul is all that’s left once you have stripped away all that is changing, temporal and finite. So, why wait for death? Start stripping away the layers NOW. Start removing the pretense NOW! Start living the essence of who you are NOW! At your essence, everything is whole, peaceful and soulful. What could be more satisfying than to live this essence? To be pure love, why wouldn’t you? 

From an Irish poem a possible definition of awakening/enlightenment …
Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.

A lotus for you all,

Namaste

I Choose LOVE

I Choose LOVE

Someone who is the essence of these words, these thoughts, has inspired this post. A pure spirit who accepts all, listens to all, gives to all, and judges no one. Thank you 33!

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of people talking about how they should surround themselves with people that are successful if they want to be successful, or that they need to be around spiritual people if they are on a spiritual path, or that they need to cut off negative people from their lives if they want a more peaceful life.

This concept intrigues me. Is it really important that we be around people that are like us or that aspire to similar things as us? Is this an important component for our happiness and for our growth? I tend to think that it’s not necessarily so. We can pretty much hang out with all sorts of people if we have the right perspective. Actually, it’s probably good for us be around people that are different from us, even around the so-called “negative people”. 

In terms of relationships, we pretty much select whom we would like to be friends with. It’s different from family since we don’t get to pick our relatives. Then most people would say why not take advantage of this and choose to be constantly surrounded by “wonderful people?” Is there a point in our lives when this is no longer important?

As we start to grow and transform, we tend to want to be surrounded by people that share the same views. In Buddhism, the term “sangha” can be loosely interpreted as a community or group of people who share a common goal, vision, or purpose.

Hanging out with our sangha can be a good step forward since we start to bring into our lives people who reinforce our newly adopted beliefs. When we change our vibration, we want to be around people of the same vibration. In many cases, people that carry our old vibration naturally end up falling away from our lives. And that is perfectly fine.

Some of us may end up intentionally cutting people off from our lives so we can adopt healthier behaviors. This is especially true in cases of any codependent relationships, similar to alcoholism and drug addiction — when you need to get some distance from your old friends who indulge in the behavior that you’re trying to make a clean break from.

Once we have already adopted our new beliefs, have established our growth, or have our new behaviors engrained in us, the idea of needing to be with like people is probably no longer necessary.

There will come a time when everyone becomes an extension of the love that you have inside. In this case, everyone is equally beautiful, awesome, and supportive of you as you are of them.

We can choose to hang out with anyone because we see everyone as love. We see their potential and we relate with them based on their true nature. All groups are the same and there is no distinction. It is important at this point to remember that we have no control over what or whom other beings on our path choose to do. We are all capable of our own happiness.

There have been times when I’ve been warned by others that if I worked with a certain person I was going to have a lot of trouble, because this other employee was very difficult. It has been my experience that when I see others as pure love, that’s what I get back. Therefore, the so-called “trouble employee” never gave me any trouble. Instead, he actually ended up acting very helpful, and within a short period of time we became good friends.

If someone is causing us discomfort in any way, it has nothing to do with him or her, it has to do with how we perceive them. If I look inside I will invariably find that I’m still holding some kind of judgment towards that person. When I become totally non-judgmental in how I see them, the interaction with that person becomes pure joy.

What sometimes happens, is that by choosing who we hang out with, we end up judging others. We have to then decide whether they are worthy of being part of our sangha. By association, we classify others as either good or not good enough to be in our company. We end up judging whether they have the right vibration or attitude.

If instead, we would naturally allow people to come in and out of our lives, without judging whom we think they are, the universe would naturally rearrange our relationships based on our vibration and needs. We would end up not having the need to consciously attach or detach ourselves from certain people. Instead we would enjoy all relationships and all people that cross our path. When our relationships, like our lives, become agenda free that is when we experience being free of judgment. The loss of agenda makes room for compassion, forgiveness, and kindness.

Not judging our relationships allows us to engage with a wider group of people. In addition, it allows us to be open to what everyone has to offer us, instead of only what a certain group of people can provide. What can be better than being able to befriend the whole world?

The Brain

“How can a three-pound mass of jelly that you can hold in your palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning of infinity, and even question its own place in the cosmos? Especially awe inspiring is the fact that any single brain, including yours, is made up of atoms that were forged in the hearts of countless, far-flung stars billions of years ago. These particles drifted for eons and light-years until gravity and change brought them together here, now. These atoms now form a conglomerate- your brain- that can not only ponder the very stars that gave it birth but can also think about its own ability to think and wonder about its own ability to wonder. With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, is the greatest mystery of all.” 
― V.S. Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human