We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But once a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for conversation, more readings, songs, quotes - you never know what treasures will be uncovered! Our Topic: THE SOUL, WHAT IS IT?Dear folks of Baba, One of you suggested this topic to get a sense of where the soul lies in the terrain, so to speak, of our interior and what are...
We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But once a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for conversation, more readings, songs, quotes - you never know what treasures will be uncovered!
Our Topic: THE SOUL, WHAT IS IT?
Dear folks of Baba,
One of you suggested this topic to get a sense of where the soul lies in the terrain, so to speak, of our interior and what are the intimations of the soul in our day-to-day life. These are some of my reflections. Baba has said that the soul is beyond creation, but when it interfaces with creation it is known as the spirit. For this reason, I regard the terms as synonymous.
The soul (or spirit) is beyond the consciousness of most people. Just as on an overcast day we say the sun isn’t out although it is certainly there, our awareness of the soul is beyond the consciousness that is clouded over with our impressions or sanskaras. It is the elephant in the room that we rarely even talk about. Rumi has said, “If the door of the soul were to open for an instant, you would see that the heart of every existent thing is your intimate friend.” So beautifully put. He is not referring to the opening of the door of the heart, which we all know and experience. As invaluable as the heart is in our lives, there is always the duality—me and other: I love you, you love me, I love Baba, He loves me. With the soul, there is oneness, no duality; the Sufis refer to the soul as the heart of hearts. Baba has said we are sometimes blessed with the fleeting experience of unity with the divine, the soul, and the goal is for these moments to become abiding. Darwin would use the word: merge. As we move toward the soul, we begin to merge with everything, from rose to ant to people to ourselves, and unifying everything—the love of Baba and Mehera. The soul is all-encompassing. Nothing is left outside. Darwin used to encourage us to rise to the level of the spirit, which is a realm beyond the heart, and live from there.
Mani, Baba’s sister, used to say, “You have to see things through Baba’s eyes.” I didn’t realize back then that this was an option. As an intermediate experience, we sometimes get the experience of impulses and inspiration coming from the soul even if we don’t experience the soul itself directly. We know its color and fragrance: on rare occasions we might experience this sometimes with music, we say, she sang from her soul; we might feel this in witnessing a father coming home from work, and the kids race out of the house and run into his arms. Or a lost dog that finally finds its master. We might have seen a hundred sunrises, but on this occasion the beauty is so exquisite that we are left breathless. And most important, when we experience Baba’s presence, that is the very soul itself, the Soul of Souls, because He is the embodiment of the Soul. When one is deeply moved to their core, they say their hair stood on end, they felt goosebumps, or a thrill in the deepest strata of their heart. When we experience things at the most profound level, we are touching on the soul. In the course of our lives, we have these moments.
Our consciousness eventually expands to include the experience of the soul, or ourselves as soul, and it is complete when we are fully conscious of Divine Love itself—Baba. The doorway to the soul is not ultimately through the heart center, but as Esfandiar Vasali, one of the Prem Ashram boys, would explain, it is further below at the level of the abdomen. He said this realm is deeper than the seven chakras. He referred to this place as the “del” or “dil”. The thrill we felt at the bottom of our stomach when we went very high in a swing as kids is where I place the doorway to the soul. The soul, of course, is beyond the body.
What experiences have you had that seem to be of the soul? What situations in your life touch the deepest strata of your being? Do you sometimes find yourself feeling so complete with Baba that nothing more needs to be added? Are there inner states within you that you find are more receptive to the experience of the soul? What impedes in your access to the soul?
The heart is always striving to rise above duality, but the soul is deeply content and complete, requiring nothing more. The soul may be prompted to make great efforts by expressing love to improve a situation in life, but at the innermost level, the soul is always at peace with “What Is.”
In His love, Jeff
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