PHILOSOPHY | SPIRITUALITY | CONSCIOUSNESS
Living From Our Soul
Do not be driven by ego, be led by Spirit
Many a spiritual teaching revolve around the concept that every individual has a dualistic nature in their being. Each of us has a Divine aspect on the one hand and a more human aspect on the other.
We have our personality, or the surface level ‘person’ that we are, and we have at the same time our Essence which lies on a deeper level. In Spirituality, this dualistic nature is denoted as the higher self and the lower self, or the ego and the Soul.
The ego is the surface entity that observes, relates to, and interacts with the world, while the Soul is our transcendental Divine Essence that exists on a soul dimension.
There is no actual difference between the ego and the Soul, but for most people, there is. In fact, it is by default that there exists a separation between our ego self and our higher self because without that separation, the evolution or awakening of our consciousness would not be possible.
Our Soul perspective is an ever-present source of guidance, loving-kindness, and grace.
Our Soul is the actual real us, and this reality we are experiencing here is but a dream that the Soul is having.
The Soul is the dreamer and creator of the dream, while the ego is the avatar that the Soul uses to navigate and experience the dream. And when we forget who we are, when we forget that this is all just a dream, then we get lost in it.
We start to think that the dream is a reality and we get so soaked in it that we have no perception of ourselves as the dreamer, or as the silent observer behind the dream.
A small analogy to portray this difference would be this… The person reading this is the avatar in the dream (the ego). The real Essence of who you are is the Consciousness that is aware of you as you read this.
And if you could tap into that dimension behind your experiential reality. If you could become aware of, or see yourself reading this, or thinking, or living. You would realize you are not the person that does any of these things, you are rather the observer of that person.
You would become the higher self. And that is the essence of Living from our Soul.
But embodying our Higher self or Soul dimension is not as easy as it may sound. And it is my belief that it is actually impossible to always live as the higher self.
Why? Because having or being in the ego perspective (avatar inside the dream) is not a bad thing, neither is it accidental. It is by design.
The ego as an evolutionary stepping stone
It is often easy to paint the ego as the villain, and that is because in many cases it is.
In the article below, we discussed insights from Eckhart Tolle on how the ego is the sole cause of all suffering and pain in the world, because it is the agent of all separation and illusions of separateness.
That said, however, the ego is still very crucial in the evolution of every Soul. And, therefore, as Eckhart puts it… The ego is not bad or evil, it is just unconscious.
It is the villain, yes, but when the light of Awareness gets shone upon it, it loses its grip on who a person is and can no longer control them.
Without this ego, however, the higher Self would not be able to experience the dream. This is why the ego is so important.
Without it, the Soul would not be able to learn new things, or more importantly, attain the subjective experience that Infinite Spirit wishes to gain through every Soul.
The Soul and its connection to Infinite Spirit/ Universal Consciousness
Every Soul is one with God. That is to say, every individual’s Higher Self is directly connected to the Source.
In another article, I have described the Soul as the chunk of The Absolute and unfathomable Source that every individual possesses. The Soul is a channel and a point in which Spirit places itself, you could even say it is a child of the Divine.
Perhaps this is why Yeshua referred to himself as the son of God. Because once an individual awakens to their nature on the Soul dimension, they instinctively feel and know themselves to be one with the Creator.
You (as the dreamer) are a protrusion or small aspect of something that cannot be put in words.
An ego can get glimpses of itself as the Soul, but it is close to impossible for an ego to ever get a glimpse of itself as Infinite Spirit.
I said close because nothing is impossible, and perhaps somewhere on the endless journey of eternal evolution, we will be able to ultimately transcend our ego perspectives, and as Souls, we could experience ourselves truly and fully as all that is.
Connecting to and Living from Our Soul
From an ego perspective, everything and everyone is separate from us. We have our own life which is different and separate from everyone else’s.
The Soul however does not see this illusory separation that the ego experiences so vividly. The Soul knows of its connectedness to everything. It may recognize its individuation from other Souls, but it ultimately and deeply knows that all others are its kind. Because all Souls are extensions of one Essence.
Living from our Soul entails a deep knowledge and recognition of our oneness with everything. This knowledge should not just be intellectual, it should be a heart-centered conviction and feeling of love and compassion for others.
Living from our Soul also means letting go of our egoic fears and limiting beliefs.
The ego has been conditioned by generations of survival which is why it operates solely from fear. And all forms of fear are manifestations or extensions of only one fear… the fear of death.
When you know yourself as Soul, however, you know you cannot die. It is literally impossible for you to die because you are Eternal. Is it possible to shed a personality and a body? Yes, but that which you are can never really die.
And when you triumph over the only fear that exists, you start to live from a place of love and trust. As a Soul, you know that your father (The Universe) always has your back.
Therefore you can learn to let go of worries about the future or regrets about the past and lean into the present moment. Lean into trust and go with the flow of your Soul’s purpose in this life.
But how can you do that? How can you connect with and live from your Soul?
Meditation is a great tool for gradually dissolving the illusory and fake lower self. In Mindfulness, you get to observe your mind and see it as a third party, or in other words, as not it.
While you are doing this, you literally are embodying the higher self. When observing your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and fears, you step away from them and, in essence, step away from your ego perspective and stand in the shoes of your Soul.
That is why meditation is so crucial in Soulful or Conscious living.
Letting go of the illusion of Control
The ego/the human personality likes to be in control. This is mostly because it lives in a place of constant fear. The ego feels that it needs to control every little aspect of its life so that it doesn't feel afraid.
The Essence of Soulful living however is the exact opposite of that. When you stop living from fear and exist from a place of trust, you no longer need to be in charge.
You realize that control has always been an illusion. Life is already happening by itself, you have never had any control over it whatsoever, you only thought that you did.
I once heard Wayne Dyer say that the ego is interesting because when a person is born, their heart starts beating all by itself, their lungs, and every other body organ functions automatically without any control from the person whatsoever.
And yet when we grow a little older and the ego becomes solidified and more defined, we somehow feel that our life is now in our hands and that we have to be on top of it otherwise it will all fall apart.
We feel like it's our responsibility to keep ourselves alive, and so we feed our bodies and take medicines all with the illusory idea that it is because of doing this that we will continue to be alive. When this is not true at all, the body always takes care of itself.
And not only the body, but everything else too. When you leave it be, everything has a way of working itself out.
If you are finding that hard to believe, it's because you are viewing it from an ego perspective. It is the ego in you that feels that without exercising control, everything in life would fall apart.
Soulful living entails releasing the illusion of control. It is knowing that there is a natural order in play. It is seeing that order in your own body.
Notice how your breathing is beyond your control and happens naturally by itself. Soulful living is letting life be like breathing. It is stepping away from the steering wheel and letting the River of Life take you wherever it's going. I call this going with the flow of nature's way.
Now, most people would think that going with the flow means being lazy and not ever doing anything, but nothing could be further from the truth.
When you are in alignment with your Divine Essence and the natural order within you, you tap into what is called inspired action. Everything you do comes from a higher perspective and is in alignment with the whole Universe at large.
Your words, thoughts, and actions benefit others and translate to peace, love, and harmony with all beings everywhere because you become a wave going with the motions of the Ocean that is Life, and never against it.
Thich Nhat Hanh said that Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the Ocean, and I would only add a few words to his famous quote…
Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the Ocean… and lives as such.
Sending lots of Love, and thank you for reading.
© 2022, Henry Muli. All Rights Reserved.
