Aah, seeing the beauty of every possible next step of the path..

The Six Dimensions of Soul

The Wayless Way to develop your soul in/for this world

Warning before we start. “The Tao that can be spoken about, is not the true Tao” That which is defined, cannot be the real experience of it. Definition is only guidance, not truth. Spirit defies framing. Framing can help sharpen our senses, but only in so far we make it not into a law, blinding us to other truths.

First follow the six dimensions you can grow into a bigger soul or heart. In the second part we’ll see how the impact and consequences of embracing them can be huge when applied in education or business.

And yes, the keywords of soul are simple words you already know well. It is (seemingly) simple stuff. But then our schools, our professions do way too little to help to stay connected with these essences! Diving into them may help to find meaning leading to more happiness. It should change education and politics world wide! All the while in the middle of these six directions your soul grows as you expand all of these essential capacities.

Play

I’ve written a lot about this one. Play stands for capacity to learn, adapt, communicate, grow, experience, lightheartedness and be fully present.

Love

Love stands for connection with heart. It stands for relating, sensing, empathy, compassion and for consciousness, because this permeates everything.

Freedom

Being free from judgments of self and others. Having the guts to act. This stands for courage, independence, risk taking.

Wisdom

The consciousness* to create a synergy between all other aspects towards a solution that harmonizes the bigger picture, all the angles and higher values.

Purpose

To follow a ‘higher lead’ you may travel with a destiny in mind. Yet it is also possible to follow a sense of direction on an inner compass.

Service

The sense how your being is part of a bigger whole. And you derive meaning from contribution this bigger whole. This is the basis of everyone’s purpose.

*)In case you wonder where knowledge is, than understand that knowledge can expand consciousness, as long as the facts contain truth and are free from bias.

Inward and Outward Growth

Outward growth of means getting better at each of these aspects. Inward growth means getting closer to the essence of it all, seeing how it’s all connected.

The Essence in the Middle

All of these are aspects you can learn to sense, and all, including love, are a practice. And this is the thing too. Above is also just words. The essence is a experience beyond words. You’ll find the following is also true:

love = wisdom = play = freedom = service = purpose

Yet through identifying these aspects separately, we can deepen our sense of soul in all directions. This helps, because if any of these dimensions is damaged, (all) others will get damaged too. Consider for yourself how the lack of any one of these directions, may damage any of the others. (see at the bottom some examples).

Of course the ‘six’ dimensions are a multitude of influences you can learn to experience deeper and better.

A Multitude of Gifts

Your personal colours in how you live these aspects, will form your unique gifts and contribution to this world. You may find that your gift is bringing structure, needed for order and bringing things about, while another persons gift is to disturb things, so frozen structures can get unstuck and something new can be born. This means opposite gifts are not enemies of each other. They are balances of the game we all play together. An infinite game*

Also natural diversity is essential. We are part of a living system shaped over millions of years. It has a bigger complexity than we know, where every aspect has found a place to add to that living system.

Thus we need diversity, because each of us, is here to help the other dimensions to grow. If you reject others, for whatever reasons, you lose capacity on one of more soul dimensions. Rejecting others for race or believe means harmed love. Excluding others, because it pays, costs you your freedom. Indeed. Consider that one more deeply. Excluding others, because it pays, costs you your freedom. And it costs you your capacity for love, your sense of service to the bigger whole, may harm your purpose and finally harm what can be experienced as soul.

• ) Read ‘Finite and Infinite Games’ by James Carse to understand how playing economy as if it’s a finite game like monopoly is really damaging the whole.

“Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized, nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path”. ~ Krishnamurti

Political consequences.

And when we do embrace these simple essences, the impact may be huge.

If freedom of companies is essential for a healthy economy, how can it be workers are contract bound servants, who must cut off aspects of their own capacity for freedom, wisdom, love, etc? No wonder workers damage the planet to serve the strife for profit of their ‘owners’. How can it be education puts a focus on knowledge, and only superficially trains you in the aspects above at best? How can it be we confuse love, connection, service with obeying orders, for which freedom must be clipped to a limited set of possibilities (like protocols and targets in business and education)? Who and what is really served by living like this? Are we taking authority too much for granted?

Or with the words of Krishnamurti in mind, perhaps we all need to develop a bit more inner anarchy. And here play comes in. Because if you play, you’re far more free, then when fighting or convincing others of your beliefs. :)

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” ~ Joseph Campbell

Ask yourself these questions

Thus someone who follows the Wayless Way may not look up to any authority, but rather live his or hers inner truth. Consider how the whole #metoo hurt in companies or families might look different when we followed this path. What if we felt more free to live our truth, with the freedom to speak up? What if we had more love and empathy, so we wouldn’t harm others for our own pleasures? What if growing your soul was a higher value than profits? What if companies could not fire people, who spoke up about wrong doings?

What if in politics we also took the maturity of the soul of our leaders in consideration? What if took the content of their vision, or their power way less serious? What if we looked less at their words and more to their actual deeds? What if condemnation, or exclusion of others by leaders was seen as immaturity of the soul? Isn’t it sad, that most of us recognize what great souls, or leaders Mahatma Gandhi* and Nelson Mandela were, and yet we see so very few trying to live their example.

*) I know Gandhi had some disturbing flaws. I don’t condone those. But these don’t take away the importance of his philosophies on non-violent resistance.

“Let your Greatness Blossom” Nelson Mandela

Grow Your Soul

Consider what we gain when we expand our soul. When we expand our soul we become more free of the conditioning of our culture and our inner primal instincts. Instincts that may lead to greed, acting out of fear or anger and can be played by others, who know what inner buttons to push. We need to overcome our inner Homo Ludicrous. Thus inner wealth, inner calm, inner freedom, happiness are expanded when we grow our soul. And you’ll find others become less capable of ‘playing’ you, read push your buttons.

Life is a mystery, and you have a purpose.

And yes, what the soul exactly is, or even if it exists, is a mystery. You may call it Inner Truth, God, Here and Now. I trust there’s a sense of something that outweighs an exact definition. I deeply believe, that while life is a mystery, we do have a purpose. We become more of service if we follow the Wayless Way (or any development path of your choosing, as long as it relates to the rest of the world, and/or triggers all six dimensions of the soul). We are on a path. We don’t know where it leads. But our hearts do know, when we follow our hearts, it’ll be the right one. And the six dimensions above can be helpful to steer more precise, beyond definition, frames and methods.

Have a great journey.

Just for fun, meditate how this plant would blossom, when we’d write a mission for it, evaluated its results by the amount of visiting bees, demanded it should grow according to a speed we defined as ‘right’ and called it deviant, when it didn’t behave to our expectations. Or meditate how the six dimensions of soul are at play in its growth. Plants expand what they can, while being in relation to others and the world. Only humans (self) limit our capacity and growth, according to ‘ideas’ what is the ‘right way’. Back to Mandela’s quote then. :)

Link to part I of this blog. “The Wayless Way: Learn to Listen to Self.”

Examples of how the lack of one aspect, may damage all other aspects: Freedom without love, means acting out disconnected from impact on others or environment. It can mean cruelty, blind hedonism, self justification. Purpose without love can kill. Think making a profit at the cost of lives and nature. Love without freedom can make you sheep like; accepting wrongs to avoid conflict. Service without freedom, makes you a Yes-man. And yes-men make their leaders think they’re God, read go crazy. How can you be wise, without the capacity to relate, without some independent thought, rather than parroting what everyone else is saying? How to be wise without some element of play, flexibility of thought, being able to look at things from many directions? How can you have a destiny, without it being of service to something bigger than you? Etc.