Soul Searching or How to make Use of the Soul

[harsi]

Dear Hari,

I just read a nice piece of information I would like to share with you. The reason I do that is because I can identify myself fully with what is written therein due to my own experience in this regard and also because I have my limitations when it comes to describe something in this regrad in a for me foreign language like English. Please add to this, if you like, your own understanding out of the wealth of your own experiences on this issue. I personaly have a somehow critical relationship to the usage of the word energy when it comes to discribe my being. An energy has for me to much of a "physical touch" in language terms, or seems to me to be related to much just to physicality than that what seems to be also beyond that. Me, the soul, the spirit self, the life essence. But this are just my language preferences. I do not want to criticize yours, since it could well be that I am often just missunderstanding them while listening to your lectures.

In the article it says:
"As they make their way through life, most people spend very little time thinking about their soul. Pollsters find that a large majority of the population believe they have a soul. It comes packaged with an entire set of beliefs about God, heaven and hell, salvation, and so on. But dealing with the practicalities of life occupies everyone's time. The soul, we assume, can wait until we die, and that's a time almost everyone prefers not to think about at all.

In order for the soul to be relevant here and now, it would have to be of some practical use. Is it? This is quite a deep question, needless to say. Anything the soul might be good for (besides going to heaven, or "back to Godhead" added by me) can be achieved in other ways. To be happy, successful, creative, well-adjusted, content, optimistic, loving, or in any desirable state, you will find people who never take their souls into consideration. Yet this may be a case where appearances are deceiving.

The reason that the soul doesn't seem to be useful is that it is impossible to see, feel, or even locate. There are countless spiritual teachings about the soul entering the body at birth and leaving it at death, but this event isn't visible. More to the point, babies can't tell us what happens at birth, and the departed, if they do communicate with the living, tell many varied and contradictory stories. I think it's more productive to eliminate the concept of "having" a soul, and at the same time disposing of the fear that we might "lose" our soul. There's an entirely different way of looking at the situation.

Consider that the soul is actually the essence of who you are. This is a fairly familiar notion. In many spiritual traditions, the body is grosser than the soul. It masks a subtler state of existence, and in that subtler state existence changes. Among the changes are the following:

You see reality more clearly.
You realize who you actually are.
You understand how life works and what it means.
You lose the fear of death.
You experience the divine.

These notions seem very desirable, and they face everyone with a choice, which is to prove whether they are true. The problem is how to go about finding the proof. True knowledge of the soul isn't the same as hope, belief, or faith. You can hope you have a soul or even possess deep belief that you do, without in any way changing how you lead your daily life. Proving that you have a soul, however, requires a major change. You would have to shift your allegiance from the grosser level of life to the subtler level. After all, if it has any reality, the soul must be subtler than what we experience physically, emotionally, even mentally.

Here a paradox arises. If the soul transcends our ability to feel and think, it automatically shifts into being totally unknowable. Feeling and thinking are the roots of all experience. The only way to break out of this paradox is to posit that there might be subtle ways of thinking and feeling. The eyes that see rocks and trees, the emotions that feel anger and fear, the thoughts that deal with the hard facts of life do not belong to the subtle level of existence. What does? When asked this question, the sages, seers, and spiritual guides who have experienced the subtle level of life had a lot to say about love, compassion, truth, beauty, freedom, and eternity.

Having described these things at length, they went on to give a piece of advice: You cannot know about the subtle level of life the way you know that rocks are hard, the sun is a star, and oxygen is necessary to life. Hard facts don't apply; in fact, no facts apply. To know subtle things, you must experience them directly; you become the truth you seek. Science raises doubts about anything that cannot be reduced to measurements, data, and factual findings. This sort of doubt doesn't have to block us, however, since the very things described at the subtle level of existence, such as love and compassion, are desirable in everyday life already. They don't need science to give them value; each person decides how valuable, or not, they are.

Let's say you value the things that exist at the level of the soul. To shift your allegiance in their direction is needed. Just as you can't know love until you place your attention on it, you can't know the soul any other way. In a word, you find the soul by living as if it exists. On that basis, an inward journey begins. On the journey you test, day by day, if you can experience what the soul promises to deliver. Although generally labeled as a spiritual journey, there is no need for any label. You are going into your awareness like an explorer, knowing that everything worth finding is available in consciousness.

This is the opposite of going outside yourself; you are altering your own existence by going beyond the gross level of life. This cannot help but change our life. What the soul holds out, in fact, is total transformation. An astronomer can discover a new comet and return home at the end of the day just the way he always does. Someone who has discovered the essence of the self can't do the same. To use the metaphors of the world's wisdom traditions, those who know the soul have awakened; they have seen past the illusion; they know themselves as pure consciousness. If all of this is true, we can choose to shift our allegiance or not. But one thing is certain. The question of whether the soul is real can no longer be considered as simply a matter of curiosity that has little or nothing to do with daily life. It has everything to do with daily life and what we can make of it."

[harsi]

Dear Hari, please help me understand what are you trying to suggest by writing in your newest book "Living Energy", I quote:




As far as I understood it, you mean to say that each one of us individual persons, who share that spiritual, that non-physical, essence, should get involved voluntarily to advance the common good of a kind of imaginary entity you call "us", or of society, etc. since only together we are strong, and vigorous, and full of, respectively are, "a union of living energy." Exclusion can no longer be acceptable; we have to ask, "What connects us, what do we share, what can we learn from one another?" Have I understood you corectly in this regard?

Now on the other hand, people have to have something that gathers all. What is that, respectivelly what should that be according to your understanding? In the general understanding that would be something like God, or on grounds of nationality, race or religion or if one is a member of this or that association, society, community etc. In order to carry out and create a dynamic unity on grounds of, or that bases of, ones essence, ones special characteristics or quality, that what we are all made of on the non-physical, the spiritual level, would one not have to first also become aware of that, realize it or become so called enlightened interiorly? One may also end up wondering who is the one who is made of, who embodies all this physical characteristics, qualities or form and basis you describe as "living energy"?

I read in this regard on a website ones:

[Hari]

Not sure what I am supposed to reply to, and also not sure why I should! You posted something someone wrote. This is not how I desire to have a discussion. You are competent to ask your own questions. I don't like it when people say, "This person said this, what do you think of that?" It seems mindless to me. If there is a question, ask it in a few sentences. You do know that I can understand the point rather rapidly if you present it clearly, right? If it is presented clearly, I do not need long explanations. If it is not presented clearly, long explanations will not make it clearer. Indeed, making the effort to present your thoughts or questions clearly and succinctly is part of the process of gaining understanding. Being able to formulate your thoughts in expressions that truly represent what you are is an art that furthers your evolution when done well. If you want to post something that you feel will help others, then do so in the forums that I specifically created for you! After all, you are a prolific sharer of information and interesting things. My forum has a different format. I am also limited in my time and energy.

I gave a lecture about Only One of Us long ago, in 2005. You might like to listen to it again. http://harimedia.net/downloads/lectures ... neOfUs.mp3

You have also asked this previously and I have answered. I am not sure if me answering again will benefit. But you are expanding and interpreting the concept according to your own understanding. That is fine and I encourage you to act according to whatever understanding you have as an experiment. Research if you are indeed separate and independent of other living entities and their energy. If you wish, research how you are not by seeing how your energy affects others and others affect you. Why bother attempting to squeeze such a vast concept into some phrases when it is far easier to act on them and find out how you feel about your experiences?

I am not stating there is only one of us as a motto with the intention to rally everyone together into some team effort! I am saying that this is the way it is and it has always been this way. If you want to see how things work, understand this axiomatic truth. How you act after it starts to make sense is entirely up to you.

[harsi]

My understanding is that using a quote from someone as a starting point for a discussion meant to clarify the subject discussed therein is a widespread method used by all schollars in the world. it is not an invention by me or of a certain society. as such it is a completelly valied method in this regard. but i understand your point you want to understand this issues in your partilar way with using your particular language terms, while i accept that what makes sense to me. and your concept of us_ness or of me as an impersonal senseless energy does not makes sense to me at all. at least for the time being. How could it? I dont perceive myself in that way rather more as a loving and caring soul.

[harsi]

You write:
I am not stating there is only one of us as a motto with the intention to rally everyone together into some team effort! I am saying that this is the way it is and it has always been this way. " How could that be true considering what is there going on now or in the past in the human society. it seems to me that there is rather an efford needed for enlighetening the human society in order for its members to be united and loving. Otherwise what would be use of all the education systems or of your teachings, which i appreciate very much, here on Harimedia. I write here from my mobile phone as i am right now in my appartment here in Iasi, Romania.

[harsi]

Okay, here I am again. And although typing on a mobile phone is a little problematic, I do that more easily on my computer keyboard when I am in Germany, but here in my second appartment in Romania although I have a computer I have no line of Internet, so I write on my mobile phone. The thing what I want to mention it is completely up to me or in other words my will by which I decide if something someone says or writes makes sense to me and is comprehensible to me. I think I am in this regard also a little bid of an outsider here on Harimedia. I made the experience that also here on Harimedia people just accept so called something just because you Hari said it or mentioned it ones somewhere.This kind of authoritative way of trying to gather knowledge and understanding is not my way of understanding things.

[harsi]

I listened today also to the lecture One of Us you gave back than in 2005, a lecture which I don't remember of ever listening, or maybe I listened it ones but was not in the mood of comprehending back than what you try to make one understand back than. Now after listening to it something hit me very depely namely the reason why I am not, nor ever were ever into this "oneness jazz" with god, namely because I respect god and his unique position to much that I could ever imagine myself to become one or merge with this divine personality and his potencys. Also this "feeling jazz" with god through the power transmited through his deities, I experienced ones in the temple in St. Petersburg is not really my world. I feel a great connection withe the Supreme by remembering all the good things he did and arranged for me while I was absorbed in my mind in thinking about him and doing and arranging things for glorifying that Supreme. In this way I came to the conclusion, Hari, that in many things you say and teach in your lecture we have to agree to disagree and respect and apreciate each other nevertheless as spirit souls who like to be in connection with god, each one in his own way.

[Hari]

Yes, I am glad that you came to this conclusion on your own.

[harsi]

.
Thanks, Hari, for letting me be just me. I read today a nice quote in this regard: "Empathy means we fully let in what the other expresses, without agreeing or disagreeing with the content of the expression."

"Empathy is being present to what the other person is experiencing, not being triggered by it or even trying to fix it. When we allow the person who is before us to simply be - without our values, judgments or decisions to be placed upon them, we are offering ourselves in what some have called unconditional love. Connecting with open-hearted curiosity accesses our natural ability to respond with compassion and clarity. It's an experience of mutual giving and receiving."

"Empathy is the meeting ground where the needs of all are acknowledged and understood. Though empathy may seem like a selfless act, it is not. When we deeply understand another, the other person is now far more open to hearing and understanding us. Empathy gives us a much greater chance of bringing our own needs and values to actuality." ~ worldempathy.org
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...(Full left - right)

- Me and my wife Marina in the town centre of Iasi (Jassy), Romania, from where we returned today to Nuremberg, Germany.