For a very long time I gave no thought to my Soul, what it was, what it meant or what significance it held. Nor did I question what the ‘spirit’ was, why it might be worth understanding and what part this played in my life.
If I were writing a script for a movie, two completely different characters would portray the spirit and soul. They would be nothing alike in terms of how they perceive life, their experiences and their intentions. However to the naked eye they would look exactly the same. The paradox is that the audience watching these two characters would only see one body. Two characters, one body, and the plot thickens.
And this is how it is - the soul and spirit can both occupy our body, but never at the same time. We have a body which can express the light of the soul and in a split second that same body could be inhabited by the separative nature of the spirit.
What won’t be seen by everyone in the audience is what’s running these two characters. Behind the scenes but right in front of our eyes this one body is being run by two sources of energy. And herein is the subplot that is often missed in life.
Behind everything is energy. Our bodies are simply a vehicle for two distinctly different sources of energy.
How would you know the difference, you might ask? Well, it would be first felt as a quality, then observed in how the body is being moved, how the voice sounds, the words being spoken, the attitudes adopted, interactions with others and their overall way of being. This is what I was blind to for a very long time.
At any time we can be one or the other, ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’. The soul has our best interest at heart, along with everyone else’s, while the spirit acts in opposition to this. While this sounds like it would be easy to distinguish it’s not always that obvious. This is where we can turn to our body for the truth.
Our body is designed to be very honest – truthful in fact. When we are expressing the qualities of our soul there is a sense of stillness and settlement, a confirmation of a true way of life that nothing else in this world comes close to. The spirit, in attempt to delay and avoid its inevitable return to soul is the mastermind behind the disturbance, chaos, complications and disharmony it needs to constantly create. The games of the spirit leave the body feeling dull, depressed, tense and deeply disturbed and is designed to keep one away from the stillness and beauty of the soul. This is a game that has been played throughout the ages, often at our body’s expense.
Through our connection with our body we can be with and express the qualities of our soul – love, joy harmony, truth and stillness. These qualities flow through and nourish the body. This brings a very known quality to the body, one that can steadily observe the antics of the spirit. The movements of the soul expand our awareness and settle the body. We experience the immense wonders and magnificence of the ‘one’ soul that we are all equally part of.
If we return to the story above, those who have come to know their soul, and it’s expression in the body, have learnt to observe and feel the difference between soul and spirit. They are the one’s in the audience who are developing an awareness of energy and are starting to see the two types of energy being expressed through the one body. Without this awareness we can never truly understand what is going. As we develop this awareness we experience the immense wonders and magnificence of the ‘one’ soul that we are all equally part of.
"In constant motion the spirit is identified. In stillness the soul resides." -SB