The seat of the soul
The concept of the soul isn’t very concrete anymore these days. We hardly talk about it, as if it’s something from the past. And yet we use another word almost constantly, one that might lie very close to it: I. But what is that, really? What is the I, or who is the I? And where does that I sit, the real I? In my brain? In my heart? In the oxygen I breathe in through my lungs? Or does the I maybe sit nowhere, because I’m searching for something that can’t be grasped? Or is the real I not here at all, and does this body that experiences the “I” make contact with it through mechanisms today’s science doesn’t fully understand yet? Or is the I just a concept that helps our mental body make sense of things, while reality is far more complicated, less bounded and less divided? A smooth transition, a dissolving, of everything. Floating in the one, perceived from a perspective. While really it’s all one amazing network of light and vibration, constantly moving forward. Never standing still.
Hmmm, that’s too complicated. I propose that the only real I you can directly perceive is the focus of your consciousness. It sits behind your eyes right now, as you read this. But when you close your eyes, you can also bring the I to your left little toe. Or to the bottom of your belly as you breathe in deeply, until it rests in your pelvic floor. If that focus can move through me so easily, then apparently I’m more than just a head with eyes. Then there’s a whole landscape the I can travel through.
The focus of consciousness is the seat of the self, and with that, the closest thing to the soul in this perceivable reality. The full self is all the different bodies that together are one. By bodies I mean all the different forms the self can experience, but also the parts that remain unexperienced. That makes sense to me. I see the self as a kind of map. Not as the truth, but as a way to find the way. On my map there are five bodies: the physical, the emotional, the mental, the energetic and the spiritual body. In reality it’s probably far more complicated, and not so black and white, but for my Western-educated brain, this way of conceptualizing works.
I once heard: if a cat barks, it’s still a cat. What you do doesn’t change what you are. Somewhere you’re always yourself, even when you do things that don’t suit you. But on the other hand there’s a version of yourself, I call it the blueprint, that you can only find through the focus of your consciousness. Who am I really, or who do I want to be? Not who you have to become, but who you’ve actually always been. Maybe you lost it along the way, or you don’t show it in what you do. But it’s still there. With every action I take, somewhere I know whether it feels right or not. Maybe that’s my heart. If the focus of your consciousness is the instrument you search with, then perhaps your heart is the compass that shows whether you’re going the right way. All you have to do is listen to it. Easier said than done, of course, but still, that might be the very first and highest goal on earth: being yourself, the full self. Which comes from goodness and love. In that sense, learning to understand what your blueprint is, and how to step into it, how to take the actions you stand behind with your full self, is the most important red thread of our lives. Maybe even the only one.