Recovering Your Soul

Can an invisible wisp of spirit be as real as our physical bodies? Things aren’t real because you can see and touch them. That is an illusion of the senses.

A granite cliff is real because invisible forces hold together invisible packets of energy. No one has ever seen gravity or the curvature of space, yet their existence is far more secure than granite, which will dissolve and cease to exist in billions of years before gravity does.

All the most real things, in fact, are invisible. No one has ever touched time. Truth leaves no fingerprints. Love escapes the five senses.

Recovering the soul, then, isn’t a matter of trying to believe in some invisible ghost for the first time. Can we then trust in the invisible existence of the soul even though it cannot prevent the onset of pain, violence, and suffering?

The soul is best understood not as a wispy ghost but as your true self, present in you at this moment. You don’t see it, although when you feel the impulse of love, you have contacted it. There can be no doubt that you have a self, therefore to step onto a new level, that of your true self, is not actually so formidable a task.

Your true self is already fulfilled, therefore when you merge with your true self, you will be able to feel completely wanted, safe, worthy, and loved. Expressing yourself will come naturally and freely. You will matter more than you ever imagined.

The ego sees the same needs and feels the same desire, but it reaches outside for fulfillment. The strategy of reaching outward is the only one the ego knows. The true self knows only the strategy of going inward.

The true self is of immediate value because it can fulfill needs that the ego cannot.

Adapted from The Deeper Wound: Recovering the Soul from Fear and Suffering, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2001).

Read more: Deepak Chopra's Tips, Spirit, invisible, soul, true self

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Jane B.

7:07PM PST on Feb 11, 2012

We ARE what we SAY and DO. When what comes out of your mouth matches what you DO,
that's INTEGRITY.

send a green star

7:05PM PST on Feb 11, 2012

So that cigarette smoke trail is supposed to be the "soul"? Hahahahahahahahaha "Soul" is a made up word meaning "life". Smoking will definitely SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF YOU!

Ida J.

12:42AM PDT on Oct 15, 2011

thank you

Geetha S.

8:37PM PDT on Jul 8, 2011

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Uma C.

11:09PM PDT on Apr 23, 2011

Lessons too are what we choose to master and though when it seems that we have bitten off more than we can chew the soul , not bound by linear reality, also sees the triumph when choosing the challenge.Any con of any kind works by the predator becoming aware of our deepest desire and using it against us.Promising us our desire if we will give it dominance.No one has the power to steal a soul, it must be tricked to believe that it is accomplished. The heart, the center of life and the individual sun opening it's light to us pouring in from above is the incorruptibly pure voice of God and at any time ANYONE focused on it, even the renegade Shaman's heart is pure and following it's truth can only do good. We enter into agreements with other souls to enact different roles to suit mutual purpose in the dramas of the linear plane.The chosen enemy has something he is working out that must inevitably clash with our desire and we choose each other to master a challenge. When the challenge is mastered enemy and bondage disappear and we are rewarded with a renaissance of joy.

janine k.

8:11PM PDT on Apr 23, 2011

Yes, I believe that somebody can trick you out of your soul or spirit. Shamans, not good ones, are said to be able to do this. Nobody mentioned the dark night of the soul either on this page. The comment about a soul taking on a lesson that is too great is interesting but to what avail? Does it border on martyrdom or is it, more kindly put, something done in error? As for "when depression sets in it feels as if the soul is lost because passion for living is gone." is concerned, perhaps the passion for life is not gone so much as feeling stuck in a trap that one cannot find the answer to opening the iron about the ankle. Sometimes you cannot say "no" and sometimes as strong as you may be, something is precluding you from feeling soulful. I think perhaps wizards gone awry may usurp power. I think power in and of itself can go to the wrong side and then leave many in its' wake. Perhaps we are like sheep sometimes and we are herded without invitation...
There is also the entity who gains power and uses it for bad intent, spends all the assets, eats them away etc. Vices can suck your soul and they don't have to be yours! They can be somebody's who you live with. There are just too many scenarios that we could set up for days. I do know one thing for sure. Nothing is as it seems, and too many people have too many intents that crosswire and sometimes polarize people.

Sheila L.

9:53AM PDT on Apr 8, 2011

Who has lost their soul? Perhaps when depression sets in it feels as if the soul is lost because passion for living is gone.

Philippa P.

5:05PM PDT on Jun 8, 2010

Great article!

Carol M.

8:22AM PDT on Jun 1, 2010

Your soul is your inner being good article

3:24PM PDT on May 25, 2010

Ego means sense of self. I will guess that it's potentials are as infinite as all creation. The trick is ,especially when we aren't happy with those identities, remembering that if it's transient it's not true identity and all is transient except for the ultimate awareness, in Sanskrit : "SAT= being, CHIT= consciousness of being, ANANDA =bliss in that awareness. This indescribable, yet knowable, identity is the root of all being and after we are stripped of all impermanent, all that remains. This is the root consciousness of ALL THAT IS. Getting caught up in the ego dance of life at all levels is the part of the play that gives it all it's savor but when the suffering of mistaken identity becomes overwhelming taking refuge in the primal identity helps us let go of all those seemingly true traps, those catch 22s,that send us mad with pain and frustration. At that point, contemplating oneself as a drop of oil in a drop or an ocean of water, never permeated by the water or what it carries but only looking through it as a lens of different qualities is clarifying. Our vision is distorted by whatever is in the water around us; we reach seemingly logical yet untrue opinions based on what we are looking through, mistaken identification with what surrounds us and falling into those ego traps of reaching the wrong conclusions about our nature and potentials. All this "ego tripping" is of no consequence to the truth of our natures, the drop of oil symbolizing impermeable divine.