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Recovering Your Soul
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.
Each of us has developed a strong belief in a false self built up from the ego. Ego has already come up several times, but let me briefly summarize its value system through a few key words: limited, constricted, clinging, acquisitive, closed-off, and afraid. Just listing them makes it hard to believe that anyone would owe their allegiance to these values, but consider how much behavior is motivated by them.
The true self is of immediate value because it can fulfill needs that the ego cannot. These needs are as follows: The need for safety. The need to belong. The need to be acknowledged by others. The need to matter. The need to express yourself freely. The need for love.
Desire and fulfillment are the natural rhythm of life. Each of these needs exists to be met. 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. People try to convince themselves that they matter if they have status and money. They feel they are expressing themselves if they can make their opinions heard. They try to belong by climbing the ladder of success.
The strategy of reaching outward is the only one the ego knows. The true self knows only the strategy of going inward.
Adapted from The Deeper Wound: Recovering the Soul from Fear and Suffering, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2001).
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10 comments
add your comment »Judi,
I really loved that piece. These are the things that keep me going, that inspire me to go on. I will always treasure what you wrote.
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In looking back at childhood , with the exception of very few areas,like bars on the crib and playpen terrified me, my earliest childhood did not leave me in a state of unfulfilled desire but rather enjoying quiet contentment.The unfulfilled desires came later in trying to assert independence and learning it's relationship to responsibility; but my early childhood was satisfying, perhaps you're right and that's why I'm a fairly content person. I do believe that the past is never remembered correctly but is always shaded with the emotions of the moment and that the future is the mystery unfolding from now. The gift of the moment is the present where choice will dictate the experience at any point. It is the only real place, the true home where we can always return our attention to ,choosing our reality again until satisfaction is complete.No point in looking to the past to explain our current state. In the moment, at each moment, are where all our answers and inspiration lie.
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Unfortunately our egos are enlarged by the initial conditioning we receive from society form our earliest days. All our wants and aspirations are a direct result of this early conditioning. Its an endless cycle of unfulfilled desires. How do we combat this?
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Again, wonderful, helpful commentary by incredible people. Thank you so.
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Wonderful play on words. How else can you find the soul if you don't turn inward? Though I've always wondered if we can find ourselves, since we are ourselves. Sort of like a lost item finding itself because awarness of the self enters in.
Who needs man's constructs of the id, ego, or superego when they are truly meaningless?
Janine, you're so close to it. :) Just BE and let your emotions flow through you like a river.
And as you are you, you ARE your soul. Look to yourself to find yourself, dig?
Lovely article as always.
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Janine k.....I think you might find some peace from this poem by Rumi....it really spoke to me.....Blessings, Judi It's callled The Guest House. This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of it's furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.......Rumi My therapist gave it to me and I love it. She gave me this too............Don't turn away .......Keep your eye on the bandaged place......That's where the light enters you........... Love and Light Judi
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Uma,
You did it again, you made me smile! I can't wait to be that "wiggly new naked snake." You are so, so right. :) Retrieve is the wrong word. Set free is more like it.
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Janine, once in a moment of great pain,surrounded by people who seemed pure and beautiful feeling so scarred and ugly I wanted to hide. In dream that night a voice came saying "what you see is the beauty of youth , beautiful because it is so short lived.After this life the scars will be gone." I woke comforted.This reality is very plastique, mirroring back what we are feeling. You can only be sure when you look out there is that it is your mirror. When feeling down it can get pretty ugly, but that isn't objective reality, only the reflection of the moment. Emotions are weather systems, always in motion, their purpose to cleanse.Relax and let them do what they need to do, remembering that you are not that, just witness. Don't attach yourself to any of them, let them flow and they'll leave you fresh and clean. Intellectually you know that the things whose lack you are bemoaning are here. Your soul is safe and not lost, it's in your sense of self that you're suffering as the universe and your divine soul work to expand and change your identity.Jesus and the first mother valued the wisdom of the serpent,that's how to change your skin and be born anew. When changing beliefs, like peeling the skin of an onion, we cry allot and there seems to be no center. When we reach that core or irrational nastiness we confront it ,We say"IAM beautiful, IAM one with nature, I AM LOVE" and then the core implodes and renaissance comes with all the good gifts of life.Relax and let it flow.
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DC talks a lot about the ego but I haven't seen him mention the id or the super ego. Where do they fit into the overall scheme of things?
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"The need for safety. The need to belong. The need to be acknowledged by others. The need to matter. The need to express yourself freely. The need for love."
WOW. I have had none of this for so many years. I'M SURE there are readers who agree. Funny how one's soul learns nothing in easy times & everything in the same times, how we survive. I once felt loved in peaceful times, my soul was huge. I feel hope on the Careone site like that time. My soul has been troubled for years, I existed with extreme patience. My dreams were crushed, a life I never wanted took hold & unpleasantness ruled over the creative in a nauseating way. Here in NY, 911, Bush & love were squished like an ant. I cling to the hope of the future and change it might bring. My soul withered. I learned to empathize even more because of the horror I have seen. I choose peace over horror. My tortured soul needs retrieval. There is a lack of empathy for nature, for flowers for love, all I stand for. It feels like the good samaritan story here. I hope God does for me what I cannot do for myself, or spirit shows me the way back. It's one thing to learn and grow but to be so "oppressed"? Why? Why is it that there is only one forum we can come to and that is here? Thankfully we have HERE, NOW. I would have liked the word "soul" more in this article and "how to retrieve it."
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