At the heart of the creation of life, whether of the Universe or of an individual being, is the soul or spirit. The soul is the blueprint for all that will emerge as the embodied human being, plant, animal, or solar system. Human beings have souls, as do plants, animals and Universes. Everything that has been created in physical form has a soul or spiritual blueprint.

God's consciousness is the architect of the soul, just as the soul is the architect of the physical manifestation of all things. There can be nothing created but that it follows the line of descent from consciousness, to soul (energetic blueprint), to matter.

Souls of human beings are highly individualized. Souls of animals, less so. Souls of plants, still less so. A complex being like the earth is a large soul that contains many smaller souls, all of whom are part of her being. A being such as the sun of a solar system is coequivalent in many respects with God. And yet God is even larger than the being of a sun.

Souls of individuals can be met in the deepest heart of that individual. They flourish and expand when the individual is in touch with their deeper nature and gives it room to grow. They languish and 'wait in the wings' when they are given no room to expand and no attention to their guidance.

Souls of embodied beings are like plants that need to be tended in order for them to grow into their full conscious status as ruler in the domain of the individual life. They do not force themselves into conscious awareness; rather, they wait to be recognized by the embodied self. Because the tale of human evolution has been largely one of enhancement of the rational mind and its capacity to think for itself and by itself, the soul has often had to stand in the wings of individual consciousness, waiting to be called on stage. While it has been waiting, the rational mind and the ego have taken up a large part of what human beings mean when they refer to 'myself'. Rarely, over the course of time, does a person refer to 'myself' and mean 'my soul'.

The soul/spirit lives within the deepest strata of the heart and communicates to the heart what the individual needs in order to grow, heal, and evolve. When these communications are not harkened to, a person begins to feel empty, lost, or to experience life without meaning. The soul's call tells the individual what is truly important in life. Yet, without adherence to this call, the less important in life tends to become more important, and a person's consciousness progressively drifts toward the more superficial layers of themselves.

Nevertheless, though unattended, the soul does not sleep. It cannot sleep, for it is a layer of our being and an essential part of what makes physical existence possible. The soul is ever watchful behind the eyes of the embodied individual, waiting for a chance to express, waiting for the conditions to be such that it can emerge. Some souls have waited a long time behind closed doors for the right opportunity to come out. This is not the soul's choice but the personality's choice. They have waited long because the person has felt too unsafe in the world to make its deeper self known.

Sometimes the qualities of the soul such as softness, gentleness, vulnerability, an unwillingness to compete, a desire for peacefulness above ambition - have put it at odds with the values of the world. Most poignantly, a soul that has longed for the supremacy of love and found it hard to find in the world, will often go into hiding (the person places it in hiding) so that it cannot be found again except by the call of great love.

Some souls hide so well that they cannot be found by the person's conscious mind, even when they are being sought later on. This is because the experiences of pain which accumulate within soul memory become layered upon one another so that it becomes increasingly painful for the person to risk having their more essential self emerge again with all the pain it is still carrying, lest that pain become conscious.

It is for this reason that people often choose non-feeling over feeling, isolation over closeness, superficiality over depth. It is a way of protecting the vulnerability of the deepest heart that does not want to feel its own pain.

The soul has a life that extends beyond a particular incarnation. It has a life and a destiny to fulfill which extends from lifetime to lifetime and shapes the course of progressive human embodiments. This destiny is nothing other than the fulfilling of its own unique purpose for existing. While the embodied self may know nothing of such a purpose, God's consciousness which formed the spiritual blueprint, created each individualized soul as an expression of some aspect of Itself. Each soul therefore has, as its destiny, the expression within form of some aspect of God's being.

This is true no matter what the outer personality may look like, be interested in, believe in, or define as its own purpose. Soul purpose is divinely ordained. It is part of the blueprint of Creation. It cannot be discussed or changed because it is eternal. It is the individual's reason for being, their essence, originating in the mind of the Creator. Its expression would involve the deepest fulfillment of what a person would long to be if they could feel the truth of who they are. Essence is who we are at our deepest core and what we would express if we arrived at a place of freedom within ourselves.

II.

Without connection with our soul, we cannot arrive at the expression of wholeness. For wholeness depends not only on the integration of what our minds think and what our hearts feel, but also on what our inner being tells us is true. When we are in touch with our essence we cannot say: "I think that," or "I feel that," but rather "I am that."

To perceive essence is to be aware of our own wholeness which unites all layers of our being including the mental, emotional, and soul layers. These are united within the central core of identity which is spiritual essence - the Divine nature that we are meant to manifest.

Wholeness and achieving wholeness within human form is the purpose for embodiment, and it remains steadfastly so throughout incarnations and throughout time. We can choose to compartmentalize ourselves so that we emphasize a certain aspect of our being over others, for example the physical or the mental, giving it much greater importance than other aspects. But no matter what we choose as our individual life-path, no matter what we choose to give importance to, behind this choice, the wheels of growth and evolution are moving silently, secretly, so that our present life-choice becomes incorporated into our soul's choice for us.

Another way of saying this is to say that no matter what path we take within life, and no matter what errors of judgment we make in pursuing that path, our soul is continuously bringing present-day choices, whether right or wrong, into alignment with its own purposes. On the outer level it may appear that a clearly wrong direction has been taken which has had negative consequences. On the inner level, the consequences of this wrong choice are being shaped by the soul to bring individual consciousness back into alignment with the soul's intentions.

Sometimes this happens in very dramatic ways, sometimes in more subtle ways. Sometimes it is not visible at all that the soul has any intentions for the embodied self. Nevertheless, there is always purpose manifesting in life, and always healing going on, even when it appears that it is not so. The healing propensity of life occurs as God takes the wrong choices that the outer self has made or is making, and brings soul-consciousness into relationship with these choices so that a new direction can be taken. Even if this new direction is refused time after time, and even if it appears that one has pursued a path that leads away from goodness, the inner life is still always trying to bring the conscious self back into alignment with itself.

III.

Sometimes this becomes impossible within a given lifetime using more subtle means, and more drastic alterations need to take place in order to shift consciousness into a place of greater alignment with the soul. Sudden misfortunes, illnesses, losses, shocks, and personal tragedies of all kinds are life's efforts to create this shift in awareness. No matter what a life looks like on the outside, no matter what trials it has to endure, the soul level of the self is always at work, trying to create the inner return to 'essence'.

When it happens that a soul has not been attended to for a long time, its messages tend to become weak and hard to discern, even though they are present. This is because the spiritual layer of being has not been paid attention to and so cannot speak as forcefully or be heard as well. The shocks of life that come to us are often efforts to break through the impasse that has created a separation between the soul level of our being and the outer level. Sometimes, the sole reason for great pain occurring in life is so that the spiritual layer of being will finally receive attention before more time passes. It also happens, for reasons that are unknowable to the conscious mind, that the soul may occasionally speak with great force to a person who is embarking on a destructive path. These soul messages are acts of grace, yet the individual is always free to listen or to turn away.

In relation to wholeness, the call of the soul gets louder as the human being matures, spiritually.. Ultimately, its call becomes loud enough so that a person begins to consciously choose to explore their inner life and the realm of Spirit. These two are not equivalent, however. For some, exploring the inner life means, at least initially, an understanding of emotions and how to deal with them. The psychological realm then becomes the field of exploration. Sometimes awareness within the psychological realm is a necessary step prior to the step of awakening to spiritual awareness. However, it also happens that individuals may linger for a long time there, thinking that this is all there is.

For certain souls, the desire to explore one's inner life becomes spiritualized from the very beginning, with questions that are native to the soul coming forth as soon as feelings become apparent. These questions often have to do with the meaning of existence - one's own existence and that of the world. Even when questions are not posed by the mind in a conscious way, they may cause an individual to begin to want to achieve a more profound understanding of who they are and what life is about.

The call to depth is the voice of the soul, awakening consciousness to the pursuit of new possibilities in its perception of reality. It is as if one thought one knew all that life could offer, and then suddenly a whole new vista opens up. The earlier knowledge had been defined by the travels of the self through the realms of time and space. Now, when the new vista opens up, an awareness of life beyond the physical comes into being which the conscious self did not even know was possible.

This excursion into the deeper levels of self-knowledge is the beginning of a spiritual journey, evoked by the call of the soul which becomes louder to the ears of the conscious self. Yet, there are choices at each moment regarding how the conscious self responds to this call. The soul may yearn to move into greater expression within embodied life, but the conscious mind and emotions have to reciprocate this interest, allowing space for the deeper messages of the soul to make themselves known.

Many have heard the voice of their spirit speaking to them at different points in life, but did not listen because responding to this voice would take them on a different path than the one that their conscious mind was intending.

Many others have had experiences of another realm which they have been afraid to take seriously, for fear they would have to give up the 'normalcy' of life as they knew it.

Spiritual experience is like that. It changes our perception of reality so that life cannot be lived in precisely the same way ever again. Where there is clinging to the past, especially to past beliefs and roles that one has lived, there is sometimes difficulty in accepting the precious gift of awakening, and time may need to pass before the conscious self is ready.

Wholeness in expression involves vibrancy and aliveness - the full participation in what God has offered and the capacity of returning life to Life. In order that this happen, no part of the self can be covered over or dismissed as unacceptable or impossible to deal with. There are emotions from the past that need to be reconciled with the present. There are limiting beliefs that are no longer relevant that continue to serve as a shield and a protection. There are fears in the present that come from allowing new experience to enter one's consciousness and change the self-perception that has become familiar. All of these issues can be dealt with when the conscious self has a strong motivation to know its own depth and truth. The motivation must be strong enough, however, to overcome the fears that may arise in the presence of having to let go of something that the outer self has been holding onto.

In the end, our willingness to incorporate the soul into our perception of wholeness will depend upon our direct experience of being a soul - an experience that must come from the joining of the three planes of reality - the spiritual, the energetic, and the material - planes that are often still separate for people.

Recognition of the soul within oneself or within others comes from this direct experience of seeing more deeply into ourselves, and receiving the truth of what we see. Such receptivity joins the physical plane with the plane of Creation, enabling us to release the illusion that our bodies are who we are, and to go beneath this perception to the presence that lives within.   

The joining of planes of being occurs for some people in a moment of deep love, for others in a moment of oneness with nature, and for still others in the perception of direct acts of grace. However it occurs, the curtain between the spiritual and the physical can be lifted so that we see the soul of others shining behind their eyes, so that we feel the Spirit that infuses all of life, and so that we sense the presence of our larger identity or soul at the center of who we are.

Rekated Writings:

History of the Soul's Journey Through Time

The Sacred Moment - A New Awakening

Learning to Live in Sacred Reality

Soul Relationships and Physical Relationships

Article Section -  A New Consciousness