We do have a soul. Our souls have needs.
We human beings are not conscious of our souls in the way we are conscious of our bodies. The reason that there is a controversy over whether human beings have a soul at all is due to the fact that no one has ever seen or met a soul. No one can point to their soul as they can to their body and declare, "You see, there it is!" No doubt the soul can exist even if we are unconscious of it, but it is legitimate to ask, of what use is a soul that you are not conscious of?
To sum up the difficulty: The soul is the only part of us that survives death; our eternity is experienced through our souls.
Because we have no direct experience of our souls, there is no way for us to practically discover the soul's needs -- what sorts of activities make the soul sickly and weak, the inputs it requires to be healthy and strong, what sort of things will injure it or even destroy parts of it.
What can it do for you? What is its purpose? What are the soul’s needs?
All people have needs. There are physical needs of food, clothing, shelter. There are emotional needs of nurturing, acceptance, esteem, and security. And there are mental needs of intellectual stimulation and the use of imagination. Underneath the physical, emotional and mental needs lies a longing for wholeness, for union. These longings go beyond the time and space we experience in our outer lives and dwell within the recesses of our soul.
When neglected, life seems flat leaving the individual searching for more. You can have all the clothes of the latest style you can imagine. You can live in the greatest of homes and eat the best of foods. Yet there is still a gnawing hunger inside. What the soul pines for is something the best of foods can't satisfy. The most beautiful of clothes and rich jewels fade in importance when compared. The hungers and thirsts of the soul must be fed for life to have depth, meaning, and richness. They are what bring life to life.
The needs of the soul go beyond culture, time period, race, or sex. It doesn't matter if you are a peasant in Japan in the 1600's, a prince in Ethiopia in 1000 B.C., a pilgrim on the Mayflower or a world traveling executive today, the same inner urgings drive you to a sense of fulfillment.
So, what are the needs of the soul?
First is the need for structure and order. There is an order in the Universe whether we are aware of it or not. And there is order that Man has created to make his world predictable and stable. I noticed a glimpse of the order of the universe most profoundly one time while flying in a plane. As I looked down from the window there were perfect squares and rectangles separating fields and pastures from each other for as far as I could see. I was astounded at how perfectly straight and square the lines of the fields were. What I saw was an order to our world and universe. There is the need for order as man superimposes his own order above the plan of nature. So we have rules…laws. When there is an order in our lives we are secure; we know what to expect. What brings us order is discipline and love. The love of Truth, the love of the ideals causes discipline to come from within us rather than being administered from outside us.
Second there is a need for focus or vision. When you focus you have an aim, something to shoot for. Aspirations or ideals are examples of a visionary focus which cause your aim to be high and ever-expanding. A basic form of focus is goals, either short term or long term. A visionary focus offers a structure around which your life is built. It relates to how you form your identity.
In day to day life, the focus is the career, raising a family, what you want to do with your life. You go through school to prepare to be a well-rounded person and good citizen, but also to prepare for a career. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is a common question adults ask children. When these children think about what they want to be they think in terms of a career. This is a physical role they will follow whether it's to be a nurse, banker, teacher, or computer programmer. For example, if someone says they want to be a teacher they will do teaching in order to build an identity around what they think a teacher is. This is a physical orientation to life.
Spiritually the focus will be the assignment or mission in life, an inner part of you that you need to give. This is not something that you need to do, or a role you will play in society but something you need to be in everything you do. For example, you can be forthright or steadfast as a friend, a parent, a student, a lover, a professional and so on. The physical role or situation doesn't limit your ability to express this quality. The answer to the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" will change to "What are you being?" The answer will be a quality of being such as patient, faithful, or joyful.
Our focus is formed from ideals, something to aspire to, something for inspiration. In day to day life that inspiration comes from people, places and things. Maybe there's a person who truly inspires you that you want to be like, and you want to have some qualities like, or there's a place you've been to that has a certain quality to it that you want to bring back to where you are. Or maybe there is an experience you have had that has changed your life, and you are a different person as a result of it.
With spiritual focus, we will be more aware of our inner urgings and the wisdom that lies within. That is not to say that we will no longer use our physical experiences for inspiration. We will, in fact, use them more for that purpose than ever before. The shift to an inner vision will come from the increasing desire for a direct grasp of Truth. Aspiring to know and live Truth is the catalyst for enlightenment and that means being a beacon of light for others.
Third there's a need to learn. As we grow and mature we use our five senses to gather information through a variety of ways. This can be by reading; it can be by a verbal explanation; it can be by watching, and so on.
Once the information is received the next step is to apply it in some sort of practical application. We cannot understand an idea until we have put it into a practical application in life. There must be a way to have an experience with the information, not to use it once, but many times and through a variety of ways. Children naturally use a variety of experiences to understand the information they receive. They may pretend with their animals or dolls; they may draw a picture; they may make up a song or a story.
All people, no matter what their age, need a variety of experiences to understand a concept. The more experiences we give ourselves and the more we repeat the experiences, the greater the learning. The more one causes his or her learning the more control they have over it.
As we move from believing to knowing, experiencing becomes very important. Believing is accepting the information. It is a function of one or more of the five senses, the brain and the conscious mind. Saying "I know that" when we have only accepted the information without the experience is a fallacy. Accepting information is the first stage of learning. Those who are reaching for more want to experience it for themselves in order to know. Applying the information is what births knowledge, through experiencing over and over again in a variety of situations and circumstances. The direct grasp of Truth comes from an inner knowing.
To truly understand and gain wisdom, you graduate from experiencing to teaching. After a certain point, the way that you learn the most is through giving what you understand to be true, so you teach it. And again, you don't teach it just once, you teach it many times to many people. By understanding, then experiencing, and finally teaching you find the universality of the idea --- that it works not only in your life in many areas but in many people's lives in many areas.
The fourth need is to belong, to be connected to something greater than the self. Our sense of belonging is with family and the lineage of the family, culture, country and so on. It is a belonging to something physical like clubs and organizations, churches, and school teams. As we mature, the sense of belonging becomes more expanded where you see that you are part of and belong to the planet, solar system and universe And beyond that, there's also a belonging inside us, that we are all spirit and come from the same spiritual parents, and that our home is not a physical place but a sense of peace within us that is rooted, solid and stable.
The fifth need is to create and to give. I think of creating and giving as synonymous. A true creation is a gift to the world. In the beginning the focus is the object of your creation. What is it you are creating? This is the result or product of the action of creating. These are ways we can give and create in a physical way. As a result of spiritual growth the shift is toward the process and purpose of the creation. The process of creation and or giving becomes more important than the actual result. How do you create? How do you give? What are the steps? The purpose reflects who you become as you create or give and how you are transformed through your creative and giving acts.
Sixth is the need for silence, reflection and contemplation. This is accomplished through prayer, through meditation, through thoughtfulness. It is more going into the silence, having a real experience of stillness and the silence, having a still mind even in the midst of activity. A still mind means you can have the direct grasp of Truth at any time.
The seventh need is the need for fulfillment which relates to sacrificing your energies to something greater than yourself. Early on, this is reflected in having a family so we have offspring to continue a bloodline. Once, it was important to pass on the family name, to have many children so your lineage would continue past your generation thus giving something physical to the world.
In wars people sacrifice their lives for something that's important to them such as protecting their country or to protect an ideal. That's why people fight wars. (That may not be the reason that wars are started and why people declare wars, but that is usually the reason why people fight the wars.)
In satisfying this need for fulfillment, through giving of yourself to something greater, you are sacrificing your ego in service to humanity. You recognize that your thoughts, your actions, your words penetrate the universe. They reverberate and have an effect everywhere. There's a greater sense of responsibility with what you do and the way you think.
These inner hungers must be fed through a person's life. At every age we must satisfy the needs of the soul. Adults have a deep and joyous responsibility to feed the souls of those young people around them, by offering structure and order, directing the focus and giving a vision, offering a variety of learning experiences, making a place to create and give thus giving them a place to belong, creating a space for reflection and contemplation. When these are given, young people will reach for fulfillment and their souls will be fed, producing much happiness and well-being and progress. When all are present, peace, contentment and security flourish.
So we benefit now, and in the hereafter. To the degree we are successful in nourishing the soul, we grasp Truth, we attain Wisdom and we expand our Loves to include, loving not just those closest to us, but the weak, the needy, the oppressed and even the enemies. God is Love, and as we mature spiritually, as we seek God and draw close to him (Seek and Ye Shall Find) we become more God-like and Christ-like in these ways. Again, the soul is the only part of us that survives death; our eternity is experienced through our souls. This experience will go one of two ways. We leave this body and this physical world behind, free at last and soar away in a soul, prepared and designed and nurtured to take us into the new realm, the spiritual realm, a soul that radiates the beautiful person we have become. And then of course, there is the other side of the coin, in which the soul is lost. It was never nurtured in life.
“He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul.”
Psalm 23:2
Often blinded by the business of life, we fail to stop and catch our breath. Psalm 23:2 reminds us to look to God to restore our soul. Personally, I feel closest to God when I’m around water of any form…rain, ponds, lakes, creeks, etc.. There’s something cleansing and refreshing about it. I do feel restored. I encourage you to take a step back from “life” and everything you feel that you have to do in order to “make ends meet.” Give due attention to the needs of the soul, find the “quiet waters,” reevaluate what matters most to you, and restore your soul.
take care…..Ric
"He who creates character in himself produces a masterpiece of far greater worth than one created out of paper, canvas, stone or wood. He who develops his mind and soul accomplishes the highest work of genius,—the loftiest achievement possible for man on earth or in heaven. Nobility of soul is the most valuable acquisition, and this is neither negotiable nor purchasable. It is obtainable only through moral, mental and spiritual endeavors."
(Frank L. and Lydia Hammer An Eternal Career, 1947)
