I’m referring to “the soul” in the sense of the poets and mystics—the eternal part of yourself. Simple.
Not in the sense of the religionists—such as stories and superstitions. As a former monk I can honestly say none of that is real.
For example, you can’t lose your soul. You can’t sell it either. Your soul doesn’t need saving. Or cleansing. Or protection. Or special rituals. Or work to attain.
Or any of the common ideas that people somehow accept at face value. All those ideas are projections from a finite world onto the infinite. They never fit.
On the other hand, you can refine your awareness of your soul.
Sure you can. Why not?
The qualities of the soul
Some familiar qualities of the soul you’ve already experienced are an inner stillness, a joy-for-no-reason, self love, peace, presence, creativity, clarity.
There’s also an expansive quality about it too. It lifts your spirits.
Why? Because it is your spirit. You are merely turning your awareness towards it and experiencing its larger nature. Which is your larger nature.
It’s simple. The soul is simple. And it’s readily accessible because the soul is the largest part of who you are.
You can most definitely experience its many wonderful qualities. And you can take those qualities out into your day.
The more you do this, the easier it becomes. This is what meditation is supposed to be for.
Pre-monk perspective: “what is this word?”
The monks had a special word for “the soul”. It was an abstract term. A bit mystical.
When I first heard “it”, which I won’t repeat here, I couldn’t relate to “it” because “it” meant nothing to me.
But that was fine because at least “it” wasn’t too woo or religious. All I wanted was the experience. “Just give me the experience!” I told myself, that’s all that mattered to me.
As I would discover much later, the abstractness of this word was a detriment. “It” caused me to go into my imagination about what “it” really referred to. So when I meditated, these concepts got in the way of purely experiencing.
This is why it’s easier to teach children how to meditate to their soul. Especially compared to adults who have an interest in spiritual phenomena. This is where the spiritual concepts will override the real inner experience.
Years later, through my monk training, I was able to discern what the soul wasn’t and more importantly what it was. I just relabeled that inner experience as “it” and thought the semantics problem was solved.
Post-monk perspective: “I needed a new word”
When I left the monkhood in 2008, one of the first things I did was ditch the abstract term we essentially used for “the soul”. I was never satisfied saying “it” to newcomers because they would always say, “Huh? What’s that?”
“It” added mystique when clarity would’ve been better. But mystique is the bread and butter of monkdom, so we were stuck with “it”.
Post-monk, I was on my own. I adopted “The Infinite” because that’s a normal word that people know and it conveys what it is. It’s endless in every way, unboxable. Should be understandable to use that, I figured.
I dabbled with “Consciousness” too. That was pretty good too. But I don’t like fancy words when simpler ones will do.
So years pass teaching with this new word. I discovered that using “The Infinite” was serviceable, but, well, just too dry of a term. It felt lifeless, inert. Unrelatable.
Yet when I meditated, that wasn’t my experience of this larger collection of qualities that I was tapping into. And neither what my students would describe with a sparkle in their eyes.
I found that I—a former monk!—even began to lose interest in talking about “The Infinite” because it was losing it’s, well, soul.
So here I was with this old conundrum on my hands. What do I call “it”? I needed a word. A word that was short, simple, though still conveying the depth and juiciness that I knew the experience deserved.
When one day... “How about soul?” I thought to myself. “Meh, that’s what the religionists use,” I thought back.
But then I realized that wasn’t fair. The religionists didn’t own the word soul. The poets and mystics have been using “soul” as long as time has existed.
The more that I thought about it, the more that I came around to “soul”. It encompassed this larger set of qualities I experienced when I meditated. It’s juicy. It resonated. It even made me excited to talk about “it” again.
Maybe that’s why it’s such an enduring word.
The fullness of the soul
The soul works best as an experience. Not a concept.
It’s not a “nothing” either. Nor a void. It’s a positive, full “something”.
When you touch it in meditation, have a clear experience of it, it makes you go, ”what is this? I remember this! When I was little, I used to hang out here all the time!”
It grips you, transfixes you. No matter if you don’t believe it exists.
Touching the stillness of the soul, even for a few seconds, is enough to soothe and nourish you completely. Because it feels like home.
It wipes away the tears and grounds you into something more solid than anything of this earth.
That’s why I refer to “it” as the soul.