Finding the soul-centric place of grace
Our soul is the invisibly present, mysterious receptacle of who we really are. The holder of the very essence of our being. It houses our innate humanity and is the home of our spirituality and individuality. The soul is the creative space of grace where we get fully connected to the living Divine.
If I ponder the few sad occasions when I have been present when a family member or friend has passed from this world—amid the sorrow and in my case rivers of tears—there is one abiding similarity. The very essence of who they are, the thing that we call life, departs. Their physicality remains, but it is different, lifeless. Where the soul goes, God alone knows, but when it packs up and leaves, everything that makes us who really are goes along for the ride.
Naturally enough, questions arise about what happens next once our soul leaves our bodies. This is especially true when our hearts are left in pieces over the loss of those we love. Or if, like me, you’ve been on the planet long enough to begin to seriously ponder the imponderable because you’ve got old bones.
There are those who claim definitive knowledge about such things, but I’m not among them. I have received no special, esoteric, mystic insight into this mystery. But I deeply believe the very essence of who we are passes into another, albeit unknowable, realm.
My mystic life is entirely practical. It’s really a spiritual code for daily living. Musing about the immortal soul is fine and dandy, but what about my relationship with my soul today? To get to know your soul in the land of the living is a primary mystic goal.
Spiritual living is about getting to know who we really are. Beyond the glitz and glamour, and the worldly clamour, the journey to the soul is an adventure of discovery deep within. The most authentic people I know are soul-centric folks who seek to live intuitively and creatively each day, guided not by the pesky clamour of the world, but by the gently urgings from the space of grace within their own soul. They are the humble ones who walk among us, comrades, who put their mystic souls in control.
Sufi mystics say: “To know yourself is to know God.” As surely as the soul is the cradle of our very essence, so too is it the dwelling place of the living Spirit. When we find the soul place of bliss, we discover the space where the living Divine and our authentic humanity meet and kiss.
Mercifully, our soul longs for us to discover this beautiful mingling of our humanity and the Divine, and she walks out to meet us barefoot and singing. Our only task is to silence the pesky clamour and listen with our hearts to the sweet sound of her song.
Leo Tolstoy said:
Simply do what your soul demands of you. Seek humility, mercy, love, and you’ll have no need of any future heaven. Heaven will be in your soul.
Young or old, comrades, the greatest adventure of our lives begins when we put our authentic soul in control.
— Cormac Stagg, author of The Quest for a Humble Heart