The idea of the soul has shaped the West and its greatest minds for millennia. Today, in scientific discourse, the concept of the soul is avoided and replaced with the term “self”. However, self-optimization leads us in a different direction from the development of the soul. A self-centered individual leads to a different society than a person focused on the soul. Therefore, it is urgently necessary to rediscover the soul.
The question “Where does the soul reside?” can be interpreted in various ways, primarily with an emphasis on where. In general, where, in which place within us or in the world, does the soul live? Despite the variations in considerations and interpretations over time, cultures, and religions, the soul has been regarded as the driving principle of everything. In Plato’s philosophy, the entire cosmos is composed of organized matter, surrounded and permeated by the world soul. Like the world soul, individual souls are also the link between spirit and body, between being and existence. The soul is thus the essence of a person, indestructible and immortal, inherently connected to the ideas of truth, goodness, and beauty, which is why it can perceive them. To be familiar. However, the more the soul turns away from pure ideas and devotes itself to the physical-sensual, the more it becomes “polluted”, surrendering to the guidance of desires and at one point considering only the physical-sensual as true. Therefore, the soul resides in the human body and has the potential to rise to the highest spiritual realms, as well as to identify with physical instincts.
“Where does the soul live?” can also be interpreted in terms of living. How is this home organized? Philosopher Jorge Angel Livraga sees the soul as a kind of prison. In his “theory of the imprisoned soul,” he describes the soul – like many traditions – as a bird with immobile wings sitting in the cage of personal ego. Our body, as well as our sensory perception, our emotional and mental patterns and habits, as well as our selfish desires and aspirations, form tightly connected prison bars through which very little can penetrate into our imprisoned soul, and the prison guards can easily be mistaken for prisoners. Is today’s so highly praised “self” exactly that self-affirming, self-realizing. entering and optimizing, egocentric personal ego, thus an inflated jailer? And how can we distinguish it from our imprisoned soul-bird?
I would like to present these differences and the resulting consequences less as problems, and more as necessities why it is necessary to once again bring the soul back into focus.
A different view of illness and health
Illness is a great enemy to the self-optimizing ego. Illness attacks us from the outside and therefore is not examined according to internal causes, but according to external symptoms, and is treated as such. The goal is to maintain health permanently through round-the-clock computer monitoring of bodily functions, i.e. to suppress hereditary diseases through so-called gene scissors.
However, with a soul-centered perspective, we integrate illness as a natural part of life. Illnesses are always an incentive for us to become more patient and compassionate, to reassess priorities and habits, and to initiate changes. They are often necessary cleansing processes at all levels and serve to activate our self-healing powers. Words But, as Paracelsus said, “The physician bandages your wounds. But, your inner physician will heal you.”
A Different Perspective on Youth and Aging
Self-optimization is also a constant struggle against aging. Employers, partners, and individuals demand youthful abilities and a youthful appearance from themselves. The entire fitness, wellness, and cosmetic industry eagerly awaits.
With a view into the soul, old age is once again valued. By calming bodily urges, higher parts of the soul can be cultivated more easily and can come to the forefront. Scars and wrinkles are expressions of external and internal life trials that, in the form of experience and life wisdom, bring the human soul to the forefront. Ultimately, it is the soul that gives beauty and character to a person.
A Different Perspective on Life and Death
The coronavirus pandemic shows us how we have greatly suppressed death from life. We act in fear of death. In general, efforts are made to prolong life at any cost, as death is seen as the ultimate end of life.
Looking into the soul, death is nothing more than a transition into another life. The soul frees itself from its prison and becomes free. In almost all cultures and traditions, the deceased live in their own heavenly dimension before they reincarnate to continue their life and experiential journey.
A different view of time
The more we are oriented towards the outside, the more we begin to lose ourselves in the abundance of things. There is always something else to see, something else to experience, something else to buy, something else to try, something else to improve. So, man is always chasing after something, and above all, time, which seems to inexorably flee.
Looking into the soul, we look inward. Man connects with the rhythm of life, with the beat of the heart and with the breath. Man experiences inner fulfillment, which means he doesn’t have to acquire anything from the outside to actually fill his inner emptiness. Since he’s not chasing after anything, time stretches. Time is experienced as a continuum that always exists, which is why it can’t be seen as something that runs out. There is always enough.
A different view of the world and the environment
Self-validation is always validation in relation to someone else or something else. In this deliberation lies the seed of separation, distrust, and hostility. Who knows what my boss really intends, what my colleague secretly schemes – I must validate myself. Ultimately, one must also validate oneself in relation to nature. One must submit to nature with all its powers. As masters of nature, we are allowed to use it as we need for our self-realization. This soulless thinking and treatment of nature is the basis for all ecological problems.
Looking into the soul, I realize the interconnectedness with everything and everyone. Everything and everyone have a share in the same soul, in the same life. The joy and pain of every other being echo in my own soul. Politeness and attentiveness become a natural attitude.
A different view of meaning and development
A self-optimizing view is always a view of self-comparison. Who is “the most beautiful in the whole world “What if?” Since physical optimization has its limitations, medicine and technology must help. Plastic surgery is just the beginning; transhumanism is the end. In transhumanism, humans should upgrade themselves with the help of machines and overcome the “frail body with all its limitations, and finally become immortal.” Humans start their development from imperfection, merging with the perfection of the machine.
Looking into the soul, self-comparison resolves into learning from and with others. There is a natural inclination in the soul to improve, enrich, and perfect everything. Thus, the soul has a sense of life: development. It is not utilitarianism, “being better than” or “being better to,” but a natural desire to manifest pure ideas once seen in the sky that we vaguely remember. Reliable signs of soul development are love and patience – as a result of true inner conviction: one day it will be so.