On my journey to becoming happier on a more consistent basis and to live my best life, it has helped me immensely to understand the nature of the Two Beings that are me. Initially, I thought the objective was to reject one, my Human Being, sometimes referred to as the Ego, and to become the other, my Soul Being. But, I learned along the way that it is not that at all. What we really want, in order to live our happiest and best life, is to bring the best of the Two Beings together as one. One with each other and also one with all of creation.
We’ve all seen the image/cartoon in this post. An angel on one shoulder and devil on the other giving us advice in each moment about what to do or not to do. There is no doubt that our Human Being’s advice gets us into trouble sometimes. With a base emotion of fear and the relentless desire to survive, our Human instincts can certainly work against having a sense of complete satisfaction in each moment which is my definition of happiness. On the other hand, our Human Being is an amazing machine and gives our Soul Being the means to experience this life that can be incredibly beautiful in so many ways. One of the things that struck me about the people in Bali is that they believe that this life on earth is actually Heaven. And you have to admit, on our best days in this life, it would be hard to argue with the sentiment. Also, our Human Being with it’s survival instinct is enormously helpful at times. Knowing to not step in front of a speeding truck, or to not put a hand into the campfire, is very useful guidance indeed. So, we want to leverage our Human senses and abilities to get around and physically see and experience things, as well as the practical advice on what not to do in many cases.
By contrast, our Soul Being is centered in love. In fact, our Soul Being is nothing more nor less than pure, unconditional, limitless and eternal love. The guidance we get from our Soul Being is simply to love, everyone and everything, always. It doesn’t sound very practical and certainly runs against many cultural norms and the “programming” we receive in school, church, business, pretty much everywhere we go. However, if we think for a moment about the Divine beings in history, like Jesus or Buddha or Krishna, they definitely lived their human lives from a firm foundation of love. They didn’t judge or persecute. They didn’t compete for or accumulate wealth or stuff. They certainly didn’t harm others with either word or actions. They seemed fearless and happy. I believe they were nearly 100% Soul Beings in every moment with an ability to simply leverage the best of their Human Being to get around and enjoy the richness of the Earth through their Human senses, without letting the survival instincts lead them fear, anger and unhappiness.
So is nearly 100% Soul Being our objective? I think it should be but I accept that practically it is very, very difficult to do because the influence of the Human Being is so strong. In some ways it is remembering what we were in the first couple of years of our life. You can see this if you observe infants and toddlers. If they are fed and physically comfortable, they just seem to be happy in each moment, enjoying with their Human senses whatever is available to them. A rattle or stuffed animal. A ball or some blocks, Kitchen pots and pans and a wooden spoon. Having not yet learned about the harsh realities of the Human condition and been taught to compete and “get ahead” they simply float through life enjoying whatever comes up. This, I believe, is actually what true happiness really is all about. I was there in the early days of my life so surely I can return there now until the end.
These days we hear so much about being “conscious” or “woke” or having “awareness” but I don’t find a lot of clear definitions of what that really means. What I think these terms mean is that I am conscious of my natural tendencies and “programming”, my Human Being’s priorities, and I am conscious or aware of my intention to live life from the perspective of my Soul Being. So, in any given moment and circumstance, I CHOOSE to come from a place of love and acceptance and gratitude and compassion and I interpret the events of my life from that perspective. This is my intention and I find that the more consistently I can do it, the happier I am. It is simple in concept and, for me at least, enormously difficult to do moment by moment, day by day. Simply because the tendencies of my Human Being are so strong and generally contrary to my Soul Being’s priorities. Some days are definitely better than others. And, if you asked the people who know me well and spend time with me regularly they would say that I’ve gotten better over time, and sometimes i am living up to my intention, but I was an asshole yesterday, or last week, or both! It takes work! Consistent, deep, purposeful work to put our Soul Being up front and our Human Being more in the background. When we become one with this orientation life can truly be magical, Heaven in fact.
I hope you’ll read the next post that will begin to outline what the work is to open up the Soul Being and put it at the forefront. Thanks so much for reading this post and I hope you’ll subscribe to continue to follow along.
Thank you,
Jim
