a soul's eye view of the world

03. Self-improvement and the soul

2007-01-25T18:06:00.001+11:00

We planned this life before we were born.

Any deviation from the plan during our life is likely to show up as trouble.

Discover your soul's plan and you can change your life to avoid many of the disasters and strife, to be better at everything you do, to improve yourself out of sight.

How?

Well, that's the big question which I'll attempt to answer in this and future blogs.

How do I know?

From study and observing my own personal experiences - which have been many and which have encountered too many disasters and strife.

Of course, it can only be a theory.

Don't take my word for it.

You could read authors like Carol Adrienne, Joseph Campbell and James Hillman all of whom agree with me (rather, I agree with them).

Adrienne writes from the perspective of a therapist and from her own personal experience; Campbell as an academic and expert on the world's mythology; Hillman as a psychologist and university lecturer.

Then there's Carlo Collodi, an Italian journalist and government official who wrote the childrens' story of Pinocchio.

Pinocchio?

Written over 100 years ago I believe the story is an allegory about waking up to the false personality, listening to your inner voice, and changing - at which point the wodden marionette Pinocchio becomes a real boy.

The story begins with Pinocchio as a block of wood fashioned into a marionette by his Creator father.

He is seduced and misled by countless unscrupulous characters like the lame fox (who isn't lame at all) and the blind cat (who isn't blind).

His adventures represent the consequences of following our false (wooden) personality in the world of deception (Dupeland) and illusion (Fools' Trap).

The blue fairy, who becomes a mother figure, is his soul.

His father, Gipetto, represents Truth.

The cricket is his inner voice, his wise inner counsel, and others like the dog and the tunny fish, who help him bail out of difficult situations, are soul mates with whom he might have make agreements at a soul level to meet up during his lifetime.

A song in the Wald Disney movie has the cricket "give a little whistle" (which became a popular song at the time) whenever he gets into trouble.

The sound track actually uses the words "still small voice within" (although not in the book) to describe the cricket as Pinocchio's conscience.

"What about free will?" I hear you shouting at me.

Of course, we all have free will to do whatever we like, but then we get back to how your life has been faring and whether you've seen too many troubles that could have been avoided.

I know because, for the first half of my life, I wasn't "listening" and one disaster followed another.

Since I've been "listening" and observing everything's changed since the bad ol' days.

Including me. (See my personal blog.)

By discovering even a hint of your soul's plan, and moving to adjust your life to it, self-improvement happens - simply because you start becoming the person you were meant to be.

02. The secret of the soul

2007-01-20T15:02:00.000+11:00

"Who on earth told you that life is fair?"

So wrote an English friend to me of her father's wise words after she had been through hell.

Yes unfortunately life is unfair.

It's true ... of one of our lives!

It's untrue, however, of our little-known secret life, the life of the soul.

In finding this other life we find fairness, true justice, even self-empowerment.

This is not just some wild convenient theory.

Nor is it a religion (I don't belong to any).

I know. I've done it. I found it waiting to be discovered.

I've experienced it. Tested it. Studied it. Observed it in others.

So what is it?

What is a soul?

Our secret soul life existed before we were born and it will continue to exist after we die.

More importantly, it still exists during our lifetime ... like right at this minute ... from the moment we were born until the day we die.

In fact, it's eternal.

It's commonly referred to, but greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted, as our soul.

In Greek it's psyche which also means soul.

Our soul would be better called our soul-life, our real life existence.

Your soul-life is a hidden life, invisible to you, to which most of us pay little attention.

Yet it's of far greater significance - and influence - in our daily lives which is regarded as our physical life.

It seems to me that we need to understand what this other life is and how it impacts upon our physical everyday existence.

We ignore this other life at our peril.

This has not so much to do with our religious beliefs as understanding the rules or Laws that operate in our normal lives, minute by minute.

This is the secret of flipping the unfairness, the injustice, the powerlessness on their heads.

We put so much faith in this physical world yet, since it's not right there in our face all day long, we hardly know it exists.

It's this secret world that is fair and just which we can depend on to get us through the other in-your-face world of physical activity and struggle.

The ancient gnostics and others advocated turning our backs on the physical world.

This is not what I'm saying.

We need to live to the full in this physical world, experience all it has to offer, enjoy it and succeed in it.

Living in both worlds enables us to do just that.

Living in only one world gives us only half a life - which surely is a life wasted.

Isn't it about time we investigated this soul-life, this secret world of the soul?

01. Who are you?

2006-12-29T19:44:00.000+11:00

You are not your physical body.

You chose your physical body the way you chose your car.

It's an expression of you but it's only a vehicle for your expression.

It gets you around but, without you, it can't drive, can't change gear, can't choose the route from point A to point B and, when you're not at the wheel, it's of no use to you.

It needs you to make it work.

You have a unique purpose in life.

Therefore any thoughts which get in the way of this are of no real benefit to you.

We are given impressions as we grow up, that we're no good, that we have faults and later, that we are sinners.

Such ideas are of no concern to that part of you which is perfect.

You are exactly the person you need to be to fulfil your life's purpose.

You have made agreements to meet people who can help you and who love you at a soul level.

Before you were born your soul made agreements with others at a soul level to meet in this lifetime, to help and support each other in finding and achieving your life's purpose.

This is what is meant by soul mates, friends from past lives who have agreed to share your task with you when you most need them and to be a necessary part of the goal.

You may have planned to meet many such task partners in your life.

You confuse your soul's purpose by believing you have only one soul mate (and by marrying the first one who comes along).

When you get in touch with your soul and begin to see the vision you planned for yourself these agreed relationships will begin to appear.

The attraction is not necessarily physical (but may be).

It's the shared goal that counts.

And the bottom line is together achieving the cause.

You shouldn't settle for less.

Find and pursue your soul's purpose, the vision you had of this lifetime before you were born, and the Universe will support you.

That is not to say that you'll automatically become a millionaire overnight.

I mean that your needs will be met by a higher employer than the one you are probably slaving your life away for right now.

In flowing with your soul you enter the flow of the Universe.

This is the very opposite of desperately striving for money and always living in fear of losing what you have fought so hard to accumulate.

Living in fear is the absense of living in love.

Follow your soul's purspose and you live in love and will always be supported and nurtured by love.

Live simply and you have nothing to fear.

Follow your soul's wisdom and all else will follow - the right partner, enough money, the support, the love, your life's work which is an expression of who you are and is also your passion.

Find this 'self' and you will find your happiness and your true purpose in life, because this is who you really are.

I know because, after getting it wrong most of my life, I've done it.