THE SOUL & ME
THE SOUL & ME
Preface: I am writing this in the first person because it’s what I now believe, and it is unprovable.
For me, a benefit of becoming an elder is that the soul becomes more present and available. My particular throughput was to deepen my humanity consciously.
Deeping my humanity was complex for me - a classic, rational, materialistic, well-programmed Western high achiever. It took me some time to hear my soul’s voice.
Achievement is a thing done successfully with effort, courage, or skill, which I only occasionally applied to expand my humanity. I didn’t have “be a better human being” on my to-do lists, monthly goals, or yearly achievements. My attainment beacon showed its light almost exclusively on material accomplishment and ego indulgences.
I came to understand that my achievement engine could be recognized as desire, that strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.
As I became engaged with Eastern philosophies, with their belief that desire creates your reality, I began to look at my desires and the reality they were creating.
When examined, my desires craved professional accomplishments, heightening acclaim, acquiring more tokens of success, and securing more wealth. Becoming more human and expanding my humanity was not in the lineup, nor even on the bench but in the nose-bleed section of the bleachers.
After a long career, I knew I had reached my professional summit. I got as high on my professional ladder as I ever would. And like you, I climbed and climbed this ladder for years through every condition imaginable.
When I reached the very top of my ladder, when I looked around, what I was looking for was not to be found. Nowhere to be seen was tranquility, equanimity, freedom, and a better-tuned spiritual connection.
Standing on the top rung of my ladder, it hit me. I excruciatingly recognized that my ladder was up against the wrong building. I needed to move the ladder to the humanity’s building and start climbing.
HUMANITY IS THE SOUL SPEAKING
Humanity is defined as compassionate, sympathetic, or generous behavior or disposition; the quality or state of being humane or human.
When expanding my humanity, there was a certain demolition required –many of my roles, personas, and disguises — my winning formulas needed to be disentangled. It seemed my ego had many dance partners.
I had to extricate myself from a life initially scripted from birth. A script initially written by my upward-mobile, middle-class parents holding material success as the ultimate goal. And the culture, my neighborhood, my education, my relationships, all echoed their sentiments.
The Rx was to become a professional, make money, and become a “somebody.” This Rx came with the expectation that it would all work out – which turned out for me not to be accurate as I stood on the top rung of my ladder.
This particular prescription lost its potency as I transitioned from middle age to late age. At the outset, I increased the Rx’s dosage for a while, which didn’t work—trying to be middle-aged when at late age doesn’t work. It became painfully apparent that there are no false positives in aging.
The “disciple” was ready, “You must grow from the inside out. None can teach you; none can make you spiritual.” It was painfully apparent that calmness, serenity, love, freedom, and divine connection couldn’t be managed to plan.
My internal voice - “Move the goddam ladder.”
MY EVIDENCE FOR EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL?
Each religion has its spin on what a soul is, but they all agree it exists. They all have in common that your body is the rental house of the soul. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Judaism - yep, all of them are “all in” on this soul business. They each have their version.
Evidence for the assertion that a soul exists; nearly everyone has transcendental needs. These needs have always existed in every generation throughout human history. Transcendental needs are innate, intrinsic, and probably encoded. That’s the clue that the soul exists. If you and I didn’t have these needs, it would have gone out of existence long ago.
Historically, around 400 BC, Plato and Aristotle recognized that there are five transcendental needs. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas joined the view. And today, even modern philosophers from Rene Descartes to today’s Ken Wilber acknowledge the existence of these transcendental needs for absolute truth, love, justice/goodness, beauty, and being.
Each of us has these five needs for absolute truth, love, justice/goodness, and beauty in our very being. Here’s the clincher; if God is perfect, truth, love, justice, beauty, and being, then God is present in us because we are aware of our imperfections to fulfill these “transcendental needs.” The soul, therefore, turns out to be God’s inside job.
Part of the transformation of moving from older to elder is recognizing these transcendental needs and letting them percolate. Letting them guide you more than what the mind is telling you to do.
The greater your humanity, the more cognizant you are of these transcendental needs. And these transcendental needs are the tracks laid by and to the soul.
In our elder work, we facilitate people getting off the achievement train and getting on the soul train.
Our next Contemporary Elder Retreat is scheduled for May 1st to the 7th, 2023. Registration is limited to twenty people. Registration will open on December 1st.
As before, an interview with Dr. Cooper is required before acceptance.
Given the results of the last retreat, we support couples doing it together. Good things happened for the couples who participated in the last retreat.
Also, we are not putting an age restriction on this and future retreats. Getting to higher wisdom, achieving peace and equanimity with one’s life, discovering a new future, and opening a more comprehensive spiritual connection is not always age-related. It is soul related.
