Saturday, January 18, 2014

The Layered Cake Of Existence

Man can say nothing of what he is incapable of feeling, but he can feel what he is incapable of putting into words, and he can know something which he is not aware that he knows.

Augustine, the 5th century Bishop of Hippo, wrote those words. We all know that unknown feeling. The feeling with no name that blinks in and out of our reality like a strobe light on steroids. We know there is more to the self we identify with, but we don’t know how to maintain an awareness of this more-ness.

When we talk about our identity we use words like body, mind, spirit and all the other terms that describe the ingredients of a physical being. We throw in the word soul now and again to demonstrate our knowledge of the spiritual aspect of being, but the word soul is a very misunderstood term. Perhaps the soul is our identity, and all the other words we use to describe us are the icing on our layered cake of existence.

Our entity or soul may be like a tree that continues to produce off springs that grow in awareness. Our entity tree thrives in more than one reality, and the roots of our entity grow from all the experiences of its off-springs. Just like the trees we expand from the experiences we feel in all of our limbs. The interesting thing is we don’t realize that growth because our ego, which is the lens by which we see what we create physically, is only focused on one part of our tree. The ego is able to feel what it can’t put in words, and know something which it is not aware of knowing as it maintains a singular focus. But, our soul knows the whole tree. Our soul is aware of the slightest growth from our whole identity, and enjoys every part of that action.

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