02 Nov The Enlightened: Eternal Being

In the now, every thing is what it is whatever it is.

Every thing, before and after the now, is the soul.

Before our birth and after our death, our sole identity is the soul.

Upon birth, we transition from being one with everything, the soul, to becoming a unique manifestation or expression of the soul; a seemingly independent entity.

To sustain our independent existence, we develop a self; a sense of being apart and separate from every thing that is not our self. The purpose of the self is to provide us with our needs of food, shelter, security and health. However, the self also engenders desires that become indistinguishable from our needs, putting us in an endless cycle; needs/desires to temporary satisfactions to needs/desires. Clearly, the self demands much of our attention.

Alternatively, our soul identity has us living a life of wisdom and compassion; wisdom, as we experience life not solely from the perspective of our self, but through the perspectives of the infinite manifestations of the soul; compassion, as we love and treat all that is not our self as we love and treat our self.

In the transition to life, we initially remember our identity as the soul as we in turn develop our identity as the self. In childhood, our soul identity embraces magical (animist) thinking as we feel every thing has a spirit within it that can be conjured for our benefit through our living harmoniously with its spirit.

However, over time, as we are educated and socialized, our self becomes our primary identity. While we are both self and soul identity in various proportions, many of us become oblivious of our soul identity.

Ultimately, no one is getting out of here alive. Our bodily death coincides with the demise of our self identity. However, before we complete our transition from physical death to our essentialness, the soul; if our soul identity is our primary identity, we realize we are an eternal being.