Let Your Soul Call the Shots

Would you die for your son, daughter, or loved one? Would you suffer physical pain for that person? Why? If not, why? What is that part of you that would do so? Or not? If the physical body is so important, why are some people willing to sacrifice life, comfort and health which are material things for love, a spiritual feeling?

It is because the soul knows it is eternal. What happens to the material body is transient. It will go. The eternal values of the soul are here to stay. It is the part of you that will choose physical death for the sake of love.

The things that challenge us as we grow spiritually come from our daily urges in life. We have physical urges that demand our attention such as sex, eating, drinking, leisure, and having fun. These things are fine, unless we overindulge in them, which most people do at one time or another, and this lack of self-control is what is holding up their spiritual development.

For many, physical pleasure is the main obstacle to achieving spiritual life. To be able to replace the gratification of physical pleasure with spiritual pleasure is necessary to evolve spiritually. But first, you have to understand what physical pleasure is. And why it is so pleasurable.

Physical pleasure is based on providing relief from bodily urges. It feels good to fill a lack. Eating is more pleasurable when we are hungry. Sex is pleasurable when our body needs to follow our hormonal urges to procreate. Wealth, power and status fulfills a need to validate ourselves. Exciting stimuli fulfills a need to escape boredom. When we start to become really aware of our physical pleasures, we realize that the pleasure comes from having a need, and then fulfilling it. It is negative in that it fills a lack. These kinds of pleasures do not create anything new. We take something away, create a need, a problem, then we get pleasure from fixing the problem. We even make new pleasures by artificially creating a new need. Drugs and alcohol make us addicted and in need of more. The pleasure comes from providing for that need.

When we become aware of these pleasures intimately and inspect them, we find them to be hollow, repetitious, and unsatisfying to the soul. To find pleasure in eating, we get hungry and then we consume something. And we do this every day over and over and over and over. It is amazing that we do not tire of it. Our bodies do not because it has been hardwired not to in order to survive. However, our trans-material selves, our evolving souls, begin to get bored of this repetitive cycle. It needs spiritual pleasures.

Spiritual pleasures are positive. They do not fill a lack. They create new pleasures and affords eternal satisfaction. And you will not get fat or damage your health. Creativity in the arts and other human endeavors are positive. It makes something new and original. Raising kids, maintaining a family, having great relationships, starting new projects, inventing, discovering, exploring, philosophy, the sciences, the arts, and personal development are all pleasures that are positive. Replacing physical pleasures with spiritual pleasures is what is necessary to make the transition from being a robotic creature to becoming a creative being. The choices the mind makes between the two kinds of pleasures are the path to a more spiritual existence.

How we do these things are our choices to make. We can authorize our body to do all of these, going about it robotically and with little mindfulness. We can authorize our mind to do all of these also, going about it analytically. Or we can authorize our soul to do all of these, going about it morally, spiritually, and creatively.

Making a spiritual choice over a material choice is a moral decision. It is making the right choice over a wrong one. It would seem like an easy decision to make. Everyone wants to do the right thing. Then why don’t they? Why do people make bad moral choices?

If you allow just the physical body to lead you, to make choices all the time, it will become a habit and you will get stuck in a rut. You will become addicted to eating, drugs, sex, and other physical temptations. If you allow just your analytical mind to call the shots all the time, you will become robotic, disregarding the higher emotions of love and empathy.

I have found that allowing my soul to make the decisions when I come to a moral fork in the road is the best way for me to grow spiritually, because the soul will guide the physical body and the analytical mind.

It is the soul and the choices it makes that determines spiritual growth. When you have become aware of this part of you, then you have identified the decision-making switch in the core of your being. After you learn to use this switch, you can allow the soul authority to direct your life. This can be easy if you just relax and have faith in your soul. The soul is eternal, but it knows it still needs to take care of the material body. The soul balances the material urges and the spiritual leadings. When we get too materialistic or too mystical, the soul can mellow out both sides.

How often do you allow your soul to call the shots? How much of your life is directed by your soul? Allow the soul authority. The more you allow it authority, the more spiritual you become by transferring your identity from the physical to the spiritual. This process of self-creating your consciousness is the key to a non-material life, even an eternal one.