What Is The Soul?

Adin Steinsaltz writes in The Thirteen Petalled Rose, a classic of Jewish mysticism, “The world remains as something else than God, while the soul of man, in its depths, may be considered to be a part of God.  Indeed, only man, by virtue of his divine soul, has the potential, and some of the actual capacity, of God Himself. This potential expresses itself as the ability to go beyond the limits of a given existence … and reach the utmost heights.” (p.37)

Is the world that “remains as something else than God” not part of our divinity?  Is only Soul’s inner life part of God, but Her outer life is not? Or can the Soul be found in Her inner and outer realities?

Edith Stein, after she converted to Christianity, wrote in The Science Of The Cross, “Human beings are called upon to live in their inmost region and to have themselves as much in hand as is possible only from that center-point; only from there can they rightly come to terms with the world. Only from there can they find the place in the world that has been intended for them”.

Living life from your “center-point,” your Inner Heart, seems to change the way humans see the physical world, potentially revealing it as Soul’s Dwelling Place, a “place in the world that has been intended  for them .”

Through Soul’s eyes, you become a link between divinity and the physical world as it is extending out of your “center-point”, manifesting as the reality of you and other people, each experiencing every moment differently. 

When we ask ourselves, “How is this moment experienced by everyone present?” we ask to experience and know what the Soul experiences and knows.

The Soul in each moment intimately perceives how each person experiences the moment inwardly differently. It’s because She accepts and creatively works with opposite qualities and expressions that people and parts who oppose each other can relax when Her Presence is experienced.

Soulful Relating pays special attention to opposite aspects of the Soul. The personal, physical aspects revealed as “this is me” and “this is not me”,  and the impersonal spiritual aspects revealed as “this is us” and “this is them.” Remembering this is remembering that we are all in a process of becoming aware together.

The spiritual aspects of the Soul which Adin Steinsaltz sees as “part of God” is Soul’s Dwelling Place in us that’s still and unmoving. As the world appears, opposite forms can experience integration through connection and eventually identification with the Soul. Soul’s intimate understanding makes accepting, even loving what one experiences as “not me” and “them” possible.

C.G. Jung wrote in “The Red Book”, “If you are women, your God is a boy. If you are men, your God is a maiden. The God is where you are not”. (p.234). 

If Jung is right and “God is where you are not”, then, in order to know your divinity, your Ego needs to allow your Soul to love your opposite(s) through you.