"When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful." -- Billie Mobayed
Can a soul lose its way or be broken? And if so, what can one do about it? These are some of the questions posed by readers of my last post: "Soul Stories: Discovering the Lessons of Your Soul's Journey."
Earlier in our discussions here, I suggested that when we talk about matters of the soul, the river is wide and the water is deep. There is so much more unknown than known. So as we consider the questions that inevitably arise when we wade into these waters, we need to be aware that there are no tidy answers, no place of universal acceptance or agreement. There is no Dept. of Lost Souls where one can go to reclaim theirs, or no Missing Souls papers to be filed. When we wade into the waters of the soul, we usually end up with more questions than answers, for that is the nature of soul.
Soul thrives in our living in the tension of the questions themselves, for soul is not as much about answers as it is about the seeking. The soul is interested in the journey for the journey's sake. To the soul, the journey is the destination, that being the discovery and recognition of its own truth, which can only be found in the depths of the experience of life itself.
Consider that in our discussions about soul, we are like Neil Armstrong, taking small steps onto a territory that is so vast and so far beyond anyone's comprehension that even though the idea of soul has been the subject of human inquiry since the beginning of recorded history, we still can only speculate about its nature.
The idea of a GPS for the soul suggests that the soul could become unmoored from its journey and lose its way. To the ego mind, this would appear to be the case for the ego is solely about the destination. For it, the journey is only a means to an end; getting from point A to point B by the shortest possible route.
If a soul appears to wander off the main road or spend time in one of life's cul-de-sacs, the ego is threatened by this appearance of confusion or lack of clarity and hunkers down even tighter. This contraction obscures our ability to "get" what the apparent "detour" is there to teach, and often causes us to spend even more time being "side-tracked." The ego is bound in time; therefore, time matters. Time spent in something other than direct pursuit of its goal is time wasted and considered a "mistake."
To the ego, mistakes are failures. To the soul, there are no mistakes and there are no failures. There is only learning. The soul is here for the distinct purpose of unfolding its agenda in its earthly expression. Whatever is required for its evolution is grist for the mill and is taken on without consideration of the ego's suffering that may result.
"How long the road is. But for all the time the journey has already taken, how you have needed every second of it in order to learn what the road passes by." -- Dag Hammarskjöld
One reader, LearnerLine, posed this question last time:
But what does one do with a broken soul?
You see it in our homeless vets, struggling on the streets to come to terms with what they've experienced. You see it in the eyes of abused children, and of those children who have become adults. You can feel it in the vibes of war refugees. See it in the faces of victims of domestic violence. It is there in a good number of people walking this earth.
One wants to rebel and say that this should not be possible. That the soul should not be breakable, that such a thing cannot exist. But it does. With it comes a constant burden and a disabling weight that can drive a person to homelessness, helplessness and total despair.
In response to LearnerLine's questions, even more questions arise: How does the individual soul relate to the soul of the world and how does the loss of soul in a human being reflect the loss of soul in the world?
We live in a world that does not recognize the aspect of soul, even as the world itself is an expression of our collective soul consciousness. In seeking answers to the "lost or broken" souls of individuals, we must also address the loss of soul in a world that provides little time or space for the kind of activities that nurture the soul, like time spent in solitude and silence, the appreciation of art and beauty and pursuits of the imagination and yes, even suffering.
It might sound cold and calculating to say that if a soul's journey requires great suffering to be included in the curriculum, it will not avoid that part of the curriculum. But we live in a world and in a culture that wishes to avoid pain at all costs, so the soul's ability to get to its truth, painful as that may be, is most often thwarted by those who think the solution is to "fix" or "cure" the conditions or symptoms we call "broken" or "lost."
Most cultures of the world pathologize an individual soul's descent to seek its own truth, sometimes only found in the depths of depression and despair. We medicate our symptoms instead of listening to them. We drown them out through the use of alcohol, drugs, anti-depressants and endless distractions, readily available in modern culture.
Rarely do we become still or silent long enough to be informed by the story attempting to be told by a soul that suffers. People are driven to despair when they cannot access their own truth attempting to bubble up into conscious awareness through the symptoms being expressed.
To paraphrase Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, there is no fixing or curing required for the soul, only caring. We must learn to live with a conscious awareness of what our individual soul requires for its full expression. This will most certainly require that we learn how to live with pain, both emotional and physical, for when a soul loses its way, it is because we, the human host, have lost our way. Pain is the soul's alarm system that we're off track and that attention and care are required.
I once knew a man who claimed with certainty that he was going to die young. His father had died of a heart attack at age 51 and Bill was certain he faced a similar fate. By the time he turned 52, Bill felt he was on borrowed time. Convinced of this truth, he paid no attention to the dizzy spells that came on with increasing frequency, and even managed to ignore blacking out several times. By age 53, he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and died before the end of that year.
Bill appeared to suffer immensely through the year before he died, becoming more and more disoriented and irrational. Yet he wouldn't seek medical attention or allow anyone to help him. He ended up in the medical system because a neighbor called the paramedics after finding him lying on the floor, unconscious, at home. By the time he was admitted to the hospital, it was too late. The tumor had completely enveloped his brain and he lived just a few weeks beyond his diagnosis.
To most anyone, Bill certainly appeared to be lost and broken. But who can say that his soul was? Perhaps his certainty about his ultimate fate was imbedded into his soul's journey from the very beginning. His very last wish was to have his ashes scattered in the mountains of Colorado. I considered it my sacred honor to fulfill those wishes. In this way, my prayer was that his soul could finally find the peace in death he failed to find while alive.
We can't possibly know the ultimate outcome of the souls that appear to suffer. There are those who have endured great suffering and who have emerged the stronger for it. We hold people like Viktor Frankl and Nelson Mandela in high regard because they point the way to an alternative possibility beyond victimhood and retribution. They used their suffering to expand our collective awareness of what's possible for humanity as a whole.
Seen through the filter of cultural conditioning and ego, suffering appears horrific. Seen through the eyes of the soul, pain and suffering are paths to deepening. Suffering can take us to our knees and strip us bare of all illusions. It is here that the ego is forced to give up denial and stand face-to-face with the driver of its destiny. It may be that only through a total surrender of ego, in which a person may appear to be completely broken or lost, that one can truly find one's way to truth.
We cannot know the gifts suffering provides to the soul's evolution. This is part of the mystery of the soul we must live with. Human nature abhors mystery. We want certainty and predictability. Cultivating the ability to live with uncertainty and learning to live in the mystery are ways of taking care of the soul for it thrives in the mists of uncertainty where all possibilities exist.
Sometimes the soul can only find release through suffering and ultimately, physical death. For the soul, physical death is not the end of its journey, but a passage to the next classroom. To the soul, there are no summer vacations. School is always in session.
I welcome your thoughts and comments on this topic, which is so immense that we can only scrape the surface in this space. So pull up a chair and let us know what's on your mind as we gather here weekly at this Wisdom Well.
I also welcome your visits to my personal blog and website at Rx For The Soul. And for personal contact, email me at judith@judithrich.com.
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Blessings on the path,
Judith
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Pain does lead in two different ways. Either acceptance or denial. You can figure which goes where. We can hope that many will go the route of Mandela or Ghandi, but not all make it through trials that well. This is why we consider them exceptional.
Perhaps it's a matter of semantics. Jung and Hillman consider the soul and psyche to be one and the same. Perhaps you mean ego?
The ego is certainly tainted by trauma, but to the soul, life experiences, traumatic or otherwise, are opportunities for learning. We might say that Mandela and Gandhi lived from the soul, were true to their souls' calling, and their suffering allowed them to see a larger possibility for themselves and for mankind. Their response to suffering gives the rest of us a clue, that is if one is paying attention.
I guess real peace is accepting both the good/bad that can only be found in trauma. Some don't come out of it easily. Imo & from what I have understood by other teachers, suffering is the ego wrestling with what is, 'bad' or traumatic. I know I do.
Thanks for the food for thought and the response.
Thinking of my own father, who's been gone nearly 20 years, and how much I'd love to see him just once more to tell him what a gift he was/is. I'll be doing that in spirit tomorrow.
Many blessings to all,
Judith
It's been a very trying time, and I apologize for being tardy to our group this week. This is a fitting topic in my life at this time.
Outside influences have tried to break my spirit and soul this week. But I stuck with my gut feelings, and have overcome, and in fact, swung the momentum to my favor. Suffice to say, that I'm pleased with the results of having maintained my philosophy.
Dr. Judith, I commend you for your promise to your friend, Bill. How sad that he gave up on himself and all of his friends. I could have adopted this same attitude, after my brother and sister died too. I refused to be fatalistic in my approach to life. This isn't practice, it's the real deal, and I want as much as I can get of it. Somebody once wrote: "Life's journey is not to arrive safely, in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "HOLY (crap)......WHAT A RIDE!" Yes, a certain amount of belief in invincibility is required, but if you can't believe in yourself who can? Sadly, it sounds like Bill didn't. He gave in before he gave himself a chance.
To Dr. Judith and my other friends here at the Well, all the best for a wonderful weekend. Take care all.
Paul
Liked the quote, and can't think of a better way to go out than shouting, " Holy.... what a ride!"
Thanks for the well wishes. Keep on enjoying the ride!
Happy Father's day to you and to all of the terrific father's here!
Certainly has been an interesting week. It's going to take some time to sort out, but in the end, all will be well.
I can't think of a time when I've had more fun in my life, than now. Believe me, it took some time and work to get here, and I fully intend to enjoy myself.
I hope all is well with you and yours. Take care and enjoy yourself.
Paul
And welcome back! Your seat is always warm here.....
These challenges that visit are only there to remind us that we're big enough to handle them. Nothing comes our way that is beyond our ability, even though it may appear that way at first.
How great that you rose up and met what was there to be met.
This is food for the soul!
Many blessings your way, dear one,
Judith
My best to all here at the Well.
Paul
I think we're singing in the same choir.... but then, that's only based on my own experience as well.
A little late coming to the Well during a busy week. I love Soul Talk! Thank you.
I find that School is in session on some days, more than others. When llfe get a little gritty, one way or another, I declare that School is in Session which certainly takes the pressure off and makes me highly accepting and ready for anything.
With a little care and attention, I am finding that it is possible to be generally more accepting and in joy such that Life's Grittiness is less irritating. I am learning to walk more with my head in the heavens while my feet are firmly on the ground.
My Soul is my inner guide and helps to smooth my way ahead. Not a master yet, on track to learning.
I am loving how you are pursuing the conversation, and opening doors to more thought.
With love, joy and blessings to you,
Anne
I suspect you must be very busy with wedding season going full bore, yes?
I love your declaration that "school is in session". It does tend to put one's unconscious self on notice that something more is being required in the moment.
Head in the heavens and feet on the ground - sounds like a wonderful prescription for hmmm, let's say, "Productive Joy", as in joy that actually gets things done on this plane and from a place of grace.
Have a Blessed weekend my dear,
Judith
Productive Joy - I really like that! I am adopting it. A gift from the Well.
This afternoon I have a wedding to conduct, which I am really looking forward to. It looks like we have a very pretty day for it.
Many blessings to you this weekend!
With love,
Anne
Blessings to you ,dear A,
Judith
I also believe that when we heal our wounds and end our broken places-- Spirit applies "gold" to all those broken places-- that is, they become valuable-- our strengths, wisdom, compassion and empathy.
It's good to see you here! Thanks so much for sharing your experience.
Your last sentence about Spirit applying "gold" to the broken places, is a perfect expression of the Japanese quote at the top of this post. And I do believe that this is how we become wise. Wisdom comes from learning through the broken places. The "gold" is the gift that remains.
Your words are strong and ring of truth.
Deep bows to you,
Judith
I am glad for your rise above the difficulties and your obvious ability to stand in the fear and failure that surrounded you as a child and still see clearly the possibilities. Your insight into parenting surely is a gift to be shared.
We all have wounds to heal and broken places to mend, but whatever combination of healing sources - through the soul, the spirit's "gold," the touch of a kind and caring person, the sharing of that light of love's potential we all carry within, or the sight of that amazing gift of new life - it is the parent who serves as both a nexus, and the fulcrum upon which the collective future’s value rests.
Yours are strong words indeed! I am a fan.
Lawson
Here's a little "elixir" for a weary soul:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSy7h3TPB-M
Just had to share! This will put some zip into your step today. Enjoy!
For once, beyond "that was more than great!" I am speachless.
Thanks for the zip-a-de-do-da!! :)
Lawson
Thanks Judith!
While I'm not a Buddhist, and my understanding of Buddhism is somewhat elementary, I do believe that its teaching about suffering has a lot of merit. It is human nature (read that ego) to resist what is, and to think reality should be some way other than the way it is. In that resistance is our suffering.
Indeed the soul is relentless. Its curriculum is not bound by time. Perhaps those we view as lost or broken are merely burning through their soul journey at what appears to be lightening speed on this plane. I would speculate we all get to take a turn on that wheel many times in the soul's journey, but then, who knows? More questions arise......
It is the "everything in between" that stumps so many! But, I get your point my friend.
Lawson
You've given us many thoughts to ponder about raising kids. So, when I look at my 3 on this day I no longer feel like I was fathering in a vaccum. Happy Fathers Day.
It's so great to read your blog this week, but for some reason I keep remembering the Seinfeld episode where Elaine screams at her coworker: "The name is SUZY - There's no WAY I'm A SUUUZZZ!"
Uh, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
I watched a HBO movie about Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, and I remember the part about Gellhorn going to Dachau, and watching her face as her faith in humanity, in living, in creation, just dissolving as she ran into the forest and rolled on the grass, in such despair that she couldn't even function. Her eyes at the end of the movie were windows into a broken soul.
And I think it can be broken by simple neglect. By believing in unlimited stuff-getting instead of people, of trees and grass and oceans and poetry, and stuff-getting year after year, eventually the soul is so starved and neglected that it is too broken to speak inside, and the person outside is too deaf to hear anyway.
I also think the soul has a mission and a destiny if we'll just go along. Things outside us can tempt us to ignore that which is inside us, or things outside us can remind us to listen to that which is inside us. None of those things that remind us to listen are ever on the news and are not usually considered important. Like people, grass, trees, oceans and poetry.
True story. It was clearly a soul message that I was no longer Judy and it was time for me to become Judith. It was part of my evolution. Being called Judy is like nails on a chalkboard for me..... but I try not make a big deal out of it because most people have no idea it's that way for me.
I also watched the Hemingway and Gellhorn movie and was very moved by the scene you describe. Few people could view that kind of horror and not feel destroyed by it. When confronted by such evidence, we cannot turn away and pretend we don't know the depths of what human being is capable of.
We know that a child requires touch and human contact in order to thrive. Without it, we have no orientation in life. Recall the footage of the children raised in Romanian orphanages after the fall of the eastern bloc countries. Unless these children received loving human contact they would never fully be embodied and take on life.
What courageous souls we are! And, I'm clear, everyone doesn't see it the same way as I. How great that we have the freedom to choose how we view life.
Haven't been called that in years...
Powerful words! "too broken to speak... too deaf to hear"
We probably are using different definition of the word broken, because I don't think that a soul can really be broken in the "it won't work anymore" sense, however, I think it can sink to poor levels of function or simple inactivity due to the neglect you mentioned.
I know we are on the same page here: the inside vs outside and all that. The problem is finding a cure for what we are told is the cure of all that ails us... getting more stuff.
Did you know that there is enough "storage space" in Am. so that every person could be housed therein... of course we can't because that is where we put all of the stuff we have probably forgotten about. :)
"Things outside us can tempt us to ignore that which is inside us" Yes, we are trained virtually from the crib to look outward for reward, rather than inward, where it really resides.
Lawson
" To the soul, the journey is the destination, that being the discovery and recognition of its own truth, which can only be found in the depths of the experience of life itself."
I, especially resonate with the above part.
Any interpretation is limited in that it has only the thought forms, meaning, attachment,we give it. When we are allowing ourselves to experience whatever, be it pain, joy, indifference, suffering, from a loving, aware, view rather than a fearful, denial view ... an opportunity to learn can be in every experience.
Example: I don't know what the purpose of suffering is. I can speculate and come up with my own interpretations of a painful experience but my fear of not having the correct answer surfaces and if I allow myself to be aware and to feel that fear and to let it pass through without judging, condemning myself but loving myself even though I don't know, then it is replaced by love.
I do suspect that the entire journey here is about learning to be the love that we really are but that is only my speculation and not necessarily so. I don't think there are any truly broken souls that need fixing. Just an opinion...:)
I honestly don't have the answers to these questions. I am as much in the questions as anyone. But the questions haunt me and so I attend to them, as a way of paying attention to my own soul's longing to be known by me.
Hope all is well in your world. Much love,
Judith
I was riveted by the phrase, "Maybe a broken soul is one that never knew love." It got me thinking about what each person wants most vs what each person needs most. The eternal question about "wants and needs" becomes clearer.
When you get past the common answers to what one wants most or needs most - money, power, security, happiness, love, purpose, peace on earth, good hair, puppies, et. al. - you are, in my opinion, left with two main answers: What we all want most is to be right; what we all need most is to share love. When I consider these two together, I realize that what I get is the "rightness of sharing love."
So, for those who may suffer from the lack of shared love, who may appear to have souls broken by its absence; the treatment, the tonic, the aloe vera for a rough soul, is to help them find and share the love of self and others, with themselves and others. It is what we need, and it is, consciously or unconsciously, what we want.
Thanks for Sharing...
Lawson
I too think you are right, in that the breaking of a soul is not a reasonable concept, however, souls that exhibit suffering certainly signal the need for attention, if not from self, from others. It is right to love yourself when you share it with others. I believe that act does more to soothe the ills perceived or real by many in distress, and certainly by you.
There was a study recently that tested happiness by comparing the act of receiving a small amount of money and doing something for you with it, verses useing even part of it to do something for another person.
Those who shared reported a higher level of happiness than those that did not share. If it works for money, think of the impact of sharing love... :)
Lawson
Sorry haven't responded sooner. Busy Bee-ing :)
Interesting study. Thanks.
Results are not surprising. I know for myself, unless I am drained or not feeling well, then I am happiest when I can make someone smile or do some little thing that helps them.
In one type of meditation I do, I frequently surround people with loving Light and visualize them radiant .
Think that the more love you give, the more joy you feel, and so you give more.... full circle.
Beams of loving Light >>>>>>
"How does the individual soul relate to the soul of the world and how does the loss of soul in a human being reflect the loss of soul in the world?"
is a digression. That it's too abstract. That's it's too easy to love humanity as a whole.
But that's only from a short-circuited understanding of the soul, and of the soul of the world. The sould is on its track to learn and do nothing but learn precisely BECAUSE only compassion will make the necessary steps towards healing, in precisely the amounts that can be achieved at all.
Of course that's not the ego's business. But in the end, the only suffering that doesn't require any compassion is the suffering of the egos.
It's like in a soccer game of in chess. Something's gotta give. So the best pick is likely to be to offer a little ego-gambit.
Pays off handsomely in the end. :-)
---
That's your belief, Judy - and yes, it's a new age chestnut. But there is no basis for it in the teachings of (say) Shakyamuni Buddha. And I'd say you wouldn't find it in the other Dharmic teachings of the east either.
In Buddhism (just to stick with that one), the core idea is "aspiration for buddhahood" - a particular end state.
When Gotama starts his journey, he has a specific end in mind: the end of suffering. When he has that final experience of ego deconstruction under the Bodhi Tree, he arises as a fully enlightened being (a Buddha) and declares he has reached his goal.
His former companions then meet him again, see that there is some radical change in him, and thus become his first disciples, because they have the same goal.
So no...the journey is not the destination at all.
Now...whether the story is true or not is for you to decide for yourself. But it presents a very different picture (aka meme, belief system, whatever) than your new-agey one that "the journey is the destination".
Certainly it's OK if that's what you want to believe.
But if you're going to talk about Shakyamuni's former companions (who become his first disciples), you've got to work with the text that we have about them rather than pulling something out your own bucket of pre-existing beliefs.
The narrative (whether you believe it or not) goes like this: Gotama walked away from his fellow seekers, deciding to go solo in his search for the answer to life's questions. He became the Buddha of our age. Walking alone after his enlightenment, he encountered his former companions again.
They were awe struck by something, and asked Gotama, "Are you a god?".
"No", he replied. "I am awake".
At that point, his companions realized that Gotama had found what they all had been seeking, and they thus became his first disciples.
So no...it's not just that "there is only learning", from the perspective of the extant records. There is an end state - an end of learning - that the records propose. Whether you agree or not is a different question.