The term “soul” is more popular than ever. The growing use of social media and the expanding yoga industry have made this a household name. The soul is more than your body. The soul yearns for spiritual and unconditional love. Every time your soul is away from a spiritual and love experience, it will react negatively. It is the soul that allows you to have experiences of higher energies. You may also be physically far away from someone, but your soul is the reliable bridge to close the gap between you.
S – Spiritual
O – Omnipresent
U – Unconditional
L – Loving
This is how I define soul. Once you connect with your soul, you know the real deal. Although there are many ways to connect with your soul, meditation, or Sadhna, remains my favorite. In meditation, you experience “Atma Darshan,” which means “a glimpse of the soul.” You experience how beautiful the light of your soul actually is. Those who don’t practice meditation may also experience the presence of their soul in other activities, such as birthing, gardening, yoga, writing or any other creative work. In meditation, you not only experience the soul, but also create an opportunity for the deepest level of healing.
Meditation will allow you an opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with your soul. This conversation is best carried out in silence. No arguments and no judgments are needed; simply trust the process and know that you have all the answers. The ancient masters used to ask many seekers to meditate upon “soul questions” before they were permitted to embark upon their journey.
These questions are:
Who am I?
If someone asks you this question, you usually reply with your name, job, nationality or marital status. This is what society feeds our consciousness with. Who you are becomes just a bunch of labels and titles given to us by society. This is the reason why you experience so much pain and anguish when these labels are taken away from you. These labels define your existence, and now they are gone.
In this soul question, your goal should be to find the roots of your existence. Who are you really? A soul, a consciousness, your body, your name, your profession? Find it out for yourself. Keep posing the question “Who am I?” until the layers start to peel off. You may not like what you find as the answer, but that’s okay. You can only change what you acknowledge, and the motive of this question is to shine a light into your darkness.
What is my purpose?
The goal of this question is to find the meaning of your existence. Why did you come here? The fancy quotes you find online may tell you the purpose is happiness, love or forgiveness, but you need to do some serious legwork to find out the true meaning. As a spiritual guide, I can show you the map and give you keys of the car, but you must drive yourself in your journey. Don’t take anyone’s answer about your purpose. It is not an easy task to unfold one’s purpose, and that’s why many people die living a life of no purpose. If you are reading this, it means that you already have a desire to find your purpose. Meditate on this question, and your purpose shall reveal itself. When I was in finance, I kept on telling myself that I will devote my life to spirituality when I had enough money to support myself and my family. Yet, my purpose of spreading spiritual truth was so strong that it kept me pulling toward itself. Within a year, I was finished with my banking job and began to follow my inner calling. The years that followed were tough and filled with struggle, but they eventually passed, giving way to a life brimming with purpose and inspiration. See, anything worth anything requires some hard work … and no one said that finding your purpose was easy.
What is the source of my happiness?
You have tried looking for happiness in your significant other, in your children, in God, in your religion, through motivational seminars, but yet the emptiness still haunts you. We love to assign a person or situation to extract happiness from, but is that really a source of happiness? Can’t it be taken from you? Then what? Isn’t happiness a permanent state of consciousness, or shouldn’t it be?
Let this question reveal only one answer: Where do you extract your happiness from?
Here is a short meditation for you to start working with these soul questions:
1. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths and allow your thoughts and emotions to settle down.
2. Bring your awareness to your heart chakra or your third eye chakra. Stay present and continue to witness your thoughts and emotions.
3. Don’t move your lips or eyes, just allow your awareness and breath to flow in silence.
4. Understand that working with just one question during one meditation session is best. Commit to one question for some time and watch how your answer evolves as your experience deepens. Don’t force any answer and don’t try to decode the answer with your thinking mind. The answers will reveal themselves on their own.
5. Once you work with each question for a period of time and arrive at an answer, you begin to start a dialogue with your inner self and experience your soul.
Approach these questions with patience, persistence and, of course, love.
Chandresh Bhardwaj is a spiritual guide who specializes in the Eastern sciences of healing and transformation. He is also the founder of Break the Norms, a center of self-discovery, personal growth and increased well-being, located in New York and California. Break The Norms offers weekly meditation and yoga classes, as well as Ayurveda workshops. Location of New York center: 47 W. Nicholai St., Hicksville. For more information, call 516-938-9600 or visit BreakTheNorms.com. See ad on this page.
