Soul-Search by Jeroen van Olst as seen on spirituality.com My journey to find my soul began when I stepped out of my office for the last time and said goodbye to corporate life. After years of ruthless ambition and neglect of my mental and physical health, I was now a professional burnout. When I began my new life as a college professor, a whole series of new and confusing problems appeared. I soon came face-to-face with my past and made some shocking discoveries.
From my early childhood to my early teens, my father's company frequently transferred him to different parts of the world. In consequence I spent more time with my tutor's family than with my own. The tutor was an unforgiving man, who, in order to educate me, thought it necessary to exercise total control over me, and I lost my initial free-spiritedness.
As a teenager I was happy-go-lucky, laughing away and making a joke of life—on the outside. But you would never have known the chaos and insecurity that reigned inside of me.
As an adult, the pattern basically stayed the same. I was absorbed by an ambition I never really felt. I was driven by the fear of not living up to the expectations of my professional and social environment. I had to make a success of myself, no matter the cost.
On the outside I behaved like a professional success, which for me involved egotistical ambition, clawing my way up regardless of who I hurt along the way, and playing the game of politics like no other. But on the inside I hated myself for not having committed to my beliefs, the truths that came from deep within me. And it broke my heart. This is because, to me, committing to your beliefs is about loving yourself. This commitment gives you the peaceful satisfaction of being yourself in the truest sense of the word. I knew this intellectually, but I was far from truly understanding it.
What I needed to commit to were my core beliefs about the soul. It is my belief that the soul originates from one Source of infinite, all-encompassing love and wisdom. This Source can be called God, the Divine Being, Light, Allah, the Great Architect of the Universe. It doesn't really matter what we call it. I believe this Source doesn't have a name, it just is and needs only to be felt. And, when the Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God and that we are His children, I believe it to be right.
Our soul may also be called the connection—the direct telephone line with our Source, who will always pick up and listen. After all, we are inseparable from our Source; and we are loved because our Source is Love itself. And it will answer us, regardless of what is happening in our lives.
Often, the uncertainty and fear of digging deeper into myself would have made it easy to stop searching. But realizing I wasn't yet spiritually secure, I had to do something about it. It's an interesting fact that once you know something you can't "un-know" it. You can't say, "I used to know how to walk, but I forgot how to do it." Yet, knowledge will not be truly owned until you do something with it, express it, put it into practice.
So I continued my search for my soul. Something—the soul's Source—told me to look within myself. I had been headed in the wrong direction with my life. I had been uneasy, cranky, aggressive and paranoid. But I was happily surprised to find that the more I started to speak and act as my soul directed, the better and more whole I felt.
For example, in my corporate job I would defend my point of view, even when I knew I was wrong—all for the good of the company and my promotions. But as a professor, I would give the opinions of others a second thought. Where I had simply given orders before, I now tried to convince. Where I had been impatient, I now tried to listen.
I was rewarded with a peace I had never felt before. I started to live in harmony with myself. I did and said things that were in harmony with my beliefs, my true essence.
And there it was.
I had found my soul.
Used by permission www.spirituality.com
