SPIRITUAL: INNER SELF

Existence of 'inner self' or we often call it 'soul' has always been a point of philosophical discussion as there is no evidence to indicate its existence in this materialistic world where we always look for empirical evidences. Many a times, we call it just an illusion of our mind. Its presence is hardly felt especially when we lead a busy and enjoyable life as we are totally lost in pleasure and joy in power and money driven world. However, we realize its presence or existence when we start searching answers for bigger mysteries of life or when we
start following a spiritual pathway to attain sustainable happiness and peace in material world. .

Recently I came across a very interesting and thought provoking story or metaphor in The Spiritual Universe by Fred Allan Wolf, a theoretical physicist and writer on the subjects of quantum physics, consciousness, and their relationship. Before I further dwell on this so called 'inner self' or the 'soul' lets see how this story goes.

You suddenly find yourself as a passenger on a ship moving across the ocean. You are in the ship's bowels and it is pitch black. You are able to move around the inside the ship, but since you don't know where everything is and because of the darkness, you bump into things. Eventually, as time passes, you learn how to fuel the ship, to keep it maintained and running, and even how to control the steering mechanism, but since there are no portholes to look out, you can't see in which direction to go. Besides, once you get used to the darkness, there is lot to amuse you inside the ship: TV, movies and good things to eat, taste and sense. But, you still cannot see the outside, so you find a point to attempt steering.

The ship moving across a vast ocean appears to be drifting without direction. Once in a while you are buffeted about as the ship seems to take a different direction. You wonder why it takes such a meandering path, sometimes going this way and sometimes in just the opposite direction. At times, particularly when the ship's direction changes, you hear a vague, almost imperceptible voice coming from outside the ship. It is calling to you. You have heard the voice from outside before but have ignored it, thinking it was only your imagination. After a while you hardly hear the voice at all.

Then one day something goes terribly wrong. The ship appears to be jostling about, rolling, pitching and yawning violently. You feel lost and ill to the point of terror. You begin to cry out, seeking help, crying for a vision and healing. You curse the powers that have placed you in this predicament and now you insist on knowing where the ship is heading.

This story is a metaphor of our life. We are the self inside the ship and our inner self or soul is the person outside the ship whose faint voices we often hear but ignore them very conveniently. It shows that our inner self and the self (or our egoic self) both are engaged in a conflicting situation of duality, each somewhat helpless and incomplete without the help of the other, to control the ship which is our physical body moving through life. The self is totally identified with the body and mind, while the inner self or the soul remains
somewhat separate from materialistic concerns but in the moment of crisis, or during bad/difficult phase of life it tries to guide and help us if we are ready to hear its voice. Inner self always give messages through our heart and intuition and not the mind.

Our inner self also enables us to come out from the hard shell of ego provided we encourage it. However, we all love to hear our own voice (and not the voice of inner self) because it always agrees with what we do in our life. Our inner self or the soul always have our best interests at heart and know about everything we do. Inner self doesn't allow us to suffer but we, at times, when ignore to feel its voice make her suffer. Fred Alan in that book concludes by saying that humanity needs to listen until such times as the voice of inner self
or the soul is heard throughout the universe as the only voice of love and compassion that has ever existed.