On Soul

What is essential is invisible to the eye -- Antoine St. Exupery, The Little Prince.

Anything that carries mystery is often unseen. Such is the Soul. It is the invisible fragment of the invisible whole. The Soul is a fragment, yet it is not fragmented. The fragment is whole in itself. It remains invisible for those who remain blind to the truth it embodies. It cannot be seen through the eyes of doubt, through which most of us use. The naked eye that sees physical things in this physical world is incapable of seeing non-physical things in the non-physical world. Nevertheless, the truth never hides itself. The lovely, wise seagull of Richard Bach advises a little hummingbird: But remember that not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true. Truth stays, waiting for our inner eyes to see.

Truth of the Soul continues to be the truth as it is. But that truth is far from being defined by words or described by sight. A friend once said that The Soul is so abstract that it is so difficult to comprehend; it seems so far from concrete reality. She argued that there must be some way to make the Soul concrete, like some operational theory or explanation. Yes, there is one way, I thought. For us to understand the Soul, we must stop thinking of labeling it as abstract and reality as concrete. Because every thing that is concrete comes from the abstract, just how many sages of the past told us. The Soul is never an opposite of the flesh and bones or sticks and stones that we can see and touch. Rather, the Soul is all-embracing, as it embraces and permeates every physical thing that we see. The Soul is reality itself. It is both abstract and concrete. It never opposes anything, for all things are manifestations of the Soul.

Our visible reality is deceiving. It deceives us to believe that anything invisible cannot be described, and therefore untrue. But absence does not mean non-existence. The Soul does not just exist. It lives among and within us. The Soul is us, yet to be acknowledged. The Soul is real, yet to be described.

The Soul often appears to be a metaphor and a symbol of that which is indescribable. Since the Soul is beyond description, we have used many things that we can see, touch and feel as tangible metaphors and symbols.

Wind is one. It is invisible, yet it is felt. A Filipino riddle tells us that wind is something that comes yet still unseen. Wind blows between branches and rustles among leaves. It can always be gentle, sometimes fierce. The whole earth inhales and exhales it. Nobody can say that even wind is unseen, it is not true. Everyone feels how cool and strong the wind is. This is the same for the Soul. The Soul does not need to be seen in order to be true. Great truths, like the Soul, need more than physical sight. We must feel the Soul. Feeling the Soul becomes truer than it seems to be. To feel the Soul is to find it more than its existence. We must experience the Soul. Wind becomes real when kites fly or when flag waves or pinwheels spin. Kites, flags and pinwheels are useless without the wind. Or they won't even exist if not for the wind. Wind gave birth to them, and they bring life to the wind. We are all kites and flags and pinwheels that came from the invisible Soul. The Soul gives life to us as we feel its presence. And the Soul becomes more real because of us.

We need not to prove how real Soul is. It is. We can see it everywhere. We can find it anywhere. We can hear it. We can touch and feel it. Soul is as real as you and me. We are taught that Soul is something that resides in us and makes us alive. I would add more to that: It is within us, and yet it is absolutely us. The Soul faces us when we face the mirror after we wake up in the morning. And deep beneath pale cheeks and drowsy eyes, there is the Soul that stays unseen. The Soul is the life in us that makes our hearts beat, arteries throb and blood flow. Soul is Life itself, beating, throbbing, flowing.

From our hearts, arteries, veins and capillaries branch out. Blood traverses this web of intricate vessels, woven within layers and layers of tissues and flesh. It is a network, coming from a center. Tony Buzan calls this the natural architecture. Natural architecture is present in all things in nature. In fact, it is the only universal structure ever present in all things natural. A spider web is a network of fine web threads. A Tree is also a network of branches and leaves. Even brain itself is a network neurons. They are all natural architecture. Something from the center shoots up, grows, branches, and expands. But each outgrowth is a center itself. Each node is a new center, a new source where something again grows. In a whole network, each new source is complete. They are all centers. Nietzsche once said the center is everywhere. Likewise, each of us is a Soul, a center of being, a divine node capable of growing. We interconnect, like a huge invisible network. Indra's net. Jewels - we as Souls - are interwoven to this network.

In this light, the Soul is in fact the Soul of many Souls. We are individual Souls, woven together by underlying truth of the collective Soul. Together, we become a universal Soul. In our unconscious consensus, we are all One Soul. Oversoul, like as Emerson put it. It is called in many names. As we work in both as individuals and a collective, Our One Soul is our greatest aspiration and existence. We are not separate from the rest, because our One Soul is the encompassing reality of Love. The Soul we discover is the Love we can create.

Insights on Walking

A journey of thousand miles begins with one step --Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Health and fitness experts often say that walking is the best exercise. They say it reduces all the risk of disease related to sedentary lifestyle, such as diabetes and heart disease. True, indeed, for virtually all muscles are moving in unison, complementing each others' function to reach a common goal. Blood circulates well, heart beats a little faster, the brain focuses on each step. This chorus is a phenomenon of movement, a kinetic miracle that has made human being a powerful moving force.

The ability of upright walking is characteristically human. With this evolutionary ability, we are able to discover the world we live. Our human ancestors traveled the world by foot, long before the wheel was invented. This piece of prehistory adds to the grand insight of our spiritual evolution. As we have walked and traveled on the whole face of the Earth, we have left the footprints of our Soul.

Apart from the common health or physiological reasons, walking has a greater gift. If breathing is a sacred link to the Divine, walking is the movement towards it.

I have observed in many instances that most of my astounding insights lit up my mind while walking. And it was again while walking that this insight on walking came to me.

I often hear people quip that walking slowly is like following a funeral march, when the dead is brought to its grave. I found this culture like an analogy of how we walk through life: we are afraid to slow down, because it's like following death. Or we can look at it otherwise. In processions of saints (a common Filipino tradition), people walk slowly, with candles lit in their hands. This time, they follow the saint, not the death. I would like to see these two thoughts on walking upside down. First, to walk slowly is to follow the death of this fast-paced world, and bury those that keep us forget what it means to walk with Life. Second, we walk slowly as we follow the examples of living a sacred Life, where we bring our Light in our hands and call others to do the same.

To walk is not just to use the feet and go somewhere else. Each step is a journey to the unknown trails of our psyche. Walking itself is a metaphorical verb of how our Soul travels. There is always an inner learning, much like how Aristotle taught his students through peripatetics. Walking (while having soulful conversations with someone) allows our minds and hearts to meet each other, in each others' dimension of awareness. There is much exchange, and it can go on without exhausting. I have my own share of experiences, where walking has bonded friendships and connections much stronger.

There is a great difference when we walk mindfully, while we offer each breath as our foot lands on the ground. Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has a similar practice, and encourages us to do the same. We have tried walking so hurried, and we end up with deep cuts in our feet - reminds us of an old Filipino proverb. Our outer lives are so fast-paced that we have forgotten to slow down. We begin to walk within ourselves, tracing back our steps, in circular fashion like that of a labyrinth, meditating on how our walking speed imprints the memories of our souls.

My friend, Joemar Obejas, has done it literally, walking from northern Philippines up to Manila, traversing some 300 miles, surrendering his hurdles to the spirit of kindness of both nature and people. At some point he had thought that he could not accomplish it, yet his unwavering determination conquered not just the long stretch of Luzon, but the distance between his dream and his soul.

In turn, every walking is not just on smooth paved highways, which are only designed for wheels to run. There is a much greater challenge, where the trails are uphill, filled with mud, rocks and thorns. We hike on our seemingly insurmountable selves. It is the only way to reach the summit of our own potentials, and see that the whole universe before us is astoundingly immense.

Together, we are all pilgrims, finding and treading our own paths. There is a camino we can follow, until the forked road of our choice, until the trail's dead end. At this point we are bound to make a greater choice, either to stop, or choose another path, or make our own trail. In our endless peregrinations, we can find ourselves tirelessly walking in the vast frontiers within.

Abraham Lincoln once said "I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards." There are times that for every two steps we make, we have one step backwards. Nonetheless, this is not contrary to Lincoln's insight. For every step we make, even though we think we are not moving, or not seeing our steps, is always a sure way to our destination: that our walking journey is where we arrive, when each Loving step is always a giant leap, and leaving the trails of Love on the uncharted heart of humanity.