I have been exploring recently what it is like to feel me, the true me, my connection to Soul. The aspect in me that brings me back to how I felt as a child – open, free and extremely play-full, while in complete harmony and respect for everyone and everything else at the same time. When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!
It occurred to me that I have not always lived this way throughout my life; that I have often lived the contrasting opposite to this otherwise natural way of being. It has become far more obvious to me each day that there are actually two versions of me that I have at my will to choose to be at any given moment, on any given day, and each gives me a very, very different way of living and approaching life.
There is a part of me that is Divine. It is absolute and known within my being to the core that there is no doubt that the essence of God is in me. It feels very powerful! It feels such that, from my heart to my bones, stretching down beneath the ground, with every step I take the very earth I walk on is being graced by this presence and movement. I feel so at one and held by God’s Love that my body feels yummy all over. I can feel this connection through every tree, every breath of wind on my face and even every drop of rain.
His perfection is everywhere, His mastery of life, just an undeniable reality, and with such connection comes the enormous sense of responsibility and Brotherhood. It feels that with such love, nothing is held to be less than or greater than me. Everything and everyone is held without judgement in this love by my presence and understanding.
I can feel this connection with God throughout my veins, in my being and deep within my heart. This connection naturally offers inspiration to all of life that sees and experiences it and it is absolutely Gorgeous!
And that was only a small preview – being with my Soul is undeniably amazing.
Then there is the other side of the coin, my spirit, a part of me that chooses to live in separation of the deep connection with God and life that is naturally there within us.
When I am with my spirit and no longer feeling connected to my Soul and to God, I feel small. I feel that life is full of issues and problems and, at times, they feel so dominant that they seem to exist in every facet of my life. It feels horrible to be living from this side.
There enters an ignorance to others and to life and the very Divinity of life seems to have been replaced by just being functional. I find myself forever seeking more, not feeling complete and content within myself. I can feel there is more to life than this but it feels like I am lost in the seeking of how to get to it. Life feels mundane, a drag, and in my body I feel heavy and lethargic.
There is a constant tension running through me that is from the knowing that this form of living is simply not it.
It feels like the world’s own poles have shifted and I am the centre of it, everything is about me and, I can even convince myself that I am also God’s number one man. The worst feeling about being on this side of life is the feeling that life is always ahead and I am always dragging on behind, dragging my heels through the sand. God becomes a figurehead but no longer the livingness that I in-truth deeply miss when living in this way.
Choosing to be with my Soul has revealed to me a forever-deepening understanding about the key distinctions that exist when living from spirit or from Soul. Through Soul, I have learned that the ways of the spirit may make us feel that what is presented to us in life is much greater than what we are able to handle, but in truth this is never the case. In fact there is never anything greater than us at all when our love is brought to it. It may sound outlandish but I have found this to be absolutely true.
Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.
It is clear that there is a choice to be made in each and every moment: a choice to be with our Soul and hence live our Love and Truth in and with God – or a choice to be in total ignorance of God, Truth and Soul and make our life much, much smaller than it truly is.
We are all from God. We are His Sons. To feel this as a fact we only need to stop, take a moment to be with ourselves and our bodies, perhaps through the support of The Gentle Breath Meditation®, and there is a warmth and love inside us. We all deserve this love equally from ourselves and from each other, without perfection, and hence it is the responsibility of us all to make true and wise choices as to what source we choose to live our lives from.
When I am with my Soul, there is no greater feeling than feeling that we are all One. Plumbers, gas fitters, Muslims, Jews, Christians, people of all other races and cultures, are all our equals, our Brothers, and deserve our love neither less nor more than anyone else does. I can now see clearly that the only true way forward for all of us is to become more responsible about where our quality of life is coming from as, without a doubt, nearly every single one of the problems we have today would not be there if we chose to live the love we all naturally are from, Our Soul.
Forever inspired by Serge Benhayon, a man who presents a living example to us all of what living from Soul is truly about and how simple it truly can be.
By Joshua Campbell (23) Amazing Man, Tauranga, New Zealand
Further Reading:
Spirit or Soul – Learning the Difference Through Serge Benhayon
I Am a Student of My Soul – There is Always a Choice
The Wake of Our Walk
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
Life can be a struggle only because we walk rejecting God in our side.
To support inviting my wayward spirit back to be once more in alignment with the soul, I have found it supportive to understand and work with it by likening it to an individual, arrogant teenage joy-rider that does not care one iota for the harm it causes to anything, nor cares what it crashes or destroys as long as it continues to stimulate itself enough to put up barriers, reactions, excuses and justifications to keep itself distracted from returning to love and enjoying playing the game of irresponsibility! Playfulness and lightheartedness are supportive in the changes.
I can feel the difference between the two, Soul and spirit and I know I prefer to be with my Soul more than anything and as much as I haven’t perfected it, it is continually being offered. The Soul offers such love that nothing comes in the way, the purity is immeasurable and divine from inside out.
In every moment we have the choice to reconnect to our Soul and live from our essence instead of being caught up in the trivialities of a spirit led life. What amazes me is how often I still choose to allow myself to get pulled away from my own divinity, but your blog is a beautiful reminder of the awesomeness that awaits us all when we choose to return.
Through living my life now more from my soul rather than my spirit it has become more simple straightforward and fulfilling, when life becomes complicated it is a great reminder to reconnect back to soul.
Understanding the energy that is of the Soul or of the spirit is to know who you are.
A powerful expression and exposure of the difference between spirit and soul. To be living as lesser or from the grandness that we are in our essence.
It is important, in our love for God and in appreciation of his love for us, that we always remain as his equal. This is true love and appreciation.
The information about the difference between spirit and soul needs to be accessible to all. A great post Joshua.
It is like living in two absolutely different worlds when living from the Soul or from the Spirit, which you have clearly described, when I am with spirit I feel the push and drive in life and the complication and tension that the way of living brings, when I am connected to my Soul, life takes on an easeful- ness and a flow in its simplicity, with a joy and openness to experience what life has to offer.
There is tension whether we live from our Soul or our spirit – the pull from God to be more of who we are. The difference is in how we experience it – either purpose or pressure depending on where we are coming from.
Great point here Joshua, to live from our Soul is really simple, it is when the Spirit is in control that life gets complicated and it becomes all about ‘me’ forgetting our true nature and connection to this grand love.
A beautifully spacious blog that also allows us to feel the contracting and diminishing way the spirit works in us too, the pride that it holds and the attachment to having or doing more, the disregard and lovelessness.
The contrast you illustrate here is just stunning and so visceral. In spirit’s way, “It feels like the world’s own poles have shifted and I am the centre of it, everything is about me and, I can even convince myself that I am also God’s number one man” – this really stood out for me, as I could feel how I have invested in this way of being. Not pleasant at all, as it feels like the world is closing down on ‘me’ and very suffocating.
I can absolutely feel the difference – when I move as a hungry spirit in the world, grabbing, pushing, crashing around… as opposed to the natural flow that is possible. As Eduardo says above – this is the natural order.
There is a natural way of being that is totally natural for us to live. We have not been educated to know so and to be able to feel it, make it part of our foundations to propel our movements and to return to it. Instead, we have created our own ‘natural’ way of being that above everything else stands out for being truly unnatural to our body and being.
We do know this connection… It is innate within us, and we respond to it whenever it touches us however delicately and however briefly
God is a choice we can make in our lives. What comes next, it’s not at our hands to be controlled. The same happens we we choose the individualisation of the Spirit. The trick is that it makes us feel that we are the ‘choosers’ after the first and only choice we make… and we neither control. How we feel in our body is the reference we have to know in which source we are living at each moment.
It’s true Amparo, we think that being individual we are in control and running the show, when in fact whether we are aligned to our spirit (individialism) or our Soul (brotherhood, oneness) we are obedient to an energy – either prana or fire. The difference is that the fiery energy of the Soul is of joy, love, harmony, truth and stillness, whereas the pranic energy of the spirit keeps us locked in the misery and struggle of the illusion of creation.
Knowing the difference between spirit and soul, offers one clarity for understanding the patterns and behaviours we rely on in order to avoid our evolution and to know that we can also choose to live in a way that offers us true settlement in our bodies when aligned to our soul.
Loved the clarity with which you shared your experience Joshua, thank you, the two ways of living are so starkly different with the spirits ways being so deeply embeded within us but this is not our truth but an illusion for when we live connected to our soul we have arrived home, where we can so naturally live the love that we all equally are.
Two sides of my coin, my split personality, my angel my devil, my two faces, all of these sayings and more have been used over the years to describe our spirt and soul. But none have really been instrumental in describing difference in quality, of soul and its counter part, spirit. I am thankful that I had the age old mystery cleared up by Universal Medicine of why I would do some things that just didn’t feel like me and why I had such moments of clarity.
The thing about our spirit that it’s easy to forget due to its/our wayward and harming ways, is that it is a part or our Soul that has turned away from it, but it is still part of our divinity, our oneness, of our Son of Godness. With Love and understanding we can turn it around and bring it back to being whole with Soul.
Thank you for this incredibly clear, engaging and wise blog about how life can be when you live with your Soul and how it can be when you choose not to. I felt my whole body expand when I re-connected to Soul – our true purpose.
What could ever seem more important than feeling the connection to the divine through my essence? While I still might stubble and fumble with spirit ways it is my choice to re-connect back to soul asap.
As we have free will we think we have a choice but I came to the point that we actually have not. Our human lives are just an experiment of the spirit and I can admit that to me it is a failure. So why would I hold on to it any longer as to me it is not a choice to choose for anymore.
I do prefer to live with my Soul, that provides me that natural freedom in my way of living that is not there when I live with my spirit instead. Therefore to do it is actually no choice, it is my responsibility to live with my Soul and with that to bring back in the first place human decency and respect as we deserve to live that in our societies once again.
Living with my soul has brought more to my life than I could possibly have imagined. I have heard Serge Benhayon say “I am nothing without my soul”, and having now chosen to live with my soul, I agree.
As I read this I felt myself move from being in the centre making life all about me, to the expansive feeling of oneness and of being part of the whole. Much needed, thank you Joshua.
I had the exact same experience Lucy!
Our choices always have consequences but when we make our choices wisely it allows us to live our potential.
The choice is ours; challenging as that may be at times; to live connected to our soul or not. What you have expressed here Joshua is simple, powerful and inspirational;
“When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!”
‘Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.’ This is such a powerful truth that I can live observing and in growing appreciation of.
It is so true we have the choice to be with spirit or soul in each moment of every day. For me I just have to be majorly aware as my spirit can play me so easily from the eons of experience at doing so, it is very, very cunning and leaves me alone until the perfect moment to pounce, a moment of weakness or tiredness. My soul on the other hand is the patient old master waiting with open arms after returning from my scrape with spirit.
Perfectly expressed Joshua. We are divine to the core and to not live this divinity we have to call upon an enormous force of resistance from that part of us, the human spirit, that has its heels dug in, in the sense that it/we need life to be a certain way that we have become identified by and are not so willing to let go of. This is how we have come to let the clouds mask the light of the sun and thus condemn ourselves to live a life in shadow.
Knowing the difference between Sprit and Soul is huge, When we don’t come from our heart then we are in fact avoiding our evolution back to soul. We all have to make our way back home and it is up to each and everyone of us as to how quick or slow we get there.
How you express your connection to Soul feels just so exquisite, and such a stark contrast to being connected to spirit. And what’s so amazing is it’s just a choice, actually a quite simple one – although some of us may choose to turn that into a struggle. And I agree, it makes us realise how all the world’s problems stem from us not living from our true essence. We all matter, each one of us, and us being who we truly are not only brings much harmony and joy on a personal level, but also far far wide and far far beyond, and I think that’s rather cool.
I am very familiar with the dread and stress that comes in when I choose my spirit over my soul. It has many disguised but the Spirit is always identifiable by the anxiousness and dis ease it creates.
I too have learnt that all the issues in my life come from the spirit, whereas they don’t exist as issues when living from my Soul, they are still in my life but they do not own or dominate me. And in saying this I was about to say my only issue is coming to terms with having chosen to live by the light of my Spirit and repeatedly choosing it daily but the first part of my comment answered the situation.
Yes, I completely agree when we are in connection to our Soul we are in union with God and when we are choosing our spirit we are in separation. I also find in connection to my Soul everything is very simple but with the spirit there is complication and identification. I absolutely love Unimedpedia God: http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-god.html which delivers many wonderful short audio and quotes presenting God from many different glorious and very real angles.
Something that always humbles me upon pondering, is that the Soul stands there ever-ready, in constant offering of evolution, never imposing or asking, just being, ready for that choice to allow it’s divinity to be expressed through.
At the end of the day (or the start of the day), it always boils down to two choices: spirit or Soul. What do you choose? A lovely description here of what you feel when you choose one or the other. It makes that choice real and relatable – and clearly helps me, the reader, to know which one I’d like to choose every time.
Yes it is very simple – spirit or Soul and everything thereafter is assured.
We are constantly giving the opportunity to connect with our soul where everything is provided for us according to what is needed in divine time, it is a simple choice that serves all and reflects the beauty of God within.
Even when we consciously or unconsciously choose the behaviours, habits, reactions or emotions of the spirit, behind all this is the fact that we are originally all soul, so its a matter of observing, building a relationship with ourselves that understands the waywardness of the spirit and comes to know the quality of the soul. Then the choice of which to choose (or actually surrender / let go of the spirit) becomes clear.
Yes it is a fundamental starting point to know that our original and innate essence is that of Soul, and then “observing, building a relationship with ourselves that understands the waywardness of the spirit” becomes a part of way of life which lovingly supports our return to living our true essence in every aspect of life.
It is an undeniably important distinction to make, about whether it is your Soul or your spirit who is influencing all your decisions. And, it is easy in some respects to discover this more, as the outcomes of each are so clear to see, as one will lead you into a life that is purely motivated by self-gain and the other will embrace all of life as a journey back to truth.
Serge Benhayon’s teachings about the difference between spirit and Soul delivers a truth that is life changing and brings a responsibility and a true way forward for humanity to evolve.
If Goethe would have known what you share here, it would have saved him a lot of trouble. He wrote a whole epic (Faust) about “two souls live in my chest” and many generations in Germany could and still can relate to what he writes. You respond to this whole dilemma in your blog, that generations of philosophers and poets could not find an answer to.
It is as simple as a choice – we can complicate it as much as we like. But it is as simple as our choice in every single moment. If we don’t choose it’s already chosen for us, and our Soul doesn’t impose – so it’s not our Soul if we don’t choose.
“When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!” There are not many in the world today who know who they truly are and express it with such joy.
Thank you Joshua for so clearly presenting the difference between Soul and Spirit for they are worlds apart, one being in the livingness with the Soul and our connection to God and the other just existing with the Spirit.
This is a great reminder of the difference between what it feels like to live in connection to our Soul and with our spirit. They are two distinctly different feelings. The way you have illustrated it reminded me why I am naturally inclined to my soul but the pull to individuality is more familiar at times as it feeds off the acceptance, individuality and recognition. My Soul is complete, it is divine and has a connection to all others. There is no striving or needing. It creates space in my body.
Clarification – There is not just part of you that is divine. You are all divine. The question is, do you express in accordance with that divinity or not?
That is a great clarification Adam, it is only in the choice to express in separation to our divinity that we experience ourselves in parts that are often contradicting and seem to tear us apart.
hear hear Adam – well said 🙂
The ugly bits we see are us expressing all that we are not ie that is not in accordance with divinity.
We got a Soul that is constantly there with us – but we choose to connect or not. And hence we can live like nothing is a miracle or everything is a miracle. The willingness of the individual then makes the distance to our Soul closer or further away. Hence some people are more connected to truth and love than the other. But the distance, even though in truth there is no distance, never truly makes us lose our Soul. As we come from that we will live on earth until we all know and live from it again.
I agree Joshua. The spirit can own our movements when we make it about function. By dropping the awareness of our quality, the HOW in what we do, we are left to feel this reduction. Moving and living with the awareness that we are more than human and that our quality is a confirmation of the energy we allow in the body, welcomes the Soul.
Thank you Joshua for this beautiful explanation of spirit and soul…I find I certainly seem to have this oscillation happening between living from my spirit and living from my soul as I learn to really distinguish between the two ways of being….The spirit can be very devious in mascarading like the soul, or it can feel at times a little over powering in its influence when I am making choices or decisions. But none the less to know that I have within me a precious and divine essence, my soul, is already a start and a solid one at that too…And as you have shared here, it is about then making the choice to live from and with the soul as much as we possibly can, for after all it is our most natural way of being.
‘Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.’ This is the wonder of God in the universe… that a situation can present itself, with many people involved, and it is perfect for each and every one of us.. showing us exactly what is needed for our evolution, or not… its our choice.
Thankyou Joshua for choosing Soul and delivering this awesome blog which is deeply supportive and very clearly delivered.
‘When I am with my spirit and no longer feeling connected to my Soul and to God, I feel small. I feel that life is full of issues and problems and, at times, they feel so dominant that they seem to exist in every facet of my life. It feels horrible to be living from this side’. A super reminder Joshua that when I feel life, especially work to be difficult or problematic, I am with my spirit, and all I have to do is stop, feel and reconnect with my body and then move/walk from that space to bring me back to being with my soul.
What a beautiful reminder. Taking time to re-connect through gentle exercise or walking has been key for me to not allow myself to stay in that ‘feeling small’ for too long.
Beautifully described Joshua. The problem with being in spirit is it really feels like it’s the one, that it is all there is, and that this is all that life can be, but it’s a huge illusion because there is so much more waiting for us by being with soul.
The distinction between spirit and soul so beautifully expressed Joshua. These words are often used to mean the same thing yet so different in energetic expression. Spirit being a fragment of the Soul is a separated aspect of the whole we are and from, our soulful light. We can get so lost, spend eons in fact searching outside of ourselves when we get caught in the ‘spiritual life’ yet our one soul is ever present and there to re-connect too, a true homecoming.
This is a great sharing and what I found interesting is when reading the description of spirit and soul I could feel and relate to these descriptions and then recognise the feeling of each within me, that then made me remember situations where I was either behaving with spirit or being more soulful.
The quality we are in is very key to the energy we are choosing. Recently I asked myself this question: “ if I knew this was the last moment to i.e. be with this person, do this task, care myself or another etc., is this the quality I would be in?”
This has really supported me to choose a deeper connection with myself and therefore my soul. If I don’t care enough to even notice then it is very likely that spirit is running the show.
It is something that is always there for us, our soul, something that never goes away, it patiently sits there ready and waiting for us to choose it, and no matter how often we’ve ignored it, we can choose it again in any moment and it’s there. Now that is the love we are. Thank you Joshua for reminding me today.
“it is the responsibility of us all to make true and wise choices as to what source we choose to live our lives from.” In every moment of our lives we have a choice between the energy of the Soul or the energy of the Spirit. The Soul offers us loving healing from our hurts, giving us joy and harmony and a oneness with humanity, while Spirit indulges in hurts, blame, issues and separation from our fellow man, which is unnatural to our true way of being.
The depth of understanding Serge Benhayon has about spirit and soul is profound and will support humanity out of the mess we have made for ourselves. It’s true what you say that living spiritually is a drag and a constant struggle, when there is the possibility to align to our soul and then be fed a completely different form of energy to live with and from.
‘When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!’ My world changes when I’m living from my connection with soul as I’m living from within rather than from a desperate search for something outside of me to confirm I am enough. I can literally see my behaviours switch from when I’m living disconnected to who I truly am to those times when I’m living connected and the difference is profound.
‘Choosing to be with my Soul has revealed to me a forever-deepening understanding about the key distinctions that exist when living from spirit or from Soul.’ Beautifully said Joshua, knowing the difference between spirit and soul is an absolute game changer, if we all learnt this from a young age our daily choices would be based on what supports us all to grow and evolve.
Yep it’s a simple choice, one that has responsibility at its forefront. (ouch – no more wallowing in my woes, life is about people and evolving).
An awesome piece of writing Joshua, reflecting a great truth that has been set aside in the spiritual pursuit of happiness, heaven on earth, and championing of individuality. You are so right, living the way of the wayward spirit, you always feel there is a need to improve and chasing of an image and an ideal about life – a dread full way to exist that has taken a truth – that there is a higher purpose to life – and twisted it into a physical seeking. The way you have presented Soul is not as an opposite, it just is and it remains always the true source of the loving path of return.
‘Through Soul, I have learned that the ways of the spirit may make us feel that what is presented to us in life is much greater than what we are able to handle, but in truth this is never the case.’ It is revealing that there is no such thing as a good day or a bad day, it is just a case of which energy are will aligned with at that moment – the spacious flow of soul, or the dense reduced state of the spirit that ever seeks more.
Such clear distinction of the two very different ways of being, and it is our choice which one to be with – wow, that is a responsibility worth claiming and keep practicing.
What we live from is our choice, there is so much to learn from observing our behaviors and what living from soul and from spirit feels like. It is a great thing to learn, to then be able to make the conscious choice to be with soul to the best of our abilities, feeling the divinity of who we truly are.
The choice to live from Spirit or Soul should be part of our very foundational education. It is the basis of everything that occurs thereafter.
I was considering today how different I see life now because over the last 10 years of attending Universal Medicine courses and workshops I am really appreciating how and agree with “Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.” As I have accepted this more, when I am faced with a difficult or challenging situation I can see there is always something to learn and an invitation to deepen my relationship with my true self – my soul.
When I feel like I have isssues, when I go into the need for recognition, I can feel the emptiness of it and I know I have separated from everyone. This separation means I can be in competition with my equal brothers, it means I see them as separate and so I can dwell on our differences and the chasm grows wider. When I let these things go, when I know I am connected and the same as everyone else, the issues drop away and I can feel that we are all in the world together. So I can choose to know who I am or I can entertain myself with the distraction of issues.
“It is clear that there is a choice to be made in each and every moment: a choice to be with our Soul and hence live our Love and Truth in and with God – or a choice to be in total ignorance of God, Truth and Soul and make our life much, much smaller than it truly is.” This is a profound statement Joshua and if there is one question we could ask ourselves at any moment it could be are we with God or without him.
Learning the difference between the two very different ways I respond to life depending on whether I am choosing to run with the energy spirit or Soul has been one of the most important and most empowering lessons in my life. It ought to be a 101 part of education for living life as a human being.
I know for most people there wouldn’t be an awareness that Soul and Spirit were not the same – I can remember quite clearly how I used to think that they were one and the same. Not until I attended a presentation/workshop with Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine did I get an absolute understanding how the two are definitely not one and the same and that in fact polar opposite to each other. Things started to make sense and I could feel how depending on what I choose to connect to that will determine the quality of my being. A day doesn’t go past where I am Truly Thankful for Serge and the Ageless Wisdom Teachings.
This is really great blog Joshua, bringing clarity through your experience, of the difference between spirit and soul.
When you read and understand what it is to let the spirit run you, “When I am with my spirit and no longer feeling connected to my Soul and to God, I feel small. I feel that life is full of issues and problems and, at times, they feel so dominant that they seem to exist in every facet of my life. It feels horrible to be living from this side.”, it begs the question, why would we choose this?
Choosing to connect with our soul instead of the spirit allows us to surrender to what is divine.
The essence within us is deeply powerful as you say and not until recently have I started to allow the power of God to reside within. There are still moments of oscillation, but what is so cool is that most of the time I am aware when I have chosen to be All of who I am and when I have not. Accepting the magnificent glory that it is to be a Divine being is what supports this oscillation to be less and less I have found.
Joshua this is a great sharing, to understand the difference between the spirit and the soul truly helps us make more loving choices for ourselves and others.
I love coming back to this reading, thank you Joshua for presenting us all with such a clear understanding of what is like to live life connecting to the spirit and how then it is all about being an individual and at the same time we can choose to connect to Soul and experience our connection to God and multidimensionality with the All.
Connecting to our Soul feels so amazing and that feeling of we are One is so absolute. Whereas when I have been connecting to my spirit I feel separate to everyone and everything, yet I have been choosing my spirit more often over connecting to my soul. Understanding about soul and spirit has supported me to choose to connect to my soul more and more. Knowing that there is a difference has been profound.
This is a great blog explaining the differences between spirit and soul…”Then there is the other side of the coin, my spirit, a part of me that chooses to live in separation of the deep connection with God and life that is naturally there within us…” This gives the picture, that within one body there are two choices, to be soulfully connected or spiritually dominated by our ideals and beliefs. Thank you Joshua.
‘It is clear that there is a choice to be made in each and every moment: a choice to be with our Soul and hence live our Love and Truth in and with God – or a choice to be in total ignorance of God, Truth and Soul and make our life much, much smaller than it truly is.’ We like to blame external experiences, situations or challenges in life so that we can avoid taking responsibility for what we have chosen.
Universal Medicine presents the possibility of Spirit and Soul for us to explore for ourselves, and in doing so I found that I did indeed know these two aspects of myself.. and in fact always knew, but didn’t have the words or greater understanding of how they relate. So now it is an ever deepening process to understand all of what is truly me, which is stupendous and magnificent, and equally to discern all that I have taken on that is not me, just a false version that are really only layers to hide and deny the wonders within.
As you describe the feeling of being with your soul Joshua I can feel an amazing light running through my body and connecting to everything that is Divine – I can, as you say, feel my connection to God both within my body and with everything that fills the space that is God’s reflection back to me that I am Divine and a Son of God. This feeling is available to me in any moment when I choose to connect back to my essence.
Before encountering Serge Benhayon, the Ageless Wisdom and the Way of The Livingness I had always considered, if I had even thought about it at all, that spirit and soul were inter-changeable. How wrong could I be? Through and appreciating this difference it has opened a door to a whole new understanding of life, which has brought true purpose to my life.
There is great clarity here in your blog and also a great introduction to the way to the soul if one has not yet experienced and felt the difference between spirit and soulful living and that is in the Gentle Breath Meditation. Thank you Joshua.
Expressing our Soul on Earth is definitely the way to go. It is impossible to make life about ‘us’ at the exclusion of ‘All’ when we are connected to our Soul and our divine purpose.
A beautiful blog Josh. People have led and continue to lead intense and complicated lives in their avoidance of soul, however, choosing to connect is actually very simple as is the choice to disconnect and be in the intensity of life. We actually can choose, in every moment, which source we will align to: spirit or soul.
“We are all from God.” I will take this reminder with me today, as living in the knowing of this is powerful. We can’t close our hearts to others whilst holding them as equal and divine beings.
I have been feeling this week just how I am dulled when I choose to eat certain foods. When I am dulled I am definitely living from spirit and my body responds accordingly. But even worse than that sometimes I have found myself eating foods to dull me and then things get complicated!
There is such tension when we are in spirit as we all know the way of the Soul – even if that knowledge is buried deep, it is still there. There is a deep knowing of another way to live – that is connected to God and to all of humanity. The Soul is all encompassing. The spirit is all about individuality.
This teaching is absolutely fundamental to my understanding of human nature and life, it is one of the major light bulb moments of making sense of things that are literally absurd.
As you have nominated Joshua, the vast majority of our problems wouldn’t exist if we connected and expressed from soul
There is no denying when we are connected to our soul because the feeling of settlement in the body is second to none.
When I am with my soul it is all about brother hood, when I am being controlled by my spirit it is all about self, This is how I know which I am with soul or spirit, they have a very different, distinct flavour.
Life lived from my spirit is complicated and full of hurt and suffering. Life lived from soul has a truth and absoluteness that brings a whole universe of love through. The tension you mentioned from knowingly not living from soul is felt with every fiber of one’s being. Not the most amazing, tantalizing deal can ever quell this unease. Only living from soul brings the flow that the spirit will one day surrender to having learnt its way can never be the way.
Beautiful Joshua, learning of the difference between Spirit and Soul has brought a deep understanding to the hitherto craziness of life, both within me and all that I observed. Anything or any choice that comes from wanting to perpetuate the individualism of the spirit, is fundamentally self-serving, even the choice to ‘protect’ from being hurt, or play safe, but now knowing the possibility of making each choice from our Soul, brings with it the knowing that this choice was made in consideration of the all, and living in this way changes everything.
How much of our history of human expression has been derived from the angst of which you speak, Joshua… “I find myself forever seeking more, not feeling complete and content within myself.”
The angst of feeling disconnected, somehow knowing there is ‘more’ and that there ‘has to be more’ – yet devoid of knowing how to embrace and connect to this, perhaps given up even on the possibility…
The work and teachings of Serge Benhayon most definitely offered me the piece I’d been missing and the essential confirmation that there actually IS ‘more’ – and it was all there awaiting within me all along. Go figure… And I share this not as something fanciful nor to placate anyone’s angst with a ‘wished for jewel’, but rather, from a very real and pragmatic sharing that none of this – i.e. the possibility of a rich, soul-full experience of life – is beyond anyone.
“When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!”
What a gorgeous way to live Joshua, thank you for simply and truly highlighting the distinction between soul and spirit; the choice is always ours as we expand and evolve more into connecting with Soul.
Absolutely love your exploration of what it is, and can be, to live from our soul or from our spirit Joshua. And I can relate very tangibly to both ‘sides’ of the equation, and what it is to come back to the love of one’s soul – the richness that is there, the joy that is felt and lived near constantly… It takes a willingness to see that which hasn’t truly served us, nor brought the greatness of our soul’s love – of who we truly are – to our fellow man, but it is so very, very worth it, beyond measure.
When talking with a friend this morning about living in what is commonly referred to as a ‘balanced state’, it occured to me that when a person is impulsed by their spirit there can be no real balance, even though it may appear that the person is balanced. If the very fuel (energy) that is impulsing our every movement is coming from an energetic source that is itself out of balance then there can be no true balance, however when a person is impulsed by their soul then eventually they will return to a truly harmonious state, which then shows the concept of ‘balance’ up as a far inferior version of harmony.
Learning the difference between our spirit and Soul is true education and offers us great healing and development.
“… Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul…” Yes, recognising that life/nature actually works with you rather than against, is the shift required that enables one to choose to be living more with their soul.
Everything about my life previous to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine has been governed by the response I received from the world, predominantly the people close to me. My value was in the hands of others and no matter what I did I was always molded by what they thought and how they treated me. This is the spirits way in the world. Today I live from Soul and the all knowing truth that confirms I am love. By making every choice from love first I have claimed who I truly am and no matter the response from others nothing can shift this beautiful, solid foundation. Awakening to the knowingness that this essence is shared by all and connects us in brotherhood has been amazing to claim and is now beginning to render null and void the power of the spirit.
‘There is a constant tension running through me that is from the knowing that this form of living is simply not it.’ It is great to be aware of and listen to that tension in us Joshua.
“..it is the responsibility of us all to make true and wise choices as to what source we choose to live our lives from.” For me it was once I heard this at my first Universal Medicine workshop that life then made sense and knowing the difference between spirit and soul stopped me searching for any more answers. Not living in this way means we are constantly played with and exist in life as puppets.
Thank you Joshua for sharing your experiences of expressing through either your spirit or Soul and for reminding us that God continually holds us in his love by the fact that… ‘Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.’
I listened to a radio interview with a film maker this morning who mentioned how much he was wrestling with the uncertainty of death and the confusion between spirit and soul: which one is true, do they even exist, and what is what? It reminded me of how glorious it is that the Ageless Wisdom answers these and many more questions so easily and practically.
Thank you, Joshua. Your description of the difference between spirit and Soul is so clear and accessible, that this article would be great to have published, as so many struggle to understand the true meaning of these all important terms. Knowing the difference is life changing, it makes sense of everything, and ultimately gives us 100% responsibility for every choice we make.
I had tried many different ‘alternative’ therapies prior to Esoteric Healing and not one of them explained the difference between Spirit and Soul, nor did they empower me with the fact that we are all equal Sons of God. Knowing this has transformed my life. It means I know now I have a responsibility and can no longer blame anyone or say this happened because of this or that person but rather it happened because I choose this or that.
Every time I see this article I thank God that I have been reminded of the difference between Spirit and Soul. Everything turns on its head with this understanding, and we are left blind to and unaware of so much without it.
It has been a great revelation to me that I actually have a choice whether I tap into my divine nature and the ease that comes with it or tap into the complicated ways of the spirit, which indulges into making life hard and difficult. However to realize this fact as truth is one thing, to live it 24/7 another, so putting this into practice every day is another choice that we need to make.
“When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!” So true there is no other feeling in the world like this.The joy of just being me….is so simple and freeing yet we find so many ways to complicate and dull down what is our natural state of being.
I feel quite heavy and lethargic today. I know now what I am dabbling in spirit. Time to reconnect back to Soul. Thanks for the reminder.
Choosing Soul instead of Spirit makes everything I do purposeful.
My connection and disconnection to God feels so palpable. There is a beautiful expressiveness when I am with my soul, as I am not holding back, there is a sense of purpose, clarity and appreciation. When I’m in my spirit, things don’t feel clear, there is self-doubt, a lack of appreciation and purpose; it feels like delay.
When I make it about what can we bring to others it feels far lovelier and fuller than when I just make it about me. I never knew the truth about the Soul and the spirit until meeting Serge Benhayon.
Thank you Joshua for so clearly explaining your experiences of being with your soul or your spirit, and as you say we have help to connect with our soul, ‘Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.’
‘Choosing to be with my Soul has revealed to me a forever-deepening understanding about the key distinctions that exist when living from spirit or from Soul. ‘ Very poignant to use the word ‘choosing ‘ Joshua, as I have come to realise the everything is a total and absolute choice – and we make that choice in every movement and moment.
“It feels such that, from my heart to my bones, stretching down beneath the ground, with every step I take the very earth I walk on is being graced by this presence and movement.”
This is so deeply felt, Josh, that I wonder why I am not choosing to live from soul in every moment.
Developing an awareness of when we are connected to our Soul exposes when we are not and being the lesser light of our spirit and this blog truly shows how simply this can be due to the stark difference in how we feel and experience life.
Joshua thank you for making the difference between the spirit and the soul so clear. Yesterday at the London Women in Livingness groups I got to feel very clearly how true appreciation of ourselves and others comes hand in hand with being soulful, the spirit runs from true appreciation whilst the soul knows it is our natural way.
I just love how well you have described the two sides of the coin Joshua and how contrasting they both actually are. The truth is that we can spend all day chopping and changing from living in connection with our Soul to our Spirit and this is not only extremely tiring, it is a great waste of energy! There is a constant and consistent choice to be made throughout our every moment and movement that can support us to be in connection to the divinity that we are and this may at first appear like it would take a lot of effort. Actually what it takes is responsibility, a choice each moment to want to be with ourselves and a choice to move even before this in a way that upholds the divine quality we are all equally here to radiate. We each hold a piece of the puzzle when it comes to reawakening brotherhood in our world and no one person holds more or less, in fact we were designed to ‘play our part’ and to do so all together. What you have shared here helps us to understand the simplicity of ‘our part’ and the grandness of ‘our part within the whole grand part’ that is the universe.
Thank you Joshua this is a very clear, simple and awesome blog on the differences between spirit or soul. Knowing this changes everything and the choice between the two is a no brainer when we experience the true love of the soul. These words are a beautiful reminder of this ‘It is clear that there is a choice to be made in each and every moment: a choice to be with our Soul and hence live our Love and Truth in and with God – or a choice to be in total ignorance of God, Truth and Soul and make our life much, much smaller than it truly is.’
The world will change to one we will all want to live in when we individually choose for ourselves the responsibility and the quality of life that serves the all and not just the self
When I make choices from my spirit as in eating something I know makes me hard or racy, I actually find it very disturbing physically. If I was to step back and watch myself as an observer you can instantly see a very clear physical change in my body and movements when I switch energy to prana (spirit) my movements become harsh, hard, rushed, almost confused, indecisive and racy. Not the light, flowing, harmonious, joyful clear, movements when I am connected to my Soul.
Discovering the difference between spirit and soul has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, light bulb to be switched on in my life, illuminating the way to a vast new and purposeful panorama to life.
Yes, Joshua – you are an ‘amazing man’. I have never met you and yet know beyond doubt this is a truth. It is beautiful to connect to the power of what we can feel in our body and to know this is true. As we all learn to trust our inner knowingness we will all come together as we each connect to our souls and merge in union.
Soul or spirit – the 2 streams were shown very clearly to me recently. One was filled with figures with beguiling smiles and grotesque shapes, and the other simply a spaciousness that came with angels’ wings, such a grand stillness that time did not exist. These streams are running all the time. And the amazing and profound thing was that it was only a simple movement that took me from one to the other.
When I am connected to my soul, I feel absolute in decisions I make, what I am feeling about things. It is the opposite when I am in my spirit, lots of doubt and mistrust comes in, I try to please people and am easily swayed.
This is awesome Joshua, “Through Soul, I have learned that the ways of the spirit may make us feel that what is presented to us in life is much greater than what we are able to handle, but in truth this is never the case. In fact there is never anything greater than us at all when our love is brought to it.” When we hold that connection deep inside and bring all that we are to each moment, then we know nothing in this world is too great for us, and we can see that whatever seemingly holds us in its grip is only the case because we have somewhere along the line allowed it so… to know this is the beginning steps towards true freedom.
Knowing our Soul brings a quality to life of immense joy, space and unity.
I love the clarity with which you have explained about these two different parts of me. Soul feels like it is the anchor part, always there, absolutely at the core of my being, never wavering or shaking and Spirit is the noisy, disruptive, add on that superficially often appears to have more ground, power and control but is actually ‘wafer thin’ and insignificant when observed in the big picture.
The spirit is so entrenched in its own creation of reality that when it is talking about freedom, free will, claiming its right to choose as it likes… it is completely unaware of the limitations and actually external forces that control it. As spirits we are so lost but believe to be in control, in connection with Soul we know who we are and see where the impulses come from to work in and through us and we have marker for either being lost in the spirit´s way or being present with Soul. That is the only true freedom we have.
Such a joy-full, inspiring blog, I can read it over and over again and it makes me smile. It confirms my knowing of and my connection with Soul, and I feel so yummy, light and expanded.
I feel a sadness now in knowing that I did not truly appreciate how my children were so connected to their souls when they were young and in my unawareness I did not support their evolution as I could have. This world would be very different if we as parents had this awareness of our children and what they were really feeling and sharing with us.
The choice between spirit and Soul can appear abstract but is very real when related to life. The choice to either give up and close down or to open up with people and connect is just one example of the choice of spirit or Soul we actually make every day.
How beautiful it is to know that there is a true anyone (me, you, him, her, etc), beside the one everyone shares with the world. How beautiful is to feel the ones that share the true them with the world. Thanks to them, we can appreciate the difference it makes.
I feel how wise you are Joshua to be aware how there are actually two versions of you and your choice to be at any given moment, on any given day, giving a very different way of living and approaching life. This understanding of the difference between spirit and soul is very clear and the more we choose Soul and our connection to God, the more feels to be revealed how different the spirit and those choices can be.
‘When I am with my spirit and no longer feeling connected to my Soul and to God, I feel small. I feel that life is full of issues and problems and, at times, they feel so dominant that they seem to exist in every facet of my life. It feels horrible to be living from this side.’ It seems that the Spirit is a trickster that aims to keep us small whereas what you describe as your connection to Soul feels both expanding and inspiring.
My soul shows me the truth in the most interesting of ways – very playful and very light. I have the choice to receive them or totally ignore them.
This is s great blog on the difference between spirit and Soul. What I have noted is that even when I have chosen my spirit I can feel the stillness and beauty of my Soul, unimposing but always there.
The Soul is like the expansive ocean where there is access to an infinite depth and breath we can surrender to. We can ride the waves of life, however they are still part of the ocean.
Great blog to open up a conversation with all who choose to discern how our spirit manifests. I have found it is the subtle need for reward, “haven’t I done well?’ that leads me down a path of needing recognition from others and often with food, reward. When it doesn’t get it, there is a niggling discontent. It is the sitting in the subtle discontent or satiation of desires and the polarity it causes that takes me away from the clarity of my body and the Soul’s light within it. Such a disconnect which may appear seemingly normal allows the feeling of low energy and living life without true purpose to feel ok, when it is not. This never ends well.
Reading this re-connected me to my soul. Thank you Joshua.
It is much easier to accept that life presents situations to support us, since having a clearer understanding of Spirit and Soul as you write of in your blog Joshua. If the lesson is not learnt and an ill-choice is repeated, the same lessons keep coming around and around until the choice to change is made, and another step made in returning us to love.
“Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.”
This blog is wonderful. I am sure every single person has had moments that they have felt the amazing experiences that you have described of when you are connected to your Soul, and they have also had moments, dare I say most of their life, where they have been feeling the contrasting experiences when you are under the energy of your spirit. I can certainly say this is true for me until I started to understand the difference between the two, and how my own choices determines where I am in each moment. This ought to be one of the first things we ensure every single person is clear about – a 101 for being a human.
‘And that was only a small preview – being with my Soul is undeniably amazing.’ Having had this feeling of being connected to the all it is hard to believe that we ever chose to turn our backs on it.
Thank you Joshua for writing down so clearly your experiences of the Soul and Spirit. It does seem that life is set up to know the Spirit far more than the Soul and part of that illusion would have us believe the Soul is inaccessible and beyond our reach, but from what you have described it is only a matter of making the choice to connect, and the difference will be felt in the body.
“There is a constant tension running through me that is from the knowing that this form of living is simply not it.” l get what you mean by this constant tension and what l’ve realised is how overwhelming it feels when l have disconnected from my soul. Reconnection is then paramount or my movements simply exacerbate the disconnect.
Yes, this is true …”Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul…” One only needs to look at nature for example, such as the sky, a sunrise or sunset or the sparkling stars in the night sky to feel there is more to life. Nature surrounding the human body are reminders of there being more to life, and observing and connecting to them is a way to support and feel connected with our soul.
Thank you Jo for more practical ways to re-connect to me and my soul. Observing life and nature.
“Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.”
Sometimes we don’t appreciate these opportunities that life presents as blessings but we curse them and so don’t receive the the offering that is there.
Thank you for sharing this Joshua and explaining your experience of the difference between spirit and soul and that it is a choice for each of us as to which aspect we are impulsed by.
“Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.” To me this demonstrates the timeless grace of God. There is no imposition but a constant offering of a potential that we can choose or not. We have to use a lot of effort to dull our awareness to not read what is on offer and then every now and again, we feel the magic of God and make a big thing of it, whereas it simply is there all the time.
‘I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!’ I love this line. I can feel its truth and how I have allowed myself this joy which is wonderful. I can also feel how I cap it – put a limit on it. Why? when it feels so true. Reading this really supports me to identify what’s going on with my choices and this awareness supports me to choose what I know is true, the Soul’s way.
Thank you for writing this Joshua, it is deeply touching to feel the enormous contrast between spirit and soul. And that the responsibility is ours to choose. Living from love or from the individual that keeps all separated.
Understanding the difference between spirit and Soul as presented by The Ageless Wisdom has made a huge difference in my life and as you rightly point out, living from spirit and living from Soul are worlds apart. It was quite a revelation that the lightness and joy of the latter is always available, no matter our age or background. In fact, it never leaves us; it is us who choose to not connect to it.
This is so key. Understanding, accepting and living the truth of the fact that the Soul is always with us, always readily available, unwaveringly supportive… the noise and chaos that distracts us from this fact is of our making and choice.
The realisation of knowing that life is not against us but with us, supporting us to reconnect and see what is going, on giving us constant opportunities all around us to come home to who we are is amazing and life changing when we accept this. It takes away the struggle and offers us true purpose in life for evolution and the greater plan for the all .
Its is a great description here of how there are two versions of ourselves, one operating from a soulful perspective (a simplicity, a love) and the other from a spiritual perspective (ideals and beliefs, the should’s and should not’s etc). This helps very much to understand where our choices come from and what we actually say ‘yes’ to.
‘Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.’ When we truly observe, everything is learning and healing.
A tangible and clear sharing on the difference between Spirit and Soul – the choice is remarkably distinct as to which we live our live by and the quality of life that result, is worlds apart.
I have been recently experimenting with stopping and really feeling the stillness that is all around me, wherever I am and whatever I am doing. This stillness is actually all encompassing and very grand and powerful and way bigger than the intensity of any situation I find myself in. I have come to realise that this stillness is always there, it is simply down to me whether I choose to remain connected to it or not. When I disconnect from it and simply make life about me and my problems, I am with my spirit. And when I connect back to that stillness and move and interact in a way that is in harmony with this stillness, then I am connected to my soul.
So true the stillness is always there, it is just us who choose to disconnect from it and we can also choose to reconnect at any time.
Joshua, I love this, ‘When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!’ I have felt this and life feels super simple and joyful and I can feel how there is no judgment of others just a loving acceptance of where people are at, that we are all equal and all the sons of God, this is a very beautiful way to live and a way that I have seen through Serge Benhayon and students of Universal Medicine that is possible to live.
Brotherhood is the inevitable conclusion when we come to be with the soul because the soul is in everyone, it is the greater part of who we are, it is the unifying aspect of who we are. And once this is known and claimed as true, there is no separation with God and there is no separation with eachother and there is no separation with yourself. It is just life and we are all a part of it.
I find myself asking the question of ‘how can I live in connection to my soul more of the time?’ and realise the absolute power of my choices, of choosing a way of living which supports my body to be able to express from the essence of god within.
“There is a part of me that is Divine” – that is something I do understand and am able to live more and more, as I am from the divine but have once chosen to live a lesser life instead. The only way back is to return to that divine being that has always been with me in my inner heart. What I understand that life is about is living that divine to the best of my ability, from which it will be fostered and can grow so much so that that way of living will be my normal again.
Nico the fact that we are returning to something that we have all lived before, is incredibly significant. If what we were heading towards was the unknown then it would be a far more treacherous journey but it is not. There is so much familiarity that comes with the return journey, a way of being that is so deeply known by the body that feels like a second skin. The other significant factor of this, is that we have all known it before, therefore there is no hard sell needed, each person will return to the beginning in their own good time.
“The aspect in me that brings me back to how I felt as a child – open, free and extremely play-full, while in complete harmony and respect for everyone and everything else at the same time.” This is a lovely explanation of soul, and the relationship that we can have with ourselves.
Joshua this is a great blog explaining the difference between spirit and soul. For most of my life I believed they were the same thing but now know and understand that we all have a choice in the way we live our lives. Through my experience when I have chosen spirit my days are complicated and busy compared to being connected to my soul where there is a flow in my day and a simplicity which I love. Life becomes absolutely amazing and joyful.
The divine essence of God is known within and I absolutely agree it feels very powerful. When we choose this as our connection then what is possible is beyond what we can imagine. The harmony and joy that comes with this is a gorgeous way to live and when embraced you wonder why you would choose anything different.
At one end when we are with our Soul: “open, free and extremely play-full, while in complete harmony and respect for everyone and everything else at the same time.” And the other end when we are with our spirit: “no longer feeling connected to my Soul and to God, I feel small. I feel that life is full of issues and problems and, at times, they feel so dominant that they seem to exist in every facet of my life” and it feels horrible. It is sad that the majority of us as adults tend to live the latter way most of the time. Being able to clearly differentiate and choose between the two energies will be so very liberating and empowering for humanity. Thank you for your gift of this article.
I knew God as a child and then turned away once I started to be told about God and Jesus at school in assembly and in lessons. I ended up looking for ‘God’ in all other manner of places, but it wasn’t until I came to The Ageless Wisdom that I found the divine was in fact in every cell of my body. It is a process now of honouring this for myself and the blessing it is.
“Everything and everyone is held without judgement in this love by my presence and understanding.” Imagine this as our ‘normal’ world one day.
Our simple choices prepare us for the day with or without our soul! Life becomes so much more when we start to reconnect to our Soul.
Learning that we have a Spirit and a Soul and experiencing the difference between these in my own body, completely transformed my life. I realised that all that I had once felt and known was not abnormal but me being connected to God and to the Truth of life.
Thank you Joshua for a beautiful description of what it feels like to be aligned with your spirit or soul. I have rarely heard it explained with such detail and clarity and you get the feeling that you really have experienced this and live it.
The fire of the Soul is something that can actually be tangibly felt, and is not something that requires faith or hope – http://theworksofsergebenhayon.com/the-healing-renaissance-serge-benhayon-and-the-fact-of-fire/
‘It feels like the world’s own poles have shifted and I am the centre of it, everything is about me and, I can even convince myself that I am also God’s number one man.’ I had to laugh with grim recognition when I read this line – the last part in particular. Oh so true – I can be far removed from my connection to soul but still convinced within myself that I’m fully it when it comes to being on God’s team. And in a sense we could say that is true as I’m still a Son of God no matter what, but the truth is I could at the same time be a long way from living this reality – a dangerous place to be if there is arrogance there with it as well.
Joshua your lived experience of the difference between Soul and spirit is very helpful as most of us have never learned what these two aspects of ourselves are like, and the best way to find out is to live and feel ourselves in our choices. I really enjoy living from Soul as there are never any issues or problems from there, life is a complete new experience when it’s seen through the eyes of Soul. This does not mean life is easy or that challenges do not come up, as that is not the case, but we look at life in a whole different way and move through it always with joy.
Dear Joshua, I imagined that the author of this blog was someone “older” and I was surprised to find your age at the end of the blog to be 23!! You have written with such a depth of wisdom. It shows that our connection to God and the wisdom of our hearts is equal in all, no matter our age, gender, race or religion.
Dear Joshua, as I was reading this blog, I imagined that it was written by a person in their later years of life, someone who had spent many years reflecting on their lives, the difference between Spirit and Soul and the impact that this choices has had on them. Your blog is written with such a depth of wisdom that I was surprised to read your age at the end of the blog to be 23. Your blog helps us to understand that we are all connected with God and through this connection share an equal wisdom, no matter our age, gender, race or religion.
I feel that this teaching alone revolutionises the world and makes sense of the world.
Living started to make sense when I first was presented with the fact that there are two sources of energy we choose from. Life became clearer how one person could have opposing thoughts and actions happening. With presentations and work shops where Serge Benhayon explains and we get to feel the difference for ourselves, between the different energies my understanding of life continually becomes clearer and evolves. What is a great gem from this is life doesn’t happen randomly, I’m the one with the choices.
“When I am with my Soul, there is no greater feeling than feeling that we are all One”. And this is the difference from the spirit that seeks an identity of its own and wants to separate from the whole.
“His perfection is everywhere” Love this line Joshua, thank you for sharing this so clearly. A joy to read.
Learning and reconnecting to the fact of our Soul, and that we can live fully within and by its Light, brings back to us the truth of who we are, and to live from the Soul is to live free.
Unite or divide?
Thank you, Joshua. I love how your description of living in connection with your Soul is just a small preview. There is so much more to us than what we have allowed ourselves to be, and once we start to touch into the joy, power, love etc of this way of being, I agree that it is possible to start living the future and embodying the grandness of who we truly are and where we come from. There are no limits!
As I understand and live more naturally and responsibly with soul I am at once awakened to the harm and futility of all the boundaries and separation we have created (religion, culture, geographical borders, language…) and aware of the absolute connection we all have that turns the above list to ashes. Yes it is our choice as to the initial energy we align to and therefore which of the above two scenarios are our daily reality.
I love what you’ve shared about how underneath culture, nationality and religion we are all in essence the same. This exposes how racism and judging or abusing people based on their ‘identity’ is the same as attacking members of your own family.
‘…or a choice to be in total ignorance of God…’ Though I have lived this way, saying it how it is like this really brings home the magnitude of this choice, how it is in total conflict with every particle of our being and the extent of the force we have to constantly bring into our bodies (that are made from God’s love), to deny who we are. I had never quite appreciated this which just shows me the forces I bring into my body to remain ignorant of something so simple were substantial.
The way you’ve described it Joshua shows that being connected to our Soul is our natural way to be.
and that this connection is equal to all, that no-one is better or worse than another, and that we all come from a grand Divinity that we are on a path of evolution back to.
‘His perfection is everywhere, His mastery of life, just an undeniable reality…’ I agree, denial of the existence of God just does not make sense to me. When I look out around me, I see the utter beauty and magic in nature, from glorious full moons or stunning landscape, down to the patterns and geometry that underpin nature’s design. Then there are the amazing constellations of people, places, life circumstances and events. How can there not be divine intelligence at work here, even in the chaos of it all?
Joshua, I love how you have talked about living with soul in a way that is so natural and easy, essentially returning to the natural way of being we had as children. Thus, it is not something that needs to be learned or something that is foreign to us or something that is new. It is age-old, it is in our body as a memory and a knowing, so it is simply for us to re-awaken this way of living again and let it out. And so this natural way of being is what takes over and the ME centred approach which has no choice but to fade away and have no hold.
Writing so gracefully about your connection to God shows how easy it can be to live with Him on a day-to-day basis. It’s not a one time per week affair and no big deal. It’s the most natural thing and so simple.
The difference between soul and spirit is an intellectual one until you have connected with yourself. From there is it clear when you are connected to your soul, and when you aren’t. The Gentle Breath Meditation by Universal Medicine is a simple and supportive way to connect with who you are.
Learning the difference between spirit and soul means everything.
This blog simplifies the complicated messages we receive in this world. We can be with either spirit or soul. Just a choice in every moment.
I felt a beautiful fire within my heart ignite after reading this. How often do we speak like this especially coming from a place that is actually living it? ‘There is a part of me that is Divine. It is absolute and known within my being to the core that there is no doubt that the essence of God is in me. It feels very powerful! It feels such that, from my heart to my bones, stretching down beneath the ground, with every step I take the very earth I walk on is being graced by this presence and movement.’ When I read this I know it is something you have felt. I have only remembered and understood the true meaning and difference between Soul and spirit through the teachings and presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. It would seem that predominantly, currently the world is living from our spirit … how sad it is that at the moment we are missing out on the fullness, grandness, and beauty of living from our Soul. It feels like this is starting to very slowly change though ✨
Everything and everyone is held without judgement in this love by my presence and understanding.
‘When I am with my spirit and no longer feeling connected to my Soul and to God, I feel small. I feel that life is full of issues and problems and, at times, they feel so dominant that they seem to exist in every facet of my life’. Re-reading this today Joshua has supported me to nominate and renounce what I am allowing in my life that is keeping me small, already I can feel a huge shift in my energetic state and a reclaiming of what is true. Thank you so much for all you have shared it has exposed the spirit and it attempts to avoid taking responsibility for all that is not true.
It really is that simple isn’t it, we can choose to live from soul and be impulsed to live without creating dramas and tensions and ultimately the war and corruption and greed and misery that is the existence for so many on our planet, or we can carry on as we are with the self made problems, a well trodden path familiar to us all. I love how plainly you mark it out to be Joshua, wonderful.
“When I am with my spirit and no longer feeling connected to my Soul and to God, I feel small. I feel that life is full of issues and problems and, at times, they feel so dominant that they seem to exist in every facet of my life. It feels horrible to be living from this side.” Isn’t it awful that we can choose to be with our spirit, when we have experienced how it can be when we are living from our Soul. It defies understanding why we do this, but do it we do, is it just because we can. When we choose our spirit, and experience things going wrong, our feeling small etc., then we can so easily choose to come back to our Soul, and be connected back with God, again, it is our choice, rather than staying wallowing in the misery that comes from being with our spirit. The key is to constantly choose to be with our Soul and with God, build a consistency that our body recognises, and it will become easier and easier to stay there, or to return if we have had a little hiccup in our connection.
Thank you Joshua for a great blog, as you describe the human characteristics and behaviours of ‘Soul’ and ‘Spirit’ so well.
There is a stark contract in whether we are with our Soul or spirit. How you describe what it is like to be with spirit portrays very well what our so called life often feels like – and so true, many of us do recognise that as not ‘it’. And ‘it’ is actually and has always been available as a choice is so revealing as to why it is not always chosen. What would it be like if the truth was chosen consistently, to be with our Soul? Who wouldn’t want that? Obviously something doesn’t – as that would be the game-over for the waywardness it has basked in for eons.
“Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.” This is absolutely true, we get presented lots, we need to just be open to understanding.
Joshua this is a stunning article highlighting so clearly the lived experience of the difference between spirit and soul. Just reading it I am reminded I still have a long way to go in terms of truly living in connection to my soul. Your capturing of how each state feels was perfect, and renders a life lived from the point of view of the spirit very unattractive!
Yes, the blog described very clearly, and very wisely the vast canyon between living in connection with our Soul compared to living from our Spirit. This blog offers us a lot in terms of understanding and what it is that actually creates our “problems”.
Living from our souls would not only eliminate all our personal issues but the global issues that divide us (race, religion, culture, sport and so on).
When we come from Soul, there is no race or religion that can divide
Joshua, you are an amazing man. Your blog was absolutely gorgeous to read. You expressed beautifully how it feels to be walking connected to our souls. Reading this blog, I felt incredible expansion within my body as I was taken to complete connection to soul. This blog is a beautiful offering for one to do the same. Thank you.
I feel deeply empowered to know that we are constantly presented with a choice in every moment to connect to our soul or not. It highlights to me that we are always held in God’s love, we only have to connect to it. Our soul and we, can feel the oneness and purpose of life.
Chan I have started to feel that rather than just ‘having to connect’ it seems more truthful to say we just have to ‘not disconnect’. What I mean by that is that we are actually naturally connected, as you say ‘we are always held in God’s love’, but we apply almost constant application to disconnecting, be that checking out into our thoughts, eating and drinking things that race the body or being emotional etc
What you have said Alexis is beautiful and brings a new depth of understanding and presence. As we return back to our true connection there is nothing more honest and inspiring than to feel the depth of power and steadiness this brings to our body – and we are no longer searching around without purpose outside of ourselves.
Understanding and then feeling the difference between spirit and soul has been profound for me in gaining new insight and understanding into the human condition. So much makes sense with this energetic understanding as the basis.
The descriptions you have shared here Joshua between soul and spirit make it easy for us to choose which we want to align to, the richness of our soul or the narrowness and individualism of the spirit. The choice is always ours in every moment through every movement that we make. When humanity understands the science of the spirit and soul, we will then begin to see the much called for changes required to return to brotherhood.
This is an amazing blog Joshua and one that I can feel the magnitude of what is offered in your open expression of what it is to be living from your Soul or spirit. In reading this and connecting to the truth in your expression I can feel that my own spirit is exposed for the arrogance of believing that it is it.
‘We are all from God. We are His Sons. To feel this as a fact we only need to stop…’ – I can feel this fact the moment I surrender and let myself be, as opposed to running a picture of how I should be.
It is definitely a choice we are making -to either live from our spirit or our soul. When I choose spirit I am making myself small and am seeking comfort but when I choose soul I am honouring my connection with God.
I used to think that spirit and soul were the same thing. Having the difference presented clearly by Serge Benhayon has brought me a greater understanding of life.
Feeling our connection with our soul is one that we all, as you have said, knew when we were little kids, it is just there, we know we are more that the flesh and bones, we know there is something more, because we feel everything. It is now our responsibility to reconnect to that, the divinity we all are from.
To understand the fact of our Soul takes a certain dedication, a certain discipline – not in the sense of hardship but in the sense of creating a body that is so tender, so delicate, that it enables us to feel the energetic truth of all things by its sensitivity. Unfortunately, so much of life cajoules us into creating a body that is hard and numb, thereby reducing our ability to feel what is so natural and abundantly there for all of us.
Whenever I feel anxiousness in my body it is a clear marker that I am not connected to myself and therefore to God. When I am with my soul and therefore connected to everyone and everything there is no rush and I trust myself. I manage what comes my way effortlessly and feel joy through the connection.
“When I am with my Soul, there is no greater feeling than feeling that we are all One”.This is true Joshua, our whole life, how we view everything in it, how we meet people, how we are with ourselves, changes when we connect and live with our Soul, There is unity with the world and with others that is not felt when we make the choice to live in the separation of living with our Spirit.
A very inspiring and beautiful blog Joshua; “When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!” So simply known and presented. Living from our spirit alone is one of the indulgences of all that we are not truly honouring of ourselves, our fullness, our oneness and our Divinity. No wonder there is so much illness, suffering and separation in the world currently, until we all live the love we truly are in union with our body and our soul.
We are constantly given a choice to live from our soul connection/divinity which feels warm and expanding in the body and the words that come out of our mouth are unifying and truthful, versus connecting with our spirit which pulls us into the drama and emotions of life, looks for solution, things are complicated, and relies on knowledge as proof. This feels constricting, heavy, and dense in the body.
Joshua, I am inspired by your sharing and especially relate to these words “Without a doubt every single one of the problems we have today would not be there If we chose to live the love we are all naturally from.”
It’s a delightfully and at the same moment humbling invitation you share Joshua. To be responsible for the choice we have to live divinity through and through in all the glory, connection and co-creation with God. Knowing and claiming the truth that living from my true essence is equal to the qualities of God is my choice.
Speaking from Soul you can feel how people ‘get it’, feel held as equals and that the knowing shared is known by them as well. It is wonderful embracing that knowing together, truly a celebration of our one truth that our Soul brings to us.
You mention the Gentle Breath Meditation Joshua. I have used this to connect with myself, and when I do I can feel the divine within me. It’s no more complicated than that. When complication comes in I know I am definitely not connected.
You make the choice so simple and with such clarity Joshua – that we are in each moment choosing whether to live from spirit, which will ultimately contract our quality of livingness or to choose Soul, where we live life fully and without the need for perfection, and from here we expand our own lives whilst expanding the whole Universe.
Feeling at one with God and our Soul allows for expansion when we make the choice to embrace this.
‘When I am with my Soul, there is no greater feeling than feeling that we are all One.’ This is simply us being as we are naturally without interference from outside or reducing the gloriousness we are.
My experience is that when I am with my soul I observe the patterns I still express with my spirit and it is like a loudspeaker is set on high volume, I cannot overhear or oversee the pattern anymore but have to face it and deal with it. This is like a freeing process.
When I choose the energy of the spirit it’s so very exhausting, it creates a struggle, it’s a constant tug of war going on within me. When I choose to re-connect to the soul I feel connected within myself and in a wonderful harmony with everything. I feel we do all know deep inside which energy is there to support us to simply be ourselves and that it is in fact a loving responsibility we have, not only to ourselves but to the all, and the other is choosing to allow in a state of being that is not our natural way of being – our true self, and is divisive and separative to the all. The choice is equality, love, joy, and harmony – brotherhood, or choosing complication, seeking recognition, reward, and individualism – separation.
Beautiful Joshua. bringing to the fore so clearly that we have two possible choices of energy when it comes to our every thought, movement and activity.
What I have come to be aware of with spirit and soul is that spirit separates and has us thinking of ourselves as individuals, but soul is universal and always holds us in brotherhood.
Joshua I love how you describe your connection to your soul as the feeling of joy at just being you. This is such a beautiful and inspiring line, to feel the joy of being in your own body each and every day and to live from this joy is an amazing way to live.
The quiet messages of our Soul are powerful and of a completely different nature to that of the loud, incessant spirit that makes every attempt to distract us from the constant communication being received.
‘There is a part of me that is Divine.’ – Yes indeed, this simple fact goes for each and every human being – question is, are we willing to accept it?
When we feel and connect to the bigger picture we can’t deny that we are apart of a magnificent Universe and that every choice we make either expands and evolves this magnificence or not. Responsibility is Absolutely Key.
Having a relationship with the soul that is daily and constant, brings a clearer perspective on life. With this comes true purpose and a willingness to learn. A key point here however, is that this is always a choice. God does not impose his beliefs or needs upon you, and so when the soul is being expressed through you, neither are you imposing either. There is simply the act of living that takes place, with everyone allowed to make their choices, including you, as you learn and navigate your way through each day with no perfection in sight and plenty of mistakes made, each one leading you closer and closer to the truth of who you are.
It is true for all of us that there is a part of us that is divine and a part of us that resists this. It cannot be said more simply than this.
When we choose to not live in connection with our innate divinity we are forever trying to prove that we are more than we already are because we have forsaken our true selves and instead live an imposter in its place. We register we live ‘less’ and so we seek the ‘more’ that will alleviate this suffering. But both the ‘more’ and the ‘less’ are the ways of the spirit living in resistance to the fullness it separated from and that we naturally are when we are with the Whole that is our Soul.
Thank you for sharing the clarity with which you can feel in which way you are choosing to live Joshua, it is inspiring for me. I can feel moments when I have felt I am living with my Soul and those when I not, but learning to feel the difference, as you described, allows us to recognise the choices we make as being from one or the other and the outcomes they have as being the choice of them.
“open, free and extremely play-full, while in complete harmony and respect for everyone and everything else at the same time.” I love this expression it carries a lightness and naturalness, being open and free goes hand in hand with being in harmony with everything else.
Spirit or soul. Lost or found.
I know my spirit very well. It certainly is much denser and stickier then what the evolution of the Soul is. It stays away from expressing in full and focuses on everything outside of it using knowledge to impose and add to what is already there – a repetition of life; energy has not moved or changed.
Imagine if we only saw flowers as buds. Everywhere we went, that is all we would see. We might admire them to a point, as entertaining coloured pods, but we would never know that underneath all along is a delicate gorgeous work of natural art just waiting to bloom forth. We are like these flowers Joshua, with so much beauty inside, just waiting for us to see it. Let’s not wait another lifetime before nurturing and allowing ourselves to open up and show off God’s glory.
Thank you Joseph this is a beautiful way to describe how we run around constantly busy with something but never there in full showing every little bit of us.
I know and feel my relationship with God, it has been a constant throughout, as has my relationship with spirit. Now I know the source of the confusion and distractions that life is plagued with are our choice to not stay with the Love we are as Soul-full.
“In fact there is never anything greater than us at all when our love is brought to it.” Love is or connection to our Soul but the spirit is constantly offering us alternatives and distractions, it’s a choice we are constantly being given. One is all power-full and the other is diminishing of the light and love we are naturally.
This is just beautiful Joshua, and a blog I’ll come back to again and again. We are all God’s Sons and you are absolutely right, everything in life is presented to us when we are ready to handle it if it’s a challenge. If we go into the tightness and density of the spirit everything seems hard and challenging, but from the soul’s perspective, nothing is greater than the love we have access to, and that we are. Life is about returning to this knowing, and being this, embodying this love and thus reflecting this to everyone else around us.
All through my life I see the evidence of soul and spirit – in myself and others, the choices made, and the thoughts I have, and the way I feel. Having known the teaching of the difference between spirit and soul has been massively supportive.
The presence of God is within me and is an amazing and true statement for us all. Our divinity is innate in us and all we have to do is choose to feel it in every moment as our way of living. This is an amazing blog showing so clearly the opposite effects of spirit and soul on our behaviours, movements and life.
The equal love that we share when connected to our Soul can not be denied as there is a profound Oneness that feels so natural and true. When we have this as our way forth you can not think only of yourself and any issues that may be going on, you come to realise as you say Joshua, our relationship when we are focused on the outside way of looking creates a separation away from our original source and this feeds the spirits ego.
“Through Soul, I have learned that the ways of the spirit may make us feel that what is presented to us in life is much greater than what we are able to handle, but in truth this is never the case. In fact there is never anything greater than us at all when our love is brought to it. It may sound outlandish but I have found this to be absolutely true.” Although I still go into doubt about this at times, what you write here Joshua is absolutely true and it has been a huge and freeing revelation to accept.
You are certainly an amazing man Joshua. The wisdom, clarity and truth you expressed here is an absolute blessing for us all. Reading your blog supports me to be more aware of what I am choosing, spirit or soul, and also supports me to be more responsible for everything I choose and express.
What is beautiful here is that we have a choice in how we are, what we choose to do, and our relationship with the world – to live the quality of what our soul offers, or to live the quality of what the spirit chooses? Every moment is a choice.
What I love about God and my Soul is the understanding of me and my behaviours. There’s no judgement, none, just an absolute holding love that allows me to choose whatever I feel to choose at any given moment. Knowing that one day I will return to live who I am in full. Accepting this grandness and love and the fact that I’ve separated from it (by choice), is something I’m still learning.
I can relate to this Josh and I love how you have highlighted what it feels like – Spirit and Soul. Sometimes I don’t want to be aware of this difference but it is like black and white, like night and day. The difference is palpable.
‘ I can now see clearly that the only true way forward for all of us is to become more responsible about where our quality of life is coming from as, without a doubt, nearly every single one of the problems we have today would not be there if we chose to live the love we all naturally are from, Our Soul.’ Beautiful Joshua and very true, we can come up with solutions but the answer is living the love that we are and when we lose it sometimes as there is no perfection, to choose to come back to Our Soul.
Yes, there are two ‘somethings’ and the word ‘energy’ is quite suitable here to connect to. One feels very much better than the other.
There is a choice to make in every moment of whether we choose to breath with the impulse of God or think we create our own impulses. We only think we create when we disconnect from what is truly divine. The proof is in the outcome of how we feel. Joshua you describe brilliantly the difference of the source that we choose that comes through us.
It is an interesting fact that most of us think the wonderful description you have provided of being connected to our Soul is only reserved for when we were a young child – and as adults all we can do is wish we still had it but the reality is that the description you have provided of being run by our spirit is the way of the world. Thank God for those like Serge Benhayon who offer us the opportunity to change the trend by the example they provide.
Knowing this difference between spirit and soul has totally changed my outlook on life. It explains our problems, issues and hardship and it explains how we very easily can let those go when we reconnect to our soul.
Yes, Lieke that’s so true – it gives clarity to our life when we know that in any moment we can let go of the problems and that our soul is forever waiting for us to return.
‘Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.’ So true Joshua, our Soul is always there, the beautiful fiery inner-warmth that we can connect to and live from.
I would share that when I made it about one being good and the other being bad it created a push and pull which equally didn’t feel right in my body. I started to get a sense that the soul was the feeling that allowed me to sink back, to feel the support was always there, no trying and no doing.. I found myself far more productive and engaged. I could feel I didn’t leave the spirit behind, it is always with me, it has to be, but I just found I wanted to choose to walk with the feeling of connection rather than going off on a needy jaunt to discover who I am and exhaust myself as I desperately looked for confirmation from others. I can see this will be a whole life lesson, developing what that feels like. An ever deepening relationship with no perfection.
The description of the feeling of both the spirit and the soul was spot on for me. It is a feeling in the body and then an outplay of consequential actions. The key is to recognize they are both with us and working to ensure the soul is leading the way, showing the spirit a less needy and more settled way to be.
Beautifully written blog Joshua with such clarity of the two, thank you. Spirit or Soul, the foundation for true change in our world where there is so much disharmony. Thank you Serge Benhayon.
Understanding the difference between the spirit and soul is critical in understanding life. It’s no wonder we are so ‘lost’ – when we do not hold the conscious awareness of what we are choosing every moment of every day.
Spirit or Soul – the choice is very simple; unless we choose for it not to be.
‘Choosing to be with my Soul has revealed to me a forever-deepening understanding about the key distinctions that exist when living from spirit or from Soul.’ – Well said, our Soul knows everything we need to know at any given moment – equally do we feel we are at the mercy of the circumstances when we lose this knowing, due to choosing Spirit over Soul.
‘It occurred to me that I have not always lived this way throughout my life; that I have often lived the contrasting opposite to this otherwise natural way of being.’ – What you are pointing out here Joshua, is how the majority of humanity are living their lives. In fact most people don’t even know the difference between the Soul and the Spirit – blogs like this one are super important and offer a real understanding.
The unfolding path back to soul is one well worth treading.
‘We are all from God’ – we rarely stop and claim this truth for if we did our living way would be very different to much of what is observed in the world today. Claiming this truth asks for a commitment to love self and others and for taking absolute responsibility for all thoughts, activities and interaction with others. Your explanation of the differences of the Soul or Spirit gives us a moment to check-in regarding where we are making our choices from. Serge Benhayon models absolute responsibility in the way he lives everyday in his way of living.
Yes, as an experience it is amazing. As a belief … not so much.
We either choose to live in connection with ourselves and each other, with God and with the divinity that surrounds us all, or not. If we choose not to live in connection with ourselves, each other, with God and the divinity that surrounds us, but in separation, it should come as no surprise that how we feel in our bodies and in our lives will be completely different, the complete opposite in fact. How we live not only affects us, but those around us, there is a constant stream of energy flowing through each and every one of us 24/7 – so maybe the question we should be asking ourselves, always, is, is this energy coming from connection or separation. Are we inspiring others to live in connection or confirming that they should indeed stay living in separation.
I am forever grateful to Serge Benhayon for presenting the difference between spirit and Soul. This is the most important, liberating, empowering and healing teaching there is and something we should all be taught at school.
It feels so gorgeous to be in connection to my Soul and so awful when I express from my spirit; it is really weird that I don’t always express Soulfully!
Spirit and Soul are words we can use indiscriminately and yet their nature is totally different. I can feel when my Spirit is actively working to keep me disconnected from my Soul – when I feel to eat something that I know will dull my awareness, or when I speak in a way that makes me hard or racy, seeking attention instead of simply expressing what needs to be said.
When I read your words Joshua my body glows. Knowing the difference between spirit and soul is life changing. When I first met Serge Benhayon, it was this that stopped me in my tracks, knowing from that moment on my life would change, everything made sense and I could now go forward each day making choices about which energy I would align to – an amazing light bulb moment. The way you write is inspirational Joshua – a book in the making?
I had no clue there was a difference between spirit and soul as these terms get mixed interchangeably, as if they mean one and the same. However while living the way of our spirit, our world is small and all about ourselves, there is no space for the grandness of our Soul to express. When I began living The Way of The Livingness presented by Serge Benhayon, slowly and surely, the way of my spirit just dropped away as I made more loving and responsible choices.
The issues smallness and suffering of living in and choosing one’s spirit is so opposite to the harmonious flow and expansiveness of Living with one’s soul. It is our momentum of soul-less choices that keep the world the way it is. The beauty and joy for humanity of choosing this soulful way of living, with the responsibility of this, is what we are being called to be now and this calling is consistent strong and will always be there beside us lovingly. A beautiful article and offering simplicity and clarity of the truth.
Life is super simple and flowing when we live from and connected to our Soul. When you experience this way of living there is no going back to the old complicated and anxiety filled way of our wayward spirit.
“Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.” When we are open to seeing this it really is amazing just how much support we are really given – from the aches and pains in our bodies, to the interactions we have with others and to what we witness in the smallest details of nature.
Thank you Joshua for such a clear explanation on spirit and soul and for sharing your experiences of both. What I love about what you have shared is that there is no glamorisation, but simply practical everyday examples of what each feels like that we can all relate to. I have experienced both too and have chosen to identify with the spirit for a long time and so know full well what the overwhelm, ignorance, arrogance and ache for something more feels like. However in the irony of knowing that my soul has been with me all time and is with me all the time it boils down to which one I choose in each moment. There is no identification with the soul, it just is, and all that is needed is the choice to connect…
Having the difference between Spirit and Soul and that I have the choice to choose, as explained by Serge Benhayon, was and is a complete life game changer. My experience of children who are brought up with this understanding and supported to express from their Soul is that they have a self-confidence, love, responsibility and maturity rarely seen in other children of a similar age.
I realise that I’ve always known what living in connection with my soul is like, that feeling of warmth, of purpose and of being at one with myself. It’s the thing people talk about that they miss most from their childhood yet it’s not often called living in connection with our Soul (as we do as babies). I feel humanity really needs the opportunity to understand the difference between spirit and soul, when we do we can then be free to make the choice to connect back to the one thing we miss most – ourselves.
I love this line, Joshua – “Everything and everyone is held without judgement in this love by my presence and understanding.” Imagine if our politicians connected to Soul and were able to govern countries from this universal regard for all equally, rather than being outcome based and striving sadly too often for self gain.
Joshua I am going to add one crucial word ‘Then there is the other side of the coin, my spirit, a part of me that chooses to PRETEND to live in separation of the deep connection with God and life that is naturally there within us’, as the spirit is not truly able to live in separation from God, as there is actually no-thing that does not live within God’s body.
Our spirit is permanently looking to divide us from one another, whereas our soul is always looking to unite us back to the whole.
‘There is a part of me that is Divine’, Joshua there is a part of us all that is eternally divine, we are never ever abandoned by God, we are only ever left to choose freely.
Up until meeting Serge Benhayon I had no clear idea of the difference between Spirit and Soul, often lumping them into the same energetic bag with little consideration of their true purpose or how to distinguish the two. Serge provided both a verbal and energetic explanation of the differences and from that day forward my life has been about understanding, feeling and appreciating the difference and attempting to get my very wayward spirit to surrender to my awesomely graceful, loving and wise Soul. We are all God’s equal children, the way back to this immutable truth is through our choice to align to our Soul, an inner quality that knows without doubt that we are all one and same, divine, graceful, exquisitely tender and very, very wise. Any deviation from this expression simply reflects back to us that we are choosing to express from our spirits, which can at the very best only ever produce a very poor quality impersonation of who we truly are.
The Soul is like your old best friend from years ago who loves you no matter what and will always be there, even if you lose contact for a while and your spirit is like the friends you have that drop you as soon as you say you don’t drink alcohol or take drugs anymore, but will be back as soon as a flash if you start making bad choices again.
” I can feel this connection through every tree, every breath of wind on my face and even every drop of rain.”
This feels so light, the connection you have with yourself and God. Lovely to read.
“It is clear that there is a choice to be made in each and every moment: a choice to be with our Soul and hence live our Love and Truth in and with God – or a choice to be in total ignorance of God, Truth and Soul and make our life much, much smaller than it truly is.”
This is a choice we are faced with all the time, the question is why are we so often making the choice being against God instead of being with God?
I found that whenever I feel what I am faced with in life is too much or too big, it is because there is an unwillingness in me to take on that greater task or challenge. Once that willingness is connected to everything falls into place.
Spirit or Soul – this is the key understanding of human life, brought to us by Serge Benhayon at a time of rising illness, disease, terror, drugs, human trafficking (slavery), corruption, comfort, exhaustion, the list could go on and on and on.
Universal Medicine is a true blessing for all of us.
‘When I am with my Soul, there is no greater feeling than feeling that we are all One.’ I agree Joshua, this feeling of oneness is truly amazing and expansive. When we connect to our soul we see no separation, everything in life is magnificent and we feel the beauty of God in absolutely everything. I can also relate to living from my spirit, how that feels completely opposite, the misery, sadness, stress and life becomes overwhelming and everything in life seems to be super hard. I now know it is through living connected to our soul that is the true way of living. I am learning to return to soul and return to God and to live embracing brotherhood.
“Choosing to be with my Soul has revealed to me a forever-deepening understanding about the key distinctions that exist when living from spirit or from Soul.”
For so long I did not understand the difference between spirit and soul. I thought that being spiritual was actually working with my soul – now I know the difference – and I love how you Joshua, have spelt it out so clearly in this blog, with spirit being the ME factor whilst soul is the true responsibility of bringing forth that which is for all.
The smallness we feel from aligning to the spirit is in such direct contrast to the magnitude and Oneness we feel in the soul – it’s a Oneness with the whole Universe.
I feel I want to read this sharing everyday as it is fundamental to the way we live in every minute of the day. How you have explained it is so clear and I find it very personally confronting- which is a good thing, I feel!
In connection with my soul, I feel the grandness and majesty that I am so much than just my body, I feel a connection with the universe, a vastness that expands out towards the stars. When I let my spirit rule the moment, I feel dense, limited and separate. Through The Way of the Livingness, I have learnt and continue to learn to make choices that support me live as the divine being that I am – that is, to live soulfully.
You have captured so many of the feelings and behaviours associated with choosing the spirit. Although it may appear falsely arrogant or confident, the spirit does feel small and isolated. It is constantly needing to prove itself and have its worth fed back to it from outside. It is in utter disregard of the body it works through and of anyone else. It sounds terrible doesn’t it, and it is in contrast to the ease, joy and oneness of the soul, yet we keep choosing it, being fooled that that is the real us. This is where we need the body to bring honesty and to keep catching the spirit at its own game.
When we place no expectations, identities, or demands on ourselves about how we should be, it creates so much joy in the body. All those layers weigh us down and don’t allow out the light and ease of just being ourselves. Allowing yourself to feel that you don’t have to do anything, that your being is more than enough is one of the great joys in life. I find Esoteric Yoga amazing for confirming this to me, as I gradually get to know and value this being again and let go of all the doing I have used for a false sense of worth.
I liked the analogy of the soul being like the person we are as a child. If I ever lose sight of who I am, I find recalling the feeling in my body of being a young child brings me back instantly. Even though so many years have passed, it is still alive within me and easily accessed. It reminds me that who my spirit wants me to be is a far cry from the real me and the feeling of being with soul is so precious and pure. When I feel everything I am losing by choosing spirit it supports my choice to stay with soul.
This blog very practically describes the oscillation between life in connection with the soul and the individualised life of the spirit. We like to think so many of the hardships and issues we have, come from outside of us, yet this one choice of spirit rather than soul sets up all the issues we have in the world. As Joshua beautifully expressed, if we lived the love we naturally are, so many of the problems we face in the world would disappear.
Reading this beautiful blog it’s clear to see that the majority if not nearly all of humanity are living complicated and separate lives from our spirits. Many not realizing there even is another way, with simplicity, flow, equality and an abundance of forever expanding love. Thank you to Universal Medicine for showing another way, the way of the soul.
Great to have such a clear picture of the difference between spirit and Soul Joshua – in a simple and practical way. And with this picture we have a choice, a responsibility, as to which we will choose in our very next step.
There is a joy and harmony and natural flow to life that comes from living with our Soul, whereas living from the spirit there is only struggle and disharmony, and ‘happy moments’ – generally at someone else’s expense.
It has only been through attending Universal Medicine presentations and workshops that I became aware of the difference between spirit and Soul… one wonders why this is not well-known and taught worldwide! Clearly the spirit, and all that runs it, likes the self-identification and individuality… when in truth life is all about Divinity and Brotherhood.
Knowing the difference between spirit and Soul is life changing – it is something we all need to be taught from very young.
I am in deep appreciation of having met Serge Benhayon who has been the only person I have met who could explain very clearly the difference between our spirit and Soul. This is so important and has totally changed my life and many thousands of lives because of it.
“When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!” This is lovely Joshua, the joy of simply being me. I have experienced this connection at times, where it is a joy just being in my body, walking, talking, going about my day connected to who I am. I love this feeling.
It beautiful to read your sharing on Spirit and Soul, I know before Universal Medicine I was under the belief that they are one and the same, which completely not true. Spirit takes us on a completely destructive path as where as our Soul connects us back to who we are, from “God”.
Only by knowing Soul can we liberate ourselves from the spirit´s hold over us, only by knowing Soul can we see through the falseness of the spirit, only by knowing Soul do we have the energy to renounce the energy that gives the spirit its separative way of being. ‘Know thyself’ therefore is the key to be yourself.
Knowing that I am part of God and God is within me has taken me a while to understand and even believe because my spirit didn’t want me to realise how grand we all really are and that we are all equally his sons. We are all sons of God. The soul knows this but the spirit wants to be individual and better than another and to do that it has to separate, compare, and miss out of the brotherhood of being an equal in this world.
For me it is quite simple, if I am letting my spirit run the show I make choices about me and they are not loving choices, for example I make choices to eat junk food or I move in a way that just isn’t very kind to myself yet if I am with my soul, everything matters, all the details, everyone and every thing equally and there is no trying or pushing but more of an accepting and appreciating because instead of controlling I am allowing the what is to be.
The mundaneness of life coming from being only connected to spirit is meaningless and purposeless thus entertainment, distraction, numbing are sought to bury the unbearable emptiness inside. Through connection to Soul the habits and behaviours of the spirit can be renounced as they are not needed when we are content with the active innate qualities we feel from such connection.
I read your blog and found my body very relaxed as I read the relationship with the soul and its connection to everyone and I found a tension creep in when I read about the relationship with the spirit wanting to individuate, to see others as different. It was good to read the simple difference.
There’s indeed so much playfulness in me! An aspect in me that I kept hidden for a long time, yet is there and available in every single moment. I love it! And only when connected to my Soul, it’s there. In my experience, the spirit’s pretty serious. I’m to learn, or better expressed, accept that I’m indeed incredible playful. Just one aspect of the amazingness of my Soul, but definitely worth sharing as the world has become quite serious.
’Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.’ – Very true, if we are open to read the signals from our own bodies as well as everywhere around us, there is the potential of re-connection and true understanding in every moment, even when we least expect it.
Beautiful Joshua. For a long long time the words spirit and Soul were just words. Now, I can totally relate to what you’re sharing. There’s such a tenderness and delicacy within my body when I make the choice to be with my Soul. Only writing this, makes me smile. The voice of my spirit has been so dominant that I thought that this was me. Where as now I can distinquish my Soul’s voice from my spirit’s voice. I’m indeed a very loving man.
The connection with Soul and thus God is a whole-body feeling, a rhythm and flow the mind cannot comprehend only realize when lived hence, it can appear outlandish to the one who lacks the experience but should not be dismissed as this only increases the separation and thereby delays the unavoidable reconnection to one´s Soul.
The geocentric model of the Middle Ages was a direct reflection of the identification with the spirit who seeks to aggrandize himself. The self-aggrandizement of being the crown of creation is in utter ignorance to divinity justified by arrogance that doesn´t even shy away from engulfing mankind in the abyss. When being identified with the spirit we do the same on an everyday level – the egocentric way of living.
This is beautifully described Joshua…”the only true way forward for all of us is to become more responsible about where our quality of life is coming from as, without a doubt, nearly every single one of the problems we have today would not be there if we chose to live the love we all naturally are from, Our Soul.” Thank you.
“Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.” Yes, I love what you have said here. It is gloriously true. My experiences have confirmed the same to me.
“There is a constant tension running through me that is from the knowing that this form of living is simply not it.” It is not until we see this and truly feel it in our bodies, as you have, that we can begin to let it go and not rely on it to be our norm.
This is a great blog on the important distinction between the choice of these two energies that are ever present in our life.
Thank you Joel for sharing your experience of life lived from the sprit to life lived with the soul. Like two different worlds, one is always searching and never finding, the other is finding that what we are looking for has been deep inside of us all along, it is our choice.
Spirit and soul – two sides of the same human coin, and the answer to many questions of life. Thank you for your clear description of the two
Thanks to the presentations of Serge Benhayon I have come to feel the truth of my spirit and my soul – the wayward trickster who desperately denies the fact that nothing and no creation can diminish the gapping hole left by being separate to the soul – the true aspect of us.
It is indeed wonderful to have such a clear understanding and explanation of the difference between the Spirit and the Soul, as no one has ever been able to explain it to me in the way that Serge Benhayon has. With this explanation, suddenly life made complete sense to me and answered all the questions that had previously been left unanswered. But it is what we do with that understanding that then has the potential to make a difference to our lives, and that is where the responsibility comes in.
Joshua you are one amazing man, there is such a maturity in the way you write.. and you are only 23. Goes to show wisdom cannot be defined by age.
My body tells me very clearly when I have chosen to step away from my Soul. I also have strong dreams that tell me this too. And both of these things are simply confirmations of what I have already felt. There are so many markers that tell me when I am off track that it has become impossible to be off track for long.
Great article. Having a young child, I’m always reminded/inspired by him to choose the Soul – while the spirit is still present, he doesn’t have any of the protection or patterns that I’ve formed to take me away from a soulful existence.
‘It has become far more obvious to me each day that there are actually two versions of me that I have at my will to choose to be at any given moment…’ I have felt clearly these two versions of myself and the quality (or not) that is the result of choosing spirt or soul in any action or expression.
The two sides of the same coin, Soul and Spirit, we have a choice as to which one to place uppermost. It’s never a random fall onto the table of life, but a conscious choice between brotherhood or separation.
I didn’t know the true difference of Soul and Spirit including the full energetic understanding, until meeting Serge Benhayon. Before then I pretended I ‘thought’ I knew the difference. Some books I read even thought and said they were the same thing! In knowing this truth there is no more guess work, no mysteries, it is laid before us to then make empowering choices to reconnect and live from the Soul. Reading this made me see all the choices I have made and make that are separate from my Soul. ‘The worst feeling about being on this side of life is the feeling that life is always ahead and I am always dragging on behind, dragging my heels through the sand.’ Put simply this explains the disharmony and struggle in the world .. we are living from the spirit and not the Soul. As you have said the Gentle Breath Meditation is a beautiful tool that enables us to reconnect to the truth of who we are and feel that yummy-ness.
Thanks for sharing this beautiful piece of writing Joshua and reminding us that “…it is the responsibility of us all to make true and wise choices as to what source we choose to live our lives from.”
This is one of the most helpful tools of them all, to understand the difference between spirit and Soul or to even know there is a difference. Most of us have been lead to believe they are one and the same but by knowing the difference so much is explained about human behaviour that otherwise makes no sense at all.
“It has become far more obvious to me each day that there are actually two versions of me that I have at my will to choose to be at any given moment, on any given day, and each gives me a very, very different way of living and approaching life.” This is so true Joshua knowing this makes such a difference to how I choose to be in life. Misery and complication no longer becomes an option when I know that I have a choice to be this way or not.
When I read this gorgeous sharing Josh I am asking myself why I am not choosing to live from soul all the time. Choosing individuality over brotherhood is so unloving.
I love this description which clearly can support us to understand whether we are connection to our soul or being led by our spirit from the way we experience life and our level of connection to it. Beautiful, thank you Joshua.
Joshua before attending my first Universal Medicine event I had never heard anyone describe the difference between Spirt or Soul, the whole concept was confused and mixed. Despite this I did know that some days life seemed to flow and other days it did not, my moods were up and down and there was no consistency. It’s quite clear now that the difference is the quality of energy I was choosing and in that my choice to be with Soul or Spirit. Making this a key awareness in life is so important.
Spirit is like living in a self created box and Soul is a infinite confirmation of our oneness. Life today is thick with the glamour and illusion that feeds the spirit, but as you rightly say Joshua with something as simple as the ‘Gentle Breath Meditation’ as presented by Universal Medicine, all it takes is the choice to rebind with your innermost, your soul and the spirit can be seen for the wayward vacuum it is.
The true responsibility we all have when understanding this immense difference between spirit and soul is very challenging and our choices of which way to live from knowing this are very powerful, clear and simple if soul is chosen, as love is The Way of The Livingness and all is known to us.
The beauty delicacy and love from your sharing Joshua brings a simplicity of knowing for all to read and feel, thank you. A knowing of the difference of spirit and soul is life changing, life enhancing and of world changing proportions.
“I find myself forever seeking more, not feeling complete and content within myself. I can feel there is more to life than this but it feels like I am lost in the seeking of how to get to it. Life feels mundane, a drag, and in my body I feel heavy and lethargic.” That is a perfect picture of how I lived most of life but ‘covering’ it up and in denial of that truth through the use of alcohol, sex, work and other distractions. That is until I met Serge Benhayon and was presented with the difference between Spirit and Soul thereby showing there was a choice of how to live.
“It is clear that there is a choice to be made in each and every moment: a choice to be with our Soul and hence live our Love and Truth in and with God – or a choice to be in total ignorance of God, Truth and Soul, and make our life much, much smaller than it truly is.” And so it boils down to a really simple choice, to live in the big picture: God, Soul, Family, or the little picture: Me, Me and Me. What I find fascinating is the more I choose the big picture, the more I can feel how the consequences of my choices and actions roll out into the bigger picture, which in turn support me to make more loving, committed choices in consideration of everyone not just myself.
“I can feel there is more to life than this but it feels like I am lost in the seeking of how to get to it.”
Stuck on the hamster wheel, going nowhere, regardless of the divine details that surround us but living in the linear motion of self gain.
What a beautiful claiming of your divinity, Joshua. It is so wonderful to hear a young man in this day and age fully celebrate himself and his deep everyday connection to God and everything he is a part of. To feel the joy of this unquestionable bond highlights how empty we all are by contrast when we lose touch with it, even though it is always there.
What you say about there never being anything too big for us to handle if we are with our souls, I too have found to be absolutely true. But what this then takes me to is responsibility. Because if this is the case, then imagine what we could be doing in true service to humanity if we lived in line with our souls every second. The world would be evolving a great deal faster than it currently is.
I recently realised that my job is to be with my soul which means my main purpose is to make sure I am connected and feeling amazing – how ridiculous that we then fight this! It actually proves to me that there is a spirit, as none of any human behaviour makes sense without the deeper understanding of what is really at play in our lives.
“there is a warmth and love inside us. We all deserve this love equally from ourselves and from each other” this is undeniable and is evidenced by the quality small babies have that everyone loves and adores and wants to hold and smell!
What will support me hugely today is how you have described the sense of ‘dragging on behind’ always being one step off the flow of life when we are not connected to God/Soul and therefore in the thralls of Spirit. This is a real and tangible way of spotting the difference and I really appreciate the support of this right now.
“His perfection is everywhere, His mastery of life, just an undeniable reality, and with such connection comes the enormous sense of responsibility and Brotherhood. It feels that with such love, nothing is held to be less than or greater than me. Everything and everyone is held without judgement in this love by my presence and understanding.” Beautifully described Joshua, indeed the sense of order and balance that I have felt when connected to my soul has brought a whole new level of harmony to life.
Great article Joshua, I love this, ‘When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!’ I have been feeling this joy of just being me more and more, I can feel how I am much more at ease I am with myself and not trying to be someone or something, that I am becoming more confident in who I am, this feels very lovely, especially after having such a lack of self worth for so many years.
Simply having an awareness of the existence of two qualities of energy, Soul and Spirit, and that every choice, every movement can only be one or the other, is life changing. I am bringing this new awareness to my own movements as I observe how the quality of energy I’m in shifts throughout the day, and the situations and choices I make that either deepen my connection with Soul or spirit.
Well said Joshua, ‘it is the responsibility of us all to make true and wise choices as to what source we choose to live our lives from.’ Whilst it may be minor as you say there is such a vast difference between living from your Spirit or Soul. We find it hard but only when we keep one foot on the other side. As Serge Benhayon shows us, by his living ways, when we commit to living from our Soul in full, no holes barred, then anything and everything is possible in extraordinary ways I cannot even comprehend let alone truly fathom.
Loved your whole blog but this especially, “I can feel this connection through every tree, every breath of wind on my face and even every drop of rain.
His perfection is everywhere, His mastery of life, just an undeniable reality, and with such connection comes the enormous sense of responsibility and Brotherhood.”
The ease and simplicity of connection with God, and appreciating becoming a master of life!
Amazing and very profound Joshua! This brings home our responsibility for what we choose, is it setting us up for misery, complication and struggle – or learning, openness and freedom to be ourselves?
“…..and hence it is the responsibility of us all to make true and wise choices as to what source we choose to live our lives from.”
We all crave for this love inside of us, but often do not like the responsibility of taking true choices which rocks our comfort.
“Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.” A great confirmation on the true meaning of life .. everything that is presented offers a way of re-imprinting the truth of it with your Soul.
“The aspect in me that brings me back to how I felt as a child – open, free and extremely play-full, while in complete harmony and respect for everyone and everything else at the same time.” As I grew older I learnt to use the reactions of people to deal with stuff. I shut people down the way I was shut down. An extension of my spirit in reverse of what the love and freedom is to inspire people to be aware by being open, free and play-full.
“There is never anything greater than us at all when our love is brought to it.” This line made me stop when reading this blog today, and to me feels important to be consciously aware of. To be aware of the fact that we are from God, and when lived this love, no task or job that is presented to us is too big for us, or that we are incapable of executing. We are indeed much grander than human life tends to let us believe.
Joshua, I especially love this comment in your blog: ‘Through Soul, I have learned that the ways of the spirit may make us feel that what is presented to us in life is much greater than what we are able to handle, but in truth this is never the case. In fact there is never anything greater than us at all when our love is brought to it.’
I have certainly learned this to be true from my own life experiences! Looking back on various moments, I have felt that there is nothing we cannot handle, and yet there have been times when I’ve felt overwhelmed by the problems that come up. I recognize now that it’s not the characteristics of the moment itself that causes me to feel to be with God or feel to be in misery and suffering, but how I am living every day and the choice I make leading up to that moment.
No matter what has gone before us, each moment is an opportunity to make a different choice. The quality of our choices is either supporting all others and us, or not. Perhaps we have not yet realised the power we have to initiate a new way forward, by the quality of choices we are making every single day.
“When I am with my Soul, there is no greater feeling than feeling that we are all One.” This is who we truly are ..One and the same. Many expressions of the One divine source, so joyful to feel the love and truth of that.
Many of us are living and accepting lesser versions of our magnificent selves, while the all encompassing Soul is there ready and awaiting us to re-connect to. It is my/our responsibility each day to make that choice to live the love we naturally are. What you say Joshua about the constant tension we may feel from knowing there is more than the way we are currently living, is true. There would be no seeking, or sense of unease if we didn’t already know there is so much more than our individuated lives with all the self created struggles.
Thank you Joshua. Apart from trying to keep comparison from raising it’s head like a Jack-in-a-box, there was so much to learn and appreciate from your blog.
I love how, whilst exploring your connection to soul, it brought you back to how you felt as a child – “open, free and extremely play-full, while in complete harmony and respect for everyone and everything else at the same time.” This is something we humans all have in common.
“I can feel there is more to life than this but it feels like I am lost in the seeking of how to get to it.” I feel most of humanity lives this way – we all know there is more to life than the mundane, and seek more meaning. It was only when Serge Benhayon came along and presented the difference between spirit and Soul that it became clear, the choices we have in every moment of our lives.
As you have expressed Joshua God is in the detail. Everything is everything and therefore the more that love is felt the more that is seen for what it is truly is.
A wonderful example of the difference between living with our spirit and soul. You have presented the very fact that we have a choice, and what we choose has a direct impact on our daily lives.
Through the understanding of spirit and soul has allowed me to live my life in a completely different way.
Thanks Joshua, for your sharing of the difference of living with the love of your soul and your spirit and how different the two can be even though they exist as one in the body. It is very inspiring and heart felt. The beautiful description and expansiveness of the all encompassing soul, connected and as part of god vs the spirit caught up in the struggle of self, hurts and individuality .
True love is absolutely all-encompassing and so cannot hold one any more or less than another. Often love is presented as being something directed at one person in particular or saved for a select few but is that really love?
In spirit we thrive off complexity, drama, emotion and all that seeks to pull away from the simplicity, love and wisdom of our true self, our Soul. Yet the moment we know in full who we are, we know immediately all that we are not. This is when the labyrinthine complexity of the spider’s web reveals itself as does all that we have spun to not see the truth of who we truly are.
One of the most fundamental teachings that can ever be told is the difference between spirit and Soul. To know that we are love before anything else helps us to arise out of all the false layers we have piled on top of our innate divinity and see who we truly are and not who we think we are, based on our identification of that which we are not.
In my connection with my soul, I know God and that I am part of Him. When I no longer feel this, I know that my spirit is at play, tricking me to think that I am separate.
What you describe here is the way most live. It therefore reveals how the world currently lives according to spirit, than to Soul. “When I am with my spirit and no longer feeling connected to my Soul and to God, I feel small. I feel that life is full of issues and problems and, at times, they feel so dominant that they seem to exist in every facet of my life.”
It’s great that you’ve shared this Joshua. Whether we have a spirit and/or soul is a very taboo subject and it’s unusual to discuss it so openly, so it’s fantastic that you’re starting the conversation and are open to sharing your own relationship to these two things.
Before Universal Medicine most of my life was lived via my spirit and I had very little connection to my soul. Since becoming a student of The Way of The Livingness I now know that in each moment I have a choice to align with the energy that opens to a soul full way of living.
I have found that it incredibly freeing to learn and understand the difference between my spirit and my soul and to really get to know both inside out. When my spirit gets up to its tricks, I can call it out, knowing that it is my spirit and not who I really am. I can then take the necessary movements that lead me back to my soul.
Understanding the difference between spirit and soul and identifying the different feelings and impulses associated with each energy is life changing. I feel the connection with all and the equality that you speak of Joshua when I am living from my soul. I feel the individuality and separation to humanity when I get caught by my spirit. The difference between the two is huge and this is why I choose to live under the impulse of my soul.
This is the great lie that we have accepted as truth – all that the spirit has lead us to feel and believe, everything that feels comfortable. The world is caught up in being stuck in this state or striving to achieve it and so this distraction stops us from re-connecting to who we truly are. The call is always there and Humanity are brought glimpses of this often through crisis when the truth of our soul speaks to us and then we realise we have heard this voice before.
Joshua, you talk about God, Soul and Spirit with nothing to hide – a frankness and an honesty, an appreciation and an understanding. This is unusual to encounter as many people will feel ostracised or labeled when talking about God, as this often does not seem to fit into the modern day picture of being spiritual! The world is populated with spirituality, and as you have so beautifully described above in your experience of being with the spirit, there is such a ME factor, being the centre of the universe. And yet when true religion is offered, the opportunity to explore our relationship with soul and God, the realness of life and responsibility, then people balk at this and fear to explore further. It is easier to label something a religion and lop it with all the other religions (that in my experience, hold little truth in them), than to consider there might be something of value in our relationship to soul. Thank you for your forwardness and honesty!
Thank you Joshua – you make the difference between spirit and soul really obvious. It is a little alarming to see how much I have chosen to let my spirit run the show but at the same time I can feel that living from my soul is as simple as choosing to be aware of how I am operating in any given moment.
What you have shared here Joshua is everyone’s experience whether we are aware of it or not. We are essentially ‘made of God’ so any deviation away from this truth causes tension and disharmony.
I know this differentiation between Soul and Spirit well too Joshua and your description of the two is made clear and simple. We have a choice and must support ourselves without judgement to keep making the Soulful choice.
I love the clarity and distinction that your blog offers, Joshua – it felt so delicate, tender and exquisite to connect to what you were expressing.
To know that there is a difference between spirit and soul opens up a door to a totally different way of living.
With all that we have ‘achieved’ and ‘advanced’ in our world today the degree of restlessness and turmoil that exists in the lives of so many highlights that something is still greatly missing. What you have offered here Joshua is an opportunity not only of understanding who we are in essence and the two very distinct ways of living, but also an opportunity for us all to live in a harmonious loving way that we all crave and deep down long to live. The magic of our Soul is a Divine innate quality that brings a richness to life that is unsurpassed by anything in this world.
It take greats honesty to be willing to look at and admit the ways we behave that do not reflect the Love we are. This highlights how our bodies play an integral role in knowing when we are coming from our connection to Soul or when we are in disconnection from it. Whenever I have chosen to disconnect I can feel a restlessness within me that cannot be calmed regardless of the countless seeming ways of relief offered to us through our modern world.
What you share is a remarkable gift and very timely, as God always is. It is our choice to know and appreciate God’s presence in absolutely everything including us.
To have chosen to be at presentations and workshops where Serge Benhayon clearly shares the difference between Soul and Spirit I know now that it was my Soul that got me to that point. To be able to listen, understand it and most importantly feel the difference between the two is worth the largest amount of gold in the world. To see the truth of what energy that I am choosing whether I am making it about the All or whether I am making it about me and my issues is a clear indicator of my Soul and Spirit. I have been working on deepening my awareness so I can to the best of my ability live with my Soul in connection with God and expressing 24/7.
Learning the difference between spirit and soul has been pivotal for me. It was like being awakened from a slumber where all the games I played were shown for what they were.
Our Soul is the essence of God through which we are here to live the Oneness, wisdom and power of Love, so we return to the way of Brotherhood and begin to explore our Divine purpose here on earth. This is the responsibility we all hold for being the sparks of God, every single one of us, as through our connection to Soul the truth of all is known.
How empowering it is when we are willing to explore the truth of who we are as when then realise that there is always a choice to live who we are and be moved by the freedom of our connection to Soul, or exist with who we are not and be moved by the control of our Spirit. To realise this is a choice we are offered in every moment we realise that we are constantly held by the grace of God’s Love to know and live the Divinity that we are.
Understanding the difference between spirit and soul opens the door to a new way of living. No longer do we have to search and seek or give our power away to others, we can begin to choose self love and self empowerment and being that love and power in the world.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief, the conniving spirit doesn’t care which identity we assume, as long as we are kept wandering in the wilderness for yet another lifetime.
Knowing that there is a difference between between sprit and soul is one of those life changing moments – it changes everything. It brings responsibility into our life in terms of how we are choosing to live.
This is where the Universal Medicine healing modalities are so supportive; yesterday I had one and I felt at the end to be in the same quality of a new born baby, it was exquisite.
With spirit there is a sense of trying to work it out, but never really wanting to – a veil of seeming to be doing something about the mess it has caused, but really quite pleased with the mess, because it gives it the recognition that it is it’s mess. With Soul, it is already worked out, or more in truth there is nothing to work out, only that which is already complete, whole, divine and what it reflects to the existence we have chosen.
The spirit does make us feel as we are alone, makes life small and full of issues. While the soul brings light, love and simplicity to that what we do. I know what I am aiming for to live, live from the love that I am.
This understanding of Spirit and Soul is very powerfull to have, and live with, although we can get caught up in whims of our spirit, the Soul is only one choice away. The choice for simplicity and love.
Such an amazing article. I can feel the lived experience you have of both spirit and soul and it’s so inspiring to feel what soul is all about and how small and reduced living from spirit is.
The detail you have shared Joshua of living by our Spirit or Soul is spot on… you have not left anything out. That is exactly how life is when we are playing along with our spirit… the isolation and seeing everything through the guise of ‘life is hard’ and ‘everything is wrong’… well that’s how it goes for me. And how once we connect to our soul all this just dissipates and life becomes about the all.
I love the clarity this blog provides. Understanding the difference between Soul and Spirit, the energy of the Soul plane and the astral plane, learning to feel and know the difference, and how they impact every aspect of our daily life is one of the most empowering areas of support we can ever offer one another. I am ever so grateful that Universal Medicine offered this support right from day one.
This is absolutely beautiful. This description of when we are disconnected from our Soul really resonated with me and in doing so has given me a way to be able to recognise and know it more completely so I cannot pretend that I don’t know what I am choosing when I have left the completeness and absoluteness of being with my Soul, ‘The worst feeling about being on this side of life is the feeling that life is always ahead and I am always dragging on behind, dragging my heels through the sand. God becomes a figurehead but no longer the livingness that I in-truth deeply miss when living in this way.’
Beautiful Joshua, Now that I have felt the soulful way of living there is nothing more important to me than re-developing my ability to consistently live this way.
I know that living in separation was the cause of my lifelong anxiety and sorrow. I no longer feel the sense of dread and guilt of not sharing my true light and love in this life because I am being more and more true to my heart, thanks to the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom.
If spirit was the way forward, the Spiritual New Age would have evolved and revolutionised mankind, and the world as we know it; out of the mess of disease, illness, desperation and misery we are in on an epic scale. However it has not.
The stark difference between Soul and Spirit can be felt in every choice, every breath, every moment, every movement. One (the soul) allows you to feel the difference, whereas the other (the spirit) tries to convince you that there is no difference.
Joshua – I also know this to be true; ‘Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul’ – if we reflect on our lives, it brings a smile to see that every moment is a choice – are we with soul or spirit. Is the way I type this comment supportive and loving (soul) or empty, rushed and abrupt (spirit) Everything is a choice – one of the two – our responsibility is to know the difference.
I am slowly remembering what it is like being connected to my soul. As a young child it was so normal to be like this. I did not ‘know’ that there was a soul or spirit and I did not care.
I have always felt that I could not trust ‘words’. The meaning changed depending on who was using them.
Thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for presenting the fact that energy does not lie. It supports me to trust my feelings and question what I hear and read.
When I first learned the difference between soul and spirit it changed my life. We experience our soul and our spirit all the time yet we consider that they are one and the same thing when they are not. The soul, for example, is a unifying energy while and spirit is not. Keeping ourselves ignorant of the differences brings great unsettlement into our lives.
Thanks Joshua, a beautifully practical example of the difference between the spirit and the Soul, I can relate to everything you’ve shared.
You describe so well what it means and feels like to live from our spirit – nothing but problems and conundrums, an overall feeling of being adrift and lost.
The tricky thing about the spirit is that it has it’s own version of the soul and it is this that had me conned for many years. As a yoga teacher and person who followed a spiritual path I would have sworn that I was on the path of the soul. This is so problematic because I was adamant that the practices that I was following and the books and courses that I was engaged in were actually leading me back to my soul. It took the breaking down of my body (my vehicle of truth) to show me that I had been played with by my spirit. Finally after many years of searching for what I knew was missing from life, I was supported to rekindle my connection to soul through the teachings of Universal Medicine.
Spirit or soul, harming or healing, there is no middle ground. Ever.
‘There is a constant tension running through me that is from the knowing that this form of living is simply not it.’ Yes Joshua, and we can pay attention to that tension or dull it down to block out our awareness.
Through our souls we are connected and through our spirits we separate….It is our choice what we choose to express. But, we are Soul – no matter how much we create against it. So with every creation we are just lengthening our way back.
Joshua your blog captures the essence of soul and spirit – when it is expressed like this I wonder why I ever allow myself to choose spirit over soul.
“Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.” – this is huge! So life is not difficult, a challenge, heavy OR easy, comfortable, there to make us happy – it is to support as in unfoldment. If I take this as a truth every moment in my life is an offer to me – not to cope but to expand & evolve. And so I can ask myself at the end of my day – how did I evolve today? What did ‘life’ offer me and how did I response?
‘Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.’ The amazingness of the truth that everything is energy and therefore everything is because of energy, is at the basis of this. Energy is just perfect and true and we can always read what it is about and choose to come to, come back and be forthcoming!
It is such a clear distinction between Soul and Spirit, and you make it very understandable for us all Joshua. It is so supportive to be able to observe how we are feeling and behaving at any time and be able to discern whether we are aligning to our Spirit or our Soul. Getting to know ourselves this way can bring about the change, as then we can choose whether we want to accept the responsibility of living the Divine which is within us or remain in the comfort of the spirit’s self obsessed habits.
You hear people say “God is punishing me” only a spirit who made the choice to separate from god could think like this. In reality every moment God leaves a trail of gold all the way back to heaven, all we have to do is recognize we always have a spirit or soul choice.
’There is a constant tension running through me that is from the knowing that this form of living is simply not it.’ – How true, if we but care to listen, our bodies are radars for truth, it knows and signals when we are out of sorts and disconnected to our true selves.
‘…it is the responsibility of us all to make true and wise choices as to what source we choose to live our lives from.’ – Love this blog Joshua, and I love how you bring in the responsibility factor, that which energy we decide to live in our day to day life, Soul or Spirit, always comes down to OUR CHOICE.
In learning to understand, feel, read and define the two different ways in which to live human life (from Spirit or Soul) this has completely changed my relationship with psychology and has the potential to rewrite every single psychology book (and the rest of human life) Learning to understand the difference I have learnt that it’s never personal when a person acts from Spirit and when I take it on as being personal is when I know my spirit is trying to identify itself from others choices. There is endless applications to what you’ve shared here Joshua.
Great blog and sharing the practicalities of the differences between spirit and soul. It is great to deepen our understanding of these two words and how they play out in our lives as until I listened to the teachings of Universal Medicine I did not realise they were different as they have been and are used loosely and intertwined in other teachings and areas in life. Very very cleverly so, I feel, to stop us connecting to what is our Truth – the Soul, so at times or for very long times we conveniently go along with our trickster – the spirit. Ha ha but no more once we get to know and live the difference, thank you Joshua for showing us how 🙂
It’s no coincidence that the two ways of living you describe here, Joshua, are the complete opposite. It’s for us to discern in this life, how we choose to live and to learn from the choices we are making. The consequences of our choices are felt very acutely in our body, but if we are not choosing to ‘listen’ we are not truly learning anything. One is our natural way of being, the love and joy felt in the body is exquisite, the other leaves us feeling like there is always something missing, which there is, the connection with our soul.
Reading your article, Joshua, I asked myself the question, why is it that I allow myself to slip into a ‘lesser way of living’ from my spirit? The spirit is extremely cunning and it knows every nuance and button to push. When something is making me feel uncomfortable, it’s tempting to drop my level of responsibility with the choices I am making. My spirit starts seducing me into a more ‘comfortable’ state, and before I know it, I’m reaching for something to numb and distract myself from feeling the dis-ease in my body. It’s not about judgment here, rather just being aware of what is actually happening, with this awareness I can then be more discerning when I feel myself being cajoled into checking out rather than exploring how I am feeling and what has prompted me to feel that way.
Joshua I love reading your post today, powerful and inspiring, The choice is clear, the choice is simple and the connection to feeling like I did as a baby is always there. Its our choice.
And what a beautiful reflection we both have – a baby to show us how it’s done!
‘There enters an ignorance to others and to life and the very Divinity of life seems to have been replaced by just being functional. I find myself forever seeking more, not feeling complete and content within myself.’ This is so true – we focus on function and not on the love that we are innately.
Great analogy – two sides of the coin, soul & spirit, truth versus false promises. The spirit leads us up the garden path on the promise of something better, something more that we need to be complete, it’s all about us, the individual. The soul knows that we already are everything that we need to be, it’s about us as an equal part of the whole of life, it’s about all of us, always.
Joshua, I absolutely loved reading your article, you bring so much clarity to the very real difference between living from our spirit versus living from our soul. Feeling the essence of God flow through our bodies ‘It feels that with such love, nothing is held to be less than or greater than me’ – beautifully said. It’s like heaven on earth.
Such a clear explanation of the difference between spirit and soul – and how it can affect us.
A beautiful blog Joshua. “When I am living from my connection with Soul, I feel my connection with God and my absolute joy of just being me!” Very true.
I love being with my Soul, the more aware of the difference between Spirit and Soul, the less appealing being with my Spirit is. Like you say Joshua when I choose to be with my spirit I feel small, everything is about me and life becomes complicated and there a sense of misery around me.. Being with my Soul and connected to God is so joyful, life just naturally unfolds. “I can feel this connection with God throughout my veins, in my being and deep within my heart. This connection naturally offers inspiration to all of life that sees and experiences it and it is absolutely Gorgeous!…Beautifully said Joshua.
I too am exploring the inordinate difference between spirit and soul. They are like chalk and cheese, or the land and the ocean. At one time I would have thought they were the same and would not have contemplated there could be a difference between them. These two words – sprit and soul – are poles apart in meaning. Life lived is so very different from each perspective.
Life is always presenting us with situations from which we can learn and grow, that is so true, to allow us to connect more to our soul, to who we are away from the yuck we create. I have noticed this week many things occurring that I can use to consider what it is they are showing me to live with more energy and vitality, that is to me a very practical way I can live more aware and connected to soul.
Every single choice we make, every movement affects every single one of our 7.2 billion global family. No matter where we are on earth, every move, thought, action, food we eat, affects everyone – how very cool is that and what an amazing and joyful responsibility.
I agree Gyl. I often think that if you take one fish out of the ocean, it is a changed place that affects the balance of the ocean. So if I, as an individual, choose a Soulful way to live, the world too changes. It may seem like saying ‘what’s the point’ when you realise there are 7.2bn of us, but we actually have a responsibility and do make a difference.
“it is the responsibility of us all to make true and wise choices’ as this affects everybody.
I think for me it’s actually feeling we do have a choice, no matter how many times people say, tell, share with you ‘you have a choice, it’s your choice’. For me these have often been words but not fully felt and grasped to their absolute core in every cell of my body. That was until last week when a very wise woman shared the words ” It’s your choice” and for the first time I really really felt through every single bone and cell in my body, a very difference experience to knowing it, that I do have a choice and it is my choice. That what it is that I choose is a very different energy to letting my spirit and another energy run my body. I really deeply felt the truth that if I don’t make a choice, even in the simplest of things then who is running my life and my body – because it is not me. Even if I stuff up or make a choice that isn’t great, that’s okay, because I made the choice, and I can grow and learn from it, rather than letting another energy, that is not divine run me.
Each day is a new possibility to choose Soul instead of Spirit. The more I choose Soul the more aware I am of the fact that there is only one forever deepening day, simply so.
“Life actually presents situations to us constantly to help us re-connect with more of the true side of us, our Soul.” This is the absolute truth. Yesterday I was rushing around, turned a corner in a shop and boom, was presented with meeting a baby that was ten days old. The stillness he slept in and was, brought me straight back to my body and the same stillness inside me, all thoughts went, and I became very still and content in my body, the tension left, my movements changed and it reminded me that there is way more to life that we can feel deeply. And that life is about people.
“Everything and everyone is held without judgement’ I can very much relate to this, for when I judge I know I am not myself, and in fact it is deeply harming for all, judgement is one of the things I hate to feel the most.
Superb blog Joshua, your decriptions of both choices brings a huge awareness to a fundamental choice many people are completely unaware of, mainly because we do not have many examples of living in connection with our Soul to go by. Serge Benhayon has mastered his connection with the Divine within himself. The way he lives his life reflects to us another way to live, another way to Be in this world, a one unifying way that when lived enables us to see through the illusion of separation and know that we are all without exception big one Divine family, all equally connected to God within.
So gorgeous Joshua. I can feel your Soul pouring through your words. Such wisdom and grace, understanding and love. Just beautiful.
Joshua you bring a depth of wisdom, simplicity and clarity in this blog that could be thought to be way beyond your years. What a powerful, living testimony to the fact that wisdom and truth are available to all, whatever the age, by making choices to live with responsibility and in alignment with the Soul – the returning to the all-inclusiveness and universality of The Way of The Livingness.
The Soul offers the great key to unity and true brotherhood for all, whilst our spirit thrives on separation and individuality – the breeding of jealousy, comparison, wars, nationalism, greed, dog eat dog culture, power over others, abuse, self-abuse, segregation and separative compartmentalised way of living to the detriment of the whole.
“When I am with my Soul, there is no greater feeling than feeling that we are all One. Plumbers, gas fitters, Muslims, Jews, Christians, people of all other races and cultures, are all our equals, our Brothers, and deserve our love neither less nor more than anyone else does”.
Spot on Stephanie. To love and be loving is such a natural way for us all. Once we get ourselves – which includes all of the points you make above – out of the way, we can return to this simple way of being.
Thank you, Joshua. This amazing summary of the difference between spirit and Soul is so very powerful because we can feel the depth of your experience on both counts, your learning and willingness to be responsible. There is so much power and joy in distinctly knowing the difference, and making the choice to come back to the Soul is the most natural thing in the world when we re-connect to what we already know within and have lived before.
What a brilliant blog Joshua. This just says it all and captures the absolutely glorious feeling of being with our Soul: “It feels such that, from my heart to my bones, stretching down beneath the ground, with every step I take the very earth I walk on is being graced by this presence and movement.” Being with our Soul is the answer to all people’s woes as this is what we are truly from and deeply miss in our daily lives.
It is true what you say Joshua, when connected to your soul there are no problems or issues, and there is nothing that we can not handle.
Great point to highlight Julie; when I am feeling my soul (being true to my heart) I know I can handle life even in the state the world is in. This is a huge insight for me as I could not see how we would heal ourselves let alone the world before.
Joshua, this is gorgeous and reflects just how simple and grand our life can be when choosing to live with the love of the Soul rather than all the issues, bumps, bruises, numbing out and complacency caused when falling into the trap of cruising along with the Spirit.
“Through Soul, I have learned that the ways of the spirit may make us feel that what is presented to us in life is much greater than what we are able to handle, but in truth this is never the case. In fact there is never anything greater than us at all when our love is brought to it”.
Yes, Joshua Campbell, I am in full agreement with you – you are an amazing man! A beautiful and practical blog to read about the difference between Spirit and Soul and how this affects our daily way of life – in contraction or expansion.
Beautifully put Joshua… both feelings you have described are spot on. When I feel connected to the universality through my divinity life is grand. It’s big. I can experience the glory that is all around me through even the simplest of things. The alternative quickly gets wrapped up in knots and like you say separates me from others and from life like nothing else.
Thanks to Serge Benhayon I am at least aware that there is a difference between spirit and Soul which is the first step in addressing this age old fight between light and that other thing. My spirit is an absolute scoundrel to say the least and is ready to pounce and bring me down like a rugby tackle from a nine foot giant in times of weakness, never when I am choosing Soul. To say there is no perfection is the understatement of the year but because I now know what feels amazing and what doesn’t, I shall persevere until such time as there is no need to be here.
In the short term, the Spirit has the upper hand. It is the default option. We do not have to choose it. It runs the show in the shadows for only one reason: it deeply knows it cannot offer us anything even remote to what the Soul can. That is why, it makes everything for us to avoid our Soul.
It is very true that we can be two complete different characters if we choose Spirit or Soul. Our emanation, presence, quality cannot be compared.
When we connect to Soul, there is no part of the body (even the most micro one) that does not notice the difference it makes. Suddenly you just flow. Even the air does not seem to offer any resistance to our movements.
It is really interesting to go the title of this blog, pause and feel the words in it. It is very revealing to feel how different Spirit and Soul feel even as words.
God is always there. Yet, when we are living essentially from the Spirit, our capacity to feel Him and to connect to its qualities is really slim. This is what happens to the bulk of humanity. They can say that are very religious but the truth is that unless you choose Soul, the presence of God is always remote to say the least.
Understanding the difference between spirit and Soul is the first step in choosing the energy and connection to our Soul and to our Divinity. Our ever present spirit is always waiting for us to lose our connection to our inner-most and to say ‘yes’ to the energy that is not from Soul. The more we choose Soul the more it is our natural way of being.
Thank you Joshua. Such a beautiful expression of the contrast between living connected to the spirit or connected to the soul. The knowledge of that contrast and the awareness it brings by The Way of The Livingness as taught by Serge Benhayon, has changed my way of being dramatically. I was ready to give up on life but now by connecting to my soul I can find magic in every moment.
“There is a constant tension running through me that is from the knowing that this form of living is simply not it” – I can really get that – that knowing that something is not true feels horrible in the body. Sometimes it feels impossible to be free of its hold, but with constant building of momentum of my otherwise truer nature in movement, I eventually find my way back.
I agree – we often know we are ‘out’, often getting caught up in the commute, work, busyness of life, etc. Simple exercises like the Gentle Breath Meditation, going for a walk, or as you point out, building a momentum are all great ways to get back to me.
Beautiful blog Joshua and a great testimonial to the origin of our being. We are from heaven and are connected to the all, that grander whole we are all part of either if we choose to live it or not. But to be truly honouring to our being and to reply to that tension we all feel from living in disconnection from Soul, we have no other choice than to return to soul and live that glorious life we all deserve to live. The only thing that we are doing by not choosing is to delay the moment of return, but fact is that eventually everybody will return to this original state and we are truly connected as the divine human beings here on earth.
So true and so clear Joshua. There is only one wise choice. The spirit is the one that holds us as separate and fills our days with complication and separation. The soul is connected to all and is absolute love. Why wait?
The deep sensitivity that you share with Joshua opens my heart too. So many of us would relate to all of these observations and feelings at some time, and feel the inspiration of your words.
This blog is gorgeous and beautifully explains the difference of living from your spirit or in connection with your soul. I have had days where as you express Josh the knowingness that you are connected to everything and the joy this brings is exquisite and you certainly know in these moments or days that you are part of something very grand. I have also experienced living from my spirit and for me this is devoid of living any responsibility and when I seek to be comfortably numb, and as you say very, very small. It’s awful!
Beautifully expressed Joshua! I love this “When I am with my Soul, there is no greater feeling than feeling that we are all One”. This is a simple must read sharing !
Beautifully written and so clear was this understanding of living from these two influences in our lives. Dragging heels through the sand and feeling like you are playing catch up is I feel a very common experience of day to day life. To acknowledge that there is a different way to live is important and to understand it in terms of connecting and living soul-fully is great because it shares that it is available to all.
The spirit and the soul are like two sides of a coin. We can flip them at any time, it brings it back to the choice of our own connection, which inevitably holds us as one, or separation and the shaky ways of the spirit.
I love the concept that you are bringing to the subject of spirit and soul.
My experience has been very simple when it comes to this subject.
When I am with myself, I have a deep knowing and vitality, an impulse from the heart, without my mind leading the show.
When I choose to be separate from that, it can be very subtle, but each step I take away from the true me gains a momentum, making each false choice, well easier to make.
For example, I might eat a bit of a sweet thing and then that leads to feeling tired, which then leads to watching TV that night rather than doing the things I need to do. Then a confrontation in a relationship comes up and seems harder to handle….and so on and so forth.
The wordiness I felt through this blog had a flavour of intangibility for me as a reader. I truly appreciate you bravely approaching this poignant subject and putting this blog out to the world, but perhaps more of an insight to you as a person would have made it more accessible.
Love the way you describe the two sides of the coin, soul and spirit Joshua, is as simple as saying and feeling whether we want and/or go for – buoyancy or restriction. Every moment is a moment to choose a particular quality of being that makes up a particular quality of life.
Joshua you are an amazing man with an amazing insight into life! To have been presented as a child with what you have presented here, would have offered such a strong and steady foundation to support me as I grew through life. There would not have been the endless and exhausting searching outside of me for something I knew was true, but a natural, deep connection to me and to my soul, with my spirit definitely not been given the power it has had to run my life the way it wanted, unlovingly so. To eventually reconnect with my soul, initially felt so strange, but it was a strangeness that didn’t last long as I could feel the sense of familiarity, like an old friend that I had known for a very, very long time but who I had lost contact with, and now had reconnected to once again.
I’ll take connection to Soul and the knowing of Oneness over the tension, separation and complication of the spirit any day.
Absolutely! But how cool is it that we (begin to) feel that tension when we’re not connected to our Soul.
Hello Joshua and for anyone to write a blog like this is a huge step. With what appears most people struggling to record or even be aware of how they feel, makes this something to appreciate with what you have done. I have a sense of what you are saying in here but to be honest I had a little difficulty reading the whole thing. As I said, I appreciate how brave it is to put yourself forward like this and write like this. You are beyond your age, thank you.
Your description of ‘soul’ is so rich Joshua, full of your lived experience and knowing of God
What you describe I know very well Joshua, that spaciousness that is there when I connect to soul versus the driven, me centric focus of my spirit forever chasing something, forever playing and running away from the simplicity and love we all naturally are. And it’s very much a moment to moment choice, and each step we take is informed by those choices, and no matter what we can choose soul and love at any time
When we live from for the many selflessly the Soul isn’t far way.
A truly beautiful blog Joshua! Yes, living from spirit feels awful – I often feel racy, anxious, focused on what’s happening outside me, and living from my mind – not to forget the turbulent emotion! Then there is the soul, the grace and stillness, the love, the beauty, and being connected to and a part of the whole universe. Living from spirit is smallness, complication emptiness and misery, living from soul is simple, light, love filled, playful and fun, deeply wise, caring, joyful, and very divine.
Beautiful blog Joshua! ‘ It has become far more obvious to me each day that there are actually two versions of me that I have at my will to choose to be at any given moment, on any given day, and each gives me a very, very different way of living and approaching life.’ How true. When I first left home and came down to the big city to study I was aware of a very pure and pristine being within me but also another side that was falling for the seductions of city life. This second side of me I clocked was quite wild in a way, and it converted my natural joy into a kind of elated ‘high’ and ‘buzz’. These two aspects, I later learnt, had the names ‘Soul’ and ‘Spirit’. What a blessing it was to now not only be able to clock these two aspects but know which to align to.
Hanging out with our Soul simply feels natural, joyful and expansive, it is the most amazing relationship, friendship, partnership we can ask for, because we are always asked to go deeper and always lifted higher for more evolution. When we hang out with Soul there are no issues in life, only opportunities to return to more love.
The worst thing is when we speak from Soul but do not move in it; holding onto the knowledge of what Soul and spirit are but not living it is a big turn off.
When I am living from my connection to my soul, there I am part of something much grander than this life alone.
Hi Josh, you said it all as I know this feeling of almost being lost in the spirits search for ‘truth’ as there is a tension and separation and that hurts to feel the pain of that ! Yet to remember the fact we only need to stop, take a moment to be with ourselves and our bodies and breath, it is a clear choice to feel the love and joy from within and that we are all one.
When I feed my spirit I create my own drama’s and issues become disproportionately large. When I live from my connection to soul there is an ease, a flow and a simplicity.
When we live from soul we remind others of their natural heritage.
Yes Joshua “To be or not to be”. That IS the pressing question.
Joshua your description of being with your soul and therefore God is incredible because it is written from your experience of God felt in your living body and not from God as a concept from your head. The soul expresses truth from the body and the spirit re-hashes concepts, mis-truths and ideas from the head.
You are an amazing man indeed Joshua Campbell and what an amazing piece of writing. Spirt vs Soul has plagued people for years – lifetimes actually and a LOT of money has been made out of this. Your sharing on living life connected to your soul or connected to your spirit is very real, practical and simple and highlights the vast difference of how life can be when you connect to one or the other.
Joshua I know well the two different ways of living and feeling that you describe and they are so utterly different in every way imaginable. Living from soul is an open ended love affair with constant opportunities for expansion and living from spirit is a relationship doomed from the start that consistently offers dead ends.
If we stop dismissing the things that we do and start to see if they match up to the divine truth of who we are, then we will see the reality of the spirit and the soul. The spirit has had a long time running the body we are in and like a bad driver, it’s time it handed its licence in, and went back to learning how to park and to do 3 point turns, instructed and guided by the Soul and the love we all have within. Thank you, Joshua for what you share here.
Joshua, having just read your incredible article, I feel like I have just had the most nourishing feast imaginable.