"Tear off the mask. Your face is glorious." - Rumi

If the soul is on a journey, to where is it headed?

Has it left eternity to wander through time?
Has it lost its anchor in the cosmos?
Did it begin like a newborn some aeons ago?
Is there some terminus, some destiny that awaits?
Must it learn to see its own glorious face?

When we speak of the heart and soul of something, we speak of its essence. We speak of the raw reality, stripped of all add-ons, accumulated extras, barnacles and slivers. And yet we seem to think of Soul as a person, created at some distant point, traveling through countless lifetimes, learning, developing, growing toward some, as of yet, unknown conclusion.

It is self-evidently true that, in our human lives, we experience growth, evolution, acquired knowledge and (hopefully) wisdom. It is then natural for us to assume that this process of ever deepening insight had a beginning and perhaps some final scene.

But I don't believe that is the case. While a musician or composer improves over their lifetime, does music improve. Certainly individual creations that express the wonder of music improve, grow, evolve. But does music? Perhaps it is only the expression of music that grows. It even reaches a pinnacle of its time and becomes perfected. Only to be subject to the whims of changing times and a whole new field of expression opens up.

I think of the Soul like that. What appears as growth is, in fact, the ever expanding appearing of the infinite in the field of time.

Soul is such a rich word. It conveys color, depth, warmth and heart. It is like a rhythm that pulsates and animates an otherwise lifeless body. Soul is Life having fun, celebrating its own glorious face. And since, like music is not bound by the song, Soul is not bound by the body, it is only made manifest in it, it is only Soul's expression that evolves. And again like music, it remains an inexhaustible and mysterious essence.

I personally experience growth, progress, ever increasing quality, subtlety and nuance and rejoice in that experience. But those appearances are only an ever increasing awareness of a boundless source, a fountain that never runs dry, a lotus that never stops opening, the unquenchable fire of Soul expression.

So is the Soul on a journey?
From where to where?
Where is there to go in the infinite?
And when did this journey happen in the eternal now?

No, Soul sends forth the fragrance of time and space so that it can fill it with its own forever unfolding mystery. And then, in the heart and mind of every form it itself has spontaneously mused into existence, it rejoices.

It populates eternity, blissfully in delight of the beauty of its own glorious face. And that face is you.