body.
         If you see yourself as soul, your mind gives authority to your soul and lives according to the leadings of your spirit. To a person who sees himself as soul, self-mastery would mean the ability to acquire those things that the soul desires; to see the wholeness of life and the interconnectedness of all beings; cosmic consciousness; to be able to find love, joy, happiness and fulfillment in all life's circumstances; to be able to see all of our fellow humans as brothers and sisters, as spiritual siblings; to realize that the universe is friendly to a spiritual individual and that we can lay our defenses down and live in peace. Life becomes infinitely richer, more rewarding, and a fabulous journey full of awe and wonder. However, it does not and cannot happen overnight. The mind slowly begins to delegate decision-making power to the soul. But once it happens, then you have made the soul the master and driver of  your human vehicle.
          You may get a better idea of the foundation of your soul by being self-aware of your past experiences. If you are a musician, performer or artist, you know when your creative work had soul and when it didn't. A singer that sings with soul or musician that plays with soul knows the part of themselves they accessed when their soul was displayed. Conversely they know when their soul was not evident during their performance. Other artists may also know when soul was present and when it was not during the creative process. For those who are not creative or artistic, you may have noticed your soul coming into play when you interacted with others, in how you dialogued and related with other people.     
          A simple conversation can be very soul centered, especially when discussing personal matters and topics that are of great personal concern. Conversely, you may be aware of those times when your attitudes and conversational approach was coming more from an intellectual or biological source rather than from the soul. Reflect on those experiences and you will gain a better understanding of your soul.

          You may ask, how do we evolve from seeing ourselves as body, then as mind and then to seeing ourselves as soul?
          It is possible to re-make ourselves, we do it to some degree everyday. However, we can re-make ourselves into what the external world wants us to be, or we can re-make ourselves into what our internal reality wants us to be. We are greatly influenced by those around us. The society in which we live nudges us, pokes us, and coaxes us to value certain things; how we look, how we behave, how to fit in.
          If we value the things that society can provide for us, we nurture and support society and try to conform to its wishes even when much of it goes against what we truly want for ourselves. So we set up an accommodating front to face society, while keeping true within to one's soul. We create a face that we use to confront the world and we have our inner face, how we see ourselves, who we are within. When the divergence between the inner and outer is too great, there is no peace of mind and the tension could make life difficult. As we grow more confident of our inner perception of who we are, our soul, we can use the true image of ourselves more often to interface with the world, and we can begin to gain more control of ourselves and our lives, rather than be manipulated by the external pressures of society. However, since we must live in a society of people, our souls cannot be self-indulgent, our souls must be able to keep our inner integrity while at the same time accommodate the souls of others.
          The evolution of the soul is quite evident when we become able to make that transition from showing the world our false front to slowly changing our mask and even dropping the mask so that our face on the outside resembles more the face on the inside. An example is a singer who sings and reveals the depths of the heart, and the soul becomes brilliantly evident. It is when we begin to show our real self to the world without fear or favor that the identity shift from mind to soul takes place. The singer may do this only when she's singing, and only when she is singing very well, but more and more, we can all do this in our lives if we move towards it.
          Once we realize who we really are, and which part of us takes precedence; body, mind or soul, and take fearless steps in that direction, then we can enter into the earliest levels of self-mastery and we can begin to safely operate our human vehicle consciously and purposefully. Then we can be who we truly want to be.


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