Post 1: If I Am a Soul in a Body, Why Am I Here?
If I am a soul in a body, why am I here?
This question arrives in quiet moments, before sleep, after loss, in the first light of a day that asks more of us than we planned to give. If the soul is timeless, why would it choose a life that bruises and dazzles, that offers sweetness and sorrow in the same breath?
I keep returning to a simple answer that feels like a bell struck cleanly for me. Do I know the answer for you? I don’t. What I can share is that I am here to walk the path that is mine, to grow, to learn, and to let experience widen my capacity to be fully alive. Not to avoid what hurts, not to cling to what pleases, but to become someone who can hold more and more of “reality” with more love, however it comes.
Ancient Wisdom: The Soul’s Journey through form
There is a reason why certain texts, teachings, and ideas stand the test of time. I found that ancient wisdom holds a truth that many could not fathom would echo across time the way it does. Across traditions, the body is described as a vessel for something more enduring, and life is framed as a pilgrimage of becoming.
India, the Upanishads. The Self, ātman, is not the body. It is unborn and unstruck by time. The body is a garment, a season, a field where knowing ripens into wisdom.
Bhagavad Gītā. The battlefield is not only outer conflict. It is the inner struggle to align action with truth. We come to refine character, to choose clarity over confusion, courage over avoidance, devotion over indifference.
Greece, Plato and Plotinus. The soul descends into form, learns through encounter, and remembers its origin in the Good. Matter is not a mistake. It is the texture through which the soul recognizes what it truly loves.
Christian mysticism. Teresa of Ávila describes the soul as an interior castle. Each mansion is a chamber of deepening honesty and intimacy with the Divine. John of the Cross writes of nights that strip us of false light so truer light can be seen.
Tibetan teachings on the bardos. Consciousness continues beyond the body, passing through luminous intervals that mirror how we met experience while alive. Practice in life is rehearsal for clarity at transition.
Taoist insight. The Tao is the living flow. To live aligned is to act without strain, to cultivate virtue by attuning to what is already moving. The sage does not force. The sage learns to move like water, accepting things as they come. Be like water, my friend.
Kabbalistic layers of soul. Nefesh, ruach, neshamah describe vitality, breath, and higher knowing. The human task is integration, bringing the higher into the ordinary so that daily life becomes an altar.
Sufi way. The heart is polished by experience until it reflects the Real. Union is approached not by escape but by the refinement of love in the marketplace of life.
Indigenous teachings on reciprocity. Many lineages speak of right relationship with land, ancestors, and community. The soul matures by participating in balance, by giving back what has been given.
Across these voices, a shared pattern emerges. Incarnation is apprenticeship. The theme I have come to understand is that the soul agrees to learn through the friction and fragrance of a human life.
Why It Matters: Growth Through Joy and Difficulty
If I am a soul in a body, then everything that happens is usable. Joy softens the armor and teaches gratitude. Difficulty strengthens the vessel and teaches depth. Both enlarge capacity.
Character as curriculum. The Stoics remind us that obstacles reveal and refine who we are. Integrity is forged in contact with what resists us. Compassion is learned by meeting pain without turning away.
The body as teacher. Modern research shows that states of mind and heart register in flesh. Stress alters immunity. Safety and connection settle the nervous system. Trauma can freeze patterns, yet practice can thaw them. Neuroplasticity says we are not locked in place. Attention, breath, and relationship can rewire how we meet the world.
Meaning over mastery. Growth is not a clean upward line. It is spiral and season. We revisit lessons from higher ground. We are not here to perfect a pose. We are here to deepen participation with reality.
Capacity as devotion. Capacity is the soul’s ability to remain present without collapsing or grasping. It is the willingness to stay open to truth when comfort would be easier. It is forgiveness that does not pretend harm did not happen, and boundaries that do not harden into walls.
Practice in plain life. The path is not somewhere else. It is how we speak when frustrated, how we spend money, how we listen, how we rest, how we repair, how we create. Every small act trains the soul toward who it is becoming.
To see life this way does not make grief smaller or uncertainty simple. It makes them purposeful. Pain is not the point, but it is often the place where sincerity begins.
Living Into the Question: Gentle Ways to Work With It
No prescriptions, only invitations.
Remember daily. One sentence in the morning: I am a soul in a body. Let that shape your first decision.
Ask for the lesson. When something stings or shines, ask quietly, what is this teaching me to hold? What quality is trying to grow here?
Befriend the body. Treat the body as a partner rather than an obstacle. Breath, water, movement, and sleep are not side tasks. They are the temple care that makes clarity possible.
Repair quickly. Where there has been harm, seek repair. Where there has been distance, seek return. This is how capacity becomes love in motion.
Offer what you have. Skill, time, attention, resources. Generosity organizes experience around meaning rather than fear.
None of this is dramatic. Most of the path is simple, repeated, unflashy devotion to what matters.
Closing Reflection
If you are a soul in a body, then life itself is the path, a winding journey of learning, joy, difficulty, and growth. Each of us carries our own curriculum, yet the essence is the same: to walk more deeply into truth, to expand our capacity for love, and to remember what we already are.
This is why the name Path of All. Because it is not only my path or your path, it is the path we all share as souls who have come into bodies to learn. Each of us walks in our own way, yet every step belongs to a larger journey.
And while the soul can travel alone, many of us discover that it is easier, truer, and more beautiful to walk together, to learn, in fellowship. To gather, to remember, to hold one another steady when the way feels unclear.
Path of All is not a destination but a reminder: we are all souls walking, learning, and remembering, together.
TW
Further Reading: Key References
The ideas in this post are not new. They come from a long lineage of wisdom traditions, philosophers, mystics, and modern researchers who all explored what it means to be a soul in a body. If you’d like to dive deeper, here are some of the masterworks that shaped this understanding, presented in the order we recommend exploring them.
1. Discourses
Author: Epictetus
What you’ll learn: A Stoic philosopher born into slavery, Epictetus taught that while we cannot control life’s circumstances, we can control how we respond. Struggle and difficulty become tools for soul growth.
Why read it: If you want practical wisdom — simple, direct advice on how to meet life’s challenges with strength — Epictetus is a timeless teacher.
2. The Bhagavad Gītā
Author: Translated by Winthrop Sargeant
What you’ll learn: A dialogue on a battlefield between Arjuna and Krishna, the Gītā teaches that life is the soul’s training ground. It presents yoga as more than postures — as paths of action, devotion, knowledge, and meditation.
Why read it: If you’ve ever wrestled with purpose, duty, or meaning, the Gītā is a guide to aligning your life with soul’s deeper path.
3. The Body Keeps the Score
Author: Bessel van der Kolk
What you’ll learn: A landmark modern book on trauma, explaining how overwhelming experiences imprint themselves on the nervous system and body. It explores therapies that help release these imprints.
Why read it: If you’ve ever felt like “something is stuck” in you long after an event, this book explains why and how healing works. It connects ancient insights about stored energy with modern neuroscience.
4. The Upanishads
Author: Translated by Eknath Easwaran
What you’ll learn: India’s earliest spiritual dialogues (8th–5th century BCE). They teach that the Self (ātman) is eternal, indestructible, and one with the ultimate reality (brahman).
Why read it: If you’ve ever wondered, what is my true self beyond body and mind?, the Upanishads provide poetic, direct answers.
5. Interior Castle
Author: St. Teresa of Ávila
What you’ll learn: Teresa (16th century Spanish mystic) describes the soul as a vast castle with many mansions, each a deeper stage of prayer and union with God. She charts the stages of inner growth with extraordinary detail.
Why read it: If you’re curious about the inner path from the Christian mystical tradition, this is a masterwork. It shows how the soul journeys inward toward union.
6. Timaeus
Author: Plato
What you’ll learn: Plato’s dialogue describes the creation of the cosmos, the nature of the soul, and how the body was designed to house it. He saw the human body as a miniature cosmos, reflecting divine order.
Why read it: If you’re curious about how Greek philosophy mapped the soul into the physical world, Timaeus is foundational.
7. The Enneads
Author: Plotinus
What you’ll learn: Plotinus (3rd century CE) offers a mystical philosophy of the soul as an emanation of the One — the ultimate divine source. The Enneads describe the soul’s descent into the body and its return to the divine through contemplation.
Why read it: For seekers interested in how Western mysticism parallels yoga or Vedanta, Plotinus shows that the soul’s longing for return is universal.
8. The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Author: Translated by Francesca Fremantle & Chögyam Trungpa
What you’ll learn: Traditionally read to the dying, this text is a guide through the “bardos” (intermediate states between death and rebirth). It teaches how consciousness moves beyond the body and how awareness at transition opens liberation.
Why read it: If you’ve ever asked, what happens after death?, this book offers one of humanity’s most detailed maps of the journey beyond the body.
9. Be Water, My Friend
Author: Shannon Lee
What you’ll learn: Bruce Lee’s daughter shares her father’s philosophy of water — adaptable, resilient, formless — and shows how it can be lived as a daily spiritual and practical practice.
Why read it: If you’ve ever sought a modern teaching that bridges philosophy, martial discipline, and soul wisdom, this book distills timeless lessons into everyday life.
Buy the book here on Amazon: Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee
