The instruments of the soul: body, mind and heart:

Levels of consciousness

Connection: consciousness – becoming aware

How does one experience the soul, in what way does soul speak? The soul is a radiant ray of the divine sun, Inayat Khan tells, and its experience is pure light, pure vibration, pure energy –  experience as well as expression. As a human being one wonders, do we avail of an instrument by which the soul can tell us? Neither body nor mind nor heart seem to suffice. Yet, many will testify to have perceived a glimpse of that light, some sort of vibration, an energy that is immaterial and lifting. A real experience, beyond imagination and fantasy. Philosophically this is a riddle. How can the I experience itself? Is it the heart, the mind, the body?

The clue is this. Body, mind and heart constitute a gift, a gift one has received in order for the soul to experience life on all levels of consciousness. They constitute the instruments of one’s soul.

The soul’s development is sketched as a grand journey of the soul itself, originating in the sphere of light, the divine sun, sojourning first in the angelic and then in the sphere of the mind-beyond (the djinn sphere^[1]). Finally the soul becomes a human being on the earth plane, consisting of the instruments of body, mind and heart, in order to live life and experience it to the full, enlivened and kept together by the life energy of the soul. The book then relates the return journey of the soul. This in a nutshell is what Inayat Khan has sketched on this subject. Becoming aware.

Then he was asked whether the soul is travelling indeed? The reply was, yes but in reality the consciousness is changing from one sphere to another sphere.

Therefore, body, mind and heart are the instruments for the soul, vehicles to transport it through the successive states of consciousness. Vehicles to experience life on earth, in this world.

How, and to what extent?

Consciousness of light in the soul’s own sphere, of peace, stillness.

Consciousness of love, harmony and beauty in the sphere of the heart.

Consciousness of clarity, creativity and inspiration in the sphere of the mind.

Consciousness of all these in the spiritual energy of one’s actual life, working in the body, in one’s thinking, in one’s feeling, in one’s silence.

Each of these as a specific language of the soul.

Hazrat Inayat Khan thus describes in images the soul’s journey through these states before its birth on the earthly plane. Again, now in his own words:

‘…it is not a journey of the soul. Rather it is a journey of consciousness.’

Could it be that –  to personalize for a moment –  my soul does express itself to me in these languages which may seem to me as a remembrance, alive but hidden? Should it be possible to find these qualities in one’s life?

When one is learning the language of the angelic heart, might one be able to recognize and hear the whisper of the soul in its heart’s tune? Learning such language? By fine-tuning one’s antenna to the appropriate pitch of that sphere of consciousness. Refinement, subtlety.

When one is learning the language of the mind-beyond, might one be able to recognize and hear the sound of the soul in the language of the mind-beyond? Does one’s consciousness travel in the here and now also? Does one allow oneself to try and ‘step over’ to a different mind-set, to a different heart-set? ‘It is not our situation in life, but our attitude towards life that makes us happy or unhappy.’ (Gayan, Bola)

It is an art to discover these options in one’s consciousness. Attunement, rhythm, and more, are keys to this discovery.

The essay then starts an exploration into this land of the self, here and beyond. This land –  which is one’s consciousness as it manifests on each of these levels, potentially.

From my essay What does the soul tell?, Introduction. — Slightly edited.

^[1]   The term djinn, in Western culture, is associated with fairy-tale-like figures, often of malignant nature, opposed to man rather than being her spiritual counterpart. Therefore, preference is given to the term ‘the mind-beyond’ – though being well aware that this is an interference in Hazrat Inayat’s wordings – he has often warned against such measures. To my advantage one will find in later texts that he has had replaced it himself by ‘genius’. Yet my proposal is to opt for my terminology as it has the clear advantage of linking the mind-beyond to the human mind. ‘Genius’ rather identifies with a quality of the mind here.