What is the difference between Soul & Spirit?

I had no idea there was a difference between these two aspects of mind until I was asked to write this.

I find the idea of leaving my life and going off to a very secluded place to be totally alone for an extended period of time extremely sexy.   I have felt this way for a very long time, since first realizing what spirituality is and recognizing that it is the predominant force that guides my life. 

Sometimes I mention this to other people and they look quite puzzled.  When they look at me like that I am pretty sure I look back at them the same way.  Apparently no one I know shares in my feeling that spending time utterly alone, in perfect quietness except for the sounds of life flowing in the body, movement, nature, and of course the endless thoughts in the mind is intoxicatingly fascinating.  For me the idea of being left alone in silence is akin to being dropped off at the entrance to a labyrinth, or maze…not knowing what’s at the end, just knowing something is there.  I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter what’s at the end, I’m excited about the journey…the idea of the end, or that something is there, is just a good excuse to take the trip. 

If the labyrinth is my, or a spiritual path,  it is spirit that places me at the entrance, guides my way through and I suppose it is what waits at the end.  It is my soul that finds the journey sexy, navigates the twists and turns, either gets frustrated with or laughs at its dead ends and it is my soul that will recognize, or remember the end when I find it.  If my soul is the walls of the labyrinth, my spirit is the ground it rests on.  In every way I contemplate the soul and the spirit, they are inextricably linked, as all experiences of the soul are inextricably linked to spirit.

When I was a young mother I spent years studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism.  On the Tibetan Buddhist path, solitary retreat is considered a critical step toward enlightenment and ultimately saving all beings from suffering.  My friends without families did retreats with seriousness and a sense of apprehension, the anticipation of the retreat was anything but sexy to them.  During our studies we were taught about the various disorders that could surface from spending extended time alone in quiet.  We were all taught about these disorders so as to prevent them or at the very least know how to treat them should they occur.

I don’t remember what I thought about the disorders when I studied them, but now, some 15 years later, I find it curious, that those disorders could come from nowhere, and nothing considering one is totally alone and unstimulated when they surface.  It seems reasonable to me that these issues already exist and are causing us problems all our lives, whether we ever see them or not.   We notice them when they are left isolated by the lack of distractions or more pressing things to tend to.  Perhaps that is why I find the idea of being alone so attractive, because I know these things exist, I know I have them…and I want to explore them and experience and intimately relate to them.  I want meet my monsters face to face and talk to them.  They are a part of me, they are as much to thank for who I have become as the rest of me, repressed or not.

When I try to assess whether I consider myself more soulful or spiritual, I have great difficulty.  I know that outwardly I appear to be enraptured by the wonderment of this life, and I am.  I tear up when there are no cops around, but traffic on both sides of the road stops because a schoolbus is picking up children, and then for many moments afterwards I am in deep thought about how humans are innately good.  I moan when I eat good food, and I think about how gratifying it must be for the cook to have been so successful, even if I was the chef that day.  I writhe on the floor with my cats and laugh hysterically when they play, and always think about how they were rescued and would surely be dead if not for some kind souls who save them.

So obviously I am effortlessly soulful.  For me, soulful experiences are all originating in and pointing at spirit, they are segments of the labyrinth that is my spiritual path.  The kindness of the people who stop on their rushed commutes to work just in case a kid goes astray while running for the bus connects me to the life force within us all.  I know there’s a law that states they must do it, and maybe some are doing it on the surface for that reason.  I’m pretty sure if they were asked whether they would stop and wait until a child was safely on the bus one hundred or one million times in order to spare one young life, even those who get irritated by having to stop would say yes.  So it is my soul in this case that tears up when I see all the cars stop, but it is my spirit that joins in recognition of the desire to protect life and value it above all mundane concerns.

For the past few years I have been practicing yoga very regularly.  I am at a point where a day isn’t a day unless it started on my mat.  As things go and as my immersion into the experience of yoga deepens I am learning more about yoga philosophy and the tantric worldview.  Tantrics’ practice is one of embodiment and wonder at the manifestation of spirit we call our universe.  For them, the soul is a manifestation of spirit as much as the wave is a manifestation of ocean, and the way to connec t to spirit is to fully experience its manifestations.  As such, the way to be freed of afflictive emotions and attachment is to fully experience the emotion and fully experience that which we’re attached to, and thereby know attachment and how it feels or operates in us.  The idea is that the only way out is through, not everyone can deny or suppress into oblivion baser desires or leapfrog over them to enlightenment.  For some of us, only by intimately understanding what it is that you desire and its hold on you can you be free from or transcend it, there is no denying what the soul wants.

In the Tibetan Monasteries the tantric practices were kept very secret and only taught to the highest most gifted practitioners.  The open teachings included vows and intense practices designed to obliterate the hold that the worldy things of samsara, the desire realm, have on us.  In that tradition a solitary retreat is usually done in austere conditions and is hard work.  I think when I got to the point where my Buddhist practice should naturally fall into this type of work I involuntarily stepped back.  At the time I attributed it to being unable to leave my young child to do a retreat.  Logistically I could have done it, but the reality was that I would be sitting and wondering how she was, or longing for her the way mothers do.  There was no denying that, no practice or vow or distraction could touch that longing in my heart.  After several years of steadfast learning and practice, the innate wisdom inside me reminded me that for me, the only way out is through, this segment of the labyrinth had twisted back in the direction I started.  My tendency is to not to suppress desire, or emotion, in fact when I do I suffer. I don’t have the muscles to hop walls in my labyrinth.  I did a short silent group retreat once, and for a week afterwards my neck was so sore and stiff it actually hurt to speak, breathe and swallow.  I don’t think being silent caused my pain…I believe that happened because I suppressed my expression …not for a moment did I become quiet.

I believe there are pitfalls for those who have a tendency to revel excessively in the experience of soul and those who are drawn, or withdrawn to living deeply spiritual lives.  My tendency to not deny myself or suppress any experiences of the soul has resulted in long periods where I deny myself nothing…aka overindulgence.  This is like finding a pretty segment in the labyrinth and stopping much longer than is needed or beneficial, to smell every single flower, touch every leaf, lie down and look up, take a nap, have a picnic, etc.  Honestly, I’m pretty sure I could be content like that forever, but alas I’ll never get to behold the next segment, let alone what waits at the end if I don’t move on.  I have found myself feeling sorry for those I know who live very regimented lives, focused on efficient mastery and navigation of their labyrinths…avoiding dead ends, always looking forward.  I truly forget or become unable to relate to the fact that there are benefits to exercising discipline and willpower.  My yoga practice is strong because I enjoy it as much as I do food, sex and sleep…not because I feel it is the right thing to do (even though it is).  I never have to exert any willpower to get to it.  I don’t eat fast food or other obviously unhealthy things because I feel like crap after I do, not because I they’re unhealthy and I want to eat well.  Any changes I’ve made in lifestyle have come from an organic soulful experience of enjoyment of their benefits, or an organic soulful experience of the harm of the opposite behavior.  These choices are not from intellectual or faith based understanding that they are right, it’s all experiential as that’s the only way they “stick”.  But alas, getting up from a nap beneath the flowers and moving on to the next segment in the labyrinth is inevitable.

Author's Note

Have at it...I'm a newb and would love to read your critique!