Deepak Chopra on the Soul

When we are beginning to understand the soul,
The ocean provides a wonderful analogy.
Imagine the ocean as non-local reality,
The field of infinite possibilities,
The virtual level of existence
That synchronizes everything.

Each of us is like a wave in that ocean.
We are created from it, and it makes up
The very core of who we are.
Just as a wave takes on a specific shape,
We, too, take on intricate patterns of non-local reality.
This vast, unending ocean of possibility
Is the essence of everything in the physical world.
The ocean represents the non-local,
And the wave represents the local.
The two are intimately connected.

Once we define the soul
As deriving from the non-local, or virtual realm,
Then our place in the universe
Becomes remarkably clear:
We are both local and non-local,
An individual pattern emerging from
Non-local intelligence,
Which is also part of everyone and everything else.
We can think of the soul, then, as having two parts.
The vast, non-local soul exists
At the virtual or spirit level.
It is powerful, pure, and capable of anything.
The personal, local part of the soul
Exists at the quantum level.
This is what reaches into our daily lives
And holds the essence of who we are.
It, too, is powerful, pure, and capable of anything.
The same unbounded potential of the infinite spirit
Also resides in each and every one of us.
Our personal soul, which we think of
When we think of our “selves,”
Is an outcropping of the eternal soul.
If we could learn to live from the level of the soul,
We would see that the best,
Most luminous part of ourselves
Is connected to all the rhythms of the universe.
We would truly know ourselves
As the miracle-makers we are capable of being.

We would lose fear, and longing, and hatred,
And anxiety, and hesitation.
Living from the level of the soul means
Diving past the ego,
Past the limitations of the mind that harness us
To events and outcomes in the physical world.