Soul-Making: The Desert Way of Spirituality

By Alan Jones

"Soul-making involves a willingness to cultivate a certain disposition towards the world

and to other people: an attitude of receptivity and openness," writes Alan Jones, dean of Grace
Cathedral in San Francisco, California. The author, a very creative speaker, and retreat leader
demonstrates this capacity in spades. Every one of his books is filled with references to novelists,
poets, and philosophers of all kinds.

Soul-making also has to do with following questions into the mystery and respecting
things invisible. In this sturdy and wide-ranging paperback, Jones examines the spiritual riches
of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, early Christians who taught that life is a school of love and
that we must take seriously how much God loves us and wants us to become all we were meant
to be. "Sin is a sort of willful forgetfulness of how great and wonderful we are." That sentence
can be pondered long and fruitfully given its power and truth! Jones laments the problem of
spiritual amnesia and challenges us to spend more time studying "the desert way of believing."

The Desert Fathers and Mothers model a mature spirituality that involves looking,
weeping, and living fully. Jones explores these themes in the three sections of the paperback on
the invitation to see, entering the emptiness, and the call to joy. Two of our favorite passages
recommend viewing death as a companion and a friend, as St. Francis of Assisi did, and
respecting the gift of tears. Jones is convinced that tears come out of our deepest needs and
yearnings: "The gift of tears is concerned with living in and with the truth and with the new life
that the truth always brings. The tears are like the breaking of waters of the womb before the
birth of a child." They soften the soul, clear the mind and open the heart. Jones also has some
thought-provoking things to say about wonder, attention, love as God's wildcard, and the Trinity.
Reference: http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews/view/9274/soul-making

What is Soul-Making?

Albert Camus wrote, "If there is a soul...It is created here, throughout a whole life. And living is
nothing but that long and painful bringing forth."

SOUL IS BEYOND DEFINITION

Soul-making cannot be defined. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "You could not
discover the limits of soul, even if you traveled by every path in order to do so; such is the depth
of its meaning."

I have adopted the term from the English poet John Keats. Keats was dying of
tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five. He was a brilliant writer who knew that he would not live
long enough to complete the body of poetic work he longed to create. Extremely ill, financially
broke and recently abandoned by his fiancé, he struggled to make sense of this thing called life.
In a letter written to his brother in February of 1819 Keats was seeking to make sense of a world
that seemed so cruel and unfair. He couldn't accept the usual Christian view when he wrote: "The
common label of this world among the misguided and superstitious is "a vale of tears" from
which we are to be redeemed by a certain arbitrary interposition of God and taken to Heaven…"

He went on to explain soul-making as a process where the basic seed of divine

intelligence in all humans goes through necessary experiences, especially suffering, that
transform the intelligence into a unique Soul:

"I say "Soul-making'', Soul as distinguished from an Intelligence - There may be

intelligence or sparks of the divinity in millions--but they are not Souls till they acquire
identities, till each one is personally itself. Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and
troubles is to school Intelligence and make it a soul! A Place where the heart must feel and
suffer in a thousand diverse ways! - As various as the Lives of Men are--so various become their
souls, and thus does God make individual beings, Souls…"

SOUL-MAKING IS A METAPHOR

The term soul-making is a metaphor. The word 'metaphor' is comprised of two Greek
words - Meta - above and Phero - to carry. So, a metaphor is an image or phrase that carries the
reader above the literal sensory realm into the realm of invisible imagination.

Like myth, metaphor enlists the truth of imagination over the truth of literal thinking.
When Bruce Springsteen sings, "Ohhh, ohhh, ohh, I'm on fire", he is in the realm of metaphor, as
opposed to Michael Jackson's Pepsi commercial when he spoke literally, "Ahhhhh, I'm on fire!"

Soul-making is a metaphorical term. Therefore, the term will never be adequate for those
logical positivists or rationalistic materialists, like Richard Dawkins of The God Delusion, who
exclude all non-material or 'non-sensical' words. One has to wonder what they write in their
Valentine's Day cards; perhaps, "Dear Valentine. I am experiencing unusual levels of oxytocin
and serotonin in my neuro-chemical synaptic connections when I'm around you."

SOUL MAKING IS POETRY MAKING

The word 'making' in 'soul-making' comes out of the Greek word poieo which means 'to
be the author or maker of something'. Our English words poet, poem, and poetry come from this
word. The reason for that term, for example rather than soul-builder or soul-grower, is that the
emphasis is on creative, intelligent authorship. The making is not done by impersonal processes,
but by Intelligent Forces. So then, soul-making is really psycho-poesies or soul poetry.

The poetic aspect is critical to understanding soul-making. The Universe is not a lifeless
debris field resulting from the Big Bang, but a living organism. To our Hubble telescope and
rocket-propelled space surveyors, the Cosmos may appear to be a stark and barren graveyard;
but, so do blood cells and brain neurons when isolated under a microscope. Unless we knew that
the flowing lava-like stream of oddly shaped blood cells and the electro-chemically firing brain
synapses were tiny elements of a larger living organism, they wouldn't appear to be alive. The
Universe contains Intelligence beyond our current scopes and research methods. Some Quantum
physicists are hypothesizing in that direction, but we have yet to 'prove' it with instruments.

The Universe is animated, or a Living Soul (Psyche). Humans exist in this Psyche.
Human beings don't contain souls any more than a fish contains sea water. Like fish in the sea,
we swim in the Sea of Psyche. Psyche is comprised of many brilliant aspects - ranging from
numbers and geometric shapes to qualities like Life and Death, Chaos, and Order. We don't
question that numbers were here before we arrived; why would it be so shocking to discover that
Qualities were here as well. These are archetypes or the original qualities which are universally
recognized by all human beings.

THE POETRY OF PSYCHE

One way to understand this is to imagine the Universe as an immense dictionary filled
with an infinite number of Living Words (archetypes). Your individual life is like a page upon
which the Universe composes a poem. Your soul is a poem in the process of being composed or
authored. These Universal Words are Intelligent Energies. More and more physicists are
acknowledging the lost realm of metaphysics as they study atoms and come up with mythical
names like quarks, neutrinos, muons and what are called exotic particles.

These Universal Words or archetypal energies are Creators, sort of like radio signals
entering our minds via the receiver we call a brain. As they are experienced, we turn them into
spoken sounds and written words. Nouns and verbs do not come into existence by our speaking
or writing them. We speak them and write them because they have always existed. Christianity
got it right when it said, "The Word became flesh..."

This is what John Keats was talking about when he called this world a school for soul-
making, or psycho-poetic composing. All emotions, human institutions, feelings, ideas, pains,
and pleasures are the writing instruments that compose our souls. However, it is more than just
being done to us.

CO-CREATING: YOU ARE THE POET AND THE POEM

We are co-creators in the soul-making process. We choose the words and the Words
choose us. If you have seen magnetic poetry on refrigerator doors, you have a good illustration of
soul-making. The refrigerator is like the Universe, the magnetic Words are the archetypal or
original energies. When you make a refrigerator poem, certain words jump out, form phrases and
then you make a poem. It may be silly or sublime, but it is an interaction between you and the
words. If you are observant, you will see that the Words chose you. Our human desire for poetry
comes from the Higher Realms, not vice versa; we write and read poetry because we are poetry.
 The eternal Words are infinite, interactive symbiotic energies. Our human word and
artistic symbols carry them from the heavenly realms into the arena of soul-making. Anyone who
has done any kind of art knows the fascinating interaction that goes on as you dance with your
creative medium, whether it be clay, paints, ink, paper, musical notes, cloth, wood or drafting
tools. The Greeks called the mysterious process of inspiration (in-spiriting) the work of Muses.
Have you ever wondered why the final product took the form it did? There were Forces choosing
you as you chose them.

THE ANALOGY OF WORD PARTICLES

I theorize that the mind and symbols with which the artist works emit something like a
particular energy that unites with his or her soul process. Perhaps one day we will invent a scope
that detects the soul/mental emissions that come from each of us, attracting and connecting to the
archetypal forces around us as our soul poem is being made. These emissions are determined by
the stage and cycles of our own unique soul process. Each soul formation is as unique as a
snowflake or fingerprint. These universal patterns of uniqueness are being explored in the natural
world in the relatively new field of fractal geometry.

Perhaps these mental emissions project toward and attract the necessary objects, persons,
parents, education, and experiences to complete our unique soul-poems. Like tiny magnetic
fields, soul draws or repels according to our needs and necessities. Our partners, education, jobs,
abuses, failures and a whole host of 'circumstantial' coincidences are part of the Poem.
Philosophers and holy teachers have named this process variously, referring to the Fates,
Destiny, Providence, Daimons, Guardian Angels, The Stars and a host of other terms referring to
a life guided by more than random chance. What these various terms have in common, and
remember that these notions are found in every culture, is the making of a poetic composition
from the nouns and verbs of opposites - Life and Death, Disease and Health, Poverty and
Prosperity, Love and Hate - an infinite realm of opposites.

NIGHT POEMS: SOUL-MAKING IN OUR DREAMS

These archetypal nouns and verbs come to us most easily and creatively in our dreams,
when our conscious guards are down. It is in the night, while we sleep, that the Poem is most
easily written. Contrary to much current teaching on dream theory, we don’t need to know
anything about these dreams. Most of them go undetected while we are in deep sleep. Perhaps
this is why many writers and artists find themselves blocked and ‘dry’ when they are in peaceful
times, sleeping deeply, dreaming silently and making soul with minimal effort.

The Universe is an ocean of Living Intelligences, archetypal nouns and verbs like Life
and Death, Good and Evil, Beauty and Ugliness, War and Peace, Love and Hate, Masculine and
Feminine. These are just a few of the words on the door of the cosmic refrigerator door. It seems
that soul is made most substantially when we stop trying to reconcile these opposites and
experience their union.
CONCLUSION

Soul-making is not an empirical science; interestingly, many scientists working at the

level of quantum reality are wondering whether there is such a thing as empirical, objective
science. I don't know enough about what they are calling the 'Uncertainty Principle', except to
repeat what I have read - that at the subatomic levels; the elements seem to be influenced by the
observer.

Soul-making is beyond definition. I repeat what the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said,
"You could not discover the limits of soul, even if you traveled by every path in order to do so;
such is the depth of its meaning."

We live in an Intelligent Universe - some form of mysterious intelligence encompasses

the seemingly random chaos and resultant order, an order that is beyond our assumed
understanding of 'order'. This Universe is suffused with Poetic Words or Living Energies that are
part of the soul-making process. Each of us is a unique poem, gradually being weaved together
into a larger poetic whole/soul. Every incident and event is part of that epic poem. While there
may be tragedies and betrayals, troubles and failures, successes and victories - there are no
useless words in your poem; and most of it goes on at levels we cannot see or understand. In that
sense, we must trust the Author(s).

In Philip Pullman's, The Golden Compass, The Master says to Lyra, "The powers of this
world are very strong. Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine,
and they sweep us all up into the current. Go well, Lyra; bless you, child, bless you. Keep your
own counsel."

Reference: http://michaelbogar.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-is-soul-making_9405.html

Soul-Making is Connecting to Our Deepest Nature

C.G. Jung wrote: "My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious… I can
understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity
of my life." He seems to be implying that at our essence, we are like all other human beings. The
soul is what links us to the archetypal world. Soul-making is communicating deeply with the
inner realm, being fully awake and aware as the numinous bursts forth from the unconscious,
flooding our consciousness with eternal images.

James Hillman sees soul-making as what happens when we evoke the emotions and
experiences—of crisis and opportunity, of love and dying—that give life a deeper meaning. This
occurs as the unique turns into the universal, and the temporal into the eternal. Only this world,
with all of its opposites and dualities, as Keats (2004) said, provides the necessary stuff of soul-
making. And, as many spiritual traditions say, we are formed in the image of God and we have
the innate capacity to reflect that image in the life we live. This inborn image serves as a spark of
consciousness that benefits our growth and has our best interests as its purpose. We can also
think of this mysterious force overseeing our lives as "grace," "Providence," or being invisibly
watched over.
 A 49th way to explore your soul's story – Whether we remember it or not, we are always
connected to our Infinite self. We are always living in the archetypal realm. We just have to be a
bit more conscious of where we are each moment. Take some special time right now to
communicate deeply with your eternal self. Listen carefully to what your soul has to tell you. Be
open to all moments, to all dualities that have come your way. Knowing these polarities as well
as you can, will greatly assist your process of soul-making. As we become more familiar with
this deeper, lasting sense of who we really are, we recognize more clearly that all that does come
to us is purposeful. Take in deeply all of these moments of grace, reflect further upon their
meaning for you, and, when you have reached some new or deeper clarity, write down your
insights from this reflection in the form of a flowing narrative.

Reference: https://rememberingwhoweare.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/soul-
making-is-connecting-to-our-deepest-nature/

Why do we need soul-making?

The soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose… mystery no mind… can ever hope to
unravel. It is the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to
recognize His glory, [and] to cleave to His truth… If it is faithful to God, it will reflect His light,
and will, eventually, return unto Him. –Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah,
pp. 155-156.

If the human soul is that eternal, closest to perfection-like part of ourselves which comes
from, reflects, and returns to the Creator, then why would any soul-making, or further
development of it, be necessary?

The Baha'i teachings say:

If [the soul] fail, however, in its allegiance to its Creator, it will become a victim to self
and passion, and will, in the end, sink in their depths. – Ibid.

Baha'u'llah further explains why such a free choice is even possible, to begin with:

The soul is endowed with two wings: should it soar in the atmosphere of love and
contentment, then it will be related to the All-Merciful, and should it fly in the atmosphere of self
and desire, then it… is known as the concupiscent soul. – Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. 154.

This human condition of free will creates a broad context for soul-making, ranging from
sacred scripture to literature to psychology. Because we have an interconnected dual nature—
simultaneously spiritual and physical—both of which are susceptible to the variations in the
external environment and its influences, we each undertake a quest to fulfill our spiritual nature.
This quest requires great vigilance and, even more so, guidance from our vast spiritual heritage,
which contains many descriptions of the stages of the development of the soul. Thus, Abdu'l-
Baha says the "two wings" of the soul also signify "wings of ascent:"
 One is the wing of KNOWLEDGE, the other of FAITH, as this is the means of the ascent
of the human soul to the lofty station of divine perfections. – Baha'i World Faith, p. 382.

This is where the visionary poets and scholars come in. 19th century English poet John
Keats wrote:

There may be intelligence or sparks of the divinity in millions—but they are not Souls
until they acquire identities… How then are Souls to be made? How, but by the medium of a
world like this? Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school
Intelligence and make it a soul? Call the world, if you please, 'the vale of soul-making.'

Keats saw the world we are thrust into, ready or not, as the anvil that shapes and forms a
partially made, potential-laden soul. We have a need to learn life by heart–"in a place where the
heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways" –and to make the right choices, so we can
become that spark of divinity.

Soul-making happens when light merges with dark, when joy and sorrow intermingle,
and when the eternal breaks through from the temporal realm. When we experience opposites
and learn their lessons in the classroom of the world, the soul remembers what it came here for
and evolves toward its potential. As Thomas Moore said, "The whole world… [is] nothing but
the raw material of soul-making."

Jungian analyst Marion Woodman sees soul-making as:

…constantly confronting the paradox that an eternal being is dwelling in a temporal

body. Soul-making is allowing the eternal essence to experience the outer world through all the
senses… so the soul grows during its time on Earth…True soul-making comes from that deep
communication with what Jung would call the archetypal world… When we connect with our
souls, we connect with the soul of every human being… If we believe in a divine order, then
everything on the Earth is part of that divine order. We're all little sparks of One Soul. – Coming
Home to Myself, pp. 4, 209.

These reasons, made clearer through the recent insights and discoveries of psychology,
support what the Baha'i teachings say:

It is evident, therefore, that man is in need of divine education and inspiration, that the
spirit and bounties of God are essential to his development… man must pass from degree to
degree of progressive unfoldment until perfection is attained… without progressive and universal
education perfection will not be attained… The journey of the soul is necessary. The pathway of
life is the road which leads to divine knowledge and attainment. – Abdu'l-Baha, The
Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 295-296.

Life's difficulties and struggles form the necessary, essential context for soul-making,
contributing to meaning-making, pattern shaping, and closing the gap between opposing forces.

Reference: http://bahaiteachings.org/why-do-we-need-soul-making