Soulful is not exactly a word that we normally read in the papers or hear in daily conversations, but soulful living can surely make our lives happier, and the world as a whole would become a happier place too!

However, words do sometimes need extra definition and especially deep words that can be easily misunderstood; some words carry particular heavy emotional baggage, often accumulated over centuries or more. Soul, soulful, spirit, spiritual... what does 'soulful living' mean to you personally? We could ask this question to a random one hundred people on the street, but will we also get one hundred different answers? Wouldn't that kind of make sense? After all, we all have different backgrounds, experiences, beliefs etc. and yet, the short answer is 'No', not really: the answers really depend on how many 'free' people we'd asked versus how many 'conditioned' ones...

The word 'soul' in itself already involves a lot of religious tradition and weight, but how many people involved in organized religion really seem to know what it means? It is something of a myth or belief; dogma at worst and blissful personal experience at best. Here's a bit of a catch: Nobody can really understand/experience the concept of soul or spirit by looking outside for an answer... by blindly following some kind of dogma, organization or leader, no matter their colors, shapes or forms!

To search externally for answers ultimately means to surrender oneself and that comes always with a heavy price attached in terms of wasted energy, time and money, mental and physical health, and hence, bye bye happiness and living soulfully... In order to follow externally, one has to deny oneself the listening to and following of the best invention since, say, strawberries or apple pie! Just kidding, but seriously, I'm talking about our intuition; the-auto-pilot guidance system we all have, naturally!

So we always have the choice: We can live in the illusion of being an insecure person who still needs to follow others..., or we just know it's best to trust ourselves - being our own authority - experiencing ourselves as we truly are anyway: happy, loving, lovable, strong, self-confident...

We all have the ability to follow our intuition easily and happily, unless we keep it covered up by external conditioning (= blindly believing and following dogmas and other people's opinions or directions) or by being not true to ones self: Anyone who has a habit of lying has a major problem with listening, trusting and following intuitive messages... 'to say what you mean and mean what you say' is not just a silly old-fashioned thing or a question of morality. Quite to the very contrary, it is an important step to personal freedom and lot's of happiness!

Have the courage to be your free and true Self and you'll be experiencing a happy life in so many dimensions - personally and for real!

Perfect happiness is the ultimate reward of living soulfully; truthfully, true to our Self, appreciating our freedom of will and choice, living our lives fully aware of all our aspects in the many different dimensions of space and time, and way beyond!

Copyright 2003 Arne Klingenberg & The-Happy-Side.com 
First published as a January 2003 anniversary article in http://www.SoulfulLiving.com
It may be freely distributed if unchanged and including this message.