When I think of nourishing
soul, I think of nurturing ability to respond positively to life that is, ability to sustain passion for our interests, values, and projects. I believe that worst of all spiritual defeats is to lose enthusiasm for life's possibilities. Every life has its share of setbacks and disappointments of tragedy and loss. So question we all confront, in face of negatives that may assail us, is: How do we keep our inner fire alive?
Two things, at minimum, are needed: an ability to appreciate positives in our life and a commitment to action.
Every day, it's important to ask and answer these questions: "What's good in my life?" and "What needs to be done?"
The first question keeps us focused on positives; second keeps us proactive and reminds us that we are responsible for our own happiness and well-being.
Another aspect of focusing on positive, and thereby nourishing soul, is to stay focused on inquiry "What in my life do I most enjoy? What most stimulates me?" Someone once said that you can know who a man is if you know what wakes him up.
The pleasures that nurture me personally may be as simple as enjoying view of city and ocean from window of my living room, or spending time in garden, or appreciating good health. Of course, one of greatest joys that nurtures me is that I have a loving relationship with my wife. In addition, when I think of nurturing soul, I think of listening to music and rereading books that have meant a lot to me. I also think of act of writing. When I spend time at my computer, writing, I almost invariably experience a tremendous sense of appreciation of how wonderful it is to be alive. If I am away from writing too long, I feel discouraged, or at least dispirited. Writing takes energy, and it also creates energy.
For all of us, key is to pay close attention to which activities make us feel most alive and in love with life and then try to spend as much time as possible engaged in those activities.
Even when our life is most difficult, it is important to remember that something within us is keeping us alive life force that lifts us, energizes us, pulls us back sometimes from abyss of despair. True spirituality does not exist without love of life.
If we feel unhappy or unfulfilled, most urgent question is, "What needs to be done?" Or one might say, "What's missing in my life and what can I do about it?" The sin is to suffer passively. We must never forget that we have capacity to act. So we must always be concerned to know "What avenues of action are possible to me? What can I do to make my life better?"
If we stay oriented to two basic questions "What's good in my life?" and "What needs to be done?" and strive to respond to those questions appropriately, predictable result is that we will be happier human beings and get far more of whatever it is that we want in life.
Some writers Erich Fromm, for one contrast a so-called "being" orientation with a "doing" orientation. The implication is that being and doing are in some sense antithetical. Of course, they are not. Doing and being, action and stillness, are dependent on one another. Without action, we would cease to exist, and without stillness, we would neither be able to appreciate our existence nor have a foundation from which to act. We need stillness, we need pure experience of being, in order to fully realize ourselves. Out of that stillness can come motivation to act and also awareness we need to act wisely, not to lose perspective. When being and doing are in harmony, when stillness and action are friends to each other, we create an integrated, satisfied soul. We are then in best position to truly enjoy and appreciate life and not be destroyed by adversity.
