You are not who you think you are.
I bet if I asked you to describe who you are in a few simple words your answer would be something like ‘I’m X, I’m a wife, mother and a teacher’ or ‘My name is X, I’m a partner, father and assistant manager.’
Please excuse the sweeping generalisations, but I’m sure you get it.
Take a second to answer this question:
Who are you?
Okay. Now I’m going to ask you the same question, but this time with a slight twist…
Who are you when you take away your name, profession, familial roles and other titles that you’ve received from others or given yourself?
Who are you underneath all of that?
When I was first asked that question in a spiritual development class, I floundered. I was a wife, the mother of three small children, a part time shop assistant, daughter, sister……. When I was challenged to strip away all of the roles that I had acquired throughout my life, I really wasn’t sure who I was.
I think that this is a common confusion and one that keeps many people locked into a state of unawakenedness. When we are busy fulfilling our acquired roles, we simply don’t have time to ask ourselves, let alone answer that most fundamental of all questions.
You are an individuated piece of God Consciousness currently focused into physical body, in order to experience life in the physical realm.
You, my friend, are a Spirit Being on a short human journey.
When we begin to look at life from that perspective a whole vista of opportunities opens up to us. It can be all at once liberating and terrifying, which is why so many of us, upon awakening to the truth of our nature, experience what is known as a ‘dark night of the soul’.
As soon as you have grasped the fact that you are a limitless being curtailed for a short while as a physical presence, the next question to usually arise is;
What am I doing here?
Once you understand and accept that you are an eternal spirit being, you open the door to figuring out what life is all about.
That’s where soul growth comes in.
You are not on the earth purely out of biological happenstance. You chose your parents (spoiler!), the continent and country you wished to be born in and the lessons you wished to experience whilst incarnate.
Life isn’t happening TO you, it’s happening THROUGH you.
You regularly make choices that add to your own individual experience as a Soul (and to the collective experience of all souls) that either lead you closer to or further away from the Light of your Source.
Every experience, whether positive, negative or indifferent, teaches you something at a soul level.
As humans we have a tendency to label experiences in terms of how they feel, the emotions that they generate within ourselves and others. We speak in terms of successes, triumphs and failures, but in terms of your soul EVERY experience is grist for the mill.
I often tell my clients ‘there are no mistakes, only lessons.’
The whole point of life is the evolution of one’s soul.
Soul Growth.
In every moment of every day, whether or not you realise it, you are adding to your eternal experience. But it is not without consequence; what you are experiencing in this world (how you live your life and treat yourself, other people, animals, the earth etc) is preparing your life in the Next World.
When the Great Spirit thought you into existence as adistinct part of itself, it was so your own spiritual evolution would contribute and enlighten The Whole.
You are on a very important mission in this life.
Ultimately, it is a spiral journey back to the very core of WHO YOU TRULY ARE.
It is a process of remembering your true eternal Spirit Nature and accepting that you are as much a part of The Great Spirit as it is part of you, that you have a filial connection to all life, that there is no such thing as being separated from one another or your Source.
Spiritual evolution is an eternal process of refinement. Much like a cut diamond, it takes a journey of time, pressure and experience to transform a lump of carbon to a multifaceted, brilliant, flawless jewel.
The diamond that is your Soul is undergoing a similar transformation in every moment, in order that you become all that you always were.
That my friends is the importance of soul growth.
Inula Austin Soul Growth 