The soul arc
The Soul’s journey is the great arc—from the One into the many, and from the many, back to the One.
From the One to the many, the Soul steps out of its eternal kingdom, much like Prince Rama leaving Ayodhya (from the sacred text, the Ramayana). It enters the vast forest of the world—a realm alive with beauty and danger, joy and sorrow. Here, the unity of the Source refracts into the diversity of the many. The sense of separateness grows: more “I” and “you,” more “us” and “them.” The mind busies itself with desire and fear, with building and defending. As the Bhagavad Gita says of tamas (14:13), clarity fades, action stalls, and the unreal is mistaken for the real.
Yet this descent into multiplicity is not without purpose. In the Ramayana, Rama’s exile was filled with trials that tempered his courage, deepened his compassion, and revealed the full measure of his dharma. So it is for the Soul: wandering through many lifetimes, it learns through contrast—tasting the fullness of light by passing through shadow.
xdsxxIn time, the great turning begins. The return—from the many to the One—starts as a subtle inward shift. Roughness gives way to gentleness, suspicion to trust, striving to surrender. There is more patience, more openness, more joy. Giving becomes natural, like rivers flowing to the sea. As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita (15:7), each living being is an eternal fragment of the Divine, temporarily wandering in the field of matter—yet destined to return.
And like Rama’s homecoming to Ayodhya, welcomed with flowers, light, and music, the Soul moves steadily toward its own eternal city—the radiant abode of the One. This is the great circle completed: the Soul returns to whence it came, to the boundless Source it never truly left.
Through loving awareness,