The Untethered Soul

Consciousness is the continuous awareness through which we experience the universe. It is a sense of one’s own existence that answers the question “Who am I?” more authentically and more deeply than any label. Most people focus their conscious awareness on their own thoughts, emotions, and daily troubles and never realize that it is possible to spiritually drop these things and take the seat of conscious awareness, a state in which you notice your thoughts and the world passing by but never identify with these things. According to the author, the ability to live this way is the spiritual path to freedom, joy, and unconditional happiness.

An energy center, or a chakra, is an embodied place (like the heart) in which energy collects and passes through. When energy centers are closed, energy gets blocked, and we experience suffering when those trapped energy patterns become activated by certain thoughts or experiences in life. A blocked energy pattern is called a Samskara, which means an “impression,” often from a tragic event. This trapped energy may be activated whenever a person experiences a reminder of a difficult past event with the result of causing the person pain, often in the original form in which it was experienced. These negative experiences, which emanate from energy trapped in a closed energy center, can ruin one’s day or dictate one’s life, depending on the severity of the blockage. When energy centers are open, we can experience the natural state of things, which is constant love and unlimited energy.

While there are many different forms of meditation, the basic form of meditation is a practice of focusing on the breath. This often involves sitting or lying in a comfortable position, closing one’s eyes, and reaching a place of inner quiet; chanting a mantra, listening to music, following a teacher’s instructions, or attuning to the sounds of one’s environment are methods that help people meditate. People meditate for religious or therapeutic reasons, to alleviate stress or to achieve peace of mind. In The Untethered Soul, meditation is a spiritual practice specifically intended to bring the practitioner into the pure perspective of conscious awareness. In this sense, meditation can be a special time set aside to reach that spiritual state or a state of flow that a spiritually advanced practitioner experiences throughout their daily life.

The “centered Self” (33) is the condition of experiencing the world from the seat of conscious awareness. The Self is another word for the Soul in the Christian tradition or the Atman in the Hindu tradition. Turning conscious attention toward one’s Self is an important spiritual experience. In The Untethered Soul, the term “Self” is also used to describe a false Self, which consists in a comfortable collection of thoughts about one’s own Self. This is the Self that answers the question “Who are you?” with labels, such as “I am a doctor, I am a wife, I am a philanthropist,” etc. It is necessary to move beyond this conception of self to come to a true understanding of Self, which, paradoxically, is selfless—the absence of identity.