When I decided I wanted to do my Ph.D., it was very much a decision from my intellect. I wanted to become a university professor, and graduate work was the path to it. It was a practical, logical, and ego-pleasing want. I know now that the core essence impulse inside me wanted to be a teacher, but I let my mind decide how. I worked hard at it, persevered and I did achieve my goal. However, when I graduated, I did not have the feeling of joy I thought I would have, but instead, I found myself wondering, what’s next?
This is an example of self-realization as opposed to soul-realization. I had an idea of who I wanted to become, and I put all my attention towards becoming that person. You may be able to do anything you put your focus on, but self-realization is ephemeral. It doesn’t satisfy the soul.
  Soul-realization, on the other hand, is eternal. Instead of putting your focus on goals, your self-image, or what you think you want, you place it on the abstract inner...

Just like a melody in the heart is not real until it is sung or played, a fire-stir in our belly is an abstraction until words are expressed and we are heard and witnessed 

Sound creates reality. So when you are vulnerable and permit yourself to speak the fire that lives in your belly, you give birth to your soul, you make the un-manifest manifest. You are more brilliant than the sun. You are the creator. You make tangible the abstract, the latent you that lives within the universe that you are.