Today is Monday, March 17, 2014.
When I read Gary Zukav's book, The Seat of the Soul, back in 1990, I realized that I had been coming to some of the same conclusions as Zukav, over the years, about the purpose of life and about relationships in general. What I was missing was a way to express my thoughts in words.
In order to understand where Zukav is coming from, you have to understand that his central premise is that human beings are not just the body or the intellect, but Soul, and that Souls come to this physical world for a reason – probably not just one reason, but a number of reasons, combined. We come here to learn, grow, and serve. Interacting with one another in relationships is how we accomplish our growth and service. Zukav's idea was that if people could learn to identify their reason for being here, as Soul, they could enter into relationships with a clearer idea of what they could accomplish in the relationship. He contrasted a traditional marriage, bound by gender-based social roles, and contracted for reasons of physical survival and procreation, emotional stability, and social convenience, with a spiritual partnership, contracted between two Souls who understand why they came and what they agreed to learn. The Souls recognize how their partnership can benefit each of them, and they agree to do whatever it takes to assist each other in their mutual growth, regardless of gender-based social roles. Zukav recently wrote, "When two people in an intimate-couple relationship look at their
interactions as opportunities to learn about themselves instead of
change each other, they are infusing their relationship with the energy
of spiritual partnership." Basically, we enter into relationships as a means of promoting our own spiritual growth, knowing that when we do so, the other person will benefit spiritually, as well. Zukav says, "A spiritual partnership is between people who promise themselves to use all of their experiences to grow spiritually."
I read and re-read Seat of the Soul many times, getting something new out of it each time as my own consciousness expanded. I have enjoyed reading Zukav's other books, as well, and I have especially appreciated his process of refining ideas over time. That's why, when I read his book, Spiritual Partnership, The Journey to Authentic Power, I was pleased to see that his definition of the term "spiritual partners" had expanded, because my own definition of the concept had expanded, as well.
The idea of "soul mates" has been around for a long time, but the term has been overused and misused. A lot of people think a soul mate is one single person you are fated to meet, that you are supposed to marry your soul mate, and that your soul mate is supposed to "complete" you somehow. That's very romantic, but it's all bullshit. I like Zukav's term, "spiritual partners," a lot better, because it gets away from the idea that two people have to be spouses or lovers in order to be partners. In his book about spiritual partnerships, Zukav specifically says that spiritual partners are not always marriage partners. They are simply Souls who have, for one reason or another, agreed to meet in this lifetime to work on issues for their mutual benefit. In a social context, spiritual partners can be friends, business partners, or people with whom we work to complete any kind of project. We can enter into spiritual partnership with more than one person at any given time.
Dr. Michael Newton's books, Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls have also contributed to my ideas of what spiritual partners are, because in his books he talked about Soul circles, groups of Souls who tend to incarnate together in order to learn. The groups are flexible, with some Souls exiting the group and others entering, based loosely on their level of consciousness and their common learning curve. In the past couple of decades I have identified a few Souls who seem to be in my Soul circle.
Zukav says that spiritual partnerships have four main qualities — commitment, compassion, courage and conscious
communication.
Commitment
Unlike a traditional marriage, where the commitment is actually to a social role (I promise to be your wife/husband), a spiritual partnership involves a commitment to our own spiritual growth, because if we are not growing spiritually, we are not in any position to assist others. The commitment is also to assist, in any way possible, the growth of the partner. This is a vow you can keep, even if the relationship ends, because if you see that your growth and the other person's growth are at a standstill within the relationship, you can let the other person go, knowing that in doing so, you are releasing the person so that he or she can continue to grow elsewhere.
If the partnership is not a marital relaitonship, the same idea applies. Friendships, business partnerships, and other types of group partnerships can be contracted not simply for social reasons, but also with the knowledge that whatever process the relationship involves will result in spiritual growth for all concerned.
Compassion
Spiritual partners recognize that nobody is perfect, and they see themselves and others as Souls, children of God, who are doing their best to grow under trying circumstances. Rather than seeing imperfections as something to avoid, spiritual partners realize that relationships are opportunities for themselves and their partner to grow and choose to change themselves, often in very uncomfortable ways.
Courage
It takes courage to stretch ourselves beyond limitations imposed by ourselves and our society, and to take our relationships into new, uncharted territory.
Conscious Communication
Spiritual partners strive to avoid reacting to situations in unconscious ways in which fear and anger are in control. Instead, spiritual partners identify as Soul and allow their higher perspective to frame their words and actions. Spiritual partners don't make assumptions about others; they speak only for themselves. They trust that the process they are in will result in the best outcome for themselves and their partner, whether or not it is a pleasant experience.
The format of traditional marriages, friendships and partnerships will be with us for a long time to come, but the old social formats can be infused with the new energy of spiritual partnerships. More and more, people are waking up to the fact that they are more than just the body, and that they came into physical life to grow, spiritually. When we consciously enter into relationships as spiritual partnerships, our lives take on a depth of meaning and a clarity that will allow us to grow spiritually in a more focused way. Who knows what we could accomplish if we all did this? :-)
Today is Friday, March 14, 2014.
If a man has an apartment stacked to the ceiling with newspapers, we call him crazy. If a woman has a trailer house full of cats, we call her nuts. But when people pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation, we put them on the cover of Fortune magazine and pretend that they are role models. –Anonymous
The dictionary definition of greed is an "intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power or food." Sometimes, however, we can learn more about a word by looking at its antonyms, or opposites, than we can by looking at synonyms.
Greed is the opposite of generosity. This is because greed is all about giving to ourselves rather than giving to others. A greedy person's attention is on himself, not other people. This is the ultimate selfishness. Do you really think selfish people deserve to be held up as role models? Could it be that our children seem selfish because we, ourselves, have been unwittingly teaching them to be that way?
Greed is the opposite of temperance. This is because greed is an imbalance, whereas temperance has to do with setting boundaries and limits within which to function, for the good of the whole. Do you really think that it's wise to put imbalanced people on a pedestal? Could it be that our society, our economy, the structure of our political leadership and our very lives are out of balance because we have been worshiping that very quality for too long?
Greed is the opposite of indifference. This is because greed has to do with a lack of discrimination and detachment. A lack of discrimination means that greedy people have no idea how much is enough. A lack of detachment means that greedy people are so attached to their money that they are afraid they can't live without it. Do you think it's a good idea to value people who are incapable of discriminating between enough and too much, incapable of setting boundaries, and incapable of living within limits for the good of the whole? The 1% gets blamed for a lot of problems in this country, but let's look at the United States as a whole. Doesn't our country act just like the 1% in terms of our overuse of resources, our wastefulness? Many of us – even those of us who consider ourselves "working class" – live lives that are positively decadent when compared with the squalor in which many destitute people live in countries such as India, Zimbabwe, Haiti, or Somalia.
Who is really at fault? Are the ultra-rich the only ones to blame? Shouldn't we all take some responsibility for putting people on a pedestal who shouldn't be there? :-/
Today is Wednesday, March 12, 2014.
Here are some good, basic rules of the road for a spiritual journey.
1) Follow your own path.
Not only does this mean that we should follow the religion of our choice (if we choose to follow an organized religion at all), but it also means that each of us must learn from our own personal experiences and accept our own personal insights, without comparing ourselves to others. It's fine to read about the spiritual experiences of a prophet such as Jesus (e.g. his experiences in the wilderness), but ultimately we should be having our own spiritual experiences that are meant just for us. It's fine to read a holy book and use it as a guide in our lives. But it's better to learn from experience, and to get our information directly from the Source, instead of from a book.
Everyone can learn to contemplate or meditate, and each of us is capable of having inner experiences at these times of deep relaxation. Everyone can learn to remember dreams, as well, and dreams are a great source of spiritual insights. The trick is not to feel that our experiences are somehow not good enough, or that maybe we're interpreting them wrong. The point is to make an honest attempt to interpret what we learn through inner channels and bring our insights to bear on our daily lives. That's where the rubber meets the road.
If we are really interpreting the messages wrong, we'll find out, eventually. Learning to interpret messages from Divine Spirit is like any other skill. It takes practice, but if you make a mistake, you just have to pick yourself up and try again.
2) Let your heart lead.
The accepted wisdom is to go with the logical choice, but that only works sometimes, as all good Star Trek fans have learned. At some point, the heart wins out. That's because it's harder to talk yourself out of a feeling than it is to talk yourself out of an idea. When you get a feeling about something, you don't have to talk about it or think about it. You know. You either get a big positive feeling, or you get an uneasy feeling.
The trick, here, is to hone your ability to recognize these feelings and learn to act on them. How did you feel when you made your last big decision? Did you feel happy, joyful, light? Did you feel excited, expansive, energized? What physical sensations were associated with this positive feeling? Can you remember feeling this way before? When you obeyed the positive feeling and went ahead with your decision, how did it turn out? Chances are, everything went just fine, and you may not have been able to articulate why it turned out so well until much later.
The same goes for the negative feeling. When you start feeling uneasy, creeped out, or a little off, that generally signals that something is not quite right. Can you remember feeling this way before? What were the physical sensations associated with this negative feelng? If you obeyed your feeling and decided not to do whatever-it-was, were you glad you made that choice? If you didn't obey the uneasy feeling and went ahead, how did that work out? Chances are, you had some problems. Sure, you probably learned something, but you might have been able to learn that in some other way.
Sure, it's OK to ask for confirmation once in a while, but once you begin to trust your feelings and intuition, you will find that they are right pretty consistently. When you weigh in with your feelings, it's harder for your mind to talk yourself out of doing something you should be doing, or to talk yourself into doing something you shouldn't do.
3) Try not to step in anything.
On a physical trail, there are any number of things you can step in, such as an animal burrow, a nest of ants, animal scat, or a mud puddle. You can trip over roots, branches, or rocks sticking up out of the ground. You can wander into a wild animal's territory with unfortunate results. These types of things happen on spiritual journeys, too. There are all kinds of negative people and experiences out there. Some of them we can avoid, and others we can't. When we can't avoid them, we do the best we can.
Like a good hiker, we can take precautions. We can ask a hiking guide for information. We can wear protective clothing. We can go with a buddy. We can use a map or a compass. We can check the local terrain and the weather ahead of time. For our spiritual journey, we can find a spiritual guide who can give us assistance. We can protect ourselves from negativity with prayer and spiritually charged words. We can benefit from the experiences of others. We can follow a particular spiritual path that will help us establish our own personal spiritual or moral compass. We can ask for help from Divine Spirit when we get into difficulties.
* It's more fun with friends.
In fact, it's impossible without others, because our relationships with others – family, partners, spouses, colleagues, and friends – give us opportunities to grow spiritually. That's why we are here in the physical world, to interact with others. :-)
Today is Monday, March 10, 2014.
Soul's 360-degree viewpoint enables us to see the totality of our lives. From that mountaintop perspective we make better decisions about living a more joyous and meaningful life. –Harold Klemp, The Language of Soul
When Soul comes to the physical world and enters a body, It forgets where It came from. This is so that each time we come here, we start with a more or less blank slate. Sure, we can bring with us qualities that we have learned to manifest in previous lifetimes. These are part of our personality matrix in this life. But we forget the rest, so that we don't waste our current lifetime trying to work on unfinished business from the past. Still, it would help to know exactly why we came so that we can make some real progress toward meeting our life goals.
No matter what your specific reason was for coming back this time, the overriding goal for all lifetimes is always the same: to wake up and realize that we are spiritual beings who happen to be interfacing with physical bodies. When we realize this, the personality and mind can connect with Soul, and we can bring to bear the totality of our experience so far.
The point is not to get stuck in past lives, because no matter who you were, no matter how rich, famous, powerful, or smart you were in the past, you were not as spiritually advanced as you are today, in this current lifetime. The main things take away from any past life are:
1) What went wrong?
2) How did I deal with it that time?
3) If that didn't work, what can I do differently in this lifetime?
4) What qualities did I learn in previous lives that I can bring to bear in this life?
In general, identifying as Soul and making the connection between personality (who you are in this lifetime) and Soul (who you are in the eternal sense) gives you a 360-degree viewpoint because you can answer a lot of questions.
1) What did I agree to learn in this lifetime?
2) With whom did I make agreements to interact in this lifetime?
3) Is there a karmic attachment between myself and the other person that needs to be worked out?
4) What is really going on at the Soul level in the situation I am in right now?
Here are some examples from my own life.
From a past-life recall, I learned that I had a negative experience with a certain Soul in France during the French Revolution, and the outcome was that I was guillotined. I met this Soul again in this lifetime and realized that I was both attracted to and repelled by him. I realized that if I stayed with this person, he and I would only continue to create negative karma between us. I walked away.
In the dream state I learned that I once had a child whom I abandoned or and left to die. I agreed to be childless in this lifetime in order to atone for that. The bitter pill to swallow was that I really wanted to have children in this lifetime, but couldn't. (If I hadn't wanted children, there would have been no "sting" to bring the lesson home.)
I learned that there is one Soul with whom I have always been very close. This Soul always appears in my lives as someone whom I can never be with in any way, shape or form, even though we both love each other very much and I am always very attracted to this Soul. (In this life, he is a gay man and I am a heterosexual woman. In another life, he was a baby I wanted to adopt, but couldn't for reasons I won't go into. In still another life, we were both women. I was gay and "she" was not. There were other lives where we were of different races or social classes, etc.) What I discovered was that this Soul agreed to try to teach me the difference between "divine love" and "human love." In this lifetime, I "get it." I love him dearly, but no longer feel the need to be directly part of his life.
From dreams and other inner work, I have learned that my Soul calling is teaching. This goes way beyond being a public school teacher. In this life, I am preparing to be a teacher of Souls. This is what I will continue to be engaged in when I exit this physical lifetime. :-)
Today is Friday, March 7, 2014.
I found this piece of art on the web to illustrate the idea of creativity, and I must say it has given me some ideas. I don't know if the artist was using symbolism on purpose or not, but I see some symbolism anyway.
For me, the flowers are a sign of ideas blossoming, with the possibility of bearing fruit later. The colored pencils have to do with creating color and excitement in my life, as well as with embracing the diversity of all the parts of myself. The rainbow brings a promise of happiness and wellbeing after a storm, a sense that all is right with the world.
The arrow is not only going up and out, but turning a corner, perhaps signifying that my life is also turning a corner. The green/blue things in back could be leaves, or they could be water, both symbolizing new life for me. The pink things under the arrow might be flowers, but it also looks like a pink cloud. It reminds me that I am most creative when I have a positive attitude, when I see the world with rose colored glasses, when I see silver linings behind the clouds.
The second face within the face reminds me that whatever appearance or qualities I may project to the outer world, I am Soul. As Soul I am indestructible, eternal, happy and free. I am neither male nor female, stateless, and I do not have a "personality," only qualities that combine to create a unique energy signature that is the real me.
When I am creative, I am at my best. I am fulfilling my potential. I am centered in God's love, and I am in the groove. By extension, when I am not being creative, I am holding myself back, censoring myself, limiting myself That's when I am upset, worried, and fearful.
Each and every day, it is my job to bring myself back onto the path of creativity whenever I stray. This is my job for the rest of my physical life, and for the rest of whatever lies beyond.
I am Soul. I am creative. Creative imagination is the spark of the Divine within me. I am blooming now. I am colorful and happy. My bodies (physical, emotional, causal, mental, etheric, and Soul bodies) are in a process of being balanced. I have weathered the storms and have a positive outlook on life. I am turning a corner in my life. I identify with life, health, and growth. I am multi-faceted. I am Soul. :-)
Today is Wednesday, March 5, 2014.
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not
sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. –Anne Bradstreet
You can make yourself miserable wishing and hoping for spring, especially if you live above the 40th parallel in the Northern Hemisphere. All the pictures of spring show green grass, trees in full blossom, leaves budding on trees, tender green shoots breaking ground, baby animals, and delicate buds of flowers.
What actually happens here is that snow takes its sweet time to melt, and the ice melts during the day and re-freezes at night, creating extremely hazardous black ice. What snow is left is mixed with sand and dirt, what we call black snow. The roads are gritty with leftover sand and salt, and the lines and markings are faded. Trees don't blossom and grass doesn't green up until mid-May. Flowers don't do very well outdoors until late May or early June. Birds seem to take their time migrating back to their homes in the north, too. The ones who come back early must wish they hadn't when we have those late-season blizzards and ice storms.
The snow that falls in late winter and early spring is heavy and wet, not like the powder snow that falls in mid-winter, when the temperatures are low. Heavy snow is hard to shovel because it's, well... heavy. The wind is wet and raw, and the skies are often overcast in late winter and early spring. The ground is soft, wet and muddy from the snowmelt.
So no, the earth doesn't really end up looking very springlike until, well... summer, actually. Seriously. By the time June 20 or 21 rolls around, we finally have spring, which has probably lasted only a couple of weeks. Then we get right into summer, no waiting around.
By the calendar, it's 15 days to spring. By the view outside my window, it's still winter. One of the groundhogs forecasted six more weeks to spring, but it's been about five weeks already, and spring is nowhere in sight. Here in the north, we will have to make allowances for cold nights and snowstorms for another month to six weeks. Rather than make myself miserable about how long it takes spring to arrive, I will have to steel myself to the cold and snow for a little while longer, and just enjoy the occasional 50-degree warmth whenever it occurs. At least the sun is rising earlier in the morning and setting later at night. Thank God for that! :-)
Today is Monday, March 3, 2014.
Be a reflection of what you'd like to see in others. If you want love, give love. If you want honesty, give honesty. If you want respect, give respect. You get in return what you give.
A reflection is a great visual image for what we know of as the Golden Rule. The problem with this image, is that when we think of things that reflect – water or glass – they are passive reflectors. The water and the glass cannot choose what to reflect. They simply reflect what is there.
Human beings who are not yet "awake," spiritually, are also passive reflectors. They naturally reflect the behavior and attitudes of the people around them, and in turn, the people who surround them are reflections of their own attitudes and behavior. Because they are not yet awake, they have no idea that this is going on. It's all unconscious behavior. People will complain that others around them are not to be trusted, or that they are unkind, careless, or thoughtless. The vast majority have no idea that they are guilty of the same behavior.
Once you start waking up, you begin to see how others reflect your own behaviors and attitudes. It takes a little more awareness to see how you function as a reflection of others.
Unlike water and glass, human beings don't have to be unconscious reflectors. We have the power to make changes. We can consciously and proactively choose what behaviors and attitudes to reflect. We can choose not to reflect certain negative behaviors and attitudes.
Gandhi is often quoted as saying, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Unfortunately he did not say it this way. This is what I would call a "sound-bite translation" of what he did say, which is this:
“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would
also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of
the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”
This is what today's quote spells out. We must change first. The world around us will change when we do.
Start by thinking of one quality you think is really necessary in this world, something you wish were more prevalent in the world. Now, how can you reflect this quality? How can you model this quality to others? Write down this quality and set it up as an "event" on your smart phone. Set it up as a daily event that starts before you normally wake up or at a time just before you normally check your messages each morning.
Set up another event three months from now to review. Let's say you chose "joy" as the quality. For the daily event, you can type in "Reflect joy today." For the review event, ask a question: Is there more joy in my life? Try this with as many positive qualities as you like. Pretty soon you'll get the hang of it without the smart phone reminders. :-)
