soul energy
Spiritual Transcendence Requires Human Interaction
You are pure energy. That is your soul and you chose to incarnate in this world to experience the duality of energy and matter. You chose this because there are learnings available here on Earth in material form that are not available when one is a ball of light. Therefore, human contact, or human interaction is as important as the experiences of energy when we are incarnated here on Earth.
You have the opportunity in this lifetime to transcend. Incarnation gives you that opportunity. You should rise to the occasion – after all you signed up for it. Running away from the physical inconveniences of incarnation is not the best of choices, if you are interested in transcendence and living an awakened life – unless your life path is one of abstinence.
If you have never practiced any kind of abstinence (fasting, voluntary poverty, celibacy) trust me when I say that it too has challenges, especially in the beginning. This is something to think about if you do practice any form of abstinence. Are you running away? Or are you taking on a spiritual practice to help you with your transcendence. And how can you be sure?
In today’s world, social media, texting, and virtual interaction prevail. There is a trend of decline in the skills of human relations, physical interaction and social skills. We see this in the workplace, as well as in our romantic relationships, family dynamics and parenting. We suffer a loss in our quality of human interaction in many ways, such as fulfillment, honesty, authenticity, conflict resolution, intimacy and many more areas. We are by our nature social creatures, and learning to be social simply cannot happen online. Equally, learning about and working with others humans is a different experience in person than online. You might prefer online, but make sure you understand your choice and consider if you are choosing avoidance rather than engagement.
Your Soul Contract For Spiritual Evolution
Your soul is quietly pushing you to experience and achieve certain things in this lifetime, because before we came here we designed a soul contract. There are certain challenges and traumas we put into this contract, to elevate our consciousness. Through our tears we conquer our fears.
We don’t elevate all at the same rate. Our purpose here is to elevate spiritually as speedily as we can, without harming or hurting others. The purpose of our evolution process is to complete the contract, or fulfill the mission.
Each person’s journey is unique and very personal. Sometimes our families do not support us in our soul evolution, and friends may not understand what is going on in your life, but this is not about anyone else except you!
When we evolve spiritually, we develop a higher consciousness and become a better version of ourselves. But in order to elevate, we have to want to learn, grow and expand. In order to evolve, you have to let go of anything that is holding you back. People often struggle with this, but no matter what, we have to be willing to change and grow. To become our better self, we have to learn our lessons in this lifetime.
We all have our own path and our spiritual journey, because we have our own specific blueprint when we arrive on the planet. It pretty much outlines what we are intending to accomplish in this lifetime, and why we chose to come here at this time.
Transcending Turbulence And Restoring Peace Within
One of the most moving metaphors I have ever heard, describes the calm that rests beneath the surface of the ocean. While there may be waves and turbulence on the top, if you dive down deeper, you will come to waters that are more still.
Similarly, the troubles of life that bring disturbance to the body, mind, and relationship dynamics of the world, occur at levels which are external to the eternal self. By going deeper, peace within can be found.
Spiritual traditions of the world define the self and the soul in varying ways. The ancient Vedic texts, for example, identifies the individual soul as measuring one ten-thousandth the size of the tip of a hair, and states that it is located in the region of the heart, seated beside the Paramatma, or Supreme Soul (God).
In the Vedic tradition, consciousness is recognized as the symptom of the soul, which is carried throughout the body by the blood, as it is circulated by the beating heart. When the heart stops and consciousness leaves the body, it is because the soul has departed.
Lord Krishna further describes in Bhagavad-gita that this atomic soul is never born, and never dies. It is immutable, unchangeable, indestructible, and always aloof from matter and its influences.
These spiritual teachings go on to highlight that the pure eternal soul is one’s real identity – the ‘I’ or ‘me’ felt by each and every living being. In this world, it has become temporarily covered by a subtle body made up of mind, intelligence, and false ego, as well as by the physical body comprised of earth, water, fire, air, and ether. In this state, the modes of material nature act upon it, and one acts out various behaviors compelled by the energies of those coverings. But the soul itself remains untouched and unaffected.
Spiritual Attachment And Detachment
The physical world is not the only realm in which some of us struggle with issues of detachment (alienation), or attachment (codependency). The same holds true in the spirit realms.
If we experience spiritual attachment, this usually happens as a result of an addictive personality. In life, one could be addicted to unhealthy relationships, various substances, shopping, food, and so on. The driving force behind all of these is basically the same – the attempt to fill a perceived void with a substitute.
This inclination can then lead to the presence of negative spirit attachments with addictive energies. Perhaps the spirit entity had the same kind of addiction when it was in physical form, and still needs to experience that ‘high.’
When this happens, the victim in the physical world, to whom the spirit entity has attached itself, may become more stubborn and in denial over the need to change their habits. Many friends and family members who have had to deal with addicts, will tell you that addiction changed their loved one’s personality. From a spiritual perspective this is very true.
Spiritual detachment, on the other hand, happens when someone is the victim of abuse or trauma. A part of themselves ‘detaches’ or becomes distant from their core self, which may unintentionally invite a more powerful spirit presence to enter, to ‘protect’ or ‘guide’ the victim. Aristotle’s phrase ‘nature abhors a vacuum’ comes to mind. It means every space or void in nature always needs to be filled with something. The same holds true in the spirit realm.
Reclaim Your Power And Value
When we allow our mind to accept the fact that we are a valuable person, knowing that we are here for a reason, we can start owning and reclaiming our purpose and power. We are valuable and our life matters.
Sometimes we are scared of our power. When we start creating things and watch things unfold, we can begin sabotaging ourselves. If things start to go wrong, our mind starts to spin out to negative future possibilities and past failures. We use our power against ourselves.
We are meant to expand through this life with joy. We did not plan to have struggles and crisis without end before we came here. Some of our ancestors and family members have experienced this, but we have knowledge, information and the power to change this. They were all doing the best they could with what they knew at the time. But we now know better.
When we are born into this world there is a spiritual ‘forgetting.’ As we grow and develop we take on the values, fears and beliefs of our family, teachers, friends, experiences or the environment around us. We forget the power we each were given. It’s our birthright.
We have always had this power within. We can waste it on suffering, which it takes a lot of energy. It’s exhausting and creates stress, which manifests in our body, mind, spirit, and then in our world. Or we can use it for joy, and goodness in what we create.
Intending And Manifesting
In-between lives we are with our guides, liberated from a physical body and all its desires and needs. We are pure energy – a soul. It is in this higher form that we carefully plan all the details of our human life, before coming to Earth.
Again, you plan all the details. Yes, all of it. You intend and manifest it all, before coming here. Why? You do this on the Other Side, with your wise guides, detached from physical, human needs and desires.
What are these desires? We have five senses. Therefore things like eating (taste and scent), sex (touch), beauty (sight), music (sound), as well as intellectual stimulation (mind) start to dominate our desires in this physical life. We start to worship money, romance, adventures, security, possessions and many other distractions. These desires are distractions, because you already decided and arranged to have wealth or poverty, a successful love life or loneliness, and many other circumstances before you came here.
You arranged your life to come here to evolve as a soul. That means some of us came here to be billionaire entrepreneurs or famous celebrities, while others came here to be unsuccessful, destitute, or even worse. Each set of circumstances is a lesson, a course of study that you came here to experience. And human desires are distractions when they are worshipped, when you pray for them, hunger for them, focus your life around them.
Personally, I have never met anyone who was working hard on manifesting world peace, or setting an intention to be a more generous or selfless person. The self-help industry offers thousands of books and workshops for people to learn to manifest money, a better love life, a career that will feed the ego. For example, I doubt anyone has ever done affirmations, or created vision boards to manifest a successful home cleaning business!
Sheltering In Gentle Grace
The subject and substance of grace is near and dear to my heart. Its consistency is gentle and ethereal, but nonetheless a source of grounded strength. I appreciate it as a richly layered, soft, spiritually textured energy, flowing between Heaven and Earth – divine in its origin from God, yet accessible in unlimited ways within, and around us.
A few years ago, I wrote a book on grace, moving in divine alignment. The words channeled through me, as if being dictated by Grace herself, a feminine goddess personifying the compassionate energy emanating from God as the Supreme Source. Therein, the quality of grace on the hard paths of life revealed itself to me as follows.
When the dance stands still in the dark – outside my comfort zone, in the space of the unknown, in the history of pain, before the next step – I tend to feel neither peaceful, patient, nor poised.
I have grabbed for answers, change, relief, but found none independently within my clutch. So, I envision a fabric of grace, formed when the favor of God becomes interwoven with the sweetness of elegant movement and presence.
Unlike ordinary cloth, the fabric of grace dons a mystical twist. It is a lifeline of being, bearing inexhaustible strength to uplift and pull us forward through all experiences.
There is an artistry of the soul in reaching for this spiritual material of grace. It calls forth inner enlightenment and skill to clasp it in the heart, not in the hands.