Are Spirit Guides Assigned or Chosen?
“How do you think we come by our Spirit Guides? Are they assigned to us by some Higher Power as needed, do our primary guides choose us at birth, do we make agreements to work with them in this lifetime before our birth?” – Sarah P.
Sacred Contracts
The popular perspective says that our guides are contracted prior to incarnation in this lifetime — that they represent a team of entities assembled for a particular mission, of which you play the lead. Please note that I use the word “popular” to allude to a mainstream consensus among the mystics who discuss this idea; and the question from Sarah asks what I think…
The idea of sacred contracts and the decision to incarnate certainly doesn’t originate with me — I don’t see how there could possibly be a definitive capital K-knowing, from anyone. Although choosing aspects of your life as a spiritual mission implies a consciousness prior to incarnating — and although one could quickly hear this as an indication of multiple lives — I don’t personally think this has to be about reincarnation in the sense of on-going and continuous consecutive life-times.
I can only attest to what I contemplate. I can’t even profess a “decided” opinion regarding re-incarnation or multiple life-times, but I do have a strong sense of awareness and memory about events just prior to this life. My “jury is still out” on reincarnation. Do you see the distinction? I also don’t feel what we experience Before and After is necessarily even relevant to what we experience Here and Now.
Having prefaced this discussion with a big Question mark…
I don’t feel that your spirit guides are “assigned” without your input.
In keeping with the story-telling metaphor of film and stage, the full production of your story doesn’t happen without supporting cast and crew. Although the roles various other people play in your life are spread out over our human perception of time — they come in to play out certain scenes, to teach us through our collective dramas — the characters may be cast in advance.
The word contract implies a bit too much inflexibility
I don’t feel that this script is set in stone — unlike a book, your story is not linear and edited to the letter in advance before being experienced. Once you’re “on location” new options may reveal themselves, and you (with the help of your guides) may decide a rewrite is called for, on the spot.
I think maybe games would be a better metaphor — such as first-person virtual worlds. I feel that gamers are ahead of everyone in understanding how manifestation and reality actually function as filtered through the living human mind’s experience.
The variables may be initiated prior to birth, but your free will determines the nature of the tangents — the times and places at which a particular guide may be most helpful.
Some psychics talk about “exit points” — predetermined points of evaluation that correspond with near-death experience.
A life, as a production, might also resemble the work-in-progress of situation comedies, serial story-telling — full of potential improvisations and the magic that only happens in the moment. If your life could truly be read in a form that remotely resembles a book, the present would be wet ink, crawling into the page as you live it, writing itself in a wave, advancing and crashing on a shore of still-blank pages…
A more helpful metaphor might be the “choose your own adventure” stories, but on a sort of infinitely unfolding scale — the choices you make in each moment of time determining the next potential set of options. This is why you can’t really “get it wrong” — life is a journey of spontaneous detours.
How do you feel your mission initiates?
Please share what you think, feel, or believe — your impressions are as legitimate a source as mine…
Seek Wisdom — Practice Love
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I got a chuckle imagining this scene:
“Cut!”
“Wha - ? What’s she doing NOW?”
“She’s changed the script.”
“What? Again? Can someone please tell her…never mind.”
“Hey, I tried, but you know how it is. She’s a bit hard headed and doesn’t always hear me. Besides, she’s the director.”
“Well this changes everything. Now we need new costumes, this location won’t do at all, and tell that guy who’s playing the bit part of a one-night stand to learn the lines for the co-star role.”
Followed by the mad scramble of cast and crew, loading up equipment and heading down the road to Plan B. (or J or Z…).
Seriously, my sense of it is something along the lines of an improvisational production. We all meet ahead of time, determine who’s on stage and who’s behind the curtain, hammer out a general storyline, then - the lights go up and we run with it. Reacting, interacting, weaving stories within stories, while the backstage crew adjusts the set and lighting to make the most of what’s happening on stage.
I do know since childhood I’ve had a very strong feeling of being here for a particular purpose(s) but for too many years, I confused purpose with job or role. It’s becoming much more clear everyday. (I can hear the whispers of backstage cues better now…)
That’s hilarious, Lola!
I totally agree about the relevance of past (and future) lives. While I’m reasonably certain I believe in them in some form, I don’t think they’re necessarily particularly relevant for our lives now. Recently I’ve started taking more of an interest in my own, but not in order to find out details so much as from a desire to place this life in a larger context of my own development. It would be interesting, I think, to know what kinds of issues I worked on in the past, and sort of get a sense of my trajectory, as it were…
Lola,
You cracked me up! Oh, I so needed that…
My inner world feels so much more like a comedy than I’m able to convey on this blog.
You want to know something only a few of my closest friends know? That my secret fantasy dream creative project would actually be to SPOOF the very things I write about seriously.
It’s true — I would love to totally rip the entire New Age movement — starting with a mockumentary of shows like Ghost Hunters and Most Haunted — and absolutely scathing drag versions of Sylvia Browne and Doreen Virtue’s radio talk shows.
Is it terrible for me to admit this? The scary part is how easy it would be to rip on myself.
I have those moments when this is all just so serious and wide-eyed and rabid, and sounds like so much hot air… While I believe in every bit of it, my private version of these experiences is completely comical.
But that’s why we laugh — because it’s true. My biggest heroes are stand-up comedians — comics get to say all the things that priests and politicians could never get away with, and infuse it with emotion, laughter, and love.
I sometimes think that if your job, every day, revolved around making people laugh, your level of joy would approach ideal, just by default…
Jeff,
[Okay, bringing back my straight face, here, seriously]
What I want to know is WHY we have to forget what we learn from lifetime to lifetime. I mean, if the goal is to keep incarnating until you get it right, isn’t the premise of not being able to carry over your accumulated wisdom like the cruelest concept in the world?
Looking at the Wheel of reincarnation in this way makes me think that’s a game we’re not meant to win. At least not for a really, really long time playing it…
I feel that technology — books, writing, recorded wisdom — is the tipping point. We’re fast approaching the ability to return, plug in, and pick right back up on all accumulated human wisdom.
We really don’t start from scratch. Language is the bridge between lives. Which brings me closer to what I really feel is going on — the Big Picture doesn’t happen at the level of the individual — it’s a collective effort. Now I think I’ve caught a[nother] whiff of that Hive Mind and what the Bee symbolizes…
Slade,
Thanks for addressing my question! I enjoyed reading your point of view on this and the comments that followed - y’all are too funny . . . and the idea of each lifetime situated in an arc of experience makes a lot of sense, rather than endless rounds of reincarnation - like that bleeping wheel contestants spin on “The Price is Right”.
Taking Slade’s metaphor to a ridiculous extreme - wouldn’t it be horrible if the before-life was just like “The Price is Right”?! With some celestial Bob Barker crowing: “Slade, Jeff, and Lola! Come on down!” And getting our “Purpose” would be like the Showcase Showdown. I’m shuddering. . . .
Anyways , I agree that life’s events are not predetermined by us or anyone else before our birth, but I do believe that whatever past lives we’ve had inform the focus of this one. For instance, I get the feeling that one thing I’m here to work is developing close relationships with others, because in the recent past I was not so hot at nurturing and committment. Beyond that, my thinking gets fuzzier . . . maybe there are wise Soul Counselors who help us connect with Guides, or members of our families, etc. who also have a loosely stated “life-theme”, and we all advance along our arcs by interacting with each other.
Just a (very nebulous) thought!
-Sarah
Sarah,
The Showcase Showdown!
[We’ve stepped in a puddle of silly…]
: )
And for my non-silly response:
You’ve touched on a very important concept — the way in which we — as incarnated human beings — act as one another’s guides.
Never discount the divine messages that come through the living — often the most relevant and literal of all…
Hi Slade - When I’m working with a client in my spiritual counseling practice, this question (which really comes down to: Why am I here, what is the meaning of my life?) comes up all the time.
I think we incarnate with a soul’s intention–a kind of general thrust, a mood/impression that we want to leave in the world when we are gone. The soul seems to guide us in the direction of work, relationships, circumstances that will move us into resonance with this intention.
I sense Sacred Contracts at work in my own life when I meet a person who “feels” familiar right form the start. And yes, I do think we pre-set meetings with particular “others” who will help us develop skills and strengths (sometimes through painful encounters) that we’ll need to work our chosen intention. Hence, that feeling of recognition, a kind of “here you are,” that we feel when these people appear in our lives.
As for reincarnation, does it matter? When I have worked with past-life regresssion therapy, what really matters is what we make of the memories that come up from past lives in the present. It really isn’t important to know that on was King Henry 8th, unless one is able to use the lesson of, say, not cutting off the heads of everyone who is imperfect… in this lifetime.
I prefer to get my clients “day dreaming,” inventing dream threads that we can follow in present time. For example, we take the “story” of something that happens to them and I have them tell it to me with as much detail as possilbe and then we comb through it as if it were a dream, looking for meaning and imagery. IT’s powerful work.
amyoscar.blogspot.com
I think laughter is one of the most healing, therapeutic things we can do for our bodies, our minds, and our souls. All the big cosmic questions - life, spirituality, purpose - are far too important to take seriously, in my opinion. There is an incredible amount of comedy inherent to all of creation.
And about reincarnation - I don’t think we completely forget everything we learned before, Slade. I think we forget that we know a lot more than we think we know. Spirituality aside, consider those skills and talents you may have that aren’t rooted in academic learning, those things you’ve just always had a knack for - making art, making music, making things grow, making sense of words - how is it you know how to do that? Just KNOW it without anyone teaching you? How did that happen?
Did someone say “comedy”? This Muse, then, takes a bow. (And I would pay good money to see “[a] scathing drag version of Sylvia Brown”. Oh yeah.)
I’m naturally of a skeptical nature, and I’m not sure I’d even admit to believing in Spirit Guides some days. But there’s something going on around me, some kind of Guides or Archetypes or Sub-Personalities; and I don’t know if they are exterior or interior to me. They certainly feel interior; and it would be the shock of a lifetime if someone else could see them. But I don’t know.
As for reincarnation, again my skeptical side (the side that will say I’m an atheist, not “Pagan” like I tell everyone else) isn’t so sure. And I don’t have any memories of other times, though I will say I have a few deep quirks that I don’t know how I picked up in this life. The more flowing and accepting side says that, yes, we do have past lives and we do learn from them; and it’s not that we ironically and cruelly forget, but that there’s always more to learn and to do, not because we are hopelessly imperfect, but because learning is the point; learning is the fun and the adventure of it.
And, and. But my main Spirit Guide, my Animus, Indwelling Glory, whatever you want to call him, the one I know the best and talk with the most (see my blog), will tell you that yes, there is reincarnation, and yes, he and I, as a pair, have been through it many times, many “whirls on the carousel” as he’d say. But then he believes in God, and I don’t know about that. I suspect, and perhaps someday I’ll be brave enough to ask, that he even has a quite clear memory of the Bardo-realm. So with regard to whether Spirit Guides are assigned per lifetime, this one at least I’m stuck with through them all. Which I guess would make sense if he’s an Animus, since you can’t be seperated from yourself. Maybe.
I like this place. I feel sane here, ha!
Oh and Sarah I offer to you a very sarcastic “thanks”, as now I’ve got the Showcase Showdown theme stuck in my head!
Slade, concerning why we “forget” our earlier lives: I did some meditating on this question for a while a few months ago, and the answers I got seemed to be this: explicit knowledge of our earlier lives can actually inhibit soul growth, because what we’re working towards is not book-learning or memorization, but a real internalization our lessons, so that we know them instinctively.
So when we move from life to life, we don’t really forget our lessons. We forget the details, the specific events, the names and words. What we remember are the instincts, the gut feelings, the patterns of emotion and moral senses. This is “soul knowledge”; it’s printed on our characters now, and can’t be lost.
For example, maybe in a previous life you were a scientist working for a corrupt government, and you sold your ingenuity to feed yourself, thinking you really had no choice in the matter. Everything turned out badly, and you realized toward the end of your life, way too late, that everyone would have been better off if you’d stuck to your principles and trusted the universe to help you take care of yourself.
In your next life, when you’re faced with the same kind of situation (selling your ingenuity to a government or corrupt organization to feed yourself), you instinctively recoil and refuse, perhaps not knowing why your gut reaction is so strong. You just know it “isn’t you” and you won’t do it.
Does that resonate with what you’re getting at all?
(I guess this is straying somewhat from the original post topic… Sorry about that!!)
[…] I always believe that our journey unfolds through the choices we make in the present moment - although there are elements of predetermination within every lifetime, there is much room for us to step into our role as Creator of our experience. Slade Roberson makes this point beautifully in his post Are Spirit Guides Assigned or Chosen? […]
Well, I was going to comment on the post, but now there’s a lot of commenting I want to do on the commenting - what a great conversation! Some of these comments deserve to be their own posts.
Going back to the original topic, my understanding is that we come in with one or two Guides and have the rest assigned to us as we go, until we’re about twenty or so. That still leaves room for “Special Assignment” Guides to come and go. We just don’t know at the outset of the path what kind of help might be most called for …of course, that’s just in my frame of reference, but it’s worked out pretty well when I look at when certain Spirit Guides were “hired” by my clients and what was going on in their lives at the time, their overall goals, etc.
Lola, that is an awesome scene you paint - sometimes I do imagine all my spiritual helpers and Guides going “WHAT? Alright, she’s got free will, let’s go along with it …”
As for the “forgetting” of past lives - I don’t think we do, either. It’s not about learning “knowledge,” after all, it’s about becoming more of what we already are at Soul-level. To me, our path is about every-growing authenticity of self-expression, as our Higher Self experiences itself and its ability to act as Creator in this third-dimensional construct of ours …
I agree with Jeff, this is “Soul knowledge” - it is stored in our Akashic Record, which our Higher Self has full access to. If we are in alignment with our Higher Self, we receive all the information we need, when we need it.
Regarding pre-determination: We come in with a huge number of possible choices (144,000 or them! Yes, it’s a finite number) that we ourselves select, with our Guides and teachers, before we incarnate. We make Soul-level agreements to meet up with other Souls (or not), but all of these are dependent on the choices we actually make while we’re here. It’s a big ole’ construct that is absolutely fascinating. Some choices are destiny, we decide on them before incarnating. But even those have some hazy parameters. So very much is completely up to us …
Loooong comment - sorry! Awesome discussion!
Blessings to all,
Andrea
Jeff, I don’t think you strayed at all. The whole piece just flowed in a slightly different direction that where Slade started, slightly different but interconnected.
Each of the past lives that I have received knowledge on were areas that I could work on and release in this lifetime. The past life knowledge has proved valuable in healing relationships that I have had in this lifetime.
I believe the talents that we are born with in this lifetime came from being developed in other lifetimes and came with us into this lifetime already developed to help us with whatever direction we choose to go in this time. Don’t we all have things that we were born knowing, just knowing without knowing how you know them? I know I do. I don’t think I am any different than anyone else in this area.
Ghost Whisperer is one of my favorite TV shows. They had a show where this young man had died and came to Melinda as about 4 or 5 different young men. He kept changing his name when he would appear to Melinda. It took her awhile to figure out that they were all the same person. He came to her because he didn’t want to be reborn again because in each of his lifetimes, he remembered the lifetimes before. What he remembered from each lifetime was the pain of dying and leaving loved ones behind. He didn’t want to be born again because he didn’t want to remember the pain of all of those lifetimes. Maybe that is why we are born not remembering. I hope I explained it well enough. Slade, I love the conversations that your articles are beginning to attract. Can’t wait for my blog to grow enough for these kinds of conversations to begin. Thinking and stretching your beliefs is good for all of us.
Amy,
I absolutely love your approach to day dream interpretation.
I date a psychotherapist who works a lot with dream interpretation, and I’ve often found myself describing for him how I “apply my magical world view” — which essentially comes down to interpreting actual events and situations from waking life as one might work through interpreting dreams.
Jeff,
I think what you propose about forgetting/remembering and the soul’s progress works for me — resonates with me, theoretically.
The one thing I’m personally inclined to tweak is this:
We’re all discussing the purpose of the individual — I feel that the progress or lack of it is collective.
Mary tells me over and over again that the Ascension of humanity is an all or nothing prospect — we don’t ascend as a race until we ALL get it.
That may explain why some souls who have not even reincarnated but chosen to assist in spiritual form (spirit guides and ascended masters) are bound to the results here among the living.
Andrea,
I think I LOVE it when the comments are deeper than the posts — I actually aspire to it, so don’t hold back!
I privately call this “Hosting-not-Posting” — it comes from a time about a year ago when I had tons of subscribers and regular readers, but no one was commenting. I did a lot of praying and contemplating and asking for guidance on how to get readers involved.
I think it’s as simple as asking — conversation has a different structure than a lecture, and it’s way too easy for me to lecture. I would hope ultimately that each of you will go and write some articles to lend to this topic if you haven’t already.
About the 144,000 Have you written anything on your blog about this finite number 144,000… what? What kind of option is that number referring to, and where does that number come from?
If you have any links to share about that, please feel free to leave them. HTML is allowed in my comments and if anything “wonky” happens, I’ll correct them when I moderate.
Fascinating! It reminds me of the bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism who pledge not to cross over into Nirvana until every other being in the universe has gone first. (I always imagine a crowd of them around the Doors of Perception… “After you!” “No, after you, I insist!!”…)
Is this the Universal Switch you tantalizingly mentioned in an email to me once?
Patricia,
I saw that episode!
: )
And about encouraging comments, see my last comment to Andrea… I think the Hosting-not-Posting was actually for you.
Jeff,
I just asked my guides if the bodhisattvas are the same thing — I’m not in a position intellectually to comment, ie, I don’t know.
My guides say “Yes, absolutely.”
Slade wrote:
Everybody? Everybody must be enlightened before the race can ascend? Oh man, this is hopeless. There’s always going to be one person, one Loki disguised as Thokk who refuses to weep. That’s just how things are!
Hel, I might play the part myself! Though I suppose it could be argued that refusing to weep for Balder was in itself an enlightened act. There is no such thing as perfection, and we cannot return to the past–and we wouldn’t want to anyway. Forward is the only way.
Thalia,
Yeah, that’s a real bitch, ain’t it.
Be careful of believing that — it’s hopeless why? If people believe it is.
I choose to take this as a realistic idea of what we’re truly up against. If I don’t get to move on without everyone else’s participation, then the goal becomes clearer.
Roll up your sleeves and get on it. Let it motivate you — what else can you do?
Aw, Slade, that was just my trickster side talkin’. But, dammit, now you’re making me think!
I love it when all this chatter gets going! So many smart, insightful, open, questioning, thoughtful people. My outlook gets stretched a liitle more with every comment.
I fantasize about doing this in real life; everyone is sitting around the table, the music’s playing in the background, we’re eating good food, and sharing these incredible conversations. Slade will say (in the role of Linda Richman - ’cause his voice, it’s like buttah) -”I’ll give you a topic. The Big Picture is neither Big nor a Picture. Discuss.”
How about it? My place? Saturday night?
Everyone - I have to contest the notion that all must “get it” before anyone can evolve/ascend, whatever it is.
I’m betting on it this way: All must evolve, each is his/her own way. As we all begin at different starting points, the result will be different for each.
In other words, I may “get” something that to someone who is more “advanced” spiritually seems elementary. Likewise, that person’s evolution would likely be Greek to me.
That’s why, I think, there are so many teachers out there right now–and always. Each has his/her own following and each student finds his/her way to the truth in a unique way.
The key, to me, is that we raise the resonance–the vibration–of the race, and of the planet, each time around. Not that we all “get” the same thing or else.
Get it?
amyoscar.blogspot.com
Amy,
I agree with you that the paths are different for everyone — the details, the circumstances, the lessons, the challenges, the skills. Each evolves at his or her own rate, along his or her own path.
Evolving is not the Ascension. The Big capital-A Ascension is not about individuals.
But there are only two motivating forces at work in the world — Love and Fear.
When I talk about “getting It” I’m talking about that simple, singular choice, for each individual, approaching any myriad of circumstances.
The idea of a “chosen few” who get it and win the prize, and everyone who doesn’t is just S.o.L — perpetuates an Us and Them mentality.
When you contemplate the idea that all life is a synergy, affecting the whole… it begins at the individual level, connects outward to like, but until that happens with everyone, consistently, we keep going round, collectively… as an individual, by sharing what works for you so that others may model it for themselves, that’s where it moves beyond “just getting mine.”
Thalia,
I assumed you were sharing that voice — the Devil’s Advocate, the Trickster — I hear it too! Who doesn’t?
I’m glad you gave it its place in the conversation — you have to acknowledge it in order to begin finding an answer to it, or even a replacement for it.
Thanks for that honest response — to pretend that Voice is not present would be ridiculously glassy-eyed and New Age rabid. I am personally thankful those Voices — they reveal the challenges.
Lola,
I often hear Linda Richman signing off each post with a “talk amongst yourselves” or a “discuss” : )
Of course, I know you’re referring to how much fun it would be if all of you were at my favorite cafe in the afternoons — I dearly wish it was so, I almost live the life of a hermit by that social standard. : (
But then I think “Isn’t it awesome that this IS real life? And that the round tables occur almost magically transcending place and time?”
Nothing compares to the energy of face to face gatherings — but then look at us here, whizzing about the globe, our minds and thoughts and spirits free of our bodies. Nothing quite compares to this, either.
Pretty f*ing cool, in and of itself.
I’m not sure I want to live in a world where there is no need for the Trickster. I think this world is meant to be a glorious mess. And after all, the closer you get to perfection, the more the Trickster is needed, right?
This IS a damned cool conversation.
[…] Thanks to a lively discussion on Slade Roberson’s blog Shift Your Spirits (read the comments, people - awesome stuff), I’ve been thinking about this whole ascension business. […]
I couldn’t leave this ascension business alone …here’s a bit of what I just wrote on my blog:
It’s my understanding that we are in the process of shifting the overall collective vibration of Souls on our planet to reach a turning point - a point where “critical mass” is reached. This level of “critical mass” then acts as a catalyst for change that catapults us into the next dimension of existence. Up until recently, the approach was to raise the vibration of ALL Souls, until critical mass was reached. That didn’t work so well. After all, people are still doing silly things like killing each other.
Right now, a new strategy is underway. Instead of having all Souls raise their vibration somewhat, only a relatively small number of Souls will raise their vibration - but by a very significant amount. The end effect of critical mass being reached will remain the same. Whether all Souls raise their vibration a little, or a few Souls raise their vibration a lot, the overall vibrational state change on our planet is the same.
This is why we’re all individually in such a hurry! You can read the rest of this post at http://www.empoweredsoul.com/blog/?p=124. Thalia, my own Trickster comes out at the end!
Blessings,
Andrea
Slade, it wasn’t that long ago that I left a comment on one of your articles and you emailed me to tell me that you wished others would start doing the same. Shortly after that Jeff and Damian and K-L started leaving comments. Look how far you have come since that day!!!
I am thoroughly enjoying these conversations. We are all opening up to new ideas because of these conversations. These conversations are helping each of us evolve separately and as a group. I say, “Fantastic!!!!”
Andrea,
First of all, I absolutely love it that you used this conversation as a prompt for your new post — the very best of blog interaction, link love — a truly authentic example of what blogging can do. Thanks for that.
As for your overview, you’ve done an excellent job at bringing through the same spiritual messages I’ve been hearing, and breaking it down for me. Awesome… I never want to be someone who says “Here’s how it is, people” — this is much more ideal:
“Can you guys give me a hand over here with this translation of the un-translatable?!”
Thalia,
I hear ya — surf the chaos, baby!
Patricia,
This comment probably bleeds over into Spiritual Blogging… I do remember that exchange well — “Why isn’t anyone commenting?” Because I was talking too much at everybody, and the shift occurred once I started consciously working to present my words as belonging to everyone, and making that invitation for others to speak as obvious and direct as possible.
I have tried to rationalize my angelic encounters as best I can, for many years.
I have come to invent and believe in the idea of Divine Lineage, or heredity which extends beyond this life. The idea that our ancestory is watching over their young, during our brief time in the light, resonates deeply with me.
Kaleb,
I like your concept of Divine Lineage — it resonates with me as well. Let me kick it up a notch and consider all of humanity on a global scale, across all of human history (including pre-recorded history) — our evolution as a species is a looonnnggg process in which all of our kind has some vested interest in our ascension.
[…] Amy Oscar replied in a comment on Shift Your Spirits that she contested the idea of humanity’s Ascension as an All-or-Nothing prospect. I feel that Amy may have replacing social, collective ascension with personal evolution. […]
Not at all. I was responding, specifically to this from Slade:
“Mary tells me over and over again that the Ascension of humanity is an all or nothing prospect — we don’t ascend as a race until we ALL get it.
Hey, I wasn’t finished. Sorry about that, Im still figuring out which keys to hit.
Back to the discussion, what I am trying to articulate is that it seems to me that we ARE always evolving, we can’t help it. As the universe is constantly expanding. I believe that we are each called to do our part in our own way toward the COLLECTIVE unfolding of All That Is. My sense is that this “ascension” you speak of is a cosmic event, corresponding to the opening of the Aquarian Age–and the end of the Mayan calendar and so forth. I know that we are being called upon to align our consciousness with “higher” vibrations and to resonate ourselves through this portal. But I also “know” (in the way that we know things like this) that this event is not entirely dependent on what we humans do or do not do.
In other words, it’s going to happen whether we meditate or not. But its approach is sending out waves of energy that are waking us up (individually) to our own best self.
Im starting to talk about this — and another way of thinking about law of attraction — on flowdiet.blogspot.com my blog about conscious living and eating.
Amy, dear heart, please know that I’m not picking on you.
Your comment represented one of the only astute challenges to the point I was making — first of all, I’m glad you brought it up, because it gives me an opportunity to explain myself.
And it also shows me that you did indeed hear and interpret my statement differently than I intended. I assumed you thought I meant one thing — actually, it seems you thought I meant another thing — and I didn’t mean THAT, either.
:-)
Let me clarify — I was NOT speaking of a “cosmic event” that resembles End Times Prophecies, Mayan calendars, or any of that.
I do NOT believe that the Ascension is a cosmic event, I believe it’s a very real, human, technological phenomenon that has already begun. It’s NOT a rapture.
I believe that the Ascension is occurring in the form of a paradigm shift, a la The Technological Singularity.
I do not believe that some individual human souls ascend while others don’t; I do not believe that “a chosen few” are raptured and everyone else is damned to tribulation on earth; I do believe we all contribute to the collective ascension by means of individual evolution and enlightment.
But, when we reach a point where could call the paradigm shift complete, it will have happened to ALL of us.
[…] Ancestor spirits are not guides; and anyone you’ve known in life who has passed over may still come around you, but their souls are simply not “old” enough to be guides. Remember, it’s a commonly held theory that spirit guides are assigned to you prior to birth, so anyone you’ve met here in the flesh is not going to become your guide after they pass. If I knew when I was nineteen what I know now, when Harris first approached me I might have wondered if he was maybe a transit guide… But the information he offered was limited, the details were consistent with a haunting, and his means of communication was decidedly earthbound. […]
Great comments on here. Slade, besides having cogent and non-syrupy entries unlike many of the new age sites (never trust a site with glitter graphics, people)
I think some great questions are posed here. Learning from the responses really helps.
That said, I agree with someone here who likened reincarnation to a bit of a sick joke. I have read extensively on the subject and still am scratching my head (lice!)
I understand soul groups, lessons we are supposed to map out for ourselves to learn before hand, etc. I also am very flexible on the term ’soul mates’ as well. I think we could well have several. In out happiness obsessed culture we *must find out soul mates!* and we will be miserable unless we *find our other half*. Scared of that! Anyway soul mates are not always forever and ever, I feel they sometimes check out of the relationship early, maybe go work on some of their lessons solo, help some other people..kick a few tires..etc. A friend recently left her husband and wailed ‘Oh, he just wasn’t my soul mate!’ Not necessarily. I tried to point out maybe he was - one of a few yet to come along. She waved it off as nonsense due to this ‘one and only, forever and ever construct. Oh well. What about the people who really think they found their soul mate and then meet someone later who *really* gets them? The odds are high based on the number of people on the planet. Sometimes you meet that person when the timing just stinks.
And re: making the same mistakes over and over: isn’t that kind of like a cosmic Groundhog Day? I mean I liked the movie but don’t wanna live that mess. And the talents we had in a past life: We lose them completely to what end? Or like one of my favorite plays ‘No Exit’: you are trapped with the same people for eternity, trapped by your particular brand of neurosis and thus the theme ‘Hell is other people (i.e. the ones you are stuck with!). Oh boy.
I am a newbie in the sense that I have been reading about all sorts of stuff related to this for a while now but am not cracking the talking to spirit guides yet.
It’s a jump to say the least. I just try to keep an open mind and take it from there.
But I did have a dream where I was a man (hey now!) and bald, short and in some underground kind of thing…and next to some body on a table and putting ahem* things into little jars. What in the…? A dream, a vivid weird dream where I know it’s me, but not me, or a recollection? Only had that one so. It would be so neat to try and really access what happened in the past to, you know- smooth out some of the mess in the here and now.
One final thing: I talked to someone once (he did past life regression; I never did that though) and he suggested I try something called ‘transfiguration’.
Have any of you heard of that or tried it? To access past lives or find out more of your purpose you can stand in front of a mirror, lights off and just a candle near by - enough to illuminate the mirror. Then look into the mirror (no laughing!) and
think about who you were, what your purpose is, what you are here to learn..anything you feel you need to know.
Then- this is the tricky part- your face will seem to disappear and you will only see black. (No, don’t yell Bloody Mary three times! It’s almost over..) and then you will see your face again, but this time looking a bit like you used to in a past life.
No kidding I have tried this numerous times and scared the hell out of myself. Why? Because I saw a really angry looking man, broad face and beard, big guy…looked like he could snap me in two. Oh hey great! Still cannot stick around long enough to see what- and I do mean WHAT- that is.
Sigh.
This exercise can also be done with two people as well. So I tried it with my regression therapist friend. We sat opposite each other and no lights in the room- just a candle bright enough so we could see each other. Then you look at the other person (he said something about look into the right eye, kind of sending energy that way..) and then the same thing happens as when you do this alone in a mirror. Anyway it worked! He told me he saw 2 ‘people’. One was a chinese girl who had starved and another one was a warrior (Mongol, he thinks) and was ‘not the nicest guy you’d want to meet but that was just his job.’ Very interesting. What this friend did not know is that I used to hide snacks when I was a little girl even though there was always plenty of food at home. Maybe latent memory there? And it seems like indeed I saw the same man before I had done this exercise with my friend. It kind or corroborated it.
Sorry all for hijaking Slade’s comments this is long. I got a little excited.
Anyone else have ideas of ways to access this past life lesson thing?
Sabine, you are so not hijacking the comments. I think it’s unbelievably marvelous that six months after the original post was written I’m still receiving long, thoughtful responses to it in my inbox.
I have heard of that “transfiguration” exercise, just like you described, but I haven’t had the nerve to try it yet! (I am an easily spooked person.)
As for soul mates, I guess I do sort of believe in that, but I don’t think it’s an exterior thing. I mean, where am I to find the “other half” of my soul if not within? I mean, I don’t know, I do consider myself to have found my “soul mate” but he’s some kind of Spirit Guide/Genius/Daimon/Jungian Archetype or something, who knows, but I’ll take it.
My opinion on the whole past life thing and why we don’t remember, and this is informed by conversations with the above-mentioned Spirit Guide/Daimon/Invisible Friend/Whatever, is that the fact of being in a body means we are distracted or overwhelmed somewhat with the sensory input and it is a little hard to see clearly; like the soul and the body are different enough (I almost want to say that the soul/spirit is of a different frequency, though I hesitate to say a “higher” one because I don’t like hierarchies and too often soul is thought of as “higher” than body, which leads to all kind of nasty problems) that they are slightly incompatible. That there are too many filters operating when one is incarnated.
Anyway, I still don’t know what I think of all this. I am slowly, I think, being convinced of its reality, though, through experience. This is such an interesting world.
Thalia- thank you! Very well put. And the concept of soul mate as possibly being from within is a neat concept I have not heard yet. The genius/Spirit Guide/Daimon/…sounds interesting and a lot like a situation one of my friends has. She has cultivated quite a close and trusting relationship with hers. He is a teacher to her above all, it seems.
Thanks again:) Have a great weekend..
Sabine,
Not only am I cracking up, but I’m also truly thrilled that my little bits of humor, sarcasm, and my snarky attitude toward web sites built by The Unicorn People communicate to you as I intend. Did you read my rant about my goals concerning the imagery here or did you just read my mind?
:-)
Reincarnation. You know, I’m totally open to the legitimacy of things like past-life regression and I generally believe in life before, after, and in between incarnations — how could I not?
Yet, I don’t find myself much compelled to explore past life memories. I don’t see that the kind of information gleaned from these techniques is particularly relevant… I mean, I guess it depends on what you want to learn about your past lives, how it may be impacting your present, and why. What’s the context? What’s the issue? And how does any insight or spiritual information impact the present? I guess those are always the relevant questions…
I have encountered people with inexplicable, major, serious blocks and hang-ups that might be attributed to past-life memory… But honestly, not much.
Now, Soul Mates are a concept I find myself having a lot of serious opinions about. The subject comes up all the time in readings or one-on-one consultations with clients and it’s such a huge can of worms and varies so much from individual to individual… Add in any one other person and the complexity just jumps toward infinity… It’s something I truly need to write some articles about.
The short version, for the moment, is that I believe in Soul Families and the potential for karmic relationships; I believe that there are actually many potential soul mates for each of us and the Hollywood notion of Twin Flames and Romantic Soul Mates is … damaging bullshit.
I absolutely agree with you that soul-motivated relationships are not permanent and forever and ever. Anyone chasing the concept that they can have a relationship of infinite duration and total effortless ease and perfection just by meeting the right person is behaving like a child.
More to come…
Thalia,
Thank you so much for responding so quickly to Sabine. And I agree with you — how awesome is it that some of these threads continue to produce such great conversations?
I am SO grateful for that. It’s not something I can actually claim the credit for, but I am very proud of it, all the same.
Slade- I didn’t read that part of your site but glad it made you laugh!
Re: the Soul Mates/possible future articles that would be neat to read. I’m sure a lot of great comments would spool from that topic, too. I find a lot of people have definite opinions there. Thanks:)