The unfolding of consciousness

“What are we doing here?” is a question that gets a lot of play. It’s a good question to ask. I believe there is a reason we’re here, and it’s not blind chance, cruel fate, or punishment for failing to be enlightened yet.

If pressed, I’d say that I’m here to learn, to grow, to become a better person. I’m here for the advanced education of my soul. I’ve read comparisons to working toward a master’s degree–that sounds about right. A PhD, post-doc, fellowships … all of that is a ways off, hopefully still in the future.

But when I read this explanation from Rabbi Rami Shapiro recently, I was struck by it, and found it really beautiful.

Life is intrinsically meaningful and purposeful … We humans are integral to the unfolding of consciousness (at least in our solar system), and … the unfolding of consciousness (nonpersonal, prepersonal, personal, transpersonal, and cosmic) is, from our perspective, what the universe is all about.

If you’ve watched buds unfurl, in your garden or in the wild, then you know that they do so sometimes slowly, sometimes seemingly in the blink of an eye, but with all the inexorable force of nature. Only a killing frost can stop a bud in its tracks. And even then, if the plant or shrub or tree survives, it puts out more buds, absolutely determined to leaf and flower, and they open.

So it is with us, as we open to the light. As we unfurl consciousness in the universe, we are unstoppable.

This post is illustrated by the SoulCollage card I made today to represent this concept, Unfolding of consciousness.

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The essence of a soul

We are a living, breathing manifestation of this beautiful and generous planet. –Thich Nhat Hanh

In a SoulCollage deck, there are several Transpersonal cards–Source, Witness, and Soul Essence. I made a Source card some time ago, I haven’t found images for my Witness card yet–and here’s the Soul Essence card I made today. The Soul Essence card represents the maker’s eternal soul and its unique potential.

I found this card a challenge. It’s difficult to conceptualize your soul while you’re incarnated, or so it seems to me. A number of Soul Essence cards I’ve seen include images that reflect the maker’s current gender, but that didn’t feel right to me.

Thanks to various past-life explorations, I know that I’ve been Jacob, a shepherd in the Bronze Age; a master mason who worked on Rouen Cathedral and Canterbury Cathedral; and a stern, humorless, old-school English fisherman–none of whom shared my current gender.

I do see a couple of threads running consistently through these lives–one being strength, the other mastery. In my life as Jacob–a calm, peaceful, idyllic life–I was known for my wisdom about nature, and was a leader among the other shepherds. In my current life I have a tendency to become an expert on whatever I’m working on, almost without intending to. I have to say, I do not enjoy my own incompetence.

I am undeniably an incompetent bowler–unless we change the rules and gutter balls become a good thing–and I would much rather watch others who have grace and skill play, than play myself.

The other common thread is that, as far as I know, all of my incarnations (I’ve been told more than a hundred) have been on this planet. It makes me quite sad to think that due to our foolhardy destructiveness over a relatively short period of time (i.e., the Industrial Age), it might not be possible for me to finish my soul’s education here on planet Earth. I’ve read in several places that our little planet is generally considered a difficult school. Would it be the Harvard of the universe? Perhaps it’s more of an MIT, Penn, or Duke. All I know is that it’s been my home–or perhaps better, home away from home–for millennia. I hope enough of us wake up to reality and take action in time.

Long may we be nurtured by Mother Earth.

Whatever happened to Hitler?

I grew up hearing an awful lot about hell. To hear the minister I grew up listening to tell it, the vast majority of people were headed there, and it was a slippery slope for those of us sitting there listening to the hellfire-and-brimstone sermon. We were the elect, and yet … there still seemed to be the possibility of something going terribly, terribly wrong for us if we didn’t do things just exactly as the minister said they should be done.

It’s been some time since hell seemed credible to me, if indeed it ever did. Thinking back, even as a child those tales of Satan and the fiery pit sounded wild and over the top. Unbelievable, you might say.

These days, always with the principle of uncertainty in mind, I’m much more inclined to believe that we come here many times to learn all of life’s lessons. I’m inclined to believe that we’re mostly all doing our best, and that usually (OK, always) it’s people’s egos rather than a fork-tailed Devil leading them astray.

However, it’s pretty undeniable that there are some people who are downright evil, and Hitler is of course everyone’s favorite example. And if there’s no hell for Hitler, what exactly happens to someone like that (or like Dick Cheney)? I’ve actually wondered for some time exactly what Hitler might be up to now, and how the reincarnation of someone like that might be handled (if at all).

Yesterday I had some time to kill between an errand and dinner in another city, so I went to Barnes & Noble, gathered a few books that looked interesting, and sat down with a salted caramel mocha to peruse them.

And found an interesting theory, not to say a fairly credible answer to my longstanding question.

Two of the books I picked up were Michael Newton’s Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls (the one I ended up buying).

Michael Newton’s story is somewhat similar to Brian Weiss‘s. He was a highly skeptical hypnotherapist who was into science, not new age stuff, when he accidentally regressed a subject to a time frame he didn’t even believe in–one prior to the subject’s current life.

His work is different than Weiss’s in that he focuses fairly exclusively on the period between lives, from death to reincarnation. He’s also been interested in developing a model of how things work on the other side, by integrating the various reports of his clients, who are at various levels of soul maturity and have differing specialties and expertise.

In his books he presents his models, illustrating each point with a case study interview. The two I found quite interesting in relation to my question were with two people whose work on the other side is with the healing and management of souls who’ve committed serious wrongdoing, or outright evil and atrocities, while incarnated.

One thing that’s consistent in Newton’s interviews of his subjects is frequent references to having limited knowledge, and to being very junior in comparison to others with much more expertise. (These souls are typically advanced from the perspective of Earth, junior from the perspective of the other side.) Newton points out that his work is necessarily limited by only interviewing those who are still incarnating, who are clearly not the ones with the most knowledge of the subjects being discussed. Nonetheless, the books are utterly fascinating and unlike anything else I’ve ever read in their level of detail.

In the case of serious wrongdoing, Newton’s case study source indicates that healers work with the damaged soul’s energy, repairing, reweaving, and reshaping it in preparation for the soul’s reparations work. The goal is to increase the likelihood of the soul’s future success, while leaving necessary soul memory intact.

In the case of those who have committed evil, persistent cruelty and harm to perhaps many others, the case study source reports that those who work in this area evaluate whether or not the soul is “salvageable.” If so, the soul is offered three options (otherwise, only the final two).

1. Be rehabilitated, and then make karmic reparations in a series of lives in which the soul will experience “an equal measure of the same kind of pain they have caused to many people.” Newton’s case study 21 reports that most souls don’t have the courage to take this option.
2. Be remodeled, which involves significantly diluting the soul’s energy (and thus identity) with fresh energy, such that the negative effect of the original energy is no longer present. This process is intended to set the soul up for future success.
3. Go into limbo, a place of solitude. This option is chosen in preference to option 2 by souls who “will not stand for any loss of identity.”

I’d read before of a healing process for souls who’ve had difficult lives and require extra help recovering that one author refers to as “cocooning.” I’d wondered if perhaps someone like Hitler would be cocooned indefinitely. I suppose this thought bears some resemblance to option 3.

If you’re interested in the afterlife, the soul’s progression, and our work and purpose both here and on the other side, I recommend Destiny of Souls. I think you’ll find it as fascinating as I do.

The university of life

It really helps to understand that we have something–that we are something–which is unchangeable, beautiful, completely aware, and continues no matter what. –Ram Dass, in Still Here

It’s my belief–one I feel provides a much-needed perspective on life–that we come here many times. And just as you can’t have all the elements you really love in a single house–you can’t have a tile roof and a thatched roof at the same time–you can’t do everything, be everything, or “have it all” in a single life. Nor should you try.

I believe–though this isn’t something I’d bet the farm on, now that I’m into uncertainty–that we are here as part of our soul’s education. I think of it as analogous to getting a bachelor’s degree. You typically have at least one major and minor, core requirements, and electives. Core requirements would include experiencing all aspects of human existence–male, female, gay, straight, young, old, ability, disability, various races and ethnicities and nationalities, rich, poor (mostly poor, I gather), coupled, single, with children, without. You could think of it as the ultimate in independent study, and you don’t get to keep the handbook and the syllabus in your backpack.

I think we each have preferences, such as a preferred gender, perhaps ethnicity and geographic location, and that’s our major. But a certain percentage of the time, we’re required to live outside our comfort zone. No ifs, ands, or buts. Those are the core requirements.

This yields a balanced education, where we learn that it sucks to be the oppressed, the oppressor, and the one mistaken for the oppressor.

And we learn that life is delicious, no matter who you are.

And we learn that love is all that matters, and war doesn’t work.

And we learn that we are all one.

No doubt many consider this nonsense, and I’m sure there are those who judge it dangerous and pernicious nonsense.

I see it this way … even if I’m completely wrong about this, doesn’t it help to consider that while I may not be in your shoes right now, perhaps I was 50 years ago, or will be 50 years from now? If I’m tempted to generalize about an entire gender, race, profession, or whatever, if I question your right to have any opinion at all given your identity, it’s helpful to recall that I could be talking about myself in another guise. And if it’s true that we are all one–I am.

If I myself have had not only my current perspective, but many others, it becomes immediately obvious that there is no one right perspective. In fact, all perspectives are valid, and make up facets of the truth.

I find it helpful to conclude that there is no comprehensive Truth that I can fully understand here and now. I’m inherently limited by the portion of the curriculum I’m studying. I feel that I can either reconcile myself to that, or to being wrong for sure about whatever dogmatic truth I choose to espouse.

I can catch glimpses of Truth. I can hold on to a simple wisdom–“All you need is love” isn’t a bad one. But being able to explain the Universe A to Z and back again is simply not within human capacity, I believe. So I greet all claims of having all the answers, as well as all denials that any answers exist, with skepticism.

… Nothing you can know that isn’t known
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown
Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be
It’s easy

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need

–Mike Leander, John Lennon, Gary Glitter, Paul McCartney