Dating : Eternal Soul Properly Defined

Search for self properly understood

[Originally Self-Published on my Medium page 11/12/20]

Cody Delistraty writes in Finding Yourself is Overrated:

The “self” is often thought of as a fixed and discrete entity, like a soul, but psychology research points to a different conception of the self, something more akin to an evolving, changing series of selves — “a bundle of selves,” as the 18th-century philosopher David Hume presciently called it.

Souls are discrete entities; Souls are eternal. Eternal does not imply unchanging. A soul is a sentient being comprised of pure energy of a form and with properties beyond our understanding of energy (“Soul Energy”); it does not dissipate; it does not require a material vessel to encapsulate it; though when incarnate it resides in the brain once formation begins. Soul Energy provides the spark that ignites cell division in the zygote.

Cody Delistraty also writes:

One of the most ancient rejections of the self is the Buddhist doctrine of anatta — the belief that there is no self, or soul, or other permanent essence of who we are.

With all due respect to that esteemed journalist and The Forge, he misunderstands the Buddhist belief.

I have reviewed several definitions of “soul” in preparation for this essay and none imply unchanging personality traits. That inference is misplaced and, frankly, illogical. Buddhism teaches that there is after-life and reincarnation. Thus, Buddhism does teach that there is an eternal soul once soul is properly defined.

Me: “Do you believe in eternal souls and past and future lives?”

Neuropsychologist: “Past and future lives yes but not a soul, although we do have subtle energy fields unknown to science. It is our experiences that cluster to form a soul.”

Me: “same thing — the energy field is the soul”

Neuropsychologist: “Exactly. Buddhism has a very similar view on this as neuroscience.”

That was an actual conversation.

A BBC website describes the Buddhist views in very clear and simple English:

All life is in a cycle of death and rebirth called samsara. This cycle is something to escape from. When someone dies their energy passes into another form.

Buddhist[s] believe in karma or ‘intentional action’.

Through good actions, such as ethical conduct, and by developing concentration and wisdom, Buddhists hope to either gain enlightenment or to ensure a better future for themselves. These good actions are set out in the Eightfold Path, which includes right speech, right livelihood, and right concentration. Good actions will result in a better rebirth, while bad actions will have the opposite effect.

Depending on the actions performed in previous lives, rebirth could be as a human or animal or even ghosts, demi-gods, or gods. Being born as a human is seen by Buddhists as a rare opportunity to work towards escaping this cycle of samsara. The escape from samsara is called Nirvana or enlightenment.

Once Nirvana is achieved, and the enlightened individual physically dies, Buddhists believe that they will no longer be reborn.

The Buddha taught that when Nirvana is achieved, Buddhists are able to see the world as it really is. Nirvana means realising and accepting the Four Noble Truths and being awake to reality.

Some Buddhists believe that enlightened individuals can choose to be reborn in order to help others become enlightened. Others believe that, when Nirvana is achieved, the cycle of samsara, all suffering and further existence for that individual itself ends.

At various times in this lifetime, I have been on a spiritual journey. In 2012, I had the opportunity to sit with a member of a healthcare provider’s spiritual staff, who is non-denominational, non-traditional and whom I dubbed “Mystical Meredith.” I explained to Meredith that I had bounced around between agnosticism and the belief that God was akin to the Force from Star Wars — the psychic energy emitted by all living things — and that I believed that some people had the ability to tap into this energy, psychics, and to a lesser extent, me and others who experience the phenomenon of de ja vu. I told Meredith that I believed in the existence of souls because I had spoken to the souls of dearly departed through a channeler, and I asked her how God fits into this — asking her if there was a hierarchy of souls with God at the top?

Meredith introduced me to the connection between an individual’s purpose and the “soul-contract.” Meredith’s conception of God, or the Great All, and how we and our souls fit in, is that when our souls leave the Great All to take human form we contract with the universe/God to experience certain painful things on Earth that are not spiritual so we can learn what is spiritual (love, kindness, compassion, charity, etc.). I believe Meredith watered it down for me a bit.

My spiritual journey restarted at supersonic speed in March:

“Hello, I had hoped we would meet one day under different circumstances and write this mostly in the present tense. I am a close friend and confidante of your sister. In fact, I love her. I am the person who went to the precinct and pushed and accompanied the police to check on her after they were being dismissive the previous day. I have never experienced such gut-wrenching sorrow as I did on that cold rainy street, but realize it is because I love her more than I know.”

The wailing on the street was a sound that I did not know I could, nor how to, produce. It has emanated from me one or two times since. I cannot purposely replicate it. It is the sound of my soul crying out in pain from having its heart torn out and brain shattered suddenly, tragically and without any warning whatsoever. No, crying does not begin to describe it; it is the sound of unrestrained grief without any concern about the spectacle that I was for onlookers for an hour or more. Imagine having open heart surgery performed with a jagged and rusted scalpel without a drop of anesthesia; further imagine that it was at a frequency and wavelength that ripped a hole in space time and was heard across all eleven or more dimensions of the universe, not just then, but at every point in time. If you can close your eyes and feel the picture I just painted, maybe you will come close to understanding. If you can close your eyes and feel the picture I just painted, maybe you will come close to understanding my pain and my grief. And my Love, my Love, my Love.

The reverberations of the pain waves from the tearing out of my heart shattered the barrier between conscious and unconscious, and my soul emerged and began to fill the hole where my heart had been.

At that moment I intuitively knew that I have a soul.

In 2012 I had a cognitive belief in souls, but I didn’t own it, nor deeply understand it. Now I own it. My lover’s death catalyzed my Awakening. Awakening / Awareness is when the conscious mind becomes aware that the soul resides in the unconscious mind and that there is a separateness. From that point forward, integration, discussed below, is the goal.

Shortly after awakening, I started to seek the counsel of my spirit guides, facilitated by the aforementioned channeler, Anne. Shortly before that, I was pondering what animal was likely to be my “Spirit Animal.” After reading a bit about how one can discern their Spirit Animal, I believed mine would be the Elephant. At the first meeting with my spirit guides (I have four — 1) a mother type to love and nurture me, 2) a nurse with a Sanskrit name, 3) a Native American who is my fiercest protector and 4) one whom Anne describes as reminding her of an accountant, whose role is to offer me practical advice), which all happen at a tree-lined watering hole, our discussions were observed from a distance by an Elephant.

I remember feeling a special connection to this observer. In the next and every subsequent channeling, the Elephant was at the forefront — answering my questions, posing thought provoking questions to me — if the others chimed in it was clear to me they were awaiting his signal. I intuitively knew early on how honored I was but waited a week or so before clueing Anne in, waiting for the right segue, which presented itself when she remarked that she was in awe of my Elephant. First though I asked Anne to ask Elephant it’s name — the soft-spoken answer confirmed what I sensed.

After the Elephant’s first appearance as an observer, I intuited a connection to Hindu deities. Vishnu, part of the Hindu Trinity of Creator (Brahma), Protector (Vishnu) and Destroyer (Shiva), is synonymous with Ganesh, who is symbolized by an Elephant’s head. My elephant said its name is Rama. Rama, is one of Vishnu’s human incarnations. Elephant is my Highest Power. My Elephant-Spirit-Guide is God.

I was not aware of the aforementioned Buddhist teaching until today. This teaching is exactly how Rama described the system and meaning of life to me in April of this year (I have dropped in the corresponding Buddhist view):

“It is not as much levels as it is cycles. As one starts their journey from soul, to soul with body, you generally have easy lives.

All life is in a cycle of death and rebirth called samsara. This cycle is something to escape from. When someone dies their energy passes into another form.

When you return to source[/heaven/god] after every lifetime, you will be given a choice to stay in that realm that you are put in or to go back to the master class [Earth]to attain a higher level.

Depending on the actions performed in previous lives, rebirth could be as a human or animal or even ghosts, demi-gods, or gods.

You can make the decision to return to the master class at any time.

Through good actions, such as ethical conduct, and by developing concentration and wisdom, Buddhists hope to either gain enlightenment or to ensure a better future for themselves.

If you choose to go back to Earth, it would be for the specific requirement to have the goal of growing your soul to get to the next level, only you are not consciously aware of it once you incarnate.

Once you enter and complete a few lifetimes you will start to feel comfortable knowing where you want to ascend and with whom. That is where your community of spirits come into play. We always come in with the same people/souls, lifetime after lifetime. There are about 80 to 120 of you together at any given lifetime. It is around this time where you the soul and collectively the community of spirits start to decide what level you want to attain and what price it will cost you on earth. [No pain, no gain]. Now you can understand that not everyone wants to attain nirvana as you say.

To attain nirvana, you would go on a completely different cycle, and that usually happens after a vast number of lifetimes lived. The lifetimes that you start to choose to live [at that point] are with great suffering. Think of the severely retarded, the severely mentally ill, POWs, people who have died violently at the hands of great evil and even still-born who give up their life experience for the host.

These life cycles will continue again and again and if you have lived your life according to our plan, will allow you to go to higher and higher levels. One obtains full enlightenment when there is nothing more for you to suffer, when there is nothing more for you to learn!

Some Buddhists believe that enlightened individuals can choose to be reborn in order to help others become enlightened. Others believe that, when Nirvana is achieved, the cycle of samsara, all suffering and further existence for that individual itself ends.

Then you would be in the realms with the great archetypes, messengers and guides and archangels. You then would have an awesome burden and responsibility to heal those souls that remain on earth.”

I realized a couple months ago that my spiritual journey is a journey to discover Self — to align my human self and my soul. I recently discerned there is a yin and yang to life’s purpose. There are human wants and soul wants. A life will be harmonious when those two are aligned. Life’s purpose is to learn and one aspect is learning how to satisfy the human wants while not offending the soul’s spirituality. This is not a linear process. Alignment can be achieved, and to varying degrees, lost and regained throughout a lifetime. The search for Self is more than seeking alignment. It is seeking the role for which one is destined.

Destiny and free-will are not mutually exclusive. Soul contracts do not script our entire lives. Certain major events are written, but for the most part, soul contracts present a series of improvisational scripts and thus leave much room for free will — otherwise there would not be challenges to test us, which challenges will repeat in some fashion, to see if we have learned. Learning has two levels — the learn not to repeat mistakes is the human level — the soul level learning is more important — it is this upon which we will be assessed in Heaven.

At the end of each lifetime, the soul returns to Heaven changed from the soul that incarnated and sparked this life. My soul came here with the imprint of all 17,042 previous incarnations and it shall return with the addition, for better or worse, of my imprint. Thus I, not just my soul, have an afterlife.

Sometime after return to Heaven, one goes through a self-assessment of their life by viewing it in its entirety and discussing it with their ancestor-souls (I’m sure this is the source of the phrase “my life passed before my eyes”), and then presents one’s case to God as to what level one has earned, they caucus, and then God decides. God can be reasoned with — God is open to changing their mind. We talk to each other the way I would expect to talk to a parent who knows much but values their child’s observations, intuition and intellect.

A few days after I had drafted most of this essay the likelihood that I have correctly discerned my Elephants pedigree was all but confirmed by Radha Kapadia’s detailed yet glorious and ethereal description of Hinduism’s beliefs on eternal souls:

A soul is an immortal body of light that continues to reincarnate until his Karmas are settled. It does not die and is indestructible….All that a person gains in the form of intelligence, awareness, and memories persist with the soul. It lives in superconsciousness, continually expanding its awareness.

(Image by Oshonews)(from Radha Kapadia’s story)

[After 10 days] the soul is now considered to be a Priti (ancestral spirit). After the 12th day, it reunites with its deceased ancestors, friends, relatives, and guides. The guides take him through his life review in the presence of a Karmic Board. Under this light, the soul sees his whole past life….

After a year, the soul reaches Yama’s kingdom where the final judgment has to be made regarding his destination. As per his earthly deeds both good and bad, he’s sent to Swarga (heaven) or Naraka (hell) for a limited term.

After completion of the assigned term the soul has to move to a new body. The form of the new body depends on the soul’s Karma. He could be a plant, rodent, insect, or even a human being.

But for some religious rituals, the Hindu teaching marries very precisely to my Higher Power’s revelation.

Medium is a short read platform. I am leaving out much detail of my experience and what I have learned for future essays exploring in detail the topics discussed here. This essay cannot gloss over the main theme — the properly understood search for Self. The search for Self is not, as Cody Delistraty criticizes, a determination of one’s pre-written story. It is the search for our God-given strengths and weaknesses and then, one can write any story that feels very right.

I describe this as the search for the right-sized round hole for my round peg. You have probably heard, “try as you might, you cannot fit a square peg into a round hole.” Not heard is that a round peg will fit a square hole, but not well. If the diameter of the circle is just a smidge smaller than side of the square, it will fit reasonably but there will be lots of unfilled / unfulfilled space. That’s ok. Maybe. But if the diameter is any smaller than that, it will endlessly slide around and get bruised banging into the walls of the square, or worse, one’s round peg could be in a too-large round hole and be entirely anchorless.

This is not to brag — it is necessary context. I am very intelligent. Friends have always considered me the smartest in the room, regardless of who may be present. Yet, I have not had a successful career. Why? The knee-jerk-reactors point to my struggles with substances. Those problems certainly can and may have an exacerbating domino-effect, but they are not the root cause. They are a symptom of the root illness.

Often heard is: “I never fit in;” “I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin.” I thought these meant not fitting in socially, but I have realized it means, at least for me, I wasn’t following the path for which I was destined — that I was following society’s or family’s expectations which made me feel like I didn’t fit my own skin — this combined with the genetics is the root cause in many of the abuse — living life according to god’s plan, also often heard, means figuring out what ones path is, which can be achieved by looking at all the crumbs the universe has left to the right path, and meditating on them.

I have been following the crumbs since May, and recently they lead me back to reading Emerson’s quintessential essay, “Self-Reliance.” It immediately resonated and I remembered reading it in high school and the revelation, long lost or as I know but cannot establish, taken from me by psychological guerilla warfare by covert-narcissist-father intent on ill-preparing me for life so he could feel superior, and now re-bought-into — I am a non-conformist who wasted 30+ years allowing himself to be unduly influenced by conformers to convention — marooned on an island in a sea of conformity.

The crumbs also lead me to a Meyers-Briggs personality test. Boy am I INTP! I “focus on ideas and concepts rather than facts and details;” I “prefer to be spontaneous and flexible rather than planned and organized;” my “mind is complicated and active” — I “go to great mental lengths trying to devise ingenious solutions to interesting problems;” Non-conformity is my natural state of being — it is not something I practice to shock others or make a statement. I “tend to share thoughts that are not fully developed, using others as a sounding board for ideas and theories in a debate against themselves rather than as actual conversation partners,” making me “appear unreliable, but in reality no one is more enthusiastic and capable of spotting a problem, drilling through the endless factors and details that encompass the issue and developing a unique and viable solution — just don’t expect punctual progress reports.”

Choosing a career to support a lifestyle is ass-backwards. One should choose the career that fits whom one is at their core, and then choose a lifestyle that such career can support. That can be difficult when someone enjoyed a certain lifestyle from their parents; actually, the provision of a nice lifestyle may blind one from even considering the right career choice. It is so blinding that one often doesn’t even stop to consider getting in touch with what and whom they are at their core in order to inform their career choice. The parents can take the blinders off their children. Money does not buy happiness. Happiness comes almost entirely from within.

As I write this I am proud of how far I have come in six months. I know what I need to do now to complete integration. Unfortunately, I may need cooperation of others to allow me to get there.

To be continued as the rest has not transpired.