This is Part 2 of a 12-Part Series
Excerpted from Chapter One of The Seven Gates of Soul
The entire Introduction can be read
as a prelude to this series here.
Previous posts in this series include:
Part 1: Toward a Working Definition of Soul
To talk meaningfully about the soul in this way, it is important to make a few distinctions. First, in differentiating Spirit and soul, I do not wish to deny the possibility that something essential within us survives physical death. Nearly all religious traditions throughout the world agree on this point, although there are important differences when discussion turns to what, exactly, that something is. Most Western religions believe that the soul is a discrete entity that survives intact as a unit after death. Buddhists and many early indigenous cultures believe that what survives is the Life Energy contained within the soul, but not the individual soul itself. Many esoteric traditions – such as those practiced among Taoist yogis, Yaqui shamans, and Tibetan Buddhist monks - believe the survival of the soul’s identity after death is a possibility, but not a given. To reach immortality within these traditions requires mastery of advanced spiritual practices, and only the most fiercely dedicated souls complete the arduous journey. Many mystics suggest that when the state of being we call immortality is reached, there is no one there to experience it. Or as American mystic, Ram Dass succinctly put it, ”The difference between you and... a perfected being is that they aren’t and you still think you are” (Grist for the Mill, p. 166). That is to say, immortality is attainable, but only at the supreme cost of individual identity, which flows back into the cosmic ocean out of which it emerged.
It is likely that something survives the transition from life to death, but exactly what that is remains part of the Great Unknown. Even those who return from near-death experiences convinced of the soul’s capacity to survive physical death are only able to convey their message because the etheric cord connecting Spirit and body was never completely severed. What happens after the cord is severed cannot be discussed with final authority by the living. As Zen master Gudo responded to a student who asked him where souls go after death, “I know not… because I have not died yet” (Paul Reps. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones 55). We can believe whatever we choose to believe about what happens after death, but all we can actually know about ourselves as living souls must be experienced within the context of our embodiment.
Reconsidering Past Life Experiences
From the Perspective of the Embodied Soul
Many people, myself included, have had past life experiences that seem to affirm that an immortal soul evolves through multiple incarnations. If these experiences are what they appear to be, then we might be justified in taking them as evidence that some essential piece of our individual identity survives physical death. Regardless of how convinced we are of the reality of such experiences, we must remember that they are taking place within the mind, heart, and soul of a being alive in this life. How such experiences might be construed, or even whether they are comprehensible once this life has ended is not something we can possibly know. To interpret them in a broader context that assumes a personal existence beyond the life of the body is inherently a leap of faith. Whether we live other lives or not, the embodied soul is bound to this life, through its relationship to the body, and it is within this life that it must evolve a sense of relationship to Spirit, a spiritual identity, and a sense of meaning and purpose. Once the soul is no longer embodied, it ceases to exist in the form in which we have come to know it. Spirit itself may well cycle endlessly through the life and death of countless bodies, but the individual soul depends upon the body with which it identifies in this life for its experience of Spirit cycling through it.
Perhaps our apparent connection to other lives in other times and places is not chronological, as it seems to be from a linear perspective, but concurrent. The Seth material – channeled by Jane Roberts before channeling was popular – teaches that we live all of our incarnations simultaneously. Seth suggests that as we emerge into the realm of space and time from a timeless existence in Spirit, or Source Self as Roberts calls it, the various dimensions of our being appear to be laid out chronologically as a succession of lives. According to this view, however, Source Self is the only “One” experiencing these lives and beyond the realm of space and time, they are all happening simultaneously (Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology, pp. 157-160). Spirit assumes many temporary forms, but the coming and going of these forms is nothing more than the eternal play of Spirit, taking place in the here and now. From this perspective, it is not necessary to consider more than one incarnation in order to understand the experience of past lives.
Prominent psychiatrist and consciousness researcher, Stanislav Grof, summarizes his study of past life experiences by emphasizing that he does not consider these experiences “to be necessarily a proof that we have lived before,” although he does not go so far as to discount the possibility. “It is interesting to notice,” he observes, “that in the mystical tradition literal belief in reincarnation of separate individuals is seen as an inferior and less sophisticated interpretation of karmic experiences. In its complete form, the reincarnation theory suggests that all divisions and boundaries in the universe are illusory and arbitrary. In the last analysis it is only the creative principle, or cosmic consciousness, that actually exists. An individual who penetrates to this ultimate knowledge will see the realm of karmic appearances as just another level of illusion” (Adventure of Self-Discovery, pp. 90-91).
This is not to say that information about past lives cannot be valuable to the soul in negotiating this life. Information about past lives provides a rich metaphorical description of the spiritual dilemma faced by the soul in the present moment. I have personally found this information useful in explaining stubborn psychological patterns with no discernible source, though I hesitate to consider it as literal description of my embodied soul’s experience. Matthew Fox suggests that a preoccupation with literal interpretations of past lives can become a form of what he calls pseudo-mysticism, a substitute for the lack of a genuine, direct connection to Spirit in this life. “Invariably I have found that persons dealing with ‘past lives’ are working out – often in a very commendable and creative way – the deep suffering and pain from their present life. This connection is lost when the preoccupation with past lives loses its metaphorical base. The result is a severe underestimation of one’s present responsibilities and opportunities” (The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, p. 46).
Regardless of what we personally believe about the survival of the soul after death, it is self-evident that the postmortem soul is different than what we call the soul while we are alive in a body. The sacred dance between Spirit and body ends at death, and because this is so, the experience of soul after death must be different than it was during life. Religious traditions that identify the postmortem soul with immortal Spirit may be correct. But the embodied soul’s experience is more complex, and I think it is worth making a distinction. According to the definition of soul proposed here, I would reserve the concept of soul for the experience of conscious embodiment in a living body.
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