Why I Was Ready

When I was a small child in a Southern Baptist church in Louisiana, my Sunday School teacher told me, with a perfectly straight face, that Catholics didn’t go to Heaven. She never could explain why. I don’t think she even tried.

My teachers taught me, too, that hell was the fate of anyone who didn’t believe ‘Jesus Christ’ was the Son of God. But, what about people in jungles and out-backs who’d never heard of Jesus? Would they go to hell? How could a God who loved 'His' children consign people to hell in such a scenario?

Meanwhile, back to those Catholics: I had very close friends who were Catholic and I knew they deeply believed in the Divinity of Jesus. So why would they go to hell?

And, if Jesus was the “Son of God” what about me? Didn’t God make me, too?

My questions met with blank stares most of the time—along with a change of subject and a steadily decreasing tendency to call on me in class.

Fairly quickly [while still in elementary school] I solved the Catholic Problem: I recognized the blatant bigotry for what it was and dismissed it.

Then, some years later, I learned that the Southern Baptist Convention splintered off from the American Baptist Church because of a fundamental difference of opinion. The Southern Baptists stated that the practice of slavery was ok. Bringing people to our shores against their wills—tearing families apart, subjecting people to all the cruel practices inherent in the institution, the whole nine yards—were just fine because the 'enlightened Americans' were teaching these ‘savages’ about Christianity and how much God loved them.
And these people had a problem with Catholics?

Still later, I learned other historical facts that did not sit well with me either: The Witch Hunts of Medieval Europe. The Inquisitions that stretched well into the Renaissance Period. The forced conversion of the the Jews to Christianity. The Pogroms. And on and on. Oops.

So, on the fateful day when, wandering around a used bookstore, I picked up a book by Ruth Montgomery [A Search for the Truth] that spoke of a different way of looking at God & Stuff—I was enthralled. I couldn’t put it down.
Here, at last, I could see a way out of the quandary I still carried around with me about the fates of people who didn’t believe in Jesus because they’d never heard of Him. Reincarnation solved that problem neatly, for me. People had more than one chance! Salvation was no longer a case of geography and luck.

Karma explained most if not all of the cruelty I saw down through history as well as all around me in the present day. Grace was present in these concepts, too.
It turns out that being truly sorry about things we’ve done in the past can, in certain circumstances, change the way karma works. It’s complicated and I’m not sure I understand all the dynamics. That’s one of those things that’s simmering on my back burner—maybe I’ll go back and stir that pot one day.

This one example I do understand: Suppose you and I meet in an alley. There is no karma between us, no tie of any kind, but suddenly I get a wild notion and I slice your face open. Karma calls for you to meet me in an alley and give me the slice-&-dice in your turn. In fact, if our souls are young enough, we can go on tit-for-tatting each other --and escalating-- for centuries if we choose to.

But sometimes, something else happens. Many lifetimes have intervened before we get around to balancing this experience. We may even have tried, and failed, several times. But now, we’ve both matured since that first chance meeting. You and I came to an understanding long since about that encounter and I’m really, really sorry for having started the ball rolling.
So, the next time we meet in the alley, someone else is threatening you with a knife. And I have the chance to save you from this person [a colleague who agreed to act as mediator for us.] If I rise to the challenge and risk injury or worse, the slate is wiped clean and balance is restored in that corner of the universe. No one gets cut and no new karma is created.

The rest of the Grace concept is, as I’ve said, still out there awaiting my next attempt to comprehend it. No problem—it’ll be there when I get around to it. :)

Grace Revisited

OK, here we go again:
I’d like to share a case of something that I think MAY have been the Karma/Grace principle at work.
First, allow me to say there was much about parenting her children that I disagreed with my mother about. There was one matter, though, that I could not fault her on: she was a scrupulously careful mother who never put her small children at risk of physical injury. She always made certain that child-gates were in place, that pot handles were turned inward on the stove, never left her toddlers unsupervised, etc. etc. etc.

So, on the afternoon I came home from school and found my mother talking blissfully to my younger brother while she did her ironing, I was stunned. My 2 1/2-year-old brother was sitting in an open window with his back against the window-screen. This was one of those old-fashioned screens that was stapled to a wooden frame and tended to rot around the edges over time—and this one was pretty old. Beneath that window was a 1 3/4 story drop to a concrete walk below.

I was only ten years old and I could see the danger immediately. So why didn’t my mother see it? Yet, here she was standing across the room, looking right at him with a hot iron, an ironing board and a clothes basket between her and her son who could, conceivably, go out that window at any moment.

Again, I was only ten, but I was also aware of something else: my brother was an obstinate brat who had a tendency to challenge me if I told him to do anything. He was, after all, traversing the terrible-two’s [though I didn’t know about that concept at the time.] Still, I did know that he would, almost certainly, stomp his foot at me and shout ‘NO!’ if I told him to get out of that window. And, that would increase the risk.

Add to that the recognition that pointing out to my mother the fact that, ‘We have a problem here,’ would not be a good idea, either. She would likely become defensive and argue with me. My brother might become upset and push against the screen without even meaning to. It would use up valuable time that we might not have. Etc. Etc.

All of these thoughts ran through my mind in much less time than it has taken me to type them here. Almost instantly I knew what I had to do: Drawing as little attention to myself as possible, I walked over to the window-seat and sat down within arm’s length of my brother. I didn’t say a word. I just sat there—tensed like a spring. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes [at least that’s how it seems in retrospect] the screen gave way, my brother lost his balance and went out the window head-first and backward. And I grabbed his ankle and hauled him back in the window.
xxx
Now, this whole scenario may have been one major coincidence. In fact that is exactly how I viewed it [if I thought about it at all—which I very rarely did] until I began to learn about Karma.

As I have thought it through with that concept in mind, though, I’ve come to other conclusions:
The most astonishing part of the situation is the fact that my mother allowed it to happen in the first place. As I’ve said, it was totally out of character for her not to see the danger and tell my brother to get down from there. And she didn’t. Why not?

I guess a second point is the fact that I was, after all, only ten years old. How did I see a danger my mother didn’t see and figure out a way around it?

And, why did I walk into that room at that precise moment, anyway? Almost every other day, I would run into the house, hurl myself upstairs, change my clothes, grab my skates and take off for Jane’s and Mary Dey’s house without a thought for where my mom and brother might be. Why did I change my pattern that day?

I’m sure you see where I’m going here.
Here’s where the speculation begins:
What if there was karma between my brother and me? There often is karma of one sort or another among family members.
[That’s why they come back together—to see if they can work it out this time.]

So, suppose for a moment that, in some previous lifetime, I threw the two-year-old ‘fragment’ who would one day be my brother off a cliff onto a rock and broke his skull. I did it maliciously and on-purpose.

Given the way we chose to work it out, it was likely a long, long time ago and my brother didn’t want to go the route of revenge [if he had he would have thrown me out the window].
So, between us we worked out a scenario, instead, in which I could save him from a similar fate this time around. Our mother had to be included in the plan by 'not seeing' the problem so that I could solve it, myself.

One other thing leads me to think this was Karma: the aftermath. Knowing my mother, she probably went into hysterics after the incident. Almost certainly she came across the room screaming, grabbing my brother and me, crying uncontrollably, the whole nine yards. I remember none of that—although the earlier part of the memory is completely clear in my mind. But, once the karma was complete, the rest was entirely unimportant and I have no recollection of it at all.
xxx
So, what do you think about my conclusions?
And how about you? Do you have any ‘coincidences’ lurking in your past you’d care to share?

Rethinking Soul Age Matters

I’ve been reading several Seth books, lately and I’ve come to some new conclusions regarding the Soul Age matters that Michael has outlined.

First of all, as I read the material in the books and as I wrote it up here, I both received and conveyed the impression that the Soul Ages are cut-and-dried. That the Infant cycle ends and the Baby lives begin followed by the Young lives, then the Mature and Old lives. That each sequence of lives is delineated by a boundary of sorts and that the matters being dealt with during each level don’t bleed one into the other. Now, I’m beginning to think, I may have taken the information too literally or not made enough allowance for the individuality of the soul.

Rereading the Seth material [after a hiatus of some years, aamof] I’m starting to rethink that premise.
Although Seth doesn’t speak of Soul Ages per se, it does seem to describe a similar phenomenon but this progression seems to be more flexible than I had interpreted Michael’s delineation as being.
It seems to me, after looking at the idea through the Seth Material lens, that the evolution might occur with more fluidity. The soul might even arrive at the Mature Soul consciousness, say, in the matter of emotions earlier in its evolution while remaining in the Young Soul awareness level when it comes to the matter of the relationships, for instance. Or that it might arrest at the Young Soul level in regards to dealing with money while moving forward with relationship issues [this might be especially true if a soul were to return to the United States or to a third-world country as an overlord-type figure for lifetime after lifetime during the transition period between the Young and Mature phases (or, more accurately perhaps, the soul might choose to return as an overlord or CEO because it isn’t prepared to make the leap in regards to the issue of acquiring money and power-over-others’-lives.)]

I’m not saying that this is necessarily so – but that my interpretation of how souls mature is changing as I merge the two teachings.

So, as you read the following posts, you might keep in mind the idea that things are more flexible than the wording of the posts may suggest.

Just wondering along.

The Soul Ages: The Pre-Infant Stage of Development.

According to the primary source I’m studying at the moment [The Michael Teachings], among others, there are seven soul ages—five of which we complete on the physical plane. These make up the levels of development we move through as we make our ways back toward the All that Is.
First, a little background:
When each of us splinters off from the All that Is we begin what I call the Walkabout. First, we decide whether we will include the physical dimension in our itinerary. The downside to that route is the fact that it’s lots harder to traverse the physical than it is to steer clear of that course. The upside is that it’s ‘faster’ than taking the more leisurely route that doesn’t include the run through the physical realm. So, those of us who are impatient tend to choose this track—even though it’s harder work.
Once that decision is made, we tour several planets. We can hang around on each one for as long as we wish just checking it out.

For what it’s worth, the planet Earth doesn’t have many of these new ‘fragments’ checking it out these days.
Once the general population reaches a certain average age [about the age we, collectively, are now] most fragments lose interest in joining the game-in-progress.
The planet is looking tired—there’s a massive clean-up that needs to happen—and folks who didn’t have a part in making the mess generally aren’t interested in cleaning up after the rest of us.
Also, it’s not much fun playing catch-up when almost the entire planet’s-worth of souls are so far ahead of you. So, the odds of a new infant coming here are pretty remote at the moment.

Anyhow, once the fragment has made the decision to go physical and chosen a planet, it needs to slow w-a-y down — lowering its vibration to a level that can be contained in a body. If it didn't do this it would tend to burn the body out within a very few years—maybe sooner.
Then, it hunts around for a body that isn’t spoken for already. It spots a pregnant female and begins hanging around her. At this point, there’s no accumulated karma, so any pregnant mother will do. Depending on how impatient the fragment is, it may jump right into the body and remain with it throughout the pregnancy. A far more common option, though, is to touch base with the growing fetus occasionally—just to check on its progress. Otherwise, the fragment goes on about its business of checking out the planet, hanging out with friends, giving its personality its final tweaks [more about how we build our personalities and so on in later posts].

Actually, any fragment can opt out at any time during a pregnancy and, in fact, has about two years after birth to make its final decision about whether to remain in the chosen body. So, even after birth, if the fragment finds that the situation it has been born into isn’t what it had in mind after all, it can bail out. A number of re-absorptions, miscarriages, stillbirths and crib-deaths can be accounted for by fragments deciding that they had made a mistake and starting over with a new body [often even with a different family]. This is true at any soul age—not just during the first incarnation on a planet.
Once the fragment has committed itself to its first body, it is on its way and, most likely, will complete the physical incarnation cycle and will do it on whatever planet it started out on.

Next post: The Infant Soul.

The Infant Soul

By the time the infant appears on a planet for the first time, it has been on its own in the universe for a while. It has spent ‘time’ considering several planets before settling on the chosen one. Then, it has examined the planet of choice and may have investigated several different animal or even plant species [by cohabiting within several varieties, for instance] in it’s analysis before settling on the planet it will inhabit for the next few thousand years.
By the way, this 'cohabiting' is not the same as transmigration—though it may seem to be so. However, karma cannot be collected at this point and such cohabitation is purely research-oriented in nature—it has nothing to do with the development of the soul. That is what differentiates it from transmigration as such.

The soul is, after all, making a big investment here— committing itself to numerous lifetimes over several hundreds of years as a sentient being on the planet and, unless it is a very rash soul, indeed, it wants to be certain this is a good fit. As a result, when it finally takes it’s first human body, it has probably moved into a fairly instinctive mode of existence. This comes about as a result of the choice of forgetting where we came from.
This choosing to forget comes in handy as remembering previous lifetimes would be cumbersome at best. I'll go into that more in later posts. For now, suffice to say, would you really want to know about crimes you committed in medieval times [and the resulting karma you have or have not paid]? My answer to that question is a resounding, 'NO!'

The Soul has also chosen its ROLE [more on roles in later posts] and spent 'time' creating its first body and its first personality. If it is wise it will take counsel with other, more experienced souls as these are all daunting tasks—particularly for an inexperienced, relatively new soul still learning the ropes.
xxx
The early Infant Soul is somewhat raw and non-defined when it arrives on the planet as a fully sentient being for the first time. It can look fairly primitive and not-quite-pulled-together. The individual often looks furtive or frightened.

The lessons for the Infant are primarily those of physical survival and, as a result, Infants tend to cluster near the equator where the weather, at any rate, will not increase the difficulties involved in survival.
However, because infants tend to cluster there, they are easy prey for unscrupulous older Souls and dictators—not to mention wild animals and diseases. Lives can be brutish and short with Infants experiencing every type of survival test imaginable.
Infants learn how to find food and water, build shelters, and the very earliest lessons in collaboration with other people. They haven’t yet learned how to work cooperatively with others and any favors they do for others are strictly of the tit-for-tat variety. They may be loners as this method of meeting the new environment tends to feel safer than spending a lot of time with other people.
Eating is a matter of survival and has nothing to do with pleasure beyond the sensation of a full belly—something which is, in fact, not often achieved.
Similarly, sex is practiced as a survival mechanism. Sexual pleasure is not yet attainable—only the assuaging of lust.

On the positive side, infant souls can be very attuned to nature. They resonate closely within their own small group—family or small tribe—and experience the group consciousness more clearly than they will again until they have graduated from the planet. They have the ability, all too soon forgotten, of living in the moment.

Old souls sometimes will opt to go to these equatorial zones to help the infants there learn the basics. They may take on the roles of shamans and healers and will be venerated by the trusting Infant Souls in residence.
Unfortunately, sometimes Young Souls [see later post] will incarnate there and take advantage of the population. That is often the case when dictators take over and terrorize the general populace. [Think Saddam Hussein—a young soul in the currently transitioning (infant-to-baby) country of Iraq. Or, for that matter, GW Bush (a mid-to-late Baby Soul, I'm almost certain,) in Iraq.]

The conscience is not yet fully integrated in Infant Souls and, in the rare instance when an Infant takes on a life in a sophisticated country like the US, for instance, it is likely to run afoul of the law due to this lack. Although these souls may inflict great pain on others [usually on a one-to-one level—not one of brutalizing large groups of people—they’re generally not sophisticated enough to pull off a major crime spree, yet], their actions are often brought about by fear rather than true malice. Even so, this is a time of opening and creating karmic ties of the violent variety whether as victim or perpetrator.

Next post: The Baby Soul

The Baby Soul

Within each soul age there are seven levels [more about those in a later post] so, by the time the soul reaches the Baby Soul Age, it has lived at least 7 lifetimes and probably more like 20 to 40. The Infant stage is, often, fairly long because so many of its lives are short. Therefore, it takes more lives to learn the Infant lessons than it takes to learn later ones as the soul matures.

When the soul moves from the Infant level of consciousness to the Baby level, it has its survival skills down pat. Now, it’s ready to get civilized. It wants to know the rules of society and will move into more and more sophisticated communities around the planet in order to learn how different cultures organize themselves.

Baby souls go through a lot of changes in their growing-up process. This is an energetic and exploratory period. Baby souls are like adolescents: eager to get out into the world and demonstrate that they know how to ‘do it right’. There is still a basic lack of understanding and they have an immature perspective. They are almost, but not quite, ready to make the big leap to independence and self-regulated behavior.

The Baby soul age is like the stereotypical pre-teen/early teenage know-it-all stage. Babies, having less understanding and insight than older souls, tend not to see the bigger picture. They are likely to dismiss the ideas or suggestions of those older ones and cling fiercely to their views of us-vs.-them, for instance, or the zero-sum-game.

The Baby soul often thinks and acts in ways dictated by his or her peers. S/he is putting limited experience to work and, therefore, is pretty narrowly focused—especially if s/he is surrounded by Baby Soul peers.

Babies tend to live in small towns where there are, typically, lots of other Babies to pal around with. This way, they can live fairly comfortably without feeling too threatened by all those older souls in the big cities who WANT to deal with the bigger picture. Babies are usually perfectly content with the smaller picture, thankyouverymuch.
The cop walking his or her beat is often a Baby learning about law-and-order. The same is true of the prostitute turning a trick. Or the mayor of a small town [Babies like to be big fish in small ponds].

Another way to learn about the legal system is to commit crimes—sometimes violent ones. When they DO land in a large city, getting involved with a gang works well for getting this perspective. Commit a crime, get caught, go through the legal system including the prison hierarchy. Get out of prison and go through the parole system/halfway-house. Repeat.

It’s all good [although from the earth-bound perspective it doesn’t always look that way.] The perspective from the Causal Plane is different from that of earth, however [Michael exists on the Causal Plane.] From there, every earthly experience is perceived as valid—as in: an opportunity for learning.

Many, many Babies live in small-town-America. Many [though by no means all] are upstanding members of their communities. One motto often adhered to is, ‘Do it right or not at all.’ Their lawns are weeded and watered; their homes are clean; they don’t want your car parked in front of their homes and they certainly won’t park in no-parking zones, themselves. They are proper and mannerly, following the rules of etiquette.

The "do it right" attitude extends to the area of sexuality, as well. More often than not, Baby souls approach sex prudishly both in public expression and private practice. Moralistic in their value system, Baby souls regard the missionary position as, of course, the right way to do it, and only within marriage.
The current focus on condemning such practices as condom distribution—even in an effort to control the spread of deadly disease—is distinctly a Baby point of view being manifest. This can extend to the vengeful viewpoint: ‘those people [people with AIDS, for instance] deserve what they get anyway. I’M not going to give out condoms to keep “them” from getting sick.’ [The US VS THEM dynamic is a very Baby perception.]

They see moral issues as black/white—either/or, with no shades of gray, and of course they identify themselves with the white—good. Anything they do not understand they identify with the black—evil.
Even the idea of other people having a different opinion from their own will puzzle the Baby Soul and, if they perceive the issue as important enough, may bring out a tendency toward violence. Think about abortion-clinic bombings, for instance.

They borrow simple concepts of right and wrong from the rules of society, or better still, from what they perceive to be the laws of God, and then stick doggedly to them all their lives. They tend to blame the world when things go wrong: attributing such occurrences to "evil forces" at work. They find it difficult to accept the error of their own ways, since they believe they are doing what is right. Self-righteousness is a common personal viewpoint.

As to religion, Baby souls tend toward fundamentalism or an evangelical point of view. The personification of the deity is more natural to this Age than any other. To them God seems anthropomorphic —like one of them: more knowledgeable and powerful to be sure, but still merely a glorified human being— and a male human because males are perceived in the majority of earthly institutions [and certainly by the Babies within them] as the primary authority figures.
Babies believe in the forces of evil, and these forces are also typically personified as an anthropomorphic "Satan" figure.
The "Word of God"—whatever sacred text the individual’s religion follows—is interpreted literally.

When their children get into trouble at school, no matter the circumstances, the typical Baby Soul parent will side with the authority rather than their child and will work to make their child acceptable to the authority figures of the school.

But, Babies are more complex than the simple statement, ‘What are the rules? Ok, that’s what we’ll do.’ Hitler, for instance, was a 5th level Baby soul. Richard Nixon, too, was a Baby [7th level, I think though I’m not absolutely sure of that.] And, though I’ve never found any reference to him, I’m almost certain G. W. Bush is a Baby.
On the rare occasions when Babies get into lofty authority levels they tend to 1] go overboard and 2] believe that they are free to create the rules they would be slavishly following if they weren’t in positions of great power.

From their limited perspectives, they don’t perceive the principles more mature souls are following when they create social rules. They simply see the end results. So, while an older soul may create workplace safety rules that actually help the people they are regulating, Babies are more likely to make rules they, themselves, don’t have to follow. Or create rules designed to give themselves the edge over other people within the society they are regulating. Or create rules that oppress others rather than help them live more fruitful lives. When they do this Babies are, generally speaking, creating lots and lots of karma they’ll need to balance at some later date.

The political perceptions of the Baby soul are quite conservative, if not downright reactionary. An excellent example from current history is "The Moral Majority" in the U.S. which was led by Jerry Falwell. I think you could tell simply by looking at the man’s physical characteristics that he was a baby soul. He looked every inch the self-contented toddler, didn’t he?
And the members of the church in Topeka who have been issued a court order to stay away from military funerals because they were haranguing mourners with their condemnations of gay people personify the Baby perception.
They want to impose their strict and narrow standards on everyone else because they regard the perfect society as an obedient society—faithful to a righteous law. There is little room for individual liberties and free expression.

As Michael says, the Baby soul sees itself as "me" and other people as "many other mes". The meaning of this is that Babies expect others to be like themselves, and are surprised and bewildered when this proves to be incorrect. They don’t know how to deal with the differences they see in other people. They avoid people not of their own race, nation, tribe, culture, religion, socioeconomic status, political party, special interest group, etc. Baby souls, of all the soul ages, feel most comfortable with their own kind, whatever they perceive that to be. Their sense of identity is reinforced by the groups they belong to. They perceive the differences in others as evil and distance themselves from any perceived ‘otherness’.

Baby souls are "uptight" about life in general. Who wouldn't be under the stress of always having to be right? They live by popular stereotypes and standard clichés. Baby souls have very little sense of humor.

When they seek employment it will be as followers. You won’t find Baby Souls setting up their own businesses. They much prefer to be told what to do—and then they will do it without questioning the rightness or wrongness of most business decisions unless those decisions go against some moral conviction taught them by some ‘higher authority’ such as the minister in their fundamentalist church. Even then, they will likely seek counsel from their minister rather than make a decision, on their own, to ‘blow the whistle’. Almost always, Baby souls will leave all decisions to Young Souls who will be more than happy to make those decisions as we shall see.

Next Post: The Young Soul.

Preface to the Young Soul post

If what follows looks and sounds depressingly familiar, there’s a reason for that:
The planet as a whole and the US have, very recently, moved from a position of being populated by a majority of Young Souls toward a majority of Matures. And Youngs have held the planetary majority for the last 2,000 years.
Of course, all the physical Soul Ages are represented both in the US and on the planet as a whole— but any nation or planet will be more heavily influenced by the age-level of the majority of its residents than it will by other Age groups.

The Young Soul

I’ve got news for everyone here. If you’ve completed your Young Soul incarnations, you’ve spent at least one lifetime filthily, obscenely RICH, RICH, RICH.
We all have to learn the lessons that go with money and the way we do that is by 1] being born into families that have enormous amounts of it when we arrive, 2] starting poor and making mammoth amounts of it while here, 3] starting out poor and struggling to make money and failing or making some and losing it in catastrophic ways, 4] starting out rich and losing everything —and any and all variations of these scenarios on the theme of money, money, money.

Likewise, and probably during the same set of lifetimes— since the two so often go hand-in-hand —you’ve also all held huge amounts of power over other people’s fates.
Again, most likely, we do that during our Young Soul lifetimes though a few people will jump ahead in the game and start this process late in the Baby Soul period [Hitler did it, Nixon did it and, my guess is, Bush II is doing it, too— though Hitler and Bush allowed puppet-masters (almost certainly Young Souls) massive amounts of the power they ostensibly were wielding (Hitler’s physician, who fed him all those drugs, was one— Dick Cheney, obviously, is another. Karl Rove may well be a Baby— content to be Kingmaker this time around though he's just as likely to be a Young Soul exercising his Power-over- Others muscles.]

So, Young Souls seek and manage to acquire, by hook or crook, power over others. That is the name of their game.
Sometimes they’ll use their power for good [most likely, they’ll do that during the late phases of their Young Soul cycle— when all other ways of demonstrating how much power they’ve got have been exhausted. Mostly, they’ll use the power they garner to further their own ends.
xxx
After going through the teenage years and then leaving parents and striking out on one’s own, the young adult is in the process of building up the foundations of career, home, and family. Young people are finding their places in life, establishing successes, and making their marks on the world. This is a very challenging phase. The same can be said of the Young Soul.

As you can see, the Young Soul period is an energetic, lively time to be on the planet. Of all the soul ages, Youngs are the most comfortable here. They will find their own place in society and can’t understand those others who question such things as the meaning of life. To them it’s obvious: the meaning of life is to aquire things and power for their own sakes. The bumper sticker that was so popular during the 1980’s tells it all: ‘He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins.’
For the Young Soul, winning isn’t the Big Thing. It’s the Only Thing.

Youngs seek to tame the world at large. Young Souls are the architects of civilizations, the builders of empires, the leaders of businesses and economies. Their basic motivation is materialism, and they will work unstintingly for their material achievements. They are the most likely of the ages to be "workaholics", constantly in a state of unrest, seeking their materialistic goals. More than any other soul age, Young Souls feel at home in the physical body. They really like it here on the planet and they chafe at inaction.
Popular interests are mundane things such as government, business, lawyering, sports, and policing at the higher levels. No walking the beat for the Young Soul—except when just getting started—and then only if they were born into a family that doesn’t have the connections to jump them ahead in the system. Being the Police Chief in a large city is more to the Young Soul’s taste— and then, most likely, as a stepping stone to higher political office.

This is also a time of conformity. In this way Youngs are similar to Babies. My Way or the Highway is still a credo during this period of soul evolution. People who don’t toe the line deserve no sympathy and will receive none. The 3-strikes-and-you’re-out prison system stems from a Young Soul philosophical viewpoint. If you’re not just like me, there’s obviously something wrong with YOU.

Youngs may love being on the planet, but they’re not content with their bodies as they are. This is particularly true of women but more and more men are becoming obsessed in this way, as well. [Probably because the Young Soul plastic surgeons and hair restorers have noticed there's another whole, new untapped market out there— and are working to exploit it.]
Ken and Barbie bodies are seen as the norm and no expense will be spared to acquire them. Physical health, in order to create an attractive body, isn’t seen as necessary at this stage. A good plastic surgeon is sufficient. Keeping up a young appearance is where it’s at— not good health. [Dodie Fields, a comedienne during the 1960’s who, despite her diabetes, had one plastic surgery after another and finally died as a result of them, demonstrates the Young Soul’s body-style viewpoint.]

Sporting an eye-candy spouse is important now. The husband is worn like another diamond bracelet on his wife's arm and the wife is expected to throw those lavish parties Youngs are so well known for where contacts are made or paid off for previous support of business ventures.
The children of Young Souls are status symbols, too.
Small children are wheeled about in Aprica strollers by their nannies—often ‘undocumented aliens’ who are being paid under the table and are off the radar.
Older children are rushed from T-ball game to soccer to ballet class to gymnastics class and are expected to make top grades so they’ll qualify for top-notch middle- and high schools. They’re expected to enroll in Ivy League colleges and become movers and shakers, just like their parents, when they graduate.
Woe betide the Baby, Mature or Old Souls born into a household headed by Young Souls. They’ll be labeled ‘lazy’ and become the black sheep of the family because they don’t fit the mold and aren’t comfortable in the tightly scheduled, whiz-bang family lifestyle dictated by their Young parents.

Youngs join lots of organizations — again in order to get a leg-up on the competition. Middle-of-the-road churches [Episcopal, Methodist, etc.] are comfortable places for Youngs. You’ll find the Babies sitting quietly in their pews as they wait for the service to begin. Not so the Youngs. They’re out in the lobbies and the cloak rooms, making contacts, button-holing parishioners, signing others on to finance or otherwise back up their current schemes.
They’ll also join lodges, unions, Elk’s Clubs, Chambers of Commerce— not, as Babies do, in order to feel the security of safety-in-numbers —but in order to be seen in the ‘right’ circles. Doing the right thing is not the issue for the Young Soul. Being seen to do the right thing is the point.
So, when the Shriners distribute circus tickets to organizations that help needy children or when the Lion’s Club gives out free glasses, Babies will be going door-to-door to solicit glasses or donations, Matures will be working behind the scenes to coordinate the efforts and Young Souls will be front-and-center heading up the operations, arranging the publicity, making sure the media are in attendance when the donations are parceled out, etc.
Young Souls aren’t innovators. They’re the vendors of the tried-and-true products that have already been shown to have a market. They’ll let the older souls create the products and do the test marketing and they’ll hire the Babies, the Youngs who are less financially well off [after all, there’s not room for everyone at the top during every lifetime] the Matures and Olds to manufacture them.
Youngs at the top will swoop in with the cheaper knock-offs and hammer them into the ground until the market dies out—then they’ll move on to their next project.
It doesn’t matter to the Young Soul what impact the product will have on the consumer, either. Bank on it, all those execs who swore before Congress that cigarettes weren’t addictive—all evidence to the contrary—were Young Souls.
Scratch any large business scandal and you’ll find a Young Soul behind it. The CEO who walks away from a failed business with millions after the pension is gone and the employees have all been fired is a Young Soul.
Find a person dumping toxic waste into the nearest lake—it’s most likely a Baby acting on the orders of a Young or a Young Soul just getting started in the business world doing whatever it takes to get ahead. Getting caught is part of the game—and it won’t keep a Young Soul down for long. Their good contacts are likely to help them find good lawyers and they’ll manage to slip away with minimal or no prison time while the rest of us gripe about their ‘luck’ or their corruption and greed.
But, if we’ve completed the Young Soul cycle, we’ve all been there/done that.

In the world of entertainment, soap operas, comedies that use humiliation of the ‘other’ as humor, the competition ‘reality shows’ like ‘Survivor’, all have the Young Soul flavor about them. Competition and conformity will be the norm here, as well as other areas of life. And voting others off the Island is absolutely the Young Soul’s mindset.
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The Young soul wants to organize people into a society, a civilization, or a company. They believe in what they’re doing so much that they are willing to fight to convince others to do it their way.
Wars are mostly Young Soul phenomena. Nationalism and imperialism are rampant in this stage of maturation. If they don't conquer you in the business or economic world, Young Souls will conquer you using the military. Young Soul American leadership wants to make the world safe for Democracy. They call it the struggle to maintain freedom and liberty, but what Young Souls really mean by this is that they don't want others telling them what to do— you do it my way instead. Since they want this liberty for themselves, they'll champion it for others so long as it doesn't interfere with their acquisition of power and wealth.
On the other hand, Young Soul Russian leadership wants to bring the whole world around to its Socialistic point of view, professedly for its own good.
Both of these supposedly noble ideologies are just excuses for "Do it my way," taken to the extreme.
The popular statement among Conservatives about ‘getting government off our backs’ has nothing to do with individual liberties. It’s about allowing corporations the freedom to do whatever their executives want to do— and the heck with the rest of the population. That’s why the same Conservative who champions ‘getting government off our backs’ will be just fine with taking away reproductive freedom from female individuals, refusing the right to marry to Gay individuals, curbing the right to a good education to poor individuals and making it more and more difficult to qualify for Food Stamps. So long as the Young Souls can afford to go to another state or country for their abortions, marry whom they please, send their children to private schools, and eat well, who cares what those other people need? Obviously, THEY’RE less deserving or THEY would be filthy rich just like ME.
Obviously, this can be a time of great learning as well as a time of creating lots and lots of karma.

As this exciting and materialistic set of lifetimes starts to wind down, the Young Soul begins to look around and, for the first time, ask the questions that would have seemed heretical a very few lifetimes ago: Is this all there is to life?
The soul is now getting ready to enter the Mature Soul phase. And that’s where we’ll be going next.

Essence Twins

This morning, lying in bed, I realized that I missed a spot—in fact a couple of them. This is a continuation of stuff I’ve gotten from the Michael books and is related to how we develop our personalities—and goes a step further.

Before our first birth, we choose our Essence Twin. This is usually a spirit [fragment] from another entity [entities are groupings of fragments, usually about a thousand or so.] More often than not, our essence twin is of a different Role than our own. This adds depth and breadth to both personalities as we unconsciously draw on each other’s energy and diverse experiences as we return to the physical plane again and again.

The very first time we’re born, our essence twin is being born—within a few minutes and just a short distance away. As a result, we will share a great deal of our earliest physical experiences with her/him. As time goes on and as we experience more and more births, this need for close proximity of time and place decreases and we become less and less dependent on each other—though the close bond between us continues for as long as we continue to take on physical lifetimes and beyond.

Over our numerous lives, we take on more and more characteristics that are similar to those of our twin. And, in fact, when our essence twin chooses to remain on the astral plane while the other twin ‘solos’ on the planet, there is even more bleed-through from the astral twin into the physical twin’s personality than when both are on the planet and concentrating on the complications involved in living on the physical plane. During this situation, our twin beams its energy at us and acts as one of our spirit guides—this is, so I understand, a fairly common scenario during our later lifetimes.
Right now, for instance, my twin is off-planet. It is a Sage and that might be one reason why, although I’m a Scholar, I’ve spent a pretty substantial part of this lifetime teaching others about psychological matters, the environment, etc. etc.
And Sam’s [see the entry regarding the Role of Sage] essence twin is a Warrior. This gives her a more solid, grounded feeling than if she were a pure Sage. It also helps her be more organized and practical.
When both twins are on the planet, they’re usually more different than they are alike especially when you take into account all their shared experiences both here and astrally.
First, their Roles are usually different from each other. And, most commonly, they’ve chosen different [possibly vastly different] overleaves.
There are other characteristics I haven’t covered here, so far, like frequency and male/female energy. These, too, may be similar [easier to handle but more boring from the astral plane’s viewpoint] or they may be polar opposites of each other [astrally, more interesting— as they cause a lot of push-pull between the two souls.]
So, despite their common earthly experiences back when both were very young souls and their deeply shared experiences on the astral plane, they’re hardly identical twins. One illustration I’ve read is that of tearing a sheet of paper in half. The two pieces may look similar or very different from each other but, either way, they are a perfect fit.
As a result, of all this, getting together on-planet is not likely to be a bed of roses. Woe betide the fragments who meet their essence twins and try to have intimate relationships on the physical plane. Despite [or maybe because of] their closeness and many common characteristics and experiences, this makes for an overly dramatic and often chaotic relationship. Your essence twin knows you too well, gets inside your skin and doesn’t let you off the hook.
I’ve read that John Lennon and Yoko Ono are twins. We all know how deep that relationship was/is and how much drama it evoked both between the two principals and among the other members of the band.
Even so, when they can pull it off [as John and Yoko did, despite the drama] the bleed-through phenomenon is almost as strong as when one twin is on the astral plane. Looking at the two it may be difficult to determine who is the Artisan and who is the Scholar [fwiw, John was the high-frequency, female-energied Artisan and Yoko was the much lower-frequency, male-energied Scholar.]

A New Perspective

This morning, a thought flashed on:
infant and baby souls all deserve our utmost respect.

Here they come, onto the planet, just when [especially in the cases of the infants] the Mature Tip Over is on the horizon. I mean, WHAT a daunting task to take on! The majority of the planet is going to be 3 skips ahead of you throughout your physical experience.

Later in the day, I got to thinking -- maybe a lot of these folks have gone through lots and lots of walk-abouts. So maybe they were bored with being in the mainstream and decided to try something new.

I'm at the other end of the spectrum and I can vouch for the fact that even this is no walk in the park. It seems to me that, coming at it from the other end [when they, of necessity, are less likely to have the insights into the big picture that I've got], must be hell on wheels!

So -- when I'm angry and frustrated and downright scared about the Tea Party angst, I'll step back and work to carry this perspective into the situation.

I'm not saying that I don't still want to grab Boehner and Bachmann and Palin et al and TRY to shake some sense into them. It's far easier to maintain the perspective when it's a faceless mass I'm dealing with or a SodaHead member who's espousing something that I perceive as nonsense than it is to hold to it when the person in question can have a direct effect on my life.

But --- it wouldn't be worth doing or a valuable thing to practice if it was 2nd nature and came easily, I suppose.