PUTTING IT INTO WORDS

 There are times when I struggle to explain the most simple of truths. So what makes me think I can make sense of such an ethereal, ill-defied reality ……especially when what I argue for is not at all that obvious to many folks? Hopefully some of you will be able to relate to that uncertainty.

I am not sure that I can pull this off well enough to satisfy myself, let alone the skeptics among you. Still, it is time to address perhaps the most pressing item remaining on my “questions to answer” list.

What follows……as timid and tentative as it may read……is a set of circumstances that I have come to accept as real…...putting into words my often hazy understanding of where this life journey has taken me……the lessons learned and lessons not learned ……what I have come accept as my reason for being.

Chances are each of us sometimes wonder if there is a purpose for our seemingly random earthly incarnation. Is there something we are meant to accomplish? And if so, why? As often happens the “asking” is easy……but the “answers” are not.

After eighty-eight years……sixty-seven of them spent in the company of a caring soulmate……what possible use can I have for the remaining solitary days allotted to me? Is that time meant to take me somewhere?

I suppose it is more common than we realize……a surviving spouse wondering why he or she has been left to carry on. What good can come of that? It was that question that had me seeking the words to explain the thoughts that follow.

So here I am……charging ahead……telling myself that putting my personal “answers” in writing, yet making no effort to convince you or anyone else of my supposed reality, is a worthwhile effort. What follows is my take on what I consider an important existential question. You have absolute freedom to disagree…….and create your own answers.

Charting a life course, even one as short as my remaining years are likely to be, requires an understanding of the “givens” at work in the world we inhabit. It is those “givens” that will shape our course. They are also the most personal and individual elements of our journey.

Again, I am not here to sell you anything. I will tell you what I believe……and accept as real. Feel free to call me crazy, but this is where my thoughts, prayers, and delusions have led me. I have learned that I can blend this truth with the Christian principles I have tried to live up to. It seems the earliest Church was able to accommodate such beliefs.

You see, over the years, like most everyone, I have tried to make sense of our world and my place in it. In the process my thoughts usually settle on a few ways of understanding the ingredients that make for a hopefully successful life. I can’t claim my ‘results’ have answered all my questions……but it seems they have helped create a context for the mysteries we all confront in life.

Those ‘understandings’ are common enough. Odds are you have considered them in your own musings. Fact is, we all have our preferred way of connecting with our life essence. Personally, it seems that I am most likely to turn to the writers who have researched and explained the mysteries I am trying to understand.. Others may rely on prayer or meditation, or follow their own artistic or talent-based urgings. We all have our ways of connecting, the ones that work best for us.

With all that in mind let me begin my exploration with a few examples of what I think of as my “soul-deep” vocabulary. Though you may not agree with the meanings I assign to these non-material labels, I want you to know what I am trying to say when I use them.

If you are the sort who likes to judge and measure the course of your own life-path it seems to me that some of the following notions, and the concepts they represent, are important.

****************

“Consciousness’ …..can be thought as our mind at work, our ways of dealing with, and incorporating the awareness of ourselves and our surroundings. It seems to me that when we visit and explore that 'awareness' in thought and revery it is our ‘consciousness’ at work.

There are, I believe, different levels of consciousness, ranging from the day to day dealing with life, to the rarified moments when our thoughts take us to the ethereal realms of spiritual musing.

There are those who believe that social media and smartphones have created a new, socially-isolating form of consciousness……relying on others to provide the stimulus and content. Hopefully we more mature folks have avoided that.

If we are hoping for a “well-lived” late-life we may concentrate on levels of consciousness beyond our all-too-active “ego awareness”……perhaps drawing on thoughts of love, compassion, and caring. Though, of course, the human mind is capable of other, darker ways of thinking.

Yet, in dealing with the fruit of our consciousness I find myself accepting the reality declared by many of the great thinkers of most all spiritual disciplines ……who have declared “here are no accidents, no coincidences ……everything happens for a reason and a purpose……good or bad. Life is about lessons learned and lessons failed.

*****************************

“Soul”……embedded in the word ‘soul,’ at least as I accept the term, is the notion of the non-physical, some would say ‘spiritual,’ essence of a living being. As such it is the core of our being, the very heart of the ‘real’ me……the home of our inner character, moral compass, and emotional tendencies.

It is our soul that weighs and measures our existential circumstances and responses……endorsing what feels right……sensing the unsettling discord of what we could have done better……while hopefully steering us toward more productive answers. 

But, that soul of ours is not a static, set-in-stone seat of our being. The life we are living is meant to help us grow our souls. That subtle molding of our inner compass will continue throughout our lifetime. In fact, though not everyone would agree, I am one of those who believes the results of that soul-shaping will survive our death.

And lest we think our fate depends solely on the soul we shape and mold, I find comfort in the notion that all of us…… the countless individual souls we represent……are in fact micro-bits of a unity that some call the ‘Oversoul’……the mystic twin of the ‘Universal Consciousness’……the sum and source of the Divine energy we call God

And finally, that brings me to what I accept as a foundational reality of my existence. That soul, which I have spent a lifetimes shaping, is the one part of me that will remain with me from one life to the next ……the only baggage I will take with me.

*********************

‘Reincarnation”……I believe that we enter each new life with a particular soul profile, the result of our previous incarnations……ready, we hope, to deal with the challenges of a new life……situations meant to impact our soul’s path……to continue its growth toward a future we can scarcely imagine.

That's right……I believe that our ‘soul-self’ is an ongoing entity, moving from one life to the next. In that case one way of understanding reincarnation is as an evolutionary process……moving our soul from one life to the next…..hopefully ‘growing’ our soul as lessons are learned, (or not learned)……impacting the soul’s consciousness. In a sometimes crazy world we are meant to learn the lessons we face, and continue to grow. In that light what we call “Death” is, in fact, a moment of transition, not a final ending.

************************

It is that brief understanding of what I accept as reality that I want to record here.The refinement and putting into words of that belief has been one of my late-life “to-do” projects……meant to remind myself of what I have wrung from a lifetime of experience, thoughts, and impulses.

Though Edgar Cayce had first planted that reincarnation seed in my mind in the 1960s, it was the more-recent writings of Dr. Brian Weiss that tipped the scales for me……the realization that it is the impact of many lifetimes that shapes and continues the growth of our soul.

Like every generation before us, we live in a time of trials……challenges that will impact the persons we become. We are not intended to ignore or avoid those challenges. After all, it will be our responses to those situations that will help us shape the soul we take with us into the future.

As I mentioned earlier, I accept this as a faith-based belief.  If your faith does not take you there I have no rational argument to convince you.  In that case I will be satisfied to walk on my side of the road, knowing that your faith takes you somewhere else. In any case, enjoy the journey.