One of the
topics I most wanted to tackle in this area was the subject of
soulmates or lifebonding. In dealing with so many systems of belief
which have in common a belief in reincarnation, it's also common for
many of us to believe that we may have another person in our lives
(or one we haven't met yet) who was a love or lover in a past life
and/or may be one in the future. I was going to give an indepth
description of what I consider true soulmates to be, and take care to
draw a clear line between the reality of such a bond and the romantic
fantasy so many people (Pagan and otherwise) seem to have about it.
Interestingly, I happened across this essay which does as good a job
of explaining the concept as I could have, so I'll just let you read
it, and then go from there.
THE THREE TYPES OF SOULMATES
Soul Mates: Our Connection
By Raine Sante
edited by Ash Redfern
Have you ever met someone and felt a certain connection with
them? After only meeting them for just 10 minutes you seem like you
have known them for years? This is not highly uncommon, many people
can sit back and think that they have met someone that they found so
fascinating. What people do not realize is that with every lifetime
we acquire certain knowledge for our souls to become more positive
through every lifetime taking out the negative. Our subconscious
unleashes what we need to know in this life time. This is where our
soulmates come in.
When you hear the word soulmate you think automatically "The
one person for you." You are about to find out what soulmates
really do, and what types of soulmates exist.
There are three types of soulmates that we are connected with.
THE COMPANION SOULMATE
Can offer advice to direct you in a positive path, or they may
physically help you to achieve a goal. You have the mutual gift of
learning, sharing and helping. In a previous life, you helped them
and they are returning the favor. You meet them in your everyday
life, the teacher that inspired you to learn, the stranger that
helped you out in the rain when your car broke down. These are all
examples of a companion soulmate.
Companion soulmates are people to feel good about. There is
usually no serious bond between you and your connection tends to be
brief. If the bond does develop in the next lifetime you would become
Twin Soulmates. (Sounds a lot like guardian angels or something here.)
TWIN SOULMATES
Are people that you have bonded with in the past. You feel like
you have known them for years. When you are reunited with them in
this lifetime, you pickup where you left off in the past lifetime.
Your friendship just continues as though you were never separated.
You often think alike, and you know their thoughts, your karma is
Insink (in sync), you are very much alike. Take a look at your
closest friends right now. Do you see how you are so close? You know
when the other is hurting inside. You know when they are hiding some
emotions, and you help bring them out. That is your Twin Soulmate.
TWIN FLAME SOULMATE
The last of the soulmates is the one everybody is familiar with.
The Twin Flame Soulmate is your one and only soulmate. You have spent
many lifetimes together sharing and caring. You share a deep bond and
attraction to one another. It feels like a electrical current between
you. Your soul automatically recognizes that twin flame soulmate, and
gives you a deep feeling inside. A twin flame soulmate is often said
to be the other half of your soul. (Ever wonder why they said
opposites attract?) The twin flame soulmate has all the characteristics
as the twin soulmate. Your Twin Flame Soulmate and you might not be
together every lifetime but you're still working on being together by
evolving your souls in a similar and spiritual way.*
The most
important thing I think needs to be said about lifebonding and
soulmates is that not everyone you meet who you "click"
with is one or the other. I have heard so many times from so many
people that someone they just met is like someone they've known
forever, and they feel so close to them (romantically or in
friendship) that they know they must be "soulmates". You
simply have to realize that while these things do happen (all the
time, in fact) that not everyone you feel this way about is really
someone you knew (let alone were close with) in a previous life. The
odds (even assuming you believe in fate or a divine plan) of this
happening even a few times in a life are astronomical, just by virtue
of the number of people on this planet (which also assumes that we
don't incarnate on other planets or as something other than human...).
This also
serves to focus on another of the issues I think we need to deal with
on this subject: the question of how much you can learn if you're
constantly meeting up with people you've known in a past life. If
you're familiar with the writings of Scott Cunningham, you'll know
that he categorically rejects the idea of soulmates, saying that if
you are meeting people who you've known in a past life, then you
cannot possibly be progressing in the lessons you're here to learn in
each subsequent life. I agree, but with some limitations.
It's only
logical that if you're meeting all of the same people that you've
known in past lives, that you'll eventually (and probably sooner
rather than later) run out of things you can learn from each other.
On the other hand, who knows better the lessons that you still have
to learn than someone you've been with many times before? Who knows
which buttons to push to get you to react, to think, to analyze your
inner-self? I also think that there are always some people in our
lives who become intertwined with us, even if they are few and far
between, and it makes sense that we would be more inclined to be have
them around us, even from one life to the next.
In case you
were thinking this sounds like some idyllic existence, being together
with your close friends and your one and only love for the rest of
your existence, you should remember that often the best way to learn
is through conflict and pain, and just as with the rest of our
relationships, our longest-lasting relationships are often fraught
with problems and hurt. Indeed, it would be as common to know a great
nemesis from life to life as it would be to know your closest friend.
In fact, they may be one and the same, varying from life to life, or
even year to year. We learn more this way, both of us, and we should
remember to be as grateful to our enemies for the lessons we learn as
we are to our friends, for this reason alone, if no other.
For myself, I
think that most people, over the course of some number of lifetimes,
accumulate a small group of people who are close to us, like the
above article described "twin soulmates", and, in most
cases, a "twin flame" - the unique relationship I call
Lifebonding. These won't always be idyllic or even happy
relationships (that would be counterproductive to the soul's learning
process), but they will always be important and influential
relationships. And, often, you will recognize them for what they are.
I think that's a matter of practice and of your own
inner-development. If you're ready to know these things, you often
will, otherwise it can simply be a distraction and a burden on your
current life to know too much of a previous one. So if you think
you've known someone before, you need to be cautious about how you
deal with that realization. Not only can the idea be a little
alarming to some other people, but it can lead to you trying to
relate on the basis of your past relationship and neglecting the
present reality of it. Knowing someone intimately in a past life is
not a key or a guarantee to a happy or easy relationship in your
present life, and you often need to work as hard or harder to make
such a relationship work, since you'll often have a built-in set of
baggage to get around.
Knowing that,
I think it's also important to treat such a relationship as the
influential thing that it is. If you're going to be running into this
person again in a few turns of the Wheel, it's better to get as much
accomplished in both of your learning experiences as possible, so
there is less you need to get through the next time you meet. So,
while it's a hard thing to part from such a person on unpleasant
terms, it's probably worse in the long run to do so if you'll just
have to finish the same unpleasant business in a future life, without
the benefit of the understanding you have reached in this one. (An
excellent argument for giving every relationship your all...). It's a
fine dividing line between knowing when it's better for all concerned
to put a relationship behind you (even if it's just for a few years
or a few lives), and making sure you're not giving up too soon,
before everything that can be learned from the experience has been learned.
With all of
that said, I can safely say that while you won't always be around the
people who are so close to the core of your existence, that those
times can be some of the most wonderful and beneficial moments you
ever experience. The closeness and support we feel from these
relationships is a far step beyond our normal relationships, and
should be treasured in the core of our hearts and souls, along with
the knowlege that these people are the greatest influences and
helpers we will ever know.
*This article taken from the Midsummer 1995 issue of Witch's
Brew.
All Rights Reserved - Copyright 1995 Moonstone Publishing.
This idea has
been written about in prose and verse a million times. But the best
treatment I've ever seen is a song
lyric written by a fabulous poet/lyricist
Jeanette Obstoj and recorded by The Fixx. Check out this fabulous
romantic song about lifebondeds!
And I've even
written a poem
inspired by one of my "twin souls" (not my lifebonded...
that's something I keep just for myself). You can read that, too.
