I'm not looking to open a religious discussion, this is not an appropriate place for it. But I want to clarify the meaning of a term that I see thrown around a lot - soulmate.
The notion of soulmates originates from a background assumption of reincarnation. Human life is temporary, souls are eternal. The soul's purpose is constant growth and evolution, and in order to do that, souls are born into human bodies (become incarnate). Each time we are born, we experience new things and learn new things. And we meet other souls in each life.
When you have met another soul in a former life, you have some sort of karmic relationship with them. Some karmic relationships are difficult and based on bad things having happened between you in previous lives (enemies, cheating, whatever). When you meet someone with whom you have a difficult karmic relationship, you have an opportunity to fix whatever went wrong in the past.
There are also other souls with whom you've shared a meaningful intimate relationship (not necessarily sexual) sometime in previous lives. These are your soulmates, and you share a special bond with them. Yes, you can have more than one. I personally have met at least two of mine in this lifetime. I did a past life regression with one of them, and found that we had been twin brothers in one life and a hetero couple in another life. (an exceptionally talented Wiccan High Priestess did the regression for me) We're both women in this life. Go figger.
Whether I'll end up in a relationship with my soulmate in this life remains to be seen. But from a big picture point of view, it's irrelevant. If I don't get with her in this life, I will in another future life. Soulmate relationships are NOT just here and now. They are eternal. They continue whether or not you happen to be undergoing human life at any point in time.
Another type of spiritual relationship is that of twin flames. The belief behind this is that a single soul was split into two different parts, and when they are united, they are whole. Believe it or not, twin flame relationships are not necessarily the best or most useful. Such couples can be like joined at the hip, not able to accomplish much without each other. That level of codependence is not an especially healthy thing.
It seems that the term soulmate has been adopted and is often used to refer to an especially close, maybe even codependent relationship. Like there's only one person in the whole world with whom you can be happy or complete. It just ain't so. The soulmates you have weren't always your soulmates. You have to initiate the relationship sometime.
I'm not asking anyone to accept any part of this as a personal spiritual belief system. I'm not looking to discuss or debate spiritual values, nosirree, extending no invitation to do that. I'm just sayin - the word soulmate gets misused a lot and its meaning has really been diluted. I think that's a shame, because it's a pretty cool concept.
And, yeah, I think Willow & Tara are soulmates. They've been together before, and will be again.
I'm a breast girl myself
at: 4/29/02 9:20:23 am
