There’s no controversy over whether or not humans have a soul. I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t believe that. Most people, including Christians, believe that our souls are eternal which, by definition means lasting or existing forever, without beginning or end.
Where the controversy starts is when those souls inhabit the earth bodies (I like to call them our dirt suits). In other words, when does our soul enter our earth body and when does it exit our earth body. And what is the soul doing when it’s not inhabiting our earth body. By definition, it still exists, doesn’t it?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. Nobody really does. But apparently there are clues.
In the past, my religious upbringing dismissed any alternatives to being born, the body dying, and our spirit going upward to heaven or downward to hell, depending on the sins we committed on Earth. What our spirit is doing, while it’s still alive for the rest of eternity, is descriptively muddled and depends on our religious denomination.
When I started understanding I only believed what I’d been taught in my very narrow life experience and education, I began to stop dismissing all things that seemed completely ridiculous to me. I learned to question whether something contrary to what I believed could possibly be true, and how to examine other opinions and facts about my beliefs. For topics and subjects that fascinate me, I delve into research to find as much as I can contrary to my beliefs and understandings. I want to be able to make my own unbiased assessments and draw my own conclusions.
Knowledge really is power. Often, as in the case of the subject of this post, we humans don’t know for sure what the truth is. I’ve discovered that once you open Pandora’s box, a hundred other things related to what you’re looking for seem to magically appear in your life. The power lies in the fact that we can form our own opinions about the information presented, and live whatever life we choose based on those opinions.
Several years ago, after picking up a book for a quarter at a used book sale, I read about the first instances of near death experiences I’d ever seriously paid attention to. I once, in 1997, experienced for myself, a real out-of-body experience. I was having a test in a hospital that injected iodine contrast dye into my veins. What I remember is floating near the ceiling, looking down at my body lying there. I watched the nurse scream for help STAT!!, slap me across the face and yell at me to “stay with her”. When I was conscious again (and apparently back in my body since I was looking up at the medical staff all around me), I was told to make sure I let everyone know forever after that I am allergic to injected IVP dye. Now, near death experiences didn’t seem too far fetched to me.
What struck me about almost all the near death stories I’ve read over the years is how similar they are. It’s possible, of course, that they all read each other’s stories and simply retell what others have said. But what if…the journey of dying, whether they turn back to earth or not, is a remarkably similar procedure. In other words, that the process of the eternal soul discarding its dirt suit and going back to their “home” is relatively the same for everybody. And what happens when the soul gets home?
Again, no way to know. Or is there?
Most people in my world are Christians who believe that “home” is heaven and it’s an extremely fabulous waiting room where life is, well, heavenly. But some folks my world also wonder about the what ifs. We have some pretty interesting and lively discussions. The more I venture into conversation hinting about unconventional topics, the more I discover that LOTS and LOTS of people question as I do, but not so many talk openly about it. Some still care whether people think they’re kooks or not. I don’t.
Surprisingly, when my mom was here in January, we somehow got in a conversation with my cousin and a friend of hers about reincarnation. My cousin’s friend said that she remembered some of her past lives. She even remembers choosing her mother in this life when she was a soul about to reincarnate!
Well, hell. That really piqued my interest, but we couldn’t talk much about it with my mom and the other guests to whom I was about to serve a very conventional quiche brunch. I asked the friend, who conveniently lived in Rotonda, to come back another time when my sister-in-law and best friend, Lynn, who really is much further ahead in her metaphysical spiritual journey than I am, was visiting the following month.
When Lynn was here in February, she, Karen and I had a terrifically unconventional visit and conversation. Karen recommended to me a book called Journey of Souls and Life Between Lives, written by a PH.D. (Counseling Psychology) certified Master Hypnotherapist named Michael Newton. He subsequently wrote a third book called Destiny of Souls. Those three books answered so many questions about what eternal souls do when they’re not inhabiting dirt suits on Earth. For me it was spectacularly fascinating. And yes, I want it to sound as superlative as it does. Because it was that remarkable for me.
Twenty years ago, when I was mentoring with Woman to Woman, I included a graphic in a lot of my presentations that said “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” It never related to anything I ever spoke about in my presentations, but I was drawn to it in an inexplicable way, and so simply stuck it in the hand-out materials.
Dr Newton’s books hit me like a brick about what spiritual beings having a human experience really means. And you know what? I would never have thought growing up in a Catholic household in Wisconsin in the mid-20th century that this wasn’t my first rodeo in a dirt suit on Earth.
But…what if…this life as Laurie Dryja Grathen, in the 4th quarter of my life, living in Florida on Planet Earth…isn’t my first rodeo in a dirt suit on Earth?
The more I know I don’t know, the more I know I don’t know.
There’s a principle of physics called the Law of Energy. It states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. I now think it’s possible that each of our unique souls, made up of energy, return to Earth over and over and over again in different dirt suits, transformed from one form to another. That the purpose of having human experiences is to learn and evolve as spiritual beings.
And I’m ok with you thinking I’m a kook.
P.S. What do you think about spiritual being having a human experience? Comments, please.
P.P.S. We’re leaving Friday morning on the E50AGART (Epic 50th Anniversary Grand Adventure Road Trip). Blog posts over the next 8 weeks will be sporadic travelogues. Hope you’ll join us on our adventures.
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