Adam’s Peace

Jeff Lilly has asked a question that can not be answered objectively.

Oh, I do so enjoy the questions that I can answer both objectively and subjectively.

Yet, there doesn’t seem to be much market in objective questions right now. I suppose that I can just pretend that someone asks why the grass is green so that I can demonstrate that there is a lot of subjectivity in such an objective answer… Maybe later, though.

Jeff’s question is deceptively simple… yet it delves into the inner recesses of the human psyche and the nature of the departmentalization of conscious thought.

Jeff asks,

You know how people say things like “Diana is an aspect of the Goddess”, or “the God appeared in his Trickster aspect“, and so forth? Well, what does that really mean?

Are the “lower” deities like costumes that are worn by the “higher” deities? Or is it more like the slightly different personalities we have at work vs. at home? Or is each “aspect” more like a lens through which we view the higher deity?

And since I’ve got you on the line, let me ask an even deeper question: why do the higher deities even have aspects?

Since I like answering questions out of order, I’ll address the last question first. From what I understand of popular pagan culture, where the most interchangeable aspects of divinity are found, the most obvious answer as to why deities have different aspects is so that the original deities from which modern paganism is based can be seamlessly integrated into a duo-theistic religion.

Most of these assigned aspects come from the vast de-centralization of Wicca, and from tying all of the different traditions together into one cohesive model. More conservative traditions, such as the Alexandrian and Gardnerian traditions, don’t have this separation of aspects, simply because these conservative traditions are what the newer traditions draw their deity base from. The separation didn’t really come until some of the Dianic traditions emphasized a singular Goddess, from which the eclectic traditions inferred a singular God, making Eclectic Wicca a duo-theistic religion.

To confuse matters even more, the vast majority of people who turned to Wicca later in life came from a firm monotheistic background, specifically Christianity. (Some would argue that Christianity is tri-theistic or duo-theistic, with one extremely large and powerful sect being very polytheistic, with the deities they worship directly being duo-theistic, including a Goddess, accepting that everybody has the potential to become deities in their own right.) Perhaps the idea of deities being able to have separate aspects, yet still remain one deity sprang from a common Christian view of the Trinity.

That’s about as much history as I’m going to give, though. Even though the idea of separate aspects of the same deities sprang from relatively mundane roots, these aspects do have a very real spiritual meaning.

Religion is, generally speaking, mankind’s attempt to explain the unknowable. The reason why it is unknowable is because each person views spiritual matters differently… People’s differences in experiences simply do not allow everyone to view even the mundane world the same, much less the highly subjective spiritual world. I have done an experiment in the past where I created a pantheon of gods, and these gods actually started acting in my life… This is an experience which few people share, so naturally the set of symbols that I have in my mind regarding this experience would be difficult to communicate.

This makes religion the language of spirituality. People in the same religion share a common language that is different from other religions, and would be analogous to different dialects when comparing different sects/traditions/denominations. To a pagan who has studied the European pantheons, Diana brings up a whole different set of mental imagery and concepts than it brings up in Eastern or Arabic religions. On the other hand, being immersed in water has a completely different set of symbols associated with it in Arabic religions than it does in European or Asian religions, because of the importance of water in the middle east. In fact, baptism in Arabic religions is roughly analogous to uniting an athame and a chalice in European religions, although I do enjoy the explicitness of Asians, using an actual sex organ such as a flower, or just doing the act outright in Tantric rituals.

People who have studied sympathetic magic(k) know the value of mental symbols. Religion, being a language of spirituality, makes it easy to convey the mental symbols quickly between those who share their religion. Magic(k), at its heart, can be summed up as a slightly different take on the Law of Attraction (LoA). The LoA says that the thoughts that you hold create reality. I would argue that these thoughts need some sort of power behind them in order to manifest, which is most easily generated by getting up and doing what you want done. Clear mental symbols help to add power to your thoughts, which is where sympathetic magic gets its power.

This is where our multiple personality deities come back to the picture. Each deity exists to explain a complex set of human conditions and personalities, encapsulating these complex symbols into an easy to speak package. Rather than telling a story of a god who enjoys playing tricks on everybody and everything, no matter how malicious those tricks become, I could just say the name Loki and those familiar with Norse mythology instantly recall the important personality traits and activities.

What sets Eclectic Wicca apart from religions that share many different and distinctly separate deities is that Eclectic Wicca’s organization is very specific in terms of the purpose of its gods. That purpose is to educate us mortals so that we may one day become deities as well. The different aspects of the God and Goddess in Wicca exist to teach us different lessons. This clear in the typical view of the triple Goddess, Maiden, Mother, and Crone. The Maiden teaches us about beauty while the Mother teaches us about compassion and the Crone teaches us how to deal with suffering. They have the same purpose, as do all Goddess aspects, but the lessons are taught in different ways. The God is the same way, with the Oak and Holly King teaching us about bounty and want, and the different life cycles of God as seen through the Wheel of the Year teaches us specific lessons as well.

Is this grouping of divinity into aspects of the same being right or wrong? Well, that only depends on your own point of view and what you want from religion. Is there an all-encompassing purpose to life which a unified divinity can supply, or are there different purposes which are best represented by distinctly separate gods and goddesses? I can’t answer this, only you can.

Before I get to the meat of this post, I’d like to make a couple of announcements.

First, I would like to point out that I have an addictive personality. That is, I become obsessed with certain activities to the point where they interfere with other areas of my life. Namely, the time that I spend on blog related tasks has been hurting my relationship with my wife and has cost me some financial opportunities. Since I’m currently earning an average of $0.50 per month with this blog, I can’t justify the amount of time that I have been spending, so I’m cutting back the time that I’ll spend writing and responding to the people in this community.

For a little while, don’t expect more than one post per week, unless I can fit several posts into one writing session and schedule them to appear throughout the week.

Don’t worry, the blog is not disappearing any time soon. It is spring in the northern hemisphere, a time of indulgence and rapid growth. I am, however, very much under the influence of the Taurus ways, fixed and lasting, despite my Gemini ascendant which gives me my gift with words and the incessant need to have multiple projects. Because of my Taurean sun, I like to do certain tasks differently than seems prudent in the interests of setting up a firm foundation before seeking to reach for the sky. This season of growth seems to me to be a better time for strengthening my foundation, to set down roots, as it were, rather than to stretch out my limbs to the sky. The sun will be here again when this season comes again, so as I’m living in the now, my actions now are to plan for the future and ensure that I’m healthy enough to meet it. In the interest of helping more people in the future, I am seeking inner peace more fully now. I will still be posting regularly, but rather than posting ideas as they come to me, I’ll be working on the ideas throughout the week. For those who enjoy reading shorter posts, I am sorry, but this means that I’ll be writing some very long essays. Fortunately, these essays will be more thought out than what I’ve written in the past, and none will contain paragraphs as complex and ungainly as this one.

Now, on to the subject at hand.

Vera Nadine has asked me a very subjective question. There is simply no way that I can answer this objectively/scientifically. I wouldn’t even be presumptuous enough to say that my answer is in any way definitive, except that it is what I personally believe, based on my own observations.

Vera asked:

Is there such a thing as a soul MATE?

Aren’t we just solitary expressions of the ALL?

Do we manifest in soul pairs or soul groups or is this spiritual “other” just a way of distracting ourselves from the real work at hand?

If there is such a thing as a soul mate will we DEFINITELY meet them in each lifetime? Do we HAVE to meet them in order to fill our life’s goals?

What if we don’t meet them?

I’m going to re-organize the questions just a little bit… The first question that I’d like to address, which will answer the first two, is, “do we manifest in soul pairs or soul groups or is this spiritual ‘other’ just a way of distracting ourselves from the real work at hand?”

Well, thinking along the lines of the Law of Attraction, taken to its logical extreme with the Subjective Reality model, I would say that, yes, we do manifest in soul groups. This seems like a real contradiction, because the Subjective Reality model says that you are the only consciousness. It isn’t, though, because the “I” which we usually use and the “I” of Subjective Reality are two different things. What we experience from a singular point of view is seen through the lens of the ego, which likes to call itself “I,” just as the Super-Consciousness of Subjective Reality is called the “I.” Because the Super-Consciousness can create anything, it stands to reason that there are many different egos, each calling themselves “I,” and being just as justified in calling themselves “I” as any other ego.

Is this a distraction from the work at hand? Well, it depends entirely on what that work is. I believe that the purpose of the universe is to learn of itself. In that case, there is very little that can be distracting, except to remain in ignorance. Even that ignorance helps other egos to learn, though, which makes it very difficult to be truly distracted.

Now, why do I believe that the Super-Consciousness would choose to use reincarnation, which allows for soul groups? Well, part of why I believe this is the ego’s fear of annihilation. The other part is that an eternal paradise or torture for souls would serve absolutely no purpose for a singular consciousness. If both annihilation and a single eternal afterlife are out of the question, then that leaves reincarnation. Each ego comes back freshly washed of its memories ready to learn more about the universe than it learned before. Since I enjoy my relationship with my wife, family, and friends, and each ego has the same creative powers of the Super-Consciousness, I choose to return with the same group time and time again.

The second set of questions is,

• If there is such a thing as a soul mate will we DEFINITELY meet them in each lifetime?
• Do we HAVE to meet them in order to fill our life’s goals?
• What if we don’t meet them?

Will we definitely meet them? No… Perhaps our main ‘lesson’ for this lifetime is how to deal with life without a built-in support system. This means that we don’t have to meet them either… The last question, though, leaves an interesting answer…

Assuming that our lessons for our lifetime includes meeting our life mate(s), what happens if we don’t meet them?

Well, some lessons will be missed. The good news, though, is that there are many, many more lessons to be learned. If one person or another isn’t ready, then there will be plenty of time for them to be ready. Just as friendships drift apart within mortal lifetimes, it is possible for a soul friendship to drift apart as well. Fortunately, we’re also able to create new friendships. New romances form and old ones fizzle. The way of life is through change. That’s how we learn.

And, to the unasked question (or perhaps just my own rant from personal experience), you have met old friends and made new ones this lifetime. If you don’t feel like you have met your soul mate yet, well, perhaps you’re looking too hard. Many times, what you’re really looking for is in plain sight and can only be found when you’re not trying to look.

The English bard Damian of Be the Change, Tread the Path (a very interesting blog about his personal journey, with the central theme encouraging others to take action) asks the following question:

As we (the human race) appear to be accelerating towards a point of Spiritual Growth or Ascension, what do you see as the greatest hurdle and why?

I think that there are many hurdles on the path to humanity reaching Ascendancy. The most obvious of which is figuring out exactly what it all means.

If I had to pick just one hurdle that would be the most difficult to cross, I think that it would be getting past the idea that Ascension is one single point… It is like asking when a fetus changes from a mass of cells into a human. Do we define it as the time when the heart starts beating? Does human life start at the moment the sperm reaches the egg? Is that fetus a human when its nervous system develops enough for it to feel pain? Maybe the fetus doesn’t become human until some time after it is born, when it can demonstrate the ability to make decisions, rather than simply reacting to its environment.

The path to Ascendancy, just like the path to becoming a full human adult, is full of several blurred lines. Are we born when the head touches the air, or when our feet or placenta are no longer in our mother? We draw clearly defined lines in our concept of time because it then becomes easier to see time as an object, just as we define a desk as a surface with legs, and that surface thought of, more often than not, as being defined by its edges and corners, with no regard for the spaces between. I have already written about the concept of the spaces between, which remains one of my favorite posts.

The time period after which we can call ourselves Ascended would need to be defined before we can tell whether we really are Ascended first. What exactly is Ascendancy, then? Is the realization that there are things greater than ourselves in work in the world? Did it happen when Abraham brought monotheism to society? Did Ascendancy start when Jesus taught us that we can love our neighbors, reserve our judgment, and freely give our entire selves for strangers? How about when the prince Siddhartha became the Buddha? Perhaps society has to develop its own consciousness, bolstered by the increased speed of communication brought about by the Internet. Perhaps society already is conscious, and has been since long before electrical theory was created.

Personally, I think that humanity can be considered an Ascended race after those in power realize that we are all one people, no matter what our language, appearance, continent of birth, proclaimed religion, economic status, or gender might be. After that, war will be impossible, simply because there would be no enemies to fight.

Regardless of how we define Ascendancy, though, the day before will be much the same as the day after. We might know what year it happens in, or if we’re lucky, we might know what month, but the transition will be invisible. All that we’ll know, at first, is that it is easier to smile. We won’t mind bearing each other’s burdens as much, or helping out someone who is stumbling. We’ll see our neighbors as extended house guests, but we will have seen them as extended house guests the day before, and even the month before. Eventually, someone will comment that we haven’t had a war for a while… Someone else will notice that nobody really cares about the national boundaries any more… We’ll probably mark the beginning of our golden age as the day that the last war stopped, but that wouldn’t be terribly accurate, just as the day that we were born doesn’t mark the day that we began thinking. We were thinking long before we breathed air, but the evolution to complex thought didn’t finish until years later. Nobody told us on our sixteenth birthday that this year marks the time when most people start forgetting more, daily, than they learn. Nobody told us on our twenty-fifth birthday that our brain chemistry is going through its last change before settling in to be the same mind that we’ll have for the rest of our lives… Even if they told is, we wouldn’t be able to mark a specific day on our callendar and say that we became an adult, mentally… Each day is much the same as the day before and the day after, which marks the most difficult hurdle in Ascendancy: Realizing that we are an Ascended race, and that we no longer have to fight each other.

Some day, we’ll realize what it means to be Ascended, but by then, it will have already happened.

The easy part is living today, in this moment, and knowing that you can take action. That action will bring closer the moment when we’ll look back and be able to mark an approximate date. Right now, you can bring a smile to someone else’s face, or even to your own face, and be one smile closer to a day when everybody will smile.

Be the change that you wish to see in the world… That’s the easy part, because you can always be the change right now. The hard part is knowing when you have arrived after you have tread the path for so long.

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If you have a question about peace, in any of its forms, feel free to use the Contact Form or leave a comment on this post. If you would like to add to this answer in any way, feel free to leave a comment here.