Soulmate
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For the song by Natasha Bedingfield, see Soulmate (song)
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Soulmate is a term sometimes used to designate someone with whom one has a feeling of deep and natural affinity, love, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, and/or compatibility. A related concept is that of the twin flame or twin soul – which is thought to be the ultimate soulmate, the one and only other half of one's soul, for which all souls are driven to find and join. However, not everyone who uses these terms intends them to carry such mystical connotations.
The following prose is exerpted from the novel, Soulsongs, by Sevi Regis. "The concept of a soul mate is most profound. First of all, it presupposes the existence of a non-corporeal inner body self called a soul, a belief which I heartily uphold. Secondly, it rests upon the notion of a perfectly compatible counterpart that is capable of combining with his/her soulmate to create an exalted, exponentially robust, and comprehensive oneness that cannot be realized in its absence or in any other way. One's soulmate is a sentence finisher, a thought catcher, a heart grabber, a body melder like two flames uniting as one. This is the person who not only enthusiastically anticipates your thoughts, deeds, needs, feelings, and beliefs with empathy and sensitivity, but who also shares these attributes in varying degrees. When you look into the eyes of your soulmate, you will see three bodies of water: 1) a deep, sparkling resevoir of love and appreciation 2) an eternal river of infinite adventure and a faithful promise to remain ever-flowing 3)a crystal lake in which you'll see your true reflection for the first time. The soulmate will enable you to become all that you could be, to maximize your personhood, potential, and incarnation into life with all of its colors and fragrances. Without such person, the same landscape is brushed in shades of gray and sullen hues by comparison. Your soulmate sees who you really are and loves it, then enables you to emerge with great grace and unique beauty -- each of you one of a kind and irreplaceable to one another -- as he/she reaches inside you to lift you up to a higher plane like an emmissary of God. Your soulmate will speak your secret love language, that no one else can know or speak. He/she will set you free and break the chains that are upon you, that have kept you stundted, deprived, and bound from full emancipation. He/she will understand you more deeply, love you more thoroughly, and excite you more wholly than anyone else you will ever meet. Like a mirror image with an infinite regress into your inner dimensions, your sm reflects your core personhood back to you while freely exposing his/her own deepest parts without prejudice, criticism, fear, or withholding. And this is something miraculous, otherworldly, and irreproducable. All of that said, there is something to the issue of the genetic component in soul mating. There are many more attributes of personality and "soul" surprisingly encoded into the DNA of every living being. It is quite possible that soulmates share distant and/or common family lines, geneologies, ancestries that have had "sleeping" genetic sequences only to emerge with an uncanny similarity generations hence, and in the two people fortunate enough to find one another. When these genes reappear at a point in time, it is a remarkable moment in nature, as they create this unique, irresistably compatible likeness that surpasses time and resounds with mutual familiarity with ancient overtones. One evidence of this is that soulmates often resemble physically as well as personally. They often share the same body types and appearance which enhances their overall compatibility of the two individuals, and makes them look as if they were deliberately made for one another. And I believe that they are indeed."
[edit] Theories
One theory of soulmates, presented by Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium, is that humans originally consisted of four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces, but Zeus feared their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them:
[Primeval man] could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast …Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods ... Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.'
—Aristophanes, Plato’s Symposium, [1]
Some people believe that souls are literally made and/or fated to be the mates of each other, or to play certain other important roles in each other's lives.
According to theories popularized by Theosophy and in a modified form by Edgar Cayce, God created androgynous souls, equally male and female. Later theories postulate that the souls split into separate genders, perhaps because they incurred karma while playing around on the Earth, or "separation from God". Over countless reincarnations, each half seeks the other. When all karmic debt is purged, the two will fuse back together and return to the ultimate.[2][3][4]
[edit] See also
- Astrological compatibility
- Astrology
- Cosmology
- Interpersonal relationship
- Love
- New Age Spirituality
- Romantic love
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ The Internet Classics Archive | Symposium by Plato
- ^ Krajenke, Robert W. (1972). Suddenly We Were!: a Story of Creation Based on the Edgar Cayce Readings. A.R.E. Press.
- ^ "What is a Twin Flame?". SoulEvolution.org. Retrieved on 2007-12-21.
- ^ "Twin Flames and Soul Mates: The Quest for Wholeness", tsl.org. Retrieved on 2007-12-21.
- Segal, E. (ed) (1986). The Dialogues of Plato New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books. ISBN 055321327X.
