Q:

“I have some good friends, though I don’t know if they’re my soul mates. But I’ve heard soul mates don’t always get along so well. If I meet my soul mate in this world, will I feel a special feeling? Actually my husband was the best wonderful person, though he passed away after he left his body. He was really a greater person than the feelings I had towards him; I can never forget and he is beloved to me still now.”

A:

When we say “soul mate,” it normally means a pre-destined life-partner, another person whom we arranged to meet on earth, as it was ‘fated that we met…” But I think few people understand it on a deeper level. Actually, it’s a deep topic, and we’d also have to consider:

1. The purpose of human physical life: the spiritual goals of 3D relationship; and

2. The process by which souls agree in higher dimensions to meet in the human world later.

Here’s how I understand these things:

Soul mates are those whose human meeting & relationship was previously arranged (directly by them) in higher dimensions before meeting on earth.
The purpose is some kind of helping each other, but there are always challenges, and each one has free will, which means they might not get along well or for long. Their ‘destiny to be together’ is very real, but the outcome is uncertain.

And so, why do souls in higher dimensions make plans to meet on earth?

Generally, each soul has a particular learning or inner shift, spiritual or emotional growth stimulated by the other person. If they get along well for a long time, they’d naturally make these shifts – but sometimes the purpose is just to meet and then separate! Not all soulmate meetings are planned to be long-term…

Meeting the soulmate is a catalyst to our own evolution, and doesn’t necessarily lead to ‘living happily together ever after.’ We all carry karma, blockage, distortions and negative patterns, so there’s always challenge to each partner. Higher self doesn’t plan soulmate meetings to give us a perfect, easy life on earth.

While the decision to meet is made ‘in the light’ (with clear understanding of why they’re meeting), the two souls on earth must confront their own personal differences to make good relationship. Many, many soulmates join and then drift apart again.

Some planned soul meetings don’t even happen (someone changes their mind) ; some don’t appreciate each other until many years later, and some have terrible conflict and become enemies (in this case, past negative karma overwhelms their good intentions). Some lifetime-enemies are a type of soulmates too…

Finding your soulmate doesn’t guarantee easy relations – it’s not that simple. If you worry about ‘who’s my soulmate’ too much, you may actually miss him or her. Better to make the best of your current relationship. Actually, each person with whom we have emotional intimacy is a soulmate, in a sense – we planned to meet each one of them from a higher dimension…

For wanderers, there are also many souls here from our ‘home group,’ and the better we recognize them, the more home-group souls on earth we usually meet.

There usually is a special feeling upon first meeting a soulmate, but the relationship may be brief, lovely or confusing. Actually, we arrange to meet almost all close personal relations from higher levels – but returning to normal 3D mind we forget and think we’re meeting them for the first time.

It’s all part of cosmic plan, so it’s not our fault if we can’t make the most of a soulmate relationship. Trying to do good and make harmony is more important than success or failure.

In having a deja vu experience (like, “I seem to know that person”), we’re simply remembering what we normally forget-

That the human worldly life is inseparably linked to our greater cosmic life as two aspects of a single Life, and all that happens on earth is by spiritual design.

Meeting a soul mate can accelerate our spiritual growth and bring great emotional fulfillment - but instead of searching the world for your perfect soul mate, better to seek in your own heart for the happiness and joy you seek.

If we make ourselves shining souls on earth, those of harmonious soul vibration will certainly appear before us. Those who love the light always gather together.

Scott Mandelker PhD

San Francisco, CA

February 3, 2008