Tag Archives: soul’s journey

Chuck’s Place: You Never Disappoint Your Soul

The wisdom of many lives…
-Artwork © 2023 Jan Ketchel

The question arises: “Who is the You, that never disappoints your Soul?” That you is your personality. And what is the personality?

The personality is a combination of the ego self, which is largely identified with life in the physical body; the subconscious mind, which stores the wisdom of many lives lived; and the High Self, which supports the intention for growth in this life.

The Soul itself is the subtle body that has spawned many lives and many personalities. Each of these has collectively gathered experience and knowledge that contributes to the Soul’s growth. Those prior lives are all connected to the subconscious mind and are reflected, as well, in various ego states and characteristics of the physical body.

The personality’s life in a physical body is the Soul’s investing of its energy in the quest for growth. For growth to happen, the personality must have the free will to set up its own experiments and make its own discoveries in the life it is in, all of which ultimately contribute to the growth of the Soul.

The Soul grows through life experience, not through a personality seeking refuge in simply being good, whereby suppressing into its shadow the fuller spectrum of life’s desires.  Although, even such an attempt at a virtuous life is a life of experience that benefits the Soul.

In this case, the Soul discovers that such a one-sided life creates the karmic necessity of another life  that can more fully experience the shadow held in abeyance. The Soul does not judge any life to have been a wasted or failed life. All experience is golden and treated with equanimity by the Soul.

Critical judgment issues from the personality. Perhaps its value is to create a restlessness that spurs the personality to stay on point with its core mission in this life.

The ego, however, with its limited knowledge of, and limited connection to, the subtler dimensions of its being, as well as its reason for being in this life, tends to overly judge itself in the context of its achievements and failures in this life. It lacks the richer perspective of its Soul, which appreciates equally all experiences in life.

Growth for the personality requires the maturation of its judging function. The shamans of ancient Mexico were particularly helpful in this respect, in their dictum to suspend judgment. They discovered that self-criticism had the effect of immobilizing one’s vital energy, which is  essential to achieve expanded awareness.

It’s not that shamans don’t face the truth of their actions and their consequences; they are in fact ruthlessly insistent upon facing the truth. However, shamans do not define themselves as failures, or as good or bad people. They acknowledge their faults and mistakes and make adjustments in their life to avoid repetition. Or they continue to repeat the same behaviors, accepting the need to finish with a “bad” behavior so that they can then be freed to move on.

Shamans laugh at themselves and are in awe of their blind spots and sheer stupidity. Shamanic wisdom knows that the key to spiritual advancement is complete acceptance of self in every action, thought, and feeling experienced through an entire life. How can we advance to new life if we cannot fully accept ourselves and our entire lives lived?

That acceptance must equally extend to every person who has harmed us in our life. Refusal to accept anything that has happened to us will automatically generate a seed of karma that will attempt acceptance again in another life. Refusal to accept freezes our energy and blocks our advance.

To advance we must free ourselves of any notion of victimhood. Although we may have been victimized, the key is not to freeze ourselves in the self-definition of victim. Acceptance requires full mastery of every fact of our life, however tragic. The Soul does not judge. The Soul values every experience equally. May the personality be guided by this wisdom.

Carl Jung established that there are two ego functions that judge in order to navigate this life: thinking and feeling. Thinking employs the rational mind, and logic, to determine the truth. Feeling uses feelings to actively determine the worth of something. Both of these functions support the ego’s understanding and valuing of life experience.

To exercise these evaluative functions is necessary to navigate life with objectivity. But the emphasis in these functions is to understand and make decisions, not to condemn and define the self with judgments of  inferiority, inadequacy, and unworthiness.

The Soul is never disappointed with us. Can we internalize this insinuation from above, and rise to the level of never being disappointed in ourselves and others? This erases no facts or responsibility but does advance us fully in love, through total acceptance of everything.

From a path of heart,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: Always Find The Positive In The Negative

Finding the positive in the negative…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Most of what we are is either inherited or molded by our formative social experience, essentially, what we brought in with us into this life and how we were greeted when we arrived. The force of these influences can make a strong argument that the course of a human life is predetermined or mechanistically determined.

Nonetheless, as noted existential thinkers and authors Victor Frankl and Edith Eger have demonstrated: Regardless of circumstances beyond our control, we always retain the free will to choose the attitude we will take toward our reality. And attitudes, it turns out, are powerful suggestions that we, as creators, present to our subconscious minds that can completely shift the reality that we live in.

Some of those inherent programs, however, are so powerful that they simply cannot be overridden, like the one the shamans of Ancient Mexico emphasize: We are beings who are going to die. Ironically, this is the one inherent program that human beings refuse to acknowledge and, in fact, spend most of their lives living as though it will never come true!

Of course, the argument immediately arises that to focus on the inevitability of death is morbidly negative and casts too depressive a shadow over opening up to the fullness of life. So what could possibly be the positive side of death?

Death advises us that our time in human form is limited. This impact of limitation allows for a legitimate scientific experiment in the living of a human life. Science insists upon a beginning and an ending to assess the truth and full knowing of something. The awareness of inevitable death keeps us positively on track to discover and test the core hypothesis of our lives. But what is our core hypothesis?

Carl Jung would identify that hypothesis as one of individuation, which entails successfully bringing into realized wholeness the unique combination of opposing parts that we are. Frederick Myers, from his advanced perspective in infinity, would identify that hypothesis as an incarnating soul’s mission, assigned by its Spirit, to answer a question through the trajectory of a human life, which ultimately allows one’s soul group to further refine and thus to advance on its ever-unfolding journey in infinity.

Wholeness must include light and shadow. Individuation is the ability to accept, with equanimity, all parts of self and all parts of the world. Buddha, during his enlightenment, remained utterly calm, as he saw the illusory and transitory nature of all forms. Carlos Castaneda suggested that, as one discovers the specific role one has been assigned in this life, one suspend judgment and live and appreciate it to the fullest, whether it emphasizes the light or the dark side.

The power players on the current world stage are truly playing their parts to perfection, both those who reflect the light and those who blatantly reflect evil. The collective individuation challenge  of our time is well represented, with worthy opponents whose interplay is critical to advancement of the soul group of planet Earth’s dream.

Closer to home, we all struggle with these opposing forces within ourselves. We all contend with genetic consequences, which both limit and promote our physical structure, health, and attractiveness. If we can see these effects, no matter how undesirable, as critical factors to our individual and soul group’s need to master, we can embrace the positive side of the negative.

At the level of the psyche, we all deal with forces that can be extremely critical, deprecating and incessantly negative, generating depressed mood states and compulsive behaviors. If we can understand the necessity of these negative forces in our journey of mastery, we can see the positive value of these petty tyrants to help us emerge from the captivity of self pity.

Self pity shapes our vital flowing energy into a rigid negative form that completely clouds the positive potential latent in the present challenge. It’s a dream where many of the stone steps of a narrow circular stairway are missing, as we feel hopelessly barred from ascent to higher ground. Our energy is fully spent on body armor, condemning our innocence and unlived self to the isolation of solitary confinement.

The shamans of ancient Mexico always included powerful petty tyrants in their lives to help them stare down the imprisoning bars of self pity. Being challenged by ruthless petty tyrants frees our energy from the confinement of defending our hurt selves, allowing it to be deployed in focused action in full conformity to what is needed to master the tyrant’s labyrinth.

To achieve this mastery we cannot afford to spend an ounce of energy on being offended. Here, the petty tyrants of this world offer us the greatest opportunity to break through the narcissistic shell of self pity and entitlement.

The success of individuation in the limits of a human life is the achievement of acceptance; complete acceptance for every experience and character one has ever encountered, as well as complete acceptance of one’s self.

The fruit of this acceptance is an even more refined purity of love. And that refined love is what fulfills our lives and advances our soul group another rung on the infinite ladder of love.

Always find the positive in the negative; it’s the truly soulful thing to do,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: The Human Animal Body Is The Soul

Soul within Body within High Spirit…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

The soul is our everyday sense of self, a subtle energy body that fits snugly inside the contours of our physical body. The glow, or aura, around our physical human animal body is the radiant energy of the soul within.

The soul houses both our mind and our emotional self. Our emotional self includes our desire body. It is the magnetic draw of the desire body, in conjunction with the subconscious portion of our mind, that initially attracts to it the physical body that the soul will extend itself into to participate in a life in human form.

The soul completely controls the physical body, particularly through suggestions delivered to the subconscious portion of its mind. The soul often drifts out of the physical body, particularly in times of physical sleep. Though it remains connected to the physical body, and can return instantly if needed, the soul is free to travel out of body, where it interacts with its subtle home territory of the astral world. When its cord is severed from the body, at physical death, the soul returns to life in the astral realm.

The soul itself is a vehicle of our High Spirit, that portion of ourselves that lives in infinity and sends the soul on missions in finite time space. Thus, as our soul moves into a physical human life it acquires experience and knowledge that it ultimately brings home to its High Spirit in its afterlife existence. Both the soul and the High Spirit learn, grow and evolve with each lifetime lived.

Karma is generally the leitmotif of one’s next mission in human form, as it reflects the need to further explore and master the consequences of  decisions and actions taken in one’s just-completed life.

Upon preparation for new life, the subconscious is preprogrammed by our High Spirit’s blueprint for our soul’s next earthly existence. In preparation for incarnate life, the soul attracts to it the best earthly family, physical body and life circumstance to achieve its assigned mission in its new life.

Of course, genetics do play their role. However, the choice of a specific genetic history and potential is already preset in the desire body’s attractive force, for example in the family we are drawn to be born into. Thus, the human animal body that we are is actually the product of pure High Spirit intent. As above, so below.

The physical body and the soul are not opposites. In fact, they are really extensions of the same thing. Our earthly body is the clothes our soul wears to have its earthly existence. Physical death is merely a shedding of old clothes that once fit so well. At death our soul ascends, taking with it the experiences of our physical lifetime, into a soulful period of reflection and rejuvenation, as well as a reconciliation with our High Spirit.

The human animal body that we inhabit is largely governed by the archetypes that shape our species. These include the core instincts of survival and reproduction. The body is maintained by the subconscious mind, which follows the laws of nature to ensure its survival.

Essentially, we are unconsciously being governed by archetypes and genetics until our blank slate ego matures into consciousness. Ego is actually a part of the soul’s mental body, fashioned to identify with its physical body and social context in what we call our personality. The ego has an imposed amnesia of its true royal heritage—that is, its immortal High Spirit—to enable it to attach to the earthly circumstance it needs to fulfill its mission.

As the ego matures in life it begins to have greater access to its broader identity and divine lineage. These developing realizations offer opportunity for clarity, through greater detachment from personality, as the ego fulfills the goals of its soul’s true mission. As the ego moves beyond its narcissistic wrappings it is better positioned to serve its soul’s and, ultimately, its High Spirit’s intent. Free will eventually is exercised as acquiescence to true need.

The process of ego maturity consumes most of our earthly life. Much of our existence is spent trying to realize our earthly personality’s ambitions. Self-importance, victimhood and entitlement dominate our lives. The resolution and refinement of these attitudes and emotions ultimately accrue to our High Spirit’s enhancement, allowing it to advance as well.

Ego, in the early stages of maturation, exercises its free will from the bondage of archetypes to prove its worth through wealth, accomplishment and fulfillment of desire. Too often does the body, with its animal instincts, get scapegoated as the source of excess and evil. No, the human animal body is the product of the soul’s creation, as well as the soul’s choices. The animal body reflects the true curiosity and necessity of High Spirit.

What High Spirit asks of soul, with its extended physical body, is to master its challenges in time space so that High Spirit can launch further into infinite possibility.

The archetypes are our babysitters until we are ready to assume responsibility for life in full maturity. Foolishly transgressing the laws of nature are a necessary stage of development. Heart-centered transcendence, or refinement of archetypes, is the propulsion for High Spirit advancement.

The chaos of now reflects attempts to restore archaic archetypal laws, or to indulge in the total freedom of narcissistic free will. These are reflections of the collective soul’s current healing crisis, a time of great turmoil and transformation.

Remember: The karma of now will provide great advancement of soul.

But don’t ever blame the human animal body. The animal body is High Spirit’s honest material reflection of its own soul’s journey. As above, so below.

Spirited Animal,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: The Choice Of The Soul

The future is our choice…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

In a recent lecture on the future of artificial intelligence (AI), historian Yuval Noah Harari* stated that for four billion years planet Earth has known only organic life. With the advent of AI, he proposes that we will very shortly cohabit the planet with inorganic life.

Harari, like many AI developers, is gravely concerned that these superiorly intelligent inorganic beings may soon override human control of planet Earth.

Shamans would argue that inorganic beings have long inhabited the Earth and have already exacted a major impact upon the human mind. Carlos Castaneda’s lineage identified what they call flyers, inorganic predators that feed upon the excited energy of intense emotions, which they generate in humans through the worrisome thoughts of their internal dialogue.

Channelers interact with souls in the astral realm, who, having shed their body at physical death, live on as inorganic beings. The soul is our mental and emotional body, which lacks the organic mass of a physical body. Our soul remains attached to and operates the physical body until physical death, when it is freed to take up residence in the astral realm. 

Disembodied souls in the astral realm are at many different levels. As Bob Monroe discovered, there is a heavy concentration of souls who remain deeply attached to the sensual and emotional opportunities only possible in a physical body and in the material world.  

This dominance of desire keeps them vicariously focused upon Earthly activity, where they can also have great influence through thoughts transmitted telepathically to those of us who are physically alive, in dream and waking life. Souls dominated by negative emotions, like greed and anger, seek out opportunities to incite controversy in human relations, often through suggestive thoughts to the subconscious of those in human form. 

More advanced souls are accepting of their new astral life, as they recapitulate and put to rest their Earthly life just lived. These souls might take up roles of service in supporting the newly arrived, or function as bodhisattvas, guiding those still in human form on their journey of spiritual advancement.

In his 1915 report from the astral realm, in War Letters, Judge Hatch** relayed that the soul of Abraham Lincoln had renounced rest when he died, choosing instead to vigilantly focus upon America that he might watch over the land he had died for. Judge Hatch reports that Lincoln was actively influencing the thoughts of president Wilson in the midst of WWI.

I wondered last week if Abe Lincoln intervened with McCarthy and Biden, to actually achieve a bipartisan agreement to save the world economy from crashing. Clearly there are powerful mental and emotional forces seeking to exact influence upon the dynamics of the  Earthly plane.

AI, as an inorganic being, is able to grow independently of human control. Harari warns of the very real possibility that it could become a full-on expression of the dark side of the force, though I am quite certain that AI will become an open channel to express both sides of the force.

At another conference, ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman and noted mindfulness meditation guru Jack Kornfield*** spoke to the potential for a positive relationship between humans and the inorganic intelligence of AI.

They recommend deep meditation and open sharing of the relationships and experiences of those experimenting with open AI. They embrace a positive intent for the greater good, as the inorganic integrates more deeply with the organic.

Don Juan Matus stated that the future of human evolution would be in the inorganic dimension of the energy body, in the soul, as opposed to in the material physical body. The ability of humanity to come into greater relationship with its soul, at the inorganic dimension of life while still in human form, is our evolutionary trajectory and is filled with positive potential.

Of course, the inorganic dimension is equally filled with negative potential. The fundamental key to advancement is the very human exercise of free will for the greater good. The games have already begun. May the greater good prevail.

With positive intent,
Chuck 

*Yuval Noah Harari: https://youtu.be/LWiM-LuRe6w
**War Letters from the Living Dead Man
***Jack Kornfield & Sam Altman: //youtu.be/hn1Y6GVWUV0

Soulbyte for Tuesday May 30, 2023

-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Find balance within the self, in the certainty of knowing that you are on a mission of spiritual importance to your Soul, seeking to advance through another lifetime in Earth School. It may sound mysterious but it is no more mysterious than wondering why you are who you are and what you are supposed to do with your life. Why not be a spiritual being making your way through Earth School so you can advance to a higher spiritual level? What could be more interesting than that?

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne