Halloween’s secrets

I'm not really a fan of Halloween. I guess I never really have been, either. But this is an excellent opportunity to say some things that need to be said.

Let me start by reviewing some things most of you sense might be true, in one form or another:

• There is more to our experiences than meets the eye.
• There is a "component" of each one of us that transcends our physical deaths.
• Alive or dead, we seem to be spiritually connected to one another.

"Life after death" is a misunderstanding. Our experience of "life" is a physical one. What transcends death is something quite different. We also need to get that out on the table, too. For now, I'll use the term "soul" to refer to that part of each one of us that is eternal.

What follows next is a condensed version of what I have learned over many years. I'm offering this as something of an anti-ghost story for you to take away and ponder.

• Our living consciousness is an amalgam of our physical reality and the experiences our souls bring to bear.
  • You see, souls are not typically ever destroyed. They come back in other lives. Some—most—are very young, perhaps with the experiences of one or only a few lives. Others can be older, some very old.
  • When we physically "die" our experiences and learning "survive" in our souls.
• While we are alive, we experience communication physically person-to-person, and "otherwise", as soul-to-soul.
  • The degree to which physical and soul communication interacts varies greatly in each of us.
  • Younger souls have great need for communication with one another; as souls age they tend to act more autonomously.
  • By the way, souls aren't perfect. In fact, they are with us to learn and grow, oddly enough.
  • And yes, some, it seems, never learn.
  • And for those of you with a scientific bent: I like to talk about that "alternative" part of our reality as the one for which the speed of light is not a constant in vacuum. Think about that for a moment. The laws of probability and interaction are fluid.
  • Although not a universal constant, psychic ability tends to belong to younger souls that are still more "communicative" with other souls.
  • Prayer, as a consequence, is primarily a soul-to-soul activity. That may come as a surprise to many, but the efficacy of prayer and intentions that are passed from soul to soul and can affect us physically bears this out.
• Believe it or not, organized religion has a valuable role to play in all of this.
  • Religion, when it is not abusive or fundamentalist, offers a sense of perspective to each of our lives.
  • That perspective helps us to realize that there are greater gifts than what we offer, that each of us has responsibility to all creation, and that harmony must be the goal of all we do.
  • Religion has consistently abused these points, but not always and everywhere unrecoverably. Religion is shaped and governed by humans, after all.
  • There is a creator force in the world, but it creates the souls that are part of us. Our physical world is just that—shaped by physics.
• There are many ways that we can try to understand our interactions with our souls. Some work better than others, of course, and there's no "one-size-fits-all".
  • One of the most surprising things we can notice about ourselves as humans is that we have developed a great sense of learning things. We aren't so much "tool makers" as we are "learners and adapters." Most species can "use" a tool; we learn what can be done with it, and that's the developmental, the learning side of who we are.
  • A consequence of this is that we spend most of our lives working out the "how?" of things. Daily life is managed by knowing the answers—or figuring them out—to all the "how?" situations that are presented.
  • We then must also figure out the "what?" part of these "how?" situations. We usually know—or again, figure out—"what" to use and "how" to use it.
  • Religion and spirituality are primarily concerned with the "what" and "how" situations. Scripture and ritual are essential to navigating the "what" and "how" kinds of questions.
  • What's usually missing is the "why?" Salvation, damnation, and things like that aren't real motivators, though we still act as though they are. They usually lead to things like "righteousness", and that just leads to self-righteousness, and that can (and usually does) lead to bad things.
  • So here's the trick: Our "Why?" is really wrapped up in our cumulative ability to maintain harmony. By that I don't mean the foolishly simplistic ideas of the 1960s. I'd never want to relive that! And harmony is never—repeat NEVER—approached by checking out from reality. Real harmony is much more pervasive and wrapped up in different attitudes towards power. I'll leave that for another entry…but I do have to say that our attitudes toward power are key to all we are and do, and all our souls experience and learn. Simple, eh?
  • Harmony is purpose, achievement, and mastery. It is our only real calling. It is our souls' only calling.

There are "ghosts," if you will. They are young souls that can't find their way home. Some of them go very, very seriously wrong, desiring eternal power on an earth where it isn't easily defended against. To that end, they find and attach other young souls who can be forced to share their quest for power. We call them demons. Yes, stay away from them.

Enough for now. Happy Halloween.