Who chooses "you become Bradley?"

How does the Higher Being that many refer to as God/gods choose what essence of energy to assign as 'you become a rock' or 'you become tea' and 'you become Bradley?' Now this is assuming you believe in a Higher Being, but if there's "just" a Higher Intelligence then this decision would also have to get made. How does this decision get made? How do souls get assigned a physical form?

hey guys the long question above is rephrased and hopefully help people answer the question :] Let's stick to the above questions as well as the concept of soulmates




HI GUYS :]

So through all those Emersonian works we've had during class discussions as well as homework, we have learned the concept of the Universal Being. The Emersonian idea that in all beings' essences, we are all connected at one basis was introduced as the Universal Being in the essay, "Nature." It's basically like having a single pool of souls, you know?

After learning the concept of the Universal Being, some questions popped up. My major question is if all things are connected as one at the Universal Being, what made humans have the superior intelligence to recognize this concept? Technically, in other words, What designates the souls to take a specific physical form? We humans have that part of our brain (I forgot what it was called) that enables us to go beyond our reptilian instincts as well as primates' characteristics, right? That foremost part of our brain. This enbles humans to have greater intelligence and knowledge that are both a type of gift as well as burden. So what designates the souls to take a specific form? In our current planet, the Homo sapiens species is the dominant species. How are these souls chosen to become let's say.....a rock whereas another gets to become part of a human? You could say that this is going with the ego-mindedness of trying to view things in hierarchies and inequality, however, I still find this question highly interesting.

This question may have to conflict with religion in a way because the role of God Himself is the general answer to my question. But I would like to see a question that extends further beyond religion :]

Another question suddenly, spontaneously came up! Do you believe that souls can recognize each other if we all belong in the Universal Being? Like soulmates, for example?

Links:
http://www.experiencefestival.com/forum/specific-questions/269145-who-chooses-souls.html#post280548
http://www.psychic101.com/forum/index.php/topic,361.0.html
http://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2840

New Links:
http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?p=382434#post382434
http://www.successconsciousness.com/cgi-bin/forum/sc/Blah.pl?m-1242830614/
http://www.philosophychatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=88&t=12652

Hello

This is Gonna be my first serious post of the Night

I don't really know how to answer a question like this but I do believe in Luck. The ideas of soul mates is awesome and even I sometimes believe in it, but if i believe in soul mates than that will make a great excuse for my life. I could go around saying that some day my soul mate will find me and i don't need to do S&*#. However I believe in Luck. When something good happens it isn't because your bound to it like fate but because your lucky or you worked hard enough to create you own brand of luck like Cheese.

Oh Well I don't know if I gave you any Ideas But Bye


P.S. Cats Own

rosAA wrote:We humans have that part of our brain (I forgot what it was called) that enables us to go beyond our reptilian instincts as well as primates' characteristics, right? That foremost part of our brain.

Our hindbrain is the part of our brain that governs our basic survival functions, our limbic system is our emotion system, and our cerebral cortex is the part that makes us so great and yet so terrible.

rosAA wrote:Do you believe that souls can recognize each other if we all belong in the Universal Being? Like soulmates, for example?

I'm a bit confused here. Are you asking that if we were all turned back into pure essence and returned to the nonlocal domain, would souls be able to recognize each other? That's a rather tough question actually. If we go by the idea that we each possess our own individual essence, I'm sure it's possible.

And Jason, just sig that cat thing man.

Well, I find your main question to be fairly difficult. Every few days I wonder about what selects what the physical manifestation of our soul is, thinking about religious concepts such as reincarnation (e.g. you are reincarnated as less intelligent life forms or parasitic pests if you spent your previous life as a "sinner").
It never went beyond wondering. I was never able to settle on an answer, and lots of times my thinking just became a way to justify myself killing mosquitoes and cockroaches.

Your spontaneous question has more room for debate.
Soulmates are usually soulmates because they find a vast number of similarities between themselves.
We all originated from the universal being, and in the process of going from the origin to physical manifestation we develop individuality. Friends are, as mentioned in Emerson's essay, a paradox of nature. They are so different (because we are all individuals), yet so similar (because we can commune with them and they can commune with us). Through this, he hinted that we tend to be more attracted to those that are similar to our own individual self, and because of this similarity, we can express ourselves more freely. We are more comfortable around them. My guess would be that those with similar personalities may have had some sort of connection back in the nonlocal domain that was slightly stronger than their connection with others, thus resulting in similar traits down here in the physical domain.
All-in-all, maybe these souls can't recognize each other immediately, but they will certainly be more attracted to each other should instances of contact occur.

We can also shift the thinking to the subject of identical twins. I'll let the next few contributors take it from here.

Your main question is a lil confusing, yo. Like Henning said, there's reincarnation to consider. And as we said during class, energy does not stay within one object at all times, it is transferred amongst everything. The energy that you have for one moment may be on a tree the next.

Plus, I think this is where science and these Transcendentalist concepts meet, and separate--actually, i don't know which . But, either way, evolution made our brains expand to twice or four time the size of other animals. I think that added portion to our brains is the ego mind, the thinker. However, other entities have that Instinctive part of the brain, where they have those innate functions like migration and such. Apart from this instinct, they also have essence. Everything does. So, I'd say that humans are the dominant species merely due to the Darwinian development of the brain.

Not sure if I actually understood that question o_O.. If i didn't, I think I need more of an explanation .

ANYWAYS TO THE FUN, SPONTANEOUS QUESTION (ahem).
I believe in soulmates. . I forgot what the book was called, but there's a book--you know--that says that every person has one, and only one soulmate in all of eternity, and that soulmate may not be alive while you are, may not live in the same area, or ever cross paths to you. And with that, your soul is always looking for that soulmate, and some people end up lonely.

I had thought that idea was very very intriguing, and seemingly true, but after this unit and thinking of this question... It's kind of like Emerson's essay "Friendship." You have these certain people that your Being matches with very well, and you may be sincere with them. It's like they're the puzzle pieces next to you, they just click. So, soulmates don't have to be a guy-girl intimate relationship like thing. You have lots of soulmates friends, family, crushes, etc, they can be soulmates too.

Rosa, I like how you phrased your question and the one you came up with spontaneously; seemed totally relevant and natural, yes.

I'm interested to see what everyone has to say about this...

Okay so people seem to be having a tough time trying to understand my main question.

SO MOVING AWAY FROM THE SOULMATE QUESTION WHICH I KNOW A LOT OF YOU GUYS ARE HAVING FUN WITH,
what I'm trying to ask is that we all belong in the Universal Being, right? If so, then what source, what being, what THING has the power to designate which soul takes which form? Take human species for example. Humans have the capability to think beyond (a gift and a device of torture) and for the present humans have this dominance in our planets. Who designates a soul to become a part of a rock, a part of one of the roses you received for prom, or a part of you?

This is why I said that these questions may come in conflict with religion in general. If you think about it, we watched the movie the Secret. One of the commentators say that the descriptions of God are very similar to the descriptions of energy. So honestly speaking, are these transcendentalist/Emersonian beliefs/ideas something like religion? We are beginning to place our trust and faith in the belief that there is unlimited potential for all of us. Is this a sort of religion? Or is it something that goes hand in hand with religion?

SPONTANEOUS QUESTION: What are your opinions on religion -- are they transcendentalists or antitranscendentalists?

I apologize for these random spontaneous questions -- I honestly find myself freewriting questions hahah

I think this really depends on whether or not you view us as a individual "soul", or a part of the greater "soul". I don't know how our forms would be decided if we were all one individual soul - and I suppose this is the topic of our discussion - but what I mean is if we were all part of the universal being, as in Transcendentalists, then wouldn't we be all just sections of this soul that was once a rock, and and sections of this other soul that was a rose for prom? There technically wouldn't be a distinction between souls, since we all arise from a common origin, and are made from the same things - or essence, perhaps.

Though religions often support the idea that sinners are the ones born to the lowest lineages, as Henning said, but in terms of Transcendentalism and Walt Whitman's poetry, there really isn't a clear distinction to which is one the higher rank and which of the lower. Humans could have been just another organism; it probably didn't matter to essence whether or not we had a more developed brain, I suppose. We were just parts of essence - it's like mommy treating all the kids the same.

And as for whether or not religion is Transcendentalist, I would neglect from commenting, since I'm not really deep in any form of the religious arts. I wait to be enlightened. xD

I hate to have to possibly kill the discussion, but this question seems to be similar to proey's second or third.

proey wrote:
Well, being bored, I drew a diagram based vaguely on the one Ms. Kay drew on the board. (If I got anything wrong, please tell me. My notes are a little too messy to comprehend.) However rudimentary it may look (I drew it on paint), it asks my basic question which I am still yearning for an answer to.

Our final conclusion was, to quote vicky, as follows

Vicky wrote: After thinking about your question for a while, I realized that there really isn’t a logical answer to your inquiry. Even if we tried to explain an individual’s uniqueness by frequencies of waves, we still cannot discern exactly what produces different undulating rates of waves. Therefore, as Emerson said, “In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin.” There really is no concrete answer to this question. Perhaps the comfort that we can gain from this unanswerable question is that, whatever that common origin is, it has been sufficient and proficient enough to support the universe, and will continue to possess the power to do so.

Which is why I suggested you shift your question to the spontaneous one. The current one is simply too hard to debate, as it seems to be beyond our understanding.

To respond to your second spontaneous question, I have to say that it really depends on the religion. Some like to limit their believers, such as the Puritans, who were told that they could not attain enlightenment on their own. Buddhists, on the other hand, support the idea that anyone has the potential to attain enlightenment.

Again, my apologies if I end up killing the discussion.

I think what designates the physical body we become is a higher power, divinity - God. God decides our unique qualities from everyone else. He decides what makes us different and unique yet similar and one. Perhaps God is the collective unconsciousness and not apart from it. Is that why the Bible says that man is like an image of God, because He is the collective unconsciousness and therefore we are all parts of that whole?

Eh...what exactly is God? There are a lot of versions of God...some say man is created in His image, while others say He is caring and loving...and some even say God is a mean child with a magnifying glass.

You say God as a higher power, but I think it He is just a product of our imagination. We feel the Being, the Essence and Collective Consciousness...and because of that, our minds want to categorize this "feeling" and use imagination to create this figure we call God.

But yeah, who knows...maybe I am wrong...maybe God only appeared to a selection of chosen individuals to reveal his ultimate plan.
This IS a hard discussion to follow xD

Agree with Henning. If a question you ask ends up with answers like "God" or "Higher Power" or something along those lines-----big problemo, because these higher powers are created to justify the unjustifiable things in the world. It's just something that is.

Continuing with that to answer your second spontaneous question, I don't think you can classify religion as either T or AT. Like we talked about in discussing Moby Dick, AT always has an element of T in it. Religion definitely has an element of T. Like prayer for example. In any form, although one may be praying to a greater power, one is in fact praying to him or herself, to be able to connect with the universal essence. And when you are praying for someone else, you are essentially sending energy to them, and not through a mediator people like to call the "higher power." Religion does contain T ideas, but I think it's only the faith itself, not the structured religion.

Like Henning said, it depends on the religion. But it also depends on the person’s interpretation of the message that the religion conveys. A line could be interpreted as an encouragement, while it may sound like a reminder of barriers for another person. Organized religion may not capture the original true essence that religion possessed. Other people may have twisted and deformed the original’s meanings in order to justify their actions, just like in uncle tom’s cabin. There are both sides in some religions, although it seems like there is more transcendental elements? Since people hold on to religion during the toughest times, saying that religion gives them hope and courage. Although sometimes people are limited by traditions and maybe superstitions of religion. (ex. in Buddhism, there is a belief that in the 7th month of the lunar calendar, it is best not to hold any event, including from weddings to funerals. Staying out too late is discouraged also. This is because they believed that the "evil spirits" are coming out from underground.)

It's really interesting seeing what everyone has to say about religion - it's definitely new for me.

As Andy said, God may be only a figment of our "imagination", used to classify the universal being, or essence. However, I think religion in its "essence" is a Transcendentalist idea. Though I don't understand the workings of any particular religion, I think the "faith" that lies within the prayer, as Proey said, is Transcendentalist.

Religion probably began as a Transcendentalist idea - one person obtaining enlightenment, and then sharing it with everyone else. Like in Siddhartha, while the "great one" (I forgot his name...) preaches to the people that come to see him, he tells Siddhartha that though this isn't the way to find Nirvana, it is the only way that he can help the people feel better, and have a better life. Transcendentalism is to have unlimited potential - religion began with an enlightenment, and correct me if I'm wrong. The initial wish to share the essence may have been Transcendentalist, but perhaps the ATs became prominent when they realized that they could only give others enlightenment to a certain degree - the rest was for them to find themselves. Then organized religion came in. They started caring more about the material, the fame, and the positions than about the actual belief itself. Religion is like an M&M: nut on the inside, chocolate on the outside.

I have no idea why I said that; it just seemed fitting.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHA
Joey. M&Ms. That is genius.
Well, yeah, the organized religion sugarcoats things with this one layer of chocolate. It's all the same. (pretend there is no coloring.) It makes things uniform and society based, following rules that possibly have been founded hundreds of years ago. It's the foolish consistency, as said by Emerson. Okay, and then if you suck on the chocolate enough, it melts away, giving you the nutty inside. The nut is the good stuff--the actual faith that is not obstructed by a mediating figure, just between you and the higher power. Or you and yourself, even, if you wash away every bit of established religion. Because, really, Christianity, Islam, Judaism--they all believe in one God right? In essence--and sorry if I offend anyone, no offense intended--their "God" is the same. It's a higher power. Just a different way of believing, or expressing it.

heyy guys.

I love how the discussion is turning out -- we're digressing yet staying on topic. And I really really love the contributions going on.

However, I decided to stay away from my spontaneous question about religion and just stick with the two main topics -- soulmates and the Higher Being.

And Henning, I talked to Ms. Kay and I decided not to "kill" the question. By killing it through your reasoning is like giving up, and that's not what we're really trying to aim for, right? So I'm going to push it further. I rephrased my question clearer-ly with Ms Kay above and I really hope it's going to help you guys get this even further.

Thanks, guys!!

and vicky: this proves that im currently way out of state two.

rosAA wrote:How does the Higher Being that many refer to as God/gods choose what essence of energy to assign as 'you become a rock' or 'you become tea' and 'you become Bradley?' Now this is assuming you believe in a Higher Being, but if there's "just" a Higher Intelligence then this decision would also have to get made. How does this decision get made? How do souls get assigned a physical form?

Wellllll, since you managed to post your thing like a minute after I posted something about religion (yay for perfect timing -__-)....
Maybe the physical form of a soul is a representation of the type of soul that resides in it. Or rather, its unique characteristics. Like Chillingworth, in The Scarlet Letter. His figure became more deformed as he became more malicious and vengeful. Maybe the soul of a rock is stoned ... But then again, one cannot judge a book by its cover.

Another possibility, as someone mentioned a while ago, is like reincarnation. One must do something good in a previous life to be promoted to a "higher" form. But then what determines what is "higher"? An ant is just as good to the world as a lion, or a human.

Apart from that, have you considered the possibility that our souls do not stay intact after our death? And maybe the energy that we give off is dispersed and now resides in a gazillion different entities. I guess that's where some people got the idea that each of us has an Einstein in us... literally. In that case, our souls are "recycled" in a way.

rosAA wrote:
And Henning, I talked to Ms. Kay and I decided not to "kill" the question. By killing it through your reasoning is like giving up, and that's not what we're really trying to aim for, right? So I'm going to push it further. I rephrased my question clearer-ly with Ms Kay above and I really hope it's going to help you guys get this even further.

Actually what i meant by "kill" the discussion was that I was afraid that my point may bring the conversation to a dead end, not exactly that you should abandon it. Since you rephrased the question now and added the hypothetical situation in which we're assuming there's a higher being that does the assigning, we can overrule the point raised in my last post.

As half of my fingers are slightly blistered at the moment, I'll answer the question in a list for now:
-Random assigning (taking into account that we all come from a common origin, maybe there was no difference in which being was assigned to what form as at the origin I don't think we've developed individuality yet-that comes during the process of the shift from non-local to local)
-The second time around, assuming there is reincarnation, may be either random again or done according to the acts done in the previous form, as mentioned before

there is something rather interesting though. say, one is designated to be a rock. When exactly does the being of a rock move on? As we should all know from previous science classes, the law of conservation of matter states that matter is neither created or destroyed. In that case, the rock doesn't ever really "die," it just gets broken down and changes form. Unless rocks have souls, which will move on after death, when do rocks get reincarnated?
Of course, that is assuming reincarnation actually takes place.

The final thought is that we choose our physical form ourselves, regardless of the being.

In response to proey and many other people's put together, I've come up with a general synthesis.

With this question, I seem to be looking for an identity of some sort of Higher Being, right? Maybe that is why I said this may come in conflict with religion as many people believe that it is God who does this assign-thing that I came across to question. However, many of you mentioned reincarnation. With this concept of the law of conserving energy -- which states that energy is neither created of destroyed -- many of our textbooks tell us that in fact, we have a bit of Einstein within us. Which means we have Hitler within us as well.

So maybe the Universal Being is something that is one, you know? It is a single identity, not something that should be separated by this source of Higher Being that I'm currently questioning. So what if the souls that are within Bradley is actually the same soul within the pens we hold to take English notes, the same soul within Fermin as well as that laptop he always carries? What if actually all the souls are the same, the same fragments of everything put together to create us. Doesn't this kind of logically go hand in hand with the law of conserving energy? We have Einstein within us as well as Hitler and Stalin. We have President Obama, Helen Keller, Madam Curie, Johnny Depp, JRR Tolkien,...etc everyone within us? We just have our differences due to the many different kinds of external environments we are exposed to.

Taking Joey's crazy yet genius idea of M&Ms, we are all different colors, but in fact, the very nut in the core is the same in all M&Ms. Although this is moving away from M&Ms to religion thing that Joey mentioned, do you guys kind of understand what I'm trying to say? What are your thoughts on it?

As for soulmates, do you think that our souls recognize each other? I don't know about those 10A people but during our 10B English Honors class, Ms. Kay told us her story about how she had this special connection with someone. Something there yet hard to explain. I'm pretty sure that a couple of you understand what I mean. Do you think that the souls are recognizing each other this way and trying to connect to each other?

If i remember correctly, someone said life is a fusion of energy and form? or something like that. Soo just a random thought :p SO one cannot reaally exist without the other. Also, since the Bradley is a physical form depite being quite different from others, and all physical forms come from and are connected to all other physical forms since there are underlying connections right? so i doubt there even was a choice.

mike: Though there is a connection, between each form, they are still separate. Yeah, there is that underlying bedrock from which all life is borne from, but each life form is still different--but in what way?

@ Rosa
You completely summed up my messy thoughts in one big paragraph. Thanks so much. xD

I understand your point of view - in a way, we're all a part of something bigger rather than individual souls. So we might all be a homogeneous mixture of the Essence rather than being designated to be a certain something in our lives. But that being said, if we were all parts of the general Essence, then why are we all different? Different yet the same? We may be the same to the very last unit, but when we take a step back and look at ourselves, why are we different? But then, when you take a step back again, we are all the same once again (like how you can go from seeing pixels on a monitor, then move back and see a jagged line, then when you move back again the jagged line seems straight.) I need help deciphering my own thinking. Blah.

Like the M&M thing, what makes our sugar-coat colors all different?

Part 2:
I think souls can tell when they see someone that they completely correspond with, but it probably isn't an instant connection - it's more of a slow, continuous process of discovering. I'll assume now that a soul mate is a puzzle piece that fits most specifically to you, which is a piece right beside you. If essentially we could feel each other, in the higher domain, what would you feel? I'm actually curious - does anyone have any experience?

I'll confess that I can't really come up with an answer to your question about the process that determines whether we wind up as rocks or as tea (green tea maybe for a certain someone? ) so I'll stick to your question about soulmates.

Anyways, I suppose I do believe in soulmates, though I'm not too sure we can recognize a soulmate at first glance. The whole "Love at first sight" thing seems confined to the realm of cheesy Hollywood romance flicks and B-grade soap operas and dramas. I dont' think it's completely impossible, to meet a person and feel a genuine, deep connection with them but the process of finding and creating a connection with someone else's soul is a rather lengthy one I would suppose. To truly get a feel for a person's essence, they need to strip the layers of egomind that obscure their being and to forge a connection to them, we must also do the same. Like how for a relationship to be succesful there needs to be a mutual trust and understanding, for a connection of the essences to exist, there must be honesty.

In a social setting, it is often the confident people that stick out, because of their commanding presence. Not commanding in the sense that they have big booming voices and stand a head taller than most people but that there is a certain quality to them that just draws your attention to them. I believe people who are confident and attuned with themselves, attuned with their being attract attention in a similar way. They have this aura to them, though it isn't physically visible, or at least, not upon the physical domain.

With this idea in mind, I believe it in fact is quite possible to recognize a kindred soul at first sight. Maybe not quite love at first sight, but definitely something similar. I think such occassions aren't too common though. Most people don't radiate a powerful enough for others to feel it. And there's no telling if we can connect to it either. I'm pretty sure most people have an experience where they see an angry person and can almost that anger lashing out at them. Anger isn't a terribly positive thing, but it is an emotion and emotion is part of essence.

I don't think most people are fortunate enough to find their soulmates at a first glance. Oftentimes that connection forms slowly, as like I said earlier, the egomind is stripped away and essence is revealed. If I want to become good friends with Bob and understand his essence, he has to be able to confide and trust in me, to push past his fears of reaching out. And I have to be open to connecting with Bob.

A sudden connection came to me just a moment ago while I was listening to music and I'd like to ask if anybody's ever had an experience where they listen to a song and it just feels perfect? It's a similar feeling to recognizing a soulmate immediately I suppose. That might not always be the case though. Usually it takes time to appreciate a song's beauty, by looking at its components, seeing how they all represent the essence in some small part and then seeing how they fit together to construct the whole. The more you begin to appreciate a person's qualities the more you appreciate the person himself I suppose.

That's about all the brain juice I can squeeze out today, so I hope someone out there who's feeling a bit more lucid then I am can organize my little mess of ideas. I will be back when my neurons are a bit more charged. Blargh.

How does the Higher Being that many refer to as God/gods choose what essence of energy to assign as 'you become a rock' or 'you become tea' and 'you become Bradley?' Now this is assuming you believe in a Higher Being, but if there's "just" a Higher Intelligence then this decision would also have to get made. How does this decision get made? How do souls get assigned a physical form?

Hey Rosa!

You're question is so deep and broad (although the way you worded it was really concise and specific) that I'm not really sure there is an absolute answer for it. I mean people can present their opinion, but unlike the topics that we are kind of sure about (like the ego-mind being capable of going into overdrive or infinite potential comes from tapping into the common essence), your question of how does the Higher Intelligence choose the physical form that each thing takes up is so philosophical. It kind of made me think about another question that I had thought about when I was coming up for a question for the moderator job: Why wasn't everything made perfect by the Universal Being in that there is no ego-mind and that there is only the nonlocal domain and human beings can perceive this domain with their "dominant" senses? Or how about human beings not having a mind at all and just have intuition and essence? Why did we have to have a physical form?

Oh gosh, I think I'm going around in circles. Well, I think that this question of perfection is really relevant to your topic and that when people answer that question, the inquiry of it will eventually lead to your question's answer. Good luck!

Okay guys, it's time for Dr. Phil rolling in for business after about a day of hiatus.

So, pardon me for the semi-freewrite reply

I have to say that a lot of you guys pulled out the "connected yet separate" idea from that packet. The first thing that hit me when I read this was "why are we separated in the first place?" I mean, think about it this way. We all exist in the non-local domain together, as one, across time and space - or should I say, the lack thereof. It is our mind that perceives this place as physical and separate. It is because we are not fast enough to also see the 'gaps in the movie' that we get the 'illusion' of being separate. Our mind has a lot to do with placing physical boundaries. How many times have we tried to do something that we know will fail? How many times did we succeed? This is the law of attraction at work.

So, technically speaking then, we are not separated. We merely view ourselves as being separated, but in actuality we are not. So, therefore, we are not all that different, actually, we're not different at all. It's just the parts that the mind cannot see that distinguishes, say, Andy from me. We are everything and everything is us. The intuition that we can get is actually all within us, so is, let's say, this bottle, and so is the whole solar system. If we view ourselves as that, we can pull out a lot of things. SYNTHESIS - sorry to Rosa, but I have to pull in Fermin's topic of telepathy. This is how telepathy works. We find ourselves connecting to other people because they are within us, and we 'feel' them. Notice how when you 'feel' people (not by vibe or atmosphere, like, you just know and feel that guy) it doesn't come from external sources like sight, smell, touch, or anything. It comes from within you. At least it happens to me. It is a feeling you can't describe. You just FEEL him/her, as if you're his mind (in a way, you are).

So, therefore, the higher being, the collective unconscious, is all present within ourselves. It is just our mind that restricts us from seeing everything that is within us. Thus why it is so important to clean up the mind to connect with nature or concentrate on something to get inspiration. It is because the ego mind doesn't distract you from your connection to yourself - which IS everything in existence. Now, if you think about it, the non-local domain is unaffected by time. Maybe that is why one might have deja vu, or, stretching that concept, one might have 'visions' of the future. It is because we are connected with everything, aka anything. That is why Siddhartha can attain enlightenment through looking at the river. This is why people, even though they are not of any certain religion, can attain enlightenment. It is because they don't need to be connected to everything, like, literally everything. They just need to connect with some parts completely, and thus will be able to connect with everything. Jeez that was contradictory.

If anyone actually finishes this whole thing and UNDERSTANDS what I'm actually trying to say, props and Dude, You Rock cards to you. Hopefully.

EDIT: Jeez, great timing.

I agree with Lee at the soul mate thing. Although it is my pure speculation that maybe there are just some connections that are so strong that it breaks through the bonds of the ego mind. Maybe that is why that enlightened people seem to have a reverence for everyone, because they don't rely on the ego mind for everything. So, according to this logic, this means that when one strips the ego mind of its power, one will be a 'soul mate' for everyone, provided that everyone returns the love and reverence.