Physical vs Spiritual Attraction

[Meadows]

OK, I'm jumping in for the first time.  Lighthouse, I think that one doesn't necessarily feel drawn to someone to have a spiritual connection to the person.  I think one can also be repulsed or dislike another person and the spiritual connection is that the person is in our life to provide a lesson we are here to learn.

For example, the weakness I may fear that I have, I will see in another person and really have a physically negative respomse to the display of a certain weakness in the other person.

If the author, Sylvia Browne is right in her book, Life on the Other Side (I think that was the book in which she cites this phenomenon), and we make agreements with other spirits before we come to earth then the negative relationships (possibly family members) are just as spiritual as the positive relationships (chosen friends).

We can be just as repulsed by the negative aspects of another person as we can be drawn to the positive aspects of a person.  I think both are spiritual connections, but we tend to call the positive encounters in terms of "Kindred spirits," "soul mates" and the like.

It begins to hurt my brain to think too much about the negative people that have come into my life and imagine that I made some agreement for those people to be so unkind, hateful, or mean to me.
M

[Lighthouse]

Meadows,

Welcome to Astral Pulse.

Good point!  I hadn't thought of it that way.  We are all drawn to each other to learn spiritual lessons (it's my belief that they are ALL spiritual lessons)

I'll have to think on that one... Thanks.

Fallnangel, you're surrounded by spiritual women... open your eyes.

Kerri

[jilola]

My turn? Ok.

The term Soul Mate is a bit misleading in the sense that it suggests that there can only be one.
I have come to the conclucison that the term is only an attempt to cast the spiritual unity of our true beings in physical terminology. We are all Soul Mates in the real sense of being one but as incarnate individuals we are only aware of the connection in some rare instances. Hence the term Soul Mate and its usual interpretation.

We are searching for our divinity, to use your term, and often can only perceive it in relations to others. But a reflection is only half the truth and it's extremely difficult to see the truth outside if we haven't found it inside. Thus it is infinitely important to accept yourself and embrace your true being before you can fully understand that everyine else is the same.

Anger and jealousy are physical plane expressions of being frustrated at seeing behind the spiritual smoke screen into the truth of oneness between all.

Anam Cara is seeing that the other is the same, not separate but still individual and that in loving others we ove ourselves and vice versa. It's difficult to put into words, at least for me, but it is in my opinion the undiluted realization of oneness.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

[Lighthouse]

Okay...

I'm starting to see that all my own lessons are coming back to haunt me.  Jouni & Meadows are talking the same language (You two are so smart) and I have a story that relates to it...

I gave a speech about it a year ago and will post it here... it illustrates this point about contracts... being drawn yet needing to learn a lesson through the attraction.  Here is an excerpt from the speech:



I recently gave a speech entitled "Trash that Borrowed Cloak" where I explained that we choose to accept other peoples false beliefs as our truths and call these borrowed beliefs our "definition of self."  I then gave a few anecdotes about some of the people who helped me form my false definition of self.  I explained that all of the people who told me there was something wrong with me were seeing in me something that they had rejected about themselves.  I cited my greatest tormentor, Andy, who every day, screamed FAT to me all the way to school.  I then explained that he did this because he subscribed to the false belief that he was flawed in some way and was projecting his own self hatred on to me.

The night after the speech, I had a marvelous dream where I had another moment of Clarity.  I was sitting at a very large round table, giving the same speech I gave the night before, Andy was sitting to my right.  As I got to the part where I said, FAAAAAT, Andy was becoming visibly nervous.  I tried to soothe him by rubbing his back and arm.  Then, when the speech was over, I gave him a wonderful, healing hug, filled with So much love that that feeling remained with me for several weeks after.  That night, I owned the concept that I taught the night before.  I saw how all the pieces fit together.  

You see, I contracted Andy to bring me that lesson.  I had a crush on him in Junior High school and he was the one person who could hurt me the most.  I saw him every day on the bus and the combination of this and his particular style of torture, impacted me so strongly that had it been any other person, in any other way, I would not have had such a profound effect on my definition of self.  It also would not have had such a profound impact on my ability to reverse those negative feelings that I carried around with me for so long.  

That night, I realized that Andy gave me the greatest gift that anyone has ever given me.  He showed me the part of myself that I chose to reject and needed to heal and accept in order to recognize my "Life Purpose."  My gift to you is to ask what you perceive as your special flaw or dysfunction.    Once you understand that it is only a flaw in your perception, you will then see that only your perception needs correction and you will experience your own Moment of Clarity.



I didn't include the entire speech because it's quite a bit of reading...

Anyway, what it illustrates is that I was drawn to Andy but it was not for Love as we would define it, but it was for Love at the same time.  Through understanding what I rejected about myself, Andy was holding a mirror up to me and showing me what I needed to heal within my own mind to see a grander picture of my own divinity.  

Make sense?

Kerri

[Avalon]

This conversation reminds me of the  concept of the "Twin Flame".  I got the following excerpt off of a website to define the concept and how it relates to this conversation:

"Did you know that you often attract people into your life who look as you do in parallel or past lives? For example - you are a man seeking a female partner. You will seek out someone who looks and acts if you were a woman - like a mirror image. Your ideal partner is who you are in that physical body! We are always seeking ways to experience ourselves. "

[Blissful]

quote:Originally posted by Avalon

This conversation reminds me of the  concept of the "Twin Flame".  I got the following excerpt off of a website to define the concept and how it relates to this conversation:

Interesting you should mention this.  I'm surprised I didn't in my first post.  I've read a lot about twin flames. This is a deeper connection that soul mates. We have many soul mates but only ONE twin flame!  

I'm in search of mine.  Wish me luck.  Many lives can be had before finding and connecting.

Blissful

[Lighthouse]

So,

Is the Twin Flame the same as the Anam Cara experience described above?

Kerri

[Avalon]

According to what I've read, twin flames were one in the beginning and were split (to form 2 souls).  In their reuniting, they are able to transcend normal human relationships.  

It is much like a anam cara.  There are so many different takes on what a soul mate is and is not, it comes down to what it is you choose to believe (isn't everything?).

For an extremely complicated (and much of it is over my head  explanation, go here... http://www.excelexgold.com/about_twin_flames/about_twin_flames_maintext.htm

[Lighthouse]

I just wanted to post the title of that book I quoted here, The Ecstatic Journey: Walking the Mystical Path in Everyday Life by Sophy Burnham.

Kerri

[Blissful]

quote:Originally posted by runlola

I've been told that for a relationship to really be fulfilling & lasting it has to be compatible on 5 different levels.

Physical
Mental
Creative
Spiritual
Emotional

The closer to 100% on each level makes the best relationship even though it is possible to get by on being 85-100% on only 2 levels. Unfortunately, I have yet to find someone that I am compatible with on more than three levels.  

Wow.. when you look at this list, I realize I've only dated men who have had one thing on that list.  How unbalanced (and it explains a lot as to why those relatioships all died out too).

Thanks for sharing

Blissful

[Lighthouse]

Is there a test you can take to know where you stand and what you should be looking for?  I was chatting with someone today who I think did one of these tests... He was in the 90% group with one very popular actress... I don't know what test it was though.

Kerri

[atalanta]

My two cents...

I think that spirit is drawn to the physical and the physical is drawn to the spirit.  I am reminded of statements like, "and the Word became flesh"  and something about being created in the image of the Creator.  I think that the physical world allows us to experience things in a more solid way, it allows as to form and confirm our thoughts and identity, to make our souls more whole or real.  I am reminded also of how we sometimes meet someone who appears to be an old soul.  They are people whom in we recognise the experiences of many life-times.  I think of saints and people like Ghandi, Jesus, Mohammad, etc, in those terms.  They are souls who have lived several life-times, experienced much and each time gave more depth, more meaning, more realness to their soul.  John Edwards sometimes when reading people will say that he knows the soul coming through is a child because they don't come with a lot of life-force/experience with them.  So living on the physical plane adds to us.

When we are on the physical plane, however, we are aware of the spirit plane, well, those of us who can still remember some of it.  We yearn for it but still have things to accomplish here, so we stay.  However, we become attracted to all things spiritual.  We search for people who remind us of all things spiritual.  However, we are not making that search in a spiritual world we are making it in a physical world.  This means that in order to connect with other spirits on this plane we do so by physical closeness.  This may mean just having friendly chats or it can mean sexual closeness.

Okay, the last point here however is this.  Human beings are all primed and ready to go sexually.  Our sexual bodies don't care whether it is with a male or female or object, etc.  Our minds do but our bodies don't.  Therefore, every contact with another person is going to exert a sexual component.  The difference is the mind.  We choose not to interact with someone who is not appropriate for us, no matter how much our souls are attracted to them.

I have had that experience with three males in my life.  Each of them very spiritual, the first a poet, the second a priest and the third an academic who would have denied being a spiritual person since he bordered on being an atheist.  I recognised their spiritual connection to me but for various reasons we were not about to have a physical relationship.  I don't hear from them anymore but I know they are out there doing their thing and I am doing mine and we will eventually meet up somewhere.

I think in Buddhism they talk of a final reincarnation, please correct me if you know.  I think the idea is that we go in these cycles until we become enlightened at which point we stop coming back.  I think that enlightenment then is when we become so fluid in the spiritual and physical world that we move through each easily and conscious, in the same way that two separate ingredients come together to develop a new thing/identity.

My brain hurts.[]  It was more than two cents, I think.

[Lighthouse]

I just read something in a book that suggested that you can be physically attracted to someone and not share a spiritual connection but you can not share a spiritual connection with someone without being physically drawn to them too.

I think this rings true for me... Even extending into my same sex relationships. If I share a spiritual connection with a woman, we often become "soul sisters" as I like to call them... meaning that we mutually support one another spiritually and are like family I would even say that I would rather be in the physical presence of  my spiritual family than my biological family.  It feels more like home to me.

Does anyone have any input on this?  Have you ever been spiritually attracted to someone without a physical attraction of some sort?  Is it possible?

Kerri