The Smaller Part of Me

I had an insight when I was reading the textbook for my next class, Spirit Releasement Therapy, by William J. Baldwin. I was reading a section that talked about how a soul prepares for it’s next life. If you heard anything about reincarnation, you’ve probably heard that souls actually design their next life. Some people are uncomfortable with that idea: Why would anyone create a life of suffering? I don't pretend to have all the answers, but consider: How would Mother Teresa have become a saint if there were no suffering? And there's the simple fact that things don't always go as planned. With hundreds of lives intersecting on a daily basis, it should surprise no one that a certain amount of chaos throws things off track, from time to time.

The preparation of each life can be a very elaborate affair. In a way, I bet it has a lot in common with designing a video game: There's an initial world to design, then the characters, with their strengths and weaknesses, and then the plot, full of twists and turns, and branches where each choice take you down different path. Some people say that you work with a coach, and perhaps a small group, to develop a proposed plan, which you then present it to a board or counsel for approval. Approval isn't easy. There can be a lot of back-and-forth, if they think you are taking on too much, or not enough, or for any number of other reasons. You also need to recruit people to populate your life and play the major roles. Yup, you need to "cast" all the important players in your life in a way the serves their goals as well as your own. I bet you never considered that those people you can't get along with actually volunteered for that position, and are acting as you requested them to. As you might imagine, designing a life is not a trivial affair.

I have read about all this before, but this time I saw it in a new light, and this new light is a bit uncomfortable. It hit me that the "between life me" is probably a much wiser, more expansive, more spiritually aware and masterful, version of me than the version that's writing this. By comparison, my current personality is probably more like a splinter, a sub-personality created for the purpose of experiencing the life that the greater "me" designed.

I don't know about you, but that makes me feel a bit, I don't know, diminished? I have just gotten used to the idea that I'm a much larger being than I am currently aware of, and that I expect my awareness to expand over time, and over death. But it kind of just hit me that everything I am now, everything I have, that all the growth I have achieved, is just a small portion of "me." That somewhere, off in another dimension or plane of existence, there is a much wiser, a much more enlightened and greater part of me, that is waiting for this me to complete my education and return with the latest set of lessons to be added to the whole.

I keep seeing this greater, wiser, me creating this life full of turmoil and … challenges … and then giving "splinter" me the job of actually living it. I get to take this mess and make it work Ug! I suppose that if it was too easy, there would be no point. And I also get that personal growth has nothing to do with the accumulation of facts and skills, but the uncovering and acceptance of the wisdom that can only be acquired through experiences that test your very soul. While I may be the smallest part of me, I contain the essential awareness and values necessary to meet the challenges I have set for myself. That doesn't mean I can't fail, but that it's within my power to succeed, brilliantly.