Old Souls, Advanced Studies
I ran across a blog post about old souls and I started thinking about the terms used. I’ve also read other things about the ideas of old souls and young souls and here is what I interpreted the terms to mean. All of us are here to learn lessons and to advance and grow on a spiritual level, just as we do in our physical activities. With differences between each of us, some have had more experience and could seemed more advanced than other people.
One way to refer to this is by old souls, those who have more experience in spiritual growth where younger souls are those with less experience. Each soul is equal in opportunity and potential with some souls having pursued more testing than other souls. However, there is an implication that perhaps one is better than the other along with implications on how an old soul would act when compared to a young soul. Myself, I can see ways to expand these definitions and perhaps use different terms to describe our growth.
Perhaps a better model of describing the differences in spiritual growth is to look at a teacher student model. In this case, students could be beginners, advanced or expert in various areas. Or perhaps the terms apprentice, journeyman and master could be used, similar to terms used to describe people learning crafts. As part of the life here, each soul is taking a course in some area and is proceeding through various tests that will help them learn lessons. The lesson plan is varied and can include topics like helping others, empathy with others, humility and confidence in oneself. Other lessons could be enjoying the physical, being comfortable with prosperity and learning how to deal with success in physical environments.
These are just some of the many, many lessons each and very person could have setup as options in their life. Throughout each soul would always have a choice to learn that lesson or to move on to another, all of that depending on where they are in their lesson plan and growth. In looking over this lesson plan it can be easy to think that the more advanced souls would have prosperous lives here, with little conflict. When comparing to other lives, it might be easy to think “I’m doing so much better, I must be doing things right and learning exactly what I need when I need to.”
In my opinion, I think this misses the point. Think about subjects that you have learned the most about and which have had the most impact. Were they lessons where you didn’t have to work at the subject and were able to come up with answers at the drop of a hat? Or do you remember more the lessons where you struggled, had troubles and finally overcame and mastered the lesson? For me, it’s the lessons where I’ve struggled, wondered if I would get the concept and finally made a breakthrough, those are the lessons that strike a tone with me. I remember the other type of lessons but they don’t have the same power I get when I overcome something rather than just gathering up the learning. By using this perspective looking at other people changes how we might view beginning and advanced students. That person who is doing really well and seems to be prosperous? Maybe they are more of a beginner who didn’t feel they wanted to take on too much in this life. What about that person who’s entire life seems to be a disaster waiting to happen? Perhaps this is a more advanced soul who decided they wanted to cram for this life and so they are packing in as many challenges as they can in order to get an accelerated path.
Of course the person who is prosperous and doing well could also be an advanced student who is taking a break in this life or wants to have the opportunity to share. And person with a troubled life is a beginner who took on a bit too much and is struggling because of it. I do think one thing, that if you think you are an advanced or old soul, you probably aren’t. Once you gather up knowledge and understand how much you don’t know and how much there is to learn, I suspect you would find it hard to believe you’ve achieved full master status. We aren’t all above average and not everyone is an ascended master who has deigned to wander about with us mere mortals. It’s okay to be an average soul doing your best to learn and grow in this life. We all are part of the white and walk in the light. And sometimes our purpose here is to help others learn their lessons by causing difficult situations, generating chaos and other negative activities. In this case, who is doing more, the soul that is learning the lesson or the soul who has offered to be the lesson and perhaps slow down their progress?
