Isn’t love great? Somewhere out there waits your perfect soulmate for you. Right? Wrong! If there is one idea in the spiritual scene that drives me nuts it’s the illusion of the soulmate, because it’s so wonderful egoistic and blatant unspiritual …

The very idea of the soul mate is so very appealing: the great cosmos has just the perfect match for you in store. You now longer need to surf russianbrides.com or draw angel cards in the morning to find him or her.

What is your soul mate supposed to be? First of all, this person connects to you on an extremely deep level - yay - it’s not just the usual shared interests and screwing all day - this time it’s spiritual!

I just wonder what a connection on ’soul level’ really means? Total understanding? That would rather imply you are clones of each other, not very exciting. And why is total understanding so important that makes it such a top priority to most people within relationships?

It’s one of the main mental fixations of stressed modern individualists that hardly anyone understands them. Why does nobody understand you - simple in most cases: people hardly communicate and care for each other anymore. To know a person well and participate in their lives takes a serious amount of time and dedication. Sending an eCard from work and met once in while to have a latte together hardly counts as ‘involved’.

In an era, where many people suffer from loneliness, depressions (harhar) and single lifestyle - nobody wants to embarrass themselves or their friends by being ‘emotional’, ‘high maintenance’ or ‘too serious’. It’s the age of easy friendships, fun and laughter … join the party and don’t you dare to come depressed. Join the fucking prozac nation of happiness.

So a ‘good understanding’ of another person can be achieved with some work and time - you don’t need a soulmate for that one. To connect to other people is a simple set of social skills, not a big spiritual task.

Back to the ‘connecting at soul level’ - another illusion about the soulmate is the reincarnation myth. Would it be great walk the path to nirvana with friends, lovers and family from former lifetimes?

I personally believe in reincarnation, but that’s as much thought I give about the whole thing. Why? It doesn’t matter that we already lived once or a hundred times. I am living now! I must take responsibility about people and actions I do in this lifetime. Spending to much time thinking about reincarnation is like trying to insure yourself against life …

People love the whole karma thing, because it’s an easy way to score points for being a good person! The concept of good and bad karma is very ‘logical’ and appealing for spiritual types (like saving points in your local supermarket - but only for the next life). But it confuses most of them. It transforms them into karma nazis: ‘Oh look at this crippled guy over there, he must had have bad karma in his last life, that’s why he is so disfigured in this life.’

Why do people love the idea of karmic relationships - lasting several life spans? It’s a nice romantic idea: life lasts only once, love forever. This idea seems to appeal especially to women or men who like to cling to their partners. ‘Hey, I will be stuck on you for several reincarnations - how do you like that?’ Yuck!

Since nobody can proof we really incarnate, there is also no proof our souls come back as the same or similar package. And this is a stupid idea anyway. The whole idea of the karma cycle is that you try improve yourself and come back as a more evolved soul (depending what you did last time and what you have to learn on your next tour). Some traditions say that our soul lives start as insects or other less aware life forms. We hopefully graduate with each experience on this earth to finally exit to nirvana anyway.

What would be the point of reincarnation, if the same old boring you would come back like a television rerun? This would be like Groundhog day, repeating yourself with the same people and mistakes until you ‘get it’? Nah …

Most boring of all: why would you spent your next lifetime with the very same souls you already met last time? If this cosmos stand for one thing it’s diversity and complexity - there are billions of different stars, alone on this planet we have millions of species and again billions of life forms walking this earth. I bet my life that the spiritual cosmos is at least as complex, colorful and chaotic as the real one (if a separation exists at all!).

And in this universe nothing gets lost nor wasted. My guess: like matter gets reused to build stars, dogs and biscuits - spiritual energy won’t get lost, but recreated into a new soul.

Let’s get to the most egoistic part of the soulmate thing: that there is an exclusive partner in the universe just for you to love and live with. What an ego centric view of spirituality. First of all we are ALL soulmates! It’s the very idea of almost all religions and spiritual traditions is that we all have a soul and are equally created before God(s).

Another very basic spiritual idea that speaks against the exclusive soulmate is the concept of universal love. An enlightened being should be able to love everyone and everything the same way. An exclusive soulmates does ‘not compute’ within the equation of universal love.

And speaking of love or rather lovemaking we come to the last, but deepest illusion about the soulmate. Screwing your soulmate is supposed to catapult you to a higher state of consciousness - the perfect cosmic fuck guarantees the perfect cosmic bliss. Heaven on earth. The ultimate union between two people, surfing the spiritual energy wave. Enlightenment by super pussy and long dong lingam.

I certainly subscribe to this very idea, since I have done tantra and still adore many of it’s ideas.  But the ultimate orgasm is not the end nor the means to enlightenment. It’s a great moment, you relax, you are happy, you are loved and love. But does it really make you a better person?

But using a soulmate as a substitute for your own happiness or enlightenment is a feeble excuse: ‘When I’ve found my soulmate everything will be fine.’ Nah, spiritual work is your own lonely duty.

Once again the idea of the soulmate is just used by the ego to promise itself a better life … another illusion to get rid off to come closer to this state of existence.

Soulmates? They are all around you. Don’t try to screw them all, start by with accepting them in their crazy variety and with all their sins. Most of all: start loving yourself in an universal way and share that feel to everyone and everything …

*repost 2003-10-05*