| Soul Mates By Donald Michael Kraig There have been numerous articles and books about the idea of soul mates. Most of them focus on the idea that two people can have so much in common or be so much alike that they are meant to be together. This, of course, could mean that each person could have many soul mates. Perhaps instead of trying to pick up somebody at a bar by saying, What's your sign, people will start saying, I think you're my soul mate. It is true that there are some people whom we just feel that we know from the first time we meet them. Sometimes there are others who we feel totally comfortable with and feel at peace when they are around us. This, however, is not a sign of a soul mate. I compare this to the idea of harmonious vibrations. Sounds which are harmonious (that is, they vibrate at certain numerical relationships to each other and are pleasant to our ears) complement each other and can actually amplify each other. With people, I believe that this can relate to the vibratory rate of the energy commonly known as the aura. If my aura vibrates in harmony with yours, I feel comfortable with you. If there is disharmony between our auras then I feel uncomfortable with you and may actually feel dislike, even though I've never met you. This resonance of the auras would explain the phenomenon of instantly liking or disliking a person even though you had never met the person before. The kabalistic notion of a soul mate goes much further than simply having harmonious auras or deeply liking one another. But before I get on to that, I have to describe a popular fallacy. Opposites attract, likes repel. This is a common expression. It is also totally false. Many people would argue, Wait a moment, the South Pole of a magnet attracts the North Pole of another magnet and repels the other magnet's South Pole. Likes repel and opposites attract. But let's look deeper at this. In both instances, we are talking about the same kind of force: magnetic energy. The magnet is both attracting and repelling the same kind of energy. A deeper answer lies in the mystical Tao. The most famous symbol of the Tao is the sign of the Yin and the Yang (technically known as the Pa-Kua.) It looks like this: Note that the symbol smoothly blends in gentle curves from light to dark, Yin to Yang. Note, too, that within the dark side is a dot of light while in the light side is a dot of dark. There are many ideas expressed by this simple figure. There is no Yin without Yang, no Yang without Yin. Where there is much Yang there is little Yin. Where there is much Yin there is little Yang. But always, there is a balance between the two. Yin and Yang are not opposites, rather, there are incomplete manifestation of the ultimate unity, the Tao. Alone, they are incomplete. Together they bring balance and totality. They appear to be opposites, but they are only two sides of one coin. In a physical world the coin cannot exist without both sides. The energy is the same, but, for lack of a better expression, it seeks fulfillment! Without its other side it is incomplete, not whole. It needs and seeks its completion. (Yes, I know energy cannot need or seek. It's just a metaphor.) According to the kabalah, souls are created before bodies and are waiting to incarnate. Incarnation, the joining of the soul and the body, according to Torah occurs at the intaking of the first breath, although some Talmudists believe it occurs at conception. However, before incarnation, the soul splits into two pieces, each piece called a spark. Each spark incarnates in a body. This is where problems occur. One spark may inhabit a body that never meets its other half. Or one spark may incarnate 40 years before the other. The bottom line is that it is quite possible that you may never meet, in this lifetime, the other half of your soul, your soul mate. Or conditions of age or sexual orientation may prevent you from becoming partners. In other words, you may never meet your soul mate, or if you do, becoming mates may be impossible. Is it any wonder that so many people feel an emptiness inside that nothing seems to fill? Half of our essence is missing! The kabalah, like Judaism and Neopaganism, holds that we are responsible for our own actions. There cannot be a vicarious atonement, as in Christianity, where another can suffer and be punished (or rewarded) for your actions. It is here that we can find a way to eventually be united with our other half, our soul mate. In Hebrew there is a word, mitzvah. It means both commandment and blessing. The idea is that if we work hard to live a good life and help others (that is, if we commit many mitzvoht (plural of mitzvah)), one of our rewards (i.e., good karma!) is that we will meet with our soul mate (in this life or in one of our future lives). But there are still problems. If our soul mate has not performed enough mitzvoht, they might not be ready to recognize us as their soul mate. Since we want to unite with our soul mate (both to fill the emptiness and for another reason I will mention later) the obvious message is: do good works. But simply helping others isn't enough. Kabalists also believe that you will need to be aware that your soul mate is the spark that can unite with you and make you both a whole. Merely living a good life cannot give us this. In order to realize that you have met your soul mate, you must also be psychically aware and attuned to others and yourself so that you can identify that person as your other half. This comes from mystical work, including meditation, contemplation and ritual. At this point you may be wondering, So what? Why go to all this trouble? The answer comes from the second reason mentioned above for wanting to join with your other half. This, too, takes a bit of explanation. When I first became involved in occultism over 20 years ago, there was an attitude among many people that the kabalah was very patriarchal. Many people have this attitude still. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth. All though kabalistic theory and literature is the idea of balance, including the balance of male and female, God and Goddess. The Goddess to the kabalistic God is known by many names, the most popular being the Scheh-chen-ah (the ch is pronounced with the guttural sound as in Loch Ness or the German ach). The most special time, the Sabbath, is when God and Goddess are united in intercourse. It is here that they reach the fullness of their powers. The closest we can be to the Divine comes through the imitation of the Divine. Therefore, one of the secrets of the kabalah is that the holiest we can be, the most godlike, is when we are having sex! And the best time to do this is on the Sabbath. As in many a mythos, the male and female deity of the kabalah are seen both as lovers and one deity. That is why seeking out and uniting with our soul mate can bring us into communion with the Divine. That is the second reason: we become goddesslike and godlike. We can easily achieve the state of consciousness known as enlightenment. Few, in each lifetime, achieve this. Kabalists believe that we should seek our soul mate, but it is also important that we should find a partner even if that partner is not our soul mate. In the kabalah, the deity wants us to be happy. Therefore, yes we should seek our soul mates. But until we find them, we should find a partner(s) who will help to fill the emptiness caused by the split into sparks at incarnation, if only a tiny bit.
I would like to thank the beautiful and gentle Aurielia for suggesting the topic of this article.
1995, Donald Michael Kraig | 
