Roger Woolger

Roger Woolger was the second author authority on past lives and past life therapy that I discovered. His book Other Lives, Other Selves came along in my life at a perfect time (in 1983) as I was spiritually very hungry, had a lot of time on my hand, and was still too immature and ignorant to comprehend/understand Carl Jung. As a matter of fact, Other Lives, Other Selves was quite possibly my introduction into the world of Jungian thought as I remember how Roger was quite open about discussing the possibility that 'past life information' was quite possibly information that was accessed and available to us through a collective consciousness rather than as independent stories available exclusively to the individuals who experienced them.
     Recent excursions into Roger's world have lead me into two particularly fine thought-provoking ideas. One comes from a video that Roger made very near to the end of his life with regards to whether or not he believed that past lives were truly a phenomenon exclusive to individual 'souls,' that is, whether or not the individual soul exists. His explanation used an anecdote from Tibetan Buddhist monk Chunguyu Rinphche. When asked during a public Q & A how Tibetan Buddhists could adhere to a doctrine or belief in reincarnation and bardo when they do not believe in the concept or existence of "souls" the monk responded that they believed that the information that lives on, that seeks new vessels for life experience, are "our neuroses" that is, the stuck, unfinished, untransmuted energies of our lives. Were we to process and transform all of our energy into perfect, unfettered flow, we would be done: we would be ego-less and our energy would be free to flow into and dissipate within as it merges with the Unified Field of the great Universal Life Force.
     The second bit of Roger wisdom/insight that causes me food for thought has to do with Roger's look at the viability of any and all information accessible through the physical bodymind's link to memory or fantasy as equally relevant and helpful in processing and clearing stuck energy. I liken this to Neils Bohr's and Albert Einstein's valuation of imagination as a key element of creativity, creation, and a fuller human life. Thus, aspects of the human experience such as childhood, memory, imagination, fantasy, story, dream, intuition, artistic manifestation, even thought patterns can offer insights into oneself that can help one see oneself and his/her patterns--especially his/her stuck places and their origins. Creative expression (which, one could argue, encapsulates all human expression) is a means to both calcification and eradication of our patterns. Though it is always our choice whether or not we want to "like" or "dislike" our own patterns, assessment and expression would seem to give us the means to change (a process that some might call "grow").

Everything Is Metaphor: The Soul and the Soul Plan

The entity that we in the West have become comfortable referring to as the "soul" is rather nebulous in its definition and coverage. For the purposes of the information I am trying to disseminate, the soul is given a separate assignment than that of the spiritual entity existent in the contextual field that sits "behind" (or in-between or within) the "reality" we call the Earth-based human experience. This entity of individual identity existent in the Spirit worlds we choose to call the "Monad" for the sake of honoring its presence as evidence of the voluntarily individuated aspect of the Universal Mind (God) that has made the sacrifice of entering the contextual fields (games) associated with "Creation." (This process of individuation is considered a sacrifice for two main reasons. One is the of allowing one to undergo the sheathing of the veils of Ignorance when one commits to playing within the rules and laws of the Illusions--especially the Illusion of Separation [i.e. separation from God--a feat and fact that is and can never be true]. The other is the sacrifice of "making sacred" all that is undergoing the perspective shift from that of Universal Oneness to those of separation and independence.) While the thought of the "soul" as a field or force of energy or consciousness that commits to and embodies (or animates or ensouls) a human being is not far off, we like to use the term "Causal Body" to give this intermediary repository of information (the house of "The Plan" of hopes and goals that the Monad and its team of other collaborating Monads have come up with for the newly incarnating vehicle of Earthly interaction). The Causal Body is the filtration point between the Ego and the Monad, the site/vehicle through which all information is passed in a two-way channel, while also existing as the constant reminder of the Plan that your Monad had created for you for this human incarnation.

I mentioned the constant and nurturing "reminder-beacon" pulsing from the Causal Body into the Ego/bodymind and cellular and even subatomic components of your host human's bioenergy field, but did not mention the fact that the din of the every day, every moment dross of "chattering" information bombarding the Ego can drown out the gentle hum of the Plan's reminder. And yet, in those quiet moments, in the sleep, meditative, and/or daydream events and experiences that might somehow sneak by the din of choatic noise, the ever-present and ever-pulsing beacon has the chance to be detected, to spike some curiosity, to perhaps even be heard. This is the beacon's purpose: to always be there to remind the busy and self-obsessed Ego that there was a Higher Purpose programmed into the being--into the contractual commitment your Monad made when it invested a chunk of its energy into your human existence. Many humans fail to ever realize any of the Monad's goals it had predetermined before your birth; some Monads get to experience the address and realization of several of the hopes or goals registered in The Plan. One of the problems the current community of Monads using the Earth School for its experiential learning and "testing" lies in the deep and complex levels and variables of interactive and cumulative emotional, mental, and physical "muck" one can get mired into in the current Homo sapiens sapiens model of the human hosts made available for use. The devices of delusion and deprivation are so deep, and so thick and complex, that the majority of current users (the eight billion Monads currently invested in the Earth School experience) are either too overwhelmed or just plain ill-equipped to be able to recognize any spiritual presence much less spiritual perspective from within the tools available to their human host. Addiction, war and depravity, hierarchy, religious, nationalistic, and technological indoctrination, environmental causes of disease and congenital syndromes and issues, the mental and psychological stresses of having to deal with the latest traps and convections presented by the Illusions of Need, Separation (Disunity), Failure, Insufficiency, Requirement, Condemnation, Conditionality, Superiority, and Ignorance. 

Everything Is Metaphor: The Mental Body

Most humans reading this will have trouble untangling a Mental Body from an emotional one as we are pretty well conditioned to lump the two together in the category we call "psychology." However, there is an intellectual domain in which thoughts, beliefs, values, and systems of these are created and destroyed, replaced over time by way of incoming information that, when processed, becomes more favored or favorable to the individual's current perception and interpretation of their circumstances. This intellectual domain is part of what can be called the "Mental Body" and, when looked at from the higher, more spiritually-reflective aspects of the individual, the "Manasic Body" (or "sheath"). All thoughts, dreams, imaginings, logical conclusions, and not-so-logical meanderings of the individual mind take place through the filters of the Mental Body, Causal Body, and Manasic Body. Any and every thought, belief, value, memory, or imagining is the reflection of something your Monad has either planned for your Earth-based human experience (in order to experience growth toward, and expansion of, Spiritual Self-Awareness) or has attracted to you (both consciously and unconsciously) in order to prompt or provoke heightened vigilance in order to lead you toward more opportunities for reflection and, (hopefully), expanded consciousness. When one does not give the appropriate attention and deep reflection to events, thoughts, dreams, and coincidences that keep occurring and recurring in your life, then the Causal Body will trigger a less-than-healthy response: a "spilling over" of the unattended issue into the emotional and/or physical aspects of being a human being. These are the occasions in which one will eventually have to pay attention to the issue(s) or else suffer discord, pain, disease, and, possibly, death (of the host physical body).
     The aspect of the above revelation that involves giving attention (and credit) to dreams and imagination (symbolism and creativity) as well as likes and dislikes, may seem far-fetched or hokey to the properly conditioned (brainwashed), socialized, and indoctrinated human, but this more holistic perspective of the human experience takes into account information that occupies, for some, somewhere between 10 and 40 percent of one's conscious awareness. There are whole approaches to psychology and medicine that involve giving very serious attention to these matters: approaches that have been far more prevalent and rehearsed for far longer than our own sciences of "psychology" and allopathic medicine. In fact, there are cultures and even sciences that spend far more time paying attention to, sharing, and discussing dreams, imaginings, symbolism, and (changing) individual preferences than our own mainstream society. Noted Swiss psychologist Carl Jung spent a lifetime collecting and practicing the treatment of the human psyche through interpretation (and repeated revisitation for further (re-)interpretation) of significant, often repetitive, highly- (emotionally)-charged events, visions, and dreams.
     The practice of shamanism was developed, used, and valued as an important health tool in almost all societies over the past 20,000 years. Even art, oral tradition of storytelling, "history" (and mythology and its politicized offspring, religion), and sophisticated systems of astronomy and astrology were developed and used for applications of individual and group "health and healing." All of these numinous human creations find their strength and regulation through the mental bodies of the human form. Every thought, idea, interpretation, belief, value, dream, vision, and preference has its role as a reflection of (a metaphor for) an area or issue whose attention would serve you in your task of trying to unveil the layers of Ignorance that you have immersed yourselves into (through culture, society, family, media, and Ego construction) in order to have some chance at "returning" to Spiritual awareness, Self-awareness, Self-actualization, and even Self-Realization (which would be the reunification of Ego perspective with that of Spiritual or Monadic perspective--though true and ultimate Self-Realization would entail full and ever-lasting reunion with the Oneness consciousness of The All, the Great Cosmic Creator).

Everything Is Metaphor: The Ego/Personality

The Ego is the perspective that identifies with the human bodymind. So long as we remain convinced first and foremost that our surroundings, body, senses, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs are "real" and are what define us, then we are under the dominant leadership of the Ego. With gradual and increasing awareness of (and identification with) our non-human qualities, we begin to loosen the grip of control that Ego likes to have over our world- and self-definitions.

     The Personality is the artificial, temporary, and constantly-morphing (and often multi-dimensional and selectively interchangeable) construct of that which we present to the world (and to ourselves). The Ego and its personae and personalities represent tools we can--and do--use for the negotiation of our way throughout the matrix of the four-dimensional Earth School environment.

     The Ego is available as a survival tool so long as we believe that the Earth and the human bodymind that we are using to travel throughout the Earth School experience is "real": so long as we give our power (and trust) to the perceptions of our senses, feelings, and thoughts. But the Soul (or, more accurately, the Causal Body) is programmed to send a constantly pulsing beacon, or signal, to the Ego-driven bodymind, a signal whose purpose is to provide a constant and unwavering reminder that there is more: that there are other, different, more-expanded perspectives from which we can see, experience, and learn from our Earth-based human experience. Intuition, empathy, intellectual curiosity, dream, imagination, coincidence, inspiration, even preferences can offer us glimpses of these "bigger" awarenesses, these "alternate" perspectives. Intuition, empathy, curiosity, dreams, imagination, awareness of coincidences, unexpected inspirations and/or preferences are not the friends of the Ego and its stable of "reality"-dependent personalities. Intuition, empathy, curiosity, dreams, imagination, awareness of coincidences, unexpected inspirations and/or preferences are disruptors: provocateurs that cause the Ego to consider things outside its comfortable box of control. While the Ego is flexible and adaptive to new "expansive" information, it is not as comfortable with, or accommodating of, sudden and "large" disruptors--and definitely less so the longer it has been allowed to reign over the human bodymind with its own beliefs, values, and personalities. Once the Ego has been allowed to get set in its ways, it becomes very difficult to open its mind much less unseat it.

     In an interesting little aside: when the Ego/Personality is misaligned--or in outright conflict--with the Soul/Causal Body (Spirit's "Plan" and goals for our Earth School experience), there can result the phenomenon known as the "headache." Getting the Ego/Personality in line with one's spiritual objectives can effect the disappearance of the discomfort of the headache--even reverse the pattern created that causes the headaches. It is here important to remember that when a symptom of pain or discomfort reveals itself in the physical body, that is the Soul/Causal Bodies "last ditch" effort to gain the Ego's attention in order to (finally) deal with a disharmonizing or imbalancing issue or pattern within your core being. Giving the proper attention to resolve the issue (usually founded in some sort of immature or mistaken perception, (ignorance) or in a rather severe attachment to one [or several] of the Grand Illusions of Cosmic Creation) the physical, emotional, or mental "crisis" can be reversed. However, being a "last ditch" method to raise awareness and garner attention, the symptoms of dis-ease can make full functioning of the physical vehicle that we are using for our Earth-based experience rather uncomfortable, sometimes untenable (which may lead to the demise and eventual uninhabitability of the host vehicle).

Everything Is Metaphor: The Bioenergy Field

The bioenergy field is a term that we can use to name the concept of the organized contextual matrix that exists within and bears support to the rules and events of that which we can call "Creation" (i.e. "The Big Game"). Every thing, physical or otherwise, has a bioenergy field--including subatomic particles, dark matter and dark energy, light, gravity, time, thought, and images, and even dreams and delusions, "real" or imagination. If we can conceptualize it, then, yes, it has it's own bioenergy field. And, yes: every bioenergy field has its own existence and identity--as well as being, in and of itself, its own life form.

      In Earth-based human beings, there is a very complex, very fluid and constantly moving (flowing) and infinitely layered and populated bioenergy field. Each human being has its own self-defining field, made up of an infinite number of other individual bioenergy fields such as thoughts, feelings, photons, subatomic "particles," atoms, molecules, cells, organs, and systems. All of these work together in some modicum of harmony under the governance of Earth School rules and laws as well as your own overseeing governing principle, the Soul, Causal Body, or "Plan."

     When looking at our selves and our sophisticated bioenergy field (and the myriad fields and systems active within that unified self-identifying field) we can break down our perspective into sub-fields: like the physical, emotional, mental, personality, soul, and spiritual bodies (or "sheaths"). It is, however, always important (and helpful) to try to remain conscious of the inseparable interdependence of each and every bioenergy field within our own "master" field. It is also helpful to be able to remain cognizant of the interdependence of all bioenergy fields: other humans, other life forms on and in the Earth, the life form that is the Earth and all of the celestial bodies, as well as the underlying matrix of light and energy beings that "power" and form this illusion of "Cosmic Creation" (our "reality").

     In terms of the form of the bioenergy field, it does present in a "map" or "anatomy" similar to (or familiar to us like) that of an electromagnetic field--with organized axial lei lines for its flow patterns. In an interesting aside, what we would call "perfect health" would present itself in the form of a chart or "video" of the bioenergy field with a symmetric and even flow of energy (electron movement), whereas dis-ease and/or disharmonious states of health would find us seeing patterns that look like "wind" patterns on a meteorological map: high and low pressure centers in the bioenergy field representing the human bodymind's pain and or disease centers. You dig?

     Since no entity existing in the plane of Creation is in perfect harmony (either with itself or within its surroundings), the disharmonious "weather map" of the bioenergy field is something that gives each individual his own separate and unique identity. The achievement of perfect harmony would constitute a perfect unity with all things and a loss of separate identity (i.e., a return to Oneness Consciousness) and, therefore, a given option to discontinue voluntary one's participation in the illusory realms created by and for the exploration of the Grand Illusions of Need, Separation (Disunity), Failure, Insufficiency, Requirement, Condemnation, Conditionality, Superiority, and Ignorance.  

Everything Is Metaphor: The Physical Body

The physical body of this Earth-bound "human" perspective that you are currently using was created for you in order for You to participate in the game we English-speaking humans can call "21st Century Earth-based Human." The physical body is no more real than the game we are playing and should be treated with exactly the same amount of attention and care that you desire to invest in playing the game. When you get bored, depressed, feeling frustrated or defeated, you might give your physical body less care and attention than is required to "play" the game with the full-realization of your character/vehicle's potentialities. I understand this for, after all, it's just a game and it's just a body: an illusory fabrication of our intelligent and very active imagination. What you may have forgotten is that it is You who signed up to play this game--and when You did sign up, You and a team of friends and confidantes put in a lot of work into the planning of what you'd like to see yourself accomplish in this round of the game. Yes, there are many, many other games--or versions of this same game--that You could have chosen, but You didn't; You chose this game, and this is the vehicle you're stuck with due to the laws of human biology and mammalian genetics that You bought into (when You signed up for this game--and committed by allowing Your Self to be invested and ensouled in your current bodymind). But remember: this physical body is also a metaphor: the information it delivers to your mammalian brain--that your human Ego processes and interprets--is meant to deliver messages in metaphor: Whatever you experience sensually, or perceptually through your human senses, is offering you information about the learning opportunities that are currently available to you. You have managed to maneuver this human vehicle through life to this point while paying attention to some informational cues and ignoring others while they all have something to offer you in terms of provoking and taking advantage of the learning and growth opportunities You came to Earth to try to take advantage of.

The metaphorical relationships between physical symptoms or conditions can be connected to generalized symptoms of conditions of spiritual distress. For example:

- A headache is often an indication of "head-to-head" conflict or misalignment between the human Ego and the Spiritual Plan (the Causal Body). If the headache has a muscular component or etiology, it is likely to be a reflection of something, some person, or some issue in you life that is irritating, what we call a "pain in the neck" if a neck pain issue or "something hard to chew" if it's a temporal-mandibular joint issue. 

- Cancer of the liver means some very serious and important issue of unprocessed and, therefore, festering anger has been left unaddressed for such a long time that your body is demanding your attention, the consequence of inaction being termination of the contract of use for the current vehicle of Earth-based human experience (death).

- A broken bone is the delivery mechanism of the message that you need to slow down, take a break from current patterns and behaviors, in order to reconsider your approaches to life and living through a human bodymind.

- A birth defect or congenital deformity or genetic is the expression of the need to reflect and make corrective action with regards to patterns carried on within the family bloodline, such as arrogance/lack of appropriate gratitude and humility. 

- A cold is your body's way of telling you to slow down, take a temporary break from normal activities in order to rethink and/or reestablish healthy(-ier) patterns for breathing, human interaction, and/or self care.

- An intestinal flu is an example of your body reflecting your being's need for complete shut down from normal activity in order to process, purge, and/or cleanse some toxic thinking or behavior patterns.

- MS (multiple sclerosis) is a resultant consequence of longterm patterns of overly-rigid, controlling beliefs, thought and behavior patterns: the loss of control of normal bodily functions is intended to teach humility and "letting go" of abnormal conflagration of control issues (control of both self and others and/or the external environment).

- Left-side issues are sending the signal that you are out of balance (weak) in terms of taking care of your self in lieu of taking care of others whereas right-sided issues , front-facial issues connote an obsession with the future; back-side issues indicate inappropriate connection and/or obsession with issues in the past.

Etc., etc. Each and every malady, disease, even the tiniest ache or most fleeting pain, offers our conscious brain and unconscious mind an opportunity to reconnect, that is, to check in and pay attention to very specific issues that our Higher Consciousness wants us to attend to. The bigger the issue, the more serious the need; the more life-threatening the issue, the more essential the need for change and correction.

     The more disabling the physical issues, the more serious the need to stop and figure out what lesson we're avoiding paying attention to. This latter part of the statement is the core essence of the way in which the physical body serves the Monad during the Earth-based human excursion: as a means to remind the human that there are non-physical issues that are being ignored or inappropriately dealt with--which is detrimental to the health of the human vehicle. As my teacher used to say: If you aren't dealing with your spiritual or psychological issues with appropriate seriousness, your body will let you know. The body is the Soul's last ditch alarm for forcing you to address--even in some small way--deeper, more long-lasting issues of the psyche or spirit. If the issues are not appropriately dealt with and resolved, the body (and mind) will continue to exhibit symptoms to force you to slow down and "take care of your self."

Everything Is Metaphor: The World "Inside" You

The mind is an active thing. In fact, the mind's activity can feel overwhelming. Or not. The important thing for you to try to remember is that the mind is just a tool for the processing of information and that information exists only for our entertainment and that, as entertainment, we have the choice, in each and every moment, to choose how to perceive (and value) our entertainment (how deeply engaged we wish to be). We also have the freedom and ability to choose whether or not we wish to continue to follow or pursue this particular form of entertainment. Like a television, we have the ability (and choice) to change the channel and choose a different stream of entertainment; like a computer, we can close a window and choose another "rabbit hole" to entertain us. Or we can turn off the medium of entertainment altogether: just get up and walk away, turn off, even throw away the medium of entertainment. Or not! The choice is yours and, ultimately, yours alone. Just try to remember: it is You who ordered the form of entertainment dominating your mind; there are (and were) reasons that caused your Higher Self to enlist the variable settings of the game your Monad and It's team of helpers and collaborators, teachers and guides, chose for you to participate in as the "you" that you currently perceive yourself to be. That active mind "inside" you that feels so full and, at times, overwhelming, is actually performing exactly the task it was intended to perform when you signed up for this Earth-based human incarnation: it is trying to distract you from the goals and objectives that You and Your Team set in motion before you took your first breath as the you that you seem convinced that you are. You may be conscious enough to know that nobody outside you sees or knows the real you--that no one could possibly understand who you are and what you are thinking--but then it only takes a certain shift in perspective--a couple of "steps back"--to realize that that you have allowed yourself to be deceived: to remember that at our most elemental state, we are all the same: we are all exactly the same: we are all sourced in (and tethered to) the same Infinite Pond of pre- (and post-) Cosmic "stuff." All the human stuff is just illusion: rules and constructs imagined into being purely for the sake of playing this voluntary game of "21st Century Earth-based Human."