In this article I will just touch on the organizational structure of this universe and then get into some of the more interesting aspects of soul age, including some of the craziness we humans bring to it, and the need for forgiveness.

Outside of space and time, all is one with no birthday, no aging, no maturing, just eternal awareness and exploration of all that is. On the other hand on this planet where we have space and time a whole different system exists that obviously includes birth, aging, and death. Here when we look around we can compare people’s ages and divide them into infants, toddlers, children, young adults, adults, and elders. In between the infinite and the very finite is an intermediate zone we could call the ordinal planes. 

The ordinal planes include the physical plane, the astral plane, and the causal plane. There are of course higher planes or exalted planes including the akasha, the mental plane, the messianic plane, and the Buddhaic plane. Each plane has seven levels. Another name for plane could be dimension. Altogether there are 49 dimensions, seven levels for each of seven planes. So far the math is quite simple.

Obviously here on earth we are in the physical plane that is divided into seven stages. The first stage is survival oriented, the second stage is rule oriented, the third stage is success oriented, the fourth stage is relationship oriented, the fifth stage is philosophically oriented, the sixth stage level is transcendentally oriented, and the seventh stage is infinitely oriented. Each of these stages have seven levels. So for example there are seven levels of survival oriented stage, each requiring approximately from one to ten lifetimes apiece to complete. As you can see the archetypal artificial divisions of the universe are by the number seven.

Here on the planet earth the divisions between levels and stages are quite obvious and easily seen through a person’s set of values, choices, perspective, and subsequent behavior. Even though there are many people in each of the five lower stages intermingling here on the planet, the reality is that they are in completely different worlds just as an infant is in a different world from an adolescent and an adolescent is in a different world from an adult. They rub shoulders with each other but they are not in the same world, not even remotely.

In between lifetimes there is total recall, no amnesia, and there is complete telepathy so everyone knows everything about everyone else. Souls retain their orientations sort of like actors who loosely keep their stage role while offstage for a few minutes. For example Kate Winslet knows she is Kate offstage but also is retaining the idea that she is Catherine or Mary or whatever role she is currently playing when she steps back on stage. After all she is still in costume.

So when we step off the planet at death we retain our consciousness and know who we are in relation to everyone else. We know that on this planet we are for example a fourth level success oriented soul and we are learning those lessons. So if we are ready then we prepare to go back into a new lifetime at say the fifth level. Everyone knows this good naturedly and there is no comparing of soul ages, no judgment, just complete unconditional acceptance like actors off stage knowing who the other actors are pretending to be and who they are in person. There is no problem whatsoever because they all know that ultimately they are all children of spirit and always were, always are, and always will be.

However the minute they step back on to the planet in another physical body they enter into a state of almost total amnesia. The false personality asserts itself and there is ruthless comparing, judging, criticizing, self-recriminations and all the rest of insanity.

When people ask in private sessions what soul age they are I always cringe a bit. I know we are entering into an insane terrain where people have a lot of attachment and investment in how old they think they are, even though in reality it is just a local game we are playing where age exists. Outside that game all is one and there is no age but people seem to forget all about that and are lost in the dream of comparison.  Fortunately the very youngest souls never even come in for sessions in the first place so that eliminates some of the problems. The biggest problem comes with relationship-oriented souls, AKA mature souls, adolescent-young adult souls. They are absolutely the most invested and the most distressed to hear that they are not on their last lifetime.

Now relationship oriented souls, who I shall call mature souls from now on, are approximately thirty five percent of the world population so that is a pretty big group of people. First, second, and third level mature souls are often religiously involved and are just getting their feet wet in the area of relationships so they are not always on the big search yet. They are the equivalent of thirteen to fifteen year olds. Fourth level mature souls are often very distressed people with severe emotional problems, schizophrenic, bipolar, borderline and a host of other rough situations to deal with. They are very insightful and interested people but are often too disturbed to be highly productive. Fifth, sixth, and seventh level mature souls are like seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen year olds, even early twenties. They can be hugely effective, wise, penetratingly insightful contributing individuals who may make a major contribution to the planet and to human kind. These people are often sure they are near the end of their lifetimes.

Little do they know there is a whole stage ahead of them, the philosophical stage where they little by little let go of their ambitions, their intensity, and surrender attachments right and left. In fact the late levels of the philosophical stage may be as a wanderer, a homeless person, someone in deep meditation, and so on. I hardly see these very old souls in my sessions because there is not much I can tell them that they don’t know already. Occasionally they need some validation. Mostly they just nod and chuckle and move on to their final agreements.

Let’s look at some numbers. Fifty percent of the world’s population is composed of infant, toddler, and child level souls. Infant or survival oriented souls are 5%, toddler or rule oriented souls 20%, and child or success oriented souls are 25%. As mentioned a big portion of the population is mature/adolescent/young adult 35%, and a smaller number are old souls or philosophically oriented at 15%.  So half are in infancy, toddler, or childhood stages, and half are in young adult or adulthood stages. The world right now is divided in half.

Let us look closer at the percentages of the mature soul and old soul stages because this is revealing.  Of mature souls roughly twenty percent are in the first four levels. Fifteen percent are in the fifth, sixth, and seventh levels. If you are a sixth level mature soul, then you are somewhere around the 80 percentile of people on this planet. This means roughly 80% are less experienced than you and 20% are more experienced. In my book, that makes someone quite far along and makes a person a mentor, a teacher, a good counselor etc.  Yet nevertheless many mature souls are horrified when they hear they are “only” at the sixth level of mature. They want so badly to be an old, old soul. In fact they are convinced they are. What they don’t know is that sixth and seventh level old souls don’t give a shit. They are not attached and would be perfectly content to be told they were a first level mature soul. The attachment and the intensity of emotion of a mature soul to their soul age is a dead giveaway.  Even so I have had some people so furious with me that they would not speak to me for years. I had one woman client who admitted many years later that she was so pissed off when I told her in a session that she was a late level mature soul that she hated me for years until she finally realized it was true and she somewhat sheepishly came back to see me to tell me that. Of course by that time she was quite healthy.

The general rule is, if you think this is, or you want this to be your last lifetime, it almost undoubtedly isn’t. Old, old souls don’t care. There are several reasons that mature souls want this to be their last lifetime. 1. They are not enjoying their lives and want it to be finished. 2. They now have some insight and know quite a few things, they tend to get inflated and think they are all done. This is remarkably like a teenager thinking they know more about everything than everyone else. We’ve all seen that syndrome before. It works the same with soul age. 3. Often late level mature souls are teachers looked up to by their students. They then imagine themselves to be at the end of the line, the peak of wisdom. They would just hate for any of their students to find out that they were “JUST” mature and not a master.  Oh the permutations of arrogance, conceit, fear, and vulnerability mature souls go through and all for just a temporary game. It’s all just a stage play but somehow that does not change the very real emotions at play that cause people to rage and cry, blame and attack when it comes to the topic of “How old am I?”

What is said: “Right now you are a mature soul in your evolutionary process on this planet.”

What they hear: “You are just a kid. You don’t count for anything. Therefore you are worthless and not worth listening to. Come back when you are older.”

Let us speak of another grand illusion. I have written about this before so you may find this a review, yet it is a reminder that is well worth hearing over and over because it will help you understand the human condition, maybe even some of your own feelings.

As I already mentioned, outside of this quite limited dimension of the physical plane, there is no karma, no comparing, no judging, no drama of the kind we are used to here in the physical dimension. Here on this inhabited planet and on others there is a structure that gives some purpose to the lessons that we learn. That structure is what the Hindus call karma or consequences for anything we set into motion that has an impact on others. The consequences may come in various forms. One form is that we are required to experience exactly what we perpetrated so that if we are a thief and steal from others we will be stolen from at some point and we will understand exactly how it feels to lose our hard earned earnings or goods to a thief.  Another form of karmic consequence is that we will put ourselves into exactly the situation we could not relate to in a prior incarnation. Thus whatever we resist we become. If we hate women we will become one perhaps multiple times until we learn to love women. If we don’t relate to black people, middle eastern folks, Jews, indigenous peoples, gay people, impoverished people, the wealthy, the elite and so on, that is exactly what we will become until we learn to have compassion and recognize their value as human beings.

We also put ourselves into circumstances that we could not relate to. If we were trampling the earth in a particular lifetime, destroying vast tracts of it for personal monetary gain and we hated environmentalists then that is exactly what we will become. When we become that however, we will most likely utilize similar tactics to that which we used before. So if we were a violent person then we might use violence once again in the name of environmental protection. Thus if you ever see someone who is rabid about anything you can be sure they are making up for past inability to relate to it. This absolutely infuriates people when you point it out to them so it is often best not to mention it. It can get you killed. Most people are not mature enough to admit the truth about that.

My socialist American grandfather, a rabid union organizer in the early part of the 1900’s was probably at one time an exploiter of laborers and blue-collar workers. My other Mexican grandfather was a tireless worker defending the rights of indigenous peoples in Mexico against the predations of the elite class, probably as a result of exploiting them in earlier lifetimes. Interestingly he lost his life to Pancho Villa, who jailed him as a federal district attorney in Guadalajara. I know I burned more than a few psychics and shamans as witches in my earlier lifetimes so here I am. OoPs! Often we go back and forth more than a few times, first hating this and then hating that until we can relate to both. We could speed up this unpleasantness by deliberately exploring our irrational feelings of dislike and coming to terms with the truth of it. When I first traveled in Kashmir I had a distinct reaction to some of the Moslems I encountered there who did not treat me well. It took me a long time to realize I had been Islamic in many lifetimes and perhaps did things that make me squirm to think about today.

It is useful to look at any of your oopses as well. That can be quite enlightening as well as amusing. Once you see it, understand it, and forgive it, you are free of it.  Aaaahhhh. What a relief that is. Then you are fee to be whatever you like and you don’t care what you are and who others are. It’s all a stage play anyway. When the play ends and the story is told we’ll take our bows, walk off stage, and go down to the tavern with our fellow actors and have a good old time.

JOSÉ STEVENS

José Stevens PhD is an international lecturer, corporate team builder and organizational coach, consultant and trainer. A psychologist, licensed clinical social worker and author of more than twenty books and numerous articles, he is also co-editor for A Journal of Contemporary Shamanism and a board member of the Society for Shamanic Practitioners. He is the founder, with his wife Lena, of the Power Path School of Shamanism and The Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating youth in indigenous cultures. He has completed a ten-year apprenticeship with a Huichol Maracame in Mexico and has studied with the Shipibos of the Amazon and the Paqos of the Andes for the last thirty years.

Go to: www.thepowerpath.com