It was some weeks ago that a female friend of mine had her Tarot cards interpreted by a woman. After Tarot lady made some predictions about my friend’s professional life, she turned to my friend’s relationship.
My friend had a passionate but complicated connection to a guy. Sometimes, they seem to be so different, to have a totally dissimilar view of life and values. Then again, being the one next to the other gave the impression that there was a certain connection between them which however we could not really explain.
While so many aspects of them should have make them to turn away from each other, their auras matched. And this was something that any well-meaning person could observe, even if there were no arguments in favor of keeping this relationship going on. Besides, there were plenty of problems between them.
The Tarot reader mentioned the tricky issues. She told her that her love makes her strong enough to deal with his difficult character and his quirks. After all, the explosive temperament of both of them was a bless and a curse for their affair.
Still, the Tarot lady told her that their relationship will go on, despite the difficulties. There was a reason for their being together. Their combined energy was unique and strong. And the fact that they met each other was not mere coincidence. Actually, they had met and they were in love in the past, in previous lives. What they experienced in this life is a reincarnated love!
In previous lives?
At first, my friend smirked at this comment, but then again, she found the idea beautiful. This gave her a warmth of certainty about her amorous decisions.
Why do we choose a certain person out of all our encounters to love deeply? And how do we finally get to really connect just with one or anyway very few persons in terms of love? This actually remains a mystery. Even if we are going to have many relationships in our lives or lead a polyamorous way of life, for most of us, there will always be this particular one with whom we develop a special bond.
In fact, some couples recognize their strong attraction for each other from the very beginning. It is love at first sight, given that of course this attraction is not merely sexual desire, but it goes deeper to the domains of understanding, aesthetics and values.
Reincarnated love is a still open issue
Then, what does it mean to find our soulmate? When we feel that a person is special for us this is a sign that our destiny brought us together. And these sorts of connections may come from the past, when our wandering soul met another soul that attached to us.
So, love at first sight or the feeling you fall in love to someone can be sometimes a remembrance of a previous life. Now, samsara and karmic destiny reincarnates not only our own existence but also the experiences we had in order that they evolve along with us. Our encounters with souls we loved in the past occur because we have to solve open issues or to find support and develop our psychic world. Reincarnated love is then a continuity through time.
Our soulmates are our angels on earth and we ourselves are their angels as well.
Plato and the “half bodies” longing for each other
The idea of reincarnated love is not novel. Esoteric traditions, both monotheistic and pagan ones, refer to this concept. For example, according to this post of chabad.org, in Kabbalah traditions we can trace evidence about a reincarnated love. Leaving aside the patriarchal undertones, the acceptance of this idea is evident and interesting.
Yet, the best presentation of why we are seeking for our soulmates through time was given in the renowned “Symposium”, a banquet dialogue written down by the Greek philosopher Plato. In this work, Plato presents the comedian playwright “explains” why people speak about “the other half” and the feel complete when it comes to a love affair.
As Aristophanes says, human beings in primal times were double-faced, with double bodies in which all sexes combinations were possible:
“In the first place, there were three kinds of human beings, not merely the two sexes, male and female, as at present: there was a third kind as well, which had equal shares of the other two, and whose name survives though, the thing itself has vanished. For ‘man-woman’ (hermaphrodite) was then a unity in form no less than name, composed of both sexes and sharing equally in male and female; whereas now it has come to be merely a name of reproach.
Secondly, the form of each person was round all over, with back and sides encompassing it every way; each had four arms, and legs to match these, and two faces perfectly alike on a cylindrical neck. There was one head to the two faces, which looked opposite ways; there were four ears, two privy members, and all the other parts, as may be imagined, in proportion.”
Lovers’ eternal return
The creature walked upright as now, in either direction as it pleased and whenever it started running fast, it went like our acrobats, whirling over and over with legs stuck out straight; only then they had eight limbs to support and speed them swiftly round and round.
The number and features of these three sexes were owing to the fact that the male was originally the offspring of the sun, and the female of the earth; while that which partook of both sexes was born of the moon, for the moon also partakes of both.
They were globular in their shape as in their progress, since they took after their parents. Now, they were of surprising strength and vigor, and so lofty in their notions that they even conspired against the gods.”
(Plato: Symposium, 189d – 190b. Translation retrieved from Perseus Project)
The great power of these creatures caused the wrath of Gods who decided to split them in two parts. Since then, the half-cut bodies are longing for the other half. At the beginning, they desperately tried to unify into one again, but in vain. Seeing the grief, and in order to assure the continuation of mankind, God-Father Zeus placed their genitals in front. So through the relief of sex they get satisfaction and the illusion of being united. What was once an androgynous being, it is now a man and a woman who can reproduce for the sake of gods. Similarly, all half bodies are searching for their other half, in every possible combination.
Therefore, love sometimes appears as an inevitable attraction to another person. There may have been a time, in which our souls were so close to the person we just see in front of us right now. And when we have clear emotions, empathy and intuition we have to follow this call. We should not oppose destiny for this is what our reincarnated soul seeks for.
Phaethon
