There is much conjecture and misunderstanding concerning this
subject. When most of you speak of a soul mate, you are thinking
of that one special individual that you will fall in love
with and with whom you will live happily ever after. You
may even feel as if this one special love has always been
your lover through many, many lifetimes and that you are
simply awaiting his or her appearance in this lifetime.
Many souls do encounter one another in lifetime after lifetime
after lifetime, for they have become friends. This friendship
is based in the non- physical world, and the friendship, which
in essence is co-operation, is based upon their past success
in achieving the growth they are seeking. You see, you are
growth- seeking beings, and all encounters, both physical and
non-physical, provide opportunities for growth. Therefore,
if there is a certain soul with whom you have had great success
in achieving your goals, you are likely to agree to work with
that one again.

It is important to understand how souls are organized. Your
journeys here into the physical world are deliberate journeys.
You have already mastered life on many other planes of existence,
and your purpose for coming to Earth is simply so that you
may broaden your experience of yourself through the Earth existence.
The ultimate goal is to experience unconditional love, that
which is acceptance and allowing. For as you totally accept
Earth life and accept all the aspects of it and all that exists
within it, you have reached your goal. Some have called this
enlightenment. You see, you didn't come here to get better
or to prove yourself worthy; you came here for the fun of it,
for the game, for the challenge.

Before such journeys are undertaken, souls organize themselves
into groups. You could see these as support groups. Souls organize
themselves into Families, Groups, Clans, Nations, and Grand
Nations. There are seven souls in a Soul Family and seven families
in a Soul Group, and seven groups in a Soul Clan, and so on.
Eventually, you will work with most members of your Soul Clan,
that is 343 individual souls. However, for those of you who
are teachers, you will more than likely reach your Soul Nation
or Grand Nation, which totals almost 17,000 souls.
The majority of your relationships, close friendships, and
associations will be with souls who are from your Group of
49 souls. However, this is not always the case. The more you
advance in terms of acceptance (love), the more skilled you
will become at working with individuals who have a different
energy signature than yourselves. What we mean by energy signature
is the following: each Soul Group will be working towards a
particular goal.
For example, many members of one Soul Group could be concerned
with communication and teaching, another with healing, another
with courage, another with self- acceptance. This does not
mean that each of you will manifest in the same way and lead
identical lives, but it does mean that the essence of your
lives will be very similar. You will have similar ideals, aspirations,
likes, and dislikes. The people you are most drawn to are almost
always members of your Soul Family, Group, Clan or Nation,
but as with everything, there are exceptions to the rule.

A Soul Family will work together for many, many lifetimes.
Sometimes a Soul Family will regroup and different alliances
will be made. This is rare, but it happens. In addition, the
entire Soul Family will be involved in decision-making regarding
future lifetimes and will assist you in assessing your achievements
in a lifetime just past. Your Soul Family is always there for
you. For the most part, not all members of a Soul Family are
incarnate at the same time. Those members who are not incarnate
act as spirit guides during the physical life of the one who
is incarnate. They can visit you in dreams, inspire you with
thoughts, or in some cases, speak to you directly during meditation.
Many of the spirit guides that have presented themselves to
humans are indeed discarnate souls who are members of the individual's
Soul Family. However, many of the Master Teachers that present
themselves to humans are either members of the individual's
Nation or Grand Nation and are souls whose Earth experience
is complete. At times these Master Teachers can be souls that
are even broader and vaster than this.

A soul mate is any soul that is a member of this broader group
and anyone that touches your life. The net effect of a soul
mate on your life will always be positive, even if you cannot
see it at the time. For example, many have the notion that
a soul mate relationship will be the ideal relationship, full
of harmony and love. However, a relationship with a soul mate
is likely to be challenging!
The whole point of a soul mate turning up in your life is
to show you to yourself. That is the purpose of all human relationships.
You learn through viewing in the mirror. The Law of Attraction
works in every aspect of your life, and therefore each person
drawn into your life is there through vibration, and nothing
else. They are present because your vibration and their vibration
are matched in some way.

As we have
said before, you are growth-seeking beings. So many of you
get
confused when you meet the person of your dreams,
fall happily in love, declare, "This is my soul mate," and
then have to pick up the pieces a few years down the road when
the relationship breaks up or the person you loved turns out
to have some problems or personality traits you do not care
for. However, this was your soul mate, and you have many!
As you re-enter each lifetime, you make agreements with many
different souls, perhaps as many as 20. You agree on what you
will offer one another. These souls can be your children, your
best friend, husband, wife, worst enemy, boss, business partner,
any number of possibilities, and even the schoolteacher that
encouraged you with patience and kindness. However, as you,
the personality, have free will, you may create a path that
takes you in a different direction, and this is why you have
to make possible agreements with so many. The Universe works
on the principle of vibration.

Let us give you an example: There is Joe who is a fine soul
indeed. However Joe, for quite a few lifetimes now, has been
struggling with powerlessness in the physical realm. His struggle
has led him into violence and even to developing addictions
to alcohol. Mary, on the other hand, for some time now has
had difficulties in valuing herself, always choosing second
best, and always giving her power away. So Joe and Mary coordinate
their lives and set up a strong probability to meet. Their
intention is that Mary and Joe will fall in love and work towards
resolving their respective issues. In her relationship with
the alcoholic Mary will learn that she must begin to make choices
that reflect her self-worth. Joe, on the other hand, wants
to learn that he cannot possess or control anyone, for power
must come from within. However, Mary finds herself often challenged
during the course of her life, and at college the establishment
challenges her ideas and values. Instead of capitulating, as
was her custom in previous lives, she stands up for herself
and chooses to value herself. At that moment her vibration
changes and therefore Joe is no longer necessary.
It could happen that she may meet Joe, but it would more than
likely be a passing meeting and one in which she could share
with him what she had learned. She may indeed end up being
the counselor at an alcohol rehabilitation center, for example,
but Mary no longer requires an intimate relationship with Joe.
At this stage both Joe and Mary set up new vibrations so that
they connect with their other possible soul mates.
When you look back at your life, you will see there are many
people who have had an impact on it. All of these people are
your soul mates, and whether they know it or not on the personality
level, they love you dearly for you are all working together
towards one singular goal, and that is the goal of love.

"When
we meet someone and an instant friendship or attraction occurs,
does
that mean that this is a soul mate and that we
have been together in past lives?"
What it means is that there is compatibility in vibration,
and this generally means that there is a connection of sorts.
Whether that soul be from your Soul Family, Group, Clan, or
Nation, there is a connection, a similarity of goal, purpose,
experience, and therefore vibration. However, this connection
on the soul level does not automatically indicate that you
have met before. You may never have met on the Earth plane,
but the soul may be known to you in the non-physical world.
You do spend rather more time in the non-physical than you
do in the physical, for the non-physical world is your natural
home. In the non-physical world you have friends in very much
the same way that you have friends on Earth. Some friends are
close to you, others are intimately acquainted with you, and
still others are acquaintances. Friendship in the non-physical
world has nothing to do with liking or not liking one another;
it has to do with compatibility of goals and aspirations. Your
non-physical friends also change, and they change according
to your goals.
For example, you may have teamed up with a particular small
group of souls to work on survival issues. Each of you has
had a few lives together in inhospitable environments. You
may have chosen to live in primitive cultures in very cold
climates or in desert regions. Such inhospitable environments
help you to become resourceful, inventive, creative, and self-sufficient.
You may however, choose to return to this adventure at a later
stage and not complete all of your 'learning' in one go. Or,
you may progress at a faster pace than your group members and
decide to move on. Another choice could be to remain with the
group and become a leader or teacher amongst them, assisting
them to progress, which in turn assists you to progress even
further for there is much learning to be done whilst teaching.
The possibilities are endless and the choice is yours. If you
decide to move on, you will join another group, or perhaps
work with one or two other souls. Your work with other souls
may last one Earth day, an entire lifetime, or several hundred
lifetimes. You choose all of these relationships, and each
relationship is based on cooperation and the desire to progress
as quickly as possible.

"Are
our parents and children Soul Mates and are they part of
our Soul Family?"
They are soul mates inasmuch as you not only know them, but
you have chosen to work with them for the specific purpose
of achieving growth. No birth is an accident, for all souls
enter this world by agreement with both parents, even if both
parents are not present in childhood.
Your parents and siblings may very well all be members of
your Soul Family, but this is extremely rare. Normally, one,
perhaps two, members of your biological family will be from
your Soul Family, but the rest will generally be from your
Group, Clan, Nation, or Grand Nation.
For the creation of a physical family the younger, less experienced
souls will tend to team up with souls that are very closely
related to them. These souls will often swap roles with one
another from lifetime to lifetime, sometimes being the child,
at other times the parent, at one time the female, at another
time the male mate. The familiarity of the souls, one with
another, helps each individual soul to progress more quickly.
When souls first enter the physical plane, it seems to them
to be a hostile place indeed. They are confused and wary of
the physical body and are very susceptible to the biological
impulse to survive. They are often caught up in fight or flight
choices. The Universe is loving and supportive, and therefore
it creates feelings of security to be surrounded by souls with
whom you are very familiar. However, as with everything in
the Universe, this is only general. It is not a hard and fast
rule, for older souls can and do enter into these kinds of
arrangements.

Many older souls choose to be born into families where perhaps
only one member is well known to them, and perhaps this soul
is from their Soul Group or Clan, not as closely related as
a Soul Family member. They will make this choice because older
souls are really concerned with introspection more than anything
else. They may be preparing to teach or to become a leader
in one field or another, and the experience of feeling 'the
odd one out' will lead them towards self-examination. Instead
of getting caught up with the function and duty of 'family'
these souls will often be seen to be the 'black sheep' or viewed
as different or eccentric by other members of the biological
family.
Although these circumstances may lead to difficult personal
challenges, the lessons are almost always internal rather than
external. This means that there will be an emphasis on self-acceptance.
Self-acceptance is an integral part of soul development. If
we were to liken the Earth experience to education, mastering
self-acceptance is equivalent to studying for your doctorate.
Once you have self-acceptance under your belt, you are pretty
much on the home run!

"Why
do so many of us search endlessly for the 'one true love'
in the
hope of finding our soul mate?"
What you are looking for is acceptance. You believe that this
'one true love' will accept you without conditions. Your search
for that one is in fact the search for self-acceptance. Each
relationship is there to provide you with a new opportunity
to know yourself. It is through knowing yourself that you can
then grow to accept yourself and to love yourself. The one
true love is self-love; there is no other love.
The greatest
secret of all, discovered by the Christ and the Buddha and
many
others, was the secret of falling in love with
the self. When you love the self, you are in a state of acceptance,
total acceptance. As you accept, you cease resisting the world
and all that is in it. As you give up resistance, you allow
everything to be as it is. As you allow everything to be as
it is, God can work through you. It is at this point that you
can say, "I and the Father are one," for you will
be at one with the source of all life. You will be at one with
love!

Excerpt
from "Omni Reveals The Four Principles of Creation", © John
L. Payne 2001; published by Findhorn Press, Scotland. http://www.findhornpress.com