Soul Age Level Analogies

From New Age Village

Here's a collection of different analogies about the soul age levels.

Grade School

I've always used the analogy of grade school.

1st level is when you are just starting a new grade.
2nd level you have been in it a little while and are making a lot of comparisons about how the new grade relates to the old one that you finished last year.
3rd, 4th and 5th are like the middle of the school year where you are absorbed in it and pretty well forget about the existence of last year's grade or next year's.
6th level is the approach of final exams, hard work preparing for it, and taking it.
7th level you have passed it and are just relaxing and savoring it. In 6th and 7th level you are aware that this grade is nearly over and there's a new one approaching.

You could simplify (and many do) as early, middle and late. Early and late are aware that there was a previous or next grade; middle level is absorbed entirely in this grade and forgets the existence of other grades.

So I would say that the inner characteristic of each soul age level is like where you feel you fit in the progression of the grade school calendar, so to speak.

-- Ed Hammerstrom

Water & Gardening

Here's how I see a typical soul's movement through the levels, using the mature cycle as an example, and shamelessly mixing metaphors:

At first-level mature, he is dipping his toe in the water and still has a lot of the "drag" of 7th young. At second level, he's working to balance young and mature soul perceptions; he's half in and half out. He's stabilizing himself at this new soul age.

At third level, he dives in, submerging himself in the mature domain of relationships, emotions, and the inner world. He's working hard, digging deeply into himself. Like a gardener plowing new soil, he picks out the rocks and sticks. Sometimes it's hard going. This mature soul stuff is new and difficult! His intimate relationships may be fraught with angst. He's beginning to have more empathy for and understanding of other's feelings and experience, but the dust hasn't settled. Would one say that he's "out there" or "internal"? Maybe neither. There's a lot of stuff going on inside him, but he's also exploring relationships, the stuff of the mature cycle. He's having the experiences he needs, both externally and internally, to gain the lessons.

At fourth level, he emerges and gets a rest from the deep plowing. Now is the time to sort things out. Continuing the gardening analogy, the soil is prepared. He can go on to the less stressful work of raking the surface and planting neat rows. He is at the midpoint of mature soul perspective - he's arrived! He has not yet taken it into new directions (fifth level), but he's got the basics. He increasingly understands what he learned in third level, and may be reading a lot trying to gain an intellectual framework for what he already experienced during third level. Maybe he's reading self-help or relationship books, or philosophy. (Of course, he might have done some of this reading during third level, but more of it will sink in now that he's gone through the experience.)

In order to help it sink in further, he may find that he frequently talks about such things to others (teaching), with more confidence and authority than he had when he was still in the middle of the messy third level work. He's sorting things out internally through interacting with his friends as well as studying, etc. Is this level internal or external? Maybe neither or maybe it depends on the individual. But whatever he is doing with his time, he might seem less preoccupied than he did in the third level when he was doing all that "heavy lifting," and some might see that as being more extroverted.

At fifth level, he plays with his perceptions, taking them into new, perhaps eccentric or pioneering areas. At sixth level, he looks at his watch and realizes that he's almost done with the mature cycle. He scans all the karmas, agreements, monads, and other loose ends that he still hasn't completed with others, and sets off on the often time-consuming and tiring task of finishing them. Coming to seventh level, what remains is to complete his internal loose ends (self-karmas) and summarize what he's learned during the mature cycle before he can pass on to first-level old. Part of achieving this may be to, again, teach.

A caveat here is that, in any lifetime, a person might be avoiding the work of his true level and therefore manifest at a younger level (or he might not have yet gotten to where he really is on a soul level).

-- Shepherd Hoodwin