Never-ending Travels or a Journey Home?
Quantum Leap is the popular American television show from the 1990s in which the protagonist, a physicist called Sam Beckett, finds himself inhabiting the body of a pilot fifty years in the past after a time-travel experiment goes awry. Desperate to return to his old life, Sam keeps repeating the experiment but, instead of waking up as his original self, he finds himself leaping into one body after another without ever reaching home.
The idea that Quantum Leap approximates even a semblance of reality seems absurd. But is it? According to the spiritual masters we have been jumping from one body to the next since time began. While Sam’s quantum leaps are confined to people, the masters inform us that our coming and going encompasses all life forms, plants included! Clearly, there are other differences between ourselves and the programme’s protagonist. Despite occupying a multitude of different bodies, Sam does not forget his original identity – in fact, it is this which explains his desperate desire to go home. By contrast, we retain no recollection of the life we led upon leaving one mortal body and moving into another. Moreover, whereas Sam’s quantum leaps are random, where we end up is determined by karmic law.
From one perspective, existence on the material plane may be described as ‘path-dependent.’ While this term is typically used by social scientists to explain why organizations are unable to change, when applied to the human condition, path-dependency denotes that one’s current situation is attributable to a set of choices made in the distant past and that our agency (i.e., our free will) is too marginal to effect change. Somewhat deterministic, this perspective depicts a bleak future in which we are unable to deviate from the path upon which we embarked aeons ago. Yet, this is exactly what the spiritual masters offer: the opportunity to bring our quantum leaping to an end and, conversely, embark upon a new journey headed to our place of origin.
Who are we?
To appreciate the significance of the opportunity presented by the masters, we first need to understand who we are. Is what makes each of us ‘me’ the same as the identity we carefully construct for the outside world, or the multiple roles we assume throughout life? Should we even talk about ourself using pronouns such as ‘me’ and ‘I’? The mystics have been answering these very questions throughout the ages. They begin, however, by informing us of a fundamental truth from which all other questions about our existence and the purpose of life itself can be answered.
The bedrock of spirituality, as expressed by all saints, is that God is present in all places and at all times. Although the word ‘God’ has come to signify an external entity, one residing in ‘heaven’ for example, the masters tell us that God is omnipresent. He manifests all forms and yet remains a single, indivisible power from which the entirety of the universe has sprung. Humanity has a tendency to anthropomorphize, but the mystics inform us that God is a super-conscious energy which, manifesting as a sound, is an unstruck melody blazing with effulgent light. The divine sound has been given a myriad of different names – Tao, Word, Kalma, Sound Current, the audible Life-stream and, in Sant Mat philosophy, Shabd.
However, as the masters emphasize, it is not the names which are important but the eternal truth they convey. As Maharaj Sawan Singh explains in Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. IV, Shabd is the source of all life and energy in the universe. Everything that was, is, and will be is made by Shabd and is from Shabd. Whatever exists, exists because of Shabd – it is the beginning and end of all things. In fact, there is nothing which is not Shabd.
Turning to our original question about our real identity, Maharaj Sawan Singh emphatically explains that because whatever is manifested from Shabd cannot be anything but Shabd, our essence is Shabd. Should we harbour any lingering doubts or perhaps not fully understand who we are, the Great Master states: “Shabd is our creator … our sustainer. We are of Shabd and Shabd is ours.” Naturally, this raises further questions; if Shabd is our essence, what form does it take and why are we unaware of it?
Mystics explain that Shabd takes the form of a soul, which is our true identity and a particle of God. It follows that all of God’s qualities and powers are also active in the soul. The beauty of this relationship is described by the Great Master in Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. IV:
The soul is the consciousness and the Lord is the storehouse of consciousness. The soul is capable of thinking, and the Lord is an ocean of thoughts. The soul has intelligence and knowledge, and the Lord is the embodiment of knowledge and the treasure-house of intelligence. The soul is full of love, and the Lord is the source of all love. We are made in his image. Every particle is a part of the whole, and so are we.
So our self is not limited to the physical body, mind or personality. On the contrary, we are sparks of divine love undergoing a human experience.
Mistaken identities
Intellectual knowledge of our real identity does not necessarily mean we live our life in accordance with the implications this raises. Essentially, we find it virtually impossible to stop equating our real self with our ‘ego’ – the identity we painstakingly construct while residing in the body we inhabit temporarily. This is because the soul, upon descending from its abode with the Lord, has accumulated many coverings which have hidden its light. As the soul descended into matter ever more deeply, the more forgetful it became of its divine origin.
The soul’s downfall is reflected in the fairytale about the princess who, falling victim to a wicked spell, slips into a deep slumber. Imprisoned, she remains asleep in a castle ferociously guarded by what appear to be insurmountable obstacles. Saving her requires great courage, which only an unconditional, pure love is able to muster; and it is only the embrace of such a love that can awaken the princess from her slumber and finally free her from her long imprisonment. Likewise, it is not worldly love that will awaken the soul and set her free. She, like the princess, can only awaken when touched by love of the highest order. This, in turn, can only happen when the Master’s grace enables the soul to return to its origin.
The tale of the soul is not about mythical characters but tells the story of each one of us. We are the leading character in our own love story. To escape the darkness of our ignorance of our true nature – love – we must look within ourselves and find the most precious treasure of all – ‘the pearl of great price’ – our soul.