Who Am I ... Part V

A lesson from a metaphysician goes like this: We come from the Unmanifested Godhead, something like a vast ocean of souls, and manifest on this plane, being born into this world to experience life. We are a spiritual being having human experiences. When we die, we return to the Unmanifested Godhead and share our experiences with God, who cannot manifest on this plane. I don't recall why God can't manifest here, only that he cannot, so God lives vicariously (if you will) through us.

This makes me think of the elderly parent who waits by the window of their room in a nursing home for their children to come and tell them about their lives. Is God waiting in some cosmic senior home for us to come and visit to tell him what life is like outside his four sterile white walls?

I digress ...

We come from this Unmanifested Godhead where all the souls go between lives, between incarnations. Here, we review our lives to see if the lessons we were to learn were learned. What lessons does a soul need to learn? No. It's the lessons as humans that we need to learn. Humility, gratitude, love, tolerance, inner peace, kindness. Or is it the incomplete soul that needs to learn compassion, empathy? Aren't we complete? Don't we already know all  we need to know to be perfect spirits?

As part of the vast divine ocean, we all have slivers of God within us; the flickering flame we hardly recognize is God within us. But is God really within us? The gurus tell us to imagine a flame and we do and they tell us that it is God within us and we say "Yes!" Or do we question the gurus? It's just an image. Someone could tell us to imagine a worm wriggling through our bodies and that's God within. Same idea, just not as "pretty" and nice and the connotations of a worm aren't as spiritual as a flickering flame.

So do I believe I've come from a vast ocean of souls to manifest here to learn to be a better "soul or "person"? I believe I was born into this life to learn lessons on how to be true to my "higher self", on how to be as authentic as possible. Boy, for the most part, I haven't done such a great job. I've let all those roles and expectations and beliefs take control and guide me. I've got much thinking to undo.

What do you believe? Who are you?