SOUL AGE: OLDER IS NOT BETTER

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Older Is Not Better
(excerpt from The Journey of Your Soul)

BY SHEPHERD HOODWIN

It is not better to be an old soul than to be mature or young, just as it isn’t better to be forty-five years old than it is to be thirty-two or fourteen. A young person may be wise, and an old person foolish. A baby soul may be loving, and an old soul spiteful. People of every soul age are capable of manifesting their true personality—that is, of acting out of their positive poles, which are motivated by love. Younger souls are simply less experienced than older souls, not having completed as many monads. They are less fully tested, one could say.

Having compassion for others through knowledge of oneself is possible at any soul age.

An infant soul can be appropriate and responsible, but is not ready to handle larger responsibilities. He is generally not attracted to situations beyond his abilities. It is similar to a child, who can be appropriate and responsible, but for a smaller sphere than an adult can be. You would not expect a five-year-old to hold down a nine-to-five job, for example.

Advancement is not as important as experience. You do advance, because you are in motion, but you are here to experience life in every facet. Some facets of life are easier than others, but each step of development is necessary. If you were to skip over one, you would be left with a gap.

The more conscious you are in your growth process, the more quickly you grow. However, this does not necessarily translate into moving more quickly from second-level mature to third-level mature, for instance. It is not necessarily desirable for you to move from second to third mature as quickly as possible. Your soul age simply indicates your point of perspective. It is not inferior to be second-level mature rather than third-level mature; all points of perspective are valid. However, if you are ready to move from second mature to third, and you bring more awareness to the process, it may happen more quickly because you will be in a better position to avoid becoming stuck.

On the other hand, it may be appropriate for you to have an extensive experience of being at second-level mature. If that’s the case, you will do so more expansively if you are growing consciously, but you will not necessarily finish it more quickly. The object of the game is not to move through the soul ages as quickly as possible. It is to move through them in the way you choose to move through them. Choice is the “name of the game.” Some people are more attracted to the mature soul perspective and spend more time in it; others are more attracted to the young or old-soul perspectives. It is individual.

Soul age is similar in some respects to physical age. When you are sixty, no matter how intelligent, mature, appropriate, or healthy you are or are not, you go through certain experiences; the sixty-year-old body brings with it a certain perspective—you cannot escape that. Likewise with the eleven-year-old body: an eleven-year-old girl may mimic a seventeen-year-old, wearing makeup and dating, but she probably does not yet have the physical capacity to support a sexual relationship, for instance. Two eleven-year-olds can be quite different, yet both share the eleven-year-old experience. In the same way, two people of the same soul age share a common perspective, even though the specifics of their lives may be quite different.

Old souls tend to be tolerant and inclusive, and at least try to be open to other ways of looking at things. However, they may become upset by people whose points of view are rigid and exclusive. So if they are trying to respect different points of view, they may not respect people whose points of view do not respect other points of view.

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