How do you know if a person you’ve met is your soul mate? And what do you do when you fall madly in love with that person, but both of you are happily married to someone else?
This is the dilemma that faces a woman we shall call Amor, who had attended my seminar on “Soul mates, Karma and Reincarnation” and who is now based abroad.
“I came across a high school batchmate on Facebook,” began Amor’s story. “After accepting his FB request, he sent me messages saying he had a huge crush on me in high school but never did anything about it—and I was so clueless, and because we were not really on speaking terms then.
“At first it was just one message a week, until it become more frequent. I started to develop feelings for him. He said his feelings for me never changed.
“So we had this hidden online relationship which is totally making me so happy. We soon found out we have the same likes and dislikes, same opinion on things; we even have the same birthday. I think I have fallen head over heels for him. He is always on my mind 24/7.
“The problem is, we are both married and have kids. I live out of the country and he is there in the Philippines. We haven’t even been together physically, but it feels like we have this deeper connection between us.
“Can you please enlighten me on this? I’ve never imagined I would be having an extramarital affair with someone. I am not that type. I just can’t understand his effect on me. I am seriously about to go crazy! Help!”
Before she could receive my answer to her first e-mail, where I said that her situation is not unique but it would take long to make her understand what’s happening to her, I received another frantic letter from her.
“It’s me again. I wrote you a couple of days ago regarding my soul mates story. Since I am writing you again on the same subject, it only shows how intense my feelings are for this guy, and how my life is now revolving around him. I am so excited to be with him when I come home.
Issues
“I have several issues to share about this relationship which I had not mentioned in my first letter.
“1. My relationship with this guy is so intense—the feeling he gives me is that he completes me and he says the same of me.
“I suddenly realized a lot of things, like: I want to eat healthier food because of him. I want to keep fit; I want to be better in everything that I do. I have become a lot happier on a daily basis, not that I was unhappy before, but my happiness now is just so uplifting that I don’t mind the stresses I experience anymore, he just makes me totally happy…a joy within that I haven’t experienced before.
“2. I am happily married and blessed with awesome kids, and I thought only those who are unhappy with their lives would end up in affairs like this. I love my hubby and kids with all my heart and still, this guy found me and it’s like rediscovering the excitement of life all over again.
“What bothers me is that I don’t even feel guilty about the relationship. I feel like this is what I should be doing…loving him to the fullest.
“It bothers me because, I’m thinking, have I become a monster for having a relationship with someone else and not even feeling guilty about it? It actually scares me that I might have lost my values, but I just cannot help it. There’s an absence of guilt, which makes me feel a bit like a sociopath.
“3. I don’t expect more from the relationship since we both belong to happy homes. However, he has asked me, would I be willing to go with him?
“This is how I answered him: ‘If I were to decide right at this very moment, I would happily go anywhere with you. But the moment you give me time to think about it, I will not go with you. The heart is all feelings and it’s always correct, but the mind is purely logical and it will tell me that what I am doing is wrong!’
“However, I am afraid of my feelings. I so want to be with him! I can’t even imagine not having him in my life. What if he asks me again and I decide to go with him. What will happen to my kids?
“The fact that I’m even considering spending my life with him is just unthinkable for the normal me and it’s just scary.
“Please enlighten me more about the soul mates issue as I think I’m about to go crazy.”
Amor, wow! What a story! Reminds me of that famous passage in Francisco Baltazar’s poem: “O, pag-ibig, kapag ikaw ay pumasok sa puso nino man, hahamakin ang lahat masunod ka lamang.” (Oh, Love, once you enter a person’s heart, he will oppose everything just to obey your desire.)
If I were a Catholic priest, I would tell you that you are committing a sin, and you are entertaining immoral thoughts and feelings and, therefore, you should stop immediately. Otherwise, you will go to hell.
I am glad, however, that I am not a priest and, therefore, will not tell you anything like that. Sin, to me, is merely ignorance.
What’s happening to you, or what you are experiencing, is not unique. I’ve heard similar stories from couples who have consulted me on the same issues.
Your story has all the elements of a soul mate encounter which I discussed in my seminar you attended on “Soul mates, Karma and Reincarnation,” and in my book of the same title.
Encounter
The following are the characteristics of a soul mate encounter:
First, there is an irresistible force that will bring the two of you together, wherever you are in the world. If it’s time for you to meet, you will meet.
Second, there is absolute certainty that he is the one who’s perfect for you. There is soul recognition at the very first meeting. However, your mind may at first ignore it but your soul absolutely knows.
Third, the relationship is total, meaning it encompasses the totality of your being, you are compatible and connected in all the seven levels of your being, namely, physical, etheric, emotional, lower mental, higher mental, astral and spiritual. That is why the attraction is very strong and intense.
Fourth, there is absolutely no feeling of guilt even if it defies religious, moral, social or political norms.
Fifth, the relationship uplifts your spirit and helps you become a better person. It changes your consciousness for the better, makes you feel even closer to God and the spirit world. A soul mate encounter hastens your soul evolution. Read your letter again and you will find all the five elements or factors present in your encounter with this person.
Now, your question is, what should you do knowing that you are both happily married?
Let the spirit move you. Meet him and allow the natural course of events to unfold. You can’t stop the meeting of two soul mates when it is time for them to meet. Follow your heart’s desire.
But you need not tell your husband anything, whatever happens. You will go back to him and your lovely kids, having fulfilled what you had promised each other in previous lives. For you two had met several times in the past. You will go back to your family a better, happier and more loving wife.
He will do the same with his family. And everything will be fine for you both until you meet again in the next life when you will surely be together.
There is no point in telling you to stop because you will be committing adultery. Over 2,000 years of Christianity have failed to stop the practice of adultery, and even religious priests and bishops do it.
Let me end this “sermon” with the following words of wisdom about love by the great 19th-century Lebanese poet and mystic, Kahlil Gibran, in “The Prophet”:
“When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep…
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning…
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love…
And think not you can direct the course of love,
For love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course…
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.”
NOTE:
Attend my next “Soul mates, Karma and Reincarnation” seminar on Feb. 15, Saturday, from 1 to 7 p.m. at Rm. 308 Prince Plaza 1, Legaspi St., Greenbelt, Makati City. For reservation and personal consultancy, call tel. nos. 8107245 or 0908-3537885. E-mail jaimetlicauco@yahoo.com.
Listen to my new radio program “Kapangyarihan ng Isip” at DWIZ 882 kHz on your radio dial, every Sunday, from 8 to 9 p.m.