A theory of soul mates, presented by Aristophanes in Plato’s ‘Symposium’, states that humans originally had four arms, four legs and a single head made of two faces, and that Zeus, god of the sky, feared their power and split them in half. This condemned them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them.
That little story may not find any takers today, but many people do believe that souls are fated to be together. People even believe that a soul mate is someone with whom a person has shared other lifetimes, through reincarnation.
Who is a Soul Mate
Richard Bach, one of the biggest proponents of soul mates, believed in it completely; even after his separation from Leslie Parrish, his ‘soul mate’. According to him, soul mate is someone who has the locks to fit the keys. He’d said: “When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and for who we are pretending to be. Each of us unveils the best part of one another. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we are safe in our paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.”
But for Randall Munroe, NASA roboticist specialist, the mathematics of soul mates is simply impossible to achieve. In the book ‘What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions’, he tries to solve the question, ‘What if everyone actually had only one soul mate, a random person somewhere in the world?’ In mathematical equation, he points out, the chances of finding that one soul mate are as good as none because that pits each person against 500 million potential candidates in the same age group as you! And that again means that ‘you will find true love in one lifetime out of 10,000,’ he concludes.
Bach’s Idea of Soul Mate
But if you, like Richard Bach and Leslie Parrish, are inclined to believe otherwise, you may want to know whether you have any chance of finding your soul mate. Bach’s idea of soul mate, which comes through in his book ‘The Bridge Across Forever’ is a woman who could share his prejudices and passions, embrace adventure, laugh like a child, and be physically beautiful and supremely self-reliant; someone who could find her independent ways, the road to internal beauty and spiritual growth…
In this book, which is an autobiographical account of how he found Leslie, Bach makes readers believe in the perfection in life and love and stresses that the capacity for divine joy and completeness can be truly found. ‘I believe that Leslie and I were led to find each other…’
But when their fairytale marriage broke after 22 years, Bach told a reporter, “Soul mates, to me, don’t define themselves by legal marriage. There’s a learning connection that exists between those two souls. Leslie and I had that for the longest time…”
So how do you know if you have found your soul mate?
What applies to one may not fit the jigsaw puzzle for another, but there is a kind of consensus among love gurus who ask to look for the following triggers:
Intuition: Call it your sixth sense or a feeling of instant familiarity with the other person; your intuition will play a role in identifying your soul mate.
Morals and values: Shared morals and values are like magnets that attract you to each other. When conversations veer towards individual likes, dislikes, values and beliefs, there is an instinctive reflection of your own ideals.
Best friends: Often, soul mates are made of friends who have endured and endeared to each other.
Respect: One of the things that define soul mates is their respect for each other that comes from knowing each other. Acceptance is the equaliser here.
Communication: There is a strong line of communication between soul mates. There are no hesitations and no awkwardness in communicating various aspects of life, from trivial to sublime.
Dreams and Aspirations: Whether your dreams and aspirations for the future are on the same line or no, your soul mate knows how to make you believe in yours and take it forward.
Special: Soul mate makes you feel special all the time. You feel you can achieve self-actualisation with him/her.
Complement each other: Soul mate knows just how to challenge you to achieve your best and is always there to make the relationship work.
P.N. – As Bach constantly stressed, as humans we have a need to complete our lives by looking for those who are our true soul mates – the single one person in our lives with whom we can entwine perfectly and take steps towards making a glorious union of two souls into one – where the sum of one and one, can be infinity!