GRADUATION
(THE SOUL’S GOAL)

GRADUATION is normally thought of as an event that permits us to pass to another stage, to a higher stage of life. Our goal may be set by graduation from high school, from college, from a post-graduate degree in law or medicine, or from a military academy. Graduation is thought of as the beginning of a new life, the threshold of a new age.

DEATH is a different thing. Death is thought of as the permanent cessation of all vital functions of life. We hesitate to accept that there is nothing more to life than death. We want to believe that there is another stage, a higher stage to come after death.

DEATH is looked upon as a great mystery, yet we do have the example of equipping ourselves for life beyond earth. We are almost casual in the manner in which we outfit astronauts with space suits, space vehicles, and send them off into space. Indeed, when the space mission failed in 2003, the eulogy given on that day of mourning included the prayer: “The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not safely return to earth, yet we can pray that all are safely home.”(i)

SOUL is the immaterial essence of our total self. We know that we have a soul that became part of us at birth, yet we question what happens to us at death. The missing link to this mystery is the metaphysical domain of our soul. As a soul, we were before and we are now with a body. As a soul with a body, we were directed to a selected source into which at conception we were joined. A soul with a body, a time of life on earth, a being in human form – then what? “Life is what you do when you are waiting to die” is the way Donald Trump sees it.(ii) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow saw it in a different way: “Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal. Dust thou art to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul.” The truth in either view lies within each one of us for we become as we think, and what we think becomes determinative.

DEATH lies within the physical domain. Graduation, unlike death, lies within the metaphysical domain. Both are part of our Knowledge within our multi-dimensional minds. We place a ceiling upon ourselves when we limit our concept of life with a concept of death. What more could we achieve during our time-of-life on earth if we thought “graduation” as our next stage of life? Our mind being what it is, we should keep open every avenue of thought as we visualize our purpose here.

(i) President George w. Bush 3/1/2003
(ii) Interview with Wolf Blitzer, CNN, 3/19/04

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