TonytheRainbowHealer

How many times have you heard someone say something like “oh that person is an old soul, or “bless his heart, he is a young soul.”  Have you ever wondered what terms like that mean?  Today I want to delve into the evolution of the soul and discuss what exactly is meant by the words “soul age” and “old soul.”  Different souls focus on different lessons based on what they have learned already, what karma they are trying to resolve, how evolved they are, and what lessons they want to tackle next.  A soul does exhibit certain characteristics as it evolves, and this can be described through soul age.  A soul’s age can be characterized in much the same way as a human’s physical life.  Just as a baby grows into a child and into an adult (all having specific characteristics in the physical realm), a soul will progress in age and have different lessons as it grows and expands.

Before I list out some descriptions of the qualities that make up an individual’s soul age, I do want to explain a few things.  First, this post assumes that reincarnation is a fact, and that it exists.  Whether or not you want to believe in reincarnation at this stage of your development or whether or not “science” has proven it is beside the point.  Reincarnation happens.  In the same way that physical beings on the earth evolve over time, so do we as spiritual beings. As above, so below. We are born again and again to continue learning lessons for our soul’s expansion and growth.  The ultimate purpose of this process is to move us to enlightenment where we give up our individuality and become one with the Light and all that is.  Eventually we may start the process of learning all over again by having parts of us born into another new soul, however this will not be the same soul we were in the previous cycle.  We are not reincarnated as a punishment or based solely on karmic retribution.  We CHOOSE to be born over and over again because our souls crave growth and expansion.  We WANT to do this repeatedly, and nothing we experience is beyond what our soul can handle.  It is true that Spirit does not allow us to take on more than we can handle at any given time, however many souls do get overly zealous when planning their lessons and may choose to opt out early due to the personality’s inability to cope with the magnitude of the lessons the Universe is handing the individual (this is frequently what is happening with suicide).  Many people even believe we can reincarnate as different beings other than humans. My spiritual studies have left me a little conflicted on this, so I won’t say it is an absolute (some near death experiencers and teachers have said we only reincarnate as humans and that animals have more of a group soul which kind of explains instinct in animals however I’ve had other teachers and psychics who insist we have lives as a variety of beings and animals). My thinking is that we might reincarnate in the same species until we learn all the lessons of that soul and then move on to other species, and I am pretty certain we reincarnate to other planets besides just Earth, but this is all my speculation. Our souls will choose whatever incarnation is best for our own soul growth.  Look at our many animal friends who show up as pets?  Many of these animals are souls we have lived lives with before as well.  While pets still have lessons in the construct of an animal’s body, they are often here to serve as more of a guide to us in our lives and to assist and teach us lessons about love and compassion in a different way than humans do. Many of our pets come back to us multiple times in the same life. Animals can and do live with us on the other side and can communicate with us just as we would with any other human.

Now what is meant by soul age?  This type of age is not the same as human age as in “this soul has been in creation for longer than that soul.”  There is no time on the other side so all of creation has all been in existence for all eternity.  What soul age is referring to is how many lives an individual has experienced through the process of reincarnation, or more specifically where that soul is on the process of learning and soul expansion.  The truth is there are no set number of lives every soul experiences before they “graduate” to the next level of lessons.  A soul has all of eternity to learn lessons and expand and grow to move on to the next level, so it takes as long as it takes.  Some souls expand faster than others, and some take longer to learn lessons.  Often, we come back to teach or help others grow or learn lessons too, and we do this out of great love for others.  Most times we are all learning and teaching. Consider the individual who decides to incarnate as a child only to die in the first few months of life.  This individual has come to the planet to teach great lessons about love, grief, and loss to the souls that experienced them while they were alive as well as to the ones who remain on the planet after their death.  They are not going to gain a lot of their own soul growth in that lifetime, but they did come down anyway to help others to learn and grow.   Often the amount of suffering a soul chooses to take on will correspond to how much growth that soul will experience during a particular lifetime.  For example, a soul choosing a life with challenge after challenge and struggle after struggle will grow faster than a soul that chooses a life where everything seems perfect from a human’s perspective.  We learn lessons through challenges and struggles so when we go through something seemingly terrible, that is when we have our greatest growth, and it is for our highest good.  We are forced to find our inner strength, and these circumstances will test our faith and spirituality.  What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger right?

The following is a list of ways to categorize soul evolution or age.  Where do you fall on this scale?

New/Infant Soul:  New or Infant souls are the souls that are just starting out on their evolution process here on the physical plane.  They are in their first several lives on earth, and their incarnations are primarily dealing with the lessons of survival in the physical world.  Learning how to grow and catch food and obtain fresh water, avoiding predators such as poisonous snakes, lions, bears, and crocodiles, building and maintaining shelter, going through disasters such as plagues, famines, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, and war are all lessons that new souls will take on.  Morally, intellectually, and emotionally new souls come off as simple-minded, however they are simply lacking worldly experience.  They do not know right from wrong and tend to be learning lessons about love, hate, fear, compassion, and remorse.  New souls are not used to things like culture and group living so grasping the complexities of modern society and advanced cultures is mostly beyond them.  They often do not even seek or desire employment, nor do they seek higher learning and education.  They prefer to stick to learning based on a group mentality and/or via the family unit.  They often need to be told the who, what, when, where, why and how of life and thus are drawn to religious and spiritual paths that allow for this.  They usually adopt the religions of their parents as is, and they don’t question authority.  Without this guidance, these souls often will make major blunders involving murder, rape, and the like.  New souls accumulate a lot of karma due to their inability to have compassion for others.  These souls may seem simple, but they are also often more connected to nature and spirit as they are more likely to remember where they come from.  You will usually find new and infant souls in countries near the equator and in more tribal and indigenous populations.  They can be found in more modern Western type cultures as well, but usually are seen more on the fringes of the normal population out in rural areas and in the back country. 

Baby/Child Soul:  Having grasped basic lessons about what it is like to be on the physical plane, souls move on to examining more about what it means to be a part of a culture and mass consciousness.  Baby or child souls are learning lessons about security, structure, discipline, and order.  These are the individuals who seek out and desire situations where there are rigid rules, laws, regulations, and dogma to determine how society should function.  They tend not to see or understand the notion of a middle ground or a grey area.  The world to them is black or white, right or wrong, and moral or immoral.  They understand what is right and wrong but rarely understand the motivation behind people’s actions.  These souls tend to come off as intolerant, extremely conservative, traditional, orthodox, moralistic, and religiously devout.  They seek out societies that provide the community with a general sense of structure and rules.  These souls desire to locate in areas dominated by orthodox or fundamentalist religions (much of the Middle East), communist/fascist/extreme governments (China, North Korea, south and central America), or in small communities where the small-town mayor, local sheriff, and church pastor are the most important people in the community (small town Midwest and southern USA).  These are the people who come off as patriots and who worship their country, politicians, the military, doctors, principals, police officers, and religious leaders as Gods.  What the powers that be say goes.  Often, they don’t question authority, and if someone violates the rules of the community, then justice and judgment ensues.  Sex and sexuality are very hidden and considered “sinful” or something that must be controlled or to be guilty or shameful about.  This is a time when the family unit becomes very important and structured, where families are larger, and parents stay together because their society or religions tell them to.  There is a strict adherence to family values.  While this rigid structure may sound unappealing to a more evolved soul, the baby soul desires and needs this structure to best be able to advance their learning.  They still contain far too much fear and not enough wisdom to move beyond such structure at that time, and the structure is what helps them learn about living and existing in a culture.

Young Soul:  Young souls are learning lessons about power and independence.  Having now grasped order and structure, they now feel safe and secure enough to see how powerful they can become in the world.  The goal now is to explore the world and see what it is all about.  These are the materialistic souls who are exploring the ego and the personality.  They desire money, fame, and power.  These are the civilization shapers who move the world forward, and you will recognize a lot of these souls as big-name politicians, celebrities, mega-church leaders, and corporate CEO’s.  These are the souls who try to get everything: the most money, success, fame, or power; the best cars, boats, and motorcycles; the highest and most powerful position at work or the best degree from a prestigious university; the biggest apartments, homes, and mansions,  the most toys, electronics, gadgets, and gizmos, the most extravagant meals, exotic vacations, and designer, rare, or expensive clothes, perfumes, housewares, and furniture; the most fit and attractive body.  These are all desired by the young soul no matter what the cost.  There is little concern for others needs and wants.  For the young soul, it is a dog-eat-dog world, and the first person to the top wins regardless of how you get there.  Motives and ethics are not considered.  While it is great for a soul to break free and discover and experience their individuality, this can come at a price.  Often young souls will overwork themselves to gain material success, power, and possessions.  They miss out on the joys and love of families, partners, pets, and children.  The added stress and lack of time to take care of themselves often winds up in disease.  They end up hurting innocent people as well as the ones they love on their race towards the top.  The planet itself suffers as profits become more important than anything else.  Insufficient healthcare systems, crumbling infrastructures, and unequal social and economic structures take root.  Planetary destruction through the dumping of toxic wastes and pollutants, the killing and overconsumption of plants and animals, and by messing with the order of nature due to the arrogant thinking that humans are superior can occur with little thought or remorse.  Often these souls are the most scared of death and this fear of death manifests in everything from plastic surgery to broken and costly medical systems that attempt to help everyone live forever.  Often these souls have little concern for religion and spirituality as they question whether or not there is even an afterlife.  This instills in them a great desire to leave their mark on the world because in their view, when life is over, that is the end.  Even though this may sound empty, this can be a time of great fun trying to explore the material world in all its splendor.  Young soul countries are places such as Australia, Canada, Germany, the United States (this is prominent particularly in the big cities and places such as Southern California), Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Japan.

Mature Soul:  After exploring the young soul phase, a soul begins to realize it desires more than just worldly possessions and materialistic desires to make it happy.  What matters more is relationships and the bonds we share with others, and thus these years are for exploring all different possible ways we can interact with other people and the sort of lessons this provides.  The mature soul phase sends us on a journey to explore others in a way that has not previously been done before.  This is a phase when we get in touch with our emotional selves, and thus these life spans are filled with lots of drama.  This can be a very difficult and frustrating time as we come to accept and move through areas of our soul that we previously ignored and delve into feelings that have been squashed or suppressed for several lifetimes.  Mature souls are thoughtful, reflective, sensitive, and consider the motivations and feelings of other people.  They tend to develop a deep sense of empathy and compassion for others at this time as they wholeheartedly embrace paying attention to the plights of other souls as well as looking for opportunities for more intimate relationships, as well as partnerships and family structures that are outside the mainstream.  This consideration for others tends to kick off a kind of self-discovery period where we are searching for a deeper meaning to life.  We question everything from ourselves to other people’s motives and this struggle often plays itself out in the arts.  Mature souls tend to gravitate towards expression through art, philosophy, music, dance, and acting.  Many of the most gifted artists and actors that we see on the earth plane are in the mature soul phase.  Mature souls tend to move towards religious and spiritual paths that are more about looking inward rather than through some of the more dogmatic religious paths previously explored.  Mature souls are drawn to meditation, yoga, and Buddhism quite often and may begin to delve into other individualistic metaphysical and spiritual studies.  Mature souls often come off as emotionally high maintenance and are particularly liberal (they are often referred to as bleeding hearts or hippies by younger souls) constantly promoting causes and solutions to worldwide problems such as socioeconomic inequality, racism, homophobia, chauvinism, environmental destruction, animal rights, and war.  Many mature souls do rise to prominence; however this is usually due to the passion, dedication, and enthusiasm they give to their causes, purposes, and artistic endeavors rather than out of a desire to gain more material and worldly goods and experiences.  Mature souls tend to become more adventurous and want to explore the nuances of physical things like food, sex, art, and travel.  Some examples of mature soul areas of the world include Greece, Italy, Egypt, Mexico, the UK, Russia, and the NE United States.

Old Soul:  In the old soul stage, souls move beyond just exploring relationships and the interplay between themselves and others, but instead focus on the interconnectedness of all things.  They come off as easy going and laid back and are competent in most everything they attempt to do (mostly due to their vast wisdom and wealth of previous life experiences).  Because old souls have done it all before, they often struggle trying to find their true calling in life and ultimately settle for doing only what makes them most happy which is usually something that is undemanding and leaves them free to pursue opportunities for spiritual endeavors and soul growth (their primary focus in life).  Old souls come off as gentle, calm, relatively stable, and kindhearted, often to the point of being referred to as meek or weak to the younger souls who do not understand their level of development.  Like new souls, there are much fewer on the planet so often older souls come off as eccentric, bizarre, and out of the norm.  Animals are drawn to old souls due to their wisdom and gentle nature.  Old souls tend to prefer more alternative and holistic forms of medicine, and their spirituality often defies description as it can be a little bit of everything, yet at the same time none of the currently existing spiritual paths on the planet.  Due to their interconnectedness to all that is, old souls often share a feeling of loneliness and have a longing and desire for home (Source/the Light/heaven/where we came from).  Due to their wisdom, old souls have a more accurate sense of knowing what is true or not, and many times they are more in touch with their intuition and often have been blessed with other seemingly supernatural gifts (although in truth all beings possess such gifts).  They often have clear yet simple writing and speaking abilities and are more easily able to communicate with large groups of people.  They have little concern for social structures and cultural expectations, and do not care to be pigeonholed based on what society tells them they “need to” or “should be” doing.  They are much more easily able to let go and to let be, secure in the power of their own Light, understanding that they are always safe, secure, and eternal regardless of what happens to them in the physical realm.  This allows old souls to become detached to the dramas of the earth plane and the mature soul stage allowing them to move forward without fear.  Many old souls do not come into their old soul nature until sometime in their 30’s since earlier in their lives they spend time reviewing lessons from previous soul ages.  While older souls often can be prone to laziness due to their ability to not sweat the small stuff and see the big picture, and because they realize we are all ONE, safe, and protected and that there is a purpose for everything, this is often counteracted because they usually are able to more efficiently master manifestation of their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs in the physical realm due to their more advanced wisdom of the laws of the Universe.  The old soul level is the teaching level, and old souls focus on teaching and passing on their knowledge to the younger souls of the planet.  They are here to assist and to lead by example.  Because of the old soul’s vast wealth of experiences, they really strive for their lives to remain free of judgment, and they are constantly screening their actions, thoughts, and emotions for signs of judgment so that they can correct it.  Another main old soul focus is working on mastering self-love and self-esteem and many of their challenges direct them to work on this.  Gender and sexuality become more fluid, and older souls will spend many lives exploring the nuances of this by alternating sexes and sexualities in lives as well as spending lives in their least preferred sex.  Finally, old souls are working on resolving a lot of old karma, much of which was racked up when they were a younger soul learning major life lessons.  Ultimately, they are working towards moving out of reincarnating to the physical realm so they must resolve all old karma before their journeys can be complete.  Because of this, old souls seemingly go through a lot of trials and tribulations that would be difficult for a younger soul to withstand.  Older souls are often more able to handle this, and these challenges are looked on as tests for their spiritual growth and faith.  Old souls are found all over the planet but in higher concentrations in places such as the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, some parts of India, Burma, New Zealand, Switzerland, and parts of the USA (namely the Pacific NW and areas in the SW like Sedona, Santa Fe, and Boulder).  Many old souls like to say, “this is my last life on earth, and then I don’t have to come back!”  In truth, an old soul will never stop coming back until they can learn to love and cherish their experiences on earth.

Transcendental and Infinite Souls:  Transcendental souls are the souls who have completed the cycle of reincarnation on the earth plane.  They have evolved enough that they do not need or desire to come to earth anymore to learn lessons.  They have finished the lessons and have graduated and moved on to higher realms of teaching and learning.  They also have resolved their karma and do not need to return due to karmic debts.  These souls do sometimes on the very rare occasion come back to earth mostly to be teachers.  I personally believe most souls will come back to do this at least once.  Infinite souls are the souls that are evolved so highly that they are a full representation of the light and all that there is.  These souls are often known as ascended masters and include such people as Jesus Christ, Buddha, Lao Tsu, Mary (Mother of Jesus), Quan Yin, and Krishna.  They are infused with so much light that the human body can barely contain it all.  They have seemingly superhuman powers as well as the ability for supernatural healing.  They come to the earth plane to show us what it looks like to evolve to the state of enlightenment.  They bring great wisdom showing us how to live our lives on this planet and how to treat others, ourselves, and the planet as a whole.  These are the people that religions are made from.

Many times, souls who are in lifetimes where they are transitioning between levels will exhibit characteristics in between two categories.  It is entirely possible that more than one of these categories may fit you, and this could mean you are moving between levels.  Evolution is a slow process, and there are no set rules as to what type of soul you are.  The levels blend into each other slowly and you may be concurrently learning lessons from two of the ages at the same time.  As your soul ages, it will reexamine many of the previous levels’ lessons in every incarnation as well.  In general, the older the soul, the later in life they begin to really exhibit the tendencies of their true soul age.  The earlier years in life are spent reviewing the lessons of other soul ages in addition to beginning on your journey of your current soul lessons.  It is also very important to note that there is no level that is better than any other level!  I repeat…no level is more desired or more special than any other level.  All souls have been through or will go through all levels, and all levels are necessary for soul growth, evolution, and expansion.  In the same way that humans don’t say the elderly are better and more special than the kids and vice versa, an old soul is not better than a baby soul.  Humans also tend to incarnate in clumps and groups.  There are souls from each category in places all over the planet; however, as listed, there are some areas where the soul age skews more towards a certain demographic.  At this stage of Earth’s development, the overall soul age of mass consciousness aligns close to a bell curve.  Most of the planet’s population (middle of the bell curve) falls in the young soul category currently, with less souls in mature and child soul, and still far less souls in the old and infant soul categories.  I believe that as humanity progresses forward in the future into the Age of Aquarius/Enlightenment, the bell curve will move closer towards the mature soul being the most dominant type on the planet with a significant increase in old souls.  Many countries have transitioned to more mature soul countries in recent years to signify this movement.  As the earth evolves and moves forward in its own evolution, new and child souls will incarnate less frequently here as there will be better more appropriate learning planets that are newer in creation for the “new soul” experience to occur on.