"With each person who passes through your life, you have a soul agreement. What this means is that long ago, in the realm of the soul, you promised to have some special encounter, share some life-shaping experience, complete some soul-honing work with that particular soul in this life. Soul agreements are commitments to the evolution of our individual souls in conjunction with one another, as one by one we make the journey to that state of seamless awareness that the mystics call enlightenment.
It is because of these agreements on a soul level that at times you may feel a mysterious strange connection with some other person, why difficult people may at times inexplicably inhabit your life, why you may find yourself on a journey with a particular person---as if you had an unwritten contract to fulfill---and then discover that, as if by amputation, your association is suddenly over.
As the community of souls who have gathered together in life on earth, we have agreed not only to remember for each other the pure state that was our origin, but also to act out whatever portion of the endlessly changing tableau of human experience we have been called upon to play to ensure our own soul's growth and that of the souls to whom we have made these deep promises.
Some of us are here to be beautiful and strong, others to be cranky and difficult, some to die young and teach us through the searing heartbreak of great loss, others to live long and instruct us through wisdom.
But no matter what role we are playing, we are all enacting a part in that one great spiritual destiny, which is to remember our eternal essence and move toward ultimate union.
So it is that every person you meet, each soul who crosses your path and affects you---wonderfully and terribly, briefly or for a lifetime---is here for that reason, and every relationship you engage in is but a small scene in the vast, ever-unfolding human panoply that is being endlessly enacted for the purpose of your soul's development. When you recognize this, you will suddenly, breathtakingly see that each person has been brought to you with a high and elegant purpose, that each soul has come to touch your soul and teach it, that each relation-ship exists to hasten your own soul's beautiful awakening.
No longer is anyone a stranger; no longer can any of your relationships be seen as failures or mistakes. In the light of the spirit, we see that we are all playing out roles that are the fulfillment of an exquisite and all-encompassing plan.
To recognize this is to step out of conflict and into grace, for when we realize that life has been so beautifully designed, we will bask in the light of the spirit; we will live in absolute peace."
