When I think about the idea of a soul mate, I think about the fact that we make decisions about our lives before we are ever born--who our parents will be, what will probably happen in our lives, what we want to learn from this life, and so on. So I believe that there are certain people that we choose (and who choose us) to work together during our time on Earth to mutually further our spiritual evolution. A soul mate would be one of these people who is destined to become your lover (though I don't know if "destined" is a good word to use, since this "destiny" is created from our own choice and can be changed by our own free-will decisions here on Earth). With this definition, you could have no soul mates, or more than one--any lover who assists your spiritual evolution would be a soul mate, even one who is not your lover for the rest of your life, or who you choose not to marry.
I acknowledge that my definition is on a purely spiritual wavelength and lacks the emotional substance of some of the others here, but I think most of these are talking about qualities that are important to being lovers, whether or not you and another person are also soul mates. I'm not trying to say that the qualities of lovers aren't important--on the contrary, they are practically essential to a soul mate relationship! And the high vibration which good relationships promote is spiritual progress in and of itself, whether from a soul mate relationship or any other. But there is a difference between what's simply a strong, loving relationship and what's a soul mate relationship. One is only in the emotional aspect, while the other is a cooperation of the emotional and spiritual aspects.
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Originally Posted by fourthdan  I believe it's more about finding a life partner and then MAKING that person your soulmate by connecting with them. |
I agree: since we have free will, I see no reason why we couldn't create a soul mate relationship out of a loving relationship--even if it wasn't decided before we were born--by mutually defining a spiritual purpose to that relationship and then working together toward that purpose. So it's not as if a relationship is ever "condemned" to be mundane and non-spiritual in nature.