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The Curious Soul: Why Intelligent Spirits Choose Physical Existence

• Douglas James Cottrell PhD • Season 2 • Episode 13

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What compels an intelligent, all-knowing soul to choose the limitations of physical existence? Dr. Douglas James Cottrell tackles this profound spiritual question with wisdom, humor, and practical insight that bridges ancient understanding with modern curiosity.

The journey begins with a striking metaphor - we are like exquisite statues hidden within rough stone, with life's challenges serving as the divine chisel revealing our true nature. "If our souls knew everything," Dr. Douglas observes wryly, "we would know better than to come here." Yet it's precisely the soul's innate curiosity and drive for growth that draws it to Earth's challenging classroom.

Drawing from decades of spiritual exploration, Dr. Douglas unpacks the paradox of intelligent consciousness choosing limitation. The soul, a genderless "ball of light," seeks diverse experiences across lifetimes - sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes experienced in this realm, sometimes novice. When souls transition between lives, they retain the wisdom gained but shed the emotional attachments, allowing for fresh perspectives with each incarnation.

Particularly fascinating is the exploration of souls who seem "not worldly wise" - are they first-timers to Earth or perhaps advanced beings testing our compassion? Ancient traditions across cultures treated strangers with special care for this very reason, recognizing potential "angels in disguise." This wisdom reminds us to approach everyone with patience and kindness, while maintaining healthy boundaries.

The conversation expands beyond philosophical musings to practical spirituality, challenging us to reconsider how we treat society's most vulnerable members. In ancient communities, caring for those unable to care for themselves wasn't a burden but a sacred privilege - an evolutionary perspective that could transform our modern approach to social challenges.

Have you ever wondered about your soul's journey through multiple lifetimes? Join us for this enlightening exploration of consciousness, purpose, and the profound reasons we choose to experience life on this "little blue marble" we call Earth.

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Announcer:

Welcome to Wake Up with Dr Douglas James Cottrell, your source for helpful information, advice and tips to live your life in a mindful way in this increasingly chaotic world. For over four decades, Dr Douglas has been teaching people how to develop their intuition and live their lives in a conscious way. His news and views of the world tomorrow, today, are always informative and revealing. And now here's your host, Dr Douglas James Cottrell.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Welcome to the Wake Up, a broadcast where curiosity leads to deeper understanding. I'm your host, Douglas James Cottrell, and my good friend and co-host Les Hubert is here with me, along with editor Jack Bialik, as we delve into the fascinating realms of life, metaphysics, spirituality and the pressing questions that shape our world. Good morning, Les. What's on the menu today?

Les Hubert:

We have another intriguing question for you, Doug, from our listeners. If our souls are intelligent and indeed come from the God Source, why do we incarnate in this world?

Douglas James Cottrell:

Because we don't know it all. If we knew everything, we would know better than to come here. Okay, so, number one, this is not a nice place. This is a place of work, of evolution, of development, and all those things are hard. You know, like it's like we're a statue inside a block of stone, and the hammer and the chisel are the hands of God and they got to come by and chisel off all that rough stone so that we get down to that finished figure inside the stone which becomes a marvelous, beautiful statue. However, on the outside it looked pretty rough, didn't it? We are constantly attempting to chisel away the rough outside layer to find the beauty inside of ourselves. So, our soul having been created with all the other souls at the same moment, when God created the heavens and the Earth and went through the steps of creation, God created human beings. By the way, it was the last thing that God created in creation, which kind of makes me wonder if we think we're so important, how come we were the last thing to be created? But who knows what's in the mind of God? I certainly don't know.

Douglas James Cottrell:

But of that creation, the souls were created to inhabit physical bodies. That's why in religions around the world this is called the temple. This is the home of our soul. Inside, our heart is the seat of our soul. In religious paintings, you'll see, the heart is always the house of the soul. So you know, looking around the world's great religions, and they all refer to this physical aspect as a covering. It's the clay that is thrown away when you pass away and we get to see like the physical part is temporary. But the permanent aspect is the soul. And if the soul is really intelligent, well, it's smart, it's intelligent in a way we can't understand, because our physical self is like (whoosh) in existence, just a breath, but our soul is there forever.

Douglas James Cottrell:

So let's's say our soul is kind of curious. Okay, let's look at that little blue marble down there. They call that place the Earth plane. Let's go down and see what that's like. And so it comes down and it takes on a human form. Comes, exists and leaves. And it says, well, you know what? I kind of like that. Let's do that again. Comes, takes on existence, takes on a body, has the experience and leaves, back to the great post-existence, which is actually the pre-existence and the post-existence. Same place. And it says you know what? That was very interesting. Let's go on the other side of this little world and see what's going on over there. And then it repeats that. And repeats it again because it's curious. Because in everybody that's intelligent, every animal that's a sentient being, that has some level of intelligence, is curious. If you're not smart, you're not intelligent, you just sit there and stare in a pond. That's it. Sounds very boring. Exactly.

Douglas James Cottrell:

So, to answer your question, you know it smacks of a little sarcasm. Like hey, if you're so smart and spiritual, what are you going down here in the world for? It's a difficult place to be. Well, because people who are intelligent always like to solve problems. People who are intelligent like challenges. People who are intelligent cannot waste their time away. They have to read a book, they have to go do something. They create a painting, they carve something, they achieve something, like climbing up a mountain. God forbid, I wouldn't do that. But the point being is that the soul, having the same qualities of creation, wants to know what is here.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Now, that presupposes that God knows everything. That's true. God is all-powerful, all-knowledgeable. God created everything, yes. But wouldn't it be interesting -- again, we don't know what's in the mind of God -- but wouldn't it be interesting that God created all this stuff to entertain itself? To do what? To gain more knowledge that it did not possess. Or to put things together, an experiment, a project, and then let it play out, to see if the project worked. It created this place we call the world. And this world has a duality to it. Light and darkness, up and down, in and out, and on and on it goes. But again, we don't know the limitations of this duality, this place we call Earth, this Earth plane. We only know that we're here and we're in the maze. We're like the little mice running around. We don't know enough to look up. We just keep bumping our heads on all the little short blocks here, the alleyways, there, each other, you know. We're just having a ball, because we're not smart enough, as people, to look up. And so, in that playful way of explaining existence and why a soul decides to come into the world, it's because the soul is intelligent, because the soul wants to know, and so it comes into this world where it does something, and then, oh my gosh, there's another side. Let's go find out about that other side. And then, of course, gender. The soul has no gender. Ever think of that? Sort of speaking to everyone listening. No, the soul does not have a gender. The soul is a ball of light. A soul is not a physical being, it's not a sentient being. It is something, a consciousness. We can't even describe what our soul looks like. We've had visions and dreams. We've seen things. We've had glimpses of what our soul might be. Maybe we've seen an orb. Maybe we've seen a little dot floating across the ceiling. Maybe we have an apparition of ectoplasm, or we see something that looks like the shape of white milk floating through the air, or light flicker, flitter. Okay, I'm not smart enough to know that and I've been looking for this for 50 years. I have ideas, I have experiences and I have drawn conclusions, but in no way, shape or form, can I say yes, that's what it is. I can say most likely, probably. I believe. It appears to me. And that's the closest I can come to understanding anything spiritual and, in particular, what a soul is.

Douglas James Cottrell:

So, taking that to the next step, Les, if there's no gender, then what are we getting caught up about things about gender here in the world? What are we getting caught up with race colors, the different colors in our skin? Why are we getting caught up with people who live in different parts of the world that are different than us, but they all have the same soul inside? Well, this is how the game is played. Differences, and the soul's attempting to understand the differences. You know, if you have a team, a baseball team, or a sports team of some sort, and you're the coach and you want to find out who the best players are, what do you do? You pit them against one another. Oh yeah. Test them out. Test them out. Maybe God is doing that to us. We're on God's sports team somewhere and he's trying to find out who is the best, and every now and then he finds one, and he reaches down. Come on Enoch, Come on Moses, Come on Christ. And he plucks them out because they've achieved that pinnacle of success. Complete awareness. And they become an avatar, a godlike being in a physical form.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Okay, all fun aside, but if the soul is so smart, what is it doing here? Well, the short answer is: it wants to know. It's curious.

Les Hubert:

I've read like in near-death experiences where people said you know, I visited the other side and had this tremendous 360-degree awareness and I knew everything that was going on. All my questions were answered. Why do we lose that when we come here?

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, it's like why do we put on the helmet when we play football? Why do we put on the race car when we go to race on the track? Why do we put on hockey equipment when we go to play hockey? I know everybody's thinking protection. Well, yes. But we put on the vehicle, we put on the attitude, we put on that equipment, that appearance that puts us in that environment. So we're not all knowing, while we've chosen something to wear. Here I am. What we are all knowing is we're outside of the maze, we're now above, looking down, and we are remembering what's in the great beyond, and that's why we can see. You know, you go to the top of a mountain, you can look 360 degrees and you can see far away. But if you go half the way down the mountain or all the way down the mountain, your view is limited.

Les Hubert:

And also, the denser we go, the less knowledge we have.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, I'm trying to say, if we take on a certain role to play, we don't get to be in that great beyond where we can see 360 degrees. We can only see the role we're playing. It's a way of putting it. The denser we get in physical flesh, then the more we're adulterated by the physical body. Limited. We take on the physical body. Well, it's like wearing football equipment. It's really heavy and you can't run a 100-yard dash in football equipment and expect to do well. And you can't run a marathon with a suit of armor. So, the envelope, the environment, the circumstance is what limits our view and also curtails our knowledge, and it's why we have to die. Oh. We have to die because what if you remembered every lifetime? Wow. What if, you know, in some lifetimes you weren't such a nice person, you know. You worked for the king and you had a big axe and that was your job, you know, dispatching people who were... the king decided that one goes, that one stays. Anyway. So we have to die so that we lose the consciousness of that previous existence. More exactly, what we do is we lose the emotion attached to that experience. Okay. Now, as we're up here as a soul looking down, we're observing, we're not sentient beings being emotionally pulled this way or that way. Now we're able to objectively look and see: oh, look at that life when I lived in Australia. Look at that, I was a very good spirit chucker. I could have a boomerang and, uh, you know, I rode kangaroos around. Okay, now in this other life, I'm in North America and I'm running through the forest and I'm hunting deer and I live in a little tent. This is wonderful. Two different experiences. But limited to the perspective that you take on in the world. And by that I'm only talking about is that the soul can't remember those lifetimes emotionally, but it can remember them in a spiritual sense, by an experiential way, and that's how it gains wisdom. Now, that's not to say they don't remember, because people I know have done past life recall. They remember when their head was chopped off. They remembered when they were drowning, and some people remember coming out of the womb. Wow. Remember. And they say how come I can't move my fingers? This is not fair. Why did you make me a baby again? I can't control my hands. Oh, wow. I've had people tell me that. So they remember. So this curiosity and I've been very privileged to see people and talk to people for 50 years about these experiences, but it comes down to answering your question that, as we go through life, as we observe, the higher up we go, we see more. We also know how to deal with ourselves at the lower levels of evolution. And so it's wisdom that we have. And, from a soul's perspective, as we continue to write this book of life, you know daily journal, chapter by chapter, what we experienced, what we did, what we learned, where we gained, where we lost. Then, at the end, when we're able and capable at that highest level of consciousness, we're able to go back and look at all the experiences we've had, in an objective way, and then we can understand why we did things in different lifetimes. But at the end of the trail, now we're made whole, we know more. And then what do we do? Well, look at that. There's an orange place over there. Let's go over that way, on the other side of Beta Articuli, on the far side of the nebulas, let's go there. Or something like that.

Les Hubert:

Edgar Cayce likened it to, he said you're up on top of the ocean on a raft. And he said if somebody puts a heavy copper helmet on you and this heavy leather canvas suit and they lower you down into the abyss and you get down there and you can't see anything and you don't know where you are. And then later on they yank you back up and they take off your heavy suit and they go wow.

Douglas James Cottrell:

What do you remember? Dark. Except being terrified. Well, well, I'll accept that, Les. I mean, that's, you know, the sou l comes into the world, you know like, hey, we're going to the amusement park. Look at all the other souls. We're rushing over to this little blue marble. Yeah, okay. And all of a sudden you're in a physical life and you're going, what happened to me? How did I get here, oh my God? And down you go into the great abyss. The abyss means the level of consciousness you have none. It's like going someplace you've never been before, you know. Parachuted into, let's say, Madrid. Now what? I don't have any clue where I'm at, I can't speak the language, I don't even know where I can get a sandwich or where I can sleep tonight. And so you're bewildered. Well, let's use that analogy as how a soul comes to Earth for its very first time, and maybe gets mixed up. Maybe it enters into a rock, or a tree or an insect or something else.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Again, we don't know what's in the mind of God, and we don't know what's in our mind as a spiritual being able and capable of possessing physical matter. So I'm just going to let that one coast out there Les. But the idea is that... that's a good analogy, I could see it in my mind. Big helmet, you're down in the abyss you go, and you're going like, oh, this is exciting until until you get there, and then you're just lost. And somehow, think of it, somebody's up there saying: I think he's had enough. Pull him up. Not to sound chauvinistic, that goes for women too. You know they're down there, okay pull them up.

Douglas James Cottrell:

But we started off the conversation, remember the soul has no gender. And so, does it not make sense that, as part of the soul's journey, sometimes it would be male, sometimes it would be female, and then maybe it would like one gender over the other, and so for a thousand lifetimes want to be male. It's a man's man. And maybe for another thousand lifetimes it wants to be a woman and becomes a woman's woman. And then maybe there's some times where it crosses over, where it's been male gender but now in a female body, and it acts like a male memory, but it's in a female body. It's confused. Somebody explained that me. That's not my own wisdom, but I heard that. I think my teacher, Ross Peterson, had told me that and it makes perfect sense to me. So when we see people that are confused in gender, we can understand that might be the case. But what if, at the end of your spiritual journey, you've lived enough lives as one gender and the other that you're now two genders together.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Lord Shiva in the Hindu religion - in my understanding, which is limited - is that that's a demonstration of both genders coming together. And what do we know in the mind of God? What do we know in the spiritual world as soul's consciousness? Very little from our limited perspective. We're down that abyss, looking up, you know, because I'm sure that person with a big helmet down in the abyss looked up and could see that little raft up there. It said help, ringing the bell, pulling the chain, come on, let me back up. And then, okay, well, he's had enough, come on up. Come on up Les, we'll pull you up. I know I'm making light of it and I don't want anybody to be insulted. It's supposed to be light, so you remember it. It's supposed to be that you'll see these concepts in a humorous way, so you understand that these are very serious concepts, but there's no need to be solemn.

Les Hubert:

In in wrapping this up Doug dog, and thank you - it's it's been a great - we've we've come people, people all of us, sure, sure that seem to be not worldly wise. They almost... like They seem to have not a lot of experience in this. dimension Is it isn't really that the, case or Or, like you, come across somebody who seems to have everything going their way. They're wrapped up, they're intelligent, they're there, they have wisdom. It's like, is that? And they would call that, I think, an old soul. Is that true? Am on in the right track there?

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well I'm going to go on a little bit of a take, but let's come back to that. What about people that are mentally handicapped? What about people that just don't have smarts Right?? . are people that have? have, they're an infant of five or six years of age, all of their life. So is that not an experience that the soul would like to take on, to find out what it's like?

Les Hubert:

True yeah.

Douglas James Cottrell:

In ancient times, special people that were in need were honored by their tribe. It was a privilege for the tribe to take care of this, I'm going to call them handicapped person, physically challenged, mentally challenged. Whatever terminology, my friends, that you're comfortable with. These were people that were not able and capable of taking care of themselves. And so the tribe, the community, in their spiritual understandings, believed that it is their duty and privilege to take care of people that were in need. What a concept. If we believe that today we wouldn't have any homeless people, we wouldn't have any people who are in institutions, children locked away in places because they can't walk or talk or speak or act. We would not have these warehouses of people because we would find it a privilege to take care of them. So, as we understand that, the soul goes through those experiences too, but so does the community, and there, but for the grace of God go I.

Les Hubert:

When we come across souls who are, they don't really seem, they're not really mentally challenged or anything like that, but somebody who just seems to be a bit of a primitive. They don't have a lot of worldly wisdom, as opposed to somebody who is really very wise and very sophisticated. Would that indicate that they haven't had a lot of experience here or, in such a case you just mentioned, they just came in to experience that type of vibration?

Douglas James Cottrell:

Very good question, because who says all the souls created, the billions of them, are here in the world at the same time? They're not. Billions and billions of souls spread out through all the galaxies and all the universe. Wow. And a few of us have found our way to this little blue marble and we're working on what's going on here. Occasionally, one of our cousins gets close. Maybe they land in some nearby galaxy and they go: oh, what's going on over there? And they come over and incarnate into the world. Well, here I am. What's this all about? They have these primitive experiences, this lack of experience or knowledge, just like anybody else, first day on the job. Right? Right, right. I've got the job. I don't know what I'm doing. Tell me what to do. Where am I supposed to be? When's lunch? When do I get paid? Where's the washrooms?

Douglas James Cottrell:

So those souls that come into the world that are not well endowed with experience, maybe, just maybe, it's their first time here or their tenth time here. They're not well-versed, and so, as us pros we've been here, we know our way around right? We should always be on the lookout that somebody coming into our midst maybe is a first-timer, or maybe they're a divine being testing us. Oh. If they are a divine being - if you go back in other religions and even the time of Christ and before, people who show up are strangers, you're supposed to take care of them. Why? Because they might be angels looking very much like sentient beings. like you and I. But they're divine beings and they're testing us and so we should take care of them. This story in the Christian Bible of the Good Samaritan to all kinds of other religions in the East, where Father Abraham was the commencement of all the world's great religions, or at least Christian, Jews, and Muslims, we need to look at that and say, okay, if somebody shows up, they're a little weird looking, is this an angel? And so if we keep that mentality going, then what happens when strangers come into our midst? We take care of them. What happens when somebody shows up in our life and they're in need? We take care of them, because maybe it's a test and maybe that angel's opening the door and saying: over here, here's two doors, one to your spiritual evolution and reward. The other one, well, it goes down a floor to the cellar. Which one are you going to go through? Think about it that way. It's a good question, Les. I mean people who are in our world will show up and they're a little off, be patient with them. Maybe they are first timers or maybe they've been here and they don't have that connection we have in the world and they need a little guidance, they need a little love, they need a little patience. But beware you don't let them take advantage of you. Remember, you want to be a doormat or a doorway, and so you allow yourself to cooperate with them to the level that you're able and capable of. In an overview, to answer your question, yeah, that's what I think. They're first-timers or they're angels in disguise.

Les Hubert:

Ooh, intriguing. Well, thank you for tuning in for another great podcast. You can support our show for as low as $3 per month. Go to douglasjamescottrell. com and click on the podcast link. It's the big blue banner and thank you very much for tuning in and hopefully we will see you again soon.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, we had to throw it to some friends of ours. I want to say special thanks to PJ in California, to Maria in Spain, and we have some other good folks who are supporting the show right now, and we'll give you a shout out if you just sign up and support the show for a very few dollars a month. We'd love to hear from you as well, so we're open to your suggestions. But, again, my friends support Les and I as we continue to help you with this podcast. And we hope, Les, that we've touched on a few points. Excellent questions tonight. Until next time, God bless.

Announcer:

Thank you very much for listening to Wake Up. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you'll be notified when a new episode is posted, and we'd greatly appreciate your review of our show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts to let others know about the great content we're producing. For more about Dr Douglas' self-development classes, books and other related products, please visit his website douglasjamescottrell. com. Until next time, we wish you all of God's blessings: health, wealth and peace of mind.