Maturation Of the Soul
There is nothing separate from Lord Śiva, who pervades all. The seeming separateness is the forgetting, lack of awareness or inability to be aware at all. Thus, all souls—Gods and men—are inseparable, tied into, a direct extension of Śiva, immanently close. The fearful distance is the state of the soul in the kevala or sakala avasthās, not in the śuddha avasthā, in which the enjoyment of the bliss of the oneness is felt. But the oneness is no less there in the kevala state. Souls, young and old, are directly connected to Lord Śiva—closer than breathing, nearer than hands or feet. He is the eye within the eyes of the beholder of His form, in souls young and old. Therefore, sight is the first experience of darshan.
You become everything when you merge in Śiva, but you are no longer you. The final destiny of the soul is to fully mature its soul body, at which time it would be identical to Śiva. This process leads the soul through three states or avasthās: kevala, sakala and śuddha. Once having been spawned, the soul exists in a quiescent condition, not being aware of itself. This is the kevala state. Eventually it hits matter, magnetizes matter around its first etheric body. This etheric body slowly develops into a mental, then emotional and astral body, and finally a physical body. This begins the sakala state—soul being aware of the mental plane, astral plane and finally the physical world. It is in the latter stages of the sakala state that religion begins, when the soul has completed enough of this process to realize its individual identity, apart from the mental matter, the emotional or astral matter and the physical matter. All through this process, the all-pervading Śiva nurtures the soul into its maturity on the onward march of its evolution. Lord Śiva does not create a soul, then, unattached from it, wait for it to return on its own volition. Rather, He creates the soul and energizes it through its entire evolution until, at the end of the śuddha avasthā, the final merger occurs, viśvagrāsa, absorption, by His grace.
All souls, Mahādevas, devas, people—and in all states, śuddha, sakala, kevala—have exactly the same relationship with Śiva. None is more favored, more dear or cared for than another. In the śuddha avasthā, the mental body is purified in the soul’s maturity and thus reflects its nature, Śiva’s nature, more than in the kevala or sakala state. Therefore, those older souls are doing the same work as the Lord naturally does. This is the loving caring for other souls. This is the innate nature of the soul and the absolute nature of Śiva. As the light cannot detach itself from its rays, Lord Śiva cannot withdraw Himself from His creations.