My feelings/beliefs on these matters are more specific. I know for a fact that this is my 17,043rd life and that in each such life , my soul partner, Sitara and I have incarnated together in various roles in our lives. We've been karmic lovers, we've been childhood friends, we've been adulterous lovers, like Kate and Spencer, she's been my mom when I've been a female, etc etc. My understanding of why souls continually incarnate is written in many stories of mine, that I will link at the end of this comment. You pick up on a very key point that I completely agree with, but for the full and complicated meaning you'll need to read the links. To try to put it in a few words, each life cycle is meant to teach us lessons and each life cycle involves more pain than the previous. Why do souls endure this to move higher in heaven? I completely believe it is to get the one thing on earth we cannot get in heaven as in heaven souls have only the sixth sense--it is to make physical love and orgasm with our true loves. https://medium.com/p/fe7a93e534f8
