Why can't souls meditate/reflect in their own soul universe and move onto higher states of consciousness? Why do they need a physical body to do this? Is it not like coming one step down when one wants to go up?

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A being’s location is always relative to God. Material existence is as far from God as it’s possible to get. How is this so? What happens in this world happens largely due to the rules of material existence and that which falls out of that. It’s not that God can’t impact your life, it’s that God must operate largely within the rules of material existence because if He didn’t, that would destroy the entire point of this place.

It’s often claimed that we’re here to grow spiritually. This isn’t the case. We can choose to spend our time here to grow spiritually, but we can certainly spend it doing anything else we want to do.

What this world is organized around is providing us with the opportunity to discover a deep love. We are patterned from a soul, and possess a level of consciousness that is constantly, slowly growing. Our selves are discarded upon incarnation, and the new selves have to work out what, why, and how they identify.

This largely happens through putting us through various situations and allowing us to choose how we respond. We can choose to see this as challenge or just as obstacles. I’m not saying there’s not value in choosing to see our obstacles as challenges to overcome. What I’m saying is that refusing to follow the ‘rules’ of spiritual growth doesn’t really affect anything, because growing spiritually isn’t the point of being here.

If you’re a spiritually minded sort looking around at the world and wondering how it could be this way, you might find clarity in this realization. Adversity brings out our real selves, the self that knows what it is and what it’s about. If that self-knowledge is to get ahead however they can, well, there’s a place in what we call the spiritual world for that. And you, who likes to see the world spiritually, will find like-minded people to hang with too.

After you die, you do indeed get to experience your own universe. Anything you want, you can have, no pesky material rules to get in your way. Invariably this reality will fall apart for you, because, well, you’re not God. Your world will be as limited as you are. Think to that scene in The Matrix where Mr. Smith is explaining to Neo that the first versions of the matrix were utopian worlds where humans didn’t suffer. Those didn’t work, so they decided to roll with the version of reality that humans felt most comfortable in.

Rules matter, and a world in which we get to determine the rules devolves to a world that only the one person who chose the rules would ever want to live in. Someone with preternatural awareness needs to come up with a real reality. Material reality, where humans have to work hard to master its challenges, is one way of organizing a reality. But not the only way. For spiritual / heavenly reality, it’s possible to exist in it without ever having existed in a material reality. But it’s a little like growing up an orphan without a family. Something’s missing, that something is time spent in a world in which you have the opportunity to discover a solid identity.