Life Purpose: The School of Hard Knocks?

 

I believe that the whole point of life on this planet is to have experiences on behalf of our Creator (Source, God, Consciousness…).  At the same time, those experiences are intended to be the vehicle for us to learn and evolve; this is our basic life purpose.  We perceive these as physical experiences, but the ultimate goal is evolution of our spiritual aspect – our soul.  This learning and development is cumulative over many lifetimes.  And, I do not think that it’s a straight line; in some lifetimes you move ahead,  but sometimes you may go back a step or two.  All part of the learning process.

The energy of love, which is the primary energy of creation, does not allow for extortion or force.  Thus, it does allow for free will.  That means that we’re endowed with the creative force to choose “good” over “bad”; either way we usually learn some life lesson.

We also, then, have the power of self-determination, not only around physical choices like our career and friends, but on the wider spiritual level we choose the lessons that we want to learn in any given lifetime beforehand, to enable us to express our life purpose.  Then,  we are born into this world, the veil is lowered, and the lessons begin.  The physical and mental self that develops is built on genetics, environment, and a number of other factors.  That is what provides the necessary variety of experiences.

There are two ways to learn our lessons: by having mostly positive experiences around the lessons and understanding the benefits of them…or by having mostly negative experiences, which demonstrate what happens when we don’t understand the lesson .

Of course, the seeds of any lesson start out appearing to be negatives…otherwise we wouldn’t be motivated to change anything in th edirection of our genuine life purpose.  If you’re born into a life of privilege, have a loving family and all the physical and mental skills you need, there’s little motivation to change anything.  (On the other hand, you may have simply chosen that life pattern simply to experience it; or maybe you’re just taking a break this “semester”.).

As the initial “problem” becomes evident, you look for solutions.  The way you look at the problem determines whether your learning experience is a positive or a negative one.  For example, if you’re born into poverty you could spend an entire lifetime bemoaning your situation and accepting your lot in life as being inevitable.  Because your thoughts (conscious and unconscious) control the situations you attract (indeed, they create them), your learning experience is negative.  You may learn the evils of poverty and how to stand up to them…to “be strong” in the face of a more-or-less miserable life.  Probably not a life lesson since they are meant for growth, not the status quo.

On the other hand, once you become aware enough to know that you’re poor, you could look at it as a gift.  It’s an opportunity to grow, to become more, to rise above your circumstances.  You could make the decision that poverty is unacceptable, maintain a  positive outlook, and work to change your life for the better.  On the surface, you’re working to make more money or attain a higher station in society; but on a deeper level you’re learning to expand, evolve, become more…become more Divine.

Either way, you learn.  One way, you live a life of relative misery while learning a particular lesson.  The other way, you learn a slightly differently-flavored aspect of that lesson… and live a rich and rewarding physical life in the process.  I submit that the latter is preferable.

Because of negativities that have developed in (or been inserted into) the mass consciousness of human society, many, many people think that learning our lessons needs to be an unpleasant experience.  The phrase, “I’ll teach him a lesson!” implies that the object of the lesson is gong to undergo some badness.  People wear their negative experiences like a badge of courage, proud that they survived intact.  And they say that they “learned something” from it.  In fact, what they learned is just that: to survive.  But given the fact that our spiritual aspect is immortal and will survive regardless, what have we really learned that’s useful to our spiritual evolution and expression of our life purpoae?  That we can stand up to pain?  I don’t think that the idea is to learn to resist pain and thus grow stronger.  Fact is, we already know how to do that.  You’ve been around for hundreds or thousands of lifetimes.  Chances are you’ve already  undergone some experiences that would shock you in their viciousness.  That kind of coarse learning, that basic training has already been done.  Been there, done that.

So we’re learning to maintain the status quo by “not giving in”.  In such a lifetime, where it’s more or less a constant stream of self-induced worry and sorrow, we don’t learn anything that we didn’t already, deep down, know.

But if we choose positive experiences to learn our lessons, we aren’t restricting ourselves to just “surviving”.  We’re constantly occupied with moving ahead, improving ourselves, expanding and bringing to the front all of our Divine gifts in service to ourselves, to humanity, to Spirit.

The idea that we must suffer in order to learn is bogus.  The Creator did not put us here to suffer…but He did give us the free will to choose to suffer.

Yes, you wouldn’t be the person you are today if it weren’t for having undergone negative experiences associated with your life lessons.  But who would you be if those experiences had been positive?  Would you be an even better version of you?  Would you have learned not only to “withstand” life, but to take it and expand yourself, and at the same time benefited yourself and everyone you come into contact with?

There’s really only one monkey wrench that often finds its way into the process of evolution toward life purpose: on a spiritual level we can have blotches…sort of sunspots of the soul.  Because of our ill-conceived choices, negativity in various forms can actually become energetically inserted into or attached to us; and these impurities can prevent or at least hinder our decision-making ability.  They can move with us from lifetime to lifetime; they can re-assemble themselves from one life to the next; or they can originate in childhood.  In our physical and mental/emotional self, we can feel them but not know what they  are or how they got there.

But if we can bring awareness to these foreign objects we’re carrying, we can expunge them.  When we do that, there is no outside influence stealing our free will and influencing us to produce the dark energy that they crave.  Then we’re clear.  Then it becomes truly a choice and a decision as to whether to learn through positive or negative experiences.

If the “executive function” in you…your Higher Self…sees a need for a change, it’ll let you know; more striking opportunities to experience a life lesson will arrive.  It has to be frustrating: you the “person” are in charge of this life, so your soul can’t interfere or “make” you do anything differently.  So if you’re not carrying out your mission, your life purpose, as effectively as possible, you’ll be prompted to do something about it.  In fact, the very pain you endure in the name of “learning” is probably the message in itself.  It’s telling you that something’s wrong, just as surely as touching a hot stove does.

Are you getting the message you’re being sent?  If you’re reading this, you’re being nudged.  Maybe it’s time to get cleared up, graduate from the School of Hard Knocks, and begin to evolve away from your need to suffer.

It’s up to you.