A New View of Consciousness and Reality :
Multiple Sources - Same Knowledge :
Life is about Spiritual Growth

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Many times we get caught up in karmic complexes, like the one Stanislav Grof found himself in. The key to life is not the experiences that you have, but the choices you make and how you deal with those circumstances.  Psychiatrist Brian Weiss makes this point clear in his book Same Soul, Many Bodies. 

"True, some soul chose to come back as Saddam Hussein, another as Osama bin Laden. I believe they came back to maximize their learning opportunities, the same as you and me. They did not choose to come back initially to do harm, to cause violence and blow up other people and become terrorists. They came back to resist that urge, probably because they had succumbed to it in previous lifetimes. They came back for a kind of field test in this school we live in and they failed miserably.

This is all speculation, of course, but I believe their souls came back to inhabit them in an effort to find alternatives to violence, prejudice and hatred. (The abusive parent's soul comes back for the same reason.) They amassed money and power, and faced the choice of violence or compassion, prejudice or teaching, hatred or love. This time we know their decision. They will have to come back again, face the consequences of their actions, face the choices again, until they are able to move forward." 78

Once we master the lessons, such as learning to show compassion even in the face of violence, then we advance spiritually. Our souls continue to reincarnate to learn these lessons, as one lifetime is not enough to learn them all. The lessons themselves are endless, ranging from learning courage, bravery, standing up for what you believe in, compassion and forgiveness to everything inbetween. Each lifetime gives us the opportunities we need in order to learn our lessons and advance spiritually. The lessons you've mastered continue to influence you in future lives, while you work on other lessons.  

A specific example of learning a lesson comes from the book, Same Soul, Many Bodies. Psychiatrist Brian Weiss explores not only the past lives, but also possible future lives, of his patients. One patient, named Chitra, needed to learn to balance compassion and love, which must be received as well as given. She reviews a number of lives where she’s either giving love and compassion without really receiving much back, being on the receiving end without having to give much, or where she strikes a balance between the two. These are future lives which depend on her choices in this life. In this life, forced to care for her Hindu mother, she was being suffocated by having to give up her own goals and happiness to constantly care for her ageing mother.

Chitra had to learn not to sacrifice her goals because of cultural values, individual circumstances or guilt. As a result of her regressions, “she was able to express her anger and resentment toward her mother and her siblings for trapping her in the caregiver role—despite the cultural taboos prohibiting such rebellion—and by so doing she freed herself.” 79 

As Brian Weiss concludes:  "If Chitra continued stuck in her present family pattern, then she might have to experience a future as the paralysis victim forced to receive love [being on the receiving end]. If she just gave up, abruptly ending her relationship with her mother, abandoning her without a reasonable compromise, she might have had to come back as the mother of the seriously impaired child [having to give lots of love but receive little]. Because that is how it works:  We face similar situations again and again as we seek to learn the proper balance between giving and receiving, between sacrifice and compassion for ourselves, until we achieve the state of harmony". 80

Once learning is achieved, we may go on to learn other lessons. Another good example of a lesson that needs to be learned comes from the fascinating Near-Death Experience of Amy C.  While in the spiritual world, she meets a Guide/Teacher who has mastered the lesson of Humility. He is with a group of people who had "casual disregard for life" or who took "flagrant and selfish risks" that interfered with the lessons they had to learn and eventually led to their demise. The Guide/Teacher is there to teach them the valuable lesson of humility in the spiritual world before they go back to be tested while in another body on earth.

Quoting from Amy's experience:  "The teacher continued to offer more information.  He explained how, in aborting their own lives, these people would have a rest period, but that learning what they needed to learn would be difficult.  I came to understand that as much as they were taught and infused with good and helpful information there, and even if they agreed "wholeheartedly" with what was being taught.. or what they needed to learn, that learning without a body is like learning to get over an addiction to drugs with no opportunity to do the drugs!  Or like learning to love one's own enemy without having enemies to deal with. 

He explained how he needed to teach this group of people how vital it is to let go of themselves.  How to lose their obsession with themselves.  How they will be stagnant in all progress if they cannot unchain themselves from their own self-obsessions.  He had to teach them the importance of Humility.  And yet, he shook his head, smiling slightly, and he implied that there was still very little he could help them with, without their bodies.  His hope was to instill more of a passion for what he had to teach, strong enough that it would leave a seed of Light that might stay with them through their sojourns." 81

After being taught the lesson in Humility by the Master, these souls will then go into new bodies to test their learning in specific situations on Earth.

The fact that life is about learning is also found in the annals of UFO research. Under hypnosis Bob Luca uncovered a conversation between him and a "white-robed Elder" during a UFO abduction. He comes to understand that:

"Life is wonderfully fair. Those of us in this plane just don't understand it. When you see a small child that becomes ill and dies, people weep, they cry, they grieve. They grieve for themselves. The child does not need to be here any longer. The child has already advanced, much as you would skip a grade in school. It is not a bad thing. People that are sick or injured . . . their faith is being tested. The reactions are recorded. This determines whether or not they need more teaching. They need to advance spiritually. Can they go to the next step? Is there more they must learn?" 82


Next:  The Problem of Evil