We are not here to learn by suffering -- we are here to learn how to transcend suffering.
Suffering is just a default setting for transcendence. If you do not consciously and willfully embrace your experience, suffering will kick in to make sure you Get It.
You have to practice Heaven -- you have to understand how to exist in an infinite present moment.
Possessing The Secret of Joy Christ consciousness is an enormous power -- to become enlightened and to be able to exist in the state of mind required by Heaven. The goal of life is to achieve the state of mind that allows Heaven -- peace, joy, love -- in spite of all sensory illusion, in spite of the body, in spite of the trials of the physical realm.
You have a choice in whether or not you require suffering to Get You There. Do NOT confuse this with "Suffering is the only way you can get there."
Suffering is the way you are ensured that your spirit and your consciousness will get the necessary practice in being present. Joy only happens in the present.
Do you require suffering? If you say Yes, you are existing in a purely reactive default state. You're saying you can't make decisions, or you won't make choices. You can't handle creative consciousness. You're still choosing - really - to remain in the unaltered autopilot state of life experience.
You create your Chart -- you Chart your Course -- you map your Path. When you chose to incarnate you defined the challenges that are intended to cut through the veil of experience, and allow -- or force -- your transcendence. You've already determined the landmarks, the ways -- even the exit points -- that will get you back home, Mission Accomplished.
Wake-up Calls and Reality Checks Wake-up Calls and Reality Checks are the alarms you set to go off so that you will not sleep away your life -- go through life in an unconscious, amnesiac state, learning nothing and forgetting why you came here in the first place.
Suffering definitely insures that you will not drift through the befuddling sensory experiences without awareness. When you programmed this series of wake-up calls into your life you placed reminders -- messages from the soul to the self, suited up for life in a physical body form -- to make sure you are given the opportunity to awaken and do what you came here to do.
Mission Impossible Some of these alarms may also be exit points, opportunities to abort the Mission, eject from life if your situation becomes too much -- so drastic that you must seriously consider calling the whole thing off. These are near-death experiences -- the moments where you step out of the body for a spiritual breather, to consider your options.
Should I stay or should I go now? People who have been clinically dead experience an in-between place where they encounter their Guides, their Ancestors and Loved Ones who have already crossed over, returned back home. Flat-lining in a temporary clinical death is a chance to evaluate your Mission and to consult those who can advise you. We hear stories of near death experiences that have striking similarities -- those who come back have decided It's not time. I have too much left to do. I haven't completed the Mission. Success is still possible.
Living is an activity we engage with enormous effort -- it takes a LOT to Get Here -- to Be Here -- to decide to keep going back in. You invest so much, planning and executing this experience…
Life Is a Trip But you don't want to Go Home before you've seen All That There Is to get from Life, before you've accomplished what you set out to do. You've already Paid for this course, but no one can make you attend. Once you've gone so far, you're playing at an advanced level, the stakes are high, but you may choose to let go and go home.
Transcendence, joy, peace, love, gratitude, intuition, connection -- all the rich magical moments you can experience in life can be achieved with or without suffering. But it is work, either way -- it takes some effort -- it's a matter of how you wish to spend your time and energy.
Learning to meditate or to willfully achieve higher states of consciousness is never easy -- but consider: how do these activities compare to the base-level experience of suffering, illness, disease, pain…?
Do you need Mother Nature to constantly step in and bitch-slap you? To roll you over on your back and growl in your face, to force you to stop and acknowledge the miracle of living through each easy breath? Must this always be the only way you can Get It? Have you come to rely too much of Suffering?
Life-threatening circumstances are your soul's way of saying "We need the Big Guns down here."
Do you keep suffering close by as a support system?
Do you define yourself by the way in which you suffer?
Don't Become the Disease You are more than your body, and certainly more that any one thing that lives within it. By over- identifying with your Disease, you're saying "This is how I Get There. This is the only way I know. This is what I rely on to identify my Mission. This is all I can get to..."
If you can only whine and complain, then all you have to offer is a laundry list of landmarks and landmines. We've all got Stories -- all our stories have problems and plot twists. Listening to you explore a list of dramatic elements is not even a good story -- it's a little like listening to someone explore dreams. It's irritating -- it's the author thinking out loud.
The riddles are there for you to explore, and transform, by finding your way -- by writing your Story.
Become the author of the Story your disease is telling you:
- Where's the Story?
- Where's the big, finished version, or the juicy work in progress with an awesome cliff hanger?
- Where's this story going?
If you share the tale of how you have moved beyond the landmines, how you've used them to navigate, how you've discovered and applied the divine guidance suffering contains, then your story transcends your personal drama -- your story becomes a map that others may follow.
Your story must promise to share your wisdom -- without transcendence, your story is only plot twists and stage directions with the all-important characters removed -- it's just Data.
Don't show me your scars without translating their wisdom. Don't tell me how you once were lost, without the grace of what you found and how you were shown the way beyond it. Suffering is a trail of bread crumbs in the woods.
An author is the first member of the audience to arrive and discover a story -- even her own. Not all perfect, beautiful endings are happy ones -- you can find great meaning and significance even in the things that break your heart.
Follow your suffering to the glory of its perfect ending.