Spiritual Growth

At the base of the many horrors and inequities and sorrows that life throws at us is spiritual growth, as this is the point of incarnated life. In a life lived without personal pain or anguish there is little incentive to growth. If everyone were born beautiful, lived a life without disease, never wanted for any physical comfort, and did not encounter adversity or struggle, what reason would there be to develop a strong compassion for others? Compassion, empathy for what others are going through, is love, and on a spiritual level is learned only by having experienced pain and anguish oneself. The young soul, immature, may experience what by instinct the life form experiences when a member of the species is in terror or pain. This is biological, an evolutionary result, to help the flock or herd realize danger and flee to safety. A rabbit, sensing another had been captured by a coyote, is terrified when it hears the squeals of panic and pain from its fellow rabbit, but this does not equate to empathy. Most certainly, the rabbit would not offer itself for another! This gesture is only found in highly evolved souls, those who have long ago chosen the Service-to-Other path.

In that the young soul remembers, and carries forward any memory of pain or anguish from prior lives, it begins to relate on more than an instinctive level to what it sees about it, in the pain and anguish in others. Unlike the rabbits, who flee in terror when one of their fellows becomes prey, the human with an incarnated soul contemplates the outcome. If inclined toward Service-to-Other, they can see that a circumstance is leading to pain for another, and step in to try to change the outcome. This may mean a loss of some kind, such as taking time out from other tasks, or spending some money intended for the self, or even putting the self at risk, but the outcome, for another, is changed. These steps may be small, such as stopping the car to inquire after the welfare of someone at the side of the road, or large, such as rushing into a burning building to break open a door trapping others inside. In the latter, the human is certainly offering themselves so that others may survive, putting themselves at risk, a potential sacrifice of self. This type of gesture, the unhesitating step to sacrifice all to help others, always indicates a highly evolved soul, strongly in the Service-to-Other. Would the rabbit rush into a burning building, to prevent the pain and panic in its fellows?

Ultimately, after many thousands of incarnated lifetimes, or perhaps even millions of such lifetimes, the soul has evolved to be intensely loving, and this is not a shallow matter. In these lifetimes, there are times when the soul was incarnated into crippled or diseased bodies, or trapped in a live of suffering and anguish, no escape possible, such as slavery or life in a land suffering a drought where there is never enough to eat, for all. There are times of horror and terror, when the volcano is about to explode or the incarnation is in a woman or a man of small frame, or a child, and a sadist has full control of their life and enjoying the pain and hopelessness he can inflict. There are also times when the incarnation affords strength, the body strong with strength respected by others, the circumstances of birth affording funds and influence, the IQ high so that meeting life's adversity is a game rather than a sorrow. If the point of an incarnation full of pain and anguish is to experience what others might be going through, the point of an incarnation that affords strength is to give the soul an opportunity to rescue others, to put oneself at risk. At first, the young soul stands idly by, watching others suffer, but feels discomfited by this as it remembers when it suffered, in past lives.

As steps are taken, to rescue or intervene for others, this relieves the sense of suffering, not only for those rescued, but for the rescuer! This is the answer, to help others, as if this is done more often, overall grief is lessened! Where this intellectual discussion of the reasons for pain and anguish are hardly a comfort to the sufferer, it does point to an out. The parent, losing a child, will often be more intensely empathetic to other families in similar circumstances, and be a great source of comfort for them. Orphans are often adopted because their new parents dealt with abandonment in the past, during past lives. Firemen rush into burning buildings because they themselves were trapped in the past, in past lives, in situations where a helping hand could have made all the difference, but was withheld. Many people in philanthropic situations, who devote their lives to helping others, have some intense grief in their recent past, an impetus.