The soul, suffering, healing, learning, and spirituality [Night Shift split]

Experiences of such suffering most certainly appear and feel existentially bad and unjust, undeserved and unchosen in the moment, and it's perfectly okay to have those feelings. I know, because I went through that hell with childhood sexual trauma... and relived those most nightmarish, black emotions in full during my Ayahuasca experience, which allowed them to be healed and integrated. There was nothing but dissociation during it, which is why the surroundings were empty. The pain was all-consuming. Now... I can recall back to those moments and feel completely unaffected, as the emotions have been healed. That piece of me has been healed of its wounds.

What I think you are not aware of is the powerful insights that come after the full healing of the pain, after trauma has been healed, and we can see with clarity unburdened by the storm of suffering. There is a method to the madness, though it may not be apparent at the time.


You keep saying this, without evidence, based entirely on emotion, cherry-picking any bit of evidence that supports what you already believe, refusing to accept anything else.

It seems that no amount of anything can convince you otherwise, so I may as well just be wasting my words. Your emotions are far too strong. I can empathize, because I had my moments of emotionally-driven blindness in the past. It's impossible to see through when it clouds your mind.


You almost seem to think that my experiences have left me cold and distant. No... I'm just no longer blinded by the pain, the pain being cleansed. You say there is inherent injustice, yet the soul chooses to put itself through hell for the purpose of experience and growth. It is easy to think of the soul as some cold, distant entity when that in fact is most far from the truth.

I myself have been through so much... when you're stuck in the pain, you cannot see past it all... so such feeling of it all being unjust, unfair, undeserved is perfectly okay. There's nothing wrong with such emotions. It's when they become blinding, consuming, enthralling, that they become a problem. But it's impossible to see when you are possessed by them... you don't even realize what's happening in the moment, as they compel and consume your awareness, poisoning the ability to think with clarity.

The only thing that can heal such pain and anger is acceptance and a full feeling of it. Which can be... so difficult. So, so very difficult. My mind would have broken under the weight of the emotions if I didn't have Ayahuasca guiding and supporting me, showing me how to heal it. I was still the one who had to choose to accept it, but it was easy, because I was so extremely desperate to be free of the pain.


If it is intolerable to you, then so it is for the soul in the moment, as it experiences it with you. Because it is you, not separate as you believe.

Do you not sometimes willingly put yourself through strenuous, painful experiences? Maybe a hike that leaves you feeling miserable at the time, but after the fact, you can in retrospect see that you felt better because of it?

The point being that in the moment, we cannot think of the positive outcomes, only after the fact, when the experience is over.


Understandable. Perhaps you will be able to be able to understand the point of it all once you either heal the pain, or depart into the afterlife when your time comes. That's how it seems to be, generally...

I do not fully understand why I am where I am, because I only have a part of the picture, but at least I know that pain and suffering is only temporary, not matter how harsh and unforgiving it can be. There's a reason for it all in the end.

I appreciate your thoughtful and thorough responses.

I think your undoubtedly wise replies come from having somehow attained partial consciousness of your soul and of being part of it. Unfortunately that is very rare in our population. The vast majority of humans live their entire lives conscious only of their human selves limited to memories of life starting in early childhood, and to their identification with their physical bodies and their Earth experience-molded personalities.

What I think you have not grasped is that from my perspective developed in wiser later life (and I have acquired at least some wisdom regarding the possible meanings and purposes of such difficulties) I can survey the hellish periods in my life and automatically still feel the pain all over again (though greatly muted), and still consider what I have learned from them as simply not worth the suffering to the human me (which is what I have lived as, like most all human beings). Presumably it was worth it to my soul, but was it worth it to me? Am I not entitled to have this opinion?

My recovery simply was because these periods spontaneously just gradually went away all by themselves as I aged, not in any way apparent to me due to my having learned a thing or two about enduring and surviving great adversity. It was more as if they were symptoms of brain disorders of some kind that eventually healed, and that process proceeded irrespective of any wisdom or knowledge accumulated, or for that matter of any of the mostly ineffective drugs that were used. My life was greatly stunted and darkly colored; nothing can change that unfortunate past fact. I feel compassion and great regret for my former self, but also a still remaining anger and outrage (though again muted quite a bit).

I don't see how any further knowledge and "powerful insights" obtained of the supposed actual Soul meanings and purposes of these episodes (perhaps gotten through powerful psychedelic drug experiences) could change the existential eternal human wrongness and badness of them. That I went through these periods is an unchangeable fact that has a great wrongness in itself, regardless of any later illuminations regarding them. And as you say, "...at least I know that pain and suffering is only temporary." I have certainly learned this through hard experience, but this knowledge of an ameliorating factor doesn't dilute the existential badness.

Perhaps my position is in part an intellectual and philosophical/metaphysical one, that actual conscious sentient experience and its experiential qualities are the ultimate center or nucleus of our existence, and their meanings , purposes and other factors regarding them are secondary or derivative in significance and importance.

Here is Oliver Lazar, I'm starting to warm up to him, but I have yet to listen to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS5ccAgcxus

David

Here is Oliver Lazar, I'm starting to warm up to him, but I have yet to listen to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS5ccAgcxus

David

I just listened to the Jeffrey Mishlove interview with Lazar. I have a high regard for Lazar (he is a man after my own heart) after viewing how he very intelligently and eloquently laid out the major parts of the case for Intelligent Design, how that meshes with the existence of a spiritual realm and an afterlife (especially in the battle of worldviews), and how the ultimately immaterial physics of matter relates to the existence of a spiritual realm. Unfortunately he spent most of the limited airtime of the video (51 minutes) on this rather than on the book, which mainly concerns the existence of and evidence for the afterlife. The interview only briefly touches on Lazar's transformative spiritual experience, the extensive research he has carried out in this area, and his firm conclusions in favor of an afterlife. It seems to me that Mishlove dropped the ball in not gently redirecting the interview back to the subject of the new book.

I just listened to the Jeffrey Mishlove interview with Lazar. I have a high regard for Lazar (he is a man after my own heart) after viewing how he very intelligently and eloquently laid out the major parts of the case for Intelligent Design, how that meshes with the existence of a spiritual realm and an afterlife (especially in the battle of worldviews), and how the ultimately immaterial physics of matter relates to the existence of a spiritual realm. Unfortunately he spent most of the limited airtime of the video (51 minutes) on this rather than on the book, which mainly concerns the existence of and evidence for the afterlife. The interview only briefly touches on Lazar's transformative spiritual experience, the extensive research he has carried out in this area, and his firm conclusions in favor of an afterlife. It seems to me that Mishlove dropped the ball in not gently redirecting the interview back to the subject of the new book.

Mishlove said that that was his second interview with Lazar, so presumably the first interview covers the more spiritual questions. I think this is the first video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsOYFbghHAY

I am reading his book now. At first his style seemed to me to be slightly awkward, but then he settled into his account, and the science relating to mediums. His book seems definitely worth the read.

David

In his book OL writes this

It is important to accept and endure the pain and suffering because this is the most important reason for our incarnation and our greatest learning task. However, what I have some difficulties with in this way of looking at things is the maintenance of the concept of morality. If positive and negative experiences suddenly acquire an equivalence, how can one still define a concept like morality? Is it still reprehensible to inflict suffering on another human being when it helps them grow spiritually? I must admit that this is absolutely incomprehensible to me and that I am reaching a limit with my unexpanded human understanding.

I'm wondering if we are looking at something more like a play and we each play roles, but if we play Macbeth we are not ultimately held responsible for a murder.

David

Mishlove said that that was his second interview with Lazar, so presumably the first interview covers the more spiritual questions. I think this is the first video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsOYFbghHAY

I am reading his book now. At first his style seemed to me to be slightly awkward, but then he settled into his account, and the science relating to mediums. His book seems definitely worth the read.

David

Just watched the first Mishlove interview with Lazar, this one more on the afterlife research and Lazar's transformative spiritual experience. His description of his mediumistic communication study was very interesting. At first thought it is quite convincing as research showing real communications from discarnates. On second thought I realized that there are many partial skeptics that, in order to continue to deny the afterlife despite seemingly convincing evidence of communication, would contend as a last ditch skeptical position, that "super psi" or living agent psi of some sort could account for the positive results rather than survival. Technically that seems to be the case, but it is preposterous since it requires the subconscious minds of the mediums to have the almost godlike psychic power to dig up from the minds of the sitters or other living individuals, or from the "ethers", many obscure pieces of information about the deceased that are very meaningful to the sitters. This subconscious effort would have to be motivated by strong desire to prove survival, that there is no death, even if it means faking communication using ESP. It would violate the Occam's Razor principle of parsimony of explanations in a very big way. Lazar doesn't seem to have considered that potential way out of concluding survival, but I wouldn't criticize him for it.

In his book OL writes this

I'm wondering if we are looking at something more like a play and we each play roles, but if we play Macbeth without being ultimately held responsible for a murder.

David

That's how I've come to understand it, personally. We're similar to actors, yet the character we're playing is also just still us.

If there is someone who wants to learn... then there must be someone who is willing to play the role of the teacher.

If there is a soul who is to learn that rape is evil... then there must be a soul who is to play the role of the victim.

We always think of the raped as suffering the most... but the rapist's soul also suffers from the guilt and pain of having played that role, even if that suffering is felt only later on, whether in life, a life review or through the next life, perhaps from the other side...

It can be extremely difficult for people to wrap their heads around concepts like this sometimes, as it requires taking a step back from how personal it can all feel. It can be extremely personal, as it may have happened to them, but there is also the bigger picture that they are currently unable to perceive.

From my momentary glimpses of my soul's perspective, it had nothing but utmost kindness and compassion for the suffering I was going through in my life... because it was also suffering, yet had no way to communicate that until relatively recently.

The veil of forgetfulness... creates a vibrational distance between the whole soul and its incarnate portion. So reaching that distance takes a lot of effort, and even then, the incarnate portion has to know how to recognize what's happening, else it might just be dismissed. Just a minor insight I got as I was trying to understand how it works. So it's based on, well, metaphorical vibrations as such. The Physicalist would be screaming pseudo-science, haha...

I appreciate your thoughtful and thorough responses.

I think your undoubtedly wise replies come from having somehow attained partial consciousness of your soul and of being part of it. Unfortunately that is very rare in our population. The vast majority of humans live their entire lives conscious only of their human selves limited to memories of life starting in early childhood, and to their identification with their physical bodies and their Earth experience-molded personalities.

It took a long time for me to learn how to listen to my intuition. So it's been no short road of learning what to look for, what is what, and how to identify what is intuition and what isn't. Even now it's a game of discernment between what sounds like what my intuition would say, and what my habitual, non-intuitive emotions would say. Never really easy.

What I think you have not grasped is that from my perspective developed in wiser later life (and I have acquired at least some wisdom regarding the possible meanings and purposes of such difficulties) I can survey the hellish periods in my life and automatically still feel the pain all over again (though greatly muted), and still consider what I have learned from them as simply not worth the suffering to the human me (which is what I have lived as, like most all human beings).

Then there is still healing that needs to be done... if the pain is still there, then you are still influenced by it, though you have gained a good degree of psychological control over it. But that's because you're not yet ready to fully face it, it seems... and that's just how it goes. Sometimes, you need to wait until you're ready. And if you have greatly muted it, then that means you've become stronger.

Presumably it was worth it to my soul, but was it worth it to me? Am I not entitled to have this opinion?

Your soul is you, so it also experiences these very same emotions, in full. Your soul could not have experienced these emotions and thoughts and doubts without the veil of forgetfulness, without having part of itself experience what feels like separation from the whole. That is why souls require incarnation and the veil of forgetfulness in order to go through these experiences and discover the insights they lead to. It's never going to be easy, for you or the soul. But it the hell both go through... there's no shortcuts to wisdom or understanding, alas. That is the purpose of raw experience.

My recovery simply was because these periods spontaneously just gradually went away all by themselves as I aged, not in any way apparent to me due to my having learned a thing or two about enduring and surviving great adversity. It was more as if they were symptoms of brain disorders of some kind that eventually healed, and that process proceeded irrespective of any wisdom or knowledge accumulated, or for that matter of any of the mostly ineffective drugs that were used. My life was greatly stunted and darkly colored; nothing can change that unfortunate past fact. I feel compassion and great regret for my former self, but also a still remaining anger and outrage (though again muted quite a bit).

Then you must learn to treat yourself, that part of yourself, with love and compassion. To forgive yourself for the things you could not control, and never could have. Resentment can be a bitter poison...

I don't see how any further knowledge and "powerful insights" obtained of the supposed actual Soul meanings and purposes of these episodes (perhaps gotten through powerful psychedelic drug experiences) could change the existential eternal human wrongness and badness of them. That I went through these periods is an unchangeable fact that has a great wrongness in itself, regardless of any later illuminations regarding them. And as you say, "...at least I know that pain and suffering is only temporary." I have certainly learned this through hard experience, but this knowledge of an ameliorating factor doesn't dilute the existential badness.

It feels eternally wrong and bad because part of your mind is still stuck, frozen, in that place, unable to move beyond those moments. Later illuminations are helpful, but they do nothing to those frozen emotions, stuck back in those periods of time. You can only ever see after the fact, after the healing, where you actually are. That's unfortunately how trauma works. That's how it was for my childhood trauma. Frozen, icy, heavy pain that was literally unable to move forward. Only through fully accepting and feeling it, the rawness of it, the horror of it... integrating and thawing it, allowing it to move and progress, have I been able to be free. There is nothing ever easy about it.

The cost is most high, so very high, perhaps the most painful and difficult... but the reward is one of peace and insight, as you can finally think clearly about the nature of the experience and what it means in the context of now without being consumed by the emotions.

No soul comes here for peace... souls come here to experience, to grow, through pain and limitation, forging their own lessons from the experiences. Trial by fire... slaying the dragon... journeying to the underworld, as the myths go. There is no easy path for growth. But it is an entirely spiritual journey, all of it, for us and our soul. Even the aspects that have no such seeming appearance.

Perhaps my position is in part an intellectual and philosophical/metaphysical one, that actual conscious sentient experience and its experiential qualities are the ultimate center or nucleus of our existence, and their meanings , purposes and other factors regarding them are secondary or derivative in significance and importance.

It's all relevant. It's all primary, so to speak, being subjective and most personal in nature. Everything has as much meaning and import as our minds give to it. It is up to us to understand what has true meaning to us, whatever that may be.

I realise I'm stepping into the middle of a dialogue with  yourself and @nbtruthman here, I apologise for the interruption.

If something inspires, speak away.

I've heard you speak of your own healing from past traumas and it is pleasing to hear that. There is a sense of indebtedness I feel on hearing of the sharing of such experiences.

It's not always easy to share such experiences... but even that can be healing, in its own way. To know you're not alone.

However I wanted to add, briefly, a couple of instances of my own, one of them in my younger years, the other somewhat more recently.

As as a young adult I struggled with a trauma which was bubbling beneath the surface and became overwhelming. I was feeling the unfairness and unjustness of things as well as the pain itself. Somehow I found my own path through, in several stages. Firstly, rather than trying to suppress whatever I was feeling, and just 'soldier on', I allowed and encouraged my feelings to emerge, to be felt, to be expressed. There was also a need to simply accept what was happening, not judge it good or bad but simply let it. That was a greatly beneficial process, however it brought a further breakthrough: a realisation that the feelings of unjustness and unfairness of it all, as well as the distress itself, originated not in this present life but in a previous one. Bang! It felt like a great shock to find that simply trying to find a way to deal with pain had led to a discovery of immortality. Among it all though was a simplicity, a sense of humility and of gratitude. Humility in recognising how in this life we are peering through occasional cracks in the fabric of existence and seeing the vastness of - something. Gratitude in understanding that somehow I was helped and guided, the help was felt and it also led to a realisation that I need never be alone in my struggles. A recognition of something more, use the word God if you wish. Though not as an abstraction necessarily, more direct than that.

A more recent example of my healing was when I unexpectedly found myself spending an afternoon communing with and chatting as well as laughing with deceased loved ones. That hasn't been repeated, I'm not a natural medium, but the effect has been long-lasting.

Beautiful.

Perhaps I should attempt to comment on the nature of the soul in all this. Though it feels like i should leave that for now. Maybe another day.

Whenever you're ready.

It took a long time for me to learn how to listen to my intuition. So it's been no short road of learning what to look for, what is what, and how to identify what is intuition and what isn't. Even now it's a game of discernment between what sounds like what my intuition would say, and what my habitual, non-intuitive emotions would say. Never really easy.


Then there is still healing that needs to be done... if the pain is still there, then you are still influenced by it, though you have gained a good degree of psychological control over it. But that's because you're not yet ready to fully face it, it seems... and that's just how it goes. Sometimes, you need to wait until you're ready. And if you have greatly muted it, then that means you've become stronger.


Your soul is you, so it also experiences these very same emotions, in full. Your soul could not have experienced these emotions and thoughts and doubts without the veil of forgetfulness, without having part of itself experience what feels like separation from the whole. That is why souls require incarnation and the veil of forgetfulness in order to go through these experiences and discover the insights they lead to. It's never going to be easy, for you or the soul. But it the hell both go through... there's no shortcuts to wisdom or understanding, alas. That is the purpose of raw experience.


Then you must learn to treat yourself, that part of yourself, with love and compassion. To forgive yourself for the things you could not control, and never could have. Resentment can be a bitter poison...


It feels eternally wrong and bad because part of your mind is still stuck, frozen, in that place, unable to move beyond those moments. Later illuminations are helpful, but they do nothing to those frozen emotions, stuck back in those periods of time. You can only ever see after the fact, after the healing, where you actually are. That's unfortunately how trauma works. That's how it was for my childhood trauma. Frozen, icy, heavy pain that was literally unable to move forward. Only through fully accepting and feeling it, the rawness of it, the horror of it... integrating and thawing it, allowing it to move and progress, have I been able to be free. There is nothing ever easy about it.

The cost is most high, so very high, perhaps the most painful and difficult... but the reward is one of peace and insight, as you can finally think clearly about the nature of the experience and what it means in the context of now without being consumed by the emotions.

No soul comes here for peace... souls come here to experience, to grow, through pain and limitation, forging their own lessons from the experiences. Trial by fire... slaying the dragon... journeying to the underworld, as the myths go. There is no easy path for growth. But it is an entirely spiritual journey, all of it, for us and our soul. Even the aspects that have no such seeming appearance.


It's all relevant. It's all primary, so to speak, being subjective and most personal in nature. Everything has as much meaning and import as our minds give to it. It is up to us to understand what has true meaning to us, whatever that may be.

Thanks again for the thoughtful response.

I guess I have just one remaining arrow in my "quiver", the last-ditch option of bringing up an extreme but reasonably likely hypothetical nitty gritty real world example of a brief and hellish life that had no conceivable meaning or purpose such as you have so eloquently described.

Consider this: what about a baby born into a poverty stricken starving family in some hellhole of an African war zone country, this child in addition to a very unfortunate time and place of birth also having eventually lethal birth defects. All these very negative factors combine to inevitably cause this child to die of disease and starvation at a very early age, before he/she had a fully developed human psyche, Virtually all that this child experienced was suffering with no understanding whatsoever of any meanings and purposes to his short and miserable existence.

Not only this, but the parents of this unfortunate child were killed in the fighting shortly after the birth, so that they also accumulated no "learning from adversity".

This very bad outcome was certainly predictable by the soul prior to conception, since it was very likely due to the existing physical circumstances, and could have been avoided in the choices made by the soul for the time and place and parental selection of the future incarnation.

Various variations of this sort of very unfortunate and tragic story must really actually happen many times in various bad places and times. 

How would you rationalize these quite possible in the real world horror stories with your various otherwise plausible spiritual insights?