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

Severe emotional blockage? How about really having to even indirectly deal personally with a sampling of the real life injustices and cruelties of physical life that I have generically been referring to? 

All this seems particularly ineffectual when I consider the problem I am soon going to confront when I visit a relative who has been suffering constant growing pain throughout his body since starting back in November or so, now finally diagnosed as a relentlessly spreading aggressive malignant cancer. I will impotently personally witness a gritty real life example of the grueling intolerable injustice inflicted on so many humans. 

I don't think any words on my part or on your part for that matter are going to be able to assuage his acute physical and emotional suffering happening right now in real time. He does not understand these concepts and wouldn't believe them even if I tried to explain them. How to really reach him? What he most needs right now is something to at least dull the pain, when Percodan and other narcotic opiate drugs offer little relief. 

It's ridiculous to try to tell this person that during his between lives period he as his soul accepted the high probability of (or even deliberately planned and brought on) this terrible outcome of his life. I know better - it would be cruel and probably would only elicit great and justified anger at my effrontery in giving him what to him is so much New Age-seeming poppycock. As far as I can tell he is not and never has been conscious of his soul (or even less, as being part of his soul), and would scoff at these ideas.

Your words seem to me to embody much wisdom, but they still fail miserably in actually dealing with nitty gritty physical reality as it can be sometimes.

I do think there is something more to our perception when we are not physically incarnate, but I think it would make me sad to learn that the suffering of this world was just the acting out of roles.

If we knew there was a nation of immortals, and to pass the time they simply enacted all sorts of horrors and injustices upon each other...would our reaction be awe and wonder or disgust...

Severe emotional blockage? How about really having to even indirectly deal personally with a sampling of the real life injustices and cruelties of physical life that I have generically been referring to?

What I mean is that your pain, the strength of your emotions, clouds being able to perceive clearly the nature between soul and incarnation. It causes you to perceive the soul as some distant, cold, even uncaring entity, even when this is not the case whatsoever. We are portions of soul that go through experiences because a whole soul simply cannot incarnate within such a limited form.

All this seems particularly ineffectual when I consider the problem I am soon going to confront when I visit a relative who has been suffering constant growing pain throughout his body since starting back in November or so, now finally diagnosed as a relentlessly spreading aggressive malignant cancer. I will impotently personally witness a gritty real life example of the grueling intolerable injustice inflicted on so many humans.

Yes, the injustice is real on this level. That's how it has to be experienced, so it is. I've experienced and witnessed many injustices myself, and it's difficult to remind myself that there is a bigger picture that I'm not aware of. All I am able to do is accept that there is a greater context I am not aware of to all of this. The incarnate mind cannot comprehend soul-level knowledge, so I must content myself with what I am able to know. Past-life knowledge is feasible, at least, but it's only a partial picture.

I don't think any words on my part or on your part for that matter are going to be able to assuage his acute physical and emotional suffering happening right now in real time. He does not understand these concepts and wouldn't believe them even if I tried to explain them. How to really reach him? What he most needs right now is something to at least dull the pain, when Percodan and other narcotic opiate drugs offer little relief.

We're not here to understand the soul ~ we're here to have experiences, whatever they may be, for whatever purpose the soul decided before it incarnated. Only the soul understands the reasons for why it chose to put itself through hell. The soul is not some distant, heartless entity. His soul experiences everything he goes through, and he will only fully understand once he leaves his physical form behind, and expands back into full soul. Only then will the full context be able to be comprehended.

It's ridiculous to try to tell this person that during his between lives period he as his soul accepted the high probability of (or even deliberately planned and brought on) this terrible outcome of his life. I know better - it would be cruel and probably would only elicit great and justified anger at my effrontery in giving him what to him is so much New Age-seeming poppycock. As far as I can tell he is not and never has been conscious of his soul (or even less, as being part of his soul), and would scoff at these ideas.

We're not here to be aware of our soul or what our soul chose. But the soul is, again, not some separate entity putting another entity through cruel, thoughtless pain ~ the incarnation is fully experienced by the soul, the soul only being able to come to certain understandings via the veil of forgetfulness. So it appears from the incarnations perspective to be suffering for no reason. The soul has that exact same perception, because it is the incarnation. The soul has the additional knowledge of knowing that despite the seemingly endless torment, it will at least be temporary. The incarnation can only understand after the life is finished. That is simply how it goes, unfortunately.

When I was blinded by the pain and suffering of my trauma, depression and anxiety, I simply couldn't understand why I would choose such a life... precisely because I was blinded by the pain and suffering. It prevents understanding, because the pain is consuming. Only once you are past the pain, able to see beyond it, able to look back at it without the pain blinding you, can you comprehend what it has taught you, if anything.

The lessons come out of the experience, not the other way around. And so very often only after the pain has been actually healed.

Your words seem to me to embody much wisdom, but they still fail miserably in actually dealing with nitty gritty physical reality as it can be sometimes.

No, they just come from a place of intuition, of finally having a clear perspective of what my soul feels, and why my life was the way it was. With clarity, comes an understanding of the previously crippling pain. But that doesn't mean I have all of the answers... I have some answers that finally put my experiences into context.

The point being that while we're in the darkness, we cannot see... so it appears to be pointless.

I do think there is something more to our perception when we are not physically incarnate, but I think it would make me sad to learn that the suffering of this world was just the acting out of roles.

You're thinking of it as roles in a play or video game as we understand it.

No... this is far more involved. The soul doesn't just... act. It's a poor descriptor ~ the incarnate aspect of soul becomes that role, literally. It is that role during incarnation. It is not an easy path for a soul to choose, because it means pain and suffering, though inexperienced souls don't really understand what that means until they go through the experience... it's like being told fire burns. The soul wants to know what that's like, as it doesn't really get it. Then it discovers that fire burns, and hurts really badly... but it learned something.

If we knew there was a nation of immortals, and to pass the time they simply enacted all sorts of horrors and injustices upon each other...would our reaction be awe and wonder or disgust...

Well... from this perspective, it would be both.

But that's a very inaccurate representation of how souls perceive things. Souls always ask or request other souls to play certain roles for the sake of seeking certain understandings... and because souls are fundamentally nothing like any particular incarnate entity, the reasoning is based on knowledge and understanding beyond what we can comprehend, so of course it can appear very bizarre.

It's very much blue-and-orange morality [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M...geMorality]. I cannot say I can really understand it either, but the best comprehension I have is that I cannot see the full picture. I only see a little picture that makes sense to how I'm able to comprehend things. And that's what I have.

Sensing my soul... it feels very peculiar, from a surface-level glance. I cannot hope to comprehend knowledge that I cannot relate to anything in this world as I know it. So I must content myself with that, for better or worse.

Severe emotional blockage? How about really having to even indirectly deal personally with a sampling of the real life injustices and cruelties of physical life that I have generically been referring to? 

All this seems particularly ineffectual when I consider the problem I am soon going to confront when I visit a relative who has been suffering constant growing pain throughout his body since starting back in November or so, now finally diagnosed as a relentlessly spreading aggressive malignant cancer. I will impotently personally witness a gritty real life example of the grueling intolerable injustice inflicted on so many humans. 

I don't think any words on my part or on your part for that matter are going to be able to assuage his acute physical and emotional suffering happening right now in real time. He does not understand these concepts and wouldn't believe them even if I tried to explain them. How to really reach him? What he most needs right now is something to at least dull the pain, when Percodan and other narcotic opiate drugs offer little relief. 

It's ridiculous to try to tell this person that during his between lives period he as his soul accepted the high probability of (or even deliberately planned and brought on) this terrible outcome of his life. I know better - it would be cruel and probably would only elicit great and justified anger at my effrontery in giving him what to him is so much New Age-seeming poppycock. As far as I can tell he is not and never has been conscious of his soul (or even less, as being part of his soul), and would scoff at these ideas.

Your words seem to me to embody much wisdom, but they still fail miserably in actually dealing with nitty gritty physical reality as it can be sometimes.

Nbtruthman,

Wouldn't it be better to start a new thread to talk about this? Mixing it with this discussion doesn't make much sense.

If I get such a diagnosis sometime in the future, I would opt to commit suicide one way or another, but I'm 74 and I can be damn sure that if I spent however long it takes in cancer therapy, there wouldn't be much life left for me. I am also 90% sure consciousness continues. Maybe before that I'd try a good alternative therapist.

You can't raise that subject of course, but he may want to discuss it with you.

David

Severe emotional blockage? How about really having to even indirectly deal personally with a sampling of the real life injustices and cruelties of physical life that I have generically been referring to? 

All this seems particularly ineffectual when I consider the problem I am soon going to confront when I visit a relative who has been suffering constant growing pain throughout his body since starting back in November or so, now finally diagnosed as a relentlessly spreading aggressive malignant cancer. I will impotently personally witness a gritty real life example of the grueling intolerable injustice inflicted on so many humans. 

I don't think any words on my part or on your part for that matter are going to be able to assuage his acute physical and emotional suffering happening right now in real time. He does not understand these concepts and wouldn't believe them even if I tried to explain them. How to really reach him? What he most needs right now is something to at least dull the pain, when Percodan and other narcotic opiate drugs offer little relief. 

It's ridiculous to try to tell this person that during his between lives period he as his soul accepted the high probability of (or even deliberately planned and brought on) this terrible outcome of his life. I know better - it would be cruel and probably would only elicit great and justified anger at my effrontery in giving him what to him is so much New Age-seeming poppycock. As far as I can tell he is not and never has been conscious of his soul (or even less, as being part of his soul), and would scoff at these ideas.

Your words seem to me to embody much wisdom, but they still fail miserably in actually dealing with nitty gritty physical reality as it can be sometimes.

Nbtruthman,

Wouldn't it be better to start a new thread to talk about this? Mixing it with this discussion doesn't make much sense.

If I get such a diagnosis sometime in the future, I would opt to commit suicide one way or another, but I'm 74 and I can be damn sure that if I spent however long it takes in cancer therapy, there wouldn't be much life left for me. I am also 90% sure consciousness continues. Maybe before that I'd try a good alternative therapist.

You can't raise that subject of course, but he may want to discuss it with you.

Best wishes,

David

... this is far more involved. The soul doesn't just... act. It's a poor descriptor ~ the incarnate aspect of soul becomes that role, literally. It is that role during incarnation. It is not an easy path for a soul to choose, because it means pain and suffering, though inexperienced souls don't really understand what that means until they go through the experience... it's like being told fire burns. The soul wants to know what that's like, as it doesn't really get it. Then it discovers that fire burns, and hurts really badly... but it learned something.

...

It's very much blue-and-orange morality [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M...geMorality]. I cannot say I can really understand it either, but the best comprehension I have is that I cannot see the full picture. I only see a little picture that makes sense to how I'm able to comprehend things. And that's what I have.

I've never really liked the idea of blue-and-orange morality, since it sets itself as supposedly "alien" when a lot of examples would just be Evil under a normal definition.

It seems you are trying to describe something you've experienced, but accepting it as veridical still unclear to me this is the status of all souls?

At best it seems there are some potentially privileged souls who get to wander the Real in search of experiences whereas other souls have to make sacrifices when incarnating if not having little to choice at all regarding their circumstances.

Nbtruthman,

Wouldn't it be better to start a new thread to talk about this? Mixing it with this discussion doesn't make much sense.

If I get such a diagnosis sometime in the future, I would opt to commit suicide one way or another, but I'm 74 and I can be damn sure that if I spent however long it takes in cancer therapy, there wouldn't be much life left for me. I am also 90% sure consciousness continues. Maybe before that I'd try a good alternative therapist.

You can't raise that subject of course, but he may want to discuss it with you.

Best wishes,

David

I disagree. I think the subject here is directly down the alley of this thread's subject matter - it's just that this is a perhaps extreme actual real-world case, rather than a theoretical discussion. 

Probably it would warrant another separate thread if the discussion gets into detail over all the ins and outs of suicide and its justification or not under various circumstances.

I disagree. I think the subject here is directly down the alley of this thread's subject matter - it's just that this is a perhaps extreme actual real-world case, rather than a theoretical discussion. 

Probably it would warrant another separate thread if the discussion gets into detail over all the ins and outs of suicide and its justification or not under various circumstances.

I think we should just table the arguments relating to justifying suicide and focus solely on the question of how there seems to be a divergence between the apparent freedom and beauty at the soul level vs the horrors (mixed with goodness) of this world.

I believe we can talk about real world suffering, of which you have provided an example, without getting into discussions about suicide.

What I mean is that your pain, the strength of your emotions, clouds being able to perceive clearly the nature between soul and incarnation. It causes you to perceive the soul as some distant, cold, even uncaring entity, even when this is not the case whatsoever. We are portions of soul that go through experiences because a whole soul simply cannot incarnate within such a limited form.


Yes, the injustice is real on this level. That's how it has to be experienced, so it is. I've experienced and witnessed many injustices myself, and it's difficult to remind myself that there is a bigger picture that I'm not aware of. All I am able to do is accept that there is a greater context I am not aware of to all of this. The incarnate mind cannot comprehend soul-level knowledge, so I must content myself with what I am able to know. Past-life knowledge is feasible, at least, but it's only a partial picture.


We're not here to understand the soul ~ we're here to have experiences, whatever they may be, for whatever purpose the soul decided before it incarnated. Only the soul understands the reasons for why it chose to put itself through hell. The soul is not some distant, heartless entity. His soul experiences everything he goes through, and he will only fully understand once he leaves his physical form behind, and expands back into full soul. Only then will the full context be able to be comprehended.


We're not here to be aware of our soul or what our soul chose. But the soul is, again, not some separate entity putting another entity through cruel, thoughtless pain ~ the incarnation is fully experienced by the soul, the soul only being able to come to certain understandings via the veil of forgetfulness. So it appears from the incarnations perspective to be suffering for no reason. The soul has that exact same perception, because it is the incarnation. The soul has the additional knowledge of knowing that despite the seemingly endless torment, it will at least be temporary. The incarnation can only understand after the life is finished. That is simply how it goes, unfortunately.

When I was blinded by the pain and suffering of my trauma, depression and anxiety, I simply couldn't understand why I would choose such a life... precisely because I was blinded by the pain and suffering. It prevents understanding, because the pain is consuming. Only once you are past the pain, able to see beyond it, able to look back at it without the pain blinding you, can you comprehend what it has taught you, if anything.

The lessons come out of the experience, not the other way around. And so very often only after the pain has been actually healed.


No, they just come from a place of intuition, of finally having a clear perspective of what my soul feels, and why my life was the way it was. With clarity, comes an understanding of the previously crippling pain. But that doesn't mean I have all of the answers... I have some answers that finally put my experiences into context.

The point being that while we're in the darkness, we cannot see... so it appears to be pointless.

It appears to me that we actually agree that human physical life from the human perspective can sometimes be in fact hellish, a seemingly endless valley of suffering, with no justification whatsoever from the human perspective. To the human personality it is completely natural and expected that the suffering is a vast injustice imposed by some other being, since the vast majority of humans live their lives (per the higher spiritual design) not conscious at all of their souls, but only of instinctively identifying themselves with their personal memories going back to childhood, their human personalities, their physical bodies, and sometimes also their human social identities.

By the higher design of reality the vast majority of humans are trapped for a lifetime in this limited and sometimes terrible existence. 

I can accept that there probably is much or partial truth to your description of the complex dynamic of the human person/soul relationship.

But our crucial difference is that I see this as a great wrongness inflicted on humans. This is because I consider long human experience of innocent meaningless suffering to be a fundamental existential badness that cannot be expunged by there being some sort of mostly humanly incomprehensible higher truth that supposedly justifies it.

In my view, that these very numerous extremely unjust from the human standpoint suffering experiences undeniably exist in spacetime and in consciousness is itself an unexpungeable badness that sullies the overall spiritual/physical reality design. It's wrong in a fundamental way because of its extremely high cost in human suffering. To paraphrase an old saying, "Stop the world - I want to get off".

This is because I consider long human experience of innocent meaningless suffering to be a fundamental existential badness that cannot be expunged by there being some sort of mostly humanly incomprehensible higher truth that supposedly justifies it.

Yeah this is why my belief in Survival doesn't extend to a believe in some perfect Plan.

Survival is what you get when you add up the arguments against reductionism/physicalism + evidence. To me these are the philosophical arguments in tandem with the reports of CORTs, OOBEs, mediumship, Terminal Lucidity, Savants, etc.

Whether there are Hells & Heavens, whether Creation is a merry-go-round for incarnating souls, whether the afterlife is mundane experience where you may even have to get a job...I don't think we have clear answers. Clearly the historical record offers us a variety of possibilities, some of which seem to be contradictory in at least some parts.

For me the best guess is there are multiple locations, with multiple groups of souls with different uses for incarnating on Earth. Some of these souls don't even seem to have perfect - or any - choice in the matter...