In the following article I would like to relate to a common perception among spiritual and religious people that life keeps offering the same lesson again and again until we learn the teaching of the lesson.

As a result of our upbringing, we are accustomed to think of our existence in terms of punishment and reward. From the moment we are babies with the ability to sense intonations and read facial expressions, our environment trains us to react to reward and punishment. Reward can be in the form of a subtle smile or soft voice, all the way to receiving a cookie or having a fun day with Dad. Punishment can be as subtle as a slight raising of the voice at us, all the way being grounded with no TV privileges.

We cannot shake these conceptual associations even when we are grown up and we think of ourselves as free people. You can hit your baby toe painfully on the leg of the coffee table and your mind immediately will relate to it as a punishment for something “bad” you did, said, or thought a minute ago.

What is the lesson when a tree breaks in the wind?

What is the lesson when a flower is eaten by a deer?

What is the lesson when the phone rings when you are asleep?

The idea of Life giving us a lesson is a spiritual cliché. Who outside of our self gives us a lesson?

Who is life?

Are the trees giving us a lesson?

Or maybe the galaxies are giving us a lesson?

Are the atoms giving us a lesson?

Or maybe the molecules are giving us a lesson?

Are those that have already died giving us a lesson?

Or maybe those that are not yet born?

Or maybe God?

This kind of perception is naive. The problem in our perceptions of higher powers (or in whatever you name it) is that we reflect our own limitations and ways of experiencing reality upon these “powers”. We do not have much choice in our perceptions as we can perceive reality only from what we know.

Let’s take the concept of God. No matter what the religion is that represents God, God is always perceived in the form of the mind. We picture God within our own picture. We apply our own virtues and qualities to God. Because we experience anger, our God gets angry; because we punish and are punished, our God punishes; because we experience love, our God loves; because we ask for forgiveness, our God forgives; because we become jealous, our God gets upset when we lose faith in him\her, etc. So who gives us lessons? Does God get up in the morning and create a schedule for the lessons of the year?

God: “So lets see what we have here; John should get Lesson Number 14. Bankruptcy will help him learn about his ego. The Manchester team should lose the World Cup so their followers will finally learn how to behave nicely during games. And Iraq, let’s see, Iraq should get Lesson Number 568. I guess we should send America to help them with their lesson as America is known as a very good tutor; after all, they helped Vietnam to graduate. (At this point, God is not really sure what lesson Iraq needs to receive but it is already written in his agenda, so why not.)”

What is interesting is that “lessons” always come in a painful way. Why is this? A lesson is an action that you learn something from. You can learn a lesson driving a car and because you are good at it, your next lesson is learning to drive a truck. Because you are a great student, your next lesson is learning to fly an airplane, and because you are so dedicated, your next lesson is learning to fly a spaceship.

In so-called spirituality, the lesson is to say in politically correct terms that someone got hit by life badly. For example: George received a million dollars in the lottery to teach him about gratitude, but he didn’t get the lesson so he received another million dollars. George still felt unlucky. It was only when he won the third million dollars that he started to appreciate the flow of life. So, if you win the lottery three times, you are considered lucky, but if you get hit by a car, there is a lesson in that?

So, no one above you or below you is teaching you anything. If you are a master, you may choose to turn an event in your life into a learning curve. At the end of the day, you are the teacher and the student.

Namaste
shakti mhi

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The following is an email that I received from one of my sincere students that represents the common conceptual struggle people shared with me about my fall.

Dear shakti;

I would like to talk about what i will call here your “accident”.

I must admit that i was deeply shocked to hear about the “accident”. I must have been thinking that only “good” could happen to you! out of all people.

so, in the recent situation of your “accident”, I asked myself immediately, Okay but why!!!?? and why am I so shocked and in disbelief!

Signed,
J.

Dear J,

Many people, spiritual or not, believe, feel, and hope that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. As spiritual seekers we should check the roots of these beliefs and where we are coming from in our life assumptions.

So let’s start: The first question to ask is, “Who is the one, outside of us, that implements this principle of good for the good and bad for the bad?” This ‘thing’ must have a mind, as ‘it’ thinks and evaluates the same as we do.

Is there a mighty power (In the sky? In the clouds? Under the ground? Or maybe in the mind?) that files all actions, intents, and thoughts into good and bad:

Stealing – Bad

Giving – Good

Drugs – Bad

Sex – Good? Bad? (Still in discussion ;-)

And then what? I guess the he-she-it entity sits down and files the whole of humanity into groups of good or bad people. For example:

He is greedy – he is bad.

She is negative – she is bad.

He is compassionate – he is good.

She is good hearted – she is good

And so on.

Next is to match all the people in existence based on if they are good or bad with what they are going to receive from the entity. This takes a long time as you need to choose the future moments for each person. For example in the Flying Category fate:

Who is going to fly by plane and see the world?

Who is going to be in the plane that crashes?

Who is going to fly to the sky from being crazy in love?

And…

Who is going to simply fly off a balcony?

The final stage, of course, is to send down to earth the “implementations” that implement the big agenda of events; including traveling all the way to Thailand and pushing me off the balcony.

What is in your mind when you think about an organized super duper program that files everything into good and bad? I guess the God concept, in its many forms, is the best fit in such a play. But then we are falling into religious beliefs and assumptions and as you already know, I am not into that whatsoever.

Besides this, who is to define in an absolute way what good or bad are?

Is there a “good” that is good for everyone, anytime, anywhere?

Is there a “bad” that is bad for everyone, anytime, anywhere?

It is obvious that the programming of our minds influence reality, and as a result, we perceive reality in a very limited and structured way.)

So why are so many people are often shocked and in disbelief when “bad things happens to “good ” people?

When you immerse yourself fully in the moment, you have no space to go to the mind and ask “why?”, as everything is as it is. From the moment I hit the ground to this present moment I never bothered with the question, “why did it happen?” as I was determined to go through it mindfully. The fact is that the mind questions because it is missing data to satisfy its own limited program. (I say limited because the mind does not have the capacity to perceive reality as it is. This is why it has so many holes to fill.) However, know that just because the mind questions, it does not mean the questions are relevant to the moment.

The reason why people are shocked when “bad” things happen to “good” people is because they have built a fairytale of how reality should unfold, purposely unaware of the endless possibilities that either didn’t fit in their movie or that they are simply are not aware of.

We are usually get “hit” by life when a possibility that wasn’t included in our script unfolds out of nowhere and leaves us confused as the director of our own movie.

For my small self, my fall was the most uplifting and powerful event at the time it happened, but not anymore as I am immersing into a new moment in each moment.

Anecdote:

A lovely man that did my astrology chart for his own curiosity shared with me that to his biggest surprise, on the date of my fall nothing was predicted in my stars as a horrible event. On the contrary, Venus was floating somewhere close which supposedly indicates love, but not a disaster.

He couldn’t understand this figuration. I said, “Isn’t it obvious? I fell 30 feet down and didn’t get killed, didn’t hit my head, and even though I ended up with a broken spine, I didn’t end up, against all the odds, paralyzed. As a result of my fall I was embraced with the infinite energy of love that flowed to me from all over the world, helping me to heal rapidly. I met incredible healers that helped me on the journey to complete recovery. I had endless moments of immense gratitude for being alive and breathing with joy. Isn’t that what my chart was all about? Love and joy? Which proves to us that experiencing reality is all about perception.”

With Love and Joy, shakti

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