While we focus much of our attention on the "afterlife", we often
fail to consider the "before-life" in gaining a more comprehensive
perspective and understanding of our life experience. It is during the period before being
born into this world that we place within our Soul the purpose for our life--what is that purpose?
To gain the infinite perspective on our life's purpose, let's go back to the beginning. It was in the beginning (so to speak, because God really always
was) that our beloved Creator so greatly loved who He/She is, that who we are came forth into individual identity. Since we originated in the embrace of the
emotion of love, the purpose of our Divine existence, therefore, is to continue in this experience of embracing emotional feelings. This we are all
doing in a grand manner.
Since we originated in the essence of infinite and unconditional love of self,
you may be wondering, then, "How did we end up stuck in this experience
of life as a struggle?"
Barry asked that same question when he was in the Presence during his near-death experience. What he was immediately shown was a scene that looked
like an individual giving a presentation to a huge audience on a very large frozen lake.
The individual giving the presentation was making an argument for his contention that he had devised a way by which those in the audience could
accelerate their evolution. To demonstrate and prove his theory, he gave two examples. The first was a vehicle like a car. When the vehicle attempted to
move on the smooth surface, it spun its wheels and was moving very slowly. When sand or grit was placed under the wheels, creating FRICTION, the vehicle
moved forward much faster. The second example was to imagine (because it had never occurred before) that when you attempted to move forward, you now encountered RESISTANCE--a force pushing against you, holding you back. What do
you do now? You have to PUSH HARDER! The theory was that if you push harder, you will then MOVE FORWARD FASTER.
Have you ever considered that our struggles in life seem to embody the elements of FRICTION and RESISTANCE? Have you ever heard the expression,
"no pain-no gain"?
We who now struggle upon this Earth were those in that audience who agreed with the above presentation on that fateful day so long ago. None of us could
have possibly imagined what would really occur!
We must always keep in mind that our beloved Creator remembers that we had only the best of intentions-desiring to accelerate our evolution so that we
could return sooner to our Divine source. From the perspective of the Creator,
therefore, there never has been a "Fall from Grace"-that is just the
illusion that we have created in the following manner:
The way that we became stuck in this experience of life as a struggle, and created the illusion of the "Fall from Grace", can be described in a
breath. The fatal error we made, and continue to make to this day, is in viewing the
emotional components of our struggle in life with judgment. Although it is true that the emotional feelings which are always associated with our
struggles; frustration, resentment, anger, fear, etc., etc., etc., in the experience of them, FEEL TERRIBLE. The fatal mistake we make is to JUDGE THEM
TO BE TERRIBLE.
We then become faced with the dilemma of understanding what it means to have within us what we have judged to be terrible feelings. The rational mind can
come up with only two explanations for it-we must have either done something terrible in the past, or, even worse, we must be terrible! Regardless as to
which of these two incorrect conclusions we choose to adopt, the response is always the same-we get down on ourselves. Judging ourselves to be not good,
because we do not feel good, only results in further limiting and restricting the happiness that we allow to come into our lives. We then judge these more
limited feelings we've just created and get down on ourselves even more. This is the downhill spiral that has led to our present predicament.
The old adages, "look before you leap" and "live and
learn" are great truths that certainly apply here. If we could not learn from the looking, as this
experience of approaching life as a struggle was nowhere to be seen at the time, then we had to learn from the leaping. In this respect, experience was
the only real teacher. Living and learning always has us in the classroom of life. When we learn our lesson, we go on to the next one. If we fail to learn
our lesson, we take the class over again, and, perhaps, over again. Consider what happens when we find that weeds are growing in our lawn. Imagine
how frustrating it would be for someone whose vision and understanding did not
extend beneath the surface of the lawn. All that they knew to do was struggle over and over again to remove the weeds when they came up. If they mowed the
lawn and got rid of the weeds, the lawn would look great-for awhile. However, since the root of the problem is still beneath the surface, what's going to
happen? The weeds will come back! The solution to "lawn karma" is to
remove the root of the problem.
Our new and correct understanding of the Emotional System is that our emotional feelings are at the root of our experiences in life. Emotional
feelings really come first, and they then result in a corresponding event occurring in our environment! With this expanded awareness, our life
experience makes ever more clear to us the cause and effect relationship between the feelings we emotionally embrace and what we then manifest in our
life.
Our world still views this relationship backwards and believes that our emotional feelings are a result of what first occurs in our environment;
consequently, we have not been able to make as much progress as we would like in the transformation of our lives and the
transformation of our world.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to choose what we place in our hearts with
the same care that we choose what we place in our mouths. Effecting this shift
in the quality of emotions we choose to embrace, from the painful to the joyful, will then result in a corresponding shift into a greater unfolding of
happiness in our lives and in our world.
It is appropriate at this point in our evolution, as we are now fast approaching another major crossroads in our lives, that we once again consider
the choice we made so long ago. How do we feel about it now? Do we wish to continue struggling with resistance and friction in our lives, and problems in
our world, or has our experience finally taught us that the argument that seemed so reasonable on that frozen lake was really not true.
This is how we will make our decision-it's just like eating a meal. When we sit down to have our meal we're hungry and desire the food, just as we once
desired the struggle. At some point in our meal, we become satisfied that we've had enough, and lose our appetite. Have we come to the point yet where
we've lost our appetite for the struggle in life?
Copyright 1999, 2000 Gail E. Steuart & Barry Blumstein
Gail E. Steuart and Barry Blumstein are a married couple living in Tucson, Arizona. Their training program, Mastery of the Emotions, originated in the
teaching Barry received in a near-death experience in 1969. It was fifteen years in the development stage and has been presented nationally and
internationally since 1985. For additional information, call (520) 722-3377 or
E-mail: emotionalmastery@netscape.net
for a brochure.
