Little miss Object Lesson

[Firebird]

The idea that everyone incarnates for the purpose of learning an important spiritual lesson has gotten put forth a few times now, and it does seem pretty appealing in a warm-fuzzy kind of way... but what about those who barely even reach a state where they can interact with their world, like those who are born with genetic disorders that leave them basically comatose until they die? Or infants born with Harlequin Fetus Syndrome who die in agony pretty much immediately? Are they supposed to be learning that "**** happens"? Or are they just meant to serve as a lesson for others?

If the latter is true, it seems kind of... cruel. Really not in line with the rest of the afterlife picture being presented here.

[Andrew]

Hello again, dear Firebird,

I certainly know what you mean. It does seem cruel, from our perspective, to watch a baby suffer and die without getting any enjoyment out of life. Here is what the evidence says about that type of situation:

1. Lifelong disorders can be to teach a lesson:
People who have lifelong disorders like autism or genetic disorders can be a great gift. I know that that is hard to imagine, but people with these disorders ofteb choose to be born with them/acquire them to learn patience and compassion. I once read about a girl who died due to a heart condition. She was later brought back and during her NDE she met Jesus and asked him if she had her condition as a cross to bear. He said that it was to teach her compassion.

Also, the lesson may not be for the person with the disease. It be a lesson for the caretaker of that person, helping them to be more patient or sympathetic to people.

2. The baby's death is not always about the baby:
You're right, my friend, there is not too much time for a baby to learn if they die within the first hours of life. The lessob learned from this type of event is usually arranged by both the parents and the baby before birth. It is usually done so that the parents can some lesson. The actual lesson varies depending on the situation, but normallu it's something like learning to appreciate what you have or be patient and compassionate. So your "latter" is technically true but remember that in the afterlife you don't seek to serve yourself, rather you want to be someone's servant. If you could help someone learn a lesson, you would jump at the chance. Plus you know the pain is quick and not permanent. It actually causes more grief for the parent than for the child, I would imagine. Either way, there is always a happy ending in the afterlife!

3. People with diseases like autism sometimes accomplish amazing feats:
People with certain types of autism, like Asperger's Syndrome, tend to accomplish amazing things that most people could never dream of doing. In Craig Hogan's Your Eternal Self, it is suggested that this is possible because of the malfunction in the brain. Since the mind isn't connected to the brain in the "normal" way, it's harder for the person to do some things, but retaining information is a lot easier. In The Fun of Dying, I believe Roberta mentions that it is a lot easier for us to learn after we die because the material brain doesn't interfere with the process.

I hope this helps you understand why such "tragedies" happen!

[Annie]

There's a website I've been going to called www.afterlifedata.com which covers a lot of topics about the afterlife referencing books. Here's a link that might help http://afterlifedata.com/afterlife_topics.php?topicid=201&secid=5 regarding this subject.

[Andrew]

Hi once again, Annie!

I've been reading the articles on AfterlifeData.com and it seems like a great website! They really have so much to offer there. Thank you so much for introducing us to this site!

[Annie]

My pleasure Vita, I'm glad to help! That site is awesome about answering a lot of questions I've had without my having to dig through books to find and I love the easy convenience of it.

[vic smyth]

I understand the analogy that we are here to evolve and learn life's lessons, but why? Why would God create beings (you and i) that need to be evolved in the first place? Why could God not create us as Perfect Beings? And if we are here to learn lessons, why is the process often so unpleasant? I'm just an ignorant human being, yet if I want to teach my kids that playing with fire is dangerous, I don't set their bedrooms on fire so that they can learn a lesson.

So although I think the 'evolve and learn life's lessons' is a good analogy (and one that has been in vogue for the past 10 years or so) as to why we're here, I'm not quite sold on it. If God is Good, and everything God created is Good, then certainly we are Good; therefore already perfectly evolved, and being perfectly Good we would not do something wrong and fall from God's Grace and be cast out of Heaven. If we are here it must be for a Good reason. If we sacrificed our perfect existence in Heaven to experience this less-than-perfect world as less-than-perfect beings, we must have made this sacrifice out of our great love for God and our great love for our fellow perfect spiritual beings in Heaven.

Is God so clever that God can create a puzzle so challenging that even God can't solve it? Is that puzzle our life?

Are we as angels in heaven playing a child's silly game of make believe -- what would it be like to be imperfect beings living in an imperfect world? And so we are experiencing an insane world filled with insane people created by an insane god (a gnostic concept)?

Will we ever really know why we're here? Or should we focus and what should we be doing while we're here?

With lovingkindness,
vic

[Andrew]

Hi,

I understand your concern. Why would a loving God make us go through this all? Why couldn't He just make us perfect beings? The best answer that I have found is in a book called A Course in Miracles. Roberta showed it to me. Here's a summary of Creation:

It was an accident:
According to this book, which is said to have been revealed by Jesus himself, Creation was an accident. This book uses Christian images, so it refers to the Son of God, but it doesn't matter because God is God. Anyway, the Son of God, in the beginning, was not petfect like God, the Father. The Son had the mad idea that separation could happen (back then we were all part of God, not distinct beings), so, due to the creativity of God, it happened! We were all separated from God. In the book, Jesus calls the united state "The Garden of Eden", but it just was when we are all were part of a complete God.

The Father steps in:
God, the Father, who was perfect to start with, realized how awful would be. So he stepped in and stopped it, bringing us all together again. The problem is that in that split second, the illusion of time and separation sprung up. We're all stuck in that illusion.

Getting out of it:
Right now, time has both never begun, and ended. To get out of it and become one with God, we have to become advanced enough to reach the 7th level of the afterlife. Once everyone has gotten there, God will be complete again and the illusion will end. Of course, in the "real" world there is no time, so that has already happened. For us though, it will take a long time, we have to lose the ego. That would be our sense of self.

You are a perfect being:
My favorite quote from the book "Nothing unreal exists. Nothing real can be threatened. Herein lies thd Peace of God." We are perfect and good. The problem is not that we have to evolve to become good, it's that we have to evolve to realize that we are already good. God has no evil, and you are part of God, so you have no evil.

God is always there:
I don't know what religious you believe in, or what you think of Jesus, but God iz always there for us. He wants us to become one with Him, as He is incomplete without us. We also have the help of advanced beings, like Jesus, who said "I am with you always, until the very end of time." That's true because, at the end of time, we become him and he us.

So, this seems like a plausible reason why we're here, but it takes some getting used to. I hope I was clear! If you have any questions, just ask!

[Roberta Grimes]

Great Post, Vita! Dear Vic Smyth, after I had spent four decades studying nearly 200 years of abundant and consistent afterlife evidence, I was able to see it all in amazing detail... but what I still couldn't understand was WHY?? You express the problem so beautifully above. Back then, the core of it for me was why our minds (which are proven to be part of God) wouldn't be already perfect - why does God even need our spiritual growth? Then I picked up Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe, which re-introduced me to A Course in Miracles. I had looked at the Course briefly years earlier, but rejected it because I was not at that point reading modern channeled material. So then I began to do the Course. And I found that it fit the afterlife evidence like the last big piece of an enormous puzzle! All the correspondences between A Course in Miracles and the afterlife evidence could not be coincidental - the odds against that would be astronomical. The Course answered just about all of my remaining questions, but for me the important thing was that it answered at last that biggest question: Why?? I strongly recommend that anyone who is interested in the afterlife do A Course in Miracles with the help of a study group (Google it - there are study groups all over the world). Not only will the Course answer many of your questions, but I consider it to be the best material on learning forgiveness now in print.

[vic smyth]

Thank you for your helpful comments, In Aevum Vita and Roberta. I had immersed myself in ACIM a while back for a few years. The Workbook is excellant. Indeed it hammers home the concept that forgiveness is probably our biggest goal here. I read my favorite 4 Lessons daily. I believe that the book was channeled by a benevolent spirit, but am skeptical (along with Bill Thetford one of the co-scribes) that the spirit was Jesus. I am reading another book now by Maria Valtorta that claims to be channeled by Jesus in the 1940's. Totally different personalities between the two Jesuses. Reminds me of the line from the pop song "Industrial Disease": "Two men claim they're Jesus, One of them must be wrong." Both books are great, though neither in my opinion is infallible. I sometimes think that these spirits who channel through people are well-intentioned, but maybe a bit out of touch with our worldly realm. So many parts of ACIM reads like a 'book of the dead' similar to Tibetan Book of the Dead, where one is told to "simply think of something and it will appear". Works great in the Astral Realm, not as great for many in our earthly realm.

I'm still of the opinion that We are Perfect Creations of a Perfectly Good God, here for a Perfectly Good Reason, out of Our Love for God and Our Spiritual Companions (as opposed to the concept in ACIM that "the ego was created as an attack on God"). Though "Why" may be a piece of the puzzle that we're not supposed to get until the end. So maybe I should focus more on "What" I should be doing here, such as forgiveness, acceptance (even of my ego), lovingkindness, ...

Anyway, thanks again for your input, always appreciated and respected.
vic

[Andrew]

You're more than welcome, Vic Smyth! I'm glad that Roberta and I could be of help! With the Course, I had the same problem you did. In fact, on another thread in this forum, I asked Roberta essentially that same question you have: How do we know it's really Jesus? Roberta, as always, had a very good answer for me. She said something like "It seems like it's Jesus, but it doesn't matter if it is because the book definitely came from God." She's right about that!

Also, I do understand what you mean when you refer to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Technically, it is entirely possible to conjure things out of air and perform miracles if we believe that we can (see the "Moving Mountains" thread, I answered a question about that in detail). We are confined to the workings of the physical plane as long as we need to be for educational purposes. Jesus, when incarnated, was here to teach not to learn, so it was much easier for him. But don't forget, the Apostles eventually performed miracles just like he did! It's possible for all of us.

[LunaKat]

Hi Vic, I wondered about the same things you wondered about. I go back to one of the earliest titles for God and that is of Creator. I work with art..but it also applies to music, or dance, or building a home or garden or cooking a meal... the desire to create doesn't end with just one creation. Artists are never satisfied and are always looking to their next painting, book, song, and so on. God spun us out to delight in endless and unbounded creativity. I think God does it purely for the joy of it. Over time, just as human artists experience, God improves or as the scientist would say things evolve. That sets up even more interactions and even more opportunities to create. We interpret all this as lessons we are to learn or as earth being a school..true, but not only for us, for God as well. Everything we do is information fed back to the Mind.

As to why some have to suffer and die when they've just begun to live..this is my closest guess on that. There are natural laws governing our lives here and our Universe. And as the creations of Mind/God/Goddess/Divine we have to operate within those laws if we are in the physical. Genetics is one that falls under that law. But God/Goddess/Universe has also put it in humanity to discover ways to heal and cure --spiritual prayer, the early herbalists, the modern doctors, the scientists working on genes...it will continue to evolve into avenues we can't even imagine yet. Its all part of creation. Its not perfect, no, at least not to us, but it is perfect in the sense of giving your creations total freedom and total participation in what is created.

[Andrew]

Hi Lunakat,

This is a very interesting view of creation that you've put forth! I been thinking about what you've posted and here is what the evidence that I have found:

1. Creation was an accident:
If you haven't read my previous post about the origin of Creation on this thread, I suggest that you do. I won't go into the whole thing in detail in this one too. As I was saying on that post, A Course in Miracles offers, for me, the most plausible idea of Creation. Think about it: we know for a fact that God is good. So if God is good, then why would He make us go through all of this? Creation being an accident clarifies that.

2. This Universe is not meant to be perfect:
The physical universe is not meant to be perfect. If it were, there would be no point in coming here! It would be the same as the afterlife! The problems of this earth (like disease, poverty, and natural disasters) help us to learn how to love and forgive. It would be nearly impossible for us to completely learn how to do that if life here were perfect. Plus, then the afterlife wouldn't be so fun. A lot of the joy in the Summerland comes from being able to fix all the problems that you had to deal with on earth.

3. Whether we have to obey the laws of physics appears to depend on two things:
I have come to the conclusion that we only have to live by laws of physics if we believe that we do. If you absolutely knew that you could walk on water, you could. There is, however, one other factor: whether you need limitations to learn. Most of us wouldn't bother living by the rules of this world if we could just change everything an perform miracles. But then, we also wouldn't learn. That is why we seem to be prevented from doing stuff like this. We also have to agree, before we can be born, to believe in this illusion. So if we don't, we aren't born. That's why most of us don't have the faith that allowed people like Jesus to walk on water and perform miracles. Your mind is real, this world is an illusion. Knowing that, which do you think is more powerful?

4. Sometimes healing is not for the best:
I know it would be great to be able to heal people. No one would have to suffer, it would be a perfect world. Again, that's a problem! Sometimes the worst illnesses/"accidents" teach us some of the best lessons. Almost no major, life-altering illness or accident that happens to us is an accident (yes that includes murder, too). It all happens to teach us. So, if we could all heal ourselves/others, then what good would those lessons do?

5. Human awareness is being raised now:
Higher beings have indicated to us that the general level of human spiritual awareness is being raised because we humans are getting too close to destroying our school (the earth). It is essential that we keep it intact so that future generations (possibly including us again) can learn from it! Advanced beings are also helping us in the physical realm. For example, UFO enthusiasts often report stories of UFOs flying into areas of high radiation and glowing with light. Perhaps this is an attempt from higher beings (either extraterrestrial or inter dimensional) to help keep us on the right track.

6. Even though most grand events are predestined, we are free to choose them:
When I say that major illnesses and accidents are predestined, I mean that we chose to have them before we were born. It sounds weird, but people up there get really excited to go through excruciating pain here, because they know that it's temporary and that it will help them progress! As Roberta said a few days ago, most of the time, advanced beings have to work with when we make those plans so that we don't add too many life lessons for one lifetime! What we take out of these lessons is also up to us. We can choose to learn and grow from them, or we can choose to commit suicide and have to start all over again. Of course, the latter is not recommended. You are entirely correct though, my friend, God has given us free will. He also will not put any blame on us for what goes wrong here. I read in A Course in Miracles a very interesting statement about God: God does not forgive, because He never condemned. We can just say that God forgives all, but it's more accurate to say that He condemns no one. What a wonder God!

Thank you so much, dear Lunakat, for sharing your personal views of Creation and God! In the end, it doesn't matter much what you believe about Creation or how it's all going to end, as long as you live well. Be kind to people and forgive. If you do that, what you believe about the beginning and end is unimportant!

[LunaKat]

Hi InAevumVita :) Are you Roberta? You write just like her :) Yeah you could just consider what I wrote my own view of things. What makes the most sense to me. Coming from art, I know the highs of being able to create..and so God (Goddess/Universe/Divine --never know which one someone else is most comfortable with) in the role of Creator ..now thats something that I can get an inkling of. In reference to what you wrote, here's my take.

Your Point 1. I'm not sure that creation was an accident. I really don't think there is any such thing as an accident. I don't believe in accidents.

2. That comes from the life is a school type theory. Yes and no, I do think that but I don't only think that. I think in order for anything to be created at all, you have to have forces rubbing against each other. You cannot create anything at all, without some destruction. An artist has to mar the perfect white canvas with paint to make a painting. Or has to make marks on a perfect sheet of paper to do a drawing. The chef has to obtain the plants or meats from living things, cut it from the vine, etc. There is always some act of destruction involved in creation. There is light and dark and its necessary.

3. Yes, the idea that this is all illusion is very long held belief. I do think its illusion also and agree with what you said here. This is the waking dream, emphasis on dream.

4. I'm not so interested in why illness occurs anymore..I used to be. Its a non-question for me now..what is more important to me is that love is what heals it. Not just using our love when someone is sick and we want to help. But love magnified by bazillions which is God/Universe's love for us, for everyone here, and spiritual helpers love for us (call them angels, shining beings, winged people, so on). By seeing the person who is sick through the eyes of their spiritual helpers and God, trying best to picture that love which is infinite and focus on their love for that person, my love which drew me to want to help them, and seeing it ALL funneling into them. I'm a huge believer in Love, Medicine and Miracles. And the medicine might be a simple medicine such as a natural medicine or it might be more advanced medicine..doesn't matter. Love can sometimes alone heal. We don't all have to heal anyone. So that other question you ask of if we could all heal what good would it do? That doesn't concern me.

5. I don't really deal with getting information through channeled information. As I've stated before..I'm very wary of it. To me its a huge can of worms..and no you won't change my mind on that. I'm not into that whole higher-lower, above-below, inside-outside thinking. Its all one. Love is all that matters. People have much more time now to study these things. Thats the reason its happening. Now spirituality can come front and center and information is available in a way it never it was. Look at where we're talking..the internet. Of course there is an explosion in these topics. They have never before been so easily available to the entire world. And people with time away from living just to survive who can study them.

6. I'll take your word for that. I've heard that before. I got enough on my plate to deal with trying to learn more and more how to love in a purer and purer way.

I hope you are having a good weekend :)

Added: I also would like to add here that I put my response here, in this subforum, as another way to look at things. I very clearly see the underpinnings of what is considered "evidence" in this forum. Channeled information, a Course in Miracles, something called Original Christianity by the author, and I do see that if it jives with her personal beliefs..it is then considered evidence. Any one who comes from any other type background is quite quickly told to study those materials. That really shouldn't be. And that is a reason why I will not be using this forum much anymore. I put this here because this isn't about her book..this is just questions on religion and spirituality. Other sections are about her book so I stay out of those now. But even here its the same song and dance..."read a Course in Miracles" etc. etc. I want to hear people accounts of their NDEs...their own words. That I will take to the other places.

[Andrew]

Hi LunaKat,

First off, I owe you an apology. I reread my message and it sounds kinds of bossy. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for it to have that feel to it. I was merely trying to point out some evidence, not tell you what you have to believe. If you don't feel comfortable believing what I believe, I have no problem with, and I never meant to make you think otherwise! It's important that you express your own beliefs, so please continue to do so.

To answer your question, no, I am not Roberta. I'm just trying to help her out so she doesn't have to answer every single question by herself.

I like your point on number four (about illness). I agree with you there: whatever caused the illness, it's better to try and fix than waste time worrying about possible causes.

Sorry for the misunderstanding!

[LunaKat]

Wow, I'm really totally surprised you are not the same person as Roberta, lol. You write identical to Roberta. I still feel that its time to move on to other places that also talk about NDEs and afterlife. When I first came here..I thought it was a very open forum. That anyone could contribute..you didn't have to expert..you just could participate equally. I now see this is a forum specially for the author and her book. My mistake. I'm looking for something else. So I wish you the best and no worries.

[Andrew]

Hi agian LunaKat,

As far as I know, if you have a question of NDEs here, you are more than welcome to post it.

As for equality, I'm really sorry I somehow made you feel unequal in my post, it was a mistake. The idea of this forum is that everyone is able to contribute equally. This forum is not just for Roberta's book, it's just that most people find the forum through her, and are thus familiar with her book. Also, many people ask questions here, but no one really seems to be there to answer them, except Roberta, so most of threads may seem like a Q&A with Roberta, but anyone is welcome to answer. Anyone can answer questions here. I do, and I'm not an author or a scientists or anything like that.

[Roberta Grimes]

Hi LunaKat! You are right - this website is meant to be a place for free and open discussion of every topic relevant to death and the afterlife. This is such a flat-out enormous area of study that nobody living can be said to be an expert - but anyone who is curious has a tremendous body of evidence available for study! Neither mainstream science nor mainstream religions have had any interest in all this evidence which has accumulated over the past 200 years, but fortunately over the years some extraordinary researchers have stumbled upon parts of it and spent their lives assembling it for us. In studying death and the afterlife today, you and I stand on the shoulders of giants!

This website was begun to fill a void. There were discussion forums on grief and grieving, forums on near-death experiences (NDEs), websites on out-of-body experiences (OBEs), and websites dedicated to the work of various mediums; but there was no general place where people could discuss their death- and afterlife-related experiences and interests and ask questions which might not fit neatly in one category. In just a few months we have had some wonderful contributions from many new friends - including you! It has been thrilling to watch you, Vita, Annie, and others step in and help visitors here. I had never intended to be as prominent on this site as I have been, and your answers and theirs are often better than mine.

Please forgive In Aevum Vita for his enthusiasm! Because of the work of all those researchers over the past century and a half, it is relatively easy now to put the evidence together and find that it makes a perfect and extraordinary picture. Every researcher I have met who has undertaken this research has reached essentially the same conclusions. Isn't that amazing and wonderful? I worked for decades in isolation, and the first time I met another researcher and he could complete every sentence that I began, it blew me away.

You are right, dear friend, in pointing out that not many people post their NDEs here, and also for reminding us that there are other wonderful afterlife-related websites. We list a few on this page (http://afterlifeforums.com/content.php/121-other-useful-afterlife-sites), but it needs to be updated because we keep on finding new ones!

Dear LunaKat, nobody on this website has any interest in changing anyone else's beliefs. We are all here to help one another in whatever way we can, and each of us is on a different journey. Please do read widely and learn all you can, and we hope that from time to time you will come back and share what you are learning with us!

[Annie]

Hi Luna, I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

I definitely don't think you need to be an expert to post here, I for one am not; I'm a total n00b when it comes to the afterlife and no one really close to me has died yet, knock on wood, although I'm pretty young and have a pretty small family/circle of friends. Anyway, that's why I'm here, because I like being able to ask questions of people who have read pretty deeply into the afterlife and what it's really about. Of course I know that people like Roberta and Vita are not God and can't be omniscient, but they admit when they're not 100% sure about whatever question it is they're answering and I always respect that--that no one here pretends to be a know-it-all.

I also like this forum because of the people here who've shared experiences they've had, even though they're not all firsthand near death experiences. I like that Carol and Mikey have been posting and hopefully in time we'll hear from people who've had near death experiences as well. I guess what attracted me to this forum was that it seemed like a place where your average person like me could ask a specific question on the afterlife and get a straight-forward answer. If the answer I get doesn't make sense, I can either ask for clarification or try to find out more about it online.

There've been a few times on this forum where I've thought "okay, that sounds like a definite possibility, but I'm not sure if I believe it or not" so there's nothing wrong in questioning what Vita or Roberta or anyone says. I see where you're coming from though in wanting some first-hand accounts of the afterlife, and hopefully you'll be able to find some out there. Hopefully people who have those experiences will come to this forum too though because I like this set-up of being able to have my questions answered without feeling like an overly obsessed nutjob.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is, don't think you're the only person here who doesn't agree with some of the things posted here. I don't always agree either, or rather, sometimes I think that there are many ways of looking at things and that some things we just will not be able to comprehend in our lives on earth no matter how hard we try. Mostly though, what I've read on this forum coincides with the beliefs I've been having lately, although I admit that reincarnation is a somewhat new concept to me that I am only recently starting to believe in.

I like reading different viewpoints on things so I hope you'll keep posting once in a while because you don't have to have read any books on the afterlife to have an opinion or an intuition. Like I said, I don't really know anything about it other than what my sixth sense tells me, but that doesn't stop me from chiming in! :D

P.S. As for my opinion on this topic, I tend to agree with Luna that I don't think I believe that we were created this way as an accident. Not sure though. This is just my theory, but I think that while God loves us, he also knows that we will enjoy Summerland more if we go through some hard times. Otherwise we might end up getting really bored, restless, and miserable in Summerland because you can't really take a vacation from a vacation (basically I'm agreeing with Vita's second point here). That being said, is it possible we went overboard and made life on earth more difficult than God intended us to because we got so carried away in trying to learn lessons? And by that I mean the really horrendous things that happen like war, torture, murder, certain diseases, etc.

[vic smyth]

People should share their spiritual views the same way they share their favorite dish at a pot luck dinner.