You must know that as a soul, as a sacred being, as a Divine entity, you are placing yourself in certain circumstances, situations, and conditions in every given moment of your life for a particular purpose and reason.
It’s also important to understand that pain (both physical and emotional) can, in fact, be bidden. It actually can be wanted. It’s hard to believe, I know, but it is, in fact, true that it can be welcomed for any one of a number of reasons.
Yet if the Mind thinks that a particular pain is “unwanted,” it will not abide it. It will violently or strenuously fight against it, and that’s precisely what creates the experience of struggle and suffering in one’s life.
Underneath this truth lies a deeper one: Nothing that ever happens is “bad” for you. If it were bad for you, it wouldn’t be happening. Life is incapable of producing an event or condition that does not carry you to the next place in your evolution or that is not designed for your next expression of Divinity. Since the expression of Divinity is the reason you are here, you can be sure that everything is placed before you to serve this Divine purpose; in other words, to serve your purpose because your purpose is the Divine purpose.
Life offers you repeated chances—literally millions of chances —to respond differently to conditions and events should you choose to, and by that process to re-create yourself anew. Indeed, it is the nature of life to seek greater and greater expressions and experiences of what life is and how it is when it flows through you, in you, as you as a means of evolution.
And yet, there has to be way to evolve, to expand, to grow without the suffering and struggle.
There is. Stay on the path of the soul. And gratitude is what keeps you there.
Whatever shows up in your life, allow yourself to see the perfection. Express your sincere gratitude: “Thank you, God, for the perfection of this outcome, for the outcome of this moment, and of this life.”
I will also share that only those who are deeply committed to their own growth, to their own personal and spiritual evolution, would spend the time and energy on closing the gap and choosing and changing their emotions, shifting from anger and frustration to gratitude in order to produce new and grander experiences of who they really are of themselves.
This requires a very high-level promise to oneself. It entails an acknowledging that there is something larger going on here: A sacred process. An eternal process. A process that serves a Divine purpose.
So now the question becomes: What could cause you to decide to feel gratitude in the face of events or conditions that ordinarily would invite condemnation?
The master understands that every event in life is part of a contextual field creating a space within which to express the next grandest version of the greatest vision that the master ever held about who the master is and chooses to be. The master, therefore, says yes and only yes to every experience. And the master says it joyfully, gratefully.
The master knows that everything occurring has been co-created by many souls, working in collaboration and agreement with the master’s own soul, to produce the circumstance or condition currently presenting itself.
Of course, it’s not always easy to “see the perfection” when what is happening seems anything but perfect. The death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the end of a relationship would surely all qualify as events in that category. And there are many others that one could bring to mind.
You must be clear about your ideas of self and the reason that you are on the earth, or placing labels of perfection on calamitous events will simply anger the mind and shut it down, turning you away from the only thing that matters.
But when you overlay gratitude on every moment, regardless of its content, it literally re-contextualizes the experience and your understanding of why things are happening, and the way they’re happening.
This is truly seeing your life and every event in a new way. It’s allowing you to say, “OK, I’m here right now experiencing exactly what I am experiencing for a particular reason having to do with the agenda of my soul and the Divine purpose.”
With re-contextualization can come a sudden re-actualization of yourself. And as you become a self-actualized being, rather than a reactive being, everything changes in the way you move through your life.
The challenge, if you are to find peace and end the struggle and suffering in your life, is to embrace your identity as a spiritual being, and then to implement that choice consistently.
Know this: You are always at choice regarding your experience of any and every event or circumstance, and your ideas about what is happening can be expanded at any time you wish to include the awareness of the soul.
With such an expansion of the mind’s data, you can peer down the throat of the lion without fear or recoil at the sight of a spider. You can walk the ledge without trembling, or you can shrink from walking out of your own house. The choice is yours. It has always been yours. The world can do things to you, but it cannot extract things from you that you do not choose to give.
A note on forgiveness
As Conversations with God puts it: No one does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world. The message of that dialogue simple: evolution is not a sin, and God does not punish confusion.
Because of this, God never forgives anyone for anything because forgiveness is not necessary. Forgiveness is replaced in the process of Divine balance with a more searingly powerful energy: Understanding.
Just as we understand the child whose simple immaturity and confusion led to his actions, so, too, do we see, when we come from the place of deep understanding, that the exact same thing is true of the adults who act in ways that children often act; in ways persons of lesser awareness might call hurtful and damaging.
Forgiveness is thus replaced in the mind of those who have expanded their consciousness to include the awareness of the soul. The soul knows that nobody does anything inappropriate, given his or her model of the world. The soul knows that everyone is doing the best they can at any given moment.
The most wonderful thing your mind could do, then, each time you begin to feel that you are or have been hurt or damaged in any way, would be to open yourself to the wisdom of your soul. Stop. Breathe. And then listen. Listen to the reasoning of the soul—what I have called “soul logic.”
Doing this invites you to place yourself in the center of the wheel of creation and to envision yourself as collaborating with all other souls around you in the producing of conditions and circumstances that are ideal for the completion of your purpose in placing yourself in any present moment.
Exercise
On a piece of paper, draw four columns (you may want to turn the page on the horizontal). In the first column, list three events you felt were, if not the worst thing that could possibly happen to you, at least not very happy occurrences. Maybe you lost a job or had a terrible breakup; there was something awful and painful that happened. Provide space between each event.
In the second column, note what you thought would happen as a result of each event: the way you thought about it at the time, the fear or other emotion it brought up, what you thought would happen next.
In the third column, write down what actually happened, what actually occurred as a result of that event.
And in column number four, write down the benefit of that occurrence. (It might be difficult to imagine any benefit from some very painful events, but stay with it.) What is it that you were given as a result of that event in your life? What happened next, either a series of other events or an outcome that you would have never expected?
Want to know more? Listen to Neale’s seminar Activating Your Soul’s Code here.