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Originally Posted by BringMeTheHorizon
First of all, I hope I posted this in the right section. Because it's mainly about death and the afterlife but it also involves some stuff regarding past lives and my health at the moment.
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So basically they have no clue what's going on. And it made me wonder, am I somehow being punished? Maybe for being bad in a past life? Maybe this is karma?
I've heard people say that overcoming illnesses makes you stronger and all that. But I don't see how? I had a good life before this. I mean I had friends, .....
I just want some answers as to why this is happening to me. Because I know a lot of you guys know much more than me when it comes to life and the afterlife.
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Crime and Punishment is one interpretation of Karma. Another (which I prefer) is more like trial and error or the school of hard knocks. We incarnate to learn and gain wisdom through direct experience, unfortunately, that direct experience is often difficult and painful. If often feels like life is dumping on me for no particular reason, but eventually I see the value in the experiences I have gone through. Perhaps the deeper bits of wisdom require more than one life to acquire and come with a higher price tag.
As far as the "good life" goes, we all say we want it, but when we get it, it is not long before we get bored with it. Life seems to need a plot with adversity to push against. Many people will say the point of life is to be happy... I am not so sure... perhaps once we find happiness, life has no point and we stop with the masochism.
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“nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know
…nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. perhaps there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched. maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. but what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. it just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
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