Pointless forms of suffering and hardship

[MattMVS7]

Since our goal as souls is to obtain the most learning and growth we can, which means we're supposed to be most loving, compassionate people we can be, then being born into a loving family would make it very likely that a person would be a very loving, compassionate person who acquires a lot of learning and growth. But, being born into a cruel, abusive family isn't good because not only will that person not obtain the amount of learning and growth he'd obtain if he lived with a loving family, but it's very likely he'd turn out to be a cruel, hateful, abusive person.

Many people who live with abusive families end up becoming cruel and abusive themselves, and living with such families only serves to stunt spiritual growth. That's why it's best for people to be born with loving families because that will create a healthy, happy, loving individual. Given this, why are some souls born into abusive families? The way I see it, it's pointless suffering that only serves to stunt the growth of an individual, and keep said individual in a realm of hate, despair, self-loathing, etc. I heard our souls are happy and loving in heaven (our true home). So, the best choice would either to be for our souls to remain in heaven, or to be sent to Earth, where they're born with loving families.

There's simply no good reason to send a soul, who's happy and loving in heaven, down to Earth, where that soul becomes cruel, unhappy, and abusive once he's born with an abusive family. The goal is for a soul to become the most loving, happy individual he can be, and having souls go through pointless forms of hardship and suffering, such as being born with an abusive family, obviously isn't going to achieve this goal. I, myself, have been through pointless forms of suffering that only served to waste my life away. I was caught in a cycle of worry and negative thinking that took away all the beauty, joy, and worth of my life.

My life was no longer worth living to me, and I was in a very miserable state, due to those worries and negative thoughts. Sure, I've learned to stop worrying, and to keep my thought processes healthy. But, learning this life lesson wasn't worth all that suffering and years wasted. It would be like a smoker, who destroyed his body through smoking, just to learn the life lesson that he shouldn't smoke. It simply wasn't worth all that suffering to learn this life lesson. It would've, therefore, been better if that smoker never smoked to begin with, just as how it would've been better if I never had those struggles to begin with.

There was also this recent emotional crisis I've been through, which was triggered by another worry. Now, this was a worry I could not ease one bit, no matter what I thought or did. Even though I've learned my life lesson to stop worrying, this recent worry was something I couldn't do anything about, since my mind couldn't let go of it. So, I had to wait it out until, one day, I was fully recovered from it. That is, until my subconscious mind resolved the worry on its own. But, during this whole recovery process, I was in a state of hell, and my life was nothing beautiful, good, or worth living. I could not love, and could only hate, and remain in despair.

Again, it was all pointless suffering that wasted my life. What's even worse is that there are heavenly, spiritual beings who have the power to heal people of their negative thoughts and worries. But, these beings didn't heal me at all. They just allowed me to go through all this pointless misery. Worrying is pointless suffering for an individual, and I've been sent here to Earth, just to go through this pointless suffering. During my miserable struggles, nothing I thought or did allowed me to love, or see my life as beautiful, good, or worth living.

So, I had no choice but to remain in complete darkness, where no god or heavenly being would free me. My mind had to heal itself (which was a long term recovery process), rather than god or these beings instantly healing me. They had the power to instantly heal me. But, instead, they just didn't care about me, and left me alone to suffer. It seems god and these heavenly beings don't care about humanity in general, since they allow souls to be born with abusive families, and allow so much other forms of pointless suffering.

[Altair]

Interesting question..

I do not believe in 'soul contracts', but only 'karma'. We end up in situations because we are aligned or attracted to them. Yeah, 'good' happens to bad people, and 'bad' happens to good people. However it's not really about good and bad, but functions more like a mirror. The why is not immediately noticeable but from a long perspective of life times it may very well be..

We are on a spectrum, we all suffer one way or another. The way forward is to choose more peace in our lives.. which is rather challenging so I do believe it's hard for us to get out of this cycle, at least here ((on the grand scheme of things I don't think the cycle ends ))..

[JosephineB]

Does it help to know that the soul has thousands of these lives or does it make things worse I find it easier knowing this. When you think of one lifetime and all the suffering it can have, it does seem unfair. But if you look at the bigger picture then it makes more sense. Although a soul has to go through thousands of lifetimes, this I don't quite understand. Why it takes so long I mean, and why the suffering has to be so long.

And then you get onto the idea of time. We experience it in these lives as having a beginning and an end. But I don't think that's how it actually is. I've probably made things worse. I was trying to help

[Starman]

If you take into consideration that the human race is evolving from centuries of ignorance and a very dark past,
then it gives credence to the cruelty and suffering that we see today. Today humanity is not as evolved or civilized
as we might think although we are a lot more refined than we once were.

Parents pass their conditioning to their kids, we inherit the karma of our parents, dna, genes, etc., and some kids do
learn how to hate, to subjugate females, or that money is the most important thing. The social, economic, and political
systems which human beings have created are often responsible for human suffering. Various societies and cultures
around the world perpetuate human suffering. In short, it is ignorance that creates suffering.

Every problem that I have had in my life came from a lack of awareness. I attribute suffering to growing pains that
humanity has in learning about its own existence, and as has been evidenced time and time again, we human beings
learn very slowly, if at all. We progress in developing external objects, technology, etc., much quicker than we progress
in developing our own intrinsic selves.

Even today lots of people don’t know how to handle their emotions, many become easily polarized, do not develop
empathy or sympathy for others, and there is still a lot of tribal fear amongst human beings. Enlightenment happens
one person at a time, it does not happen to the entire human race all at once. But if I lift you up I also lift myself up and
if I put you down I do the same to me, because we are all connected.

[inavalan]

NLP deals with depression in two steps:

1. Detach yourself, and look at your situation from an external point of view.

2. Accept that you created the situation you are in, that it wasn't inflicted on you from outside.

These allow you to gain objectivity, and take ownership in bringing the needed change for the better.

Also, your post starts with "Since our goal as souls is to obtain the most learning and growth we can [1], which means we're supposed to be most loving, compassionate people we can be [2] ..."

[1] doesn't mean [2]

Your premise is incorrect.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by MattMVS7

Since our goal as souls is to obtain the most learning and growth we can, which means we're supposed to be most loving, compassionate people we can be, then being born into a loving family would make it very likely that a person would be a very loving, compassionate person who acquires a lot of learning and growth. But, being born into a cruel, abusive family isn't good because not only will that person not obtain the amount of learning and growth he'd obtain if he lived with a loving family, but it's very likely he'd turn out to be a cruel, hateful, abusive person.

Many people who live with abusive families end up becoming cruel and abusive themselves, and living with such families only serves to stunt spiritual growth. That's why it's best for people to be born with loving families because that will create a healthy, happy, loving individual. Given this, why are some souls born into abusive families? The way I see it, it's pointless suffering that only serves to stunt the growth of an individual, and keep said individual in a realm of hate, despair, self-loathing, etc. I heard our souls are happy and loving in heaven (our true home). So, the best choice would either to be for our souls to remain in heaven, or to be sent to Earth, where they're born with loving families.

There's simply no good reason to send a soul, who's happy and loving in heaven, down to Earth, where that soul becomes cruel, unhappy, and abusive once he's born with an abusive family. The goal is for a soul to become the most loving, happy individual he can be, and having souls go through pointless forms of hardship and suffering, such as being born with an abusive family, obviously isn't going to achieve this goal.

This seems to be wishful thinking. Are you saying that there should be no suffering on Earth, no illness, no accidents, no crime, no violence , and everyone should be kind and loving and respectful to everyone else? So then every human being can have a wonderful life in some Earthly paradise? Perhaps one day, but humanity is a long way from this.

The assumption is that suffering and hardship is pointless. How can we learn the lessons of tolerance and forgiveness if there is nothing to forgive? How can we learn to rise above our own misfortunes if nothing bad ever happens?

I question the statement that the Soul born into an abusive family becomes cruel, unhappy and abusive. It is not the Soul which is cruel and abusive, it is the personality stuck in ignorance which develops cruel and abusive patterns. The challenge is then to break the cycle of abuse, and the Soul learns from the struggles of the personality.

The sad fact is that there are cruel and abusive families, and children are born into these families. So some Souls must experience this environment (unless the children have no Souls!) We may assume that there are karmic factors involved - perhaps children born into abusive families were themselves abusers in a previous life, and now they have to experience the suffering of the child.

Esoteric philosophy teaches that the Earth is a planet of learning through suffering, and suffering acts as a fire of purification. Fortunately life on Earth is short, and all suffering ends when we return to our spiritual home. But the lessons we learn from suffering are priceless.

Peace.

[JosephineB]

Bottom line. Does the universe need our love energy to expand or keep going? What do you think? Just a thought that popped in.

Fear is energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms. Love is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, HEALS. - Neale Donald Walsch

[MattMVS7]

Originally Posted by iamthat

This seems to be wishful thinking. Are you saying that there should be no suffering on Earth, no illness, no accidents, no crime, no violence , and everyone should be kind and loving and respectful to everyone else? So then every human being can have a wonderful life in some Earthly paradise? Perhaps one day, but humanity is a long way from this.

The assumption is that suffering and hardship is pointless. How can we learn the lessons of tolerance and forgiveness if there is nothing to forgive? How can we learn to rise above our own misfortunes if nothing bad ever happens?

I question the statement that the Soul born into an abusive family becomes cruel, unhappy and abusive. It is not the Soul which is cruel and abusive, it is the personality stuck in ignorance which develops cruel and abusive patterns. The challenge is then to break the cycle of abuse, and the Soul learns from the struggles of the personality.

The sad fact is that there are cruel and abusive families, and children are born into these families. So some Souls must experience this environment (unless the children have no Souls!) We may assume that there are karmic factors involved - perhaps children born into abusive families were themselves abusers in a previous life, and now they have to experience the suffering of the child.

Esoteric philosophy teaches that the Earth is a planet of learning through suffering, and suffering acts as a fire of purification. Fortunately life on Earth is short, and all suffering ends when we return to our spiritual home. But the lessons we learn from suffering are priceless.

Peace.

Well, I later talked about a pointless form of suffering I've been through in my opening post. Since it was nothing more than a waste of my life, then god, or these heavenly beings, should've healed me of this suffering. Yet, they didn't. Grieving is a pointless form of suffering as well, since it's just misery that takes away the beauty, joy, and worth of a person's life. Many people, who grieve, report that their lives are nothing beautiful or worth living. So, it would be best if god, or these heavenly beings, instantly healed them of their grief, rather than allowing them to go through all that pointless suffering. Also, if suffering is a purification process, then god, or these heavenly beings, have the power to instantly purify the soul. That means people don't have to go through the long grieving process, when they can instantly be healed of their grief. That would certainly save these people from living long, miserable lives, devoid of beauty and worth. In addition, there are life lessons we learn, but all the suffering not being worth learning these lessons. It would be like earning a crumb after having gone through years of torment and misery that strips ones life of beauty and worth.

[inavalan]

Suffering isn't necessary, but it can't be avoided because of our ignorance.

The Universe doesn't need our love energy, either. We, earthlings, are less than a drop in the infinite.

[JosephineB]

Originally Posted by MattMVS7

Well, I later talked about a pointless form of suffering I've been through in my opening post. Since it was nothing more than a waste of my life, then god, or these heavenly beings, should've healed me of this suffering. Yet, they didn't. Also, grieving is a pointless form of suffering as well, since it's just misery that takes away the beauty, joy, and worth of a person's life. Many people, who grieve, report that their lives are nothing beautiful or worth living. So, it would be best if god or these beings healed them of their grief, rather than allowing them to go through all that pointless suffering.

If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion - Eckhart Tolle

The experience of losing a loved one impels us toward a deeper understanding of life. Everyone fears and is saddened by death. That is natural. But by struggling to overcome the pain and sadness that accompanies death, we become sharply aware of the dignity and preciousness of life and develop the compassion to share the sufferings of others as our own - Daisaku Ikeda