Life is a School

We are guided by our beliefs! We live our lives in accordance with what we truly believe in. If we believe we are born with sin then we carry a heavy baggage of guilt with us throughout our life. If we believe the doors of Paradise open to us when we sacrifice ourselves then we're willing to blow ourselves up into smithereens gladly. If we believe we are the chosen people above everyone else then we feel separate from all around us. If we believe in Lord Ganesha who will remove all obstacles from our life, then we pray to Lord Ganesha whenever we have a problem. If we believe Goddess Lakshmi will bring us prosperity, then we pray to her to shower money into our bank account. If we believe that it is God who is speaking to us and wants us to do something in his name, then we feel privileged and we do it no matter how absurd God's request is. Many leaders of sects have popped up throughout the centuries, claiming that God had revealed a truth to them alone, which they then imposed upon whoever was willing to listen and believe in them blindly.

Some of us (thank God) are born with a strong mind of our own and we never cease to question and ask why and who said and what happens if? I know, I drove my parents crazy with my endless questions. Why can't I do this or that? Because you're a girl! Even my little girl's mind could and would not accept this nonsense. It's not fair, I would scream. Who says that's how it has to be? Tears streaming down my cheeks in pure frustration. God says, or men or they say! Came the patient reply. I don't care who says I would scream even louder, it's just not fair. It does not make sense to me. I won't have it! And I set out to change things.

Somewhere along the line as I grew up I picked up a belief system that suited me and made my life easier to bear. I'll share this with you and you see what you make of it for yourself.

Let's look at this thought for example, that life is a school and our soul is born here to learn a specific lesson during a lifetime to evolve in order to move on, always to a higher consciousness level. Let's look at this hypothetical statement. Every obstacle we are confronted with in our daily life, is a little step leading us towards reaching this final goal that is preset for our soul before 'it', our individual soul, goes back to whatever other level of existence 'it' came from. Since no one really knows whether this is true or not and no one can really prove anything, let's just imagine this to be true for now.

Imagine how your whole attitude and approach to life would change instantly, if you kept this idea alive in your head. Your approach to life and problems would change because with every obstacle you face, you will see nothing but a challenge and an opportunity. Every problem will be a riddle that you would need to find the answer for, or a puzzle that you would need to find a solution for. Similar to an exam, a surprise test that you face in school when the teacher welcomes you with 'OK, surprise test today! Let's see what you've learned the past three weeks!' You might groan and swear under your breath but you have no choice but to sharpen your pencil, and to settle down to do the best you can. Right? You might get an A, a C or an F depending on just how much attention you've been paying in class. Whatever grade you get will be in accordance with your performance for that particular test.

Now imagine yourself in your real life. Depending on how you think, how you behave, how you interrelate with others, how much of yourself and your emotions you invest in life, how honest you've been with yourself, how you live your day to day, you see results accordingly. When you meet with problems, if you had the above premise in mind, rather than be frightened, stressed or angry, or wallow in self pity, you would instead, sit down, sharpen your mind, reflect calmly on your own thoughts and behavior and wonder where you went wrong, and you would try to rectify that the best way you know how. When you meet with a huge problem in life, be that a divorce or losing your job, or any other life changing mess, then you definitely have a huge message there. This mess is forcing you to take a good look at yourself, it is making you face the fact that you blew it and now you need to figure out what the lesson might be that you really need to be learning. The huge problem is that fate banging you on the head with a club, because it's lost its patience with you, forcing you to wake up. You needn't have done anything wrong other than perhaps remained stagnant, gone to sleep so to speak, living an unconscious life. So your frustrated soul gets impatient with you and decides to give you a hard blow saying 'Hey wake up you sleepy head, get with it, get conscious! This is a wake up call, to bring you back to your senses.'

Perhaps you have noticed this and then again perhaps not, but let me tell you that humanity collectively is right now being given one hard blow after another on the head, again and again and yet again, forcing us all, each and every one of us, wherever we might be on this ladder of individual and collective evolution process, to become conscious human beings. All the violence, accidents, the chaos and natural catastrophes around us are giving us one message i.e. 'wake up, move on the ladder of evolution, be more aware of what is happening!' Every disaster that befalls us, be that personal, as a group or nation is shaking us by our very roots, forcing us to look at ourselves and at each other, to become aware, to open our eyes and to see beyond the obvious, to snap out of our lethargic ways of thinking, stuck in our comfortable little boxes. Life is screaming at us to venture out to the unknown. None of the usual behavior that we are familiar with helps or eases our pain. Not crying or complaining, being fearful or stressed, looking for security or personal gains, none of that works anymore. We are forced to look for new paradigms so that we can survive this grandiose mess that we find ourselves in now.

Thousands are out there spreading the new message, on how to adapt and live according to the new paradigms. Granted it is easier said than done. It's easy to say in theory, have a positive attitude, learn to relax, learn to forgive, learn to let go, learn to detach, hold your emotions in check, learn to think independently, learn to live and let live, don't judge others, find your peace within, have faith, serve humanity, eradicate poverty, etc. etc. etc. But learn you must, whether you like it or not and the longer you resist the changes and the new paradigms that are imposed on you, the more personal blows you will get and the harder you make it for yourself.

So if you find your bank account dwindling away forcing you to cut down on your luxuries, the message might be don't be so attached to materialistic things. If you have your purse or suitcase stolen from you, the message might be for you to be more conscious, more aware more in the NOW. If you find that you have to give up your home and all you've known since twenty years, the lesson you probably need to learn is to accept the circumstances as they and to let go. If you have aches and pains and your body is totally stiff, perhaps the lesson is for you to relax and learn to detach. If you find your mind driving you crazy at night stopping you from sleeping as it jumps from one problem to another, worrying about this and that, perhaps it means it is time that you learn to stop judging and criticizing. These are just simple examples. The lessons we need to learn are aplenty and you need to figure out for yourself what your particular lesson or lessons might be. You can communicate with your soul to find out for yourself. Keeping this 'idea' this 'belief' in your mind surely will help you to get over some tough situations in your life. It is not a bad belief system.

I have found personally having this belief, 'an obstacle is a message for me to learn a lesson' tremendously helpful for me to keep my sanity, not to sink into a depression and to help me to survive all the difficult circumstances in my life. I've had a very active life, gone through divorce, children heartaches, losing homes, belongings and luxuries, work and financial disasters, health problems, to mention a few of the problems and of course I've cried, had nervous breakdowns, accidents and hospitals, and have been through desperate situations, but in the end and always, I've been able to get back on my own two feet, learned my lesson and faced life again with vigor and enthusiasm taking with me the good from the past, throwing away what was of no use any more, and focus on the present, to build a better future. Some lessons are learned fast, others take longer. And when I have refused to learn my lesson, life has a way of repeating the problem until it hits home and I submit, accept, learn from my mistakes and move on.

So why not try this out for yourself and keep this in mind: Life is a school, obstacles are nothing but tests for you to improve your character. Problems when dealt with are opportunities for your soul to evolve to higher states of consciousness. Oh, and another thing, the more you advance in the school of life and in consciousness, the harder the obstacles will be. So do not despair but be happy, it means you are advancing! Believe it or not! When in school you go through kindergarten and primary school, everybody goes through that. A lesser number then go through elementary school and even less through university level and much less to higher levels than that. Studies are harder the more you advance right? Likewise this means that the higher level of consciousness you reach, the harder the lessons in life will be. So congratulate yourself instead as you tackle your tough problems.

It is said that you never get a problem that your soul cannot deal with. The obstacles in life that you have to deal with are in accordance with your own level of consciousness. If you keep this model in mind, you'll find that you are better able to keep calm, not to lose it, so that you can find answers and solutions to all your problems.

I'd like to suggest to you now that you adopt this belief system for a little while and observe how you deal with your life. You might just find that it makes a lot of sense to you. True or not true, your mind won't know the difference! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Remember that and believe it! MK