Perhaps misery and unhappiness and pain comes to all of our lives and perhaps we shouldn’t be really trying to block it. If we accept that all experiences are happening for us and not to us, and are therefore really to strengthen us in some way, we can usually build away from our pain and by building on top of the pain we can actually then grow stronger and better able to handle future circumstances such as these when they arrive.
To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, the famous writer, who once said something like this ,
“Life will break us all, but afterwards, some of us are much stronger at the broken places, while others never really recover, and so wither away and for all intents and purposes have died inside because of the continuing festering and pain from those original breakages that they have never recovered from.”
I feel Ernest, as a practical and down to earth type of person, is saying here that external circumstances are all very real and can really bring us unhappiness, and so break us sometimes. And to say that all of our problems in our lives are only as a result of our attitude entirely, is perhaps missing the whole point and not seeing the full picture of how life works for us down here on the Earth.
Sure we have an attitude, but this only comes and is strengthened or weakened by something else. Something else perhaps higher and wiser than an attitude, and so determines more in which direction our attitude will grow towards. Positive or negative, both directions lead eventually to the same outcome by different routes. One is the way of pain and complaining, the other of pain with understanding. But in both cases we are actually heading in the same direction towards greater understanding and greater love coming into our lives. And in both cases comes the pain into our lives. It is the secondary viewing of this pain as positive or negative for us in our lives that brings either more understanding, or only more pain to us.
But as I say, in the end enough pain will wake us up, as pain has a way of so doing. And so eventually one way or another, both paths will get us there to where we are all heading. And this is to a greater wisdom and understanding and growth, to allow more love and to give more love by understanding how love itself works and operates in all of our lives.
I have also come across this quote, which at first reading seems a little too simple and a comment from the clouds, where Lester as an enlightened master was probably flying his own kite.
But for the rest of us our kite is not even off the ground as yet, so what can we do to remedy our situation and remove some of our constant pain and frustrations of living?
“Misery can be removed by seeing its cause as being the ego seeking love. Only by loving can one be happy.”
– Lester Levenson, from The Ultimate Truth
So what is wrong with the ego seeking love or even the heart or the soul seeking love? Surely there is nothing wrong with the sentiment of seeking love, is there?
But Lester means here to give and receive love in the heart and from your soul. The ego doesn’t need to seek love, because it is really only a tool of soul and so soul loves it, and ego is already loved by soul and God as a part of itself. By giving love, love is received, but the ego cannot give love itself because it has none to give. It is just another tool, like the physical body also is, for soul. Sure it can contain love or allow love to influence its actions, but in effect the ego is a separate entity when it seeks anything on its own. The ego should never seek anything for itself, but allow itself just to be a monitor and vetoer of experiences and a sort of a comparer, so that soul gets experience on both sides of the ledger.
Soul is love, and the ego is a filter in that it, if out of control can block love when it sees it coming and so only be itself instead. The ego itself is separately powered either by soul, or by itself from energy coming up from the lower bodies. If energy comes down from soul instead, then ego operates more correctly and rightly and so serves soul.
How exactly does our ego operate from the limited power from its lower bodies then?
This energy is either emotional or physically based and so is short lived in that it always must be renewed. The ego takes this energy for itself, and so takes on a life of its own. When it should be utilising this energy to monitor and pass on the experiences of the lower bodies to soul, so that soul then sends back its own assertions and power for the ego to help in controlling the lower bodies reactions, rather than only adding fuel to their fires.
So if the external is a reflection of our inner state and if everything affects everything else, it must go both ways, and so the external must also affect our internal state. So we can only control the affect of the affect, or in other words our own reaction to the external circumstances or experiences that life brings us, and sometimes seemingly unbidden.
It is true of course that everything is connected in some way, and everything is part of something else; be it greater or smaller, nothing stands alone. So that you as soul are part of God and God is a part of every soul.
Did God ever stand alone?
No, all was always existing forever and so all only ever recombines. But each experience is forever new, and this is because of time that acts as a “disconnector,” as well as a connecting thread at one and the same time. Without time, all would happen together, and so would blend together and all would appear as just one great big hotchpotch. With time coming into the equation, sometimes it can appear as if time stands still or speeds up, and so it appears things are isolated and separated. But if there was no time, you would see that nothing is isolated or separated at any time.
So external events affect themselves as well as you. Only time seems to delay the affects or magnifies or dilutes them, as time speeds up or slows down and drifts onwards forever.
Happiness itself of course never sits in an external happening, but is a secondary response initially away from the normal state of happiness that all souls are born into and reside in usually and naturally. The ego will respond initially, and if you think this response is your actual response you will follow this and allow it, but if you look around for a secondary response and explanation, and thereby realising that there are benefits in every event. Then the soul response will come forward and you will learn and grow stronger and so a return to your natural happiness will eventuate.
Love is the power that brings happiness and happiness is only an affect of loving, and so not a true state that exists independently. Without loving there can be no happiness, and to be happy you must experience and give love.
So is love in external events and circumstances? Love is in all and everything. Is unhappiness in external events? Unhappiness comes only from a blockage of love, and yes we can allow external events to temporarily block us from feeling and seeing the love in those events and in every circumstance of our life.
But to say that unhappiness is only as a result of external events is to miss this underlying connection of all things to love. And when we miss this vital connection, perhaps we will always remain unhappy and blame it all on our external events and circumstances.
But when we see this vital connection, that there is love coming to us from every circumstance and so a learning experience in every event in our lives; we will then allow the feelings of unhappiness to fade away, in the realisation of the growth we are obtaining, and the understanding we are coming to, and of the love that we can experience and that will always show us its happiness that comes as a built in part of this love, only if we allow it to. And that too is part of our freedom. Our freedom to be happy or to block and never see this happiness that exists in all things, when we see the love in all things.
