To Experience What We Are Not

Anon:
Why should sorrow still be the best teacher? Considering all that we have learnt and the tools of evolution we have acquired for mastery? Why can’t our impetus for personal growth be rapture or praise, rather than pain and sorrow?

The Seer:
Since the beginning of the creation of individuated life, there has been an innate desire to know the self. To be able to do that, we have had to be able to know who we are and who we are not. To experience what we are not, helps us understand what we are so much better.

To isolate an object from its environment, opposites are used. Some examples of this principle are:

• Let’s assume I would like to make a line drawing of a soccer ball. The ball’s outline separates the negative space around the ball (the environment) from the positive space within the ball’s outline (the ball). This can describe the ball’s size and location correctly. Without separating what is the ball from what is not the ball, there would be no ball nor understanding of it.
• Our second example of the role opposites play in understanding what it means to be an individuated consciousness as vast as the cosmos superimposed over all that is, and a conglomerate of thoughts and feelings housed in a small physical body in the vastness of space, let us pretend you are a candle in the sun. The candle says to its creator, “Creator, what am I?” And the Creator answers back, “You are light my child.” And then the candle asks: “What is that?” Because a candle on the sun has no clue what is his light and what is the sun’s light, because there’s no way to find out what he is not.

The Value of Unhappiness

You will not recognize the value of happiness, nor what it is, if you do not identify what it is, not to be happy.

Using Joy as the Impetus for Change

It would seem contradictory that throughout my teachings I have quoted Brigham Young’s statement that, “man is that he might have joy and have it more abundantly” and now I tout pain as a very effective teacher. But these two statements are not mutually exclusive.

STAGE 1
At the beginning of his spiritual evolution, man learns to differentiate good (that which is life-enhancing) from that which is bad (non-life-enhancing). At this stage he learns the advantages of choosing that which cooperates with life-unfolding (a life of grace) from that which opposes the way life unfolds (a life of pain). He is motivated to shun pain and move towards that which produces comfort and ease. In other words, during this stage of his spiritual development, pain is in part a very powerful growth promoting impetus. This stage culminates in overcoming death.

STAGE 2
Eventually however, his choosing to cooperate with life unfolding is so automatic and effortless, that it is time to move into the next stage of embracing life (stage 2). During this stage of living in surrendered trust, he is in deep contentment and gauges the best course of action by the joy it brings.

So as you can see, both points of view are correct.

The purpose of my mentioning pain as a growth promoting mechanism, is to emphasize that everything that exists serves the purpose of evolution, or it would not exist at all. If we deny the right for something to exist, it will persist (what you resist, persists) until we acknowledge its value. We should not be afraid to examine what we’re not (or do not wish to have as part of our lives) as well as what we are. It is through understanding, that we are able to make mature and masterful choices from a firm foundation of inclusiveness rather than from an unsupported reaction.

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