Defeating expectations
QUESTION: Masters, I’ve been on a spiritual journey for several years now. During the last few years, I feel that I have grown a lot. I always imagined that with time, the work would become easier. For example, those limiting beliefs that come up, and feelings and pain which causes discomfort and suffering, I challenge those things and feel that I’ve been courageous. I imagined all of this would only get easier with time, and given the knowledge and growth that I have gained. At times, I still feel overwhelmed by how much comes up; sometimes it feels really difficult to tackle. My question is, does it ever get easier? It feels hard. I thought a spiritual journey would only get easier with time. ~Veronica, USA
ANSWER: You are still trying to be in control of what comes to you instead of letting your unconscious higher self dictate what needs to be dealt with. You have done marvelously with your growth. As you have so courageously proceeded, you have learned the lessons in most of the situations chosen by you. In a few you have battled the emotions and suppressed the lesson into submission and retreat, but lessons suppressed just come back with ferocity.
You are what is known as an older soul, one who has had many prior lives. In each of these lives, if you chose lessons you were not able to complete, they will come into your current life with vengeance to see if you can conquer them at this time. In other words, the more prior lives, the more potential for very difficult things to appear.
Lessons continue until you understand them so that you will recognize any variation on the theme that presents itself. You would not expect university work to be easier than kindergarten or high school, would you? Why expect post-graduate work to be easier than what has been seen before? With due diligence, you are able to gather the wisdom from progressively more complex situations.
Your attitude also affects the severity you imagine with each new event. If you think it is – or is going to be – hard, it will appear monstrous. Likewise, if you see it as doable, even if it is very complicated, you will be able to breeze through it.
Getting yourself out of judgment, which is the rating of each circumstance, prevents the playing of mental games in your head. If you get rid of the ego, which is the seat of judgment, you may enter into the area of evaluation, where you feel your way through life. Enlightenment is the point where judgment vanishes and evaluation rules.