The Soul Gets To Choose

Sacrifice leads to bliss...

Forgiveness is the path to unconditional love...

These are two of the dominant paradigms that have shaped human cultures all over the planet for the last four thousand years or so. Both of them imply that we live in a fallen world, that life on earth is a punishment for a sin against God, that because we sinned, we must be punished by learning through pain.

For example, I first felt unconditional love through being betrayed over and over again. Finally, after the most painful of all the betrayals, I realized my own role in creating the situation where I felt so much pain. This occurred because I was able to see beyond what my ego wanted for my life, and what my soul was trying to teach me. When the soul chooses to incarnate somewhere, it has to adapt to the rules of the domain where it appears--that is how it learns, how it becomes aware of itself (this is how I see it at least). On earth, as the ego experiences pain, it is giving the person the opportunity to make a choice: choose to realize that you attracted the experience of betrayal. When I realized this, my heart was filled with so much love for the person who betrayed me. I was able to see how I had been only using such a little part of my heart, keeping the rest safe because I didnt' trust in the divine plan of the universe. One can also choose to shut down, to sink into the pain until there is no separation between it and you. You embrace your identity as victim and your heart closes down. I don't know why I finally decided to realize that I was attracting the experiences of betrayal. I don't think there is a rational explanation. It was not an intellectual choice. I think my soul just knew that it was time for me to learn this lesson--divine intervention occurred, what we sometimes call grace.

Now to my next point, the one I am really excited about! I believe the two paradigms I listed at the beginning of this post are relics of the past. The energy on earth no longer supports them. We are now in a time where one does not have to sacrifice in order to experience bliss, and where one does not have to experience painful betrayals in order to experience unconditional love. Forgiveness is no longer a necessary part of the process because we will no longer be learning through pain. Although the world may look like it is falling apart, this is the last gasp of those who will not let go of the control they exert over others, a control based on fear, and on the paradigm that life on earth is one of suffering that will be redeemed in Heaven.

I don't have any facts or evidence to back this up, but my heart knows this is true, and I trust my feelings over anything else. Another thing I learned from being betrayed--one's feelings are usually right, not what one knows intellectually. This gives me another reason to thank all those who have betrayed me!

So what will our new paradigms be? For me, poetry is the language of feeling, but I wanted to sketch my ideas out here to provide the images I feel coming some structure, and to ask all of you what you think. What do you think human life on earth will be like now that we don't have to sacrifice, now that we don't have to be redeemed, now that heaven will be here on earth, now that we don't have to protect our hearts because they won't have to be damaged so that we can learn to forgive to re-open them to the limitless glory of divine love?