QUESTION 2: I HAVE A LIFE PLAN? THAT'S NO COMFORT AT ALL!
You said I have a life plan. And that I prepared it before I was born. So before I was born I chose what I would do with my life, who I will or won’t marry, how many kids I’ll have, even where I’m living right now? Is my life nailed down that much? I’m confused because it suggests that everything important in my life is pre-destined, so I have no choice. Even more confusing, you say I have organised my own life, yet I have no idea where my life is headed, and there are so many things happening around me that I have no control over. So what you’re saying is mystifying, not comforting!
THE GUIDES RESPOND
We begin answering this question by offering a general observation. Human beings have a natural tendency to exaggerate. Whether their life goes well or badly, it is natural to go to extremes and become very happy or very upset. In reality things are hardly ever that bad. Or good. Life just plays out as it will, and whatever happens, however things turn out, soon enough you are looking at them in the rearview mirror. That’s just the way human existence is.
Of course, we know that is not how it seems when you are living through pleasurable or tough times. That is why we said human beings have a natural tendency to exaggerate. The tendency is natural because a core requirement of embodiment is that the experience of being human be real. Accordingly, incarnation involves identification and attachment. People identify with the state of having a body and all that involves, and get attached to people, situations, objects, and everything else that goes with living a human existence. Identification and attachment ensure that experiences count, that they make a powerful impression on you. These impressions then provide what you need to extract life lessons, which in turn enable you to grow. So while exaggeration is a natural outcome of this learning process, nonetheless it occurs because you are deeply embedded in the particulars of your life.
How is this relevant to answering the question? It is relevant because if you are always caught up in the process of living, if you continue to react to what is on your plate day by day, you won’t be able to see what has occurred behind the scenes to get you into the situations that now dominate your life. To answer your question for yourself, which is our recommendation, you have to learn to disentangle yourself from the immediate moment, step back, and take a wider view of what is going on around you, to you, and within you.
We put this question into that basket. By which we mean, saying you have no choice, that you lack control of your life, that everything is pre-destined—excuse our language here, but that is all poppycock. You know perfectly well that your life is as you chose it. To say otherwise, that you are helpless, that you know nothing, is an exaggeration. The real reason you don’t understand your own life plan is because you have not enquired sufficiently into the circumstances of your own life. You haven’t enquired into your own psychological make-up. And you especially haven’t sufficiently tried to grapple with the deep aspects of your own identity.
So we suggest that in order to find your own answer to what is going on in your life, set aside your feelings of being confused, or that you’re being left out, or whatever other emotion that dominates your feelings about yourself, and instead get serious about your own deep nature. Do that and much that is confusing will become clear. Not everything will become clear immediately, we admit that, because human identity is a complex, multilayered construct, but certainly enough will become clear to allow you to see that, yes, you do have significant control, and no, you are not helpless in the face of powerful people and situations, even though, when you are encountering them, they seem to be overwhelming. Nothing is insurmountable. Everything about your human existence will eventually be clarified. The key is to keep accumulating insights into the specifics of your existence.
Our view of human spirituality is multi-faceted. You are a spiritual identity occupying a human body. It takes many lives to come to terms with this situation. Then more lives to find the spiritual core within you. Then yet more lives to learn to express your spiritual core in the circumstances of daily life. Too many things to list here have to be learned during the course of becoming spiritual. Being religious, being an atheist, being a mystic, a martyr, a sceptic—you will adopt all these roles and many more as you work through how best to express yourself in a human world that veers between being harsh, beautiful, difficult, astonishing, loving, traumatising, mysterious, and surprising. And it is surprising, despite you having organised the major events you will experience during the course of your current life.
We have discussed at length elsewhere what is involved in a life plan, particularly in the Channelled Spirituality Series of books, so we won’t go over that ground again here. However, we will reiterate that the whole point of having a life plan is not to lead people to feel coerced or that they have to follow a pre-laid path from which they cannot deviate. As we have stated frequently, and undoubtedly will repeat, you have choice. If you really wanted you could ditch your job, leave your relationships, and dismantle all you have organised for your life. This is a choice you could make if you really want to. So any complaints that you are hemmed in and helpless are wide of the mark. The fact is, few people have the courage to ditch everything and totally re-organise their life. We do not say this disparagingly, because for most people there is no need to do so. Living through the current circumstances of your life, working through the liabilities and responsibilities that are entwined into your life, is what you have signed up to do.
As far as being confused is concerned, that is another inevitable consequence of embodiment. Human perception is narrow, whereas you need a wide view to perceive all the complexities of interlinked factors that contribute to you being where you currently are. The psychological processes of identification and attachment focus your attention on your day-to-day experience of being human, resulting in you not being able to stand back and take that recommended wide view. Between lives you do have the opportunity to adopt a wider view. And as you evolve, life by life, your view becomes incrementally wider and deeper. This means that your spiritual self sees more than you do at your current human level. It also means you can draw on what your spiritual self knows in order to understand what is happening to you in this life and how you ended up where you are.
This is what the process of becoming spiritual is all about: drawing on what your spiritual self knows and using it to infuse how you are living your life. In saying this we are addressing those who have reached the point where they seriously wish to perceive what lies behind the veil that hangs across their awareness and prevents them from understanding the who, where, what and why of their existence.
In that sense, our advice here is directed towards those whose view of themselves is maturing, for those for whom living life up close and personal, as we have described it elsewhere, is no longer enough. For whatever reason, and there are many, you now wish to adopt a wider view, a deeper view, and see what is really happening in the particulars of your life. We reiterate, that is who we are specifically addressing here. And it is to these people that we recommend a process of self-enquiry.
