The first one now will later be last. Our Eternal Self has its unique qualities it's developing in universal space/time. The Earth is a great place to learn about what love is and isn't. When we're embodied, we generate patterns which create effects which create causes which create effects which create.....
And when we finally navigate enough of the pleasure/pain dualities of life on Earth, we eventually come to compassion for the entire ridiculous human condition, and then set to work doing a service of some sort for what we care about. And that creates patterns which creates effects....
It is said the purpose of human incarnation is "to further the experiment." We're here to become more aware of our true nature, which is loving wise intelligence dealing with a mostly untrained body, feelings and mind. We learn, then unlearn, then learn, then unlearn, until what's left is unclouded love and wisdom, detached yet committed, dispassionate yet compassionate, discerning illusions while not getting hooked by them, and the ability to generate positivity, goodwill, or Bodhichitta.
What's not to like? We come out of suffering and illusion into vast awareness, vast compassion, vast selflessness, and vast wisdom as we grow into ever greater unconditional love through losing the conditions our 5 senses and minds use as filters.
The same reason I chose to incarnate into the relatively comfortable life I currently have... for the sheer Joy of living!
All lives have some kind of constraint on experience. The difference is in the particular constraints that apply. (For example, those living highly privileged, affluent lives have constraints on how much upward mobility they can achieve. If you're already at the top, there is not a lot of room for getting the exhilaration of climbing higher.)
It's easy to assume that living in poverty is less Joyful than living in wealth. But there are plenty of miserable millionaires out there, and plenty of poor people who choose to be happy regardless of their circumstances. Happy isn't something to possess (and thus be at risk of losing), it is something we can choose to do whenever we want. I like to say it's a verb, not a noun.
Our finite minds judge many things in relation to our current circumstances. A $5 per month raise is cause for celebration to someone making $20 a month. Not so much for someone making $20,000 per month.
On the other hand, many joyful things are equally within reach for the poor and the wealthy: the warmth of the Sun on a pleasant day; the satisfaction of completing a difficult task; a loved one's smile. Sometimes it can even be easier to appreciate the value of such things when one's senses have not been dulled by the excesses of wealth.
So why not incarnate into difficult circumstances? Would we really want all our incarnations to be perfectly serene? Do you only want to watch movies where no one has to struggle or overcome any obstacles? Would you enjoy a movie where all that ever happens is that everyone gets everything they want without delay? I wouldn't. And I suspect "We" feel the same way when choosing life circumstances!
I would think that the most reasonable assumption is that there was no choice. In buddhist doctrine, one would say that the merit that supported this sojourn through the ´higher planes´has been exhausted, and back down into the muck our rhetorical being goes.
Hmmmm… well, in Theosophy once you have reached enlightenment isn’t the option to absorb back into the source OR choose to come back as a Helper to help humanity? I can see making the choice if that is your Soul Ray or just innate in your nature to want to try to help. It has to be one of the toughest rows to hoe though. I can definitely see making this choice, but knowing it was a sacrifice of personal contentment to help others on their journey.
I imagine it's like taking an adventure vacation. Lots of people take vacations that, to me, would be quite unpleasant and even dangerous. Some folks like that sort of challenging experience.
I. Do. Not. The sort of "adventures" I enjoy would likely bore others to tears. I imagine us in our disembodied forms working with a team, similar to a travel agency, to help us plan our embodiment trips.
It seems to me that economic poverty is just one constraint on human life. There are many ways of being “poor”. I’ve heard the quote that the only people who think more about money than the wealthy are the poor- the poor can think of nothing else. It’s undeniable that until a person has the security of food and safety it’s virtually impossible to consider anything else. Maybe that’s the kind of “being poor” you are referring to. And why would someone choose that life if given the choice? To live everything! I do believe we co-create a mortal life before we incarnate. Like with all disadvantages that a human can experience, it is the way others encounter that disadvantaged soul and the response to it that is the lesson. That’s the way that all experience contributes to the overall progress of humanity. That’s what we are here to do in my opinion. That is-If we are all One as I believe.
I've experienced some during my lifetime, but by choices I made intentionally here, so can't say whether I had decided to include them as part of the "package deal" but believe it benefitted me and hopefully informed how I viewed/view and treated/treat others. I like to think it helped me develop compassion and so forth, but perhaps I actually already had some and didn't want to lose touch with it. I was young, left home at 16, and questioned everything I'd ever been taught. (Still do!)
Now, 71, there has been a lot of loss, not only of others, but including of self -- or large pieces of it, at least -- it's actually been a pattern, part and parcel of my life since before I was two and wasn't capable of processing it. By now it's old hat, my not-so-new-normal.
My natal chart is apparently pretty unusual, perhaps I should have looked into it more closely sooner (not from lack of trying, really -- there are things I now suspect were intentionally withheld, even by a professional astrologer with an international clientele who was a local celebrity for some years. I took a number of workshops from her in addition to having several personal readings over a period of years -- even the courses were highly repetitive and poorly organized in hindsight.
I recently had cataract surgery and the surgeon casually remarked on how unusual my irises are, that the layers of gold and green and brown in them create a sunflower-like pattern or effect, he said while finishing up the second eye. When I got home and could now see them without the cataracts I realized it was like the newly-implanted artificial lenses had improved not only my literal vision but that reality itself was somehow in better focus. Looking in the mirror was like a cosmic reboot, a kind of "Of, there I am. I'm back!"
If you've ever had the experience of losing your footing and landing flat on your back hard enough to knock the breath out of yourself you may relate to that sensation of being a blank slate. Before recognizing where, what, let alone who you are -- no sense of being embodied at all let alone human, with senses and cognition, a discrete identity including a name, the last thing to click in after the concept of language resurfaced.... Well, here I am writing an essay instead of briefly offering a response to a rhetorical question. Welcome to my world! Everyday is an adventure in what we called cosmic consciousness back in the day. Full circle, or spiral, or torus (Taurus?)
I agree with a lot of what I'm reading in the comments. I will only add that I've been told and experienced what is called the Moment of Agreement which happens before each incarnation. All who will play a significant role in a person's next lifetime will be there (on the astral level or the Otherworld or whatever you want to call it) and you agree to the parts you will play. It's not just about the way they will appear in the life of the one incarnating but how the incarnating soul will appear in theirs. Karma is misunderstanding the way and sometimes we opt in the agreement to balance karma from other lives. But there is good karma as well as negative actions. However, we have to forget this to have the experiences. The intuition can tell you but you might walk into something anyway that will cause pain. At one point I was led t study with Jeff Green and his Evolutionary Astrology reveals much of my journey. The object as Robert W says, is to grow. I feel my own lifetime here has been one where I wanted to clear as much as I could so that my need to return might be over, unless I had a part to play that was needed by someone else. I had no idea what life would bring and the pathways I would take, but I am grateful that I have made progress.
I am always happiest helping others and chances are I would find many more people to help in situations of hardship and poverty on this 'clod of earth' than otherwise - so it would be an easy and obvious choice, although a potentially selfish one for me, but a choice that could 'benefit' others...
I think this is so interesting and feel into this question from a multi-dimensional point of view. IMPO, I have incarnated in this life to a difficult, war time situation in 1942, somehow knowing that it was a 'clean up lifetime' with my father in particular, but also with help and assistance from his ancestry. It has been an amazing, difficult, traumatic, and highly rewarding lifetime....At age 84, I can say that I have appreciated being conscious during this lifetime to help me maneuver my way through it.
I don’t know why unless we’ve made a soul commitment to come and experience all the happiness and horrors that a soul needs to awaken to cosmic consciousness. But I wouldn’t send anyone here to experience a demeaning and cruel life. So who knows?
Well, as Seth said, individual consciousness was never created. You are not a child of god, you are god, exploring itself through the illusion of individuality. So yes, an experience of poverty would be on the menu. As well as an astrologer who asks questions like this.
Does the infinite being have a concept of poverty and hardship, and does it make any kind of judgment?
Otherwise, it may simply be a matter of a “shift in tension”—an experience that is simply different from that eternal state. Something to learn from.
The first one now will later be last. Our Eternal Self has its unique qualities it's developing in universal space/time. The Earth is a great place to learn about what love is and isn't. When we're embodied, we generate patterns which create effects which create causes which create effects which create.....
And when we finally navigate enough of the pleasure/pain dualities of life on Earth, we eventually come to compassion for the entire ridiculous human condition, and then set to work doing a service of some sort for what we care about. And that creates patterns which creates effects....
It is said the purpose of human incarnation is "to further the experiment." We're here to become more aware of our true nature, which is loving wise intelligence dealing with a mostly untrained body, feelings and mind. We learn, then unlearn, then learn, then unlearn, until what's left is unclouded love and wisdom, detached yet committed, dispassionate yet compassionate, discerning illusions while not getting hooked by them, and the ability to generate positivity, goodwill, or Bodhichitta.
What's not to like? We come out of suffering and illusion into vast awareness, vast compassion, vast selflessness, and vast wisdom as we grow into ever greater unconditional love through losing the conditions our 5 senses and minds use as filters.
The same reason I chose to incarnate into the relatively comfortable life I currently have... for the sheer Joy of living!
All lives have some kind of constraint on experience. The difference is in the particular constraints that apply. (For example, those living highly privileged, affluent lives have constraints on how much upward mobility they can achieve. If you're already at the top, there is not a lot of room for getting the exhilaration of climbing higher.)
It's easy to assume that living in poverty is less Joyful than living in wealth. But there are plenty of miserable millionaires out there, and plenty of poor people who choose to be happy regardless of their circumstances. Happy isn't something to possess (and thus be at risk of losing), it is something we can choose to do whenever we want. I like to say it's a verb, not a noun.
Our finite minds judge many things in relation to our current circumstances. A $5 per month raise is cause for celebration to someone making $20 a month. Not so much for someone making $20,000 per month.
On the other hand, many joyful things are equally within reach for the poor and the wealthy: the warmth of the Sun on a pleasant day; the satisfaction of completing a difficult task; a loved one's smile. Sometimes it can even be easier to appreciate the value of such things when one's senses have not been dulled by the excesses of wealth.
So why not incarnate into difficult circumstances? Would we really want all our incarnations to be perfectly serene? Do you only want to watch movies where no one has to struggle or overcome any obstacles? Would you enjoy a movie where all that ever happens is that everyone gets everything they want without delay? I wouldn't. And I suspect "We" feel the same way when choosing life circumstances!
I would think that the most reasonable assumption is that there was no choice. In buddhist doctrine, one would say that the merit that supported this sojourn through the ´higher planes´has been exhausted, and back down into the muck our rhetorical being goes.
As long as there are sublime landscapes on earth, I believe I'd return to it.
Hmmmm… well, in Theosophy once you have reached enlightenment isn’t the option to absorb back into the source OR choose to come back as a Helper to help humanity? I can see making the choice if that is your Soul Ray or just innate in your nature to want to try to help. It has to be one of the toughest rows to hoe though. I can definitely see making this choice, but knowing it was a sacrifice of personal contentment to help others on their journey.
I imagine it's like taking an adventure vacation. Lots of people take vacations that, to me, would be quite unpleasant and even dangerous. Some folks like that sort of challenging experience.
I. Do. Not. The sort of "adventures" I enjoy would likely bore others to tears. I imagine us in our disembodied forms working with a team, similar to a travel agency, to help us plan our embodiment trips.
Maybe you don’t get to choose your incarnation?
It seems to me that economic poverty is just one constraint on human life. There are many ways of being “poor”. I’ve heard the quote that the only people who think more about money than the wealthy are the poor- the poor can think of nothing else. It’s undeniable that until a person has the security of food and safety it’s virtually impossible to consider anything else. Maybe that’s the kind of “being poor” you are referring to. And why would someone choose that life if given the choice? To live everything! I do believe we co-create a mortal life before we incarnate. Like with all disadvantages that a human can experience, it is the way others encounter that disadvantaged soul and the response to it that is the lesson. That’s the way that all experience contributes to the overall progress of humanity. That’s what we are here to do in my opinion. That is-If we are all One as I believe.
I've experienced some during my lifetime, but by choices I made intentionally here, so can't say whether I had decided to include them as part of the "package deal" but believe it benefitted me and hopefully informed how I viewed/view and treated/treat others. I like to think it helped me develop compassion and so forth, but perhaps I actually already had some and didn't want to lose touch with it. I was young, left home at 16, and questioned everything I'd ever been taught. (Still do!)
Now, 71, there has been a lot of loss, not only of others, but including of self -- or large pieces of it, at least -- it's actually been a pattern, part and parcel of my life since before I was two and wasn't capable of processing it. By now it's old hat, my not-so-new-normal.
My natal chart is apparently pretty unusual, perhaps I should have looked into it more closely sooner (not from lack of trying, really -- there are things I now suspect were intentionally withheld, even by a professional astrologer with an international clientele who was a local celebrity for some years. I took a number of workshops from her in addition to having several personal readings over a period of years -- even the courses were highly repetitive and poorly organized in hindsight.
I recently had cataract surgery and the surgeon casually remarked on how unusual my irises are, that the layers of gold and green and brown in them create a sunflower-like pattern or effect, he said while finishing up the second eye. When I got home and could now see them without the cataracts I realized it was like the newly-implanted artificial lenses had improved not only my literal vision but that reality itself was somehow in better focus. Looking in the mirror was like a cosmic reboot, a kind of "Of, there I am. I'm back!"
If you've ever had the experience of losing your footing and landing flat on your back hard enough to knock the breath out of yourself you may relate to that sensation of being a blank slate. Before recognizing where, what, let alone who you are -- no sense of being embodied at all let alone human, with senses and cognition, a discrete identity including a name, the last thing to click in after the concept of language resurfaced.... Well, here I am writing an essay instead of briefly offering a response to a rhetorical question. Welcome to my world! Everyday is an adventure in what we called cosmic consciousness back in the day. Full circle, or spiral, or torus (Taurus?)
I agree with a lot of what I'm reading in the comments. I will only add that I've been told and experienced what is called the Moment of Agreement which happens before each incarnation. All who will play a significant role in a person's next lifetime will be there (on the astral level or the Otherworld or whatever you want to call it) and you agree to the parts you will play. It's not just about the way they will appear in the life of the one incarnating but how the incarnating soul will appear in theirs. Karma is misunderstanding the way and sometimes we opt in the agreement to balance karma from other lives. But there is good karma as well as negative actions. However, we have to forget this to have the experiences. The intuition can tell you but you might walk into something anyway that will cause pain. At one point I was led t study with Jeff Green and his Evolutionary Astrology reveals much of my journey. The object as Robert W says, is to grow. I feel my own lifetime here has been one where I wanted to clear as much as I could so that my need to return might be over, unless I had a part to play that was needed by someone else. I had no idea what life would bring and the pathways I would take, but I am grateful that I have made progress.
I am always happiest helping others and chances are I would find many more people to help in situations of hardship and poverty on this 'clod of earth' than otherwise - so it would be an easy and obvious choice, although a potentially selfish one for me, but a choice that could 'benefit' others...
Oh, wait, a life of pain and poverty would likely be devoid of beauty, and I would certainly not return to earth for that.
I think this is so interesting and feel into this question from a multi-dimensional point of view. IMPO, I have incarnated in this life to a difficult, war time situation in 1942, somehow knowing that it was a 'clean up lifetime' with my father in particular, but also with help and assistance from his ancestry. It has been an amazing, difficult, traumatic, and highly rewarding lifetime....At age 84, I can say that I have appreciated being conscious during this lifetime to help me maneuver my way through it.
I don’t know why unless we’ve made a soul commitment to come and experience all the happiness and horrors that a soul needs to awaken to cosmic consciousness. But I wouldn’t send anyone here to experience a demeaning and cruel life. So who knows?
Well, as Seth said, individual consciousness was never created. You are not a child of god, you are god, exploring itself through the illusion of individuality. So yes, an experience of poverty would be on the menu. As well as an astrologer who asks questions like this.