Have you ever watched the evening news and wondered why there is so much pain and destruction in our world? Have you ever wondered why so many bad things happen to seemingly good people, perhaps yourself?

So often, when something bad happens, it appears to be nothing more than meaningless suffering. But, what if your challenging experiences were actually loaded with hidden meaning, meaning that you yourself selected before you were even conceived? Could it be that you are the sole entity responsible for your circumstances, that no other source is to blame for your current state of affairs? We plan our life challenges before birth in a process called pre-birth planning, not for the mere principle of enduring pain, but for the personal growth that it affords our soul. Thus, human suffering has the noble purpose of teaching compassion as we each travel our own spiritual path.

Giving meaning to our suffering is vital to our growth as a whole. Understanding the adversity in our lives leads to personal acceptance, freedom and fulfillment. Feelings of fear, anger and resentment are replaced with the motivation to extract as much meaning as possible from each earthly experience. This shift removes us from the victim role and places us in the driver's seat of our own lives.

What on Earth Are We Doing Here?

EXPLORING THE CASE FOR HUMAN SUFFERINGBy Elaine A. Piha

BALBOA PRESS

Copyright © 2011 Elaine A. Piha
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-2979-0

Contents

Introduction..............................................................viiChapter 1 The Intellectual Journey.......................................1Chapter 2 The Divine Design..............................................17Chapter 3 Interpretation is Everything...................................27Chapter 4 Karmic Lessons.................................................43Chapter 5 The Gift of Suffering..........................................57Chapter 6 Understanding the Self.........................................73Chapter 7 Accepting the Assignment.......................................87Chapter 8 The Invitation.................................................95Additional Quotes.........................................................97Just a Few of the Books that Have Illuminated My Path.....................101

Chapter One

The Intellectual Journey

"I set out to learn what I most needed to learn." Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was the inventor of the light bulb. He was also afraid of the dark, which was the inspirational force behind his ingenious invention. His dilemma was similar to my own experience regarding organized religion. As a young child attending a mid-western Catholic school, I remember feeling as if I was being forced to live under some enormous dark cloud. The religious beliefs that were recited to me daily held no sense of belonging for me. I was unable to wrap my mind around what I was being told and I was unable to make sense of the anguish that religion brought to the lives of those around me. Church became an intimidating setting, a place filled with fear and doubt, rather than a place of joy, admiration and praise. I remember the looming thought that one lifetime was all we got, one short, unexplained, often miserable lifetime and it either lead directly to heaven or directly to hell. This was a very damaging way for a young child to view the world, a world that I later discovered holds so much beauty and so much joy.

I felt so out of place during those years and I held inside so many unanswered questions. What is the purpose of life? Why do humans inhabit this planet for such short periods of time without any explicit instructions or concrete guidelines? Why do we possess an innate drive to feel connected to each other, to nature and to the divine? Why do we suffer so much and love so little? Is there truly an afterlife? If so, what is it and is it our only chance for pure happiness? And, if true bliss is the ultimate goal, why then is happiness so elusive to us on Earth?

Happiness and a sense of purpose are synonymous and it is no mystery why we spend so much time and effort seeking either one. The search for happiness has been at the root of all human activity throughout the ages. Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion and knowledge. When you review the intention or motive behind most human action, the underlying desire is for one to be happy, or at peace. Curiously, we often begin this search for happiness outside of ourselves, from an external locus, rather than from within. One of the finest gifts you can give yourself, or anyone else, is peace and forgiveness. "When you are able to find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others," taught Mildred Lisette Norman, aka the Peace Pilgrim. You no longer feel the need to compare or judge yourself or others and you learn to value each person's contribution to the whole.

"You will have great difficulty achieving peace of mind and joy unless you respect how others choose to live their lives. That means respecting everyone's choices: the drug dealer on the street, the Pope, a homeless person, the president of the United States." James Blanchard Cisneros

In our current society, we commonly derive our self-worth from what we do for a living or how much money we have in the bank, rather than from the good deeds we perform or the amount of love we share with others. Imagine if, instead of asking first, "What do you do?" upon meeting someone new, we traditionally asked, "What was the nicest thing you did today?" Our focus and perception of what is truly important may significantly change for the better. Achieving happiness, or a true sense of self, requires great patience, continual practice and keen personal awareness. Great diligence must be maintained while searching for and attempting to understand the elusive answers. Practice must become part of your everyday life, where you practice living your values, and finally, personal awareness is required in order to explore and fully understand your own actions and the role you play in creating the life unfolding before you. This joy, this purpose, comes from within and it lies inside each one of us, simply waiting for us to notice it.

The central goal of self-study is to discover why we are given the precious gift of life and what the reasons are behind everything that happens to us. Great confidence comes from understanding our purpose and this understanding allows us to move forward to live life without fear. Every single thing in this universe has a higher meaning. Everything speaks to us and, as I have grown in this awareness, I have learned to surrender to the magical, purposeful flow of life. I now see the perfection and the message in everything around me. I now see the brilliance in how each of our lives unfolds just as we have planned. I now see the divine order in all that I had previously questioned and I wish for this same trust to develop inside of you.

The question then becomes, "Who really has the power?" Life can often feel meaningless, cruel and unforgiving, but, what if I told you that you were responsible for every minor detail in your current life? That no higher source had solely selected this path for you, but that prior to birth you personally pre-determined the challenges you are experiencing and that you made a contract to live out that arrangement? That essentially, this contract was a blueprint for your life and an overall plan for the evolution of your soul? What if I told you that understanding this agreement could lead to boundless personal growth and freedom, including an understanding of why humans endure so much suffering? Acknowledging our blueprint is the difference between expecting God to handle the details and realizing we actually possess the power to design our own lives. What would be the point of human life if some higher source truly controlled it with puppet strings? The moment you realize that no one is going to rescue you is the moment you become empowered to rescue yourself.

Your choices in life, from the very first moment of genetic selection, have had purpose. They have been part of a larger plan, a plan that you created, for good reason. All of us as humans want to be in control of our lives. When we are not in control, we often feel powerless, victimized, even alienated.

When we are in control, we feel powerful, actualized and happy. There is great power in discovering your role in your own life. This discovery will allow you to exhibit greater personal command and learn to deal more constructively with the challenges that come your way.

We are all full of questions. We have all had the same hesitations. We have all wondered the same thoughts regarding our lives and, although I have always thoroughly enjoyed life, I still found myself frustrated that I was unable to place true meaning on the suffering I saw all around me. This same frustration is what initially spurred my research and later sparked my interest in sharing this knowledge with everyone that holds the same questions deep in their heart. Although I am now convinced that there is room for all belief systems and that no one religion or spiritual theory should reign sovereign, I was unwilling to simply accept what had been recited to me as a child for absolute truth and I encourage you to explore in the same fashion, to maintain an open mind, to re-think everything you have been trained to believe and to seek and to find your own truth. I encourage you to find a truth that comes from your heart, one that makes sense to you, both body and soul.

"Acquire the courage to believe in yourself. Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day." Ching Ning Chu

My intensified studies began in a typical way, at the local bookstore, staring at the sea of books, all offering helpful advice on how to piece this mystery together. Throughout my quest, I was continually drawn to studies of past-life regressions, near-death experiences and the work of both mediums and psychics. Books would randomly appear from various sources, family, friends, colleagues, etc. I began to take notice of these beautiful coincidences and I placed significant meaning on their arrival in my life at the time because, after all, even Sigmund Freud, the father of psychology, did not believe that coincidences were without meaning. He also placed genuine meaning on such occurrences and believed that our conscious minds continuously recognize things that we were already aware of in our unconscious minds. I realized the universe was speaking to me and I knew enough to pay attention.

The more I read on these subjects, the more I wanted to read, and a few of the most cherished works included those of Sylvia Browne, Edgar Cayce, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Michael Newton, Robert Schwartz and Dr. Brian Weiss. Amongst them, they have been involved in thousands of past-life regressions and near-death experience (NDE) recount sessions that provide insight into our life between lives, the time we spend in the spirit world. Alone, Edgar Cayce, one of the most widely publicized and meticulously documented psychics in history, was involved in over 2,500 life readings and over 14,000 physical readings, all of which he performed at no cost to the subject. His goal was simply to help others and he remained devoted to this compassion even through his own financial woes of the Great Depression. Cayce, the sleeping prophet, would use a simple self-hypnosis technique during his sessions as a stenographer recorded every word. While under hypnosis, with only an eighth grade education and no medical training, he was able to use specific medical terminology to prescribe treatments for his subjects, many of which had given up on finding a cure for their ailments. He was able to tap into cosmic energies and universal knowledge that he was not acquainted with during his waking life. The documentation of each of his recordings is currently archived and open for public review at the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Dr. Raymond Moody, author of Life after Life, coined the term "near-death experience" in 1975 during his research of more than 100 people who experienced clinical death and later recovered. He has since continued to pursue the phenomenon and the testimonies of his subjects, and countless others, have been so remarkably similar, as well as uplifting, that they have inspired many to change the way they view life, death and the hereafter. Following the frequently life-changing NDE, the emphatic message that survivors most often want to share with others is that there truly is an afterlife and that this glorious place is a place of total understanding, complete peace and absolute love. They often describe the sensation of traveling through a tunnel or of floating on a river toward a brilliant light source. Their vision of the afterlife does not include a vengeful deity, but instead a figure of complete love and compassion. Amazingly, many of them were non-believers before their experience and were later inspired to share their encounter and their newly-found knowledge with anyone willing to listen to their story. There have since been countless studies and books written on this topic, all of which report nearly identical experiences. One of the most recent books, Evidence of the Afterlife, written by Jeffrey Long, M.D. with Paul Perry, involves an in-depth study of over 1,300 people who have also had near-death experiences. This study included, not only adults, but also very young children who were not yet able to conceptualize death, yet their NDEs contained nearly identical content to the adult NDEs. This study also included several people that were blind at birth, yet were able to describe in great detail what their ethereal experience looked like aesthetically. The variance of ages and cultures in these countless studies, combined with the fact that they enjoyed extraordinarily similar experiences, makes it nearly impossible to ignore the conclusions and the existence of this magnificent afterlife.

The survivors' stories and the collective findings of the multiple psychics, mediums, clinical researchers and medical personnel clearly signify there is a true spirit world, one in which we still exist as what we know of as our inner-selves, our spirits, our souls. The very essence of our being is our soul, which is made up of electricity, a series of rapid and electrical impulses, just as is the universe. Everything around us has an electromagnetic field and is constantly vibrating. Every single object is composed of energy and that includes the galaxy, our planet and all living creatures. Even our thoughts and consciousness are vibrations. Sir Arthur Eddington and Sir James Jeans, two of the most prominent and accomplished astrophysicists of the 20th century, embraced the view that consciousness was likely the foundation of the universe itself and they stated that the universe looked more like a great thought than a great machine. Our spirits are nothing more than this same energy and pure energy cannot be destroyed; therefore, our spirits can never be destroyed. We are, in a sense, invincible. Plato wrote, "The soul of man is immortal and imperishable." We continue to exist beyond human life in a place commonly referred to as The Other Side, a place of indescribable beauty and peace. This spirit world is a place of unconditional love and extraordinary joy, where we are free to play, study, socialize, relax and create at will. It is a place where no judgment, nor time constraints, nor suffering exists. It is comprised of a beautiful landscape and spectacular buildings made of the finest materials, where we listen to beautiful music, enjoy the company of friends and appreciate the arts. Located here is the magnificent Hall of Records, where the Book of Lives can be found. This book contains an absolute record of our every thought, word and act. It is a complete collection of our entire earthly "experience". This book is also commonly referred to as the "Akashic Records" or the "Universal Memory of Nature". Akasha is a Sanskrit word that refers to the fundamental, or most basic, substance of the universe and upon this record remains an indelible impression of every movement, thought, and sound since the beginning of the universe. "The Akashic Record (also called the Akashic Chronicle) is the enduring record of all that happens, and has ever happened, in the whole of the universe," wrote Ervin Laszlo in his book Science and the Akashic Field, An Integral Theory of Everything. Akasha registers these impressions and the vibrations can be tuned into either naturally, for some, or with practice for others. The mere existence of this Book of Lives accounts for the ability of clairvoyants to literally see the past and that same ability lies within each of us. Edgar Cayce believed that the human mind is capable of processing a great deal more information than we are usually conscious of doing and therefore, he would put himself into a trance to tap into this universal knowledge that was already there, i.e., the Akashic Records. Here, he would gain understanding that was unavailable to him during his waking hours. He was able to make astoundingly accurate medical diagnoses, as well as view the past and predict future events while under hypnosis. This technique is quite similar to what we know of as meditation, a practice designed to quiet the mind and tap into a higher consciousness.

"For behold, this is my work and my glory — to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." Moses 1:39

The thought of an afterlife or an eternity has been commonplace since the beginning of time, but today as the veil of consciousness is being lifted and our understanding of the spirit world continues to broaden, there is also an increased belief in reincarnation, the act of living multiple lives. A recent Gallup poll stated that three in four Americans believe in the paranormal and that at least one in four believes in reincarnation. These numbers are expected to continue to rise as the subject is further explored. Yet, despite the moderate western world numbers, the truth is that the majority of people in the world today believe in reincarnation, with the more traditional eastern philosophy followers leading the way. With most of the world believing in it, you are actually in the minority if you do not believe. "God generates beings, and sends them back over and over again, till they return to Him," Qur'an, Islam's holy book. Interestingly, there were references to reincarnation in both the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible but they were taken out for heresy, despite being accepted by early church leaders.

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Excerpted from What on Earth Are We Doing Here?by Elaine A. Piha Copyright © 2011 by Elaine A. Piha. Excerpted by permission of BALBOA PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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