1.9 Spiritual lessons

      In this chapter, we will explain to you how Life itself (with the help of our Guardian) heals our souls.
      As you remember, the importance of our misconceptions may be determined by the level of the stress liquid in our Stress Accumulator. We also mentioned that our Guardian uses different ways to prove to us that our beliefs are false. Here are five ways Life can teach us.

1. Direct conflicts with another person who has an opposing value system

      This situation usually arises in the families where the spouses have opposing values and are consequently functioning as "spiritual teachers" for each other without even knowing about it. If the parents idealize their children, then they will destroy their parents' convictions. Friends and business partners destroy each other's values systems thus exchanging Life's lessons. Bosses teach subordinates, subordinates teach bosses, and so on.

2. A situation that destroys our very important ideals

      There are situations when we cannot tell who exactly is teaching us a lesson. Most probably it is not only one, but several people subconsciously create circumstances that destroy our value system. For example, a person who idealizes money would lose it and it is difficult to determine who provoked this result. He might work for a company that is going bankrupt or his own business may collapse because of high taxes or unstable market. It is no one's fault.
      So, why does Life take away money from the person who idealizes it? What is the purpose of such "healing"? This way, we receive proof that we should live in paradise every moment of our life and that our discontent with Life results from our mistaken convictions. Let us see how Life proves it to us.
      Let's assume that your income is $20,000 per year and you are unhappy about it. It is difficult to be content when others earn $30,000 or more. Can you attain a bigger income?
      Of course, you can. However, to achieve this goal, you should not take offense with your life and should instead seek real ways to increase your income. If you prefer to take offense and judge other people, Life will teach you a lesson and your income will drop to only $10,000.
      This income will still allow you to support yourself, but the previous one will now seem like a very decent income. If you do not regard this new situation as a lesson and do not apologize to Life for your criticism and taking offense, then Life will teach you again. Your $10,000 will be taken from you and, you will go on welfare or get disabled, and instead of making money, you will become a burden to your relatives. Confined to bed, you will remember how good your life was when you had your health and were making $20,000 and had a strong opportunity to find a better paying job. Compared to the present situation, it was almost a paradise. How could you be upset with life if you lived in paradise?
      If in your new and difficult situation you recognize your misconceptions and apologize to Life, then Life will allow you to return to your life when you were healthy and making $20,000. If you are grateful to Life, you will earn much more, as long as you stay away from generating new idealizations.
      Therefore, we receive instructions concerning money idealization, i.e., we are taught lessons when we are unhappy about our perceived lack of income. It is quite painful and unfair to us, but it is fair from our Guardian's point of view. People who idealize power, career, talents, control, and alike are taught in a similar manner. Life destroys their idealizations through situations that prove to them that they have the wrong attitude.

3. Situations that force us to do things for which we criticize others

      These circumstances arise when we judge others for their lack of common sense or discipline, frivolity, breaking norms of morale etc.
      Try to remember if you were ever upset with someone for being late for an important meeting or when you criticized another person for his unacceptable outfit. Later, were you ever suddenly late for an important meeting or dressed improperly? It surely happened, but you never connected these events, especially because there may have been a certain gap in time between them. It may have seemed that these events happened due to a pure coincidence, but it is not true. These circumstances were created especially for you to put you in the same situation in which the person that you judged had found himself before you. You provoked your own situation to happen without realizing it.
      If you faced a situation in which you had to compromise your own principles or standards and now you feel bad about it, try to understand what caused this situation. Try to recall who you recently judged for a similar behavior. If you recall such an episode and ask for forgiveness in your thoughts, Life will not put you through the same test again.
      Yet if you do fail to evoke the episodes that might have caused this situation and deem it as just a fluke and continue to judge others, the situation might drag out for many years. You will always be late for important meetings and will become upset with yourself, or you will always dress improperly in important situations, or something similar will continue to cause you discomfort providing you with reasons to judge yourself.
      There is another and more unpleasant type of spiritual mentoring: conflicts between parents and children.
      For example, your parents did not behave appropriately when you were young: they argued or fought with each other. It gave you a valid reason to be upset with them throughout your life. You assured yourself that such conflicts would never happen in your family! So when you grow older and create your own family, Life will place you in the same situations as those of your parents (because you judged them). You may suddenly become irritable and start scandals for no apparent reason. Even if you try to keep your promise about not having arguments and scandals in your own family, you will allow others to provoke you. Your spouse will argue with you, your children will throw a tantrum, and your parents or other relatives will annoy you and provoke your hostility. This situation will continue until you stop reproaching your parents' early behavior. Then your Guardian will no longer have no motivation to inflict such an unpleasant penalty onto your life.

4. Situations that implement our erroneous beliefs on the subconscious level

      Imagine that you once borrowed money to invest it in your business, but your plan failed and you had a difficult time paying the money back. You finally met your financial obligations, but deep inside you are persuaded: "It is dangerous to start a private business" or "I am unable to be a successful businessperson." Regardless of what you want and believe on the conscious level, your subconscious beliefs do not allow your business intentions to be carried out. You may get indignant or take enormous effort to proceed with your business, but nothing will seem to help. Your mistaken subconscious beliefs will cause events that bring you extra trouble.
      If you are familiar with systems of achieving business success, then you know that one of the most important conditions for success in business is having the right thoughts and attitude. You should feel like a successful business person and look forward to your future achievements. It is quite difficult to feel this way if you have some hidden fears and apprehensions.
      Subconscious fears and negative agenda can be developed in our mind concerning practically any issue. For example, having a negative experience being in love with a blonde girl earlier in your life will make you reluctant to develop the relationship with other blonde women for no apparent reason.
      A mixture of fears and negative emotional patterns can inhabit our subconscious even when the original situation that triggered our fears is long forgotten. It is only possible to determine that we have erroneous subconscious beliefs when we experience an emerging problem that has no other reasonable explanation. We also can detect these beliefs when we analyze various complicated situations that occurred in our life and can define what conclusions or subconscious programs we came up with.
      One of the sources of a negative subconscious programming is our own negative experience.

Parents programming the lives of their children

      Another common source of negative programming is children upbringing. Some parents are not afraid to be negative towards their kids calling them "stupid," "clumsy," "lazy", etc. Parental opinion is very important to children, so these words go straight to a child's subconscious and influence his or her whole life. As a result, even the most energetic child may grow into a very clumsy, stupid or lazy adult or they may feel this way.
      In fact, very often children experience a psychological attack from their parents.
      Parents attack children at the mental level, so it is extremely difficult to remove this negative program or change it at an older age.
      We have met many people whose life was blemished by such subconscious negative programs, which made them skeptical and withdrawn. These personality traits do not allow a person to prosper in life.
      There are more ways to show us how our subconscious can be negatively programmed and how it creates problems in our life.

5. Situations that take us out of the usual course of events and give us time to reconsider our attitude towards Life

      In these situations, Life usually makes us physically very ill in order to destroy our false beliefs or it sends us to jail. Our Guardian uses this kind of spiritual treatment when he cannot use the methods previously discussed, for example when we judge ourselves or when we refuse or unable to stamp out our own false beliefs.
      These illnesses are meant to teach us a lesson, and if we have idealizations, then the illness is accompanied by intense grief. For example, if we idealize control over our relatives, we always watch over them and worry when they are on their own. Suddenly, we undergo an illness that does not allow us to move around very much thus thinning our ability to watch over our relatives. In this manner, Life shows us that our relatives can live just fine without our guidance. However, we may resist learning this lesson, which will make it difficult to treat our illness with medications and Life will not allow us to recover until we learn this necessary lesson.
      In general, all means of spiritual treatment can be narrowed down to a simple principle: Life gives us what we do not want and does not give us what we cannot imagine life without.

Correlation between "crime" and "punishment"

      The question remains: how soon the Guardian will give us penalty after we have formed our erroneous beliefs.
      The answer to this question depends on the liquid level in our Stress Accumulator. If it is only 25-35 % full, we will receive a lesson approximately 1-2 days after we start idealizing something.
      However, our SA being full at 70 % or more means that we have been receiving instructions for a long time already and have simply not been paying attention. This situation indicates that Life may not teach us another lesson in the immediate future. If we did not understand the previous lessons, we will not understand the next one either. We will eventually receive our "punishment", but maybe a month, year, or even a decade later. Just keep in mind that sooner or later, we will face problems unless we reconsider our life. When these difficulties occur will depend on how well we learn Life's lessons.

SUMMARY

1. Life uses five ways to destroy our excessively important ideas and convictions.

2. Each of these ways is used according to the number of our mistaken beliefs and other negative circumstances.

3. The timing of Life's lessons depends on our ability to react to them, i.e., on the level of stress liquid in our Stress Accumulator.

    

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