2007

Do we get to keep what we learn? In other words, if we work and struggle through our issues, become aware of our purpose, learn our life lessons and so on, is this recorded or imprinted onto our souls so we don't have to do it again the next time around? I would like to think so, because otherwise, what would be the point? On the other hand, if we do remember everything, why do so many of us dread coming back or repeating patterns and mistakes?

Yes! You get to keep it all and then some! The Universe is perfect in that it is self-learning. Because It is perfect, you are too. Perfection contains and explains wholeness and vice-versa. This means that you are never really on the outside looking in, even though it seems like it at times. Actually, it is the other way around -- you are on the inside looking outward and sideways, future and backways. To understand the answers to your questions we must look at them from one of these perspectives.

The point of life, all life, is to live it. It is the only point worth noting. You are complete and whole because All That Is, is complete and whole. As you are already perfect and whole there cannot be anything that you are not and there cannot be anything that you are missing. How then, did you come to believe that you must learn in order to grow and struggle through issues in order to earn what you hope to keep? These belief systems are what keep 3D cemented in place for the time being, at least until you release it from its current obligation to you.

The wisest among you, and those who assist you from beyond the confines of 3D will tell you that one of the secrets of life is to leave behind more than what you take and to be willing to surrender almost everything -- even knowledge, when the next door opens. When will the next door open? As soon as you surrender almost everything. Yes, it is a master paradox! Another secret (and paradox) is to leave almost everything just as you found it, which seems to negate the axiom that supports making a difference in the world and leaving the world a better place than you found it. But the answer to this paradox, and to many others, is that what you are is more important (whole) than who you are or what you do.

Doingness is activity, as directed by the mind. Beingness is the active aspect of Soul. Your soul did not come to earth to work, toil or do. That being said, your soul did not come to earth to be idle, either. Your soul intends for you to Be one with Self, one with not-self (others) and one with All That Is. Your purpose in this life and in others is to accomplish this while supporting and nourishing a physical body, the densest form of life. Beingness is the highest form of Doingness; it is after all, what God is (not does). If, as they say, imitation is a sincere form of flattery, then flatter God by being that which Already Is, because that which Already Is, also Already Has, do you see?

Keeping What You Learn

You learn all of the time. Every day and every moment is an opportunity to learn, but here is another possibility for you to consider. What if part of the reason for your being here is to un-learn? What if much of what you believe and have been taught is in error, as the wise Copernicus once said? What if part of every life you have lived has been dedicated to unlearning, undoing and unthinking? If that were the case, then the sooner you forget who you have been and what you have learned the better off you would be! I say this to you in jest so that you will see the merit hidden in the humor. Have you learned or unlearned what your parents have taught you? How long has it taken you to unlearn your last relationship enough that you could have another one? Life is a process of learning and unlearning, being and doing, creating and destroying. If our premise holds true, then what do you truly get to keep? Nothing, absolutely nothing, because there is nothing to keep. And the absolute, which is no-thing cannot be kept, do you see? Yes, it is another paradox. Spirit, The All, The Absolute and No Thing (nothing) are the same, therefore whether you keep it all, give it all away, forget it all, remember it all, or ignore it all, does not matter.

In designing your life, your soul has made every attempt to teach you to have it all by being it all, and then leaving it all behind. Meanwhile, your personality has interpreted this in ways that it believes is aligned with your greater good, as perceived through the illusion of 3D. This is where it gets interesting, because the soul's purpose is to dissolve matter while the personality busies itself accumulating everything it can. The result can be confusing, but even the confusion is part of the plan, because ultimately you can only serve one master, and you are here to discover who or what that master is. The Master is the Self/Not Self. It is Matter/Anti-Matter; it is what was, what is, and what will be. Your master is not your soul or even your soul's teacher. For the most part, it is everything you think you are not. That is why this journey is so very important. It reveals to you in ways both subtle and gross what you most need to know.

You keep everything you discover and it remains intact within and throughout your Beingness. You take it with you everywhere you go, but not always on a conscious level. You do not repeat any experience unless you want to; it is your choice, but sometimes you explore a subject from many points of view in order to understand it completely. Only you can decide when it is complete and whether it takes one lifetime or one thousand. Spirit does not judge. You think of your experiences as university inspired learning, Spirit relates to it as a day-long trip to Disneyland; a visit to the land of illusion and distorted mirrors. But in order to make the experience as real as possible, your soul designs a purpose for you that you are asked to discover and fulfill. While in body you take this purpose very seriously, attempting to meet and surpass its requirements. Upon completion you hope to graduate to the next level of experience.

Truth be told, thousands of lifetimes sometimes join (not separate) and overlap to complete levels. The ancients taught this, but many, especially today, hope to be the exception to this rule. If you could see that time really does not exist and that many of your lives are lived simultaneously, you would not feel the pressure to succeed that you have heaped upon yourselves. Many in your current time do you a disservice by not revealing the entire truth to you, and of course, there are many who rush to teach what they do not yet really know. So be it. It is all in divine accord, for those who respond to such teachers are destined to learn by being misled rather than led.

Work, Toil and Struggle

This may come as a surprise to you, but you were never meant to work and struggle through your issues. Your soul's purpose and your personality's issues are not one and the same. This erroneous belief began eons ago when a venerated teacher incorrectly translated a word similar to "chained" as "enslaved". Your lives are chained together, meaning that each one intersects and overlaps with the one before it and the one after it. The pattern of chains eventually spirals; it is natural for it to do so. In this way it gradually reveals itself to you, perfecting itself in the process. Your DNA is also a chain and a spiral, do you see? This incorrect interpretation allowed you to assume that you were enslaved to the physical dimension, trapped by it as a slave is to the master that owns it. You have been toiling in the fields ever since, regardless of the life you have chosen.

Your issues are your resistance to accomplishing the work of the soul. For the most part, they are your incomplete projects from your last life and now they loom before you so that you will not carry them forward yet again. The longer you have carried them, the denser and more impenetrable they seem. Curiously, at some point when you cannot stand them any longer you decide they are not yours after all, and must surely belong to everyone else but you. Human Beings are delightfully fascinating if they are anything at all! Because you are also resourceful, you will find a way to resolve your issues whether or not you believe they are yours. One of the ways you do this is by creating partnerships and friendships that inspire, enthrall, cajole, or force you to deal with things you might otherwise avoid. Does your mate disrupt and annoy you with issues, habits and impossible dramas? Better look in a mirror and get it over with!

Your life lessons are no more than destined experiences. These are experiences that your soul inserted into your common reality. In some cases they are age or time sensitive, but for the most part it was deemed that you would stumble upon them at the most inopportune time, thereby ensuring a reaction and a subsequent resolution rather than a planned response. Your life lessons are the pearls you accumulate along the way and from your soul's perspective there could be nothing better! Life lessons are destined to be repeated more than once in a lifetime, sometimes even several times, as a matter of fact. When you hear yourself say, 'oh no, not again' assume this is the case! Pay attention and heed the wisdom offered by the moment. Do not think upon what has befallen you or whether or not you deserve it. Observe, integrate, respond and learn.

Repeating Patterns & Mistakes

Your soul does not make mistakes and neither do you. You are the image and model of All That Is, therefore it is impossible for that which humanity is and does to be a mistake. That being said humanity is still a very wasteful species, and this includes both moments and lifetimes. A wasted moment is one that is blind, deaf or dumb to Spirit. A wasted life is one that is ignorant and closed-minded. Quick! Do not judge those that have just entered your mind's eye as you read these words, for it is to you that I direct them! Judgment creeps up all too quickly and masquerades as knowingness. Knowingness is not far from smugness, and the half-wise of the infant Aquarian Age must guard against this by maintaining a mind that is altogether open, not simply ajar. The heart, too, must be less inclined to conditional approval.

Patterns are lessons that you have already learned, but are still partial to. They are like invitations to attend a similar party or wear the same outfit. Because patterns fit the individual well, they are less inclined to give them up. If there is a photograph of yourself that you are particularly partial to, think upon when and where it was taken. What were you doing or thinking then? Why do you think that moment was important? That photograph contains a pattern that is imprinted upon your mind. Experiential patterns are the same; imprints and recordings that have become etched in your reality.

The soul speaks a coded and symbolic language. The mind interprets this, but not too accurately given the distortions of the third dimension. Your imagination devises interesting ways to represent your patterns, regardless of whether they are positive or negative. Did you know that your mind does not know the difference between a positive and a negative thought? That is one of the very reasons why you repeat patterns. It is also one of the reasons why those who are inclined to a life of crime find difficulty in reform. It is difficult to retrain or reprogram that which has difficulty differentiating. The soul is the key.

The soul will not break your patterns, even when your mind attempts it and begs the soul's assistance. Why? Because a pattern is a reinforcement and that which holds the levy, however weak, in place. This is an appropriate and current metaphor, yes? Following along then, it is important to fortify one's foundation (soul) before the walls of the levy overflow. Your soul does this by yielding to the mind until it tires of the pattern and prepares to welcome a resolution. At such an opportune moment, the soul offers to the mind an encoded resolution to the pattern, which can then complete itself for once and always.

Patterns are not habits. Habits are idiosyncratic symptoms relative to this physical incarnation. They are unconscious, inconsistent, irrational and involuntary associations. With awareness habits can be easily overcome. Awareness is not intelligence; it is consciousness and can be elected. There is a link between the mind and your conscious awareness. They are as mismatched partners that nonetheless must dance together because the music is playing for both. Habits are made to be broken, but only when partnership dictates. This is one of the reasons why you cannot stop smoking just to please your mate, or any other habit for that matter.

Preparing for Next Time

You only dread coming back next time when you fear that you may not complete everything you set out to do this time. There is always a next time whether it is lived here or elsewhere, on the third dimension or beyond it. The Universe is a living one, and living is Universal Oneness. Because you have become accustomed to thinking that you are enslaved, it is natural for you to seek escape from the prisons of illusion that you have constructed. No one will foist another life upon you without your consent, and you are not here now because you failed last time around. Many lifetimes are strung together in a cycle of discovery, and many hundreds of lifetimes comprise a chain. The Universe is vast and diverse and so are you.

Many today proudly proclaim that this is their last lifetime here upon the earth. Shall I burst their cosmic bubble and say otherwise? You cannot know at this time whether or not that is true. It is no more than wishful thinking upon the part of the personality that may be tired or disgruntled. In these cases the personality will believe the words of the mind when it proclaims this, or will even draw others into their environment to confirm this for them. At best it could be said that this is the last or next to last lifetime in a cycle or chain. The half-wise all too quickly speak up on this matter. Wisdom tells the wise to be silent and Be.

Dreading the next day or the next life slows everything down, sometimes to a standstill. Can you not see it around you now? The world dreads the end of carbon-based fossil fuels and so it experiences their lack. This results in fear, complaints, hoarding, and more. When an individual fears the aging of one's body the results are similar -- the body ceases to be fluid and begins to move slower. Without youthful thoughts it stiffens the skeletal structure, which relates to its framework, and it creases the tone of its skin to reflect autumn and winter rather than spring and summer.

Dread invites pain and suffering, and while the three commiserate their woes together, stagnation of the present life begins in earnest. What is the point of dreading a possible future life when this one has not been fully realized yet? The plant and animal kingdoms do not dread next season, much less a next life. Did you know that when you are out of a body and in between lives you would do almost anything to get invited back? Does that surprise you? One of the reasons you assist others by acting as their guides is so you can be of service and also closer to the Earth.

Learning through calamity, pain and suffering is an element of the Piscean Era. Pisces represents martyrdom, unconsciousness, hidden mysteries, and self-flagellation. It also represents self-discovery, truth seeking, invitation to mastery, resourcefulness, promises kept, and revelation. The Piscean era is almost complete and already overlaps with its Aquarian neighbor. The Aquarian era will embody altruistic knowledge, Universal principles, the blending of cultures, the advancement of art and science, and the rebuilding of the temple of light based upon heart-based principles. Are you sure you want this life to be your last? Well, if you put it that way . . .

Words for the Wise

Yes, you get to keep it all, but for that very reason, choose wisely! You keep everything you say and do, too. It is in the book of your life, and only you can decide what words, emblems, mementos, wounds, worries and wonders you will keep. The Akashic Records is a library of the finest and subtlest energy that can be recorded. In it you will find the story of your soul. A broken heart and a broken nail are made of the same akash; it is the substance from which the Universe was formed. Akash is so light that many forget that a pound of feathers weighs as much as a pound of bricks. The Akashic Library will never find you lacking, but because you find yourself lacking, you continue to explore its corridors, rooms and shelves.

The Earth has also been called the Gaian Library. In it you will find the story of your heart. Your heart is the key to your past and future lives upon the earth. A broken heart upon the earth is best mended upon the earth, and no other planet contains as many love potions as does the earth, not even Venus! A trip to the Gaian library reveals and restores the heart. It heals the wounded and pacifies the angry. This too, is why you are here, and why you fear forgetting what you have learned. The heart is fragile, but eternal in its determination to be it all by feeling it all. Freedom comes not in escape, but in immersion.

Once you discover peace, carry some of it with you every day -- enough so that you will have some extra to give away.

Without throwing caution to the wind, live with your heart unprotected and unobstructed. You will discover that love is not blind, nor deaf, nor dumb. Love is what you wish you had thought of when you awoke this morning.

Do not flatter yourself or others with too much information or knowledge. If you wish to imitate a teacher, choose Nature.

Close your eyes often and look at the inner landscape. You will find common ground almost everywhere. Now open your eyes and see the same.

Plan tomorrow and next week if you must. By next year you will be a different person. Let that person plan his own day and week.

Pay attention to your pulse. It is like that of the earth, sometimes calm and sometimes agitated. It practices non-interference and it is without prejudice. Be the same.

Do not judge your experience or that of others. You are not qualified to judge. God is not qualified to judge either, that is why He doesn't.

Speak gently when you use words and whisper in your thoughts. Spirit does not shout.

If you cannot trust in someone then trust in something. Trust in the process. Trust in trust.

Speak truth when you know it and are certain than another will benefit in your relating it. Only Universal truth is multi-lateral and objective, earth truth is bi-lateral and subjective at best.

Renew and restore. It is what nature does. Do not go against nature, it knows better.

Wisdom is, is not as Wisdom does. Wisdom . . . Is.

Choose now. Choose this. Choose you. Choose life.

Copyright © 2007 Pepper Lewis, The Peaceful Planet