I am of the conviction that the primary purpose of our mortal lives is to learn, more specifically, to learn from experience. Our time in this world is fundamentally about the choices and decisions we make and the subsequent actions and thinking these choices and decisions inspire. Our ability to discern the benefits or consequences of our choices, decisions, and actions determines the quality and effectiveness of our thinking and our ability to learn from experience. Learning from experience entails a conscious aspiration toward good consequences and a determined avoidance of further bad consequences.
From a spiritual perspective, learning from experience can be boiled down to choosing Good over Evil. Good is everything that is aligned with God and Creation; Evil is everything aligned with Satan who works to undermine God and Creation. At its most basic level, a choice, decision, or action that is not aligned with God or Creation will generate bad consequences. The first step in learning from experience at the spiritual level involves recognizing and understanding bad consequences. The second step is repentance of the choice, decision, or action that led to the bad consequences. The third step involves ensuring this repentance positively influences future choices, decision, and actions in an effort to avoid further bad consequences.
But spiritual learning from experience is not exclusively about the negative, but also involves recognizing and understanding when choices, decisions, and actions are aligned with the positive, with God and Creation - that is, when we are aligned with the Good. It is also about being able to discern the benefits that derive from this alignment.
These benefits are not always explicitly clear, in the same way that the bad in bad consequences stemming from dis-alignment with God and Creation are not always explicitly clear. On the surface, bad consequences might appear good, and good consequences might appear bad. This suggests learning from experience is not always straightforward and that some lessons might have to be repeated many times or might take up great expanses of time.
Learning from experience is often painful. It often involves swallowing our pride - the humble understanding and acceptance that we were wrong coupled with the desire to turn the wrong into a right. At its core, the essence of learning from experience at the spiritual level is remaining open to and accepting of the reality that the main purpose of our mortal lives is to align ourselves with God and Creation. And this openness and the effort that should follow is paramount to our continued journey after our mortal life ends.
If learning is the primary purpose of our mortal lives, then it is only logical to assume that the forces opposing God and Creation work diligently to hinder and obstruct learning at every possible turn in an sustained effort to undermine God and Creation. The ideal world for evil is one in which learning - learning from experience in particular - is considered undesirable and unsavory - not worth the effort. But the world evil really strives to bring about is one in which learning for the purpose of aligning oneself with God and Creation is not only considered undesirable, but is made increasingly uncomfortable, and, in some cases virtually impossible.
This kind of world would first motivate individuals to callously dismiss all notions of God and Creation, thereby severing all true sense of the distinction between good and evil. It would then work to invert all notions of good and evil by presenting evil as good and good as evil. It would also reduce all semblances of good and evil to the hedonic level of pleasure and pain whereby all bad choices that create immediate, short term pleasure would be regarded as good, and all good choices that created immediate, short term 'pain' or discomfort would be regarded as bad. Any 'real' pain resulting from a 'real' bad consequence would be met with pride instead of humility, and defiance instead of acceptance, thereby negating any chance at true learning.
Evil does not want us to learn from experience because it wants to lock us in darkness and prevent us from approaching the light. Evil does not want us to continue our journey - and it accomplishes this rather effectively by obstructing our ability to learn from experience.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isiah 5:20)
And greater woe unto them who fall into this trap and refuse to learn from experience because they are allowing themselves to be misled from the very purpose of mortal life itself.
From a spiritual perspective, learning from experience can be boiled down to choosing Good over Evil. Good is everything that is aligned with God and Creation; Evil is everything aligned with Satan who works to undermine God and Creation. At its most basic level, a choice, decision, or action that is not aligned with God or Creation will generate bad consequences. The first step in learning from experience at the spiritual level involves recognizing and understanding bad consequences. The second step is repentance of the choice, decision, or action that led to the bad consequences. The third step involves ensuring this repentance positively influences future choices, decision, and actions in an effort to avoid further bad consequences.
But spiritual learning from experience is not exclusively about the negative, but also involves recognizing and understanding when choices, decisions, and actions are aligned with the positive, with God and Creation - that is, when we are aligned with the Good. It is also about being able to discern the benefits that derive from this alignment.
These benefits are not always explicitly clear, in the same way that the bad in bad consequences stemming from dis-alignment with God and Creation are not always explicitly clear. On the surface, bad consequences might appear good, and good consequences might appear bad. This suggests learning from experience is not always straightforward and that some lessons might have to be repeated many times or might take up great expanses of time.
Learning from experience is often painful. It often involves swallowing our pride - the humble understanding and acceptance that we were wrong coupled with the desire to turn the wrong into a right. At its core, the essence of learning from experience at the spiritual level is remaining open to and accepting of the reality that the main purpose of our mortal lives is to align ourselves with God and Creation. And this openness and the effort that should follow is paramount to our continued journey after our mortal life ends.
If learning is the primary purpose of our mortal lives, then it is only logical to assume that the forces opposing God and Creation work diligently to hinder and obstruct learning at every possible turn in an sustained effort to undermine God and Creation. The ideal world for evil is one in which learning - learning from experience in particular - is considered undesirable and unsavory - not worth the effort. But the world evil really strives to bring about is one in which learning for the purpose of aligning oneself with God and Creation is not only considered undesirable, but is made increasingly uncomfortable, and, in some cases virtually impossible.
This kind of world would first motivate individuals to callously dismiss all notions of God and Creation, thereby severing all true sense of the distinction between good and evil. It would then work to invert all notions of good and evil by presenting evil as good and good as evil. It would also reduce all semblances of good and evil to the hedonic level of pleasure and pain whereby all bad choices that create immediate, short term pleasure would be regarded as good, and all good choices that created immediate, short term 'pain' or discomfort would be regarded as bad. Any 'real' pain resulting from a 'real' bad consequence would be met with pride instead of humility, and defiance instead of acceptance, thereby negating any chance at true learning.
Evil does not want us to learn from experience because it wants to lock us in darkness and prevent us from approaching the light. Evil does not want us to continue our journey - and it accomplishes this rather effectively by obstructing our ability to learn from experience.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isiah 5:20)
And greater woe unto them who fall into this trap and refuse to learn from experience because they are allowing themselves to be misled from the very purpose of mortal life itself.
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