Hello Lucia,

You wrote, “If we all come from God, then why would we need lessons? Isn't God perfect in every way? Why would we have to learn what it's like to feel remorse or hurt, when really we wouldn't be doing anything like that to someone else, to make us feel that way?”

The “why” is far beyond our understanding. But we do have an understanding of how this process of being human on the Earth plan unfolds. That will at least bring us in the direction of the “why,” although we can’t apprehend it.

We know that people learn and grow spiritually over time, through experiences. An infant doesn’t know there is a separation between himself and his mother. He doesn’t “think,” but he does experience. His experiences all imply, at that very rudimentary level, that he is one being with the mother.

As the infant grows into a child, he learns through experiences that he has toes and hands and separate existence from his mother and the world around him. That has to be learned. It isn’t something he is born with.

Then, at cycles of stages, the child increases the separation, by challenging (the terrible 2’s), trying out his individuality, and seeing it succeed. He learns that he is separate and can make his own choices. During this time, he is quite self-absorbed and insensitive to others. He hasn’t learned how to empathize.

As he grows, most children begin to learn about other people’s needs and feelings. He begins to realize that his behavior has consequences on other people. That is the beginning of sensitivity and empathy. Some children never rise beyond this to understanding, love, and compassion. They live their entire lives in a state of understanding others’ feelings at a rudimentary level, but never being other-centered in love and compassion.

After that—perhaps long after that, into his 50s it seems—the person develops love and compassion that is very other-centered. That is the period of real spiritual growth.

Now, the change from the infant, who has no notion of others as separate, real beings, to the adult in his 50s, who comes to have love and compassion for others that is remarkably other-centered rather than self-centered, is a profound change. That has to happen over time, and it comes from having a great number of experiences. We know that on the Earth plane, experiences and learning result in growth toward love, compassion, and other-centeredness. Only the experiences we have on the Earth plane can result in that growth. If we didn’t have those experiences, we would never change. We would remain the infants who don't know we're separate from the mother. However, with the understanding we have, the guidance of those on this plane of life and the next plane of life to reexamine ourselves and learn, and the challenges of the Earth plan, we BECOME. The process of BECOMING requires the Earth plane’s experiences and challenges.

We can’t know why we need to go through the process of becoming, but we do know that by becoming, we change to be more spiritual and loving. That growth or change is important to us as individuals, and to humankind as a species. There is something about our growth and change that is important, that cannot result from the Source’s simply engendering a race of celestial beings already loving and compassionate. We have to evolve into that condition as individuals. We know that’s true, even if we can’t know why it’s necessary.

You wrote, “If we are truly of God, then why is there so much evil or hurt, or sadness? Or is God experiencing life through us? Do we forget that we are come from good, when we incarnate?”

Suffering, which is what we experience, and evil, which is what others inflict on us that we experience, are a result of humankind’s still being at that level of the terrible 2’s. Humankind is still self-centered. It hasn’t grown up. A violent, cruel adult is a little child who never grew beyond those self-absorbed feelings. And that realization helps us move toward some understanding of the “why” question. For us to have a humankind that is loving and compassionate, with no “evil,” and with no resulting suffering, each individual must grow from the self-absorbed child into being loving and compassionate. When each individual grows out of self-centeredness into other-centeredness, humankind will become other-centered rather than self-centered, and we will have a loving world in which people live together in peace and brotherhood. There will be no suffering. But for that to happen, we must have the gradual growth away from self-absorption we had as children to other-centeredness we develop as adults. It takes time, challenges, learning, and BECOMING. That’s what the Earth plane gives us. In other words, God doesn’t create suffering. WE create suffering. And we will only have a world without suffering when WE create it. That’s the why, at the level we can understand it.

I do need to explain what I mean when I say that we create suffering. There are two ways we create suffering. (1) Pain is suffering, but that’s the body’s way of telling us to attend to something in it that’s not working right. That’s not what we talk about when we refer to “suffering” on the Earth plane. We’re talking about death, hatred, conflict, violence, and all the other things what are suffering. However, everything that is suffering as we describe it is made by people. We don’t have to have any of that suffering. We do it to ourselves. Death isn’t to be feared. It’s a graduation. If we knew that, we wouldn’t feel suffering when a loved one graduates. We would be sad at the separation, but we wouldn’t suffer. Murder, rape, assault, deception, insensitivity, and all the rest of the things we call suffering in the world are things people do to other people. If humankind BECAME, meaning grew up to be loving and compassionate, we would have none of those problems. (2) Suffering results from things like disease that causes plain. They tell us from the next plane of life that humankind has brought disease to the Earth plane because of our cruel, violent, insensitive natures. Our natures change the Earth plane. We know that to be true from many studies that show people can increase or decrease growth in plants, blood cells, and human health by their thoughts. And we know that water changes in its nature when kind and loving thoughts are sent to it or when angry and violent thoughts are sent to it. We know that healing spaces, devoted to receiving healing thoughts, actually change in their nature to become more healing. Healing more easily occurs in them because people have used them for healing. Thoughts change the environment. Those on the next plane of life tell us that disease is not a normal part of the Earth plane. We created it through “centuries of ignorance.” We affect the Earth plane. If humankind is loving and compassionate, disease will reduce or disappear. So in that way also, we create suffering. When humankind grows out of the terrible 2’s, disease will also go away.

All this is meant to say that we can have a loving, compassionate world, without suffering, if we and humankind grow up. We have to grow beyond the self-absorbed state of mind of a child into the other-centeredness of a spiritually mature adult. That takes time and growth. Only the Earth plane can give that to us. And when we as a species have grown to be loving and compassionate, we will live in a loving, compassionate world. That helps us understand why we’re going through the Earth plane’s trials in Earth school. It also helps us understand why we have evil, what man does to man, himself, and the environment. We do it to ourselves. We just need to grow up.

Love and peace, Craig