[ethereal]

Hehe, said I wouldn't come back but felt compelled to add in some great quotes on suffering and saving the world, by my fav. teacher David Hawkins. Hopefully they can help recontexualize the whole thing, or at least provide food for thought:

"The world of ego sees life as going from imperfection to perfection. You see something, you try to improve it. When you become the field, you become aware that what you’re witnessing is perfection moving to perfection, to perfection, to perfection. You’re witnessing that creation and evolution are one and the same thing. Creation doesn’t go from imperfection to perfect, and neither does evolution. If you become part of the movie, you think that you go from imperfection to imperfection to imperfection."

"This world is the ultimate for undoing karma. You forgot that you killed millions of people, so now when you get blown up, you can say, Thank you God. You can also choose to curse God. To get to the positive side of karmic balance, you have to undo the negative. You repeat the experience, but this time with a different intention."

"Reality is not provable, but it can be demonstrated and verified; you can’t prove Love."

"Pray to be shown error: 'Bring forth to my awareness that which is not aligned with Truth.'"

"What holds people at certain levels is the duality of attraction and aversion. Every situation has a payoff. You have to give up the pleasure of being right. With humility and surrender, you move beyond duality. As you evolve, you lift the others. By our combined intention, by virtue of that which we have become, we lift the level of the sea, and all ships rise with it. The consequence of everything rising is that it brings catastrophe."

"The source of duality is to think that the way I think is the way the world is."

"The way to handle any problem in the world is to say, “So what?” And if you get something you think you want, you can say, “So what then?” Divinity is ever present."

"Life is incapable of being destroyed."

"It never occurs to narcissistic people to change themselves rather than to change the world."

"You have to surrender the juice you get from suffering. This world isn’t painful. This world is neither pleasurable nor painful; you think breathing air is pleasant, but a fish doesn’t think so."

"You’re responsible for your intention, not the outcome."

"[Is it necessary to suffer to grow?] No. You can get to God through joy. It’s how you contextualize it."

"What can we do to change the world? The first thing you can do is do the world a favor and don’t try to change it. Change yourself."

"Nothing happens by accident. Each person that comes in has an infinite karmic pattern, and can only go where the pattern lets it go. An iron filing can’t go into a giant electromagnetic field and say, “I don’t want to go that way.” Is it terrible or is it wonderful? It depends; if I like it, then it’s wonderful, if I don’t like it, then it’s terrible."

"You automatically float to that which is of maximum benefit as karma allows. The circumstances of your birth – whatever your conditions – are perfect for your karmic benefit. You left people to die of starvation mercilessly, so now you’re going to be born in a place where you will starve mercilessly, and then you’ve undone that."

"There’s no point in bemoaning the world when you read the news every morning. That’s what life below 200 looks like. What did you think it would look like?"

"Everyone is always born with the most optimal conditions for spiritual growth. The circumstances of your birth are perfectly aligned with what you optimally need for your spiritual growth. That takes care of victimhood. Karma also has its upside; it provides for the undoing of things. When you reach a certain level of consciousness, you remember what happened in your previous lifetimes. The vicissitudes of life you can look at and say, I don’t know what it’s serving, but it must be serving something. And there is group karma as well."

"Socrates said, Man always chooses the good; in fact, he’s only capable of choosing what he sees as being good. The problem is that man doesn’t always know the good from the bad. He thinks his choices are always good, even if it’s blowing up innocent people."

"Many people ask, How can you forgive others if they’re wrong?"

"The perpetrator-victim model is res interna projected onto society. There is no perpetrator, no victim in reality."

"Appearance is not essence. That’s one of the great values of calibrating."

"One has to be willing to sacrifice everything for the truth. The gravity of the ego is severe. We can lessen its hold on us by understanding how it developed."

"The thing I had the most problem with was being indignant at non-integrity. You have to give up judgmentalism. The world as it is serves a great purpose because we have the chance to transcend the ego; it’s a purgatorial world."

"It’s not good versus evil; it’s that which is more evolved versus that which is less evolved."

"[In answer to someone asking about her alcoholic sister and wondering how to best care for her.] You surrender it to God and let go of wanting to control it. Trying to intervene keeps someone in pain and robs them of karmic merit. If you intervene, you’re interfering with karmic merit. You’re robbing her of what she needs to know. She’s going to need to hit bottom, whether she knows it or not. Intervening actually increases her suffering, because every time you try to help, you change where she has to go to hit bottom; now she has to go even lower. Do you love her enough to surrender her to God? If she says, “I hate you, you’re deserting me, I’m going to kill myself,” you say, “Well, that’s between you and God.” You need the conviction, the first step in Al Anon. Otherwise, you’re serving your own ego if you say, I’ve got to go in there and intervene."

"You can be angry because you love and you’re devoted. You care about life. That’s different from anger as where you live."

"Q: My question is about the vulnerability of the 500s. It seems like this overwhelming love makes it difficult to be discerning.
A: Although a burglar is innocent he is still a burglar.
Q: How do you protect yourself?
A: By awareness. Also, I can forgive a robber and see his innocence, but I don’t lend them my silverware."

"God is infinitely merciful. As you surrender you trust in the mercy. The justice of God and the universe is absolute. Every hair on your head is counted. Every thought is tracked. God would forgive you, but he knows that you wouldn’t evolve that way. Therefore, I own the divinity within myself."

"Question: What is surrendering? (This question came up 3 or 4 times, the below is a summary)
Answer: It is letting go of resisting what comes up.
Also, Surrendering is not the same as being stupid or blind (gullible)
Surrender resisting. Be ok with either outcome.
Withdraw intention from the matter. Surrender to God’s will."

"With humility we accept all that happens."

"Forgive others and yourself for everything."

"The only sin is ignorance."

"God is not over there and we over here. God is everywhere."

"Question: How do I deal with surrendering my child who is on drugs?
Answer: Surrender how you feel about your child using drugs. You don’t know the full story. Therefore you don’t know the karmic benefits of this life for your child. Your child may have to hit bottom before surrender happens.
Seeing somebody you love suffer is in itself painful. You also need to surrender the pain and presume it is for the good."

"Q: What can we do to heal the planet, ie when it comes to global warming?
You don’t have to do anything, just be loving. The world is perfect as it is although it may not appear that way to your perception."

"Q: How do we move into unconditional love?
A: -To be accepting of all of life
- To want nothing from life
- To see the beauty of all of life
- To let go of wanting to make anything different than it is

I never get excited about changing the world, because the world is perfect as it is. This is a great place for spiritual growth. Even if you are not at 540, that is perfect too and just let it go."