Page 23 - Spirit - A Journey Through Embodiment

situation. Rather than judge let us assess. Though something
happens to another, our awareness of this happening suggests
that we also are part of the event. Our awareness will
encourage a response of some sort within us, even a negative
response such as "it was deserved". Empathy could also be
another negative response as it might suggest sympathy and
endorse a justification for it being a "bad" situation. We have
said that all things happen for a good reason and can incur the
necessary degree of suffering in order to draw ones attention
to the significance of the event. The correct response would
be to treat the situation as a valuable lesson and to use it
beneficially, in other words to take the good from a "bad"
situation. If we are to look back at the life we have lived until
now no doubt we will see many events that caused us pain and
unhappiness. Often in these events there were others involved.
How many of these events do we blame these others for
causing, and so often ignore our participation, other than to be
hurt? What brought you to the point where you were a
participant? was it not because of choices you made that you
were there? The hurt is only because things didn't turn out as
you expected. Things could only turn out as they did because
of the collective cause, the way they turned out was the effect.
Should we, after the event, choose to see it as a negative
experience and blame other than ourselves, to wallow in self
pity, to not move on, then we are endorsing the negative side
of the event and can see that we will have to suffer the hurt
afresh at some future date, and numerous times until we take
the positive lessons from it.