ICE IN WINTER
Why Troubles Come
Why me? Why do I always seem to get the sniffy end of the stick. What reason can there possibly be in my continuous experience of failure and loss. If it was not for bad luck I would have no luck at all…as the song goes. We will all feel like that at times, when things go wrong and the whole world seems to be against us. The truth, the real Spiritual Truth is that without bad luck, without problems there would be no progress. So why do troubles come into our lives? In the teachings of Silver Birch I believe we can find many answers to such questions:
From: Silver Birch: You have to suffer. You have to endure privation, perhaps ill-health, some crisis that will touch your soul, that spark of the divine, and begin to fan it into a beauteous flame. There is no other way. It is only in the darkness that you will find the light, only in ignorance that you will gain knowledge. Life must be a polarity, or if you like a duality, in which it is said action and reaction are equal and opposite.
Silver Birch is simply saying that without suffering there is no spiritual development, no lessons learned. We need a crisis to create an answer and we will find that answer there is no other way you can not face trouble and adversity without finding the strength to deal with it successfully. You will find a way.
You may think that is just a platitude, a way of fobbing off the injured, the sick, the lame, and the impoverished with some soft soap tosh to shut them up. But we will all suffer, each in our own very different ways. Even those that may appear to live precious protected lives experience anguish, doubt and often agonise about problems that we can not see. As a professional psychic I had for many years a very wealthy client that had all the money any one person could wish for. They had the use of a private plane, stayed in only the best hotels and were driven around by a chauffer in a huge Bentley. Anyone casually observing this young lady would have thought how wonderful it must be to enjoy such riches. But her wealth and social position were her prison. She suffered in a very unique way but she did suffer and many times I heard her cry out to be free of the trappings of wealth that locked her into a world where she could never be free.
From Silver Birch: You will not find spiritual truths when the sun is shining, if you are surrounded by riches, and wealth and possessions. You will not find spiritual truths when you have no problems. The catalyst will work only when you are in trouble.
Troubles come in many guises and we all must face what we have been given to learn the lessons that our eternal soul needs to learn. It would be useless, a wasted life, if we were born into riches, had a gloriously happy childhood, passed all the exams, won all the prizes, married the most beautiful partner, shared a delightful marriage, experienced the joy of children and saw them achieve absolutely everything they aimed for. What would one learn from such a life? That life is fun, life is brilliant and enjoyable. But what would have been accomplished in real spiritual terms?
From Silver Birch: It is not when the sun shines that the soul finds itself. It is not in a bed of roses that the soul comes into its own. It is in the hazards and challenges, the difficulties, the hurdles and the obstacles. These provide the only means by which the soul can realize its latent divinity. This is the story of every pilgrim on the road to spiritual knowledge. There has to be heartbreak, sorrow and suffering to appreciate fully the compensations that will follow. The individuals who will give service must be tried and tested, sometimes to their uttermost strength.
As Spiritualists I am sure we know that most, if not all of our effective mediums and spiritual leaders have suffered in their lives. There is something that comes from hardship, from facing the challenges of life and overcoming them that gives one the power to help others. Through the trauma of a terrible experience a soul will grow stronger. We can not die, there is no such thing as death and all must face their own trials and tribulations before they can progress. Death, physical death is not the end to suffering, it is just another experience on the way to understanding. Through the doorway marked death we will all travel and find there a peace that will be born out of comprehension. When we absolutely know that all we suffered in this incarnation had a purpose then we will be at ease with the experience. But first we have to face the fire. First we have to overcome.
From Silver Birch: In some religions they teach that there is survival for those who believe in certain doctrines and creeds. But survival has nothing to do with religion or with human beliefs, aspirations and hopes. Survival is an inflexible law, automatic in its operation.
As Silver Birch says the law of the universe is survival and we will only take with us from this world the sum of our knowledge gained through personal experience. I say that death is not the end to suffering, only spiritual oneness with the light of eternal love, that many call God, is the end to pain. Between now and then there is life, incarnate and discarnate, spiritual and material. I believe that you, me and all the rest of the people in the world would do well to accept that why troubles come is to teach us that which we need to learn. To the Proud: Insult and humility. To the Strong and Powerful: Weakness and despair. To the Rich: Poverty and indignity. To the Beautiful: Disfigurement and decay. To us all the troubles that come our way are sent to meet our needs, we need to suffer, we need to learn and we all need to accept that this is the law of the universe. But take heed dear reader, there is no universal law that states we must roll over and accept the kick in the reproductive organs that we are being given. Fight back, tooth and nail, fight all the way and never, no matter how tough the going gets, do you give in. Then you will learn what you need to learn. And what is more, you will make spiritual progress which is why you were born in the first place so stop moaning and get on with it.