A question has been asked that poses a seeming contradiction.
“If you choose the life experience beforehand and the purpose is learning, is it right to interfere with that experience. For example, is ‘right’ to alleviate someone out of poverty or from struggle if that is the experience they chose beforehand. How do we keep the balance between supporting and interfering. “
We will begin by pointing out that, at least in some of your cultures, you think in terms of polar opposite possibilities where many things are concerned. This will result in the thinking that if A is True then anything other than A is False. If I am told that I cannot interfere then I cannot help that person.
Let us ask you if your teachers of long ago ever would have said that. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Shelter those who have none. Is that not what they taught? So is that interference?
We also point out that there are two or more involved here. We will assume that the reader is one of them. The reader, who has the ability to help, sees one who is starving. Does the reader know that the starving person came with the intent to starve? Does the reader know that the starving person did not come with the intent to offer an opportunity to show or learn compassion? Is that starving person ONLY a starving person? Is it not possible that all of the above could be true?
In this situation, and in any situation, things are not either/or, do you see? You will get no demerits for helping another. Suppose the person who is sitting on the street holding out a cup and asking for change really was a person who intended to be broke and poor in this life. If you put several $100 dollar bills in his cup, do you imagine he will build a financial empire from that money? Neither should you assume that he will not. Years from now he might look you up and repay that money with interest.
Our point is that you cannot know what the true situation is, but you can know compassion, love, caring, generosity and more.
There is another question that arises often. If I have and another has not, must I give what I have? No teacher has ever asked that anyone become a beggar in order to lift all the beggars. The point is that if all people had more compassion, there would be no need for begging.
Now if one feels prompted to do more, to give more, then by all means do so. Expect no return, however. Expect no reward. You will most likely not hear angelic bells ringing.
Another point that needs to be made, and one we have made before many times, no one is judging you. Well, one person is. You are habitually judging you. You very likely are trying to avoid ‘judgment day’. There will be no day of judgment except for your reviewing of the life you have lived. You need not put that off. You can do it every day. But do not do it in order to keep score. Do it in order to learn where you stand with your own expectations, and then forgive anything that falls short and resolve to improve. That is called learning. It is a plus.
Returning to the original question, we love the idea expressed by one of your recent teachers. He said, “We are all just walking each other home.” What if even half of you lived that?
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