The Painful World

When life is going well and events in our lives are progressing according to plan, spirituality is more often than not, put to the wayside. However, faced with challenging situations like illness, death, divorce, unfulfilling jobs, and financial issues we seek consolation, so that we can find peace amongst chaos. But seeing life in this way can only bring us unhappiness as we are always moving in-between polarities. In truth, our spiritual path is our life and the way we choose to perceive it is what makes the difference between our happiness and pain.

When life is going well, we judge it to be good and when life is not, we judge it to be bad. But this is not the "what is." What is – are the events that are taking place on a daily basis free of the judgments we place upon them. Granted some experiences in life feel great and others don't, but our idea that what is unpleasant is bad – is what creates the pain and emotional reaction within us.

In the Bhagavad Gita it says: The self-controlled soul, who moves amongst sense objects, free from either attachment or repulsion, he wins eternal peace. This is a powerful quote illustrating the key to inner peace. Anyone who follows this simple advice will be content their entire life no matter what circumstances they are in. To understand this wisdom more deeply, we first need to be clear about the meaning of sense objects.

A sense object is what we perceive using our senses. We, as spiritual beings, use the human body as our means of interaction within this reality. We may know from an intellectual point of view that everything is energy, but our eyes tell us otherwise. They tell us that we are looking at people and things as the body is a mechanism of interpretation and objectifies what it perceives. Once the body interprets energy as "something" the mind then further determines whether it is good or bad, pretty or ugly, or right or wrong. Once we make this determination and believe our assessment to be true, then we have an emotional reaction appropriate to our judgment. So if we perceive something and determine it is ugly, our emotional reaction will be repulsion, disgust, or gross! If we perceive something and determine it to be pretty or wonderful, our emotional reaction will be attraction, happiness and joy.

If we could recognize on a deep level that what we perceive is a choice, we could take control of what our mind is telling us and free ourselves from the constant fluctuation between attraction and repulsion and the emotional reactions that come from those perceptions. The result of the cessation of this constant fluctuation is peace. In the most basic language I can use, to be happy in life we must let go of our chronic habit of judging everything we perceive in life. Once that habit ends, we can be in the world but not of it and find our inner peace.

I encourage you to explore this possibility and develop self-control over your desire to attach or be repulsed from sense objects. As the Bhagavad Gita suggests, your freedom is at stake.

You are welcome to reprint this article with the following information at the conclusion of the text:

When young children are asked the right questions, such
as "what did you do when you were big? Who were you
when you were big?" they can sometimes tell you quite a
bit about their previous lives. A good book on the subject is
Children's Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child,
by Carol Bowman.

DNA and reincarnation can't be physically linked so DNA
testing would not verify reincarnation. DNA is related to
the physical body, not the spiritual body. Reincarnation is
the spiritual body coming back again and again.

Does this disprove reincarnation? We consider reincarnation
a theory and you can't prove theories valid, you can only
invalidate them. Reincarnation has yet to be invalidated.

In situations where parents have discovered shockingly
solid links to what a child says and actual deceased people,
there's a strong case in favor of reincarnation, but that
doesn't qualify as the physical evidence needed to convince
the strongest skeptics. In our view, "proof" is unimportant
because whether the past life recall is real or subconscious
metaphor, past-life exploration is a fantastic self-discovery
and healing tool.

As we've stated before, we don't believe in "chance".
For example, it's common to receive confirmations after
experiencing a past life regression, such as researching
and corroborating names and dates received in regression
or later meeting people who somehow fit into the puzzle.

As identical twins, we have identical DNA, yet our unique
personalities and distinct physical differences point to the
idea that human life is much more than just biological
science. One must consider the influence of spirit too;
every body is occupied by a unique soul and the qualities
and detriments of that soul shine through in physical form.

While we find hereditary and environmental scientific
theories interesting, including the idea that much of
character is determined by genes/DNA, we view them
as superficial in relation to the migration of the soul and
other non-physical considerations; spiritual considerations
overshadow mundane, modern-scientific, earthly ones,
just as the vast universe overshadows this planet.

We feel that the theory of DNA genetic coding, which
represents predetermined physical, emotional, and
psychological makeup and is supported by behavioral
geneticists, is connected to predestination in that souls
choose the most appropriate bodies for what needs to be
experienced on Earth.

In this line of thinking, the decisions one makes once in
the body on a personality level (including those relating
to relationships and children), the way they "choose" to
act and emotionally react, the way they think, and thus the
way they behave, are largely fated. We see truth in this
philosophy because we regularly and consistently outline
all of the aforementioned personality dynamics, along with
past, present, and future conditions and circumstances
through our work, thereby decisively and repeatedly
substantiating the concept of fate.

Scott Petullo


www.scottpetullo.com

Stephen Petullo


www.holisticmakeover.com

Copyright © 2007 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo