Mini-numerology, and the Mystery of Suffering

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Nine represents the end of an enterprise, or of a learning-cycle or phase in your life. Seven has always represented spirituality and its attendant accoutrements. It is the activity of deep Love in your life. This came from the Greeks, who knew of only seven celestial bodies in our solar system, besides sun and moon. It is the number of the mystical Way, as are 11, 22, and 33. None of these sums is "reduced" in standard numerology.

Re your second inquiry: Suffering is one of the most complex issues in pneumopsychology (spiritual psychology). Most saintmystics of history have had to suffer. Many cultivated deepest patience through biomedical dysfunctions that daily challenged them.

Karma is not simple. It does not necessarily mean that, if you have condition a, that you caused someone else to have it. If life "hurts" you, it is not so simplistic always to imply that you hurt another, although that is usually the case. (Most saintmystics were "less than saintly" in former lives.)

But not all karma is purely reflective or reflexive. Most is. But there is also "elective" karma. Here, a soul can choose a genome (collection of genes) that will produce a dysfunctional or painful condition in the body. This creates suffering. A saintmystic might also arrange to have her life ended in some spectacular way in order to leave a message for the world to learn. (The death of Jesus, and the 9-11 victims, were deaths of this kind.)

Suffering is not all one thing, monochromatic. It is a polychromatic phenomenon. Although it is tough for our fearnature to accept, suffering can be a wonderful and beautiful teacher. When a person suffers, she teaches herself, and often many others, compassion or Love. She learns Love, because she can really relate, deeply, to the suffering of others; and she teaches others Love, because they truly want, out of Love, to help her.

Suffering is the best teacher of Love, and of patience also. The three steps of the mystical journey are: purgation, illumination, and Unity, although these three have several different names. The very first, the intro to the Way, is the Latin purgatorio, from which we obviously get the word "purgatory."

Purgatory is suffering, and understanding why you are suffering. ("Hell" is suffering, and not knowing why. "Hell" is also suffering because you have brought it upon another.) So, from the view of the saintmystics, suffering is "purgation," an old word meaning "purification."

An old parable tells us that gold, to be purified, must be melted by fire. That is why, in Revelation and other ancient writings, "fire" became an archetype of purification through suffering. Suffering is designed to soften the heart, to create gentle empathy and tender sympathy. It is needed at times to penetrate the very "thick skull" of ego.

It is also a Way of overcoming fear. We, as part-human beings, usually fear suffering. But the bark might be worse than the bite: Fear of suffering ends only when we are forced to face it. As examples of saintly holiness, the saintmystics of history voluntarily incorporated into their lives suffering and pain. Sometimes, they chose even a painful death. For death is the ultimate fear.

When, in the perfect Homeworld, you are contemplating a "trip" to earth, an incarnation, you are well aware, with crystal-clarity, that it will all be a "virtual" reality, a dream. None of this world around us is real. It is "psychoholographic"-- a world of holograms projected by the psyche. This entire "trip" (an earthlife) lasts only minutes, in Homeworld time. Only when you actually come here does the earth seem like "reality." So the soul, in designing a life, is absolutely fearless. It will design lives that would "scare the hell" out of the ego!

When we get here, we are supposed to awaken to the fact that these are dreamlives of "virtual" reality, nothing more. So, sometimes a soul will program in a terrifying event to "shake us awake," to cause "awakening," a synonym for "enlightenment" in ancient writings.

So, as you can see, there are many valid spiritual reasons for suffering, and it is not "bad." We must be careful never to misinterpret it as "punishment," for punishment comes from one being to another, and most suffering is like gravity: It follows simple natural law. It is just one of many dramatic, impressive, unforgettable patterns used by the deep soul to educate and re-mind us.
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