Hello John,

I feel for you. I have some small understanding of the burdens you’ve borne, although no one could really fully know the experiences you’ve had.

I do want to explain some things about the physical realm and our lives. To do so, I have to talk about all of humankind. That isn’t much consolation for you as an individual. I hope the explanation helps, though.

You asked, “Do people have a choice to be disabled and suffer before being born?”

What we know is that every situation is individual. Everyone receives what is in their best interest in eternity. For one person, the life situations may be planned out very generally. For another, they’re more specific, even to choosing a particular family to be born into. Others we’re involved with throughout eternity may incarnate with us as we take on roles that help us grow and learn lessons. But we have free will, and ultimate control over as much as is in our best interests.

So it is possible that you did choose disability, but it is also possible you simply chose your life circumstances in general, and the disability was something that the physical realm gave to you. We just don’t know. But we do know that within the life circumstances, we’re constantly being given guidance and help to learn, grow, and be contented.

But the more important issue is about suffering in the physical realm. Why do we suffer?

The simplistic answer is that we suffer because it makes us stronger or forces us to grow spiritually. That may be true. We may be in our life situations to teach us lessons, to help others or be a model to others who are themselves learning lessons, or have an effect on humankind. So we may have chosen these circumstances. The most important lesson about that is that we believe and have our confidence in the belief that whatever happens to us is happening in the blink of an eye in eternity, and ultimately everything in our lives works for our good. That fundamental understanding is difficult to have when we’re in the midst of the issues in our lives. But it is the basic understanding that makes sense of what happens to us.

And there’s a broader understanding that isn’t bound by time and by our lives now. It has to do with humanity and what we’re all becoming together as a species.

We tend to think of ourselves as individuals, the captains of our fates. The Judeo-Christian tradition teaches us that we work out our own salvation as individuals. The Western work ethic teaches us that we can become successful as individuals if we work hard. Our modern democracies teach us that we have inalienable rights as individuals. Everything we’re taught from childhood tells us we make our own way in the world and what happens is up to us as individuals.

However, we’re actually inseparable from each other as a species. We are humanity. Our bodies were formed from millions of other bodies that preceded us. We had nothing to say about having eyeballs and noses and skins. Our psyches were formed from millions of other psyches before us. We acquired a language and understanding of foods we could eat and mores from those who preceded us. We had nothing to say about what we received. It was all given to us by humankind. Our houses, clothes, automobiles, and all other possessions were given to use at this moment in time by the millions of humans who preceded us. If we look at a room in which we live, the electricity for lights was harnessed in the 18th and 19th centuries by dozens of human beings. The power plant was built in the 20th century by thousands of other human beings. The light fixtures came from refinements in development and design over decades by thousands of people. Dozens of people in the plant that manufactured the fixtures resulted in their manufacture. Salespeople sold them. The person who put in the light fixtures was in the house in the last few decades. So just the lights we take for granted resulted from hundreds of thousands of individuals before us that gave to us what we turn on in our home now.

In other words, whom we are physically, psychologically, and intellectually, and the environment in which we find ourselves, have been given to us by our predecessors. We are the products of humankind over millennia. We had no say in it. We are what we were given.

That means in the physical realm, we are really products with no influence over whom we became. We start as a being that is just as much a product of the physical realm just as squirrels and oak trees and mountains are.

Then, at some point, we can discover that we’re really spiritual beings with an existence outside of the physical realm. We can discover that we are the mind that is one with God and others, and that what we are that has importance is outside of the physical realm. Many people never discover that. They live from birth to the grave as what the physical realm has given them psychologically, physically, and spiritually. They have no control over their lives. They are buffeted about by the physical realm until they ultimately become sick and die. But when we discover whom we are spiritually, we can begin to create a new person. What humankind has given us becomes less important than what we are becoming with the aid, counsel, and teaching from the Divine and those on the other planes of life who love us and are looking out for our welfare. That truth sets us free.

The physical ailments such as cerebral palsy, the psychological difficulties such as psychosis, violent tendencies, and trauma, and the spiritual immaturity in insensitivity, self-absorption, and disregard for others and our own spiritual nature, are all given to us by our forefathers: humankind. Those on the next planes of life tell us that disease and maladies result from millennia of humankind’s angry, self-absorbed psyches. We know from many studies now that loving, gracious feelings result in the nearby water being able to freeze into beautiful crystals, while anger and insult result in the water freezing into grotesque, misshapen blobs (Masaru Emoto’s work). People’s minds make the environment beautiful or grotesque. We know that people heal others’ bodies by thinking loving, healing thoughts. We know that an environment in which these healing thoughts are sent becomes more conducive to healing. In other words, our minds change the physical realm. We have the data proving that to be true. And so, they say on the other side, over millennia, humankind’s selfishness, insensitivity, violence, cruelty, and disregard for others has created the world in which we live that has disease, disability, cruelty, and suffering.

The psychological ailments, such as anger, depression, low self-esteem, feelings of hopelessness, and all the other negative feelings are also given to us by our predecessors. If we were living in the world described by Buddha and Yeshua (Christ), we would care for each other and never have a harsh word. There would be no orphans or old folks’ homes. There would be no insurance or police or armies. We would live together in peace and harmony. But we don’t. The reason we don’t is that humankind has created the psychological world we inherit, and it’s full of self-absorption, malice, anger, cruelty, and violence. That is what creates the suffering.

But that seems unfair. We didn’t choose that. We were given who we are as a society by our predecessors; by humankind. But that is the way it is. We are part of the whole human race, and what the human race has become is what we start with in our physical lives. Psychologically, physically, spiritually, and in our environment, we have suffering because of what humankind has given to us. We could be living in a heaven on Earth, but humankind hasn’t evolved to that point; we’re still primitive.

So the answer to why there is suffering is that we’re part of humankind, and we’re given what humankind has created through its attitudes and characteristic living. And that’s full of suffering. It’s what man has done to man.

I know that doesn’t seem fair. Your disability and suffering in the physical realm are a result of what humankind has given you today. It didn’t need to be that way. But that’s the way it is now.

And what of humankind’s future. If we, over the next millennia, can change our psychological and spiritual makeup, we’ll change humankind and the environment. We’ll live in peace, love, and harmony. They say on the other side that physical disabilities will disappear. We will, in other words, live in a heaven on Earth. But we’re far from that now, and we have to live with what we’ve been given by humankind as a species.

The Buddha and Yeshua both said that in the face of this immaturity as a species, we can alleviate or end the suffering as individuals by giving up on the physical realm and going to the spiritual. They say we must cling to nothing we call me or mine, and we must lay up treasures in the spiritual realm, where nothing of the physical realm can corrupt. That means dying to the physical realm and living in the spiritual, even while still in our bodies, whatever form they’ve taken. It isn’t an easy message. It’s difficult to accept the psychological and physical problems the physical realm has given to us as a result of humankind’s attitude and behavior over millennia that we had nothing to do with. But they’re there nonetheless. It’s the hand we were dealt. Only by giving up on cherishing or expecting things from the physical realm can we escape from that suffering.

But immersed in a physical realm in which people are still self-absorbed, cruel, and insensitive makes that more difficult. We can’t easily give up on the physical realm when we need to earn a living, live daily with others who care nothing for us, and struggle with normal existence. We can only do the best we can now, focusing on our eternal selves as much as possible within those constraints. It isn’t an easy answer to the question of why the world has given us what we have, but it is the truth. And realizing that can help us make the best of what we have as we learn lessons in this brief moment we call our lives.

Love and peace, Craig