From the perspective of the Cayce readings, it is not that God visits challenges and tribulations upon individuals; rather, it is that each soul is integrally connected to everything that happens in that life. In 1934, Cayce told a forty year old sales manager with problems in his business that it was a grievous error to think that God imposes any challenging condition on us for any reason. Instead, such conditions or experiences originate at the level of the soul as a means of correcting imperfections within one’s self (257-128). The only thing holding us back from soul development is self.
When a forty-nine year old housewife inquired during a reading about her worst fault, Cayce replied, “What is ever the worst fault of each soul? Self—Self!” When the woman asked how to overcome this fault of selfishness, the answer came:
“Just as has been given; showing mercy, showing grace, showing peace, long suffering, brotherly love, kindness—even under the most trying circumstances. For what is the gain if ye love only that love thee? But to bring hope, to bring cheer, to bring joy, yea to bring a smile again to those whose face and heart are bathed in tears and in woe, is but making that divine love shine—shine–in thy soul!” 987-4
Sometimes people choose to express this love at a soul level by assisting others with challenges or difficulties that they have overcome themselves. The contemporary story of Gwen provides an illustration. Now in her mid-fifties, she has worked for more than thirty years in the fields of special needs and autism. Gwen described her horrible upbringing:
“I was born to a paranoid, schizophrenic mother who didn’t like me or want me. A deaf-mute aunt and my eight year old brother were put in charge of my care. I was isolated, had no socialization, and was totally nonverbal until starting school at age six. I had no self-esteem, was painfully shy, never knew what was normal, appropriate behavior, and was constantly trying to just stay alive in a violent, dangerous environment. Food, clothing, and shelter were never adequate.
“When I was eight years old, my brother lied his way into the navy when he was sixteen. My aunt was put away, and I was left to cope with an insane woman by myself . . .”
Although the experience was traumatic, in retrospect Gwen is convinced that her childhood provided her with valuable lessons she has been able to use throughout her life. In addition to her talent at working with special needs children and adults, in her opinion she has become a stronger person because of these early challenges in life. They also enabled her to learn how people can destroy their own mental health through anger and grudges. Because of her experiences in childhood, “I learned nonverbal, intuitive communication which made me very effective in my work later on.”
After she grew up, Gwen was drawn to children and adults with autism. She seemed to identify with them, just as they could identify with her. She understood them in spite of their inability to communicate. Without her childhood upbringing, she would not have been as effective in her work. In part, her work also enabled her to overcome her own insecurities and her feelings of low self-esteem. Interestingly enough, those same insecurities would later be tested when she was nearly paralyzed by arthritis.
After many years in her work, Gwen developed severe arthritis. Rather than being assisted by her numerous medications, the problems multiplied, and she became almost incapacitated with pain. Because so much of her identity was invested in her work, she began to panic. All of the old fears regarding self-esteem and her lack of worth resurfaced. Knowing that she really wouldn’t be able to continue her job much longer, she started to fear for her future:
“I could no longer do the job I’d had for twenty-three years. I really needed to give it up but I was afraid to. I thought I was too old, too stupid, too dated, to ever get another job with the salary, benefits, vacation time, etc., that this one offered. The job not only provided financial security but an identity, purpose, lifelong friendships, recognition, etc. At the same time, I was in constant pain. My husband had to help dress me, tie my shoes . . . I slept with five pillows to realign my body nightly; my husband had to cut my food, and I used special adaptive utensils to eat with. My husband said, ‘Quit!’ but he did not understand the depth of my fear and dependency.”
Finally, Gwen had a severe allergic reaction to all of the medication she had been given, and she ended up in the hospital emergency room in anaphylactic shock. In desperation, she asked God what she was supposed to do. Should she quit? Should she stay? Although she was very much afraid of giving up the job, she said she was willing to surrender her will to do whatever God wanted. That night she had a dream:
“I was walking on the sandy shore of a desert lake. Far in the distance, a tall figure in a white robe was walking towards me. As we approached each other, I saw it was a bearded man in his thirties. There was no one else present. As he neared me, he smiled kindly at me and raised his hands up for me to see the scarred nail holes in his palms. While still smiling but not moving his lips in speech, I ‘heard’ in my head the words: ‘Don’t sell my body for thirty pieces of silver, and don’t sell yours either.’ He turned and walked back the way he had came. I stood and watched him go, with tears on my face, until he was no longer visible.”
The next morning Gwen went to the personnel office, applied for retirement, took the four months of sick leave she had saved up, and “never worked there another day.”
The change proved to be for the best. Shortly thereafter, Gwen threw away all of her medication and began working with the Edgar Cayce dietary recommendations for arthritis. When she began feeling better, she got a new job. Within nine months, her entire life had improved dramatically: “I cut my own food, used regular utensils, slept without five pillows, and dressed myself. I had a wonderful, fun job with Easter Seals, new friendships, a new purpose, new joy, and none of my fears had manifested.”
In summing up her life experiences thus far, Gwen believes that it’s important to try to transform whatever comes one’s way, seeing the good that might result:
“Many times something awful turned out to be the gateway to something wonderful. A crummy job was the steeping-stone to a great job. Divorcing a toad and finding a prince. I loaned money to a friend who became terminally ill and couldn’t pay me back. Three months later, after I forgave the debt, I found a hundred dollar bill by a trash can. I was stuck by the road with a flat tire and subsequently was not involved in a fourteen car and truck wreck two miles up the road. I used to take care of a baby who suffered from seizures. He developed pneumonia, and his mother called to tell me that he was probably going to die before morning. He did not die, although it took ten days to turn him around. All the time he was on oxygen, he never had a seizure, which led to the discovery that he had an oxygen apnea problem that had caused the seizures. After three months of oxygen therapy, he never had another seizure. He had to nearly die of pneumonia before he was cured of seizures.”
Gwen’s philosophy and approach to life are really quite simple: “Look past the dark for the light.”
The story of Daryl is one that illustrates how an individual often receives the greatest challenges as well as greatest satisfaction through the same activity. Though he is now retired, music has always been an important part of Daryl’s life. Even before starting school, he loved music so much that his mother enrolled him in piano lessons in spite of the fact that money was tight during the Depression. He also met his wife through a musical recital, and the two have long taken part in musical endeavors together. In time, Daryl earned a master’s degree in vocal music and pursued advanced study in musical composition. He spent years teaching music in secondary schools and college before retiring.
Although music has been important to him, however, it has also provided him with some of his greatest challenges. Just one of those challenges came in the form of a musical colleague with whom Daryl had studied and who eventually became his boss. There was some measures of rivalry between them that escalated when Daryl composed a musical composition for his boss’s brass sextet. That experience had an impact on much of his later career. Daryl recalls the story:
“I composed a piece for his brass sextet. There was general agreement that my composition was musically successful, causing him to feel threatened. Later his group performed in a public fanfare which I had written, but he changed the part without my knowledge, ruining the piece and making me furious. I believe this happened through his incompetence rather than from malice. As department chairman, he gave only tepid endorsement of my professional work, preventing me from being promoted, even though I had graduated more and better majors than the rest of the music faculty combined. He made recommendations to downsize the music department, threatening to eliminate my job . . . He then retired [as department chair] and took over the downsized department. At his retirement banquet, I made a stirring speech about what a fine guy he was. My son and family later became his next-door neighbors, so pleasantries were maintained . . .”
According to Daryl, experiences such as this one have enabled him to understand the necessity of learning unconditional love and wisdom in his interactions with others. Through his experiences with other people, he has grown as a person. In his opinion, many of his challenges in life might not have occurred if he had then possessed the wisdom that he now has because of going through those events. In addition to learning love and wisdom, Daryl describes his own growth as an individual as changing “from a condition of nearly terminal naivete to that of a more realistic appreciation of human nature.” Soul growth is the result as an individual positively meets life’s challenges.
Although Cayce believed that an individual’s life experiences were a necessary part of soul development and personal transformation, he warned against looking upon another’s problems as something that the person deserved or as simply the fulfillment of some kind of karma. Each individual is worthy of the same measure of love and compassion and of our efforts to provide whatever assistance is possible. The story of fifty-seven year old woman Louise illustrates this point.
Louise received a life reading and was told that her past incarnations included that of a homemaker in Colonial America who had gained through her dedication to helping create a positive and balanced life for every member of her household. In Egypt, she had also done positive work by helping guide individuals to their best vocation. In an earlier incarnation in Palestine, she had often pursued freedom and liberty. That life experience had led her to a number of individuals suffering from hardships and personal sorrows in their lives. Rather than empathizing with their life challenges, however, Louise had seen their morose behavior as due to their unwillingness to get on with their lives, either because they were hardheaded or short-sighted. For this lack of feeling, she had lost.
During the course of her reading, when Louise inquired about why she had been forced to witness and experience the death of her two sons in the present, Cayce referred to her lack of empathy in the Palestine experience: “. . . ye experienced and saw many a mother, many a home lose hope, lose help, lose all, ye are meeting this in thy own experience.” (2280-1) She was encouraged to begin working with others who had experienced the same loss as she, enabling her to grow and find peace in the process. Undoubtedly, her life experiences helped her to face and meet the same hardships that she had once been unable to understand.
Excerpt from Edgar Cayce On Mastering Your Spiritual Growth