<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each incarnation requires the soul to assimilate the experiences of the previous life before entering another body. Before incarnation, according to esoteric teaching, a new set of goals and opportunities is established. Guidance is provided along the way, and circumstances are placed before the individual that may contribute to the fulfillment of those goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The presence of an opportunity does not mean that the personality will recognize it once incarnated. Recognition requires discernment, and until that quality develops, life continues to present its lessons in different forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once an incarnation begins, the personality responds through the desires, abilities, interests, and tendencies that have already been developed and refined. These may draw the individual toward particular educational goals, professions, relationships, or experiences associated with the purpose of that lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mental body must also possess sufficient ability and interest to pursue those goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consider, for example, a person who has developed artistic abilities over many incarnations. Such an individual may enter a life in which those talents can be further refined. The goal may involve creating works of art that bring comfort, beauty, insight, or inspiration to others, or it may involve teaching others to perceive harmony and beauty through art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Creativity requires both inner sensitivity and acquired skill. The artist must learn to perceive relationships of color, form, space, mass, and composition while developing the physical ability to translate an inner impression into visible form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If artistic development is an important purpose of an incarnation, study and practice may themselves constitute a significant achievement. Yet art may also be preparation for another purpose. The artistic discipline developed in one life may later contribute to teaching, healing, communication, or another form of service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What appears to be the central occupation of one incarnation may therefore be only one step in a much longer development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fruits of achievement ripen slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many incarnations may be required before a quality, ability, or spiritual purpose reaches maturity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even when opportunities are present, however, their fulfillment is never guaranteed. The soul may establish possibilities, but the personality retains free will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An individual may be born into difficult circumstances. Family opposition, lack of money, illness, tragedy, social conditions, or other limitations may interfere with an intended direction. Some people overcome extraordinary obstacles; others find themselves temporarily diverted by them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There may also be occasions when the personality simply refuses an opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A son or daughter may reject an education that would have opened a particular path. A relationship that offered an important lesson may be avoided. A talent may remain undeveloped. Choices made earlier in life may later be regretted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet even the refusal contains experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nothing is entirely wasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The soul has patience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What cannot be learned in one incarnation may appear again in another form, under different circumstances, when the individual is better prepared to recognize it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The personality has many facets requiring refinement. Until stronger contact with the soul is established, the individual may be governed largely by desire, emotion, habit, fear, or immediate gratification. These forces can distract the personality from deeper purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This does not mean that every difficulty or destructive behavior has been deliberately \u201cprogrammed\u201d into an incarnation. Free will remains a powerful force. The Higher Self and, in esoteric tradition, the Karmic Lords may provide circumstances and opportunities, but they do not eliminate the individual’s freedom to choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes they must simply watch the detour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet even a detour becomes part of the journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A person may neglect abilities, abandon relationships, damage health through harmful habits, or repeatedly choose immediate satisfaction over a more difficult goal. The consequences of those choices become lessons in themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The incarnation is not a script in which every event has been predetermined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The human personality is formidable. It possesses a will of its own, sometimes very different from the higher will of the soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Esoterically, the solar plexus is closely associated with the desire nature\u2014the \u201clower brain\u201d through which appetites, emotions, fears, and personal wants exert their influence. Gradually, through experience, the mind learns to govern these forces rather than simply obey them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The individual therefore determines, to a considerable degree, how far the opportunities of an incarnation will be carried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the personality possesses sufficient mental ability, talent, desire, and character, possibilities may open before it. Whether these are pursued depends upon the choices made along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the end of an incarnation, esoteric teaching describes a period of assimilation in which the experiences of the life are reviewed. From a higher perspective, the individual may recognize opportunities accepted, those missed, the habits that helped or hindered development, and the consequences of important decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This review need not be understood as punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A life that appears unsuccessful from the standpoint of worldly accomplishment may have produced an important inner realization. Conversely, a life filled with outward success may have accomplished little of lasting value for the soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What matters is what has been assimilated into character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The soul does not demand perfection from a single lifetime. It works through long cycles of experience, patiently offering new circumstances in which unfinished qualities may be developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The expectations of the soul are therefore not rigid demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We enter life with tendencies, gifts, limitations, relationships, and opportunities. We are guided, but not compelled. We can follow, resist, wander, delay, discover, and begin again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when one incarnation ends, whatever has truly been learned becomes part of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lesson continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The opportunity returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The soul waits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Each incarnation requires the soul to assimilate the experiences of the previous life before entering another body. Before incarnation, according to esoteric teaching, a new set of goals and opportunities is established. Guidance is provided along the way, and circumstances are placed before the individual that may contribute to the fulfillment of those goals. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=318"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeannerossstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}