School of Life

Yesterday afternoon, I asked a few questions of my Facebook friends: specifically:

1. If you believe that we (i.e. humans) were created for a purpose, what is that purpose?
2. If you do not believe that we were created for a purpose, do you believe in some form of extramortal existence, i.e. that we exist in some form before and/or after our lifetime here on Earth?
3. If you do not believe that we exist extramortally, what do you believe constitutes a person’s existence? For example, is one’s existence predicated on being alive? If so, what criteria dictate that someone has begun or ceased to be alive? etc.

My friend Liana posted an amazing summary of her beliefs, one that matches the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ almost exactly. The crux of her response is as follows:

I do believe we are here for a purpose. Each of us come with different lessons that we are working on while we are here. These are decided before we incarnate. Over multiple lifetimes, we work towards learning various life lessons. I liken life to going to school. You go to school during the school year (life in the physical realm), you get to take a break and rejuvenate during summer break (the time when you leave the physical world and return to spirit form). Each time, you have different things you are working on, or more advanced levels. Similar to going to school. Except we are all in a one room school house. Each of us have our own things we are working on.

This summary is such a perfect analogy, I’d like to share my version thereof. However, since it’s quite long, I’m going to post it here instead of cluttering the conversation on Facebook. So Liana, this one’s for you, but I hope everyone can enjoy!

* * * * *

Liana, what you describe is awesome. What I find most interesting, though, is that it’s almost identical to the teachings of the church to which I belong, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’d actually say the only significant difference is that we believe in a single period of mortality, which mortality is one or more of the “school years” you reference (which is a perfect analogy. Thank you for that!).

So, let’s continue your analogy. The Church of Jesus Christ teaches that each of us is an infinite being: we have no beginning; we will have no end. So, according to the school analogy, our existence has a few levels:

• 
  Preschool: Before each of us was born into what we call a “physical” body, each of us existed as an immortal intelligence. We learned the basics, but there was so much more out there.
  

• Grade school: We lived as spirit beings with our Heavenly Father and Mother. A common belief is that Mother bore our spiritual bodies in a manner similar to our birth into mortality, but the scriptures about this are actually ambiguous: it could just as easily be that an intelligence and a spirit are the same thing, and our Parents essentially adopted us.

  Regardless of how we came to be Their children, Mother and Father are like any loving parents: since we’re going to grow up to be like Them, They use Their experience and wisdom to help us become happy and healthy adults. And as you rightly stated, each of us is a very specific and different individual, so we each have an individualized course of study that prepares us to enter mortality.

  (As an aside, it would seem that Mother and Father have divided this labor of love: Mother takes primary charge of this stage of our education, with Father helping as needed; and Father takes primary charge of the next stage, with Mother helping as needed. While this “division of labor” is somewhat speculative, there is definitely evidence that this be the case.)

• High school: That’s where we are now. Those of us that chose to finish grade school come to Earth through mortal birth, where many of the lessons we learn could not be learned without a “physical” body. (I put this term in quotes because technically, spirit is just a different type of matter.) As part of this stage, Mother and Father have blessed us with what we call “prayer,” which is ultimately just the opportunity to merge our imperfect psychic sense with Their mastery of the same. That way, we can ask the Teacher any questions we have, along the way.

• College: Once we depart this life, we abandon our “physical” bodies for a time and return to our spirit state. This is a little different than the schooling metaphor, since everyone that bothered to go to high school (i.e. enter mortality with a “physical” body) will also go on to college. However, the thing about college is that it’s a lot like high school: you get out of it what you put into it. If you choose not to learn, there’s nothing anyone can do to help you; and if you flunk out, you flunk out of your own volition.

  College is nice because we continue to learn and grow, but without some of the distractions of high school. Those of us that have learned more can teach those that have learned less, and ideally, those that know less will accept the greater knowledge and join the teaching force. But of course, it is always our choice: those that accept the necessary knowledge—regardless of when or where they learned it—can move on to grad school, while those that reject it cannot. This doesn’t mean, of course, that they can’t have wonderful and fulfilling lives; it just means that they’ll have rejected the chance to have more. Whether or not that chance will come again is also a matter of speculation, but let’s face it: it’s better to take it, the first time.

• Grad school: The next step is for each of us to be restored to the body we had in high school. We don’t know exactly how it will look when we get it back—will we look like 18-year-olds or 80-year-olds? Who knows?—but whatever the case, our bodies will either instantaneously or eventually be completely perfected: a perfect, physical body inextricably merged with our spiritual half, never to be separated again. We call this state the “eternal soul,” which is what our Heavenly Parents have now. Those that have chosen to continue their studies will continue to learn and grow. Those that have chosen not to do so will be stalled in their progression, but still blessed beyond anything we can currently imagine.

  If we choose to complete these graduate studies, Mother and Father invite us to defend our respective dissertations (as it were) in hopes of receiving our Go.D. (a term I just invented 😄). This isn’t to say we’ll be equal to Them; we’ll always be gratefully indebted for the time and energy they spent, bringing us up. However, They have prepared a Plan that lets us become all that we can be—in other words, to grow up to be like Them. For those of us that receive this immeasurable blessing, we move on to the last, and most fulfilling, stage:

• Postgraduate work: After receiving one’s Go.D., each of us, along with his or her spouse, again learns at the feet of our Heavenly Parents. The difference is that at this point, we’ll have both the immortal soul and the prerequisite knowledge to do the things They do, for our own Eternal families. As we follow Their perfect example, we can learn to do for our children what our Parents have done for us: in short, we become Heavenly Parents in our own right. We then pull up Elton John’s Circle of Life in our Music playlist, and the process begins again. ♥