How to Learn Life’s Lessons and Become Life’s Favorite

1.3 Self-Diagnosing the Negative Liquid Level in Your SA

In this section, we will explain how you can determine the level to which your SA is filled and how you should behave and deal with your life in the future.

The First Stage of Self-Diagnosis

The first step of self-diagnosis is to evaluate the burden of sins you brought into this world. In other words, you need to determine which level of the Subtle World your soul occupied (how full your SA was at the moment of your birth). Most people come to Earth with at least some liquid inside their SA.

Theosophy calls the burden brought from the past “mature karma.” Mature karma determines our future birth conditions, character traits, habits, etc. The more positive we were in our past life, the less liquid we had in our SA at the moment of death and the more opportunities we will have when we return to Earth.

To make it easier, let us divide the Subtle World into ten levels. At each level, souls live in different conditions. Let us call the first floor Hell and the tenth floor Paradise, even if this model sounds too simplified.

At the first stage of your self-diagnosis, you need to determine approximately how full your SA was at the moment of birth.

It is convenient to measure the liquid level in some quantitative index—for example, by the percent to which the SA is full. Let us assume that a full SA equals 100% (the SA of a sinner who seriously violated the rules of living in this world for a long time.) On the other hand, an empty SA is 0% full, and it is an SA of a saint who came to this world with his own mission and did not judge the world where he lived. We call such a person blessed.

At the moment of birth, our SA is about 3–25% full. You can approximate the level according to the following indications:

1. Country of birth. If you were born in a country with a stable economy and political system (e.g., Western Europe or the United States), it means that your soul had a wide choice that only souls living at the higher levels of the Subtle World have.
2. Family. Some of us are born into extremely rich families, while others have illiterate, poor, alcoholic, or drug-addicted parents. So, some people live a happy life, while others suffer. The better your soul behaved in the past, the more opportunities exist for your soul to choose a good family in this life.
3. Cultural and educational level of your parents.

The souls living on the higher levels of the Subtle World are most likely to choose parents with the highest level of education and who work in the fields of administration, science, or art.

4. Your health after birth. If you were born healthy, it means that your SA was not full when you died in your past life. If you suffer from some inborn illnesses, however, your soul came from the lower levels of the Subtle World.
5. Destructive personality traits. No doubt, we all possess a wide variety of character traits. Some people are quiet and balanced, while others are highly emotional, touchy, cruel, soft, or depressed. We brought all these personal traits with us from our previous lives, and they show that in the past we were seized by many passions,

especially if these traits correspond correctly to our signs of Zodiac and astrological forecasts. The presence of these traits is directly connected to the level of the stress liquid in our SA.

All of this shows us something about our past lives. By using these indicators, you can approximate how full your SA was at the moment of your birth.

Approximating the Liquid Level in Your SA at Birth. A healthy and talented child born in a rich and happy family has a low starting liquid level in his SA (approximately 5–6%).

A healthy baby who is born in a country with a strong economy, and who has educated parents and good living accommodations and an average family income, has a higher liquid level (10–12%).

A child born into a poor family with uneducated parents with no stable job has an estimated liquid level of 15–18%.

If a baby has a serious inborn disease, his SA is 20–25% full at the moment of birth.

Based on these figures, you can approximate the level of liquid in your SA for yourself.

While evaluating the liquid level in your SA at the moment of birth, do not exaggerate its importance at older age. As you grow older, the situation changes according to your thinking and way of life.

Higher Standards for the “Saints”

The conditions that we have considered so far apply only to the “starting conditions” of your existence in this world. The lesser the burden that you bring with you from your past lives, the more difficult life will be for you.

It seems that a person who came to Earth with his SA that is almost full is already in the worst possible situation and cannot do much about it.

If we come to Earth from the higher levels of the Subtle World, we should be careful because it is much easier for us to fall down than to move up. People coming from the higher levels have better starting conditions in life, and they can achieve prosperity and success easier on Earth if they do not break the “visitor’s code.” Much higher standards are applied to them, however, and if they start idealizing something, their SA fills much faster than those of other people. This explains to some extent why talented people who lead bright and emotional lives (musicians, actors, and poets) very often die young. On the other hand, people who live a monotonous unemotional life can physically survive much longer in our world.

So far, we have evaluated our starting conditions in life. Now we should determine how our SA looks now. We can do this ourselves without any help of fortunetellers or clairvoyants.

The Second Stage of Self-Diagnosis

We have now reached the second stage in our reasoning, and it is time for us to determine how full our SA is at present. One of the ways to accomplish this task has already been provided in our earlier consideration of the structure of the SA. As the stress liquid (your “sins”) is collected through the valves (i.e., idealizations) into your SA,

you should think about each of them separately. This way, you can determine what idealizations you have at present. It is quite easy to use this method.

How to Determine if You Have Idealizations

If you remember, having an idealization means suffering from a long-term stress about something (e.g., a husband who is not successful enough, a wife who is not very sexy, a child who misbehaves, or someone who is sick or has passed away). Try to remember what problems and situations make you suffer the most and determine if the reason for your stress is an idealization of some earthly value. If yes, then one of the valves of your SA is open, and the stress liquid is pouring through it.

If you have not grieved about anything in a long time, consider whether you have any latent idealizations. You need to imagine your life without some components: love, family, money, health, your job, mutual understanding, fame, etc. These are the things to which we can attach excessive importance. If you can imagine living without each one, or without several of them, and if their absence will not make your life seem empty or purposeless, then you do not have any idealizations. You are a saint and you have nothing to do in this world.

Life Is a Game.

Most people will discover one or more values that they cannot live without (e.g., family, children, love, work, money etc.). If you are one of these people, the valves that correspond to these values are open, and the negative stress flows into your SA. These idealizations bring you illnesses, troubles, and conflicts.

We do not ask you to completely deny these values because life without them may lose sense for you. We merely suggest that you reconsider these values. Try to consider them in the context of achieving victory in the game called “Life.” If something does not turn out as you hoped or if a problem appears, think of it as a temporary loss and not as the end of life. Continue to play the game and try to win. We will describe this attitude in more detail in the third chapter of this book.

Indirect “Lessons”

We cannot literally look into our SA and see how full it is.

We can, however, make this determination by paying attention to some indirect signs. Remember that our Guardian takes measures according to the level of our discontent with Life. Unlike doctors and clairvoyants, our Guardian never makes mistakes. We know from our life what lessons our Guardian is giving us, so by considering them, we can evaluate how discontented we are with our life and even understand which valves in our SA are open.

Our Guardian can educate us by sending troubles our way, destroying our plans, giving us professional or family problems, keeping us from enjoying a love life, or making us ill.

There is no particular order for these measures. They are chosen individually according to our idealizations or misconceptions. (Small problems and illnesses happen to all of us, however.)

Approximating the Current Liquid Level in Your Stress Accumulator

We suggest that you take a look at the recent negative events of your life, and based on their significance, evaluate the liquid level in your SA. Let us consider several possibilities, beginning with the most serious:

1. If you are suffering from a fatal disease (e.g., cancer or AIDS) or if you are in jail for a serious crime, your SA is 92–96% full.
2. If you have an illness that is serious but not lethal, the level of stress liquid in your SA is a little lower (up to 90%).
3. If you are involved in a serious car accident, fire, robbery, or a lengthy trial, or if all of your plans fail and you continually face problems, your SA is 80–90% full. These signs are among Life’s last warnings about the absolute necessity of changing your attitude.
4. If you face financial problems, you have bitter family relations or sexual troubles, or important business is moving forward too slowly and it takes all your time and energy (in a negative way), your SA is 60–75% full. These difficulties do not lead to death, but they keep spoiling your life.
5. If everything works out just fine for you, but could be even better, then your SA is 60% full. This result is positive, but try not to make it worse.
6. If your life brings you joy and all your dreams come true the way you want, the liquid level in your SA does not exceed 50%.
7. People with 15–30% in their SA are the ones involved in spiritual, educational, or charitable activities.

This is the way you should act if you want to evaluate your life from the point of view of the Sensible Life Method or according to the rules that we should observe to live happily in this world.

Ask Your Subconscious

We have considered the way to logically evaluate the stress liquid level in our SA. It is a comprehensive method and works well. Also there is another way of doing it: We can get information directly from the subconscious without taking any rational or critical approach.

Everyone is able to use the subconscious method. The last chapter of this book provides you with several exercises and drills that allow you to gain knowledge from your subconscious by what is known as “auto-writing.”

We have noticed during different discussions that everyone who takes this method seriously was able to gain information about his self directly from his subconscious.

Intuition helps us on this path a great deal.

Summary

1. Each of us is able to determine how many “sins” we brought with us from our past life to calculate the current level of the stress liquid in our SA.
2. The following indicators help us determine the level of the stress liquid in our SA: country and place of birth, family, state of health at the moment of birth, and inborn character traits.
3. The present level of the stress liquid in our SA can be evaluated according to signs given us by the Higher Powers that we are able to feel.