You Live and Learn Part 3
December 4, 2025
You Live and Learn Part 3
I learn something new every day. Many of those lessons are not pleasant, yet each one brings me into a deeper fullness of my humanity. We are all on a lifelong journey toward self-actualization, the unfolding of our true selves. But this “apex” of our identity is not a fixed peak. It continues to expand as we grow in consciousness, drawing us ever upward.
Built into our existence are lessons that come only in particular seasons of life. In the tenderness of a first love, we learn only what that first excitement and vulnerability can teach us. If we are parents, we learn the things that only being a parent can reveal. If we care for aging parents, we discover lessons we never knew existed, about patience, mortality, and love that deepens through letting go. If we invite an animal into our lives, that experience teaches us many things we would otherwise not have known.
Living and learning never stop. They continue until our final breath, and even beyond it. Many spiritual teachers tell us that growth continues in the next realm, that heaven itself is an infinite realm of learning and becoming.
Dr. Raymond Moody, who coined the term Near-Death Experience in his groundbreaking 1975 book Life After Life, interviewed scores of people who had survived clinical death. Many told him that on the other side, learning continues and that the soul continues to grow.
Journalist and author Alisa Valdez wrote that during her near-death experience, she discovered that “knowledge is something you can take with you.” That learning was essential to spiritual progress in the afterlife.
Psychiatrist George G. Ritchie, in the account of his Near Death Experience, Return from Tomorrow (1978), described heavenly “schools,” where learning was not just intellectual but deeply experiential and steeped in wisdom beyond any on earth. Later, neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, in his work, Proof of Heaven (2012), confirmed from his own experience that life and the afterlife form one continuous journey of learning, with no endpoint.
Some say that all we learn in this life is already within our souls, and that our earthly education is simply a remembering. This feels true to me. When we reconnect with our inner essence, our Soul Child, we often recognize wisdom that feels ancient, as though we are recalling what was once known but forgotten. Perhaps the same awakening awaits us beyond this life, when we remember even more of our divine selves.
Spiritual practice: What is your understanding of the afterlife? Does consciousness continue beyond physical existence? Write down your thoughts about spiritual growth—does it ever truly end, or does it unfold endlessly into new dimensions of being?
Self-inquiry: If given the choice, would you continue learning beyond death? Why, or why not?
Prayer:
Dear God, As I live and learn, may I come into a new fullness of existence every day. And as I grow closer to You, may I remember what my soul has always known. Amen.
