A student who recently joined our school’s advanced course told me that for years, his wife had been asking and urging him to watch Alma’s videos. But every time he started listening to a lecture, he felt like he was standing before “a prophet of wrath delivering harsh rebukes,” and then he would recoil, even though he sensed intuitively that I was speaking the Truth.

About six months ago, he attended the “Prophets vs. Empires” lecture given at a live event, and then… something opened within him. Apparently, I’m less intimidating when people meet me face to face, and this man began diving into our curriculum, listening to lessons day and night! These lessons strengthened him, filling him with such power that he even managed to completely wean himself off psychiatric medications for depression and anxiety that he had been taking for years.

Now, the real question is: What exactly is a rebuke, and which part of us recoils when we hear it?

Understanding the Rebuke

A rebuke is essentially the illumination and pointing out of what is wrong in a person that he cannot see for himself. This illumination originates from a place of concern and true love for his highest good.

So, which part of us recoils from rebuke?

Those who follow my posts already know that we have three consciousnesses: the emotional consciousness, the intellectual consciousness, and the spiritual consciousness.

The first two consciousnesses—which were never supposed to be independent consciousnesses but merely serving tools of the spirit—have actually created our false personality: the ego.

The ego loves flattery; it loves compliments like “you are light and love”; the ego likes to feel that it’s “a good person” and always thinks it “knows better than everyone.”

The ego loves to feel that it’s right and everyone else is to blame (in other words, it hates taking responsibility), and therefore, it really doesn’t like anyone who forces it into self-examination!

Now it’s clearer why when the ego encounters rebuke—it fights for its existence or flees for its life!

The Role of True Prophets

The various true prophets weren’t sent to help the ego (because that’s exactly what all the false prophets do excellently…).

Throughout human history, the true prophets were sent to help the spirit break free from the oppression of the ego!

In other words: the role of a true prophet is to help the spirit escape the inner matrix.

Therefore, the piercing rebukes of all true prophets were always aimed at striking the shell of the ego and breaking it—and this cannot be done with flattery.

Why? Because the ego is a strong and stubborn jailer of the spirit, which it has systematically oppressed during thousands of years of wrong evolution, and it doesn’t intend to easily give up its status as ruler!

If we understand the story of the Exodus from Egypt as a code, representing what happens within each person’s inner world, then Pharaoh represents our ego, the Israelites represent the spirit crying out for freedom, and Moses represents the prophet who rebukes Pharaoh—our ego—bringing plague after plague upon it until it finally surrenders.

To summarize, this is the battle: either the ego dominates and the spirit is suppressed, or the spirit rules and the ego serves. There’s no way both can be happy and content simultaneously!

Suffering as Liberation

Often, suffering also serves to break the ego and free the spirit.

How exactly?

Many times, I’ve had people sit across from me and share how an accident, serious illness, or separation brought them the liberation they had secretly longed for.

Take the example of a man addicted to sex who, despite knowing the harmful effects, couldn’t break free from his addiction because his spirit lacked the strength.

After a car accident left him paralyzed in his lower body and stripped him of his masculine prowess, he experienced enormous liberation and joy! While the male ego would never rejoice over such permanent damage, his spirit celebrated because this extreme suffering had finally set it free.

Consider another case: A woman fears early retirement despite being miserable at work. She hesitates because her ego whispers that she mustn’t stop working—otherwise she won’t be able to leave an inheritance for her grandchildren. This is because the ego, operating from a purely earthly consciousness, views everything through a material lens. 

When this woman develops cancer and is forced to leave work, she experiences something unexpected: liberation and joy. This is her spirit rejoicing—the same spirit that had been too weak to make this decision on its own. The suffering conquered the ego and allowed her spirit to emerge free.

Let’s look at another example: People who stay for years in unhappy marriages often experience something similar. Their spirit wants to leave, but lacks the courage to act because the ego constantly frightens them with its arguments: “How will you manage without money? How will you cope with the children? What will the neighbors, friends, and family say?” 

Then one day, one spouse simply leaves. Despite the pain, they experience an unexpected sense of deep liberation. Once again, this is the spirit’s joy—someone finally took the step that the spirit was too weak to take on its own.

Why Is There So Much Suffering in the World Now?

We can see that rebukes and suffering serve exactly the same purpose: to help the spirit break free from the chains of the ego!

This is also how God’s Love works toward all human beings: it aims to save the eternal spirit, not to make the temporary ego comfortable and content.

Therefore, the purpose of karma is not to punish, but to return to people the consequences of their choices and actions, so that they will awaken and make corrections.

How does all this relate to the suffering we see everywhere in the world today?

Since humanity has stubbornly developed the ego, crushing the spirit completely, there remains no other way to help us break free and fulfill our destined purpose except through suffering.

And not just any suffering, but extreme suffering that will leave our inflated and arrogant ego speechless and on its knees.

Only then—and not while we sit comfortably scrolling through spiritual posts on our computers—will those whose spirit spark hasn’t yet been extinguished be able to break free and begin developing according to the Plan of Creation.

A Story About True Seeking

There’s a story I love that illustrates exactly this point:

Once an educated man came to a wise monk and asked: “What is the meaning of life?”

The monk recognized that it was only the man’s ego asking this question. So he invited his guest to walk with him to the river.

There, to the man’s complete surprise, the monk grabbed his head and pushed it forcefully underwater.

For some time—which felt like an eternity—the man was submerged. Only when he had nearly lost consciousness did the monk release his grip and allow him to surface and breathe.

“If you truly want to find the meaning of life,” the monk told the gasping man, “you must seek it with the same desperation you just felt when you couldn’t breathe.”

This story reveals the difference between spiritual seeking and emotional or intellectual searching, which simply agrees with what we already believe to be true. Spiritual seeking, however, forces us to let go of the ego entirely and start learning everything from scratch. 

Since the ego is so powerful, we have no choice but to “drown” it completely before the spirit can take control. 

The Real Battle 

The real war we’re fighting is between the ego and the spirit. 

When the spirit learns to recognize the piercing words of rebuke from the true prophets—and to see all suffering as the greatest help available to it, containing God’s deep Love for us—it will slowly but surely grow stronger. 

Then we will also understand that just as you cannot heal a wound without first cleaning it, and just as you cannot place incense and a vase of beautiful flowers in a filthy room, so too you cannot become “light and love” without undergoing a deep process of inner purification.

But if we surrender ourselves to the great purification now being imposed upon all of humanity, we will begin to walk a different path—a path full of joy, where miracles and wonders happen daily! On this path, we will find more and more people joining us as we journey toward the mountaintop, fulfilling ancient prophecies and new dreams at the speed of light!

At Alma School for Humanity, we experience this path!

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We invite you to begin your spiritual journey with our foundational course LET MY SPIRIT GO!, that will simply and clearly provide the tools and guidance to develop and strengthen your spirit.