re-pete-a,
I like where you are going with this thread, but it would be more helpful to use concrete examples. That would help me understand your abstract thoughts.
I agree that certain things are thrown in our way to help us learn, but some obstacles are so big that people aren't aware. They will play the victim. It takes self-awareness on the part of the person. I've noticed there are people who are not very self-aware. They just react defensively if they see something that upsets them and then they start spouting insults. For example, just go to any comment section or facebook during an election year. There's a lot of insult throwing and hyperbole going around.
We can only lead by example. Every day is a new challenge that awaits me. I am stuck here too and I use to have no idea why. It is like a prison. Then one day as I slowly shed a skin and walked through a new door, I understood what the wind had been telling me all along. So I listened to all those rocks that were thrown in my stream for lessons for me to learn. And it's still not over because rocks are still thrown and will be until I leave this body.
The glorious part is that we are always shedding new skins.
I do not see the soul as individualistic. It's only the human ego that imagines the soul as an individual. I can easily see how my soul is divided into at least two parts.
The victim mentality is the biggest one that I've seen people play. It's the act of preemptive strikes or the department of "defense" (which actually use to be called the department of war in the USA until someone thought "war" sounded too aggressive, i suppose). It's the act of defending your territory, your land, your whatever. And in many cases, it wasn't even something that needed defending.
I'm trying to think of an example that won't start some political discussion or craziness..... I'll have to come back.
Your first paragraph response...
Proofs are useful except in the case of unraveling the personal inner worlds. It then comes down to personal experiences that cannot be shared.
2nd paragraph...
I have often wondered weather they are the awakened or we are the sleepers...(it helps keep me on the level) From my point of view that sort of situation helps me, to see me, in them...I too have been that way and am not too far removed from their actions.
3rd para...
I hear you, and have nick named this planet the PENAL PLANET...
Leading by example sounds fine ...but...for me LEADING is not my intent...BEING THE CHANGE is where the difference lies...it can be dangerous territory. It encourages others to throw stones at the old skins until they are willingly shed without resistances...hard work sometimes. When shed a new and more understanding freshman is ready for the next session.
In my understandings the physical and the soul are meshed as one...the challenge is to find the divide ...understand it...rejoin it ...then live the differences...
Many challenges are there to deceive,confuse and block the separation process...What I can reveal is that once ME enters the picture all will be destroyed....Relationships are but the tip of that all consuming ME iceberg.
The victim mentality IS the ME at work...
If something can be taken from one...then it wasn't one's in the first place...So what does one really own...?