When painful experiences are undergone by mind on the lower levels of evolution, very little is learned from those experiences--and that little slowly. When the same experiences are undergone by mind on the higher level, much is learned from them--and learned quickly. This is because in the one case there is no desire to learn the causes of that suffering, and no capacity to learn them even when the causes are evident; whereas in the other case, there is a keen desire to master the lessons and a prepared attitude wherewith to receive them. When, therefore, the really earnest disciple who has asked for a quickened advance on the Quest finds that all kinds of experiences begin to follow each other for a period, he should recognize that this is part of the answer to his call. He will be made to feel loss as well as gain, bliss as well as pain, success as well as failure, temptation as well as tribulation at different times and in different degrees. He needs both kinds of experience if his development is to be a balanced one. But because he is still human, he will learn more from his sufferings than from his pleasures. And because their memory will last longer, he will not pass through this period of quickened experiences and extreme vicissitudes without much complaint. Each of those experiences represents a chance for him, not only to conserve what he has already gained, but to pass to a farther point where he can gain something new.
-- Notebooks Category 13: Human Experience > Chapter 1 : Situation > # 269
-- Perspectives > Chapter 13: Human Experience > # 31
