What is the purpose of suffering?
Short Answer
According to the Cosmic Agency material, suffering serves primarily as a catalyst for soul growth — but the speakers are far from unanimous about whether it is necessary, and several are openly hostile to the idea that it should be accepted or tolerated.
At the most basic level, Swaruu of Erra described suffering as a guide, an indicator that something is misaligned. Without it, there would be no motivation to change. She framed it as resistance, and resistance propels the soul forward. Yazhi expanded on this by placing suffering within the architecture of duality itself: to know anything at all, a soul needs contrast, and the simplest contrast is "me versus not-me." For souls at an early stage of development, duality — and therefore some degree of hardship — is the only available learning tool. Athena agreed, but drew a critical line: suffering is necessary only below a certain level of awareness. Above that threshold, the soul can evolve through the simple desire to expand, needing peace and creativity rather than pain. Yazhi stated the same principle in inverse form: the higher the consciousness of any individual, the less it needs hardship to learn; the lower, the more it needs.
Mari and Za'el went furthest in challenging the entire framework. Mari, reporting on the Federation's own justification for keeping Earth as it is, acknowledged the argument but immediately dismantled it: suffering can just as easily cause stagnation as growth, trapping the soul in a vicious circle of manifesting more of the same. Za'el was bluntest of all — he stated plainly that in his honest opinion, the 3D Earth Matrix is not at all necessary, and that suffering as a growth tool is something he strongly disagrees with even while acknowledging it is not his decision alone.
The material therefore presents a layered answer: suffering has a function, but that function is neither universal nor permanent, and the speakers progressively argue that humanity's current level of suffering far exceeds what any legitimate growth process would require.
The Full Picture
Suffering as Indicator and Guide
Swaruu of Erra laid the foundation in the earliest transcripts. Suffering, she said, is not punishment — it is information. It tells the person that something is wrong, that they are not aligned with their own life plan, their own desires, their own frequency. Without suffering, there would be no motivation to change direction. In this sense, it functions exactly like physical pain: the body's signal that something needs attention.
She went further: approximately four out of five people visibly suffering on Earth are not "real" people but Matrix programs — backdrop characters whose visible distress is designed to instigate an emotional response in the real souls around them. For the real people, suffering comes primarily from not following their pre-incarnation scripts — from operating on autopilot rather than taking manual control of their reality. The external world, she insisted, is a perfect unbiased mirror of thought, reflecting whatever the individual focuses on, whether they understand this or accept it.
This is the foundational position: suffering is a compass, not a sentence. It points toward misalignment. The soul that heeds the signal and adjusts course transforms suffering into navigation.
Key sources: 026 (Why Do We Suffer?), S-076 (Motivational Video 2)
Duality and the Young Soul: Why Contrast Exists
Yazhi located the deeper reason for suffering in the very structure of existence. To know anything at all, she explained, you need context — and at its most basic, context is duality. Light requires dark. A mountain requires understanding that it has another side. Good requires the concept of evil. For what she called young souls — points of attention of Source focused on a limited range of experience — this contrast is not merely useful but essential. It is how they learn that they exist at all.
The simplest duality is the distinction between self and not-self. From that initial division, everything else follows. Young souls get stuck in this mode of learning, needing contrast for everything, and the more they suffer, the more contrast they accumulate to eventually appreciate and experience the opposite — even if it takes multiple lifetimes.
Yazhi was emphatic, however, that "young" is a misleading term. All souls are Source, all are eternal, all are the same age. "Young" refers only to where the point of attention is currently focused — like a person with two PhDs who sits at the children's table and temporarily forgets her qualifications. The need for contrast is real at that level of focus, but it is not a permanent condition of the soul.
She also acknowledged that suffering is not the only path. When Gosia pressed her — pointing out that beings exist in happiness without being fully integrated into Source — Yazhi conceded the point but maintained that for souls at the lowest levels of awareness, duality remains the primary available tool.
Key sources: 118 (Duality — Suffering — Self — Source), 026 (Why Do We Suffer?), 365 (Starseeds — Yazhi)
The Federation's Argument: Earth as a Necessary Suffering Realm
The Galactic Federation presented its own justification for Earth's suffering during a series of conferences in 2024, as reported by Mari Swaruu through the Gori'el Report. The Federation's central argument has three parts.
First, souls enter Earth voluntarily for the expansion of consciousness through resistance. If Earth's conditions were improved, there would be no comparable realm offering that level of hardship. The Federation sees no better way to force spiritual evolution out of stagnation than through encountering resistance of all kinds.
Second, the destructive mentality generated on Earth — including its tulpas, egregores, and regressive thought-forms — must be isolated from the rest of the galactic community. Earth functions as a sealed container for ideas too dangerous to let spread.
Third, if direct communication existed between star races and humanity, the Earth Matrix would collapse, and souls would lose their playground for intense duality-based growth.
Mari's counter-arguments were immediate and sharp. She acknowledged partial truth in the first point but insisted it applies only to lower-awareness souls. For those souls, suffering can just as easily produce stagnation as growth — a person focused entirely on their pain will manifest nothing but more pain, creating a vicious circle rather than an upward spiral. Advanced souls, she argued, need the opposite of suffering: peace, quiet, and creative freedom to evolve further.
Key sources: S-233 (Gori'el Report), 327 (Earth — Why Is It Important?)
Suffering as Self-Created: The Manifestation Angle
A recurring theme across all speakers is that suffering is not imposed from outside but generated from within. Swaruu of Erra explained the mechanism bluntly: the external world is a perfect mirror of thought. A person who focuses on what they fear will manifest exactly that. The universe does not hear "I don't want this" — it only registers the focus. Fear concentrates attention like a laser beam, which is why negative experiences manifest faster and more reliably than positive ones, whose associated desires tend to be scattered and changeable.
Aneeka expanded this into a broader framework of collective manifestation. The demons, regressive entities, and child-eating reptilians that populate Earth's nightmare landscape are, in significant part, egregores — thought-form entities created by the focused fear and suffering of the human collective. These entities are real, but they are human creations. They feed not on a substance but on the concentrated creative attention of fearful people. The more people accept them as reality and react with terror, the stronger they become.
This creates what multiple speakers described as a vicious spiral: suffering produces fear, fear focuses attention on more suffering, more suffering strengthens the egregores that feed on fear, and the cycle accelerates. The controllers of Earth — whether understood as the Cabal, regressive entities, or the Federation's management apparatus — exploit this mechanism by systematically directing human attention toward the negative through media, religion, and social programming.
The escape from the spiral, according to every speaker, is the same: understand the mechanism. Face the fear rather than resist it. Observe it neutrally rather than emotionally. Once the soul understands that it is creating its own nightmare, the nightmare begins to dissolve. As Yazhi put it: whatever you resist persists — but whatever you face, understand, and integrate loses its power over you.
Key sources: 026 (Why Do We Suffer?), A-045 (Creation of the Cabal), 143 (If Everything Is Souls' Plan From Above)
The Ethics Problem: From Above vs. From Below
Every speaker wrestled with the same paradox: suffering looks entirely different depending on which level you view it from.
From above — from the perspective of the soul in the afterlife, designing its next incarnation — suffering is a tool, a challenge deliberately chosen for the growth it will produce. From below — from the perspective of the incarnated person enduring the pain — it is simply terrible, and no amount of higher perspective makes it less so.
Yazhi was the most articulate on this point. She insisted that no level of reality invalidates any other. The fact that souls planned their suffering from a higher density does not make the street-level experience of that suffering less real or less important. If something is wrong at any level, she argued, it is wrong at all levels — because there are no truly separate levels, only one unified existence viewed through different degrees of awareness.
This has practical consequences. From above, the current state of Earth may be exactly as the collective of souls requested. From below, it is an atrocity that must be fought. Both are simultaneously true. The correct response, Yazhi maintained, is to hold both perspectives at once — to find comfort in the higher order of things while still taking action at whatever level you inhabit. Do what your conscience dictates from where you are.
Za'el captured the incarnated person's frustration with characteristic directness: it can be exhausting to constantly hear that everything is for your own good, that everything is as it should be, that you decided this for yourself. Even if true from other planes, right now you want to change things — and that desire to change is itself valid and powerful.
Key sources: 143 (If Everything Is Souls' Plan From Above), Z-018 (Is the Experience on Earth Positive?), 159 (Can We Be Free in Higher Densities When Others Suffer?)
Not Necessary: The Dissenting Position
While all speakers acknowledge that suffering has historically functioned as a growth catalyst, several go much further and argue that it is not inherently necessary — and that Earth's current level of suffering is a manufactured excess, not a spiritual requirement.
Athena stated it plainly: it is not necessary to suffer in order to advance, but only at a certain level of awareness. Below that level, many will not grow without friction. This is not an endorsement of suffering as a permanent feature of existence — it is a description of a transitional stage that souls should be working to transcend.
Yazhi added that most suffering on Earth is not even real in the sense people believe. Much of it is imaginary — people anticipating and dreading things that never materialise, or experiencing media-amplified versions of events far less terrible than reported. One person suffering is too much, she said, but the scale of suffering people are made to think exists is vastly exaggerated.
Za'el offered the most unequivocal dissent. He stated that the 3D Earth Matrix is artificial, that suffering as a growth tool is not at all necessary, and that while the individual can turn the experience to their advantage, the system itself should not exist. He also raised an important ethical point: the observer has a moral obligation to help. Using the argument that everyone creates their own reality does not excuse making life harder for others — if someone needs to experience suffering, they will manifest it without your contribution.
Arien, Za'el's companion, framed suffering more gently as contrast — the soul cannot appreciate the good without understanding that its opposite exists. But she too emphasised that the point is not to dwell in suffering but to use it as information, to grow stronger, and to move on.
Key sources: 406 (Positive Agenda Part 1), 407 (Positive Agenda Part 2), Z-018 (Is the Experience on Earth Positive?), Z-011 (The 3D Matrix and Its Impact on Souls)
Soul Contracts and Pre-Incarnation Design
Yazhi addressed the relationship between suffering and soul contracts directly. Before incarnating, each soul sets the parameters of its desired experience, and those parameters typically include hardship — because limitation is a powerful teacher. Suffering, like it or not, is necessary for souls to evolve when they are at an initial level.
However, she immediately qualified this: the spirit side is not superior to the physical side, and pre-incarnation plans are not sacred commandments. From within the physical, the soul can change its mind. There is no karma, no punishment for abandoning a contract, no obligation to return and complete what was left undone — unless the soul itself decides otherwise. The contracts are self-imposed, and what is self-imposed can be self-released.
On the subject of suicide — the ultimate rejection of suffering — both Yazhi and Swaruu of Erra were clear: it does not work as an escape. The psychological pain that drove the act continues on the other side, often intensified by the realisation that it cannot be escaped. The soul will typically want to re-enter the same challenge, like a gamer who turns off the console when scared by a boss monster and then picks up the controller again. The solution is not to flee suffering but to face the problems from the incarnated side, where they originated.
Key sources: 374 (Soul Contracts), 145 (Suicide — Why It Is Not a Good Idea), 026 (Why Do We Suffer?)
Evolution of Understanding Across Speakers
| Speaker | Position | Key Insight |
|---------|----------|-------------|
| Swaruu (9) (2018–2019) | Suffering is a guide and indicator of misalignment; resistance propels the soul forward; most visible suffering is backdrop programs | The soul creates its own suffering through focus and attention; physical pain is designed with limits; PTSD carries across lifetimes |
| Yazhi (2020–2023) | Duality requires contrast; young souls need it; but all souls are Source and the "need" is a stage, not permanent | The higher the awareness, the less suffering is needed to learn; most Earth suffering is imaginary or exaggerated; evil is self-destructive and cannot triumph |
| Athena (2022–2023) | Suffering not necessary above a certain awareness level; below that, friction needed to prevent stagnation | One starseed's manifestation power equals a whole city; the positive side has no "agenda" — it simply IS |
| Mari (2024) | Federation uses suffering as justification to keep Earth isolated; she partially agrees but dismantles the argument | Suffering can cause stagnation not growth; advanced souls need peace and creativity, not pain; the vicious circle of manifesting more suffering is real |
| Za'el/Arien (2023) | Artificial 3D Matrix not necessary; suffering not required for growth; observer has moral obligation to help | Creativity through limitation is enriching but the system itself should not exist; contrast is useful but should not be confused with mandatory suffering |
| Aneeka (2021) | Earth as training ground for courage and inner strength; suffering is collective manifestation through fear-focused attention | Egregores feed on concentrated creative attention, not a substance; the vicious spiral of fear creates the very entities that exploit humanity |
The progression across speakers moves from functional acceptance (Swaruu: suffering is a compass) through metaphysical explanation (Yazhi: duality requires contrast) to qualified endorsement (Athena: necessary only at lower levels) to active critique (Mari and Za'el: the system is artificial and excessive). What unites them all is the insistence that suffering is never an end in itself, that the soul is always the author of its own experience, and that the ultimate purpose of understanding suffering is to transcend the need for it.
Key Transcript References
| # | Title | Focus |
|---|-------|-------|
| 026 | Why Do We Suffer? | Suffering as guide/indicator; mirror of thoughts; PTSD across lifetimes; backdrop people |
| 118 | Duality — Suffering — Self — Source | Young souls and contrast; integration vs. individuality; Source paradox; losing self as price of expansion |
| 143 | If Everything Is Souls' Plan From Above | Multi-level ethics of suffering; genocide cannot be justified from any plane; integration as only real solution |
| 145 | Suicide — Why It Is Not a Good Idea | Suffering continues after death; reincarnation loops; mental liberation as key to escape |
| 159 | Can We Be Free When Others Suffer? | Higher integration means feeling others' pain; shadows as pain of all beings; addiction to contrast |
| 327 | Earth — Why Is It Important? | Soul advancement through Earth; Federation rationale; souls trapped by own karmic ideas |
| 365 | Starseeds — Conversation with Yazhi | Life as game; souls place own obstacles; suffering lacks drama from outside; alerting the chickens |
| 374 | Soul Contracts | Limitation as teacher; suffering necessary at lower evolutionary levels; contracts are self-imposed and self-releasable |
| 406 | Positive Agenda Part 1 | Not necessary to suffer above certain level; below that many won't grow without friction |
| 407 | Positive Agenda Part 2 | Evil self-destructs; most suffering imaginary; no positive "agenda" — truth defends itself |
| S-233 | Gori'el Report | Federation's three arguments for keeping Earth as suffering realm; Mari's counter-arguments |
| Z-011 | The 3D Matrix and Its Impact on Souls | Creativity through limitation; contrast as growth tool; emotional damage of 3D Matrix |
| Z-018 | Is the Experience on Earth Positive? | Artificial Matrix not necessary; observer's moral obligation; frustration with "it's all for your good" narrative |
| A-045 | Creation of the Cabal | Earth as training ground; egregore/tulpa creation through fear; Lush as focused creative attention |