Excellence Reporter: Rob, what is the meaning of life?

Rob Schwartz: The meaning of life is to express the love we truly are – the love that is our eternal nature – here on the physical plane. In short, it is to bring the love of Home to earth.

Before each of us is born, we meet with all the people who are going to play significant roles in our lives. We discuss in great detail what roles we want to play for each other and what we hope to learn through our relationships. We also plan our greatest challenges. We do this for several reasons, the main one being that it breaks our hearts open so that we may more fully give and receive love. Through our challenges, we learn to value, give and receive love.

People often ask me, “Why is suffering necessary?” The answer is that it isn’t . . . but suffering is an extremely powerful and effective way of opening our hearts. Some people find it hard to believe they would choose to become more loving through suffering, but our viewpoint on “the other side” is very different from our viewpoint when we are in body.

First, from our pre-birth perspective, we know that a lifetime is very brief: it’s here and gone like a clap of thunder.

Second, before we are born we know that no one is permanently harmed by anything that happens here.

Third, when we plan our lives we know that the wisdom and love that come out of a physical lifetime become part of our souls literally for all eternity.

From that perspective, it does make sense that we as souls agree to experience great challenges.

When a lifetime is over, we care about how much love we gave and received.

That is the meaning of life.