Reincarnation
Does Reincarnation play a role in your life? If so, how does it help you? Is there anything that you understand that can help others?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by William John Meegan on
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Again it is a matter of semantics. For example theologians say that God created the world "EX NIHILO" meaning 'creation out of nothing'. If you consider spirituality to be the only substance then of course all matter symbolically would be NOTHING.
Few people in the world realize that the human vernacular is double speak and this is what causes the great confusion in the world between different groups of people or even between married couples. Do you realize that the male ego-consciousness is symbolically the sun and the woman's ego-consciousness is the moon. This is why the male shadow is the anima and female's is the animus. And yet, we human beings go placidly through life as if these differences did not exist between the genders. We think, 'what I see you see or what I feel you feel, or what I think you think' and yet that kind of thought is diametrically opposite to what is actually happening in reality.
So when you say that the soul/psyche has substance you can not equate that idea with materiality for materiality is in reality nonexistent. If the soul had material substance it would be an illustion and would deteriorate into decrepitude. Being as old as you are, has your mind aged? I am 63 years of age and I feel that my mind is as active and as young as a sixteen year old. The mind does not age like the body; thus, the soul/psyche has nothing to do with matter. The trouble with humanity is mixing up the vocabularies of the spiritual with the vocabularies of the material as if they were interchangeable.
I truly understand that as human beings we talk off the cuff and make these mistakes in the vernacular and people that read or hear us take such statements as if they were cast into stone. Yet, when we sit down and write something out after giving it due thought these errorx should be eradicated from our texts so that erroneous wording and misunderstanding is not past on to the reader..
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Permalink Reply by Capt. Anand Kumar on
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Thanks WIlliam.
EX NIHILO is fully supported in the most ancient book the Rg Veda. Its verse X.129, 14 different commentaries on which is available for perusal in our stanzas document section describe it exactly like that. The Big Bang theory about origin of universe does it too.
The matter or substance as described in ancient Indian literature is not much different from what we understand the matter to be today, except that Ancinet Indian system accords consciousness built into the matter and describes its smallest particle as minute (sukshma of sanskrit). How small is this particle is anyone's guess, but some scientists are now talking about Planck Scale which is close to 10 to the power of minus 35. Way beyond any microscope for the next 30-40 years at least. So, from that point of view soul being composed of such matter would not really be out of place.
I am really happy to note that your 63 year old mind is functioning like 16 year old's. I wish and hope it continues to function like that for ever. Or perhaps it was never 63 year old.
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I would suggest that any particle no matter how minute is infinitely as large as our own universe relative to its size.
Whenever anyone speaks of spiritual substance versus material substance they are talking cross purposes; the twain shall never meet. I fully understand how the psyche automatically on an autonomous level makes these erreconcilible opposites interchangeable.
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Permalink Reply by Gerry Kiffe on
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It is interesting to me to remember the words of Thoreau when he points out that there is a strange dual quality to human life. There is the feeling of being in time, in the world, being part of it. And there is the feeling that something is outside of time witnessing it from a distance. Wasn't it Jesus who said to be in the world but not of it? Theosophy points to the idea that their are many planes of existence. The ability to move between them gracefully is the achievement of sages we are told. Theosophy also points to the idea that man must WIN his immortality by self induced efforts. We must raise our consciousness to a height where immortality is a reality to us and no longer a theory.
By the way Jon thank you for coming to the defense of my ignorance. Painful but true.
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Great theory Jon. Indeed the progression would be like a wave form. Please pause a moment to think what happens when the wave form is continually change. The analogy with the sea waves is very appropriate beginning. Yet these visible wave forms have a fixed baseline, zero value. Once we make the base line also into a continually changing wave, linearity will disappear completely and perhaps a fuzzy wave form would appear.
May I also suggest to replace the word momentum with motion in your theory for greater clarity.
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I think the answer to that question is because that is the level we have progressed to so far. The consciousness of man at this particular stage of spiritual evolution is bound down by time. To ascend to a level of timelessness is a very high goal presumably and one that won't be achieved quickly. Think of the length of a Manvantara. But you are right it seems this is the direction we are headed to if we pay attention to enlightened beings like Shankara, Krishna, Plato, Buddha etc.
The concept of reincarnation is so important to Theosophy because it points to and insists upon the concept of an immortal soul. It gives philosophical grounding to the idea that their is a moral order to the universe.It gives support to the notion that "as we sow, so shall we reap." For that idea to make sense it must occur over multiple life times.
Reincarnation is an idea expelled from scientific inquiry and materialized by organized religion. You are right to ask to define reincarnation, what reincarnates? This is a crucial question in this discussion. One thing we know for sure, from theosophical writings, it is not the personal man. Name and form does not reincarnate.
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Permalink Reply by Ferran Sanz Orriols on
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Sorry friends, while writing I was thinking I was replying directly to this Capt. Anand's post...Reply by Capt. Anand Kumar
In this debate about the reincarnation, it is not yet clarified what do we mean by it, transformation of the body or transmigration of the soul (if it exists). It has been taken for granted that everyone understands reincarnation as the re-birth of the same individual after each death. Let us explore this further...
Yeah, right, true, Anand!!!But even if a crazy fellow like me is independent of time (hahahaha ;-) grammar rules, which include verbal tenses, still apply.Even a crazy fellow like me cannot deny that we seem to emerge into time every time we awaken, and that we seem to be loosened from the bondage of time everytime that we fall into deep sleep. And it seems quite natural to think about this day-after-day process in a linear way, so the analogy between days and encarnations is easy to think. But if we're to be exact, we have a dotted line, a discontinuous line.Events cannot be thought but in linear fashion because they have been born in a linear fashion, mind cannot work otherwise. The physical universe in itself as a whole is ever in present, in continuous present, infinite, all events are happening simultaneously now.We cannot behold it with our human nervous system, whose basis function is to react to the aspects of reality that are needed to keep the body functioning, until a mind that needs the idea of "event" to work, to correlate some events to others (a,b,c.. a +b...etc) , emerges.All writings, drawings and paintings of the world have been done in linear fashion, so linear fashion needs not to be boring (easy to predict, easy to control and to repeat (@Joe:-P), because 1.- one does not need to work only along one line, 2.- any line actually is a dotted line, so you can fill the gaps it with anything that pleases you, even with "objective proofs", 3.- there is no real need to fill the gaps, great works of art in any art are those that include the gaps whithout "trying" to fill them... and I have trouble counting beyond three.To me, reincarnation is a consequence of my own stubborness, I've decided I shall do this (details secret:) and if I cannot finish it as Ferran, I am to come back as many times as needed, and to have as much fun as possible in the process. I am an actor, Ferran is the main character for some time... and I am really happy to forget about Ferran when I sleep hahahaha....Have fun today, my dear friends, fun is beyond time!!! :-D -
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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Deb on -
Interesting thoughts. Edgar Cayce said, "Time is an illusion that has purpose." Now, I am not an expert on the wisdom or sayings or Cayce, so I cannot provide further enlightenment about that. I would certainly like to know what he meant.
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Permalink Reply by Michael A. Williams on
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This issue of reincarnation was brought up over a year ago on a forum here and it was just as contentious then as it is now. I doubt if it will be settle to everyone's satisfaction in this forum.
I must point out that there are numerous cases that on file that have been investigated thoroughly that certainly indicate reincarnation of some sort as an explanation. And not the Bridey Murphy case, which no investigator brings up anymore. but, that aside, I don't think materialist science, as now constituted, can explain it with it's paradigm.
It was said that it takes a higher level of consciousness than the intellect to know about reincarnation. Joe countered that to say that it takes an "enlightened consciousness"(or higher conscious awareness) to verify it sets up an authoritarian hierarchy. Well, there will always be a hierarchy of sorts in how we "know what we know." We have one now and Joe himself is proposing it. That those with the strongest analytical intellectual skills shall decide for us "what is real and not real" and all other approaches be dammed. That's a main aspect of atheist/materialism. From this position we see that the arts, humanities, the mystical and visionary all not only take a "back seat," but are delegated to be either delusional or recreational window dressing at best.
It's already been gone into on other forums how reductionist/materialism and the scientific method are also fraught with it's own "belief systems" and assumptions, so it is as subjective as any other approach. A valuable tool, but a terrible master.
William, you brought up two important points. First, that everything is coming in and out of "existence" constantly. Quantum experiments show it to be around a trillion times or more a second, so it is like a motion picture at 24 frames per second, only much faster. And second, we are ultimately in our own worlds and I say we are ultimately co-creating our own worlds. I'm glad you brought those two points up.
I propose that ultimately, those that believe strong enought in reincarnation in whatever form will end up creating that in their "world" experience. Those with other beliefs and assumptions will create those experiences.
The universe and consequently the "Universal Mind"(God if you will) is infinite and infinite means INFINITE. All possibilities and potentialities exist, beyond even our wildest imagination. I suggest that there is not one "solid" out there, "ultimate reality" that can ever be wrapped up in thought by even the greatest intellect. The "realities" are never ending.
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Joe:
Your memory sounds like a dream, which you had periodically. Dreams are sometimes predicting future events. You should read the works of CG Jung who narrates quite a few dreams like that.
Your dream seems to be saying that there is trouble in paradise. It smacks of the Adam and Eve story. Your dream get more graphic then most. The death of the child is the death of those taking the fruit from the serpent whom are then cast out into the wilderness. The palm trees point to paradise, the gale force winds is the spirit of God moving over the face of the waters. There is an alchemical document that says that when the spirit of God moved over the face of the waters it scattered the darkness.
I said your dream is predictive because being a student of Theosophy point to you baring up under the gale force winds of the spirit of Theosophy, which is said to bring enlightenment that scatters the darkness.
Most people are afraid of the gale force winds as we are afraid of committing ourselves to the spirit of God, which takes us and spins us around at will. It is this not having direct control of our own lives that frightens us.
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Yes, as I said it sounds like a predicting dream.
As CG Jung points out many dreams are in a series and some of them can be out of sequence. The collective unconscious is not subject to the laws of time and space.
You photo shows you to be a senior citizen. If you look back over the span of your life you may be able to see the mosaics that patterned it. Many of those pieces would seem to be out of sequencial order.
CG Jung had a dream in 1905 and he would later describe that dream as being a complete pattern to his entire personal and professional life. He died in 1961.
The dream you narrated appeared to me to be a pattern that foretold your adult life.
When I was a child about nine and ten I did a certain activity during recess at school and I would do it daily for months until the teachers stopped me. Apparently I wasn't sharing and letting the other kids play with the toys. When I reached middle age I started a job that mimick that very activity I did obsessively when I was nine and ten. Apparently, I had foreknowledge of that activity I would do as an adult. It would seem that life's activities: reason d'etre are imprinted upon the soul/psyche.
Now, I can be wrong in my belief that all is preordained but I don't think so.
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Reincarnation has helped me to ask the question, what is it within me that lives from life to life? And how can I get back to that?
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