Discussing Reincarnation

[Michael Sternbach]

I would say, reincarnation raises interesting questions regarding the nature of the psyche, spiritual evolution, ethics, relationships, and a bunch of other things.

[Desmonddf]

- Who or what lives or dies?

 

Usually your physical body dies while the other subtle bodies (emotional, mental, etc) live. You can think on that as losing your body but keep being able to feel and think, only on "other world".

 

 

- Are the memories mine or from elsewhere? (i.e. something collective)

 

 

It is possible to access other people's memories as well as collective memories, but this isn't common. If you can't recognize your existance there then it may be memories from other people, indeed.

 

Try thinking on how you saw the world as a child. Can you relate your infant self to your previous self?

 

If not those memories may not be yours indeed.

 

 

- Who or what is observing the memories?

 

You saw them on third person?

 

Most of mine where on first person. It was through my eyes. If you saw those memories in third person than you may have experienced indeed dreams, other people's past (not memories, but actively seeing the past through psychic sight) or been subjected to artificial rememoration.

 

There are techniques were a spirit sees your past through psychic sight and then project an image of it in your dreams or your mind directly. However, that isn't regression.

 

 

- Do we co-create with the reincarnation cycle ("planned lives") or are we completely at its mercy, with no helpful variables?

 

Depends. Some people become insane in the emotional world and can't plan anything. Those may be subjected to forced reincarnation.

 

However, most people do participate in their life planning, including details about their future body anatomy. The degree of participation varies from person to person, place to place and hierarchy to hierarchy.

 

Which hierarchy?

 

The ones you subject yourself. For instance, if you do a vow of obedience to the catholic church while alive, this keeps going after death.

 

You can expect for them do remember the vows of servitude you did, that is for sure.

 

 

 

Most of the systems that talk about reincarnation divide consciousness into some kind of hierarchy, especially the western schools, but I don't relate to this either. It's all one thing, there's no higher or lower.

 

Conscienciousness is indeed one thing. However, the dissociation between mind, emotion and consciousness is a process recognized by psychology.

 

Indeed, it is one of the main objectives of psychoteraphy : To allow for the person to notice she isn't what she feels or thinks.

 

 

 

It's all just a dream,

 

But what is a dream?

 

 

 

If you're going to weave such experiences into your own personal cosmology for something practical, then I guess it has its uses. Apart from that, I see no reason to entertain past life memories.

 

So far the main use i had for those experiences was regarding problems i had with my mind. Old traumas and psychological issues i had to solve, some of which had roots in previous life.

 

One of the most intense ones was a life i couldn't leave my body after death for a period of time. With my emotional body still stuck on it i felt the deterioration process and the semi-mumification due to have died on a place with a lot of sand and sun.

 

This trauma followed me to the present life in a unconscious terror of getting thin, which brought me to obesity. It was only after noticing that, indeed, the past was in the past, that i could start getting healthy again.

 

It can also be used to recover knowledge, as it has happened to me once or twice so far - recovering knowledge on a certain ritual to help a friend of mine, for instance.

 

However, i do agree with you. If one has no uses to memories of past life, then they are not a priority. They may be interesting to entertain, but just like memories of childhood or teen years, there is no reason to become obsessed with them.

[Firedragon]

There is some empirical proof of reincarnation because some people can remember actual events, places, etc. from a past life, however, what is it that reincarnates? What is the "I"? People usually think that there is a unity in their personality that they call "I", that is conscious and free and that they understand. However, if you have bad karma, you see people doing whatever it takes to obey what a higher power that rules karma has decided. They behave against their reason, instinct, the idea that they have about themselves...all to punish you, and they don´t know what they are doing. The "I" is an illusion!

In addition, there doesn´t seem to be a continuity of memory from one life to the next. Most people don´t remember past lives at all, and most others don´t remember from birth, they only remember later in life. A new personality is created, and I guess that there isn´t continuity. The same happens with relationships: maybe you´ll meet the same person again, but if both of you don´t remember, you´ll create a new relationship. A Christian friend told me a similar thing about Heaven, she said that there wasn´t a continuity because there is nothing in Heaven that reminds you of this life.

Is there an efficient way to remember, and to preserve your purpose, knowledge and relationships from one life to the next? I don´t mean spending eternity doing only meditation, because then you would live forever but you wouldn´t live anyway.

In Taoism there are several ideas about the soul. There is the idea that we don´t have a soul and need to create one. There is the idea that we have many souls. And there is the idea that we have one soul. Which idea of the soul should I choose? It is quite confusing. Also, the embrio of immortality, is it I, or is it a different soul? And I don´t understand the creation of many souls in the last stage of inner alchemy, by doing that aren´t you splitting your consciousness, creating souls that are clones of you, but that have less energy and intelligence? Maybe it would be better to maintain a unity in your mind, personality and soul.

[Drifting_Through_Infinity]

Leave the Christians be.

Edited September 11, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Drifting_Through_Infinity]

My life is all lives. Yours too.  

 

YES

Edited September 11, 2016 by FreeThinker

[doc benway]

What I find interesting to contemplate is what it is that is "carried over" from life to life.

From the Buddhist perspective, there is no self - so what is "carried over?"

 

If it is the "spark of the Divine" then how is that "spark" differentiated from every other spark?

What is "carried over?"

If it is the "soul [which] returns to God," is that soul somehow separate and distinct from God or does it return to the source?

If the latter, what is it that is carried over?

 

It is quite easy for me to accept a concept of reincarnation. 

There is birth, life, death, birth, life, death, ad infinitum - this is the cycle.

I can easily accept each birth to be a reincarnation of whatever substrate one postulates as that which gives rise to life.

 

What I have not yet formulated to any degree of satisfaction is something that remains intact and isolated from the substrate, such that it "carries over" as a distinct and finite entity from one life to the next. 

 

Perhaps it works that way, perhaps it doesn't - I'm not too concerned with knowing "the truth" if there is such a thing, but I do find it fascinating to contemplate from time to time.

Edited September 11, 2016 by steve

[Firedragon]

I wasn´t criticizing Christians, I was just talking about the idea of the afterlife that a Christian friend had. I think that her religion was relevant about the idea of the afterlife, if I hadn´t said what her religion was people would think "Is this a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a New Age idea?" I don´t have any problem with Christianism. If I explained my ideas about Christianism and Jesus I would go off topic, although it touches the idea of reincarnation. Or maybe I should explain them not to keep people guessing, the moderator can move the post to wherever it should be.

I think that Jesus was a man, and he was the reincarnation of king David. In Psalm 22 David prophetices that the crucifixion will happen to him, therefore, Jesus was David. In Jesus we see an impressive improvement compared to David, however he had to be betrayed and crucified because of his mistakes when he was David. And he was killed in a cross, which is the letter Tav, meaning that he was a tzaddik (a Jewish saint). He taught his disciples about the Kabbalah, which is why he talked to them about "the Kingdom" (Malkhut). And he tried to improve his society making people more interested in ethics and in improving themselves. Christians and I have different ideas about Jesus, but my ideas aren´t offensive.

[Drifting_Through_Infinity]

Oh okay. As long as it is a friendly conversation.

 

So Alan Watts seemed to believe, based on his recordings, that reincarnation is an illusion. You become the universe in all her glory. Of-course, another version of you aught to appear in the universe again eventually. That person would think they were you, and remember being you at a very young age. Before then, they would remember being the universe and descending from bliss out of curiosity. This is why many small children say "that's me!!" when shown multiple pictures of different people like them. it is also why older people have difficulty remembering childhood, you only remember being you.

However, maybe we really do drift around forever in an everlasting adventure. Who knows. There's really one one way to find out.

[Andrei]

 

 

What I find interesting to contemplate is what it is that is "carried over" from life to life.

From the Buddhist perspective, there is no self - so what is "carried over?"

 

The only thing that carries over is DNA. There is another thing that carries over but that is more volatile, it is called "spirit" and is transmitted through culture of highly evolved organisms. The spirit needs energy to function and energy needs matter which is a more stable form of energy than pure energy. We are automatons that created ourselves through genetic algorithms over impossible to fathom number of iterations. This is where evolution comes into play, the whole universe evolves, not only life. All matter and energy evolves even this moment structures are built and destroyed on different levels from quantic particles to atoms, molecules, proteins etc. We are basically bacteria that at some point in the past time chose to organize themselves in complex structures such as "organisms".  

 

If someone really wants to know the TRUTH read the book "The Red Queen" by Matt Ridley. It is about sexual reproduction and why sexual reproduction is more successful than simple cellular division. And how the information is carried forward through genes, and why. The reason is the competition between higher complexity organisms and lower complexity organism, who lives longer and who carries forward the information, which consist in the recipes required to live longer or to survive the environmental conditions.

 

So if there is a soul that survives death, I don't know about that, I would'n bet on it. I used to believe in this idea but I need more proofs. Now I am more with the idea that the "soul" is an illusion of the mind which is located only inside the brain, there is no mind outside the brain, as soon as the brain is dead the mind is gone. The only "spirit" that remain alive is the product of that mind that is carried over the time through cultural means like building in stone, writing on paper, or just oral stories which are just information shared from mind to mind. But that's it, the consciousness of that mind is gone as soon the whole system that was feeding it, the highly complex organism cease to function as it was supposed to function by the recipes written in the genes. Of course the bacteria and molecules and what not will have their own mind, but here is the thing: a brain's mind is not the same thing as a bacteria's mind. They are two different things on a whole different level of existence.

[Andrei]

The spirit of Jesus or the spirit of Buddha lives in our minds, because we carry forward to the future generations the stories of them but with each generation there is a mutation in the story which makes that at some point in the future they will be so different than the original content that will be unrecognizable. The evolution plays in the spirit realm too.

[FraterUFA]

.

Edited September 24, 2016 by FraterUFA

[Andrei]

I am here since 2007 and I was a spiritualist but I changed my mind in the meantime. I was one of the first users who introduced this forum to the books of Eva Wong on Taoist Neidan. And Taoism does not endorse spiritualism and does not refute materialism. Taoism is both in the same time.

[FraterUFA]

. 

Edited September 24, 2016 by FraterUFA

[Andrei]

Oh I see what you mean, I am in the "Esoteric and Occult discussion" board. I was just trying to find an answer to Steve's question. Actually if you explain to me how the information is stored and carried forward in a reincarnation and what is the purpose of that information, then you will convert me back to spiritualism.

[FraterUFA]

. 

Edited September 24, 2016 by FraterUFA

[Andrei]

Thank you UFA for the explanation. This is what I knew and I agree with you. The problem is with those finer bodies that you refer to in the Hermetic theory (which I know about them because I studied extensively the subject over years). I tend to believe that as soon as the body that provides energy to them like a power-plant cease to function, then those bodies dissolve too. So probably there is a point in the reincarnation belief, but there are two contradictory beliefs:

 

One that says everybody reincarnates and your mission is to escape reincarnation, to put an effort and stop this cycle due to inertia.

 

The other is that nobody really reincarnates and if you really want to reincarnate you have to put an effort to build those finer bodies so that when your physical body dies they survive for a while on the energy you gather until you find another body that you inhabit and continue another life in the new body and you continue the cycle endlessly.

 

Which one of the two beliefs do you think is true? It can be only one true and the other false. Or both of them are false because they can't be both true.

[Orion]

I don't know what anyone is really talking about when they talk about reincarnation. There is nothing in here, whether you're dead or alive. It's a big post-hoc fallacy... that because you've always existed, you must have had an origin, and because that origin is unchanging, it must be immortal and transferable. What is the spiritual evidence of this? Past life memories? How do you know where they come from?

I've had very, very vivid experiences that could be called past life. But why attribute it to anything? Why label it? It's just what's happening, in the now. You're not in control of what happens to you on Earth so karma or not, you can't really outsmart the system. It goes on and on and you don't have a say in that.

There's no way to know if insight into dependent origination is a product of mind or something else because you can't know anything beyond your own experience of knowing. Even when people think they're being not-mind, there's still mind. As soon as a concept arises, it's mind.

I used to get mad at Christians for referring to karma as "what goes around, comes around". Then I realized that karma is fundamentally flawed no matter who is talking about it. What does karma attach to? Can you point to it? Subtle mind? What's that?

I'm not trying to be crass. But honestly, just what do we think we're talking about here? That there was some "me" before this "me" which is just as empty?

[FraterUFA]

. 

Edited September 24, 2016 by FraterUFA

[Desmonddf]

There is some empirical proof of reincarnation because some people can remember actual events, places, etc. from a past life, however, what is it that reincarnates? What is the "I"? People usually think that there is a unity in their personality that they call "I", that is conscious and free and that they understand. However, if you have bad karma, you see people doing whatever it takes to obey what a higher power that rules karma has decided. They behave against their reason, instinct, the idea that they have about themselves...all to punish you, and they don´t know what they are doing. The "I" is an illusion!

In addition, there doesn´t seem to be a continuity of memory from one life to the next. Most people don´t remember past lives at all, and most others don´t remember from birth, they only remember later in life. A new personality is created, and I guess that there isn´t continuity. The same happens with relationships: maybe you´ll meet the same person again, but if both of you don´t remember, you´ll create a new relationship. A Christian friend told me a similar thing about Heaven, she said that there wasn´t a continuity because there is nothing in Heaven that reminds you of this life.

Is there an efficient way to remember, and to preserve your purpose, knowledge and relationships from one life to the next? I don´t mean spending eternity doing only meditation, because then you would live forever but you wouldn´t live anyway.

In Taoism there are several ideas about the soul. There is the idea that we don´t have a soul and need to create one. There is the idea that we have many souls. And there is the idea that we have one soul. Which idea of the soul should I choose? It is quite confusing. Also, the embrio of immortality, is it I, or is it a different soul? And I don´t understand the creation of many souls in the last stage of inner alchemy, by doing that aren´t you splitting your consciousness, creating souls that are clones of you, but that have less energy and intelligence? Maybe it would be better to maintain a unity in your mind, personality and soul.

 

There's plenty of proof.    Dr. Ian Stevenson has some books on the matter.

 

There is continuity of memory (indeed, i myself remember a little bit of my stay on the astral plane, on what we call "inter-lives period") - however, accessing this memory brings difficult to remember the whole.

 

As much as an amnesic may not remember everything, so it is with past lives memories. You need to recall it, bit by bit, in continuous exploration of your own mind.

 

What continues is a deeper form of mind which is devoid of Ego or Personality, not to mention some superior things. Why people always relate mind with ego ?

 

The ego is just a small sub-product of the mind. Anyone who studied a little bit of Freudian Theory (needed to talk about Ego) knows that the Ego is a product of much larger and titanic forces within - the Superego and the ID, to say the least (not mentionin pre-birth unconscious, which Freud also recognized as existing...).

 

In fact, you don't even have a fully formed ego before you're 7 years old!

That's when most of your personality and ego settle in, and to change that you need some pretty intense stuff, for some pretty long time.

 

All memory is preserved. Because it isn't like a movie you store on your mind. It is actual connection from your mind with the Past and the Future. Memory is an insight on being beyond time.

 

So once you reach a higher level of awareness, your mind shall have room to develop enough and to naturally allow this kind of memory to keep existing, yes.

 

What I find interesting to contemplate is what it is that is "carried over" from life to life.

From the Buddhist perspective, there is no self - so what is "carried over?"

 

If it is the "spark of the Divine" then how is that "spark" differentiated from every other spark?

What is "carried over?"

If it is the "soul [which] returns to God," is that soul somehow separate and distinct from God or does it return to the source?

If the latter, what is it that is carried over?

 

It is quite easy for me to accept a concept of reincarnation. 

There is birth, life, death, birth, life, death, ad infinitum - this is the cycle.

I can easily accept each birth to be a reincarnation of whatever substrate one postulates as that which gives rise to life.

 

What I have not yet formulated to any degree of satisfaction is something that remains intact and isolated from the substrate, such that it "carries over" as a distinct and finite entity from one life to the next. 

 

Perhaps it works that way, perhaps it doesn't - I'm not too concerned with knowing "the truth" if there is such a thing, but I do find it fascinating to contemplate from time to time.

 

 

What if i tell you that it isn't one "it", but many "it" ?

The problem is the perspective that death actually means a lot. Death is just losing your physical body.

Everything that isn't physical remains with you.

 

Now, what is and what isn't physical... i can tell some things i have experienced as beying not physical, but that would just smell like lies.

 

It's easier to experience by yourself

 

 

obs: Our "divine spark" is the so called "Christic Body" or simply our "Body of Will". It is the higher individual stance of existence we have.

Yes, higher individual stance.

 

We are collective beings above this.

 

And no, it can't be simply destroyed.... because it exists beyond time and space. How can you destroy something which is a singularity on itself?

 

 

The spirit of Jesus or the spirit of Buddha lives in our minds, because we carry forward to the future generations the stories of them but with each generation there is a mutation in the story which makes that at some point in the future they will be so different than the original content that will be unrecognizable. The evolution plays in the spirit realm too.

 

 

Sorry, DNA doesn't carry stories. It's just protein and sugar basis which contain information on BODILY construction, not mental.

 

Also, it isn't even all-powerfull in this sense, since ambient factors can determine the activation or deactivation of DNA parts.

 

What you're looking for (things which live in our minds) is either collective unconscious/arquetipes or meme theory (a favorite from Dawkins).

Also... is what you're calling "mind" a "brain" ?

 

You may be making wrong assumptions there, since dr.Freud and dr.Jung where VERY specific on saying that the "mind" ISN'T the "brain".

That's also why psychiatrists, neurologists and psychologists all treat different illnesses with different methods.

 

They do not share the same field of study, as much as people tend to think they do. 

 

 

Thank you UFA for the explanation. This is what I knew and I agree with you. The problem is with those finer bodies that you refer to in the Hermetic theory (which I know about them because I studied extensively the subject over years). I tend to believe that as soon as the body that provides energy to them like a power-plant cease to function, then those bodies dissolve too. So probably there is a point in the reincarnation belief, but there are two contradictory beliefs:

 

One that says everybody reincarnates and your mission is to escape reincarnation, to put an effort and stop this cycle due to inertia.

 

The other is that nobody really reincarnates and if you really want to reincarnate you have to put an effort to build those finer bodies so that when your physical body dies they survive for a while on the energy you gather until you find another body that you inhabit and continue another life in the new body and you continue the cycle endlessly.

 

Which one of the two beliefs do you think is true? It can be only one true and the other false. Or both of them are false because they can't be both true.

 

If you allow me, there are two missunderstandings on your theory.

 

The first is to believe the energy which keeps the finer bodies alive comes from higher plans of existence.

 

Just like what happens bettwen our physical bodies and our astral body, there is a small amount of energy which interacts between both (in the aetherial body), but it isn't the source of energy for our physical body.

 

It keeps it togheter, but doesn't feed it. Energy from eating feeds it.

And in the Astral and Mental plane both things also apply. One needs a constant supply of substance to nuture their astral and mental bodies.

 

So there isn't a single "master powerplant", but, rather, there are many energy sources.

 

About your beliefs, they hold true to a certain extent but on different planes.

 

Many hermetic students draw from different sources and, therefore, mix different kinds of knowledge.

 

The first theory is valid for astral-physical reincarnation. Everyone does it and proof is both on some hermetic books (which talk about necromancy in finer detail, going beyond the typical mistake of evoking pranking spirits, elementals or discarted aetheric bodies of the dead), and physical spiritual phenomenon.

 

As the second is valid for aetheric-physical reincarnation. This one can only be done if you build finer "physical" bodies (with aether, much like one can create qi vessels to hold their souls) which you can then use for a multitude of purposes, one of them being reincarnation.

 

The major difference between both is what composes the new finer bodies you will be getting. Like which monads will you be taking part of, which determine, for instance, which will be your Spiritual Clan and your Spiritual Heritage (which you will need to study beyond hermeticism and into xamanism to explore into greater detail).

 

Those are important, but aren't as big as some hermetic studies make them to be, and don't mean your higher existences or memories will be wiped clean and you will "return to the creator".

 

No more than destroying your current mind and making it back from zero would. That can't destroy who you where (and the individuality of the "divine spark" we carry is actually

 

Unfortunately, the different small "cruzades" the hermetic draw one against another (for instance the Martinists against the Ars Goetia practcionners) avoid for knowledge to be better understood and comprehended. Not to mention their skirmishes with other forms of knowledge.

 

 

 

 

I don't know what anyone is really talking about when they talk about reincarnation. There is nothing in here, whether you're dead or alive. It's a big post-hoc fallacy... that because you've always existed, you must have had an origin, and because that origin is unchanging, it must be immortal and transferable. What is the spiritual evidence of this? Past life memories? How do you know where they come from?

 

I've had very, very vivid experiences that could be called past life. But why attribute it to anything? Why label it? It's just what's happening, in the now. You're not in control of what happens to you on Earth so karma or not, you can't really outsmart the system. It goes on and on and you don't have a say in that.

 

There's no way to know if insight into dependent origination is a product of mind or something else because you can't know anything beyond your own experience of knowing. Even when people think they're being not-mind, there's still mind. As soon as a concept arises, it's mind.

 

I used to get mad at Christians for referring to karma as "what goes around, comes around". Then I realized that karma is fundamentally flawed no matter who is talking about it. What does karma attach to? Can you point to it? Subtle mind? What's that?

 

I'm not trying to be crass. But honestly, just what do we think we're talking about here? That there was some "me" before this "me" which is just as empty?

 

The bigger spiritual evidence is physical phenomenon derived from spiritual effects.

 

Like spiritual healing, materialization of spirits and the such.

In fact, past memories should always be checked throughly. Somethimes we create false memories, and we can indeed insert them on ourselves like that.

 

In fact, on regression theraphy, it is a must to not label the products of a regression as real or not - since what has therapeutic value is the effect the thing had in you, the simbolism it carries and how you can deal with present life questions and challenges more positively after seeing it, and not if the thing was real or not.

 

About your past lives and existential questions, i believe they can all be answered with a thought:

 

It's not about transcendence.

[SeekerOfHealing]

 

No such thing as reincarnation.

Edited January 8, 2017 by SeekerOfHealing

[Spotless]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkJOEPJB2HE

No such thing as reincarnation.

For those that listen to this - very little is clarified in his response to the difference and the response is entirely in the first few minutes. He deals with it in a few sentences and that is it. No need to continue listening in expectation of more on the subject - the rest is primarily about meditation and his stories about his past. Edited January 8, 2017 by Spotless

[Spotless]

The fine points in the arguements over reincarnation and rebirth are best left to understanding when you arrive at that point.

Both could be said to be true though that won't fly with mind so well.

 

I have very clear memories of past lives. One of the clearest happened about 14 hours into meditation when suddenly a volcano of energy erupted from the base of my space and tossed my awareness to above my head where I sat in the massive flow for some time. As it subsided I descended slightly back into my physical body and was in a past life in Ireland. I remained there for some time and then resumed meditation for another 4 hours.

 

In another experience I was very clearly at a large table surrounded by guides and associates. The discussion was regarding my choice of the current life I am living at present prior to taking on the body in this life. The family was considered, the general lack of ties to it, the foreign beliefs and other concerns were vetted. It was decided that all concerns were being adequately addressed.

 

It was interesting to see how the concerns were addressed in this present life. Some of the topics prior to incarnation/rebirth were very specific to trials that would present themselves as a result of the choice and safeguards from possible mis-steps. The timelines were very clear regarding when these trials would present themselves and guides and associates spoke out on their concerns and or how they would protect me (guide me) from wandering into unfortunate directions or despair.

 

It is also interesting to note that prior to my son being born I meditated 6 hours a day in order to talk with him prior to his birth. It was partly to interview him and go over agreements as well as look at the fit since it is possible to change agreements and the Being coming in. It later became clear that he was one of the associates (friends) at the meeting mentioned above that sat to my left at the big table.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Spotless

[Spotless]

Do all people have associates/guides?

Yes - several

Though I do not want to derail this post to a theme about Spirit Guides and Spirit friends and entities.

 

In any given room or place the number of beings will outnumber the number of human beings. It is relatively easy to learn to see these subtle realms and verify them for yourself. It can be done out of trance and so the results or seeing is similar to seeing with ones eyes. The eyes can see them as well - this is possible. The physical eyes are also capable of seeing auras - (it requires that you do not strain the eye to see so please do not think it is some mechanical manipulation or willfulness - quite the opposite).

[cold]

I think as children we have many great abilities we lose as we are educated.

[Spotless]

There are a great many we do not have as children as well.

 

We do not need to pine for the past as we have come to experience exactly what we are experiencing. And all these things we can do we will do and more.

 

Education is not a sinister word - we are a relatively squishy species in need of lots of survival information pretty quickly. And we are at a paradigm shift with regard to some of the more ridiculous religious myths that we have shackled ourselves with. The frequencies we have been attached to for so long are ebbing though it may seem in some ways that they are increasing.