Thread: reincarnation

Originally Posted by Abra

sisavon I feel so unloved it's like you're ignoring me completely. ;__;

A major problem I have with systems of reincarnation that are karma-based (in a general sense of the word), is that some people are just born into shit situations, and can't really help the way they turn out. Low-income, abusive families produce children that are often morally lacklustre. It's not fair that each life those in poor nurture/nature are raised in, must use intellect alone (which is shaped by nurture/nature, btw) to overcome their socially unacceptable tendencies, with the alternative being living a worse life. It's just another system where the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

I want everyone to get richer. And you can't do that with karma-based reincarnation without having really complicated and esoteric rules and exceptions, which would be dissonant with a reincarnation framework built with Occam's Razor in mind (that is, one that fits into the current system of physics. To expand on this, it's much easier to explain one consciousness flowing through all creatures, than a bunch of consciousnesses (how are they created? are they ever destroyed?) which ascend and descend in 'rank' depending on 'rules,' both of which necessarily exist outside of the system).

Ok, here you go, sorry. This is a very valid concern. I personally believe a couple things related to this. First, the consequance of your actions will be weighted by the manner and attitude in which the life was lead. Take killing animals for food. very little serious karma results from this, as it is just a way that people feed themselves. I do not picture a child being punished because his dad taught him to hunt. In fact I do not view the process as punishment at all. I view it as training in order to prefect the spirit. Perhaps a man raised as a hunter, may then lead a few lives as a rabbit, but not out of punishment as much as to help him learn empathy. Then he may still be born into a hunting culture, but will be the kind of good man, who kills quickly for food, and not for fun.
A child born in a culture that abuses woman, has the chance to be some what compassionate or very horrable, despite nurture/nature. If he is at a certain point in his spiritual path, he may not be that bad of a bully. If he loves hurting woman and the culture encourgages him, he may be 'sentanced' to a few life times in the role of his wives, or other abused woman. Not as a punishmeent, but in order to learn empathy for the weaker individuals, born into a bad situation.
Keep in mind, we are talking about infinity. So, being placed in a bad position for even a dozen life times, is a small thing, like having to stay in from a town, while your friends got to go to summer school.
The person born into the socially ethically poor system will still have the influance of past lives to help temper them. they may take part in the cultural system, but the attitude and level of pleasure derived will be different based on past lives. The attitude and motive for bad acts, would have an effect on wether a corrective life time was really in order.

I know I'm jumping in here a bit late, and possibly restating in a different way what has already been said, but...

I've had reincarnation explained to me (from a Buddhist perspective) as we are all like an ocean. Each individual life is like a wave. The wave thinks it is an individual, but is still connected to the larger ocean. It came from the ocean, will return there, and continue on as other waves.

To me, this also points to a one - or at least united - consciousness flowing through everyone and everything. For me, my experience with ego death fits with this model as well. Is it possible that it is easier for our minds to grasp the idea of an individual soul moving from one body to the next, when what is really happening is a single consciousness becoming manifest in every body? Do we identify past lives as our own because we connect more with some people from the past than others, the same way we connect better with certain individuals in the present than others?

Other than my one experience of ego death, I don't have any first hand knowledge of reincarnation, so these are questions, not criticisms. I do have some tendencies which seem to be from past lives, but I don't understand how this is possible. I can't wrap my brain around the idea of the soul not being atomic, but certain past lives belong to me and not others. Maybe this is one of those things only understood through paradox?

Originally Posted by hermine_hesse

I've had reincarnation explained to me (from a Buddhist perspective) as we are all like an ocean. Each individual life is like a wave. The wave thinks it is an individual, but is still connected to the larger ocean. It came from the ocean, will return there, and continue on as other waves.

This is almost it but the ocean is the whole universe. This single life is percieved as a wave in the same ocean as any other sentient being. So we're all just series of waves sharing a single ocean.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

This is almost it but the ocean is the whole universe. This single life is percieved as a wave in the same ocean as any other sentient being. So we're all just series of waves sharing a single ocean.

So...the series of waves is like a series of lives. A wave crashes and reforms - we die and are reborn. But even though we are a series of lives that is unique to each of us, we are also more deeply connected to each other?

Originally Posted by sivason

The person born into the socially ethically poor system will still have the influance of past lives to help temper them. they may take part in the cultural system, but the attitude and level of pleasure derived will be different based on past lives. The attitude and motive for bad acts, would have an effect on wether a corrective life time was really in order.

What if those past lives were bad, or worse lives? And they temper them toward evil?

Do you think that people actively choose to do evil? Or are most driven to it by circumstance? Or in the case of sociopaths, driven to it by brain chemistry and genetics? How does anyone deserve to be a sociopath, unless all they've been in the past are sociopaths?

Originally Posted by Abra

What if those past lives were bad, or worse lives? And they temper them toward evil?

Do you think that people actively choose to do evil? Or are most driven to it by circumstance? Or in the case of sociopaths, driven to it by brain chemistry and genetics? How does anyone deserve to be a sociopath, unless all they've been in the past are sociopaths?

Well, there are two issues here. First, the nature of evil and second unfortunate circustances.
I do feel that some souls choose a path of selfishness and wickedness. These would be very young souls perhaps. People who have had limited experience or are angry and vengeful about things done to them in the past.
The issue of very unfortunate circumstances is not always the result of the past. Otherwise one may think I am saying an abused child may deserve it. That may be the case in some instances but not others. We take form in a physical world and that has risk inherant in it. The very nature of bodies means we may get stuck with a flawed body or be born into a bad situation. I feel that if an advanced soul is born into a body that is going to be sociopathic, then it will be a sociopath. However, we are talking about eternity, so in the blink of an eye they will be moving on. The world is a gamble. A saint can be born into abuse, because abuse is a risk of incarnation. A body may get brain damage and that saint would not be able to function. However in eternity, one human lifetime is but a quick thought.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Here's a short story that really drives home the idea Abra is suggesting, or one very close to it: The Egg Short and sweet, and makes you really rethink things.

Thanks for sharing, Darkmatters! Sort of a tour de force of all things reincarnation, yet without ever touching on any particular established dogma...

Sivason,

Your analogy with a sequence of books makes sense. However, it seems to me to repeat what I said in another form. There is a kind of memory that connects one book to the next in the sequence. One state follows from a previous state, there's memory in that, even if its a dynamic kind. Granted we're all one in some ultimate sense, we can agree on that and set that aside. What is this 'memory' that connects a person to a particular previous life? Eventually it has to actually turn up in our experience if what the analogies represent is real. My experience so far seems to be that the real pattern is not a simple sequence, that its a lot more complex than that, and that if I were to trace a history of past lives, other people would be able to trace histories that contain some of the same lives. Moreover, depending on what criteria I use to trace my history, I would wind up with different paths involving different historical people. I guess I'm not arguing against reincarnation, I'm arguing against the thought of reincarnation that most people seem to have, arguing for another thought. Though I'm completely open to experiencing things that would change my thought, that would be great.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Sivason,

Your analogy with a sequence of books makes sense. However, it seems to me to repeat what I said in another form. There is a kind of memory that connects one book to the next in the sequence. One state follows from a previous state, there's memory in that, even if its a dynamic kind. Granted we're all one in some ultimate sense, we can agree on that and set that aside. What is this 'memory' that connects a person to a particular previous life? Eventually it has to actually turn up in our experience if what the analogies represent is real. My experience so far seems to be that the real pattern is not a simple sequence, that its a lot more complex than that, and that if I were to trace a history of past lives, other people would be able to trace histories that contain some of the same lives. Moreover, depending on what criteria I use to trace my history, I would wind up with different paths involving different historical people. I guess I'm not arguing against reincarnation, I'm arguing against the thought of reincarnation that most people seem to have, arguing for another thought. Though I'm completely open to experiencing things that would change my thought, that would be great.

Well in my bit about copying a hard drive, i attempt to understand and rationalize how this happens. That is why I say on a micro level of only a few lives, the standard model seems ok, but when looking at the big picture it gets complex. I honestly believe some people do share past lives in common as strange as the two of us must sound to others.

Originally Posted by hermine_hesse

So...the series of waves is like a series of lives. A wave crashes and reforms - we die and are reborn. But even though we are a series of lives that is unique to each of us, we are also more deeply connected to each other?

Basically. The critical part of the analogy is that a wave cannot exist independantly of the medium in which it occurs. There is no way to say "This is the wave and this is the ocean." It is all an inseparable whole. A Zen saying describes it as "Not one, not two."

Originally Posted by sivason

I honestly believe some people do share past lives in common as strange as the two of us must sound to others.

This actually makes more sense to me than the idea of a single soul traveling from one body to the next.

Sivason,
I assume you believe that all animals have always been capable of containing a conscious? Its hard to imagine that this system would be in place for billions of years knowing that for the first 2 billion years of life on earth living organisms were incapable of decision and survived purely by mechanism.

Originally Posted by sivason

I honestly believe some people do share past lives in common as strange as the two of us must sound to others.

Originally Posted by hermine_hesse

This actually makes more sense to me than the idea of a single soul traveling from one body to the next.

Cosmic Jellyfish

After the living consciousness came into being it first made contact with the last civilisation before it died (or maybe after it died). This this civilisation then wanted to reach those from it's past to bring them into eternity.

This took a lot of planning and training. Because when eternal consciousness was born all matter had eternal life but no knowledge of why or what happened. Now they are/were lost in their personal belief systems.

It's a big, big job, enlightening a (now) eternal soul.

What happens is ...

The fully trained-up members of the last civilization became like a exyremely, spiritually-advanced Cosmic Jellyfish. Once on the move it went back in time a little way. It then let down some streemers and touched one streemer to one freshly concieved life.

Now that jellyfish will silently, stay with that life from conception to death. It will suffer with that individual. It will never forsake that individual. And it is merged with that individual.

Difficult concept because there is no decent metaphore or story to describe it adequately.

Nick Newports Lucidoligy 3 helps me frame it a bit.

Nick gets us to OBE/lucid dream and go to our own personal Cosmic Jellyfish. You can't really plan that, jusy keep the intent on the backburner and wait till it happens spontainiously. Then record it.

It is believed that we go to our oversoul, often for a rest, when we sleep. We may meet others that our oversoul has touched with it's other streemers. They feel like kindred spirits and close spiritual family.

It is said that if you happen to meet someone on a streemer from your oversoul, you feel like you have known them for all time. You have very strong telepathy with them. You are actually one with them through your oversoul.

Nick asks you to look in a mirror when you are within your oversoul (in a dream) and meet your other incarnations on this earth, right now, or even living in the past or future. These people are not really you but because you share the same oversoul it really, really feels like they (each one of them) is you.

It's past midnight here and I got to get some shut-eye. I hope to "share-dream" with the folks here tonight:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f144/centr...thread-134420/

Originally Posted by dutchraptor

Sivason,
I assume you believe that all animals have always been capable of containing a conscious? Its hard to imagine that this system would be in place for billions of years knowing that for the first 2 billion years of life on earth living organisms were incapable of decision and survived purely by mechanism.

There are again, two issues here. The first, do all animals have a spirit/soul that will continue past death. Second, how long it has been going on.

First, simply my own beliefs on the subject of course. Not every animal has a true spirit inside them, some are simply biological mechination. Me and my wife refer to an organic being as either having an entity or not having an entity. Where ever the souls are generated it is not through the birth of every biological organism. The soul that is about to incarnate will either randomly enter a body that is familiar or will have some say over the type of body. This makes some animals more desirable "hosts" than others. Here is an outlandish belief I have that will strike some as horrable. that is that not every human biological organism does contain a soul/spirit. This is perhaps an answer to Abra's comment about sociopaths. Some animals and people are nothing more than mechanations. Others have weaker young souls while a feww have powerful spirits inside them. In this case a certain dog may actually be more spiritually evolved than certain humans.
As far as small organisms like mosquitos, I have a belief about that also. I think the majority of such things are mechanaations, while a soul can choose to become many many small organisms instead of one large one. This would be a case where one soul is experiencing the lives of many hives of bees or colonies of ants, for example. It could not be said each bee has a soul, but a soul may be directing the general existance of thousands of insects.


As far as the comment that it seems the system would not have been in place billions of years, you are missing one obvious aspect. That is that the current universe is 13.7ish billions of years old already. You looked at life on Earth when that thought came to you, but that is not a real limitation. It can be assumed that as soon as 1-2 billion years after the big bang advanced life may have formed in early galaxies. Many scientists now feel that the big bang does not have to represent the begining. The idea simply being that other universes may exist that are older, or that it is a repeating cycle. That is my own belief, and the belief of Hindu culture. They say they universe is one of many and that each is cyclical, so that hundreds of billions of years may have already passed.

Sivason:

If biological organisms are just carriers and not generators of souls, then from where do you believe souls form? This might sound irrelevant, but I think that knowledge of the formation of souls might help aid understanding reincarnation...


Quick addition: In fairness, I suppose I should add from where I currently think souls are generated, though it may also ring irrelevant on this thread:

For me, souls are the accumulation of a lifetime of an individual's specific thought energy (which in turn was generated by each and every one of their conscious thoughts). The thought energy accumulates because it is attracted to itself. This accumulated thought energy becomes a pool of energy whose quality is based on the quality of the thoughts that formed it (so think good thoughts!), and lies dormant until the individual dies, at which point the individual has an opportunity to shift his consciousness from his failing corporeal body to the pool, energizing it with sentience and making it that individual's new vessel for existence as a creature of light -- a true soul. And again, the quality of that soul -- the brightness of its light, depends entirely upon the quality of the thoughts that created it.

That's an extremely abbreviated description, so I'm not sure it makes sense, but it does sort of negate a real need for reincarnation (though by no means disqualifies its existence, I think; who knows? Some of us may choose to return to corporeal form occasionally).

I don't think its quite right to say that certain animals or individual people have or don't have souls. A particular form will support the awareness and expression of soul in a different way than another. That expression may be more conscious in some people than in others, but its all a part of the same thing, and every part has a role.

Thanks Debrajane, that makes some sense.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Sivason:

If biological organisms are just carriers and not generators of souls, then from where do you believe souls form? This might sound irrelevant, but I think that knowledge of the formation of souls might help aid understanding reincarnation...

Ok, this is of course just my humble understanding of it,,, The one force that makes up everything is then divided and further sub-divided into infinity. The process is sort of like budding off new organisms. The parent source of an individual may be the same between two souls, in which case they shre affinities, common values in general, and perhaps all of the past life memories prior to thier own spawning. While others may be so far removed since the origianal division of the parent source as to have seemingly nothing in common.

In case the comment helps clarify for anyone....I think there's growth like what Sageous suggests implied in the branching that Sivason suggests, since otherwise the souls would get smaller and smaller with each generation.

Originally Posted by sivason

Ok, this is of course just my humble understanding of it,,, The one force that makes up everything is then divided and further sub-divided into infinity. The process is sort of like budding off new organisms. The parent source of an individual may be the same between two souls, in which case they shre affinities, common values in general, and perhaps all of the past life memories prior to thier own spawning. While others may be so far removed since the origianal division of the parent source as to have seemingly nothing in common.

Very Interesting ... Thank you!

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

In case the comment helps clarify for anyone....I think there's growth like what Sageous suggests implied in the branching that Sivason suggests, since otherwise the souls would get smaller and smaller with each generation.

I think you make a good point, and also show how Sivason and my concepts could not only easily coexist, but can complement each other.

Fascinating ... I'm still not a fan of reincarnation, but still fascinating!

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

In case the comment helps clarify for anyone....I think there's growth like what Sageous suggests implied in the branching that Sivason suggests, since otherwise the souls would get smaller and smaller with each generation.

Good point. Everything is expanding. I like your expression, like a fractal pattern.