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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity


 

Reincarnation On Trial

Will the experiences of 1000 lives create an evolved soul?

 


 

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Advocates of reincarnation theory suggest that, over many lifetimes, full of various and sundry experiences: fireman, farmer, teacher, ship's mate, prostitute, artist, nun, doctor, aboriginal forest-dweller, saint, politician, factory worker, on and on; sometimes as male, then as female; living within all cultures, socio-economic levels, religious beliefs, and philosophies; that, at some undetermined point in the distant future, maybe, as some say, even after 100,000 birth-to-death trips to the Earth; having experienced a great deal, now replete with diverse human perspectives - we shall finally become a balanced, complete, and evolved soul.

I believe this view to be gross error.

It is error for many reasons, ones offered in this suite of essays; however, to focus on the illusion at hand, even a seemingly endless iteration of lives, without something more, would leave us not one whit closer to spiritual maturity.

Some say that suffering makes the soul tender and more receptive to God; that, many lifetimes of suffering will eventually produce the advanced spiritual entity.

This contains an element of truth but, in essence, takes us in the wrong direction. Just because most people learn, that is, are forced into certain lessons by suffering, doesn't mean that there couldn't be a better way if the spirit were willing. Suffering, per se - without something else - will engender a bitter and resentful attitude toward life - which we find in a great many people in this world; and, at the end of such a life, or a thousand, one will enter a worse frame of mind than at one's beginnings.

The doctrine of reincarnation is built upon several false premises which distort the nature of what it means to be human. Among these misrepresentations, a most significant one is this: as the soul, via multiple lifetimes, gathers more experience, more education, more knowledge, it will, of necessity, become more wise, more spiritual, more evolved.

Is there prima facie evidence for this?

Think about the elite in this world: the most experienced, the most knowledgeable, the most travelled, the most educated, the most advantaged - are these people, of necessity, the most spiritually minded? We all know the answer - these are not necessarily the most wise, the most spiritual, the most evolved persons; in fact, we are tempted to assert, in most cases, an inverse correlation. Too often, in this world, the elites - the most talented, the rich-and-powerful, the best educated - use their gifts to lord-it-over and oppress others. This is the story of history. And yet a foundational premise of reincarnation preaches otherwise.

 

Reincarnation won't help you if you don't know who you are.

 

 

an excerpt from Eckhart Tolle's book, "Stillness Speaks":

Reincarnation doesn't help you if [you] don't know who you are. All the misery on the planet arises due to a personalized sense of “me” or “us.”

That covers up the essence of who you are. When you’re unaware of that inner essence, in the end you always create misery. It’s as simple as that.

When you don’t know who you are you create a mind-made self as a substitute for your beautiful divine being and cling to that fearful and needy self. Protecting and enhancing that false sense of self then becomes your primary motivating force.

 

Editor’s note: Reincarnation won’t help you if you don’t know who you are, and, with vivifying “catch-22,” you won’t need reincarnation if you do know who you are.

When we speak here of “need reincarnation,” we mean in the sense popularly employed but not as reflective of reality. The “fearful and needy self” looks for “more time” to complete its self-evaluated condition of “I am not enough.” But this assessment is illusion. We already have what we need.

However, this is the psychological driving force behind reincarnation’s appeal. People are looking for a way to complete themselves, enhance and add to themselves, and they feel that they need “more time” to do this.

everything in life takes time, except one thing, the only thing you really need

There’s a certain logic to this demand for more time. In all activities of life we need time – to read a book, to travel from A to B, to pull weeds in the garden. Everything takes times, and so, what could be more reasonable than to believe one’s bottomless pit of “fear and neediness” should not require thousands of extra lives upon the Earth as herculean effort toward bolstering “I am not enough”?

But this is wrong. If you know who you truly are, you don’t need reincarnation – if such were an option or possible – because the “true self” is part of Universal Consciousness which exists in a timeless dimension of the eternal now.

No time is required to access it, nor is time required to find your true self. It comes to us in one timeless moment of cosmic clarity.

 

 

Restated: reincarnation proclaims that we come to this world, over and over and over again, to gain more experience, all of which funnels toward spiritual maturity.

I suggest this to be patent error - on several levels.

We do not come to the Earth primarily for experience - I say primarily. We come here to "open our eyes," spiritually speaking, to gain a higher level of consciousness; experience, unlimited amounts of it, will be added later, in a whole universe as classroom, once personal awareness is in place to process the experience. Experience alone, no matter how much, without something more, will not produce the evolved soul. Animals, infant children, and the mentally infirm also experience the world, but without salubrious effect. And the "spiritually asleep" are virtually in the same category as these. Unless heightened perspicacity exists, a blizzard of sensory data will impinge, to no avail, upon blind eyes.

 

  • Editor's note: Experience, I suggest, can be an overrated commodity in another aspect. One might say, "I have 30 years of experience doing such-and-such." But, is it 30 years of experience? or is it 1 year of experience repeated 30 times? How much did you really learn during those 30 years that truly changed your inner person? If one endures 1000 lifetimes of different occupations and cultures, but, in each case, is led by a grasping, dysfunctional ego, would this panoply of experience truly be that of 1000 lifetimes? or, essentially, the same self-centered, spiritually unconscious, life repeated 1000 times but with different masks?

 

we need more time, says the ego

Reincarnation, essentially, says, "We need more time! Enlightenment of the soul requires a great number of years, therefore, a great number of lifetimes. Enlightenment," they say, "will occur in the future, a very distant future, after much time has passed."

This is gross error.

 

one moment of clarity

Enlightenment has nothing to do with time. Enlightenment, whenever we are willing, takes place in the present moment. We do not need an endless parade of lives to eventually stumble into enlightenment - all we need is one moment of clarity; the shift into a higher state of consciousness occurs in "no time," an eternal moment of now.

 

  • Editor's note: The best modern explicator of clarity in the present moment is Eckhart Tolle. I often refer to his work. You will want to read his books; also, check out Youtube and your local library for DVDs of Eckhart's lectures.

 

Eckhart Tolle's The Power Of Now & A New Earth

 

Those who've undergone the near-death experience (NDE) speak of having entered a timeless place of love and bliss that unalterably shifted perspectives. In a moment, they were forever changed.

In an instant, in a world of "no time," they found themselves elevated to an enlightened state! The blossoming of the human spirit did not require eons of time and 100,000 lives - but, only one instant of contact with authentic love and joy.

But we do not need to endure an NDE to enter enlightenment. The beginning stages of greater awareness are not hard to effect. Tolle's books explain it well.

 

 

Eckhart Tolle, from a lecture entitled The Flowering Of Human Consciousness

The small ego seeks for "more time" in order to complete itself...

 

 

The small ego seeks for enhancements as it believes itself to be “not enough.” If the small ego could speak it would say...

Please give me more time so that I can know myself [in order to complete myself]. That is the mind-pattern, because for everything else you need time: please give me time to make money – you need some time. please give me time to learn a languageto find a mate; please give me time to bake a cake – everything requires time, and on that level, it’s fine, you need time, you need time for all those things – but then if you step into the area of [self-knowledge, and if you say] give me time to know who I am, that’s the beginning of the delusion, to say, I need time to find myself.

"Once the delusion that you need time to find yourself is firmly established, and it happens quickly, then all further actions, thought, aims are colored and distorted by that delusion – they’re all an expression of needing to find yourself [in time].

"All the desires and fears that provide the motivating power behind what people do, the basis for that is the mentally-made sense of self – it fears that it might never become complete or that it might lose that little that it has,” and therefore it seeks for more time to complete itself, when in reality the true person is already perfect and complete but lacks awareness of the inner wholeness.

 

 

 

Eckhart Tolle, from a lecture entitled Even The Sun Will Die.

believing that our better state of mind will happen "in the future" is the core error of the "false self'

 

People ask, how can I reach this new state of consciousness? How do I get there? This happens especially with “spiritual” people, they see a new state of mind to be achieved and they believe it will happen “in the future.” And this illusion that the new state of mind will be achieved “in the future” lies at the core of the error of the mind-made self [the “false self,”] which is led by feelings of “I don’t have enough” because “I am not enough.”

people want to "add" something to themselves, they want "more time" to become better, not realizing they already have all they need within the deeper person

And they strive toward some mentally-created ideal, some mentally-crafted sense of self or perfection. That’s a trap of spirituality, not realizing that [what we seek is already within us and cannot be “added” to us].

Almost every religion [Editor’s note: including the religion of reincarnationalism] gives you "more time” to achieve, to “become” – we want “more time” [because we sense a neediness of the “false self”]. And this misses the essence of the truth, which is “time won’t get you there.” You cannot get out of the old state of consciousness by adding “time,” more “future,” by giving yourself “more time.”

more content, more knowledge and experience, while good per se, will not create the new state of consciousness that you want

Or, even by adding content to your mind through further experiences, knowledge, even all kinds of spiritual experiences – [because that can be "external," too] but, this need to “add more before I can be myself” [is the problem]. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with knowledge or having new experiences -- yes, investigate and explore, and these things will require time, and nothing wrong with it, it’s fine, but there’s something more vital that most humans miss, and that is knowing who you are beyond the form in which you appear. That is the one thing that matters in life. Everything else matters relatively.

All the things that we can add to ourselves – the knowledge and the experiences – that’s relatively important, but not absolutely important. That’s the one thing that “time” and “future” cannot give you, it cannot be acquired by “adding” something to yourself. Nothing wrong with “adding,” but finding your [“true self”] will not happen by “adding.”

 

 

Editor’s note: In a previous article, we’ve addressed the error of “infinite doing.” With some believers of “R,” this surfeit of activity creates a doctrine of “coming back to the Earth many thousands of times.” There’s no evidence for this, but they believe it. They believe it, and want to believe it, because the “inner neediness” requires it of them: an “infinite doing,” they hope, will produce an “infinite adding,” and that’s what they’re really after – the displacement of Hoffer’s “spoiled self,” the spawning waters of every cult of history.

more than drinking the koolaid

The long reach of cultism encompasses much more than crackpot churches. The root idea of cult offers the sense of "cut." This core concept of "cut" leads us to images of refinement and refashioning and, by extension, development, control, pattern, order, and system.

Cultism as systemization finds a ready home in religion and philosophy which seek to regulate and redistill the patterning and ordering of ideas. However, in a larger sense, the spirit of cultism extends to every facet of society. We find it scheming and sedulously at work in politics, academia, family, corporations, entertainment, science, artistry – anywhere power might be gained by capturing credulous and fear-based minds.

See the “cultism” page for a full discussion.

 

1000 lives, per se, could never offer us enlightenment - it takes something else

I appreciate Dr. Joseph Campbell's thoughts on this important subject:

 

Dr. Joseph Campbell's The Power Of Myth


 
 

to feel the rapture of being alive 

(an excerpt from his interview with Bill Moyer)

Dr. Campbell: "People say that what we're all seeking [through experience] is a meaning for life. I don’t think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life-experiences, on the purely physical plane, will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about."

 

Editor's note: Wonderfully stated. The "rapture of being alive" - the joy and bliss, simply of existing, of coming to know one's own soul.

 

 

 

  • Louise Bogan: "The inscrutable universe turns on an axis of" nothing external or materialistic but "... pure joy."

 

 

"I'm alive! I'm alive! I'm alive!"

 

I'm Alive!

The Hollies

Did you ever see a man with no heart
Baby, that was me
Just a lonely, lonely man with no heart
'Til you set me free
Now I can breathe
I can see
I can touch
I can feel
I can taste all the sugar sweetness in your kiss
You give me all the things I've ever missed
I've never felt like this
I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive
I used to think I was living
Baby, I was wrong
No I never knew a thing about living
'Til you came along
Now I can breathe
I can see
I can touch
I can feel...

 

 

 

that's what it's all finally about 

"Our life-experiences," says Dr. Campbell, even of 1000 rebirths, will stand as impotent alchemists before the darkened heart unless they also bring offerings of "resonances within our own innermost being." Unless life in this world forms a nexus between mundane experience and inner-person awakening to "the rapture of being alive," no real spiritual change will take place.

"That's what it's all finally about." And this is why NDE survivors, in an instant, are forever changed, as are all who experience enlightenment -- a timeless-moment encounter with joy and love.

Eons of endless reincarnational lifetimes led by the dysfunctional ego - which would be nothing more than a meaningless and tiring feedback loop, like caught in a dream that keeps on repeating - are not required nor advantageous; in fact, will engender a pervasive hopelessness and despair.

Let me say it again: only an encounter with genuine love and joy - be it only for an instant - will transform, open, and vivify the human heart. 

 

it's not possible, even in an eternity of time, for an individual to gain all experience

The following is an excerpt from Patricia Joudry's Twin Souls. Her writing is one of the best within the "Twin" genre. However, when she veers off into other subjects, I must demur somewhat. Consider her words:

According to ancient wisdom, the soul must acquire all experience on its way to perfection. All experience? Every soul? That is not possible, even in an eternity of time and an infinity of space. God could have made it possible, of course, but evolved a better plan: the group soul.
 
Members of the group soul are one in essence. Experience, when distilled, enters into the essence of being and flows freely to the others. In a steady process of growth, the knowledge and wisdom gained by the souls in their diversified living becomes part of the group as a whole. Such group sharing is a cosmic time-saver. By this plan, all the burdens need not be assumed individually. In the end, each soul will be all-knowing, without having had to drink every cup to the bottom.
 
For as the group ascends to meet the next [group] in the order of joining, it will become part of the greater oneness and subject to the same law of shared experience. And, [by] the unions [of groups] continuing across the broad spectrum of the universe, all experience will finally become common experience, while everything that makes each soul unique will persist.

This mystical vision of soul-groups merging with other soul-groups, like clusters of galaxies dancing in harmony, is something that, independently, I came to see as a possibility in terms of our destined cosmic oneness.

I would disagree, however, with Joudry in this: what is true for the individual is also true for the group -- eternity is not long enough to experience absolutely everything; it's like trying to name the highest number -- you can't do it as we can always add one more. Therefore, I submit, the thesis of each soul requiring all experience to achieve perfection is found wanting and bankrupt. But this concedes too much deference, as the inherent fallacy has not been addressed: if we were to live an infinite number of lives, in an infinite number of universes, experience, per se, without something else, would still not produce the enlightened soul.

 

 

 

Editor's last word:

Politicians invented the phrase "It's the economy, stupid!" to highlight the importance of finances; allow me to borrow this linguistic construct and say, "It's the joy and bliss, stupid!" - or, as Dr. Campbell said, "It's the rapture of being alive!"

That's what evolves the soul. That's what opens the eyes. That's what "saves" us. And it happens in one timeless moment, not endless lives led by the dark ego. One moment of contact with celestial love and joy forever changes, opens the eyes of, the percipient.

And why should this be so? - because it's the great "coming home," it's the "utter familiarity," it's like answering to like, it's invitation to eternal destiny, it's "rebooting" and returning to "factory-installed" settings; it's perceiving, with the eyes of the hidden inner-person, the fundamental essence of the universe, the secret mind of God, the very substrata of our own souls - which knows nothing else but joy.

It is not by accident that a surfeit of love-songs speak to this great awakening; the above example by The Hollies is but one among tens of thousands. Authentic Twin-soul romantic love (not the ersatz brain-chemical version) is designed to introduce destined lover and beloved to the mind of God, that cosmic epicenter of joy and bliss - an intoxicated pleasure extending far beyond that which typical marrieds in the world know as love. 

Each sacred romantic partner, each for the other, is "made in the image" and, as such, is custom-tailored to reveal blissful divine love and joy, an explosive, extreme delight - in a particular sense; that is, to one person only. You can't do this, it won't work, with just anyone.