These
are thoughts on the soul and reincarnation and provide a solid
historical context. All such thoughts also introduce the idea of
eternity which bounds such ruminations.
As
I have posted, the soul is a prospective target of out present
expansion of knowledge just as is the holodec. A capture of our
edited self as information with natural linkage to time and space
would be a soul. Embedding that as a fresh linkage into a new child
would also appear plausible.
If
it is possible at all, then it is reasonable that it has already been
done and that we are now participating in the process. Again, I can
imagine it as physical reality and that alone makes it probable
greater than zero. GOD is the managing physical ubermind of such
humanity and soul linkages.
Eternity is Now.
One
Soul, Many Bodies: The Case for Reincarnation
Allan
Danelek,
What
happens to us when we die? It’s a question everyone eventually asks
themselves at some point in their life. It transcends racial, social,
political, economic and gender lines, making it the one question
common to all human beings whether we like it or not.
Yet
ever since the first men and woman began pondering their mortality a
hundred thousand years ago, the answer has eluded us. What does
happen when we die? What becomes of our soul, our mind, our
personality – our very essence? For that matter, do we even have
such a thing as a soul, or is it all an illusion we have created to
give ourselves a sense of permanence and the hope
of immortality?
The
rationalist answers this query by proclaiming that since we are
nothing more than a collection of cells and our brains simply tissue
encased within a mantle of bone, nothing can happen to us when we
die. The essence, personality, mind – soul – or whatever we wish
to call our consciousness, ceases to exist, endowing our time on this
planet with no more meaning than that which we choose to give it
during our brief sojourn here. This is, of course, the position of
the atheist, which is what makes atheism, in my opinion, so easy. It
requires nothing because it offers nothing, which strikes me as a
fair trade.
To
most people, however, this answer is unsatisfactory. It suggests that
we are little more than some great cosmic accident and that,
consequently, our life has no ultimate purpose, forcing us to
contemplate an existence
without meaning in
a universe that, despite all its beauty and splendour, has no more
significance – or ultimate permanence – than a flower that
briefly blooms in the spring only to wither and die after a few short
days of vibrant life.
I
suppose there are people for whom such a prospect is acceptable. It
does, after all, tidy things up and make life simply a little game we
sentient beings like to play for no particularly good reason other
than because we have no choice. Yet something deep within the human
heart knows better. We instinctively understand that we are more than
the sum of our parts, which is why most people believe their
personalities will survive their physical demise in some form and
will continue on long after their bones have turned to dust. This, of
course, brings us to our second option, which is that the
personality/ego/true self/whatever you want to call it does survive
the demise of the body to exist – at least for a time – as a
separate disembodied consciousness. If this is the case, however, the
next question that logically follows is what happens next?
Some
believe, for example, that we become ghosts – little more than
disembodied spirits aimlessly wandering the Earth, capable of
perceiving the physical realm but unable to interact with it in any
meaningful way. They can even point to various evidences to support
this contention, from reported hauntings to automatic writing,
séances, and apparent disembodied spirits caught on film.
While
I personally have no problem with the idea of ghosts, I don’t think
existing as a disembodied consciousness is truly a viable long-term
option for what happens to us. Ghosts always struck me as being
transitory; beings stuck on the Earth plane for a time only to
ultimately move on and so essentially vanish from our physical realm.
As such, even if we are to become ghosts, it will be, at least
for the vast majority of us, a brief experience and not our eternity.
I suspect we all eventually move on to ‘greener pastures’, so to
speak.
Now,
however, is where things get more interesting. Most people,
regardless of whether they believe in ghosts or not, believe that the
essence of who we are – our “soul” if you will – goes some
place. Heaven is the favoured destination for most; a place where our
conscious personality, no longer shackled to the limitations and
burdens of physical existence, survives within a perpetual state of
bliss and joy throughout eternity. Some add to this by also embracing
a belief in hell; a perpetual state of torment for those who turn to
evil and so are doomed to exist forever within a conscious state of
agony, regret, and fear.
Both
positions, however, suffer from the same problem, and that is that
they see our time here on this planet as but a blink of the eye of
eternity, with the decisions we make – or fail to make – while in
the body having profound and eternal ramifications. Unfortunately,
this reduces the physical world to little more than a cosmic hatchery
that exists only to birth new souls, each of which will spend a short
time in it before winging – or, potentially, plunging – to their
ultimate destiny.
While
admittedly this idea does manage to make this single life of
paramount importance, it also forces one to wonder why a physical
realm is necessary at all. If the physical universe exists merely as
a vehicle for our creation, why couldn’t the process be
circumvented entirely and we be created directly into the spiritual
realm – as was supposedly the case with God’s angels?
Why
all the unnecessary pain and hardship of a physical existence –
especially if there exists the very real danger that we might earn
hell through our misdeeds – if the spirit realm is the only
destination that awaits us? In such a context, physical existence
seems not only pointless but, in many ways, even hazardous.
So
where does that leave us? If no Heaven and if no Hell, then what’s
left?
There
is a third position to consider. It is one that until recently has
been largely ignored in the West but has been embraced by literally
billions of people around the world for thousands of years. It is the
belief that this physical existence is neither insignificant nor
transient, but instead is perpetually ongoing. It is the concept that
our soul lives on not in some ethereal Eden – or Hades –
somewhere, but realises perpetual existence through a
process of continual rebirths into the physical realm,
making our time on this planet not one single, brief experience, but
a repetitive process realised through literally hundreds of
lifetimes. It is a timeless belief – one that predates both
Christianity and Islam by many centuries – and one that is known by
many names in many cultures. It’s been called rebirth,
regeneration, transmigration of the soul, even metempsychosis, but is
perhaps best known to us today as reincarnation.
Upon
first consideration, especially to those who haven’t given the idea
great thought, reincarnation may seem to be a foreign or exotic
concept, especially to the Western mind steeped in the scientific
method and drenched in two thousand years of monotheistic religion.
It is something for Hindu holy men to ponder, or New Agers to
embrace, but nothing that seems particularly relevant to most
Westerners today.
I
can easily understand this perspective for it is one I held myself
for the first forty years of my life. And the truth be told, it is an
Eastern concept – one in vogue more
than four millennia before Christ was born and a belief held to by
nearly two billion of the world’s population today – making it
one of the oldest and most enduring belief systems known to man.
In fact, it may be the original post-mortem belief among early humans
who probably considered the idea when they began noticing strong
similarities between recently born offspring and their deceased
ancestors. Perhaps the mannerisms or interests a child displayed
reminded one of a deceased loved one or a birthmark mimicked that
found on a long-dead grandparent, leading village elders to imagine
that the dead ancestor had returned a second time – a not
unreasonable assumption in cultures that naturally assumed the soul
to be inherently immortal.
Unfortunately,
Westerners have traditionally had a tendency to consider foreign or
primordial religious concepts as primitive and so reject them out of
hand. However, this perception appears to be slowly changing as
reincarnationist beliefs have become more prevalent in the West,
especially in the last fifty years, and is becoming increasingly
popular to ever growing numbers of people.
A
Lost Western Tradition of How the Soul Returns
Of
course, unbeknownst to most people, reincarnation has always been
a part of Western thought. The prospect that the soul repeatedly
returns to the flesh flourished in ancient Greece almost three
thousand years ago and may have played a far more important role
in our development as a civilisation than traditional histories have
led us to believe. Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, and Pythagoras all
taught and believed in some form of rebirth, the foundations of which
were later adopted by the great Roman philosophers Ovid, Virgil, and
Cicero, along with a host of other great thinkers of antiquity.
In
fact, reincarnationist concepts were so prevalent in the centuries
immediately preceding the birth of Christ, that they played a major
role in many of the “mystery” religions of the Mediterranean;
religions which were themselves to become the template for other
later mystical faith systems of the region. Reincarnation, then, far
from being a purely foreign concept was, in fact, widespread and may
have strongly influenced the shape and thrust of Greek and Roman
philosophy.
Even
more of a surprise to many people, however, is the fact that
reincarnationist concepts were also part of some of the more
mystical branches of traditional Western religion, from the Sufis of
Islam to the Gnostics of the early centuries of Christianity, and
even within the Hasidic and Kabbalist traditions in Judaism. In fact,
at times it virtually flourished and, especially in the case of
Christianity, almost became the predominant belief system during the
first few centuries of the Church’s existence until it was forced
underground by the more traditional, non-reincarnationist branches of
Christianity. Its proponent’s writings declared heretical and
burned, the concept was so successfully suppressed by the Church of
Rome that few Christians today even realise it was ever a part of
their own faith.
Why
was it suppressed? The obvious answer is because it threatened
authority. Western religion is largely dependent upon the belief
that man is destined to “die once and then be judged” to maintain
control. In promising multiple rebirths, however, reincarnation
renders the proclamations of the Pope or the Grand Mufti or whomever
was the ruling head at the time transitory and, the truth be
told, irrelevant. As such, reincarnation threatened the Church’s
very livelihood, making it a very dangerous idea that had to be
either suppressed or labelled as heretical in order for the Church to
maintain its power base. As a result, the concept remained largely
unknown outside of Asia for probably seventeen of the last twenty-one
centuries.
Its
revival in the West was imminent, however, with the arrival of the
Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. Once the long
forgotten writings of the ancient Greeks again became available and
one could hold to previously forbidden ideas without forfeiting their
lives, such once forbidden concepts as reincarnation became
increasingly popular, especially among the intellectual elite of the
era. Amongst those who held to some form of multiple rebirths are
such notables as Charles
Dickens,
Ralph
Waldo Emerson,
Benjamin Franklin,Shakespeare,
Leonardo Da Vinci, and Voltaire, among others.
Interpreting
What it Means to Reincarnate
However,
since its reintroduction into the Western consciousness,
reincarnation has undergone a transformation. It is no longer the
unending “cycle
of life” wheel taught by the Hindus and Buddhists,
but
has become a “school of higher education” designed to bring us to
ever greater levels of spiritual enlightenment.
This is why when a Hindu or a Buddhist and their fellow Western
reincarnationist talk about the subject, it often appears as though
they are speaking two different languages. This is because in some
ways they are, which is where the confusion comes in.
To
the Hindu, the soul is essentially stuck in a never ending cycle of
rebirth which can never be broken due to the continual need to
balance one’s karma. In effect, with each incarnation into the
flesh, the human personality – a by-product of the underlying soul
that birthed it – accumulates a degree of bad karma that must be
worked off in order to restore balance to itself. Some of this karma
can be worked off in life in the form of good works, but this is
seldom sufficient to work off the entire debt, which must be
accounted for in the next life by having the soul take on an
incarnation that may be more difficult so the ongoing karmic debt can
be worked off.
On
rare occasions, a life may be so exemplary that the person might be
born into a higher station (or caste in Hindu parlance) but as a
rule, bad karma tends to outweigh good karma and, in being
continually accumulated through each lifetime, adds to the growing
debt that remains to be balanced and so perpetuating the rebirth
cycle. (Of course, if one accumulates too much bad karma, they may
not be reborn as a person at all, but could come back as an animal or
even, in some teachings, an inanimate object such as a stone. This
belief is called “transmigration of the soul” and is also a major
element of Hindu teachings.)
Buddhism,
on the other hand, while understanding the
process of reincarnation in
much the same way as does the Hindu, differs in that it teaches that
the cycle of rebirth can be broken through achieving nirvana
(literally, enlightenment), at which point the cycle is broken.
Enlightenment
means essentially to be become aware of one’s true nature and to
the realities contained within the Four Noble Truths as articulated
by Gautama Buddha over two thousand years ago. These are: first, to
be alive is to suffer due to the imperfection of human nature and the
world around us; second, that the cause of suffering is attachment to
transient things (in effect, craving or desiring things); third, that
one can learn to let go of these attachments; and, finally, that the
process of achieving enlightenment is progressive and may itself
extend over many lifetimes.
In
sharp contrast, to many Western reincarnationists, the purpose of
rebirth is to learn the lessons we need to learn in each incarnation
in order to advance to the next spiritual level which, while having
some similarities to the Buddhist concept of slowly achieving
enlightenment over a number of incarnations by practicing
the Buddha’s
Eightfold Path (right
view, right intentions, right speech, right action, right livelihood,
right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration), is
actually quite different.
The
Buddhist does not believe that one is “learning” new lessons with
each lifetime, but simply applying the principles contained within
the Eightfold Path until craving, ignorance, delusions and its
effects gradually disappear as progress is made towards
enlightenment. To the Western mindset, attachment is not seen as the
source of the problem (though it does generally acknowledge that an
obsessive attachment to things can be detrimental to spiritual
growth).
Another
significant difference between Eastern and Western concepts of
reincarnation have to do with the perception of what it is, exactly,
that is reincarnating. The Hindu sees the soul – the divine essence
of God – as being the generator of each incarnation, with the
individual personality or ego a transient expression of that soul.
In
marked contrast, the Buddhist doesn’t believe in individualised
souls at all, but believes the sense of self is merely an illusion
created by our own perceptions – a conscious “memory” if you
will, conceived by our assumption that we exist separately. To the
Buddhist, we are all a part of a larger, divine consciousness that
has simply taken on the very brief “illusion” that it is
separate. The Buddhists compare our sense of existence to the waves
upon the ocean; just as a wave is a temporary phenomena caused by
wind and currents, our personality is equally as transient and is,
upon death, absorbed back into the divine consciousness in the same
way that a wave upon the ocean is eventually swallowed up by the
ocean itself.
In
the West, however, the personality – or ego – is more robust and
generally considered immortal. To many, the soul and the personality
are considered essentially synonymous,
so as a result, when we die, our basic personality – complete with
all its memories, life experiences, knowledge, and traits – returns
in another body to continue its existence. It may not have a direct
memory
of its past life –
though some people claim to be possess the ability to consciously
remember their previous incarnations – but it is essentially the
same personality starting life over again in another context.
The
personality may experience dramatically new surroundings – for
example, it may experience one incarnation as an Indian girl who
lived and died in the nineteenth century and then return as a Spanish
man in the twentieth century – but it is still the same “person”
underlying each “role.” Of course, the experiences and
environment it finds itself in through each subsequent incarnation
will affect the base personality in both subtle and sometimes
substantial ways, but this too is a part of the process. This is why
the Westerner sees reincarnation in the context of “lessons.”
After all, the Indian girl was able to experience and learn only so
much in her short time on Earth, mandating that she return again –
this time as a Spanish male – to learn those things she either
neglected to learn or hadn’t the opportunity to learn in her
previous incarnation.
This
makes spiritual enlightenment a type of “to do” list that needs
to be checked off in its entirety before we can cease the process of
rebirth. (What happens after that is equally open to speculation
among Westerners: some imagine we come back as avatars or spiritual
teachers; others speculate that we start the process over again on
another planet, while still others maintain that we move onto other
dimensions. Apparently, the options available to the enlightened soul
are extensive.)
I
wonder, however, if the truth is not a conglomeration of each of
these perceptions? Clearly the Eastern concepts of a parent soul that
births each and every individual personality has merit, as does the
Buddhist belief in the transient, temporary nature of the ego that is
birthed. And the Western concept that we reincarnate until we learn
what we need to know also has some validity and seems to parallel in
some ways the Buddhist idea that the cycle of rebirth ends upon
achieving enlightenment – however one chooses to define the term.
I
often wonder if we aren’t all looking upon the same phenomena and
not simply seeing only those parts of it that speak to us personally.
I suspect our understanding of the purpose for reincarnation is
lacking in many ways and may never be entirely complete, though I
also believe we are making progress in coming to a fuller
appreciation for its complexity and sophistication. Perhaps one day
East and West will come together and merge their different
perceptions and in so doing, form a complete whole that answers
everyone’s questions.
Of
course, I recognise that such may sound like a contradictory process.
After all, how can there be a soul and yet not a soul, and how can
the ego be immortal and yet transient? To combine both Western and
Eastern concepts of reincarnation would seem to embrace paradox, but
I have found it is often within the complexities of paradox that the
truth exists. In fact, it is only our limited ability to understand
that makes these apparent contradictions paradoxes in the first
place.
I
wonder if they would still appear as such were we to find the
capacity within ourselves to truly understand on a level our current
mental capacity does not permit. On the other hand, perhaps
understanding these concepts is not done at a mind level, but on a
spiritual level, which is a difficult place for many people to go.
Maybe
in the end we were never meant to fully understand how
reincarnation works,
and that may be where the adventure really begins. Perhaps the
question of what happens to us when we die was never meant to be
answered but merely explored, for it is in seeking – not
necessarily finding – the answer that growth can take place.
It
may be, in fact, that it is only in abandoning our need to find the
answers that we give them the ability to find us. In effect, we may
be like the man who is so busy looking for treasure that he fails to
realise he is searching for it within the bowels of a gold mine. Were
he to but look up and see the treasure that shimmers all around him,
he would realise how silly his fervent quest had been all along.
Perhaps we need only do the same.
Jeff
Allen Danelek’s latest book The
Case for Reincarnation: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Soul
(Llewellyn,
2010) is available from all good bookstores or
via www.newdawnbooks.info.
About
the Author
A
native Minnesotan who currently resides in Colorado, JEFF
ALLEN DANELEK has
been working as a graphic artist and technical illustrator since
leaving the Navy in 1984. He has been writing as a hobby for fifteen
years, and enjoys presenting alternative theories on increasingly
popular subjects dealing with the strange and inexplicable world
around us. Danelek is regularly featured at seminars, conferences,
and has been a frequent guest on Coast to Coast AM with George
Noory and the X-Zone with Rob McConnell. His books include The
Case for Ghosts, Atlantis:
Lessons from a Prehistoric Civilization, UFOs:
The Great Debate,
and 2012:
Extinction or Utopia: Doomsday Prophecies Explored.
His latest book is The
Case for Reincarnation: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Soul.
Danelek is also a novelist and instructor at Colorado Free
University. His website is www.ourcuriousworld.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment