Jaguar Guardian

A letter on recinarnation

March 17, 2006 |  6 comments
Image Credit: Jeroen van Valkenburg A topic I have been very interested in recently is reincarnation and the eternal questions: Why we are here and Who or What determines our destinies or life paths? In the early 20th century Annie Besant put it most eloquently when she proposed that there are only three different reasons why a person is predisposed to their existence. 1. Creation by God, implying that man is helpless, our destiny being controlled by an un-knowable power. God put us here for a reason, of which we have no way of avoiding. This is the religious explanation. 2. Heredity, implying helplessness on man's part, that we are the result of the previous generations actions, over which we have no control. This is the scientific explanation. 3. Reincarnation, implying that a human can become masters of their own destiny, being the result of our own individual spiritual past. This is the esoteric explanation.

Religion tells us, that our characters and behaviour are given to us by God, custom made and placed upon us without any choice of our own. If we were unlucky at the beginning of our creation, we would be doomed to a life of misery. Conversely, if we were lucky, we were given a life of luxury. For me this explanation doesn't hold water, it fails to take in to account the principal of free will which exists in our Universe. If the Great Spirit were wise enough to give us free will, then why would he/she force an unwelcome existence upon us? It contradicts the fact that we have choices in life. Some people argue that life is full of ironies; that it is full of contradictions. Perhaps that's the point of it all? We are put in a situation that we don't like, thrown blindly into existence and given choices to make he best of it, like rats in a maze. Sorry, but I can't swing with this theory. For me it just seems to rely on blind faith that the Creator will be kind enough to make sure everything works out for us. That existence is some kind of game. It tells us that we have one life to live and we better be good, docile people or else we are damned for eternity. Although religion does insist on an afterlife, it doesn't give us much to go on.

Science also believes it can explain away anything in the Universe; it believes that the origin of mankind is through evolution, which is that we evolved from the Apes. But it does not take into contention the spiritual evolution of Mankind. Science can offer no explanation of difference in hereditary characteristics. A carpenter's son may be useless at working with his hands. The child of idiots can be a genius. So does this mean that genius "comes out of the blue". What about differences in mental and spiritual maturities of individuals of the same age? It fails to explain individual personalities within a family dynamic. If we are products of our environments, then by that rationale, we should be exact replicas of our parents. Science's explanation seems to tell us that it is basically blind luck where we find ourselves stationed in life. That basically we are no more than animals in nature. It also tells us that we have one life and we had better make the most of it, because when we die, that's it. No more. We cease to exist. So then, what is the point in even bothering in life? It's a pretty nihilistic viewpoint, don't you think?

The above explanations tell us that we had no choice to be where we are. They take away the whole point of existence, to learn. They give us no means to advance ourselves spiritually. They tell us that we have one life and we had better enjoy it. They fail to answer the questions of existence.The theory of reincarnation, on the other hand, can give us the answers. Through reincarnation, an individual consciousness can gain spiritual experience. Ergo, the personality we have has been accumulated over previous lifetimes. The gifts and interests that we have as individuals are ours from previous incarnations. Anyone who has ever argued the case for reincarnation will have heard the familiar question “Why can I not remember any past lives then?”

Annie Beasant argues: “First of all, let us note the fact that we forget more of our present lives than we remember. Many people cannot remember learning to read; yet the fact that they can read proves the learning. Incidents of childhood and youth have faded from our memory, yet they have left traces on our character. A fall in babyhood is forgotten, yet the victim is none the less a cripple. And this although we are using the same body in which the forgotten events were experienced.” If this holds true of experiences encountered in the present incarnation, how much more must it be true of experiences encountered in former lives?Our present body and brain can't perceive those past lives, because they had no experiences there. They are only in existence for us in this life. Our spiritual or astral body on the other hand, was there with our consciousness in our previous incarnations. Our idiosyncratic personalities, all our quirks and habits, they have been formed by our spiritual body and they carry over into our next lives. They make up our conscience, our habits, and our thirst for knowledge. Geoffrey Farthing argues: We are familiar with the genetic mechanism of inherited characteristics in plants and animals; the idea now being considered postulates that there is something similar in the inner invisible worlds. The chain of any particular stream of life is continuous, some links are visible and others, alternate ones, are invisible. As a bold statement this may seem questionable, but as an illustration let us take a baby with its individual character from the moment of its birth. An easy answer to the question, "Where does it (character) come from?” is "From its parents". But this, as we shall see, is not the complete answer. There is another question. How can it be that children of the same parents can be so very different from each other and from their parents, not only physically but also in character? These character differences are much wider than the most diverse physical characteristics found in families. It must be that they came from some cause lingering somewhere before birth.”

This leads us to believe that when we discover or develop a gift or talent; this is in fact our memory from previous lives. Love at first sight is hence a memory of a lover from a past life. These attractions and skills come from the undying spiritual memories that make up our personalities. The mind, body, the brain, is new but the spirit isn't.So if we have these echoes of past lives, is it possible for us to completely reclaim our experiences from eternity? Perhaps through meditation, when we quite our minds and let our souls speak it may be possible. Certainly Shamans of native cultures believe that all knowledge that exists and has ever existed lies within, so why not our hand-me-down memories? Evidence of Near Death Experiences has given us substantial evidence that our consciousness remains intact after death occurs. It tells us that there is somewhere else out there, a place where we can exist. If this indeed is true, then in all likelihood we have been there before. People who have gone through this experience have memories of a feeling of belonging, of going home. Perhaps that means that our earthly incarnations are like some sort of cosmic boarding school, where we are sent for terms to learn. To be trained and we can only finally leave when we our spiritual education is complete?#

Through this train of thought, it becomes obvious that our ideas on evolution have to be changed and updated. Thinking in large-scale general terms, we see Nature as a prime example of stages of evolutionary development: from the mineral comes the vegetable; from the vegetable comes the animal. Darwinian thought regards a human as a super-intelligent animal. How does this apply to spiritual evolution? If we follow the Darwinian theory then physically we stop evolving there, but the spirit does not. It continues into spiritual realms. If we subscribe to the theory of everything in nature is cyclical, day follows night, periods of activity and rest, of life and death, it must follow that after death comes re-birth. It is part of the Universal process. If we apply Darwinian thought to the idea of spiritual evolution, it also implies that after we become spiritually complete, we must therefore evolve into something else, something superhuman. What this could be? A Demi-God? Perhaps the enlightened figures of our Modern Histories- Christ, Buddha, The Prophet Muhammad- perhaps these people (who are regarded by the majorities as being spiritually complete, capable of performing miracles) are what we have the potential to become. The thought is a tantalising one, is it not?

Throughout the study of all of this, only one thing has remained consistent, the thought that behind all living things is a constant. An everlasting, universal something. We know that everything has two aspects: matter and spirit. In the smallest and most inconsequential of all living things (if indeed any living thing can be called inconsequential!), these things are at their most basic and fundamental level. As we climb the evolutionary ladder they become more complex, as more experience and awareness is gathered. The Buddhist view on reincarnation states that we start out as insects or such and as we live out our subsequent lives we move up this ladder and become more complex and intelligent animals as we go, until we reach the pinnacle which is an enlightened being such as Buddha himself. From then on it's onwards and upwards to more superhuman spiritual levels. So then, what happens when we become more than human? When we become super-conscious? Perhaps this is what is referred to in religion as Heaven, Nirvana etc. We have become complete as beings and can move on to another, higher plane of existence.

In summary, reincarnation and life in general can be viewed as a process for spiritual advancement. Nature being cyclical leads us to believe that we die and are reborn. Past lives shape our preferences and prejudices in this life and our experiences here and now will shape our personality in the next one. Also, by subscribing to a spiritual theory of evolution, we can ascend the ladder of existence until we reach our pinnacle, from then on, who knows where we can go? Only by Dying will we ever know for sure. Comments (6)

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