Reincarnation

The cycle of life in the physical realm of existence is a great mystery. Each of us must come to terms with the fact that we do not know what happens when we die and this ignorance is the cause of much anxiety throughout life. Among this uncertainty is the problem of Good and Evil. Why do bad things happen to good people? And perhaps more perplexing, why does it seem that evil doers escape retribution? Only one thesis can truly solve this quandary and that is the law of karma and reincarnation. Karma itself is simply the law of Cause and Effect. As you sow, so shall ye reap. But reincarnation is somewhat more complex in that it incorporates a kind of evolution of individuated consciousness. There is a compensatory aspect to the law that goes beyond a singular incarnation.

In Sanskrit, the word samsara translates to reincarnation. The word reincarnation means, quite literally, to ‘incarnate’ again, to be re-embodied, or more accurately to return after death to the physical world in another physical body. In the East, this concept has deeper implications. Buddha taught that all living things, animate and inanimate, must pass through countless re-embodiments until all imperfections have been removed by experience. That leaves us with the question, what exactly is being re-embodied? In order to have an understanding of this process we have to determine what “the self” actually is.

The divine part of man, or the aspect that is immortal, is often referred to as the spirit. It is the energetic expression that animates the physical body and survives after its death. In Buddhist philosophy, this aspect of the self is called sattva. The self, sattva, or spirit is impersonal and although it breathes life into individuated personalities in the phenomenal world, it shouldn’t be confused with those personalities. Seldom is a personality reborn fully constructed. We may have certain soul memories from previous incarnations but each time we are born anew with a different set of personality constructs. It is also important to differentiate between the Spirit and the Ego. Ego means I, or selfness. It is the term used to distinguish creatures that have become aware of their individuation. Personality is a construct of the ego based on its catalogue of mind, emotion, sense, and form. Both ego and personality are extinguished at death leaving the spirit free to inhabit another form in its quest of purification. In this sense, living a life can be viewed as an experience gathering mission for Spirit. The individuated sense of self is a temporary cloak we wear in the ever changing illusion of physical reality. The experiences and lessons are transmitted to the spirit but the attachment to a personal “I” is dissolved.

After death, we separate from our physical vessel and our etheric body travels through the four higher sub planes of the physical. This is the plane of existence that is most commonly visited when people have out of body experiences and can see their physical body from above. A silver cord connects our etheric and astral bodies to the physical during life so we can travel out of the body but still return to the material realm. When we die that silver cord is severed and the etheric and astral bodies are free to roam. Many Near Death Experiencers have been able to recall events happening in the room where they had died. When they returned to their bodies they were able to verify what they saw in the out of body state from those who were present at the event. Many also claim to have been shown a “Life Review”, a sort of holographic representation of the life just lived, when in this afterlife realm. This appears to be a crucial factor in establishing the Karmic path for the next incarnation. While they all report having the assistance of “guides” ultimately it’s we who decide to return. We can certainly debate whether or not this is a trick to keep us imprisoned on the wheel of rebirth or if it’s part of a loving system that is helping us to evolve. The possibility that both concepts are true is quite probable..

The etheric body, which is like an energetic double of the physical, also begins to disintegrate as we move into higher planes of awareness. This disintegration is known as the “Second Death” where we finally shed the remaining personality constructs leaving just the astral body or “Soul”, which transports our life experience to Spirit. The etheric plane exists as an energetic double to the physical. Everything in the physical has it’s equivalent in the etheric. Clairvoyants can often pick up on these etheric energies with their expanded sense of awareness. The astral plane is more of a dreamland that is populated by consciousness itself. There exists a complex afterlife arena made up of various levels, some of which are close to the physical and others in higher planes. Departed spirits may find themselves in a hellish landscape or a heavenly one based on their consciousness at the time of death. Some spirits incarnate immediately after death while others linger in these realms for an extended period, although this is difficult to quantify as we’re dealing with a timeless realm of experience post mortum.

Reincarnation has a rich history and has been included in many of the ancient religious texts throughout antiquity. Although there is no mention of reincarnation in the Indian “Vedas” they do mention a concept similar to the early Greek idea of the soul departing a body to wander in the Underworld. The concept of Metempsychosis first came about in early Hindu and Greek traditions and simply refers to the transmigration of spirit into another form, either human or animal. The latter parts of the Vedas known as the Upanishads clearly state that all beings will be reborn again and again until they are able to transcend their material bonds and physical realms and see themselves as part of the infinite. Most informed Hindus insist that they do not believe that it’s possible to be reborn in any creature less than human but I suppose a definition of “less than human” would have to be agreed upon.

Buddha taught that Reincarnation was the apparent solution to the inequalities of life. Without the law of rebirth existence would be meaningless, purposeless, and absurd. There is no escaping the result of action. The law of Cause and Effect is inevitable. The Lamas of Tibet also hold this doctrine sacred. They believe a reincarnating Buddha is re-embodied immediately and a delegation sets out to search for the new embodiment. In the Koran, one passage states “God generates beings, and hence they return to him.” The founder of the order of the Mevlevites also known as the “whirling dervishes”, writes :

A stone I died and rose again a plant,

A plant I died and rose an animal:

I died an animal and was born a man.

Why should I fear.

Many Native American cultures held no distinction between the spirit of man and that of an animal. To the Cherokee all the kingdoms of nature shared a common immortality. Even Jesus taught reincarnation although any mention of it has been scrubbed from the Gospels during the Council of Nicaea, where the Roman Empire hunted down and killed all the Gnostics and edited the teachings to fit their system of control. In the Gnostic Gospels, specifically the “Apocryphon of John”, he states :

“When they come forth from the body, such a soul is given over to the powers created by the rulers, bound in chains, and cast into prison again. Around and around it goes until it manages to become free from forgetfulness through knowledge. And so, eventually, it becomes perfect and is saved.’

In order to more fully understand the mechanism of reincarnation we should uncover why the Romans found it so dangerous. The power structure of the Roman Catholic Church relies on the priests as intermediaries between God and their followers. The power structure is necessary for control of its practitioners. The priests are their doorway to salvation. With reincarnation, it seems to be our own spirit that dictates the trajectory of growth through lifetimes of experience so a human intermediary is completely unnecessary. It’s our own higher self that leads us to salvation through countless human embodiments. This concept renders the entire power structure of the Church useless so it was buried and anyone who held this belief was systematically murdered.

One could extrapolate that spiritual evolution is coincident with physical evolution of life on this planet. Even dense matter in the mineral world has a spiritual component to it that is replenished and recycled. Plants clearly have an innate intelligence and a rudimentary spiritual essence that disintegrates after dissolution of its physical form. A step above the plant kingdom is that of the animal. Animals have a group soul and like the plant kingdom are not subject to the laws of Karma. The difference between human and animal is its metaphysical structure. The human being has an ego or individuated sense of self and because there is an awareness of personal action then the laws of Karma apply. This does not take anything away from animals or plants for that matter. All animate and inanimate bodies in the physical realm are ensouled by the same divine principle. It was the Buddhists who first created hospitals for animals and looked upon them as our younger brothers and sisters. This may be part of what we give to them when we care for animals as pets. We’re helping them graduate towards individuated consciousness. It stands to reason that we were once part of an animal soul group that finally branched out in search of more personal awareness in a human incarnation. This may also give us some insight as to why human beings are at varying levels of spiritual understanding. A human soul on its first incarnation may be fresh after leaving an animal soul group towards individuation. The soul memory of fight or flight and predator/prey mentality may still be quite strong and therefore the human incarnation is filled with violence and imprisonment. But this is all part of that particular soul growth. This is also why it is not our place to judge. We don’t know what mechanism is behind the unfoldment of this spiritual destiny. Anyone who has journeyed into the realms of universal oneness is certain to report the unimaginable beauty and perfection of it all. It’s a mystical unity that is beyond all possible human comprehension. In that state of wholeness all is absolutely perfect and as it should be. So perhaps we should trust in this process. There is most likely many realms of experience in the universe of which Earth is just one form and as we journey as spirits we take on countless incarnations in many dimensions as we climb the ladder towards unification with the Creator. We can look at this process like notes on a scale. Dense matter in the mineral kingdom is a form of sleeping consciousness and the first note on the scale. As we ascend, more and more awareness is provided along with more personal responsibility for our actions. It takes many human incarnations to transcend this matrix and move into other dimensions of spiritual exploration. The evolution of spirit continues even after Earthly incarnation in realms of experience of a higher order. Higher and higher we ascend until unification with the Creator is achieved and then perhaps… we start over again.