just wondering.... how can the reincarnation theory be true if the population of the earth is constantly increasing- i probably look like a narrow-minded simpleton for asking this and theres probably a really obvious answer, but ah well....

I would be suprised, if anyone had the answer to this question. it's one of those questions, which really cast doubt upon the existance of the afterlife.

You could think of it this way though,

we are all people/things in another dimension playing a video game, a few people first discover the game...aka being human... soon they spread the word that theres a new game thats fun to play, soon theres a huge waiting list... those who do well during a life, get a bonus life... and those who do bad get sent to the back of the queue...

since, we dont know how many spirit beings there are in existance, in different dimensions.... planets were ever, we have no idea, how many are on the waiting list.

it's like a game of poker, you spend your time perfecting it... you will often be given a spot at the big events... do well at being human and get a free bonus go, i guess.

ultimately... to keep existing, the nature of existance will be totally beyond our graps at the moment.

I've never understood how earth population was relevant to reincarnation.  There are so many scenarios that make sense with any earth population from ten thousand to ten times what we have now that I just see it as a non issue.

All souls could have existed forever, and just "cycle" differently, or some waited to come to earth until more were needed.  New souls could be "born" (or maybe split, like ameboe, leaving two or more souls with the same memories before the split but different as they go on afterward).  Souls could be spread amongst various world, more and more coming to earth as our population increases.  There are probably other possibilities that I haven't thought of, but even leaving out the "fancy" stuff, the simple expeidient of shorting the between-lives period from (as an example) a hundred thousand years to ten years (okay, extreme, but it's an example ;>) would take care of a lot of it!

This is a non-trivial question, and one that has caused a very large controversy. I do past life work and have reports from those with whom I work, as well as personal memories. As far as I can tell, the question is a good one, but it implies the wrong answer, since it pulls for remarks that justify individual human existence right here on this planet. That doesn't seem to be the way it actually works.

From the view of past life reports, we begin as little more than a twist of emptiness around more emptiness, a momentary dream image flitting through the Mind of God, and then progress through a succession of stages, and often through a succession of environments in this, and other, worlds.  Most of the process is recoverable through deep regression.

I personally recall a brief moment of life as a worm - one of those ocean bottom slime suckers, I suspect. It was great, just what a worm wanted.  This was followed by what seems to have been millions of incarnations as various kinds of lower life forms, higher life forms, a huge number of incarnations as some kind of ape-like shaggy things, then as assorted people, none of whom were significant, and finally as who and what I am today.

From our position here, as members of this life, we have the opportunity to understand and emotionally participate in the growth process on a wider basis, so that we can go on through merger with our ultimate spiritual nature (Ramana Maharshi worked in this area with his yoga) through meditation, good living, good works etc, so that we reach transcendental experiences like samadhi, and then our awareness returns to God, bringing with it all our experiences of living.

This is often called "enlightenment", although the term is rarely used in a precise manner. The Hari Krishna movement championed by Swami Prabhavananda (sp?) was directed at "back to Godhead", and the antics of its members were actually superficial to that purpose. The goal was to lose the ego in meditation and return to the ego-less state in which we are one with the Ultimate Self.

When viewed abstractly, the entire cycle of lives appears to be a major flux of  soul stuff, carrying individual information, much like our own sensory processes extend our interests into the world, sense and recover facts by adopting the proper personality construct for the moment, whether as a student studying, a householder arranging affairs, a yogi in meditation, or whatever we happen to be doing. Then our sensory processes interpret and return these facts to the mind where they are integrated into the wholeness of our being, perhaps leading to new studies, affairs or meditations.

Through this feedback process, God continues to create, evolve and extend Its nature. It seems that God is made of information, entropy, that perpetually expends as the creative activity occurs. (I got a PhD by demonstrating how these processes operate in everyday life. It's a simple, but messy mathematical progression called iterated complexions.) Conversely, we who are making the cycle become what Edgar Cayce called "Co-creators with God" - as we merge back into the Oneness, and at the same time, we retain our personal self.  Then the cycle seems to go around again - as of each of us is a "God-Seed"  that is being nurtured and is growing.

The flow of soul material thus emanates at the center of reality as manifestations of God, expands through sundry lives, only to return to God with new information that expands the nature of God. Since everything is ultimately God-in-action, there is no paradox here. There is a nearly endless supply of worlds, soul-stuff, and an infinite future in which to evolve. Our evolution is actually the evolution of God as God enjoys Itself. (The Sanskrit term for this is lila, meaning play.) It is only our limited perception that seems to limit everything to being isolated individuals with few or no commonalities.  In fact, you are God, and you just think of yourself as a limited individual because you probably never thought about yourself from this perspective.

I salute the God in you and I salute you as God-made-manifest!

dave

Trying to reconcile souls with population is like trying to reconcile the volume of raindrops in the ocean.  You'll probably never figure it out, and it doesn't change the fact that there exists both drops and ocean in constant flux.  The afterlife is not an accounting  problem, imho.  Whenever a complicated question like this arises that spawns many complicated answers, it's probably the wrong question and much simpler than we have made it.  No self sustaining system that works well is ever that complicated.

ok thanks very much guys, was just something i wanted to get out of the way. i've just realised how painfully narrow-minded i am- i would never even have dreamt of perceptions like that. cheers :)

wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2006 at 11:16am:

Trying to reconcile souls with population is like trying to reconcile the volume of raindrops in the ocean.  You'll probably never figure it out, and it doesn't change the fact that there exists both drops and ocean in constant flux.  The afterlife is not an accounting  problem, imho.  Whenever a complicated question like this arises that spawns many complicated answers, it's probably the wrong question and much simpler than we have made it.  No self sustaining system that works well is ever that complicated.

Brilliant point Bud :)

Dave the evidence that u put across contradicts what some spiritualists say about reincarnation between species of animals, e.g. dog living as a human next?

Your Mum,

You have posed an excellent question, one that exposes a devastating flaw in conventional New Age reincarnationism.   This flaw forces New Agers to resort to the desperate expedient of alleging prior lives as aliens or lower life forms like earth worms.  Such attempts derive no significant support from so-called spontaneous past life recall and nudge reincarnationism in the direction of being unfalsifiable even in principle and therefore meaningless.   Hypnotic regression cannot really count as evidence of prior lives as earthworms because of the proven hypnotic distortion of memories and because of the mutiplicity of Napoleons who show up in large-group past life regressions.  Reputable past life readers have been discredited in a study which demonstrated their inability to come up with the same IMMEDIATE past life for the same individuals.  And of course, New Agers relentlessly ignore Swedenborg's demonstration that alleged cases of past life recall are in fact illusions created by "spirit bonding" in which the contactee confuses the spirit's memories with his own.  

At the same time, humans seem to have the latent abiilty to tune in the lives of lower life forms.  During atheist Howard Storm's NDE, "Jesus and the angels" provide him a glimpse of a future 200 years from now in which "everybody was a student of Nature, which they knew intimately, and with which they could communicate, KNOWING THE SENSATIONS AND VIBRATION OF EVERY PART OF CREATION ("My Descent into Death," p. 46)."

Of course, the population explosion poses no serious problem for Howard Storm's NDE insight that A FEW actually might reincarnate or for the minority of reincarnationists who insist that new souls are constantly being created who have no prior past life history.    

Don

Your Mum,

Not everyone reincarnates on Earth. There are an infinite number of planets, universes, galaxies, dimensions where souls can continue their advancement.  Then there are those from these other planets, universes, galaxies, dimensions, etc. who do reincarnate on Earth for the lessons to be learned here.  It's not all black and white as some would have you think. Open up your mind to all the possibilities for that is what all this is, unlimited possibilities. ;-)

Love, Mairlyn ;-)

Don-

Do you know of any research linking memories to  DNA?

If that's theoretically possible, it would perhaps offer an alternative explanation for reincarnation.

If we can inherit talents, why not memories of our ancestors as well?  Or at least those memories that caused strong psychic imprints.  It might explain why some of us have powerfully strong fears or attractions that are not otherwise accounted for in our own lives.

Roger

Do people really believe they can figure out the mathematics while down here? I believe you have to be on the other side before you can figure out the numbers game. There are certain variables we don't know about while in the physical. And it doesn't matter how good you are at Algebra.

wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2006 at 11:46am:

Do people really believe they can figure out the mathematics while down here? I believe you have to be on the other side before you can figure out the numbers game. There are certain variables we don't know about while in the physical. And it doesn't matter how good you are at Algebra.

It's only a matter of time... before you can calculate the number, the only thing thats not certain is how long, and by who.

The whole number's game.. is based upon the need for us, to think were special.. and immortal though. Nobody wants to think, new spirits are being produced all the time... and we are but 1 drop of a vast ocean. An ocean, thats ever increasing..

Just does'nt give one a sense of purpose, and ones life meaning... Especially when most dont wish to be included into a union with everyone in the world, as we all have our own values... and they are in constant conflict.

wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2006 at 1:00pm:

Just does'nt give one a sense of purpose, and ones life meaning... Especially when most dont wish to be included into a union with everyone in the world, as we all have our own values... and they are in constant conflict.

Whether we wish for it or not, it's a irrefutable fact that we already are in a  union with everyone else.  Take DNA.  We all originated from the same place in the physical world, whether you believe in Adam/Eve or evolution or almost any other origin except for maybe the alien/monkey theory (though it must have been a small troup of lady monkeys).  I'm not trying to be clever, but demonstrate a kind of union we already have.  It's not a huge leap for me to expect that since we are already in union and connected, that we are this way in any other form of our existance.  It doesn't make sense to me scientifically that we would have absolute biological connection with all our fellow beings, and be absolutely separate in spirit.  It makes more sense to me that our current physical form would reflect our past physical AND non-physical transitions.   There must be a fabric of connectedness between us on all levels to varying degrees, our latest biological form being just the most recent physical example and a result of all that preceded us physically and non-physically.  IMHO, my ego hopes the afterlife connectedness doesn't assimilate the raindrops completely, but allows them to drift around separately for a while.  With such connectedness though, I think whether on a disk level or "all that is" level, we end up blurred with everyone else eventually.  Jst my opinion.

As for sense of purpose, I think we confuse this with ego.  Well, I certainly do anyway.  It's hard for me to admit I don't have a grand purpose sometimes.  Really, sometimes I think my purpose is to ultimately understand I don't have any special purpose other than to grow, change, and try to have a good time - things that pretty much happen no matter what path one is on.

wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2006 at 2:21pm:

Whether we wish for it or not, it's a irrefutable fact that we already are in a  union with everyone else.  Take DNA.  We all originated from the same place in the physical world, whether you believe in Adam/Eve or evolution or almost any other origin except for maybe the alien/monkey theory (though it must have been a small troup of lady monkeys).  I'm not trying to be clever, but demonstrate a kind of union we already have.  It's not a huge leap for me to expect that since we are already in union and connected, that we are this way in any other form of our existance.  It doesn't make sense to me scientifically that we would have absolute biological connection with all our fellow beings, and be absolutely separate in spirit.  It makes more sense to me that our current physical form would reflect our past physical AND non-physical transitions.   There must be a fabric of connectedness between us on all levels to varying degrees, our latest biological form being just the most recent physical example and a result of all that preceded us physically and non-physically.  IMHO, my ego hopes the afterlife connectedness doesn't assimilate the raindrops completely, but allows them to drift around separately for a while.  With such connectedness though, I think whether on a disk level or "all that is" level, we end up blurred with everyone else eventually.  Jst my opinion. As for sense of purpose, I think we confuse this with ego.  Well, I certainly do anyway.  It's hard for me to admit I don't have a grand purpose sometimes.  Really, sometimes I think my purpose is to ultimately understand I don't have any special purpose other than to grow, change, and try to have a good time - things that pretty much happen no matter what path one is on.

I dont think it's that kind of connectedness, not the 'am i biologically the same as the next 2 legged human'. It's when people say... we are all part of the same body/consciousness... etc.

I would'nt like to be connected to certain groups of people.. and vice versa... because our minds disagree with each others actions/thoughts/beliefs.

Purpose... ego... does'nt really matter what you call it, you need to feel needed - you need a purpose... you need to believe we live for a reason, it's just part of human nature. Wether this is the same when we return to the dirt or the spiritual realms.. is another question totally. But as humans, theres hate.. and other emotions which we have learned through experience... which just makes the concept of 'oneness' unattractive.

wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2006 at 2:33pm:

I dont think it's that kind of connectedness, not the 'am i biologically the same as the next 2 legged human'. It's when people say... we are all part of the same body/consciousness... etc.

I understand and I posed an argument why it made sense to me.  Can you tell me why we would be biologically intertwined but not otherwise?  


Quote:

I would'nt like to be connected to certain groups of people.. and vice versa... because our minds disagree with each others actions/thoughts/beliefs.

Well, me neither, but like I said, I believe you (we) don't have a choice - we're all quite connected.  If you become disconnected, it will be your illusion, not everyone else's.  (imho)


Quote:

Purpose... ego... does'nt really matter what you call it, you need to feel needed - you need a purpose... you need to believe we live for a reason, it's just part of human nature. Wether this is the same when we return to the dirt or the spiritual realms.. is another question totally. But as humans, theres hate.. and other emotions which we have learned through experience... which just makes the concept of 'oneness' unattractive.

Ever study Buddism?  I have only read a little bit.  I think the lifelong pursuit of nirvana deeply involves our understanding of our ego and our place and how it relates to oneness.  Might be worth a look.  I need to read more about it.... seems to me the last time I did, the idea of oneness wasn't attractive to me either. :-/  And I'm not debating it because the idea is attractive to me, it's not,  it just seems to be the most logical to me given what we can observe.  

I don't necessarily think oneness is instant and automatic, I think we spend a good deal of time experiencing things with a distinct awareness of our identity.  The thing that nags at the back of my mind is A) everything that has a beginning has an end, and B) in the beginning, we were one vast expanse of possibility - key word "one."

Quote:

I understand and I posed an argument why it made sense to me.  Can you tell me why we would be biologically intertwined but not otherwise?

Even humans here in the biological world, ar'nt as connected as you would expect... we are all born, into similiar, yet very different bodies. We each grow into different people.. some small, some big, some fat, some skinny... big nose.. small nose.. big ears...small ears. The mind... has infinite, possible variable's.. When someone gains enough experience.. they are almost 2 seperate race's.. which become so far apart, they are no longer able to communicate. would a 50 year old man, have an understanding of what joy a baby gets from crawling? or a baby from looking at a sunset? Our bodies... and our minds.. make for greatly different beings.. though, you are correct we can share some basic experience's - and i am sure we could do on the other side, but fully mingled into a vast consciousness, would be like having a 2 trillion people speaking different languages.


Quote:

Well, me neither, but like I said, I believe you (we) don't have a choice - we're all quite connected.  If you become disconnected, it will be your illusion, not everyone else's.  (imho)

Well if it's anything like it is here, then it would'nt be to bad, i would pay my astral tax - so the greater consciousness would'nt repo my house.. and seek out spirits i can connect with.. while avoiding the parts i dont wanna speak to, and maybe create a new race... and divide the parts of the great consciousness i dont like.. maybe a few astral wars later, i would have a nice place to figure out the meaning of existance.


Quote:

Ever study Buddism?  I have only read a little bit.  I think the lifelong pursuit of nirvana deeply involves our understanding of our ego and our place and how it relates to oneness.  Might be worth a look.  I need to read more about it.... seems to me the last time I did, the idea of oneness wasn't attractive to me either.   And I'm not debating it because the idea is attractive to me, it's not,  it just seems to be the most logical to me given what we can observe.   I don't necessarily think oneness is instant and automatic, I think we spend a good deal of time experiencing things with a distinct awareness of our identity.  The thing that nags at the back of my mind is A) everything that has a beginning has an end, and B) in the beginning, we were one vast expanse of possibility - key word "one."

I like yourself, only know the basic principles of buddisim, everything that has a begining has an end, or is this mearly something our human brains can comprehend? i mean, were did the universe come from, before the big bang? perhaps we are all very seperate beings.. who decided to put a house together, aka the universe.. and when it's finished  a family can live here, and we all go back to our own reality's. Question b, is the limit of our human understanding.. and there must be more to existance, then human understanding.. as human understanding, cant understand very much.

[Roger:]  "Do you know of any research linking memories to  DNA?  If that's theoretically possible, it would perhaps offer an alternative explanation for reincarnation.  If we can inherit talents, why not memories of our ancestors as well?  Or at least those memories that caused strong psychic imprints.  It might explain why some of us have powerfully strong fears or attractions that are not otherwise accounted for in our own lives."
_________________________________________

In her bestseller, "Embraced by the Light," Betty Eade's NDE teaches her about DNA memory:

"I learned that all thoughts and experiences in our lives are recorded...in our cells, so that, not only is each cell imprinted with a genetic coding.  It is also imprinted with every experience we have ever had.  Further I understood that these memories are passed down through the genetic coding to our children.  These memories then account for many of the passed on traits in families, such as addictive tendencies, fears, strengths, and so on.  I ALSO LEARNED THAT WE DO NOT HAVE REPEATED LIVES ON THIS EARTH; WHEN WE SEEM TO "REMEMBER" A PAST LIFE, WE ARE ACTUALLY RECALLING MEMORIES CONTAINED IN THE CELLS (p. 93)."  

Perhaps, this notion of DNA memory needs to be understood in terms of Carl Jung's notion of the collective unconscious, which in turn is similar to the most commonly accepted theory of how clairvoyance and telepathy wor--i. e. as "an unknown form of energy which does not cross space but which reaches inward to the essential psyche of a person.   At this center a transpersonal mode is reached where all humans and perhaps all reality are united (John J. Heaney, "The Sacred and the Psychic, " p. 20)."

Biologist Rupert Sheldrake argues that the DNA molecule cannot contain all the information essential to the organism's formation; rather, DNA is a finely tuned receptor which taps into the information contained in the "morphogenetic field" of that organism, a field that seems to be the functional equivalent of Swedenborg's energy spheres flowing out from each organism.  Sheldrake contends that the form, development, and behavior of living organisms are shaped and maintained by this field together with genetic inheritance.  In a sense, these fields function like a kind of species memory through which the newly acquired characteristics of prior generations can be passed on to future ones.  The key to species evolution is this: the condition of an organism's systems is constantly updated in these fields.

Sheldrake put his theory to the test in an experiment he conducted on live TV.  Millions of BBC viewers were taught to see hidden images in puzzle pictures.  Before the program aired, a base line was established by observing how well people could distinguish the hidden image.  After the program, people from all over the world who could not have seen or heard the program were again asked to find the image.  The results indicated significant improvement in the worldwide ability of non-viewers to distinguish the image.

Sheldrake was building on the findings of animal research.  (1) At Harvard experiments on rats found that children of rats mastered a maze much faster (tenfold) than their parents, even though the offspring were not born at the time their parents were tested.  This result was replicated in both Scotland and Australia and the rats' performance dramatically improved from place to place even though there was no physical contact among the geographically separated rats.  

(2) In pre-WW2 Europe, milk was home-delivered in cartons.  A bird species (bluetits) suddenly began to land on top of the cartons, remove the cover, and drink the cream.  Some of the birds were even found drowned inside the cartions!  Bluetits have a range of 4-5 miles.  Yet this practice spread for a hundred miles within a year.  The same phenomenon occurred in Scandanavia and Holland.  Milk delivery ceased during the German occupation of Europe during WW2.  Bluetits only have a 2-3 year life expectancy; so all the avian cream drinkers died off.  But after the war, bluetits resumed their cream drinking and this habit spread just as before WW2.

(3) Fontana ("Is There an Afterlife?" pp. 22-23) discusses a study in which measurements were taken of electrodermal reactions on the skin of receivers while they were subjected to a series of both arousing and calming thoughts from a sender in another room.  The sender would visualize the receivers in a very fearful situation or as relaxing on a sunlit beach.  The receivers had no idea which type of thoughts were being sent.  Thus the experiments show that even when receivers have no conscious awareness of whether they are receiving arousing or calming thoughts, the unconscious or morphogenetic field seems to be receiving the information and registering it in physiological reactions.

Don

Don-

The Sheldrake stuff reminds me of another experiment, a long time ago and don't recall details, but the essence was that flatworms were placed in a tank of water.  At regular intervals, a light would come on and right after that, a mild electrical current was sent thru the water, shocking the flatworms.

Then, subsequent generations of flatworms from the same original population were placed in a tank and, as soon as a light was turned on, the worms reacted in such a way as to suggest they retained a "memory" from their ancestors that an electrical shock would soon follow.

Again, I probably have some details wrong but that was the gist of it.

So....maybe what we think of as reincarnation memories are really cellular memories from someone in our distance lineage.

But there's a problem with this.  For instance, suppose my father as a youngster had a very traumatic experience of near-drowning.  Suppose it left him terrified of water to the point of not even wanting to get near it.

Ok, then suppose he had 3 children, including me.  If I have an irrational fear of water not otherwise explained by anything that happened to me directly, one would suppose that my other 2 siblings would have the same fear.  But suppose that they don't, that they actually love the water and all sorts of water sports, etc etc.

My point is, wouldn't we have to come up with some explanation as to why only some of my father's children "inherited" his traumatic memory?

Also, if there is something valid about genetic memories, we all should share common memories going back to the earliest humans.  Maybe we do.  After all, salmon always go back to the same spawning grounds.  Penguins travel hundreds of miles to have offspring just as their ancestors did centuries ago.

I think the best argument against reincarnation is what you said in a previous post.  Namely, if I'm hypnotically regressed to my previous lifetime and I give details about that life, the same details should emerge when I go to a different hypnotherapist.  But that doesn't happen.  I make up a whole different identity.  

People usually report that they were some famous person in a previous life.  Yes, there are many Napoleons and Cleopatras but very few nameless garbage collectors.  It's clearly a case of projection, we all want to be recognized for something, so we just co-opt a famous person's identity.  It's so obvious, you'd think no one would be fooled.

But fooled they continue to be.  P.T. Barnum was right!

"My point is, wouldn't we have to come up with some explanation as to why only some of my father's children "inherited" his traumatic memory? "

I don't see why...if memory is related to heredity, there's no necessary reason it should be different from every other hereditary trait, and have dominant and recessive types.