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.

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

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

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

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

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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.

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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.