Hi guys-

I'm going to ramble a little, but I'd like to bring in some history.

Religions arising from the Middle East such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism, seem to hold the idea that we live, then we die, and then we are judged, and finally we enter a place that is appropriate to the judgement passed on us.  In passing, we notice that these religions arise in relatively hostile regions.  In his Muqqadimah, the historian Ibn Khaldoun pointed out that we have societies because the world is so harsh that no individual could survive. Thus, the power of natural forces, associated with God, tend to view God as a distant power, a regulator of chaos, but not necessarily as a friend.

Religious beliefs from India, Kashmir, Mongolia, China, and East Asia arise from regions that are more fertile, in which people have time and inclination to meditate, and in which it is common to find food growing naturally.  In these places, religion teaches that our present life is one of a great many that we experience. For them, we live, we die, we then receive judgement by virtue of becoming, to some degree that depends upon our own merits, one with God, and in that state we experience infinite regret,  through which we are led to seek out new lives in which we can corret our past issues. Thus, we seek reincarnation in which we can negate the past and learn a better way. These beliefs arise from regions in which there is little scarcity, although riches may be few, an individual is quite capable of survival alone. In these places, God is viewed as the infinitely good companion and friend, and not as a regulator or judge.

While Hindu beliefs are ancient, about 2500 years ago Siddhartha, a Brahman, sought for a philosophy by which to combat earthly issues. His primary objection, essentially identical to Mohammad's, was that the world had become a place of competing gods, while there seemed to be only a single principle by which reality operated. Just as the prophetic work of Jesus and Mohammed taught monotheism, the Buddhist philosophy taught that reality has a single core logic, and that those who failed to understand it would be forced to return to live more lives. The impact of Buddhism has remained relatively clear due to the principle of rejecting blind faith, accepting as true only that which can be individually discovered.

In the 16th century, Guru Nanak made a serious comparison between Islamic and Hindu beliefs current in his time, and pointed out that there is no fundamental difference, but only superficial differences.  On this basis he founded the Sikh religion. Nanak defintely believed that we reincarnate. Aside from that, Nanak also brought closure to the division between Hindu and Islamic beliefs, although modern fundamentalism seems to have eroded this in thelast century.

More recentlly we find New Age activities in which we deal with past lives, spirit rescues, a host of ghosts, and similar ideas. A lot of these can be traced back to Madame Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy movement in which she attempted to blend Kashmir Shaivism and Tibetan Buddhism - and did a remarkably good job of it. This led to beliefs that favor reincarnation, using the authority of the individual meditator who must discover the truth directly. Blavatsky simply viewed the next life as the karmic mechanism by which we work out the flaws of the present life.

The 1960-1970 period brought LSD into the world and into the hands of a few hippies who were more interested in meditation than just watching the blinking lights and pretty colors. Meditation invariably brought this group to conclude that God is everywhere present and immanent in all that exists (much like Spinoza's remarks hundreds of years erlier). Reincarnation was individual verified by simply remembering prior lives. Bridey Murphy, and related clinical reports, often arising from either meditative states (psychoanalysis and hypnosis) or NDEs and surgical OBEs, were an outgrowth of this period, strengthening the global tendency to accept reincarnation.

Looking back over all these events, we can make a few observations. First, belief systems that are based primarily upon personal effort, meditation and individual enlightenment tend to acept reincarnation as an obvious fact. Belief systems that rely upon priestcraft, in which there is a mediator who tells the people what God is, what God wants, what they must do to be good and holy, and so on, where the priest is the guardian of the truth (whether or not anyone knows what truth might be) and especially where the priest is the authority of the religion, all favor a single calamitous judgement and eternal destination to some kind of heaven or hell. Were it to be otherwise, the priests would lose power.

The core of this discussion revolves around that power struggle. On one hand we have a direct awareness of the spirit world, and of reincarnation, available to all who would look. On the other hand we have the dogmatic denial of this by priests and mullahs, because they learned it differently and never questioned what they were told.

We also have the rational objectors whose basic argument is, "I do not understand this, therefor I deny it." As an example, Matthew questions reincarnation because he does not understand where all the souls might have come from.  This is rather like Buddhism, except that Buddhists are told to keep an open mind, taking no side until they have gone there to see for themselves. (As an example, my personal initiation was into Vajrayana Buddhism, in the specific discipline of Bardo Thodol, by Gyatrul Rinpoche. This motivated years of follow-up study and meditation in which I finally came to recognize what the old manuscripts were talking about. It did not come with dogmatic "thou shalt, or shall not, believe" stuff.)

I can't answer all the possible questions, since I am limited to a very narrow range of meditative experiences. But I have clinical experiences that suggest an answer to Matthew. In all of the regressions in which I took the time to ask, people told me that their prior lifetimes arose from some sort of animal existence, and that could be traced back in a few cases into a combination of physical such as are found in volcanos, hurricanes and so on.  Thus, the answer that my experiences teach is that we evolve from little more than an idea floating through the Mind of God to some kind of material beings to people, and then onward to a level of existences in which our embodiment is energy and light, and finally back to merge into the nature of God again.  Like the swirling water in a whirlpool, we are physically recycled stardust, and spiritually, we are recycled God-stuff, some from this solar system and galaxy, and occasionally some from other places.

However, this is not the end of the discussion, but merely one of the possible answers. I recall the story of a minister who was really trying to get people to be less proud. He began his sermon one day by telling his flock the sobering truth, "We Are But Dust!".  A respectful hush fell over the congregation, and in the silence a tiny voice could be heard asking, "Mommy, what's butt dust?"

Love y'all
dave

I like your post Dave.

Here's a question I've been puzzling over. Some people have the belief that people in the physical are like a bunch of fallen angels, because we've separated ourselves from God. It's like existence is a big mistake.

I have a hard time believing this. It makes more sense that our existence was created on purpose, as a way of exploring the possibilities-making use of God's creative power, as a way of developing distinctiveness, otherwise each soul might end up being pretty much like every other soul. Awareness is awareness, love is love, light is light, and so on. After we develop our individuality and go back to God's realm we all become one with God and all other souls,  and bring the gift of our unique experiences and lessons to an infinitely large love fest.

What you say about the belief in reincarnation is true. Religions that don't believe in it tend to be fear based and fear both God and the mythological figure satan at the same time.

Religions that dispense with the doom and gloom and have a positive, loving, don't rely on one book, find out for yourself attitude; allow for the possibility of reincarnation.

My attitude on reincarnation is that if it is useful to incarnate once, then why wouldn't it be useful in some cases to incarnate more than once? Also, if our spirits can be connected to the physical realm via a body one time, why can't they be connected more than once?

To me spirituality and fear are a horible mix, while love and spirituality are a wonderful mix.

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the wonderful historical-relevance post. I especially like your correlation of hostile and un-hostile societies, to the relative vengence of the believed-in God.

To whoever asked....I think all Christian religions believe in eternal damnation. If you don't follow the rules, kiss up to the Creator, accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior...you go to Hell for eternity. Some of them don't necessarily believe Hell is full of fire and brimstone, but just a lack of being with God, but I haven't heard of a Christian religion that thinks you can change anything once your (one) physical existence has ended.

I find it interesting that re-incarnation was a part of Christianity until the Council of Nicea (which I may have spelled wrong) in the year 511 (which I also may have wrong) took it out of the doctrine. As I understand it, the Christian (Catholic) church determined that they would have better control of the populace if only one life were allowed for following the rules and achieving Salvation. And...pffft! You now have just one Christian life to get it right, or else "Damn, it's hot in here!"
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Dave wrote:
Thus, the answer that my experiences teach is that we evolve from little more than an idea floating through the Mind of God to some kind of material beings to people, and then onward to a level of existences in which our embodiment is energy and light, and finally back to merge into the nature of God again. Like the swirling water in a whirlpool, we are physically recycled stardust, and spiritually, we are recycled God-stuff, some from this solar system and galaxy, and occasionally some from other places.
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My experiences are varied but few; I was reared Catholic, and went to Catholic grade school. I'm pretty sure that OBE's during the night were common when I was a kid, but I had no idea I was out of body.  In high school it became clear that the God I had learned about in Catholicism didn't exist, at least not in my world, and I became a Materialist (i.e., nothing exists outside of physical reality.) In my 20's I took a class in Transcendetal Meditation, and soon after that I had a couple of wonderful experiences in which I heard what I can only describe as celestial music. Subsequent to that I had an OBE that pretty well obliterated parts of my belief system. I still couldn't come up with anything resembling God, but I did open up to something other than Materialism.

Some decades after that I went to TMI's Gateway but didn't come away with, much although I enjoyed the week; nothing much occurred that was outside of my normal range of experiences. My big search started when I was told I might have terminal cancer, and I joined Eckankar out of a drive to figure out "how" I could be conscious. Not "why," but "how." I couldn't, and still can't, fathom consciousness. My cat is conscious and so am I; the only difference I perceive is that she doesn't have the IQ, thumbs, and language that I do. The rest is pretty even, or she's ahead.  I had some neat experiences in Eckankar for about six months, at which point I read Robert Monroe's Ultimate Journey. The book was a turning point; it was clear that what Eckankar was teaching me and what RAM found through his experiences, could not both be true. I chose Monroe. My Eckankar-inspired experiences stopped, since the belief system had been displaced. At some point in those years, I went to Lifelines, and had a similar experience to my Gateway experience; nothing really outside of what was normal for me, although I enjoyed the week. Other people in both workshops were having life-changing experiences, and I was just sitting there listening to them rave about what was happening. I also went to Bruce's workshop on retrievals, with a similar result. Nothing that changed my planet.

Since then, I haven't found anything at all to believe in, and although I have cool dreams sometimes, that is about it. I'm almost back full circle to being a Materialist, because of lack of any definitive experiences or even ability to achieve a meditative state, in the last four or five years.  Any experiences I do have can be easily assigned to the "interesting electrical activity in the brain" category that my non-religious friends subscribe to. I find it easier to hang out with the non-religious people because at least they are not constantly trying to get me to join their church or change my beliefs to match what has "saved" them. I don't seem to be able to connect with other people who don't have an answer yet, but who want to explore the possibilities via experience.

Life is funny, isn't it? Right now I'm not aware of believing much of anything, because all I experience is the physical. And I have ended up in the school that derives belief from experience rather than the converse; part of the reason is that I do believe that you create your experience based on your beliefs, so what is the point in trying for experience to discern truth? Christians experience Jesus and Hindus experience Krishna, and so forth. When my Materialist mother died I am certain she experienced ceasing to exist.  It appears that Monroe didn't have much choice in having experiences; OBEs just started happening to him. I frequented this board a lot a few years ago, but am not drawn to it lately. Just for the record, if I had to define what little belief system that I'm aware of, I lean towards the first paragraph I quoted at the top, that Dave said is where he's at. Pretty far from my Catholic upbringing, but also no certainty of anything much at all.

MA

Hi MaryAnn-

I have noticed that God does things in a way that is always in accord with physical science etc. This is even true for miracles, like healing, granting prayers and so on. It seems that God is bending the rules, but never breaking them. 

TM, Eck, Buddhism, and virtually all other major pathways to enlightenment bring us to experience some aspect of our own divinity, after which we are both convinced of the validity of the experience, and also certain that we lack the words to describe it to others.  A Sufi technique, meditation on the "cosmic sound current" was brought forward by Sant Kirpal Singh, and has had success as well. But to tell what happens, how it happens, and so on, we have to go back to inadequate words which eventually makes the experience seem more like a carnival ride than a life shaking event.

I use the materialist idiom, from the standpoint of math explanations, because it is convenient, even if limited. As a simple example, imagine that there is nothing, no taste, no size, no space, nothing to fill it. Into that we find that "something" was projected by the Uncaused Cause.  That "something" expanded its nature by forming relationships with itself, so that eventually we have an image of space in which everything is defined by a loop of relationships that are part of a vast mersh of relationships etc - a primal "string theory" of reality.

All this begins in a situation in which there is no time or space and in which time and space come to be defined by the manner in which the emergent world interacts with itself.  As the world is busily expanding, logical relationships of a higher order start to appear in the form of abstractions of the expanding reality. An example, geometry is an abstraction of the way space fits together. These abstractions are also relationships, but they map a higher order of definitions. Abstractions of the abstractions also arise, and so on, endlessly. Finally we reach a level of complexity in which the number and type of relationships look like the relationships that form the everyday world - and here we are. What we call "consciousness" is the endless process of abstraction of prior information of various sorts, and forming it into new relationships. (This can be worked out in math and has been tested and found to exactly model the way we solve problems, create new science etc. It is possible to show that this idea includes free choice, but it's too tedious to put here.)

Viewed in this sense, Tibetan Buddhism tells us that there is no "God" (meaning a super-being) but that in the last analysis, everything is consciousness. They also tell us that there is no "soul", in the sense of an unchanging material-like spiritual body, but instead, we are localizations of the universal nature of consciousness.  Like each tiny breeze and whirlwind is an element of the overall motion of the atmosphere, we are "mind" embedded in a universal "Mind". 

As you meditate, allow yourself to stop caring about who or what you are, and instead, simply focus on being one with the immediate situation, no matter what it is. When you have finally allowed your ego-self to suspoend operations for a moment, you might notice that you can see a brilliiant light that expands to engulf you with a sense of infinite love. It's always there, but we don't always allow ourselves to observe it. That observation is just another form of consciousness.

d

Dave,

I suggest you read my Earth School thread if you have the chance.  I am not a rational objector so much as a soul using intelligence to understand, and not merely accepting the dogma associated with inevitable reincarnation for all souls.  I pose questions, and seek experiences and answers.  It is not that I am opposed to the notion of reincarnation, just that I find that by letting go of old belief systems (some dogmatic religions for example), we sometimes adopt new ones.  We can all say that change/flux is the nature of all things.  Evolution is as well.  Evolution may, however be accomplished in different ways.  For those who take it for granted that we must reincarnate on earth, I merely point out the obvious.  

That free will exists with conscious beings.  That there are inconsistencies in the past life regression from Newton and many of the examples cited.  Have I made firm conclusions about reincarnation?  No.  I believe that it is possible, even likely in some instances.  However, I don't believe that a soul may not evolve on a spiritual plane.  There are infinite paths.  If I can, through my meditations make conclusions about reincarnation for myself, that would be ideal.  Thus far, I am still searching.

As to this thread.  It seems to be that an eternity of damnation makes no sense, denies free will, and imposes our fears back upon us.  Thus, I don't believe in damnation, nor in religious leaders who propose it.

Matthew

Hi Cosmic Ambitions,
regarding your post, reply#10, last passage:
If it's clear to, let's call him/her A, that A had mistreated B in some way and is truely regreting it, there would be a way to let B know it, through expressing oneself telepatically, instantly, no need to express it through another earth round then. The point is to me, the motivation to do another round down here would be, A is UNCERTAIN about where he/she really stands, what to make of the gathered experiences. So the next trip is a self-exploration, rather than an expression to another person, but on the other hand, the more clarity one gains in who one is, the clearer his/her self-expression to others becomes. (I see Dave has written something regarding this, very different, but also similar I find!)
Another thing: I have heard on one mind trip, in the physical there can be connections made which provide a communication channel between different discs. It's difficult to imagine these great beings (well our own big ones) had communication problems, but who knows, maybe it's like humans on another level, funny if humans could help out...

Dave! Thanks for your posts! There are many interesting things in it, ok I pick one which is to me, well, quite cool:
>>>...that their prior lifetimes arose from some sort of animal existence, and that could be traced back in a few cases into a combination of physical such as are found in volcanos, hurricanes and so on...<<<
On my early TMIstyle meditations, often I saw volcanos with lava, tornados and water pouring into lakes (hmmm, four elements...); these of course are powerful-energetic, dynamic, but still form-giving, structure-building or structures in itself. It is fascinating to imagine one can "be" that or paticipate in that; when I was younger I often daydreamt to be wind over meadows, moving through grass and bushes. Was I wind once? A part in the wind? An elemental child? Too long ago....

Spooky

And thank you ALL for your posts!