Volu
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Recoverer,
"I'm not one hundred percent certain, but I believe that each of us continues to exist. It isn't like a bunch of selves return to a larger self, and this larger self says: "Hah, hah, none of you get to continue to exist. It is time for me to eat you!" How would doing such a thing be any different than a parent eating his or her children? Once we go through the trials and tribulations of living in this World and what ever spirit realms we live in, why should our right to exist as unique souls be taken away?"
That's a funny way of putting it. But think it's quite different than a parent eating the children. The gore aside, I reckon it's more like pieces of the higher self being integrated. I really like my individuality, no surprise there, but I see my higher self as the real me, and I very much look forward to be done here and to merge. Being whole isn't really the right wording for the feeling, but something along those notes.
"There are a lot of so-called enlightened people who say you have to reincarnate over and over again until you get enlightened. When you examine many of their lives, it hardly seems as if they are/were as transcendent as they claim. Would an enlightened being do something such as die in his 40s of alcoholism?"
I see reincarnation as linear and not optimum compared to simultaneous incarnations. If one incarnation averages at 50 years old times a thousand, that's a lot at once. The impressive part of that to me isn't the linear scale, but the mind-numbing amount of experiences (5 senses and more, interactions, emotions and so on) that pours into the higher self, and the extremely impressive planning, handling and care taking place. As one incarnation, playing a role playing game with friends, a few characters would perhaps be more than enough to handle. And I imagine the possibility of the whole experience being a lot greater than can be thought out while having the perspective of being a fragment of the higher self. Perhaps there are sub-incarnations in other dimensions in this density to even further maximize the potential of growth, with different tweaks to the paths of the main 1000+ incarnations.
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