Conversation Board - My ongoing problem with karma and reincarnation

Alan McDougall

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My ongoing problem with karma and reincarnation
Jan 19^th, 2010 at 4:24am

But let's assume that the soul does exist and inhabits a new body when the old one dies.

Why does the soul forget its past experiences? What would make the soul's memories stop when the old body dies? Why would the self - the presumed soul - not be able to remember?

Is the soul not the ultimate self? Why would a new body limit the self's ability to conjure it own memories?

And for those who claim that déjsà-vu or whatever is repressed past memories, I might sk what the mechanism is for memories to be blocked it or let through

If they are blocked, how are they getting through? Why can't they all get through?

And if you’re old memories are lost forever, then what is the point of being reincarnated? The point of reincarnation is to extend life, but if you can't retain memories or lessons or knowledge from those past lives, how exactly have you extended your life?

It's not much better than saying you achieve immortality by living on in the hearts and minds of your friends. I want to live forever by living forever. I don't want some memory or trace of me living on.

Now for the practical problems of reincarnation. (We'll just deal with humans for right now).

Where were all the souls before the earth existed? Where will they go when the earth is destroyed?

Will they continue to exist and be sentient, to interact in soul-land?

Then why come into bodies at all? And then what if the ratio of bodies-to-souls is off, say more souls than bodies? Do the souls just hang out in soul-land waiting for a new body to inhabit?

Or what if there are more bodies than souls? Are new souls born? Or are there some people who are just automatons - functioning robots without souls at all? Could we tell the automatons apart from the real people?

How does the soul make up for these things? When we get transferred to a chicken, do we lose our ability to reason? When we are transferred out of a wolf, do we lose the knowledge of how to hunt?

Are our souls restricted in what they can express on their host? And then of course, what's the cutoff point of creatures imbued with souls? Do rats have souls? Bees? Roaches? Bacteria? Viruses? Replicating proteins like Mad Cow?

Even if you restrict reincarnation to just humans; at what point in the human evolutionary chain was the first soul imbued?

Now how about the idea that the creature you get to inhabit depends on how good you were in your past life. Who keeps track?

Who is the great record-keeper that sends you to your new body? What criteria are used? Is it objective - could it be objective? Does it make mistakes? How does it force our souls into the hosts?

Could the soul refuse? And you have to wonder; is your fate graded on a curve? What if everyone in one generation acts perfectly and kindly and loving to everyone? Surely the less desirable bodies are still being born and need to be inhabited.

Would a couple of hugs be the difference between a hawk and a slug? Grin

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Blessings and Light

Alan McDougall

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Rondele

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Re: My ongoing problem with karma and reincarnation
Reply #1 - Jan 19^th, 2010 at 12:21pm

Alan-

Here in the States, the History Channel had a fascinating series about the universe.

Seems that the universe is estimated to be about 14 billion years old and the earth about 4 billion.

The earliest human being is thought to date approximately 200,000 years ago.

To put it another way, the earth was turning for virtually all of its 4 billion years before we humans set foot on it.

But yet we are so completely egotistical that we just cannot conceive of a time when we didn't exist. Where were we at the time of the Big Bang? Where were we billions of years ago when the earth was created? We have no clue.

Ahhh but we do have a clue as to where we will be when our short life is over! We'll continue to exist in the afterlife. Not only that, but we've created an afterlife in which our pet dogs or cats will be there to greet us (unless we reincarnate, in which case I guess we leave our pets behind once again!).

The problem is, our ego is so powerful that it refuses to accept the possibility that when we die, we die. It invents all sorts of alternative possibilities to prevent its extinction.

And we, in our infinite complicity with our ego, go along with the charade.

Fact is, in the entire recorded history of mankind, there is not one single, replicable, piece of evidence that we survive death. Not one.

Plenty of anecdotal evidence for sure, but that's about it.

There is a great quote from George Bernard Shaw about the afterlife: "After all, what man is capable of the insane self-conceit of believing that an eternity of himself would be tolerable, even to himself?"

R

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b2

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Re: My ongoing problem with karma and reincarnation
Reply #2 - Jan 19^th, 2010 at 1:22pm

What about the 'life review' that so many people report when they return from a 'near death experience'? What about the reevaluation of life's meaning that so many report experiencing when they 'return'? A 'return' from the 'dead' is 'almost' a reincarnation event. Do we choose to learn nothing from these events? On my own part, it is clear to me that my 'present understanding' is never, and I mean never, completely accurate, because I am remembering and experiencing from 'my own' point of view, as I experience it here, in a 'normal' state of being. However, many of those who 'return' describe a state of being in which their comprehension is much different, and we all know that we each, at different times, experience our lives in various 'states of being'. So, to me, the desire to keep ourselves 'as ourselves', indefinitely, is just a figment of our imaginations. Life always consists of change, either rapid (to our way of thinking) or slow. It is movement, and change of perspective, always, that allows meaning, allows our 'mind constructs' to evolve. It is obvious to me, from the reading I have done, and it doesn't take a lot, to see that something significant happens after 'death'. To simply declare that it doesn't 'exist' because people have so many different 'stories' about it doesn't make sense to me. Something is happening -- sometimes it's beautiful and sometimes it isn't. If there is 'good' way to live and a 'good' way to die, we would benefit from knowing that, no matter whether we have 'eternal' souls or not. To one who is in pain, eternity is now. If suffering is alleviated, anywhere, any way, I see it as a blessing to the human race. I believe that, difficult as the 'truth' is, it is best to find it, no matter what it is. And it is seldom 'black and white', either/or. Just is, as it is, I guess.

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Rondele

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Re: My ongoing problem with karma and reincarnation
Reply #3 - Jan 19^th, 2010 at 2:46pm

b2-

Maybe the afterlife does exist. Please note that I said "the possibility that when we die, we die."

For me, I am grateful that I am alive. Just think about how magnificent it is that you exist! That you are conscious! And that you are a thinking, feeling human being instead of a bug on the sidewalk.

So we have so much to be thankful for in the here and now. Why not accept that gift for what it is?

If there's a bonus, so be it. But by concentrating so much time and energy on the afterlife, we inevitably will lose sight of the wonderful opportunity we have each and every day we wake up.

R

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Calypso

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Re: My ongoing problem with karma and reincarnation
Reply #4 - Jan 19^th, 2010 at 2:58pm

I've been reading Frank DeMarco on his site "I, of my Own Knowledge" http://hologrambooks.com/hologrambooksblog. His afterlife contacts (those he calls "The Guys Upstairs") describe a person's whole "soul", outside of time and space in the following way:

"What is a person’s soul? You might look upon it as the flower you create in the living of your life. All your life, you choose what you are going to be. You learn this, you bypass that, you encourage these threads of behavior, you choose (deliberately or otherwise) not to encourage others. You do, and so you become. You choose, continually, from the many choices presented to you – for any situation presents choices, if no more than a choice of how to react to the inevitable. As you continually choose, you continually shape your soul."

and from another excerpt:

"The part of a “person” – we put the word in quotes merely to remind you that you aren’t as much separated individuals as you usually think you are – the part that is outside time and space comprises (among other things!) all versions of an individual, and every moment of all versions of that individual, and a sort of summing-up of the individual. Now, this Upstairs, this completed-person, is alive and conscious, and is conscious not merely of that one life but of everything around it including you. So, you talk, and you talk to a being who on the one hand is the very spit and image of the person, and on the other hand is an eternal being in full conscious relatedness."

"...This is what immortality is, and you can no more forfeit immortality than life without breathing."

The great comfort I get from these ideas is that we are so much more than we think we are, and that the separation that we perceive to be between each of us, or between each of our incarnations, is an illusion.

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b2

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Re: My ongoing problem with karma and reincarnation
Reply #5 - Jan 19^th, 2010 at 4:10pm

I hear that. Nicely said! Certainly, in full view of such a scene as is taking place in Haiti, and other suffering existing in other places, I am thankful for the here and now, for the simple things. But, especially, watching the utter destruction of a people's way of life causes me to reflect on everything that I enjoy in a day's life. The simple things, like drinking a cup of tea, combing my hair, walking across the room. How I see the small and 'insignificant' events of my life has totally changed since viewing this kind of senseless destruction. Some might 'judge' those survivors who behave in a 'desperate' way in Haiti. It's just called survival, something people do, for better or for worse.

rondele wrote on Jan 19^th, 2010 at 2:46pm:

So we have so much to be thankful for in the here and now. Why not accept that gift for what it is?

R

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b2

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Re: My ongoing problem with karma and reincarnation
Reply #6 - Jan 19^th, 2010 at 4:17pm

Calypso, you said: for any situation presents choices, if no more than a choice of how to react to the inevitable.

Yes, this is the heart of it for me. It seems to me that how you choose 'colors' the event, and 'shapes' it. So, it is inevitable, but it is not always the 'same' event. Sorry if that is a little murky. Still trying to figure it out.

Calypso wrote on Jan 19^th, 2010 at 2:58pm:

I've been reading Frank DeMarco on his site "I, of my Own Knowledge" http://hologrambooks.com/hologrambooksblog. His afterlife contacts (those he calls "The Guys Upstairs") describe a person's whole "soul", outside of time and space in the following way:

"What is a person’s soul? You might look upon it as the flower you create in the living of your life. All your life, you choose what you are going to be. You learn this, you bypass that, you encourage these threads of behavior, you choose (deliberately or otherwise) not to encourage others. You do, and so you become. You choose, continually, from the many choices presented to you – for any situation presents choices, if no more than a choice of how to react to the inevitable. As you continually choose, you continually shape your soul."

and from another excerpt:

"The part of a “person” – we put the word in quotes merely to remind you that you aren’t as much separated individuals as you usually think you are – the part that is outside time and space comprises (among other things!) all versions of an individual, and every moment of all versions of that individual, and a sort of summing-up of the individual. Now, this Upstairs, this completed-person, is alive and conscious, and is conscious not merely of that one life but of everything around it including you. So, you talk, and you talk to a being who on the one hand is the very spit and image of the person, and on the other hand is an eternal being in full conscious relatedness."

"...This is what immortality is, and you can no more forfeit immortality than life without breathing."

The great comfort I get from these ideas is that we are so much more than we think we are, and that the separation that we perceive to be between each of us, or between each of our incarnations, is an illusion.

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Rondele

Ex Member

Re: My ongoing problem with karma and reincarnation
Reply #7 - Jan 19^th, 2010 at 4:47pm

Yes, watching the awful tragedy in Haiti, with death and destruction everywhere and rampant starvation and disease, sort of makes our pre-occupation with the afterlife a bit selfish in comparison.

I'm sure they would give almost anything to be in our place, and whether or not the afterlife exists would be at the very bottom of their worries.

R

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