Regarding Jesus's/Buddha's  etc reincarnation - weren't these souls so highly evolved that they had gone beyond the need to incarnate, and simply chose to do so in order to try and teach us some lessons in morality?  In which case they don't need to reincarnate any more anyway.....(although perhaps it would be useful if they did!)

I just don't get the whole need to suffer a life to learn something.. to evolve.

What exactly triggers evolution?

Why can't you stimulate it through less negative means?

Doesn't make sense, and unless I change so much when I die I'm not myself, I'm not doing anything so painful/boring/other myriad of negative things human life is.

Are you still yourself when you die?

I just get the impression you go in a different state of being and do things without thinking about them when you die.  Like in a dream when you aren't lucid.
You'll play a role as more/less yourself or someone/something else, and mindlessly follow that role.

I am not certain how inevitable reincarnation is, despite the popularity of the idea and theory of conservation of energy.  To answer the question on how to stop it, one generally has to understand the concepts of karma, and love. 

There is an expression "you can't take it with you,"  - a phrase implying that the physical universe of "things" doesn't move on in spirit.  Yet many of us willingly become bound up with physical things.  The house, the car, the surroundings.  These things become attachments.  Now buddhism and other great religions try to get you to rid yourself from these attachments.  But what does that really mean?  To the uninformed, it means dissolving into a greater whole, without your ego-based thinking. 

However, to an enlightened soul, their earth journey reveals to them that expressing love and receiving love, have little to nothing to do with the possession of material things.  If there is a purpose to the "earth-school," it is to show us this; that our true essence is non-physical, based in love.  That love of God and love of each other should be our main focus.  That love of self alone leads to some success, but eventual misery.

When we die, initially we are what we were on earth.  If our thoughts are attached to the earth and to ego, it is easy to see how we will likely be drawn back to it.  If, on the other hand, we have a deeper understanding, we can step out of the wheel of karma, and go wherever our heart desires.  Vicky was correct in her post six years ago.  It is your choice, and your call. 

My gut feeling is thst those who do reincarnate have the desire to do so, or the desire to be an individual and a seemingly dualistic world. 

How do you get off this merry-go-round?  You follow the golden rule, and grow in love until you lose ego based attachments.


Matthew

We all have perceptions on this. Where is the exact answer?

Not sure what or how this came to be, but something lead me back here after I believe 6 years...and I clicked on a post that I did not even remember or realize was my own. Here is something that makes this even stranger....I have since been divorced from the wife I spoke of, but my connection to my children have grown as well as my understanding of life in relation to our afterlives. I am much more at peace with the concepts and ideologies discussed here than coincidentally the results of my divorce...lol. Funny how life works right?

But anyway, what DocM said seems to resonate within my spirit and is something I have lived by over the last 6 years. How selflessness was the most discernible aspect of figures like Jesus or Buddha or Ghandi or Mother Theresa or Malcom X or MLK....and that is what their lives in terms of how we view them grand. This is while the majority of the World basks in selfishness and narcissism. And like the group of individuals aforementioned, I want to be more like them as well as continuing to evolve, because I believe that from a spiritual point of view, all of my concerns, fears, questions, as well as direction, purpose, and understanding will be addressed and affected.

Maybe that is why randomly lead me back here 6 years later...who knows, but I am very thankful for whatever did!

Thanks again everyone for your insight!

- JG

I don't think reincarnation could be enforced on anyone. Think about it, your whole life is one big choice. The bottom line is throughout your life you do exactly what you want to do....

Why would this be any different in the afterlife?


We can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance
Well they're no friends of mine