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Goodbye Jesus

Reincarnation


Deva

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Luna is not the only one here who has had past life recollection. I have had one memory return so far. (It's rather personal so I'm not going to describe it here) From what I've learned on the subject, past life recollection is often triggered when you try to find out who you are (often through certain forms of meditation) or through doing some activity that your past self used to do. In my case, the recollection is a memory rather than a flashback. It's as vivid as my memories of what I did yesterday.

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I think there is a well known correlation between mental illness and spiritual beliefs, no?

 

 

Absolutely. Mentally ill tend to gravitate to spiritual systems. Does this mean all spiritual people are mentally ill? I would say no, but there is a very fine line between the two.

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You'd probably put luna in a mental institution.

 

Didn't have time to comment on this earlier but please do not make this personal by naming members or assuming my intentions. This was a real fuckwit move and I don't appreciate it.

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Has anyone read "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" by Ian Stevenson? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson

 

Stevenson's work impressed very much as a young person. He did extensive interviewing of young children who had very detailed memories of past lives.

 

I read about him before, interesting stuff. Will comment more later.

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Somehow, I knew this would get around to "this is all bugshit nuts."

 

Yes, I'm insane. I've been institutionalized, in fact - though not for my beliefs, how I got there is a stupid an ugly story. Still, there are papers out there that say I'm still mentally ill, because I left against (those) doctors' advice. Nevermind I was released to another shrink who was competent and knew that ward I was in was the worst in the state and run by idiots.

 

Anyway, back on topic, that piece of fucking paper written by complete morons means nothing. The therapist that got me out has heard about my beliefs, and he does not see them as crazy. He saw no harm. In fact, I told them to him because I was afraid I was losing it, but he simply said plenty of well-adjusted people believe in weird things. Just because mine aren't mainline christian, or hard rationality, doesn't make me insane. I believe in past lives, I believe my memories, and I am not crazy for it. I'm crazy for completely different reasons. :P

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Somehow, I knew this would get around to "this is all bugshit nuts."

 

Just put the verbal abuser on ignore. That is how he relates to people with views that are different than his. Don't consider that for a minute.

 

Yes, I'm . . .

 

Believing in reincarnation, and for that matter being spiritual (which was the last thing the verbal abusers tried to stab you with) has nothing to do with that other issue. Spirituality is part of humanity the way art and music are part of humanity. Look I came out on the opposite side of the spectrum and said "no reincarnation" but I don't look down upon those who do believe in reincarnation. It isn't a bad reflection on them.

 

. . . plenty of well-adjusted people believe in weird things.

 

Correct. And even current scientific theory is mostly wrong for as time goes by more and more information shows that we have to modify or abandon old ideas that do not fit the new data.

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Correct. And even current scientific theory is mostly wrong for as time goes by more and more information shows that we have to modify or abandon old ideas that do not fit the new data.

 

Actually, mymistake, This is what science is. Collecting data, writing a hypothesis, collecting more data to confirm or disprove the hypothesis, adjust hypothesis accordingly, collect more data. Science is always wrong and is supposed to recognize that.

Sometimes though, as people don't like to change, men get onto plateaus and start behaving like their current model is absolute truth. They resist change even when data disproves their theories and other scientists have altered the models. That's when science becomes something more like religion, when it's mostly wrong.

By definition science is a process.

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Correct. And even current scientific theory is mostly wrong for as time goes by more and more information shows that we have to modify or abandon old ideas that do not fit the new data.

 

Actually, mymistake, This is what science is. Collecting data, writing a hypothesis, collecting more data to confirm or disprove the hypothesis, adjust hypothesis accordingly, collect more data. Science is always wrong and is supposed to recognize that.

Sometimes though, as people don't like to change, men get onto plateaus and start behaving like their current model is absolute truth. They resist change even when data disproves their theories and other scientists have altered the models. That's when science becomes something more like religion, when it's mostly wrong.

By definition science is a process.

 

Yes. I have watched some of the things I "learned" in college get discarded along the way. For example I can remember when the Big Crunch theory was cutting edge. I'm just saying that LH and other spiritual people shouldn't feel bludgeoned.

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It is said by Tibetan Buddhists that you have had so many past lives, that every person you see, has formerly been your father or mother in a past life. Your lives in the insect world alone have been so many that the pile of their dead bodies would rise to the top of the highest mountain.

 

Aside from these vivid illustrations, If you believe in reincarnation, how does that effect your view of other people? How does it effect your relationships and interactions with others?

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Are you familiar with the term "imbalanced ego" from the Eastern mindset? If you're interpreting my phrasing from a Western point of view, then my words have a completely different meaning, which is unfortunate, but the phrasing I learned from an Indian teacher is not always compatible with the phrasing we interpret in English over a message board due to the many dualities in our language. As often as my words are misconstrued over this board, I'm thinking my attempts to convey what I've learned to be futile. So until I find a better way to communicate, I'll stop.

 

Foxy - I am sure now that you had some other meaning behind what you were saying. I was trying to keep this thread on topic - maybe I shouldn't - but anyway, what you said may have had more relevance than I thought. I would be interested in reading something from your Indian teacher if you would provide a link, or even better, start a thread to discuss it.

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It is said by Tibetan Buddhists that you have had so many past lives, that every person you see, has formerly been your father or mother in a past life. Your lives in the insect world alone have been so many that the pile of their dead bodies would rise to the top of the highest mountain.

 

Aside from these vivid illustrations, If you believe in reincarnation, how does that effect your view of other people? How does it effect your relationships and interactions with others?

 

Heh, I have had "that awkward moment" when I'm talking with someone, and/or looking at him/her, and something clicks, and I think "OH! That's who you are! I remember!" It doesn't happen terribly often, and I rarely speak of it. This usually happens with someone I'm somewhat close to. When I am able to share what I remember, and the handful of times the other person also remembers, it can forge an incredibly strong bond. Not just because we share something that the vast majority of those around us don't understand or believe exists, but mostly because there is an immediate sense of very old friendship/family/lover. And all those feelings can get very very mixed up. I suppose it's enough to say that it's a terribly intimate bond as well.

 

Otherwise, I don't think very much about what past lives others might have had, or if they're "young" or "old" souls. I have issues keeping up with my own soul.

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Hi. I was raised believing in reincarnation by parents who belonged to Self Realization Fellowship. The summer after ninth grade I read all of Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi. I never questioned it until I became a Christian, at which point I believed that reincarnation must be false because it clashes with Christian doctrine.

 

Now, as I said a few pages ago, it makes no sense to me because I can't see how the "me" persists into another body. The persons we are, as I understand it, are constructs that rest on a material basis (our individual body and all its traits, esp. our brain) and are developed out of the stream of experiences that make each of us unique AND embedded in a geographical/historical/cultural environment. If some soul stuff departs from my body and goes into another body, the resulting "person" will not be Ficino. It will be someone else who has a number of the same qualities - maybe similar personality, tendency to same virtues and vices, etc.

 

So how is that different from what happens without positing reincarnation? Without the reincarnation doctrine, I still expect that there will be some future person who is like me in various relevant ways.

 

As to how it affects my life:

1. I owe something to future generations, whether reincarnation is true or not, just by being human.

2. I'm happier believing that my "atoms" will disperse after my death and variously become parts of different things than I used to be believing that "I" would be reincarnated over and over.

3. The prospect of being reincarnated forever is, quite frankly, dreadful to me - even though, as I said above, when I break it down it's no different from the prospect that the human race generally will go on forever.

4. Where does belief in reincarnation lead the believer? It seems to me that one would want to escape what Plato refers to as "the heavy-groaning wheel" of reincarnation through reaching enlightenment and freeing the soul forever from the body. But then you get a spirituality with that goal as its focus, and that sort of spirituality, at least as I was exposed to it for many years, has many world-denying aspects. Even now sometimes I feel guilty about sex because it was instilled in me that it's spiritually damaging to draw your life energy down into the chakras at the base of the spine, thus making you all the more enmeshed in the realm of matter. My father even stopped having sex with my mother for "spiritual" reasons, as I've been told some Vedanta-inclined Indian men do. I am happier just being a human person in the world and appreciating things for what they are, not seeing them as Maya (Illusion). This isn't to deny the many good things that people find in Hinduistic traditions and their Buddhist offsprings.

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Are you familiar with the term "imbalanced ego" from the Eastern mindset? If you're interpreting my phrasing from a Western point of view, then my words have a completely different meaning, which is unfortunate, but the phrasing I learned from an Indian teacher is not always compatible with the phrasing we interpret in English over a message board due to the many dualities in our language. As often as my words are misconstrued over this board, I'm thinking my attempts to convey what I've learned to be futile. So until I find a better way to communicate, I'll stop.

 

Foxy - I am sure now that you had some other meaning behind what you were saying.  I was trying to keep this thread on topic - maybe I shouldn't - but anyway, what you said may have had more relevance than I thought.  I would be interested in reading something from your Indian teacher if you would provide a link, or even better, start a thread to discuss it.

 

Well, if it's not too much trouble, I'd appreciate being allowed to discuss in a discussion forum without being told how to post comments or to create another thread, Ms Bossypants.

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So somehow completely missed this thread this weekend.

 

According to the Micheal Teachings reincarnation is how the world works. However, it has a twist. In the terminology, your essence or soul is immortal. You as you exist now are a personality that your soul created to interact in the physical world. So you are both immortal and temporal. When you die, your personality goes to the Astral plane for a life review. Over time your essence reintegrates all the personalities that have gone before. This process allows the soul to evolve by integrating all of the lessons learned over all of the lives lived.

 

So death happens. However, no life is wasted.

 

This link is just a sample of some of the questions people have asked about this subject.

 

This link has a little more information for those who are interested.

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Well, if it's not too much trouble, I'd appreciate being allowed to discuss in a discussion forum without being told how to post comments or to create another thread, Ms Bossypants.

 

Please feel free. I don't think I called you any names, but since you want to do that, I will not communicate with you any further.

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luna, you touch on something i've wondered about, as J and others i've met who believe in reincarnation have mentioned too. The idea that certain groups of people move through lives together. That a friend in this life may have been a lover in the past, or an enemy in this one may have been a loved family member in another.

I've done a painting that reflects this idea, which i'm hoping i can have up online for you to see some time today. Hoping. It's titled 21 souls and is a rendition of the waiting station next to the River of Souls.

 

Here's something though that i think of as evidence against reincarnation, or at least people's perceptions of it - memories that are not shared.

As you say, luna, when you meet someone who you feel you share a past or a connection this way, you both feel it. What is it when only one feels it? In my lifetime i've had 3 different girlfriends who all said they felt they'd known me forever and were my lover in a past life. Several more said that just when i first met them. In ALL cases my thought was, 'um, you might have the wrong guy'. I made no such connection. I didn't lie to them, i just said, 'i don't remember.'

The thing is, if all of them were my lover in a past life, then i'm a cosmic scale slut. Maybe i could be. I dream of a different lover every other night. Let's see, over 30 years, that's over 5,500 lovers. How could i possibly remember all of their names? Hope i don't have some kind of cosmological STD.

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Thank you, Deva. I'll oblige. I was trying to kid around as Ms Bossypants should hardly be viewed as vicious namecalling, but I can see you are not someone who will take anything lightly. I will respectfully avoid you and your threads from now on. Take care.

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voice,

 

that is because you do travel through the cycle of lives with many of the same souls. And yes, sometimes lovers in one life were brothers in another. Sometimes you were married to the same person this time as a previous time, but the kids are different.

 

You have murdered and been murdered. You have been abandoned as child and done the abandoning. It is how we learn and evolve.

 

EDIT:

 

As to what it is when only one person feels it, could be imagination on their part. It also could be that they do recognize you, but you didn't for whatever reason.

 

Essence contact with yourself or another person is a very powerful experience.

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Here's something though that i think of as evidence against reincarnation, or at least people's perceptions of it - memories that are not shared.

As you say, luna, when you meet someone who you feel you share a past or a connection this way, you both feel it. What is it when only one feels it?

 

How is that evidence against it? I have run up against people who don't remember what I do, but they are people who don't remember past lives at all. If it was contradicting memories, maybe that would be an argument against it, but just because someone I remember being with me in a past life doesn't remember, doesn't mean s/he wasn't there. I don't tell my family they're lying when they tell stories about me when I was a baby just because I don't remember. Doesn't mean they didn't happen.

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Here's that painting, it's about reincarnation, the waiting area.

 

21souls_attheriver.jpg

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I like that painting, Voice.

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Asking for evidence against reincarnation is like asking for evidence against the existence of God. Sure, you can point to fallacies here and contradictions there, but at the end of the day, it is simply another unfalsifiable religious claim held as true only by virtue of faith and/or personal (and shared) revelation.

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I was thinking about reincarnation last night and the best I got is that it's possible. I mean there are people who see ghosts, communicate with ancestors, etc. I don't know. Right now that's all I've got. Personally, imho, it could be considered that the parts that make us up get reused in some way I guess. I mean wouldn't our molecules etc go to use in some other form? Not really good with science since I pretty much ignored it thankies to xtianity.

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  • 1 month later...

there are 2 things people are saying, it's about a 50/50 split.

 

1. we are material, we die, our atoms break down and form other things, that is all.

2. we have a soul that lives within us and lives on after our atoms break down and form other things.

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