man's freedom and responsability for his actions

[Guest guest]

"Student: You talk about somebody going through lifetimes. Is there

something that goes through all those lifetimes like a soul?

 

Joseph Goldestein answers: It can be understood somewhat in terms of the

changes that happen within a lifetime. For example, if you think back five

or ten years, your body was completely different, even on a cellular level.

It has all undergone transformation. The mind has undergone transformation

countless more times, rising and passing away. There is nothing which you

can point to now, which is the same as it was then. But what you are now

has been conditioned by what you were then and by every successive moment.

In other words, every moment conditions the arising of the next moment.

Nothing is carried over, but there is a relationship of one moment to the

next. There is an ordered continuiity to the process. At the moment of

death, the quality of consciousness conditions the arising of the rebirth

consciousness. Nothing is carried over, but depending on that last moment

arises the new consciousness."

 

So, the freedom arises on how we choose, determine the quality of

consciousness here and now -no cramming for the finals (death) possible.

 

metta.

 

Joyce