Jesus taught Karma and Reincarnation

[Guest guest]

From an ancient Essene Christian text:

 

"The body that ye lay in the grave, or that is consumed by fire, is not the body that shall be, but they who come again shall receive other bodies, and as they have sown in one life, so shall they reap in another."

 

"As all creatures come from the unseen into this world, so they return to the unseen, and so will they come again till they be purified."

"Blessed are they who suffer many experiences, for they shall be made perfect through suffering; they shall be as the angels of God in heaven and die no more, neither shall they be born anymore, for death and birth have no more dominion over them."

 

From the New Testament, Revelation 3:12:

 

"He that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, and mine own new name."

 

Many ancient Christian texts speak of reincarnation, sadly, most of these did not make it in the canonized New Testament and the texts that did make it in the NT, were heavily edited! Still, we find references to reincarnation, like in Revelation 3:12.

 

Also, you might be interested to know reincarnation is a fundamental belief of Orthodox Judaism.. and I am sure most here know Christianity came out of Judaism. Thus if the parent faith teaches reincarnation, some knowledge must have been lost to the daughter faith somewhere down the line.

 

The Hebrew Zohar states:

 

All souls are subject to reincarnation; and people do not know the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He! They do not know that they are brought before the tribunal both before they enter into this world and after they leave it; they are ignorant of the many reincarnations and secret works which they have to undergo, and of the number of naked souls, and how many naked spirits roam about in the other world without being able to enter within the veil of the King's Palace. Men do not know how the souls revolve like a stone that is thrown from a sling. But the time is at hand when these mysteries will be disclosed. (Zohar II 99b)

 

 

In the Talmud, "gilgul neshamot" (i.e., reincarnation) is constantly mentioned. The term literally means "the judgment of the revolutions of the souls." Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel (1604-1657), one of the most revered Rabbis in Israel, states in his book entitled Nishmat Hayyim:

"The belief or the doctrine of the transmigration of souls is a firm and infallible dogma accepted by the whole assemblage of our church with one accord, so that there is none to be found who would dare to deny it... Indeed, there is a great number of sages in Israel who hold firm to this doctrine so that they made it a dogma, a fundamental point of our religion. We are therefore in duty bound to obey and to accept this dogma with acclamation... as the truth of it has been incontestably demonstrated by the Zohar, and all books of the Kabalists." (Nishmat Hayyim)

 

If a fundamentalist Christian calls you a misguided eastern religionist or what not for believing in "reincarnation", you can tell them, that their religion originally had the doctrine of reincarnation and that Judaism still does. Make them read Revelation 3:12, if nothing else! Jesus says the soul has gone out and will continue to until it Overcomes this realm.

[sanatan]

Christians generally don't accept any text but the Bible itself as an authoritative scripture, and the passages in the Bible that might suggest reincarnation, such as Revelation 3:12, that you noted, are cryptic at best; there's not anything in the presently-accepted versions of the Bible that could form the basis for a convincing pro-reincarnation argument.

 

In a broad-based sense, the whole basis of Christian orthodoxy or conservative Christianity rests on the doctrine of inherent Original Sin and the redemption for this through the physical blood Atonement of Jesus Christ.

 

For a Christian, actual acceptance of the concept of reincarnation is a very big stretch, because to accept it would essentially demand the drastic modification or outright discarding of the idea of Jesus Christ's death as God's only provision for the salvation of mankind. In addition, for a Biblical literalist, this would completely undermine the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy.

 

In my experience, no matter how sensibly or reasonably the idea of reincarnation may be presented to them, most conservative Christians cannot bring themselves to even casually entertain it.

 

The Biblical passage that I've heard used the most to summarily dismiss the idea of reincarnation is Hebrews 9:27: And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

 

Of course, the passage most often used by Christians when they want to stonewall and summarily dismiss everything else is John 14:6: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

[gHari]

The truth is that there is a very glaring reference to reincarnation in the Bible that the Emperor's editors missed. Jesus notes that John the Baptist is Elijah, come again calling in the wilderness.

 

The classic heehaw John 14.6 quote is placed into perspective by the previous verse. Context is everything. They have their cheaters, just as we do. They talk like they know what they're talking about for name and fame, just like we do.

 

The Christians are being cheated. The clergy even cheat themselves. I associated for two years with the top clerics of a major Christian denomination, and they admitted that they had no idea how to love God. But they still collected a paycheck. They had no concept of the benefits of religious life or the soul or the Kingdom. In short, they had no realized knowledge, simply a bunch of catch-phrases they use to protect their jobs of being professional 'nice guys'.

 

I summed up organized Christianity for a lady a few days back: the churches teach you how to pretend to love God. If you want to follow Jesus, then follow Jesus. Forget dogma. Follow Jesus if you can. But it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. So the blind will lead the blind, even here.

[Guest guest]

For some so called Christians to concead reincarnation would be like a painful defeat, at the hands of those heathens from a barbaric land, there is a certain ego attached to the soul through lifetimes of false conditioning, and it takes higher degrees of surrender to shift these fixed conceptions in the jiva.

It's usually by the association of considerate devotees that the bastions of resistence and ignorance come tumbling down.

[sanatan]

 

The truth is that there is a very glaring reference to reincarnation in the Bible that the Emperor's editors missed. Jesus notes that John the Baptist is Elijah, come again calling in the wilderness.

....

 

Once again, though, that's an isolated reference that merely suggests reincarnation, without a strong supporting context. I've had Christians explain that passage to me as being an example of a special God-ordained incident, rather than a mysteriously or mistakenly included reference to reincarnation as a universal fact.

 

 

 

For some so called Christians to concead reincarnation would be like a painful defeat, at the hands of those heathens from a barbaric land, there is a certain ego attached to the soul through lifetimes of false conditioning, and it takes higher degrees of surrender to shift these fixed conceptions in the jiva.

It's usually by the association of considerate devotees that the bastions of resistence and ignorance come tumbling down.

 

Yes, a large part of evangelical Christianity is about gaining a particular type of psychological control over others that I just haven't seen much of in Vedic or Oriental faiths. From the individual one-on-one level on up, it's very much an ego-driven, I'm absolutely right-you're absolutely wrong approach.

[Guest guest]

Here is another verse indictive of reincarnation in the canonized Bible.

 

 

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" John 9:1-2, NIV

 

It is clear that Jesus' disciples believed in reincarnation and past life-karma, which was a view held by many Jews in his day. In the following verses Jesus does NOT say: "what are you talking about? there is no such thing as the pre-existence of the soul, or past-life karma, that could cause a person to be born-blind." He never tells them that their belief in reincarnation is wrong in the recorded passage, he only says that the man's blindness was not a result of sin; it was part of the mysteries of this realm, that lead to God's glory, when the blindness is lifted.

 

This whole story appears to be a real life parable on Maya, God's grace and the Spiritual Master. Are we not all spiritually blind, until we receive the grace of the Spiritual Master? In other words, the account of healing the blind man was part of Christ's lilas on earth, demonstrating the grace of the Guru, and the lifting of the veils of Maya. His blindness was meant to be a teaching tool, and that's why it was not specifically as a result of a "past-life" sin or his parent's sin. Regardless, Jesus takes the disciples' knowledge of reincarnation and past-life karma, as a matter of fact thing. He does not argue with them about the pre-existence of the soul, for they were not wrong about this. Jewish initiates then, and now, know more about the pre-existence of the soul and reincarnation than the orthodox Christians. It's no wonder they continue to reject Christianity as presented to them..

[Guest guest]

As well as Karma and reincarnation, that are spoken about in the Essene New Testemant, here are some statements of Jesus on vegetarianism; in the Essene New Testament:

 

"Verily I say unto you, they who partake of benefits which are gotten by wronging one of God's creatures, cannot be righteous; nor can they understand holy things, or teach the mysteries of the kingdom, whose hands are stained with blood, or whose mouths are defiled with flesh.

 

"God giveth the grains and the fruits of the earth for food; and for righteous man truly there is no other lawful sustenance for the body....

 

"Wherefore I say unto all who desire to be my disciples, keep your hands from bloodshed and let no flesh meat enter your mouths, for God is just and bountiful, who ordained that man shall live by the fruits and seeds of the earth alone."