Understanding Reincarnation

May 20, 2003

Ive been typing out this series on reincarnation for another list and was recently asked for the next installment, so thought I would send it here too ...... deb x x (apologies for the length, to put it in episodes would lose the flow of the chapter)

Before we return to the how of this subject, a brief look at the background setting for our incarnations may lighten its seeming seriousness a little. Our particular universe is a rather special pocket within Creation. If we regard Creation as such as God's infinite playground, then our playground has different rules to the rest. In actual fact we only have one rule and a very unique one at that; the rule is: "Everything goes", meaning its a free will universe. In a way it is a place where the thrill-seekers from all the galaxies go to experience the most dangerous adventure of all, for only here is the Son of God given the opportunity to forget himself, that is deny his Source and see how far he can slip before disaster strikes. And this is precisely what all of us have done, which makes us all thrill seekers of sorts.

Using a rather liberal comparison, we can say that the potential danger inherent in the process of reincarnation is similar to that of a bungy jumper who forget to connect to the bungy, for the danger rests in the fact that a soul lost in Darkness has to find its own way back to Light, a process which requires with most souls billions of years in our counting. The journey of Spirit entering into dense matter is the most severe test any soul can undergo. Once through the test, once a Son of God has found his way back into the Light of his Source, his knowledge is priceless. He has entered the deepest mystery of Creation and has learned how not to lose himself. This puts him in the position of a grand, grand teacher and helper. In fact his learning is so great that he may be put in charge of entire planetary evolutions, if this be his choice. So much in brief for the background, now we shall look at the how of reincarnation.

During Man's sojourn thorugh a physical lifetime, all his experiences, be they ups or downs, are accompanied by emotions. These emotions are recorded in his soul and represent the only 'luggage' or 'capital', he or she may take into the Beyond. The soul of any man or woman has an actual location in the physical body. It is located in the vicinity of the Solar Plexus. The soul does not record actual events, only the emotional essense of these.

Remember the 'holding of thought'? That is what is meant by it. It is the sum total of all these accumulated emotions that furnish the profile for each individual character. At any one time, you are the best you that you have ever been. For your character represents the result of the lessons extracted from all your previous experiences. Character must not be confused with personality. The personality of an individual is a conscious choice for a given lifetime serving as a tool, a scaffolding, affording him the learning of a particular set of lessons he set out to learn in that lifetime. If our learning of a particular lesson in this life concerns artistic expression through the physical body, then we may have chosen to act out the role of a dancer, perhaps ballet. For this purpose we most likely selected a strong, but not heavy body. Certain personality traits would, of necessity, go parallel with this role. Whereas one whose learning concerns a long delayed lesson, for example compassion, may choose a crippled body as his vehicle. This way he shall instruct his soul with the feeling of what it is like to be outcast from the mainstream of life. The next time around, in another life-stream, when encountering the crippled form of another soul, he will know what it is like. He will feel compassion.

Compassion reaches out to the heart of the other and recognises him as a brother. Thus he steps in the direction of unification, away from separation. His personality, while experiencing the cripple stage, will be in accordance with this physical drama he has created for himself. Both personalities, the dancer and the cripple, may be diametrically opposed to each other, but their appearance and conduct and nontheless equally valid as tools of expression and learning. Once this is understood - truly understood with the heart and not merely the intellect - then judging the criminal, the powerbroker, the child molester, the enslaver, the thief and the rest of the 'undesirable elements' is an impossibility. When these are seen as beautiful Gods, as innocent souls playing out certain roles on the stage of their particular lifestream for the purpose of enriching their souls with the emotion, for learning purposes, then we do not judge - we educate.

We might as well pause here for a moment and consider the astrological sign a person is born under, for it serves the same purpose as the personality. In fact, both are intricately interwoven. The time of birth is consciously chosen to supply the soul with the make-up, the characteristics, to make the learning of a particular lesson, of set of lessons, possible. By no means does this state a particular bondage to his or her star sign. The learning may go very well in a specific lifetime, so the zodiac sign may be outgrown and the 'scaffolding' expanded to benefit from the properties of other suitable signs to aid in the learning of further lessons. This may reveal the fallacy of the opinion held by many that one's star sign has control over one's life. The opposite is true. We choose it in the first place and may re-choose if necessary.

Together with the physical shell, the personality is shed at the time of physical death. At this point we may be justified in questioning the idea of the soul recording only feelings and not actual events. For how is a regression into a past lifetime possible, which apparently reveals every single detailed event, with the regressing person reliving, re-experiencing those events and the whole gamut of emotions which go with it, if events are not recorded?

To answer this in an understandable fashion, we will have to seek the help of another analogy. Only in the realm of polarities does linear time and space occur. Why this is so, we shall see later. In reality, time as such does not exist, but rather an eternal now. Without time, future and past cannot exist.

Now, where does this leave us in regard to past or future lifetimes? We may be tempted to conclude: nowhere. Not quite, for the answer is: everywhere, or better, everywhen. Meaning, lifetimes exist in a parallel, rather than a linear pattern. They exist always, the 'future' and 'past' lifetimes alike. At this point we may experience some mental hiccups. The mind tends to refuse this, for this does not fit its 'programming', which is based on linear thinking, based on the principals of polarities. But we can be at ease here - the following illustration shall clarify the picture: we imagine a public library with thousands and thousands of books. Each contains a story. Therefore each story exists already from beginning to end. We may view each book as representing a lifetime. The books have parallel existence in the library. Yet, to experience the story of a particular book, we have to retrace the story in a linear fashion from beginning to end, though beginning and end are already existent. We may now understand a little better how a clairvoyant sees the 'future'. It is a bit like looking ahead in the book to spy on the hero's fate. The library paradigm will, most likely, shed some light into the minds of those who are familiar with the term 'Akashic Records'.

We imagine for a moment we enjoy a good movie in a cinema theatre. Now, the story we are following exists, or is recorded in its entirety, on a reel of film. The entire story is there from the beginning to the end. However, to experience this story we have to wind off the film and look at each frame singularly in sequence, that is, in a linear fashion. Although the whole story exists as such already, to experience it we must retrace each step in a linear manner. Thus, time is born. However, let us not fall into the mental trap of assuming that lives are predestined. To sit back in a fatalistic attitude, and see our fate aas being 'all in the stars' anyway, only shows that he who feels this way has written this fatalistic attitude in his book of life in the first place. Now he is retracing it. Thus he shall learn from it how not to be. That was the reason for writing this part into his script.

As we can only receive the radio station we are tuned into, in the same manner the clairvoyant adjusts to the specific frequency of an already existent 'future' or 'past' lifetime or 'future' event of a present life.The fact that only the clairvoyant can do this, and we cannot, is due to his particular gift to do so. Similiar to one person having a talent for music and another a talent for mathematics. However, not having a talent for music still cannot prevent me from being taught the piano.

As we can only watch one tv channel at any one given time, so we can only experience one lifetime at a time. It does not mean the other tv channels are non-existent. These beam their programmes into the ether all the same, meaning the other programmes, or films, are rolling off in the same Now as our Now.

Returning to the cinema analogy, we recognise that the canvas the film is projected upon stands for our physical world, the world of matter. The story of any given lifetime is projected onto and into matter. Now, while watching the movie in the cinema, be the movie funny or sad, we feel with the actors, we rejoice or weep, fear or become angry, to the extent of an increased heart beat and perspiration on our forehead - in short, we become involved. Mind you, it is not real, it is only a movie, remember? And at the end, when we leave the theatre, no matter if we wept our heart out, we are likely to remark on what a good movie this was. Exactly the same happens after our departure from the cinema Earth. The only difference here is that we are author, scriptwriter, director, actor and audience in one. Once we begin to see our particular lifetime as one in a succession of thousands of such lifetimes, its hold on us through its terrible seriousness and drama begins to loosen. We then dare to smile, if not laugh out loud and the serious and sad 'movie' takes on a more light-hearted hue: We begin to actually enjoy it. We then understand the idea behind the roles we have assigned to our lives and the concept of victimization is therefore seen for what it is: an upside down perception of life.

If the roles we act out in any given life - be it king or beggar, thief or judge, nun or prostitute, murderer or victim - are conscious choices we make before embarking on the journey of that particular lifetime, then the idea of a victim become totally unjustified. The inflictor affords the inflicted an experience, a learning opportunity, the entire event being a co-creation. The cripple at the roadside then is no more seen as unjustly treated by life, but rather that his body is the necessary form this fellow soul requires for the learning of his lesson. Whereas before, our heart may have ached with compassion at the sight of him, the compassion now becomes 'dispassionate' compassion. We still feel whole-heartedly for him, yet know his condition to be for a purpose. The general feeling then is one of compassionate understanding.

If coldness is the echo at his sight, or a feeling of superiority, then we shall be assured we will have to come as a cripple ourselves sometime in the 'future', if we do not learn to see aright. For we can only judge what we do not understand. Having been a cripple means that I have been there, I understand. Having been a beggar means I own the feeling in my soul. The lady of good social standing encountering the prostitute at the corner of the street will understand, if she 'has been there', she will not judge. For she knows.

And so the journey goes, from lifetime to lifetime, advancing our learning a little at a time. But there comes a time when the soul is saturated with the accumulation of experiences. This accumulation may result in the soul's complete boredom with the perceived, for it has been there, has experienced it all: or the result may be the accumulation of sorrow creating a build-up of enormous pressure seeking to be released. And for the first time in eons, the heart may cry: 'there must be another way'. Thoughts then tend to redirect from the focus on matters at hand to matters concerning life in general and the meaning of it all. It is then that learning is accomplished in gigantic strides. What previously may have taken a hundred lifetimes to learn, may now be absorbed intelligently in one singular life. The focus then is directed rather toward the inner than the outer. (The kingdom of heaven is within). If this learning culminates in the individual's awakening, then further incarnations are superfluous. The soul has disembarked from the wheel of rebirths.

Before we continue on the general aspect of this subject, we ought to take a closer look at the one major pitfall in this learning cycle in the Self's journey: the power of stabilized perception. We experience, therefore we perceive. We cannot help but believe what we perceive. This is a normal pattern. However, perception stabilizes on grounds of repeated experinces and belief becomes limited to that perception. The pitfall sets in when experience is of a nature that contradicts our belief system. For as much as we must believe what we perceive, we cannot perceive what we do not believe. Thus, belief becomes a filter, which filters out what we believe cannot be. This results in lifetimes, repeated over and over, without any progress made. Again and again we re-experience the pain, the struggle, the hatred, the joylessness, although one single experience would suffice to own the emotion. We move in circles, in other words we become 'stuck in a rut'. An example: if experience taught us over and over to fear, then perception of fear becomes stabilized. As we only perceive what we believe, we gravitate continuously toward experiences which cement the belief in fear. In this way, lifetime after lifetime is lived in anxiety without progression toward the next step, and this is exactly the state of affairs with mankind. For what action in this world is not based on fear of lack of some kind?

The next step would see us open to the accomodation of new experiences which would eventaully result in the recognition of the actual cause of fear. Whereas before we focused on the form aspect, which manifested the threat causing us to fear, we now look through and past the form at the form's content and recognise the principle of Fear as the meaning of the form and therefore realise its cause. The illusion of separation from our Oneness with Life would be recognised as the cause eventually.

Once the cause is established, the effect, fear, becomes superfluous. The above example depicts, of course, the learning of the ultimate lesson for mankind. If we could succeed in perception without stabilisation of it, then our learning curve would look like a spiral, rather than a flat circle. To perceive without stabilization of perception, however, it becomes imperative to abandon the judgement of that which is perceived, for it is judgement which stabilizes perception. Yeshwa's advice: "Judge not by appearances" may be understood better in this light. Evaluating, that is judging what we perceive results always in False Perception.

The thought then, logically and consequently thought to its end, is this: where judgement is not, accusation is absent. Where accusation is not, guilt is absent. Where guilt is not, forgiveness has no purpose and a state without a need for forgiveness must, of necessity, be a state of Pure Being, of innocence, a state of enlightenment.

So, in a brief recapitulation of this stabilisation effect, we look at the main 'trap' again: repeated experience causes repeated judgement. This creates habits of perception. Habits of perception may be seen like grooves in the mind. The deeper the groove, the more fixed becomes our belief in what the groove contains. The more repetitions, the deeper the groove and the harder it becomes to jump out of that groove. We seem to be trapped in a vicious circle. The obvious question then, arising from this, is how to leave the groove? This material (book) shall give us the key. While we are in the groove, we are attached, are entangled in the groove experience. Here we tend to want to improve conditions, not realising its nature as an effect, but seeing it as cause. The form always represents the effect, not the cause. Treatment of the effect, being only a symptom, can only displace or shift the symptom. Now remember: the root cause of 'evil' of any kind is the illusion of separation. In our mistaken identity we see ourselves over here and life over there and God is a 'pie in the sky'.

By embarking on this journey into the realm of matter, the Self expelled itself from 'paradise' and forgot its origin, its Source. The truth, however, is: we are travelling in a dream while safely at home. For what else is the illusion of separate existence but a dream. No matter how realistic the dream may be, a dream is a dream.

Imagine you sit by the bedside of your child and witness the effects of the nightmare it is experiencing. Your child moans and groans, tosses and turns. It experiences fear in its dream and perspires, so great is the fear. What would you do as a loving parent? Creep into your child's dream and fix the dream? But this is exactly what happens when we pray to God in desparation to change an unbearable condition we suffer. This statement intends to depict the 'fixing of the dream' syndrome, instead of awakening from it. It does not in any way diminish the value of prayer. In fact, prayer is one of the highest known ways and most splendid tools for Man to re-establish contact with his own Divine Self, providing prayer comes from the heart.

Let us return to the bedside of your child: the help you would offer your child would rather be this: "wake up, my child, it is not so!"

From a dream one can only awaken. So the answer to the question of how to leave the grooves is to wake up to reality, the very purpose of the soul's sojourn through the world of matter. And the very purpose of these writings: to help us awaken from the grand dream, which the wisdom of the East has known for thousands of years as Maya, the Great Illusion. True Perception of this illusion will set us free from the bondage of this dream. It allows the miracle in to heal. A miracle is devoid of degrees. It cares not what we perceive our problem to be, how big or small - it matters not. For where we see many problems, it only knows of one: Separation from Oneness. And to the one problem, it can only bring one answer, provided the miracle is invited and allowed in. For what we call a miracle is nothing else but the truth rushing in if we surrender our defences.

The healing is then instant. And be assured with emphasis: these words are based on personal experiences.

next chapter BETWEEN INCARNATIONS

excerpt from "God I Am - From Tragic to Magic" by Peter O Erbe