Back to less politically sensitive subjects, but continuing the theme of scientifically highly contentious subjects...
The essential idea behind reincarnation is that when you die, you are reborn in a new body. it's not quite that simple, but that's the basic premise.
Some people think it's an immediate thing: you die, then you immediately move into a new home. Others think you might hang around a while until a suitable new body comes up. It's clear that some wait around for a very long time, if they ever get reincarnated at all.
The old British religions were based on a serial transition. First life (a soul) is created, then it goes to Earth and is born in a physical body. If that soul does everything right, it moves on to Heaven.
If not, it has to come back, be reborn, and try again.
However, the soul has no memory of its previous life. This is why I am convinced the Old British god was a woman.
You live your life with no clue as to what 'getting it right' means. You die, you are told you didn't get it right and you have to go back and do it all again. At this point you'd expect to be told what you did wrong the first time.
Not only are you not told what you did wrong, your memory of what you did last time is removed. So you're doomed to run through life at random, hoping you've done what you're supposed to do but knowing that, as long as the rules aren't defined, they can change.
That's definitely the creation of a female mind. It's an unbeatable system.
I have no indication that I was ever reincarnated. By that I mean I have no memory of any previous lives, but since we're not supposed to, that proves nothing.
Sometimes people recount memories of past experience and sometimes they can be tested. The Society for Scientific Exploration have reported many studies suggesting that there is something worth looking at in the reincarnation issue, and Fortean Times this month carries the story of a woman who claims to be Marylin Monroe reborn. It's not a subject that can be easily dismissed.
I hear sceptics say things like 'Ah, but these people always claim to have been someone famous in a previous life. There must be fifty Napoleons walking the Earth at any one time.'
Sure, not all accounts are true. Many are the ravings of the deranged. A few can be shown to have some actual evidence behind them, though.
In fact, most credible reports do not involve a famous past life. Those that do, make it into the national press. Everyone wants to read about a reincarnation of Marylin Monroe. Nobody wants to read about a reincarnation of Joe Bloggs, a fat, string-vested fish packer from Hull who died when a crate of spaghetti fell on him.
Claims of fame make the tabloids. The reports in the Society's journal do not involve famous people. They are reincarnation claims made by ordinary people, who claim to have been ordinary people in their previous lives.
That's what makes them convincing. It's easy to research the lives of the dead famous and come up with a plausible story to say you're that person reborn. It's much more difficult to give family details of an everyday person, who has never made that information public.
The religions that are based on reincarnation usually have no Hell for sinners. Sinners just get sent back here. I'm not sure there's really a difference.
Maybe that's why there are so many people these days.
5 comments:
Romulus Crowe, you should be spanked for those sexist comments, but I'll just ignore them and go on for now.
As for how long we might wait before being reincarnated, the study of astrology (and related spiritual thought) leads me to believe Swami Sri Yukteswar explained it in a simple manner most people can understand:
"A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma. His horoscope is a challenging portrait, revealing his unalterable past and its probable future result."
I'm sorry you have no clue what "getting it right" means (I don't believe that for an instant, but I'm going to base my remarks on what you've given me to work with). And why do you believe we're not told what we did wrong the first time?
Many years of studying this subject leads me to offer this possibility:
Upon our death, we (our intact souls) arrive at a place The Tibetan Book of the Dead named the Bardo, where we appear before a council of Wise Souls. At this point, we review the life we have just left (our lives flashing before our eyes?). All our thoughts and deeds are magnetically recorded in something known as the Akashic Records, which makes this possible (St. Peter's Book of Life?). Because time and space do not actually exist, we may also be able to see the end result of our actions on the lives of those we have interacted with. For example, a parent who abused a child will not only feel the physical and emotional pain of the child, but also see that the child grows up to perpetuate the abuse on his or her own children.
During this review, we feel and experience for ourselves all the emotions and reactions that we were responsible for evoking in others during our lives - all the joy and laughter, all the pain and tears. We see exactly where we went wrong. We are not judged by others. We judge ourselves based on this experience. With the assistance of the Wise Council, we make a new plan for the next life, which in many cases will be lived among the same people/souls with which we lived this life. Sometimes the souls with whom we need to balance our karma and make things right are still living, so it may be the life after the next, or the one after that, before we're able to do this.
Although we might come back in the same relationships, we don't necessarily. We will come back in whatever way is necessaray or helpful in balancing the karma. The abusive parent may come back as the child of his child. A sister may may come back as a parent, a brother may return as a husband, a murderer may come back as a victim.
Based on these needs, we then make contracts with other souls to help us fulfill our plans for our next lives. None of these plans are based on revenge or vengeance. There is nothing but love, understanding and cooperation in the Bardo. The murderer in this life is willing to be the victim in the next because he now has full understanding of what he has done. And someone is going to volunteer (with love in his heart for his fellow soul) to come back and murder him. This is why it is God's place and not ours to judge our fellow man. While we are here, we do not know. The whole process would fail to work if we did. In addition, our conscious memories are wiped clean because the trauma of a succession of lives is too painful for us to be able to function in the material world. We hold the memories in our subconscious (which is why they are often accessible through hypnosis and dreams).
It is because of the contracts we make with these other souls that we sometimes get that strange sense of deja vu in our lives, or the sense that we've "always" known another person, or have met our "soul mate," or dislike someone the instant we meet them. Our subconscious holds this information in the same way it holds a priori information. (We're born knowing 1 + 1 = 2. It's an unalterable fact, is it not?) We also arrive back knowing the sign posts along the way that will alert us that part of our plan is about to be enacted. It might come as a sense of deja vu, or it might be something as simple as seeing sunlight flash on a piece of jewelry someone is wearing that tells us the person wearing it is bound to be significant in our life.
Of course we have clues about what "getting it right" entails. We all have a conscious. We all have that inner voice (intuition)that tells us when what we are doing is right or wrong. But sometimes the plan and the contract calls for doing the wrong thing anyway (compulsion). And of course, there's the matter of free will. We always have the option of "opting out."
Many people want to know what happens to people like Hitler or Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer. Are they unleashed on the world again? Yes and no. Like the rest of us, they are reborn. However, they return in a body that enables them to be in the world (to re-learn), without the ability to have any effect on the world. They are reborn with physical or mental handicaps that prevent them from repeating the evil. Which is not to say that every person with a physical or mental challenge is the reincarnation of evil (see next paragraph). Those who are here to re-learn how to be in the world are usually identifiable by intense anger and frustration with their circumstances, and a tiny pinpoint of light in their pupils that we perceive as a sign of "madness." Look at Charles Manson's eyes. You can already see it there.
Some people who return in a handicapped body are volunteers who are doing it as part of their contract to help other souls fulfill the plans for their lives. What are they teaching? Patience, maybe. Dedication. Unconditional love. They might be instilling in another person the desire to work hard and go out and find a cure for the ailment, which will benefit mankind as a whole.
It is this same kind of thought which helps us to understand people like Oskar Schindler. He was a womanizer, and a spendthrift, but there was "method to his madness." He came equipped with the things he would need to fulfill his destiny on this earth.
And how does all this explain the harsh and often horrible lives of people in third world countries ... and even in America and the UK? The sick, the starving, the homeless? It may be twofold. Either those souls have volunteered for the mission, or their karma determines they experience a certain amount of suffering and they have chosen to return in a short, intense, compacted life, rather than a longer, more drawn out one, in order to dispense with it quickly. Why would anyone volunteer to be the child whose photograph appears under the title Heartbreaking in my photo album Pigment of Imagination? To help the rest of us learn compassion for our fellow man. To give us the opportunity to learn love and caring for humanity as a whole. Are we listening?
The one thing I'm fairly sure is right about what you've said is that this is hell. This is all there is to the fire and brimstone warnings of overly zealous religious fundamentalists. We all experience our own hell here, one way or another. No one is ever perfectly happy and content in their earthly life. We want the love and approval of someone we can't obtain. We want more money, a bigger house, a newer car, a more succesful husband, a prettier wife, the loyalty of a partner, the acceptance of a friend... even the super wealthy and super beautiful have heartaches. And compared to the love and beauty of the "heaven" where those who have passed on dwell, that is plenty hell enough.
Very interesting. I haven't studied Eastern religions in detail, other than chats with those who hand out literature on the street. I certainly don't know enough to argue about it.
But... I was talking about the Old British (pre-Christian) way of thinking. Didn't mean to imply that Yogic or similar faiths viewed life and death the same way.
The Old British were a fatalistic lot. Their gods had to be appeased rather than worshipped and life was something to be endured rather than enjoyed. There's still a lot of it about. Must be in the genes.
There's always a soapbox available here. After all, if nobody commented I wouldn't know if anyone was reading. ;)
Thanks for your note. I'm not ignoring you. I fell asleep. I noticed that about the infrared. I'll bet there's a bunch of sneaky photographers out there. I'm still debating whether to spring for it, or shoot with straight film, but I've got to hurry and make up my mind because I'm not waiting for next month, after all.
I've been reading about using the red filters with it, and I don't have one and can't afford to go buy one at the moment. Is it really necessary if you're shooting in the dark?
If you're in a hurry, I wouldn't rush into infrared film. It takes a little time to get the hang of!
The filter is supposed to cut down visible light. If you're shooting in complete darkness, then in theory at least it's not required. It does clear away any fogginess caused by even low-level visible light though.
You can get very fast 'straight' films for low-light work, but remember the faster the film, the greater the grain. Pictures from fast films don't enlarge too well.
Don't expect too much from a first outing with infrared film: it's a difficult medium to use. Good luck if you do go for it; sometimes first attempts work out brilliantly.
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