Reincarnation

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This forum is dedicated to the quest of our common humanity, especially in the exploration of the underlying commonalities of the human condition, the similarities between faith systems and philosophies, and the Druidic search for all that unifies rather than divides. This is a public forum, viewable by guests as well as members, and is cataloged by most search engines.

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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Wolfe Spirit » 16 Mar 2010, 04:37

For many years I pondered the question myself, but the one shot/one life deal never really sat with me. It never really made sense that we humans were only given so long to live only one life. As I grew and discovered the metaphysical side of life, my beliefs shifted and I was able to discover some of my past lifes through meditation. At one point I was a sailor for the Portuguese I believe. That was the oldest vision from my past life experiences that I am aware of, but I'm definately a firm believer on reincarnation!
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Sencha » 16 Mar 2010, 16:17

As I grew and discovered the metaphysical side of life, my beliefs shifted and I was able to discover some of my past lifes through meditation. At one point I was a sailor for the Portuguese I believe. That was the oldest vision from my past life experiences that I am aware of, but I'm definately a firm believer on reincarnation!


Yes, something similar happened to me. My past lives more often come to me in dreams. These dreams have a different quality to them than my regular dreams. I've learned to pay attention to them. There have been dreams where I looked in a mirror and saw myself, and I was most definitely not the person I am in this lifetime.

The final piece of evidence for me was that I started seeing places in these dreams that I later encountered in real life. I've seen buildings, for example, that I'd never been to. But upon seeing these places in real life, I could describe the layout before ever entering the building. In one case I described to my wife a building on the side of a mountain. One day while driving through the mountains, I came upon that exact building. When we went inside, it was exactly as I described it, except that one of the rooms I'd seen was missing. Upon talking to the owner, we discovered that the room in question had collapsed and fallen off the mountain due to a mud slide in tne 1930s (before I was born...this time).
I also recall a life as a Fransiscan in a monastery. I have painted the monastery I saw in my dreams. Then several years later, I saw the actual monastery on a PBS documentary on Spain.
It's gotten to be a game with me and my wife. Any time I have one of those dreams, I tell her about it so that when we find the place in real life, it becomes more evidence for reincarnation.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Bealltainn » 23 Mar 2010, 19:14

Artemis365 wrote:Please share expierences and opinions about reincarnation :awen:

Blessings!
Artemis365


I don't believe in reincarnation. I believe that we will keep on living in another dimendion the same way that we lived our life in this earth. I believe in Heaven and in Hell. And I believe that our life will go on.
I can't know anything else because I am only a human being and this is the Greatest Mistery of the world: the Life.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Sencha » 26 Mar 2010, 00:49

I don't believe in reincarnation. I believe that we will keep on living in another dimendion the same way that we lived our life in this earth.


To me, that's what reincarnation is.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby FoxPhantom » 09 Apr 2010, 00:15

Hello.

This is one way I think of Reincarnation. Once a person dies, (which I think it's called false death) that the soul begins a new life, which is reborn in to the other world or heaven, or what ever place you call.
and possibly that it is a souls choice to stay in the spirit realm and rest, and to also enjoy being there. and another which is to be reborn into the physical realm, and let yourself go through another experience.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Sencha » 15 Apr 2010, 19:33

This is one way I think of Reincarnation. Once a person dies, (which I think it's called false death) that the soul begins a new life, which is reborn in to the other world or heaven, or what ever place you call.
and possibly that it is a souls choice to stay in the spirit realm and rest, and to also enjoy being there. and another which is to be reborn into the physical realm, and let yourself go through another experience.


I am of a similar belief. I believe that the purpose of reincarnating is to continue to learn...to experience all that is. With experience comes knowledge. With knowledge comes power. We are all growing towards divinity.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby skydove » 16 Apr 2010, 09:48

Or at least the love of all divinity after we have learned to love all existences.

Perhaps we learn to love ourselves in whatever form of existence we take on.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Sencha » 16 Apr 2010, 14:45

And what is Divinity if it is not love? ;)
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby skydove » 16 Apr 2010, 16:22

Very true in my books!
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby treegod » 18 Apr 2010, 23:24

I really stopped thinking about the afterlife when I started to seriously consider what Buddhists call anicca- impermanence or change.

This led me to consider that even if there is a soul that survives death, it too has a limited "lifespan." In the end I didn't see the need to believe in it, in the end I would still have to face up to my impermanence or my true identity as universal spirit.

When I look at a newborn baby I don't see a being with a load of "past life" baggage, I see pure expression of the "Universal Spirit", freshly incarnated into a personal form in the making. It seems unfair to such a pure spirit to impose previous experience on a being that probably does not have it.

The personal self becomes a receptacle to accept the light of the universal Self and concentrate its energies into the human psyche. Each time the self and Self unite, reincarnation happens. "You" and "I" are different selves but it is the same Self that shines within us all.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Sencha » 19 Apr 2010, 13:15

This led me to consider that even if there is a soul that survives death, it too has a limited "lifespan."


For all practical purposes, such a soul (with a limited lifespan) is still eternal. If such a soul ceases to exist, how would it be aware that it has ceased to exist? Can you be conscious of your own death?

When I look at a newborn baby I don't see a being with a load of "past life" baggage, I see pure expression of the "Universal Spirit", freshly incarnated into a personal form in the making. It seems unfair to such a pure spirit to impose previous experience on a being that probably does not have it.


I don't believe in 'karmic baggage' either. What some call 'karma,' I simply see as the result of natural laws. If you 'break the law of gravity' by jumping off a cliff, you have to pay the consequences in resulting injuries. It's not that you have 'bad karma' as a result...it's simply that violating natural laws has natural consequences. Each time an infant is born, I believe that the slate is clean.

Each time the self and Self unite, reincarnation happens. "You" and "I" are different selves but it is the same Self that shines within us all.


Yes...I just don't see 'self' and 'Self' as separate. Perhaps the ultimate goal of reincarnation is to come to this realization...that self and Self are the same.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby treegod » 19 Apr 2010, 18:02

Sencha wrote:
This led me to consider that even if there is a soul that survives death, it too has a limited "lifespan."


For all practical purposes, such a soul (with a limited lifespan) is still eternal.


8-) How? As in "there is no time" eternity? And for what practical purposes because I think I've missed the point?

And for all practical purposes such a body (with a limited lifespan) is still eternal? :thinking: :wink:

Sencha wrote:If such a soul ceases to exist, how would it be aware that it has ceased to exist? Can you be conscious of your own death?


Well, you can be conscious of dying but conscious of the moment of death itself :shrug:
It would need another soul to recognise it was "dead" or dissipated, assuming that the same logic that one body can recognise that another body is dead. But other than that... :shrug:

Sencha wrote:I don't believe in 'karmic baggage' either. What some call 'karma,' I simply see as the result of natural laws. If you 'break the law of gravity' by jumping off a cliff, you have to pay the consequences in resulting injuries. It's not that you have 'bad karma' as a result...it's simply that violating natural laws has natural consequences. Each time an infant is born, I believe that the slate is clean.


Quite. I still like the term karma. Like yourself I regard karma as consequences, but also, in psycological terms, as conditioning. Because when the "clean slate" is born its parents have lots of karma accumulated in the incarnated world to condition it with, cultural stereotypes, repression etc. Psychological compost :)

Sencha wrote:
Each time the self and Self unite, reincarnation happens. "You" and "I" are different selves but it is the same Self that shines within us all.


Yes...I just don't see 'self' and 'Self' as separate. Perhaps the ultimate goal of reincarnation is to come to this realization...that self and Self are the same.


Quite. Conceptually they are different, and they are useful terms in my study and application of Psychosynthesis. But in that eternal mystic Way self is ultimately a manifestation of Self. Or so the mystics say... :grin:
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Sencha » 19 Apr 2010, 21:45

How? As in "there is no time" eternity? And for what practical purposes because I think I've missed the point?


Practically...in the sense that 'consciousness' is defined as 'that which is aware,' and 'death' is defined as 'that which is unaware.'

If you don't live forever, you won't be aware of it. ;)

Because when the "clean slate" is born its parents have lots of karma accumulated in the incarnated world to condition it with, cultural stereotypes, repression etc. Psychological compost


Yes, far too often we teach our children WHAT to think, and forget to teach them HOW to think.

Quite. Conceptually they are different, and they are useful terms in my study and application of Psychosynthesis. But in that eternal mystic Way self is ultimately a manifestation of Self. Or so the mystics say...


:shake:
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby treegod » 20 Apr 2010, 19:12

Sencha wrote:
How? As in "there is no time" eternity? And for what practical purposes because I think I've missed the point?


Practically...in the sense that 'consciousness' is defined as 'that which is aware,' and 'death' is defined as 'that which is unaware.'

If you don't live forever, you won't be aware of it. ;)


I see. Yes, very true. It's like being asleep, except when dreaming, no one's aware of being deeply asleep. In fact I can remember the moment I wake up (sometimes) but it's difficult to pin point going to sleep. I imagine death would be a bit like sleep, that there is no "self" to be aware. Which is fine, I get to practice "death" every night. :wink:

Sencha wrote:
Because when the "clean slate" is born its parents have lots of karma accumulated in the incarnated world to condition it with, cultural stereotypes, repression etc. Psychological compost


Yes, far too often we teach our children WHAT to think, and forget to teach them HOW to think.


I agree. And in a way they don't need to be taught how to think, they have it in them, it just needs nurturing and guidance, with the emphasis on learning rather than teaching :) Well, different subject this...
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Sencha » 21 Apr 2010, 03:51

Assuming reincarnation to be true...what learning/teaching would we take from one life to the next?
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby treegod » 21 Apr 2010, 10:31

Sencha wrote:Assuming reincarnation to be true...what learning/teaching would we take from one life to the next?


Using what I wrote before; Self reflects itself in various selves to varying degrees, it "reincarnates". But Self does not accumulate learning, being, I assume, changeless and eternal. It does not evolve, it doesn't need to, it can be said to be the principle of perfection. And since self is a temporal expression of Self in the manifest world, it itself does not live beyond the body's existence, so cannot reincarnate.

However, as mentioned before, babies come into this world as blank slates, karmically speaking, they absorb only what they have around them. Say if they enter into a world of selves that are ignorant of the Self, then they will inherit this too. On the other hand, if a baby is born into a family that knows and encourages this expression of Self within the self then they "inherit" this to, and so spiritual evolution is transmitted through the generations.

Humans "accumulate" this sort of learning from generation to generation. But it isn't limited to humans, because in way the whole Universe is participating in this Self-expressive evolution. We are an inseperable part of the Universe. We are part of its evolution. The Universe becomes a mirror for reflecting and manifesting Self through us.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Sencha » 23 Apr 2010, 17:20

Humans "accumulate" this sort of learning from generation to generation. But it isn't limited to humans, because in way the whole Universe is participating in this Self-expressive evolution. We are an inseperable part of the Universe. We are part of its evolution. The Universe becomes a mirror for reflecting and manifesting Self through us.


Yes...all life on Earth, and in fact all life in the Universe...accumulates this knowledge.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby treegod » 23 Apr 2010, 21:41

To add an image: Annwn is the begining place for a soul's evolution and the "womb of ceugant" (interpreted as matter and energy, the "raw material"), from there a "soul" enters into Abred (the biosphere, constituting all lifeforms), and life evolves, the whole biosphere evolves. The raw material is recycled between Abred and Annwn. Then within Annwn-Abred Gwynvyd emerges, as Abred (life) evolves the capacity to "conduct" Ceugant (the Self) and concentrate it energies in Annwn-Abred.

In the traditional interpretation of these realms a soul moved from one realm to the next, leaving the realm behind them. But here the "levels" are more integrated with each other. Abred is a expression of Annwn, and Gwynvid is an expression of Abred.
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby skydove » 24 Apr 2010, 09:58

Does anyone think that the new baby soul chooses where to be born , does it have pre knowledge of the life if wishes to learn about? Is there any 'thing' leading the soul in it's learning, are all souls connected to each other and so learn from each other through life in the manifest world?
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Re: Reincarnation

Postby Sencha » 26 Apr 2010, 13:24

Does anyone think that the new baby soul chooses where to be born , does it have pre knowledge of the life if wishes to learn about? Is there any 'thing' leading the soul in it's learning, are all souls connected to each other and so learn from each other through life in the manifest world?



Depends on what you mean by 'chooses.' I believe that all possible choices already exist in a Multiverse (a conglomeration of universes). Any time a decision is made, we create a fork...one path leads to the universe where we made the choice, and another path leads to the universe where we didn't make the choice. So all possibilities already exist (predestination). What changes is our consciousness as it moves from choice to choice (free will).
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