October 31, 2006

Reincarnated

"You only live once." They say.

This is true. We do only live once. There is great wisdom in this statement. We only live once, continuously, and forever. We have never begun and we will never end. All that exists is right here, right now. This moment is a present; a gift to ourselves.

"Once we die, that's it. This is all there is. That's a depressing thought." She said.

Yes, that it is a depressing thought. It's depressing because it contains a lie. Any thought that makes you feel bad contains a lie. We don't die. We can't die because we were never born. We simply are.

"People believe in reincarnation because it suits them. It makes them feel good." Someone else said.

It also suits us to drink water and breathe air. Why would we not do things that suit us? Why not choose to feel good?

Some people are addicted to promulgating lies. They're trying to make others feel as bad as they do. They're addicted to feeling bad; it meets their needs just enough to keep them alive.

I have not yet remembered my past lives, but the thought that I was only a machine made of flesh and bones made me feel very isolated and sad. Why would I choose to believe that thought?

The ultimate reality of everything seen and unseen is simply unconditional love; I have experienced this directly. You can experience this as well; perhaps you already have. Like countless others, you can run the same experiment and get the same result. To me this was, and increasingly is, more real than any flesh or bone.

This ultimate reality is far more "far-fetched" than reincarnation. Reincarnation itself is an illusion because the idea that you would have different past lives from me is just as deluded as the idea that you are fundamentally separate from me. But don't get me wrong, delusion is a really fun game, that's why we keep playing it.

The argument about whether reincarnation exists is similar to the argument about whether god exists; god being an insane concept. In fact, all concepts are insane. In fact all things are insane. But to have insanity you need sanity; therefore nothing is insane. It's impossible to prove that god doesn't exist. It's impossible to prove something doesn't exist that you can't even define. By the same argument, it's impossible to prove that it exists either.

There seem to be many areas in life where common knowledge is very out-of-date, reincarnation being one of them. There is more evidence in favor of reincarnation than against it. There have been many books published about reincarnation. Old Souls by Thomas Shroder covers many studies into people who know things that they could only know if reincarnation happened. Many Lives Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss gives an account of a psychiatrist hypnotizing a client and then regressing her through multiple past lives.

More personally, I have a friend who has begun to remember past lives. She recalls an entire life as a nun from the seventeenth century. She remembers the minutest details of her dress, spiritual practices, and day-to-day life. Her memories of that life are as clear as if it were yesterday. She writes voluminously about it. Her memories are so vivid and moving that she weeps. Her accounts make me cry too.

You could say that her subconscious is creating these stories as a way to deal with the experiences of her current life. This is a reasonably plausible argument. She does however know about events and places which she had not previously been consciously aware of. Perhaps it's all information which she has been absorbing subconsciously; details of the historic geography of the South of France and seventeenth-century monastic discipline. There certainly are many parallels with her current life; similarities in her experiences, particularly in relation to other people.

When awareness is not brought fully to the present moment it creates an experience debt that must be paid in future moments. This debt causes the past to be repeated again and again until reality is acknowledged; until the self is experienced fully. This apparently happens from life-to-life as well.

But whether a memory comes from a past life or from the current life is, in the final analysis, immaterial. Yesterday is no more real than the 23rd of March 1624; they are both imaginary. Not only is it impossible to prove that either exist, it's plainly obvious that they do not. Your history is an illusion, just as reincarnation is an illusion.

"Once we die, that's it. This is all there is. That's a depressing thought." She said.

This thought is even more depressing because it denies existence. It's a thought about the future, something that is as illusory as the past. It imagines a future and says we won't exist. It's a direct denial of existence. Existence is something that can only happen now.

This is thought. It's the mind trying to take over. It's a servant that's trying to become master. The mind is a poor master. Dear mind, surrender your hold, follow the heart, let love be your master, let the truth be your salvation.

Have no regrets. You only live once; you only live now. Yes, this is all there is.