In this article we will discuss reincarnation and various concepts of what reincarnation really means. We have discussed this topic many times throughout previous articles, particularly Articles 226-230.
We will now focus specifically on reincarnation in this article, and in the next article we will discuss some scientific studies backing up the reality of reincarnation. These studies complement the scientific studies we discussed in articles 229 and 230.
Reincarnation
“Death is but one night to the soul.
You must remember that beginnings and endings are realities only within our own system of three-dimensional life.
Remember – the greater you, the entity or soul, forms a psychic structure as real as your physical one, but composed of many selves.
Although you are an individual with free will, you are also part of another you. You simply do not identify with your greater self now.”1
Conventional Reincarnation
Conventional reincarnation often supposes a series of progressions of lifetimes.
It can often blame past lives for current troubles, leading to a feeling of victimhood and powerlessness.
Many, therefore, often feel helpless before the innumerable previous errors from other lives.
These ideas rob the conscious will of its power to act – you will feel relatively incompetent to handle present physical reality, to alter your environment, to affect and change your world – if you feel you are at the mercy of conditions over which you have no control.
‘Past-life information’ is often used to reinforce current personal social or financial situations.
These memories are constructed through present beliefs and structured along the lines of your current belief system.
If an individual believes he is basically unworthy he will recall, or be given, those lives that justify that idea.
If he thinks he must pay for his sins now, then that belief will attract memories of those lives that will reinforce it; this will be highly organized recall, leaving out everything that does not apply.
You are not under a sentence placed upon you for original sin, Freud’s infancy syndromes, childhood events, or past life influences.
Past life experiences do affect you, as does any experience, but you always have the power of the present moment to change, alter or transform your beliefs and situations.
YOU FORM YOUR REALITY NOW, through the intersection of soul in flesh, and in your terms, the present is your point of power.
There simply is no time as you think of it, only a present in which all things occur.”2
Multidimensional Simultaneous Reincarnation
“When you think in terms of reincarnation it seems that one life exists before the other, but all reincarnational lives exist simultaneously.
They do not grow in a linear fashion through time, but they grow out of what your inner self is.
Your soul, or entity, is highly individualized spiritual energy. It forms whatever body you now wear.
Taking it for granted that you are indeed multidimensional; you can perceive only so much of your own experience at a time because of the characteristics of physical creaturehood.
There are other expressions of yourself, interacting, but with each conscious self possessing the point of power in its own present.
Each reincarnational self is born as a creature in flesh, like you.
Each has its own ‘points of power’, or successive moments in which it materializes daily existence in a linear manner from all the probabilities available to it.
Through your current beliefs, you can, in your own space and time, attract tendencies toward certain experiences shared by the others.
There is a constant interaction in this multidimensional point of power, so that in your terms, one incarnated self draws from all the others what abilities it wants, according to its own specific localized beliefs.
Overall, you and your other selves often choose the same kinds of challenges, if in dissimilar ways.
The adventures of your simultaneous selves appear as traces in your own consciousness as ideas of daydreams or disconnected images, or sometimes sudden intuitions. They can be drawn upon, drawn out, to help you understand current problems.
In each life you choose and create your own settings or environments.
You choose your parents and whatever childhood incidents that came within your experience.
You wrote the script.
The conscious self forgets all this, so when tragedy appears in the script, difficulty or challenges, the conscious self looks for someone or something to blame.”3
Freddy Silva writes of this: “Based upon the octave, the eightfold spiritual path is undertaken by a soul to achieve its highest level of Self. Every soul reincarnates to experience a specific path in life in accordance with its evolutionary need…subsequently, it chooses to experience being blind, bullied, poor, wealthy, faithful, charitable, and so on, but always in accordance with a specific path. Should the soul not achieve its purpose in one lifetime, it may repeat the process.”
An Example of Simultaneous Existence
“For example, you exist in seven different centuries at once.
What actually happens, is that the energy of your being impinges at seven moment points into the three-dimensional system.
At each of these points what seems to be an isolated life is experienced.
Just beyond those intersections there is a more or less unitary and overall recognition of wholeness that ‘rides’ above them.
You may believe your current existence with all its abilities and challenges is the result of that past life, yet both exist at once.
Your beliefs and actions in your present alter your reincarnational selves’ experiences, as each of them, in their presents, changes yours.
If you see all these reincarnational selves as one entity, this becomes quite natural.
The whole self is changed by all of its comprehensions.
The present self does not exist in isolation.
In miniature form, each day contains, in its own way, clues to all of your own simultaneous existences.
You each contain aspects of your other identities within your current selves – some very obvious, others barely noticeable.
Vague yearnings toward certain accomplishments may be clues that the necessary characteristics are inherent but untrained in the self you know now.
In its own way, the 24-hour period represents both an entire lifetime and many lives in one.
Each self mirrors daily its ‘reincarnational’ or simultaneous selves.”4
More on Reincarnation
“Knowing your reincarnational background, but not knowing the true nature of your present self, is useless.
You cannot justify or rationalize present circumstances by saying, “This is because of something I did in a past life,” for within yourself now is the ability to change negative influences.
You may have brought negative influences into your life for a reason, but the reason always has to do with understanding, and understanding removes those influences.
You cannot say, “The poor are poor simply because they chose poverty, and therefore there is no need for me to help them.” This attitude can easily draw poverty to you in the next experience.
Very close friends from past lives, who are in a position to do so, often communicate with you in the dream state, and the relationships are continued though you do not realize it consciously.
On an unconscious basis, you are aware of the birth into physical life of someone you have known in the past. The strangers you meet in your dreams are often people now alive – contemporaries – that you have known in past lives.
There are also passing relationships, contacts made and then dropped.
Identical twins, incidentally, almost always involve a deep, abiding psychic relationship of a strong, sometimes obsessive nature.”5
In-between Period – The Time of Rest and Choosing
The ‘life between lives’ or the ‘time of rest and choosing’ involves far more than a simple decision to undergo another physical existence.
There is an in-between period – in-between incarnations where many issues are considered.
This in-between period is where you rest in the parallel metaphysical reality, the realm of Time-Space.
Here you will decide on the unique way in which reincarnation will be of use.
All matters are considered.
Suitable preparations are made.
The planning is a part of experience and development.
You make friends and acquaintances in these rest periods whom you meet again and again, and only, sometimes, during in-between existences.
With them you may discuss your experience during your reincarnational cycle.
There are teachers there to assist who are within their own cycle.
The time of choosing is dependent upon the condition and circumstances of the individual following transition from physical life.
It may happen almost immediately, or it may be put off for a much longer time period while training is carried on.
Some take longer than others to understand the situation.
Some may need to be divested of impeding ideas and symbols.
The main impediments standing in the way of the time of choosing are, of course, the faulty ideas harbored by any given individual.
Limiting Beliefs
We discussed many of these topics in Article 228 regarding limiting religious beliefs.
Some of these faulty ideas are discussed below:
- Heaven
Some will refuse to accept the idea of further work, development, and challenge, believing instead that conventional heaven situations are the only possibility.
For some time they may actually inhabit such an environment, until they learn through their own experience that existence demands development, and such a heaven would be sterile, boring and indeed ‘deadly’.
A belief in heaven that is not obsessional can be used as a useful framework, as a basis of operation in which an individual will often accept easily the new explanations that will be offered.
- Hell
Some may insist because of their transgressions they will be cast into hell and because of the force of such beliefs they may for some time actually encounter such conditions.
In either case there are always teachers available – they try to get through these false beliefs.
In the Hades conditions the individuals come more quickly to their senses [than in the Heaven situation] – their own fear triggers within themselves the answering release.
This state usually does not last as long as the heaven state.
Either state, however, puts off the time of choosing and the next existence.
In all cases, the individual creates his experience.
There are no special places, situations, or conditions set apart after physical death in which any given personality must have experience.
- Suicides
Suicides do not have any particular ‘punishment’ meted out to them. They are treated as individuals.
Any problems not faced in this life, however, will be faced in another. This applies to not only suicides.
- Sexual Identification
Progress can also be hampered by an overly strong identification with the sexual characteristics.
If an individual considers identity strongly in terms of male or female identity, then such a person may refuse to accept the fact of the sexual changes that occur in reincarnational existences.
This kind of sexual identification also impedes personality development during physical life.
- Judgment
Judgment can be a useful framework, for while there is no punishment meted out, the individual is prepared for some kind of spiritual examination and evaluation (the life review).
- Demons
A belief in demons is highly disadvantageous after death and during physical life.
- Opposites
A systematized theology of opposites is detrimental.
If you believe, for example, that all good must be balanced by evil, then you bind yourself into a system of reality that is highly limiting, and that contains within it the seeds of great torment.
In such a system, even good becomes suspect, because an equal evil is seen to follow it. The god-versus-devil, angels-versus-demons – the gulf between animals and angels – all of these distortions are impediments.
In trying to make sense in its terms of physical existence, the intellect has set up these opposing factors. The intellect says, “If there is good, there must be evil,” for it wants things explained in neat parcels.
If there is an up, there must be a down. There must be balance.
The inner self, however, realizes that in much larger terms, evil is simply ignorance, that “up” and “down” are neat terms applied to space which knows no such directions.
A strong belief in such opposing forces is highly detrimental, however, for it prevents an understanding of the facts – the facts of inner unity and of oneness, of interconnections and of cooperation.
A belief, therefore, an obsessional belief in such opposing factors, is perhaps the most detrimental element, not only after death but during any existence.
Quite simply, a belief in the good without a belief in the evil, may seem highly unrealistic to you. This belief, however, is the best kind of insurance that you can have, both during physical life and afterward.
Positive Beliefs
Those who understand thoroughly that reality is self-created will have the least difficulty.
Those who have learned to operate in the dream state will have great advantage.”6
Choices to be Made
“In each life you choose and create your own settings or environments.
Remember, you choose your parents and whatever childhood incidents that came within your experience.
You wrote the script.
The conscious self forgets all this, so when tragedy appears in the script, difficulty or challenges, the conscious self looks for someone or something to blame.
Some choose to isolate various characteristics, such as the intellect or emotional development.
The abilities are then studied thoroughly by the entire personality, both the benefits and the detrimental aspects are weighed carefully.
Through denying themselves, say, intellectual development in a given life, personalities also learn the value and purpose of that which they do not possess.
In the time of choosing, personalities decide upon the ways in which they will develop in the following incarnation.
Some choose progression at an easier rate and in a more balanced manner and even meet again and again people they have known in other lives.
Some choose progression in explosive ways.
Some choose to isolate specific creative abilities – and these may show up again and again – they may be tempered, used in various combinations, yet overall remain a personality’s strongest mark of individuality and uniqueness.
Most people adopt different trades, occupations, and interests. Some do not, but may be priests or teachers, for example, almost exclusively.
Some enjoy female existences; some have a greater fondness for male lives – both must be encountered, but there is great range in choice and activity.
There are no rules dictating the sexual developments in varying incarnations, except that experience with both sexes must be taken on, and the various characteristics developed.
This does not mean that an equal number of male and female lives must be lived – some find it far easier to develop as one sex or the other, and will need more opportunities for experience as the sex with which they experience difficulty.
Some problems may be put off for several existences; some want to solve their strongest problems and get them over with, perhaps in a series of rather trying existences and exaggerated circumstances.
Some will take their problems one at a time.
Rest periods may be taken and are highly therapeutic – for example, an excellent, satisfying life with a minimum of problems may be chosen either as a prelude to a life of concentrated challenge or as a self-adopted reward for a previous difficult life.
In this time of rest and choosing, all counsel is given.
There is no time schedule, yet it is unusual to wait over three centuries before reincarnating, for this makes the orientation very difficult and the emotional ties with earth have weakened.
Some reincarnate ‘too soon’, or before they are advised – this is usually unfortunate in the short run, but fortunate in the long run, after learning many great lessons from the “error”.
Relationships must be settled upon. This involves telepathic communication with all those who will be involved.
Some are loners and reincarnate without any great feeling for earth’s historical periods.
Some like to return when their contemporaries from some past historical time return again.
There are many group patterns with reincarnation in which many, but not all, are involved.
There are personal cycles in which families reincarnate taking different relationships to each other.
Some choose to “go all the way” and specialize in physical existence – they move through all the racial types, have an intense preoccupation with historical periods – they return in as many historical times as possible, helping shape the world you know.
Predetermination is never involved, for the challenge and circumstances are chosen.
The reincarnational structure is but one facet in the whole picture of probabilities. In it you have literally as much time as you need, to develop those potentials that you must develop, before leaving the reincarnational existences.
There is no transmigration of souls, in which the entire personality of a person ‘comes back’ as an animal.
However, reincarnation exists on the part of all species (humans, animals, plants, minerals).
Evidence for reincarnation is quite available. There are enough instances of it, known and tabulated, to make an excellent case; and beside this there is evidence that remains psychologically invisible in your private lives, because you have been taught not to concentrate in that direction.
There is enough evidence to build an excellent case for life after death. All of this involves direct experience—episodes, encountered by individuals, [that are] highly suggestive of the after-death hypothesis; but the hypothesis is never taken seriously by your established sciences.
There is far more evidence for reincarnation and life after death than there is, for example, for the existence of black holes. Few people have seen a black hole, to make the most generous statement possible, while countless people have had private reincarnational experiences, or encounters that suggest the survival of the personality beyond death.
Those experiences are usual. They have been reported by peoples of all kinds and in all ages, and they represent a common-sense kind of knowledge that is frowned upon by the men of learned universities.”7
The Forgetting – The Veiling during Physical Incarnations
Sri Aurobindo said, “most human beings possess a “mental screen” that keeps us from seeing beyond “the veil of matter”, but when one learns to peer beyond this veil one finds that everything is comprised of “different intensities of luminous vibrations”.
The personality we enjoy in our waking, conscious mind is only a small portion of our eternal identity. Much of who we really are is veiled from us. “The eternal identity, like an actor offstage – can remember all its past, but as soon as it takes on a personality, as an actor takes on a role, then it is prevented by a protective provision of nature from remembering anything but the sum totals or the principles which it had learned before.”8
“The Veiling”
“If we were consciously aware of the existence of the Logos [Galactic Mind] and of the grand design for our soul evolution, we wouldn’t learn anything. The veiling makes it difficult, but certainly not impossible, for us to see the truth.”9
“The primary veiling was of such significance that it may be seen to be analogous to the mantling of the Earth over all the jewels within the Earth’s crust; whereas previously all facets of the Creator were consciously known. After the veiling, almost no facets of the Creator were known to the mind. Almost all was buried beneath the veil.
Without the veil the mind was not caught in your illusory time. With the veil space/time is the only obvious possibility for experience.
On the list of significant veiled functions of the mind would be that of dreaming. The so-called dreaming contains a great deal which, if made available to the conscious mind and used, shall aid it in polarization [spiritual evolution] to a great extent.
Another important function of the mind which is significant and which has been veiled is that of the knowing of the body. The knowledge of and control over the body, having been lost to a great extent in the veiling process, is thusly lost from the experience of the seeker. Its knowledge before the veiling is of small use. Its knowledge after the veiling, and in the face of what is now a dense illusion of separation of body complex from mind complex, is quite significant.”10
“Your body is the physical mirror of your psychological state. It is powered by the energy of the universe. It actually springs into being in each moment. Your mind and your body come from the same source, from universal energy. You are powered with vitality. You must seek meaning in your lives. When you lose the sense of life’s meaning, for whatever reason, this is reflected in your body. Your body is changed biologically by your thoughts.”11
“Perhaps the most important and significant function that occurred due to the veiling of the mind from itself is not in itself a function of mind but rather is a product of the potential created by this veiling. This is the faculty of will or pure desire.”12
A Beautiful Analogy about ‘The Forgetting’
“Let us give the example of the man who sees all the poker hands. He then knows the game. It is but child’s play to gamble, for it is no risk. The other hands are known. The possibilities are known and the hand will be played correctly but with no interest.
Let us re-examine this metaphor and multiply it into the longest poker game you can imagine, a lifetime. The cards are love, dislike, limitation, unhappiness, pleasure, etc. They are dealt and re-dealt and re-dealt continuously. You may, during this incarnation begin — and we stress begin — to know your own cards. You may begin to find the love within you. You may begin to balance your pleasure, your limitations, etc. However, your only indication of other-selves’ cards is to look into the eyes.
You cannot remember your hand, their hands, perhaps even the rules of this game. This game can only be won by those who lose their cards in the melting influence of love; can only be won by those who lay their pleasures, their limitations, their all upon the table face up and say inwardly: ‘All, all of you players, each other-self, whatever your hand, I love you.’
This is the game: to know, to accept, to forgive, to balance, and to open the self in love. This cannot be done without the forgetting, for it would carry no weight in the life of the mind/body/spirit beingness totality.”13
- Roberts, Jane, The Nature of Personal Reality, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1974
- Roberts, Jane, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1972
- ibid.
- Roberts, Jane, The Nature of Personal Reality, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1974
- Roberts, Jane, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1972
- ibid.
- Roberts, Jane, Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1986
- Cerminara, Gina, Many Mansions: The Edgar Cayce Story on Reincarnation, Signet, 1988
- Wilcock, David, The Synchronicity Key, Dutton, 2014
- Elkins, Rueckert, McCarty, The Law of One, Session 85.19, http://www.lawofone.info/results.php?s=85
- Roberts, Jane, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1981
- Elkins, Rueckert, McCarty, The Law of One, Session 85.19, http://www.lawofone.info/results.php?s=85
- Elkins, Rueckert, McCarty, The Law of One, Session 50.7, http://www.lawofone.info/results.php?s=50
Recent Comments