SOUL IMMORTALITY KARMA REINCARNATION part 2

(The first few paragraphs recap the end of the previous post)

Samsara is the Sanskrit word, literally ‘flowing around’, used to describe the continuous cycle of birth, death and rebirth that all persons ‘endure’ as long as they still have unsettled karma remaining at the end of a lifetime. That’s at least 99.9% of us at any given time, my friends. The only way out of samsara is the achievement of enlightenment – the familiar Sanskrit term ‘nirvana’.

So, our ego-ridden lives, riding the illusions of the material world into the sunset, keep us bound to samsara til we snap out of it, find the true essence of our being, be true helpmates for others, balance our karma, and grab the brass ring – enlightenment – on our way outta Dodge. That’s the core of the Universe’s system, mirroring the phases of birth, death, and rebirth that we see everywhere else in nature.

Interestingly, Eastern descriptions of reincarnation don’t reveal the what of the most important question we all ask ourselves: namely, what happens to us when we die? Meaning, step by step, what goes on when we shed that mortal coil?

It turns out that some fine Western interpreters of reincarnation have intuitive and scientific evidence that everyone who dies goes to a complex and quite ordered afterlife, and that most get to be involved in choosing the ‘set and setting’ of their next incarnation; still, there are ‘heaven and hell’ references in the following segment from the Encyclopedia Britannia article on reincarnation:

“A variety of explanations of the workings of the karmic process within samsara have been proposed. According to several, the soul after death first goes to a heaven or hell until it has consumed most of its good or bad karma. Then it returns to a new womb, the remainder of its karma having determined the circumstances of its next life.”

Compelling Western descriptions of souls entering the afterlife tell us that, after hearing a sort of report card on its just-ended life, the soul simply, and always, understands where and why it has been placed, and offers no argument. Much more will follow shortly, with descriptions from the pioneer Edgar Cayce right up to the modern-day breakthroughs of Brian L Weiss and Michael Newton, who write to us from the pinnacle of revealed knowledge about the step-by-step process from death to rebirth.

But first, back to more traditional descriptions of samsara, a belief held by virtually all Hindus, Buddhists and adherents of numerous offshoots.

Hinduism

According to Hinduism, dating back at least 7,000 years, the soul survives the body and reincarnates again and again until it becomes perfect and reunites with the Divine Source, which is God, but a much less personal version than that of monotheism. It is a Spiritual God, present in all things. The concept of samsara is summed up in the Bhagavad Gita:

"Just as a man discards worn out clothes and puts on new clothes, the soul discards worn out bodies and wears new ones."

With several levels of heaven and hell, the soul is properly directed by its karma.

A soul which has progressed in purity and higher consciousness will go to heaven, where it will stay for an indeterminate time, enjoying its pleasures, learning new life lessons and balancing karma. It will still eventually have to take a new body on Earth.

A soul which has been self-centered and evil may fall into a dark level of hell, where their stay will be pretty miserable. “The hells are dark and demonic worlds, populated by evil and demonic beings who are forever intent upon creating chaos and disturbing the order and regularity of the worlds.” Hinduwebsite.com

The hell called Patala is a place where evil souls spend a long time suffering while they work on their bad karma. It may seem even longer with wrathful beings adding to their misery. And, it is said that souls reborn from Patala come back not as humans, but as animals.

On that end of the spectrum, I’ve heard that one galactic bookmaker has set odds that Rump, a few kin, Ain’t Mitch a Bitch and some other enablers, plus Salman, Putin and Un et al will be reborn as a colony of slugs.

I’m guessing that the highlight of their new lives would be an annual ‘slugfest.’

OK, I just slapped myself and blessed them all with three Namastes.

Buddhism

The Buddha pointed to desire as the main trait that subjects one to continuous births and deaths. Desire involves craving and competing for so many things in life. The law of karma determines the consequences, each lifetime, of the totality of one’s actions. Therefore, if one wants to be free from the cycle of death and rebirth, one must first overcome human craving.

Here is a description of Samsara from the Dalai Lama, who is not only an expert on the subject, but also has vast insights into so many aspects of the human experience. His dozens of books and hundreds of lectures show us a special appreciation of all the virtues discussed in the ‘Conscious Awareness’ section: love, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, moral compass and more.

The Dalai Lama: “Rebirth under the sway of karma and destructive emotions… due to ignorance, negative and positive karma are created, and their imprints remain on the consciousness… We then take rebirth involuntarily in higher or lower realms. This is the way ordinary beings circle incessantly through existence like the turning of a wheel. But even under such circumstances, ordinary beings can engage diligently with a positive aspiration in virtuous practices in their day-to-day lives. They familiarize themselves with virtue that at the time of death can be reactivated providing the means for them to take rebirth in a higher realm of existence.”

Which means that, although we may not even know anyone who is trying to become enlightened in this lifetime, we can all strive to be our best, to raise our personality traits ever closer to the level of our soul and ‘take rebirth in a higher realm of existence.’

This leads us to that tiny percentage of people who achieve enlightenment during a given lifetime. They have earned the right to ‘step off the wheel’ of samsara. Most, however, choose to be reborn again, to help others on their spiritual paths. These truly Divine souls are known as Bodhisattvas.

Again, the Dalai Lama: “Bodhisattvas, who have attained the path of seeing, are not reborn through the force of their karma and destructive emotions, but due to the power of their compassion for sentient beings and based on their prayers to benefit others. They are able to choose their place and time of birth as well as their future parents. Such a rebirth, which is solely for the benefit of others, is rebirth through the force of compassion and prayer.”

Descriptions of the afterlife according to Buddhist are surprisingly sparse: after the soul experiences the brilliant white light also described worldwide by people who have had near-death experiences, there is the intermediate ‘time’ spent before rebirth. All souls are able to work on karma and then preview their next incarnation. Many will experience strange and often disturbing visions resulting from their karma and will likely also have visions of various deities, some perhaps peaceful and helpful, others wrathful and troubling.

Then comes the final preparations (nowhere described) for rebirth and the departure from the home realm into the new body here on earth.

Reincarnation in the West

To be sure, it works the same as in the East, but it seems to me that there are remarkable insights gleaned by modern Western spirituality.

Recalling a quote from Gary Zukav’s ‘Seat of the Soul’:

“The incarnation of a soul is a massive reduction of the power of the soul to a scale that is appropriate to a physical form… a reduction of an immortal life system into the framework of time and the span of a few years… All the energy of the soul does not incarnate. To incarnate, the soul creates a personality from those parts of itself that it wants to heal in the physical environment… So powerful is the energy of the soul that it could not advance into a physical form without, literally, exploding that form.”

And add in this poignant description from Louise L Hay: “I believe that we choose our parents. Each one of us decides to incarnate on this planet at a particular point in time and space. We have chosen to come here to learn a particular lesson that will advance us on our spiritual, evolutionary pathway. We choose our sex, our color, our country and then we look around for the particular set of parents who will mirror the pattern we are bringing in to work on in this lifetime. Then, when we grow up, we usually point our fingers accusingly at our parents and whisper, “you did it to me.” But really we chose them because they were perfect for what we wanted to work on overcoming.”

Scanning the list of quotes above, we see that there have been many, from Plato to Benjamin Franklin, who espoused reincarnation as their truth concerning life and death.

Trance and hypnosis have been important ‘channels’ for holistic western medicine and spirituality as the focus for deep awareness of the true events of journeys in the afterlife, where souls live even when they have split off parts of their being to cohabit in Earth incarnations.

Edgar Cayce is a seminal figure in the development of reincarnation study in the West. Beginning in the 1920’s, he channeled for thousands of patients, addressing their questions and challenges from a state of deepened consciousness, helping them to shed fears and phobias and grow mentally and spiritually. Along the way, he amassed a vast knowledge about reincarnation through past-life regressions.

His organization, ARE, describes his life:

“Edgar Cayce was called the ‘sleeping prophet’ and the ‘father of holistic medicine.’ … He had a psychic gift from childhood, which put him on a career path at the age of 21 as a psychic and healer. He was able to put himself into an altered state of consciousness… In this state, he was able to tap into a universal level of mind and answer various kinds of questions… These ‘readings’ covered topics of physical health, past life readings, business advice, dream interpretations and mental/spiritual health.” “Reincarnation was explored in nearly 2,000 Edgar Cayce “Life” readings. The Cayce approach to reincarnation focuses on practical ways of dealing with one’s current life—by living, growing, and being of service in the present.”

There was, of course, controversy, as some churches called out his reincarnation readings as ‘occult’:

Here are the thoughts of an evangelist named Dennis Pollock:

“I had been reading the classic new age book, ‘There is a River’, which tells the life story and religious philosophy of America’s most prominent psychic, Edgar Cayce. The teachings of Cayce incorporated Christianity, eastern religion, evolution, and reincarnation in a most attractive package, and even spoke glowingly of Jesus, the Master and Pattern for humankind. My agnosticism melted into belief and I knew I had somehow discovered a vein of truth that explained all my previous questions and doubts and made sense of a universe that had before seemed inexplicable. I was elated!

Six years later I would drop my large collection of Cayce books in a fifty-five-gallon drum and set them ablaze. As an evangelical Christian I cannot accept the notion that Cayce was somehow tapping into a ‘universal consciousness’… I am convinced that Cayce was indeed a vehicle through whom lying demonic spirits spoke… I do not doubt some of his incredible experiences and the apparent miracles that accompanied his life. The phenomenon, to my mind, is not suspect; the origins most definitely are.”

Still, this is America’s pre-eminent psychic; and while a few of his readings proved false, as did many of his global predictions, he was sought after by thousands of ordinary as well as famous people, thrilled with the physical, mental and spiritual advice received from his readings.

And his understanding and insights into healing, reincarnation and the universe are, for me, exceptional:

“For all healing, mental or material, is attuning each atom of the body, each reflex of the brain forces, to the awareness of the divine that lies within each atom, each cell of the body.”

“You could say that the soul level part of us is the wise eternal part that sees the big picture. The ego level is the finite part of us. The ego self, when disconnected from the soul, does not have a long-term understanding of soul development.”

“I like to say that the soul incarnates to work, while the ego wants a piña colada! The plan for any incarnation is made at the soul level of consciousness. After we complete a lifetime, we go through a life review and analyze ‘losses and gains.’ A life is usually full of periods of both. Once the review has been completed, an in-between life experience is planned which involves planetary and galactic ‘sojourns.’ The soul shores up the weaknesses from previous incarnations, seeds important patterns to be worked through, and begins to look at the family/soul group to come. A council of guides is elected with hopes that the coming incarnation will be one of working through karma and acting from grace.”

“For the Earth is only an atom in the universe of worlds.” !!!

Holy cowbirds, Batman, this is a wise and compelling dude.

Cayce’s channeling so many past lives proved to be a springboard for the hypnotherapy of generations to come, despite the fact that Cayce ‘hypnotized’ himself, rather than the patients!

NAMASTE