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reincarnation

Last post 09-14-2006, 7:00 AM by Helene. 175 replies.
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  •  08-07-2006, 2:19 AM 3596 in reply to 3553

    Re: reincarnation

    Hi Mascha,

    Thanks for sharing your experiences!

    In fact, Ian Stevenson bases much of his research on 'cases' like yours. He says that an extensive survey has shown that 1 in 500 people (worldwide) have past life memories while in the waking state. In Western countries, children are usually discouraged in talking about these memories by their parents, and often repress those experiences as a result. Stevenson also reports on some children's uncanny abilities of speaking foreign languages and/or musical abilities, relating them to a previous life.

    Wambach's research confirms that, before birth, many people are highly reluctant of being reborn, although some are looking forward to it. Compared to being born, death appears to be a very pleasant experience (not the dying itself, of course, but the moments after the gross body has perished).

    It seems that having past life (or rather pre-birth) experiences is often associated with a sudden or violent death, after which the person is reborn relatively quickly.

    I'm highly interested in your anecdotes, and so might some of the reincarnation researchers, I suspect.


    Peter
    "All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber
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  •  08-07-2006, 7:07 AM 3607 in reply to 3596

    Re: reincarnation

    thanks for posting Wilber's Excerp G  - from Volume  of the Kosmos Trilogy...tot. KOOL stuff! and yes! subtle energy has 'weight'.

    hence my ittbitty thought or two on a different note.....

    all members of the same Body we are...body, being the visable part of the soul, the soul - not visable.

    it's been said in many languages, in many ways, 'the Kingdom of heaven is always both, within and without / among us' .... and the Lamb of God is hell-bent on.....not to condemn us, but to show us how to live how to live  the life of integrity...to tell us not to be ashamed of all that is not whole in us...He/She is hell-bent on shining ... as long as it takes, on everything that keeps us apart from our true soul power.

    h

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  •  08-07-2006, 7:49 AM 3617 in reply to 3607

    Re: reincarnation

    No problem Helene.

    Yes, great posts! I am definitely interested in hearing more, but I am also interested, especially Mascha, in how your interpretations may have changed or evolved with development in this life and so on.

    Yes Peter it is such a shame to find out that here is this wealth of possible knowledge and evidence right here before us and it just starts immediately getting lost in illusion, ignorance, aversion. The Tibetans have been recognizing such things, even tracking incarnations, for centuries (at least with masters). And this also has to do with any kind of genuinely Integral Parenting!

    Although I did have some mystical and vision type experiences (actually a 3D ) in early youth (and interestingly tied to trauma in this life) I didn't have vivid recollections of anything before that early-just these same, continual, pesky, haunting recognitions . . ..  It's been much more a lot of weaving together puzzle pieces (perhaps mystery solving) and trying to be as multi-perspectival-scientific as possible, using as formal a deductive reasoning and as much evidence as possible.

    Two things for now.

    First, Mascha, your experiences of realizing that "no one else knew" this or realized or recognized or saw the same or whatever has a real resonance with me. Not with any visual vividness, but, for example, I remember sitting in church and looking out at the faces of all of the people (while on the altar as an altar boy) and simply wondering why apparently nobody understood God the way I did. Why are they so confused about this? What's the problem? I simply knew they had no idea of what they were talking about or sitting here in church celebrating or trying to worship or adhere to the "rules" of (especially with their long, sad, confused and vapid faces!). The disconnect there (UL/LL) really did a number as I got older. I do have some evidence as to why this heightened awareness might be-(well, okay, I'm certain of it)- a significant lifetime as a priest, which, it appears, led to a heightened experience between lives (of God, Deity) in the bardos. (In Buddhism this might be called the building of Merit -a continual awakening based on discipline, effort, aspiration . . . so those long sad faces in church are onto something after all . . . they just aren't that far along yet. And I am pretty sure I was one of those long sad faces, even as entering the preisthood, long, long ago . . . . )

    I have traced this, all throughout this life in a number of ways and experiences but I currently have it down to a number of very real things. I am certain of the general years (late 1700s-early 1800s), the location (where I spent some years in this life and was bowled over for three days by the haunting vividness of recognition of this place the first time I arrived) and this is also the place that I have specifically gone to; a certain church in a certain location/area (which has since been rebuilt). There are still a lot of dots to connect, but it seems very possible (as I have looked into it) I could go and find out, with records, names of people,(relationships now) times and places and find out for sure if they all match up. I will have a lot more to relate about this as far as the possibilities of what such things mean NOW . . . (In fact, that’s another thing Mascha said that resonated; getting involved in the same ignorant patterns . . . over and over and over again . . .mindlessly, endlessly, without ever waking up . . . and why would we expect that this would change after death, in bewtween and into a new birth? That not what the traditions tell us . . .)

    As far a talents, all of my life I have just wanted to play the piano (UL). I used to daydream, and literally fantasize about it. I knew I could play if I only had a damn piano. The school wing that I spent k-2nd grade in had an upright piano in every classroom . . . oh, and they were almost never used! Oh, if I could just have one of them! Why can’t they just give me one of them! They have so many and they never use them! There was never any point in asking to take lessons (LL) since we didn't have a piano (UR, LR) and my parents never would have the money or even space (LR). This continued all through my life and though I had the opportunity here  and there to learn to tinker a little, still never had a piano of my own. That is, until I there were pianos at the theatre I worked at . . . To make a long story short when I finally seriously sat down to try to learn to play-that is self taught-only one year later I had to seriously consider lying to people, for fear of making them feel bad, for telling them honestly how long I had been playing . . . because one by one by one the only reason they were talking to me at all was to tell me that I was the greatest piano player they had ever heard or seen (LL zone#3, 4).

    Now, here is what is interesting and should be the types of things continually brought to this discussion:

    The desire to play the piano was/is zone#1 (always knew I could play, wanted to, etc.)

    There is musical talent, it appears, in my genetic ancestry which has apparently been latent and unused (LL)  for several generations. So this is UR zone#5, 6. I am fully willing to acknowledge that and to include that perspective. But isn’t that a lot like having a piano- the instrument to express something with? (And maybe a nicely made one?)

    So my point here is really to simply look at things from all perspectives, taking as much of the whole picture into account (and then you can both eliminate possibilities and discover perhaps unseen ones).

    Lot’s more for later. . .


    "With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
    . . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
    "You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
    -Constantin Stanislavsky
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  •  08-07-2006, 8:56 AM 3623 in reply to 3617

    Re: reincarnation

    Oh, and by the way Mascha, I know you kind of answered this at the end of your post, but I still think it is a valid question: Why are you here?

    Wink [;)]Smile [:)]

    "With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
    . . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
    "You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
    -Constantin Stanislavsky
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  •  08-07-2006, 10:40 AM 3636 in reply to 3623

    • vairachna is not online. Last active: 06 Aug 2024, 12:28 AM vairachna
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    Re: reincarnation

    anyone know who ak en aten is?
    Sorry further response canceled due to Ragnarok.
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  •  08-07-2006, 10:44 AM 3637 in reply to 3636

    Re: reincarnation

    Not sure, but I think you mean Akenathen, a.k.a Amenhotep IV, an Egyptian pharaoh.

    Peter

    "All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber
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  •  08-07-2006, 11:49 AM 3640 in reply to 3617

    Re: reincarnation

    Reincarnation....the "mechanism" of manifestation....

    Most, if not all of us posting here on this site, are already aware that there is probably no other topic or issue that lends itself to self deception more than that of "reincarnation", but having said that, it is still very interesting to explore both the theoretical and possible actual dynamics of "how" this process itself is enacted....

    Having read all of the posts on this thread thus far, there was one comment that directly tied in to the line of thought I was following today, as well as being a line of thought that I have followed for quite sometime, regarding the actual "mechanism" or what one could call the "motivating force" of the process itself, and this relates directly to this comment made by Tim; "The desire to play the piano was/is zone#1 (always knew I could play, wanted to, etc.)"

    DESIRE....It appears that "DESIRE" itself is the operative motivation that impels the process itself and of course I am not just referring to sexual desire, but to the "desires of the soul". But.... sexual intercourse is the necessary means through which incarnation occurs and we are all very aware of the "complications" that arise when sex enters the picture!

    Look at how much energy is spent in both the control and exploitation of the sexual impulse, look at the "recommendations" presented in many of the traditions regarding sex....Brothers and sisters if you want to get off the "wheel" you must stop fucking or "bad ju ju" is inevitable.... "In and up or down and out"....Those are the choices presented by the more asetically inclinced....

    Now, here is where it get's really interesting: Is there a "1st desire"? It is easy enough to understand attraction and aversion from a relative perspective, but how/why did "desire" arise in the first place? From the perspective of Life itself no sentient arising occurs at all without the "sexual" impulse, and furthermore, nothing appears to happen here on planet earth without "DESIRE".... Is DESIRE therefore equivalent with the conceptual notion of "GOD"?

    To be continued....

    Justin

     


    "Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink".

    SHUNRYU SUZUKI
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  •  08-07-2006, 12:21 PM 3644 in reply to 3596

    Re: reincarnation

    Hi Peter, Helene and Tim, you got my synapses firing. I'd like to respond with some care.


    Helene, sure, those uptituds are nice - like getting a daily consolation price: You've lost your real powers by compressing original vastness into a physical form, but some minor skills keep bleeding through layers of the cocoon... Now specialize ever more throughout your life, become an expert mole on some high-priced hillside, sell yourself, produce, compartmentalize.... instead of soaring, dancing, playing, swishy and flamboyant, free like the gods.

    Okay, that's definitely not my highest self talking (as if you didn't notice) - just voicing an angle that is "also true", relatively speaking.

    Back to the source. Yes, Tim, I agree with Ken Wilber's assessments re the Vedanta/Vajrayana teachings. They've confirmed my own and countless other's subjective experiences and make perfect sense as an orientation map.

    Dear Kessels, The Tibetan Book of the Dead was a major revelation. I've never confessed this to anyone, but reading it at age 18, I felt that I had been one of the ancient contributors to the texts - and I also knew exactly where the translations fell short (Evans Wentz, English and German); where we (the Lamas who jotted down this stuff over centuries) were exaggerating the universality of the phenomena which appear to souls transiting through the Bardo states, and where we got it right - dead on, in fact - like in the opening instructions, where the text exhorts the departing spirit to go into the Clear Light of your original nature straight away! No dawdling with lesser lights, alluring and glamorous though they seem. Go Home, sucker, and Stay There, if you know what's good for you kind of instructions....

    And this brings me back to a near-death exp. I had at age 7. Horrible circumstances - best thing that ever happened. No visions, no greeting committee, no forms, just went straight into the Godhead and became That... All all..... Absolutely fabulous after the struggles of the little entity to survive.

    Read lots of books about reincarnation, ESP, etc in my teens. Stopped gathering info voraciously some years ago. It's enough to have Papaji (H.W.L. Poonja, direct lineage to Ramana Maharshi) confirm that: "All the saints and sages of all the religions are real." And, I might add, "They are all alive NOW." You can contact them, and if you're open enough, they can contact you.

    Of course, we all know that in the absolute, "Nothing ever happens." But to function within the many spheres of the relative, you've got to jive with the paradoxes, and if living beings from various realms keep showing up, you better serve them some tea. At least that's my general policy. The trick is not to identify your Self with any phenomena. You are the Seer, not the seen, however subtle and cosmic. As soon as that is clear, it's obvious that you are everything. Samsara and Nirvana are One.

    Anyway, thank you, Papaji, Ramana et al!!!..... I'll never stop saying that, though they're all tired of hearing it and waving me off :-)

    Okay, shut up. More later. And thank You who are responding.

    Love,

    M
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  •  08-07-2006, 12:33 PM 3647 in reply to 3640

    Re: reincarnation

    Very interesting discussion, all of you.  For many years, I never paid much attention to this topic.  My rationalization was that, whether or not it was true, it wouldn't impact my overall orientation -- that waking up is about this life, that spirituality is about now, not about new opportunities or rewards in the future.  But taking a fuller, more nuanced perspective on the issue now, I recognize that the implications of the truth or falsity of reincarnation could impact our social, spiritual, and educational institutions significantly, on a number of levels.  We can see, in cultures that embrace belief in reincarnation, both positive and negative social impacts.  I believe we have to be mindful of this as we go forward -- but I believe going forward on this issue is quite important, particularly given the evidence gathered by Dr. Stevenson and others.  At the very least, it is a topic that should be approached by the Integral community using the best tools that an IMP approach can offer.

    On another thread, some friends and I discussed the possibility of using IMP to verify or gather support for the notion of panpsychism.  I still think that is an important topic, with potential for significant impact on society if compelling support is found.  The topic of reincarnation is another -- and is one which appears to be more amenable to "testing" than other theories about the afterlife, such as claims about heaven or pure lands or whatever.

    I do not have a lot of experience with memories of past lives.  I did undergo a regression once and had a fairly intense vision of lurking at the edges of a caravan moving through the desert.  I was able to get a name for the place, but have never found it on a map or in history books.  Like others here, I've had some experiences of deja vu in places that were quite strong.  For me, this happened particularly strongly in India.  I have not been able to determine if these experiences are related to past lives or if they were actually premonitions.  For instance, I dreamed as a child about a place with lots of stairs and with crowds and buffalo in the streets, and later recognized the place as Varanasi when I was living and working there.  Also, while hiking in Arizona, I came around a bend in a stream once that stopped me in my tracks with a sense of recognition.  I immediately thought, "This looks like India," even though at the time I'd never been there and still knew very little about the place.  Later, when I went to India, I actually came across the landscape that I believe I "recognized" in Arizona: an expanse of land around a river that someone was offering to me, to entice me to stay there and be a school teacher.

    As I said, both of these experiences could be examples of premonition rather than vestiges of past-life memory.  But perhaps there is some overlap.  Why would I have these images in mind in the first place?  Or this attraction to India?

    I've also entertained the idea, semi-seriously, that I was once a priest or a monk in the Catholic Church.  I have an inexplicable (to me) connection to it, even though I largely disagree with its orthodox teachings.  Sitting outside of churches, I have experienced deep feelings of longing and "homecoming," and I strongly related to Merton's account of entering the priesthood.  I've also had astrological and other readings done which have suggested something similar.

    Just on the general subject of reincarnation:  the evidence gathered by Stevenson suggests that the memories children exhibit are actually quite specific to individual lives, not just vague traces from collective human consciousness or whatever.  Not having had intense past life experiences of my own, I admit that I'm still not entirely clear about what is actually being experienced by these children and what it means, but from what Stevenson says, it may be just what we think: a soul enters a new form with prior memories still intact.  Why do some remember while most do not?  Why are past connections strong for a few, but not for others?  Stevenson suggests, with Justin, that strong emotion and longing or attachment or pain may be a driving force.  Many of the individuals who have clear recall often died tragically and suddenly in the previous life, and in the present life may even bear birthmarks at the point of injury...

    B.


    May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

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  •  08-07-2006, 12:38 PM 3649 in reply to 3617

    Re: reincarnation

    Hi Tim,

    That's interesting stuff! I agree with roughly 98.6 percent of everything you say in this thread, so I'll just add some comments. I remember hearing KW giving an example involving piano playing recently, but I don't recall which audio clip that was. Could be in one of the discussions with Father Keating or with Caroline Myss, or on the first IOS cd, so if anybody knows, please raise your hand. In it, he says something to the effect that (normally) there is no way somebody could learn to play the piano really well without having several years of training, since you'll have to learn the required sensorimotor skills (UR).

    Hans TenDam, an authority on reincarnation, has the following to say:
    We can take aptitutes from one life to the next, although rarely in total. Usually, a certain amount of talent remains. Sometimes, however, a talent seems to be carried over unabated.
    ...
    A striking and more rare preservation of talents is xenoglossy or glossolaly; the ability to speak a language from a previous life. Examples include Shanti Devi, who spoke the Muttra-dialect without being taught. An American woman spoke Koptic, an English gym teacher spoke Egyptian, and Therese Neumann (whose hands and feet started bleeding on Good Friday) spoke a few sentences of Aramenian. That can be pious deceit, since you can memorize some sentences.
    ...
    Prodigies are mainly examples of  intellectual and musical abilities. A brilliant intellect does not fall out of the sky, nor does it grow out of the brains we inherited from our parents, just like a person's outstanding violin performance does not come out of the good violin his parents gave to him. Getting a good violin is probably stimulating, especialy if the parents are good violin players themselves, but there is no alternative for one's own practice. Intelligence develops through lives, although with considerable ups and downs. 
    Could you tell us how you have tried to gather information, and if you have tried hypnotic trance? It seems to be often really hard to remember names, and sometimes dates, except when they were emotionally charged in that life.

    Peter


    "All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber
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  •  08-07-2006, 12:48 PM 3650 in reply to 3640

    Re: reincarnation

    Hey Justin, just saw you post. Wow, firing on quite a few cylinders here. So much to respond to - so little linear time....

    Briefly: yes. Desire is The driving force. Desire compels free spirit to slip back into that 'black hole' again, the womb, take another form to enjoy the same pleasures & suffer the same old pains ad (almost) infinitum. Instructions by trustworthy people with no ulterior motives except to set others free, are very clear: Fulfill your desires while in the flesh as best as you can. Get the 'drivers' out of your system, and don't hang around people having sex after you're dead. You'll get aroused, and - swoosh -- you've entered another black hole. Stay cool, say something like, "Take me, Beloved (or whatever name you have for the whole), I'm yours!"

    Obviously, those are instructions for those who've 'been there, done that' enough to have an overriding desire to get off the recycling machine. AND I could argue for a completely different interpretation of what's going on just as well.

    Love from Paradoxville,

    M

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  •  08-07-2006, 4:02 PM 3670 in reply to 3650

    Re: reincarnation

    swishing right along~~~~~~~~

    timelody, i do declare your trailing clouds of glory are craziii about playing the piano!

    i had me a peek in wilber's Eye of Spirit //  here's snip-quote from Born Again chapter::

    "....I have alyays used Wordsworth's "Not in entire forgefulness  . . . But trailing coulds of glory do we come" to describe this situation. This is also why I have never denied that transpersonal experiences of various sorts are available during the preegoic period; I have simply denied that they are due to any preegoic structures."

    and further down:: "...the highest level of stable evolution reached in any given life permeates the eternal industractible drop and thus carried, not as specific memories but as a mood of adaptation, to the next life."

    i think that's pretty clear to see those 'moods of adaptations' in genius - gifted kids. after all we don't live in a dead universe, why would we want to trick ourselves into beliving we don't have  a 'soul?'

    and speaking of very small kiddies...when my gran-baby was few days old...and for the first time had the plesure of holding her for as long as i wished...to drink in her baby- beauty ... (our little, 6 pound worth of a precious miracle ... she, whose mamma was told she had 10% chance of carrying / having a baby....)  walking  around the house with her fast asleep...and then she giggled loudly. just don't  ask if the hair on my head didn't raise some...her eyes moving from side to side. eyes slightly open. then she did it again! when i was looking out the window.

    can't say i was ready to tell her mommy and daddy about her giggling spells - why would they want to believe me?

    then a couple of weeks go by and daughter one day said "you should hear her giggle in sleep! she sounds just like a three year old girl!"

    and then i shared i heard her do same at three (?) days old..."your'e kidding!" . and she, to this day, is one happy child, who loves everyone!

    h

     

     

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  •  08-07-2006, 5:11 PM 3677 in reply to 3596

    Re: reincarnation

    kessels:

    Compared to being born, death appears to be a very pleasant experience (not the dying itself, of course, but the moments after the gross body has perished).

    Almost anyone who's ever consciously left their body will tell you it's a great release. IMO, our Western cultures have it all backwards: They celebrate birth and mourn death while the actual experiences of being born and 'dying' are exactly the other way round. We all cry when we're born and get high when we leave the shell. Shouldn't doctors, relatives, priests and pundits be aware of this easily observable, universal fact? Shouldn't everyone act accordingly? Balder, please go and make 'em. You've got the energy to talk to the Blues from what I've read.
    kessels:
    It seems that having past life (or rather pre-birth) experiences is often associated with a sudden or violent death, after which the person is reborn relatively quickly.

    Time is such a tricky subject, I'm going to steer clear of it for now. Fact: I've got three birthmarks on my back. Fiction: those are carry-overs from the stab wounds that killed me bloody male English bugger last time around. Conclusion: there is no need for me to believe that any of the sensations associated with these are memories. The only thing that matters is, did it work when I kept allowing all the feelings, images, story lines to surface? Did it achieve the desired results when people relived supposed past-life experiences as often as needed for them to be finished, done with a particular issue, able to move on. The answer is yes, allowing and reliving works. Surprise, surprise: include and transcend.

    More Love

    M
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  •  08-07-2006, 6:03 PM 3679 in reply to 3677

    Re: reincarnation

    Honestly I have never read such intelligent interpretations of what can happen at death!  Tinelody I printed your reply and I am still reading it!

    Honestly I always thought of reincarnation as a metaphor.  If you are capable of a transpersonal experience go for it because the meaning of life IS WHAT YOU BRING TO IT!  If you do not get it here you will have to come around again.  Exactly what came back was never to clear for me. 

    Ofcourse it is nice to think that what you learn in this lifetime will stay with you and with the universe in some way.  Honestly no one really knows.  I want to return to spirit upon death, however if I can obtain that honor I will probably come back because spirit gets bored!  

    Life is too mysterious to take seriously!

     


    when two people agree on everything all of the time one of them is not necessary
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  •  08-08-2006, 1:25 AM 3704 in reply to 3623

    Re: reincarnation

    Hi Tim,

    I've been trying to get to the essence of my response to you. Already scrapped a lengthy post. There is so much, and I want to say it all at once. I sense the charge you emit around this topic. Maybe you've been experiencing past-life/ multi-dimensional input much more frequently than you've admitted to yourself, but held the floodwaters at bay by stiffening the old brain waves with theories, studies, maps....? Please forgive me if that was intrusive on a public forum. Tell me off. After all, this section is called Theory au naturel. I guess I'm harping on the naturel part, and there is nothing wrong with theorizing. I just don't give a rat's ass at this moment what # zone we're in or which of the four quadrants are involved when someone is burning as brightly as you are.

    M

    Oh, and yes, I think that EVERYBODY is constantly experiencing past-life influences, subterranean and otherwise. People just don't classify the input as such due to conditioning and the general anesthesia everyone walks around in.
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