Reincarnation anyone?

[qwertyMike]

I'm looking for info. on it.
Any believers here?

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

1. I think it's a fact

In school we learned that (I think in the year 12something or other) there was a meeting with the Church of Rome called the Council of Trent--
At this council they decided it would be better to delete all references to reincarnation and astrology from the bible because it would help the masses become more dependent on the church.

If you read Edgar Cayce he talks alot about reincarnation.
Hinduism, Budhism,Toaism all believe in reincarnation.

It really makes alot of sense. We live and re live til we get it right...
no easy outs--
no life of evil then
simply by accepting a saviour getting let off free with rewards of eternal heavely bliss--
nope-
They say you come back and learn what it's like to be on the recieving end.

Looks like Bush may be due tens of thousands of lifetimes in poverty in a poor opressed sandy hot country with his legs blown off !!! Justice

[noonwitch]

18. There's a certain logic to it.

The Bible still contains at least one reference I can think of-Jesus states that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah.
I think that it's not healthy to overdwell on past lives, however, or get too wrapped up in anticipating the next one. It can be useful in resolving issues in this life to get in touch with the past one, but I've never had a regression done. Due to dreams and such, I do think that in my most recent past life I was a jew in Prague, during WWII. I had some of these dreams before I was even old enough to understand them.

[Punkingal]

2. Yes....

I'm a past-life regressionist.

[soleft]

7. As opposed to having lived as different individuals in the past

Do you think it's possible that what people recall as past life memories are actually people tapping into the collective consiousness and experience memories that are accessible to anyone who's able to reach that level of awareness?

[Punkingal]

16. I think both are possible....

eom

[foreigncorrespondent]

3. Yes.

I have wanted to do past life regression for a long time now. Just haven't gotten around to it.

I am told from many people that I am an old soul, so I could be coming to the close of my coming back until I get it right bit. But I know I still have a few lives left in order to pay all the bad karma back.

[Kusala]

10. and good kamma for that matter

good/bad/neutral it's all still kamma and it all still fuels samsara.

[FireHeart]

4. No

When you're dead, you're dead. End of story. Nothing more.

You ain't coming back.

[Bunny]

13. How do you know this with such certainty?

I happen to believe in reincarnation, but even if I didn't, I'm not arrogant enough to assume that I can say, with any certainty, what occurs after we die. And neither can anyone else. So tell me, how did you come to such a conclusion?

[Kusala]

15. reminds me of some Christians

when you ask why they believe in Jesus/Heaven/Hell

"cause the bible says so".

That's the only proof they need.

Ironically, buddha taught that if you don't know you can't tell others "this is how it is". And he spefically stressed not to believe others just because they've said it is thus. Which, also ironically, includes his word as well!

Buddhism is very much about logically approaching these questions for yourself.

What's funny in life is that even when we think we have things figured out, it all seems so different given a change in circumstances/time/etc. And then some people become just as arrogant about their newfound "knowledge", even when it's changed.

[dofus]

5. Personally I believe

in reincarnation. It makes a lot of sense out of what I see around me. There are many, many books out there on the topic. In my personal opinion the two best ones are "Journey of Souls" and "Destiny of Souls" both by Michael Newton. He does hypnotic regression, and started talking with his clients about the time between lives, and according to these books learned a lot about what happens during that part of our existence.

There are many, many books which involve case studies in one way or another of accounts of reincarnation. Ian Stevenson is a methodical researcher of people, most always children, who claim to remember previous lives. "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" is a bit of a slog, but a book about Stevenson and his resarch, "Old Souls: Compelling Evidence From Children Who Remember Past Lives" by Thomas Shroderis quite readable.

Carol Bowman has written two books about children who spontaneously remember past lives, "Children's Past Lives" and "Return From Heaven". "Many Lives, Many Masters" by Brian Weiss is about a psychiatrist and the past lives regressions of a particular client of his.

Try to get some of these books. They are all readily available, and if you look them up on Amazon you'll get referred to many more.

For what it's worth, many astrologers seem to believe in reincarnation, and often talk about various astrological aspects of a chart as being karmic, meaning having some reference, good or bad, to a previous life or lives.

As a brief explanation, karma is not simple payback, tit-for-tat, but a way of learning lessons. Doing things that harm others in one life results in being in a situation in another life to find out what it's like to be on the other side of that behavior.

Read, enjoy.

[soleft]

6. I was going to post a thread asking for info about reincarnation

How strange.

I was going to post in the meeting room, it may stay up longer in there and get more indepth responses.. Would you be willing to ask the mods to move this to the meeting room?

Heres my problem with reincarnation as I understand it at this point in time.

One returns to live another life, and keeps doing so until they reach nirvana.

What if the earth was destroyed in a cataclysmic event, there would be no physical realm to return to. So then what's the theory?

[dofus]

8. The books by Michael Newton

address that, sort of. Not in terms of asking the question, What if the earth were destroyed, but in talking about people living lives on other planets out there. Not too many of the people he's regressed remember them, but a few apparently do.

Life on this planet is very difficult, very challenging in terms of sould growth. Not all souls come here, because they're not up to the challenges.

And if the earth is destroyed, eventually there will be another planet with intelligent life suitable for souls to live in. Billions and billions of years are a very long time.

[Kusala]

9. the way buddhism addresses this

is that the earth is not the only physical realm. Other planets across the universe(s?)(-quantum Multi-Universe theories?) Also, there are realms other than the physical as we know it. There of course are also animals. One has to imagine you could even be reborn as an ant, but to regress to that from human form you'ld have to be a preety sad human being. This also explains why the earth is increasing population. The earth may be, but other "realms" are decreasing. Including other planets.

The general idea is that kamma(karma) is like a fire. Our lives are fueled by it. As long as you feed it, it will keep burning. That's not to say that someone who dies young has burnt out their karma(the only way to do that, according to buddhism, is to reach nibbana, via the eightfold path). That's where samsara comes in. Samsara is the never-ending(except with Nibbana(Nirvana)) round of rebirths, fueled by neverending production of kamma.

So if one believes in kamma in the buddhism sense, it is only logical that you'ld also believe in rebirth(although this has been debated countless times)

The difference between buddhist rebirth and various reincarnation theories(hinduism for example), is that there is no "soul" or consciousness that is transferred from one life to another. Basically, the only thing you take with you is your kamma. This makes people wonder whether the next life is them, or just an imprint of them. But then, that is the whole point of no-self in buddhism, when you no longer attach to the "I".
Of course there have been many arguments on how the kamma is transferred from one life to the next. This can lead to some interesting theories based on modern physics

Anyways there's some more complex items related to the subject in buddhism which are a really fascinating look at the mind, and the psychology of the mind.

I consider myself a buddhist, but that's more because i'm fascinated by the philosophical and psychological aspects, not the metaphysical such as rebirth. As Mel Gibson said in Air America, "I didn't say I'm a good buddhist!". I love that line. You can't really satisfactorily prove rebirth, but you can apply the practice of buddhism and notice a marked improvement in your state of mind(and your sanity for that matter..) ;)

[Kusala]

11. another addition on the "cataclysmic event"

we all know even if humanity somehow could survive, death is invevitable for this planet, when the sun dies itself specifically.

But the universe goes on. Some say it expands infinitely. Some say it's stuck in a cycle of expansion or contraction.

Buddha basically said it's an endless cycle of expansion and contraction. Amazing for a guy that lived 2500 years ago, that there are countless numbers of astronomers today that are on board with this theory. But astronomy is still split on the universe's future.

[soleft]

12. So is it possible that the universe is the single self that gets reborn

There are no individual souls that actually go through a rebirth process, but that all life gets reabsorbed into the one, and that through each individual life consciousness gets expanded, and that's how the universe progresses through each of its lives?

[Kusala]

14. it is

I've heard theories similar to the above argued.

One of the issues is that Buddha did make it clear that you are tied and bound to YOUR kamma. Even though there is no YOU in the sense that your current body/consciousness will break up at death. Only your kamma will continue to a NEW body/consciousness. But we are so stuck on believing our current body/consciousness is this entity knowns as "me" or there is a soul that's based on it, when in reality "me" is only kamma. If you die having been a compassionate individual, theoretically that kamma will carry (those "intentions") to a next life and hopefully the next body/consciousness will be wise enough to act on them yet again. Kamma isn't about results,it's about intentions.

So theoretically you could say since there is no you, that we're all part of the same kammic soup, if you will. But in that case why did he stress that you reap what you sow. And thus, you can see the results of some kamma here in the current life?

But when you think about it, our kamma does affect the suffering of others. That's part of causuality though. we affect each other.

There's a lot of ways this can be debated. Which is why Buddha also stressed you shouldn't get hung up on this stuff.

But personlly, it is fun to speculate.

[Punkingal]

17. Who's to say this is the only planet....

to support life?

[Boudicea]

19. The meeting room is probably a good place to ask

[AlienGirl]

20. I believe in it...

What's up? :-)

Tucker

[populistmom]

21. I believe its possible

I've also read that earlier versions of the Bible contains references to reincarnation, but I try to be wise enough to honestly say 'I don't know'. I tend to have an open mind when it comes to any concept as to what the afterlife or lack thereof will be. It's simply something not of my dimension or repretoire of knowledge because I just don't have any conscious memories of dying before.
Though I do like to believe that we are all here as individuals to learn something as spiritual beings. I'd like to believe there is a greater purpose to everything.

Sarah

[latebloomer]

22. Intriguing prospect!

I was raised as an atheist, but have come to believe that there are more possibilities than we can imagine.

I once went through a past-life regression. I was a man named Lorenzo (I'm a woman now) in 15th century Spain. I was a peasant, and very angry at the government (sound familiar?), which was a combination of church and state. I lived in a shack with my wife and son, and felt alienated from my neighbors, who were too busy struggling to survive to be open to my rabble-rousing.

I had no conscious memory of knowing anything about Spain, so I looked up the subject and found that there were indeed peasant uprisings against the church/state government of Spain during that time period.

I'm still a bit skeptical about whether this was real, but it sure was interesting!

[Lindsey]

23. Check out the book "Many Lives, Many Masters."

It's awesome!

[corarose]

24. I use to have several dreams when I was a kid

When I was around 3 or 4 I would wake up screaming that the heads were after me again and my Mom said that I was so scared that I was afraid to go back to sleep. As I got older the heads would re-appear and they didn't stop until I was turning 17 when we came back home from England.
The heads were victorian with collars like Henry the 8'th. They would come around the doorways one at a time but they didn't have a body. Everytime I would go to sleep I would see the heads and they were of men and women. I would try to wake up but I couldn't and as I was growing up my Mom would sleep with me at night so that she could wake me up because it got so bad that I would pound on the wall for help at night after I fell asleep and I couldn't wake myself back up.
The odd thing is the dreams left as soon as we left England and they never returned.
I don't allow anyone to touch my neck either and when I was a baby my Mom said that I would cry whenever she washed my neck or put baby clothes on that would touch my neck.
My aunts told me that I drank my baby bottle with my little finger lifted in the air just like the british do when they drink tea.

I also had a dream of sinking in a blue ocean with a beautifull dress that was flowing in the water.

I believe in reincarnation because of my dreams as a kid.

[Clete]

25. I hope not.

I am almost 64 now and I just couldn't go through all of this again. Other than that, sorry I don't have any information.

[qwertyMike]

29. me too

I certainly wouldn't want to go throught this lot again. Even as good as it was/is.
What's done is done.
Next!

[Eat_The_Rich]

26. Belief in reincarnation is like belief in religion

Its a last ditch attempt to convince your sorry ass that there is life after death.

[AlienGirl]

27. It can be...

But some of the people I know wish they *didn't* remember past lives.

Tucker

[MisterP]

28. not right now!!!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. I hope it's not true

because I'd sure hate to live through junior high school again! Man, those were miserable years.

But in other respects, I'd like a sort of Groundhog Day type of reincarnation, where you got to relive your life and learn more each time.