Reincarnation - Transmigration of the Soul


Reincarnation is an anglicized word of Latin derivation, meaning reinfleshment, the coming again into a human body of an excarnate soul. The repetitive reimbodiment of the reincarnating Human Ego in vehicles of human flesh - this being a special case of the general doctrine of Reimbodiement. This general doctrine of Reimbodiement applies not solely to man, but to all centers of consciousness whatsoever, or to all monads whatsoever; wheresoever they may be on the evolutionary ladder of life, and whatsoever may be their particular developmental grade thereon.

There are eight words used in the theosophical philosophy in connection with Reimbodiement, which are not all synonymous, although some of these eight words have almost the same specific meaning. They are: Pre-existence, Rebirth, Reimbodiment, Palingenesis, Metensomatosis, Transmigration, Reincarnation. Of these eight words, four only may be said to contain the four different basic ideas of the general doctrine of Reimbodiement, and these four are Pre-existence, Reimbodiement, Metempsychosis, and Transmigration.



ELLIE'S THEORIES

Because we live in linear space/time - we tend to think of our experiences as happening in a linear way. Within that thought patterning one can perceive of souls as having lived many lives in many different body types. With reincarntion the souls leaves one physical body and enters another. We tend to change gender, ethnic background, race, geographic experience, physical attributes as we play different roles - just as we change our clothing each day depending on the role we play in this timeline - the job, home, church, etc. We try on different 'hats' and experience in each of them.

Belief in reincarnation allows one to feel that the soul is immortal. When it ceases to exist in the physical - it will return in another body in a future timeline. Many people find this as a source of great comfort. Sometimes they see the next life as a way to rectify wrongful deeds commited in this or a prior lifetime.

Though I can see things in a linear manner I have come to understand the some facts about the nature of this reality. There is one soul that creates everything in the Universe. That soul has set up multi-dimensional programs through which millions of souls are created and experience. Each soul experiences on many - and all levels - at the same time.

It experiences through a system of grids created through the Great Pyramid which also exists in each level where the souls experience.

Following specific geometric matrixes - based on the sacred geometry - the program generates information to 12 additional pyramids none of which exist in third dimension. They in turn create a matrix - grid - akashic record - hall of records - collective unconsciousness - of all and everything that exists in this program. Psychics such as Edgar Cayce - who gave past life information - stated that he was reading teh Akashic record of the person. He could easly tap into information his client needed to hear as guided by his spirit guides or theirs.

What we call our reality is not much more than a holographic illusion which uses linear time as a means to denote temporal references through the time machine - the Great Pyramid.

It seems plausible that when we think we are having past life memories - we are merely tapping into the information from the grid.

During hypnosis - when you look at your past lives you may be tapping into the grids and receiving information from them. You can pick up anyone's frequency signature in the grids and link it with yours. All souls have a different frequency signature. By finding a person's frequency signature psychics can trace and hopefully find missing people and deceased souls.

During a regression wherein you enter the grids for information you may think you are someone famous by tapping into the frequency of a deceased person who was famous when they lived in the physical. Famous people tend to leave a strong frequency signature on the grids. When you tap into the grids and link to that signature - you can believe it was your past life. Everything in the program is made of electromagnetic energy including us. We see this in aura pictures. The EM energies hold us together through this creational grid system.

If you meditate and see yourself back in time you will see events in another timeline But is it yours? The grid information that is there in ferquency can be accessed by anyone. You decide.

There is also genetic encoding in your DNA that - through hypnosis - can give you memories of others in your bloodline. You might consider these genetically encoded memories - your past lives.

Hypnosis can take you to another timeline wherein you are experiencing 'along side' of this timelime.

Reality is very fluid - moreso now as the frequencies of our bodies and the planet are vibrating faster as we merge with the other programs.

We not only have to consider past lives, but parallel realities and our multidimensional selves - all apsects of our souls experiencing simultaneously.

Learning about a 'past life' is usually to help you with emotional issues that you are trying to work through - as the souls struggle to free themselves from the 3D emotional game. If you are hypnotized you will go to a place where you will be shown something that will help you release your issues - or find another apsect of your soul. You may see a past life in which those detrimental to you now are people you harmed in another lifetime - the 'karmic wheel' what goes around comes around - whatever it takes to release the burden so your soul can be free.

In truth we are all linked - we are all one - one soul - one experience - many realities to see and understand it. Take it all with a grain of salt and just experience what you can consciously here and on other levels in dreamtime or meditation.



ANCIENT BELIEF SYSTEMS



Reincarnation as a belief system that dates from the oldest known written and oral traditions of ancient people.


Ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, The Egyptian Book of the Dead mentions the travel of the soul into a next world without coming back to Earth. As it is well known, the ancient Egyptians embalmed the dead in order that the body might be preserved and accompany the soul into that world. This rather suggests their belief in resurrection than in reincarnation. Likewise, in many cases of ancient tribal religions that are credited today with holding to reincarnation, it is rather a belief in the pre-existence of the soul before birth or its independent survival after death that is taught. This has no connection with the classic idea of transmigration from one physical body to another, according to the demands of an impersonal law such as karma.


Hebrew

The Kabala, the ancient mystical teachings of the Jewish faith is filled with references to reincarnation that are thousands of years old.


Ancient Greece

The ancient religions of the Mediterranean world developed quite different kinds of reincarnationist beliefs. For instance, Plato stated the pre-existence of the soul in a celestial world and its fall into a human body due to sin. In order to be liberated from its bondage and return to a state of pure being, the soul needs to be purified through reincarnation. In stating these beliefs Plato was strongly influenced by the earlier philosophical schools of Orphism and Pythagoreanism. The first important Greek philosophical system that adopted a similar view on reincarnation to Hinduism was Neo-Platonism, born in the 3rd century AD, under certain Eastern influences.


Reincarnation and Karma in the Bible

in Matthew, 11:13- 14; 16:13. Jesus is asking his disciples Whom do men say that I, the son of man, am, (Matt. 16:13) and the disciples answer Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias and others Jeremias or one of the prophets. How could Jesus be thought to be any of these except in a past life? Elias and Jeremias lived centuries before. As for John the Baptist, since he had recently been put to death, there could not have been a reincarnation, but it seems that some people thought that his spirit could have inspired Jesus. If people could speak in this way they obviously took the doctrine for granted. That Jesus is actually asking the question shows he is aware of the doctrine of reincarnation and considers it valid.

Jesus himself tells his disciples who John the Baptist really was in the past:For all prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear let him hear. (Matt. 11:13-14)

So Elias, according to Jesus himself, came back to earth in the personality of John the Baptist. This is repeated or confirmed in Matt. 17:12: But I say unto you that Elias is come already and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the son of man suffer of them. 13. The disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

The third reference comes as a question concerning a blind man. The disciples ask Jesus: Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2-3) How could a man sin before he was born, unless the sin was committed in another life? The apostles are not asking what kind of sin resulted in blindness, but *who* sinned, taking for granted that the act of sinning itself brought about this dire result.

Furthermore, the sin could have been committed either by the man in a previous existence, or by his parents. This implies both that the sins of the parents are visited upon the children, which is a biblical doctrine, and that the soul exists and therefore pays for the transgressions of previous lives.

Jesus does not rebuff the apostles for asking such a question. If the doctrine had been alien to his mind, he would have told them that they were talking nonsense. He simply takes a different attitude. His answer: Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him, (John 9:3) implies that the doctrine of karma (and therefore its corollary, reincarnation) is not always understood rightly and that the calamities that befall humans should not necessarily be laid at its door.


Hindu / Vedic Beliefs

In the beliefs of Eastern teachings like Hinduism and Buddhism, the Goddess Kali, the Mistress of life, death and rebirth, governs this wheel of becoming. This is the 'Wheel of Reincarnation'. Kali is considered the Great Mother that all must pass through to enter the afterworld. In the west we have come to fear her for she is often portrayed with skulls hanging from her wrists. Thus we have come to associate her with death and slaughter.

The origin of samsara has to be searched for in Hinduism and its classic writings. It cannot have appeared earlier than the 9th century BC because the Vedic hymns, the most ancient writings of Hinduism, do not mention it, proving that reincarnation wasn�t stated yet at the time of their recording (13th to 10th century BC). We will therefore analyze the development of the concept of immortality in the major Hindu writings, beginning with the Vedas and Brahmanas.

Immortality in the Vedic hymns and the Brahmanas:

At the time the Vedic hymns were written, the belief was that man continues to exist after death as a whole person. Between man and gods was stated an absolute distinction, as in all other polytheistic religions of the world. The concept of an impersonal fusion with the source of all existence, as later stated in the Upanishads, was far away. Here are some arguments for this thesis that result from the exegesis of the funeral ritual:

1. As was the case in other ancient religions (for instance those of Egypt and Mesopotamia), the deceased was buried with food and clothing necessary in the afterlife. More than that, the belief of ancient Aryans in the preservation of personal identity after death led them to incinerate the dead husband together with his (living) wife and bow so that they could accompany him in the afterlife. In some parts of India this ritual was performed until the British colonization.

2. Similar to the tradition of ancient Chinese religion, the departed relatives constituted a holy hierarchy. The last one deceased was commemorated individually for a year after his departure and then included in the mortuary offerings of the monthly shraddha ritual (Rig Veda 10,15,1-11). This ritual was necessary because the dead could influence negatively or positively the life of the living (Rig Veda 10,15,6).

3. According to Vedic anthropology, the components of human nature are the physical body, ashu and manas. Ashu represents the vital principle (different from personal attributes), and manas the sum of psycho-mental faculties (mind, feeling and will). The belief in the preservation of the three components after death is proved by the fact that the family addressed the departed relative in the burial ritual as a unitary person: "May nothing of your manas, nothing of the ashu, nothing of the limbs, nothing of your vital fluid, nothing of your body here by any means be lost" (Atharva Veda 18,2,24).

Yama, the god of death (mentioned in old Buddhist and Taoist scriptures too) was sovereign over the souls of the dead and also the one who received the offerings of the family for the benefit of the departed. In the Rig Veda it is said about him: "Yama was the first to find us our abode, a place that can never be taken away, where our ancient Fathers have departed; all who are born go there by that path, treading their own" (Rig Veda 10,14,2). Divine justice was provided by the gods Yama, Soma and Indra, not by an impersonal law such as karma. One of their attributes was to cast the wicked into an eternal dark prison out of which they can never escape (Rig Veda 7,104,3-17).

The premise for reaping the reward of one�s life in a new earthly existence (instead of the heavenly afterlife) appeared in the Brahmana writings (9th century BC). They stated a limited heavenly immortality, depending on the deeds and the quality of the sacrifices performed during life. After reaping the reward for them, man has to face a second death in the heavenly realm (punarmrityu) and therefore return to an earthly existence. The proper antidote against this situation came to be considered esoteric knowledge, attainable only during one�s earthly existence.
 

Reincarnation in the Upanishads

The Upanishads were the first writings to move the place of one�s "second death" from the heavenly realm to this earthly world, considering its proper solution the knowledge of the atman-Brahman identity.

Ignorance of one�s true self (atman or purusha) launches karma into action, the law of cause and effect in Eastern spirituality. Its first clear formulation can be found in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (4,4,5): "According as one acts, according as one behaves, so does he become.The doer of good becomes good. The doer of evil becomes evil. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad action." Reincarnation (samsara) is the practical way in which one reaps the fruits of his deeds. Therefore, the self is forced to enter a new material existence until all karmic debt is paid: "By means of thought, touch, sight and passions and by the abundance of food and drink there are birth and development of the (embodied) self. According to his deeds, the embodied self assumes successively various forms in various conditions" (Shvetashvatara Upanishad 5,11).

There can be observed a fundamental mutation in the meaning of afterlife in comparison with the Vedic perspective. Abandoning the desire to have communion with the gods (Agni, Indra, etc.), attained as a result of bringing good sacrifices, the Upanishads came to consider man�s final destiny to be the impersonal fusion atman-Brahman, attained exclusively by esoteric knowledge. In this new context, karma and reincarnation are key elements that will mark from now on all particular developments in Hinduism.
 

Reincarnation in the Epics and Puranas

In the Bhagavad Gita, which is a part of the Mahabharata, reincarnation is clearly stated as a natural process of life that has to be followed by any mortal. Krishna says: "Just as the self advances through childhood, youth and old age in its physical body, so it advances to another body after death. The wise person is not confused by this change called death (2,13). Just as the body casts off worn out clothes and puts on new ones, so the infinite, immortal self casts off worn out bodies and enters into new ones (2,22)."

In the Puranas the speculation on this subject is more substantial and therefore specific destinies are figured for each kind of sin one performs: "The murderer of a brahmin becomes consumptive, the killer of a cow becomes hump-backed and imbecile, the murderer of a virgin becomes leprous - all three born as outcastes. The slayer of a woman and the destroyer of embryos becomes a savage full of diseases; who commits illicit intercourse, a eunuch; who goes with his teacher�s wife, disease-skinned. The eater of flesh becomes very red; the drinker of intoxicants, one with discolored teeth.... Who steals food becomes a rat; who steals grain becomes a locust... perfumes, a muskrat; honey, a gadfly; flesh, a vulture; and salt, an ant.... Who commits unnatural vice becomes a village pig; who consorts with a Sudra woman becomes a bull; who is passionate becomes a lustful horse.... These and other signs and births are seen to be the karma of the embodied, made by themselves in this world. Thus the makers of bad karma, having experienced the tortures of hell, are reborn with the residues of their sins, in these stated forms (Garuda Purana 5)."

Similar specific punishments are figured by The Laws of Manu (12, 54-69).

Who or what reincarnates in Hinduism?

According to the Upanishads and Vedanta philosophy, the entity that reincarnates is the impersonal self (atman). Atman lacks any personal element, reason for which the use of the reflexive pronoun "self" is not quite right. Atman can be defined only through negating any personal attributes. Although it constitutes the existential substrata of man�s existence, atman cannot be the carrier of one�s "spiritual progress", because it cannot record any data produced in the illusory domain of psycho-mental existence. The spiritual progress one accumulates toward realizing the atman-Brahman identity is recorded by karma, or rather by a minimal quantity of karmic debt. According to one�s karma, at (re)birth the whole physical and mental complex man consists of is reconstructed, all that pertains to the world of illusions. At this level, the newly shaped person experiences the fruits of "his" actions from previous lives and has to do his best to stop the vicious cycle avidya-karma-samsara.

As a necessary aid in explaining the reincarnation mechanism, Vedanta adopted the concept of a subtle body (sukshma-sharira), attached to atman as long as its bondage lasts, which actually records the karmic debts and transmits them from one life to another. However, this "subtle body" cannot be a form of preserving one�s personal attributes, as it does not offer any actual data belonging to previous lives to the present conscious psycho-mental life. All this kind of data is erased, so that the facts recorded by the subtle body are a sum of hidden tendencies or impressions (samskara) imprinted by karma. They will materialize unconsciously in the life of the individual, without giving him any hint for understanding his actual condition. There is no possible form of transmitting conscious memory from one life to another, because its domain belongs to the world of illusions and dissolves at death.

In the Samkhya and Yoga darshanas, the entity that reincarnates is purusha, an equivalent of atman. Given the absolute duality stated between purusha and prakriti (substance), nothing that belongs to the psycho-mental life can pass from one life to the other because it belongs to prakriti, which has a mere illusory relation with purusha. However, in the Yoga Sutra (2,12) is defined a similar mechanism of transmitting the effects of karma from one life to another, as was the case in Vedanta. The reservoir of karmas is called karmashaya. It accompanies purusha from one life to another, representing the sum of impressions (samskara) that could not manifest themselves during the limits of a certain life. In no way can it be a kind of conscious memory, a sum of information that the person could consciously use or a nucleus of personhood, because karmashaya has nothing in common with psycho-mental abilities. This deposit of karma merely serves as a mechanism for adjusting the effects of karma in one�s life. It dictates in an impersonal and mechanical manner the new birth (jati), the length of life (ayu) and the experiences that must accompany it (bhoga).


Ancient Rome

Reincarnation was a basic tenant of the Catholic church until the fourth century AD when the Roman Emperor Constantine decided to tailor it to his specifications. Roman, having been the dominant military leader was on the verge of change. The Christians had been a cult that had been persecuted for over 300 years. That is when they were throwing them to the lions.

The ancient religions of the Gods were slowly disappearing, since the extratrrestrial contact that had caused them in the first place was no longer happening. Gaul had broken away fom the Empire. Rome saw it's power slipping and the rise of another star coming.

The Roman Emperor Constantine married his way into power. His wife mysteriously disappeared. His second wife was his ticket to the thorne. Then he had her killed. His third wife was a prostitute who had risen to the throne in the same diabolical ways Constantine had and who lived to have a devestating effect on the belief in reincarnation. She feared that her sins would follow from lifetime to lifetime infuriated her. She did not like the idea of Karma. Her life was filled with lies and treachery. She was not interested in advocated any religion that would demote her in another life. Thus she persuaded Emperor Constantine to remove reincarnation from Christainity.

Constantine, for all reports was vain and fearful for his many sins. He considered himself on one hand to be the incarnation of the Gods Apollo, Mytha, Jupiter, and Christ. On the other hand he was afraid that when he died he would anger these Gods in heaven.

He was the first Roman Emperor to support complete religious freedom of all faiths so that when he got to heaven no God would want to take venegence on him personally.


Buddhism

Buddhism denies the reality of a permanent self, together with all things pertaining to the phenomenal world. The appearance of human existence is generated by a mere heap of five aggregates (skandha), which suffer from constant becoming and have a functional cause-effect relation: 1) the body (material form and senses), 2) sensation (product of the senses), 3) perception (built on sensation), 4) mental activity and 5) consciousness. All five elements, as well as the whole assembly they construct, are impermanent (anitya), undergo constant transformation and have no abiding principle or self. Man usually thinks that he has a self because of consciousness. But being itself in a constant process of becoming and change, consciousness cannot be identified with a self that is supposed to be permanent. Beyond the five aggregates nothing else can be found in man.

However, something has to reincarnate, following the dictates of karma. When asked about the differences between people in the matters of life span, illnesses, wealth, etc., the Buddha taught:

Men have, O young man, deeds as their very own, they are inheritors of deeds, deeds are their matrix, deeds are their kith and kin, and deeds are their support. It is deeds that classify men into high or low status (Majjhima Nikaya 3,202). If there is no real self, who inherits the deeds and reincarnates? Buddha answered that only karma is passing from one life to another, using the illustration of the light of a candle, which is derived from other candle without having a substance of its own. In the same manner there is rebirth without the transfer of a self from one body to another. The only link from one life to the next is of a causal nature. This is without doubt the weirdest definition of reincarnation ever stated. In the Garland Sutra (10) we read: According to what deeds are done
Do their resulting consequences come to be;
Yet the doer has no existence:
This is the Buddha�s teaching.
The Yogachara and Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism) schools of Mahayana Buddhism consider that there actually is an entity that reincarnates, namely consciousness (one of the five aggregates), thus having the same function as the atman of Vedanta. The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes in detail the alleged experiences one has in the intermediary state between two incarnations, suggesting that the deceased keeps some personal attributes. Although it is not clear what actually survives after death in this case, there is mentioned a mental body that cannot be injured by the visions experienced by the deceased: When it happens that such a vision arises, do not be afraid! Do not feel terror! You have a mental body made of instincts; even if it is killed or dismembered, it cannot die! Since in fact you are a natural form of voidness, anger at being injured is unnecessary! The Yama Lords of Death are but arisen from the natural energy of your own awareness and really lack all substantiality. Voidness cannot injure voidness! (Tibetan Book of the Dead, 12) Whatever the condition of the deceased after death might be, any hypothetical personal nucleus vanishes right before birth, so there can be no psycho-mental element transmitted from one life to another. The newborn person doesn�t remember anything from previous lives or trips into the realm of intermediary state (bardo).


The Dali Lama

Years ago a boy came forward who said he was the incarnation of the Dali Lama who is the head of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He has incarnated many times throughtout the centuries reassuming his position from lifetime to lieftime. This tradition first began when this young boy first presented as the reincarnation of the first Dali Lama. He was accepted by the priests by way of many signs. He proceeded to miracles of knowing, telepathy, mind reading and ceremony to prove that claim.

This process has allowed subsequent Monks to develop a system to rediscovery successive incarnations of the Dali Lama and others of high spiritual development in each age.


Taoism

Reincarnation is a teaching hard to find in the aphorisms of the Tao-te Ching (6th century BC), so it must have appeared later in Taoism. Although it is not specified what reincarnates, something has to pass from one life to another. An important scripture of Taoism, the Chuang Tzu (4th century BC), states:

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point. Existence without limitation is space. Continuity without a starting point is time. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in. That through which one passes in and out without seeing its form, that is the Portal of God (Chuang Tzu)


Native American

Ancient Shamans and tribal groups worldwide have long believed that a tramatic experience within the realm of our inner selves can serve as a catalyst for the truth seeker to move beyond the illusions of the little self and enter the unity of the greater whole.

The skull: By stripping away the illusions of society and the egoic structure of the little self one experiences an inner death. Kali's skulls were the symbol of those who would risk this personal death and transformation only to be reborn in the image of the greater self. Thus she sees through us to our essential core as we pass through the doorway of life, death, and rebirth.



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