3c Energy - Reincarnation

Chapter 3 Energy continued

REINCARNATION (3G) - what we bring with us;

And how many times do we have to ‘come in’?

BELIEVING. (3G1)

Regardless of whether we believe in any teachings that we have received or not, our reasons for life (ie, what life is for) whether considered or not, sit in the unconscious and affect our attitudes to life and hence all we do; ie, they are ‘making’ your life, so you might as well find out what they are. They may appear to come from your parents or your environment, but they are also coming from past lives; (although some ‘funny’ things do seem to come down the DNA). Even the concept that there is no reason for life is still a belief, in that we do not actually know.

But really, these ‘believe-ins’ are taught as just that; a belief. We don’t know and have to be told what to believe by ‘those who know’, as a child has to be taught by an adult. However, the trouble with believing anything that you don’t actually know, is that dis-belief has to be repressed or buried, by definition. And, when it’s buried, you don’t know it’s there; it’s unconscious.

We get an awful lot of ‘If you believe in God and Love hard enough or sufficiently, everything will be alright for you’. Hence, if bad things happen, you haven’t believed enough. Hence, lots of people try very hard ‘to believe’ as a way to hopefully avoid ‘bad’ things happening, but this is patently fear-driven, and fear is not love.

So, the choice in teachings about ‘why life?’ is, believe in 1 life or lots (reincarnation). (It’s not as if you have just 2 or 3.) Half the world believes in one life and the other half believes in lots of lives.

ONE LIFE ONLY OR MULTIPLE LIVES. (3G2)

A single life makes no sense at all to me (as you may have guessed). It becomes a lottery and fate, the results of which you must endure (because suffering is ‘good’ etc, etc, and eventually you can escape - for good, hopefully) and God loves you and don’t ask any questions. Yes, well. You are also expected to believe because there will be awful repercussions (hell and no heaven) if you don’t. This is a fear-based teaching. All of this is an external authority/expert (male) maintaining your dependence upon their power (of whatever religion) to tell you what to do and decide how you have done. You get to stay as a child here; you are not going to know for your own self or find self-power or self-direction here, and will remain powerless and/or try to compensate by becoming an authority yourself. (see Part II)

But, if there is fear, as in, being frightened to force you to conform, there is no love here.

Love gives free will and choice to the other at every level. It has to; by definition.

Multiple lives allow for Explore, which is a primary drive (Expression is close behind). They also allow choice and free will.

It can also take many more than just one life to learn or understand important issues or develop abilities to skills. Teachings of a single life can allow no concept of such things.

We need the time and the Explore because we have enormous internal potential we ‘wot not of’.

WE ARE GIVEN TIME TO DEVELOP. (3G3)

We have a very large mostly unknown potential inside us, which is a very small sub-set of God, so to speak, viz, we all have a little world inside us (that seems pretty big to us) within the very much bigger world out there.

It’s also true that the world out there is indeed larger than we are, but we are also much larger internally and externally than we suppose. We are meant to use the world ‘out there’ to learn about the world that we carry inside us.

That world out there includes such an enormous number of ways of being that it boggles the mind really; (‘7 billion and still counting’ and that’s just people). We are exploring being; male and female; rich and poor; powerful and powerless; loving and unloving; build and destroy; different cultures and different religions and ideas; and on and on. All of it being ways of finding who we are, what’s important to us and what we want.

[A change of gender can take at least 2-3 lives to get used to ‘the hang of it’ if most of the previous lives have been the other. We do change gender, although there appears to be a preponderance of one over the other. How/Who would you be if you were the other gender?]

I find a useful metaphor for ourselves in this process of exploring to be that of a diamond in the rough. Apart from the fact that diamonds are simply carbon formed under great pressure with the potential to become something spectacular, it takes skill for a jeweller to make any particular diamond. It needs to be recognized in the rough for what it is; it takes skill to cut and it takes skill to polish each of the 52 surfaces of a single brilliant cut diamond. If each of our lives is spent polishing just a few of the surfaces or views of our diamond as we address the issues in our lives, it is going to take quite a few lives to get that diamond to perfection, and then we may find that there is another one to discover and work from the rough, and so on. There are an awful lot of ways of being out there and an awful lot of issues belonging to these different ways of being. All of us are working on polishing our diamonds. [A ‘diamond’ metaphor, again.]

But then we make decisions about life through the experiences we’ve had, and we bring them along with us; otherwise what’s the point?

WE HAVE A PACK OF ASSUMPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS FROM PREVIOUS LIVES. (3G4)

We carry our decisions about life, useful and useless, with us, from life to life as we build on our experiences, and, of course, they impact on this life. Useless decisions can be very painful and frustrating.

We can have circumstances in a past life where we could have formed a decision that was not useful for us in this current life, such as, ‘nobody loves me’, or ‘I am unlovable’, and so on, but it is perfectly possible to change these useless decisions (hooray!). The unconscious is able to go back to the root cause and re-visit the decision with the greater understanding of the bigger picture, including later experiences and their consequences as well as greater maturity. Many of our useless decisions sit in past lives, and the results of clearing them feel very good – hence this writing.

LIFE DESIGN AND CONTRACTS. (3G5)

Various New Age writings teach that we design the general outline of our current lives while off earth, in between lives. The design is formulated with a higher awareness of the need to address various issues for our own higher good.

Thus, when we are off-earth we choose our life circumstances and the general lessons we wish to learn.

Even the word ‘lessons’ is fraught. It’s not like school, as in, being told this is what you have to learn. We want to know ourselves. It is delightful. It is called Insight. These things we learn out of our experiences can be hard, but it is all worthwhile and we treasure these insights about ourselves and we can carry them with us into the next lifetime and the next, as we try out all sorts of things and explore and express.

Neither do we ‘come in’ by ourselves. We form ‘contracts’ with significant others in our lives; eg. ‘you can do this and then I’ll do that’, and so on. The design seems to be a broad outline of structure and events with choices at various stages and alternatives based on those choices. This is the basis of various teachings that we are the writer, producer and director of our own plays, as well as choosing all the actors and telling them what we want them to do. The most interesting bit is that somehow it is ultimately all for everybody’s good which boggles the mind somewhat!

WE DESIGN AND THEN FORGET. (3G6)

So, having designed all this, we then forget. Well, why? What’s the point of forgetting it all?

The point is the difference between theory and practice. Do all of us have people in our lives who know all the answers and will tell you what to do, but their own lives are a mess or they are really unhappy or unpleasant and so is everyone around them? The question is what answers do they really know? What questions were they asking in the first place? We all have issues; that’s why we are here.

Past lives and/or genetic memories are basically one hypnotic script away if that is what you would like to know about, but the point is that your unconscious knows even if you don’t. (PS. Hypnotic scripts are simply a method of talking to your unconscious.)

HOW MANY PREVIOUS LIVES? (3G7)

Osho says hundreds without any details given. MANN (A&R) implies 11 plus this current one as working on a particular set of themes. These themes tend to be the big ones of sex, power, and money, status/authority and religion/death. My own experience fits in with Mann’s observations. All our lives are enthralling and absorbing, (you can’t say you’re not involved!) and there’s always more.

COMING BACK AS AN ANIMAL. (3G8)

Since we are made in the image of God, it makes no sense to me to come back as an animal, however much you think your cat has an easy time of it. We are being challenged to find what we truly want and given the most interesting and enthralling circumstances in which to do so. Eternity is a very long time.

But, as I discuss further on, animals serve us in many ways, and that service must not be taken for granted.

WHAT ABOUT KARMA AND PUNISHMENT AND REWARD? (3G9)

The problem with the word ‘karma’ is that it is used as a form of judgement and also blame, as in, this is being done to you for your own good, without your consent, basically. If you are having a ‘good’ life, it must be from good karma, as a reward, and a ‘bad’ life, then ‘bad’ karma as a punishment. But this is all judging, and consequently a way of thinking that is no use to you, because it leaves us powerless in terms of being ‘pushed around’ by God/whomever etc.

Many of the usual reincarnation concepts or ideas in our Western society are not really much use to us if there is still blame and judgement.

Spiritual systems that teach us to put up with what we’ve got are not that useful in terms of the importance of finding ways to change ‘bad’ things or proposing better ways to be. It’s just ‘endure until you can escape’.

This UUS argues that you have chosen the general outline of this life as a means to learn about the consequences of your own treatment of others. The faster you learn, the less you have to bother with that, and can go on to the next realization. “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so” is as true as it ever was. Shakespeare worked it out long ago.

We get rid of karma by identifying decisions that we made about ourselves or others or our life during previous lives and deciding again in this life. See later chapter.

Consider an Example.  (3G9a)

A wealthy young man brought up in great privilege has learned to treat others less fortunate than he with disdain and disrespect. This is basically inadvertent in that this man has no idea that he is doing this because that is how he has been brought up in a family that has had money and status for generations. He loses the woman he loves in this particular life because she doesn’t like the arrogant aspects of his personality. Eventually (at a higher level) he may decide that he needs to experience some of what he has dished out, because he has no idea what she was talking about.

So he does in the next life and it’s a ripper; really terrible, and he dies rebelling against the poverty and degradation. The next one he’s so angry, he lasts a very short time. The next one he joins a gang of thieves and becomes a leader and organizes them quite well. He manages to rob and kill quite a few of the wealthy before he is caught and punished. Then follow other lives with similar and different themes.

So, in this current life of now; he experiences another dose of difficulty and manipulation by the powerful, but he is now intrinsically much more aware of what he is up against, and becomes a union boss using his brains to help others fight for better conditions. Not to mention his wife is the love he lost in that wealthy life. He makes sure his children have all the education he can muster for them.

One of the children is given a trumpet and lessons and his dad thinks this is wonderful and starts to learn from his son and is quite good at it……and so on. Write your own plot here.

Where is the ‘punishment’? I see exploration of self with more to come. I am also of course, saying that we bring our memories with us in terms of intrinsic underlying decisions, understandings and drives.

Thus, if you can accept that at some level you yourself have chosen this life and that there is a beneficial point to all of this for you, then that can change your attitude to it all. Hence, instead of feeling as though you were being ‘dragged through a hedge backwards’ you can face forwards (with help if you wish it) and Look at your life with a different attitude.

GOD KNOWS WE ARE CHILDREN. (3G10)

We explore first and think later, until we learn otherwise. This is natural! We kind of think that it’s supposed to be the other way around, but it isn’t; we are wise after the event, and sometimes a long time after at that. But, we are equipped to work it out ourselves and can’t be told anyway.

In our exploring we can do terrible things to others without realizing our effect on them . (In fact, the only way we can understand this is to experience having things done to us; see Mirror Laws.)

Our current society can only conceive of a ‘father’ who lays down laws and a set of rules to live whereby we learn which bits of ourselves to cut off so that we can fit in to what He wants. (This is our great ‘loving’ Christian religion; neither was this what Jesus attempted to teach.) We have very little concept of a father who understands we are ‘as children’ and allows for that. We can’t understand in a fit that God ultimately wants to serve us as the parent serves the child and provides for its welfare. Remember, ‘Spirit’ does not understand parenting anything, much less Serve.

We are all children learning how to walk. We fall and get up again, and we grow and try running and we fall and get up again, and so on.

FROM CHILD TO ADULT. (3G11)

So, if we are all children wanting to grow up and actually get to be an adult, what would that be like or involve?

Children Need Support; Adults Can Support Others.

A definition of a fully adult person could be someone who can support themselves fully in all 4 domains; physically, mentally, and emotionally as well as ‘spiritually’. If they can support themselves fully, they will be able to support others. They are requiring no energy from anyone else because they can supply their own. ‘Children’ are defined as in need of support from others in some manner in one or more of the domains PEMS. They need energy from others because they are unable to supply their own.

The primary difference then between the child and the adult is that the child needs external support while the Adult can provide its own internal support. I am using Adult with a capital ‘A’ to differentiate between the attainment of internal support in all domains for an Adult, and the attainment of age for the adult human.

Getting from child to Adult is what we find difficult, and may not succeed in any single life; the definition is a big ask.

Really, it’s back to this ‘part/apart’ business again. The child wants to stay a part, and the Adult is able to embrace being apart. There is a part of us that wants to stay a child and be looked after by ‘those who know’; ie, they have power and control (P&C) and are authority or parent. We look to them for approval as doing the right thing, as in, we are looking externally and thus cannot provide our own authority internally. Looking externally is a ‘wanting’ of energy from ‘the other’ and in so doing we are unable to provide our own. Where there is dependence there is control, and control can and will manipulate for its own purposes and attempt to keep you powerless. Staying as a child means you cannot grow.

The child.. (3G11a)

·         Is looked after by adults or others, who can guess what the child wants/needs (and the child can have a tizzy when they get it wrong).

·         Can play, explore, absorb, distract and generally muck around as it pleases.

·         Can just take other people’s answers to it all.

·         Doesn’t have to think, be challenged, grow up, till and keep, take responsibility for finding out about self, and doesn’t need or take the time to do so.

·         Has no self-direction, autonomy, competence, power for self, or true self-esteem.

·         Has problems with unaddressed fears and anger.

·         Has difficulty maintaining or developing meaningful relationships.

While the fully Adult human being…  (3G11b)

·         Is self-sufficient; able to TISP InSelf, and thus can support self PEMS and give it to others (=Serve) because there’s always more; ie, is able to fill self.

·         Has no gremlins jumping around in their head at 2-4 am and can get proper peace and rest.

·         Is able to play her own part in life and specify what she wants/needs.

·         Has self-acceptance and good relationships with others and life ‘out there’.

·         Is powerful for herself, and able to follow her own path; ie, she is free to follow her own destiny/destination

·         Does not need or want power over others.

·         Is in partnership with GLS; ie, able to consciously create in a manner that gives life to ‘the other’ which leads to true self-esteem (TSE). (More on TSE in Chapter 8. Desires - Flowering.)

This child part of us that wants to stay a child and have others look after us is a factor in all of us. There is nothing wrong with this part per se; it’s the bit about wanting someone else to do it that’s the problem.

What’s actually required here is for you to embrace this ‘child’ part of you which means….

·         turning around and enquiring = spending Time and being Interested in -

·         what this part of you actually wants and then -

·         learning how to provide your own nurturing/sustaining and safety/protection; all of which = TISP to yourself,

for yourself; your InSelf.

This InSelf part does feel like a child, and embracing it and loving it will help you be kind to yourself and ‘the child’ within others. Not every adult human being is an Adult on these terms.

Being fully Adult doesn’t mean we can’t cooperate or work in mutual endeavour; far from it. It does tend to make us a maverick because we can’t be controlled or manipulated by others and are thus free to follow our own destiny and play our own part in life whatever that may be.

God knows it’s not easy to get from part to apart as the child grows to Adult and life will actually push us to grow if we begin to stagnate.

In Sum.

The last few sections have been discussing the structure of your mind as a part or spark of God, with particular emphasis on (some of) what is held in the unconscious, and there is a great deal, including our comprehension of God, life and our InSelf.

I have said that the unconscious drives the show. This is mainly because we don’t believe this at all, and tend to think that since it isn’t real it’s not doing anything. Wrong. (Just because we can’t measure it doesn’t mean it isn’t real.) Life is serving you by mirroring your unconscious for you to be able to ‘real-ize’ what is in your unconscious.

In the last few chapters I have argued that regardless of whether you consider it real or unreal, the Unconscious does know…

·         why you are here,

·         how you got to here,

·         what you are supposed to be doing with your life,

·         what you need to know,

·         what others are doing in your life; their part in your ‘great play’,

·         what you have done before, and

·         what you really want/need and are looking for.

As in, the basic outline of your life.

Hence, you can ask your unconscious if you want to know.

But, you do need to ask nicely, which means that you need to develop some sort of relationship with it in the first place. If you are busy despising such things, you will not be able to make friends with it. Nobody likes being despised.

Considering that it is not there at all and/or completely ignoring it stops relationship in the first place, and so does Blame, which is where we turn to next.