Is reincarnation certain?

By certain philosophical reasoning and simple observation of facts of life I've concluded that at least sometimes reincarnation should be possible. If you are determined you can continue to exist even if fated oblivion.

But everyone who believes in reincarnation claim it's certain. Although I've seen ideas like split and merge reincarnation, they are rare. I'm not sure that reincarnation is certain, I think cessation of existence is also possible. But reincarnation should be possible too. I plan my life so that I can reincarnate and not go into abyss, and at the end reach liberation and immortality.

Or maybe reincarnation always happens. Why do you think it always happens? The fact that the spiritual Self is eternal does not mean it's necessary reincarnation. It may change form in some other way and reincarnation is one of the ways.

I fear that I will desintegrate leaving no trace of the current me. I feel trapped. I don't want to go there. I can't believe in unconditional reincarnation anymore, if I try to believe in it, I stop beliving at afterlife completely because I see it as completely unrealistic. Or maybe it's a law of this world, then everyone always reincarnates, or it is within the prime cause of existence, which I doubt.

What do you think of this? Is reincarnation certain? Or is it only for the determined?

Hello The Fallen,

welcome to this forum.

Interesting question.

If reincarnation was limited, this world probably would be very different. Some believe that at a certain point you have the choice not to return (and before that will have to return). Problem is, no one can be sure how all this works. Most people here remember past lives. What these memories really are, who knows... but I doubt we are all just nuts.

Welcome The Fallen, I agree with Seeker that it is either all of us or none of us, with the exception that it might be possible to avoid incarnating here at all. I personally do not remember a past life, yeah, I know, how can I be a moderator on a Past Life forum without recalling a past life - it is because I've seen snapshots of things and other happenings in my lifetime.

It is difficult to sidestep the ego and view our/your existence easily since it is probable that the ego, who we most often mistake as being who we are, does die along with our body. It is interesting to think about that in view of some recent posts that are obviously ego-driven, but I digress. The divisions of who/what we are is both difficult to define and to communicate, soul, spirit, ego, I, me, mind, memory, conscience, personality - where are the divisions? What persists?

I claim it can not be none of us because determination can allow to avoid the abyss. I've literally proven it. It's one of the things I claim to know for sure. It puzzles me that I'm basically the only person on the planet trying to not be fatalist. If whether you persist after death is only determined by external forces (it is either all of us or none of us) - then what is it if not fatalism? I've yet to meet a non-fatalist person.

Yes, it may be for all of us, then it would be a universal law. However I don't know if such law exists. Even if most perish in the abyss, if you have the will to exist, you may be able to reincarnate. There has to be a way out. We are human. And being human doesn't mean being a pile of flesh or a powerless soul. I've had a dream where it was told that a soul can do anything, the limit to soul power is arbitary.

Reincarnation is nothing new by any means and it is one of the best explanations about people and why they are the way they are. You have to step back and uninstall the typical small box cut an dry logic brain for a moment and let it sink in which is something I had to do myself despite being years in the church that for the most part rejects this outright or at the very least Avoids it like a skeleton in the closet.

Hi, The Fallen

First of all, no one can say with certainty that reincarnation is "certain" or "false," simply because we do not have the complete concept of what reincarnation really is. There are many theories about it, with sub-themes, and different religions. Anyway, it takes a cleansing of beliefs to accept that reincarnation is probable.

When we are children, like a sponge, we absorb the beliefs of close people until you ask yourself, "Why does this happen to me? Why do I have this irrational phobia if in this life I have never experienced anything like this? Why do I feel that I have already experienced this? Why does this country or this city make me feel this way?"

When I began to ask myself all these questions, the conclusion was: I may have lived in different eras, and I may have died in different ways. It is curious that there are so many cases in the world where children talk about past lives, offering addresses, specific names and exact circumstances of the death of the person they claim to be. When an adult talks about reincarnation, people may mock or think that the person has made up that story, but when it comes from a child who doesn't have enough knowledge to make up such a story... doubts, doubts, doubts.

According to my experiences, reincarnation is not obligatory. Sometimes I reincarnated because I was bored. I think it's possible to stop reincarnating, the question is How? Unless it's a natural process. There are books, articles, and thousands of texts about reincarnation, but I don't know what to answer about "reincarnation is certain?" To be honest, I don't know. For me reincarnation is true, but I can't prove it.

Many of the ideas about reincarnation, afterlife, and such, are based on altered state of consciousness experiences. From immemorial times people had such experiences, and gave those experiences various interpretations. Those experiences seeded beliefs, and in turn, those beliefs influenced the interpretations.

Under some circumstances we remember "past lives". Even when those "recollections" can be rigorously verified, we can't really know if we actually tapped into our own past lives, or just into somebody's life, if we just accesses some information out there, maybe.

Either adhering to some belief system, or building our own belief system from our own experiences, sometimes amended by our rationalizations (which probably leads us further from the truth), reincarnation is (can be) a piece of the puzzle. But, we actually don't actually know, we can't know for sure.

Although we are fated to this incertitude, we can still benefit, therapeutically and growth wise, from trying to access "past lives" information. It was proven to work, both by curing some inexplicable and thought to be incurable conditions, and by helping us to make sense of our condition, and of some situations we encounter in our lives.

i remember how much i hated being a baby...how vulnerable I felt because i could not walk or talk yet I knew it all looked so familiar. I was so lucky I was born into a loving and nurturing family. People on this forum say you chose the type of family to be born into. Maybe to some tiny extent but i can't believe for example one would chose to be born into an abusive family or worse.
And is reincarnation certain...good question. I only thought that people who died suddenly were reincarnated. I assumed if you lived to an older age you would not but "older" a few hundred years ago is considered young these days so age is relative. So perhaps you reincarnate until you develop into a wiser person. Do all of you have friends that believe in all of this?????????

Just a personal view here.

I do not believe in an afterlife. There is only life. The term 'afterlife' is an Earth-centric view, placing everything else in relation to the current life here on Earth. In my opinion, that is as misguided as the old Earth-centric view of the Universe, where all the planets, the Sun, all the stars too, everything revolved in concentric circles attached to heavenly spheres with the Earth at the centre. But nowadays we understand that only one body, the Moon, rotates about the Earth. In all other matters, this is not the centre at all. Our home planet is a tiny speck compared with the giants such as Saturn and Jupiter. Even our Sun, the largest body in our solar system, is a tiny speck compared with some of the other stars out there. And then there are other galaxies. the rest of the universe which we can only guess a little about.

Coming back to 'Life' it doesn't make sense to me to place our lives in relation to our existence here on Earth, where we have a brief, flickering existence which is over in the twinkling of an eye, at a cosmic timescale. Instead, I consider that we are visitors, explorers, of this realm. Outer space is not the unknown. Existence in a physical body on this planet is the unknown. We are here as explorers, to learn what it is like to live here. Before we came here, and after we depart, then we return to our natural habitat.

There is clearly more to the picture I've outlined, I've not mentioned reincarnation at all. To me, that's something I struggle to understand. I don't feel able to say anything useful, other than simply, it happens.

Speedwell said:

Just a personal view here.

I do not believe in an afterlife. There is only life. The term 'afterlife' is an Earth-centric view, placing everything else in relation to the current life here on Earth. In my opinion, that is as misguided as the old Earth-centric view of the Universe, where all the planets, the Sun, all the stars too, everything revolved in concentric circles attached to heavenly spheres with the Earth at the centre. But nowadays we understand that only one body, the Moon, rotates about the Earth. In all other matters, this is not the centre at all. Our home planet is a tiny speck compared with the giants such as Saturn and Jupiter. Even our Sun, the largest body in our solar system, is a tiny speck compared with some of the other stars out there. And then there are other galaxies. the rest of the universe which we can only guess a little about.

Coming back to 'Life' it doesn't make sense to me to place our lives in relation to our existence here on Earth, where we have a brief, flickering existence which is over in the twinkling of an eye, at a cosmic timescale. Instead, I consider that we are visitors, explorers, of this realm. Outer space is not the unknown. Existence in a physical body on this planet is the unknown. We are here as explorers, to learn what it is like to live here. Before we came here, and after we depart, then we return to our natural habitat.

There is clearly more to the picture I've outlined, I've not mentioned reincarnation at all. To me, that's something I struggle to understand. I don't feel able to say anything useful, other than simply, it happens.

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Hi @Speedwell that could be the afterlife you are describing there except i personally think afterlife is the wrong word to use. Because there must be a beforelife and afterlife? So perhaps a new word is needed or maybe "spiritlife" should be used

briski said:

Hi @Speedwell that could be the afterlife you are describing there except i personally think afterlife is the wrong word to use. Because there must be a beforelife and afterlife? So perhaps a new word is needed or maybe "spiritlife" should be used

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I think it comes down to personal preference and perspective.

I think that we are in agreement, just that I dislike the term 'after' for the reasons already outlined.

If we propose splitting things into before/now/after, then that may make some kind of sense. However, I don't differentiate between those divisions. In every day life, say we got to work for a living, we don't say, "My job yesterday/ my job today / my job tomorrow". We just say "my job".

That's my angle - but I understand it is a view which doesn't suit everyone.

The Fallen said:

By certain philosophical reasoning and simple observation of facts of life I've concluded that at least sometimes reincarnation should be possible. If you are determined you can continue to exist even if fated oblivion.

But everyone who believes in reincarnation claim it's certain. Although I've seen ideas like split and merge reincarnation, they are rare. I'm not sure that reincarnation is certain, I think cessation of existence is also possible. But reincarnation should be possible too. I plan my life so that I can reincarnate and not go into abyss, and at the end reach liberation and immortality.

Or maybe reincarnation always happens. Why do you think it always happens? The fact that the spiritual Self is eternal does not mean it's necessary reincarnation. It may change form in some other way and reincarnation is one of the ways.

I fear that I will desintegrate leaving no trace of the current me. I feel trapped. I don't want to go there. I can't believe in unconditional reincarnation anymore, if I try to believe in it, I stop beliving at afterlife completely because I see it as completely unrealistic. Or maybe it's a law of this world, then everyone always reincarnates, or it is within the prime cause of existence, which I doubt.

What do you think of this? Is reincarnation certain? Or is it only for the determined?

Click to expand...

Interesting thought I also had at one time. I instantly 'felt' that not everyone returns here, but I never really sought answers as to what happenes to the spirits of those who don't come back here. Probably there isn't a single answer to that.

Best wishes,

Angie