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belief in reincarnation question

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Artie1

New Member
Hi I’m new to this forum. I had an experience with my son that brought me to a belief in reincarnation.

I have one big problem with the idea though and thought I would run it by others on this forum.

Here it is:

From what I have read, the consensus is that we are here on this planet to learn to, essentially, be better people. The experiences here are supposed to further our personal moral and spiritual growth.

If that is the case, why does it seem that there hasn’t been much if any improvement in the spiritual and moral development here overall? It seems to me that based on not only news reports but what I see in daily life that people are no kinder, less greedy or more developed than they were when I was a child in the 1960’s, maybe even less so.

As a former history major in college, if you go back further in history it still seems that little if any progress has been made.
If that is the case, that throws a wrench into the reincarnation theory, so I’m at a loss on how to reconcile the two. I would love to believe that there is “forward progress” based on humans learning how to live and treat each other better while here on earth, but I don’t see it at this point.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks for your help
 
Hi Artie1, welcome to the forum wellllllcome


I'll throw in my personal opinion, but don't take it as fact, I'm sure others will follow to give their own take on this interesting question.


I don't personally agree with the consensus that we are here to be better souls, I believe that we are here to become complete souls, and that each and every lifetime is like another piece to add in a huge puzzle that encompasses everything both good and bad and the entire spectrum in between. It wouldn't make sense if we began our journey as a bad soul, striving to become a good soul. In order to become whole, we have to experience everything from good to bad, but not necessarily in a linear fashion.


I agree that the world today appears to be full of unprecedented evil, but I don't think this is the case. If you look through history, the human race has come through some utterly barbaric periods. Today, more than ever, I think the world is portrayed to us through the eyes of the media, and it's a fact that bad news sells more newspapers and gains more tv viewers, and this is the number one priority, so I think we get a distorted view of how the world really is.


I don't personally think we'll ever see a universal shift where everybody is good, and evil is eradicated forever, we're all on our own personal journey and everyone is at different stages and experiencing their own part to play in society today, whether it be good or bad. Maybe when everyone has completed their 'puzzle' the world will be a better place? Or maybe we'll no longer have any use for it.
 
Welcome to the forum, Artie1. I really like Chris's answer. I think we are here to learn and experience, but not necessarily to become better people. That might be a by-product of our time in "earth school". It's mostly about balance, and becoming whole. This, of course, is opinion. That's all you will find here. My personal feeling is that more of humanity is "awake and aware" than at other points in history. The existence of this forum might serve as an example. I don't think that it would have had so many members fifty years ago, even if the technology had been available. We have as many "guests" at any given moment as we do members. Many people are hungry for meaning, and understanding. I hope you find the things you are looking for here!
 
I do believe we are progressing as a society.


Many years ago not just the US but in various cultures, humans enslaved one another. Today, we know that is wrong. We have progressed in terms of civil rights, womens rights, gay rights and we are more aware of rights for all living creatures. We have become more environmentally friendly as well. Much has been done in the way of animal rights.


In the olden days the amount of crime was high. Think of the Wild West, Vikings, etc. However, those crimes were not reported. Now we have made progress in terms of forensics and reporting the news in the media. Our journalism, forensics, etc has gotten better. We are better able to catch criminals and better able to report in terms of the news what is going on in the world. It might look like theres chaos in the world, when I feel that crimes have always occured except its reported better.
 
Hello Artie1, thank you for joining and asking a great question.


I like Chris's answer. I would add that I believe the soul, as an entity, is not of this world as we know it. I believe in the idea of the soul learning and growing. But I'm not so sure it is "doing it" for the good of here and now. I see what you are saying: the culmination of all these repeated experiences should have us living in a better place. Makes sense, until I factor in my own concept that earth is exactly what it is, and is suppose to be. This IS what it is. The beauty for me and others is that we recognize it and see our involvement in the world as something much more than simple biological existence. There is much, much more (IMO!!). The cycle of good and evil is all necessary in some cosmic mystery... the yin yang.


Rather than ponder at the hopelessness and futility of history... look at your own enlightenment and recognize your positive and wonderful influence. You are the light to your children and those around you. If you choose, you may enter a spiritual quest for understanding as I have. There the mystery just keeps getting deeper, but the soul somehow shines a light that I can tangibly feel and understand.


Yes there is horror in the world. For many years I dealt with it professionally as a city cop. I was lost in the hopelessness and grew callous and cold to it all. But somehow, in it all, there was a greater force moving my soul. Often times I found myself silently invoking a blessing on people... not knowing why, or what it was, I simply was placing (unknowingly then) sacred energy, not of this world, into the situation. Kinda boggled my mind a time or two. Now after years of contemplation, study and discernment I know that the positive power of this creation was simply manifesting in me. I know now that my past lives as a shaman, priest, and holyman were coming through. And I now have the faith to know it all had powerful, unseen effects... I've no doubt.


So in conclusion (I shoulda' been out the door already! ;) ) see your question as a revelation. Dwell on it in the silence. And offer the hurt in the world your blessings and thoughts. THIS will have an effect, not just in the world but in your own heart. I know this is no answer... not sure there really is one. But I do believe that our souls are here for the purpose of experience; good, bad, tragic, gruesome, joyful, whatever... it simply IS. Now, go into it, in your sphere of life and make it better. Seems you've got a deeper grasp of your soul's migration now... believe me that will open many windows of understanding the deeper you pursuit it.


Blessing of understanding and light for you and your child!!


Tman
 
You're right that we're here to learn and grow. And certainly, as a person ages and develops through life, so does the soul.


And as much of our middle age is consumed with being busy taking care of business and raising a family, most middle aged souls are just trying to cope with the day to day.


Some of us younger and older old souls try to stick around and make a difference while at the same time, the youngest souls make a ruckus by getting negative attention and sadly, those are the ones you hear about in the news often.


I do think things on the whole are getting better. But at the same time, it's our 24 hour, on all the time, negative media that is trying to warp our minds. There's never been a better time in my opinion to turn off the TV. Especially now too when anyone with the right motivation can get online and research all the great things that are going on in the world.


wellllllcome
 
Instead of reiterating all those wonderful comments above, I'll provide a thought slightly sideways. To me, it is less a belief in reincarnation as if it was akin to a religion, and more an understanding of our purpose and the system involved. I find it more helpful to see what "is" there and begin finding the right place to put the evidential pieces, than to focus on what I expect to see and finding my theory lacking...especially since there will probably be no definitive and decisive answer available while we are incarnate.


What do we see? People knowing and understanding things they have no rational reason to know and understand. Where does this come from? Not from here and now, so obviously from somewhere else. Can we find where it came from? Not with absolute, cold, certain, provable evidence, though there is evidence available through means not considered mainstream, like meditation, regression and the akashic records which can provide certainty to those who experience them. Is it necessary to prove any of it? No...like any matter of faith and personal belief, each individual soul has his own basis for belief and reasons for searching or not searching...each soul's path includes the option to become curious or find understanding through reincarnation or to remain oblivious or even actively against any such understanding...whichever course is most suitable for that soul's lifeplan.


Please don't accept any detailed and comprehensive systemic analysis as "the way it is" and when it doesn't fit, reject it out of hand. There are as many theories about reincarnation as there are people on earth...because some are old doesn't make them the truth and because some are new doesn't mean they are invalid. What is important, since your child opened your eyes to the possibility, is for you to do your own reading and meditation/regression/akashic records analysis and come to your own truth. My truth is a living thing which changes as I change, but that, like our eternal souls, is the nature of all of life, whether here or "there" or anywhere else.


Oh, and welcome to the forum...I look forward to reading your comments and thoughts on the subjects posted herein. Enjoy.
 
Hi Artie, and thanks for the question. Although you are correct that the world doesn't seem any more virtuous or civilized than it did hundreds or thousands of years ago, this is largely a very generalized view of collective humanity. However, as a fellow student of history, I recognize that there have always been microcosms of human existence which have always ranged from idyllic peace and virtue to absolute fear and depravity. Throughout all the epochs of history there have always been opportunities for souls to either learn or even enjoy whatever they have chosen experience.


If we are to judge progress only in a collective sense, it would seem that there is little or none. However, if we look at individual souls in terms of Reincarnation, we may plausibly theorize that any individual soul may progress or even digress, evolve or devolve into what we mistakenly refer to as older and younger souls. In other words, this earthly plane may be an ideal place for the refinement of individual souls; but to equate the purpose of Reincarnation with the improvement of humanity as a whole may be a mistake. After all, if the world somehow becomes a perfect place—a heaven on earth—it would no longer be a place where we can learn from our mistakes.
 
No Chronological Order...


Hello Artie1...


This is my own personal opinion, which also seems to be in line with not becoming a "better" person...soul...each time around. I have many memories of many lives, and in some I am "better", some "worse"...if you go by human emotions. They follow no chronological order. If I take them all on a soul level, they become experiences...not "good" or "bad" just experiences. It may sound a little dry, but IMHO to become a complete soul, we can only know light, if we experience dark...love, if we experience hate. I am sometimes sorry and saddened that it may be so...our world could be such a wonderful, beautiful place filled with love...but we never know the agenda of anothers soul...what it has come here now to experience.
 
Hello all-thanks for your thoughtful replies. Since most seem to have a similar message, I wanted to respond to the concept of being whole or complete.


I have done quite a bit of reading on Eastern philisophy and related areas, have been part of a Zen Center for a short time, did the sensory deprivation tank thing years ago, etc so I am familiar with some of these concepts.


I have to say that although the answers are very well intentioned and may in fact be an accurate depiction of the way the Universe "works", they leave me wanting, just like God's response to Job.


In the literature on Near Death Experiences, the focus of the Light that experiencers encounter is on lessons learned regarding being more loving.


Coming to earth to be a, for lack of a better term, "bad" person or to be involved in a horrible experience on either end (but especially as one who commits heinous acts) in order to be whole is never mentioned in these accounts.


While I get the idea of yin and yang, the concept of having to be evil to complete oneself certainly goes against my grain personally. Certainly there is evil in all of us, but if there is no progress so to speak but instead we are sent here to experience everything we can, and evil is the same as good, that's where I get off the bus.


Take for instance the idea that suffering is "good" in that the Universe or God wants us to suffer because it adds something to us or makes us whole.


If that is true, then we should be causing maximum suffering to others here on earth. Hitler would be the great instrument of the Universe because he caused others to suffer, so he was helping others complete their experiences. So therefore we should do the same.


I suppose I believe in a Universe where there is some point to all of this. Einstein said that the only question worth asking was if the Universe was a safe place ultimately.


Why have a feeling of wanting to help others, at recoiling at hatred and evil if evil and good are on the same standing?


I get the idea that from our limited perspective we just don't "get" it down here (or over here or wherever else there is), but I can't believe that the purpose of the whole darned thing isn't love but just an accumulation and integration of experiences.


Perhaps in a different mind-state I could see where this all makes sense, but using my rational brain it doesn't, and I believe we were given our grey matter for a reason, just as we were given our feeling of wanting to be better, to be more loving for a reason.
 
Artie1 said:
Hi I’m new to this forum. I had an experience with my son that brought me to a belief in reincarnation.
Click to expand...
Now tell us about the experience with your son. Was he talking about a possible past life memory?
 
Hi Artie,


This thread is good food for thought and I've been trying to think of a scenario to demonstrate why we need bad to balance good. Assuming that 'good' is the ultimate purpose of our being here, imagine that your soul has completed it's journey here on Earth and you are 100% good and all bad has been totally eradicated. Now imagine that you have a starving child, and there's no food except for a lamb that your child has become extremely attached to. You have two choices to make. You can either slaughter the lamb and feed your child, breaking his or her heart in the process, or you can let the lamb live and watch your child starve? There are no shops to buy food, no crops, nothing except the lamb. But killing is ultimately bad, and you don't have any bad left in your soul, and the lamb has a right to live it's life, so what do you do? What I'm trying to say is, bad is sometimes a necessity - we need it to function, without bad to balance the good, we'd be unable to make decisions, we'd be weak, cowardly, unable to defend ourselves and be open to attack. At the end of the day, everyone wants to be a good person or soul, but good cannot function without bad. Unfortunately some souls, like you mentioned Hitler, come into a position of power where they can wield their bad side on a massive scale, if fate hadn't put Hitler in the position that he was in, then would he have been any worse than the common criminal found on every street in every town?


Our soul journey begins like a blank canvas and each lifetime is just another brush stroke on that canvas. If you eliminate one of the base colors, then you have nothing but an incomplete painting.
 
First let me say that I hope I don't offend anyone here. It sounds like a great group.


My son told me at about age 3-4 as I was watching a show with a shark in it that he had had his nose bitten off by a shark.


I told him that he must have had a nightmare or imagined it and he had a very stern and serious expression on his face and said "no, it really happened". He said that after that he went to the other place before he came back here. I asked some questions and he said he was a different color (darker) then and that I was with him in the water, fishing with baskets (maybe coast of Africa?) and a shark got him and I was with him but was unable to stop the shark.


He did have a fear of scissors and the barber- I don't know if that was related to the past life experience.


About a year later my daughter said she really wanted to ice skate and said she wanted to go again and I said we have never been ice skating before and she said she had. I said how and she said with her other daddy. So I asked who this other daddy was and she said "my daddy from before I came here", so both of my kids had reincarnation memories.
 
Chris- I understand what you are saying in your scenario with the lamb, but to me intent is the major factor.


Having to choose between two unsavory options does not make one a bad person or evil. The feeling of sorrow or remorse for having to make that choice comes from a place of love, so I don't see the evil inherent there, just a lack of good choices.
 
Sorry Artie, I always find it difficult to get my point across. Going back to the lamb scenario, I wasn't suggesting that you would need to be a bad soul to make the right decision, I believe that without experiencing bad in your soul's journey, you would be unable to make the decision, you simply wouldn't know what to do. I don't know how old you are or if you are familiar with the old sci-fi show Star Trek? There was one episode where there was a transporter malfunction and Kirk was split into two people, his good self and his bad self. Both Kirk's were unable to function without the other. The good Kirk was soft, weak, unable to make decisions, whereas the bad Kirk was violent, aggressive and power hungry. The moral of the story was that the good side and the bad side complimented each other, they made Kirk as a whole, the person that he was, a good leader, compassionate, loving, and the ability to make the correct decisions for his crew, he needed both his good and bad self for this. I don't think there's a line between good and bad, the two opposites work in tandem with each other to make a whole.
 
Part of the problem (and this is especially aided by the internet) is that you can't break things into extremes.


While yes, there are good and bad things in totality, most things come down to circumstantial perspective. But at the same time, that's not a justification for either extreme.


As you mentioned ying and yang, they're just opposing forces; neither is anything until you put them into some form of context.
 
We welcome debate, Artie. I have fairly clear memories of six lifetimes. I can't remember being particularly "good", or "bad" in any of them,just an ordinary person with a "shadow side". It's possible that I am a "slow learner". I have been aware on several occasions, that I was being used, in a small way, as an agent to deliver "karma" to another person. The choice was so clear that I debated for several days on whether I was willing to be "used" in that way. On a much grander spiritual scale, consider the case of Judas Iscariot. In order for Jesus' destiny, or Karma, to be fulfilled, Judas had to betray him for thirty pieces of silver. Did Judas do this willingly? Was he used as a "heavenly pawn" to make sure that Jesus' mission was fulfilled? Some of us believe that we agree to function as "actors" in another soul's story. Was there a life planning session, where he said, "Jesus, I love you. I will assist you in your life's mission in this way."? I have no answers, only questions. It sounds as though both your children have past life memories. Is it part of their life missions to cause you to ask questions, so we will all debate, and learn and grow from the experience? Once again, no answers, only questions.
 
BriarRose- "No answers only questions." I think you nailed that on the head.


Even when we get the answers, they always seem unsatisfying, like God's response to Job.


I don't like the idea that we could be "actors" performing some atrocity for the sake of the universe, but I realize that of course that is a possibility.


Still most of us are looking for a coherent, logical and emotionally acceptable model of the universe that is always out of reach, just natural I suppose.


Anyway, thank you all for your thoughts.
 
I have a theory that the concept of reincarnation is pastiched on top of whatever other ideologies are going around in our various cultures. Maybe a culture close to nature is more likely to believe we could come back as animals. For some cultures family and heritage is very important so maybe they’re more likely to believe in same-family returns. There are cultures with caste systems that extend past death, and there are some that believe in other dimensions, and other planets.


In our western culture we’re very much imbued with the Christian and Jewish ideas of justice. We like to think that good deeds and hard work will be rewarded, and every tiny thing noted, right down to the “fallen sparrow”, and that miscreants will be corrected and change their ways. We like our stories and movies to reflect these values and although not all stories have a happy endings, it’s a shock and just too depressing when they offer no hope at all. So when we take up ideas of reincarnation we layer it on top of our ideas of justice. Then, assuming reincarnation is real, is any of the rest of it real? Is there karma and order or just chaos? I don’t know, obviously, although I have a vague theory that has to do with energy, and that we reap what we create, both individually, but also collectively. If we are compelled to work for better things, we will eventually gain better things. I think. But I agree with the others that we need both light and dark, and if we are to have movement, we are going to have friction, and that friction will feel like a negative thing, but it's necessary for movement, for life.


I would hope there's logic, even if sometimes it's almost as difficult to find as justice. :laugh:
 
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