Do reincarnation and predestination (or fate) coexist?

[inquirer]

Warm greetings to all,

I am puzzled.

If reincarnation is the opportunity to be reborn in order to atone and make amends for misdeeds committed in past lives, does that not imply that one must have free will in one's present life to choose one's path, whatever that path may be.

If one's present life is already predetermined, what would be the point of reincarnation? Wouldn't we all simply be actors in a prewritten script playing out on a stage that stretches to infinity. How we act in this life or any other future life, or any gradual enlightenment is already predetermined.

Many thanks to all for enlightenment!

 

[ChrisR]

Hi inquirer, and welcome to the forum


I believe that each incarnation is only predetermined to a certain degree, like being given a destination for a car journey, and then left to figure out the route we take to get there for ourselves. You might find this thread interesting: Free will and destiny.


I don't believe that we reincarnate for the sole purpose of atoning for misdeeds commited in our past lives, each life is like a different lesson, and when you look at the bigger picture you can't truly know the good without knowing the bad, like yin and yang. So even what would be considered a 'bad' life is for our ultimate good.


Hope you enjoy the forum!


Chris

 

[dking777]

I am puzzled.

Have you ever read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave? Have you ever studied the work of one of the pioneers of modern psychology Carl Jung? If you combine the two works – you will find an overlay and connection to the same question you have raised.


I had a ‘near-death experience’ in 1978 and for four years – my eyes were similar to the parable in the Allegory of the Cave. I had briefly departed the ‘shadow world’ and gone back into the light. I saw the reality of life from three different layers. The human shell, the spiritual realm and the ‘light of the soul’ realm. I often used the shadow puppet metaphor. Caste a shadow puppet on the wall from a lamp shade. Where does the intelligence to form and create the images on the shadow come from? Does the shadow have the intelligence to create its own shadow?


Does a human being create it’s own body and mind? To me, the human mind was a lens to view the external world – much like you find a parable expression of in the Allegory of the Cave. The ‘lens’ is just and observer. Where the focus (human mind) is at in the moment – will determine it’s perception of reality in the external world while it (human mind) remains blind to the reality of the ‘internal’ (eternal) world.


This is one question that came up over and over again. Who has free will? What is it? How do we use it?


Free will has to be divided into ‘three categories’ as well. There is going to be a limited form of it in the human mind. I looked at it as the tip of a pyramid sort of like the symbol on the back of currency. Human ‘free’ will is only the tip of the ice berg and it has to work in coordination to the larger scope hidden below the surface in the unconscious realm of the spirit and soul. The spirit would be in charge of the area from the tip to the middle. The foundation of free will is with the soul. It filters down to the human mind from the larger foundation hidden in the soul. So the free will choice a human makes – can NOT go against the ‘free will’ choice written in the soul. It is actually ‘impossible’ to make a decisions that goes against the ‘free will’ choice made by the soul – prior to the conception of the ‘human lens’ or the ‘human mind.’ That area of life has an existence prior to the physical birth of the body and will exist after the physical body is put into a grave.


For me – the problem I had talking to people in the past is when they felt they (as humans) were free agents and worked independent of the soul. (Ego mind.)


The human mind (ego) is not reincarnated. The soul ‘reincarnates.’ The choices made within the soul – is totally independent of the human mind. The human mind is just the shadow created for the expression of the soul. If you measured ‘free will’ with a set of numbers to illustrate the power between the two – the soul would be a million and the human mind would be a one.


What I was shown of it – anyway.


Food for thought.


DK

 

[dking777]

During that four year period when my 'eyes' were in focus with both realms of spirit and physical - I had three friends who died. I was talking to them the same as I would any other living human being - but in a spiritual language. They were helping me formulate my own 'worldly mind' about what reincarnation was and wasn't.


I told my other human friends about the information coming to me from friends who were on the other side in that moment. They had died and were waiting for their next bodies to be formed in the wombs again. They were in limbo until then.


So - I told my friends that according to the spiritual freinds - our soul determines not only our moment of 'birth' but our moment of death. This 'free will' choice of the soul is determined the minute of our birth. I told my friends you couldn't change the minute of your death after you are born. According to the spirits - this was impossible.


The moment of death will find you the exact minute is supposed to. When, where, how and what for - couldn't be changed by the 'free will' thoughts of the human mind.


I told this to my human friends back in 1981-82 and they would argue with me until they were blue in the face, (See Allegory of the Cave) and they would work themselves up into a frenzy trying to keep their 'idea' that they and they alone were responsible for their fate - independent of anything the the soul had to say about it. That fate is kept hidden from your human mind but if your meant to die in a war - your going to die in that war. If your meant to die from cancer - your going to die from cancer. If you meant to die from an air plane crash - your going to die in a plane crash.


For me, I just thought the whole idea of that would free up worries about the 'fear of death.' Why worry too much about how, when or where. What ever is meant to be - will be.


Doesn't mean you act a fool and stand in the middle of a street to try and test fate with a semi-truck. :laugh:


You have to trust your own soul and know your life is in it's hands and nothing can happen to you - that isn't meant to happen to you. Instead of crying about bad luck - you turn to your soul and ask why was this incident important to your soul and what you can take away from it.


Some people can handle this concept and others will get blue in the face thinking they and they alone determine their fate.


If you walk out of the house and while your gone - the place blows up - how much of your free will determined that fate? We work and live day to day with outside forces imposing itself on us beyond our own control.


My theory was - we only had two choices in this world and that would determine how we got along in the ride from birth to death. We can be happy or unhappy in any given moment. That choice is a human will choice. Harmony or 'disharmony.'


Contentment or discontentment. That is the true 'free will' human choice we are limited to.


We can enjoy life and take it on it's own terms - or we can blame our unhappiness on external factors beyond our control.


Acceptance that as humans - our choice is actually limited to two choices.


My opinion based on my experiences - anyway.


DK

 

[Hannah]

I told my other human friends about the information coming to me from friends who were on the other side in that moment. They had died and were waiting for their next bodies to be formed in the wombs again. They were in limbo until then.

Is that all they were doing? Just waiting in limbo? That sounds a bit boring. I'm planning to visit family and friends - and places. I'm going to be that proverbial fly on the wall!

So - I told my friends that according to the spiritual freinds - our soul determines not only our moment of 'birth' but our moment of death. This 'free will' choice of the soul is determined the minute of our birth. I told my friends you couldn't change the minute of your death after you are born. According to the spirits - this was impossible.

I disagree with your friends. I believe that we have absolute control over when we die, and how, but I don't think it's impossible to change after you are born. I think we have more than one possible "exit point" set up for each lifetime, and we are free to exit at the first opportunity... or hang around till we reach the next exit point.


I suppose you could make the argument that each exit point is a marker for a parallel dimension. In any one particular dimension, the exit point is fixed. If you have four exit points on your master life plan, for example, there are going to be four parallel dimensions - and they would begin at each point. You wouldn't notice because you're living an uninterrupted life on one of those dimensions, but anyone observing from a better vantage point (the afterlife) would easily be able to see the big picture.

 

[freebird4747]

Warm greetings to all,
I am puzzled.


If reincarnation is the opportunity to be reborn in order to atone and make amends for misdeeds committed in past lives, does that not imply that one must have free will in one's present life to choose one's path, whatever that path may be.


If one's present life is already predetermined, what would be the point of reincarnation? Wouldn't we all simply be actors in a prewritten script playing out on a stage that stretches to infinity. How we act in this life or any other future life, or any gradual enlightenment is already predetermined.


Many thanks to all for enlightenment!

it seems to me, because i have heard it over and over, not only books but through private channelling sessions, that we all have the choice, meaning free will. So, there may be strong influences which tend to be going towards certain ends, but still all is not predestined, because we DO have free will.


this question, i believe, comes down to the elements of consciousness, in that there are various parts to us that, when taken together, determine the choices we make.


I think that beyond this life, there is a spiritual reality that is more predictable. I concieve it sometimes as that we are composed in something akin to binary configurations, in that the many many parts of us, the millions perhaps points of consciousness, could be one way or another. from this vast sea of interconnected nodes springs what we do, say, think, feel and all that. So, the future can be reasonably guessed, i think, by the somewhat predictable progression these nodes will make as they morph away from and back to the original light.

 

[freebird4747]

I suppose you could make the argument that each exit point is a marker for a parallel dimension. In any one particular dimension, the exit point is fixed. If you have four exit points on your master life plan, for example, there are going to be four parallel dimensions - and they would begin at each point. You wouldn't notice because you're living an uninterrupted life on one of those dimensions, but anyone observing from a better vantage point (the afterlife) would easily be able to see the big picture.

 

[Truthseeker]

Hi inquirer and welcome.


I like the analogy of us being actors in a play. However, my personal feeling is that there is no strict script that we're following. I feel that it is more improvised. I don't believe everything is predetermined. I think we do pick the stage and we do pick the role we play. But once the curtain goes up we are on our own.

 

[dking777]

Is that all they were doing? Just waiting in limbo? That sounds a bit boring. I'm planning to visit family and friends - and places. I'm going to be that proverbial fly on the wall!

I haven't shared all my stories here on this board but I had interactions with five of them over a long period of time. The one friend who passed away in 1977 - I was still communicating with his spirit in 1986. I didn't mean to make it sound like they were hibernating. They were very active in many various matters. I never bothered to ask about all the things they were into because it was all beyond my understanding. When my girlfriend passed over in 1980, I was constantly calling her night and day to come to me in spirit. She got upset and her spirit told me,


"I got things to do, places to go, and people to see. I can't keep coming to you every time you start crying like a baby."


They were not sleeping in a grave like some theorized back then. I could write about five books on the things I did with each one of them after they passed. They (as spirits) were very active.


My reference was to something someone told me in the past because his theory was that a spirit that passed on wouldn't be here - if they could be in heaven. He called it 'in limbo' and I looked it up in the dictionary. Limbo (Latin limbus, edge or boundary.) The dictionary I used referred to it as being in 'transition.' They were standing on the 'edge' as far as I was concerned - sort of like standing on the side line and interacting with me on behalf of the light but they were in transition from one physical body to the next physical body and hovering on the border to communicate with me.

Word History : Our use of the word limbo to refer to states of oblivion, confinement, or transition is derived from the theological sense of Limbo as a place where souls remain that cannot enter heaven,.....
Source: Dictionary.com

They would communicate me while standing on the border between physical life and spiritual life - while in transition from one physical body to the next physical body.


Hope that clarifies what I meant by 'limbo.'


When I went deeper into this type of communication with other people, they suggested I was referencing 'soul clusters.' The reason I had retained a psychic bond with them was because we were from the 'same clan' in the afterlife. That is why we retained a psychic bond. People were confused why I was interacting with them - because it didn't line up with the theories in the bible belt back in the early 80's.


DK

 

[dking777]

I disagree with your friends.

Which friends? In 1981 - I had eight friends I spoke with about spiritual matters. Five of them were dead. No human body anymore. They were coming to me with their spirit.


I had three friends who were coming for social visits and I choose to talk to them - and run the ideas my 'spirit friends' were talking to me about.


When my human friends came over for a visit - they would walk though the door and it would open and close. My human friends started making fun of me - until the front door opened and a wind came rushing and impression was made on the couch like an 'invisible person' had sat down. When I told this 'invisible friend' to close the door, the impression would look as if an 'invisible friend' got up and the wind would blow toward the door - and it would close. Then the wind would take off toward the back door and I would shout out for it to close the door behind it on it's way out.


This was just the story of my life back in 1981.


When my human friends came to me and spoke as a group and said 'we' - I knew they were expressing a 'human view point.'


When my 'spirit friends' came to me - and said 'we' - I knew it was coming to me from a 'spiritual viewpoint.'


I would not get the two mixed up in my mind. So when my friends started saying 'we' as if they were spirits themselves - this would confuse me. How can the human speak on behalf of the spirit? It can't. Why would this confuse me so much?


Because while I was speaking with my human friends - I was also carrying on conversations with the 'spirit' hidden within them. I told them,


"You don't have to be dead to have a ghost. Your ghost is living inside of you right now and as you speak to me with the human tongue - it is speaking to me at the same time with a 'spirit tongue.' Your own spirit is telling me the very same thing my other 'spirit friends' are telling me. Your spirit agrees with me - while your human mind don't. Now - why is that? You can't even see or hear the truth and it is hidden right under your own nose."


So of the eight friends - all eight spirits were in 100% agreement with what I was being told about the spiritual realm and the truth of 'incarnations' as well as destiny and fate. The three human friends were the only one's who thought when they said 'we' - they were speaking a truth. They would be fooling themselves to think they were speaking on behalf of their spirits when their spirits were telling me otherwise. (Of the 9 souls involved - all 9 spirits agreed with the concept. I was one of the humans among the nine and knew enough to to listen to my spirit on the matter. The only three out of line were the three 'blind minds.' So in my experiment of the three - they represented 75% of the human minds in on the conversation. They felt majority ruled. But of the nine minds they were the minority of the group only representing 33% of the opinion. They had no afterlife experiences to speak of. No direct contact with spirit in any way and only knew what the world had taught them. The blind leading the blind. That is what their own spirits told me and I laughed. I started calling them the 'three blind mice.") I was told the human mind would believe what it wanted to regardless of the truth hidden under their own noses.


My three human friends didn't believe this at first so I asked them permission to speak and extract personal, private and embarsing information about them from their spirits. They all three granted me permission and I went down the line with them and told them about things they were doing in private and how they liked to do - including the last times they did it. This freaked them and I did it again. After they were convinced that I was speaking to or had access to something hidden inside of them that had access to two private situations that no other living human being had access to, I asked,


"Now - would you like me to tell you exactly what your spirit is telling about about when, where and how you are going to die and leave this world?"


My three human friends declined that offer. (It is not something I can do now. I was in that four year window period after my NDE. I am past that now.)


With that in mind - I am used to human minds disagreeing with 'spiritual truths' given to me by my spiritual friends - including the three hidden spirits living and dwelling within the human body of three human friends.


I got used to my three human friends disagreeing - even when it came to truths there own inner spirit had sight of on their behalf.


Food for thought.


DK

 

[deborah]

HI,


Ian Stevenson says his findings suggest the masses are NOT creating consciously - they are in a passive process...and drawn to their next life. You might enjoy this older thread on Choice, Planning and Guided Sessions.


Something I said in that thread:

Even so -the premise that consciousness creates leads me back to free will -and the choice I think -may be nothing more than controlling..understanding, and balancing thoughts - feelings and emotions. You know - the Three Intelligence's.
If we don't --then we fall into Ian Stevenon's Passive Process category and are drawn to life times of disharmony, chaos, abuse, war etc.

'spiritual truths' given to me by my spiritual friends- dking777

Can be indicative of personal thoughts, feelings and emotions and not necessarily be universal truths.

 

[Hannah]

Which friends? In 1981 - I had eight friends I spoke with about spiritual matters. Five of them were dead. No human body anymore. They were coming to me with their spirit.

I was referring to the spiritual friends.


Very interesting experiences you've had! I have to re-read what you've written and give it some thought in order to process it.


I believe that there are as many realities as there are souls, so while I may not agree with your friends, I understand that their reality is just as valid as my own. It is what it is.

 

[Nightrain]

If one's present life is already predetermined, what would be the point of reincarnation? Wouldn't we all simply be actors in a prewritten script playing out on a stage that stretches to infinity. How we act in this life or any other future life, or any gradual enlightenment is already predetermined.

Hi Inquirer, and a warm welcome backatcha!


Yours is one of the most profound questions, which have been discussed on this Forum. The line of distinction between free-will and predestination is contradictory to each other, yet, there is evidence of future knowledge. They say that the world beyond our own does not obey our laws of time and space, yet cause and effect are very much a part of our reality.


A similar conundrum exists in the world of Quantum Physics, wherein things can be in two different states at the same time. Although science does not, yet, claim that there is a direct relationship between Quantum Mechanics and the Spiritual Plane of existence; some people feel that there could also be different states (possibilities) at any point of time, in which different futures can be determined by free-will.


My own theory is that we'll never be able to comprehend how free-will and premonition can exist together, so long as we are using our earth-bound minds on this plane.

 

[dking777]

I believe that there are as many realities as there are souls, so while I may not agree with your friends, I understand that their reality is just as valid as my own.

I am only now recall that four year phase in my life after my NDE. The main theme that kept coming to me was ‘reincarnation.’ To be honest, I had my own human doubts when I tried to process what these ‘spirits’ told me. There were more than the five spirits involved. It was easier for me to just use the conversations (spiritual tones) that came from deceased friends. I had a history with them I could point to – because I could pull out my scrape book and show my ‘human friends’ their obituaries. The others would be what most refer to as ‘spirit guides’ and there was a hierarchy involved that was beyond human expression. I used an Army ranking to illustrate who was who. There was a system of authroityy involved. If it came to me in the ‘Generals’ name (a silent tone) then I knew the ‘spirit’ guides worked directly for the ‘General’ but was under the command and power of the ‘Commander in chief.’ I used this because the ‘silent tone’ had to rank back to the “commander – in – chief’ through the ‘hierarchy of the spiritual tone.’ So when my five friends came to me – they would be able to whisper a silent ‘whisper’ that radiated back to the ‘commander in chief.’ That meant they were serving as appointed ‘ambassadors’ representing the ‘commander in chief’ in that moment. I didn’t like using the human word ‘g-o-d’ because it would cause my human friends to get into a religious and political debate about their ‘worldly belief system.’


Parts of the conversations with my human friends and their mind about the matter – was reincarnation. All of the spirits coming to me were ‘speaking’ about this as a fact. To be honest – I could have cared less. I wasn’t interested in the topic and only gained interest because it kept coming up in my conversations with the spirits. The ‘spirits’ were telling me that my current life was based on a past life that I was ‘deaf, dumb and blind.’ If I was ‘deaf, dumb and blind to it – why not just give me ‘direct’ sight of it.


That was what the conversations with the three other human minds was about. We all had the same thing in common. We were ‘deaf, dumb and blind’ to our past lives. Eventually (though the spirit guides) I was given partial sight of one of my past lives and it totally freaked me out. So – I wanted to know if my other friends had sight of any of their past lives or future lives. That is when the debate came into play. I just felt I was a mouth piece and trying to give voice to the ‘spirit’s understanding’ of reincarnation. It was not mine. I was in the same boat with my friends and peeking over the side to see reflections coming to me from the ‘heavens’ who were giving me ‘insights.’


If anything – I argued and debated with the ‘spiritual friends’ with my own doubts as well. Reincarnation made no sense to me what so every and I don’t know that I wanted anything they were telling me to be true.


I was no different from my ‘human friends’ when it came to doubt. The difference between us was – I had it coming to me from a ‘spirit’ that was an ambassador with the ‘silent signature’ of the ‘commander in chief’ in hand. I had to take is seriously where my friends didn’t have to. I couldn’t pass on that ‘silent’ tone in the same way a spirit had and have it penetrate the ‘human mind.’ (Not at first anyway. It took awhile but my human friends had a very open mind about reincarnation after we concluded our talks.) For me – I had an open mind as well. I had my own doubts and listed my belief as 99%. My friends said their beliefs ranged from 51% to 80%. We used a scale to judge our doubts. Having a door open and close and then seeing an impression on a couch – flips your mind to a belief there is more to life than meets the eye. (One of my friends was an atheist when we started. Afterward – he was the one with the 51% belief.)


So – I was the first human mind to disagree with them and my doubts were not eliminated overnight. It took me many years, experiences and struggles to have that doubt totally eliminated. The spirits started departing my side in 1982 and each and every one of them advised me to continuing prayer to my Maker for answers and promised that when my mind was at the right juncture – the answers would come to help illuminate my own doubt. I held on to that 1% doubt for 25 more years before I was totally convinced that what they had told me in the past was absolute truth.


I don’t expect anyone to take me at my word and only offer a candid expression of my past experiences as ‘food for thought.’ I am one who believes that when it comes to ‘spiritual truths’ – it is a lesson that has to come directly from the hand of our ‘Maker’ in an effort to eliminate personal doubts.


(I seriously thought the spirits of my former human friends were trying to pull the wool over my eyes to play a gag on me – just to get a laugh on me when it was my turn to cross over. I expected that from my human friends and my spiritual friends came to me in a ‘human form’ sometimes – so – that was the basis for my doubts. It is very hard to place your trust in humans. I feel that sort of trust is reserved for God.)


DK

 

[stardis]

Hello inquirer.


My own opinion is that we are not repeatedly returning to the Earth to atone for anything. The idea that we need to correct our past mistakes or that we are here to learn a lesson about... whatever - may just be mankind's failure to let go of an ancient inability to awaken to what we truly are. The amount of information that we get from the different sources that point to this idea is trivial compared to the number of lifetimes that have been lived, so if atonement is a fact it is sorely supported.


To use the actor analogy, I would say that we are actors playing a role but the script is spontaneous and dynamic - changing moment to moment and that is what makes it fun and exciting for Beings of Light to willingly immerse themselves in the play. We can opt out of the performance at any time but I am sure that the opportunity to be born into this world is not a trivial thing and we are expected to be a good sport and do our best to leave the following generations a sustainable script to play with.


What is certain is that consciousness survives and that we don't understand the nature of our reality except in a vague manner. It seems as though our search for understanding is a vital theme in the play and perhaps it is how we handle that theme as actors that is the essence of the show. Some Souls give a virtuoso performance.

 

[inquirer]

Thank You All!


Many thanks and deep gratitude to all of you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights. It will take time for me to digest it all. With deep appreciation. Inquirer.

 

[usetawuz]

What is certain is that consciousness survives and that we don't understand the nature of our reality except in a vague manner. It seems as though our search for understanding is a vital theme in the play and perhaps it is how we handle that theme as actors that is the essence of the show. Some Souls give a virtuoso performance.

This is something I wish I had written!