• Thank you to Carol and Steve Bowman, the forum owners, for our new upgrade!

Lesson Theory- I'm Doubting It

C

Cloacina

Probationary
I think I'm doubting the lesson theory. When we're talking about reincarnation, people tend to say the point is to learn during each lifetime until we attain some sort of enlightenment. I think that's.....very likely....BS. Let's examine this theory, seriously.

There are a few people who seem close to enlightenment, and to be honest, as compassionately advanced as they are, and despite the fact that these people prob. have a lot more figured out than I do, I'm not sure they've got it all down pat. I am not sure if this supports or undermines the lesson theory. But, if these people are enlightened and ready to move on, while the numbers are slim, that isn't what has me questioning the lesson theory.

Look around you. I'm not simply referring to the fact that the world is in a less than optimal state or that few people seem to have reached an enlightened state individually. Look at the individual levels and lessons of the majority of people. I guess it could make sense that only a small number of people are sick enough to be serial killers and only a few people seem very enlightened, and most of us are in the middle. But........ not only are most of us at the same level- we all seem to be dealing with the same lessons. And our kids......same lessons. And our parents- the same lessons. And if we go through ancient literature.......some of the same lessons. From ancient times till today, we're still dealing with the same crap- we don't appear to be learning anything new in our next lifetimes. It's all the same stuff, over and over and over and over again. Unless there's just one major lesson and we're failing to get the same one everytime we're born, then I don't know if I believe the lesson theory. It doesn't seem that we're working on diff. lessons every lifetime.

Thoughts?
 
I wonder if it is more accurate to think of coming back as the chance to perform a task or to help out someone else do "whatever" they are tasked to do. Perhaps the lessons are just something that we make up to give meaning to the vagaries of life itself. I don't know.


I have for most of my life thought that we are here to advance spiritually (what does that mean, huh?). Sometimes I question the "lesson" theory but, I am absolutely convinced that we are here to perform a task or tasks that will contribute to the advancement of an overall plan that we are not allowed to know while here in the flesh.


Just my opinion.
 
I don't believe in the lesson theory either. I don't agree with the whole idea of the earth is a school for souls and we have all to learn lessons so we can reach perfection or enlightenment or whatever. I believe it is especcialy New Age people who believe in this all? I don't know for sure..
 
Now I have heard two things that go along this line.


One is how everyone remarks that this or that person is an old soul. Someone remarked if such and such is an old soul, then they are


a Slow Learner. This struck me as funny but how possibly true.


The other on what my father said and which have posted in another thread .... which was how often do we just want to come back and


Enjoy Another Life Again.
 
For me there are lessons to learn... maybe more appropriate to call it evolvement/growing up into responsibility ...


Without having done regression to see what I was like in my past I doubt I would have changed so much this life. Other lives I did not. Now in those other lives I do not think every little thing is a lesson. Normal leisurly life goes on . But there are times when we are attached to false paradigms... false things that we think give us the reason for life.


We are looking for fulfillment and since our world is transitory and not dependable because of nature and nurture , we have to become good at finding that core self which can handle the challenges of life.


I do not think every thing negative that happens, happens because of our karmic past... life happens... .It depends on the person === we are all different.. and must all make our own way..
 
Hi Cloacina,


Nice reflections. The lessons seem to be never ending. IF we look at it as lessons. Instead, I propose we look at life as an opportunity to take responsibility; thereby empowering ourselves to create consciously. Problem is - for the most part, man-kind has forgotten how. ;) Below is an excerpt from the book I have been forever working on - I hope you enjoy it.

The ancient Greeks considered all learning to be remembering. To them, life was but the act of recollecting knowledge the soul had forgotten at the moment of birth into the physical body. Reincarnation and the idea of past lives were an integral part of their way of life. Perhaps this explains why the word education originally meant ‘to draw from that which was already known.’ My spiritual journey was becoming more than an exploration about past lives, and who I once was. It was expanding far beyond the memories of another time and place. I was learning to know myself.
Could it be that in ancient Tibet and India, and in the many forms of ancient Buddhism, (as in so many ancient religions), we have lost the original intention behind the ‘belief?’ Could it be, that what was intended within the rites and rituals of ancient religions, was to stop the process of creating suffering and imperfection? Was the original intention to help ensure the future of the soul, enabling them to live in peace, in harmony, in good health and happiness in each lifetime?


What the ancients were implying is that consciousness creates. If our thoughts, what we hold in consciousness, determines our next ‘life experience’ then maybe this is why there are no set rules. Maybe this is why some souls are born into the same families, and some are not. Maybe this is why some souls do not reincarnate for decades, or even centuries, while others are born into another life almost immediately. Each individual is unique, each individual sets his own way, by way of his/her thoughts, feelings and emotions. In other words, his or her consciousness creates.


Why then have we created such suffering? History is filled with endless accounts of war, rape, murder, and harm imposed upon others. The most horrible things we do, we do to each other. But why? One discussion regarding this is that we have created suffering and imperfection in order to learn the deepest essence of Love, Compassion, and Empathy. I am sure there is merit in this. I know I have learned over and over again the importance of these through difficult life times. But this seems to be a slow and endless process. Mankind is currently in crisis and if we are learning, we are not learning fast enough.


It seems to me that we keep creating suffering and imperfection because we are not conscious of how to create change within. When I looked back over my memories as Alexander, I realized that I did not know how. When I looked to the history of religion, dogma it seems has gotten in the way of original intention. Beneath the structured beliefs of church and state, before Christianity, the ancients were pointing the way.
Click to expand...
Well - those are my thoughts. :D
 
I cannot say that the lesson theory is true or not, just like I cannot say that this world thing is an evil swamp no one can get out alive. :)Because I don't know the truth...I feel it is more like a game or experimental device in which souls enjoy themselves or we play here while watchmen recording all the data so some alien professor can claim his alien Nobel prize some day or so...


A saying is just a saying, lesson theories do sound more acceptable and serve well in the psychological or religious ways for people to accept reincarnation as a belief.
 
If everything we learned in this life just disappeared when we died, I don't know what it would be for. Life does seem to be teaching important lessons, but it doesn't make any sense to me that we would be learning it just to take it to the grave with us. So even if we (mostly) forget the memories of our past lives, I hope the important moral and emotional lessons have some kind of impact on our future lives.


If a lot of lives are short, painful or not full of these learning experiences, I suppose the soul would need another opportunity at that lesson?
 
I don't believe that the lessons we learn are forgotten when we die. We come into this with a certain level of amnesia. If we came into this life remembering everything that has ever happened to us, I think it would probably be a little overwhelming. Besides, our primary focus is our current life, not the past. However, if we learn to be compassionate, for example, in our last life, that doesn't die with us when our body dies. We carry that compassion with us into the next life, imo. If we're not compassionate in our last life, new opportunities will arise in our current life.


It may be possible that those lives that were cut short, you were helping someone else grow on their journey.
 
I feel the same way about reincarnation that I do about ghosts - it's not a matter of "learning a lesson" or being punished as it is simply not wanting to or being able to move on for various reasons.


Now, a man who killed in his life might choose to come back simply to atone for those wrongs, but it doesn't mean he'll lose someone to murder or almost be murdered in this life as a lesson. However, he might feel a drive to become a police officer or work in some other form of law enforcement. He might find it easier than some of his colleagues to catch on to possible motives.


(Please excuse the morbid example. :/ )


I also don't think we or anyone else chooses where exactly we go, simply because so many children are born into horrible situations. Why would anyone wish that on themselves? The only case I can see would be if someone wanted to follow another soul.


But of course, I'm not a reincarnation specialist or anything. This is all my own speculation. ;) But regarding lessons, I much prefer the Mahayana Buddhist theory - that we are born to help others, not to be punished.

Truthseeker said:
I don't believe that the lessons we learn are forgotten when we die. We come into this with a certain level of amnesia.
Click to expand...
I think that's a great way of putting it.
 
I don't believe the lesson theory either. I think I remember enough of a prior life to compare to this life and the only reason I can come up with for choosing this one (if it really was a choice, I think it at least partly was) would be to understand some of the people or at least the same personality types that I couldn't understand then. Although I don't think I would have given myself so many problems if it was totally up to me. Probably some of the people I've had around me came into this world with their own agenda though and that complicated mine a lot.


If there is a lesson I've learned from this one it would be; Next time around place myself around people who've actually liked me throughout lifetimes. No matter what trouble you come across it's just easier dealing with if you have understanding, supportive people in your life.


I know the lifetime I remember had a lot more truly awful things happen but I don't ever remember feeling like I was unloved or deserved it and it was because of the people in my life then that made all the difference.
 
I believe in the "lesson" concept. But I'm not "certain" of anything. Instead I've chosen to listen and observe in my study of reincarnation. It seems to me that the safest idea is that our evolution as souls takes place in these lives for a purpose. I'm certain that we and our passage are not random. In my own journey I see and feel the experiences of the past, and as I think about them I seek to learn from them. Is this learning a lesson? Perhaps learning...experiencing...evolving are more comfortable words. In all of the above posts I see truths, and lessons. For me the greatest truth is compassion and love, and living it, in a world growing ever more distant from the spiritual side of things.


Tman
 
I believe we are on this earth because it is our purpose. We are supposed to live. For me, living is experiencing, enjoying, suffering, learning.... everything. I don't see life(ves) as a journey to reach a goal. I believe life is its own goal.


I also believe that true learning, the true lessons, so to speak, will only come when the human race moves on to a more spiritually oriented life. I know, Tinkerman, that it seems the world is going in the opposite direction. But perhaps not. I do see many of the people I know in everyday life looking for something "different" - something else.


I hope this makes sense to anyone... :rolleyes:
 
My feelings about this are that yes, we learn lessons in life and yes, we retain some of that information from one life to the next. Is it 'meant' to be? Is it deliberate? Is it part of a plan? Who knows. Perhaps. Perhaps it just 'is'.


However, although I do believe we learn as we go along, it is not a nice, neat, linear process any more than the learning process is in the course of one life. How many people do you know in this life (possibly even including oneself!) who keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again? Hooking up with the wrong people, falling prey to addictions, bad habits, impulses and so on? How many people reach old age hardly any wiser than they were when they began? Far too many, of course.


Yes, the world is a bit of a mess at the moment, that's true. But consider, how far we have come in only the last couple of hundred years, not to mention a few thousand.


Human sacrifice disappeared some time ago for instance (thank goodness!) Slavery is almost non-existent and it is along time since we fed people to lions for the amusement of the masses. Even dog fights and bear baiting are considered barbaric nowadays along with various other types of animal cruelty which would not have turned a hair a hundred or so years ago. Yes, there is still torture being perpetrated by some governments and all kinds of bad behaviour going on somewhere in the world. But just think, it's not that long ago that we were officially burning people who had different religious beliefs from the mainstream - and fairly minor differences too - fairly minor 'heresies' about all kinds of obscure theological points. Crazy? Sure. It didn't seem so at the time though. These days the idea of capital punishment for very serious crimes such as murder fills many of us with horror! But it's not that long ago that poor and starving people were hanged for stealing bread or some other quite minor misdemeanours.


If you think about it, we really have come a very long way as a society and a species. I know it doesn't always seem that way and and no, we're not 'there' yet - not by a long shot. We still have a long way to go until we can claim to be a truly 'enlightened' species. But things do change and things do improve. Slowly. Yes. It's a matter of perspective.
 
The question about the lessons is analogous to the one whether evolution has a point or it just goes on. Boilogists give their votes to the latter version, however Nature tends to 'create' more and more complex beings. I think this process of evolution is going on with the souls as well, no matter if there are lessons designed for us by superior spiritual beings or not.


Slavery and burning of heretics really belongs to the past, but we have free trade, absolute poverty and other global problems, so there is plenty to do for the following generations.


Skarphedinn
 
Tanguerra, I think that's a great post.


The process is not as clearly defined as taking classes in school to earn a degree. Human beings are imperfect. As long as you have billions of imperfect people interacting with each other exercising their free will, things will get messy. We have come along way as a planet. Do we have it all figured out, no. But we have made strides.
 
Cloacina said:
I think I'm doubting the lesson theory. When we're talking about reincarnation, people tend to say the point is to learn during each lifetime until we attain some sort of enlightenment. I think that's.....very likely....BS.
Click to expand...
I've never been crazy about the lesson theory. The Theravada Buddhist theory is that we come back for the same reason an alcoholic takes another drink. We are addicted to the experiences life provides us. We move on to something else (become a "non-returner") only when we kick the addiction to life.


I tend to think life is a highly advanced video game. When one game is over (i.e., we die) then we start a new game. Maybe we get better the more we play, and maybe we don't. Either way, who cares. We're just in it for the fun it provides us.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top