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What is the ultimate purpose of reincarnation?

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barry1170

New Member
If we are perfect sparks (our souls) from a supreme perfect creator, how do we become imperfect and have to incarnate at all?
At what point do our souls become imperfect so that multiple reincarnations are required to perfect our soul again in order to rejoin the Creator? Why go through this process at all if we begin as perfect souls? It doesn't make any sense.
 
barry1170 said:
Why go through this process at all if we begin as perfect souls? It doesn't make any sense.
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Hi Barry, and welcome to the Forum. Yours, I must say, is probably the ultimate question. One need not ask it just in reference to Reincarnation, but in all references. Why are we here? Why must we suffer in life? I can't pretend to know the answer, and I seriously doubt if any living soul has the answer. But, I will venture to suggest that when people say that we begin as perfect souls, they are possibly describing a kind of perfection that we attribute to infants, flowers, and other creations which have not yet been blemished by opinions, controversy and mistakes. Our lexicon is far too limited to be truly effective in describing how our souls truly began, and I think that the word "perfection" can mean any number of things to different people. I personally don't believe that we began as all-knowing and powerful creatures. Innocent and perfect for a great experiment? Perhaps! But not perfect in the same sense that we apply to our concept of God. I would venture to say, instead, that we are possibly evolving into something greater, but to do so we must be imperfect and learn from our mistakes.


I have read the books which suggest that we began as "perfect souls", and I have read the accounts of near-death experiences in which some people claim that they suddenly could see and hear the thoughts of all beings everywhere as if they had acquired God-like powers. These accounts attempt to paint the afterlife as a truly heavenly realm, and it may well be. However, we must be careful to remember that these stories are also being described in earthly terms by imperfect human beings, and that we should examine what they say with a critical eye—not because they are lying or misrepresenting the truth, but because our own language and experience is limited.


It may be quite true that our souls may essentially be much more powerful and aware than our physical existence here on earth. But, it may also be true that knowledge needs experience in order to be effective. One may be a perfect student of business, for example, but may be lacking in experience, and therefore ineffective in business. By the same token we may be perfect souls, but lacking in experience. By coming to earth with the limitations imposed by our physical bodies, we learn wisdom which can only come from experience.
 
Nightrain said:
It may be quite true that our souls may essentially be much more powerful and aware than our physical existence here on earth. But, it may also be true that knowledge needs experience in order to be effective. One may be a perfect student of business, for example, but may be lacking in experience, and therefore ineffective in business. By the same token we may be perfect souls, but lacking in experience. By coming to earth with the limitations imposed by our physical bodies, we learn wisdom which can only come from experience.
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Welcome to the forum Barry, and as Nightrain stated...this may be the ultimate question.


I agree with Nightrain above, though I'll take it a little further. In my experience our souls are indeed much more powerful and perfect than that of which we are aware while incarnate. How does one define the length and breadth of that power and perfection without experience? With nothing by which to compare it, how can one understand the extent to which perfection exists, or how does one come to know how quickly one may manifest one's desires without having had difficulty obtaining the mere basics with which to live?


It is not my belief that we as humans are imperfect, rather that for the opportunity to live a third dimensional lifetime in a physical body with a delayed sense of manifestation, we must live with the illusion of separation and temporarily forget our true power and perfection...if we don't, we cannot play here with the others.
 
We are/were perfect as one. When separated (in incarnation), however we are driven by our ego and our lower self. How could we be perfect in an imperfect, decaying world?
 
Perfection and reicarnation


Thank you for the feedback. We'll all have a chance to perhaps get this question answered one day. My time is getting closer and perhaps I dwell too much on this subject. I was the victim of a botched heart procedure 3 years ago and was clinically "dead" for 3 minutes. I have no memory of a tunnel or anything else that accompanies a NDE. I understand that only 7% of people have the experience. My original question revolves around the work of Dr. Michael Newton and the Newton LBL Institute. I have read 3 of his books and "Flipside" by by Richard Martini. My question is not answered there. It just boils down to why we go through the whole reicarnation process. It is said that the process is to learn how to love unconditionally and completely as taught by the great masters and prophets. I'm fine with that. But I also read that we start out as pure, innocent souls spun off from the Creator. If so, why incarnate in the first place? I believe in reincarnation. There is plenty of evidence that it exists. No problem there. So, are we spun off from the Creator as imperfect souls? If so, why? I know, I'm re-stating my original question. Perhaps we are contaminated with our first incarnation and that begins the process?
 
Nighttrain's Statement: "we learn wisdom which can only come from experience." I think is the key you may be looking for. Pure and innocent is like a blank slate. Nothing much there.
 
Wisdom and reincarnation

Cryscat said:
Nighttrain's Statement: "we learn wisdom which can only come from experience." I think is the key you may be looking for. Pure and innocent is like a blank slate. Nothing much there.
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Perhaps it is indeed WISDOM that fuels the whole process. I think I can buy that. Thanks!!
 
barry1170 said:
It is said that the process is to learn how to love unconditionally and completely as taught by the great masters and prophets. ...So, are we spun off from the Creator as imperfect souls? If so, why?
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To me, we are born from that state of perfection and unconditional love ("UL") and after "death" we return there...we are not now "imperfect souls", but rather inexperienced souls. An incarnate lifetime provides an opportunity to see the lack of that UL experience...to experience an alternative sense of reality, sometimes attempting to duplicate that heavenly state, other times not, and through it all, to find the range of potential variations on the theme.
 
What is the ultimate purpose of anything? Does everything have to have a purpose? Does it matter if there is no purpose? Why?


Answering a question with more questions. Annoying, eh? :)
 
Reisender said:
Life, the ultimate role-playing game in the universe.
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"All the world's a stage and the men and women merely players; they have their exits and entrances, and man in his time plays many parts..."...about as accurate as it gets.
 
tanguerra said:
What is the ultimate purpose of anything? Does everything have to have a purpose? Does it matter if there is no purpose? Why?
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This question was brought up on another thread and I reflected back on an expression I shared with a friend who was saying the same thing about reincarnation. (It makes no sense.) Thread: What is the purpose of reincarnation if the Universe is a hologram?


I didn't identify with a 'Church' or 'religion' when it came to a metaphorical expression of the 'intuition' I walked with after my NDE. I used an 'arcade' as a metaphor to the earth.


Life was nothing more than a game. Just as an illusion is created when a person stands in front of a PacMan video - and pretends he is being chased by 'goblins' - or standing in front of a 'Mission Command" and pretending to be a general in an Army fighting off invaders - or standing in front of a "Rally-X" game and pretending to be a race car driver.


I didn't look at the 'world' (earth) as a school where my spirit was supposed to rack up points in an effort to get a passing grade on a report card to bring back to "God" to show how I had improved what God had already perfected.


If I got good at playing 'pacman' then the next time I went to the 'arcade' (or the game of human life) then my skills improved for the sake of the game itself. I don't know that playing pac-man made me a better human being - anymore than incarnations made the 'spirit' of me a better spiritual being.


Just my opinion.


DKing
 
Cryscat said:
Nighttrain's Statement: "we learn wisdom which can only come from experience."
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I agree...Perhaps reincarnating here repeatedly is to learn things from all different perspectives. And without actually living it, we cannot fully understand it.
 
dking777 said:
I used an 'arcade' as a metaphor to the earth...
Life was nothing more than a game. Just as an illusion is created when a person stands in front of a PacMan video - and pretends he is being chased by 'goblins' - or standing in front of a 'Mission Command" and pretending to be a general in an Army fighting off invaders - or standing in front of a "Rally-X" game and pretending to be a race car driver....
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This, of course, is what the Buddhists describe 'reality' as, but they use more classical metaphors like lotus flowers blossoming and the like. :)


There doesn't have to be a diety (however you conceive Her). There is no necessity for a puppet master in the sky controlling things, awarding points or deducting demerit points for bad behaviour or any kind of linear progression at all.


Things might just 'be'. If we like to ascribe a narrative of some sort to what's going on (the brain needs an image to latch onto to understand these ideas) I prefer a metaphor more like an orchestra, striving for harmony and beauty and drama and rhythm and joy.... for the sake of it. Perhaps there is a 'conductor' for this 'meta' orchestra in the sky. Perhaps not. But, I don't see the musicians as puppets dancing on strings. I see them as artists playing their lives with increasing skill and beauty the more practice they get... sometimes light, sometimes dark, sometimes happy sometimes sad.... always interesting. Always with the theme of 'love' woven in and out of everything...
 
Lady2 said:
I agree...Perhaps reincarnating here repeatedly is to learn things from all different perspectives. And without actually living it, we cannot fully understand it.
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Yes Lady2. That's how I understand it.


We do slowly (and painfully) learn from our mistakes, however, I believe. We experience all the dark emotions in various different experiences - anger, desire, jealousy, greed - and we learn before long that these emotions are not what the Buddhists describe as 'beneficial'. They don't produce the desired result, if the desired result is happiness and serenity and of course love. But, there doesn't have to be the involvement of any gods (however you perceive them) in this process in my opinion. This could just be us, humans being. Figuring it out for ourselves.... a bit like levels in a video game.....


Eventually we figure out that 'good' behaviour has more beneficial outcomes. Some people try to impose our ideas of what 'good' behaviour is on others and there we are again, back at 'bad' behaviour. It's up to the individual to work it out for themselves I believe. It takes a very, very long time. It's a very, very interesting game. A worthy passtime for gods and goddesses, perhaps? :)
 
tanguerra said:
Things might just 'be'. If we like to ascribe a narrative of some sort to what's going on (the brain needs an image to latch onto to understand these ideas) I prefer a metaphor more like an orchestra, striving for harmony and beauty and drama and rhythm and joy.... for the sake of it.
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This was another attempt at a metaphor for the sake of my young friends mind. I used a vinyl LP as a metaphor. To me, the inner and hidden spirit was the 'artist' who created a long playing LP. I used the various 'tracks' as the various roles (or lives) we lived. I felt a life was 'created' in spirit (or heaven) prior to our incarnation in the flesh - and after we incarnated we took on the role of the 'fans' who listened to the track as it passed through our limited 'five-fold' sensory perception blind to the 'creation' of the life we were living in the moment. The 'needle' that was placed on the beginning of the LP - started the 'sands of time' and what was ahead was already done on the 'spiritual side' - like a group of musicians (spirits) who got together in the recording studio - writing and creation a harmonious pattern - that really couldn't be enjoyed to it's fullest - until it was played on a record player. I compared the 'pause' between 'songs' on the LP to the 'pause' that occurred between lives. While talking to my physical friends during that period in the early 80's- I was also talking to the 'spirits' of four friends who had passed away. (After-death communications.) I stated that their spirits were in the 'pause' period between 'song's' (or lives.)


DKing
 
dking777 said:
This was another attempt at a metaphor for the sake of my young friends mind. I used a vinyl LP as a metaphor. To me, the inner and hidden spirit was the 'artist' who created a long playing LP. I used the various 'tracks' as the various roles (or lives) we lived. I felt a life was 'created' in spirit (or heaven) prior to our incarnation in the flesh - and after we incarnated we took on the role of the 'fans' who listened to the track as it passed through our limited 'five-fold' sensory perception blind to the 'creation' of the life we were living in the moment. The 'needle' that was placed on the beginning of the LP - started the 'sands of time' and what was ahead was already done on the 'spiritual side' - like a group of musicians (spirits) who got together in the recording studio - writing and creation a harmonious pattern - that really couldn't be enjoyed to it's fullest - until it was played on a record player. I compared the 'pause' between 'songs' on the LP to the 'pause' that occurred between lives. While talking to my physical friends during that period in the early 80's- I was also talking to the 'spirits' of four friends who had passed away. (After-death communications.) I stated that their spirits were in the 'pause' period between 'song's' (or lives.)
DKing
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What if it happens to be a particularly bad song? In that case, the "fan" listening is "screwed" and/or ripped off?
 
unquestionably said:
What if it happens to be a particularly bad song? In that case, the "fan" listening is "screwed" and/or ripped off?
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Or that bad song provided some extremely meaningful experiences enabling the "fan" to benefit from the hardship involved...to me, that fan couldn't have been screwed or ripped off because he chose to listen to the song.
 
unquestionably said:
What if it happens to be a particularly bad song? In that case, the "fan" listening is "screwed" and/or ripped off?
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The metaphor I used isn't about a 'fan' listening to a song created by an artist ...... the metaphor was the 'artist' listing to soundtracks they had recorded in a studio.


Show me a recording artist who doesn't love his own work and I will show you an artist who needs to get out of the recording business. :laugh:


Sincerely,


DKing
 
I tend to think there really is no set purpose to the whole thing. It just happens, and we as conscious souls create our own purpose within it, and grow to what we want to grow into. THAT is true freedom.
 
Did your question get answered?

barry1170 said:
Thank you for the feedback. We'll all have a chance to perhaps get this question answered one day. My time is getting closer and perhaps I dwell too much on this subject. I was the victim of a botched heart procedure 3 years ago and was clinically "dead" for 3 minutes. I have no memory of a tunnel or anything else that accompanies a NDE. I understand that only 7% of people have the experience. My original question revolves around the work of Dr. Michael Newton and the Newton LBL Institute. I have read 3 of his books and "Flipside" by by Richard Martini. My question is not answered there. It just boils down to why we go through the whole reicarnation process. It is said that the process is to learn how to love unconditionally and completely as taught by the great masters and prophets. I'm fine with that. But I also read that we start out as pure, innocent souls spun off from the Creator. If so, why incarnate in the first place? I believe in reincarnation. There is plenty of evidence that it exists. No problem there. So, are we spun off from the Creator as imperfect souls? If so, why? I know, I'm re-stating my original question. Perhaps we are contaminated with our first incarnation and that begins the process?
Click to expand...
I think everyone has their own path and journey - and it's hard to say why someone has their particular path. It's easy to say "we all begin here and wind up there" but in the research there are a variety of answers to that question. In one case (in Flipside) a spirit guide says "think of all your lifetimes as a blank canvas, and we work together to put the right amount of paint to make a wonderful masterpiece. Each lifetime is a different shade or color." so you'd first have to answer why do people paint? Is it only to pay the rent? Or because they find the need to express themselves? But everyone seems to be different. My two cents.
 
Lady2 said:
I agree...Perhaps reincarnating here repeatedly is to learn things from all different perspectives. And without actually living it, we cannot fully understand it.
Click to expand...
This is the post I can resonate with most here. So...yep...that and Shakespeare's comment about "All the world is a stage and all of us merely players". We play many parts in our time/s. Beggarman, rich man, king, male, female, etc, etc. and until we "play them" personally then we aren't going to fully comprehend what someone else's part in the "play" is like from the inside.


I don't tend to focus on achieving perfection. I definitely don't believe we are all perfect to start with and its a case of returning to that perfect state. I believe we, slowly and painstakingly, work our way to perfection in the first place over a number of lifetimes.


That's what I think it's about - ie gradually achieving perfection and gradually having "played every part" we wish to play.


In the Material World analogies would be that, as a woman, I have various types of clothing for the "person" I wish to be on that occasion - casual, hippy-ish, matching my (this time) background. Depends what purpose I wish to achieve that day - do I wish to just get on with doing various tasks (then make that casual clothing), am I going to be taking part in more "New Age" type activities (then make that hippyish clothing), do I need to "make my point/state my case/achieve a Result of some description" (make that clothing to match my this time "background" - ie that casually elegant middle-class way of dressing that says "I DO know whats what and have a reasonable level of confidence - so don't 'try anything on' that you shouldn't or expect me to put up with low standards". Yep....a very "real world" consideration, but combination of dressing that way/etc does cut off a number of potential problems at the outset and thus makes life easier if I'm doing something like dealing with "officialdom"/troublesome firms/etc).LOL


A recent real world example of different "lives" giving different experiences too is one I've encountered recently. Where I come from, I guess I got rather used to Right and Wrong being judged objectively by the community as a whole (small university city). Where I am now is a small rural-ish community and I was recently shocked to read of someone committing a criminal offence that has impacted back on other people too and vocal community support has been given to the criminal. There is no reason for this at all. It seems to boil down to the, oft-repeated, statement as to how he is a "local person":confused:cover face:confused:. Hence an outlook I hadn't encountered before coming here (to what is, in effect, a new life during the same lifetime). It is wrong to support a wrongdoer just because he is "one of us", but its an experience to watch this mindset in operation and one I wouldn't have believed was possible if I hadn't started a "second life" within this same lifetime.
 
Ceridwen said:
...In the Material World analogies would be that, as a woman, I have various types of clothing for the "person" I wish to be on that occasion - casual, hippy-ish, matching my (this time) background. Depends what purpose I wish to achieve that day - do I wish to just get on with doing various tasks (then make that casual clothing), am I going to be taking part in more "New Age" type activities (then make that hippyish clothing), do I need to "make my point/state my case/achieve a Result of some description" (make that clothing to match my this time "background" - ie that casually elegant middle-class way of dressing that says "I DO know whats what and have a reasonable level of confidence - so don't 'try anything on' that you shouldn't or expect me to put up with...
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That's an interesting observation Ceridwen. I suppose different lives could be like different outfits, depending on what it is we are doing?


Personally I often wonder if all this has any purpose at all, and who's keeping score? What's the prize and how is it kept track of? Maybe an heretical viewpoint, but there it is. Maybe there is no real 'purpose' or 'goal' as many would understand it.


The Buddhists talk about 'beneficial' and 'non-beneficial' behaviour rather than 'good' or 'bad' behaviour'. If the meaning of life is not to be 'perfect' (there's no such thing as perfect anyway, as it's a relative concept) but to be 'happy', then how best to achieve one's own happiness is the object of the game. However, this doesn't mean just doing whatever you want, indulging every whim or vice. In the long run the individual won't be happy unless the one's friends and family, indeed the whole of humanity, and ultimately all sentient beings, are happy. So in the long run, benefiting others and the world benefits the self. The place to start is to work on the self, then gradually move outward.
 
richmartini said:
I think everyone has their own path and journey - and it's hard to say why someone has their particular path. It's easy to say "we all begin here and wind up there" but in the research there are a variety of answers to that question. In one case (in Flipside) a spirit guide says "think of all your lifetimes as a blank canvas, and we work together to put the right amount of paint to make a wonderful masterpiece. Each lifetime is a different shade or color." so you'd first have to answer why do people paint? Is it only to pay the rent? Or because they find the need to express themselves? But everyone seems to be different. My two cents.
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I agree with this. I think there are many answers to this question, not just one.
 
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