Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Do you believe in reincarnation?

Dr. Mayavale need not respond...

I have no idea. You read of cases which "prove'' it, then read something undermining that proof. I used to want to believe in reincarnation, but the way the world is going, I'm not sure I want to be comin back.

I want to come back as a housecat in a warm home with a cat loving family to terrorise... I mean lie on and purrrrrr!

BTW thats a "yes I do believe."

Since it's a phenomenon that is essentially unprovable, I'll just go with the reasoning provided by my old literary friend, Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.

He who fears death fears either the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou wilt not have any sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm. And if thou wilt have a different kind of sensation, thou wilt be a different kind of living being, and thou wilt not cease to live.

As one of my more recent heroes, writer and fierce libertarian Albert Jay Nock, said about this reasoning: "This is doubtless all one can know, but it is all one needs to know."

I absolutely believe in reincarnation, and have participated in numerous sessions of past life regression sessions, with great success.

I do not feel I was cheated, or hoaxed, or lead into these experiences. I studied and searched for the right spiritual advisor before undergoing the hyptnosis for the sessions. How do I know I touched on my past lives? No, I was not a King or Queen, or anyone 'famous' at all. I found unremarkable, normal, day-to-day lives of good honest people, and some horrible people as well. I know it was true because of languages I do not speak flowing fluently from my mouth during the session, and the details I could provide on clothing, weapons, tools, foods, etc.

I believe learning about who I was before gave me the strengths I have today. I also believe that many of the individuals in my life today have always been part of my life, in various other relationships. I believe that people follow each other around in groups of about 30 souls who play out different roles each lifetime. I believe we keep coming back until we get it right. I believe I'm getting closer to my soul's goal, but although I see the light in this life, I'm no where near to perfection yet.

Being Wiccan I'm pretty open to talking about this sort of thing.

I currently don't believe in it, but I used to in a previous life... (someone had to say it )

I am not sure about this at all. But like most things tend to look at it with a common sense approach. If it was "real" that is we could all see and touch it in our everyday life then it could be "proved". As yet I have seen no “proof”, only others personal beliefs or experience’s but then to be honest I have seen no such proof of the existence of God or any God’s So to me reincarnation remains something I am waiting to be convinced about much like any other religion or belief system.

I want to believe in reincarnation. I want to experience and feel all the things that I need to in order to grow and to realize fully what it means to be a human being on this planet.

I want to live a million million lifetimes... I want to be rich, and poor; brilliant, and dull... I want to have grown up in every culture and society and era, as every type of person imaginable... I want to experience joy, sorrow, triumph, tragedy, hope, despair, pleasure, pain...

Put simply: I want to understand. And one lifetime just isn't enough.

Stu, exactly!! You truly GET IT. Yes, this is what reincarnation is all about. Blessings on your journey in life in general and in your new role as our 'top dog' as it were. I hope you enjoy your term, and that it stays fun and never becomes boring.

I never cared much either way about reincarnation for most of my life, even though I've been buddhist for about thirty years. It is only within the last five years I've begun to investigate some of its various interpretations in buddhism, all of which are based upon karmic origination.

So as for "reincarnation," the question to myself and most buddhists is really what is the nature of karma? The dominant Western misinterpretation (and similar in some Eastern tribal infusions) is the Christian perspective of reward and punishment. I believed this at first, years ago, but this politically motivated manipulation must be abandoned to observe the true nature of karma.

Karma has been defined as many different Western concepts, but no single term is adequate. As a beginning, let's say it is creativity, but it is the core of creativity, that which creates itself anew every moment, and yet never is any "thing," any moment of "identity."

But it is more than what we call creativity, it is the creations as well, of which the most humanly powerful are desire and belief. I do not "know" the nature of what it is that reincarnates, what Western metaphysicians characterize as a "soul." It may be that there is no common nature to it's expressions other than reincarnation. But it is the powerful often fear-oriented energy of desire and beliefs that shapes and directs it and thus determines the form of reincarnation.

I understand that many people learn a great deal and gain insight by investigating past possible lives. It probably is the case that everyone in "one of our lives" must contact directly or indirectly prior manifestations of identity. It is an avenue of the transcendental.

But there are many roads, many "methods." I, as a buddhist, do not focus upon reincarnation; I focus upon transcending reincarnation, of breaking out of samsara, the constant returning. This takes a diligence and imagination that is taxing at best, especially for a stubborn arrogant Westerner like myself.

One buddhist has said that we can never really know where we are on our path, how far we've come or how much there is to go. Many things have to be learned over and over, until we wake up, until we start paying attention. But what we can get a sense of is whether we are closer to the beginning or to the ending. If one is honest with one's self.

I conclude that because of my lifelong disinterest in material and social pursuits, and because of my natural transcendental sensitivity and sensibilities, that I seem to be what Theravadic buddhists refer to as a one-to-four-time returner ("a stream-enterer") meaning this is the range of likely reincarnations left before no longer being "pulled back" by karmic force.

But understand that while I state that I believe this to be my metaphysical situation, it doesn't mean I see reincarnation as a bad thing that is to be avoided. Life is suffering, this is the First Noble Truth of the Buddha, and each life is parade of grief and sorrow. But it also is always an opportunity for enlightenment.

So I agree with what has been expressed as to the "benefit" of reincarnation - many lives are necessary to attain sustained enlightenment. One has to taste it in many different ways before deciding to voluntarily pursue it, to go deeper, to be the self-less clarity beyond personal opinion or philosophic belief.

Let me edit that last paragraph by mentioning that many lives are usually necessary to attain sustained enlightenment, but that the enlightenment can be attained in a single lifetime if one pays attention.

I believe in reincarnaton.

In high school, me and my crew of very good friends (still very good friends today!) would discuss it, sometimes. KT and I often debated on the possibility that there is only one soul, that the people we feel drawn to are those who are in a relatively close cycle. I personally think that would be too.. lonely. But is was always a lively debate.

I see reincarnation as a means to an end, and the end is total understanding, total experience, of every aspect of existance. It's not linear. If I died today, I might reincarnate tomorrow, next year, or a hundred years ago - I might walk down the street and meet myself - wherever I would need to be to begin the next phase of my learning. My enlightenment, you might say. I think over the course of lives, souls become many different things, and the goal is to reach a greater understanding, a perfect understanding. Not every life will be human. Not every life would be on this planet. There's as much validity in the experience of a tree or a piece of space rock that falls into a sun, as there is in mine. And reincarnation could theoretically continue past the destruction and rebirth of the universe a million million times over before a soul even begins to grasp that "big picture". But it would be worth it, I think.

I don't see reincarnation as a bad thing. I also don't see life as basically being about suffering, tempering oneself to purity. That aspect is there, certainly, but is not, in my view, the focus. (This has caused some disagreement between myself and uncle, who is a zen buddhist.) Grief, pain, and suffering are the natural balance to joy, happiness, love. To understand one, you must compare the other. Granted, I am a big believer in the importance of balance.

So. That's a little more philosophical than I expected to get today...

Thanks for the kind thoughts, Caroline!

My goal for this lifetime is to make the most of things, learn as much as I can, and -- of course -- have fun! Hmm... that kind of sums up why I love these boards so much too.

(I also love 'top dog'... it's now in my profile! )