Greetings,
What reincarnation means to me is that as an aspect of All-That-Is, God, The Great Mystery, "I," get to actually experience all attitudes, belief systems, actions. Without experience, it'd all be theory. I can't point to all the beads on my personal string but I have no doubt that I've explored being everything from near-saint to absolute horror.
From an earthly, physicality, duality, illusory point of view, we, in our view, choose to forget our totality so's to focus completely within a particular cluster of beliefs -- for however long we choose to do so. This is the "beads on a string" above, or "lifetimes" implied by reincarnation. More and more, we, as soul-in-flesh, are re-membering our ONEness, our totality. In the words of Richard Bach, we're not humans having spiritual experiences, we're spiritual beings having human experiences. This rings our bell.
Personally, awareness of reincarnation has suggested to me a "continuation" or "expansion" or "further addressing" of soul-growth issues that I'm currently addressing. It suggests to me a connection to a totality of me-ness. And it's practical in that I've used such awarenesses to effect changes in my NOW or my perspective of that NOW.
Example: For over 50 years I flat refused to button the top button of my shirts or wear a tie, and became MOST uncomfortable when anyone, even a loved one, touched my neck. "Knowing" that I'd been beheaded in a "past life" came at the very same time that I "unaccountably" began feeling kinda exposed without my top shirt button buttoned.
Example: For almost 50 years my wife Vickie avoided showers like the plague because she ("unaccountably") couldn't stand water splashing on her face. When she did a "reading" on this for herself, she discovered that she'd been dunked to death for being a "witch" in a past life. Nowadays, she enjoys showers like a normal person. *chuckles madly @ "normal"*
A couple years ago I had a "meditative" insight that I'd been everyone in the 18th century. Could it be that we only become aware of certain past lives because the issues "then" are most current "now?" Do we selectively focus on or are we "given" only one or more "past lives" at a time, as a sort of baby step toward opening up to full awareness of our totality? Is it such a radical leap of perception to become aware that our current "reality" isn't the whole of things? Probably, I suppose. I used to call myself a slow learner. :O)
My wife and I "do" readings of various types for others. Something that's tickled us is when someone asks us to connect with, say, their Great Aunt Bea, who's transitioned to what many call the other-side, or "died," and "she" relates thru us that "she" has since incarnated as a young male, far from the seeker. "She" then goes on to impart information that only "she" and the seeker understand. What does this say about the "personalities" we tend to get so addicted to?
Karma, to me, is simply part of the learning "mechanism" of experience; an Unconditionally Loving mechanism of actions (beliefs, etc.) leading to consequences, which lead to further actions..., ad infinitum. We're given the free will, the choice, to experience/explore all possibilities in love and joy -- or fear and pain. "Well, I wouldn't CHOOSE to have this cancer consciously!" someone might say.
Quite often, about this time, someone brings up things like the Holocaust and the trials and tribulations of "innocent children." Out personal view is that no soul-in-flesh would choose to incarnate in the role of "victim" if not one soul-in-flesh hadn't volunteered to incarnate in the role of "victimizer." And that no soul is any "older" than another. (DavidB<--- *sniffs the air for other possible topic threads*)
In response to an earlier post by silvermoon.... Some look at the yin/yang symbol and focus on black or white as being "more holy" or "better" to seek or emulate or live up to, overlooking the fact that the symbol representing All-That-Is contains and incorporates both -- including a little dot of black in the white half and vice versa. In our own personal goal of living Oneness, we find it appropriate to accept everything that is without judgement. We accept the situations we confront without judgement. That's our lesson material. How we CHOOSE to re-act (*offers up a vision of a pingpong ball*) is our free will, our choice. Invest our emotional energy in another's dynamics -- or not. Choose to call ourselves empaths and Choose to suffer the physical symptoms of what others have Chosen to experience -- or not. One can indeed choose, in our experience.
It strikes me that all projections "backwards in time" of physical motion leads to what many call the Big Bang -- to me, the ultimate bit of "magic," in that a "singularity" or ONEness seems to've exploded and rapidly expanded into all this. *waves his arms around foolishly* Combining this imaginative vision of reality with Great Aunt Bea above..., is it such a great leap to envision an enormous sea of energy, exploring what it's like to "be" this AND that from time to time? Is "being human" some kind of pinnacle of expression of conscious energy? Is ANY energy "unconscious?" If we got really handy with what's called psychometry, what would a Limestone outcrop have to share with us about "beingness?"
Feel free to get out your Strange Crayola set and color me weird.
*grins friendishly* -DavidB
