My problem with reincarnation
 

I lost my father to cancer last summer and I think about him all the time. I miss him very much and there is one question that I've been obsessing about since he died which is what happened to him?

Did he reincarnate? Is he on another planet? Did he wake up in a parallel universe telling another ME how he dreamt he had died of cancer?

Before his death, I was a big believer in reincarnation but now, I'm not so sure mostly because I think it's tragic. If I had a previous life, I don't remember anything about it. I don't remember who my parents were, I don't remember anyone I loved. When I die, I won't remember this life and anyone in it.

If my father reincarnated or will reincarnate as a child in another country, he won't remember me. He won't remember what we went through together, the songs he used to sing to me when I was a child, the vacations we went on. Thinking about this has made me very depressed. I've even sort of detached from my beloved mother who doesn't understand why I'm so distant. I'm distant because she'll die too and won't remember me either. I feel like there is no meaning to life and to loving someone because all their memories of you will be wiped out when they die.

Im not so sure if I had a life before this one, given I have no memory. But I've convinced myself I will have another life after this particular one, due to numerous logical deductions. Also its one of the pieces of code that allows one to function better.
The better the code allows you to function, the truer it is, I believe.


Given the complexity and the extent of the technology, that is "existence", im sure there is a data bank of everything that has ever occured, one that will someday be accessible to you.


Maybe you wont remember in the next life, but at some point, you will remember everything, when certain objectives have been reached.

You don't think love is worth it, for its own sake?

I don't know whether I believe in reincarnation or not, but I do believe that even ephemeral love is beautiful.

I'm really sorry about your father.

Try one of the methods of self hypnosis to regress back to a past life . New age book stores will have the cds , dvds , and mp3s can be downloaded from the net . I think we have some chose as to reincarnate or not , and hang out on the astral plane for a while . desert rat

Your oversoul remembers everything, in the realm that's in-between lives. (The ether)

seems that you should try meditation to develop some psychic sensitivity
that is the only way to really verify for yourself if there is an afterlife and what might happen there to anybody

In my humble opinion, this is not actually how it works. My understanding is that you remember everything while between lives. That's the "real world". And yes, you will see your father again, and yes, he will know you. You will also remember all the other great relationships you've had with him in previous lives. You will both have a good laugh about it when all is said and done. And possibly share a brewyski :).

It may interest you to know that souls who are close to one another incarnate in groups. They are part of the same "soul cluster". So it is conceivable that your father would not incarnate until you were there to also join him in a reasonably close parallel of timing. Also there is a good bit of "subjective time" spent between lives just resting and rejuvenating, learning and enjoying the company of old friends, planning your next incarnation, in whatever illusory environment you collectively create. This subjective time is usually equal to or at least close to the amount of time you spent in the previous incarnation.

It may also interest you to know that a part of us never leaves the spirit world, and is always available to greet another close soul when they come back to the spirit world, even if they had since incarnated in a new body, with the concomittant temporary memory wipe that is so characteristic of entities upon this planet.

Just try to keep in mind that the whole cosmic process is not as unfeeling and uncaring as some are led to believe. There is great love and compassion for all of us. More than we can possibly imagine.

Another problem we as humans have understanding reincarnation is that we think time is linear. I know you will see your father again even if he has reincarnated again.

Maybe you should first try to get 'in touch' with your loved one on the other side - before speculating too much about what happens when they next come to the physical dimension.

Erin actually did a very helpful blogpost on this topic a few years back. So if you haven't seen it here it is:

Can I contact a deceased relative on my own?

I hope it will give you some consolation.

Chris

Are you sure we have a soul Anagogy? Doesn't having a soul imply that we actually exist? I remember hearing Deepak Chopra and Lynne McTaggart say we don't have souls because we don't really exist. Our bodies are illusions. So saying we have a soul acknowledges that our body is real.

I dunno... not sure what I believe anymore.

I've also been thinking that my father is probably alive in many other universes after hearing Michio Kaku talk about the many worlds theory. I might be dead in many of them too.

Funny thing happens, every time I think of him while I'm driving, a car just like his passes by, sometimes with a man driving alone who looks just like him. Happened atleast 10 times since his death, no matter where I am. :o

When exactly did you learn that George Washington was the first President of the United States? When did you learn that the Earth revolves around the sun? Who was your teacher when you learned how to spell "cat"?

I sincerely doubt that you remember any of the specifics of these lessons, and yet you've learned them all the same. At some point you didn't know them, and then at another point you did. HOW that happened is immaterial to the fact that it did.

The Life-Lessons we learn in our various experiences are no different. Who we were with, what we were doing, how we were doing it... all take a far back seat to the lesson itself.

The fact that we have learned Love, Trust, Patience, Humility, Honor... These are the things that matter. Not how we come to them.

Some people have learned these lessons already in "previous" experiences. You see them every once in a while: a young child with eerily calm demeanor or empathy beyond what someone that young would "normally" have. You also see the other side of that coin: adults who "just don't get it."

With regards to these lessons, the "who" (Father/Daughter) is far less important than the "what" (unconditional love, loss, acceptance, betrayal, abandonment, grief, joy....)

You DO remember all your other lives, just not while you're incarnated here. Does the gamer not remember all the characters he made for the game he's playing? Do those characters necessarily know each other or remember each other?

You can tap into your other lives and remember them with fairly rich detail. But mainly you will remember what you learned, how you felt, etc.

This is one of the supporting evidence for past lives for me. The difference in awareness between people, moreso in that some young ones become so aware so quickly, you can see in the actions they take.

I imagine God to be the fairest.

Thus imagine, everyone must have had a fair start. Then how is it fair that some have begun before others? Showing in their obvious superiority of awareness from young ages, culminating from their "soul age".

If everyone begun at the same time, then how is it fair that some seem to have superior awareness, what determined who would be superior, gaining levels of awareness quicker than their competitors, when they were supposed to have begun at the same time.


Cant imagine a fair beginning, but I guess it is comparable to this microcosm that is planet earth, where starting out as a toddler, we are at severe disadvantages in many ways, or extreme advantages, whichever side you were "fortunate" enough to be born into.


Either way, fair or not, im gonna try to win, but am curious if anyone has a good idea as to how the system is fair.


I think there is more of a "random" factor than people would care to accept. We can observe "randomness" at play frequently in our everyday lives, and is easily provable.


The strange quality of this reality is that the larger the scale the neater it is. "Randomness" only appears on the smallest levels, like the toss of a coin, it doesnt seem to exist in the grand scale, tossing the coin 10,000 times which will produce a 50 50 scenario, or possibly, say the conditions we are born into.
The more it matters the less random it is, the less it matters the greater its randomness.



Thus in this way, we can measure the degree to which something matters, in the degree to which it is random :)

Yes, I'm sure. I wish I could confer that same sureness to you, but unfortunately I cannot.

Yes it does imply that you actually exist. Do you think that you don't exist?

When I say you have a soul, I mean that you *are* a soul. And what is a soul? A soul is consciousness. You are the consciousness looking out the eyes of the body from a first person perspective. And you most definitely exist. You are existence itself. Consciousness equals existence. One does not occur without the other. They are the same.

I'm not sure what our friends Deepak and Lynne were trying to get across, but I assure you, your awareness is NOT an illusion, or an artifact of neurology. Consciousness creates form -- it is not the other way around.

True, and very possible. And from my perspective, not just possible, but very plausible. But are those other "versions" you? I suppose it depends what your definition of "self" is. I define "me" as what I am aware of. From a broader perspective, you can abstractly say all consciousness is one, and you would be accurate. But at an experiential level, you are only consciously aware of a specific slice of existence, and that is your current "self" even if your conscious "slice" is, at some point, going to expand to a larger one.

This is a natural effect of the law of attraction.