Reincarnation

[guest88]

I have been tossing this idea around in my mind on reincarnation... I am pondering from a little conversation I had with a friend and will be sharing word for word some of the wisdom expressed by my great friend and Mystic, Hazarat Inayat Khan....

A friend told me that the planets fight for our Love. Planet Earth may very well have her own Karma and even her own Spirit. This planet is like a giant school house for sure... While there are plenty of lessons to learn I wonder if a souls inclination to reincarnate on Earth may be as simple as an attraction towards a particular expression of Love, one provided by Mother Earth.

Perhaps it is an attachment to time or, an affinity for duality. This Earthly plane may be one of many which provide a place for God to experience itself. There are planes and impressions that leave man with the idea we are more than our bodies. Idea's where, thanks to science and modern technology give more consideration in regards to a Soul and consciousness.

It is my experience Both Earthly and Heavenly knowledge reside in our beings. If you believe in reincarnation then you are saying you exist without the body right? Then we are born into this world and provided a gift from the local universe. This Earth has gifted us our bodies and is the result of the evolutionary process having gone through mineral, plant and animal kingdom. Surely the clay that is our bodies carries the knowledge of our ancestors and these wonderful earthly things? Yet is it not true we are more? And is it not true there are even finer subtler realities? But it is this vehicle which allows us to experience more of creation from an evolutionary standpoint- to express deeper and more eloquently with life itself.

We have the ability to tap into sacred knowledge and we have the ability to create wonderful works of Art. We can do so much with our hands, hearts and our minds... All of this, fine tuned through generations of fierce and wild adaptations and creativity. It doesn't end, our progression isn't over... We have a Thirst for knowledge- An Appetite that may take lifetimes to figure out. In reality it is simple if you consider mans evolution... Perhaps this appetite is ingrained in the Soul...
So my thoughts on reincarnation are this... It may be true there are lessons yet learned, very true- but I want to highlight a simpler and just as profound thought taught by my teacher: Through man God experiences Life.

This to me means Life then becomes about expression and Self Discovery. In its experience there is an appreciation or Love for Creation, what do you think religion is in its sincerest and most basic form? A Love for God a desire to learn God, but what is God? Why does God seem so distant? God exist in each and every one of us. Man is not always cognizant of this fact yet in his appetites it is clear there is always a desire to Learn More. God is the only Being and the nature of being is to become conscious of being- this provides a sense of fulfillment and quenches our appetites, our souls longings. Man may choose to turn his back but finds he continually comes back for this experience... So why then do we come back? Because of the Satisfaction of God and the allure of the planet, who fights for our Love.


I gathered much of these thoughts and know hows from the writings saved on wahiduddins site.. In this particular Volume Hazarat Inayat Khan breaks down the different planes and it is rather fascinating... I can share more of his teachings on manifestation if interested in a separate thread

[Jitendra Hy-do-u-no-us?]

Yes Eric hope you do decide to share more. Perhaps we are drawn together in certain flocks on this planet flying back to this planet with certain reacurruring others. Some of our associations being more significant while others have more of a passing place in our lives. I think your rite. This planet has a certain allure and personality that perhaps continues to bring us here for experience and enjoyment. We feel the familiarity of certain souls and are happy to reunite with them again here on the earth plane. But we are often privy to the fact that we limited ourselves by coming into these bodies to experience life as separate entities here in physical manifestation. This gives a sense of imprisonment and wish to expand our awareness beyond these mortal frames.

I think u are on to something here Eric life here is a school house but I think for many of us we have had the pleasure of experiencing something unusually special about this earth with its cool refreshing breezes the life of trees that draw us near them to meditate...the sound of the streams and oceans and tress blowing in the wind that remind us of more subtle astral sounds and places and the lives of celestial bodies that remind us of inner lites yet to explore. The smell of another soul and the revelations that they may reveal to you. A refreshing shower while meditating. It is a unusually busy time here on the earth this time round....very crowded with souls and difficult for Mother Earth to accommodate such overload. However I believe we cannot but miss it when it’s gone. So we my as well appreciate it while we have it.

I have been tossing this idea around in my mind on reincarnation... I am pondering from a little conversation I had with a friend and will be sharing word for word some of the wisdom expressed by my great friend and Mystic, Hazarat Inayat Khan....

A friend told me that the planets fight for our Love. Planet Earth may very well have her own Karma and even her own Spirit. This planet is like a giant school house for sure... While there are plenty of lessons to learn I wonder if a souls inclination to reincarnate on Earth may be as simple as an attraction towards a particular expression of Love, one provided by Mother Earth.

Perhaps it is an attachment to time or, an affinity for duality. This Earthly plane may be one of many which provide a place for God to experience itself. There are planes and impressions that leave man with the idea we are more than our bodies. Idea's where, thanks to science and modern technology give more consideration in regards to a Soul and consciousness.

It is my experience Both Earthly and Heavenly knowledge reside in our beings. If you believe in reincarnation then you are saying you exist without the body right? Then we are born into this world and provided a gift from the local universe. This Earth has gifted us our bodies and is the result of the evolutionary process having gone through mineral, plant and animal kingdom. Surely the clay that is our bodies carries the knowledge of our ancestors and these wonderful earthly things? Yet is it not true we are more? And is it not true there are even finer subtler realities? But it is this vehicle which allows us to experience more of creation from an evolutionary standpoint- to express deeper and more eloquently.

[guest88]

Yes Steve our appreciation to this Earth and our relationships experienced... Seems there is a real weight to it that may captivate the Soul...

In the same teachings, and I will quote you the link for the full read(it's a long one) Inayat Khan speaks of limitation that has helped placed things in perspective and yet again aligns with your thinking....

The whole matter is explained by Rumi in his Masnavi, 'Our life on earth is as a captivity, an imprisonment.' An imprisonment in what? In a physical body, which covers the light of the soul. And the mind is also helplessly attached to the body. It is the bodily desires, passion, anger, appetite, all the different desires and needs, that make the mind helpless and make man hold on to them. All the worries, anxieties, depressions, and despairs arise from them. There is not a single moment in which the mind is able to stand aloof so as to reflect the light within, the light of the soul, so limited has it been made by the limited existence on earth. In reality this is the whole tragedy of human life.

The one and only thing that hinders man from advancing spiritually, or at least from advancing towards the goal, for which he is destined, and which he is longing to attain, is this: that the mind is so absorbed by the demands and wants of the physical body that it has hardly a moment to give itself entirely to the reflection of the light of the soul.

https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VII/VII_22.htm

Rumi has said in the Masnavi that life on earth is a captivity of the soul. When one looks at the bubble in which the air has been caught by the water, one sees the meaning of Rumi's words that something which is free to move about becomes a captive of the atoms of water for a time, and loses its freedom for that moment.

Man in all conditions of life, whatever be his rank, position or possessions, has trouble, pains and difficulties. Where do these come from? From his limitations. But if limitations were natural, why should he not be contented with his troubles? Because limitation is not natural to the soul; the soul, which is by nature free, feels uncomfortable in the life of limitation. In spite of all that this world can offer, when the soul experiences the highest degree of pain it refuses everything in order to fly from the spheres of the earth, and seek the spheres of liberty and that freedom which is the soul's destination. There is a longing hidden beneath all the other longings which man has, and that longing is freedom. This longing is sometimes satisfied by walking in the solitude, in the woods, when one is left alone for a time, when one is fast asleep, when even dreams do not trouble one; and when one is in meditation, in which for a moment the activities of body and mind are both suspended. Therefore the sages have preferred solitude, and have always shown love for nature; and they have adopted meditation as the method of attaining that goal which is the freedom of the soul.

There are five spheres of which the soul can be conscious. What are these spheres? They are the different shells, each shell having its own world.

The first sphere of which man becomes conscious after his birth on earth is Nasut, a sphere which is commonly known as the physical plane. How are the comforts and discomforts of this sphere experienced? By the medium of the physical body; and when there is something wrong with an organ of the senses the soul is deprived of that particular experience that it would like to have on this physical plane. The physical body is susceptible to all changes of climate and becomes dependent in its experience and expression, thus making the soul dependent and limited. Therefore, with all the riches that the world can give, man, who is only conscious of this sphere is limited. 'God is free from all wants, it is ye that are needy,' says the Quran.

When the soul is born on earth its first expression is a cry. Why does it cry? Because it finds itself in a new place which is all strange to it. It finds itself in captivity, which it has not experienced before. Every person, every object is new, and is something foreign to this soul; but soon this condition passes away. Soon the senses of the infant become acquainted with the outer life which so continually attracts its attention. It first becomes interested in breathing the air of the world, then in hearing the sounds, and then in seeing the objects before it; then in touching them and then its taste develops. The more familiar the soul becomes with this physical world the more interested it becomes; though sometimes it shows homesickness in the fits of crying that it so often has during its infancy. It is not always illness; it is not always that it is crying for things outside. No doubt, as it grows it longs for things outside itself; but it often cries from the feeling of having been removed from a place which was more pleasant and comfortable, and having come to a foreign land of which it knows so little. It is this which causes the infant to have fits of crying.

https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/I/I_III_2.htm

[guest88]

I have actually had such a vision of a past life episode that qued me into where i had been in the past with a woman i was then seeing. I was standing in a laundromat talking on the phone with her when suddenly before my open eyes i saw a large old nite club with wooden seats, wooden circular tables and the place was closed and i was walking thru it to see her. By observation of the furniture I was able to decipher that I was looking into the distant past. I could see the golden light of the sun shining through the windows and the rays were shining across the room. All this I saw before my open eyes standing in a laundromat. Her parents owned the place that I saw in the vision.

In this way you may consider what Paramahansa Yogananda was speaking about when he spoke of a vision of either the past or future being dropped and projected into awareness  as ‘semi-conscious dreams or visions with either open or closed eyes in daylight or at night.’

Wow Steve that is an amazing experience! I think I've experienced something similar but not as potent with the visuals. My friend who introduced me to Gurunath was standing over my shoulder once talking to me. I was crouched down arranging some items on a shelf. When he spoke his voice sounded completely different for a brief moment and I had this feeling like we were friends from a long, long time ago. I 'knew' this other voice from somewhere else. The 'feeling'(or vision) aside from the temporary auditory 'hallucination' was- I was crouched(as I was positioned in that waking moment) but I was up against a house and though I couldn't see the house I felt it was a old village structure maybe clay-like material and bright dirt under our feet. I was outside(although in real life I was inside) and there was a feeling like we were very playful and brotherly towards one another. In that moment, the feeling was we cared for each other. I wonder, in your vision, if there was any feelings you could recall or what might have triggered that memory.

[guest88]

Even the Yogi's aim is liberation, God-immersion, which is a life not focused on karma or reincarnation but of progress towards perfection- not by 'self-improvement' but by 'self-realization', which requires a wider-field of vision- understanding a truer essence renouncing once established identifications derived from Ego. Kriya-yoga is the alchemy of 'total transformation.'

If someone asked me why I do not say plainly what happens in the hereafter, whether we come back to earth or whether we go on somewhere else, I would answer, 'What you consider yourself to be I do not consider you to be; what you are in your view, you are not in mine. If I speak according to my view it will confuse you just now; you must develop to that plane where I see you. The way in which you consider yourself is an elementary way; now it is a reality to you, but there will come a time when you will realize it was nothing but imagination.' How can I give my opinion to someone to whom it is incomprehensible? Therefore the way of the Sufi is silence.

Sufism is not against reincarnation nor against any particular doctrine. Why should it be, since it is a religion which has come to reconcile religions? It is not the idea of a Sufi to oppose any doctrine. I have never spoken against this doctrine of reincarnation, as I do not see the wrong of it; but neither do I see the right of it. When the purpose is the realization of the unity of life, of the unity of God, then the idea of reincarnation, which is based upon the false ego, is not fruitful. Sufism wants to teach man what he is; as soon as man has solved that question he need no longer ask, 'What will my actions do for me?' It is the question of what one is that Sufism wants to solve. At the same time what is apparent is different from what is hidden. Is a man who is born in a palace being rewarded, or is the man who is perhaps starving in the street being punished?

What has Christ brought? Salvation. What has Muhammad brought? Najat, salvation. What have the Avatars of the Hindus brought? Mukti, salvation. One always finds the same thing, salvation. That is why it is preferable to keep away from the doctrine of reincarnation and to hold before our vision the ideal of unity, the ideal in which we are united and in which lies the fulfillment of life.

Can we then, one may ask, reach salvation in this life? Evolution is different for every soul, but man can generally reach salvation if he sincerely and earnestly wishes it and pursues it. Not only is God all-powerful, but man has a part of this power too. Salvation is in the hand of God, but also in the hand of man. In the wish of man there is the wish of God; the courage of man is the courage of God, and in the confidence of man there is the confidence of God. When we say, as it is written in the Bible, 'Thy Will be done', and at the same time we realize that our wish and our will are not apart from the divine Will, then our will will be done too. But if we do not wish for salvation just now, we will not reach it; for it is necessary as it is said in the Bible to knock at the door; then the answer comes. There is nothing in the world that is unattainable for man, who is made the Khalif, the ruler, of the kingdom of God; there is nothing that is impossible. No doubt there are things which are difficult, and yet there is no difficulty which cannot be overcome. If man only had the courage, he would reach that source where his origin is.

https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VIIIa/VIIIa_2_14.htm

[guest88]

Thinking more on this original post this morning... could it really be that the planet or even the local universe has its own karma? Inayat Khan has quoted a persian dervish saying something like, a twig riding the waves of the ocean mistakenly thinks for it alone the waves rise or fall. Given that these bodies are suited for this planet, are we not at times experiencing the ups and downs together subject to the unseen rhythms of the planet...? But then, maybe Spirit manifest those waves for the Soul, so us little twigs might not be so mistaken in thinking the ocean rises and falls for us? Could this universe, made manifest by Spirit, be for souls who accept Its unique offerings or require particular experience from this dream?