Reincarnation @ MindSay

From the beginning of time man has wondered about what lies beyond the doors of death. Fearful of the "unknown" he has reached into his deepest imagination trying to find what lies beyond the boundaries of this life.
Some envision a life reincarnate in another body but with the same spirit or life essence.
Others envision a great deity waiting to judge and condemn you to an eternity of darkness and pain in a lake of fire or an eternity of paradise with no pain or sorrow. Still others see an army of ghosts destined to walk the earth haunting those who remain.
But today I want to pose to you this question: What if there is no "after life" of any kind? What if death is the end, your over and done, kaput, finished, your parking meter expired for good? then what ? What would this mean?
Maybe thoughts of an after life aren't so healthy. Maybe they cause you to procrastinate, to postpone really living this life to it's fullest?
I hear others speaking of how wonderful heavens going to be, and how they can't wait to be with Jesus! But to you I pose this question. If you believe in Jesus and what he taught do you not believe he is with you now? And if your savior and you are one in the spirit isn't your heaven here and now?
And those who are waiting for the "next life " to be perfected as in reincarnation, I say whats a matter with perfecting yourself now? can't you get started in this life to be the best you can be and do the best you can do?
If there is no after life you may be throwing your one and only chance to truly live away on a  a bet or a gamble.
I think you should live this life like it's the only one you have or ever will have. See it as your one chance to get things right, to make your mark, to live and love and experience all life has to offer!
Maybe each second would seem more precious, each kiss, each hug a priceless treasure. Maybe we would walk more slowly, listen more carefully, love more deeply and laugh more often. Maybe we would be slow to anger and quick to love. If a war meant dying forever, never seeing your sons or daughters or family again, maybe then it would not seem so heroic and noble.
My challenge to you is this. For the next week think about your life as being from now till the day you die and nothing beyond that point. Today or tomorrow could be your last day...forever. How do you want to "live " it?

Lazy Cat~

we have had rain for three days now and it is a joy to behold. with temperatures in the nineties I had been watering plants twice a day and  the larger trees were beginning to suffer. But now we are back to what typical fall weather should be and even if we have another mini heat wave the plants have been nurtured by the skies for almost half a week. What kind of signs are virgo libra? surely I must have water in there some how. if you believed that sort of thing.


My sister in law gave me a book by Yalom who is an existential psychotherapist... it's a bout death anxiety- of which I have enough to give me the shivers. and reading it it helped me formulate my irrational beliefs.

You see I believe we have two deaths. one is the physical one. which one remains fully aware of whiule and after it is happening. and so the ease of death or the people with you is very important. and then there is the death or at least the dispersal of the soul. I dont believe in a heaven or hell, I believe that  that portion i call the "soul" gets transported into another life and has awareness until it enters that other life at which time all prior consciousness is erased and the cycle begins again.  And what your soul enters depends on the karma created  during this life.  That part of the belief gestalt is very nice because if my karma is good I come back in human form.. more evolved than this one and have a chance to get it even better next time around.

what worries me is that small  in between time, before one loses consciousness of THIS life and gets erased for the next life one gets... and what if during that interim the awareness is acute? I mean I surely do not want to be buried and slowly decompose and have worms coming out of my eye sockets - sorry if this sounds like a bad Roger Corman film. So because of this crazy belief I would prefer cremation or burial at sea. Cremation would be very creepy at first  but your soul would get out faster because of the heat--- go ahead and laygh- this  IS funny- but burial at sea is a nicer idea. Of course only the very important get buried at sea unless I am lucky enough to die in a plane crash over water or on a sinking boat ( thank you to the spousal unit for pointing this out as I shared my worries with him)

Any way-- for those who do not believe in heaven or hell and also do not believe that there is nothingness after---- how do you reconcile this in between time. Oh I always hoped it was like Emily in Our Town and short period of intense sorry as we say good by to the life we have had and then settle into the resolution that the pain and recognition will resolve and evaporate... but what if it isn't?  see?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/

 

Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

 

At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks. "It will be a very hot issue," says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar at Stanford. "The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of unity and national identity in Tibet, and so it's quite likely the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than the others."

 

So where in the world will the next Dalai Lama be born? Harrison and other Buddhism scholars agree that it will likely be from within the 130,000 Tibetan exiles spread throughout India, Europe and North America. With an estimated 8,000 Tibetans living in the United States, could the next Dalai Lama be American-born? "You'll have to ask him," says Harrison. If so, he'll likely be welcomed into a culture that has increasingly embraced reincarnation over the years. According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 20 percent of all U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view. A non-Tibetan Dalai Lama, experts say, is probably out of the question.

The Buddhists have it wrong

People talk about India as though you must necessarily have a spiritual journey if you go there. They are not exactly incorrect—but they do not realize that wherever you go, it is a spiritual journey. The most spiritual journey of all is to search inside yourself. India isn’t special in that way—or not as special as people make it seem. It is only that religious thought is closer to the surface here. Every man on the street is a closet philosopher, it sometimes seems.

For example: one of my teachers talked about taking driving school here and being told to drive directly down the line in the road to “center her car.” I’ve been thinking a lot since our talk on Buddhism yesterday. It was review for me—nothing new. I remember what a revelation it was for me at sixteen, my first year in college, to hear thoughts I’d had all my life written down as a “major religion” I had never before been told that there were other religions than Christianity—which I most decidedly did NOT believe in. Since then, I have always been very interested in Buddhist thought. Later, perhaps, I will say baldly what my own faith is—or perhaps you can infer it from these pages. I have “my own” belief system which has been worked out over the course of my lifetime, the major features of with I just somehow “knew” in childhood. As a reincarnationist, I can give you an easy explanation for this—but I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader should he be so inclined. I wonder if I am—or was, rather—Indian. I have often wondered why I was born so far away from beliefs which I found straightforward and sane. Why I was born into power and privilege inherited because of something as stupid as my skin color. I wondered this until I realized that with this power comes a terrible duty: to help, help as much as I can--and to avoid doing harm or causing suffering with that power.
   
Yesterday, on the way back from visiting several Buddhist temples, I got into a discussion about American Politics and the general turn our country is taking (save it—this discussion isn’t fit for mixed company.) I found myself saying: “YES! That is EXACTLY why I want to flee!” Ever since, I have been thinking about this comment. I don’t think it came out right and it can be too easily misinterpreted. Yes, I DO want to flee--for many reasons, among them to escape an insane power-hungry corrupt government spewing propaganda and the sheep-like lemmings who believe it. This is not the point of my post and I am not inclined to discuss it with anyone who wants to argue. Like many liberals, I love my country and am vehemently patriotic—which is why I am so dismayed at the asinine way we are behaving and the gross abuses of our political power and material wealth. However, the above comment is misleading—for wanting to flee the injustices and horrors of our political system is not a good enough reason to leave—and a huge reason why I (and other sane, educated, people) should stay. If all the good, rational, people leave--who will be left running the “most powerful” country in the world? Obviously this cannot be the answer and will only perpetuate more evil, greater injustices and further atrocities. If I am sworn to help, do as much help as I can and try to end as much suffering as I can assuage—running away is breaking this vow. Yet—I feel so powerless to create positive change that actually makes an impact. But I have to do something—what?
  
These ideas go back to the foundations of my faith. Let me explain a little, if I can. It is something like karma as I understand it. What you give comes back on you and echoes through your lifetimes. I can explain this rationally with physics—though I think of it in much more metaphysical terms. At their base level all things are made up of teeny tiny energy we don’t really understand but which makes up absolutely everything and is both the mover and moved in all things. One energy. All the same thing. We all are a part of One and a part cannot be affected without affecting the rest. Unlike the Buddhists, I do not believe in breaking free from the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. Life, death and rebirth are the natural state of things as the universe has decreed.  What I DO believe in is breaking free from the cycle of harm and therefore suffering. Avoid as much harm as you can, do no intentional harm—and do as much “good” or “help” as you can to make up for the harm you cause inadvertently or cannot avoid. If there is a wrong that you can see—it is your duty to do whatever you can to set things “right.” Provided your actions to set things right do not, in themselves, cause harm. It does not matter if you do not like or know the individuals involved—remember that we are all a part of everything. It makes no sense at all to harm oneself—and is common sense to do good for that self. Minor discomfort to the individual self is unimportant (I’ll reference the “middle-way” as a guide,) but remember that you (as well as everything else) are living temple and incarnation of the All—and act accordingly. One does not do intentional harm to God. Harming oneself to help another makes equally little sense in this regard. Not only that, but it makes whatever further good you could have done impossible and is just as unworthy as doing no help at all. Be conscious so that you may see the help that needs doing as well as how to help without causing harm. The discussion gets a bit tricky when we start to discuss what exactly constitutes “help” or “harm,” this wisdom is the hardest part of this simple philosophy and comes only with time. You WILL make mistakes—and pay for them too. Better to pay cheerfully and willingly than to try to avoid your due and throw things further out of balance. Remember, balance in all things is key. Have faith: the universe moves as it should; you are a part of it and everything else. Live this and good will come to you—even if you do not recognize its value right away, even if it seems uncomfortable. Just do your very best and it WILL be enough.
  
As for wanting to flee the U.S. and come to India: firstly, I love India—home of my heart, mother of my spirit—second, we of the west have much to atone for. If there is a cosmic ledger of help and harm, our column is far into the red and falling fast. A thousand life-times cannot expiate this “sin.” (The only “sin” I know is to cause suffering, especially knowing that you are causing suffering, and or causing it for monetary gain or power.) Don’t we see it is all connected?! To harm another is cutting our own wrists. To harm the environment kills a part of us—and shortly in a way we all will recognize. Intentional harm plucks out our eyes, cuts off our tongues, hobbles our steps, and still we stop our ears against the screams all around—leaving us void! Yet, perhaps, with the power of prestige and birth I did not ask for, perhaps some drop in the cosmic sea of the suffering we have caused can be purified. But how? Perhaps we (I) should leave well enough alone. Certainly it is not for us to direct the course of anyone’s future or “civilize” anyone—how could we when it is we who are rabid beasts fighting over the bones of their culture? What “help” can I give out of love and not arrogance; out of genuine compassion and not ego or guilt?

Perhaps I hope that India herself will show me the way. Teach me how to be, and think, and see. I know this only—follow the heart-path and you cannot go wrong. Stay: this is what my heart is telling me, though I do not yet understand how, or why, or in what capacity. I do not yet know my purpose—may that wisdom come to me so I can stop some of this blundering about and making a mess of things! The beauty (and fearful nature) of the Universe is such that one does not, cannot, understand—one can only listen. Understanding is not meant or possible for small beings such as we. If you can quiet yourself, however, and learn to hear, your heart of hearts—the Universe, the All—will speak. Listen!