A respected acquaintance noted his belief in reincarnation. Got me thinking: First, what about several other scenarios?: One, dissolve into the Great Becoming-ness, having contributed your life to that process, adding a little creativity here, posing a bit of a problem there, perhaps giving to the becoming-ness of children and grandchildren, directly or indirectly. Weeds grow too. So even your mistakes and blind spots have served as challenges to the growth of some others. A percentage of your efforts have turned sour, and so it is for everyone. Get over it. Being guilty when it\u2019s way too late does not further. Many of your efforts have had positive effects far beyond your knowing about them, sometimes directly, often more indirectly. You brightened the day of someone who then brightened the day of someone who did something really good because of that slight encouragement or inspiration. It happens that way a lot.<\/p>\n
Our efforts are often aggregate: Not just in voting\u2014that one vote that made the difference\u2014, but also in the force of a trend, a movement, in keeping going, the energy of a collective: These streams have their own dynamic thrust. Sometimes there needs to be six waves of a trend before it builds enough energy to break through and you\u2019ve only been part of the second wave. Don\u2019t be disheartened. Have faith in the ideal and let go\u2014there\u2019s a whole lot more going on that you have any control over, or that you could ever begin to know or understand.<\/p>\n
Do I as \u201cme\u201d with my personal telephone number, address, facial features, body, identity\u2014do \u2018I\u2019 really need<\/em> to last forever<\/em>? Wouldn\u2019t that get boring? Might much of the me-ness dissolve and it would be best for all a century from now? <\/p>\n Okay, so the non-dissolved individuality lives on. How long? Can it stay as an assistant to the assistant angel who looks after our loved ones? For how long? Dare you ask yourself that question? How long would truly be rewarding, and after that it might get boring, or disillusioning, or painful? Those we love don\u2019t always take life paths that we would approve of. What happens then to their guardian angels?<\/p>\n But \u201cI\u201d want to live on! Well, let\u2019s look at that: There are several parts to that sentence. The biggest is \u201cwant\u201d as in \u201cdesire.\u201d Although your want seems vivid enough, is it really more valid than when you were a child and you really craved that \u201ctoy\u201d that your momma wouldn\u2019t buy for you?<\/p>\n The other key to that line, \u201cI want to live on\u201d is the illusion of \u201cI.\u201d I don\u2019t doubt that it feels really real to you, and it certainly does to me, my \u2018I,\u2019\u2014 but then again the world really seems flat and it doesn\u2019t seem like the earth goes around the sun\u2014it seems the other way. Seeming<\/em> is a powerful illusion, and the fact\u2014truly a fact\u2014is that our experience is laced by illusions: It\u2019s an illusion that our<\/em> pace is normal and everything else is too fast or slow. To us air seems empty, but to a butterfly, it\u2019s more like water. It doesn\u2019t seem as if a thousand variables are relative but they are. Why should the idea that \u201cI\u201d am be less illusory?<\/p>\n As for reincarnation, what about the following alternatives?: When we die part of our personality continues and if called upon\u2014and only if called upon\u2014enters the psyche as one of many other components in a rebirth; or influences others as an angel. Thus a widow may experience vividly the presence of her husband.<\/p>\n What if the spirit does hang around for a few years or even decades but then fades? The less you\u2019re remembered, the more \u201cyou\u201d fade. What if that\u2019s okay? Hey, no sweat. What if there are other adventures to be had? And what if you don\u2019t need to feel that you\u2019re the same person as before in order to enjoy?<\/p>\n Or, really, what is so horrible about sleeping and not being? And knowing that others are doing lots of being and discovering, stumbling and fussing and fighting? What if there\u2019s a trade-off? You don\u2019t get to live in the future combined with the recognition that it\u2019s highly possible that you as you would hate living in the future. It would be hell! You have absorbed far too many of the norms of your own worldview and era to make the adjustment without great pain, and you deceive yourself in thinking it would be fun and easy. I mean, even the prospect of moving to another country isn\u2019t fun for lots of people!<\/p>\n Shakespeare, through the mouth of Hamlet in his famous \u201cTo be or not to be\u201d soliloquy, muses that death might be nice—but for the fear of something after death. He hints at the then-dominant fear of Divine punishment for suicide, not ready yet to dismiss that possibility.<\/p>\n And so forth. Oh, the problems of the theory of reincarnation are many. And the pay-off, that in some diluted, stripped-down, unspoken way \u201cyou\u201d would be re-born and it would be less painful than if you were not reborn\u2014that\u2019s appealing\u2014well, maybe, but perhaps we would need to break it down: No magical thinking here: What specifically would you be able to let go of and still preserve your essential self?<\/p>\n So that\u2019s my thinking on this myth so far. Intelligent comments are welcome. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A respected acquaintance noted his belief in reincarnation. Got me thinking: First, what about several other scenarios?: One, dissolve into the Great Becoming-ness, having contributed your life to that process, adding a little creativity here, posing a bit of a problem there, perhaps giving to the becoming-ness of children and grandchildren, directly or indirectly. Weeds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,13,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-papers","category-spirituality-and-philosophy","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":801,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions\/801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}