#46

Have you ever thought about reincarnation and the idea of ancient love? It’s a bit out there for most westerners to think about. Just hearing the idea itself causes a bit of dissonance in one’s preconcieved notions of how the world really is. It seems so far out there, doesn’t it? What? reincarnation? What a bullshit idea. But it’s quite a bit more logical once you start looking at it and examining some of the ideas and teachings behind it. But the word just seems so…strange. Reincarnation. That’s still a big leap. Why does it exist? How is it possible? Why does it happen?

Samsara. Samara means literally ‘wandering on.’ When it’s used it’s usually referring to this world, to life and to reincarnation. It’s what we’re doing right now as people…’wandering on.’ Just the state of things as they are. The basic tenent of this is simple. We’re all souls, everlasting because we flow from God or some sort of creative force or creative conciousness. Where it comes from is debateable. The simple fact of the matter is we come from somewhere; we, and indeed the world itself, have roots in some sort of creationary energy. For simplicity I’m going to call it God from now on. God, in this sense, is formless. Aspects of God then flow into creation in the ways they are meant to. Perhaps this is just because that is what they are or something these forces prefer naturally (like electriciy and conductivity) or perhaps it’s because they’re designed especially to do so. Whichever the case might be, they flow into forms and into things and they begin create the world itself. The ‘rock’ aspect of god becomes rock. The water aspect becomes water. Wind becomes wind, etc etc. Interesting parallel to make here; this is, perhaps, why we can relate to things like water and to animals and to the things around us. If we all came from the same thing, everything is just a different expression of the same and thus we can relate. If things were totally utterly alien to us, then we couldn’t. But back on task. Everything is created that way. But it’s important to note that there are many, many, many variations on similar things. There isn’t just one rock, is there? No, of course not. There are hundreds of different types of rocks, there are thousands upon thousands of variations within those types. So much variation, so much difference, all because of minor differences in the creative energy that creates the world. The same goes for animals and for people. Overall we are the same thing, we’re similar and feel the same sorts of things (like sorrow, anger, happiness) but at the same time we’re all different. Sometimes differences aren’t so big. I relate a great deal to my loved ones…we’re often almost two sides of the same coin; one and the same. On the other hand I’m so utterly unlike a lot of the more common sort of person around me. Just differences in perception.

Simple so far…makes sense so far. The next step is to try to understand conciousness. Conciousness itself is much more difficult to define and there really isn’t any real explanation for why we are, despite many good theories. Perhaps we were designed to be for some special reason that is, as of yet, beyond us. Perhaps it’s merely the nature of the creative energy to have an aspect of self-conciousness. Perhaps we are because we need to be to achieve the natural aspirations of what it is to be us. We’re much more complex than a streak of lightning…perhaps where it does not need much to achieve it’s design, function or goal, we need it, and thus we developed it. At any rate, we’re concious.

With those two things in mind….now we can look at the world around us and we can begin to think. If we were created in this way, what happens when we die? In science it has been +/- proven that matter cannot be created nor destroyed; you can only change it’s form. What if the same was for the soul? That when we died, we’re only changing the soul’s form and then we wander around some until we’re pushed (or, far more likely, move ourselves) into another body or living thing? That seems like it’s stretching, but it’s not that far out there. We’re concious of the things around us and of sensations; we know they are there. Why? Not because of the brain, nor because of anything else physical; science has no idea where our soul, and thus, our ‘conciousness’ is as far as physicality goes. Thus, because our soul is concious and cannot ‘die’ per se as it can only change forms as with everything else in the world, it looks back on the world and it desires. It wants things, it wants to achieve something, it wants to feel again like it was to have a body, it wants this, that, whatever. Because it wants these things, the soul then pushes itself back into another body in order to do these things and is then reborn. To give a bit more detail, I’ll quote wikipedia: “After many births, every person eventually becomes dissatisfied with the limited happiness that worldly pleasures can bring. At this point, a person begins to seek higher forms of happiness, which can be attained only through spiritual experience. When, after much spiritual practice (sādhanā), a person finally realizes his or her own divine nature—ie., realizes that the true “self” is the immortal soul rather than the body or the ego—all desires for the pleasures of the world will vanish, since they will seem insipid compared to spiritual ānanda. When all desire has vanished, the person will not be reborn anymore.”

Another fun fact: this is why buddism and hinduism believe that non-feeling and non-desire is the way out of this eternal cycle. Without desiring things of the earth and without wanting to achieve new things in this realm, our souls don’t go back to it because it is not their desire to.

Another issue: Well if this is true, then why are there more people on the world now then before? Shouldn’t there be less because people are eventually moving out of reincarnation? There are a couple ways to address this, but the most logical, in my opinion, is this one. God and the creative force is not gone; if it was gone then the world wouldn’t exist. Perhaps it’s merely God generating more of the creative force that composes people and thus there are more in the world. This would also explain why the universe is expanding as well at a very fast clip (look up stephan hawking and the theory of everything for more info on that).

Another idea: What is it like to be out of the cycle? What happens then? There are many ideas about that. Wikipedia has some of the answers, once again (keep in mind that there are many more, though). “For example, followers of the Advaita Vedanta school of hinduism believe that they will spend eternity absorbed in the perfect peace and happiness that comes with the realization that all existence is One, and that the immortal soul is part of that existence. Thus they will no longer identify themselves as individual persons, but will see the “self” as a part of the infinite ocean of divinity, described as sat-chit-ananda (existence-knowledge-bliss). The followers of full or partial Dvaita schools on the other hand, perform their worship with the goal of spending eternity in a loka, (spiritual world or heaven), in the blessed company of the Supreme being. A follower of one school may believe that both types of salvation are possible, but will simply have a personal preference to experience one or the other. Thus, it i

s said, the followers of Dvaita wish to “taste sugar,” while the followers of Advaita wish to “become sugar.””

And with that in place, what about fate? Fate could be many things. It could be what God has designed us to be, our natural state of being, or it could be a direct result of our conciousnessness and our interactions with the world around us or a combination thereof.

Fate isn’t as absolute as people seem to think it is, either. Many people don’t like the fact that it seems like, if there is fate, that there is no choice and that they have no control. But that’s not it at all, you have every bit of control…things just happen the way they do because of the very things that make you, you. Fate is the choice you’ll make every time because that it is what you’ll choose. Does that make your choices irrelevant? No, it makes them that much more important…if fate is based on your choices and why you make them, then is not fate also based on your own choices as well? It’s what you choose. Your fate is what you choose to live. It’s YOUR fate and it’s what YOU choose. It’s just how you’ll probably always choose based on the combination of factors that make you who you are. So even if God ‘wired’ you to do what he wanted you to do, it’s still because you choose to do so (even if it is just him compelling you to do so because of how you’re wired).

So then, if that is how fate is, what about love? What about fated love? Is there such a thing? I’m not sure. I’m thinking about it though. It could explain a lot of things logically, though. Why you sometimes totally fall for someone you barely know (perhaps because you’re both wired for it to happen that way). Why you can sometimes just know and feel and understand where your mate is physically, emotionally and spiritually. Why you can just sense some things about certain people around you. Perhaps it’s because you’ve had interactions with that person before in a past life and your two souls entwined with each other to the point that they both rubbed off on the other and left a powerful, yet somewhat distorted and blurry psychic memory of them (a lot like your collective unconcious functions, actually). And if this is there, then when it comes up in the future it’s like WHAM! and it hits you like a bus and you just know. You just know. It’s a very interesting thing to think about….I’ve been considering it a lot and considering my own actions and my own feelings about where I am and how things are. Perhaps…hrm. Who knows. If I come up with more I’ll write it down. Be seeing you.

And as one last side note, I’m very very happy things chilled out out here. I don’t usually lose control like that. Glad it was just one night and that I was able to mostly sleep it off. That’s ALWAYS good. I just wanted to be held damnit, heh. I dunno. Maybe I should just find a friend to have a pseudo-relationship with. But I’ve already thought about that and I know where THAT’S going so maybe I should just shut the hell up about it and stop considering it. I always come to the same conclusion anyway. And anyway, I’m just babbling now and detracting from the topic at hand so I’m gonna go. Take care everyone.