Reincarnation

[Davidsun]

Most ‘Christians’ still don’t ‘see’ that the passage: “His disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias [the Greek transliteration of the name Elijah] must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.” (Matthew 17:10-13) clearly indicates that Jesus personally ‘saw’ John the Baptist as having been the (prophesied) reincarnation of Elias. And, because they haven’t read and so haven’t thought about what’s been clearly stated in historical accounts pertaining to early developments in Christianity as a social movement for the same reason, said ‘Christians’ remain unaware of the fact that, like Jesus, many of early Christianity’s members (Origen being just one prominent example) also embraced the idea of reincarnation and understood it to reference a phenomenal aspect of Life’s process. So ‘Christians’ generally still continue to ignore and dismiss the implications of the fact that belief in reincarnation was only declared to be anathema by the Fifth General Council of the Church in 553 C.E. in the course of the Roman Catholic Church Hierarchy’s ongoing quest to establish itself as a centralized, “Souls have only one ‘chance’ of getting into ‘Heaven’ and that is by way of giving absolute credence to what we say the truth pertaining to Jesus and his teachings is and unquestioningly obeying our edicts in said regard during their (presumptively, then) one and only earthly life” dictatorial authority.

My own understanding deriving from what I have heard as well as read on the subject is that, analogous to the way it takes many years of ‘schooling’ wherein initially ignorant and unskilled novices are tasked with learning and given the opportunity to master increasingly complex ‘lessons’ and thereby, upon ‘passing’ greater adeptitude-demanding ‘tests’, progress through a series of ‘grade’ levels to the point where they finally ‘graduate’ from vocational training programs and schools of knowledge, it takes numerous physical lifetimes for ‘young’ souls to become masterfully adept at deploying their ‘inner’ Love and Joy ‘program’ in relation to Life and others in it in the context of the infinite psychospiritual possibility containing ‘stream’ of sometimes mind-n-spirit sparking opportunities and sometimes mind-n-spirit daunting challenges that are encountered in the course of living in a matrixially multi-layered, complexly interwoven physiosocial system such as ours.

I wonder what the views of others here are pertaining to the issue of reincarnation and ‘soul’ growth and development leading to ‘ascension’; that is, the possibility of ultimately becoming completely spiritualized (in the sense of ‘eternal life’ experiencing) beings. I don't hear 'Christians' talking about this even though this was what Jesus often talked about as a possibility (in my opinion based on his word, at least).

[Davidsun]

I posted this in response to a meme by Rev. Caleb out out Progressive Christianity's FB Feed.

"Everybody's in, Nobody's out" is an over-simplistic, feel-good fantasy, IMO. The FACT is that there are people who 'descend' into being UNloving and UNjoyful, who, unless they 'reverse' course, since LIFE _is_ an ex-press-ion of Love and Joy , ultimately 'spiral' into Spiritual Death. For those who believe in 'reincarnation', _stop_ Living (spiritually speaking), because there is _no_ 'kernel' of Love and Joy left _to_ reincarnate. Those who 'hide' this FACT from themselves, by electing to live in the above 'feel-good' fantasy are basically _avoiding_ grappling with the implications of the FACT that _some_ 'make it' to 'heaven' (spiritually speaking) and others don't. Their's is a 'Pollyanna' religion, IMO.

Anyone out there who wants to conversationally CONFRONT this issue? 😎

[tariki]

6 hours ago, Davidsun said:

I posted this in response to a meme by Rev. Caleb out out Progressive Christianity's FB Feed.

"Everybody's in, Nobody's out" is an over-simplistic, feel-good fantasy, IMO. The FACT is that there are people who 'descend' into being UNloving and UNjoyful, who, unless they 'reverse' course, since LIFE _is_ an ex-press-ion of Love and Joy , ultimately 'spiral' into Spiritual Death. For those who believe in 'reincarnation', _stop_ Living (spiritually speaking), because there is _no_ 'kernel' of Love and Joy left _to_ reincarnate. Those who 'hide' this FACT from themselves, by electing to live in the above 'feel-good' fantasy are basically _avoiding_ grappling with the implications of the FACT that _some_ 'make it' to 'heaven' (spiritually speaking) and others don't. Their's is a 'Pollyanna' religion, IMO.

Anyone out there who wants to conversationally CONFRONT this issue? 😎

Well, not with you. Sorry. The upshot/implication of your opinion is simply that salvation is of "works" and not the work (!) of God (aka Yahweh, Allah, Old Nobodaddy etc etc etc, or as I would say, Reality-as-is) So get on with your works, good luck, hope you make it to the higher spheres where you can bask in peace and love forever, untroubled by those who never made it. 

David Bentley Hart, in his "That All Shall Be Saved" is, for me, fairly definitive on this subject. All WILL make it. That is the will of God as pronounced in Scripture. The eventual restoration of ALL THINGS "in Christ". As taught by many of the Early Church Fathers.

"And all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well"

All the best to you. You are free to reply in your own rather boring and over complex manner, but I'll give it a miss. And you are of course again free to once again express your opinion of me.

Bye

 

 

[Davidsun]

6 hours ago, tariki said:

Bye, Tariki. I recognize that many think. feel and believe that 'all' will be 'saved' and I appreciate your taking the trouble to state your disagreement with my thesis.

In relation to this world in which 'all things must pass', the 'spark that started 'Christianity', Jesus hiimself, said: "yada, yada ... All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall … many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure [by keeping on keeping on being loving in relation to Life’s Flow and others in it!, IMO] unto the end, the same shall be saved.” (Matthew 24:6-13); the implication here IMO clearly also being that those who don’t ‘endure’ (so) won’t be ‘saved’ in this regard. ‘[Saved’, as used here, meaning psychospiritually sustained and retained as soulful components of Life’s Flow despite the complete reshuffling of all of the physiosocial ‘cards’ in Life’s worldly ‘deck’ taking place as a historically ‘old’ Way of Life ‘dies’.]

I am just going with what Jesus said, not what the folks you are going with think

I am truly 'sorry' that you find my way of expressing myself 'boring', etc, That alone precludes us from being friends.
 

 

 

 

[Davidsun]

Yogananda on soul development;

"Don't depend on death to liberate you from your imperfections. You are exactly the same after death as you were before. Nothing changes; you only give up the body. If you are a thief or a liar or a cheater before death, you don't become an angel merely by dying. If such were possible, then let us all go and jump in the ocean now and become angels at once! Whatever you have made of yourself thus far, so will you be hereafter. And when you reincarnate, you will bring that same nature with you. To change, you have to make the effort. This world is the place to do it." -- Read more: https://www.yogananda.com.au/gurus/yoganandaquotes07c.html

[Davidsun]

17 hours ago, Davidsun said:

Whatever you have made of yourself thus far, so will you be hereafter. And when you reincarnate, you will bring that same nature with you. To change, you have to make the effort. This world is the place to do it."

Speaking of 'growing' further in the above regard, I have reached the point where I more or less simply pray that whatever soul or souls my attention happens to focus on _receives_ whatever experience(s) would best stimulate/trigger its or their 'higher' soul-actualization and development - same prayer for everyone whether I 'like' them (based on my hierarchy of values) or not. And I aspire to 'act' in accord with such prayer when and in whatever ways may be personally possible, recognizing that such possibilities do not always exist.

[William]

I'm open to the idea. I've given it some thought recently. I was considering the idea that perhaps there are long periods of spiritual development where souls incarnate on earth.  perhaps several thousands of years?  And then there is an "end of the age" where there is a "harvest."  If you developed spiritually, you will be sent to the heavenly realm. I'm sure spiritual development continues after everything on earth can be experienced.  And then some people end up in less than desirable places (not permanently) if they reject love and understanding.  And then maybe there is another several thousand years where new souls and souls that are "held back" continue to incarnate on earth.  It's a theory that I come back to once in awhile. 

Edited November 11 by William
added more commentary.

[Davidsun]

16 hours ago, William said:

... If you developed spiritually, you will be SENT to the heavenly realm. ...

... souls that are "held back" continue to incarnate ...

The only thing you got WRONG (IMO) in the above regard, William is the IDEA of an OUTSIDE 'force' that SENDS and/or HOLDS souls BACK. This is LIKE thinking/saying that 'south pole' of a magnet 'forces' the 'north pole' on another to come towards it. THE FACT is that souls 'go' in  the 'direction' of and to the 'places' that their SPIRIT 'gravitates' and/or 'aspires' TOWARD by virtue of THEIR OWN (inherent!) POWER. Everything and everyone is SPIRITually 'SELF' directing, in other word.

This is not an IDEA that most people are comfortable embracing - because most people WANT to 'believe' in 'just' and 'benign'  SUPER daddy or SUPER mommy running the show - the IDEA of PERSONAL response-ABILITY 'scares' them no end! 😯

From my (freely downloadable from (freely downloadable click here for FULL pdf) book titled Godspeak 2000:

"2:9  Even the simplest cases of what’s called gravitational attraction provide perfect illustration, if viewed without prejudice. Bodies of matter-energy must move themselves, for nothing really pushes or pulls them one towards the other. And they must perceive both presence and relative location, else they could not attempt to move as they do, with an acceleration pro­portionate to the mass and proximity and in the direction of coexisting others.

2:10  Electromagnetic and nuclear interactions, where repulsion occurs as well, are additionally revealing. Ongoing scientific investigation has led us to understand the fact that sense perceptions are basically ‘gross’ acknowledgments, and that everything is fundamentally a wave-form and nothing is actually solid at core.a So, besides there being no substantive means to constitutionally link those bodies which form conglomerates, there is no real ‘boundary’ that so called objects bump into when they apparently bounce off one another. The only inference this permits, if one has enough courage and faith in Life not to invent extrinsic agency as a false postulate, is that the movements that bodies make and the stations they take result from the impulses and choices of discerning, autogenic ‘interiors’.

2:11  The direction and purpose of such inherent power and intentionality can be deduced from the cumulation and trend of results which have so far occurred. Pro­gressively, the creative essence of Being has conspired to form an array of what, because of our material orientation, we’ve called ‘sub-atomic particles’; these have interacted and engaged in such ways as to produce ‘electrons’, ‘protons’ and ‘neutrons’ which, in turn, have combined to create the various ‘atoms’ and ‘molecules’ we have become familiar with; and these, through more concerted effort, have coalesced into cellular and multi-cellular units, in stages, generating ever more complex aggregations of body,a mind and spirit—the whole hierarchy and procession we know as Life.

2:12  In ascending sequence, with prior developments integrated and built upon, ‘bodies’ have become more coordinated, ‘spirits’ more potent, ‘minds’ more perceptive, resident Intelligence more designful and adept. Even what some call ‘simple’ single-celled organisms are architectural masters capable of cognizing, culling and compiling environ­mental ingredients so as to reproduce themselves and further their particular line of development. Each succeeding level of integration further demonstrates the aim of the impetus inherent within all being—that is, to seek and establish cooperative affiliation with suitable others in order to enhance creativity and increase the degree of intelligent actualization."

Edited November 12 by Davidsun
typos

[William]

1 hour ago, Davidsun said:

2:9  Even the simplest cases of what’s called gravitational attraction provide perfect illustration, if viewed without prejudice....

I appreciate what you are saying. I have read books that connect the spiritual with scientific ideas and it was an important thing for me at the time.  I love scientific exploration of ideas. I like looking up quotes by Einstein and other scientific thinkers because I sometimes see a humanistic spirituality in their words. I still try to apply some logic to my spirituality as Plato did when he speculated about how things work. I think our ability to reason about such things is important and we need to explore many possibilities because ultimately...we don't know if any of it can ever be proven (until we pass away ourselves).  

I want to say that it is not my intention to try and "one up" anyone's views on the afterlife because we are all in the same boat as it were.  We will have opinions that some consider scientific or what some may consider superstitious. I think many of us need to get away from patriarchal ideas and any suggestion that our soul might be "judged" by anyone is not going to be agreeable to some of us.  It's fine. Judgement isn't such a good word but I think there are at least beings who are helping us figure out our development. And in any project where people move forward, there has to be some measure of where one was, where one is, and where one is going.  The idea that some kind of karmic gravitational force helps is another way to see it, but this gravitational force would have to either coincidentally be working to benefit our spiritual development or be designed to do such a thing.  (Some belief systems can account for this state of things without any deity or some other ideas). To reduce any higher power in this equation to a "sky daddy" might not be beneficial.  I think even Plato broke with conventional thinking about what most Greeks believed about the pantheon of gods. He thought that the myths and stories about Zeus and his family were often problematic because they depicted them as less than virtuous.  But he did think that there were "gods" nontheless and they were virtuous beings who were more closely connected to his theory of "the Good".  And Plato's "Good" has things in common with Paul Tillich's "Ground of All Being" and the Buddhist idea of "Dharmakaya."  I bring those up because I think they illustrate that there are ways in which a standard for virtue might exist without a personal deity that some will object to.

It was nice reading some of your ideas on the topic and I hope I didn't get to contentious in my response. It's something to think about.  You are doing Plato's work by theorizing on the idea and following a train of logic. I respect that, even if I am not convinced that it is entirely correct.  But maybe I'm wrong. 

Edited November 12 by William
edited for tone and clarity