A reincarnation question

Who says that there isn't something which carries on after death? Supposedly what dies is the identification with the bodymind, the ego. But supposedly the essence, what some call a soul, does continue. The problem with using the words, "the soul," is that it may take on Christian connotations, whcih presupposes that the character, the ego, the physical body, continue on. The conciousness that continues on may not remember its prior incarnations, but it has been tainted with experience, it has taken on an overall colouring due to desires like lust, murder, love, etc.

I tend to think of it as making a jig saw puzzle, where the piece keeps being cut and sculted so that each subsequent incarnation can only fit certain pieces. Just like a real puzzle, some pieces come very close to fitting another piece, but the colors, or picture, must match the other piece, also.

Karma itself is just reaction and like "in real life" it probably matters very little in the overall scheme of things. Supposedly when one dies one thinks of one's lost true love, and with the mind fixated upon the opposite sex, one is born that sex. Wouldn't it then make sense that Karma should skip incarnations? Or would it make more sense that if one were reckless and murderous, that then one is born a loving mother? Supposedly we have millions of past incarnations. How then is one to pay off all that prior debt? It seems impossible.

 

So.... what your saying is that, since there is no "self" that cannot pass on, however the illusion of self passes on into a next body, where karma affects it.

 

what i think is, each life is set out to give us exactly what we need in order to experience and learn enough to be truly exactly who we really are.

for example... a person who in one life hates christians will be reincarnated in a christian family. a person who is glad not to be mentally retarded will be in their next life. we attract what we don't want until we accept everything that we could possibly be, and understand we already are what we once used to fear becoming. and that's karma. it attracts what we don't understand so we have the opportunity to understand it.

 

I believe, and understand it as, that nothing is carried into the after life. But, this is because there is nothing to be carried, everything just is, it's all made of the same thing, and "it" has labels only because of illusion, and the only thing carried on is the illusion itself, in which that is created is a paradox.

And as to relate to karma, how is there a plausible way that that could take affect; karma being passed on that is. You live a life, then your body dies and the matter becomes different parts of many other things. And, with the assumption that matter continues forever, the exact matter in you body will go through, well..lets say a very long time, of being part of everything else. so, with the matter now broken up amongst everything, where does the karma go? which matter from that previous life will it follow? The only way that would make sense is if the karma just kinda hung out there until the exact matter that was used in the previous lifetime, forms the same being as it did before, and that the karma would then attach itself to that being as a whole. But what about the rest of the time bettween those two lifetimes of that being? Well, in between the parts of matter used in those lifetimes would be parts of different "objects" that when combined with the matter in the those "objects" would hold their own karma. --this is only the most plausible way that I could come up with, but still I dont believe karma is carried from lifetime to lifetime.

 

Hey Prismatism, I absolutely love your hair. You rule!!!

 

There's lots of ways to view this and I'll give you two.

One. Do you ever do things the same way over and over, regardless of anything. Like what comes around goes around almost indefinitely? Like smoking and giving up and then starting again. That sort of thing. Well, this is how it goes.

Over and over. That's samsara. It's not that the personality is exactly the same. Just that the old one got worn out, and needed to be made new. To meet the new demands of the times. So that someone can do the same things over and over until the cycle breaks.

Two. Prior to being personalities, we were children of Earth and Her diversity. Each one of a us newly formed logos or word trying to develop a new more comprehensive definition of life merely as the litmus test also of life. That isi to say, we each sum up the entire blueprint of however many billions of years of interdependent causation. To that end, we all are part of the cosmos and will be repeated until we are made perfect, or until we are undone like the dinosaurs.

We are all necessary parts of existance. To that end the Earth will rebirth us indefinitely until the cycle breaks.

 

Furthermore, the only way it could be said that there is rebirth is if there's continuity of the subject. The only way there can be rebirth is if the subject has some continuum. The only way a subject can have a continuum and know it is if they have practiced as such. And come to know that which is continual.

Therefore it could be said that if there is rebirth, it is unknown by them who do not practice in the continuity, or wasted upon them.

Conversely, those who practice the continuum reap the benefits of relearning their past lives and starting better off in the endless cycle. With more hope to kick it.

There's no point rehashing the past lives of those who do not meditate upon the continuity of life as pure awareness since whatever past lives they have are divorced from self awareness anyway by virtue of them having little.

But those who practice this self discovery, if they take it far, or to the end, then they will find that all beings share the same continuity within and within even their very flesh. In which case every being is reborn within each of us, every moment. From the hells to the devalokas.

They all exist right here, and right now. In each of us.

 

many times westerners confuse the Hindu and Buddhist concepts of rebirth along with the lay-persons and "higher" concept. There is no unanimous deffinition of the concept in India so don't worry if we don't all come to the same conclusion here.

The best example that I have ever been given of the concept of rebirth is the little model used to demonstrate inertia. I know you all have seen them and they were common back in the 70's. The model consists of 5 steel balls hung on threads in a little wooden frame. Pull one ball back then release it. The ball strikes the four remaining balls and the farthest from the first is instantly propelled away from the rest. Once set in motion the cycle keeps going for quite a while.
Rebirth is like this. When the motion of one life stops the "inertia" is continued into a new life without anything thing material having been transfered. The new life doesn't remember the inertia of the previous life and there was no transfer of substance. Karma or "action" is the inertia and it is devoid of concept beyond that.

 

assumption. Religion is just incidental. Being born into any one religion is accidental. All is accidental.

assumption. One could be glad not to be mentally ill and yet hold no hatred to those who are mentally ill. What karma could possibly be generated by being glad that one is not mentally ill?

As I understand it, we attract subconsciously, which is where karma is stored. Supposedly it is stored in our subconscious when we feel guilt. But would remorse also be stored in the subconscious as karma? I doubt it. Remorse should liberate us from our bad karmic debt.

I don't know if I agree with that. Why don't we understand something? Because of ignorance? If karma causes pain (there are supposedly three different types of karma) then why would one wish for pain? Such a stance implies that we wish to suffer. But why would we wish to suffer? (Because we have caused pain to others?) I don't need to understand pain, nor do I need to understand why others have hurt me (within a karmic context which rationalises that we are caused pain by others because we hurt others in our past lives.) All I know is that I no longer wish to hurt others (through word, thought or deed.) That desire not to hurt others could also be accidental, just a victim of circumstance. (In case you believe in astrology.)

 

To put it simply, Karma is the law of cause and effect. Every action has its consequence, good or bad. And what is cycled and recycled in the cycle of birth and death is not a "person" but one's Karma.

 

sounds like yoda.

lol

 

lol our friend Bhaskar has always reminded me of the small green one!

 

I tend to think that when one is born one is not born with just the karma from the immediate past life but bits and pieces, snippets, from many previous lives, with the main undercurrent of karma according to one's last desires and thoughts. One's next life is usually (???) the opposite of one's immediate life, so if one is virtuous in this life then in the next he or she will be un-virtuous.

Which also means that if you are a saint in this life then chances are that you were a very bad sinner in the last.

I also tend to think that we skip each life by going through gender changes. So as a man, when we die, we usually think of the woman we really loved. This may make us come back in the form of a woman. That woman will have the opposite of the life when she was last also a woman. So if the woman was a prostitute in a past life, she may be a viryuous woman in the next.

But that would be the main colouring. There would be many colours to choose from from many preior karmas which will need to be worked out in the next incarnation.

Otherwise, if it is karma which is re-cycled, then how can one rationalise one's present karma? How did we get the karma we now have? How can we undo it? (I say that it is almost useless to try because by the time we become aware we have amassed more karma. We therefore will never come out of the wheel of life and death. But if truth be told we like desiring, we want to come back in another life.)