Reincarnation

spiritualgrowthadventure

Death, Emotions and Reincarnation

Recently a friend from long ago died. I could see them up in the inner planes bright and sparkly, happy and thrilled at how they looked energetically. They were staying around, showing those of their friends and family who could see them how marvellous they looked and how happy they were.

And then, it was onwards to the next part of their adventure in the grand journey of Life.

Knowing them as I did, I knew they considered themselves as a soul with spirit, in a physical body. They thought of death as a transition and they knew about reincarnation.

For people who have such an outlook, death is just another step on the journey. The soul and spirit doesn’t die, it goes on. Those left behind who have this outlook can appreciate this and sometimes see the person who has died move on. This gets mixed in with the feelings of loss for those people who were close, as that person is no longer there, and a big part of their lives is gone.

In my own experience recently, two other people died and came close by on the inner planes basically glowing, and looking so radiant, saying their goodbyes before heading off. What helped is that they appreciated that death was a transition onto the inner planes, so there was no fear, anger, or trauma. Nor did they desperately try to hang on in a body that was too ill. Emotionally, they were at peace.

Emotions are important in death. Many years ago I had a sense that a much-loved elderly relative, was going to die, and they had about four months to live. I felt some preparation would help. They were still a bit active and mobile. They weren’t particularly religious or spiritual. They were kind and tried to be thoughtful in how they lived, which is pretty much a spiritual quality. I came across a book that would help me prepare.

In the 1980’s there was a book published called “The Tibetan book of living and dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche. In it there was a description of the Buddhist concept of the Bardo states. In Christian thinking there is the concept of heaven and hell, where souls go depending on whether the person has been “good” or “bad”, according to what other people determine is good and what is bad.

The Bardo states are more nuanced. There are several levels to them. There are several levels to the pleasant Bardo states, and there are several levels to the unpleasant going from the mildly depressing to the hellish. What determines where a soul goes is what they have done and the karmic consequences of that, and what the soul/person needs to go through to deal with those consequences, and also to deal with the energy of their emotions during dying, during leaving their physical body.

So if a person dies having being good overall, and they are happy and at peace, they go onto a positive level of the Bardo states for a while. If a person dies and has been negative in what they have done in their lives, they go onto an unpleasant Bardo states to repeatedly re-experience their actions to wear out the energy of that. Also, if a person is angry or fearful about their death, they go to a Bardo state to wear out that emotional energy before moving on. The same goes for feelings of addictions, they hang around on a Bardo state re-experiencing those sensations until they are used up.

The Buddhist concept of the Bardo states seems like a good explanation of what happens after death.

With regards to preparation, the Buddhists have prayers to prepare someone for death. These prayers clear any negative energy and provide positive emotional energy to alleviate any fear or anger at the time of death. The result is the person goes onto a positive Bardo state when they die. Prayers done properly and with focus are like light-filled words propelled by a loving intention, to bring about a positive change or situation.

I said the prayers for my relative daily for a couple of months, until it felt like time to stop. When the much-loved relative died I felt there to be a lot of peace about the death, and that they were happy with where they now were. For myself, I just felt a warm happiness for them rather than a sense of loss, as if the prayers I had done over time had worked on me, too.

With the recent deaths, for myself and for the friends who had died, there was the appreciation that death is just a transition and a part of the on-going journey of Life. We also held the concept of reincarnation, so we knew we had had many lives, and there were more to come, and we had died and been born many times. So what is there to worry about?

The best explanations of the reincarnation process and why it happens that I came across was by someone called Meher Baba. I found that understanding something of the reincarnation process stopped death from being a finality. I see it now as a transition we have done many times. I also found learning about reincarnation helped me to understand more of the big picture of what Life is all about. But that is another story.

For more about reincarnation and how belief in it can affect our approach to life, click here for an article on this blog.

For more on death from a spiritual point of view click here.

spiritualgrowthadventure

A Soul’s Journey down into Creation, and then back Up to God

Trying to talk about souls can be tricky, and fascinating at the same time. Souls originate on the Divine Journeys, in the Beyond, which is outside time, which is part of God. Souls are part of God. This is not a straightforward concept as it is so unlike our everyday reality.

When the Avatar comes down into creation every 400 to 700 years in major and minor incarnations, souls, or dropsouls follow the Avatar down through the Divine Journeys into creation (or are poached, which is another story). In creation, with its planes of consciousness (0th, 1st … 6th), there is time, and karma. As time goes by, creation is ever changing and developing, and souls grow as they journey through creation.

Souls fall over time, to the bottom of the zeroth plane, the slowest and least conscious plane. As souls fall, they experience a massive separation from the Divine, from God, and from their own true nature, and the Divine level of their consciousness. This is a shock that remains with the soul, even though their consciousness falls from this exalted state to zero; to a very slow, non-existent state. There remains a deep sadness and grief that is difficult to put a finger on.

Simultaneously, there is an aspect of the soul, outside time, that has experienced and completed everything on the inner planes and on the Divine Journeys. This is a tricky concept and it isn’t really necessary to understand it as it wouldn’t influence the journey of the soul in any case.

The You reading this, in creation, is the extension of soul energy, that is in time. The aspect of your soul on the Divine Journeys, will not be necessarily aware of what is going on with the personality you in creation, as the light is so captivating there. What this aspect of soul Up there is missing out on though is experience of life in creation, and the slow frequency light down here, particularly the dark of the zeroth plane, and also, emotion. Souls come down here to experience emotion.

Souls and divine beings that stay in the Divine Journeys have no idea of what the grand adventure we call life is like down here in creation.

They miss out on the journey down, and they miss out on the journey up the planes and the experiences they gain in this Illusion. Souls with an aspect of themselves down here get to experience the many lifetimes as rock and metal with the heating, flowing, crushing, and erosion, and so on, while having only infinitesimal consciousness.

Then there are the many lifetimes in plant form in the many different environments. They grow, use physical light, put down roots (or live off other plants and sometimes creatures), they can be eaten. Open to the sky they experience weather and starlight. Those in the water experience those environments. They experience long or short lives, fire, drought and so on. With flowers and blossoms they irradiate scents, colour and energy. (From an energy point of view, plants have a fascinating existence.) The consciousness level is a somewhat greater than a rock or metal.

Still on the zeroth plane of consciousness, the soul has many lifetimes in animal form; as worms, insects, fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals. With each change of lifeform there is an incremental change in the level of consciousness. The form that a soul takes depends on the level of consciousness that needs to be experienced. A soul going through the many animal forms experiences a huge variety of conditions, and events that happen to them. They experience instincts and intelligence. They experience emotions (some scientists may disagree, but anyone who has spent time with animals or has a pet will know when an animal is happy or sad or scared, and so on). Animals experience being on their own and in other lives, living as part of a society or group. They eat, sometimes hunt, sometimes get eaten (alive!). Animals communicate and cooperate.

Then come the sub-human lives that are a cross-over point to being human on the zeroth plane. In all this, the soul grows in consciousness, and stores the accumulation of experiences in part of itself.

As a human, lifetime after lifetime up until the top of the third plane of consciousness, the soul builds karma, and then balances it or burns it off from then on up to the top of the sixth plane. As a human the soul gets to experience the full range of what it can mean to be a human being, from the darkest events to the most loving and light. The soul experiences life in a detached way, as it is still very much in the Divine Journeys, while the person down here will experience life through personality, spirit, and the accumulation of all those vast numbers of lifetimes that occurred from rock, plant, and animal upwards. So people can be incredibly animalistic in their thinking and behaviour as their animal past comes to the forefront. This is particularly so in a human lifetime that has a leaning to the Dark Lodge and the negative dark, rather than a lifetime leaning to the light or Light Lodge. Part of spirituality is diminishing or transforming the old animalistic heritage that is rather like very old baggage.

Meditation and doses of light really help here. However, to really appreciate what the light is like, and what Divine energies are like, being in the muck and the mud, and the pain and struggle that happens in creation, provides the contrast. Sometimes to know what something is like you need to experience the opposite. It also provides the crucible through which a soul gains the experience and learning, in the end, transforming it into its full beauty, and with quite a story to tell back on the Divine Journeys.

(re-edited from 2015)

 

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

If you would like to know about online meditation and courses that are available, click here.

spiritualgrowthadventure

Spiritual Awakenings and Your Spiritual Journey

“Spiritual Awakening” crops up on social media in spirituality groups quite a bit, but what is it? There are plenty of answers, and it depends who answers.

Years ago I read some books published by Lucis Trust which were written in around the 1920’s. They were channelled books about spirituality and they went into very great detail on a lot of topics. They weren’t an easy read but they were interesting and you had to concentrate hard. Those were different times to how we take in information on social media.

One point that was made was that people are at different stages of spiritual development. Some are beginners, then there are novices, then there are adepts, and then masters, with levels in between. A very simple analogy could be the system of coloured belts that exist in various martial arts disciplines to show the different levels of expertise. In spirituality there are lots of levels, and it helps to also consider reincarnations.

Life, from the very first physical life, through the very many reincarnations, to the last life is a spiritual journey of developing consciousness. From being totally unconscious to moving into Universal Mind (or Infinite Mind) upon achieving God-realization. There are lots of stages along the way.

A person will be somewhere along their spiritual journey, whether they are a beginner in terms of their spiritual development, or a novice and so on. In the early stages of their life they may, or they may not, show a leaning towards spirituality.

Beings on the inner planes will be able to have a sense of a person’s spiritual level or aptitude, as they can easily read the aura, the chakras and any glow of light that person is giving out.

When the timing is right and the opportunity is there, these beings on the inner planes can give an energetic nudge, or a blast of energy, and really wake up the person to a new way of feeling, thinking and of viewing themselves and the world. Sometimes the inner plane beings can be gentle, or take advantage of an event in a person’s life, or whack some energy in to cause a crisis and really shove the person towards a change of life and a change of awareness.

The person has a spiritual awakening.

In some lives, that are rest lives, it doesn’t happen. But to take one of the very many steps up in spiritual consciousness is a spiritual awakening. In all the lifetimes that a person has they will increase their level of consciousness many, many times. That means they will have many, many spiritual awakenings.

To do it in one jump would be too much, the person would absolutely not be able to handle the energy, never mind the massive, gigantic change in perception and thinking. Besides, the soul would miss out on all that experience, and the journey is as important to savour as the end result. Though is that really the end result? Cycles within cycles, within cycles. There is always more.

In this lifetime, I think back to the awakening I had as I learnt T’ai Chi to deal with a relative’s death. I learnt about energy, myself and life in a new way. My life changed and there grew more distance between myself and old friends while I made new friendships (all according to my karma).

Some strange and dark dreams, an emotional breakdown accompanied by a physical clearing that I won’t go into, and a dive into various therapies led the way to another shift in awareness. I tried to absorb some spiritual concepts into my life and into my thinking. Again, there was a shift away from an old life, and old way of thinking, into a new life, and new thinking.

I had been reading a book called “A Course in Miracles” and using the daily lessons. I was still doing T’ai Chi which I think is truly fantastic and still do every now and again. I was between flats and staying in a spare room at a friend’s shared house. The other people took heroin and were more interested in that than looking after the place, which was grubby with a kitchen sink that had life evolving in it. I felt depressed. I had been reading a book that went on about seeing the beauty of God in things, which contrasted vividly with the place I was staying in. I thought about some of the things that I had seen that I thought were beautiful. I thought about the sunshine on a beach, snow covered countryside and falling snowflakes, I thought about the morning sun on a girlfriend’s hair. I thought about God being in these situations. And then I thought, “If I can see these things that God is in, then that means that God is inside me”. Immediately my life and my world fell upside down, or right side up. It was like a physical shock wave going through me. I smiled, and in that smile was the feeling of so much joy, of so much love, and peace and wonderment. My heart opened.

The next day at a T’ai Chi class in a break, the instructor was talking and asking us what we did for a living out of curiosity. When she asked me, I said that I didn’t know, that I felt I wasn’t sure any more. She looked at me as if I was some kind of fool, so I recounted what had happened the night before. She smiled and laughed and gave me a big hug, saying I had found something very important.

A couple of months after, and I had still been reading “A Course in Miracles” and doing the daily lessons I had an experience on the London Underground. I was sat in the carriage looking at the people and thinking “God is in you and God is in me”. I then thought “I am in you and you are in me” (because God was in me and the other passengers). The carriage filled with white light that seared through me. That evening in my flat, I was in a light filled state, feeling like each cell in my body was vibrating. I looked at objects in turn, saying, quite spontaneously, things like “God is in this chair”, or “God is in this table… window… tree” and so on. The flat looked out over a park and there was a great storm which swayed the huge trees and felled many, and I was vibrating, filled with light, and everything seemed to be filled with vibrating God as well. I was as high as a kite with this energy. I was truly white-lighted, spiritually drunk. It took me years to come back down to earth.

There have been many incremental awakenings since and some new style meditation techniques have played their part. Some awakenings were big, some small, but not so big that the energy blew my head off, though one time I went so high I could feel my heart beat becoming irregular and I had to make a massive effort to stay in my body, not drop my body and physically die, and get my roots down deep into the ground.

Spiritually awakening bit by bit is fine with me.

 

For FAQs about meditation, click here.

If you would like to know about online meditation and courses that are available, click here.