What is your opinion about reincarnation?

Mary wrote:

... the doctors have told him there is nothing more they can do for him. He is a handsome young man from Greece who is going to get married in 3 months. His name is George and he had cancer of the tongue that has spread. He is going home tomorrow night. He asked to see me before he leaves. He is quiet and young with great dignity and has been a private person during his 6 week stay with us at Miracle House. I don't know if he has any religion or specific beliefs. But he wanted to know if I could talk to hime about reincarnation.

... He definitely wants words and thoughts and as many specifics as possible. ... He will be on a plane for many hours tomorrow night for his thoughts and fears. Why he specifically asked about reincarnation now I do not know. He never mentioned this before but then he thought he would be cured. Can anyone offer any thoughts or experiences or knowledge that I can use to help George. He is a gentle soul and alone here in New York with only those of us from Miracle House. I want to be with him where he is and listen and speak to his concerns. Any help would be a gift.

Ana added this note:

It seems there is not much time to think about the issue or to find something "right to the point", that is: clear, not too long or difficult to grasp, and yet able to give him some hope and comfort. But I have no time right now to go into that and I would like to ask you if somebody could have any idea as to what could be suitable to him, as I would send it to her right away. Maybe he could print it to him for the long flight back ...

One answer to the question about reincarnation

Hello, Ana, Mary and George,

Introduction:

I am not a theosophist, though I have attended quite a number of meetings at the Ozark Theosophical Camp in Arkansas, and had been a member of this list a few years ago under a different e-mail address, as I discovered when I was googling my old AOL screen name and found Theosophy-Talk messages about Escape to Witch Mountain, Simplicity or Complexity in Introductory Messages about Theosophy, Should everyone follow one philosophy, Adam and Eve's Lord's Prayer and two messages about Copyrights and a follow-up. It was because I found these messages that I rejoined the list. I suspect that I unsubscribed because of a trip to the UK in 2000 and forgot to resubscribe upon my return. Unfortunately, I don't live near a discussion group, and in these days of oil prices, even a one hour drive is a bit far, so this list might be my main exposure to the theosophical points of view. I subscribe to other lists to get other POVs.

I don't declare membership in any one point of view, but instead, consider myself, as much as possible, to be part of all points of view. When people ask me to give my spiritual opinion a label, I call myself a Multidenominational Cafeterealist: Multidenominational - I believe that every religion and every point of view somehow honors the same infinite being; Cafeteria - if I don't take spinach in the cafeteria, that doesn't make the spinach wrong, it is right for someone else today and might be right for me tomorrow; and realist - it isn't realistic that 70% of the world is wrong simply because they disagree with the 30% that is Christian.

I created the web page collection www.GodLovesEveryone.org as a statement of my belief that God loves everyone, not just people in one minority point of view who have the audacity to think that they have the only truth. I might add that my belief that all people honor the same infinite being has been affirmed by several dreams.

Reincarnation / Life after death

I have grown to believe that in our younger years, we have learned about the soul a bit backward. We were taught that the soul was inside our body. I can vaguely remember one of my grandparents pointing to my chest and telling me that's where my soul was.

Instead, I have grown to believe that the body that we can see is inside our soul which we cannot see. It is our soul that has infinite existence, that has existed before we were born and will exist after this body ceases to exist. The part of the soul that is inside our body has temporarily "forgotten" its connection to the rest of the soul, but that connection is still there. The rest of the soul has always been connected to the part of the soul that is inside our body, but we are often unaware of the connection, except during certain periods of meditation or dreaming or whatever. When our body dies, that part of our soul that we are aware of suddenly "remembers" and returns to join the rest of the soul, which it never really left.

After an appropriate period of time in communion with our entire soul, and in communion with the infinite being that some of us call God, I believe that we again choose to accept another life here on Earth. The life we receive is based on a discussion between our soul and God, where together, we and God decide what lessons we need to learn (or learn better), and the life is chosen for us so that our soul will grow to the greatest extent possible. I believe that the lessons that we learn during our lives here on Earth help our soul to grow and become more and more perfect.

This all came to me between the time that Brionna, one of my pre-teen students, died and the time of the funeral. At the funeral, I told the mother that I had something that I felt that I was supposed to share with her and invited her to visit me at the office later. She came by later, and I related a variation of the above, with sketches, illustrating how her soul, bigger than her body, was, at that very moment, already with the soul of her daughter in heaven, so they weren't apart, even if she felt, at that time, the separation.

It's a shame that I can't sketch in e-mail. This web-posting is my attempt to expand on the e-mail. Let's look at a VERY crude picture, then I'll try to explain my vision:

Let's look at this image. I'm trying to represent four-or-more dimensions in this picture. I'm using the small maroon circle to represent the presence of the soul around us here on this three-dimensional Earth. Just imagine it as a kind-of-aura that completely surrounds our body. Sometimes, this aura-like-presence is close to the skin. Other times, it may extend at some distance from our body.

I'm using the larger circle to represent that part of our soul that extends beyond our three-dimensional life ... my way of saying that part of our soul is already in Heaven (whatever we call being in the presence of God). I also use this to represent the fact that our souls overlap the souls of other people who are important to us. Some people may have quite a lot of overlap with their special someone, while some people may have very little overlap.

When I spoke to Brionna's mother that day a few years ago, I felt that she was able to get some comfort from my drawings and my opinion that, at that very moment, her soul was already comforting the soul of her recently deceased daughter.

If you would like to contact me, you can reach me at: John (at) LiteracyCurriculums.com.

John
www.MAZES.com
www.GodLovesEveryone.org

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