Are you going to reincarnate?

If you were born in a Buddhist country, or if you are a western student new to this religion, one of the very first things you will learn is the concept of reincarnation. And as an intrinsic part of this concept, the ideas of samsara and karma follow its train. And as a Tibetan Buddhist or a Vajrayanist, there is the associated teaching of the six realms of being, in which we wander endlessly, cycling rebirth after rebirth until we free ourselves from different forms of endless suffering. But it's not the only game in town. As shown in the voluminous Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma, it is surprising "how little real agreement there is on them in a very wide range of writing" about what exactly is going on here. (McClelland, 3) Indeed, there were traditionally five kingdoms in Buddhism. The Hindu cosmology of an eternal soul traveling from body to body dates back to Upanishads (c. 800 BCE – c. 500 BCE), while Jainism has four possible paths of instant rebirth – enlightenment, human form, animal or hell). The ancient Orphic religion of Greece from the XNUMXth century BCE taught that one continues to be reborn as human and animal until, with the help of the gods, one perfects one's being. Pythagoras, and later Plato, taught how souls transmigrate from one incarnation to another. The Romans, Druids and Celts, Kabbalists, Middle Eastern Druze and Yazidis also had their notions. Indeed, the variety of ideas around reincarnation on a global scale, much like the concept of heaven and hell, is a fascinating study, albeit one that leaves the waters even muddier.

Choose concepts

Like many in the West, I have embraced the Buddhist concept over time – a new and fascinating idea for a Jewish boy in suburban Toronto. But increasingly, all of these ideas sounded "new age" long before the term New Age was coined. This idealized conception of life as a school, intended exclusively for its edification, seemed artificial. Similar to a Christian image of a benevolent old man with a white beard (or an angry, strict man if you're Jewish) waiting to bring good little boys and girls to heaven, it also felt unnatural. Such stories are excellent for an exoteric religion, reassuring and comforting in a violent and uncertain world. Buddhism and Christianity, despite the wars waged in their name, are civilizing influences, offering a moral code of kindness, compassion, charity, service to others, etc. The strange marriage of early Christianity with Roman law and governance, and the Tibetan fusion of monasticism with yogic mysticism, remain problematic to this day. Nevertheless, religious ethics help to pacify and uplift suffering humanity, with both grains of truth about who we are and how we should act, and good mythology to support these guides to a better way of life.

However, there is nothing in the natural world, the one we live in day to day, that conforms to this kind of "free ride" from one lifetime to the next. And, when, in my twenties, I came across the profound Gnostic reincarnation teachings of GI Gurdjieff, it struck a chord in my soul. It's just common sense after all. Our evolution, transformation, the possibility of secondary Lightbody creation, is not guaranteed, any more than an acorn falling to the ground is guaranteed to become a mighty oak tree. Only one in 10 acorns can become a tree, and many will not survive the first year or two. Of the 000 million sperm in an ejaculation, only one can become the seed of a new child. And one in two million people will have an IQ of 100! We're no acorns, but things in nature don't stack up very well for the average blade of grass. In the Gurdjieffian postulation, reincarnation, like the Body of Light, is not a given. It is a hidden potential that is rarely realized. To achieve this rather lofty goal, the individual must have done the necessary spiritual work, met true adepts, learned a lot, studied a lot, practiced in various specifically formulated ways.

Crystallization

From a spiritual physics perspective, we need to produce very specific substances in our body, and reorganize our entire energetic and bio-photonic matrix. In other words, we must be winners on the path to transformation – teenagers or light-bodied infants at the very least. The British scholar and author JG Bennett spoke of two types of people in this world: the vast majority of psychostatic individuals for whom life is only birth, old age and death; and the psycho-dynamics that become something different, something meta-human. They are ordinary people and seekers who may one day become adepts themselves, the oldest game in human evolution. It is strange and a great omission that all the teachings on the formation of the light body or the rainbow body in Asian spiritual traditions seem to speak only of the end product. Very little or nothing is said about the actual process – what happens along the (very long) way. And what degree, what real percentage of recrystallization does it take before it falls back into its purely biological form? What threshold, precisely, is required for something in itself to reincarnate its consciousness? If nothing at all is developed, if a man or a woman dies as they were born, they will be recycled. Earth to Earth, fire to Fire, air to Air, planetary and solar energies to their source, etc. Bennett speaks of the "soul pool stuff", the place where the spiritual substance that animates the being will return to its source. Gurdjieff further argues that the death of an individual releases energy that helps "feed the Moon" in its unstable orbit. Spiritual practitioners actually nurture the planets and the Moon through their spiritual work, whether it is done consciously or not. Whether allegorical or true, it is a cosmic scale process, not just an individual one. The above may seem like a flight of fancy, more mental sophistry, theorizing and philosophical self-entertainment. Fortunately, after spending the better part of 50 years participating in intuitive or empathic healing work on many thousands of individuals, there is a possibility of answers, at least some that have both satisfied my curiosity and clarified the path. .

The 30% rule

The average person only has a 15% organized bioenergetic or astral field. It happens biologically, as a natural part of life. It is slightly lower in children and increases with age, but nothing is guaranteed by biology beyond this basic 15%. Some have less, others a little more due to their individual personality, experiences, intelligence, genetics, and life's endless challenges and opportunities. But these differences remain small if they are only under the influence of the law of fate, chance or accident. For those who have had a strong spiritual predilection, even from childhood, they will often have felt “different” throughout their lives. Others may have an “awakening,” a life-altering event or realization that totally changes the direction of their life. In either case, an inner magnetic center will forever and unforgivably lead them to a higher level of vibration. Whatever the beginnings, once one has passed through the glass ceiling where their bioenergetic and magnetic fields have reorganized and crystallized in a specific way, then the consciousness has the opportunity to step into a subsequent birth to continue that evolution. This progression is a story for another time, as there is much more to the stages of LightBody creation than is generally understood or taught. And we must realize that this remarkable privilege of being able to move forward and continue our process of transformation is in itself no guarantee of a future resolution. Nothing is certain in the physical world filled with chance, negativity and human madness. But with continued reliance on a strong spiritual lineage and our internal diligence, there is great hope. And yet the vast fields of mankind which only live and expire like field poppies will be the benefactors of such a unique event. The conscious cosmic whole of planets and suns that pervade our reality will also be the recipients of these benefits, for we puny beings are part of a grand scheme. The land needs the acorn to grow into trees, though many must fall by the wayside, while other lucky ones find rich fallow land.