At the Council of Constantinople in 553 A.D., the following was deleted as for Christianity, presumably to put people under moral pressure: “You only live once, after that it’s all over, and later comes the Last Judgement. You don’t have another chance to reduce your karma.” But the prospect of living in fear of doing something wrong and being punished and then going to purgatory has not prevented any of the many wars and has caused very few Christians to be truly good.
There are still some indications in the Bible that the idea of reincarnation was known in earlier times. At one point Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say I am?” And they answer him, “They say you are Elijah come again.” (an old prophet)
Catholics, for example, value their relics, bone parts of saints that are said to have a special energy. The special energy cannot come from a piece of bone. But if the energy, a kind of spiritual pool of the saint, still exists, then relics would also make sense. I myself once held a forearm bone from a cave bear in my hand, around 40,000 years old, and it had an extraordinarily strong aura.
This leads on to the beliefs of primitive peoples, Indians, Africans, Eskimos, Chinese, Tibetans and the whole of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and so on. All these peoples believe in reincarnation and karma, they just deal with it differently. It would be going too far to list all the details here.
All representatives of these animistic religions (the belief that everything is animated and communicates with us) also believe in the existence of spirits and demons, the worlds beyond, and in the power of relics and artifacts. For this reason, all these peoples have different methods of contacting the spirits of the deceased, asking them for help and support, etc. For animist religions, it is normal to think of a cycle of life. They try to make the best of it. Shamans talk to the spirits and channel demons and gods.
Islam also believes that rebirth, a return from the dead, is possible, but probably not the norm. On the contrary, people hope that if they have been a good person here, they will not have to come back and will live in paradise until the end of time.
For Hindus and Buddhists, reincarnation is somewhat different. It is largely perceived as a punishment for having done something wrong in previous lives. Hindus and Buddhists hope for a chance to dissolve their old karma through good deeds in the present life. The more educated and religious someone from these religions is, the more they strive to free themselves from the “wheel of rebirth”. They try to give up all needs and desires in the hope of escaping material life so that they will not be reborn again at some point.
However, when you see the reality, a high level of crime, poverty, a large military, authoritarian police, power politics against the people and for the corporations, then Hinduism is obviously just as much “opium for the people” as Christianity. Hardly anyone cares about the rules of morality and only a few make an effort to do good and really avoid doing bad.
And why should you care much about others? It’s everyone’s own fault whether they are born into a lower caste or into the homes of wealthy people. That’s true, but there’s a difference between despising other people and accepting them as they are.
And if I am perhaps in a better position, then I can be a teacher to others, as far as that makes sense again. Because many people really need the problems they are in to mature, to learn, and the quick release from them often leads to the wrong results.
Individual spiritual thinkers such as Shankara and Yogavasistha also speak of the wheel of rebirth, but point to other possibilities. They believe that practically everything exists simultaneously and that we can be transferred from one life to another in an instant by the power of the gods. This may happen with our consciousness, or without us even realizing it. And when we are inserted into a new world, it happens seamlessly. All the contacts living there think we have always been there! They cannot recognize the “newcomer” as such.
Spiritually “awakened” (awake-conscious) people can see through these changes. Through their higher insights they can adopt an attitude that also leads them to a balanced life, in which they are no longer burdened by everyday life, in order to leave for good at some point, or to return voluntarily as teachers for other people.
“Only he is free who no longer desires liberation.” Yogavasistha
This mindset comes very close to the explanations Horus gave me years ago. Horus speaks of the facet worlds, which exist in infinite variety with only tiny energetic deviations, overlapping each other, and we exist in many or perhaps even all of these levels simultaneously.
If that is correct, then both are true. It is quite possible to live a normal life here, to die at some point and to come back a little later to a new incarnation in this timeline. But it is also possible for us to change planes here and now, and in the parallel world we may only notice that we remember certain events and people differently than they suddenly appear now.
Do you know this? You know a certain thing is exactly like this and like that, and the next morning it’s slightly different. And the people around you don’t know anything about it and say, “It’s always been exactly like this!” I call this a “change of levels”. I am sometimes aware of these passages into other facets.
And then there is something else. Hindus and Buddhists try to escape the wheel. Sounds desirable if life is only perceived as suffering and a burden and reincarnation is seen as a new problem. But there is also the more creative opinion from the Mundaka Upanishad that all life is born out of joy, and that the original creative force Brahman divided itself into Brahma and Atma, into consciousness and sensation, in order to experience itself, to see what it can make of itself, so to speak. God tries to unfold himself to the maximum, and we are his means of expression in which he unfolds himself, and we do our utmost to reshape ourselves and our lives and the earth.
So when some thinkers try to systematically withdraw from the process of life, this is also a kind of unfolding, but it leads to the extinction of individual small contents of consciousness. This will also make sense, and it ultimately leads to an energetic reunion with Brahman. But even active participation in the processes of life seems to me to be more in the spirit of the whole, actively increasing diversity rather than ending it.
And whether it really comes to a final dissolution in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, without return, remains to be seen. I have succeeded several times in reaching this supposedly highest level, until the extinction of all consciousness, of all perception, but then, after an unknown period of time, my consciousness emerged fresh and clear, extremely far away from the earth, at the end of this universe, or in another universe, or in the radiantly bright multiverse in which our universes swim around like slipper animals. I had undoubtedly changed planes, universes, and yet my mind still knew exactly where and in what age my body was lying in a trance on a yoga blanket, waiting for the mind to return.
When my consciousness came back into existence after such a total blackout, an orientation was immediately available, space-time coordinates that told me when and where I was and where the earth was. There were usually eons in between, billions of light years and often thousands of time years. When my mind then sets off towards Earth, it really is a “backward plunge” through space and time, and the closer I get to Earth, the more precisely the right time is pinpointed. And then I take a deeper breath and am back in my body.
Let us note that life is incredibly fascinating, diverse, vast, infinite, there are obviously countless parallel worlds, and we exist on an infinite number of levels. It is surely significant that we strive for a higher consciousness, for deeper insights, for new energy that enlivens us. Perhaps it is better to call it a striving for the realization of the energy that is already available to us. And in this way we contribute our small experiences as pieces of the puzzle to the great, divine whole, to the further unfolding of creation. The round dance of life may continue, and I consciously take part in it as best I can.
“All creation springs from joy, from joy it comes, through joy it is sustained, into joy it returns.” Upanishad Mundaka.
