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michael_lifshitz
Student


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Can someone explain reincarnation to me?
#5806441 - 06/30/06 10:17 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Through my spiritual path, I have found that in reality, most things are not faith based at all, at least not when it comes to eastern philosophies, and simply make logical sense, when you hear them told to you in a proper way.
I believe in many things I didn't believe in half a year before now, but what I still don't understand is the concept of reincarnation. What logical path is there that leads one to a conclusion of reincarnation? I don't want evidence, I want proof.
I feel like all the people who feel all the same things as me, must have some good reason to believe in reincarnation, whereas I don't, so I feel like it is just the next logical step along the path. A big step at that. Karma and reincarnation, I would really like to understand.
Anyone have any quotes, even books, or just want to try explaining it themselves?
Thank you.
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Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: michael_lifshitz]
#5806477 - 06/30/06 10:33 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Reincarnation cannot be explained logically in the context of western rationalism. The truth of human reincarnation can only be revealed through experiential knowledge, e.g. an altered state of consciousness wherein you relive parts of a past life.
Karma really just means 'action' -- every action on this planet is interconnected, and negative energy released will find its way back to its releaser. An example of experiencing karma and past life is Grof's Basic Perinatal Matrice I, wherein people often reconnect with their consciousness at the moment of their conception and feel past karma entering their being at this profound moment; later matrices often yield insight into past lifetimes and karma gained there.
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michael_lifshitz
Student


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: Lion]
#5806506 - 06/30/06 10:45 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I don't buy the fact that reincarnation cannot be explained logically. Experiencing a past life through an altered state is a rediculous thing to put faith into it seems to me. According to logic, it would make more sense for you to be imagining a past experience, rather than it truly existing.
However, after reading some texts on buddhism just now, I feel I am already beginning to understand it logically. The only thing I don't understand, is if there is no soul being reincarnated, but instead simply karma being reborn, then what is it that allows one person to be connected with another person's past life? Do they share karma? They certainly don't share a soul according to buddhism. And if they share karma then how did all this person's karma get to this other person?
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,532
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: Lion]
#5806508 - 06/30/06 10:46 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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1) hello again 2) ... 3) hello again 4) ... 5) ... 6) hello again
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_ 🧠 _
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: michael_lifshitz]
#5806520 - 06/30/06 10:50 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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First understand that Hindu reincarnation differs radically from Buddhist rebirth. In the first case there is an entity that remains intact (the jiva or jivatma) and in the anatman [anatta: Pali] idea of Buddhism, only samskaras or psychic 'tendencies' which dissolve at death may come together again giving a memory of a past existence. Both schemes are far more metaphorical than metaphysical because in the Enlightened individual, one Realizes that who and what we are is NOT this person or that person. In other words, we go through life thinking we are 'individual' waves that come into and go out of being on 'The Other Shore.' Few of us Realize that ALL waves are one with the Ocean - that we are in Truth, the entire Ocean of Existence. It is our illusory/delusory attachment to this form and that form that constitutes the dream. God sees through the eyes of ALL beings and our job is to Realize that Consciousness is God experiencing creation through all of Conscious existence.
Thus, in the end, there is neither reincarnation or rebirth, neither is there transmigration or metempsychosis. Call these what you will, they cease to have meaning when one Realizes we are the Ocean itself, not an individual wave.
Peace.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Mezcal
Registered: 08/11/05
Posts: 1,980
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#5806555 - 06/30/06 11:09 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: First understand that Hindu reincarnation differs radically from Buddhist rebirth. In the first case there is an entity that remains intact (the jiva or jivatma) and in the anatman [anatta: Pali] idea of Buddhism, only samskaras or psychic 'tendencies' which dissolve at death may come together again giving a memory of a past existence. Both schemes are far more metaphorical than metaphysical because in the Enlightened individual, one Realizes that who and what we are is NOT this person or that person. In other words, we go through life thinking we are 'individual' waves that come into and go out of being on 'The Other Shore.' Few of us Realize that ALL waves are one with the Ocean - that we are in Truth, the entire Ocean of Existence. It is our illusory/delusory attachment to this form and that form that constitutes the dream. God sees through the eyes of ALL beings and our job is to Realize that Consciousness is God experiencing creation through all of Conscious existence.
Thus, in the end, there is neither reincarnation or rebirth, neither is there transmigration or metempsychosis. Call these what you will, they cease to have meaning when one Realizes we are the Ocean itself, not an individual wave.
Peace.
Well said- most Zen teachers will make a joke if you ask about reincarnation- not because they think you're on the wrong path, just that you need to forget about trying to rationalize things out, especially when you're thinking along lines that are deliberately more metaphorical than most rational thinking.
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Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate


Registered: 09/20/05
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: michael_lifshitz]
#5806578 - 06/30/06 11:20 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
michael_lifshitz said: I don't buy the fact that reincarnation cannot be explained logically. Experiencing a past life through an altered state is a rediculous thing to put faith into it seems to me. According to logic, it would make more sense for you to be imagining a past experience, rather than it truly existing.
However, after reading some texts on buddhism just now, I feel I am already beginning to understand it logically. The only thing I don't understand, is if there is no soul being reincarnated, but instead simply karma being reborn, then what is it that allows one person to be connected with another person's past life? Do they share karma? They certainly don't share a soul according to buddhism. And if they share karma then how did all this person's karma get to this other person?
MarkostheGnostic has said it far better than I could, but his definitions of reincarnation still aren't rational in the sense that you want to hear it explained. Placing a lack of value on the power of the mind is the great flaw of Western rationalism. If you want to prove to yourself that reincarnation does or does not exist using logic and words, you will end up frustrated. Truth has to be experienced, not induced.
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SoY
I am the LizardKing


Registered: 06/01/06
Posts: 774
Loc: Everywhere
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: Lion]
#5806640 - 06/30/06 11:59 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Nice posts guys. It truly is a realization that must occur through experience to be understood and accepted.
Keep it up!!
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   "The choiceless truth of who you are is revealed to be permanently here permeating everything. Not a thing and not separate from anything."--Gaganji "Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream." "My karma ran over my dogma!"
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dblaney
Human Being

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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: michael_lifshitz]
#5806813 - 06/30/06 01:26 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Rebirth just means that after you die, others will continue to be born. But once you are gone, you're gone. "You" will never again return. There is no permanent self or entity or soul or atman that is "you".
"You" are just a collection of various elements arranged in a certain manner that arose due to the coming together of the necessary causes and conditions. Once the conditions necessary for "you" are gone, "you" die. Others will still be born, and probably even others who are very strikingly similar to the way "you" were.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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TODAY
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Posts: 10,218
Loc: Metropolis City, USA
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: michael_lifshitz]
#5806829 - 06/30/06 01:34 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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The idea of reincarnation was pondered by some of the classic philosophers, one of them was Plato. He thought the soul was immortal, thus not dying when the body dies but instead moving on into another body. His rationale for this was that humans are born with innate knowledge, as he understood and tried to prove (in Meno, of The Dialogues) by directing an uneducated slave boy through a series of self evident geometric problems. The boy was able to follow his teacher's directions and although the teacher gave no answers to the slave boy, his direction induced the correct answers from the slave boy (Socratic Method). Plato argues that the slave boy must have always had this knowledge because he couldn't have gotten it elsewhere being uneducated in mathematics prior to the demonstration.
Plato uses this to argue that teaching is just a way to direct a person through the recollection process of things their soul was born already knowing.
It has been a long time since Plato and a lot of understanding about genes and psychology (nature vs nurture) has been released that, IMO, debunk some of his thought processes. Interesting stuff nonetheless.
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ca'rouse (k-rouz) intr.v. To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: michael_lifshitz]
#5806883 - 06/30/06 01:57 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Nice thread! Thanks everybody for bringing a smile to my day. 
If you want to stay completely logical with reincarnation and avoid any faith or mystery, then here is one way to look at it:
Everything living is made up of matter. When we kill something and eat it, we are absorbing that matter into ourselves. In this manner, the life of what we are eating continues on within us. As we die, we feed microbes, plants, or whatever else eats our bodies, thus we continue on as well. Even if we are not immediately consumed, the atoms of our bodies will eventually end up in something living at some point.
Granted, this view lacks of lock of the "coolness" of a persistent spirit, etc... but it fits the logical profile requested.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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TODAY
Battletoad


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: Seuss]
#5806925 - 06/30/06 02:13 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Yeah, I think when people talk of reincarnation, they are mostly referring to the soul and what happens to it after the body dies. Because I don't believe in a soul seperate from matter, your explanation of reincarnation is really the only one that I adhere to.
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ca'rouse (k-rouz) intr.v. To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
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soulcircus
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? *DELETED* [Re: TODAY]
#5807006 - 06/30/06 02:50 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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TODAY
Battletoad


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: soulcircus]
#5807128 - 06/30/06 03:35 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'm pretty sure I'm a unique being because of my dna being a composite of traits that my parents recieved from their parents, and on and on.
I don't understand the rational basis of Karma and why its proponents believe it is a real thing. Can you explain this to me?
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ca'rouse (k-rouz) intr.v. To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
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Droz
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: soulcircus]
#5807167 - 06/30/06 03:55 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Also i'd like to point out that death does not mean mere physical death, it means a more of say a mental change where one thing dies and then begins a new. A change in psyche!~
Peace, Droz
-------------------- Evolution of Time.
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TODAY
Battletoad


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: Droz]
#5807203 - 06/30/06 04:14 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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How can there be a mental existance without a brain for it to exist inside of?? The "soul" isn't something transcending the material structure of the universe...it is the manifestation of an interplay of complex chemicals, which has aligned itself over the years in a way that allows it to think of itself as a physical entity. alas, it is not.
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ca'rouse (k-rouz) intr.v. To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
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soulcircus
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? *DELETED* [Re: TODAY]
#5807230 - 06/30/06 04:27 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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TODAY
Battletoad


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: soulcircus]
#5807242 - 06/30/06 04:32 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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you "feel" that way? just curious, what do you base these feelings on? I'm not trying to antagonize you, just trying understand your way of thinking.
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ca'rouse (k-rouz) intr.v. To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.
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dblaney
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: soulcircus]
#5807277 - 06/30/06 04:53 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
soulcircus said: i feel that the soul can be considered seperate from the physical body, and can transend the 3d aspect of the universe
I feel that I'm a noodley appendage of that wonderful Flying Spaghetti Monster.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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dblaney
Human Being

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Posts: 7,894
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: TODAY]
#5807293 - 06/30/06 05:02 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I don't understand the rational basis of Karma and why its proponents believe it is a real thing. Can you explain this to me?
Quote:
The Sanskrit term karma (kamma in Pali) means "action" or "deed" - NOT the fruit of an action. Karma is what attaches one link of dependent origination to the next. Karma is affect by both past and present factors. Karma can be individual, family, or even national.
Although all actions produce effects, occurrences in the natural, nonhuman world are not karma because the Buddha defined karma as volitional action through our body, speech, or mind. We thus are affected by many nonkarmic occurrences, such as weather and illness. "Good karma" is a volitional action that has "good" results, and "bad karma" is a volitional action that has "bad" results. The so-called law of karma states that there is always a cause-and-effect relationship between intentional actions or thoughts and their outcomes.
- Jean Smith in "The Beginner's Guide to Walking the Buddha's Eightfold Path"
Also, the appearance of karmic results can be immediate or can take hundreds of years. In either case, the right conditions must be present. For instance, eating spoiled fish will result in your puking very quickly, whereas seeds for a certain pine tree can be dormant for centuries until a fire helps them sprout.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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kotik
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: dblaney]
#5807311 - 06/30/06 05:11 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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here's my humble attempt:
energy / matter cannot be created or destroyed, not exclusive to measurable energy and matter, but spiritual as well. therefore, your thoughts and emotions and etc. are not destroyed either
eastern religion / philosophy is really a poetic version of physics.
-------------------- No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.
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zeegos
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: dblaney]
#5807324 - 06/30/06 05:17 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
dblaney said: Rebirth just means that after you die, others will continue to be born. But once you are gone, you're gone. "You" will never again return. There is no permanent self or entity or soul or atman that is "you".
"You" are just a collection of various elements arranged in a certain manner that arose due to the coming together of the necessary causes and conditions. Once the conditions necessary for "you" are gone, "you" die. Others will still be born, and probably even others who are very strikingly similar to the way "you" were.
This is what i generally believe in. Once 'you' die, 'you' die. Others will continue to be born, but since 'you' dont exist, i feel there may be a possibility that you can be reborn. I cant really explain without using the word 'you' but it isnt you who will be reborn, a nother human being will develop in the mother and its mind has to come from somewhere which might be you but not you as you are in this life. sry difficult to put across. My general idea is: Before birth and after death you are in the same non-existant state. Therefor reincarnation is a realistic possibility in my view
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Schwammel
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: michael_lifshitz]
#5807351 - 06/30/06 05:31 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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its the same as going to sleep and waking in the morning. bunch of weird stuff in between
but, some people see this wierd stuff while awake; they are mystics...
they can claim anything they want that applies to their lifesytle...
but if you don't see it don't exist
anybody here remember being born again?
hold up your hands!~
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SoY
I am the LizardKing


Registered: 06/01/06
Posts: 774
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: Schwammel]
#5807835 - 06/30/06 09:35 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
zeegos said: This is what i generally believe in. Once 'you' die, 'you' die. Others will continue to be born, but since 'you' dont exist, i feel there may be a possibility that you can be reborn. I cant really explain without using the word 'you' but it isnt you who will be reborn, a nother human being will develop in the mother and its mind has to come from somewhere which might be you but not you as you are in this life. sry difficult to put across. My general idea is: Before birth and after death you are in the same non-existant state. Therefor reincarnation is a realistic possibility in my view
I know exactly what you mean. This is my current working understanding of it. You were actually able to put it into words though, kinda. Very hard to describe. Good job mate!
--------------------
   "The choiceless truth of who you are is revealed to be permanently here permeating everything. Not a thing and not separate from anything."--Gaganji "Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream." "My karma ran over my dogma!"
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hamarrboo
Warrior Priest


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: zeegos]
#5808641 - 07/01/06 01:43 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
zeegos said: This is what i generally believe in. Once 'you' die, 'you' die. Others will continue to be born, but since 'you' dont exist, i feel there may be a possibility that you can be reborn. I cant really explain without using the word 'you' but it isnt you who will be reborn, a nother human being will develop in the mother and its mind has to come from somewhere which might be you but not you as you are in this life. sry difficult to put across. My general idea is: Before birth and after death you are in the same non-existant state. Therefor reincarnation is a realistic possibility in my view
I believe htat you don't exist until you are born, but after you die you continue to exist. I suppose this would be the christian/muslim/any other religion I am failing to mention.
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SoY
I am the LizardKing


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: hamarrboo]
#5808658 - 07/01/06 01:46 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Quote: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
zeegos said: This is what i generally believe in. Once 'you' die, 'you' die. Others will continue to be born, but since 'you' dont exist, i feel there may be a possibility that you can be reborn. I cant really explain without using the word 'you' but it isnt you who will be reborn, a nother human being will develop in the mother and its mind has to come from somewhere which might be you but not you as you are in this life. sry difficult to put across. My general idea is: Before birth and after death you are in the same non-existant state. Therefor reincarnation is a realistic possibility in my view
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know exactly what you mean. This is my current working understanding of it. You were actually able to put it into words though, kinda. Very hard to describe. Good job mate!
This is the depressing view for me. I do not know what happens but the more hopeful idea I entertain is that the soul lives on.....
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   "The choiceless truth of who you are is revealed to be permanently here permeating everything. Not a thing and not separate from anything."--Gaganji "Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream." "My karma ran over my dogma!"
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BlueCoyote
Beyond


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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: michael_lifshitz]
#5808945 - 07/01/06 03:50 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I remember many 'incarnations'. But for me it doesn't really matter, if they were real. They show a psychological part of my consciousness, lying beyond, feeding my mind and awareness. It makes sense to explore them in a metaphorical way, seen as memories of past lives. Where these memories stem from is not really important, imho. Matter is, there is something feeding our mind from beyond
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soulcircus
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? *DELETED* [Re: TODAY]
#5809010 - 07/01/06 05:18 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Post deleted by soulcircusReason for deletion: .
Edited by soulcircus (07/01/06 05:28 AM)
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
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Re: Can someone explain reincarnation to me? [Re: soulcircus]
#5809127 - 07/01/06 07:46 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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from the mass of comments here dealing with a mass of ideas about life death and rebirth, the most important consideration seems to be how we feel about the ideas and how they come together.
something about being open and in good spirits counts for far more than clamping down in certainty with a 50% chance of being wrong.
this is the same way of going that steers ongoing life towards either the hell of diseased existence on the decomposing train of life, or the heaven of love, beauty and renewal at every turn.
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_ 🧠 _
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