FROM A SITE VISITOR: I take it that you do not understand rebirth and the cycles of reincarnation. The same spirit is reborn into a new body, but a new personality develops. Through successive lives, life becomes a school. As lessons are learned, free will is used in more positive ways. Spiritual work throughout the cycles can lead to enlightenment which allows one to escape the cycles. That is the goal of the Realization you are trying to discuss. At that point, you become one with God and experience eternal bliss.
F.: Where to begin in responding to the excess of self-indulgence and learned ignorance that is revealed in the content of your mail? Modern beliefs are rooted in ancient myths that support the lies of duality. The lies of duality have generated that sense of separation that persons experience by fostering such beliefs as “Our god is the right one and yours is the wrong one”; “God is actually a male God" (so He has a penis and testicles?); “There are many Gods, and some have multiple arms or heads”; "My God can make it rain if I need rain"; "My God will protect our army as it attacks your army"; "My God loves unconditionally but He got so angry that He destroyed the entire population of the earth except for one family"; and even, “We worship the same God, but our denomination’s practices are right but your denomination’s practices are wrong.” As with all persons—always trapped in their beliefs that are based in myths and superstitions—you are trapped in similar bondage by dualistic, contradictory dogma and beliefs.
A series of pointers will be offered which are nothing more than suggested considerations for you:
1. What need could exist to understand rebirth once it is understood that no birth has ever happened?
2. Reincarnation literally means “to become flesh again.” That Which You Truly Are is not flesh and never has been and never will be. The form which you take yourself to be came about as a result of two persons eating plant food—or eating something that had eaten plants—and then engaging in an act of friction that may or may not have been marked by a sensation of pleasure for both parties. That act led to your current discontented state.
F.: Where to begin in responding to the excess of self-indulgence and learned ignorance that is revealed in the content of your mail? Modern beliefs are rooted in ancient myths that support the lies of duality. The lies of duality have generated that sense of separation that persons experience by fostering such beliefs as “Our god is the right one and yours is the wrong one”; “God is actually a male God" (so He has a penis and testicles?); “There are many Gods, and some have multiple arms or heads”; "My God can make it rain if I need rain"; "My God will protect our army as it attacks your army"; "My God loves unconditionally but He got so angry that He destroyed the entire population of the earth except for one family"; and even, “We worship the same God, but our denomination’s practices are right but your denomination’s practices are wrong.” As with all persons—always trapped in their beliefs that are based in myths and superstitions—you are trapped in similar bondage by dualistic, contradictory dogma and beliefs.
A series of pointers will be offered which are nothing more than suggested considerations for you:
1. What need could exist to understand rebirth once it is understood that no birth has ever happened?
2. Reincarnation literally means “to become flesh again.” That Which You Truly Are is not flesh and never has been and never will be. The form which you take yourself to be came about as a result of two persons eating plant food—or eating something that had eaten plants—and then engaging in an act of friction that may or may not have been marked by a sensation of pleasure for both parties. That act led to your current discontented state.
3. The word “spirit” in English was derived from the Latin word “spiritus” which means "breath." Breath cannot be reborn. It can cycle, and it does, moving in and out of the space that you take yourself to be. At the time of what you think is “death,” the breath will be released and will blend into the universal pool of air. The elements that you take yourself to be will blend into the universal pool of elements (as in, “ashes to ashes” and “dust to dust”).
4. As for life being a “school,” clarity is far more likely to happen if you were to unlearn what you have learned rather than trying to learn more.
5. Free will is an illusion. Persons are trapped, as you are, in their programming, conditioning, and enculturation. Currently, you have no more free will than did Pavlov’s dogs. You are quoting what persons have told you, but you have not accessed that which You have always known but which you've lost contact with as a result of programming and conditioning.
6. For “spiritual work” to happen, a do-er would have to be present. There is no “one” to do spiritual work.
7. As far as escaping the cycles, that which might or might not cycle is the conscious-energy, but it cannot cycle into the same space since the elements that formed a space and then returned to the universal pool of elements cannot be extracted exclusively from the pool to re-form a specific space that took form earlier. Moreover, since the elements that form the space which you take yourself to be are not even the same elements that formed that space yesterday, how can you possibly think eternal continuity could happen if even daily continuity does not happen?
A drop of water can fall into the ocean and later be pulled into the cycle of “ocean to evaporation to cloud to rain to a rain droplet to ocean again.” Or, a drop of water might fall into the ocean and simply remain in that vast pool of water instead of being pulled into another cycle. So it is with conscious-energy. But no body or "mind" or personality will experience continuity; no quantity of energy can remain as a singular quantity; no volume of breath can exist as a contained unit of air; no elements can exist as a singular unit with continuity; and no quantity of energy can function as a singular “bundle of energy” that can move about the universe, manifesting time and again. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
