Death, Reincarnation, and Guilt
“In the ultimate
sense, reincarnation is impossible. There is no past or future, and the idea of
birth into a body has no meaning either once or many times. Reincarnation cannot,
then, be true in any real sense. Our only question should be, ‘Is the concept
helpful?’” (M-24.1)
The belief in reincarnation is one that bafflingly persists
in the A Course in Miracles community.
It’s baffling because ACIM states that it cannot be real. And it’s baffling because
in the experience of the Holy Instant, the experience central to understanding
ACIM, you know that it cannot be real. Yes, ACIM also says it may be a helpful
concept if looked at the right way. It goes on to say that if it’s comforting to
the believer its helpfulness is obvious. And that you can emphasize the aspect
of the concept that leads one to understand that there is more to existence
than this passing life. But those are very slim aspects of the concept to find
helpful. They could only be temporarily helpful at best.
I have yet to run across a student who looks at the concept of
reincarnation in a way that is comforting or helpful. Always they speak of it
with guilt and fear. Either they are unhappy and fear having to repeat life in
a body. Or they feel that they will never see the end of guilt. How many
lifetimes of guilt do they have to undo? How many lifetimes will it take to
undo the guilt? How can they stop from making more guilt in this lifetime? Guilt
is built into the concept of reincarnation.
One of the most difficult questions for students of ACIM to
answer is “What happens to me when I die?” It is difficult to answer because
that which asks does not exist! “Eternity”, as ACIM uses the word, is not
“endless time” but “timelessness”. Eternity is outside of time. It has no
beginning and no ending. It simply is.
That Which is eternal within you is not touched by the story that you have for
yourself in time. Peace is attained by becoming aware of the Eternal within you
and focusing on It as you let go of the story that you have for yourself in
time. When you do that you stop having questions about death. That which would
be concerned with death has already fallen away from you when you are aware of
the Eternal within you.
“Reincarnation would
not, under any circumstances, be the problem to be dealt with now. If it were responsible for some of the
difficulties the individual faces now, his task would still be only to escape
from them now.” (M-24.2)
The trap is the belief that there is something out there in
the future to be attained. The Eternal is within you now. You are only unaware of It. Your obstacles to peace are
beliefs in your mind now. If you are
unhappy now the source of your unhappiness are thoughts and beliefs in your mind
now even if they seem to be about the
past, of this life or of another life. This is why you can undo them now. If the source of the thoughts truly
was in the past then you would not be able to undo them. The source of anything
you feel now is a belief in your mind
now.
“The ego teaches thus:
Death is the end as far as hope of Heaven goes. Yet because you and the ego
cannot be separated, and because it cannot conceive of its own death, it will
pursue you still, because guilt is eternal. Such is the ego's version of
immortality.” (T-15.I.4)
Reincarnation is a very comfortable belief for the ego
(personal thought system) because it is the belief that guilt is real. Though
students may say that they understand that guilt is not real and that the
problem is that believe in it, there
is no way to avoid feeling punished as they contemplate an indefinite number of
future lifetimes to undo an indefinite number of past lifetimes of the belief
in guilt. This is just guilt and punishment in disguise. In fact, all you have
to do is deal with the feelings of guilt that come up now. Feelings always reveal your true beliefs. So look at them with
the Holy Spirit and undo them. In time you will realize that you always come
back to a single core belief – that there is a power over you (a god) that
judges you and that you have to live up to. As you correct this illusion again
and again in its many forms you will eventually undo it. The ego will always
tell you that you are guilty. But you will no longer believe it so the idea
will have no power over you. This is something that you can accomplish in this
lifetime.
>>>>>
Learn about the books The ACIM Mentor Articles, The Plain Language A Course in Miracles, 4 Habits for Inner Peace, and Releasing Guilt for Inner Peace at www.acimmentor.com.
Comments
I would like to share this . . . When I first met my husband who has since awakened from the dream, the first greeting card we exchanged with one another was the exact same card and the sentiment said, "it is if I've known you in another lifetime" and I have to admit, it provided me comfort for many years. To this day, I cherish the holy blessing he shined in me. Another insightful post.
I have had flashbacks all my life of different lives. I've always judged myself for not being prettier, more successful, more. Wanting my life to be different than what it was. Traced it back to the cradle. And them I realized I came into this world with an expectation of continuing on with what I had before. But no, this is Gods show. His direction. And I was born into this personality and this life situation and it wasn't wrong or a mistake. I was wrong for thinking it should be what I thought I should be.
like my sweet sister sally, i am deeply grateful for your continued help with this journey home. as the days move forward, your words continue to bring me more fully into this practice. there is no way to measure the help your teachings are giving me.
in gratitude, nicci
However , as ACIM says, Reincarnation can be a helpful concept if used as a means of accepting eternal life. As opposed to the concept of eternal damnation and hellfire.
The question you have to ask yourself if what would go on? As ACIM points out in the quote in the article, this is a concept of the ego pursuing you even after death. There are no separate souls or spirits. There is only one Spirit, whole and complete and perfect. Separation and imperfection are the illusion. The illusion does not need to be perfected. You just need to release yourself from it and accept Perfection. Reincarnation is a concept that gives meaning to the illusion. It puts off Truth. It leads people to despair that they can be free of guilt and fear because it makes it seem that it takes forever. I have never heard from anyone that the concept sets them free from guilt. It's always the opposite - more guilt and fear.
Could Reincarnation be taking place in the dream?
The only reality for these folks is the dream. "Truth" is an idea to be talked about. The Course has said these spiritual experiences as you have had are a prerequisite to doing the Course. It seems like you want people to only relate to Truth when it is not possible for them to do so. A person can pretend they understand Truth but that's all it is, pretending.
As to experiencing Truth: most of the people I speak with experience Truth. Most know this. Some come to see this after speaking with me. They did not realize they were experiencing Truth.
Here are two examples: most students report feeling peace when they read ACIM or other spiritual material. That's the Holy Spirit or a miracle or however you want to characterize that experience of Truth.
Here's one that's universal: your experience of "I am" or "I exist". That pure experience of Beingness, Which is really apart from the story that you have for you as a self. That's what is real and eternal within you. That's the Truth. What you have to sort out is that pure experience from the story. That's really all we're doing.
It's a Course in "Miracles" rather than Revelation because miracles meet you where you are. You need the gentle reminder that Truth is here with you. You need the repetition, which you couldn't take with Revelations. Miracles are how you get to know and trust Truth. Are you sure that you're not rejecting miracles because you're attached to being a hard case?
As for your question about reincarnation: Actually, since there's only one dream it cannot be just anything or suddenly become something else. It is what it is. But I'm not going to continue to try to make my point. We're talking about nothingness. If reincarnation is a concept that sets you free from fear and guilt then I say use it!
So as I went about my morning, I got thinking about the dream and the Tony character in the actual television show NCIS and realized, he in many ways is like Jose was and then an insight struck me. We are all playing a character in the greatest show on earth and that none of it is real, we are just following script after script after script, that's all. We may like or not like all the characters that enter our lives in the show but it matters not because it is all a crazy silly show. Easy to forgive right? So as I go about my day, I find it so much easier to just observe it as if I am just watching a program and the role I play is a widow living alone in the country with 3 dogs who had a dream about her late husband and Tony Dinozzo. Forgive any and every projection of thought that reacts to any scene as if it is real.
Here's a thought - My husband died off as one of the characters in the greatest show on earth so hey, maybe Tony is Jose reincarnated. He can be, it is just a dream. Ha!
I have found that that I am healing the past lifetimes, one of the purposes of this lifetime.
Many people that I am with now were present in the past. The past can show the trauma and the present the healing. All is interrelated. At one level there are no lifetimes, but in 3D you are one with all of them.
i feel so joyful, and then intensely guilty about that. i had clear goals re the study of the course that i now cant make fit. i dont know what truly helpful IS. i dont know how to be with myself or anyone, i cant seem to get a grip on how to be when theres nothing to fix. i am afraid that my nephew will suicide, though i had the experience of one perfect song, the experience of oneness that showed that nothing could really die, or be left behind, because nothing here, nothing separate actually existed, and that was GOOD, WONDERFUL, directly after leaving him in deep despair that he couldnt/didnt want to? shift. i miss the feeling of being 100% free of fear, which i only felt for a few seconds, then guilty for wanting to live in that space of acceptance and joy, when other parts of this dream believe they are trapped in this world, in themselves, as reality and will not experience the freedom, those parts of the onemind will spend all the experience not knowing themSelf. this selfs complete acceptance of a joyful dream seems like it would be unkind, unfair. and i know im still believing in the self that feels like its experiencing all these contradicting things.
a little while after i started studying the course, i had a dream that i was standing on a desert plain, then i climbed down a very tall cliff face into a dark, dark kind of marshy/misty place. i bent down to look at a snail like creature made of blue light, and it started bulging and wobbling, then it kind of.. popped into two creatures, identical, yet undefined, like amorphous amoeba, i heard the words 'primordial slime' and 'eye dropper'. I turned to climb back up the ladder, it had turned from rope into the same electric blue light the creatures were made of, and had changed shape to like.. a saftey netting stretching up the cliff face. i started climbing, and when i was a long way up the sections of the netting stared popping into each other, disappearing from many smaller sections joined together, into bigger, less numerous sections, like the bubbles in a bubble bath do. i was a long way up and knew i couldnt make it back to the ground before the netting dissapeared entirely and as the netting kept popping into itself, i started to really panic as i knew id fall and die, and that my only option was to stop looking at where i was climbing, at what my hands were holding on to even, and focus on the cliff top and just climb as fast as i could, focusing on the golden light that was all i could see. i was so afraid, but i stuck to the plan and i made it to the top as i woke up, knowing everything was perfectly ok. in meditation three nights ago, i saw myself hanging from a cliff top by my fingers. so i know this is possible, that i can know okay-ness, but i dont know how. im not as afraid of my current terror as i would have been without the dream, but i still dont know how to focus on god. i feel so uncomfortable, displaced. i feel like meditation is not enough.. is that not so?? is meditating on god really all i can do? all i need if i want to choose peace instead of this weird afraid inbetweenness?
'the bodys uncomfortable emotions happen only to remind you that theres a thought available for questioning'
thanks for the discussion forum here, and the reminder to trust that any questions asked will be answered, from some aspect of oneSelf, not necessarily where you think it will come from! learning to trust God, not specialness xxx
I was for a few years, a "past-lives therapist". I never doubted that what my clients saw was helpful to them and would result in healing. It never failed to release the client from fear and guilt.
I know the eternal in me - and therefore I know the eternal in my clients, PLUS I had read ACIM. My clients taught me how the ACIM healing principles worked in “real life”. I never told them to go to a past life; I asked them to ask their Inner Wisdom (Holy Spirit) to show them the source or origin of the problem they had came to see me for.
When someone was relaxed to the point that they felt perfectly SAFE, they could remember and reevaluate - see differently - any memory, and see it from a higher perspective, where they were NOT a body a personality or their history. They could see themselves as I saw them, which was a pure, innocent, powerful spiritual being having a temporary human experience.
My clients made ACIM come alive for me. They proved all the claims about healing that are made in the book, such as:
"All healing is essentially the release from fear." SO true!
From Lesson 135: [In your ordinary waking consciousness] "You will not see the mind as separate from bodily conditions. And you will impose upon the body all the pain that comes from the conception of the mind as limited and fragile, and apart from other minds and separate from its Source... These are the thoughts in need of healing, and the body will respond with health when they have been corrected and replaced with Truth." Absolutely true.
"It is not necessary to follow fear through all the circuitous routes by which it burrows underground and hides in darkness, to emerge in forms quite different from what it is. Yet it is necessary to examine each one as long as you would retain the principle that governs all of them. When you are willing to regard them, not as separate, but as different manifestations of the same idea, and one you do not want, they go together." Yes, again.
My clients saw their “pivotal events” in the privacy of their own minds and the Holy Spirit (Inner Wisdom), helped them see them clearly and release the fear. When they opened their eyes after a session, they could breathe again.
I believe our work here is to release the trauma that has clung to us through the years and lifetimes. At times, we were unable to release the fear because we died before we processed the event. TO SERVE US and ENCOURAGE US TO RELEASE the past, uncomfortable emotions play themselves out over and over again on this planet. When we release uncomfortable feelings, we are no longer slave to them. We truly are free.
This blog has been unusual in that all the the comments have indicated to me that the commentors do not get the point of what I was saying. Oh, well. I could write a clarification but I would only be repeating myself. And that would be misunderstood, too! Everyone reads into my writing what they need to read into it. Trying to be understood is like yelling into the wind. So I just put the words out there and let people do with them what they will. I hope they read it with the Holy Spirit and get something useful for themselves where they are right now.
Chapter 17 I 5: "Think you that you can bring truth to fantasy and learn what truth means from the perspective of illusion?"
You can only understand from the perspective above the battleground where there is no time and you realize everything is in the mind.
This post helped me in ways I did not expect. Blessings!
If you read T-15.I.9 about the Holy Instant the only person I have ever read in the 10+ years on this blog who is EXPERIENCING this is you. No one else. The only two people I have ever read that I believe have EXPERIENCED it is you and Helen. There must be others but the only person I can sense that has had the full experience of A Course in Miracles is you. A lot of people experience the "feelings" of miracles taking place in their lives, me included, but I never have read a comment that gave me the feeling that the person was speaking from anywhere but a firm foundation in the dream 'talking about' Truth. This is a problem. This is not what the Course is saying will happen. I wrote two comments this week that I erased where it seems to me that the bar to experiencing the Course is too high. That's something that Jesus will have to address if it is true. But the bar has been too high since spirituality or religion began. So many people trying to experience what the Course says but virtually no-one getting there.
As it says in the preface "God has provided the Answer, the only Way out, the true Helper...It is the Holy Spirit's goal to help us escape from the dream world..." I'm sorry Jesus, I'm sorry Holy Spirit, but from here it looks like we need some additional help getting this thing off the ground.
The point I wanted to make is that you and the people commenting on the blog are coming from two different paradigms. When we start talking about things like life after death, this is as good as it's going to get.
Do you see the guilt in the belief that there is a "bar" that must be attained to have the experience you desire? Worthiness is not the issue. Willingness is. And so is the ability to tolerate and accept the experience. Do not underestimate how shattering a Revelation is. Every miracle you experience prepares you for higher miracles and for Revelation. Do not push away the Holy Spirit because It does not seem like enough for you. You are pushing away the very Thing that will help you prepare for the experience you want. Therefore, you are pushing away the very experience you want!
Whole issue of reincarnation is of self vs. Self. Spirit obviously continually "reincarnates" into new bodies and forms - the personal thought system doesn't pass directly into a new person, but is absorbed by the culture and reintroduced to newcomers via collective consciousness, so in that sense, even egos influence future generations and so what we do in this life is important for evolutions progress.
What is the "one song" which leaves you feeling strange?
i about the experience on Liz's post called One Story, a blog or two back. My mind has been in turmoil since then, after a wee while of relative peace, because i havent really wanted to let go of my old sense of self, to let go of the world and myself as i knew (and mistrusted) them ;) but it has all been part of a truly magnificent orchestration, i railed and wailed and desperately tried to keep making god outside of myself, including here on this blog.
but ultimately i want peace more than anything else, and i want it now, where it exists, not in some unattainable other time!
last night i heard the voice, which said you are letting go of magic, which i must say the understanding of had still remained elusive, but then 'how do the teachers of god spend their days' came up on my ipod, which brought clarity, and the message ties in with the experience of one song. and with the topic of this blog as well, as it is my belief in a will separate from gods (which leads to an experience in which individual existence and death can seem real) that i have been and still am, struggling to let go of. am practising letting go of. it is very easy for me to loose sight of the truth right now, as my nephew is in the greatest pain ive ever seen in someone i love, i was the first to hold him after his 'birth', and he now only 17 years later wishes to 'die'. and ive felt very guilty that this pain and my attachment to him has been the perfect place for me to really start choosing peace. but as i said, i do see that the orchestration in my own seemingly individual and separate climb up the ladder is 100% perfect. there is only One Son, its just i havent fully accepted it yet.
its up to me whether i use this situation to know god, the truth, or strengthen belief in separation, in individual selves.
this morning in an email from a teeshirt company, one shirt presented was called 'down the rabbit hole' and the other shirt was called 'wonderlands'.
to my individual self, this feels like a big important crossroads im at, though the one song showed me that this isnt an accurate experience in reality, as this experience of awakening isnt REALLY happening. i still identify in the dream, but im learning to =be lucid.
OK, thanks for referring me back to where you mention "One Song" - I like it! Isn't it interesting what challenges Being trusts us with for our own growth, the growth of others and It's own growth! There is so much stigma around suicide, isn't there? I remember smiling reading Alberto Villodo (shaman) talking about how in his lineage shamanic healing doesn't necessarily even imply preserving life if it's in the soul's higner good to move on. Taran is blessed to have you in his life. All you can do is love him, right? Sending you heartfelt wishes for a positive outcome... <3 Sage