The Time Has Come

The time has come for me to address the issue of reincarnation and past life memories here, and I'm guessing it won't be the only time. I had been thinking about this all week long, and then today AlterEgo909 posted some musings on déja vu experiences, surmising that they could be past life memories. So I took that as a sign that it was time to stop thinking about it and start writing.

Personally I do not "believe in reincarnation" in an explicit sense, but I do believe that it is a practical way to understand certain phenomena in our experience. The whole thing really becomes much more manageable in the context of a holographic conception of the universe, which is where quantum physics is leading us. There was an interesting article in the Scientific American in July of 2003, titled "Information in the Holographic Universe" and there are any number of other sources where these ideas have been put forth in understandable terms, which give us a framework for understanding that it is our linear experience of time which is really illusory, and just a function of our ability to perceive, but that just like in a movie, the beginning and the ending already exist, but right now I'm watching the scene that's on the screen for a split second, and that to me is "now" and I'm not even thinking about the fact that the beginning and the ending of the tape (film), are already in existence, and are really available simultaneously. Our experience of ourselves is similar. We see ourselves as specific to a time and a place. But some of our experiences can suggest otherwise.

Clearly Gary Renard's experiences -- and my book is after all based on his work -- are no doubt exceptional. Few people have ever had such clear experiences as he did with the visits of Arten and Pursah, who were the apostles Thaddeus and Thomas respectively, with the additional wrinkle that Pursah (a woman) represents Gary's identity in his next lifetime. As I've written repeatedly, in my book and on this blog and elsewhere, it is purely a personal decision for me to accept as authoritative Pursah's selection of an edited "kernel" of the Thomas gospel. I do so only because Gary's experience seems credible and cogent to me, and I find Pursah's edits of the text, which are mostly minor, highly credible, resulting as they do in a collection of 70 sayings which seems highly coherent to me, avoiding some internal contradictions that seem to be present in the historical text. Thus if you are from the school that linear time is reality, which is really a Newtonian conception of the universe, then none of this makes any sense. However, if you suspect that there may be something to the holographic model, then the experience of "memories" of other lifetimes, either past or future seems possible, and can be explained. The temptation always is to make such experiences special, because many people don't seem to have them or at least not be aware of them, but clearly in cultures where reincarnation is part of the common cultural tradition, there is nothing special about this. The problem, if any, comes again if those perceptions are taken as "reality," rather than as simply a way of looking at the world, given my experience of it.

As a young man, in my twenties, I was once askes by a gentleman who I regarded as my spiritual teacher for some twenty-five years, what I thought about reincarnation, and much to my own surprise, I answered that I found it plausible but not necessary, and he responded that he thought I was right. At this time I had already had extensive exposure to cultures where the belief in reincarnation was completely normal and natural, such as Tibetan Buddhism, among others because in the early sixties through friends of my father's, a student from the company of the Dalai Lama came to Holland to study from their exile in Switserland. I still remember the consternation at the dinner table, when he asked us how long it was on horseback from Rotterdam, Holland to Basel, Switserland - horseback riding being still the dominant mode of travel for him. Many years later I found A Course in Miracles, and its position on reincarnation mirrors my own, and overall its model of our experiential universe really matches up nicely with the holograhpic notions suggested by quantum mechanics, including the basic metaphysics of forgiveness, which entails that it is really always in truth ourselves we are forgiving, since the mind is one, and our belief in our personal identity, which we mistake for reality, is what prevents us from seeing that, so that by letting go of that belief we open ourselves up to a more universal experience. Here is what the Course says:

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?" And that depends, of course, on what it is used for. If it is used to strengthen the recognition of the eternal nature of life, it is helpful indeed. Is any other question about it really useful in lighting up the way? Like many other beliefs, it can be bitterly misused. At least, such misuse offers preoccupation and perhaps pride in the past. At worst, it induces inertia in the present. In between, many kinds of folly are possible.

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. If he is laying the groundwork for a future life, he can still work out his salvation only now. To some, there may be comfort in the concept, and if it heartens them its value is self-evident. It is certain, however, that the way to salvation can be found by those who believe in reincarnation and by those who do not. The idea cannot, therefore, be regarded as essential to the curriculum. There is always some risk in seeing the present in terms of the past. There is always some good in any thought which strengthens the idea that life and the body are not the same.
For our purposes, it would not be helpful to take any definite stand on reincarnation. A teacher of God should be as helpful to those who believe in it as to those who do not. If a definite stand were required of him, it would merely limit his usefulness, as well as his own decision making. Our course is not concerned with any concept that is not acceptable to anyone, regardless of his formal beliefs. (ACIM-M-24.1-3:4)