Thomas, Michael, Gary - Reincarnation, what of it?

This is one of the fascinating theme that seems to get more and more attention recently, and certainly the material on Gary Renard, on the website of Walter Simkew is very interesting, because it brings up several interesting questions. Walter Simkew is a doctor, and clearly a very meticulous researcher, but he remains stuck in the model of reincarnation as a reality, which turns matters on their head. One of the key questions he discusses on this page is very tough to explain if you stick to that view point, but much easier to understand if you come from a standpoint of the primacy of the mind, in which case there is hardly any difficulty at all.

The premise is that Gary Renard and Michael Tamura both have recolections of being both Roger Sherman and the Apostle Thomas, which is puzzling if you think that a soul does in fact incarnate in a body. I had written something about this earlier, under the title of Multiple Thomases and other Curiosa because I wound up being with Gary when he was on a TV panel with yet another person with recollections of Thomas. It makes sense once you think of it the other way around. If you think of it that we are caught up in a giant multiplex cinema, the hologram of space and time, all of which is the result of the one thought of separation, then it begins to make sense, we can wander into one movie or another, we can be actors in different movies, and we can even be viewing ourselves in several roles at once. Seen from that point of view, it is intuitive we've all played multiple roles, so we could also both have played the same role. The trick of identification which is necessary to make the error real, is to identify ourselves with one role, instead of all of them. At that point we've entered the battle of the survival of the fittest, etc. This is what the ego thought wants us to do, to think that what we ARE is one of the characters on the screen, at which point we lose our mind by fully identifying with the adventures of that character.

If we realize that the "lives" we lead, are merely roles we act out in the mind, and that the mind is merely shuttling between screens in this cosmic cineplex, which is the time-space hologram, we come to realize that there is no "incarnation" but merely a "local experience," (Einstein's expression) through identification. On the other hand we can also make it even more real, by using past life memories to make ourselves more important. Notice how interested people are in finding out how they were certain celebrities in another life, etc. as if that were important. We're all good actors, and we played all the roles, we were Anthony AND Cleopatra, Caesar AND Brutus, not to mention a sutler in the Roman army somewhere, or a prostitute, a murderer, and a saint. So just like in a dream at night, we're all the characters on the stage, though we identify mostly with just one. We're also the audience. And so it is that the usefulness of past life memories, in whatever roles, is not to make ourselves important with past lifetimes as Kings, and Queens, great inventors, or very holy saints, but even if the roles are Judas, Hitler or Genghis Khan, to use them as more forgiveness opportunities, because they help us recognize patterns that are important tools to us, which we use to maintain the state of war, instead of joining with Jesus in the view above the battleground, and letting it all go.

    Those with the strength of God in their awareness could never think of battle. What could they gain but loss of their perfection? For everything fought for on the battleground is of the body; something it seems to offer or to own. No one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor could he value the body's offerings. The senselessness of conquest is quite apparent from the quiet sphere above the battleground. What can conflict with everything? And what is there that offers less, yet could be wanted more? Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make? (ACIM:T23/IV.9)

And in terms of the Thomas Gospel, statements which relate to this are such as Logion 99 which is the often misunderstood statement of Jesus about his mothers and his brothers standing outside, to which he responds that his mother and his brothers are whoever does the Will of God. His point evidently is that we are not our roles in the world, and what unites us is not blood ties as families on earth, but the love of the Father we all share, and by consciously choosing to abide in that love, we will also realize our brotherhood with all people.