“Time is on my side, yes it is; Time is on my side, yes it is“ - Rolling Stones
Good afternoon all,
My oath am I tired?! Long week, but believe it or not, its been one of my quietest weeks workwise in a while, but hey its Friday, so its all good. I hope all is well in your corner.

I’m sure many of u have seen the movie Fallen with Denzel Washington, the story deals with a bad spirit that jumps from being to being etc. hence the song extract above. What tha @**! U might be thinking? Let me make it all slightly clearer, today I am writing about reincarnation, a topic that many of us at some moment in our lives have thought/discussed at length about, but ended up parking it somewhere in the archives.

Reincarnation or the transmigration of the soul is phenomenon that has been discussed by many generations before ours. It is believed that earliest classical definition of reincarnation came to the fore through the Indian Brahmana writings in about 9 BC. It was adopted by Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Jainism and later by Chinese Taoism in around 3 BC. Egyptians also adopted a form of reincarnation, but their beliefs tended more towards resurrection rather than reincarnation hence the embalmment of dead bodies. This was done with the thought that the wandering soul, that had left the deceased person’s body would find its way back into the body of the deceased.
A Greek philosopher/mathematician Pythagoras also adopted this. He was of the belief that the soul was immortal and merely resided in the body, when the body’s duty was done, the spirit would survive and find another soul to inhabit. He believed that this series of rebirths purify the soul till it reaches full purification, at which stage it can leave the whole reincarnation cycle.

Plato another Greek philosopher shared these sentiments, but he added a twist to this whole process, he stated that the soul was an entity floating in the celestial world and as a result of sin it was banished to endure life in a physical body. Through this whole reincarnation process, the soul gets tarnished with impurities, and if through the life of the soul it inhabits, the impurities outweigh the good deeds of the soul, i.e. the good deeds of the soul, can’t eliminate the impurities, the soul will deteriorate and end up in Tartarus, a place of eternal damnation…enter the Christian concept of hell.

Lets go back to the Eastern thinking behind reincarnation.

The teachings of the east, believe that once a person died, their soul would leave the body and is (re)born into another entity. None of the personal attributes the past life this soul once lived is carried forth as it ‘can not record any data produced in the illusory domain of psycho-mental existence’ and thus disintegrates with the death of the body. What is carried forward however is the karmic debt of the previous life. What happens then, is the new person experiences the fruits of the actions of the past life, and its up to the new soul to ‘stop the rot’. The thinking behind Karmic debt is what is used to describe situations where you have a person, religious as all hell, always helpful to others…lived the life of an angel, but they just cant seem to get it right, life is a struggle financially, they’re always ill, misfortune just keeps finding its way to them etc. then on the other hand we have another person, just an average joe plodding through life, rich, healthy, fortunate u get the picture?! This process is believed to persist until purification of the soul is achieved. Hindus, Buddhists and Chinese Taoists similarly share this sentiment. Below is an extract from Chuang Tzu of Taoism faith:
Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point. Existence without limitation is space. Continuity without a starting point is time. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in. That through which one passes in and out without seeing its form, that is the Portal of God

Enter modern thinking…now you know us western people, Karma and all that funny stuff is far too airy fairy for us to even try and comprehend, we need hard and fast definitions. There has got to be a goal in sight. So what new age thinking brought about was the theory of the soul’s passage through the universe as being one of an eternal progression of the soul towards higher levels of spiritual existence. New age thinking believes that the soul preserves the attributes of personhood as it passes through different lives.

My view on reincarnation is pretty simple. The only life I know is this one. The only Karmic debt I will know is the one that I live in this body and I so do believe in Karma. So in this life that I live through this mind, body and soul, my actions determine the consequences I will have to endure and hence the path that my life takes! Reincarnation or no reincarnation, what I do on this earth, will inevitably find its way back to me in some form or another! Whats your take on it all?

Once again many thanks to www for the research info!

Birthdays
9th Nicolette
10th Steve
11th Bontle
Many happy returns to you all

Quote
It’s a quote I may have used before, I know I am slacking on the quotes but I quite enjoy this one. I got it from a breakfast I attended this morning about BEE and transformation.

“we must become the change we want to see” – Ghandi

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Have a great weekend if you are still at work or a great week if you have just received this on Monday morning.

Ciao and maximum respect as usual! If you are writing part 1 of the board exam, next week, may the force keep you calm and focused and full of all the RIGHT answers ;-)

Y