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prssmd Registered User (8/18/03 2:54 am) Reply	REINCARNATION Yogananda was very firmly committed to belief in REINCARNATION. He himself said he led the conquest of England by Continental Europeans in a past life, because England would play an important role later in history in spreading the teachings of the yogis. (Or something like that! I don't have any books on Yogananda available at the moment because I'm staying at a Buddhist institution and they don't have any books on Yogananda.) Now, does anyone want to know where belief in reincarnation in the Hindu tradition originated? It emerged from the Vedas, Brahmanas, and Upanisads, according to which, when you die, your breath returns to the wind, your eyesight to the sun, your bones to the plants, your speech to the fire, your mind to the moon, etc. When you get reborn, this process is reversed. Now isn't that a silly idea! In the Chandogya Upanisad, a distinction is drawn between the fate after death of (a) a man who, in the forest, took up religious practice, thinking that faith is the same as asceticism, and (b) a man who, in the village, gained merit through performing sacrifices and giving charity. In case (a), the man goes into the flame of the funeral pyre, then to the sun, then to the moon, and then to lightning, and there a man who is non-human leads them on to Brahma. In case (b), the man after death goes into the smoke, then to the night, then to the waning moon, then to the "world of the fathers," then into the moon again. The moon is soma, which the gods eat. When they've lived there as long as there is a residue of sacrificial merit, they return by going to space, then becoming wind, then smoke, then mist, then cloud, then rain, then they are born as rice and barley. They cannot escape from being rice and barley unless someone eats them and then emits semen. If their conduct in life was good, they will eventually reach a pleasant womb, i.e., the womb of someone in one of the upper three castes. If their conduct in life was bad, they'll reach the womb of a dog, pig or outcaste. Transforming yourself into the flame of the funeral pyre, then to the sun, then to the moon, and then to lightning....Now isn't that a silly idea! Becoming wind, then smoke, then mist, then cloud, then rain, then being born as rice and barley, a state you cannot escape from unless someone eats you and then emits semen.....Now isn't that a silly idea! Another version of these journeys is found in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad. I wonder which is less silly, the Brhadaranyaka version or the Chandogya version? Or perhaps they are both equally silly? On what basis could we decide whether these versions are true? I wonder whether the current, widespread belief in REINCARNATION among yogis in the Hindu tradition, including followers of Yogananda, is nothing more than a case of believing in what your teachers told you, and their belief is based on only what their teachers told them, and so on, back to the time of the Upanisads, when some clever storyteller concocted these bizarre and silly myths. Through this chain of transmission, changes in the theory were of course made (in order to make the reincarnation theory look more reasonable), but the original idea seems to be just a silly, pre-scientific myth, and I wonder what valid reasons for the theory can be given today. You can read about these myths in many books, including not only the Chandogya Upanisad itself but also in Section 1.2.7 of SELFLESS PERSONS: IMAGERY AND THOUGHT IN THERAVADA BUDDHISM, by Steven Collins, Cambridge University Press, 1982. Edited by: prssmd at: 8/26/03 5:12 am
etzchaim Registered User (8/18/03 5:07 am) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION prssmd, you write: "I wonder whether the current, widespread belief in REINCARNATION among yogis in the Hindu tradition, including followers of Yogananda, is nothing more than a case of believing in what your teachers told you, and their belief is based on only what their teachers told them, and so on, back to the time of the Upanisads, when some clever storyteller concocted these bizarre and silly myths. Through this chain of transmission, changes in the theory were of course made (in order to make the reincarnation theory look more reasonable), but the original idea seems to be just a silly, pre-scientific myth, and I wonder what valid reasons for the theory can be given today." At the moment I don't have the time to explain the "silly things" that Hindu scriptures have written about reincarnation, but they are actually symbols which describe things on a different plain than what we perceive in the "rational physical universe". Personally, prssmd, you are being far to "rational" in my opinion, and are simply not understanding the meaning of myth. However, Ancient Judaism also supports the belief in reincarnation, something that many people do not realize, unless they are familiar with Kabbalah or Chasidus, or the Talmud. The Rabbis of the Talmud discuss it, and state that it exists. Christianity 'voted' against it during the Council of Nicea, prefering the 'eternal life/damnation' scenario to the idea of getting second and third chances. The idea was prevalent in Judaism at the time of Jesus. It doesn't matter what you believe, but I thought you might like to know that it's not just the students of Yoga who believe such 'foolish' things. I've actually discussed parallel past life memories with my Guru, who remembered his part, which matched the parts of my memories from that life time, and we were able to fill in the blanks for each other on a few issues. We were in Amsterdam, he was a Sephardic Rabbi, and I was learning from him. A word to the wise: Most silly pre-scientific myths have come to us from the collective unconscious and are often rather 'accurate' in their symbolism. Reincarnation, I've found, through personal experience, isn't a myth. However, 'myth' has been used quite frequently to explain it. Etzchaim Edited by: etzchaim at: 8/18/03 5:36 am
prssmd Registered User (8/19/03 3:27 am) Reply	Re: THINKING CLEARLY about REINCARNATION Of course Yogananda isn't the only one to believe in reincarnation. But etzchaim seems to think that if a belief is very widespread, that is evidence for its truth. By this strange reasoning, 1000 years ago there was tremendous evidence that the world was flat, because just about everyone believed it was flat. To take another example, as Durkheim pointed out in 1915 in his book, Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, the dependence of the gods on the ritual which sustains them was at one time one of the elementary forms of religion everywhere, not only in India. Is this weighty evidence that sacrifices such as are described in the Vedas or in the Chumash (the first five books of the Old Testament) help sustain the universe or the gods (or, in the case of the ancient Hebrews, the continued existence of the Jewish people, who are, from a Torah perspective, the only people whose continued existence really matters and in fact, who are the only people who have higher souls)? Of course not. Actually (to change the topic), in the case of Judaism, it's a shame that the Kabbalistic teachings (which, according to an Encyclopedia of Judaism that I recently looked at, derive from non-Jewish sources) aren't more widely known. I myself would like to know whether there really is a meditation technique taught in the Kabbalah that is powerful and effective the way kriya yoga is. At Aish Hatorah in Jerusalem, no one I met seemed to know of such techniques, but that must have been the wrong yeshiva for this purpose. Unfortunately, the Talmud itself (not to mention the Kabbalah or Chassidus, which is based on the Kabbalah) isn't very widely known outside the Jewish world, mainly (I think) because that's the way Jews wanted it. From a Torah perspective, non-Jews aren't supposed to read most of the Talmud. In fact, non-Jews aren't supposed to read most (or any?) of the Torah, either, because "The Torah is the possession of the house of Jacob." (Deuteronomy.) ("It's OUR Torah, not yours!" said the Jews who wrote Deuteronomy, or said Moses, if you think Moses wrote the Chumash.) See Sanhedrin 69a (or look in the relevant Meam Loez volumn on Deut.), according to which non-Jews are supposed to be punished by death for reading Jewish texts that are forbidden to them. Finally, etzchaim criticizes me for being "far too rational." This is rather bizarre and strikes me as rather like criticizing someone for being excessively intelligent, kind, or compassionate. Rationality is a virtue, not a vice. I suppose etzchaim prefers irrational over rational behavior and would like to see me do something stupid and irrational such as getting drunk even when it's not Purim or Simchat Torah, instead of thinking clearly about important issues such as what happens to us after we die. I don't mean to sound so harsh, but it's tiresome to be repeatedly (not only by etzchaim) criticized for THINKING CLEARLY about spiritual matters, which is something we all ought to be doing more often. Edited by: prssmd at: 8/19/03 4:20 am
etzchaim Registered User (8/19/03 5:05 am) Reply	Re: THINKING CLEARLY about REINCARNATION Prssmd, First, Aish haTorah is Black Hat Yeshivah Judaism, and no, they aren't going to know much about Kabbalistic meditation. They are set up primarily as an outreach to Jews who grew up secular, or in the less observant (their interpretation of observance) branches of Judaism, and teach the Exoteric side of Judaism as a foundation for remaking these people into "Torah Jews". If you want a good intro to Kabbalah, you might want to start with Aryeh Kaplans books, who I'm sure you are familiar with since you mention Me'am Lo'ez, which he translated. He's Litvak, so if you are used to Aish haTorah, you will be able hear that better. He grew up frum, freid out, became a Physicist, and then did tshuva. Meditation and Kabbalah is the one that gives a good overview. His Meditation and the Bible is very interesting for it's explanation of the prophetic state. It borders on heresy...a good read. It might help you understand a few things if you can move beyond the enlightened state you are currently in. Practical Kabbalah is kept very secret. Many of the techniques of Abulafia, Cordovero, Gikatilla and the Ari Zal, etc., are still being practiced in Jerusalem. Most is in the hands of the Sephardim and they keep it very secret. There is a Rabbi in Chicago who was teaching openly, but he was pressured by the Orthodox community to be more circumspect. The Hebrew University and others have published some English translations and analyses of these various Kabbalists. If you read Hebrew fluently, and don't need vowels, Cordovero's "Pardes Rimonim", which is more practical, is being published and you may find others by using the "intelligence" you have. Jungian Psychology and other approaches to mythic symbolism may present some interesting contrasts for your mind to delve into. The Hebrew letters we use today are Babylonian, by the way. Does it matter? The Torah that is read each week in shul is written not in "Hebrew" letters, but in Babylonian letters. The months of the year are Babylonian words, much of what we consider "Jewish" is Cana'anite, Babylonian, Hellenist or derived from later sources. Moses was, perhaps, much more Egyptian than "Jewish", whatever that could have possibly meant in what ever time he actually lived. There's a good chance that the Jews were originally the Hyksos, a Cana'anite tribe that gained power in Egypt briefly. What is "Jewish"? Is it Aramean? Perhaps it's tribal meanderings in a desert with a box? Babylonian magic put through a radical Monotheistic sieve? A mixture of many things? My suggestion to you is that you meditate and practice more introspection. I'm sorry you do not understand what I'm trying to say to you. Intelligence is much more complex than simply being "rational" and there is far more that is real than can be measured and analyzed by the hubris or 'modern enlightenment'. If you do not understand that there is a "non-rational" world out there that is not at all "irrational", then there is no way I can help you to understand. You are "closed" and quite obviously not going to hear. In my opinion, you are not thinking clearly - your thinking is simply the opposite extreme of what you are criticising, but do not understand. To be clear, you need to truly see the whole picture. Meditation may open you up more than book learning. I wish you well. Etzchaim Edited by: etzchaim at: 8/19/03 10:43 am
stermejo Registered User (8/19/03 11:03 am) Reply	Re: THINKING CLEARLY about REINCARNATION Well, at first I agreed with your "isn't that silly" comment but it looks like you've been studying the whole idea. WHY, if you think it's so silly? Possibly, you're just interested in cultural oddities. On being rational, etz is spot on. You completely miss or ignore the point of her answer that myths surrounding various cultural accounts of reincarnation are rife with symbology that has a much deeper meaning. For myself, and perhaps this is really your point, I don't give a hoot WHO I, Yogananda (Arjuna?--baloney!) or anybody else was in a "past life." Whenever anyone goes on about this silliness, I shut down or try and throw some water of reason on the topic. In fact the idea of a "scientific" belief in reincarnation is mind numbing nonsense. It is not possible in the realm of Western science because one cannot DISPROVE any claims of reincarnation ever happening. A viable scientific hypothesis or theory has to be disprovable. Otherwise, how else can you test it? Edited by: stermejo at: 8/19/03 1:31 pm
stermejo Registered User (8/19/03 1:59 pm) Reply	Re: symbology Sorry, I'm on a bit of a hopefully short layoff and have some extra time on my hands $:\$ Prssmd, you seem to have studied this matter VERY deeply evidenced by your intelligence and scholarship. I suggest (you may already have) reading Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, Jung's Archetypes and Campbell's works on Mythology in order to help you integrate your Buddhist, Vedic, Hebrew studies into the common experience of humanity. Freud says this: "The validity ascribed to the dream-life by certain schools of philosophy- for example, by the school of Schelling- is a distinct reminiscence of the undisputed belief in the divinity of dreams which prevailed in antiquity; and for some thinkers the mantic or prophetic power of dreams is still a subject of debate. This is due to the fact that the explanations attempted by psychology are too inadequate to cope with the accumulated material, however strongly the scientific thinker may feel that such superstitious doctrines should be repudiated."...Interpretation of Dreams Chapter 1 Substitute the concept of reincarnation for dreams. The key idea here is "the accumulated material" on reincarnation is vast. What science and reason require is an adequate explanation of reincarnation.
prssmd Registered User (8/19/03 2:17 pm) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION I previously wrote about the Chandogya Upanisad account of what happens after death to a man who, in the forest, took up religious practice, thinking that faith is the same as asceticism. "The man goes into the flame of the funeral pyre, then to the sun, then to the moon, and then to lightning, and there a man who is non-human leads them on to Brahma." Some people think that the elements of this journey are intended to be symbolic. O.k., so what does the flame symbolize? what does the sun symbolize? what does the moon symbolize? what does the lightning symbolize? what does Brahma symbolize? And, last but not least, what does the man who is non-human symbolize? And, what's the reason for all the secrecy within Judaism about high-powered yoga techniques?
dawnrays Registered User (8/19/03 4:54 pm) Reply	Re: symbology stermejo, I don't know what you would consider to be scientific, but there are alot of modern case studies involving hypnosis and past life regression. I have never had it done, but I believe some psychiatrists, psychoanalysts use it to help their patients cope with deep seated phobias and such. Of course, many people with non-medical backgrounds practice it too. There is a huge body of information of this kind from the Edgar Cayce writings. I think for some people it is helpful to shed some light on their past lives in order to understand the mystery of thier own psyches and relationships. Most people on the east coast are familiar with him (Cayce) and commonly read his writings and others like him before their interest in yoga. If your own deep conviction that this is the only fair and just answer to the mysteries and disparities of our circumstances and gifts in this life isn't enough, then there is certainly a huge amount of information on this subject to delve into. I know that our guru did not recommend going under hypnosis however (it was his opinion that it weakened the mind) for a student of yoga. I believe he taught that one's former lives would be revealed to them slowly and in a natural manner through the practice of yoga. This of course being mainly for the purpose of understanding yourself, your issues and your relationships with others (including your guru(s)) and not for any egotistical satisfaction. On the contrary, I believe the whole reason that we are sheltered from such information is that the truth would be too crushing of a blow for us to make a "fresh start" in this life. I don't know that I would have ever become interested in yoga and it not been my previous exposure to this freeing information. For me, it is so much more of a comfort than the ideas of purgatory, limbo, hell or even the Christian heaven. It is also good to keep in mind that people generally reincarnate in groups (different groupings like families and "soul groups"). And that you attract by your strong emotions toward a person or a situation, the same karma over and over (as in strong love, dislike or hatred.) One helpful way to get an inkling is simply to examine your attractions and repulsions (to places, people, languages, literature, music etc.). Many people have been known (even children) to speak foreign languages and be able to point out places and people they had known before, some even spontaneously (without hypnosis). This is particularly true for children, who are still fresh from the astral and more open and truthful about such things. dawnrays Edited by: dawnrays at: 8/19/03 8:10 pm
prssmd Registered User (8/20/03 1:46 am) Reply	x x
etzchaim Registered User (8/20/03 5:29 am) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION ------------------------------------------------------------ "The man goes into the flame of the funeral pyre, then to the sun, then to the moon, and then to lightning, and there a man who is non-human leads them on to Brahma." Some people think that the elements of this journey are intended to be symbolic. O.k., so what does the flame symbolize? what does the sun symbolize? what does the moon symbolize? what does the lightning symbolize? what does Brahma symbolize? And, last but not least, what does the man who is non-human symbolize? And, what's the reason for all the secrecy within Judaism about high-powered yoga techniques? ------------------------------------------------------------ I'll hazard some semi-educated guesses: The flame may actually be literal. Indians cremate their dead. The sun and moon are the Ajna and Chandra (literally meaning "moon") Chakras. The energy of a person (the memory tract of the soul and the spirit) first goes up the front to the Ajna and then out the back of the head, the Chandra, also a common place for Kundalini to 'shoot out', where a guide who may quite possibly be a devi/devata or angel, leads the energy to Brahma, the Creative principle, which in this case means simply "God" or at least the Creator part of God, as opposed to the Preserving (Vishnu) and the Transforming (Shiva) principles of God. The lightning may actually be a description of an Astral path. The Jewish Tree of Life within the Astral (it exists on all four levels) literally has a "Lightening Strike" path described within it. I'm less knowledgeable in the Vedic symbolism. The reason for secrecy? There are probably many. Fear of misuse of techniques willfully, fear of accidental misuse by people who do not have a teacher, it's fairly easy to misunderstand writing and you can't ask questions from a book, control of power, legitimate or otherwise, etc., etc,. etc... Many people within the Jewish tradition now, including many Chassidim, are open to more dissemination of the teaching and so are beginning to translate and teach more. There is still a lot of holding back and quite a lot is still locked in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Yiddish manuscripts that are only just being rediscovered in forgotten areas of libraries and, well, caves. The people actively using the techniques are still handing these down, something that I have personal experience with, and people from the entire spectrum of 'observance' are now beginning to translate the texts that contain ancient and later techniques. It helps that Hebrew has actually become a living language again, despite the differences between Modern Hebrew and the Classical and Medieval Hebrew of many of the texts. Jews have not been exactly secure in the Christian or Islamic countries, so pogram after pogrom, and attack after attack has taken a major toll on the both the collective psyche of Jews and the ability to keep the tradition in tact. Historically, any upsurge in anti-semitism fostered either more closing off out of fear or more creative development of the Mysticism. This is why Medieval Spain, Provence, and Italy became a center of high development - the level of Jew hatred increased exponentially with the Reconquista. The Domincans ran both the pre-Inquisition and the Inquisition that subjected some extremely highly educated Jews previously from Andalusia to tremendous indignity and torment which caused an intense period of mystical creativity as well as a Jewish version of the Inquisition - converts to Christianity were often the leaders in religious attacks on Jews, assisting the Catholic Inquisition, and within the Jewish communities internal life, the burning of Maimonides books, and the excommunication of what have turned out to be valid mystics and thinkers with hind-sight, like Abulafia and Spinoza (born in Amsterdam of former Marranos/Conversos, or forced converts to Christianity, from Spain. Convert, die or go into exhile was the order of the day, till the final Expulsion in 1492). The same thing happened in Eastern Europe and eventually in Central Europe after the Chmielneki (or however that's spelled) massacres and endless pograms - resulting finally in the Holocaust and the development of Zionism and the State of Israel. The Chassidim provided a way to transcend the hell of everyday life. For good or ill, suffering tends to induce creative ways to continue surviving in hell. Life was only slightly better in the Arabic world, alternating between quite livable and very dangerous, depending on the tides of Islamic Fundamentalism, which is not just a current phenomenon. The Indian traditions developed over an extremely long period and I don't know that history as well. I am aware that there are certain periods (like the 700's through the 1100's C.E.) that produced tremendous growth within Yoga, which is exactly the same time that the Kabbalah was transforming into what we have today. I'm convinced that both traditions grew organically from the preceding developments within both cultures and, being inclined towards mysticism and the idea of living traditions, I believe that both systems are the result of real internal work and study and access to higher realms, not superstition. Personally, I think there should be less secrecy about most of this, and this also has to do with the contining of "living tradition", because both groups appear to be strongly oriented toward dissemination and the removal of the obstacles to being more open. It's the right 'time' for it, so to speak, but there needs to be real, serious teaching about how to deal with the results of opening people up to higher realms and what to do about the natural human tendencies to project personal experience onto collective realities, the nature of symbolism and what we 'perceive' through our different vehicles, and the misinterpretation that goes on when people who are not educated or do not have an adequate "spiritual vocabulary" to correctly process the 'receiving' from the Astral and Causal (if they get that far). In my experience, Astral phenomena are very often either dismissed as a form of insanity and suppressed or are mistaken for universal or 'pure' experiences when the person is actually 'shaping' the experience through their own vehicles and taking it as a 'God' experience when it is really a lower Astral experience. This is why we need to be careful when people start making 'claims' about their visions and other types of mystical phenomena. In other words, the same spiritual energy will manifest itself as a vision of Jesus in one person, a vision of Babaji in another person, a vision of the Divine Mother, of Elijah, of a specific angel or deity, or what ever that persons vehicle 'shapes' and gives form to that energy. This is not to say that visions are not really valid, but it is probably not a really good idea to get caught up in them. Once a person enters into the Higher Astral or the Causal, the 'shaping' becomes less subjective and there are actually "beings of light" who make visits to people. While all the experiences are 'real', the interpretation and shaping is often subjective, not in a "criminal" or "liar" sense, but simply because we are part of the manifestation of God, and do not have the highest view of the 'Reality'...and honestly, we need to quit fighting about who right and wrong and bring in a little more teamwork and exchange of ideas without being so damned wrapped up in our own egos (sorry, I have a strong opinion about this!) This, in my opinion is the best reason for being careful in who receives what techniques. Most people are simply not going to be ready to start opening up to the Astral plane because they are not going to be able to process it. This is precisely why a person on a spiritual path needs to be able to talk to more experienced people on the same path and be assisted, periodically, in the higher planes by a competent Guru or MeKubbelah/Rebbe (the Hebrew terms that are roughly equivalent to Guru) and why it sometimes takes lifetimes to earn the good karma to have a higher level teacher. Etzchaim Edited by: etzchaim at: 8/20/03 5:46 am
etzchaim Registered User (8/20/03 7:24 am) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION The subjectivity of the lower Astral, and to a lesser extent the higher Astral are the result of Maya and are not "illusions" in the sense of a mental illness (such as schizoprenia and other delusion causing illness) and I am certainly not saying that these experiences are not real, just filtered through Maya. Many people experiences a mixture of spiritual experiences from different levels and I am in no way refering to any person specifically, because all of us are subject to the creativity of Maya. Etz
prssmd Registered User (8/20/03 9:09 am) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION & secrecy etzchaim writes: "I think there should be less secrecy about most of this [I believe he means powerful meditation techniques and mystical teachings in Judaism and Hindu yoga], and this also has to do with the contining of "living tradition", because both groups appear to be strongly oriented toward dissemination and the removal of the obstacles to being more open. It's the right 'time' for it, so to speak, but there needs to be real, serious teaching about how to deal with the results of opening people up to higher realms...." I agree with this. I think there are a very small number of cases where something went wrong and people doing powerful meditation practices have flipped out, gone nuts, ended up in an institution for awhile, etc. As a result, teachers have erred on the side of secrecy, being careful about who they teach and trying to prevent the techniques from spreading openly. But this is a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. It's like school districts which have been sued because some small child, using equipment on a perfectly safe playground, got hurt; the school district responds by removing the equipment even though there was nothing wrong with it and sometimes careless children will get hurt, no matter what kind of equipment they play on. Instead of legislatively modifying our tort laws, we allow our society to be destroyed by this sort of occurrence. So how do we deal with these small number of cases in which something goes wrong when teachers "open people up to higher realms"? It's a genuine issue, and it needs to be dealt with, but I don't think this vast, ridiculous secrecy is the proper answer. It's something like trying to keep discussions of sex off the internet because we don't want 10-year-old kids to see it--we are trying to make it so that adults are only allowed to read that which is fit for young children. In the same way, we try to restrict openly available information about yoga to only what is suitable for mentally imbalanced people. We are letting small children and mentally inbalanced people set the standard for everyone else. Edited by: prssmd at: 8/20/03 9:16 am
prssmd Registered User (8/20/03 9:20 am) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION and the Chandogya Upanisad. "The man goes into the flame of the funeral pyre, then to the sun, then to the moon, and then to lightning, and there a man who is non-human leads them on to Brahma." -- This is the view of what happens after certain people pass away, according to the Chandogya Upanisad. etzchaim interprets the sun and moon as referring to chakras. Very interesting idea, and worthy of being posted online. Are there any experts out there who know whether there's any evidence that this is a correct interpretation?
etzchaim Registered User (8/20/03 11:22 am) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION & secrecy Aside from the possible mental and emotional effects of a poorly processed spiritual experience, I was also thinking of the tendency for people to invest in a spiritual experience so strongly that they feel that their experience outweighs other peoples spiritual experiences and invalidates them. There's nothing worse than a closed minded, self-righteous junior saint. Etz
stermejo Registered User (8/20/03 12:44 pm) Reply	Re: symbology "there are alot modern case studies involving hypnosis and past life regression." ----------------------- Absolutely, My all time favorites: The Phoenix Fire Mystery and The Case of Bridey Murphy. Both books provide extraordinary material and food for thought. Yes, I do believe in reincarnation as a better answer than the traditional "one shot deal." That drew me into the teachings. My main problem is with calling metaphysical knowledge and practice "scientific" as we often see in SRF writings. It's an attempt to legitimize metaphysics that does a disservice to science and metaphysics. Scientific, meaning a standardized method used to achieve known results? That's a limited scope. Is it enough to allow yoga to be called scientific? Mind you, I'm not a scientist. I was too lazy to learn the math. Yoga appealed to me on the basis of (marketing?) claims to be scientific; practicing yoga, I can find "scientific proof" of God! My personal experience gives me no room to doubt. I'm glad I found it. But as Sri Yukteshwar indicates, one can't put God in a test tube. Later, in taking some courses on science, I learned: another invetsigator has to be able to duplicate and/or disprove your results, you can't test something unable to be apprehended by the senses, etc.. Fact is psychologists and parapsychologists still have to defend their fields as being real science; no reason yoga should get a free pass. But then, I'm not sure if prssmd is looking to scientifically investigate reincarnation or simply question mankind's sense of mythology. Kudos to etz: "For good or ill, suffering tends to induce creative ways to continue surviving in hell." I recommend, Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, an amazingly profound study in such a small book. Another small book, Harold Kushner's, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, should be REQUIRED reading for every SRF member. And did Master say, he was Arjuna? Well, Hopi dress up as Kachinas and kidnap the young men before their initiation. As a child, ever remember anyone doing the "boogie man" thing or dressing up as Santa? I look at his, "I was Arjuna," the same way. It helps us kids connect up the dots.
prssmd Registered User (8/25/03 8:51 am) Reply	Re: symbology stermejo writes, "And did Master say, he was Arjuna? Well, Hopi dress up as Kachinas and kidnap the young men before their initiation. As a child, ever remember anyone doing the "boogie man" thing or dressing up as Santa? I look at his, "I was Arjuna," the same way. It helps us kids connect up the dots." Do we really need to be treated like kids? Perhaps if we're treated like kids, we'll never grow beyond fantasies and fairy tales. And if "Yogananda was Arjuna" is a fairy tale, then what else have his followers taught us as fact which is actually mere fiction? I favor separating fact from fiction in spirituality. The Buddha in the Pali Canon (the Theravada Buddhist Scriptures) had it right on this point. He taught that there is truth, and the truth is what corresponds to reality. If he's in a grave now, he must be turning quite a bit as so many people nowadays are denying that there is a reality and are pretending that there's no such thing as truth, that there's no difference between what you read in a novel and what you see with your own eyes. I'm not saying that what he taught about epistemology, ethics, etc., was true, but only that he was right in thinking that there is such a thing as truth. Edited by: prssmd at: 8/25/03 8:54 am
prssmd Registered User (8/26/03 5:32 am) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION & Theravada Buddhism Steven Collins points out in one of his books that when Theravada Buddhist scriptures discuss "theoretical conceptions of individuality and continuity" in connection with "memory of former lives," it is only to point out that non-Buddhist religious practitioners have WRONGLY concluded from these supposed memories that there is an eternal self. Sometimes Theravada Buddhists say, "Rebirth occurs, but nothing is reborn."
etzchaim Registered User (8/26/03 6:22 am) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION & Theravada Buddhism I've come across several reincarnation traditions that claim that a 'big' soul can divide into several souls and incarnate into more that one body, or have an Astral body and an incarnate body or bodies. Also, that a body can contain elements from two or more souls that are magnetically drawn to other and integrate during the persons lifetime, so if the person becomes conscious enough to remember the past lives, there will be two or more lines going, which, I imagine would be a bit confusing... According to what I have learned, the soul and the spirit of a person are two distinct things. The spirit is the energy of God, and the soul is the memory tract that the spirit draws to itself when it needs to incarnate, in the general sense of the word, in one of the planes of existence. Etzchaim
prssmd Registered User (9/2/03 1:13 pm) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION & etzchaim the ex-Chabadnik Well, being is very parsimonious, as Lar Short has said. More acorns than oak trees are produced. Maybe most of us are just like these acorns that never become trees but just get eaten by squirrels. So some of us have souls that will just get recycled as squirrel excrement. I mean, the cosmic squirrels, whoever they are, will eat our souls when we die and make excrement out of them. 3/4 of all the people who have ever lived are around today. So that collection came out of the much smaller group that started the human species. Perhaps those original souls have subdivided into the present motley crew of humans. Edited by: prssmd at: 9/2/03 1:19 pm
prssmd Registered User (9/2/03 1:21 pm) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION & Theravada Buddhism If people lack souls, can they reincarnate? Speaking of people who lack souls, I do wonder whether the radical Moslems who thrive on killing American or Israeli babies have souls. Did you ever notice how delighted and happy the Palestinians are whenever a bomb goes off that kills a bunch of children? 80% of the Palestinians want all Israelis to be blown to bits--should we really call the Palestinians people? Perhaps we should call them "people without souls."
etzchaim Registered User (9/3/03 7:46 am) Reply	Re: REINCARNATION & Theravada Buddhism "Perhaps we should call them "people without souls." " Isn't that bringing ourselves to a lower level? I think that if Hitler used terms like "soul", he would have said the same thing. Throwing fire on fire doesn't put out the fire. On the other hand, the roots of the problem are not in Israel, but in the cultures that produce the desensitized people - Israel is the scapegoat and the Palestinians are being used, inhumanely, by the Islamic States to preserve their status quo. At the same time, holding Israel to a double standard and insisting that she not defend her citizens will only increase the violence. Not seeing where the real issues lie, will only increase the problem. Is there an answer that's not bloody? I don't know. I do know that dehumanizing other people, even suicide bombers and people who rejoice in the death of their enemy is not the answer and will only dehumanize us.

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