Breaking the cycle

Not only are karmic cycles often not completed - they are meant to be broken! The whole point of karma is to experience both sides of every occurence. Consider the case of a child who has often suffered beatings at the hands of a parent and is too young and/or too weak to escape them. Here are a few possible scenarios that could be played out in the karmic sense:

• If the parent lives long enough to become weakened by age, the child will be the stronger of the two and may begin beating the aged parent. This is not uncommon, especially if the adult child has not forgiven the beatings and still harbours anger towards the parent. In this case, one cycle could be completed in a single incarnation.
  
• The child may wait until another incarnation where the roles have been reversed so that it is the one administering the beatings.

Even though karma now seems to have been satisfied - that is, both parties have received and administered the beatings - it's likely that the cycle will continue to be repeated a number of times before one of the entities finally realizes that in order to stop the pain, it must 'turn the other cheek' and break the cycle. Thus a conscious decision is made by one of the parties not to return the beatings in this life, the next life or any life. The lesson has been learned and the entity is determined to move on and leave this particular scenario behind.

Fear of believing

Reincarnation may be difficult for some to believe in because it makes each individual not only responsible for their own actions, but also because of karmic circles. Simply put, (and to steal a quote from the Bible) karma can be defined as 'an eye for an eye'. In other words, if you hurt me in this life, I'll hurt you the same way in the next, so that you have to experience how it feels to be on the receiving end of the hurt. This leads to another hurdle, which is the assumption that if there are karmic cycles, then we have no control and so have to live each life entirely at the mercy of fate.

From the moment of birth the foundations are being built for the lifetime and life lessons that await. Even though the personality is already defined, the physical environment and various human interactions will also contribute to round out the overall being.

Although the new incarnation was thoroughly discussed among the participants and certain events were decided prior to birth, the entity and those who interact with it are not doomed to play out a rigid lifetime that is totally dictated by fate. To the contrary, everyone has free will and can at any time change, alter or terminate the original plan.

What this means to you is that you are not at the mercy of some sinister plan that you can't remember forming and no longer want to participate in. You have choices now and you always will. Believing in reincarnation doesn't mean that you're locked into a lifetime drama where the play is already written and you simply recite your lines and take whatever the author has written into your part. Yes, there are karmic implications to the reincarnational cycle, but there is no rush to learn everything in this one lifetime. You may begin to journey down one path as planned and then decide that's not what you wish to do after all. Someone in your karmic circle may choose not to complete the entire cycle you had originally planned. It's ok if that happens, there will be other lives and other opportunities to complete the circle.

Beginning life's journey

When we incarnate we have to be reintroduced to the physical realm; we don't just slide from one plane into another knowing how to survive. Initially we rely completely on our caregiver(s) to look after our physical needs. While we can't yet function in the waking world, we're still very connected to the disembodied state. As parents tenderly watch their little ones sleep, they might wonder what the baby could possibly be dreaming about. In fact, the baby's Ka is fully aware and functioning perfectly in its disembodied state, exactly as it will for the child's entire life.

As time passes, the child sleeps less and less, separating from the disembodied state and taking its place in the conscious, physical state. Eventually the conscious mind will dominate, surrendering to the subconscious only during sleeping hours. There will be times in the early years that the child will function in both realms, not yet fully separated from its unconscious state. This explains why children sometimes talk about seeing people or things that we can't, as I described in my post of October 31, 2009. However, some children will not completely lose their ability to see 'spirits' or visions, they will retain that ability and become what we refer to as psychics.

As we function in the physical world, we're usually not aware on a conscious level of the goals and tasks we've set for ourselves in life or the circumstances we've agreed to participate in for the sake others. Remember that we're not here only for our own journey, but also as players in the journeys of many others. If we knew what life held in store for us, it would totally negate the purpose of the journey. It is not only imperative that we not know, it is a kindness. I know of many people who regularly seek to find out about their future by visiting psychics or using some type of divination such as tarot cards, tea leaves, palm reading, or what have you. While all of those things may be of passing interest, knowing what the future holds would almost certainly be detrimental to the journeyor.

A reincarnational basic

Although this post is short, the basic building block of reincarnation that it discusses can be one of the most difficult to grasp.

Even though you may already believe in the theory of reincarnation, perhaps you haven't really thought through the mechanics of it.

As explained in my previous post, each of us is responsible for the lessons we learn in any given life. What we learn isn't decided by the hand of some divine being or god, we learn lessons that we set for ourselves. This is a major stumbling block for some, as they don't want to take responsibility for their circumstances - it's much easier to blame it on God, or Fate or some other factor. In fact, it's very common (in the Christian world at least) when someone is beset with a tragedy, for others to offer such comforting words as, "God works in mysterious ways", or "Someday we'll understand", or "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger". While I'm sure such sentiments are well meant, they are in fact, quite mistaken. The bottom line is, you are making your own reality exactly as you planned to prior to assuming your earthly persona.

Before you entered your current life, you thought through all of the experiences you had in other lives. You created a plan based on what you wish to encounter in your current physical form, including both the pleasant and unpleasant, and any abilities or disabilities you possess. You have a circle, or cell of beings that you have been reincarnating with for many lives and you discussed the details of your current plan with them prior to taking your current form. Together you decided how best to achieve not only your own plan, but each of theirs as well. You sorted out beforehand who would be the parents, the siblings, the friends, the enemies, and even the passers by in this incarnation. Individually, you all have goals to attain, collectively you get it done.

There is a plan and you are the author.

Reincarnating

You will reincarnate to achieve a number of things. There are new experiences to try and karma to work out. There are emotions to feel and other entities to assist. Just the wonder of our world is enough reason to reincarnate - the warmth of the summer sun, the breath of a cooling breeze, the taste of a favourite food, or the touch of a loved one - all of these are delights we experience on this earthly plane.

I expect that most of my readers are living in North America, or at least in a western civilization. Your overall environment most certainly includes access to clean water and nutritious untainted food, good health care, religious and political freedom, public education systems and accredited universities, etc. But there are other environments on our planet, and even in our own countries, that don't include all of those things. A myriad of environments are available to the reincarnating entity. Not only can you choose from almost any situation that can be imagined, you have the power to abrubtly change your environment as many times as you desire.

Prior to returning to physical form, you will review your previous lives and accomplishments. You'll then decide upon which tasks and experiences you wish to achieve in the next incarnation. Through consultations with your nuclear 'cell' or inner circle of family and friends (as described in my last post), assistance will be garnered to help you achieve your goals. The consultations will include both living and 'dead' entities who have goals that complement your own. An environment will be selected and a plan will be woven in which all the players have specific roles and responsibilities, so that all of the required experiences will be met.

This is the tapestry that I first described in my post of September 27, 2009, The overall plan. Thus the plan is ready and the players on their marks and in their roles when the reincarnation begins. Even though you choose your parents and siblings prior to birth, the other entities in the family group have also agreed to the physical addition of the new member. There are no accidents of birth.

Humans have a very long maturing process and it takes years for the new entity to function easily in its physical environment. You will be born with your own individual personality and physical abilities (or disabilites, if you so choose). You will probably exhibit talents or predilections at an early age; for instance you may be very musical, mathematical or whimsical. Initially you will still be very connected to the disembodied state you had prior to birth, thus explaining why children are so often attributed with being attuned to the spirit world. As time passes, the previous incarnations will fade from your memory until you're fully immersed in the current physical world and generally unaware of your psychic side.

This separation from previous lives and experience is imperative to your ability to function in the here and now. If you were carrying around conscious memories of all of your past incarnations, you'd be darned confused in this one! While we'd all like to believe that we were royalty or persons of influence in our other lives, the fact is that the population generally is poor and hardworking. Chances are, most or all of your prior lives were not as the historical legends you may have hoped to be.

Your initial years are very much shaped by the people that you had chosen to be your parents and other family members. They are influencing how you think about yourself and the world, and generally laying the foundation for your future. Obviously, if you've been born into a family with financial means, you'll have a better opportunity to become well educated and exposed to a more cultural lifestyle than someone who was born to a family of little means. This is not an advantage nor a disadvantage, it is simply a component of your world.

As the years pass, you'll learn to function in your physical body. You'll also learn that all actions have consequences and hopefully you'll begin to develop reasoning powers so that good things happen and unpleasant results are avoided as much as possible. As you pass from childhood through your teenage years and into adulthood, millions of experiences, emotions and events will shape the person you are, but that will not change the essential you - the you that existed prior to your current time on earth. That you is still there and it's doing exactly what it planned to, with or without you conscious knowledge.

So where were we?

So where were we? This Christmas/New Year's thing totally disrupted my chain of thought! Hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday and I wish you all the best for 2010 - imagine the second decade of the century already! I think the holiday break pointed me in a different direction than I had intended to follow, but it's all relative, so here's a little more on reincarnation.

I've often been tempted to just throw in the towel and let life happen. All my years of searching and honing my beliefs still don't make dealing with life's ups and downs any easier; and even though I know and I believe, I wonder about some of the things that I've 'allowed' to happen to me over the years.

The tenets of reincarnation are very basic, yet intricately complex. I've done a couple of posts on the topic already (see Initial comments on reincarnation posted on October 31, 2009 and More on reincarnation, which I posted the following day, November 1). In those posts, I touched on how our personalities are shaped before we're even born and/or exposed to environmental influences and I talked about some of my own past life memories. In this post, I'm going to attempt to expand on the concept of reincarnation as I believe it to be. There's an important component to reincarnation related to the concept of time, but for simplicity's sake, I won't introduce that topic yet, instead, I'd like to begin by citing one of my favourite quotes:

You will reincarnate whether or not you believe that you will. It is much easier if your theories fit reality; but if they do not, you will not change the nature of reincarnation one iota. (from the book, The Seth Material).

It is my belief that we reincarnate in groups or 'cells' of entities. This is generally a very large number of beings who all choose to reincarnate in the same time, but not necessarily the same location. (Such as described by Edgar Cayce, who spoke often about the large number of Atlanteans who were choosing to reincarnate in the twentieth century.) Thus a cell is not simply a handful of beings, but a very large population, often from another single era such as the continent of Atlantis or the American Revolutionary times. The large group shapes the environment needed to contain the workings of the small groups. Within the large group are our smaller, individual cells, each a nucleus of perhaps a few hundred beings, who work together to achieve their individual reincarnational requirements. To help you visualize, think of the larger group as the society that we live in, while the smaller groups are our personal circle of individual family members and friends.

So, before a particular reincarnational cycle begins, the environment (or stage, if you will) must be created. This is achieved in a number of ways through the actions and requirements of the entities. It is the physical manifestation of the term 'making your own reality', which is and will continue to be, a focal point thoughout my posts. Our earth is a very large place with an enormous number of possible environments for individuals cells to work within. When that is multiplied by the tremendous number of worlds in our universe, there is literally no end to the envronments that can be created in which to play out any type of life cycle.

The physical world as we know it is only one of millions that can and do exist. For reasons that may not be clear to your conscious self, but that are very significant to your unconscious or inner self, you have selected to be exactly where you are in exactly the situation you now find yourself. When we work through the next post or two, perhaps we can find out why.