Reincarnation

Home Forums Urantia Book General Discussions Reincarnation

Tagged: 

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 563 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #25401
    Avatar
    Ragathea
    Participant

    I am confused. TUB states in several places that the idea of reincarnation is absurd. How would one explain, then, the work of those such as Brian Weiss, Dolores Cannon, and Michael Newton? (Not to mention the religions of Buddhism and Hinduism). I have an idea on the issue, but I would first like to see some discussion on it to get some other ideas I may not have considered. Then I would like to share my thoughts on the subject.

    #25403
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    I am confused.

    No problem.  Consider the transcendent goal of the children of time:

    1:0.3  The enlightened worlds all recognize and worship the Universal Father, the eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. The will creatures of universe upon universe have embarked upon the long, long Paradise journey, the fascinating struggle of the eternal adventure of attaining God the Father. The transcendent goal of the children of time is to find the eternal God, to comprehend the divine nature, to recognize the Universal Father. God-knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy. From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.” In love and mercy the messengers of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation down through the ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly animal-origin creatures as the human races of Urantia.
    While earth is our natal sphere, it is not our destination.
    Welcome to the forum!
    #25404
    Avatar
    Mark Kurtz
    Participant

    Hello Ragathea,

    My understanding is the basis of the reincarnation idea/concept is personal improvement. A good idea; a divine ideal.  Reincarnation is man’s concept of getting from lowly to a higher spirit level and man’s limited viewpoint is a philosophical problem, while attempting to explain “in a vacuum”. How does one explain without knowing all the facts?

    The UB does not confirm man’s understanding of the process of growth. The Revelators gave us a profoundly important upgrade to our understanding, as you see in Mara’s selected quote. From this quote and other UB information, we can see past understandings, no matter what human being expressed on the topic, are incomplete. It is good to desire spiritual growth. The Celestials and our Paradise Father do observe our desires.

    We may consider the UB as a shared upgrade to mortal understandings of the Cosmos.

    #25406
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    . . . consider the UB as a shared upgrade to mortal understandings of the Cosmos.

    That’s cool.   :good:

    Here is another reference to consider:

    92:7.3 The many religions of Urantia are all good to the extent that they bring man to God and bring the realization of the Father to man. It is a fallacy for any group of religionists to conceive of their creed as The Truth; such attitudes bespeak more of theological arrogance than of certainty of faith. There is not a Urantia religion that could not profitably study and assimilate the best of the truths contained in every other faith, for all contain truth. Religionists would do better to borrow the best in their neighbors’ living spiritual faith rather than to denounce the worst in their lingering superstitions and outworn rituals.
    Another interesting idea to consider refers to the three types of religion on Urantia: evolutionary religions, revelational religions, or a mixture of both.  I don’t have time to find the reference.
    #25407
    Van Amadon
    Van Amadon
    Participant
    The Discourse on True Religion
    155:5.1 
    This memorable discourse on religion, summarized and restated in modern phraseology, gave expression to the following truths:
    155:5.2 
    While the religions of the world have a double origin—natural and revelatory—at any one time and among any one people there are to be found three distinct forms of religious devotion. And these three manifestations of the religious urge are:
    155:5.3.
    1. Primitive religion. The seminatural and instinctive urge to fear mysterious energies and worship superior forces, chiefly a religion of the physical nature, the religion of fear.
    155:5.4
    2. The religion of civilization. The advancing religious concepts and practices of the civilizing races—the religion of the mind—the intellectual theology of the authority of established religious tradition.
    155:5.5
    3. True religion—the religion of revelation. The revelation of supernatural values, a partial insight into eternal realities, a glimpse of the goodness and beauty of the infinite character of the Father in heaven—the religion of the spirit as demonstrated in human experience.
    #25408
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    Oh yeah, you found it.  I was wrong.  Thanks  :-)

    . . .the religions of Buddhism and Hinduism.

    So, of those three, would Buddhism or Hinduism be . . . which?  Or a combination?

    I ask, because I think those two religions subscribe to reincarnation.  Maybe Jainism does too.  I think the Jainist holy men use a soft broom to sweep the ground in front of where they walk in order to prevent themselves from stepping on crawling insects.  They don’t want to kill anything in case it might have once been a human (I think).  But I digress.

    94:12.7  All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.
    .
    94:4.1   With the passing of the centuries in India, the populace returned in measure to the ancient rituals of the Vedas as they had been modified by the teachings of the Melchizedek missionaries and crystallized by the later Brahman priesthood. This, the oldest and most cosmopolitan of the world’s religions, has undergone further changes in response to Buddhism and Jainism and to the later appearing influences of Mohammedanism and Christianity. But by the time the teachings of Jesus arrived, they had already become so Occidentalized as to be a “white man’s religion,” hence strange and foreign to the Hindu mind.
    .
    94:7.2   Gautama formulated those theories which grew into the philosophy of Buddhism after six years of the futile practice of Yoga. Siddhartha made a determined but unavailing fight against the growing caste system. There was a lofty sincerity and a unique unselfishness about this young prophet prince that greatly appealed to the men of those days. He detracted from the practice of seeking individual salvation through physical affliction and personal pain. And he exhorted his followers to carry his gospel to all the world.
    .
    94:7.8   Siddhartha taught far more truth than has survived in the modern cults bearing his name. Modern Buddhism is no more the teachings of Gautama Siddhartha than is Christianity the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
    .
    94:8.2   Buddhism took origin in a historic person, not in a myth. Gautama’s followers called him Sasta, meaning master or teacher. While he made no superhuman claims for either himself or his teachings, his disciples early began to call him the enlightened one, the Buddha; later on, Sakyamuni Buddha.
    .
    94:12.6 [Part III]
    At the time of this writing, much of Asia rests its hope in Buddhism. Will this noble faith, that has so valiantly carried on through the dark ages of the past, once again receive the truth of expanded cosmic realities even as the disciples of the great teacher in India once listened to his proclamation of new truth? Will this ancient faith respond once more to the invigorating stimulus of the presentation of new concepts of God and the Absolute for which it has so long searched?
    #25409
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant
    132:7.3   It was on the visit to Switzerland, up in the mountains, that Jesus had an all-day talk with both father and son about Buddhism. Many times Ganid had asked Jesus direct questions about Buddha, but he had always received more or less evasive replies. Now, in the presence of the son, the father asked Jesus a direct question about Buddha, and he received a direct reply. Said Gonod: “I would really like to know what you think of Buddha.” And Jesus answered:
    .
    132:7.4   “Your Buddha was much better than your Buddhism. Buddha was a great man, even a prophet to his people, but he was an orphan prophet; by that I mean that he early lost sight of his spiritual Father, the Father in heaven. His experience was tragic. He tried to live and teach as a messenger of God, but without God. Buddha guided his ship of salvation right up to the safe harbor, right up to the entrance to the haven of mortal salvation, and there, because of faulty charts of navigation, the good ship ran aground. There it has rested these many generations, motionless and almost hopelessly stranded. And thereon have many of your people remained all these years. They live within hailing distance of the safe waters of rest, but they refuse to enter because the noble craft of the good Buddha met the misfortune of grounding just outside the harbor. And the Buddhist peoples never will enter this harbor unless they abandon the philosophic craft of their prophet and seize upon his noble spirit. Had your people remained true to the spirit of Buddha, you would have long since entered your haven of spirit tranquillity, soul rest, and assurance of salvation.
    .
    “You see, Gonod, Buddha knew God in spirit but failed clearly to discover him in mind; the Jews discovered God in mind but largely failed to know him in spirit. Today, the Buddhists flounder about in a philosophy without God, while my people are piteously enslaved to the fear of a God without a saving philosophy of life and liberty. You have a philosophy without a God; the Jews have a God but are largely without a philosophy of living as related thereto. Buddha, failing to envision God as a spirit and as a Father, failed to provide in his teaching the moral energy and the spiritual driving power which a religion must possess if it is to change a race and exalt a nation.”
    .
    *  *   *   *   *
    32:7.9  What a scene for the celestial intelligences to behold, this spectacle of the Indian lad proposing to the Creator of a universe that they make a new religion! And though the young man did not know it, they were making a new and everlasting religion right then and there — this new way of salvation, the revelation of God to man through, and in, Jesus. That which the lad wanted most to do he was unconsciously actually doing. And it was, and is, ever thus. That which the enlightened and reflective human imagination of spiritual teaching and leading wholeheartedly and unselfishly wants to do and be, becomes measurably creative in accordance with the degree of mortal dedication to the divine doing of the Father’s will. When man goes in partnership with God, great things may, and do, happen.
    #25412
    Van Amadon
    Van Amadon
    Participant

    From Paper 94, Section 2 & 3

     

    Brahmanism

     

    94:2.3
    The undue concentration on self led certainly to a fear of the nonevolutionary perpetuation of self in an endless round of successive incarnations as man, beast, or weeds. And of all the contaminating beliefs which could have become fastened upon what may have been an emerging monotheism, none was so stultifying as this belief in transmigration—the doctrine of the reincarnation of souls—which came from the Dravidian Deccan. This belief in the weary and monotonous round of repeated transmigrations robbed struggling mortals of their long-cherished hope of finding that deliverance and spiritual advancement in death which had been a part of the earlier Vedic faith.
    94:2.4
    This philosophically debilitating teaching was soon followed by the invention of the doctrine of the eternal escape from self by submergence in the universal rest and peace of absolute union with Brahman, the oversoul of all creation. Mortal desire and human ambition were effectually ravished and virtually destroyed. For more than two thousand years the better minds of India have sought to escape from all desire, and thus was opened wide the door for the entrance of those later cults and teachings which have virtually shackled the souls of many Hindu peoples in the chains of spiritual hopelessness. Of all civilizations, the Vedic-Aryan paid the most terrible price for its rejection of the Salem gospel.
    94:2.5
    Caste alone could not perpetuate the Aryan religio-cultural system, and as the inferior religions of the Deccan permeated the north, there developed an age of despair and hopelessness. It was during these dark days that the cult of taking no life arose, and it has ever since persisted. Many of the new cults were frankly atheistic, claiming that such salvation as was attainable could come only by man’s own unaided efforts. But throughout a great deal of all this unfortunate philosophy, distorted remnants of the Melchizedek and even the Adamic teachings can be traced.
    #25413
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    I am confused. TUB states in several places that the idea of reincarnation is absurd. How would one explain, then, the work of those such as Brian Weiss, Dolores Cannon, and Michael Newton? (Not to mention the religions of Buddhism and Hinduism). I have an idea on the issue, but I would first like to see some discussion on it to get some other ideas I may not have considered. Then I would like to share my thoughts on the subject.

    Hey Ragathea

    admittedly I know nothing of the works of Weiss, Cannon or Newton.

    i have never given reincarnation much thought.

    possibly in your own words you can summarize their work and maybe say what you think the purpose of reincarnation is? What possible value does it have? How does it benefit a person in their ascension efforts, or even efforts to self improve?

     

     

    #25414
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    More history.  Why? Because history provides context to the idea of reincarnation which denotes *undue concentration on self*. (94:2.3)

    94:2.8   It was during the times of the writing of the Upanishads that Buddhi m arose in India. But despite its successes of a thousand years, it could not compete with later Hinduism; despite a higher morality, its early portrayal of God was even less well-defined than was that of Hinduism, which provided for lesser and personal deities. Buddhism finally gave way in northern India before the onslaught of a militant Islam with its clear-cut concept of Allah as the supreme God of the universe.
    .
    94:4.8  While Hinduism has long failed to vivify the Indian people, at the same time it has usually been a tolerant religion. Its great strength lies in the fact that it has proved to be the most adaptive, amorphic religion to appear on Urantia. It is capable of almost unlimited change and possesses an unusual range of flexible adjustment from the high and semimonotheistic speculations of the intellectual Brahman to the arrant fetishism and primitive cult practices of the debased and depressed classes of ignorant believers.
    .
    94:4.9  Hinduism has survived because it is essentially an integral part of the basic social fabric of India. It has no great hierarchy which can be disturbed or destroyed; it is interwoven into the life pattern of the people. It has an adaptability to changing conditions that excels all other cults, and it displays a tolerant attitude of adoption toward many other religions, Gautama Buddha and even Christ himself being claimed as incarnations of Vishnu.

    .

    92:7.2 New religions cannot be invented; they are either evolved, or else they are suddenly revealed. All new evolutionary religions are merely advancing expressions of the old beliefs, new adaptations and adjustments. The old does not cease to exist; it is merged with the new, even as Sikhism budded and blossomed out of the soil and forms of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and other contemporary cults. Primitive religion was very democratic; the savage was quick to borrow or lend. Only with revealed religion did autocratic and intolerant theologic egotism appear.
    Interesting that new religions are either evolved or revealed, and that autocratic and intolerant theologic egotism appears with revealed religion.
    The idea of reincarnation (94:2.3) is certainly self-centered.  “This belief in the weary and monotonous round of repeated transmigrations robbed struggling mortals of their long-cherished hope of finding that deliverance and spiritual advancement in death which had been a part of the earlier Vedic faith.”  Repeated transmigrations.  The *nonevolutionary perpetuation of self in an endless round of successive incarnations as man, beast, or weeds*.  Sounds grim to me.
    #25415
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    It does sound grim and to me it makes no sense.

    But someone believes it has value otherwise they would not have spent the efforts to research or investigate or whatever?

    id really like to hear the explanation.

    #25417
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    But someone believes it . . . .

    I myself did believe it, prior to getting born-again.  I have a dear friend who attended my very first UB study group in 1991, but did not stay with us when she was informed the UB did not support transmigration of the soul.  She believes in reincarnation.  She did purchase a copy of the book and still reads it.  Every single time we get together she asks me if I am still with the study group and always my answer is yes.  She tells me she reads it by herself.  She attended a study session with us  a while back.  Afterwards and privately she told me she thinks the book really *is something*.  She said, “I think you really have something here” referring to the book. But, she said, she’s had so many *experiences* relating to past lives she doesn’t want to go with what the UB teaches.  So be it.  Anyone can take the teachings in the UB or leave them.  No problem there in my opinion.  :-)

    #25418
    Van Amadon
    Van Amadon
    Participant

    But, she said, she’s had so many *experiences* relating to past lives she doesn’t want to go with what the UB teaches.

    Perhaps she’s fortunate to be indwelt by a very *experienced* Father fragment but just hasn’t realized it yet.

    I wonder if the concept of reincarnation’s dominance in the minds of so many, isn’t just a remnant or consequence of the errant doctrines of rebellion put forth long ago which are still being supported today unwittingly (or knowingly), in addition to all the other nefarious things laid before us like a devil’s foot to trip over.

     

    #25419
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    Greetings Ragathea…and welcome!

    While I’ve never believed in reincarnation, I have had multiple “readings” of my past lives.  Each one was very different and contradictory and part of the mediumship movement or so called new-age movement.  I have no idea how the mind at mischief allows us (or some of us) to remember what never happened or misunderstand self created fantasy lives.  Funny, I come from very humble farm folk but I was a real super star in all my prior ‘lives’….hahahaha….it’s so nice to be special, even in the past and in fictional constructs of the mind.

    The UB clearly demonstrates how the false myth of reincarnation came about.  First thing to understand is this is an early form of eternal life and immortality.  Undoubtedly came from the Andites in several waves in India.  Interesting read about how India and China’s early beliefs were formed around and influenced by the Garden and the Sethites to come later.  Read Paper 79, sections 2, 3. and 4 for more information.

    Much of what Christian’s call pagan actually has a factual origin that became very distorted over long periods of time.  How many incarnations of physical transformation do we experience in the Local and Super Universes?  What a coincidence?  Don’t think so.

    Thanks for the topic.  ;-)

    #25420
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    How many incarnations of physical transformation do we experience in the Local and Super Universes?

    I would say “morontian transformations”.  :-) Here is a partial answer.

    48:1.6   In the days of the mortal flesh the divine spirit indwells you, almost as a thing apart — in reality an invasion of man by the bestowed spirit of the Universal Father. But in the morontia life the spirit will become a real part of your personality, and as you successively pass through the 570 progressive transformations, you ascend from the material to the spiritual estate of creature life.

     

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 563 total)

Login to reply to this topic.

Not registered? Sign up here.