Reincarnation

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  • #26389
    André
    André
    Participant

    Would like to back-up what had been said by chucksmith.

    Sad Mara you had left the forum but I understand … too often atmosphere isn’t that enhancing.

    On my behalf, I preferred get back to the unheard flocks. The silent audience.

    Brotherly,

    André

    #26392
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    I’d like to get back to the doctrine of reincarnation, transmigration of souls, and discuss why souls can’t pre-exist.  I’d also like to know why some people think personality pre-exists too. Does it?  Another thing that should be part of this discussion is a question to Ragathea and others who claim pre-birth memories, and that is, if they had personality, mind and soul before physical birth, wouldn’t that add credence to the belief that personality is present at the moment of conception, and if not, when does it happen?  And how does the pre-birth mind which ends up in a barely conscious neonate eventually become the same exact mind, soul and personality it was prior to birth?  What’s the process?

    #26393
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    Welcome back Mara!  My sincere regrets for my notable ‘contribution’ to this lurid affair.  No excuse for it.  Thanks for the support and the well deserved rebukes….both.

    :good:

    #26408
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    I understand I’m off topic from the OP’s intent, but:

    If you could reincarnate, would you do it?

    why?

    would you choose to reincarnate as yourself or someone else? Who? Why?

    if you reincarnate is it by choice or someone up there is figuring what’s best for you?

    Does life get better the second or third try?

     

    #26412
    Avatar
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    If you could reincarnate, would you do it?
    why?
    would you choose to reincarnate as yourself or someone else? Who? Why?
    if you reincarnate is it by choice or someone up there is figuring what’s best for you?
    Does life get better the second or third try?

    All good questions, or suppositions, “Gene”, bit before one might answer any of these questions, it would be relevant to answer this question first, because it would have a bearing on the answers above.
    If you could change your past, would you, and what would you change, and why?
    But one must take into account that changing something in the past might cause a chain reaction to changes and choices that may follow from that point on?

    #26415
    Brooklyn_born
    Brooklyn_born
    Participant

    I understand I’m off topic from the OP’s intent, but:

    If you could reincarnate, would you do it? why? would you choose to reincarnate as yourself or someone else? Who? Why? if you reincarnate is it by choice or someone up there is figuring what’s best for you? Does life get better the second or third try?

    1.  Yes, I would reincarnate to rewrite many outcomes in my life.
    2. I would reincarnate as myself because I cannot see myself as anyone else but me! Lol
    3. I would think someone up there is figuring what is best for me.
    4. Sometimes life gets better and sometimes worse the second and third go around.

     

    BB

    #36121
    Avatar
    fordstar7
    Participant

    I am new to the UB and this forum.   I have spent many years studying Eastern religions and philosophy.  Needless to say the UB has rattled many of the concepts I held dear for a long time.  I have worked thru the explanation about reincarnation and agree in relation to the UB teaching it is not compatible.   I have not become overly attached to any one religion and I am glad as the UB plainly states they are not always what they seem to be in reality.

    Another concept; that of “free will” and universal order is giving me problems.

    One question in particular I have not been able to answer to myself after studying the UB.    What determines where a mortal on this planet is born and to whom.  It seems to me there is a huge disparity in the life conditions one is born into.  Is it chance?  Does it make any difference ?  Is a person born into a challenged mental state who may not be able to make a reasonable decision still able to have a Thought Adjuster.  Is free will in play anywhere in the process of a mortal incarnation?  How is the seemingly random placement of the mortal body’s birthplace determined and by who.

    As many of you are advanced students and brilliant in your understanding of the UB I am sure these questions have been posed and answered somewhere I just haven’t  been able to find them anywhere.  I would greatly appreciated and entertain all comments and suggestions on these points.

    Thank you

    Bart G.

    .

    #36123
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    Welcome to the forum Bart.  Glad you got over the idea of reincarnation. I found the UB after going through a patch of espousing such ideas.

    One question in particular I have not been able to answer to myself after studying the UB.    What determines where a mortal on this planet is born and to whom.  It seems to me there is a huge disparity in the life conditions one is born into.  Is it chance?  Does it make any difference ?  Is a person born into a challenged mental state who may not be able to make a reasonable decision still able to have a Thought Adjuster.  Is free will in play anywhere in the process of a mortal incarnation?  How is the seemingly random placement of the mortal body’s birthplace determined and by who.

    All good questions.  Here is a bit about Thought Adjusters flocking to our planet, since Michael’s seventh bestowal.  I mention this reference to point out, according to the revelators, that Adjusters indwell the minds of all normal will creatures.

    108:6.2  No matter what the previous status of the inhabitants of a world, subsequent to the bestowal of a divine Son and after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth upon all humans, the Adjusters flock to such a world to indwell the minds of all normal will creatures. Following the completion of the mission of a Paradise bestowal Son, these Monitors truly become the “kingdom of heaven within you.” Through the bestowal of the divine gifts the Father makes the closest possible approach to sin and evil, for it is literally true that the Adjuster must coexist in the mortal mind even in the very midst of human unrighteousness. The indwelling Adjusters are particularly tormented by those thoughts which are purely sordid and selfish; they are distressed by irreverence for that which is beautiful and divine, and they are virtually thwarted in their work by many of man’s foolish animal fears and childish anxieties.

    Apparently Adjusters volunteer for assignment.

    108:1.7  With these facts before them, it is our belief that the Monitors freely volunteer for assignment. Probably more than one Adjuster volunteers; perhaps the supervising personalized orders select from this group of volunteering Adjusters the one best suited to the task of spiritualizing and eternalizing the personality of the mortal candidate. (In the assignment and service of the Adjusters the sex of the creature is of no consideration.)

    Apparently they know much about the individual – hereditary antecedents, birthplace, intellectual endowment, spiritual capacity – prior to indwelling.

    108:1.2   Although we do not definitely know, we firmly believe that all Thought Adjusters are volunteers. But before ever they volunteer, they are in possession of full data respecting the candidate for indwelling. The seraphic drafts of ancestry and projected patterns of life conduct are transmitted via Paradise to the reserve corps of Adjusters on Divinington by the reflectivity technique extending inward from the capitals of the local universes to the headquarters of the superuniverses. This forecast covers not only the hereditary antecedents of the mortal candidate but also the estimate of probable intellectual endowment and spiritual capacity. The Adjustersthus volunteer to indwell minds of whose intimate natures they have been fully apprised.
    Upon making the first moral choice, a child receives an Adjuster.
    108:2.1 [Part III]
    Though the Adjusters volunteer for service as soon as the personality forecasts have been relayed to Divinington, they are not actually assigned until the human subjects make their first moral personality decision. The first moral choice of the human child is automatically indicated in the seventh mind-adjutant and registers instantly, by way of the local universe Creative Spirit, over the universal mind-gravity circuit of the Conjoint Actor in the presence of the Master Spirit of superuniverse jurisdiction, who forthwith dispatches this intelligence to Divinington. Adjusters reach their human subjects on Urantia, on the average, just prior to the sixth birthday. In the present generation it is running five years, ten months, and four days; that is, on the 2,134th day of terrestrial life.
    Hope this helps.
    #36124
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    What determines where a mortal on this planet is born and to whom.

    Your parents make that decision.

    fordstar7 wrote:It seems to me there is a huge disparity in the life conditions one is born into.  Is it chance?

    Partly.  The other determiners are the decisions your parents made and the decisions made by generations before them.

    Does it make any difference ?

    No, not spiritually.

    Is a person born into a challenged mental state who may not be able to make a reasonable decision still able to have a Thought Adjuster.

    Probably not. A person must be able to make free-will moral decisions.

    Is free will in play anywhere in the process of a mortal incarnation?

    Yes, Your parent’s free will choice to procreate.

    How is the seemingly random placement of the mortal body’s birthplace determined and by who.

    By your parents’ decisions and their parents’ decisions.

     

     

    #36125
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    . . . and I hope this is helpful too:

    1:4.6   To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no repsecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
    The color of your skin, your gender identity, your birthplace, your socio-economic status or material deprivations do not stop God from bestowing a fragment of himself, God, upon you, no matter where you live, nor who your parents are, known or unknown to you.  It is God’s gift to you, and your brothers and sisters everywhere get their own God fragment.  Each one of us is unique, no matter where you are born nor under what conditions.  The key word for me is “capacity” and only God knows how much or how little we have of that.

     

    #36126
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    Greetings Bart and welcome.   I hope you find this a most informative, friendly, and thoughtful community.

    As a student of Eastern philosophy prior to the UB finding me, I appreciate the subtle inferences in your question about our incarnation and where and to whom and into what circumstances.

    Mortals are not incarnated.  We have no pre-existence. ..not our self or soul or identity or any part of our personal being.  So, as Bonita says, it is our parents who determine our genetics and intelligence and location and economic and racial aspects, etc.

    God gives us mind, personality, and freewill and by those in addition to the gifts of our parents, we are human beings who forge character and cocreate soul with the Spirit as a unique being without pre-existence or pre-determination.

    It is by our choices that we experience and express a personal and unique being and life in the universe of universes.

    #36127
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    Now…as to whether it matters, meaning our circumstances and individual differences at birth…yes and no.  It does not determine or limit our shared destiny, personal potential, connection to the Spirit, or the affection of God.  Naturally the circumstances of our birth matter in our material opportunities .

     

    But spiritual progress and experiential wisdom demand struggle and conflict and uncertainty and disappointment and failure and the struggle to overcome such adversities.  Character is forged between the hammer and anvil of adversity and effort.  We are taught that life’s greatest affliction is the lack of affliction.

    Material ease is no blessing by itself.  We are born for enlightening and perfecting and our choices determine the path of that journey, no matter the circumstances of our birth.  No one can serve two masters…we must choose the nature we feed and nourish and who we will be and become.

    #36147
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    The teaching of karma (without its later attachments to the distortion of reincarnation)  is universal both East and West….reaping what is sown.  True personally and collectively.

    You may be interested to find out that the UB teaches that much of the world’s mythology and creation stories and pagan gods and goddesses and today’s major religions all originate from the same sources – the Garden of Eden and the era before that and also a time about 2000 years before Jesus which culminated in a particular time on our world when we experienced a great awakening of the Spirit a few centuries before the time of Jesus.  See Papers 92-98, especially #94 for the Eastern religions.

    94:6.1 (1033.4) About six hundred years before the arrival of Michael, it seemed to Melchizedek, long since departed from the flesh, that the purity of his teaching on earth was being unduly jeopardized by general absorption into the older Urantia beliefs. It appeared for a time that his mission as a forerunner of Michael might be in danger of failing. And in the sixth century before Christ, through an unusual co-ordination of spiritual agencies, not all of which are understood even by the planetary supervisors, Urantia witnessed a most unusual presentation of manifold religious truth. Through the agency of several human teachers the Salem gospel was restated and revitalized, and as it was then presented, much has persisted to the times of this writing.

    94:6.2 (1033.5) This unique century of spiritual progress was characterized by great religious, moral, and philosophic teachers all over the civilized world. In China, the two outstanding teachers were Lao-tse and Confucius.

    94:7.1 (1035.1) Contemporary with Lao-tse and Confucius in China, another great teacher of truth arose in India. Gautama Siddhartha was born in the sixth century before Christ in the north Indian province of Nepal. His followers later made it appear that he was the son of a fabulously wealthy ruler, but, in truth, he was the heir apparent to the throne of a petty chieftain who ruled by sufferance over a small and secluded mountain valley in the southern Himalayas.

     

     

    Freewill shapes all who experience and express life in time and space reality.  Every choice delivers repercussions and determines the future outcomes of reality. …bad choices deliver temporal and local realities and good choices deliver eternal realities.  We become and perfect by gaining experiential wisdom over time personally and collectively.  Or so I understand the teachings.

    #36150
    paul_pdx
    paul_pdx
    Participant

    Not sure why they say that reincarnation has to be “non-evolutionary”——
    The lessons are the same whether you’re learning them on one of the mansion worlds or if you are coming back to an inhabited planet—we are learning to be more selfless and ‘forgiving’ in a quantum sense (not the old Newtonian kind)

    The U-book is against “Eastern” ideas of dissolving back into god (or “nirvana” or “Brahmin”) and they don’t want folks thinking that we never “step-off-the-wheel” of rebirth either, and that all makes sense to me. I’m fine with the 570 transformations and not returning to the 3 and 4 dimensional realm.

    Some of my latest thinking on reincarnation comes from the books of Gary Renard. He also teaches from that book ‘A Course In Miracles’, which some say comes from “Jesus”  His latest is called: The Lifetimes When Jesus and Buddha knew each other: a history of mighty companions.

    His premise is that during the ascending career, you can go ‘home’ at any point once you have learned the lessons of forgiveness. When you go home you are back to being Eternal and anything that is sub-eternal vanishes. To the ego it sounds boring, but these revelations come from a pair of “ascended masters” (Ancients Of Days?) who say that the one difference between them and their pupil is that they ‘know’ that they have no reality outside of God, whereas Gary does not yet realize this.

     

    #36151
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    Not sure why they say that reincarnation has to be “non-evolutionary”——

    Are you referring to this quote?

    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.

     

     

     

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