Reincarnation
Dear friends,
I wanted to take a bit of a deeper look into the notion of reincarnation. I am no fan of the world-famous German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, but this comment below is too delicious not to share:
“If an Asiatic were to ask me for a definition of Europe, I should be forced to answer him: it is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.”
Well said... but what is the physics of this?
We do not come in perfect. Or I should say, while the soul is perfect, we have lots of wrong ideas about pretty much everything around us. We learn through trial and error. Thus mistakes are a feature, not a bug! It's a good thing a hot stove hurts when we touch it. If it did not, we'd all be dead by now, being insensitive to pain. Pain is the Universe's way of telling us we are "off" somehow. People ask why there is suffering? Because, somewhat unfortunately, it's how we learn!
But too often people wait for a huge test, at which point it is extremely hard to accept it as a lesson rather than a bug. It is easy to see the folly of that if one thinks of lifting weights. No one who has decided to engage in weight training would ever start with a 200-lb barbell. You start with ten pounds, then work up to 20 pounds, etc. It is obvious to start with the scales before attempting Mozart. Right now, don't imagine the worst catastrophe in your life and ask, "What the heck am I supposed to learn from that?!" Start smaller. There are an almost infinite number of 5-10 pound weights in our lives, each of which has an element of education in it if we are open and wanting to learn.
Spirit does not mind our mistakes, it minds our indifference. The fastest way to get through this game of learning, and thus graduate, is to take the lessons to heart. We come back because we are getting a do-over. But this is not a game we can fail out of. We need to progress and we stay in whatever grade we are in until we learn its lessons. Only then can we move on.
It is actually comforting that we get to try over and over until we reach success. Let us keep the game as short as we can by cultivating an attitude that everything that comes to us is either for our entertainment or our education. As well as leaving us in a much happier and healthier state of mind, an inquisitive and grateful attitude is the best way to make the most out of this life we have been given.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West