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Buddhism teaches in reincarnation if you die before enlightenment, this scares the shit out of me, does this mean I can be reborn in a country with wars going on and be tortured endlessly or be born as an animal that is brutally killed by another. How do you reconcile these negative images.

I really wonder which density of consciousness 5-meo produces. It's not 3rd density, it is higher as there is no sense of body anymore. It's not absolute infinity either, or God, it's a glimpse, probably only of 4th density. I guess that is why its such an effective tool in advancing in 3rd density. Because the difference between the current consciousness and the state of consciousness it produces (4th) is so high. It shows the potential for work to be done. I still wonder if it actually does anything by itself or it just shows what has to be done. I'm excited that there is much more to this than just enlightenment. The possibilities seem to be infinite hehe. What I'm getting from the book though is that enlightenment is enough. So we don't have to completely transcend the body and move to 4th density in this lifetime, which would end in premature death of this incarnation. I can still enjoy my life in 3rd density and raise my consciousness while I'm doing so. I also really like the concept of not forgetting when moving to 4th density. My motivation to do this consciousness work has moved away from the panicky "I'm going to die, I need to make the most of my life" to a more relaxed motivation of trying to move towards the source. The possibility of it not "All being for nothing and gone when dead" somehow has given me some peace. I have to say that overall the book has given me more peace than anything I have ever read before. I have been really closely observing myself. I'm weary that it's just my ego attaching to something. I have always dismissed reincarnation, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. The body dies of course. But the thing/spirit/whatever that made it "alive" remains. The basic desire of everything is to return from finity to infinity. Basically to return to the source. When resisting this urge, not listening to intuition (potentially thoughts from higher density beings) things start to go wrong and the entity will experience suffering in this lifetime. When the entity lives his life on this plane to its fullest potential and has advanced as far as the entity was able to in this incarnation the life is great, joyful, happy and a success. This book raises lots of questions and possibilites that I have been pondering about for the last couple of days. I started reading book 2, I'm excited.

If it's confusing for you, don't use it. The point is excercising your focus. I AM ABUNDANT. I AM HEALTHY. I AM THE REINCARNATION OF JAMES MF'N BROWN. Whatever. Keep it simple bro.

When the ego dies along with the temporary body you become one again. Time doesn't exist there since it is only relative to a certain perspective so don't worry and don't project fears of the ego to a state you will not have one anymore. Everything is going to be okay and so it's meant to be. Reincarnation might happen when the conditions are right at a certain place and time, but you probably won't remember anything.

At 2500 points you've attained Ultimate Egoic Glory and circle around again, reverting to -1500 points in what is now your perpetual forum reincarnation hell.

@100rockets There is research by Dr. Ian Stevenson from the University of Virginia on reincarnation. He interviewed a few thousand children who remembered their past lives. It doesn't prove reincarnation but it's interesting nonetheless. I think it's possible that we exist as separate souls.

Consciousness has made an identity called "Deep". This identity is imaginary so there is no such thing as a separate "Deep" from Consciousness. It's all created within my mind. That's how it is with all the other humans. The illusion is so powerful they believe they are that identity and they are experiencing life as that. Reincarnation is just a concept to explain Consciousness taking on many identities. Consciousness is continuous but there are individual egos within it. Why does it do this? We don't know.

Hindus believe in God and the soul. Jainas don't believe in God at all but only in the soul. And Buddhists don't believe in the soul or God either. But about reincarnation all three agree — even Buddhists agree, who don't believe in the soul. A very strange thing…then who reincarnates? Even Buddhists could not deny the phenomenon of reincarnation, although they could deny the existence of the soul; they say the soul does not exist but reincarnation exists. And it was very difficult for them to prove reincarnation without the soul; it seems almost impossible. But they found a way — of course it is very subtle and very difficult to comprehend, but they seem to be closer, the closest to the truth. It is easy to understand that there is a soul and when you die the body is left on the earth and the soul enters into another body, into another womb; it is a simple, logical, mathematical thing. But Buddha says there is no soul but only a continuum. It is like when you kindle a candle in the evening and in the morning when you are blowing it out a question can be asked of you: Are you blowing out the same light that you started in the evening? No, it is not the same light, and yet a continuity is there. In the night when you lit the candle… that flame is no more there, that flame is continuously disappearing; it is being replaced by another flame. The replacement is so quick that you can't see the gaps, one flame going out, another coming up, that going out, another coming up. There are bound to be small intervals, but you can't see them with bare eyes. Buddha says that just as the candle flame is not the same — it is changing constantly, although in another sense it is the same because it is the same continuum — exactly like that, there is no soul entity in you like a thing but one like a flame. It is continuously changing, it is a river. Buddha does not believe in nouns, he only believes in verbs. He has come closest to the truth; at least in his expression he is the most profound.

My small understanding is that even though there is no independently existing self from its own side, what is seemingly reincarnated is karma and ignorance. Therefore, if liberation were to occur, one would realize the selflessness of all phenomena and realize that even the concept of birth and death, karma, and reincarnation were also dreamlike. But until one truly experiences it and is no more afflicted by any phenomena such as cold and heat, suffering and so on, the law of cause and effect still has to be considered in high esteem I would say

I was reading about this concept in Buddhism that there is no soul because there is no self. I get the no self concept in the physical world but they say there cant even be a soul because thats a self too..we are really all one the separation is an illusion. I get that but then how can they claim there is reincarnation and rebirth at the same time? Are they saying that rebirth is just a natural process that will be experienced by some random spec of consciousness? Who ever is being reborn, is that not you? will it not be your own consciousness that is experiencing a new form of life?

You're right, thanks. Enough is enough. I admit I was tired yesterday which my post reflect. The thing is, if it was just a dude who had not written anything intelligently, and just claimed the Earth was flat, then I wouldn't waste a second on him. The problem for me here is obviously that I see a guy who has lots of wisdom - but still is deluded in many ways. And yeah that triggers me probably because I'm scared of how I myself may turn out to become. And yeah I'll use this thread as a warning to myself on how deluded one can get on the path if they aren't aware of their own inner workings. @Aware Again Aware, I'm sorry for judging you and writing my last post. I really am. And I thank you for your contribution in this thread anyway, although I'm puzzled by the stupidity of lots of it. I know that you will automatically interpret "puzzled by stupidity of it" as "oh, the guy admits he isn't spiritually developed to understand my holy teachings"... Well - you know that might just be right. Or might it be that I see more clearly than you and see through your own delusions? Nah, that'd be silly to even think this thought, right? Because you're not attached to anything in this life, so you're something like a reincarnation of Buddha. So wise, so better than others, so smart, so loving, so sublime, so goooooooood, so advanced -- right? No one can teach you anything. You get your knowledge through communication with other masterful beings from other Universes doing the night where you meditate. I bow before you, my master. I admit I am not ready for such divine knowledge. Oh Lord, I wish I could see the logic behind the arguments for Earth is flat -- the big grand hoax created by the THEM, the sequentials... Oh Lord, save me, help me, show me. "and put me on ignore, ..." Great idea, thanks. That's exactly what I'm gonna do, I think we two have thrown enough bullshit at each other for now. And I'll be free from reading more "divine crap" from you. Bye.

In Buddhism tradition, enlightened people choose the moment of their death, and break the cycle of reincarnation by definitely "disolving" into the light, so that only nails and hair remain, no corpse.

It's great to hear input from you guys. Thanks @Arman and @Epiphany_Inspired !!! At this point my focus is on getting 100% better. Though progress is slow, I definitely know that I am on my way to come back stronger. I appreciate your response here. It's good to hear reassurance once in a while! There really is something perfect about all of this, like an elevation of consciousness that is happening all by itself, whether or not I want it to. I guess nature is set on resolving the problems it made for itself. There's this newfound awareness, this indescribable pleasure in this whole process knowing that SOON everything probably will be OKAY. I just recently rediscovered an old analogy that I came up with and previously found resourceful. I thought I'd share it for anyone going through something similar. "Having a concussion is like running with bricks on your back, and as with running with bricks on your back, once you remove the bricks you always return stronger and faster." I think what I was hinting at was that pain is TEMPORARY but lessons are ETERNAL. There's absolutely no way I could go back to a "normal" life now. While the knowledge, wisdom, and ideas being talked about here are incredibly eye-opening and powerful, they also come with a huge burden of KNOWING. I can't just forget about something like enlightenment! I can't just go back to living life like my friends and family. It's complete unconsciousness. I guess as most people here warn, the greatest fear I have is self-sabotage, and the idea that I might somehow backslide. While this could be possible, I feel like my evolution and reincarnation are permanent. In other words, the lessons I have learned from this experience are permanent. I will continue to post with updates and comments. I hope more people will contribute to this topic. While the conversation was perhaps sparked by talk of concussions, I think everyone here is hinting at something larger going on with all injuries and dark phases. A kind of Katabasis... I hope to hear more stories, ideas, and discussion! But I think @Epiphany_Inspired put it best: Thanks, Joey

@Echoes God is not nothingness or emptiness. These two words emptiness and nothingness are taken from a religion called Buddhism, which is an atheist system of thought. Buddhist dont subscribe to the concept of God a creator, they are stuck inside the material universe and the aim is to free the relative person from dualistic "thinking" and call this void in the mind "emptiness" . Buddhism is a humanistic philosophy that has been subject to many changes over its history, meaning that is a man made religion. It is essentially based on pantajalis yoga sturas, and is related to a bunch of religious ideas floating around at the time, one of which was the popular enlightenment misconception "chitti vritti narhodha" - which means that in order to reveal the nature of reality, one must rid themselves of their mind. Nobody has ever become enlightened using this method. It is good for preparing the mind for enlightenment, but its not quite right as a statement of enlightenment itself, because the enlightened self is beyond thought, is beyond the person, is beyond experience, it is nir-guna (free FROM experience) whereas nir-vana is the extinction of experience itself. So God is actually "fullness" it is the Self, and the Bhraman which you mentioned. Brahman is the one sentiency that pervades existence, the knower, the SEER, the conscious indweller behind the mind, witnessing the mind of all sentient beings (Atman). It is not human specific, it is the all pervading substrate, the knower in all subtle bodies - animals and plants all have subtle bodies, and therefore are all Atma. Atma refers to Brahman when we look at the world through the conventional perspective that there are many "Atmans". Brahman is when you look at life from the perspective of the one self, when you understand that YOU ARE the sentiency, the all pervasive consciousness that looks out through every "other" apparent beings eyes. Brahman realization is when you understand that there are no others, that there is only one principle operating here - you, consciousness associated with and deluded by many different bodies and minds. We dont know, we will never know the why or how, that is for Bhraman as the creator to know. Human beings will never know this because really we will always only ever be Atmans, the knowers of self knowledge revealed in a specific subtle body. Enlightenment takes place in the psyche of the human being, so we are bound by that instrument and its limitations. But your confusion lies in the fact that you confuse the Buddhist No-thing with the Hindu Bhraman, Bhraman is not no-thing, it is the witness with the power to create. Same answer to previous question, we dont know why. Donald Trump and Ramana Maharshi, from the perspective of Brahman are the same Bhraman, the individual stories of each person are irrelevant. They are forms appearing in Bhraman, they arise, are sustained, and dissolve like everything else. IF you are ignorant and take these two characters to be their individual stories and dont see them as yourself, then there is a duality between them, but when we die we just die, reincarnation is not actually a thing, it is just being "reborn" into another ignorant thought that has been generated by believing in yourself as a separate person with separate karmas to live out. Once you realize who you are, you will understand that you were never born ad you dont die, only the physical bodies and the thought stories associated with these characters are the things that die. But it doesnt matter because all the material aspects are just mechanics.

God is everything, emptiness/nothingness is the door. You cannot conceive of the whole except by way of emptiness. Donald Trump will born again in a body of bones and flesh, Ramana Maharshi will not. Hindus believe in God and the soul. Jainas don't believe in God at all but only in the soul. And Buddhists don't believe in the soul or God either. But about reincarnation all three agree — even Buddhists agree, who don't believe in the soul. A very strange thing…then who reincarnates? Even they could not deny the phenomenon of reincarnation, although they could deny the existence of the soul; they say the soul does not exist but reincarnation exists. And it was very difficult for them to prove reincarnation without the soul; it seems almost impossible. But they found a way — of course it is very subtle and very difficult to comprehend, but they seem to be closer, the closest to the truth. It is easy to understand that there is a soul and when you die the body is left on the earth and the soul enters into another body, into another womb; it is a simple, logical, mathematical thing. But Buddha says there is no soul but only a continuum. It is like when you kindle a candle in the evening and in the morning when you are blowing it out a question can be asked of you: Are you blowing out the same light that you started in the evening? No, it is not the same light, and yet a continuity is there. Buddha says that just as the candle flame is not the same — it is changing constantly, although in another sense it is the same because it is the same continuum — exactly like that, there is no soul entity in you like a thing but one like a flame. It is continuously changing, it is a river. Nirvana means to extinguish this illusory flame of life.

@hundreth So now here is an important intellectual point: It's possible to hold partial perspectives. It's possible, for example, to read this entire series of books, vehemently disagree with parts of it, but still get personal growth value out of it, AND hold the entire thing as just another partial perspective out of many. No one perspective being true. That would be a great test of Stage Yellow Spiral Dynamics thinking. Stage Orange would be the way you're doing it: look for one contradiction and throw the whole thing in the trash bin. The reason I brought this book to you guys is not because I think it to be all true. What's interesting to me, is that Ra's descriptions of Absolute Infinity are DEAD ON based on my direct experience. So if nothing else, you could learn about that. But also Ra's discussions of more practical matters like meditation, service to others vs service to self, chakras, etc can all be super-useful in your growth. And perhaps most useful of all is that this book can be used as an antidote against your materialist, naive realist paradigm of reality. I'll tell you this much: your current paradigm of what reality is, is more wrong than Ra's. And what's worse is, you're so stuck in it, you can't break out even if you wanted to. I've personally found this book a great way to dislodge my unfounded beliefs about reality, consciousness, life, afterlife, reincarnation, evolution, good vs evil, free will, UFOs, the purpose of life, etc -- leaving me in a nice state of not-knowing. The problem is, you don't yet realize how much of your "scientific" knowledge is just groundless belief in hearsay. So falling back to that default position by vehemently disbelieving this book doesn't advance you much. You're still stuck in a web of belief -- one you feel is "actually real" -- which is in a way the worst place to be. "The better the model, the bigger the problem." I've personally grown from this book, even though I find it hard to believe in some of the more far-fetched things in it, like Big Foot. I will actually be able to glean insights from this book and shoot videos about the insights, without ever mentioning Ra, and people watching will say, "OMG! That was amazingly helpful. Thank you for changing my life." Sometimes you gotta be pragmatic more than ideological. Growing up is a messy business. And sometimes you should be happy to get whatever scraps you can scavenge. So in a nutshell, be a self-help vulture

It's the paradox. Yes reincarnation is real. Yes other people are real. Yes you are real. Yes the soul is real too and so are an infinite amount of non-physical dimensions, worlds and entities. And simultaneously, you are everyone and everything, where in no souls exist, just one. Wherein no time exists only eternal now. Where in no sort of any space or place exists, only infinite being.

This is exactly the sort of baloney that's being circulated, especially in some Buddhist sects. It's a real joke and I have absolutely no doubt that some of this is contributing to the demise of Buddhism. The most convincing theory of reincarnation I've heard is from the karma kanda sections of the Vedas and it goes like this: For the sake of simplicity karma is accumulated actions. For example, if you eat an ice cream and enjoy it you create a tendency to repeat that behaviour which causes a preference to repeat that action. It becomes a habit that just lives itself out repeatedly. The traces of these actions are called "fragrances" in the Vedas. The modern scientific explanation (which supports the Vedic theory) is that these tendencies are stored in seed form in the causal body, or if you prefer the DNA or the 'unmanifest'. These genetic tendencies are also called 'vasanas' and it's the vasanas that create another body to continue to act out the karma accumulated in the "previous lifetime". So the "person" and the physical body that the vasanas create is the part that dies (well in actuality energy doesn't even die it is just transformed), but the vasanas continue to live on and they are the aspect that creates the next body. This is why quantum physics asserts that it can prove the existence of God. God is basically the causal body projecting these tendencies outward in order for consciousness to experience itself as forms. That's all we are really as individuals. The vasanas. The Gunas (shakti or energy) are the "fabric" of existence that allows these vasanas to play out. The vasanas provide the action and the Gunas provide the canvas for the action to take place on. So the Gunas are satva, Rajas and tamas. These are just Sanskrit names for the three forms in which shakti appears in form. Satva is the ideas, tamas is the material aspect and Rajas is the projecting power that transforms satva into tamsaic concrete objects. An analogy of this would be the creation of a guitar. Satva is the idea of the guitar, tamas is the materials (wood, metal and plastic) and Rajas is the action that makes the idea into a reality - the energy of assembling the different parts of the guitar to make the idea into a material object. This makes much more sense to me than a lot of the theories put there. Suicide I assume would continue to manifest itself in some negative tendency in the next body that bundle of samksaras creates.

My thoughts are, that if youre going to entertain and seriously investigate the notion of enlightenment then you need to keep an open mind with regards to reincarnation too. It also depends a lot on the mind / minds interpreting the original source texts for you. You cant just say "Buddhism says" because there are different schools of Buddhism and also crazy and not so crazy interpretations of it. These two things are worth taking into account when discussing anything in this field. But the main thing is once you understand reincarnation according to how your chosen school sees it, then you make it no self and essentially transcend it. Karma and reincarnation are closely linked, and if you can source a decent interpretation on the teaching of karma you can see how it is played out in real life. It becomes obvious. The same is with reincarnation.

Reincarnation seems more plausible to me a part reality than infinite oblivion after death.

I've thought about this, and I don't think suicide or how we live our lives up until the final moment has anything to do with how we reincarnate. We are all playing a role, one in which we have no control over. Our thoughts, feelings, and actions are not independent of the universe. One thing I wonder about reincarnation, is if we reincarnate into a different form of consciousness for eternity, each time with a clean slate. I wonder if people I see on the street are me, but in a different form of consciousness that I experience from the one I'm having now, but not independent of my consciousness. I wonder the same about other animals. Crazy shit.

I don't believe in reincarnation. With beliefs about science and evolution in my web of beliefs, it just doesn't make any sense. Do I know it doesn't exist? Nope. I can't think of a conceivable way it could be proven one way or the other. You didn't ask any specific question about suicide, so I'll go on the things others have commented. Is it selfish? Sure. So is moralizing about suicidal people being selfish. I use selfish as in "stemming from the ego" rather than society's seeming definition of "this person did something I don't like, thus they're selfish for not having considered how I'm affected by it".

ON REINCARNATION I have no idea and never will. Some people claim to know but there is never any definitive proof so I personally dont believe them. I consider the entire subject a waste of time even thinking about. I believe its more likely to be an archaic way for religions to control and manipulate people. ON SUICIDE The statement "suicide is a selfish act" is WRONG. Suicide is a desperate act by someone who is in intense pain and wants their pain to stop. That is a HUMAN response to extreme pain, not a selfish one. Over 90 percent of the people who die by suicide have a mental illness at the time of their death, so they are not thinking clearly. Saying that a person who had severe clinical depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, or a similar illness was engaging in an act of selfishness when they died by suicide – even though their thought process, mood, and judgment were greatly affected by their mental illness – is not only inaccurate, but downright cruel, to both the person who suicides and the suicide survivors. Those who use the word “selfish” are merely helping perpetuate the STIGMA associated with suicide. A suicidal action that manifests from intense, excruciating, unbearable pain associated with a serious mental illness has nothing to do with selfishness.

Personally, I don't know. I used to think I knew enough, but then life likes to throw unpredictability at you. I believe in reincarnation, but I think that we do it just for the fun of it. There's no meaning to it other than experience. I guess we choose to be an aborted baby in one lifetime, just for the heck of it. We choose to be beaten up and scarred in some lifetimes. And in some lifetimes we might choose to be rich, or famous, or both. This is just my idea. There is no inherent purpose to reincarnation other than experience, in my opinion. What happens if a person commits suicide? Some believe there's a karmic backlash against it, and some think there is no reincarnation. And some believe that suicide will have no karmic backlash. And some people don't believe in karma, period.

From my understanding (according to Buddhism or some other spiritual sources) sleep is related to death in that the last thought we have prior to falling asleep is the first we will have when we wake up and so in a similar way the state of mind in which you are in when you die will determine your next life (that is if reincarnation exists). However thought is just a form in the mind. Does the mind go on after death then? It seems quite contradicting and also a form of scare tactic. What are your thoughts on this and reincarnation in general? better than that what kind of direct experiences have you had meditating that lead you to believe what you do about reincarnation?