I received a question from a lovely reader in the Netherlands, asking about reincarnation and the idea of the soul—the concept of life as a school of sorts, and the worrying thought that after death we are in some way evaluated as to whether we have adequately seen through the falseness of separation.
When we enter into a conceptual narrative such as this one—a chain of thought-stories about the existence/non existence of aspects of self or soul—we need to understand that we have effectively exited the realm of "answers."
The answer to this reader's question, which belongs to all of us, is very simple and yet it is utterly unsatisfying until it is chosen as experience, right here and now.
The answer is this: Feel the way in which the chain of questioning leads you away from "this," here and now. Feel how the chain of thought-events connected with this story takes you away from the silent grace where all is love, and all is well. That's how you can tell that the questions are hollow—they are questions arising from the dream itself, and the dream character's particular worries and fears.
This is not to say that reincarnation may not exist, or that we do not survive death. We survive death.
But be aware that to seek for answers in thought will always lead you away from the very place where answers can be non-verbally experienced, which is right here, right now, within you in this ordinary moment, which is filled to the brim with grace.
Come back out of the questioning, settle in to the silence within you. You ARE, you are safe—there is no judgment but the judgment you impose upon yourself. Realize that the focusing upon a supposed concept of events playing out in some idea of the future, whether it is an embodied future or a disembodied future, is mind-activity belonging to the dream-self. It's harmless, but it is a vehicle that leads nowhere.
Thank you very much for the question.
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