Please don't tell me I have to come back as someone else when I can barely grasp who I am now!
By Susan Creamer Joy - Friday 16 Sep 2011
Until I was ten years old, I believed one simple truth: We only live once.
It was a reasonable assumption which perfectly supported and promoted the challenging idea that living a good and honorable life was the purpose for which we were created. Of course, this was accomplished by placing the ultimate reward in the everlasting bliss that is available to us after our terrestrial stint is over and, admittedly, put a bit of a damper on being alive at all. But I could cope with that.
Simply stated, I believed that the quality of the next stop is equal only to the quality of your behavior right here and right now; karma in a nutshell. A life that is well-lived, one devoted more towards the care and service of others, will reap a greater reward in the afterlife than one lived solely for personal interest and gains.
I was happy with this philosophy and felt it entirely manageable.
In fact, my initial assumption was that it would be quite easy. I was going to be a good girl, focus on the welfare and happiness of the others in my life, live long and die peacefully; after which my hope was that I would be liberated from this hard-luck haven and move up a notch to a place more suited to one whose only real interest is finding peace among other like-minded souls and basking in our unconditional love for one another. Simple.
All of that changed when my mother discovered a book by Edgar Cayce, The Sleeping Prophet, and came to me with the aggravating concept of reincarnation, telling me that not only would I, in all probability, have to return to this earth once my present life was over, but that I had likely also lived several hundred previous lifetimes before reaching this point.
Come again?
In my ten-year-old brain all this meant was that in addition to my having to endure being a knock-kneed, blundering wunderkind in the here and now, I could also look forward to the unwelcome eventuality of suffering that same fate for at least another, oh say, six-hundred lifetimes before, hopefully, winning my wings and a respectable place in the Good Human Hall of Fame in the sky.
Suddenly being alive seemed far less palatable.
However, my mother had spoken and I trusted her, so I listened. I also spent the next four decades attempting to reconcile myself with that daunting possibility even to the point of having several times met with various psychics and seers to obtain a life reading and get a handle on just who I was in the past and how that knowledge might benefit me in the present.
I remained open and gave it my best shot, but honestly, I’m not sure I’m buying it any more.
For one thing, the idea of reincarnation is self-defeating. It would be like spending the entire summer encouraging your child to overcome his fear of the water by teaching him to swim. Then undermining the plan by plying him with some potion during the winter months that would make him forget all that he had been taught; yet all the while retaining the expectation that he would be able to swim competitively the following summer.
For another, I have known far too many duplicates. To date, I know of three living women who were told they were formerly Marie Antoinette, two Cleopatras, at least a half-dozen Guineveres and four biblical Rebeccas. My own mother was told she had previously been Queen Esther (a lifetime she evidently must have split with Cher whom, I read, was also told the same thing) and that my father had been Blackbeard.
Blackbeard? My father? Seriously? Pillaging and plundering on the high seas seem at clear odds with his conservative, landlubber, Republican conventionality; and the idea of him wearing a beard apportioned into braids laced through with colored ribbons is, well….seriously? His weapon of choice is a five iron with a titanium shaft used mainly from the tee on shorter holes – seriously.
And then there is the Ick Factor. Supposedly, among other troubling configurations I have been my grandmother’s husband, my husband’s sister, my brother’s wife and my mother’s father. Ick.
According to those in the reincarnation know, I have lived the majority of my lifetimes as a high priestess and prophetess; a metaphysician, healer and a medicine woman. These reputed facts alone blow the lid off the reincarnation theory, which posits that as we move through each lifetime, we progress towards enlightenment and perfection; that our wisdom expands as our experience grows and our successive lives evidence the accumulated accomplishments and refinements of the ones that came before.
If this is true, then would someone mind explaining to me how an adherent to the High and Holy, an elective celibate and servant of the Divine, a sacred feminine vessel of untold wisdom and a woman revered and honored by kings and commoners alike lifetime after lifetime has wound up living in total anonymity and abject normalcy as a moderately disconsolate, middle-aged hausfrau, scrubbing toilets in Kansas City, Missouri? The only time I come close to being regarded with reverential deference is on the one day a year I spend in the sacred bowels of the kitchen manifesting a Thanksgiving turkey.
Where is the logic? And for that matter, where is my torch bearer?
Thankfully, the theoretical physicists have postulated the idea of the multiverse, which lends itself to a belief I can more readily assimilate. Briefly, the theory posits that there are as many worlds or universes as there are possibilities and choices and that we exist (or not) in all of them as a direct response to the choices available to us from moment to moment. So, in some parallel universe you married the other guy and drive a BMW or perhaps you actually bought that franchise and wrote a bestseller.
The point is that if the theory of the multiverse is true and the past, present and future are occurring simultaneously; then everything that you ever were, are or will become in every possible variation are all happening right now.
Bingo!
My thoughts are that at some point outside of time all these variations of ourselves will converge and that our glory will rest on the cumulative results. This lends additional credence to the premise of being true to “thine own self” and additionally, gives a nod to the idea that “God helps those who help themselves.”
It also explains how all these metaphysical wires can possibly become crossed and entangle themselves around seven Marc Anthonys and twelve King Arthurs. As these worlds exist in parallel dimensions, so does all that energy making it fairly easy to access psychic impressions that are not entirely our own. Even seasoned electricians are accidentally juiced on occasion.
Obviously, this is a simplistic explanation and there are arguments and areas which I have not touched upon, but I don’t want to write a thesis. I just want to vent.
The important thing to consider no matter which side of the reincarnation debate we are on is that the only thing wholly worth investing with your time, the best of your heart and your energy is:This moment, so it behooves us to invest in it wisely.
And if you happen to know the version of me that graduated from college, wrote that book and became a world-renown writer and artist, give her a thumbs up for me. I’m the one still stumbling over insecurity, procrastination and self-sabotage. Still, just knowing that there might possibly be a better version of me somewhere north of now gives me hope and another reason to do the best that I can with the life I wake up to each morning.
The rest of my selves may be counting on me.
It was a reasonable assumption which perfectly supported and promoted the challenging idea that living a good and honorable life was the purpose for which we were created. Of course, this was accomplished by placing the ultimate reward in the everlasting bliss that is available to us after our terrestrial stint is over and, admittedly, put a bit of a damper on being alive at all. But I could cope with that.
Simply stated, I believed that the quality of the next stop is equal only to the quality of your behavior right here and right now; karma in a nutshell. A life that is well-lived, one devoted more towards the care and service of others, will reap a greater reward in the afterlife than one lived solely for personal interest and gains.
I was happy with this philosophy and felt it entirely manageable.
In fact, my initial assumption was that it would be quite easy. I was going to be a good girl, focus on the welfare and happiness of the others in my life, live long and die peacefully; after which my hope was that I would be liberated from this hard-luck haven and move up a notch to a place more suited to one whose only real interest is finding peace among other like-minded souls and basking in our unconditional love for one another. Simple.
All of that changed when my mother discovered a book by Edgar Cayce, The Sleeping Prophet, and came to me with the aggravating concept of reincarnation, telling me that not only would I, in all probability, have to return to this earth once my present life was over, but that I had likely also lived several hundred previous lifetimes before reaching this point.
Come again?
In my ten-year-old brain all this meant was that in addition to my having to endure being a knock-kneed, blundering wunderkind in the here and now, I could also look forward to the unwelcome eventuality of suffering that same fate for at least another, oh say, six-hundred lifetimes before, hopefully, winning my wings and a respectable place in the Good Human Hall of Fame in the sky.
Suddenly being alive seemed far less palatable.
However, my mother had spoken and I trusted her, so I listened. I also spent the next four decades attempting to reconcile myself with that daunting possibility even to the point of having several times met with various psychics and seers to obtain a life reading and get a handle on just who I was in the past and how that knowledge might benefit me in the present.
I remained open and gave it my best shot, but honestly, I’m not sure I’m buying it any more.
For one thing, the idea of reincarnation is self-defeating. It would be like spending the entire summer encouraging your child to overcome his fear of the water by teaching him to swim. Then undermining the plan by plying him with some potion during the winter months that would make him forget all that he had been taught; yet all the while retaining the expectation that he would be able to swim competitively the following summer.
For another, I have known far too many duplicates. To date, I know of three living women who were told they were formerly Marie Antoinette, two Cleopatras, at least a half-dozen Guineveres and four biblical Rebeccas. My own mother was told she had previously been Queen Esther (a lifetime she evidently must have split with Cher whom, I read, was also told the same thing) and that my father had been Blackbeard.
Blackbeard? My father? Seriously? Pillaging and plundering on the high seas seem at clear odds with his conservative, landlubber, Republican conventionality; and the idea of him wearing a beard apportioned into braids laced through with colored ribbons is, well….seriously? His weapon of choice is a five iron with a titanium shaft used mainly from the tee on shorter holes – seriously.
And then there is the Ick Factor. Supposedly, among other troubling configurations I have been my grandmother’s husband, my husband’s sister, my brother’s wife and my mother’s father. Ick.
According to those in the reincarnation know, I have lived the majority of my lifetimes as a high priestess and prophetess; a metaphysician, healer and a medicine woman. These reputed facts alone blow the lid off the reincarnation theory, which posits that as we move through each lifetime, we progress towards enlightenment and perfection; that our wisdom expands as our experience grows and our successive lives evidence the accumulated accomplishments and refinements of the ones that came before.
If this is true, then would someone mind explaining to me how an adherent to the High and Holy, an elective celibate and servant of the Divine, a sacred feminine vessel of untold wisdom and a woman revered and honored by kings and commoners alike lifetime after lifetime has wound up living in total anonymity and abject normalcy as a moderately disconsolate, middle-aged hausfrau, scrubbing toilets in Kansas City, Missouri? The only time I come close to being regarded with reverential deference is on the one day a year I spend in the sacred bowels of the kitchen manifesting a Thanksgiving turkey.
Where is the logic? And for that matter, where is my torch bearer?
Thankfully, the theoretical physicists have postulated the idea of the multiverse, which lends itself to a belief I can more readily assimilate. Briefly, the theory posits that there are as many worlds or universes as there are possibilities and choices and that we exist (or not) in all of them as a direct response to the choices available to us from moment to moment. So, in some parallel universe you married the other guy and drive a BMW or perhaps you actually bought that franchise and wrote a bestseller.
The point is that if the theory of the multiverse is true and the past, present and future are occurring simultaneously; then everything that you ever were, are or will become in every possible variation are all happening right now.
Bingo!
My thoughts are that at some point outside of time all these variations of ourselves will converge and that our glory will rest on the cumulative results. This lends additional credence to the premise of being true to “thine own self” and additionally, gives a nod to the idea that “God helps those who help themselves.”
It also explains how all these metaphysical wires can possibly become crossed and entangle themselves around seven Marc Anthonys and twelve King Arthurs. As these worlds exist in parallel dimensions, so does all that energy making it fairly easy to access psychic impressions that are not entirely our own. Even seasoned electricians are accidentally juiced on occasion.
Obviously, this is a simplistic explanation and there are arguments and areas which I have not touched upon, but I don’t want to write a thesis. I just want to vent.
The important thing to consider no matter which side of the reincarnation debate we are on is that the only thing wholly worth investing with your time, the best of your heart and your energy is:This moment, so it behooves us to invest in it wisely.
And if you happen to know the version of me that graduated from college, wrote that book and became a world-renown writer and artist, give her a thumbs up for me. I’m the one still stumbling over insecurity, procrastination and self-sabotage. Still, just knowing that there might possibly be a better version of me somewhere north of now gives me hope and another reason to do the best that I can with the life I wake up to each morning.
The rest of my selves may be counting on me.