By Mark Pitstick, MA, DC
What if life is an uninterrupted process with death as a relatively minor transition amidst eternity’s splendor?
Reincarnation is the theory that we experience not just one, but many, many lives in the course of eternity. Although this concept may seem strange or foreign to some, it answers a number of questions that people of all ages wonder about.
When I was 10 years old, I sat in church and looked through its stained glass windows while the minister talked about heaven. “One day,” he said, “we will walk on golden streets and play harps—forever.” Even at that young age I thought, “Wouldn’t that get old after a while?”
Think about it with an open mind for just a moment. How long could you play a harp—even a golden one—before you would be ready for a piano, a guitar—even an accordion? Novelty and challenges make life more interesting and rewarding. A concept of never-ending but often changing life experiences successfully addresses many questions.
Once a word has become well established in a culture, it is difficult or impossible to change its intrinsic meaning. I use various synonyms for “God” and “soul” because those words have such entrenched and limiting meanings for some people. The same challenge exists for the word reincarnation that isn’t ideal for several reasons:
- Some people associate the word with the occult or cults. The word reincarnation can negatively trigger those with very conservative religious beliefs and who haven’t researched the topic for themselves. It also feels overly simplistic to some.
- It implies a series of deaths and rebirths. A more accurate image of life that emerges from the collective evidence, however, is that of a seamless series of life experiences throughout eternity.
- The reincarnation model suggests that souls experience lives as different people in linear time, and separate places. Some evidence suggests otherwise. For example, your soul’s energy does not have to manifest in just one place at a time. Part of it is obviously energizing your current physical body; another part might be experiencing parallel lives in formed or formless dimensions simultaneously; another percentage might never have left “Home.” From this third vantage point, life is but a dream—an optical delusion. All the supposed physical events may be better described as a series of energetic visitations or virtual reality experiences to other times and places.
As such, I alternately use the following word combinations as synonyms for reincarnation: cyclical lifetimes, multiple lives, varying life experiences throughout eternity, limitless number of lives, infinite life experiences, perpetual change, never-ending but often-changing lifetimes.
There are three common models about the nature of life:
Model A: If you are like many people in Western cultures, you were taught that your life started with an earthly birth date. Your earthly life can last anywhere from a few minutes to many years—and then you die. After that, probably a long sleep in the ground until some judgment day. Then the big cut as you are consigned to heavenly delight or burning torment forever. In this model, your one brief lifetime determines your fate forever. Never mind that you were molested, raised by alcoholics, influenced by an atheistic family, struggled with mental illness, or…
It’s a fairly bizarre model for a deranged human, let alone for Universal Intelligence—the wisest and most loving power of which we can conceive. This model didn’t make any sense to me when I was a child, and it seems even stranger now. This model is like a kindergarten understanding of reality.
Model B: The concept of cyclical lifetimes, varying life experiences throughout eternity, is a more comprehensive description of reality. This model allows for the eventual evolution of all beings since we have more than just one earthly incarnation to learn and grow.
Reincarnation is a vast improvement over model A’s conventional teachings. To extend the analogy, model B is like a high school understanding of reality. However, this model appears to be only relatively true because it implies dualism and all that goes with that: separation and sequential time.
Model C: This most accurate description of reality indicates that life is an uninterrupted series of experiences throughout infinity. In this view, all life is seen as connected. Any appearance of separateness is trivial and transient, largely a function of our extremely limited perception while in an “Earth suit.” Ultimately, life is best understood as a dance of energy as Creative Mind alternately manifests Itself throughout eternity. Each soul/consciousness is like a single cell within the vast phenomenon of Life that endlessly creates new scenarios and adventures.
In this model, death—whether after just one or a series of lives—is not viewed as the beginning of a long sleep. Rather, life is seen as an uninterrupted process with death as a relatively minor transition amidst eternity’s splendor. Time and space are understood as being only relatively, not absolutely real.
For those who are awakened, death can be especially seamless, like walking from one room into another. Birth and death are realized to be no big deal, mere commas amidst a never-ending sentence. We can best reveal our inner light and talents when we realize our real selves are birthless and deathless.
This is like a graduate school level of understanding reality.
How can we rise above our kindergarten and high school levels of understanding about the nature of reality and live from a graduate school level?
The evidence for varying life experiences throughout eternity is vast. Categories of proof include religious and spirituality input, philosophical arguments, and clinical evidence. The third category is further delineated into the subsections of classic proofs, curative evidence, similarities between lives, past life regressions, past life memories, and research from professionals including Dr. Ian Stevenson.
Exploring the vast amount of information now supporting this understanding is one key to opening your mind. Having a spiritual support group to help you see through life’s illusions is another. Optimally caring for the temple of your soul, especially via centering practices, helps you harness the resulting higher energy and power.
Mark Pitstick, MA, DC is an author, master’s clinical psychologist, holistic chiropractic physician, frequent media guest, and webinar/workshop facilitator. He directs The SoulPhone Foundation and founded Greater Reality Living Groups. Dr. Pitstick can help you know and show—no matter what is happening to or around you— that your earthly experience is a totally safe, meaningful, and magnificent adventure amidst forever. Visit http://www.SoulProof.com for free articles, newsletters and radio interviews with top consciousness experts.