iii. Fate and laws of life
- Interviews 2009-2010
- i. Background and relationships
- ii. Ideological residence and practice
- iii. Fate and laws of life
- iv. God or a larger, ordering entity
- v. Health, ill-health and care
- we. Faith and knowledge
- vii. Future visions and goals
- Summary i-vii
"If there is to be any damn justice in the universe, it must be treated like karma... and if karma is to work, there must also be reincarnation."
What the interviewees say about how life works and why life turns out the way it does.
reincarnation
Death is not the end. We live forever. The idea of reincarnation is about the person coming back to the physical world time and time again. This thought is known from e.g. Hinduism. In contrast to some other models for rebirth, the neo-spiritual reincarnation doctrine is a very "positive" one, which guarantees the individual uninterrupted development. This doctrine is perceived as more sophisticated or consistent compared to other variants. Man was once an animal, but it is not possible for him to now be reborn in an animal body: "No, there are the Buddhist ones, and especially the Hindu ones, they incarnate a little anyway. You become an ant or a blade of grass or a tree or whatever the hell”. "You are human all the time, because like animals you have been another time, that has passed". "This theory of hope... that you can become anything, at any time, like". "No, in Buddhism and Hinduism, that you... if you don't do the right thing, you are reborn, then you get a setback, like... maybe you are reborn as a fly or something".
There is a difference between soul migration and reincarnation:
As I have learned it, the old Indian soul walk, then you went back and forth, between all possible things, could become an ant in one, and an elephant in the next, and something like that... Yes, but, and then it is more soul walk. The reincarnation thought where I have been in contact with it, you want to see this progression more.
The individual is reborn in a new human body and will then carry with her all the qualities and talents she had in her previous life. She has all previous experiences to her credit and the new life will be colored by the past. Respondents have different estimates of how much time elapses between incarnations, from a few years to several hundred years. Likewise if it is the case that the individual changes gender between lives, keeps the same gender, or if this can vary. The idea of reincarnation is also compatible with a general belief that everything is connected and indestructible:
We cannot simply die, we can only change form. And that all life is connected. That there is, like, a unit's... Yes, we say it like this then. If we imagine a hologram, then, that everything sort of fits together with everything else. You know, if you break a hologram, you can look at a small piece... then you still have all the information in that small piece, from the whole image. That's pretty much how I see it.
Perhaps the individual is reborn in another culture or in another country. The determining factors are what level of refinement the individual has achieved in her previous lives, what she has left to learn, and what environment or destiny can best accommodate this.
The new spirituality describes the evolution of a spirit towards perfection. However, we do not have the same experiences at the same time. Some have progressed further, while others have not yet progressed that far in their development. This means that there is a natural hierarchy between people. This relationship can be described as there being "younger" and "older" souls. A child that is born may, spiritually speaking, be older than its parents. An interviewee describes how she could very clearly sense that this would be the case with one of her grandchildren: "It's an old soul and very special". Cultures and ethnic groups are also at different levels in this spiritual evolution. A people involved in many wars, or a society with a lower degree of legal certainty or equality, has not progressed as far as those who are more peaceful.
A common objection to the idea of reincarnation is that it seems so unlikely that one could come back in a new body. Against this can be set experiences of the miracles of ordinary life:
But on the other hand, they have seen the creation of a human being. Now I have two children of my own, who are adults now, but just becoming human in itself is so damn peculiar. Why shouldn't one be born more times? Once is peculiar enough, isn't it?
Change gender, or same gender
One respondent refers to what the "esoteric teachings" or "traditions" say in the matter: "And there it is sometimes said that as a personality you are actually born as much as a man and as much as a woman. And not necessarily so that you are born every other life as one and the other". "And then whether you're a man or a woman, it's not like that, it doesn't have to be like that for every incarnation, but it can be that it jumps or, yes, one time you're a woman, the other time you're a man". Male and female are described as "archetypal principles":
That man is nevertheless a unity in himself and that actually the division into male and female in the aspects we have today is a result of a fall, a splitting of the original condition. But that there are still some form of cosmic principles that are male and female on a different level and that maybe in some way they still exist. But that one would be human, so as we are biologically male and female for example, I see it as just a temporary... a result of an imperfect state so to speak. Because the perfect thing is more this classic myth that you are androgynous... or sorry, let's see here now... hermaphrodite, that is, that you are male-female.
One of the interviewees refers to two channeled spirits, who have slightly different views on this. While Ambres holds that the individual has series of lives as either male or female, Set asserts that everything goes on simultaneously:
Ambres says this… Wait now… He said that you stick to… for example if you choose to be a man… you become all your lives until you turn and then become a woman. Then there are different commandments... Then we have Set, who then says that, no, but it's different, so... And really we all live our lives at the same time. Why would we need to think linearly at all then huh? If you imagine… just a picture like this… yourself in the middle, and then you have different rooms… different like rooms around like this, which the soul goes into, are different lives.
Karma
There are laws in areas where we normally don't think there are laws. We are familiar with the physical and biological laws, but not such laws as guarantee an overall justice and the like. Society has a legal system for such things, but similar laws also exist in life at large. Everything that man does has consequences. Sometimes it's just so complex that we don't understand or see these connections. The law of karma is referred to in the Bible as "the law of sowing and reaping". However, other statements about reincarnation have been edited out of the Bible, making it difficult to understand what is really meant. There are people who seem to sow and sow, without getting anything in return, or reap much misery without being able to see any reason for this. The idea of karma is needed to explain such things.
The church's view of God's grace is rejected: "Well, it is more poetic, isn't it, and much simpler. It's not that hard work'. It is only when we have learned the consequences of a wrong course of action and refrain from repeating it that we can experience something reminiscent of the "forgiveness of sins": "It is the only grace that exists at all is when through development we have come so far that we are no longer able to repeat the same action that triggered that karma. Then we are protected. THAT is the real grace”.
At the same time, the law of karma is mechanical in some sense. It is a law of nature, while at the same time it is adapted to needs. If we do wrong, however, the consequences of our actions can be very painful. Here the law of karma can be compared to an "Old Testament" law:
So it comes to a certain limit, and unfortunately it's then, so to speak, the law of karma that kicks in... it's this Old Testament law that kicks in... that if you go too far down in that direction, well then it also happens that make a judgment... and it's to prevent it from happening... well it's kind of like a parent who when a child does TOO much then he finally has to sort of speak up, or she, sort of speak up.
"Karma then, i.e. the law of cause and effect. If we don't have it, you can't understand anything, right." We cannot avoid making experiences and thus developing. "We cannot avoid developing because we exist. After all, we make experiences every day, of different kinds, and this accumulates in us in different ways". "You reap what you sow. If you don't do it in this life, what's it called, it will be in the next life.”
The law of karma is not only about what the individual does or does not do. Thoughts are just as fatal. What one thinks and feels does not stay inside, but will have an effect on the world outside. This also entails a great responsibility: "All the thoughts you think, all the words you say and all the actions you do, ALL of that is energy that moves around in the universe as it were. And a lot of negative thoughts and evil thoughts, just like evil actions, they DO harm". The individual seeks situations and relationships where she can work on what she needs to work on:
If I just think freely like that... it could be that you know with yourself that you have a certain problem, and that you want to break that pattern or problem, then you put yourself in a situation where you know that you can solve it ... If you know that you are at a disadvantage with a person, for example, then you go in and find out why I am at a disadvantage. Maybe it's about self-worth. You need to start loving yourself. And when you've done that, you don't meet those men or women anymore, because it's over, it's over, it's passed. You don't need to learn anymore.
And then synchronicity... Very important... Because that's when you get feedback. When you have a good day, when there is a lot of synchronicity huh... Many coincidences like this... Wow, I met just the right people... it just clicked there... Then you get feedback that you are on the right path. But then when things go crazy, then you get feedback, that no, but now you're a bit lost, and now you have to try to focus. Because there is a lot that happens in life, and it doesn't always go so well every day, right?
Own responsibility
One of the interviewees tells of a reincarnation memory, where a man subjected her to severe abuse. In this life she has seen this person again and it has been a complicated relationship. However, she wants to object that she would have been a victim that time: "And then I meet this guy in this life, and it was like HE. Wondering it got crazy [Me: The one who exposed you to] He didn't expose me. We exposed each other". Several interviewees refer to the Christian notion of Jesus' vicarious suffering on the cross. This is referred to as "Christianity's greatest delusion". It is based on an image of God as primitive and vengeful, says one respondent, and where the understanding of things like karma and reincarnation is lacking:
Is God so fucking primitive, that he has to be appeased... God as a primitive and vengeful being. If there is to be any damn justice in the universe, it must be treated like karma... and if karma is to work, there must also be reincarnation.
The view that someone can be a victim, while someone else is a perpetrator, is misleading. We all suffer from a lack of experience that links us together:
This view that we have in society, that there is a perpetrator and a victim, it is also wrong. Because both suffer equally. And it's very provocative, so in that, because here there is because in this society everyone wants scapegoats and everyone wants to feel sorry for the victim and stuff like that. And it would be very difficult to tell a rape victim, for example, but I am convinced that it is so.
One of the interviewees describes this principle succinctly, but adds that this can be perceived as very harsh: "You suffer because you don't have the tools that make you NOT suffer. And that sounds very hard.” "Yes, you can think it's cruel to hit yourself when you fall." “From my point of view, if I may express myself so presumptuously, there is… there is no evil in the happening of apparently… apparently bad or evil things. But there is a reason why evil happens.”
Gross wrongdoing, and their stronger repercussions, will also give the individual a forced development: "If I do something really stupid, then I force my development, because the consequences will be so very strong."
We plan our own incarnation
The individual plans or at least approves himself how life will take shape, what experiences he or she will have. On the threshold of a new incarnation, the individual is fully aware of how life will be. This is likened to her then, with an adult's perspective, drawing up a plan:
And before you get into... well or before you let yourself be born, or somewhere, you have made a plan what will happen, what you will learn. Earth life is simply a place of learning for all people. And then you've probably made some kind of plan... also who you're going to live with, and yes.
This requires advanced planning: “The parents, and siblings, and even children. And when you start thinking about it, it becomes incredibly complicated. If you start to think. That it is like that for all people, and how can it be connected.
Sometimes it is possible to choose between having a harder or easier life, but the individual may still choose a life with greater difficulties. Possibly to try to fix "a pattern" that characterized previous incarnations:
It is the big goal to get as far as possible. If you don't make it all the way in this life, then you have to continue in the next life... Yes, so it could be that you... if I just think freely like that... it could be that you know with yourself that you have a certain problem, and that you want to break that pattern or problem, then you put yourself in a situation where you know you can solve it.
So it is not just that each person gets to experience exactly what he or she needs to experience, but we choose it ourselves:
As many say, oh how hard life is. But you really choose it yourself. There is black and white, and there are possibilities, really, just that you can't see it right now because you are staring blindly at the problem… As many say that, well, I have lived in poverty and misery, and I find fault partners all the time, and finances and all that. But you choose that, you also control this. So you have an opportunity before you arrive, to end up with a family that suits you right now.
We have opportunities even there to manage to get to another place, even if we say this, that we, well now I'm tired of being the poor all the time. Now maybe I want to come to a family where there is plenty of money, and that I can study, and so on. But it is not certain that it will be that part anyway, because when you sit there and look through, there is always some law or how to put it, someone else who is there and talks about, that this and that did you live the last life, and you have to keep testing yourself, to get better, or gain more knowledge or whatever it may be.
In this way, even congenital disabilities and limitations are given an explanation:
There are many people who say that you sort of decide for yourself then... Now I drive a lap with someone certain, something you have to work with... And like, for example, those here who are born in a wheelchair, for example, that they then sort of decided , that now I'm going to take that match, because then they'll come through the next life as completely new people... But it's a pretty tough match then.
One respondent says about the similarities he finds in himself and his parents: "But it's not their characteristics that I've inherited... They're my own... But then it fits very well into their common set-up, psychological make-up, or whatever call it."
As a parent, it is also possible to think that the children have chosen themselves as a parent. They have thus been fully aware of one's weaknesses and strengths.
Before and after life
At the beginning of the pregnancy, the soul can make sporadic visits inside the mother's body: "She came to the conclusion that the soul was like inside and turned a little sometimes during the first six months, but then I think it was from the seventh month, when the soul kind of stopped there then, in the baby then, because then it started to be time then.” After we die, we need to be confronted with what went well and badly during life. One respondent perceives that her father, who recently passed away, had a difficult time with the transition:
So that it takes a while then before you have sort of got through life up there, since when you have got up there. So the more messed up life, or... you've sort of done it, the longer it takes to go through this and sum it up, and understand, and learn, what it was that went wrong and so on. So he had a pretty rough time for a while, as far as I could tell.
Life as a school
In the interview material there are many metaphors for life. This can be compared to "a school" or "a test site". Life is "a path of experience", "an educational process", "a big theatre" and "a sandbox".
So I see this whole earth as a kind of school, a big theater. And if no one actually dies, but if everyone is, so to speak, eternal, unique, identity perspective, from different parts of the universe, and your body dies, but you continue /somewhere/ elsewhere, then somehow death is not as serious and big. I can't seem to see it like I did once upon a time, huh, when I was young... that yes, death, then it's just black and then you're gone. So I can't see it now.
Everything we experience is directed at us personally. We can learn from all our experiences. Even things that affect people around us are at the same time intricately intertwined with our own destiny and are part of what we are meant to experience. One of the respondents reflects that she has had many friends and relatives die:
Of course, I have thought many times, why do I have so many people dying. Because someone always dies... At least one, two, three a year. So that even if it's not really tight friends, but still, it touches. So that... Of course I've thought about it many times, but then I say this, yes, but it's because I have to be tested, to see things, and be able to work on them.
In the course of many incarnations, the individual must have time to acquire a complete material of experience. This can be compared to "a cake" that eventually needs to be eaten. Before a new incarnation, the individual can decide on a certain "piece of cake", in order to then have precisely this amount of experience completed:
As the Indian told me, that it's like a cake, you can say... And then maybe in one life you decide, now I'll take THAT piece of cake, and then learn about jealousy or something like this. And then, just like when you've learned the first round, it happens in another life that you pick a little more, and get a bigger and bigger piece of the cake. But then you have a lot of pieces of cake left, so you have quite a few lives to get through then, before you have learned everything.
Things we don't manage to solve in this life follow us to the next, much like it is in school when you have homework on something. One of the informants reflects on one of his parents:
I think, what is there to learn. You have to somehow get free from these patterns. So he probably entered this life with some kind of contract, that now I have to do better. And he both did better, and not. So he both succeeded and failed, as is certain in every life. You get homework on certain things.
The slow pace of development also provides the opportunity to practice an artistic talent, for example. Johann Amadeus Mozart is mentioned by a couple of respondents as an example of someone whose great musical talent can be explained by the fact that he has been doing this for many lives. His ever-increasing musical ability he has since brought with him to the next life as "a kind of psychic DNA, or spiritual DNA." "Genius is not something that you are just born with, but something that you have practiced for a long time. Mozart just wasn't born that way.”
The meaning of suffering
The difficult experiences are necessary for our development. The painful experiences are needed to provide contrasts. An interviewee describes suffering as: "the unpleasant good, because it is as necessary as the light, light and darkness are equally necessary."
That we act wrongly, that is, in a way that causes others and ourselves pain, is due to ignorance or misunderstanding and, most profoundly, to a lack of experience. Difficulties in life can be compared to pain in the body. They are "an alarm clock", a reminder that we need to change something. One of the interviewees, for example, describes his ex-partner as "his sledgehammer". In the end, she managed to get out of this violent relationship and today can see it in an explanatory light. How, after all, it was these experiences that made her take hold of her life:
This that I went through then, with N as his name was then, he who was a bit aggressive, it made me take a huge step as a person, which I would never have done otherwise if I had stayed in my first relationship and left there in the villa in S, with my children and my old man and everything was fine, and we had a boat and... well... Then nothing happened. It was only when I met him then that it sort of... down to the bottom, and THEN things started to happen... So I've seen what it can do. So I am convinced that there is no other way to develop.
Suffering is the engine of our development: "It's the only thing we learn from. If life flows and everything goes well, then you don't have to think about anything." In the long run, your own experiences give you the ability to empathize with others who are having a hard time in the same area:
You are limited in how much pain you can experience and see in another person, depending on whether you can appeal to your own experiences. And the more experiences of suffering you have, the more ability you get to detect suffering in other people, and then it also makes you not want to cause suffering. Before you have it, you cause suffering without realizing that you are doing it. You don't have that suffering yourself and you don't understand that you are doing it to the other person. But if I have that suffering in me, it awakens... it hurts me if I do something to someone else. Then you instead want to do good for someone else.