Today we’re going to discuss reincarnation.
There’s a question in the manual on this subject and it’s a question that people
raise from time to time, actually right from the beginning of the Course’s publication.
As Jesus explains in the manual, since time is an illusion and we’re not even here,
whether we’re here once or a hundred times basically is irrelevant.
Nonetheless he says if you find the concept useful then that’s its own justification (M-24.1).
So the Course doesn’t take a position on it officially, although there are many passages
throughout the Course, which strongly suggest that this is not the first time we’ve been
here nor is it the last.
In the discussion of the last obstacle to peace when we’re standing before the final
veil – the fear of God – Jesus says we stand before it either to pass through the
veil, (T-19.IV.D.6-7), which means that we’re done and we’ve accepted the Atonement for
ourselves or to wander off only to come this way again.
Again, strongly suggests that whatever we don’t complete in this lifetime we would
have to do another lifetime.
The Course says more than once that if you practice this course we would save a thousand
years (T-1.II.6:7; W-pI.128.1:2).
Well, obviously Jesus can’t be talking about one lifetime.
Right at the beginning of the text where Jesus discusses the miracle he talks about how the
miracle saves us time (T-1.II.6:1), that it collapses time and saves us time.
That something about that might have taken a long period of time (a problem to undo),
we could undo in one minute, in one instant, or one could even say one lifetime.
The point, again of course, is that it doesn’t really matter because we’re talking about
an illusion anyway.
“There is no life outside of Heaven,” (T-23.II.19:1), as Jesus tells us in Chapter 23.
Life is only in Heaven so how many lifetimes we have outside of Heaven really is totally
irrelevant since there’s no life anyway.
But we live here as bodies and bodies do have experiences and bodies do have concepts and,
again, as Jesus says in that section in the teacher’s manual, if you find the concept
helpful, by all means, use it (M-24.1:4-6).
Now what can be helpful, especially if you think of the idea of past lives, is that you
could be in a relationship that is very problematic, someone you meet for the first time and there’s
instant hate and you don’t know where it’s coming from.
Sometimes it can be helpful to have the idea, “Well, this is probably not the first time
I’ve been with this person.”
Now it doesn’t make any difference in terms with what you have to do with the problem
because you still have to forgive, whether this is a many-lifetimes-worth of forgiveness
or something you have to do right now; it doesn’t make any difference because salvation
is only right now when the decision-making mind that exists outside of time and space
chooses the right Teacher, chooses forgiveness, and lets go of the grievance.
But within our experiences here it can be helpful for some people to understand that
there’s a context for this being a relationship, just as it can be helpful for people as adults
to have some kind of therapy, which helps them get in touch with some past—not “past”—
experiences in their past, in this lifetime as children, which establishes a context of some of the
problems they’re experiencing now.
It still does not mean that healing comes in undoing the past.
It can’t undo a past that never happened and is no longer there.
It still has to be done in the present.
But it can help establish a context: “Oh, this is why I have trouble with men, because
I had an abusive father, I had an abusive teacher, I had an abusive brother, and this
is why I keep projecting this same problem.”
So it gives a context, which can be helpful to me intellectually.
But once you reach that, say then say, “Well my problems are because I was abused as a
child,” or “my problems date back from I was in ancient Egypt and simply reliving
that same moment over and over again.”
The fact of the matter is I choose salvation right now.
So that reincarnation can be helpful up to a certain point if, intellectually, you find
that is a compatible idea for you, but it makes no difference whether you believe in
it or not for salvation, because regardless, once again, whether my problem dates from
five minutes ago, 50 years ago, or 500 years ago, I still have to make the choice in the
present to let go of my grievances, which means I recognize the investment I have in
holding onto the grievance.
That is what’s most important.
So whether I’m carrying this grievance for millennia or for decades or for two minutes,
once again, is irrelevant for what I need to know is right now it behooves me as an
ego to hold onto this grievance, to hold onto this perception I’ve been unfairly treated
so I could escape all responsibility for my dis-ease and disquiet, namely “It’s not
my fault that I’m feeling this way.
I’m not the one who abandoned love; who pushed love away, rejected love, or sinned against it.
Other people have done so.”
And I use my memory, again, whether it’s a memory of something that happened yesterday,
again some earlier point in my life, or many lifetimes ago, I use my memory as a justification
for how terrible I’m feeling now.
And so it’s recognizing the lie inherent in all of that that comes when I choose the
right Teacher Who points it out to me, that allows me to realize I’m making a decision
right now to push love away by choosing the ego, and I could correct that right now by
choosing the Teacher of Love.
At that point not only does my recent past disappear but all my past lives disappear too.
They all disappear in that holy instant of choosing the Teacher of forgiveness rather
than the teacher of attack.