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Human Life/Immortal Soul?

Greg said Jul 18, 2006, 8:18 PM:

Throwing the question out there………………..what are your thoughts about the numbers of lives we lead, the purpose of mortal life, the existence of a personal, immortal soul in each of us?

I think the vast majority of the people we see are ensouled beings, but some…are not, either enspirited and perhaps representing an alternate reality from the ensouled version of that SELF or perhaps unensouled altogether and representing a shadow reality of the SELF. I think most of us lead a few score lives before we move on to…well, don't really know actually. I think some of us lead fewer, more intense lives, some perhaps only one. All of our lives have meaning and purpose, but most of us struggle to identify what those are in time to do something with them before we die. Perhaps this is why we are re-born so many times. What do you think?

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Re: Human Life/Immortal Soul?

M. Alan said Aug 5, 2006, 2:28 AM:

I find Sri Aurobindo's concept of the ”Psychic Being” (as opposed to the personality, ego, and outer nature) that grows through successive life-times quite useful. Incidentally teh Theosophists and Neo-Theosophists say something similar.

A different tack is taken by Jane Roberts / Seth, regarding a Higher Self that experiences all the lifetimes simultaneously, but this implies (although perhaps I am misunderstanding this theory) means either there is no such thing as embodied evolution (because the lives are simultaneous) , or if there is it is very limited. In contrast, Sri Aurobindo's paradigm allows the Soul to evolve towards embodied (not merely transcendent or disembodied) perfection.

I still think that what Rovbberts says is quite fascinating; maybe both referto different aspects of the same reality.

Re: Human Life/Immortal Soul?

Drake said Aug 5, 2006, 8:44 AM:

I have never read Jane Roberts, though I have read Aurobindo, I believe both in the evolutionary model (though truth be told I am more of an Integral Neoplatonist in my opinions) and in the ever presentness of reality. If the universe is infinite and we know that time-space is relative both in the corporal sense and in the metaphysical sense then we are both evolving toward enlightenment (or participating in God) and ever present within the One moment and place that is God simultaneously. This paradox is evident in physical existence mathematically when we realize that an infinite series of finite things make up infinity.

That said I believe that when we view existence from the stand point of the many things (what Taoism calls the 10,000 Things) we see individuals each within their own path or way towards evolution into the One, some of these individuals are further along in the sensory timeline then others. However when viewed from Big Mind or Godhead we are all One. Its a question of perspective both as the observer and the pluralities of factors effecting your observation of another and the pluralities of perspectives effecting the observed. This polydimensional model elicits an image of the Toltec belief that each and every one of us define both ourselves and reality through many mirrors (or perspectives) looking at a field of shifting smoke (temporary thoughts that stem from imperemant thoughts). This is like Plato's cave. When we evolve out of the cave we find ourselves in the world of light and things, eventually we will find that this too is another form of cave with its own manner of limited perception and so on and so forth until each and everyone and each and every thing is One.

So how does this answer the question of multiple lives? Well my wife puts it this way. If we are all ants on trip to Maui from Miami one ant may seem a greater distance ahead then other from the ants perspective. From our perspective however it is a journey that they can never complete in their own life times and thus one ants distance from the other seems academic at best. Eventually both ants will die, they will be consumed by natural forces of the Cosmos and they will be reborn in the same field of possibilities and will get a little further from our perspective it will still be very marginal. So it is with our souls, born into this infinite field of finite things our personal odyssey of life is to us of great importance but from the point of view of other intelligences we are but cosmic ants traveling toward a reachable goal but one of unimagined distance.

Namaste