Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00308)

<<<While this is seemingly a fair thing to say - I might like to suggest that someone like -say- the Dali Lama (Himself) might feel it is funny/base (and/or maybe insulting/ignorant towards Llife).>>>

Dear Terrie, what I said about reincarnation is not only fair, but correct. There is no proof for or against it. You cannot prove it to me, nor I to you. If anyone could prove it, the whole world would have to accept it as fact and they don't. Reincarnation is either a faith-based or an intuitive-based belief. HH the Dali Lama, for whom I have great respect and admiration as a living Adept, believes that we can come back as animals as well as other creatures besides humans so maybe he shouldn't be used here as your example (?).


<<<So, again, I'd suppose, that this all depends on y/our perspective(s) and/or real conscious understanding of these such living matters/matters of process. >>>

You have missed my point - which is that no amount of understanding will "prove" reincarnation as a fact for everyone. Even those who truly believe it have many ways of explaining its options and methodologies. The way it is taught in Theosophy is not the way that Buddhists teach it, and so on. So, who can say which is "right?" Like a Buddhist, I belive in reincarnation and also in anatma, so I believe that what returns is a bundle of karmic propensities, not a soul or a spirit or a self of any kind which many Theosophists believe. Now, if you want to believe in a spiritual Self, then fine, but be honest with yourself and accept it as a belief and not be dishonest and call it nature's law or a "fact" etc. and especially don't do so simply because Blavatsky uses those terms. Facts and laws can be demonstrated to others, they are things that we all tend to share and to observe (they are mutual consensual agreements about reality). Beliefs are internalized concepts that we cannot prove to others but accept for ourseves as real. Reincarnation cannot be demonstrated to others and is not observed by most people, and so has to remain a belief.

I am simply asking that Theosophists be honest with themselves, that all.

Have a nice day.

Jerry S,

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