Should You Plan for Your Next Incarnation?

Should You Plan for Your Next Incarnation?

Deepak Chopra

If everything in Nature is recycling under the influence of memory, creativity, and imagination, it seems very likely that human consciousness participates in the same recycling. Or to put it another way, if human consciousness doesn’t recycle/reincarnate, we’d be outside a process that includes everything else in the universe but us. Is that really probable?

The argument for the probability of reincarnation, added to the research on children’s memories of past lives, is very persuasive, so the future of reincarnation looks bright. No one can credibly call it a mere belief or superstition or a holdover from the age of faith.But a probability is weaker than a certainty, and no one should plan on their next incarnation without a stronger argument, perhaps strong enough to approach certainty. That’s the enticing possibility we’ll discuss in the next post.

Having spent some time browsing posts on a reincarnation-oriented forum, there are those who almost obsessively try to plan for their next incarnation. Meanwhile, the present life is passing by almost unnoticed.

I think we need primarily to live this life, not focus on some hypothetical tomorrow which is forever out of reach.

I'd suggest a line from a scripture,

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

To clarify my position, I don't subscribe to Christian interpretations, which inevitably omit reincarnation. But maybe the text still has something to say.

Should You Plan for Your Next Incarnation?

Deepak Chopra

Positing for the sake of argument that evidence amassed from verified memories of small children, birthmark cases, and other areas convincingly shows that we all reincarnate, I think that the notion of "planning for the next reincarnation" is naive in the extreme. 

This conclusion seems inevitable considering the cold hard facts of the human condition. The most important reason is because it is evident that the preferences of our current personalities have nothing to do with the choices made by whatever being it is that actually chooses the place, time, identity of the parents, circumstances, genetics, probable upbringing, probable challenges including genetically caused defects and diseases, etc. etc. Whatever is the mind, personality and memories of the being that makes such choices, it is alien from our present human personalities. That would presumably be the soul, a vastly greater being than the human personality and its memories.

As an existential fact, it must be "somebody else" that makes such choices and decisions.

To see why this must be the case, it is only necessary to examine the conditions of life of countless millions of present human beings. Hundreds of millions live in abject poverty and suffering. It is obvious that they, their present personalities, would never choose such circumstances for their next life. Like the extreme example of a child in Africa dying of starvation and AIDS transmitted from the mother. Surely this person will not have any chance to "spiritually grow from their challenges", and even if able to consider the matter would certainly not consider whatever slight spiritual learning takes place to be worth his or her horrendous experience.

Also, it is apparent that some unfortunate persons even in our advanced society would also never knowingly choose the circumstances of and genetics of their present incarnation, given the various crippling and misery-inducing conditions that were inevitable for them. Nobody in their right mind would choose a future life of suffering. 

Another possibility for whatever it is that determines the nature of the next life is that is an inexorable Karmic mechanism. In this case also it would be naive to try to "plan for the next life".

I think one of the depressing aspects of the above argument is the idea that we as humans are completely alienated from our own souls. To use that as a premise for subsequent argument seems problematic.

It raises questions such as why is it that (if it is so) we are alienated from our own souls, can anything be done about it? Should anything be done to try to become acquainted with ourselves?

I think one of the depressing aspects of the above argument is the idea that we as humans are completely alienated from our own souls. To use that as a premise for subsequent argument seems problematic.

It raises questions such as why is it that (if it is so) we are alienated from our own souls, can anything be done about it? Should anything be done to try to become acquainted with ourselves?

Sincerely, I would really like to find some rational, logical rejoinder to my argument (which is based on the actual human condition) that would somehow show that its bleak conclusion is invalid. But I have not encountered one as of yet. Other than just the reiteration of the teaching that "we as our souls" do make such choices and decisions, that we really are our souls in many deeply meaningful and loving ways, that suffering is temporary while love is eternal, and that the experience after physical death is a vast expansion of consciousness in which we directly experience these truths. This is basically an appeal to spiritual faith and is from the perspective of the soul not the human. Unfortunately this is not rational and logical enough in my mind to overcome the stark facts of the matter of the human condition.

It raises questions such as why is it that (if it is so) we are alienated from our own souls, can anything be done about it? Should anything be done to try to become acquainted with ourselves?

Looking at these questions and at the human condition, it seems to me that the system must be designed basically for the benefit of souls, not necessarily for the human selves. Suffering is supposedly necessary for much growth of soul experience and wisdom, and that can't be accomplished in their own realm of light where thoughts are things.  If this is the case then this alienation is a natural outcome of the intended design of reality, and therefore probably can't be alleviated.

But the cost of this scheme is a vast amount of human suffering which from the human point of view appears to be unjust. We don't really know, but it is unlikely that the soul actually suffers. Anyway, if this is the intended design of reality then there is nothing we can do about it except grin and bare it. Since we have free will we don't have to like it.

I actually hope that this analysis is gravely mistaken, and I am open to arguments showing how it is invalid.

Assuming reincarnation, planning for it, and retrocausation are all true, I'm feeling like a turn in Tokugawa Japan next time 'round.

Reincarnation fits very smoothly with my worldview.

We should be planning for our next reincarnation, but by working on our ‘issues’ here and now. Now really is all that exists.

In contrast to people that rail against suffering, so far in my life I have concluded that much of ‘suffering’ is of our own making. I believe in God, I don’t believe that we can be separate from It, it just appears that way. 

There certainly is suffering, but there is balance in that there is so much to be grateful for. I appreciate the small things, my garden, the birds, the sunlight, the rain, music is a big balance to suffering. 

If you don’t feel uplifted while watching Rick Beato’s enthusiasm in this video, you must really be down! 

From personal experience, I felt a sense of injustice until I realised that reincarnation and prayer played a role. At that point there was a sudden sense of great relief, not because I understood everything, but because I realised that an explanation was at least possible. Now this is a very individual thing, I'm referring to my particular life at a particular point. It's hard to reach a general conclusion from such an isolated sample. But still, I've not railed against injustice since.

Of course in our human-constructed world, there may be all sorts of injustices which we can rightly seek to remedy. I'm not suggesting to ignore injustice. On the other hand, if I hear someone rail against God for the way the world is, I sympathise with their plight, since they express genuine pain, but don't necessarily agree with their analysis of the causes.

More broadly, I've come to appreciate cause and effect, not over the scale of multiple lifetimes, but sometimes over the course of a single day, or some slightly longer timescale, I experience the playing out of the dramas of life in a sort of rhythm or dance, where rather like an astronaut on a spacewalk, the slightest touch can send one spinning off in another direction, there are no actions, indeed no thoughts without consequences.

Once we grasp this, it is no longer a matter of being tossed about like the leaves in a storm, or the astronaut floating in an uncontrollable spin. We can take some control and some responsibility for the thoughts which are propelling us. Perhaps our task here isn't a matter of doing great deeds, but of learning to stabilise our chaotic path.

From personal experience, I felt a sense of injustice until I realised that reincarnation and prayer played a role. At that point there was a sudden sense of great relief, not because I understood everything, but because I realised that an explanation was at least possible. Now this is a very individual thing, I'm referring to my particular life at a particular point. It's hard to reach a general conclusion from such an isolated sample. But still, I've not railed against injustice since.

Of course in our human-constructed world, there may be all sorts of injustices which we can rightly seek to remedy. I'm not suggesting to ignore injustice. On the other hand, if I hear someone rail against God for the way the world is, I sympathise with their plight, since they express genuine pain, but don't necessarily agree with their analysis of the causes.

More broadly, I've come to appreciate cause and effect, not over the scale of multiple lifetimes, but sometimes over the course of a single day, or some slightly longer timescale, I experience the playing out of the dramas of life in a sort of rhythm or dance, where rather like an astronaut on a spacewalk, the slightest touch can send one spinning off in another direction, there are no actions, indeed no thoughts without consequences.

Once we grasp this, it is no longer a matter of being tossed about like the leaves in a storm, or the astronaut floating in an uncontrollable spin. We can take some control and some responsibility for the thoughts which are propelling us. Perhaps our task here isn't a matter of doing great deeds, but of learning to stabilise our chaotic path.

Nice