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Essays on Discover the Power Within You
What is Reincarnation?
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Chapter 10
What Is Reincarnation
"Born-Before Christians"
Though Jesus never stated that he was a reincarnation of Elisha, he did
refer to John the Baptist as the reincarnation of Elijah, who was to come
before the Messiah, according to prophecy.
Each of us has to decide for himself, the degree of his or her own acceptance
of reincarnation.
My continually developing point of view, is that reincarnation is the
essential ingredient needed for Christianity to make sense. If we do truly
reap as we sow, then God is not mocked, and the principles Christ declared
are true for every man.
Without reincarnation, both theologians and the common man have had
to resort to absurdity to explain God's creation of man.
If God has created us to live a sinless life, or else spend eternity
in hell, then God is like a small boy who tears the wings off of insects.
Who among us can live a life without blame? If one in a billion attains
it, I am amazed.
Faced by the guilt of having placed a vicious face on God, different
sects have confronted the problem by variously declaring that priests can
forgive sin, or that once you declare your faith in Jesus Christ, you are
saved forever.
Both of these ideas are so absurd that they must be swallowed like camels.
They are beyond faith, because even faith follows spiritual cause and effect.
These thoughts are attempts to patch over the absurdity of our limited
earthly views of God.
Those who hold to these thoughts are like the man who told Jesus, "let
me go home and bury my father." They have made tradition their God, and
must value everything by how they think it sounds to the neighbors. They
have buried the Father, under the weight of their limited perception of
God.
They have separated themselves from Jesus by making him a special case.
There is no sense in attempting to imitate Jesus unless he is exactly as
we are. If you only take Jesus literally, then you ignore his example of
teaching through parables, and you have turned your back on his gift for
you.
When asked how to pray, Jesus said, "pray like this", and gave us the
Lord's Prayer. He said, pray as I do. What good would it do us to imitate
him, unless we truly are as he is? If we are in the same relation to God
that Jesus is, we must be as he is.
And in a sense, isn't the entire set of four Gospels a form of prayer?
Over and over, Jesus says do it this way. Put on these thoughts, and reform
your relationship to God.
Jesus stated very plainly and directly that we would do greater things
than he had done. If we are to do so, we need more practice. The only way
to get more practice is through more time on earth.
A physical scientist will tell you that every particle of matter in
the cosmos has existed since the beginning of the world. It may have changed
from energy to matter and vice versus several times, but the total of matter/
energy is conserved. Only the form changes.
If even the physical universe is eternal, is it hard to believe that
we who experience as mind, are also eternal creations?
When we say God must be this, and God must be that, we are not describing
the limitations of God. We are describing the limitations of our ability
to conceive of and accept God.
If we accept the all-encompassing love of God, perhaps we can accept
that he has given us all eternity to find and develop our true nature as
his image and likeness.
When we look around us, we see constant change of form. Every plant
and animal, as well as man, changes in a constant process of evolution.
The change of child to man is not random: no one grows smaller and younger.
The child goes through many days, and many changes of awareness, to
become the adult. He does not remember all these days, even as we forget
our earlier lives, but the influence remains. And though the child may
look nothing like the man, and may have many changed attitudes and feel
very differently about himself, yet he is the same individual.
If we do decide to believe in reincarnation for the time being, until
we can prove or disprove it to ourself, then how can we apply this promise
that we can be as Jesus Christ expects us to be?
To make Christianity come alive in you, take each thing Jesus said about
himself, and pretend it is true about yourself. Pretend it is you saying
it to and about your own self.
If you have the courage to do this, you will find Christ in yourself.
Jesus himself told us, "Seek and you shall find". Do not accept anyone's
limitation of what you are or can be. Find out for yourself, within yourself.
Afterwords
There are some powerful ideas presented in the above essays. You might
want to read them several times, giving them at least several days to sink
in between readings.
After writing these words, I read them daily for several days, then
once a week as I wrote the next paper. I think they became stepping stones
for me in the changes I continue to make.
These are my own thoughts. I offer them to you freely.
To the degree that these ideas make sense to you, and you use them,
you are creating them in your own mind.
If they are of no use to you, then forget about them.
If you are wanting to get the greatest good out of them, then share
them with others.
Most of all, if they are useful to you, then use them. If you will look,
then you will find. Each of us is personally connected to God. Not through
someone else, or even through some idea. You are made of truth.
Have the courage to see God as Christ sees him. Then you too will Discover
the Power Within You.
Brad Jensen
[Essays on Discover the Power Within You] [Unity
on the Web Home Page]
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