ライブラリ
The wheel of life does not stop for long--soon it will turn again and pass from the point of death to the point of life.
6.9.2.1The thought of the body, of being identified with it, guarantees that a dying person will come back here again.
6.9.2.2Better than being born to wealthy parents is being born to wise ones, for then the child will not only be taught spiritual values but will see them demonstrated before his eyes.
6.9.2.9A child is born into a family not by mere chance but as the resultant of forces set agoing in the previous births both by the newly born and by its parents.
6.9.2.11Parents may do what they wish to encourage the good and discourage the evil in the characters of their offspring, but in bringing them into the world they took a chance. For the children brought their own characters with them from previous incarnations.
6.9.2.12None of us is thrown into this world against his will. All of us are here because we want to be here.
6.9.2.14We reincarnate in part through the pressure of accumulated karma and in part through the pressure of habitual tendencies.
6.9.2.15All men come back to bodily life again if they leave a residue of karma. All karma that is not brought to an end by bringing the mind's bondage to the ego-thought to an end, makes reincarnation inescapable.
6.9.2.17The tendencies brought over from past births, the experiences and contacts made then as well as in the present one, explain his acting as he does, and his being what he is.
6.9.2.18He excuses his weaknesses by complaining against nature, which has provided him with instincts and passions leading to them. But that which he calls nature is really the inheritance of his own tendencies from former lives.
6.9.2.19At any given moment, a man thinks and acts according to, and as a result of, his whole mental and physical experience of life and his whole character and nature. These cannot be limited to the single short life on earth he now knows, for that will not explain many of his tendencies and traits. They must include all his previous lives.
6.9.2.20All things contribute to the making of man--the history of his past and the climate of his land, the people among whom he is born, and his own particular tendencies. The most important is his karma.
6.9.2.21The complexes and tendencies pre-existing the present birth and hidden deep in his subconscious mind, must sooner or later come through to the surface mind.
6.9.2.30In the final accounting it is less what a man receives from education than what he receives from former lives that matters most. His education may help to bring it out and round it out but his innate stock will largely be the measure of his assets.
6.9.2.31The traits and tendencies which a man receives from the preceding births constitute in their totality the personal self which he knows as ”I.”
6.9.2.33What a man brings over from former births are the fixed ideas in his consciousness, the habitual direction of his feelings and the innate impulses of his will.
6.9.2.34What a man is, needs, or has done puts him just where he is.
6.9.2.36The ego inherits the tendencies, the affinities, and the antagonisms which have shaped themselves in a long series of births behind the present one.
6.9.2.38… He cannot behave differently from the way he does--that is, if he is not on the quest and therefore not struggling to rise beyond himself. His own past--and it stretches back farther than he knows--created the thoughts, the acts, and the conditions of the present.
6.9.2.39,... Two loving friends are near each other even though their bodies are in separate continents; two hating enemies are far from each other even though their bodies are in the same room...
6.9.2.47,We automatically try to repeat the old patterns of behaviour created in former lives whether they are beneficial or injurious to us. This happens because we can hardly help doing so.
6.9.2.50Tendencies, habits, and desires inherited from past lives may be worth following. But they may also be harmful, or negative and not easily dislodged.
6.9.2.55What we were in the past is not important. What we are now is important. What we intend to make of ourselves in the future is vitally important.
6.9.2.57A man can respond to events or to prophets, to demands or to experiences, only on the level of his own capacity and mentality. We have no right to ask that he shall be better or wiser.
6.9.2.58We come into birth as distinct persons—even babies begin to show their individual differences with characters formed already in previous existences. This is one reason why some amount of tolerance, some acceptance of one another as we are, is necessary if we are to live peaceably together.
6.9.2.62The essence of countless experiences and states through which he has passed is here and now with him as the degree of character, intelligence, and power which he possesses.
6.9.2.64He who has taken many births has a great wealth of total experience behind him. This manifests itself naturally in wiser decisions and better self-control.
6.9.2.65That a truth which is so clear to their own minds could be so obscure to other minds, is easily explicable by the grading processes of reincarnation. Each man's present state and views are the outcome of his past experiences in past lives.
6.9.2.67The man who finds his mind suddenly illuminated, but does not know why it came about, may find his answer in the doctrine of ”tendencies”--prenatal and karmic--reappearing from former lives and held hitherto in the deeper mental levels.
6.9.2.81It is easy to despise as stupid those of obvious inferior intelligence, but it would be well to remember that we were once at the same level. The notion of rebirth teaches tolerance.
6.9.2.82When intuitive recognitions of truth, swift flashes of understanding, come on hearing or reading these inspired statements, this is a sign of having been engaged in its quest during former reincarnations.
6.9.2.85... I am unwittingly remembering and using again my own capabilities from a former birth. This is possible only because I am mind. Mind alone can continue itself. Capacities in any field cannot appear out of nothing. The individual who shows them forth is repeating them out of his own deeper memory…
6.9.2.89,The views which anyone holds intellectually are relative to his experience and status, his innate character and reincarnatory history.
6.9.2.91The capacity to commune with the Overself exists in all men; it is a universal one. But it does not exist to an equal degree. For those who can accept the doctrine of rebirth, the explanation of this inequality lies there.
6.9.2.93The very nature of reincarnation prevents anyone from completely proving it. But there is no other theory that is so reasonable to help us understand our evolution, history, capacity, genius, character, and inequality; no other so useful to help us solve the great problem of why we are here on earth at all…
6.9.2.95,… this doctrine, that the ego repeatedly visits our plane in fresh physical forms, is demanded by reason, supplied by intuition, and verified by revelation.
6.9.2.95,The reincarnations which precede the present one contribute to its characteristics and help to shape its happenings. But this does not mean they give all its characteristics and happenings. Some develop out of the outer facts and inner reactions of this present birth.
6.9.2.99His conduct while alive will contribute to the kind of body and environment he gets next time, his thought and feelings too. We earn from life and pass up higher or go down lower like pupils in graded school.
6.9.2.101Where is any man's biography which is more than fragmentary, opinionated, and biased? For without the background picture of earlier lives in other bodies the materials are thinner than the compiler believes them to be.
6.9.2.103If thousands of prenatal memories were to come crowding in together, the mind's life would be horrible, crazy. Worse, one's own personal identity would be lost, merged in all the others.
6.9.2.106One may experience a sense of loss if he has not recovered the degree of awareness achieved in previous incarnations.
6.9.2.110What we know from past births does not have to be learned again from experiences of the same kind in the present birth, unless we do not know it or feel it strongly enough.
6.9.2.111The same forces which bring us into the experience of a new reincarnation also deprive us of the memory of previous reincarnations.
6.9.2.121The feeling of familiarity with someone met for the first time, of vague indistinct recognition which we sometimes get, may have varying significances. But one of them is an echo of remembrance of previous contact in a past birth.
6.9.2.129Since it is not from the animal but from the human state that the Essence of Being can be realized (because the animal does not possess the necessary faculties), the processes of rebirth must fill the gap between lowest animal to highest human.
6.9.2.136When the energies have run out, and the advance of years must be measured sadly; when a man knows at last what he ought to have done, it is too late. This is why another chance, another birth on earth is needed.
6.9.2.137Only when the desire for perpetuation of personal existence finally leaves him is a man really near the point where even a little effort produces large results on this quest. But getting tired of the wheel of rebirth's turnings does not come easily.
6.9.2.139It would seem that the experience of a whole lifetime is wasted when people exist in such spiritual torpor, merely keeping their animal bodies alive. But of course it is not really so; for however slight and outwardly unrecognizable inward growth may be, it must be there, or Nature's process of reincarnation would be meaningless and useless mechanical repetition.
6.9.2.142If a new birth is a new opportunity to gain spiritual experience, it is also a new opportunity to commit errors and acquire vices.
6.9.2.143Looking at the monstrous wickedness and folly in the world today, it would seem a stupid and hopeless effort to believe that human character will become any better than it was and still is. But the fact of reincarnation, with its tremendous possibilities, restores this hope.
6.9.2.144We are incarnated to be educated. Experience provides the lessons, and necessity gives the disciplines.
6.9.2.146All the reincarnations which are necessary to the unfoldment of his character and capacities must be lived through.
6.9.2.150When he looks back upon the long series of earth lives which belongs to his past, he is struck afresh by the supreme wisdom of Nature and by the supreme necessity of this principle of recurring embodiment. If there had been only one single continuous earth life, his progress would have been brought to an end, he would have been cluttered up by his own past, and he could not have advanced in new directions... Without these breaks in his life-sequences, without the advantages of fresh surroundings, different circumstances, and new contacts, he could not have lifted himself to ever higher levels, but would only have stagnated or fallen to lower ones.
6.9.2.160,The law which pushes us into, or out of, physical bodies is a cosmic law. There is no blind chance about it.
6.9.2.161… Philo, himself a Jew, explicitly states that the Essenes got their knowledge from Indian Brahmins. Everyone knows that rebirth was an essential feature of the Brahmins’ faith, so it is fair to assume that it was taken up by the Essenes, too.
6.9.2.162,We repeat these appearances on earth in a constant process and a long cycle of time. But contrast it with the beginninglessness and endlessness of life itself. What is this but a fraction of a fraction of a moment?
6.9.2.165When a man has established himself in the Universal self, in the awareness of its oneness, the series of earthly reincarnations of his personal self comes to an end. For himself, they would serve no further purpose.
6.9.2.172We may be surprised that so many intelligent people refuse to believe in reincarnation and karma, even though they cannot explain God’s justice without them. The truth is that they are defective in intuition and dependent on intellect and emotion. But emotion and intellect alone are too limited as instruments for finding truth.
6.9.2.185Whatever we constantly concentrate on provides one of the factors in reincarnation. If we love a race or an individual strongly enough, we shall sooner or later necessarily be drawn into their orbit when reincarnating. It is equally true, however, that if we hate a race or an individual strongly enough we shall have the same experience. Both love and hate are forms of concentrated thought. The nature of concentration, whether it be that of like or dislike, attraction or repulsion, does not alter its strength.
6.9.2.186The common interpretation of the Biblical sentence, ”Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return,” was interpreted by the Jewish medieval Kabbalists and by initiated Rabbis of antiquity as referring to reincarnation.
6.9.2.193Greeks who believed strongly in the idea of rebirth were not only the initiates of the Orphic Mysteries, but also among the most celebrated thinkers, especially Plato.
6.9.2.194To carry the burdens of existence in one body after another through a long series may seem an unpleasant prospect to some minds, as it did to Gautama in India and Schopenhauer in Germany.
6.9.2.199In the lengthy writings of the fathers of the early Christian Church, we can find approval of belief in the doctrine of reincarnation expressed by Saint Methodius, Origen, Synesius, and Pamphilius.
6.9.2.203Each comes to the front of the stage, plays out his allotted role, and moves away…All mankind become a company of actors, appearing in play after play, each story different, each part acted in a new body.
6.9.2.204,The periodic return to earth-life was a belief shared by poets like Goethe, Shelley, and Browning, by thinkers like Plato, Schopenhauer, and Swedenborg.
6.9.2.205We have to become in actuality what we are in potentiality; all our rebirths are engaged in this process.
6.9.2.210Until he finds his Overself, no man can escape this coming back to the earthly life. And this remains true whether he loves the world or is disgusted by it.
6.9.2.212We come back to this earth of ours and not to some other earth because it is here that we sow the seeds of thought, of feeling, and of action, and therefore it is here that we must reap their harvest. Nature is orderly and just, consistent and continuous.
6.9.2.214… he knows that his history did not begin in the country where he was born. He knows that it will not end in the body in which he dies.
6.9.2.217,The passage from quest to conquest would be impossible for most humans if they had only one life to live, one body for the start and the finish.
6.9.2.218... Is all the vast intelligence of this universe which gave birth to our own minute fragment to be forever separated from us? No! We shall live again, die again, and return again unless and until we have fulfilled the divine purpose which brought us here.
6.9.2.221,If it had been possible to attain salvation in the non-physical worlds, we would not have been born in this one. We are here because nowhere else could we, in our present state of progress, find the right environment to ripen those qualities which will lead us further toward this ultimate goal.
6.9.2.222The eventual trend of evolution is through and away from personality, as we now know it. We shall find ourselves afresh in a higher individuality, the soul. To achieve this, the lower characteristics have slowly to be shed. In this sense, we do die to the earthly self and are born again in the higher self. That is the only real death awaiting us.
6.9.2.223The possession of moral values, metaphysical capacities, and spiritually intuitive qualities which distinguish more evolved from less evolved men takes time to acquire—so much time that reincarnation must be a continuous process.
6.9.2.224If it were true that a bad man must always remain bad, where would the hope be for mankind? But in the perfect wisdom of the Infinite Mind, human lives are so arranged that the bad man will go on garnering the untoward results of his deeds until his mind, first subconsciously but later consciously, perceives the logical and causal connection between his act and his suffering and begins the attempt to control his evil tendencies. Both this education and this effort will continue through many births for a single one would be too short in time, too poor in opportunity, for such a total reformation to be achieved.
6.9.2.225Even those who are well-intentioned and spiritually minded make many mistakes in life simply because they cannot see the unfortunate results to which their wrong decisions and actions must necessarily lead. Only experience can lead to their correction and only reincarnation can give enough experience.
6.9.2.226Life in the flesh is a gift if we are using it rightly but it becomes a curse if we are not. Every incarnation should be used to help one get somewhat farther in doing this job of achieving an Overself-inspired existence.
6.9.2.227What is happening to his characteristics, what he is learning from experience lies in more or less degree below the threshold of consciousness. Only time, with its repetitions, and thought, with its conclusions, will shift the lesson or ability into visible manifestation above the threshold.
6.9.2.228Plant, animal, and human bodies pass through this cycle of growth, maturity, decay and death. All this means being exposed to different forces, different experiences, resulting in the development of consciousness.
6.9.2.232To become Man as evolution intends him to be, he must draw out all his latent resources, fill out a wide experience. This is why so many reincarnations on earth are needed. Until then, his realization as Man will be an incomplete one.
6.9.2.233The ripe wisdom of a sage could not possibly be the fruit of a single lifetime, but only of many lifetimes.
6.9.2.236The experiences of life will in the end overcome these inner resistances. The silent instruction multiplied during the re-embodiments will defeat the psychological defense mechanisms set up against unpalatable truths or new ideas. It is the repetition and deepening of all these lessons through the accumulating rebirths that enables wisdom to penetrate consciousness completely and effectively.
6.9.2.237
31 8 2019
30 7 2015
5 2 2016
24 6 2022
6 3 2023
6 5 2015
23 3 2023
30 8 2017
2 2 2018
20 2 2022
2 7 2016
16 3 2015
29 7 2020
7 8 2024
23 6 2017
3 11 2020
10 7 2023
5 5 2017
21 9 2017
13 2 2016
11 3 2025
22 2 2023
20 2 2016
7 9 2024
27 4 2022
3 2 2022
31 1 2012
13 6 2015
2 12 2018
14 1 2018
25 10 2021
2 11 2014
18 5 2023
22 11 2014
9 4 2017
21 4 2021
30 5 2013
9 7 2016
30 6 2013
23 9 2021
29 3 2015
10 4 2022
28 2 2021
13 2 2015
18 8 2019
27 6 2021
8 2 2015
19 1 2022
7 8 2018
18 7 2011
30 9 2024
16 5 2019
22 2 2016
5 4 2021
20 9 2022
27 5 2016
29 12 2010
27 12 2022
9 5 2022
29 4 2021
7 12 2019
7 6 2022
5 6 2024
18 4 2019
20 12 2017
30 11 2014
1 7 2012
18 11 2014
20 9 2020
28 8 2022
7 9 2013
13 8 2011
15 8 2011
5 11 2024
9 2 2013
18 3 2016
19 4 2013
1 11 2024
4 5 2022
3 5 2024
4 6 2023
31 5 2022
The notebooks are copyright © 1984-1989 The Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation
This site is run by Paul Brunton-stiftelsen · info@paulbruntondailynote.se