The Ghost in the Machine.

Just in case there’s anybody out there who is interested in me or what I have to say, I think it might be helpful to expand slightly on something I’ve generally only referred to in passing.

 

I believe in reincarnation, except I dislike the term because it gets attached too readily with a certain level of New Age thought that doesn’t sit easily with me. I dislike ‘believe in,’ too, because it suggests a level of awareness that isn’t quite adequate. This could turn into a very long post if I went into the subject deeply, so let me try to keep it brief with a simple explanation of what’s important to me.

 

I was brought up a Christian, a religion which – according to some – dropped the notion of reincarnation in its early days because it was inconvenient to what was seen as the core message. And so I was never conditioned to the belief and thought little about it. I only really ‘discovered’ it around fifteen years ago when I was delving deeply into the Vedic school of spirituality. In that tradition the cycle of life, death and rebirth is central. And that was when it hit home with a certainty I won’t bother trying to explain. All I’ll say is this:

 

I no longer have any doubt that Descartes was right when he insisted that the body and the consciousness exist independently. I have no doubt that the body called Jeff Beazley and the consciousness that is nameless and immortal are simply acting in partnership for whatever span of life Jeff Beazley has. This is why the question ‘Is there life after death?’ is, to me, a pointless one because it presumes that physical birth was the beginning of my existence. I don’t believe that for a second.

What I feel inside to be a self-evident certainty is that my consciousness has always existed and always will. Whether it has always existed as an independent phenomenon, and whether it will continue that way forever, is a question I have to avoid because that’s where it starts to get complicated and difficult to explain. That’s where the very long post would begin. The main point for the purpose of the present post is this:

 

Having that conviction deep inside of me means that I can no longer apply the concept of one life to everything. Terms like ‘You only live once’ and ‘You’re a long time dead’ are nonsense to me. And that means that when I consider who I am and why I have certain personality traits, problems and so on, I have to look at the old ‘nature vs nurture’ issue differently than most people. Those aspects of Jeff Beazley that are genetically derived stand alone; it’s the conditioned ones that are difficult. The things that have happened to me in this life, and which have given rise to certain attitudes and behaviour, I mostly remember. But what about the things that happened to me a hundred, five hundred or a thousand years ago? I can’t build them into any attempt at therapy because I don’t remember them, and yet I’m sure they’re still having an effect. This is why past life regression therapists exist, but that route can, I think, be dangerous. It’s as likely to make the problem worse as better.

 

And there’s another aspect to this that has become paramount lately and which is giving rise to much of my present difficulty. I believe that the consciousness is almost as individually formed as the many bodies it inhabits through the centuries; and I believe it’s as aware of other individually formed consciousnesses as Jeff Beazley is aware of the people currently around him. I believe that certain strong bonds of attachment form between these consciousnesses, and that the estrangement forced on them by the latest delving into a new physical incarnation can be as painful as being forced away from a spouse, lover, child or close friend.

 

There’s something else, too. In the Vedic tradition, the concept of reincarnation sits alongside that of karma to form a twin doctrine. Karma is in a constant state of attempted rebalancing; and that, I believe, can greatly affect the relationship between people who have a karmic connection.

I think I’d better stop here, since this post is already a lot longer than I intended. It’s 1.20pm and I haven’t eaten yet.

 

Edited to add 11th August 2022

 

Eleven years on and my view has changed in one respect: I no longer use the term 'believe.' If something can be proven I don't need to believe it. If it can't, I attach a level of credence commensurate with the evidence and my own instinct. On that basis I still attach a high level of credence to the concept of reincarnation. In other words, I think it very likely. This can actually be quite scary because, if I'm right, I have to face the prospect of my consciousness existing in some unknown environment before I come back here (or maybe somewhere else.) Fear of the unknown is a common human condition.

I'd also like to say that Andrea Kiss, whose comments appear below, is one of the very few people I'm sorry I never met. I liked Andrea a lot.