The biggest "Why"? The largest question for anyone is “Why was I born when I was, where I was, who I was? For me, that is: Why was I born in 19__, in a small tobacco town in North Carolina, a white male?
Why not a black female in Senegal in the 1600's? Or a male in China in the fifth century BC?
It seems likely to me that I was born in the past as someone else, somewhere else–perhaps many times. And that it will happen again when I leave this life. Why? It’s difficult to explain a feeling, but I’ll try by saying that it doesn’t seem that the “I” that I know existed only one time in the infinite sweep of history.
“Reincarnation” and “transmigration” are the terms for such a phenomenon. An interesting book* includes excerpts from a vast number of sources-- worldwide and spanning many centuries on the subject; numerous individuals known to present-day Americans (Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Salvador Dali, and Charles Eastman are just a few) express beliefs consonant with reincarnation.
* Reincarnation:an East-West Anthology (compiled and edited by Joseph Head), published by The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, IL 1985
If karma is indeed true, then I must have done some wonderful things in my prior life(lives) because I have been extremely fortunate in this one. Had a few incidents at critical junctures of my life only occurred very slightly differently, I would have been far less lucky.
Why not a black female in Senegal in the 1600's? Or a male in China in the fifth century BC?
It seems likely to me that I was born in the past as someone else, somewhere else–perhaps many times. And that it will happen again when I leave this life. Why? It’s difficult to explain a feeling, but I’ll try by saying that it doesn’t seem that the “I” that I know existed only one time in the infinite sweep of history.
“Reincarnation” and “transmigration” are the terms for such a phenomenon. An interesting book* includes excerpts from a vast number of sources-- worldwide and spanning many centuries on the subject; numerous individuals known to present-day Americans (Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Salvador Dali, and Charles Eastman are just a few) express beliefs consonant with reincarnation.
* Reincarnation:an East-West Anthology (compiled and edited by Joseph Head), published by The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, IL 1985
If karma is indeed true, then I must have done some wonderful things in my prior life(lives) because I have been extremely fortunate in this one. Had a few incidents at critical junctures of my life only occurred very slightly differently, I would have been far less lucky.
posted by Mycroft Watson at 5:14 PM
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