Reincarnation

[Tiff]

Glenn Ford - mysterious language abilities



There are now many recorded cases where under hypnosis a subject has not
only recounted details from what appears to be a previous life, but
also
spoken a foreign language of which they claimed to have little or no
previous knowledge.

A notable case of this is the famous Hollywood actor Glenn Ford. Under
hypnosis, he recalled five previous lives - one in particular as a
French
cavalryman under Louis XIV. The astonishing part was that though Ford
said he knew only a few basic phrases in French, under hypnosis he spoke
French
with ease while describing this life. And when recordings of his
regression were sent to UCLA (University of California), they discovered
that not
only was Ford speaking fluent French, he was in fact speaking the
Parisian dialect from the 17th century.

[Tiff]

Reincarnation belief usually falls into two main categories:



A. Those who believe in reincarnation.



B. Those who absolutely do not believe in it.



Both classes of thinkers are taking the absolutist perspective.



The first may very well dedicate their "lifetime" to trying to remember their past lives.



The second will not, but will have some qualifier that opposes the belief in reincarnation, and to that they are dedicated.



In the thread Emptiness and Objects we discussed dependent arising. The goal being to arrive at phenomenal exisitence as dreamlike. To understand this one falls into neither class A or B thinkers. Because remember...phenomena is dreamlike. So...what are our dreams like?



Well, if I dream I see a house on a hill, then when I look away for a second and look back again, the house is gone. I do not experience fear or excitement upon seeing this, because in my dream-existence I understand that any manifestation is possible, and any de-manifestation equally possible. Things do not have to follow rational sequence, such as be essences born and then die in the manner as appears in waking.. A house does not have to be built and then taken away by bulldozers. In dreaming we know this and accept it, but in waking we don't and find it difficult to accept it. We rely on rational explanations to how phenomena appears (often drilled into us in school).



So waking perception has an anchor, a weight that holds us down. That weight is certainty. Our sense of certainty fixates our waking attention. The cause of certainty is the belief in absoluteness in some way. So this holds everything together.



Back to reincarnation, class A and class B people exhibit certainty. There actually a sub-class of A (those who entertain the possibility as inherently true, and sub-class B (htose who entertain the possibility of inherently untrue). Such people have not realized emptiness of essence and so would be open still to the persuasion of some absolutist perspective.



What about class C? Class C represents those who do not adhere to any form of absolutism. So this waking reality can be just like dream reality. A book could be on the table, the next minute the book is gone. It is no surprise, no big happening. One cannot account for it's disappearance but one also does not need to. Just like in a dream, its understood the dreamer and dream are not separate, and the dreamer is not reflected upon (we rarely think of "an identity" in dreams).



So class C accepts reincarnation as part of phenomenal existence. This is not saying such a person believes or does not believe in reincarnation...because truth is, there is nothing to believe in in terms of making absolutes. It would be like trying to say some objects in your dream are real and other objects are not real. If everything is dreamlike, everything is real and mist-like at the same time, as in dreams. Mist-like because the coming and going of objects need not be accounted for.



Back to class A people. They would be happy to read about Glenn Ford, maybe even elated over it. They will confirm their identity within reincarnation and also confirm their identity in "who they are" as reincarnated beings.



Class B would find the story of Glenn Ford wrought with lies and trickery. Such as "it could not have happened" "this is some hoax" for them there would be some extreme sense of confirming reality as "this" but definitely not "that" because that's impossible!



So these are the anchors of certainty, which we toss off at night in dreaming, but in truth we need not carry them around at all, in other words...not in waking either.

[Tiff]

oops, in my last post I kinda made it so that anyone to who had things to share about expereinces with reincarnation feels maybe not so comfortable to do so here. That was unintentional. If I hear someone's story about a reincarnation experience, I do feel its likely that person did experience something rather amazing, I just would not conclude if it was reincarnation as specifically spoken of and I feel there would not be the need to conclude with any certainty at any time and still there would be benefit of that experience.

[Guest]