AN EXPLANATION 0F:

The law of reincarnation encompasses the fact that this present life span is not the only one, but part of a long cycle of experience, which stretches far back into the past and forward into the unimaginable future. Many, many times are we born into a new physical body. Many, many times do we experience the joys and the sorrows, the struggles, the defeats and the triumphs of life on earth.

Nor do we travel the path alone. According to those teachers who have knowledge of spiritual law, we travel as groups. We reincarnate with those we have loved and those we have hated, those we have helped and those we have wronged. We may find ourselves in changed, or even alternating relationships, sometimes as master, sometimes as servant; sometimes as parent, sometimes as child: sometimes as husband, sometimes as wife: sometimes as the unenviable third party in the "eternal triangle." All these experiences help us to understand exactly how another person feels in any situation, to feel with him or her, until gradually we learn to the minutest detail how to treat another soul as we ourselves would like to be treated in similar circumstances.

To quite a large extent these lessons come through the outworking of the law of cause and effect, known in the eastern religions as karma. This law works alongside that of reincarnation, and ensures that we are born into the right circumstances and group of people to balance our debts for past mistakes or unkindness. We are born with certain talents, which in some cases seem to require little training to flower into outstanding skills. Such inherent gifts are the result of the effort and hard work put in during previous lives, for nothing is ever lost. Or we may be born with disabilities or limitations of mind or body, which will force us to develop skills in quite a different direction from what we would really like to do.

In many ways, a life on earth may be likened to a term at school. We come from our home on the finer planes of existence, back into the classroom of physical life, with a certain programme of instruction (which is indicated by the birth chart) The subjects at which we really worked hard during previous terms will come easily and those to which we failed to give proper attention will have to be coped with again.

Along with these three laws - correspondences, reincarnation and karma (cause and effect) - two other laws are also at work - the law of opportunity and the law of balance or equilibrium.

The law of opportunity ensures that within every experience, which comes to the soul, there is a beautiful opportunity to polish some facet of the total consciousness, or to gain a strength, a skill, or powers of endurance, which will prove to be invaluable in the future. There is also our own unique opportunity to use our gifts in service to others. This law is probably the one described in the Edgar Cayce readings as "the law of grace." It is that divine blessing, that inner contentment and peace which is born in the soul as it patiently struggles to pay back its karmic debts in the environment in which it is placed with cheerfulness, courage and kindness.

The law of balance seems to be as fundamental in the soul life as it is in the physical world, where it manifests in the swing of the tides, alternating beat and cold, light and darkness, positive and negative electric currents. acid and alkaline chemical balance and in many other ways. One way in which it manifests on the soul plane, is to cause the soul to incarnate sometimes in a male, sometimes in a female body. This, of course, gives valuable opportunities for working out karmic debts incurred at both the emotional and physical level through sex life. Alternating experiences of riches and poverty, achievement and failure, dominance or enslavement, and an extrovert or introvert temperament gradually bring to the soul that all-round experience which will lead it to complete self-mastery.

At the end of each incarnation the soul withdraws from the physical body, which is discarded like an outer garment, and enters an inner world; one which is just as real as the physical although it is invisible to mortal sight. This is described by spiritualists as "The Summer Land". Now comes a period of rest and refreshment - a holiday from the school of earthly experience. There follows a period when the soul is gently and gradually led to a deeper understanding of the mystery of its own being, and a reassessment of its progress in the unfoldment of its God-like powers. It sees the full picture of its many lives on earth. It sees the vision of those gifts of the spirit, which, when developed to perfection, will enable it to make its own unique contribution to the joy and beauty of the whole, and realises that only further training and experience in a physical body will develop these gifts. So it feels the urge to return once more to an earth incarnation.

We are told that no soul is ever forced into incarnation against its will. Once it has seen the vision of its own God-like powers, and how short of perfection is its present state of development, it is filled with a divine discontent and a longing to 'get on with the job’. Then it is shown the earthly experiences from which it will get the necessary training; and at the moment when the planetary conditions will bring these experiences, it is born again.

Every life brings the opportunities specially needed for our progress towards that perfect man/womanhood manifested by the great Teachers and Avatars of all time such as Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao Tse and many others. These God-men, or Sun-men as they are sometimes called, demonstrate the spiritual power and perfection which every soul will in due time learn to manifest, for the seed of this God-power is hidden within every human being. It is brought to perfection, as are all seeds, by the interaction of the sun, the rain, the wind and the earth, the spiritual elements of our being which are signified by the signs of the zodiac and the planets associated with them. Through the great law of correspondences these influences play upon the soul of man, bringing him just the experiences his soul needs at its present stage of unfoldment.

An understanding of the truth of reincarnation and the laws associated with it will give us a totally different outlook on life from those who do not know. For instance, it will make us much more aware of our responsibility towards others, in our various relationships with them, when we realise that all wrong, all unkindness and misjudgement must at some time be made good. We shall be tied to them in one life after another until through forgiveness, forbearance and kindly service, all hate is transmuted to love and brotherly understanding. When this knowledge is universally understood and accepted, which it will be in due time, there should come a steady decrease in oppression, crime and racial persecution - for surely as night follows day, those who persecute are reborn into a situation where they will suffer similar persecution.

There should also follow a decrease in the divorce rate, for often partners are drawn together in the close bond of marriage in order to pay off certain karmic debts to each other, and to set right the balance between them. When they realise that they will only have to come together again and again until full forgiveness and kindness flows between them, and their responsibilities to each other are fully discharged, they will perhaps make greater efforts to understand each other's viewpoint and be patient. On the other hand, when the karma between them has been fully discharged, there seems to be no reason why the legal bond should not be dissolved and each be free to follow their separate path. But true freedom can only be realised when each feels complete forgiveness and goodwill towards the other, and all family responsibilities have been faithfully and lovingly discharged

It is impossible here to go more fully into this fascinating subject, but to the reader who wishes to study the matter more deeply, I recommend the study of the Edgar Cayce readings, so well set forth by Gina Cerminara in the books Many Mansions and The World Within. For the deeper philosophical implications of reincarnation and for more information about the life in the inner world between incarnations, the teachings of White Eagle, available through the White Eagle Publishing Trust, are helpful and illuminating.

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