REINCARNATIONーA SPIRIT VIEW
Chapter Three
REINCARNATIONーA SPIRIT VIEW
OF all the imponderables affecting life here and hereafter, reincarnation probably heads the list. It is noteworthy that for many years Silver Birch's views on this highly controversial problem were in direct contrast to those of his medium.
Those who do not share this outlook say it offers a ready-made excuse for life's misfortunes and unfortunates.
Here are Silver Birch's views. Asked, "Why is there such a divided opinion among guides and Spiritualists on reincarnation?" he answered:
Because some know and some don't. It is a question of experience. It takes a long time, as you count it, for this fact to be appreciated. People can be in our world for what you call ages and still be unaware of this truth. You must realise that the world of spirit is graded. It is not a one plane surface, so to speak, where all are of an equal level of attainment.
It is graded in spiritual development. You will find that the higher the ascent in this spiritual scale, the more recognition is there of the fact that there is reincarnation, because it happens, but not in the facile form that is so often propounded.
Asked if reincarnation was voluntary or because some purpose had to be achieved, the guide replied, "Both."
So I take it that because we see the purpose we wish to be reborn.
Yes, I could not put it more succinctly.
Therefore, in effect, it is compulsion?
It depends how you define compulsion. Nobody orders you to do it. But if you feel you are compelled to do it then you could call it compulsion. Nobody will order you to reincarnate in your world. But you will feel you have a lesson to learn, a service to perform, a wrong to redress, a kindness to be done that you had failed before and will want to do it because you know it is best for you to do so.
We are told we live for ever with our closest loved ones after leaving the earth plane. Can you explain what happens when our loved one reincarnates?
This is not the problem that it seems because it is an attempt to equate a spiritual happening by a physical measurement. You have heard me say many times that the personality expressed on earth is only a fragment of the total individuality. I have compared it to facets of a large diamond.
Facets can incarnate and others can reincarnate. There can be temporary earthly incursions when this happens and there is separation between the facets of the diamond. But where the law of affinity is at work there will be no such separation.
"Is not the teaching of reincarnation a confusion arising from the subjective heavens of 'the happy hunting grounds' originally given to teach the reality of the earthly life to those who died in infancy?" asked a reader.
If the questioner likes to think so, he or she is entitled to do so, but that will not alter its truth.Facts are facts, whether you like them or not, or whether you agree with them or not.
The wise individual is the one who tries to understand when confronted with a fact or its implications. But if it does not make sense to you, then reject it. If it appears to you foolish, reject it. As you grow, your capacity to understand will increase and you will find what you may have rejected before now makes sense.
A circle member, referring to another reader's question on the population explosion, asked: "Where do all these souls come from? If there is a certain number of souls to come back to earth, there must be a reservoir. We are told not to produce too many children. But if mankind goes on producing them they would be born. Consequently where do these souls come from?"
It may be the wrong word to use, but your question is based on a misconception. You do not create souls in your world. What you do is to create the channels for souls to manifest. Spirit, the primal essence, is infinite, and infinity cannot be measured. What you do is to provide a means whereby spirit can incarnate and become individu-
ated.
You, as spirit, have always existed. As individual spirit you started from the moment of conception. There are others who existed in your world before and who have a task to perform, redress to make, or something to achieve. They wait until they find the right vessels who will provide them with the opportunities for what they have to do.
I thought that all human souls gradually evolved from every stage of life.
No, that is the physical ancestry. Spirit has always existed.
What is the essential difference between old and new souls? Where does the new spirit come from? Who decides into what conditions they incarnate or reincarnate? The guide answered:
The essential difference between an old and a new soul is one of age. Obviously the old is older than the new. "Where does a new soul come from?" This question is very loosely phrased. Souls do not come from anywhere. Spirit has always been in existence. Spirit will always be in existence. It is the primal essence, the life force, the divine. It says in your Bible that "God is spirit."
If the questioner means, "Where does the individual soul come from?" then I say that at the moment of concep-tion a particle of spirit incarnates to begin to express individuality on earth.
A circle member asked, "Is that then a part of the totality of the Great Spirit?"
Yes, that is why you are linked for ever with the Great Spirit. You cannot be cut off, you cannot be banished, you cannot be excommunicated. You are for all time bound up. inextricably with the power which is life, no matter what manifestation it takes.
Another member asked, "But does the individual life start before that moment?"
You are using words which make it difficult. Do you mean, "Has the individuality which is expressed from the
moment of conception existed before?" Yes, sometimes, but not in the same personality which is now beginning to be expressed on earth. As spirit is infinite, it will take a long time to comprehend infinity.
The next question was, "Is there an organisation in the spirit world to control reincarnation, to prevent mistakes being made?"
All these matters are simply resolved by the operation of natural law. You decide if you should incarnate. You do so at a time when you have a greater awareness and realise what can be achieved by becoming embodied in the earthly world. It does not require any group or organisa-tion of beings. This is a matter the soul decides for itself.
Is each incarnation progressive, or is it possible to end further down the ladder than when one started? Replied the guide:
All life, especially that of the spirit, is progressive. I am referring specifically to the spiritual because it is the one that really matters. Once you have knowledge, wherever it was gained, then as you apply it automatically you grow spiritually and advance. And advance is always progression, though it will take eternity to achieve perfection.
In discussions on reincarnation sceptics ask how blue babies and the mentally deficient can possibly learn any lesson from earth life. Many Spiritualists take this difficult question on trust, knowing we will understand one day. But if we cannot answer the sceptic he may remain one. Can you suggest the best way to answer without getting involved in abstruse discussion?
There is no answer to the sceptic. The sceptic must find out for himself until he is satisfied. Then the scepticism will vanish. We are not theologians. This is not a matter of argument or a discussion in which you score points. This is a spiritual process in which awareness has to come to individuals.
As they achieve awareness they will understand some of the mysteries of life. They will not understand them all because if you could do so you would not be on earth. Earth is your school where you learn your lessons. Gradually, as you learn them, and knowledge comes, so your awareness grows. With it comes your ability to receive and under-stand more.
That is what the whole purpose of life is about. It is not for me to argue, to be challenged to debate. I can only enunciate certain fundamental truths which have endured and will endure. If they cannot be accepted, I am sorry. There is nothing I can do about it.
You say the soul is divided into many parts. Only one part can come to earth. The others are progressing in other spheres. Can you amplify this?
We have to use words which are very poor symbols for that which is beyond all your language. Words are physical. The soul is non-physical. How do we interpret the non-physical in physical language? This is a great problem of what you call semantics. To me the soul is that portion of the divinity within each one of you, what you call God, and I the Great Spirit. There are no means of measuring souls in terms that you can understand. The soul is the life force, the dynamic, the vitality, the real essence, the divinity.
You think of souls in terms of personalities and individuals. If I ask, who are you? I don't know how you would answer. Giving me your name does not tell me who you are. That is only the name by which you are called. Who are you, the individual, the judge, the thinker, the one who expresses love and is capable of manifesting all the emotions that form the spectrum of human experience in your world? That is the soul.
You live on earth because the soul provides animation for the physical body. When the soul withdraws, the physi-cal body, having no animation, dies. That soul has not a name, such as you are called by in your world. Because it is divine it is infinite. And being infinite it is capable of an infinite number of manifestations. That soul has many aspects. I use the simile of a diamond with many facets. Those facets can incarnate into your world at differing times to gain experience, to help the other facets in the diamond's evolution towards perfection.
Where you have affinities, which is rare, it is because they are two facets of the one diamond incarnating at the same time on earth. That is why there is a complete harmony between them. They are parts of the one whole. This brings us to the subject of reincarnation. Here you have facets of the diamond incarnating into your world to add knowledge, development and experience that will help the diamond in its evolution.
Can you explain more fully the "group soul" which you describe as a diamond with many facets? Are they family groups, people in the same state of spiritual development, those with the same interests, or what else?
If the questioner uses the word "family" in its literal sense, as you understand it, being confined to people who have blood ties or relationships due to marriage, then this does not apply to group souls. Earthly ties, which are purely material, do not necessarily continue when the body has served its purpose.
In spiritual relationships, you have in the supreme case affinities or in the lesser instances kinship. Physical relation-ships are conditions not based on eternal principles, the only ones that will endure. Group souls, when referring to their human aspects, are composed of individuals who have a spiritual kinship. Automatically they are drawn to one another because they are the facets of the one diamond. It can be, and it does happen, that for purposes of work to be done fragments of the diamond incarnate into your world to have the kind of experience which will help the larger self.
Are we all not parts of the same soul?
That is very difficult. This is the old trouble when you have to define the words you use. We are all part of the same spirit because spirit is the substance of life. Soul, for the purpose of strict definition, is individuated spirit. So in those terms, all life is one, all spirit is one, but spirit being infinite has an infinite variety of manifestations.
Spiritually we are all one, but our souls are individual. In your world people group together. They combine for specific labour or service. In our world there are groupings to achieve functions which are part of the plan. Some of these groupings are not so intactーit is very hard to find words for spiritual conditionsーas others. Speaking generally, when there are group souls there is a kinship or affinity between those individual souls in your world.
Would it be true to say that this in a way is the first step towards a further development which will come when all souls become one?
No, all souls do not become one.
There is, at the moment, a group soul composed of individuals. Cannot one picture, in millions of years, this process developing until all mankind becomes one, the complete group soul?
No, because the process is eternal, it can have no ending. Perfection is never attained. Each step towards it reveals
another which must be ascended. It says in your Bible that he who loseth himself findeth himself. This is an attempt to explain the great mystery of individuality, that you become, as you progress, more of an individual but less of a person. That is a complication, isn't it?
Personality is the expression of earthly characteristics that enable recognition to be achieved between one and another. Individuality is an expression of the soul where its qualities are developed. As this process is being achieved so you are less of a person, as you understand it physically, but more of an individual spiritually.
Would it be right to say that only God is perfect and that naturally we cannot achieve perfection?
You cannot become perfect because if you did it would be the end of evolution. And evolution in essence must be a continuing process. There is no limit to development. Divinity does not have a vanishing point; it is infinite.
It is a very hard conception to grasp, but it is like learning. You cannot say you come to the end of learning, or to the acquisition of wisdom or understanding. You cannot put a period to compassion. You cannot say that you have reached the finality of love. These are divine qualities which are capable of infinite development as the soul reaches out, more and more, towards its goal, which is the attainment of perfection.
We still then have a lot of work in store for us.
You will be busy for a long time. You need not fear being spiritually unemployed or being made spiritually redundant.
At another circle the guide was asked, "What is meant by twin souls?" It brought the response:
Twin souls are when the affinities, which are the two halves of the perfect whole, come together. There are affinities for every soul in the universe, but they do not often meet in the same incarnation.
Where there are souls, complementary to one another, who have earned the right to meet the other half of its being in one incarnation, there you truly achieve heaven on earth. Twin souls are what the words entail, a likeness between two similars. They are at the same stage of growth and evolution and thus will go forward together. You have heard me say occasionally to people, "You are affinities."
A circle member commented, "I presume twin souls could meet for a few years and one lose the other."
Only physically, but at least for the time they are together they are experiencing all the radiance that comes when unity is achieved on all planes of being.
The same member, thinking aloud, said, "If they have know-ledge then the radiance would be even greater." Another member put his question: "If there are twin souls who have reached the same stage of evolution, what is the purpose for some being apart in this present incarnation? One would have thought automatically they would have earned the right to be together.”
You mean they have come together and parted physically. That can only be temporary. If they are affinities the whole urging of their souls will bring them together with the strongest pull that is possible. Just like the lodestar, the magnetic attraction will draw them together because, although two, spiritually they are one.
It could be part of a twin soul's development for them to be apart in one incarnation.
These are minor difficulties that you raise. Whether they are apart and still a part of one another, the essential factor is that if they are two halves of the one soul, all other physical differences and happenings cannot affect the fundamental process that brings them together. Don't confuse physical happenings with spiritual realities. What is of the spirit must endure.
The next question was, "Why are some beings never incar-nated into matter and others are?"
There is part of the hierarchy that has never incarnated into matter because it has a purpose to serve in helping the governance of the universe. There are celestial beings who have never taken earthly form. It is not necessary for them to endure earth expression to attain a growth essential for their larger life. They are inherently part of the higher reaches of the spiritual realms. Some of these are what you call masters or the shining ones. There are these beings in existence.
Can a heavy karmic debt be cancelled when, during earth life, there is a complete spiritual change which reorientates one to love and service? Or does it still have to be paid?
Natural law is always cause and effect. The operation of natural law cannot be cancelled. Natural law is almost mechanical in that effect must follow cause, as effect contains within itself what will be the succeeding cause, and thus the chain is endless.
Is it karma that thousands are killed in wars, accidents, by disease and starvation? Can a soul die before its time? Are wars inevitable? If so, is this part of a nation's karma?
The questioner is wrong in saying it is the soul that dies. The soul cannot die. Karma is only a word that means the operation of natural law. Sowing and reaping are part of the law of cause and effect. No one can evade the operation of natural law.
This is the means devised by the Great Spirit to ensure that ultimately divine justice must be forthcoming. If it were possible to abrogate this natural law and to interfere with the sequence of cause and effect, it would make a mockery of divine justice. The natural law ensures that each receives spiritually exactly that to which he is entitled, no more and no less. This law applies not only to individuals but to nations, which after all are assemblies of individuals.
It is part of the law that the period of incarnation is determined by the soul. But it is possible, because of man's free will and sometimes for other factors to arise that this determining period can be changed.
As to whether wars are inevitable, this is a question that human beings in your world must resolve for them-selves. They cannot have all the benefits of free will without some of the disadvantages. If beings in your world choose to exercise their free will and their choice is to wage war, that is the measure of their responsibility.
This led a member to comment: "You said a soul decides the period of its incarnation. Would this apply to all souls, such as undeveloped ones? Would they have the judgement, knowledge and wisdom? Are all souls equal in these matters?"
There is a difference between the amount of wisdom a soul can express when it incarnates into an earthly body as compared with that it possesses before incarnating. The amount of wisdom that can be expressed in your world is very limited because all spiritual expression is restricted by the faculties of the physical body. Before incarnation the soul knows, in the vast majority of cases, what path it is to tread.
If the soul knows the experiences and sufferings that lie ahead, then does it not know the results of its life?
When the guide answered, "Yes," he was asked, "If that is so, what is the point if it knows beforehand what it has to undergo and the result?"
So that the soul can gain the necessary experiences to qualify for the work it has to do when it comes to our world. The fact that it knows beforehand does not mean that it has achieved the soul growth which is necessary for its evolution.
You can read all the books in your world, but that knowledge must be reinforced by experience. It is experience and your reaction to it which determines the growth which you will achieve. This is the whole purpose of your earthly incarnation.
A young journalist asked a question about air disasters. "I am puzzled because I cannot decide whether these events are planned because the victims and their relatives are repaying some karmic debt. If they are planned, why do people have premonitions of them? These premonitions sometimes appear to change the whole course of events."
This is quite a question. I don't like the word "planned." It presupposes that there is a deliberate attempt to plan a tragedy in your world. Everything that happens is due to cause and effect. As to the victimsーI must use your languageーof these tragedies, do not forget there is another side to the picture.
Death to people in your world is to be feared. But death to us is something of the nature of rejoicing. There are many in our world who cry when babies are born yours. We rejoice when death brings freedom to those who die.
It may be hard to understand, but destiny has its part in the great eternal scheme. This is a complex subject in which fate and free will play their parts. Both are true. There is a restricted free will within the destined fate. This is the simplest way that I can put it.
As to premonitions, these occur because individuals momentarily remove themselves from their usual three-dimensional perceptions and are able to experience, however fleetingly, time as it exists in its own sphere. What you must try to realise is that time is an eternal present. It is your earthly relationship to time that determines what you call past and future. Time itself has no past and no future. If you escape the three-dimensional barriers and get in tune with time as it really is, then you are aware of what is the future to you at the present time.
Now as to what use is made of this awareness is another matter. It can appeal purely on a super-physical level or on a spiritual one. The purely psychic is not the same as the spiritual. You have what you call "extra-sensory perception" which can have no relationship to your spiritual nature, but be merely an extension of your physical senses.
After listening to comments from circle members Silver Birch said:
Life is a polarity. Life is full of an infinite number of experiences. Without peril there is no safety, without darkness there is no light, without storm there is no sun-shine. Life is not a monotone; it is a contrast. It is only in the contrast that you appreciate what it is all about. You must have the polarity. You must have action and reaction. They may be opposite but they are also equal.
When the words "calamity" and "tragedy" were used in the ensuing conversation among members, Silver Birch said:
I never teach you to look only at the physical aspect. Always try to appreciate that you cannot measure infinity with a physical yardstick. Your world is full of injustices if seen only through physical eyes. But there is compen-sation as there is retribution. The spiritual ledger is always balanced. Earth is only an infinitesimal part of an eternal life.
Your tragedies are often our boons. Your benefits are often our tragedies. You attach large importance to things which we in our world regard as either trivial or having no spiritual value. I refer to the desire for possessions, for earthly riches, for power for self, for domination. Greed and avarice motivate so many minds in your world.
Of spiritual progress the guide told the reporter:
In the things of the spirit it cannot be easy. If it were then they would not be worth achieving. Spiritual progress is the hardest of all to attain. Every step of the way has to be earned by discipline, endeavour, dedication, selfless-ness and fidelity. It was never meant to be easy.
The prizes of the spirit have to be fought for before they can be won.
If they were easily attained their value would be very little. It is because they are difficult that they are worth while. It is an endless path you are treading. There is no finality in spiritual progress. It is in a way a kind of receding horizon. The nearer you get the more it recedes.
Similarly the more you learn, the more you learn there is to be learned. Progress, like knowledge, truth and wisdom, is infinite. No period can be put to progress. If you have made one step, two, three, or even four, that is an achieve-ment. Each step means more understanding of life's purpose, its reality, the eternal principles on which it is founded, a greater perception of those eternal verities and with that comes a closer attunement.
Attainment leads to attunement. As you achieve a closer harmony with the overriding power of the universe, you become more at one with it. Your life is enriched. You are able to have a real sense of values. The perception is right. The priorities fall into their allotted places. You know what it is that matters and that too often the goals which others want, because they prize them so highly, are not the ones that matter. When all the riches of earth have gone, the treasures of the spirit will remain untarnished, undiminished, always with that pristine beauty which is theirs.
I am not so concerned with the material progress, which has its place. It is never part of our teaching to ignore the necessities of your physical selves. Unless the body receives what is essential to its rightful growth, the spirit cannot function adequately through it. What has to be accomp-lished is the harmony between body, mind and spirit so that these three parts of a whole work in unity, all the time ensuring health, well-being, serenity, confidence, resolution and peace.
To seek to develop the spirit and ignore the physical body is just as wrong as to seek to develop the physical body and to ignore the spirit. And it is equally as wrong to develop the mind and to ignore the other essentials.
Though astrology is not part of Spiritualist philosophy, it is still interesting to read the guide's views on this subject. Asked, "Is there any truth in astrology; can the moment of birth influence one's life?" Silver Birch said:
There is truth in the fact that the whole of life, because it is life, is in a constant state of radiation. Life cannot be inert; life must manifest. To manifest it must do so on a wavelength, or a radiation, or a frequency, which I think is the term today.
Everything in the universe acts and reacts upon every-thing else and everybody. There are radiations from storms which affect the body. There is a radiation from the sun as its rays give light, strength and growth. There are radiations from trees which having stored energy can release it.
The whole of nature is in a constant state of radiation. You receive radiations from planets. These affect the physical body because they are physical radiations. But there is no radiation or force emanating from any planet that directly affects the spirit. It does so only to the extent that it affects the physical body, which in turn affects the spirit.
A circle member, seeking further clarification, said, "I think the questioner is asking if all people, say for example born on February 1, have similar qualities because of it."
No, that cannot be so because the spirit is superior to matter. Whatever matter is subjected to is never so strong that the incarnating spirit cannot, given the right con-ditions, triumph over it. In any case, looked at purely physically, every child has inherited certain material characteristics as part of the evolutionary process. These cannot be set aside because of the time that the child was conceived or born.
In addition to all the factors of heredity and environment every incarnating individual is of necessity spirit, which-has infinite potentiality. It is the spirit that can, if allowed, rule matter and not, unfortunately as is the case with millions, allow matter to predominate over the spirit.
Another questioner asked: "As far as the future is concerned, how far is it fixed? How far is it subject to our own conduct and spiritual outlook? For example, I have had the stars read for me in two cases. Both are rather poor for the next months. This could have a subjective influence on my life if I don't oppose it. One does wonder how to form one's destiny in these
circumstances."
The guide quoted from Shakespeare, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings." This was followed by his quoting from Henley's poem: "It matters not how strait the gate. How charged with punishment the scroll. I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul." Then he added:
The planets are physical. They have a radiation, they emit a vibration. You are physical and spiritual. You have within yourself the means of overcoming all the challenges that earthly life offers.
The future is the child of the past. It is the condition you create by your actions and by your thoughts. I spoke about the natural law. One is cause and effect, sowing and reaping. When you plant the seed of a flower, only that flower will grow, not another one.
Thus your future is determined by your past and your present. It is not a punishment inflicted on you from outside. It is the destiny that you make for yourself. If you allow any fear of what the future may bring to enter your consciousness you are helping it to materialise.