Articles from the Religious Research Journal
A New Perspective in Reincarnation
By Marvin Cannon
Life on Earth has never been viewed as easy and by some, such as philosopher Thomas Hobbes, as “nasty, brutish and short.” East Indian Hindus and Buddhists everywhere in Asia view life as struggle and suffering that must be endured again and again, until a way is found to be released from the necessity to be reborn. The point of life is to obtain such “spiritual merit” or “enlightenment” that release or escape is attained.
This negative view of life on Earth is also found by many, if not most, New Age philosophies. They also seek escape, by rising above the fray and, by mental gymnastics, seek purification, nullification of sin or divine attainment, to end the requirement for rebirth.
A new view, regarding what God is doing on Earth through the process of reincarnation, has been given to us by a high-level spiritual teacher, going by the name of Dr. John Christopher Daniels. He spoke through channel mediums, Franklin and Grace Loehr, over a period of about 30 years. Using the method of giving life readings (history of one’s past lives on Earth) to over 5,000 individuals, information has been given that reveals life has never been intended as a punishing experience from which it is necessary to find a way out.
Rather, life is an opportunity for growth and advancement of the soul, which is a child of God and needs the opportunities for varied experience and expression to become mature and thus capable of rising to higher realms of being. Life is still not an easy job, but it is a privileged opportunity that is eagerly sought, not a dreaded requirement.
What is new to the world through this spirit source, is that a “human being” is not a soul, as such. It is, rather, an instrument of a portion of a soul to express and experience in an animal body. Through the person, this non-material spirit being is able to experience life in this realm of space and time on Earth.
This “human being,” which is both non-material and animal flesh, is a new creation every time the soul chooses to incarnate. It is created by the soul as a mission specific tool to accomplish certain ends, and is guided throughout its life by the Soul mind. But the human being is not a robot of flesh or a puppet controlled by strings.
This human being develops individuality, with the ability to make choices. The essential character of the developing soul is expressed in this individuality, but the person’s self identity also grows from its experience as a human being, substantially colored by the soul’s own character and level of maturity plus the interests, strengths weaknesses and exper-iences of several past incarnation life memories, latent within the subconscious mind.
The person is always intended to serve the purposes of the soul and not itself, even though it has substantial ability to be self-directing and to express its own desires.
The person is also non-material and survives the death of the physical body. At death, the excarnate person or individuality, enters the astral plane levels, where it continues an independent existence. Yet it remains a part of the soul from which it came and dependent upon it for the life energy that allows it to continue.
The soul takes back much of the energy it invested in the just-ended incarnation and is free to invest in another one, largely unaffected by the excarnate person on the Astral plane. The soul continues to learn from the excarnate person but has little need to guide it on the astral plane.
The existence of the person on the Astral plane can be very short or of greater length and significance than the incarnate part of its existence. The length of this time depends upon the spiritual understandings it possesses and the choices it makes, to be self indulgent or to continue to learn and grow as it serves its soul through seeking knowledge and serving others.
Eventually, the excarnate person reaches the limit of its potential to grow and is recalled by the soul. It loses its autonomy in becoming a part of the greater being, yet having a continuing existence, experiencing all that the soul is doing.
The person survives the death of the body but does not have another lifetime. Only the soul will incarnate again, using another person to pursue another part of its path to maturity and progression, according to the will of God. From this perspective, the proper or spiritual view of life for a person should be that of accepting the challenges and opportunities that are presented to it as its own selected destiny in the service of its soul.
The mistakes or negative karma that bring suffering and pain may not be the result of actions by the person, but by its soul in another incarnation. Yet it is the challenge and opportunity of this person to atone for past mistakes, including its own, and make good, loving spiritual choices in the face of hardship and difficulty.
In doing this the person serves God and the soul which has called it into existence for service. Thus it is seen that our reason for being is to serve, to make right choices in all situations that we encounter.
Life is not always hard, but it often is, if lived intently, accepting the necessity to do the right thing, even though it costs us our life, the way it cost Jesus his life. However, we are doing this to help our own soul growth and our larger beingness is as a soul. As persons, we are only part of our souls.
The person usually has to face life without knowledge of the soul’s agenda. There is no merit in ascetic practices or for seeking out opportunities for pain and suffering as attempts to please God. This is, rather, masochism and futility.
The prescribed life path of the individual person might, with effort, be discerned over time through self-knowledge obtained by experience, dreams and psychic events. But not everyone can do this. We can only know that we are not alone in our struggles and that our struggles are meaningful, even when not fully understood. Our soul still profits from our experiences of dealing positively with life problems and people.
There is much reward for the person in the potential heaven-life possibilities of the astral plane, after the often painful struggles of an Earth life. Yet there are many who lack the understanding of spiritual things to make good use of its potential.
They squander the life energy with which they are endowed in shallow, self-indulgent pursuits of pleasure, with no understanding of, or ambition to seek, expression and achievement in higher spiritual planes of levels of existence. This results in the early termination of this excarnate phase of the person’s existence, when it is recalled and absorbed by the soul.
In summary, we as persons need to take a fresh look at our lives from the perspective of what this spiritual source teaches us about what it is that is going on in terms of the life plan our soul has mapped out for us. As mundane as our path may seem, it has eternal value for our soul. No single life can “win the game” for its soul, but every life either advances or degrades the progress of the soul.
Our heroic efforts to do the right thing on our own tiny battlefields are meaningful and important and will be appreciated by the one (our soul) who set us on our path. And we are not alone in our struggle. Our soul and our band of guides, protectors, masters and teachers, are ever supporting us and urging us on to a victory that is uniquely ours.