The Inevitable Cycle of Rebirth

 

 Rebirth is an affirmation that must be counted among the primordial affirmations of mankind. Carl Gustav Jung

The Dalai Lama turned 86 years this month. Born as Lhamo Thondup in 1935, Tenzin Gyatso (his spiritual name) is known in Tibet as Gyalwa Rinpoche, leader of the Gelugpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism and is considered a living Bodhisattva. He is the fourteenth recognized reincarnation of the same soul which began with Gendum Drup, the first Dalai Lama from 1391 to 1474. Herein lies a fascinating story of reincarnation that has lasted for over 600 years.

Reincarnation is not a foreign topic to me, as I have come to understand that I have lived many lives, some of which the memories have washed over me in one way or another throughout my life. Still, among most people in the culture in which I was raised, it is a strange claim to relate that I have lived two lives as a Lakota Sioux native American, a life as an English seaman named Robert Damson, a life as a prominant Roman military leader, a life as a "scientist-explorer" on Atlantis, an antediluvian life in Asia, and perhaps most interesting, I've had it confirmed independently three times that I share the same soul with the late actor James Dean.

Bleed-throughs in awareness from other places and times have often seeped through into my conscious focus, making it abundantly clear that I am more than the singular identity the world wishes me to believe, but the sum of many hearts, actions, and dreams. If anyone denies that most of us are born again and again and again, it is only because time has not been taken to collect the evidence. Great minds throughout history have acknowledged reincarnation, including leaders from all three of the Abrahamic religions.

Josephus, the best known Jewish historian in the time of Jesus said “all pure and holy spirits live on in heavenly places, and in course of time they are again sent down to inhabit righteous bodies.” In the Pistis Sophia, which is part of the Gnostic Gospels, Jesus is quoted as saying that “souls are poured from one into another of different kinds of bodies of the world.” The prophet Muhammad received messages from the Archangel Gabriel that we find as verse in the Holy Qur'an: “God generates beings and sends them back over and over again, till they return to Him.”

There is abundant scientific proof for reincarnation, demonstrating that minds like Plato, Socrates, St. Augustine, Rumi, Siddhartha Gautama, the Egyptians, ancient Vedic texts, Oliver Wendall Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and more recent persons like General George Patton and Henry Ford may have held a genuine understanding of the way things really work. All a person has to do is explore and discover.

Edgar Cayce wrote: “In time, we who are trapped in the cycle of birth and rebirth can once again come to know our original state and purpose, and regain our celestial birthright as a companion to God. In time, we can again come to realize that the conditions in our current life are the result of our free actions and choices from past lives.”

In his later years, the Dalai Lama has begun to meditate on his next incarnation and begin to give the upper echelon of the Gelugpa monks clues as to what he sees through the eyes of his next incarnated self as a young child. Upon his death the monks will begin their own meditation on the location of the Dalai Lama's next incarnation. Then they will faithfully search to find him. Just as Tenzin Gyatso was identified with such an exhaustive search as a young child, the monks will narrow down potential children through a defined process of tests to find the true successor.

The way they do this is that they present ten artifacts from the previous Dalai Lama's life to each of the children along with items that are completely unrelated. Based upon the reaction of each child and any apparent unique memories and affinity for the artifacts, a choice is made. The monks ask the honored parents to raise the child as the new Dalai Lama. Because Tibet is no longer home to the Dalai Lama, the next leader of the Tibetan tradition may come from anywhere. The Dalai Lama even admitted that he may return as a girl, but with a smile he added, “but a beautiful one”.