Longer Document Part 2
PART 2:
There is a book entitled “Life’s ;Riddle”, by a man named Nils A. Amneus. It was published in 1954,(quite a coincidence) and I use quotes from the version in the 1998 printing.
The resource came to me while I was preparing this text in prison just at the time I needed a reference, since all my books were at home. It contains an excellent summary for understanding the CORRECT idea behind RE and TRANSMIGRATION.
I have used a few excerpts herein for your journey of discovery with me.
Let me begin with a portion of a poem contained in the book. It is a poem by a man named John Mansfield (1857-1967). Here are the first two stanzas of his poem
called “A Creed”:
“A Creed”
“I hold that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
another mother gives him birth.
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
The old soul takes the road again.
Such is my own belief and trust;
This hand, this hand that holds the pen,
Has many a hundred times been dust
And turned, as dust, to dust. again,
These eyes of mine have blinked and shone
In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.”
This poem illustrates the common idea that we have an eternal circle of lives.
That is not correct in my understanding. However, the idea that we do have at least a few life experiences prior to progressing to the Morontia [energy dimensions] circles where we will have hundreds [and most likely thousands] of lives in that progressive form are true to my understanding.
As you can see from my list of personal past life memory experience fragments I have had at least nine. It is important to note however, my FIRST and oldest past life memory was NOT as a Urantian [ earth human]. Original personality I call me was from some other star.
This is in keeping with the Urantia Text as we shall discover later.
As you will remember, we are defining two distinct ideas. One of RI. One of TRANSMIGRATION. Throughout the UB text the two ideas were seemingly interchangeable.
But they are not, nor were they in the UB. In Jesus’s day he struggled to get the people of the time, including his disciples, to understand that the belief of the day was wrong.
I agree. The understanding of RE in that day was wrong for the most part. The main reason was the concept of TRANSMIGRATION. That concept was introduced by the Dravidian priesthoods which tied it to Karma. [India]
People then and now often think that RI means that if one dies they are reborn again in some new form befitting their righteous or sinful previous record. If they were righteous they would progress to a higher status of human. If they were sinful they could devolve into some lower form of life like a dog or cat or plant or insect etc. ..
That concept also embraces the idea of KARMA which I will not address here. We need to understand how and why the people of Jesus’s day were so confused.
The section in the book, Life’s Riddle has , I think, the right answer.
“Death and the post-mortem experiences of the Human Ego [ED:think Personality] include a passing of the consciousness from the material plane to inner, invisible planes and eventually back again to the material. If the term transmigration” is used at all in connection with the post-mortem experiences of the Human Ego [ED:personality], it should be restricted to such movements of the human consciousness from one plane or condition to another plane or condition within its own proper human sphere of activity.”
“Poets and writers have not[ED:emphasis mine] always distinguished between the pre-human transmigrations of the sub-human Monads[ED:lower life forms] and the post-mortem transmigrations of the Human Ego [personality] or Soul, but fused the two ideas into one and this has contributed to the erroneous notion that the Human Ego [personality] transmigrates into the lower Kingdoms of Nature.”
As you can see, the author is stating that the concept of TRANSMIGRATION was depicted as a Soul/ego,/Personality devolving to a lower form incorrectly.
The author then states the correct idea:
“TRUE TRANSMIGRATION” “The atoms that build man’s physical body scatter after death. The same happens to all that is discarded at the second death, including the more etheral particles of the model body as well as certain other energies intermediate between the Human Ego [personality] and the model body. All these parts of the former human constitution now return to nature, each one to its own appropriate plane. Here they are free to enter as building blocks in the vehicles of other entities, to which they are attracted.”
“In their association with the human entity, whose vehicle they helped to build, they received certain impressions, high or low as the case might have been and it is these impressions that now determine the direction of their travels. They may enter the Plant Kingdom or be drawn into the bodies of various animals or perhaps enter other human bodies.”
“The atoms of the entire lower part of the human constitution are thus migrating through nature and transmigrating from one Kingdom to another and then perhaps back again.”
“It is this fact that the ancients referred to when they said that Man transmigrates through the lower forms of nature which statement is correct, if by “Man” is meant the elements of his constitution,[body] below the Human Ego,but incorrect [ED: emphasis mine] if it is applied to the Human Ego or the higher principles above this Ego.”
Whew, that was a mouthful! Imagine we apply this concept in our lives.
If I die today, My Spirit/soul,/personality/Ego which is energy goes somewhere. Where does not matter at the moment. The body though decomposes into its many elements. Some become chemicals of varying types, good for fertilizing the plants. Some evaporate as water into the air and eventually become rain or is breathed in by other life forms. Some may be food for the grubs who are food for the birds who are food for the cats etc…
Our body elements TRANSMIGRATE into each area to which they will do the most good. In essence we are re-cycled BUT ONLY OUR BODY. The ancients often confused the idea that this recycling is also what our soul/Personality did as well. Based on the idea of Karma. [ED:Righteousness].
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