|
Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Reincarnation On Trial
| Part II: According to New Age teaching, someone, here on the Earth, who is wise, advanced, and mature, is an “old soul”; meaning, as a result of a multitude or reincarnations, he or she is now very wise. This idea, however, merely reflects and logically extends errant reincarnational belief - but enjoys no basis in fact. An ancient Brahmin priest, from the afterlife, explains why some seem to be more advanced in this world. |
return to Reincarnation main-page
|
Editor’s prefatory comment
This article continues to explore ancient afterlife testimony reported in Illuminated Brahminism.
A free pdf copy of Illuminated Brahminism [published in the US in 1889] might be found online.
There is no such thing as an “old soul.” The Great Brahmin, from the afterlife, explains why some appear to be more advanced in our world.
|
The following are quotations from Illuminated Brahminism.
From the chapter "THE COMING OF THE BUDDHA TO ALL NATIONS".
In the ancient Vedantic writings there was originally a paragraph that has been the subject of much discussion among the Brahmin priesthood, viz. : The coming to earth of the spiritually enlightened. To the spiritually blind this Scriptural idea has always been a mystery…
To explain this requires a familiarity with certain principles that pertain to … [the] power of the soul of man to perceive knowledge above the plane of the physical senses depends upon a growth of mental faculties that are extremely sensitive to the finer range of power…
Enlightened ones in our world become part of a class of many developed persons known as ‘Buddha’.
[One developed in this way] is a Buddha or enlightened one, and if the development is very high in the powers of sensitiveness the Buddha becomes able to perceive and to teach ideas relative to the invisible world which are entirely beyond the province of the earthly senses to perceive or understand.
These wise and advanced ones are just reflecting wisdom from the afterlife. It is not their own wisdom. They are not gods or inherently better than others. They have mediumistic abilities and are meant to be messengers of higher truths.
Because of this the tendency of the earthly disciples has been to apotheosize [“to make a god of”] the Buddahs and to regard them as beings of a superior order, but the truth is that all Buddhas are only individuals of an abnormal spiritual unfoldment in the physical life; and, while they may reflect the wisdom of the life eternal, they are not gods to be worshiped or of a different nature from the rest of humanity.
The Buddhas … have always been noted for their strong spiritual ideality, and their lives have been the subject of poetry and song to such an extent that their true mission to the world has been misunderstood and often entirely misconstrued.
Editor’s note: Jesus of Nazareth - a man, not a god - was one of these messengers, whose mission was “entirely misconstrued.”
… the mind of a Buddha is shaped and moulded by influences from the world of spirits, and the mission of the Buddhas is to teach the truth concerning the spiritual world in the language of the people to whom they come as inspired messengers of truth.
They are not incarnations of developed spirits, who have once lived upon the earth as men, nor are they spirits from other planets undergoing a new experience in the sphere of earth, but they are able to reflect the wisdom of such [developed] spirits, for their mental powers are more [mediumistically] susceptible to the influence of the higher life than that of earth, and they easily converse with spiritual intelligences of a very high degree of spiritual unfoldment.
This gives them the [unwarranted] credit and [mere] appearance of being supernaturally endowed with wisdom [as an "old soul"], and has been the basis of a mischievous error … the apotheosizing of another person as a god [but they are not "better," not gods, but ordinary mortals with psychic abilities].
The Buddhas are part of a larger system that has been in place for a very long time, and will continue to go on for an even longer time; which is, the spiritual education of humankind.
For in the life of spirit the Buddhas, however great they may have been upon earth, are only parts of a system that has for its object the general diffusion of spiritual light to the world of mortals.
They have no ability to answer prayers.
When their work is done upon earth they pass to their proper place in the life eternal, and the cries of their deluded but sincere followers for personal favors cannot be answered except upon general principles.
To view the Buddhas as saviors is to stunt one’s own spiritual growth, as this unwarranted elevation directly contradicts their message: that, all are children light, all might attain to the heights of maturity, all are loved equally by God who has no favorites.
The Buddhas of the world are the torch bearers of the world of spirit, and while they enlighten the earth with the knowledge of spiritual life and its laws, they do not make that life, nor can they control the destiny of the souls who enter it from any nation or sphere of earth. Therefore, to regard them as saviors in any such sense as the Christian world teaches is to place them in a false position in the spiritual world and retards the minds upon earth from receiving that light of the spirit...
Enlightenment is open to anyone, from any nation, is given freely, but does not come by ascribing to any creedal belief system, is achieved by the sincere and humble.
For the Buddhahood is not attained by the mere belief in its existence… for the power of the spirit comes to those only who are pure in spirit, and the Buddhahood is given to such freely.
Therefore, it comes to those of any nation or people who seek its influence, but it comes not in the pride of caste or glory of earthly grandeur.
|
Editor's last word:
The Brahmin priest also helps us to understand why some children are prodigies in music or math and other subjects. They have mediumistic abilities and are channeling the wise in the next world.
Further, The Great Brahmin answers the question which we might pose of ourselves: “Why me?” Why might one person possess certain special abilities, or a certain awareness, and not others? It’s not because some are “old souls” or specially loved, or an advance-guard from another planet (as New Age teaches), but that, in some cases, these are particularly open to next-world messages and influence, within a certain domain of knowledge, in a way that most are not right now.
|
Part I
|