Earlier I had a bee in my bonnet. I was planning a post decrying reincarnationalists as frustrating soft soapers. The oil slick on the sea of spiritual urgency.
I was going to moan about how saying someone else has a hard life because they earned it in a past life is morally reprehensible. I was going to rattle on about how looking to the next life or six to pack in all your learning is tantamount to an excuse for lifelong procrastination and looking after number one.
I really really was going to make the point that all the noisy ones (and perhaps the quiet ones are better, but as they don't speak up, theres no telling) seem either to be constantly concentrating on past lives or future ones, in preference to the one they're in. Result = it doesn't matter how many lives they've got, this one's wasted. If you have an hour to study or clean house you don't go look at the photo album instead.
If the idea of only one life to get the point is terrifying to you - then good. Wake up and start working on it, instead of bolstering up the masses that live for the next public holiday or purchase or other amusement.
Yup. Thats what I was going to say (barring a few disclaimers about possible extenuating circumstances such as early death, and God having the last word.)
Except now I can't be bothered.
Thoughts?
6 comments:
well written cheryl, and i understand the confusion and share your concerns...
the fact of the matter is that you (and each of us) are responsible for actions NOW, AT THIS MOMENT and what you do has repercussions through the rest of your life and the following ones as well, just as many things that happen now are in part results of what you've done or haven't done in the past (lives)
it's not a defeatist point of view, it's more like a cause and effect paradigm... if you are really bad and evil you will reap the rewards of your deeds, both in the present as in future lives, just as you'll be rewarded for a positive and uplifting way of life...
the objective is to see, evaluate, meditate on what has been (the known and the diffuse unknown) and always try to work for the better, personally and socially... if anything, it's a very positive way of looking at life, identifying situations, causes and results, and finding ways to remedy those in your own personal field of experience...
once one learns to see, the path to freedom opens...
hoping i've made a little bit of sense here... keep well ;-)
(((((Bart)))))
Thats a cyber hug. [In case you're not 'up' on these things] ;-)
"If you have an hour to study or clean house you don't go look at the photo album instead."
Point well taken, but if I have an hour to study or clean house and I post to my blog instead, I'm okay, right?
Please say yes!
Yowzaa, Cheryl! Too bad you didn't go ahead and say all of this, because it's brilliant.
I love this line from a Modest Mouse song...
"You wasted life, why wouldn't you waste death?"
I quoted that to someone once. The person shrugged. "Anyway, back to what the Old Testament teaches us about the afterlife."
Nevermind.
*My photo albums are for when I'm in the nursing home.
Seems to me that reincarnation is a way of getting people to do more overtime. Either that or Paradise is suffering from severe overpopulation problems.
One of my colleagues told me that one of her students, when she asked about beliefs, started talking about how he believed in recycling. He meant reincarnation, it turned out.
:-)
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