I was this old, old being, who had always existed.
I was wise and loving. I remember knowing everything. Not so much from an intellectual point of view. I knew what it was like to be a flower, to be an animal, to be an insect. All the knowledge of the universe was inside my being. I no longer felt as a separate individual. I felt as if I was part of a collective consciousness. I sensed billions and billons of beings and we were all One. The feeling of oneness on the other side is amazing!
And then, I remember distinctively how we created the solar system. I was part of this collective consciousness who had “willed” it into being. I remembered we had done so for the purpose of experiencing mortality. It was so important to my soul to come to Earth and experience mortality. I then remembered asking to be born.8
From my own point of view, I can only imagine as this intense Big Bang Creation of planets, stars, galaxies, and nebulas unfolded and expanded throughout all space and time, you and I sat on the other side of the veil, where time has no meaning, and watched the fireworks in awe and wonder. For those of us destined for Earth, we watched 10 billion years go by before our own Sun and circulating gases began to coalesce into planets. We observed comets impacting the Earth adding water and amino acids enough to fill oceans and enough gases sufficient for an atmosphere. From one-celled creatures to the first species of humans, we watched as life gradually developed.
Could it be we watched Creation unfold? Does the Bible hint of this possibility?
Ephesians 1:3-4 and Job 38:7 references an occasion where all the sons of God shouted for joy when the foundations of the Earth were laid.
Psalm 139:15-16 states:
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the Earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
John 17:24 indicates we were loved before the world was made:
Father, I will that they also whom that hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
However, if we were created before the beginning of the Universe, how and why did we end up getting stuck in our mortal bodies on Earth? I believe the answer lies in the cosmology allegorically described in Genesis. After God created Eden, He formed Man from the dust of the Earth, and soon after, God took a rib closest to Adam’s heart and formed the woman, Eve “The Mother of all Living.”
The story goes on to say a serpent, hiding among the branches of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, tempts Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit—Creation. God had specifically warned Adam and Eve “not to touch it, or eat the fruit thereof or they would surely die. However, the serpent argued otherwise. “You will not die,” he said. “For God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you will be as gods knowing good and evil.” Eve saw the fruit would make her wise so “She took the fruit thereof and did eat.” She gave it to her husband Adam, and “he did eat.” Apparently, the eating of the fruit of the tree made them aware and ashamed of their nakedness, so they covered themselves with fig leaves and hid from the face of God. God asked them, “Where are you?” Adam took the heat but blamed it on the woman. “Lord, the woman did beguile me, and I did eat.”
What does this all mean? If we interpret the story of Genesis from a Dead Saints’ point of view, the original Garden of Eden was a heavenly place, our original “spiritual home” cited and described many times throughout the Chronicles.
According to Linda, it is our true spiritual home:
I had reached my true home. I turned to Christ and said, ‘This is beautiful. I am HOME. This is where I want to be… [It is where] I want to stay.’9
In the heavenly Garden of Eden, we were naked and unashamed. We were co-creators with God. Death did not exist. We could eat of every fruit in the Garden, but we were forbidden to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, lest our “eyes be opened.” The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents the state of duality, of the qualities and pairs of opposites inherent in Nature, of false discrimination, of separation (from God and all things), and ultimately of suffering and of death itself. By contrast, the Tree of Life symbolizes our undivided state of unity. Dan describes this heightened state of oneness as a “Being” connecting all existence during his mystical-death experience:
I lifted up the skin of Creation and saw that every living thing in Creation was an expression of this Being, connected to this Being, indivisible and One. Every person, plant, animal, insect, microbe, drew its very existence from this Being. Without this Being, if Creation existed at all, it would be filled with lifeless, empty rocks. Within this realization, I was shown how everything is interconnected, from the Beginning to the End. From the largest galactic cluster spinning around the hub of Creation, to the smallest quantum fluctuation, [I saw] how everyone and everything has a place and a reason.10
Ouroboros. The Serpent swallowing its tail.
The decision to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge precipitated our fall from purity and innocence and, through our involvement with flesh; we lost our ability to remain eternally in the Kingdom. Our choice to enter physical form is symbolized by the serpent. By “touching and tasting” of its fruit we “put on animal skins,” and became entrapped in flesh. Because of living in a physical, mortal body, we are required to “die” to be released from it.
God curses the serpent “above all cattle and above every beast in the field” and commands the creature to “grovel in the dust” for as long as it lives. From that moment on, the serpent, the woman and her offspring would be enemies. “He shall strike you on your head, and you [woman] will strike him at his heel.”
The tragic Curse of the Serpent, a “striking of the heel and the head,” is symbolized in various religions as a serpent swallowing its tail and is called Ouroboros. It represents the cycle of birth and death in the physical world, a curse etched into Christian theology as “original sin.”
Early Christian Gnostic sects sought to overcome the curse of the serpent by becoming living Christs—beings capable of surmounting and ultimately conquering the addictive round of desire to once again identify with and experience the universal Light and harmony of the “One” represented by the Tree of Life—the Christ.
We see this sentiment reflected in the Gospel of Philip:
It is not possible for anyone to see anything of the things that actually exist unless he becomes like them.... You saw Christ, you became Christ.11
W. R. Inge in Christian Mysticism says that early Gnostics believed “literalist Christianity” only preached the outer mysteries for “people in a hurry.”12 He believed their teachings revealed inner mysteries of Jesus of Nazareth that went beyond “blind faith.” Early church fathers, Clement, honored as a Saint by the Catholic Church, and Origen Adamantius, wrote volumes about the Gnostics whom they called “true Christians.”13 According to Freke and Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries, their writings, “Do not paint a traditional picture of strange and insignificant heretics on the fringes of Christianity as tradition would have us believe.”14
The Christian Gnostic belief is identical with testimonies returned to us by the Dead Saints. Overcoming the curse of suffering and death involves an awareness that the ‘Kingdom of the Father’, or in Dead Saints’ terms, ‘the Light’, exists in and around all things. It was a goal to which all Gnostics aspired, and failure in achieving this goal symbolically meant being trapped within the coils of the cosmic dragon.
Is it heresy to believe that Christ lives, both in everything and beyond? To ignore such a belief is to deny the very Source of Life that lives within us. Conversely, to accept the challenge of the quest for Eternal Life requires that we follow the laws of salvation and grace as laid down by Christ as Jesus. However, as
we shall see in the next chapter, there are a few more stones to be turned before the path becomes clear.
—
Endnotes
1 Dawn’s Pre-birth Experience, #140, aleroy.com/board140
2Barbara’s ADC, #312, 03.12.03, http://www.adcrf.org/barbara_s’s_adc.htm.
3Anne S’s NDE, #852, 05.13.06, NDERF.org
4David A probable NDE, #1411, 12.17.07, NDERF.org
5Laura M NDE, #2995, 03.31.12, NDERF.org
6Scott W NDE, #3885, 02.15.15, NDERF.org
7Tony D’s NDE, #215, 03.02.03, NDERF.org
8Chantel L NDE, #3155, 10.06.12, NDERF.org
9Linda Stewart’s NDE, God is Only Love, #34, aleroy.com/boardh1.htm
10Dan Ta’s NDE, #527, 11.21.04, NDERF.org
11The Gospel of Philip translated by Wesley W. Wisenberg, The Gnostic Society Library, The Gnostic Society Nag Hammadi Library. http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gop.html. From the Gnostic Society Library website regarding the Gospel of Philip: “Now over fifty years since being unearthed and more than two decades after final translation and publication in English as The Nag Hammadi Library, 7 their importance has become astoundingly clear: These thirteen papyrus codices containing fifty-two sacred texts are representatives of the long lost “Gnostic Gospels”, a last extant testament of what orthodox Christianity perceived to be its most dangerous and insidious challenge, the feared opponent that the Church Fathers had reviled under many different names, but most commonly as Gnosticism. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts has fundamentally revised our understanding of both Gnosticism and the early Christian church.”
12W.R. Inge 1899. Christian Mysticism. London: Methuen. p. 86. Quoted in Freke and Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries, p. 90.
13Clement, Stromata, 7.1. “The Gnostic alone is truly pious…the true Christian is the Gnostic.” See J. Stevenson and W.H.C Frend 1957. A New Euesbius, SPCK Church History. Documents illustrating the History of the Church to AD 337. First Edition published 1957. Revised Second Edition published 1987. Authors.814ff. Also Quoted in Freke and Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries. p. 90.
14Freke, Timothy and Peter Gandy 1999. The Jesus Mysteries. Three Rivers Press, Crown Publishing Group. p. 90.
— 22 —
An Uncomfortable Possibility
~I will never convince Delynn we have lived a previous existence. It’s not something I can prove and I don’t need to prove. I just know if I had never met her this time around, the Chronicles might never have been written. ~Chronicle 231
In a survey by the Pew Forum in 2009, 22% of American Christians expressed a belief in reincarnation.1 Dozens of Dead Saint encounters describe past lives. Before we discuss their experiences, I want to share with you a few paragraphs about how I was introduced to reincarnation during my youth.
My mother was always a deeply spiritual person. Her parents were alcoholics, and did not attend church, but through it all, she found a deep love for God. Her beliefs were later influenced by Jess Stearn’s story about Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet, which referenced Cayce’s views about reincarnation, beliefs that Mom outright initially rejected because she didn’t think it was fair. She thought, “Why should I suffer in this life, for something that happened in a past life for which I have no memory?”
For Mom, finding answers to the reincarnation dilemma was a journey. Her search led her to read everything she could about it. It was fortuitous Dad was relocated to Norfolk, Virginia two years later in 1971 to finish out his Navy Career near the headquarters of the ARE (Edgar Cayce Foundation) in Virginia Beach.
After the move, Mom and Dad looked for a church for the family to attend. She interviewed several pastors with a specific question. Did her mother go to Hell if she died “unsaved?” Four pastors at various churches said, “Yes.” One pastor at the United Church of Christ said, “I don’t know.” The pastor was Tracy Floyd. It was the honest answer she was looking for, and so for five years beginning in 1972, our family attended the United Church of Christ every Sunday to hear Reverend Tracy Floyd preach.
Mom quietly carried her ‘reincarnation’ beliefs to church, careful not to talk to anyone about them, but sometimes shared her thoughts with me. She encouraged me to spend time studying at the ARE, whose spiritual and metaphysical library is one of the largest in the US. It was not long before I passionately took on Mom’s beliefs about reincarnation and brought the debate to our youth group, looking for example cases in the Bible that might prove or disprove it. Of course, Tracy never preached about reincarnation, nor would he, being raised a Southern Baptist. He never really entered the debate, but I know I piqued his interest along with a few friends in our Youth Group.
When I was 27, after Mom divorced Dad, and after she lost her second husband in a tragic accident two years after they were married, Mom met my stepfather Ray in 1986. Before they married, they discussed their religious beliefs. Ray was a staunch Southern Baptist, and Mom an unconventional Christian who believed in reincarnation. She debated with Ray everything she knew and believed about her faith, but she could never convince him about living past lives. Ray and Mom agreed to disagree. Ray ended their debate saying, “I don’t believe in this “recyclist” theology, but I’ve never known anybody who has a stronger faith in God.” Equally yoked by their strong faith, they remained happily married for 29 years, until his death in June 2015.
During this time, after much prayer, meditation and research, Mom suddenly realized reincarnation wasn’t a punishment at all for past life mistakes. She came to view it as “a reaping and bringing into balance that which we have sown.”
Reincarnation explains a “great many things” about why we have certain talents, or pursue particular careers, but my belief in Rebirth hasn’t changed anything in my life. I’ve not made choices (I am aware of) because of it. If I have made choices, like building Akio Botanical Gardens, it was because it was something I loved to do. Why did I love it? Perhaps, a past life would explain it.
Maybe I’m a bit wiser now, but where reincarnation used to be passionately important to me, now it’s settled into a backstage theology. I never think much about it anymore. I believe Jesus taught it, and the apostles believed in it, but it was not the focus of his teaching. Jesus came to preach about practicing the PATH (see chapter 24, the 13th Path) of Love and Forgiveness, which leads us out of the cycle of death and rebirth, so we can attain eternal life.
In the end, it doesn’t matter whether you believe in reincarnation or not. If it is true, and if your spiritual evolution is not finished after this life, you’ll take a break in Heaven, and then decide to be born again for a new adventure on Earth. On the other hand, God might send you on a special Mission back to Earth. Perhaps you’ve already volunteered once or twice!
For most Christians today, accepting the “uncomfortable possibility” of reincarnation is an uphill battle. Try to keep an open mind. It’s a hot button issue in the Bible. Let’s first start there.
Reincarnation in the Bible?
In chapter 10, The Judgment, we discussed the Jewish and Christian belief that flesh one day will cover our bones and reanimate our dead corpses. If taken at face value, the belief seems to say our dead bodies will reanimate, not that our souls will reincarnate in new bodies. This theology is reiterated in Job 19:25-26:
For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.
ALL Biblical translations of Job 19:26 describe he will ‘stand at the latter day upon the Earth, after worms destroy his body’ and ‘in his flesh’ he will see God. We can only assume he meant seeing God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth born over 500 years later in Bethlehem, Israel.2 But how could Job see God in the flesh unless his soul was born again in a physical body?
It seems clear Job believed even though his body was destroyed by wor
ms, in his flesh, he would one day see God. To accomplish this, he would have to be reborn again in the flesh to see his Redeemer. He was not speaking about a gruesome night of the resurrection of the dead at the end of time on Judgment Day!
He was talking about reincarnation of the soul. Shocking? Is it the truth?
The Bible affirms reincarnation in several well-known instances—which are difficult to interpret in any other way. The concept of specific spiritual qualities transferring from one life to another is obvious in the New Testament: The Jews expect the reincarnation of their great prophets (King David will return as the Messiah; Elijah will be reborn as John the Baptist.). Jews believed their latter-day prophets had already been reborn in times past. The Jewish sect called Samarians believed Adam reincarnated as Noah, then as Abraham, then Moses. So later Jews expected the Messiah to be a reincarnation of King David. Reincarnation of the old prophets was also on the minds of the Jews at the time of Jesus. In fact, followers of Jesus thought He was a reincarnated prophet. How else to regard the following passage in Matthew 16:13-14?
When Jesus came into coasts of Cesera Philippi, he asked disciples, saying, ‘Whom do men say I, the Son of Man, am?’ And they said, ‘Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some, Elias (Elijah) and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.’
Herod, who was in command of Jerusalem under the Romans, also speculated Jesus might have been one of the old prophets. When Jesus proclaimed he was the Jewish Messiah, his followers were confused, since the scriptures predicted the prophet Elias (or Elijah in Greek) would return and precede the coming of the Messiah. The disciples pointed out in Matthew 17:10-13:
The Dead Saints Chronicles: A Zen Journey Through the Christian Afterlife Page 36