Argh, I just had to take a break from my novel writing to deal with this!
I came across the Deepak Chopra posting (see link below) the other day while editing/researching some book titles for a novel manuscript of mine under consideration with my agent, and I must admit as much as I admire Deepak Chopra, I was extremely disappointed in his response.
He never answered the question!
I reread and reread his response, and just didn’t get it. WHY didn’t he answer the question?
Was it never really an “asked” question to begin with, but instead a planned forum for which he could express a topic already in mind?
I really mean no disrespect to Mr. Chopra, but he instead turned the question around and created another question--which, though valid, never answered the asker’s issue, IMHO. The original question that was asked was why do we need reincarnation, and Mr. Chopra’s response was that what the asker REALLY meant to ask was not why do we need reincarnation, but why does an infinite being need to do anything if it is already everything? Now, in Mr. Chopra’s mind, perhaps he really felt he was answering the initial question, I don’t know (and I do see that perhaps he was trying to get a “root” cause, I understand and appreciate that, since I do that same thing...), but it bothers me that he couldn’t directly answer such a simple question, and had to turn it around into something that wasn’t quite the original. And I didn’t see any response from the “asker” saying, “Yep--you nailed it, that’s exactly what I was REALLY getting at!” Again, IMHO, it appeared Mr. Chopra talked around the original question, and I’m not going to try to get inside Mr. Chopra’s mind without him before me so I can ask him why he did what he did.
But, in all totality, I really am baffled by Mr. Chopra’s chosen response.
Here’s my answer to the original question, if anyone’s interested: Reincarnation is part of the total package of a soul’s life. Life is so vast, so full of incalculable experience, that no one single instance of any fragment of any soul can fully house Life without multiple “excursions” into it.
That’s it in a nutshell.
One can use all the buzz words of “infiniteness” and “potentialities,” and whatever, but what it comes down to is that life is so vast and so full of experience it is impossible to experience a healthy part of it without multiple lifetimes. It is impossible to adequately learn what is needed to learn in one single existence (which is ALL a perception--keep reading...). In one single structure (e.g., physical existence--I believe there are other versions of everyone out there existing in other structures we can’t even describe that may also be physical, but also that there are definitely nonphysical existences that can’t even begin to be considered my a corporeal mind, as well).
But to attack it further, it only APPEARS as if there is “reincarnation,” when in fact, it is actually that we all live SIMULTANEOUS existences. Have already lived them. Will always be living them.
All there really is, is the moment. The Present. And all lives are existent in that Present simultaneously.
They have already been, are lived, and will always be lived.
It is merely our limited physical perspectives that PERCEIVE our other lives as lived in other times, other bodies, whereupon we label any such concept as “reincarnation.” I use the following analogy: if you look at a really distant “spot,” you don’t really SEE the spot, but you label “a spot” as such from your distance, because it’s convenient and useful. What you know. All you know is “a spot.” Now, let’s say you “see” that spot “in the distance.” As you get closer and closer to it, the spot becomes more and more visible and actually takes on form, rather than being a mere concept. Now you walk right on up to that spot of yours--you find it on a fence. And as you focus your vision on that spot as you continue to approach (keep your eyes nailed to it), you see that it is no longer just an indefinable, conceptual spot, but a piece of wood, attached to other pieces of wood, that has richness and texture...grain. Perhaps it’s cedar. Has a couple knots. A defect or two. Your spot is no longer some distant, indistinguishable, indefinable What-if--but from your original perspective, it was. Your spot has now taken on real dimension and form.
Many things philosophical/metaphysical are just like this. We can’t really make things out until we “get right up to them,” and many times that won’t happen until we pass (i.e., “reincarnate”). But that doesn’t mean we can’t nor shouldn’t try to make sense of them in this life. It’s a learning process, and the more we try the better we get at it. Are better prepared for when we do pass on. Many times we need to experience a certain aspect to life, and in order to do that, we need to conveniently “forget” certain things we learned form other lives. It’s really the only way to learn, really “get” certain experiences, at least from a corporeal-thinking point-of-view. And if we really are living all existences now, we need to shut off certain bits of knowledge to see what it is really like being a genius in one life, then checking what it’s like to be a village idiot...or a woman or a man or a child that doesn’t make it into adulthood.
After all, if you know you have a “safety net,” what have you really learned?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to make fun of Mr. Chopra--I am just really mystified why he chose to answer as he had. Perhaps it was really just his method to get us all to restructure our questions, which, that question really, is already outside the traditional structure of society (though even that is changing). If this truly was a direct question it certainly deserved a direct answer (he even said let’s set aside the question regarding the NEED for reincarnation question for a moment...), if it wasn’t then it should have been better set up. If I am totally off, I apologize to Mr. Chopra...but in any case I DO applaud him for taking up his mission to enlighten the world, because he is doing a great effort of it!
Of course, the above is only my own humble opinion, an opinion I have nurtured through reading (in this particular case I subscribe to the Seth material, by Seth, Jane Roberts, and Rob Butts, see link below) and listening to my own inner voice and direction. The distance spot analogy is my own, as are my beliefs, obviously, but I learned and cultured them through the abovementioned material, as well as other works on the philosophical and metaphysical I have read and assimilated over my lifetime. Read widely and assimilate your own answers. Part of learning is to learn to trust your own inner directions and inclinations--without hurting others in the process.
Also might want to check out such info as the links on Drs. Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker--and check out Jenny Cockell (see below).
I hope I have amused, and--in the words of the group Creed--have helped you live!
