Can you be reincarnated into the past?

In 1902 J.W. Dunne experienced a precognitive dream about the disastrous eruption of the Mount Pelee on the French island of Martinique. This dream made him interested in the nature of time. After years of experimentation with dreams and hypnotic states, Dunne hypothesized that our experience of Time as being linear is an illusion brought about by human consciousness.

He argued that past, present and future were in fact simultaneous and only experienced in a sequence because of the way our brain works. Dreams however, are not shackled in this way, so that we are able to perceive events in the past and future with equal facility.

So, if time is not linear in a scenario where reincarnation is absolute fact, isn't it hypothetically possible to die this instant and be reincarnated into a life that we would currently view as far into the past? Or, even stranger, be reincarnated as a life you already experienced, a second time?

I've wondered these possibilities before, but a short story i'm sure some of you have read reignited my curiosity.

You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.

Andy Weir - The Egg

So after you lived every human life you'll be born..... Born into what?

Time is cyclical in nature so it wouldn't surprise me. I also believe we are here to learn.

reply to post by dayve


Who knows. I think the moral of that specific story is less about actual reincarnation or god and more about considering others, that every action you take can harm another based on the following line:

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

But it still got my mind wandering.

I'm more just curious what everyone's thoughts on reincarnation are, and if there are any "rules."
I like the idea, but not to the point that i have any absolute belief in it.

I imagine earth as a place to learn certain lessons that can't be understood beyond so I believe time in a linear sense is just a necessary control in order for us to learn the lessons we want to learn...without time we couldn't feel many of the feelings we experience here. I think people will reincarnate in the time period that will best suit the lesson/path that they and their guide have chosen to pursue between lives.

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else. Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure. The individual can change his life for the better only by improving himself. -Joseph Campbell

reply to post by Bodhi7


Yes, you can be born in your current incarnation's "past". Time is a human illusion. We can only move forward along the line we call time while in these physical bodies, but can go anywhere and anywhen while non-corporeal.

You might get some confirmation of this if you can learn to have out of body experiences.

reply to post by Epirus


I've always liked the idea that the path to the next life may not necessarily be a choice and could be decided by the things you struggled to understand in the previous one. For example, if you did something that hurt a person, or even a lot of people, you have to experience that type of pain or something similar next to understand what you did.

would it be to far fetched if past , present and future existed all at the same time ?

Originally posted by Bodhi7
reply to post by Epirus

 

I've always liked the idea that the path to the next life may not necessarily be a choice and could be decided by the things you struggled to understand in the previous one. For example, if you did something that hurt a person, or even a lot of people, you have to experience that type of pain or something similar next to understand what you did.

Well then (in my belief) you've always liked the way it is.

So that's a good thing!

reply to post by Bodhi7


This was the exact story that came to mind when I read your thread title. Reincarnation, non-linear time, all interesting ideas to explore. Although it is hard to prove/disprove with science, it is fun to create philosophies around this idea.

This is the "BOOM" part

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

Karma would be:

White Supremist come back as Blacks

Nazi's come back as Jews

Rappers come back as ABBA Band Members

The possabilities are endless

reply to post by ottobot


I have experienced OBE's, but not naturally induced ones. That's about as specific as i can get without breaking ATS rules, haha.

re-incarnated = well not exactly. and time is constant to the dimension you appear in. interesting - I guess it is possible but highly unlikely since there is like a gazillion to one chance of you accomplishing that. but yea it is possible.

I also had this idea at one time when in reincarnational Indian astrology I was looking at a serial killer's chart.
However, this leads to a philosophical discussion. If the whole Universe is in Time - a large linear scale, then Time is larger than God. St. Augustine proved by scholastic arguments that Time cannot be greater than the Creator, therefore Time is being continuously created. He proposed that the six days of creation - which they literally believed in that age - were continuously being wrought by God.
Some radical Buddhists believe that the 'I' behind reincarnation does not exist. Others believe it is merely illusory but it exists through several incarnations until you are enlightened and reach your maximum potential.
American Spiritual Revolutionary Kyle Griffith has an interesting theory of reincarnation in his influential book War in Heaven. He doesn't think everyone reincarnates - they can be absorbed into Theocratic Bands if what they believe will take them there. He also thinks that some of us had live on other planets from which we were seeded by telekinethic changes effected from afar into the local species.
Backwards karma - I think it can exist but I have no proof. Could be the person will rather reincarnate in another world where the level of development is like Medieval China for instance. There are many worlds and some stay in the astral s a choice for as long as they can.

Awhile back, someone wrote a thread with the theory that every time we almost die, we restart at an earlier time in our life.

This is why so many people have close calls.

Anyway, it makes sense to me we would repeat lives until we got it right. After all, if this is supposed to be soul development, like any other lesson/class, you would repeat until you passed.

This makes 100% sense to me and I have a gut feeling that this is not my first time around.

reply to post by Bodhi7


I only recently read 'The Egg' and I must say it really resonated with me.

It certainly supports some of the spiritual insights I've had over the years, with the main premise being that everything we experience here in this earth reality is a manifestation of our over-mind. So we are everything in a sense. No thing is not us.

As a little funny side note, when someone tells you to go fu.k yourself, think of 'The Egg' and have a chuckle.

S&F Bodhi

Peace Out

* Ned

Awesome topic, i never even pondered until seeing this.

The past in 5D, is not linear is it?

So yes it would be possible in 5D and up, right?

reply to post by nimbinned


Yeah, it's a pretty simple story but something about it has always stuck with me.

I tend to think of it when i start to get angry at someone, something about it makes the old saying "Treat others as you would like to be treated" seem a lot more important and realistic.

what about what goes around, comes BACK around?



ps- s & f bodhi!