Of Heaven and Hell

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I’ve read a number of theories regarding reincarnation. One idea suggested that we’re all really just one soul experiencing itself through every single human, that each incarnation is just the experience of a different person throughout the world and across time. Honestly, that sounds terrifying. For as much as you live the good life, you experience the worst of it as well, and all at the hands of yourself.

Another idea suggested that you live the same life over and again, having the opportunity to learn and refine your experience from one incarnation to the next, that you might leave markers to help guide you to better or just different decisions on the next time around. I think that concept is steeped in privilege; what if you succumb to abuse as a child? Are you doomed to repeat that, incarnation after incarnation, until your abusers learn and hone themselves over several millennia to not abuse you? It’s a fine idea if you’re not terribly off, but a horrible one if your life is brutal in any way.

I don’t believe in heaven or hell. Personally, I think religion has dumbed down spirituality to maximize coercion. It’s too simplistic, the duality of heaven and hell. It provides believers the opportunity to slack off on their own journey and makes it all too easy for arrogance to completely take over. We’re seeing that now with Christian Nationalism. Nay, I believe that heaven or hell is what you make of this life by way of how you live and how you act. Heaven or hell is internal, and it’s a choice made from one moment to the next, whether it’s done consciously or not. I think ancient spiritual practices have this concept in common, always working to train the practitioner inward rather than to rely on some spectacular deity to come save them. Yes, the ancients had their gods, but there is a large body of work that supports the idea that these pantheons were not worshipped in the way modern religions worship their gods.

I think being a good person matters. I think removing yourself from bad people is worthwhile. I think some people listen and learn their lessons, and those people have the capacity to become good, even if they don’t start out that way. I think some people are too far lost, and it very well may take a number of reincarnations for them to find the path to the good. If, indeed, reincarnation exists.

I’m not sure what to believe. The only thing I do know is that we have it within each and every one of us to make a difference for ourselves, to find the peace within, and to make a heaven amidst a world of hell.

Anyway, no poster today, as my iPad is about to die. Maybe I’ll update this post with one after it dies and I bring it back to life.

sorcerer333:
In his book “A Conversation with God: an Uncommon Dialogue”, Neale Donald Walsch describes your first concept, more or less, that we are all just permutations of God trying to understand the Everything that is God via perspective, via experiencing the Is and Is Not. Though I understand where you’re coming from with regards to your terror at the prospect, it’s worth noting that without contrast, without a basis of comparison, everything simply is. To put it simply, how can one enjoy the splendour of the night sky without the void that houses and exists in between them?
nonsensetwice:
@SORCERER33 ah, thank you! I couldn’t remember the source for that concept. With regard to everything simply being, isn’t that just the way of it? By removing attachment and paring away the extremities of emotion, we learn that nothing is inherently good or bad, that we shape those concepts out of perspective. It’s funny to consider that we might work so hard to cultivate that understanding, to uncover the simple truths and experience them, only to move on and get thrown into the rollercoaster of life all over again. How often do we, as souls completing a lifetime, get off the ride only to get back in line for another round? Masochistic in many ways, methinks.

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