Birth?

[Jyotir]

We "come in" with karma (both currently expressing and latent) and energetic patterns and predispositions already established from previous incarnations. This determines attributes such as physical, emotional/energetic, and mental, as well as contextual circumstance like country and family, etc.

However each new life presents new possibilities and opportunities to alter or enhance those patterns, or create new ones.

The important thing is that the new experiences and developing patterns be progressive, and that is really what spirituality is: when that life-process becomes conscious and deliberate, not random and haphazard.

~ J

Yep, exactly how I see it (per Jyotir)

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

The important thing is that the new experiences and developing patterns be progressive, and that is really what spirituality is: when that life-process becomes conscious and deliberate, not random and haphazard.

In concurrence, I think this is the main (there are many others, of course) purpose, both a challenge and an opportunity, for which 'soul' incarnates. From my treatise: "Any and every soul’s developmental ‘journey’ merits ongoing introspective review and reevaluation and, when and where appropriate, the refinement – this is what conscious evolution is all about! – not just of the ‘content’ of what one personally thinks, feels, believes and does in relation to others and Life‑at‑Large, but also of the ‘significance’ one places on and so ‘ascribes’ to one’s self and other selves, in your case the very ‘self’ that thinks, feels, believes and does so."

[lemex]

Originally Posted by davidsun

In concurrence, I think this is the main (there are many others, of course) purpose, both a challenge and an opportunity, for which 'soul' incarnates. From my treatise: "Any and every soul’s developmental ‘journey’ merits ongoing introspective review and reevaluation and, when and where appropriate, the refinement – this is what conscious evolution is all about! – not just of the ‘content’ of what one personally thinks, feels, believes and does in relation to others and Life‑at‑Large, but also of the ‘significance’ one places on and so ‘ascribes’ to one’s self and other selves, in your case the very ‘self’ that thinks, feels, believes and does so."

I agree with both of what is being said, the conscious evolution is what it is all about. There are many ways to say the same thing at each level we are at. I see a consistent message important and needed.

Originally Posted by davidsun

In concurrence, I think this is the main (there are many others, of course) purpose, both a challenge and an opportunity, for which 'soul' incarnates. From my treatise: "Any and every soul’s developmental ‘journey’ merits ongoing introspective review and reevaluation and, when and where appropriate, the refinement – this is what conscious evolution is all about! – not just of the ‘content’ of what one personally thinks, feels, believes and does in relation to others and Life‑at‑Large, but also of the ‘significance’ one places on and so ‘ascribes’ to one’s self and other selves, in your case the very ‘self’ that thinks, feels, believes and does so."

I agree there.

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by SlayerOfLight

I'm not an infant whisperer or expert, but I do think complex personalities are formed until much later. Infants are mostly in a blank state and unconcerned with our feelings, they only care about their basic needs and follow their primal instincts. Although, some have the tendency to be more whiny and annoying than others.

Since I reject the belief of reincarnation and spiritual life before birth, I doubt we were programmed at all. Our personalities are determined only by the things we experience in life and people we meet. We may develop some traits from our parents because of the genes, but those don't necessary program us.

Hi there slayer.

As my own process has shown me to let go of all beliefs, I can relate to what your sharing. If you look at what is, as a life process, where everything decided through the mind and beliefs, falls away, you are left with you open and aware, reflecting through the life that you exist in and as here and now.

Even as others share, through their beliefs about karma, energy, beliefs, for me, it’s just a story that lends itself to the nature of what just is, as a continuous flow of life, a creation, based upon what ‘fits’ something and makes sense to this life process.

Dreams within dreams continuously waking up to the dream ongoing..

Creation has many possibilities and potentials as the ‘co creator’..I’m more about
Being open as those by not containing myself to what was, has been, can be..

The infant self as the blank slate, aware, learns as the adult how to exist and create as that, only the second time around, your not full of ‘others’ crapola..hehe

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

We "come in" with karma (both currently expressing and latent) and energetic patterns and predispositions already established from previous incarnations. This determines attributes such as physical, emotional/energetic, and mental, as well as contextual circumstance like country and family, etc.

However each new life presents new possibilities and opportunities to alter or enhance those patterns, or create new ones.

The important thing is that the new experiences and developing patterns be progressive, and that is really what spirituality is: when that life-process becomes conscious and deliberate, not random and haphazard.

~ J

Each breath is new life..

[Jesse1972]

One theory could be that each and every individual creation works more as a capacitor than a complete stand-alone being. The energy retained and refined by this “capacitor” could develop, store and eventually disperse the sum of its life experience to a further purpose that we are unable to comprehend. Within this theory, “personality” would be transformed into a different type of energy that is useful in some other scenario that is not associated with human behavior. Just a theory…

[Jyotir]

Originally Posted by JustBe

Each breath is new life..

Yes!

...and why that is true: Each new life is actually God breathing.

This is the essence of spirituality, hence the etymology of the word Spirit, aspiration, spiritual etc..

The instrumentality, temporal evolution and experience as individuated beings is important, e.g. the breathing - but is meaningless without recognizing the essence of it, what it really is: Who is breathing in and through us as that experience.

Our conscious surrender to that Truth is the biggest, deepest, most fulfilling and satisfying breath we can take, so why take tiny shallow fearful hesitant defensive breaths?


~ J

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

but is meaningless without recognizing the essence of it, what it really is: Who is breathing in and through us as that experience.

Or What as the case may be.

Re 'meaninglessness', however, I wish to say: like harmlessness and "neti neti" nonduality, IMO such concepts are essentially false, or at least seriously flawed, because (in the case of 'meaninglessness'), by virtue of the ubiquitous presence of Mind, every soul is a meaning-maker - the only difference between souls in this regard is the comprehensiveness of the 'meaning' they 'make'.

And, regarding 'harmlessness', riddle me this: every act that changes the configuration of anything 'harms' something in the sense that it serves, in effect, to destroy the configuration of what it was before. As Jane Roberts' Seth said in Seth Speaks:

"The aggressive nature of symbols is little understood, nor the relationship between aggression and creativity. These are far from opposing characteristics, and without an aggressive thrust, symbols would lack their high mobility. They would exist in a permanent kind of environment.

It is both the creative and aggressive aspects of consciousness that allow it to use symbols, to move through various levels of experience, and the aggressive nature of thought that so propels it, despite your knowledge, into realities that you do not understand.

Aggressiveness and passivity are both behind symbols of birth, for both are needed. They are both beneath symbols of death, though this is not understood. Inertia results when aggressiveness and creativity are not in the proper proportions, when consciousness leans too severely in one direction or another, when the flow of symbols is either too quick or too slow for the particular psychological environment in which you dwell.

Pauses then occur. To put it as simply as possible, there is an almost inconceivable moment in which a no-reality occurs, in which a symbol is caught between motion and no motion, a time of uncertainty. This is of course translated in many ways, and reflected. In such periods, certain symbols can be lost to all intents and purposes, dropping out of an individual's experience, leaving gaps of inertia.

These gaps exist quite literally in many systems. You encounter them on many levels. You may find yourself experiencing a state of consciousness, for example, in which nothing seems to happen, and no psychological landscape or recognizable symbols occur. These exist not only psychologically or psychically, but as blank areas in terms of space. The spaces may be filled finally with new symbols. If you are perceptive enough, you can sometimes catch yourselves encountering such states of reality in which nothing appears and no signs of any consciousness outside of your own is apparent.

Such blank spots can be seeded with new symbols, and are often used as channels through which new creative ideas and inventions are inserted. These gaps are recognized by others, therefore, and viewed as dark spaces. They also represent areas of no resistance for those mind-travelers who are probing inner realities. They represent uncluttered areas, but also open channels, inactive in themselves but passively waiting.

Now some symbols also wait in such a passive manner to be activated. They represent future experience, in your terms, that presently lies latent. These blank spots of inertia, therefore, are creative to some extent, in that these other symbols may swim into view within them."

PS. for possible further clarification of what he means by 'symbols, Seth also said:

"At this point many variations in behavior emerge, each the result of individual background, knowledge, and habit. The surroundings in Which the dead find themselves will often vary. Vivid hallucinations may form experience quite as real as any in mortal life. Now, I have told you that thoughts and emotions form physical reality, and they form after-death experience. This does not mean that the experiences are not valid, any more than it means that physical life is not valid.

Certain images have been used to symbolize such a transition from one existence to another, and many of these are extremely valuable in that they provide a framework with understandable references. The crossing of the River Styx is such a one. The dying expected certain procedures to occur in a more or less orderly fashion. The maps were known beforehand. At death, the consciousness hallucinated the river vividly. Relatives and friends already dead entered into the ritual, which was a profound ceremony also on their parts. The river was as real as any that you know, as treacherous to a traveler alone without proper knowledge. Guides were always at the river to help such travelers across.

It does not do to say that such a river is illusion. The symbol is reality, you see. ..."