There is a distinction I would like to make. I see two different forms of reincarnation; what might be called the "standard model" ie a different body and different face and different time. The form I see far more often is what might be called the GROUNDHOG DAY model, recurrance. In recurrance a person may go through dozens to millions of rebirths into the same body and face in a multitude of variations. Perhaps the reason I see this so much more often is that it is more common. After all, a person dealing with a past life trauma did succeed in leaving that life. A person trapped in endless cycles of recurrance is having trouble facing and letting go of the current life and are thrown back into it over and over. This is where I think CFS/FMS, and all sorts of other chronic diseases, comes into play. The people appear to be unable to accept the basic crappiness of their lives, at time of death experience, and keep going back to "make it better". I say this from what I have experienced consciously myself, uncountable times, and observed it over and over in others. Just saying this is a very emotional experience for me. It's not a popular idea. Peter Ouspensky (THE STRANGE LIFE OF IVAN OSOKIN) describes it in a novel. Time is not at all what one might think.
The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin is a novel by
P. D. Ouspensky. It follows the unsuccessful struggle of Ivan Osokin to correct his mistakes when given a chance to relive his past. The novel serves as a narrative platform for
Nietzsche's theory of
eternal recurrence[citation needed]. The conclusion fully anticipates the
Fourth Way Philosophy which typified Ouspensky's later works
[citation needed]. In particular the final chapter's description of the shocking realization of the mechanical nature of existence, its consequences, and the possibility/responsibility of working in an esoteric school.
When the protagonist realizes that he can recall having lived his life before, he decides to try to change it. But he discovers that because human choices tend to be mechanical, changing the outcome of one's actions is extremely difficult. He realizes that without help breaking his mechanical behavior, he may be doomed to repeat the same mistakes forever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Life_of_Ivan_Osokin
E.J. Gold has produced much work material dealing with recurrance. It is different than the "life is misery, get over it" of some other teaching systems.
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