The Ancient Wisdom Series

Reincarnation: A New Perspective

By John P. Johnston

The Law of Rebirth rises to the status of Law because it is the very nature of God Himself. Our Solar System is an incarnation of our Solar Deity, and each incarnation, each new round of solar manifestation, represents a rebirth of our Solar Deity. His incarnations each represent a cosmic initiation, the nature of which is beyond our limited understanding. For the sake of clarity, it is important to understand that the Law of Correspondence (as above, so below) is also a manifestation of God’s nature, and so we humans follow in the Creator’s footsteps, and incarnate time and again. Except that in the case of humanity each incarnation represents, not an initiation, but the evolution of personal consciousness on a scale commensurate with human potential. One can therefore readily see that reincarnation is critically important to our progress upon the Path of Ascension. 

On a practical level reincarnation lends understanding to circumstances and events otherwise unintelligible. Beyond that, knowing that one does not have to fulfill all of one’s duties, meet all of one’s challenges, or achieve every goal in this one lifetime bestows a great sense of relief upon the discerning mind. One knows that old debts and unfinished commitments can be resolved in another life. Lessons learned are not lost and mistakes made are not final. There will be other opportunities, and eventually perfection will manifest. Imagine the good that would prevail if we could but realize, both individually and collectively, that each and every one of us has inhabited the body of every racial form, and that each and every one of us has incarnated time and again into many cultures and many religions. This is how consciousness evolves, through cyclic manifestation, learning and growing through diversity. 

This, however, is not the whole story. Beyond the practical lies a great mystery, and that mystery is related to the nature of time. Time is closely related to reincarnation; in fact, time is literally the product of reincarnation. Thus, when past life memories surface, time is altered, not just for the individual, but for humanity as well. This is true because time is a creation of the mind, whether Divine Mind, as on the cosmic scale, or the human mind.

When we emote and when we think we create time because our thoughts act upon the atoms of our various vehicles of consciousness, as well as those surrounding atoms of similar vibration. When our thought is purely mental, the subatomic particles that comprise the upper mental plane are reorganized, and this movement creates time. Without movement there is no time. When our thoughts are colored with emotion we do not and can not touch the subatomic matter of the upper levels of the mental plane. Instead we stimulate the atoms that make up the two lowest subplanes of the mental plane, plus the atoms comprising the astral plane. When we are emotionally negative we act upon the very densest astral atoms, creating a sense of time that can seem almost unbearable. 
 

For those beings that live the life of the Soul there is no time. Time is not created because the Soul does not act upon the atoms themselves, but upon the ethers, or light particles found within every atom. Therefore, the creations of the Soul are eternal and timeless. 

The recollection of past lives serves to integrate the individual into time. Just as the recollection of childhood memories sheds understanding on the present, so to does the recollection of past lives. When those memories surface, necessarily in small increments for safety’s sake, the Soul is beginning to manifest its reality in the world of the personality.
 

Now the reason time is so important is because time is an involutional entity, a form of consciousness created by the interaction of mind and matter, just as the interaction of Spirit (Father) and Matter (Mother) creates Consciousness (Son). This interaction organizes atoms, and that movement gives rise to an involutional identity. That being is intricately connected to what is sometimes referred to as the “Dweller on the Threshold”, which is the sum total of all action (karma), both individually and collectively. Because this entity called time is the product of human intelligence it is intimately related to human salvation. Time represents the consciousness of illusion, and the only way to dissolve that illusion is through the attainment of Soul consciousness. 

Once the process of integration into time is underway, we no longer feel trapped in time, but understand that we can use time to our advantage. We begin to grasp the truth of the Soul as we contemplate the nature of the One who incarnates over and over again. As we contemplate the nature of the Soul we discover the reality of timeless existence. We begin to realize that time is an illusion, one that serves a grand purpose, but an illusion nonetheless. This is particularly evident when we accomplish more work with better results in what seems like a flash. We can literally achieve with unbelievable speed. This is because the light units found within the atoms of our solar system immediately respond to Higher Mind, but react slowly to mental/emotional stimulation, to the point of rebellion when the mind is conflicted.