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How Has Reincarnation Affected You?

JDMS

Academic Workhorse
My past life was obviously in Asia or something because ever since young I thought something was extremely fishy about America. I was probably Chinese or Vietnamese, maybe even Japanese. The spirits of those countries seem so much more welcoming to me than the ones here in Florida now. It is distressing to feel like a foreigner in America now despite having been here my entire life, but mindfulness and other things help. I tried to leave and go back before but it's not in the cards for me. I have to die in this strange country.

I'm actually sorry for coming back to this post, but at the same time, I feel the need to actually explain why I feel prickly about this post.

You come in and say "how has reincarnation affected you", and then say how you feel like a foreigner in your own country. You say you feel westerners are strange, despite being one yourself. Then you (seemingly) romanticize several Asian countries.

Yet, have you considered how this might come across to people from those very same countries that are actually affected by racism? Have you considered that we are literally living in a foreign country, surrounded by people that don't look like us. That we struggle to find groceries to make our own food? That we have next to no religious sites for a tradition that is engrained into our holiday culture? Etc etc?

You say you feel like a foreigner, but you don't even know the meaning of the word. You cry over a past life, and I'm upset over my current one. You have to "die in this strange country", but I have to live in it. These are not the same, and that is why I feel prickly about this post.
I encounter people your age that are obsessed with Japan on a daily basis because of anime and such, and now I either experience racism or fetishization everywhere I turn. So perhaps this post rubbed a sore spot.
 

Spiderman

Veteran Member
Mine is too bizzare and laughable I don't feel like sharing.

I do practice the Japanese religion Shinto, put a big Capitol H for hirohito on paper, found a jacket with a Japanese flag above a big Capitol H on sidewalk hours later.

It is my most prized possession. Maybe I was Japanese long ago. ;)

I don't believe in the lyrics of this reincarnation song about "there are no ghosts" but it's still a cool sounding song I was listening to, right before noticing your thread. :)
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
My past life was obviously in Asia or something because ever since young I thought something was extremely fishy about America. I was probably Chinese or Vietnamese, maybe even Japanese. The spirits of those countries seem so much more welcoming to me than the ones here in Florida now. It is distressing to feel like a foreigner in America now despite having been here my entire life, but mindfulness and other things help. I tried to leave and go back before but it's not in the cards for me. I have to die in this strange country.
Not at all because I didn't have another life.
 

CharmingOwl

Member
I'm actually sorry for coming back to this post, but at the same time, I feel the need to actually explain why I feel prickly about this post.

You come in and say "how has reincarnation affected you", and then say how you feel like a foreigner in your own country. You say you feel westerners are strange, despite being one yourself. Then you (seemingly) romanticize several Asian countries.

Yet, have you considered how this might come across to people from those very same countries that are actually affected by racism? Have you considered that we are literally living in a foreign country, surrounded by people that don't look like us. That we struggle to find groceries to make our own food? That we have next to no religious sites for a tradition that is engrained into our holiday culture? Etc etc?

You say you feel like a foreigner, but you don't even know the meaning of the word. You cry over a past life, and I'm upset over my current one. You have to "die in this strange country", but I have to live in it. These are not the same, and that is why I feel prickly about this post.
I encounter people your age that are obsessed with Japan on a daily basis because of anime and such, and now I either experience racism or fetishization everywhere I turn. So perhaps this post rubbed a sore spot.

It doesn't even need to be Japan. I could have been a South African and then I would have the same feeling about it as a problem. The possible countries were an afterthought.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
I am a believer in reincarnation and I would label its affects on me as positive. I can be comfortable with just making spiritual progress in this lifetime and knowing my soul will be wiser for it next time.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Regarding reincarnation, it makes me sad. If the purpose of life is reconnecting to spirit, to the inner essence, to the source, then each successive lifetime will become harder and harder to acheive this goal. As time goes on, it seems that spirit becomes more and more occluded by the material.
That doesn't sound like a 'terminal optimist'. I see just the opposite and that we will learn the spiritual is most important and the material less important. That's what soul progress is about learning.
 

Ashoka

श्री कृष्णा शरणं मम
I differ from other naturalistic pantheists, because I still believe in reincarnation, in some form. I like to think that my consciousness goes on in some form. Maybe I will be a dust particle, or a star, or a galaxy...I don't know. It's fun to think about.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
It's worth considering where that feeling of being a foreigner in the United States comes from. Vast majority of us reading this are foreigners here - we're decedents of colonialists who stole this land from its indigenous people by force. Most do not get to know the Spirits of the Land here, and have no deep history here with them by ancestry. So yeah. That does create a detachment.

That aside, reincarnation has affected me because I exist in the here-now and continue to do so. Without death-birth or transformations I couldn't be or continue to be. Stuff constantly dies and is integrated-reborn into my cells so I can live. I shed-kill things that are then made into other things. So goes the Great Cycle.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
It's worth considering where that feeling of being a foreigner in the United States comes from. Vast majority of us reading this are foreigners here - we're decedents of colonialists who stole this land from its indigenous people by force. Most do not get to know the Spirits of the Land here, and have no deep history here with them by ancestry. So yeah. That does create a detachment.

That aside, reincarnation has affected me because I exist in the here-now and continue to do so. Without death-birth or transformations I couldn't be or continue to be. Stuff constantly dies and is integrated-reborn into my cells so I can live. I shed-kill things that are then made into other things. So goes the Great Cycle.

I think sometimes its difficult to get to know the Spirits of the Land... the stories of the land from its original inhabitants have(understandably) been hidden(or, sadly, lost). In some cases, the land itself has been altered beyond recognition.
 

TransmutingSoul

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I do not see we have consciousness before this life. So I have had not previous lives to connect to.

On the other hand, the Spirit I have been created by is timeless and thus most likely contains the consciousness of past and future souls.

It may be that is what some people can relate to.

Regards Tony
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
How so? (My 6 years of premature retirement were most excellent. :) )
Twas an attempt at a joke, Sir. In reality, I love retirement. But that's because I thought about. it can be an extremely difficult time for those who go cold turkey with no hobbies or plan.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
On a trip to India, a number of us felt immediately at home as we left the plane whereas others felt the opposite. I took that as a residue from past lives.

I bawled when I cleared customs (Bengaluru) and stepped outside.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
Was it difficult to leave?
India is a land of extremes. Part of me wanted to stay, and part of me couldn't wait to get home. I totally loved the darshan at the ancient stone temples of South India and many of the people we met, but the poverty, the risk of illness, the dirt ... all that is rather overwhelming to the senses. I know if I ever went back, I'd go straight to one or two places, stay in a western style hotel, and just go to the temple every day. Would you like to go one day?
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
India is a land of extremes. Part of me wanted to stay, and part of me couldn't wait to get home. I totally loved the darshan at the ancient stone temples of South India and many of the people we met, but the poverty, the risk of illness, the dirt ... all that is rather overwhelming to the senses. I know if I ever went back, I'd go straight to one or two places, stay in a western style hotel, and just go to the temple every day. Would you like to go one day?

Which places would you go to?

I would love to go someday, though I think it would be more enjoyable after the kids are grown. Because of some of the behavioral issues we face, if we went now, it would just be me preventing problems than actually experiencing anything.
 
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