I hope you are all well & in good spirits.

Reincarnation supposes serial incarnations, but might we not have parallel incarnations of which we are only dimly aware (or fully unaware)?

--
Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)
On Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/BerkeleyBrett
(You don't have to be a Twitter user to view this stream of ideas!)

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In the same time frame? Same country? Same planet!?

On Oct 7, 2:45 pm, Berkeley Brett <royal...@gmail.com> wrote:
(or fully unaware)?

I don't know any Indian mythology that supports parallel incarnations
(same time, different physical spaces for the original unity soul now
split up) for humans - but Vishnu incarnated both as Krishna and
Balarama (the curvy and the straight respectively), so I suppose
that if you are a great God like Vishnu You can send off parallel
incarnations of Yourself onto the mortal plane.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee

Is the subject here scripture studies or philosophy?  

Reincarnation supposes belief. I think at best it may be a gateway to a
better insight to a more common human experience but as it is it's mainly
part of a belief system which is not based upon physical evidence. iow, the
premise for any discussion must begin with a blind faith.

I think children are the most apparent and a literal reincarnation of one's
self or, more exactly, of two selves. The birth event actualizes two
physical beings as one. All kinds of philosophies can chew on this quite
extraordinary ordinariness. Belief can start but at least the evidence is
empirical.

Good question, Giga.

I'm supposing the largest possible context, the Universe itself.

There might be eight of you out there! Or twelve, or twelve thousand!

I hope you are well & in good spirits.

--
Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)
http://www.ForeverFunds.org/
My plan for saving the world!
(Micro-trusts & Micro-Endowments that survive you)

Thank you for this interesting feedback, Mr. Banerjee.

I find the philosophies of India most worthwhile, and I am always glad to learn more of them.

In the broadest sense, I suppose the community of all sentient beings throughout all space and time is a grand array of parallel incarnations of the Divine. As I imagine it, what we call "God" is the infinite-infinite manifestation of consciousness, rather like an infinite sphere: an infinite sphere entails all points, no point anywhere is outside it. You and I and other beings are (as I see it) finite-infinite manifestations of the Divine: our infinity is like that of an infinitely long line. It entails infinitely many points, but there are very many points in space that do not lie on that line. The infinite-infinite sphere (God) entails all the finite-infinite lines (you and me), and hence we are truly "part and parcel" of the Divine.

You have raised the very interesting example of Vishnu and the parallel manifestations of Vishnu: Krishna and Balarama. Perhaps we too have parallel manifestations, being emanations from Vishnu. I have at times, especially on the verge of waking or falling asleep, felt a sense that I have other manifestations in distant regions of the Universe. This may, of course, be an illusion, but the sense of it is often quite strong.

Of course in a different sense, YOU are a parallel incarnation of me, just as I am a parallel incarnation of you! As 50 year old Brett, I am separated from the 10 year old Brett and the 80 year old Brett by TIME; but I am also separated from the Brett named Arindam Banerjee by SPACE; to go one step further, I am separated from the Brett who was the 10 year old Arindam Banerjee by TIME and SPACE.

At times I have felt that the Mahavakyas of the Upanishads summarize these sublime mysteries so concisely that it's easy to overlook their profound significance:

http://is.gd/XVc33X

Thank you again for your thoughts on this, Mr. Banerjee
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

Thank you for these interesting thoughts, Zerkon.

You have reminded me of a passage from Emerson's "Self-Reliance":

=== begin quoted text ===

Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fulness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being?

=== end quoted text ===

http://www.literaturepage.com/read/emersonessays1-33.html

Indeed, children do seem to be overlapping incarnations in so many ways, and often improved versions (so it seems!) And there is a genuine magic in the fact that they are manifestations of two distinct people.

For me, reincarnation is a working hypothesis. I do not pretend to know it to be true. But at the instinctive level, it seems to me by far to be the least unlikely "post mortem" model. (It seems to me that intellect only carries us so far: beyond a certain level, we are left with instinct or intuition, imperfect and non-rigorous as those capacities may be.) Consulting William James' noteworthy criteria of genuine choice ( http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/misc/james.html ), I do not believe any post-mortem model is "forced," but I do believe (for me) that the reincarnation model is "live" and "momentous".

Though western-style evidence for reincarnation has rarely been pursued, you might find Ian Stevenson's "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" (1966) interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Cases_Suggestive_of_Reincarnation

And, of course, the whole phenomenon of "near death experiences" is also fascinating:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience

http://www.iands.org/

I hope you are well & in good spirits.

--
Brett (in Berkeley, California, USA)
On Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/BerkeleyBrett
(You don't have to be a Twitter user to view this stream of ideas!)

It can be disconcerting that one could also be a manifestation of
that which another particular incarnation abhors at the same time.

On 10/6/2012 10:45 PM, Berkeley Brett wrote:

Generic subjective continuity doesn't mean that 'my' specific memories
and personality survive, but only that basic characteristics
constituting experience and being human are semi-global, so that
everybody else still alive after one's death is the 'host' that one
belonged to and still persists. Accordingly, you might view that as
'parallel reincarnation' in the sense that anyone is the potential
candidate which could replace or follow 'you', but your specific bran's
memories keep insisting that 'this body' is where experience or
consciousness is confined to (the organ has an underlying solipsistic
reflex to reject generic subjectivity, when reflective thought is not
involved).

THOMAS W. CLARK ... "But despite the lack of personal subjective
continuity, despite the fact that we may decide at some point on the
continuum of change, (in memory, personality, and body) that TC no
longer exists to have experiences, experience doesn't end for him, that
is, there is no onset of nothingness. What we have instead is a
transformation of the subject itself, a transformation of the context of
awareness, while experience chugs along, oblivious of the unconscious
interval during which the transformation took place. It's not that
TC/rad's experience follows TC's in the sense of being connected to it
by virtue of memory or personality, but that there is no subjective
interval or gap between them experienced by either person. This is
expressed in the fact that TC/rad, like TC, feels like he's always been
present. However radical the change in context, and however long the
unconscious interval, it seems that awareness--for itself, in its
generic aspect of 'always having been present'--is immune to interruption."

http://www.naturalism.org/death.htm

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Recently cosmologists have concluded that this universe may be infinite. In
which case there are infinite planets out there just like Earth. In fact
there are infinite planets just like Earth in *every* respect, including the
position of every particle. So there must be infinite Bretts out there. Do
you feel any connection with these?

I'm well, thanks, and you?

On Sat, 6 Oct 2012 20:45:06 -0700 (PDT), Berkeley Brett

From the perspective of the illusion of time, simultaneous
incarnations have been referred to as "counterparts".
From a larger (soul) perspective, all incarnations are
"simultaneous" since time has no meaning to the soul.

Art  

On Sat, Oct 6, 2012, 8:45pm (CDT-2) From: royal...@gmail.com

The best information I have suggest that the entire universe
reincarnates, with all of the various reincarnations occurring
simultaneously....

I love this information provided by Thomas Benedict, a near death
experiencer...

This information is beyond that of any science or any religion:

When I say that I could see or perceive forever, I mean that I could
experience all of creation generating itself. It was without beginning
and without end. That's a mind-expanding thought, isn't it?
Scientists perceive the Big Bang as a single event which created the
universe. I saw that the Big Bang is only one of an infinite number of
Big Bangs creating universes endlessly and simultaneously. The only
images that even come close in human terms would be those created by
supercomputers using fractal geometry equations.

The ancients knew of this. They said Godhead periodically created new
universes by breathing out, and de-creating other universes by breathing
in. These epochs were called Yugas. Modern science called this the Big
Bang. I was in absolute, pure consciousness. I could see or perceive all
the Big Bangs or Yugas creating and de-creating themselves.

On Oct 7, 11:19 pm, Berkeley Brett <royal...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am glad to know this. India has the oldest continuous civilisation,
and although the old light is burning dimly, it is still on.

This is a very good way to put it.  The nearest word in the Vedas that
relates to this sentiment is praja-pati-rhishir-anashtyup-cchanday or
the complex and mysterious
metrical rhythms of the wise lord of all beings, that are always
beyond the scope of even the greatest God Shiva, for He too must keep
on striving for superior powers.

Yes, infinity is also related to timelessness; we are finites bounded
within the infinite. It was and is perilous to consider the universe
as infinite in the western world;
Bruno was burnt to death.  These days they seek to make it finite with
einsteinian relativity, big bang theory, etc. and as I know to my cost
you will be thoroughly ostracised
by the western intellectuals if you dare to hold different views.  One
has to be really unimportant, to hold such views as you do.

It is normal in the Indian ethos to create the sense of balance.  Even
the most ardent devotee of Krishna will admit that Krishna was not
straight.  His critics called him
crooked and worse.  His devotees will replace all that with
curviness.  Since both the straight and the curved are required,
Balaram had to be present as the straight guy, for balance.

Some people have different perception abilities. I know one lady who
claims to see everyone's auras.  What exactly are we, is a fundamental
philosophical point.  I have put
up the metaphysics involved in the Indian civilisation, in my book
"The Son of Hiranyaksh" which can be bought for around $10 from
Amazon.

While we all have the same spiritual matter, the issue relates to
morality as per the individual soul, for its position in the afterlife
and/or station in rebirth. Thus the
individual soul, in its quest for its own welfare, has to be lonely by
being individual.  When there is pure love for the Divine, there is
mingling leading to union.  Marriage is the nearest thing to such
union, in our mortal sphere.

The Upanishads, Vedas, and the Puranas are all nicely integrated, as
opposed to having a historical development (Upanishads happened after
they got tired of the Vedic gods) as we are currently taught. The
Puranas come first in the priority scale (as opposed to time scale)
for the Vedas cannot be understood without the knowledge from the
Puranans.  Then the Upanishads cannot be understood without
understanding both the Vedas and the Puranas.  To help in our
understanding overall, there are the epics, tales, music, drama, etc.

Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee

Welcome!