As we've shown, transmigration is supported both by science and by ancient religious teachings. Despite current interpretations to the contrary, most ancient religious taught the doctrine of transmigration earlier but many have in recent centuries abandoned the teaching. Why is this?
One reason is that having a second chance to change in another lifetime presents a problem to religious organizations who want to control their congregations through fear.
One reason is that having a second chance to change in another lifetime presents a problem to religious organizations who want to control their congregations through fear.
The bottom line is that we each have been given the freedom to make our own decisions about life, its purpose, and whether or not there is a Supreme Person. Certainly, if anyone could have forced us to believe in God, it would be the Supreme Being.
Instead, God has created a perfect mechanism of learning through multiple physical lifetimes to give us each enough information to make an independent choice according to our respective desires.
In other words, we each have the choice at each moment to choose the pursuit of temporary physical pleasures, or learn the lessons that life teaches us. Should we choose to learn, we will continue to evolve.
The beauty and perfection of the mechanism of the physical world is its consequential learning system. This learning system rewards us for actions that help others, while rendering rehabilitative consequences for those actions that hurt others.
How so?
Consider this question, often raised against sectarian doctrines:
If God is so kind, why is there suffering in the world? Why are some people born into suffering while others are born into privileged lives? Is God unfair to some of us?
This question is, in fact, one of the reasons why sectarianism is often rejected by so many today. In fact, the current ecclesiastical interpretations of scripture - with precedent given by the political council of the Fourth Century Synod of Nicaea organized and controlled by the Emperor Constantine in an effort to control the Christian Church - have no logical answer to this question. They leave us with the assumption that either:
1) God created an imperfect world that He has no real control over;
2) God is not fair;
or
3) God does not exist
These three options are the ONLY options that the current ecclesiastical teachings of most sectarian religious institutions leave us with.
Can we answer this question about why there is suffering in the world? By the mercy of the teachings handed down through a devoted and ancient lineage of teachers, yes:
First, we are not these physical bodies. The physical bodies are the temporary vehicles for us - the spiritual individual. We are all spiritual individuals living within a temporary physical world.
Second, suffering is created by our own previous activities. It is not arbitrary. It is not accidental. We each have created our current suffering in previous lifetimes.
We might compare the physical world to a computer game: We can sit down at a computer and start a video game, whereupon we take on a temporary icon in order to play the game. Once we sign on to the video game with our icon, the icon becomes subject to the rules of the video game. These rules may include warfare or other contests in which our icon becomes hurt, damaged, or even killed.
Do we die if our video game icon dies? Of course not. We can simply turn off the computer and walk away. Why? Because we are of a different substance from the virtual video game.
This is almost precisely the same situation occurring within the physical world, except the physical world is real though temporary. We are each spiritual individuals who are temporarily residing in physical bodies. These physical bodies are not us. They might also be compared to driving a car. The car driver sits down in the car to drive it for awhile, then gets out. The driver may then even buy a new car and drive that one instead.
So if our video game icon or our car gets damaged, we are not damaged.
Why do our virtual physical bodies become damaged or are subject to suffering then?
God created the virtual physical world as a place where we can escape from Him and go to a place where we can ignore Him. In His virtual physical world, we can even pretend that He doesn't exist.
Why does He give us this ability to ignore Him? Because we wanted to get away from Him. We became envious of Him, and wanted to enjoy like Him, rather than love and serve Him (our natural position as spiritual individuals).
So He gave us this virtual world where we could pretend He doesn't exist. Here we can pretend that we are the center of the universe. Here we can pretend that everything and everyone revolve around us.
But this is not true, and God has set up the physical world to also teach us and hopefully train us. He set up the world not only to allow us to escape Him - but also a place where we could be rehabilitated: Giving us the option to return home to Him.
So He set up the physical world with consequences. This is a learning system now accepted by family experts as the most effective form of training.
In other words, every action has a reaction - either in this current life or in the next. This is why a person might be born into a poor family or a rich family, and suffer from particular diseases, and have certain other things that happen to them: The person is facing the consequences of previous activities - good and bad.
This means that whatever situation we are in at the moment is the result of our previous actions. We have no one to blame except for ourselves and our past activities.
This is meant to teach us. Just consider if there were no consequences to our actions. This would result in our having no incentive to become better people.
God uses this consequence system because He is not only fair. He is also perfect. And loving. And merciful. And beautiful.
He also set this system up because He wants us to come back to Him - when we are ready to. When we decide to return to Him, we can utilize this consequence system to learn how to become better people and eventually rekindle our innate relationship with Him.
Instead, God has created a perfect mechanism of learning through multiple physical lifetimes to give us each enough information to make an independent choice according to our respective desires.
In other words, we each have the choice at each moment to choose the pursuit of temporary physical pleasures, or learn the lessons that life teaches us. Should we choose to learn, we will continue to evolve.
The beauty and perfection of the mechanism of the physical world is its consequential learning system. This learning system rewards us for actions that help others, while rendering rehabilitative consequences for those actions that hurt others.
How so?
Consider this question, often raised against sectarian doctrines:
If God is so kind, why is there suffering in the world? Why are some people born into suffering while others are born into privileged lives? Is God unfair to some of us?
This question is, in fact, one of the reasons why sectarianism is often rejected by so many today. In fact, the current ecclesiastical interpretations of scripture - with precedent given by the political council of the Fourth Century Synod of Nicaea organized and controlled by the Emperor Constantine in an effort to control the Christian Church - have no logical answer to this question. They leave us with the assumption that either:
1) God created an imperfect world that He has no real control over;
2) God is not fair;
or
3) God does not exist
These three options are the ONLY options that the current ecclesiastical teachings of most sectarian religious institutions leave us with.
Can we answer this question about why there is suffering in the world? By the mercy of the teachings handed down through a devoted and ancient lineage of teachers, yes:
First, we are not these physical bodies. The physical bodies are the temporary vehicles for us - the spiritual individual. We are all spiritual individuals living within a temporary physical world.
Second, suffering is created by our own previous activities. It is not arbitrary. It is not accidental. We each have created our current suffering in previous lifetimes.
We might compare the physical world to a computer game: We can sit down at a computer and start a video game, whereupon we take on a temporary icon in order to play the game. Once we sign on to the video game with our icon, the icon becomes subject to the rules of the video game. These rules may include warfare or other contests in which our icon becomes hurt, damaged, or even killed.
Do we die if our video game icon dies? Of course not. We can simply turn off the computer and walk away. Why? Because we are of a different substance from the virtual video game.
This is almost precisely the same situation occurring within the physical world, except the physical world is real though temporary. We are each spiritual individuals who are temporarily residing in physical bodies. These physical bodies are not us. They might also be compared to driving a car. The car driver sits down in the car to drive it for awhile, then gets out. The driver may then even buy a new car and drive that one instead.
So if our video game icon or our car gets damaged, we are not damaged.
Why do our virtual physical bodies become damaged or are subject to suffering then?
God created the virtual physical world as a place where we can escape from Him and go to a place where we can ignore Him. In His virtual physical world, we can even pretend that He doesn't exist.
Why does He give us this ability to ignore Him? Because we wanted to get away from Him. We became envious of Him, and wanted to enjoy like Him, rather than love and serve Him (our natural position as spiritual individuals).
So He gave us this virtual world where we could pretend He doesn't exist. Here we can pretend that we are the center of the universe. Here we can pretend that everything and everyone revolve around us.
But this is not true, and God has set up the physical world to also teach us and hopefully train us. He set up the world not only to allow us to escape Him - but also a place where we could be rehabilitated: Giving us the option to return home to Him.
So He set up the physical world with consequences. This is a learning system now accepted by family experts as the most effective form of training.
In other words, every action has a reaction - either in this current life or in the next. This is why a person might be born into a poor family or a rich family, and suffer from particular diseases, and have certain other things that happen to them: The person is facing the consequences of previous activities - good and bad.
This means that whatever situation we are in at the moment is the result of our previous actions. We have no one to blame except for ourselves and our past activities.
This is meant to teach us. Just consider if there were no consequences to our actions. This would result in our having no incentive to become better people.
God uses this consequence system because He is not only fair. He is also perfect. And loving. And merciful. And beautiful.
He also set this system up because He wants us to come back to Him - when we are ready to. When we decide to return to Him, we can utilize this consequence system to learn how to become better people and eventually rekindle our innate relationship with Him.
