M.J. Rose

M. J. Rose introduces us to the back story of her book The Reincarnationist in a guest post for The Buddhist Blog. I thought we ought to re-post it here on our own blog…

It’s fun to think of cross-posting as a sort of “reincarnation” for words (see the last paragraph of M.J.’s post below for more on that idea) – 🙂

The Venerable Thich Nguyen Tang said: “To Buddhism, however, death is not the end of life, it is merely the end of the body we inhabit in this life, but our spirit will still remain and seek out through the need of attachment, attachment to a new body and new life. Where they will be born is a result of the past and the accumulation of positive and negative action, and the resultant karma (cause and effect) is a result of ones past actions.”

When I was three years old, I told my great grandfather things about his childhood in Russia that there was simply no way I could have known.

He was not a Buddhist but a Kabbalist – and reincarnation is as much a part of mystic Judaism tradition as it part of Buddhism. As he continued to talk to me about these memories, my great grandfather became convinced I was a reincarnation of someone from his past.

My mother – a logical and skeptical woman – argued with him about what she called his “old fashioned” ideas but over time and more incidents, she became curious enough to start reading up on the subject.

And so reincarnation was an idea I grew up with. A concept that my mom and I talked about and researched together. We studied what Buddhists and Kabbalists and Hindus wrote. We read scientific articles and skeptical arguments. We debated and postulated.

If you had asked me at twenty if I believed, I would have said “I don’t not believe.” But I was fascinated. And remained fascinated.

In my early thirties I studied Zen Buddhism and learned to mediate. It was about the same time I started writing fiction and found myself very much wanting to write a novel about reincarnation.

But it wasn’t until my mother died ten years ago that I finally began to make notes for that novel… a story about someone like her who started out skeptical but came to believe in reincarnation. At the time I was too close to the subject and missed her too much to work on the project. The grief was too close and too raw.

Then four years ago on the exact anniversary of my mom’s death my niece, who was almost three years old told me about experiences I’d had with my mother… experiences my niece couldn’t have known – moments I had never shared with anyone.

There was no turning away anymore. That experience convinced me it was time for me to finally explore my ideas and questions about reincarnation through my novel.

Josh Ryder, the main character in The Reincarnationist has my mom’s initials, her spirit and her curiosity and like her, he’s a photographer. But there the similarities end.

When Josh starts having flashbacks that simply can’t be explained any other way except as possible reincarnation memories he goes to New York to study with Dr. Malachai Samuels — a scientist and Reincarnationist who works with children helping them deal with past life memories.

In the process Josh gets caught up in the search for ancient memory tools that may or may not physically enable people to reach back and discover who they were and who they are.

Thich Nguyen Tang said: “So we can say that in Buddhism, life does not end, merely goes on in other forms that are the result of accumulated karma. Buddhism is a belief that emphasizes the impermanence of lives, including all those beyond the present life. With this in mind we should not fear death as it will lead to rebirth.”

I think writing is a rebirth like that. Thoughts reborn as words that in a way die for the author once they are put to paper but are then reborn again for the reader who picks up the book and experiences the ideas and thoughts of the writer in his or her own personal way.

Here is a piece from DR GURU DEWA, Spiritual Head of the Vedanta Mission. I couldn’t agree more that Hell is torture and torture is not any sort of divine love no matter how you slice it. God IS love, and for him/her to be serving out eternal punishments just doesn’t ring true.

It really does seem that karma and reincarnation are more in line with the type of wisdom we would like in our versions of God.

Peace.

Love is the answer, not Hell

I WOULD like to offer a few words in clarification of the recently raised issues of Hinduism, Christianity and Hell.

The concept of Hell has its origin in ancient Zoroastrian belief that there are two mutually opposed powers in the universe, the power of good (God) and the power of evil (Devil or Satan).

But the Bible gives us a clearer picture of its own concepts of God, Heaven, Hell, Satan, etc.

Although, from the Hindu point of view, Jesus is a manifestation of God’s love in many of his teachings (such as the Sermon on the Mount), from an objective perspective, we have to say that Jesus advocates a very narrow and intolerant ethical code of belief and behaviour.

Sir Bertrand Russell, one of the beacon lights of rational thought in the modern age, says of Jesus Christ as depicted in the New Testament:

“There is one very serious defect, to my mind, in Christ’s moral character, and that is that he believed in Hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can ever believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to Jesus’ preaching. You will find that in the Gospels, Christ says: ‘Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?’

“Then Christ says: ‘The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.’ And he goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It comes in one verse after another.

“I think all this doctrine, that hell fire is a punishment for sin, is a doctrine of cruelty. It is a doctrine that put cruelty into the world and gave the world generations of cruel torture. I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom or in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to history. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above him in those respects.”

The Hindu answer to the Christian concept of Hell must be clarified. In Hinduism, there is no concept of a permanent hell. Karma and reincarnation form two of the major principles of Hindu thought.

Sir William Jones, one of the early Indological researchers, says about reincarnation: “I hold the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation to be infinitely more rational and more likely to deter men from vice than the horrid opinions inculcated by Christians on punishments without end.”

Hinduism totally rejects the idea of a permanent Hell, a place where damned souls are supposed to burn and be tortured eternally to satisfy the primitive concept of justice of a vengeful God.

In Hinduism, God is Pure Love, Saccidananda. Hinduism teaches that love for God, and therefore love of all humanity as the children of God, is the supreme type of karma that leads to salvation in God’s Holy Being.

Therefore, Love is the answer, not Hell.

— DR GURU DEWA, Spiritual Head, The Vedanta Mission

For the original version of this article, click here.

The Lost Years of Jesus…Where the heck was he? With whom did he spend these years? Did Jesus Christ spend 17 years in India? Was Christ known in the east as “Saint Issa”?  There is quite a bit of compelling evidence supporting the seemingly wild proposition that Jesus Christ spent his formative years studying eastern religion in Buddhist monasteries…

Here are some links to start your jump down the rabbit hole…

Reluctant Messenger

Examination of the Lost Years

The Tibetan Gospel

and from the Urania book

It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t include at least one account from The Naysayers