Reincarnation

[Rasputin]

From time to time in Jewish history, there was an insistent belief that their prophets were reborn. Evidence of this can be found in the Hebrew scriptures, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early Christian and Jewish Gnostic writings, the New Testament, and the writings of ancient historians. At the time of Jesus, there were many competing ideas concerning death and what happens afterward. Greek and Neo-Platonic concepts of reincarnation, Persian resurrection, ancient Hebrew ideas of "She'ol", beliefs in no afterlife at all, and religions and philosophies from other sources, all existed among the Jews in those days.

The origin of resurrection in Jewish and Christian doctrine began with the Babylonian exile, a period when the Jews in Israel were conquered and taken captive to Babylon. Later, in 539 B.C., Babylon itself was conquered by the Persians who installed a Zoroastrian theocracy throughout the defeated Babylonian empire. It was then that the Zoroastrian religion and its doctrine of resurrection began exerting a tremendous influence on Judaism. Christianity, in turn, inherited the concept of resurrection from Judaism. In fact, it was the Zoroastrian religion that was the source of resurrection, the belief in angels (including that of Satan), the afterlife, rewards and punishments, the soul's immortality, and the Last Judgment.

Before the influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism, the Jews believed in "Sheol," a pit beneath the earth where people went after death. As time went on, many Jews greatly resisted the imposition of Zoroastrianism masquerading as Judaism. Whatever the Persian governors and priests were doing in Jerusalem in the name of Judaism, caused a great schism. A sect of purists, called the Sadducees, which was made up of over 97% of the population, rose up. They rejected all Persian concepts such as resurrection, angels, or spirits. The Sadducees did not emphasize life after death at all according to the New Testament (Matt. 22:23).

The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote that the Pharisees, the Jewish sect that founded rabbinic Judaism to which Paul once belonged, believed in reincarnation. He writes that the Pharisees believed the souls of evil men are punished after death. The souls of good men are "removed into other bodies" and they will "have power to revive and live again." Josephus records that the Essenes of the Dead Sea Scrolls lived "the same kind of life" as the followers of Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher who taught reincarnation. According to Josephus, the Essenes believed that the soul is both immortal and preexistent, necessary for tenets for belief in reincarnation.

Because Israel was located at a strategic crossroad where several continents come together, Jews in those days were exposed to many religions and philosophies. Some Jews were Gnostics of the Platonic tradition and were believers in "transmigration," a form of reincarnation held by the Greeks. Other Jews held to the Persian concept of resurrection. Jewish ideas included the concept that people could live again without knowing exactly the manners by which this could happen. Today, believers in traditional Judaism firmly believed that death was not the end of human existence. However, because Judaism is primarily focused on life here and now rather than on the afterlife, Judaism does not have much dogma about the afterlife, and leaves a great deal of room for personal opinion. Today, it is possible, for example, for an Orthodox Jew to believe the "resurrection" refers to a time when souls of the righteous dead go to a place similar to the Christian heaven. It is also possible for an Orthodox Jew today to believe the "resurrection" refers to the reincarnation of a soul through many lifetimes.

In the Talmud, "gilgul neshamot" (i.e., reincarnation) is constantly mentioned. The term literally means "the judgment of the revolutions of the souls." Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel (1604-1657), one of the most revered Rabbis in Israel, states in his book entitled Nishmat Hayyim:

"The belief or the doctrine of the transmigration of souls is a firm and infallible dogma accepted by the whole assemblage of our church with one accord, so that there is none to be found who would dare to deny it... Indeed, there is a great number of sages in Israel who hold firm to this doctrine so that they made it a dogma, a fundamental point of our religion. We are therefore in duty bound to obey and to accept this dogma with acclamation... as the truth of it has been incontestably demonstrated by the Zohar, and all books of the Kabalists." (Nishmat Hayyim)

[Rasputin]

Reincarnation has been a belief for thousands of years for orthodox Jews. The Zohar is a book of great authority among Kabbalistic Jews. It states the following:


"All souls are subject to revolutions."

"Men do not know the way they have been judged in all time." (Zohar II, 199b)

That is, in their "revolutions" they lose all memory of the actions that led to their being judged.

Another Kabbalistic book, the Kether Malkuth states:


"If she, the soul, be pure, then she shall obtain favor ... but if she has been defiled, then she shall wander for a time in pain and despair... until the days of her purification." (Kether Malkuth)


How can the soul be defiled before birth? Where does the soul wander if not on this or some other world until the days of her purification? The rabbis explained this verse to mean that the defiled soul wanders down from paradise through many births until the soul regained its purity.

When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, it was considered the greatest archeological discovery ever found. It revealed never before known information about the Jewish sects at the beginning of the transformation of a small sect of Jews that later developed into Christianity. Two years earlier, in 1945, early Christian Gnostic writings were discovered which also provided important details about the early sects of Christianity. Together, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic discoveries yielded more information in particular concerning Jewish and early Christian mystic belief and practice of divine union (i.e., attaining a perfect human-divine unity). In fact, the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the Jewish mystical tradition of divine union went back to the first, perhaps even the third, century B.C.E. Jewish mysticism has its origins in Greek mysticism, a system of belief which included reincarnation. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of the hymns found are similar to the Hekhaloth hymns of the Jewish mystics. One text of hymns gives us clear evidence of Jewish mysticism. The text is called "Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice." Fragments of 1 Enoch, which is considered the oldest text of Jewish mysticism, were also found with the Scrolls. Since evidence shows Jewish mysticism existed in the third century B.C.E., as Enoch indicates, then it would certainly have existed in first-century Israel. As stated earlier, the ideas of divine union and reincarnation can both be found in early Christianity. One may easily conclude it was the key to the very heart of Jesus' message.

One particular Dead Sea Scroll entitled "I IQ Melchizedek Text" which contains a sermon called "The Last Jubilee", mentions reincarnation. This scroll is about the "last days" during which time it says, a "Melchizedek redivivus" (revived, reincarnate) will appear and destroy Belial (Satan) and lead the children of God to eternal forgiveness. Below are parts of this message from this scroll, parts of which are unreadable. The unreadable parts will be denoted by this (...) symbol. Here is it's message:


"When, therefore, the scriptures speaks of a day of atonement ... What is meant, ... is that ... by a day on which all the children of Light and all who have cast their lot with the cause of righteousness will achieve forgiveness of their sins, whereas the wicked will reap their desserts and be brought to an end. There is a further reference to this final judgment in the continuation of the verse from the Psalter . . . the allusion is to Belial and the spirits of his ilk -- that is to ... defy God's statutes in order to perfect justice ... King ... Melchizedek ... will execute upon them God's avenging judgment, and ... deliver the just from the hands of Belial and all those spirits of his ilk.


"With all the angels of righteousness at his aid, he will blast the council of Belial to destruction ... the eminence in question being the destination of all who are indeed children of God ... It will be from Belial ... that men will turn away in rebellion, and there will be a reestablishment of the reign of righteousness, perversity being confounded by the judgments of God.


"This is what scripture implies in the words, 'Who says to Zion, your God has not claimed his Kingdom!' The term Zion there denoting the total congregation of the 'sons of righteousness' that is, those who maintain the covenant and turn away from the popular trend, and your God signifying the King of Righteousness, alias Melchizedek Redivivus, who will destroy Belial. Our text speaks also of sounding a loud trumpet blast throughout the land on the tenth day of the seventh month. As applied to the last days, this refers to the fanfare which will then be sounded before the Messianic King." (The Last Jubilee)


As was mentioned earlier, Melchizedek was the High Priest described in the Bible who sounds remarkably like an incarnation of Jesus. It was also mentioned how some early Christians believed Melchizedek to be an early incarnation of Jesus. If the above message of the Dead Sea Scrolls can be believed, then the passage is very likely referring to the coming of a Messiah who will be a reincarnation of Melchizedek.
"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun ... Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account." (Eccl 1:9;3:15)

[Rasputin]

In December, 1945, early Christian writings containing many secrets of the early Christian religion were found in upper Egypt, a location where many Christians fled during the Roman invasion of Jerusalem. Undisturbed since their concealment almost two thousand years ago, these manuscripts of Christian mysticism rank in importance with the Dead Sea Scrolls. These writings affirmed the existence of the doctrine of reincarnation being taught among the early Jews and Christians. These Christian mystics, referred to as Christian Gnostics, were ultimately destroyed by the orthodox Church for being heretics. Their sacred writings were destroyed and hidden with the belief that they would be revealed at an appropriate time in the future. The discovery in 1945 yielded writings that included some long lost gospels, some of which were written earlier than the known gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Brian A. Bain, M.A., has this to say about the 1945 discovery:


"Long considered to be heretical, ancient Gnostic Christian texts unearthed this century display compelling similarities between Gnostic conceptions of life and death and modern near-death experiences. The Gnostic texts devoted extensive tracts to what readers could expect to encounter when they died. Other passages make numerous allusions to near-death-like experiences that can be realized in this life, most notably the human encounter with a divine light. The Gnostic Christian literature gives us one more example of NDEs and similar experiences in the ancient world."


Another interesting fact comes from Edgar Cayce (a near-death experiencer) who affirmed that Gnosticism is the highest form of Christianity.

The Christian Gnostics were regarded by some as a new Jewish sect who believed they had finally found the long-awaited Messiah and not a new religion. Some of the apostles became Gnostic and because of this, Christianity could well have grown up as a Gnostic religion had it not been for their eventual persecution by the organized Church centuries later.

The Secret Teachings of Jesus

An important Christian Gnostic teaching was the "Logos" which in Greek is translated as "the image of the Word." It is an important concept found in the gospel of John:


"In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)


Logos is the part of God that acts in the world. It is the perfect unity of the human and the divine. This is affirmed by John when he wrote that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." When John stated that Jesus is the Logos, he is stating that Jesus became the Logos, the Christ. The Logos is the divine "spark" of God within humans that needs to awakened. Everyone has the "image of the Word (Logos)" within them and it is for this reason that Genesis describes humanity as created "in the image and likeness of God." The Logos is the divine Spirit in humanity. By using the Christian Gnostic idea of the Logos, John is not only affirming the preexistence and divinity of Jesus, but he is affirming that all sons of God created in the "image of the Word" as Jesus was, preexisted in spirit before being born. In other words, every human is an incarnation of the Logos and every human has to potential of becoming like Jesus, a manifestation of the human-divine unity. Every human can be a "Christ" and because of this, every soul will eventually be drawn back to God.

The Roman Church misunderstood what the Logos was in John and incorrectly concluded from this that only Jesus is divine - the Word made flesh. The orthodox Church either rejected or ignored this Christian Gnostic concept found in John. This may have been a factor when the gospel of John was almost rejected from New Testament canon when it was being put together. This was during a time when Christian Gnosticism became an enemy of the organized Church. Nevertheless, it was the idea of the preexistence of the soul and its corresponding doctrine of reincarnation that the Roman Church had great difficulty with.

The Christian Gnostics emphasized spiritual knowledge rather blind faith as the road to salvation. They indicated that they possessed secret knowledge (i.e., "gnosis" in Greek) concerning the hidden meaning of the "resurrection." This was a part of the secret teachings of Jesus handed down to them by the apostles. This special knowledge was restricted to people who were given the public teachings of Christianity before qualifying to be initiated and receive the secret teachings. In contrast, the very term "Catholic" means "universal", implying that anyone could become a member of the Church by adhering to the public teachings of faith and rituals. The Christian Gnostics were harsh critics of the orthodox Church. The Christian Gnostics accused the Church of watering down the gospel in order to popularize it for the masses. The orthodox Church stressed salvation through faith alone and by the rituals of the Church.

[Rasputin]

This secret gnosis emphasized spiritual "resurrection" (i.e,. spiritual rebirth) and physical "resurrection" (i.e., reincarnation) as opposed to a resurrection defined as people sleeping in their graves until it is time their corpses to crawl out of their graves at the last day. Christian Gnostics held the view that if spiritual resurrection was not attained in one lifetime, then the soul would be subjected to as many reincarnations as it takes until spiritual rebirth is attained.

One of the great Church leaders was Clement of Alexandria in Egypt (150-211 A.D.) who indicated that he possessed the secret teaching handed down from the apostles.

In the Gnostic text entitled The Secret Gospel of Mark, one of the Christian Gnostic texts discovered in 1945, describes Jesus performing secret initiation rituals. Before the discovery of this secret gospel, our only knowledge of it came from a letter written by Clement. Clement quotes from this secret gospel and refers to it as, "a more spiritual gospel for the use of those who were being perfected." He also states, "It even yet is most carefully guarded [by the church at Alexandria], being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries." Clement mentions elsewhere that Jesus revealed a secret teaching to those who were "capable of receiving it and being molded by it" He also affirmed that, "The gnosis (secret knowledge) itself is that which has descended by transmission to a few, having been imparted unwritten by the apostles." (Miscell. Book VI, Chapter 7)

The existence of a secret teaching can be found in the New Testament:


“The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding…'” (Mark 4:11-12)


"He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance." (Matt. 13:11-12)


"We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began." (1 Cor. 2:6-8


"So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God." (1 Cor. 4:1)


"At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." (Matt. 11:25-26)


Paul wrote about teachings which are taught to spiritual "babies," teachings about righteousness for the more mature, and then teachings for the spiritually mature. Paul reveals this fact immediately after equating Melchizedek to Jesus by stating:


"We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Heb. 5:11-14)


According to tradition, after the Roman invasion of Jerusalem, the author of the Gospel of Mark established a church in Alexandria, Egypt. Mark may also have been the author of a "secret gospel" containing more advanced teaching for those being initiated into the Christian mysteries. This secret gospel contains passages portraying Jesus teaching secret doctrines.

The Champion for the Secret Teachings of Jesus

As the orthodox church in Rome gained more and more political power the more it viewed secret teachings as a threat to their own public teachings. But the Church leader who made the final and greatest attempt to revive the secret teachings of Jesus within the orthodox teachings was the first Church Father named Origen (183-253 A.D.) of Alexandria in Egypt who was a disciple of Clement of Alexandra. Origen was the first person since Paul to develop a system of theology around the teachings of Jesus. His effort was the first within the orthodox church to systematize a theology on so vast a scale. Although Origen defended orthodoxy, he included in his system the wisdom of the Christian Gnostics. His theology was a perfect synthesis of "orthodox" and "gnostic" teachings and came the closest to reviving the "Lost Christianity" of the original sects, communities and schools, at a time when the Christian Gnosticism was falling into disrepute. Unfortunately, hundreds of years later, the Church declared him a heretic and his teachings as heresy mostly because they affirmed preexistence and therefore reincarnation.

Origen had this to say about the secret teachings of Jesus:


“[Jesus] conversed with His disciples in private, and especially in their sacred retreats, concerning the Gospel of God; but the words which He uttered have not been preserved, because it appeared to the evangelists that they could not be adequately conveyed to the multitude in writing or in speech… and they saw… what things were to be committed to writing, and how this was to be done, and what was by no means to be written to the multitude, and what was to be expressed in words, and what was not to be so conveyed”. (Contra Celsus, Chap. VI. 18


Concerning these secret teachings, Clement stated:


“James the Righteous, John and Peter were entrusted by the Lord after his resurrection with the higher knowledge. They imparted it to the other apostles, to the seventy…” (Outlines Book VI)


The Theology of Christian Gnosticism

According to Gnostic theology, a series of "falling away" from the Whole that is God occurred in eternity which resulted in all that there is today. After the first "fall", the divine consciousness descended to the level of the divided consciousness; now after another "fall", it has fallen even further, into the depths of the unconscious; it has been "forgotten." It is now humanity's privilege to discover the potential realms of human existence and face the great challenge of the "ascension of consciousness" through the Man-God-Spirit transformation.

Once souls fell into the lower levels of consciousness, they became enamored of it and burned with the desire to experience the pleasures of matter. The souls then no longer wanted to disengage itself from these lower levels. Thus the world was born. From that moment souls forgot themselves. They forgot they original habitation, their true center and eternal being.

Gnosticism proceeds from one fundamental insight: this world in which we find ourselves is thoroughly and irretrievably less than holy. The soul is trapped in a prison of flesh, and the flesh is intrinsically less than divine. According to Gnostic theology, the creation of the cosmos came about as the result of a tragicomic mistake: the fall of the soul from God. Thanks to the advent of Christ in the lower realms of consciousness, the power of reconciling the fallen souls has been given to restore the One-ness and usher in the kingdom of light over the kingdom of flesh and matter. The unity of the Godhead is assured thanks to the introduction of the new uniting force, the Logos, the part of God who acts in the flesh and the material. It is important to distinguish the Logos (Christ) from the soul named Jesus. Any person has the potential of becoming a Logos but it was the soul known as Jesus who actually incarnated as a Logos and therefore became a Christ on earth.

We, as humans, cannot comprehend the omnipotent power available to us until we utilize the Christ power. When we effectively use the divine "Christ awareness" we have the ability to help in the liberation of the imprisoned "sparks of divinity" from flesh and rejoin them to the Source. The divine plan of creation will become complete as the divine outpouring of Christ gnosis liberates humanity from ignorance. The result of this will be the redemption of all human beings.

[Rasputin]

Reincarnation of living Buddha needs approval

All the reincarnations of living Buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism must get government approval, otherwise they are "illegal or invalid," China's State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) said in Beijing Friday.
The SARA has issued a set of regulations on reincarnation of Tibetan living Buddhas, which will take effect as of September 1.

"It is an important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation of living Buddhas," the SARA said in a statement issued Friday.

The regulations require that a temple which applies for reincarnation of a living Buddha must be "legally-registered venues for Tibetan Buddhism activities and are capable of fostering and offering proper means of support for the living Buddha."

All the reincarnation applications must be submitted to the religious affairs department of the provincial-level government, the provincial-level government, SARA, and the State Council, respectively, for approval in accordance with the fame and influence of the living Buddhas in the religious circle, the regulations said.

"The selection of reincarnates must preserve national unity and solidarity of all ethnic groups and the selection process cannot be influenced by any group or individual from outside the country, " SARA said.

Tibet became an administrative district directly under the central authorities of the Yuan Dynasty (1279-136 in the 13th century. Kublai Khan of the Yuan Dynasty conferred the title of living Buddha on Vphag-pa, a religious leader in Tibet at that time. Since then, people began to call eminent monks in Tibet living Buddhas.

SARA said the regulations are favor of guaranteeing normal religious activities of Tibetan Buddhism and protecting the religious belief of Tibetan Buddhism followers according to law.

"The government only administrate religious affairs related to state and the public interests and will not interfere in the pure internal religious affairs," SARA says.

The regulations are composed of 14 articles, including the principle, conditions, approval procedures, the duties and responsibilities of religious groups for reincarnation as well as punishment for those violating the regulations.