Recurrence

The meeting, as before, started with a reading of Chapter 16 of Ouspensky’s book "The Fourth Way", on recurrence and reincarnation.

The question arose what part of the person survives one life to exist in another. RM said that in the advaita vedanta belief system, everything is a dream, the whole cosmos is in existence within people's minds. L asked about the case of a tree falling in the forest unobserved, or a meteor striking Neptune. That too would be part of everyone's existence, RM said.

"R" suggested that the sensory reality of her body existing in the world is evidence for her of a physical existence in the world.

L referred to the computer on the table being an object in physical existence, the result of designs by scientists and engineers of genius.

RM explained that advaita is Sanskrit for "not two", representing a non-dualistic view of the world where everything is one.

L asked if music exists independently before it is written down. For example, had Beethoven not written down his fifth symphony, in what manner would it now exist? RM responded that the C influence, which affected Beethoven, would still have existed.

"R" said that our belief of free action is a delusion and our actions are a response to conditioning and other prior actions. L proposed a technique of independent choice based on throwing dice to select what to do. "R" said that the way the dice would fall is still inevitable, even if unpredictable.

The reading continued, with Ouspensky saying: "Very often you hear people say . . . that they can remember their lives in previous reincarnations . . . This is pure fantasy. . . . What may pass from one life to another is essence. So one can have only such vague sensations, instead of definite recollections, that it is hard to suppose that anyone can remember anything concrete."

A said that she has met people in this life who she remembers from a previous life. She also knows how she died and what happens after; the subconscious becomes conscious and there is an appreciation that everyone is connected - after such a realisation it is very hard to return to ordinary life.

D asked for a explanation of what recurrence is. L said it can either be a repeat of the same life, in the same period of time, or a similar life in a future period, perhaps meeting some of the same people again in related situations. A third possibility is reincarnation to an unrelated life. D mentioned a memory of leading a group of French soldiers in Russia during the Napoleonic wars. The discussion moved to what part of the person was it that remembered, essence or personality. T made the comment that whoever it was that had experienced the traumatic time described by D, had perhaps been "woken" by the trauma to a deeper experience of reality than usual. If the remembered event was an occurrence of someone "waking up" from their usual "sleep", maybe D remembers the event from his essence which is said to be universal or eternal. In this case D may or may not have been present at the time to experience this event, which is inexplicable in his present "ordinary" life.

"R" related the essence to the universal or collective unconscious containing all knowledge and experience.

M said there is a need to believe in eternal life as otherwise what would be the point of existence?

L referred to a novel "The End of Mr Y" by Scarlett Thomas, which posits a method by which people can temporarily experience being in another person's mind in the present or the past - such a mechanism would be an alternative explanation for some evidence put forward for reincarnation.

The reading continued, with Ouspensky saying recurrence is a more scientific theory in the sense that we do not have direct evidence for the existence of time outside of our own lifetimes. "Time is life for each person, and it includes in itself all time, so that when life ends, time ends. So reincarnation is a less scientific theory than recurrence - too much is taken for granted." He also writes "As a theory I would say that the theory of recurrence is better than the theory of reincarnation, but we have no real evidence as to whether it is nearer to facts or not. And we cannot have evidence because of our state of consciousness."

"R" recalled from childhood being told "If I were you . . .", and how, at that time, it set her pondering what if it were true that "I were you", and that people might be the same, part of a common flow, except for a part which appears for each person to be distinct and self-conscious.

(An electronic version of The Fourth Way is available from the link on the right. For a Google Books preview of "The End Of Mr Y" click here.)