Rosicrucian Fellowship Online Magazine Archives
The Rosicrucian Philosophy in Questions & Answers
THE NUMBER OF HUMAN BEINGS IN THE REBIRTH CYCLE
QUESTION: Are all the human beings that people the Earth at the present
time souls that have gone through Earth life before, or are new souls being
created all the time? (Vol. I, #66)
ANSWER: The ingress of the spirits into the human bodies, as constituted at
the present time, commenced in the stage of the world's solidification known
as the Lemurian Epoch, and was not fully completed until the middle of the
Atlantean Epoch, a period of time occupying, perhaps, millions of years. But
since that time, there has been no further ingress; the door is definitely
closed because we have now evolved so far that those who had not reached the
stage where they could manipulate a human body at that time would be too far
behind us to catch up with our further development. Since that time, the
spirits which were embodied in human shapes have been evolving by repeated
embodiments so that, without exception, every one of the human beings now on
Earth has been embodied at different times and in different environments.
VERIFYING THE REALITY OF REBIRTH
QUESTION:How do we know beyond a doubt that rebirth is a fact? Is it not
possible that those who so state may be suffering from hallucination? (Vol. I,
#67)
ANSWER: The trained clairvoyant who is able to read in the memory of nature
may follow the lives of people from their present state backward, through the
years of childhood. He will then see them in infancy, follow them through the
gestatory period to the time when the spirit entered the womb of the mother.
He may go back through their heaven life, their life in Purgatory, arriving at
the time of death in the previous life, then follow them backward and see the
whole life. But in the case of an adult, the time involved is usually a
thousand years or more, and of course, it is possible, were there no other
means of verification, that this might be hallucination. In the cases of
children, however, who have not reached puberty there is a comparatively short
interval between incarnations. In such a case it is easy to verify a re-
embodiment among one's own acquaintances, and that is in fact part of the
education of a pupil of the Elder Brothers. He is shown a child which is about
to die and is told to watch that child in the invisible world for perhaps one
or two years, following it step by step until it takes a new embodiment--
perhaps with the same and possibly with other parents. When the pupil has thus
followed an Ego through the invisible worlds from one death to the next birth,
he knows absolutely that the law of rebirth is a fact in nature, and he often
has occasion on account of his other investigations, to pursue such studies of
the past lives of many individuals.
Still, it may be urged, is not this clairvoyance of which he speaks as his
means of investigation in itself a hallucination? May he not be, although
perfectly honest, the victim of a chimerical vision? It may be stated in
answer to that suggestion, that he has every day at his disposal the means for
verifying his observations. When a man has visited the city of New York and
has seen the city he will never be tempted to say, I wonder if i could have
been mistaken? He has been there and knows it. So it is with the clairvoyant.
At times when he leaves his body he meets and works with people whom he does
not know in ordinary life. Later he may be invited to visit these friends from
the invisible world; he may travel by their clairvoyant direction to a city
where he is a stranger; he may find them in the street and house seen
clairvoyantly, recognize them and be himself recognized. He may then converse
with these friends of the things they did and the places they visited in their
invisible bodies, and if he ever had any doubt of the reality of his life
outside the dense physical world, he is then once and for all time convinced
of the reality of his experiences while out of the body. He knows that they
are not strange, he knows his life there, his work there and his experiences
there are as real as his life, his work and his experiences here in the
physical world.
TRANSMIGRATION--FACT OR FALLACY?
QUESTION: How can you believe in the theory of reincarnation that we come
back here in the body of an animal? Is it not much more beautiful to believe
in the Christian doctrine that we go to heaven with God and the angels? (Vol.
I, #72)
ANSWER: The writer has never advocated the views attributed to him by the
inquirer, who, evidently, has not studied the question at all. There is a
doctrine among some in the East teaching the theory of transmigration, that
the human spirit may incarnate in the bodies of animals, but that is very
different from the doctrine of reincarnation, which holds that man is an
evolving being progressing through the school of life by means of repeated
embodiments in bodies of gradually improving texture. The Christ said to his
disciples, "Be ye therefore perfect, as the Father in heaven is perfect." That
was a definite command, and the Christ would never have given it if it were
unattainable; but we all know that we cannot reach that goal in one short
life. Given time and the opportunities afforded by repeated embodiments and
changed environments, however, we shall some time accomplish the work of
perfecting ourselves.
There is no authority in any of the sacred writings of the East, even, for
such a belief as transmigration. The only semblance to such an idea is found
in the Kathopanishad, Chapter 5, Verse 9, which says that some of the souls,
according to their deeds, return to the womb to be reborn, but others go into
the "motionless." Meaning, in the opinion of some, that they may reincarnate
down even as low as the mineral kingdom. The Sanskrit word used in that place
is "sthanu," which also means a pillar, and read thus it gives the same idea
as the passage in Revelation which says: "Him that overcometh, I will make a
pillar in the house of my God, thence he shall no more go out." When humanity
has reached perfection, there will come a time when they will no more be tied
to the wheel of births and deaths, but will remain in the Invisible Worlds to
work thence for the upliftment of other beings.
Besides, transmigration is an impossibility in nature, because there is in
every human body an indwelling individual spirit, while each tribe of animals
is ruled by a common, or group spirit, of which these animals all form a part,
and no self-conscious Ego can enter into a body ruled by another.
The inquirer asks whether it is not much more beautiful to believe in a
heaven with God and the angels. Perhaps it is, but we are not concerned so
much with that which may be pleasing to our passing fancy as with finding the
Truth, and although this doctrine of reincarnation is sometimes derided by
some as impossible and a heathen doctrine, it is really not a question of
whether it is heathen or not either. When we deal with a mathematical problem,
we do not care who first solved it; all we are concerned with is, has it been
properly solved? Likewise with this doctrine, no matter who taught if first,
it is the only one that will solve all the problems of life in a rational
manner, whereas, the theory that a man who perhaps never cared about music and
did not know the first thing about harmony, immediately after he has died
develops develops an insatiable passion for music and will remain content to
toot in a trumpet or strum on a harp for all eternity, is rather more
ridiculous.
REASON FOR THE DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE BIBLE
QUESTION: Why is it that every sect interprets the Bible differently and
that each one gets an apparent vindication for its ideas from that book? (Vol.
I, #73)
ANSWER: That question, if asked by a skeptic, affords him a great deal of
satisfaction, for he sees in it a vindication for his idea that all sects are
wrong in their beliefs and that the Bible is a conglomerate mass of nonsense,
while in fact the case is very much the other way. We do not contend for the
Divinity of this Book or hold that it is the Word of God from cover to cover;
we recognize the fact that it is a poor translation of the originals and that
there are many interpolations which have been inserted at different times to
support various ideas, but, neverthless, the very fact that so much truth has
been massed into such a small compass is a source of constant wonder to the
occultist, who knows what that Book really is and has the key to its meaning.
There is one fact that the skeptic fails to see. His idea is that if a
certain interpretation is true, all other interpretations must necessarily be
false. That idea is most emphatically wrong. Truth is many sided and eternal;
the quest for truth must also be all embracing and never ending. We may liken
truth to a mountain, and the various interpretations of that truth to
different paths leading up to the summit. Many people are traveling along all
of these paths and every one thinks his path is the only one while he is at
the bottom; he sees only a small part of the mountain and may therefore be
justified in crying to his brothers, "You are wrong; come over in my path;
this is the only one that leads to the top." But as all these people progress
upward, they sahll see that the paths converge at the top and that they are
all one in the ultimate.
It may be said most emphatically that no system of thought which has ever
been able to attract and hold the attention of a large number of people for a
considerable time has been without its truth; and whether we perceive it or
not, there is in every sect the kernel of divine teaching which is gradually
bringing them upward toward the top of the mountain, and therefore we should
practice the utmost toleration for every belief.
WORK AND HISTORY OF THE ANGELS AND ARCHANGELS
QUESTION: Do the Angels and Archangels watch over us individually as well
as collectively and know just what our lives are? (Vol. I, #76)
ANSWER: The Lords of Mind, which Paul calls the "Power of Darkness" because
they were the humanity of the dark Saturn period when the universe was just
coming out of chaos, work only with man.
The Archangels, who were human in the fiery Sun Period, where the universe
was of the consistency of "desire stuff," work now as the helpers of the group
spirits of the animals and as race spirits for humanity, because these classes
of beings have a desire body.
The Angels, who were the humanity of the Moon Period, work with man,
animal and plant, for in the Moon Period the universe was of the consistency
of "ether" and the vital bodies of the three kingdoms named is formed of that
material. The Angels are, therefore, properly helpers in the vital functions
such as assimilation, growth and propagation, and in their work with humanity
they are family spirits. They cause the increase in the family, in man's
cattle and in the yield of his fields.
Man, himself, who is a little lower than the Angels, works with the
minerals, which are found in the chemical region of the Physical
World,composed of the gases, liquids and solids. He is to the minerals what
the Higher Beings are to us. He is gradually waking them to life by molding
them into houses, bridges, railways, etc.
In a future incarnation of the Earth, when these minerals have become
plant-like, man will have learned to work with life and will then be in a
similar position with regard to them as the Angels occupy now with regard to
us. Thus there is endless progression, the higher always helping the less
evolved, until all shall have reached perfection.
Answering the question more specifically, we may say that the Archangels
work with the nations and the races of the Earth, while the Angels are
concerned particularly with the families and the individuals in the family.
The "Guardian Angel," however, is not exactly an entity from a higher
evolution, but is rather the personified embodiment of our good deeds in all
our past lives, which, though unseen by us, is still with us always, impelling
us toward right action and the doing of more good.
This article was adapted from "The Rosicrucian Philosophy in Questions
and Answers, Vol. I," by Max Heindel, published by The Rosicrucian Fellowship.