Introduction
Foreword
My Creed
SECTION -1-���������
Reincarnation and Man�s Aim in Life���
Growing Interest in Reincarnation
Reincarnation � a Forgotten Teaching
SECTION-II-
The Soul and the Fiery Furnace
God�s Assistants: Satan and the Devil
Loutron: the Bathtub of Reincarnation
SECTION-III-����� ��
The Two Restitutions of things
SECTION -IV-
SECTION -V-����� ���
A truly notable feature in the history of our modern age is the renaissance of interest in the lore and wisdom of the so-called �ancients� Wide research has in recent years brought to light the esoteric profundity of the religious literature of the Egyptians, Babylonian, Hindu, Chinese, Hebrew and Greek peoples. The pursuit of this rediscovery has enlisted the genius of many able and conscientious scholars, whose investigations have been inspired by the pure motive of truth-seeking. The list of those who have made significant contributions in this field include Massey, Higgins, Mead, Blavatsky, Robertson, Brandes, Drews, W.B. Smith, Dupuis, Couchoud and others. The total impact of this research has wrought an appreciable effect upon the complexion of orthodox religion. Its influence in this field has been directed toward liberalism, as against literalism, of the free activity of a �spiritual� as against a legalistic and ritualistic interpretation of the great Scriptures.
Philo Judaeus, Jewish philosopher of the first century � the father of what esotericism there was in the early Christian movement � has enunciated a canon of interpretative method which must be held as the norm of Scriptural exegesis. He declared that the sacred books of antiquity were to be apprehended at four different levels: the literal-physical; the moral-ethical; the allegorical-intellectual; and the anagogical- the highest mystical (spiritual).
In view of the above, we welcome heartily the present contribution to the literature of the modern esoteric movement. Out of all proportion to its limited paging is the importance of the message which Dr. Katsunoff has offered in this brochure. Beyond all question the twin doctrine of Reincarnation and Karma is the most fundamental teaching of the esoteric wisdom now revived.
Dr. Katsunoff has assembled and with authentic evidence of scholarship has reinterpreted the salient data that reveal the presence of the rebirth doctrine in, particularly, the New Testament. This must be heralded as a major accomplishment of great importance. The statement is advanced with little chance of refutation that this is far the most searching effort to present the evidence of reincarnation in the Bible. It will come as a vindication of those philosophers of the early Church, such as Clement and Origen, who maintained the doctrine for the first five and one-half centuries, until the year 553 A.D., When in the Second Council of Constantinople it was cast out by a decree couched in the following form: �Whosoever shall support the mythical doctrine of the pre-existence of the human soul and the consequent wonderful opinion of its return to earth, let him be anathema.� The writings of Origen, the most learned of all the Church Fathers, were anathematized and burned and he was himself posthumously anathematized.
Both from the side or organic religion and the esoteric movement alike, Dr. Katsunoff�s achievement is freighted with deep significance. To the ecclesiastical interest it stands as a challenge to reorient its exploitation of the Scriptures in accordance with their original meaning; and to the movement of esotericism it supplies the finest grist for its mill for reproducing the sage lore of ancient soul-science with the golden germ of occult truth not extracted to devitalize the �wheat of God� and the �bread of heaven�. He has made out a case, which deserves thoughtful study. It is a contribution which commands serious examination.
In the achievement of his task, Dr. Katsunoff has called upon the resources of his knowledge of the Greek language and philosophy. He has dealt with his subject ably and with convincing power.
For both organic ecclesiasticism and the aspiring cults of esoteric science this splendid treatise comes as a happy omen and an agent of new enlightenment in the still murky atmosphere of religious thought. I commend this booklet to the earnest student of occult truth and to all Bible lovers, for it will deepen for them the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. Definitely, an area of lingering mental darkness has been illumined by his torch of the new-old light so brilliantly rekindled.
Alvin B. Kuhn, Ph.D.
The Wise Men of old came from the East bringing refined GOLD � Divine Wisdom. The East seems to be the traditional direction from which light comes. �The East Wind � the Wind of the Lord.� It is this Wind which comes to dry up and destroy the opinions and the religious speculations of the Mind and let the INNER Mind be heard. Wisdom prepared the way for the greatest mission of Jesus the Christ. The time is here when more light will come again from the East and spread even over the darkened valleys of our western world. Shall we permit it to come? Or do we deem ourselves the only possessors of the Truth? Is our way the only way to God? Indeed, Truth is beautiful no matter from where it hails to us. Why not welcome it? Remember: �By whatsoever path a man electeth to come unto me, by that path I shall receive him, for all ways are mine.� (Bhagavad Gita).
We all accept certain ideas as GIVEN � requiring no argumentation. Such an idea is MAN HIMSELF. We accept the fact that WE ARE. �Cogito ergo sum� holds true even today. We know that we exist, for we think. Another idea we postulate � needing no argument � is the fact of God. All thinking people admit that behind the visible universe there must be a certain Power � a beginningless Beginning � the causeless Cause � a Principle which in its operations knows no beginning and no end. This Ageless Alone is God � Bliss. The adjective AGATHOS which the young searcher after Reality applied to Jesus saying, �GOOD Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life,� Mark 10-17, evidently is applicable to God only. Jesus interrupted the eager young man and said: �Why do you call me GOOD? No one is good but God alone� � the eternal Bliss. You can give It a thousand names if you wish, yet you fail to describe It. Better leave It nameless: �I am what I am.�
This ONE and ONLY reveals Itself through the laws in the visible universe as the eternal Trinity: Substance (space) Force (energy) and Consciousness. In manifesting Itself the ONE becomes the many: God breaking Himself into myriad of particles, sacrificing Himself at the very foundation of the Universe. Man is a drop of that limitless Ocean of Being, he is a spark of the Divine Anvil, an offspring of the very God. Man is therefore eternal and deathless as the source from which he springs.
Another fact we readily accept is that all thinking people are in search for the reason of their existence. We admit that MAN � the highest expression of all creatures on earth � must have a �raison d�etre�. Some may see it in the partaking of �the husks that the swine do eat�, others look for it elsewhere, but we all search for the purpose our sojourn here.
Recently it was reported with a great deal of anxiety, that a number of young students in England had turned for spiritual guidance to the teaching of Buddhism. Disturbing! The writer of the report felt that somewhere somebody had failed these young people: they had not been exposed long enough to the teachings of Christ. I wonder. Is it not possible that these intelligent young folk find more logical religious conceptions in Buddhism and a more scientific approach to the perplexing problems in life than the official Christian churches offer them? Or should we not prove to them, that whatever good they see in Buddhism is also to be found in Christianity, if properly understood.
It is said � and quite correctly � that we are to have either ONE or No world. Have we all not One Father and do we all not proceed from the One Source? Surely the Plan of God must be then the establishment of true Brotherhood on earth. How will this be brought about? The only power that could and should do it is Religion. An understanding among the followers of all Religions is imperative. Approach the Religion of the other with thankfulness in your heart for whatever part of Truth you can give him, but always be sincerely glad to accept even the smallest contribution to Truth he can make.
The two teachings which will do a great deal not only to enable us to look upon life with understanding and calm, but provide a sound foundation upon which mankind can unite, are the teachings of Reincarnation and Karma. The first will convince us on logical grounds that we have a common beginning and one destiny, the other � that we reap exactly what we sow. These teachings are to be found in all great Religions of the world. The present thesis purports to prove that they are also a part of our Christian Bible. These two teachings are true not because they appear in the holy Scriptures; they are in the Scriptures because they are intrinsically true.
In the pages that follow we shall discuss the nature of man, the purpose of his existence and the path leading to that end.
We shall attempt to show that the teachings of the TWO SUPREME LAWS in Nature � that of Reincarnation and Karma � are to be found in our Christian Scriptures. When these teachings are truly understood, they exert a tremendous psychological effect upon the believer; the latter feels himself a citizen of a benevolent universe. Above all, these teachings give the Bible greater spiritual meaning. The Bible gains in depth. It is surely plain to many: the DOGMAS of yesterday require new garments. Terms like Fore ordination , Predestination, Original Sin, Vicarious Suffering, Atonement � need reinterpretation. The doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma throw new light upon these dogmas and demonstrate their validity. To prove this of course would be a new task in itself.
The dawn is breaking. Many look upon heretics like Origen and Basilides and on thinkers like Porphyry and Plotinus with greater understanding and respect. Mystics like Tauler and Ruysbroeck, Eckhart and Jacob Boehme are taken seriously by a large number. Undoubtedly wrong methods may have been adopted, many wrong roads yet be taken, but we must have hope! As long as questions, branded heretical for centuries, are discussed sincerely and evaluated fairly, let us raise our hearts!
We should admit gladly, that we are not the only people who know; we should realize, even to our dismay, that our latest discoveries are but a repetition of what the Ancients knew long ago.
Right is the Sage: �There is nothing new under the sun.� Humility marks the searcher after Truth. We should greet Truth, for it alone makes us free.
Robert G. Katsunoff
I hold that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise,
Another mother gives him birth.�
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
The old soul takes the road again.
Such is my own belief and trust;
This hand, this hand that holds the pen,
Has many a hundred times been dust
And turned, as dust, to dust again.
These eyes of mine have blinked and shone
In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.
All that I rightly think or do,
Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,
Is curse or blessing justly due
For sloth or effort in the past;
My life�s a statement of the sum
Of vice indulged, or overcome.
I know that in my lives to be
My sorry heart will ache and burn,
And worship unavailingly
The woman whom I used to spurn,
And shake to see another love
The love I spurned, the love she gave.
And I shall know, in angry words,
In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear,
A carrion flock of homing birds,
The gibes and scorns I uttered here;
The brave word that I failed to speak
Will brand me dastard on the cheek.
And as I wander on the roads
I shall be helped and healed and blessed.
Kind words shall cheer and be as goads
To urge to heights before unguessed.
My road shall be the road I made;
All that I gave shall be repaid.
So shall I fight, so shall I tread,
In this long war beneath the stars;
So shall a glory wreathe my head,
So shall I faint and show the scars,
Until this case, this clogging mould,
Be smithied all to kingly gold.
-Poet Laureate � John Masefield
�Shall man, that is dead, live again?� or �will he come back to life?� (reincarnate)
-Job 14:14
�Father, grant that my soul may merge into thy light, and be no more thrust into the illusion of earth.�
-Synesius
�Did not I live in a body here or somewhere else before entering my mother�s womb?�
-St. Augustine
�Reincarnation is the only doctrine of immortality worthy of attention by a philosopher.�
-David Hume
�Why should I not come back again and again; have I learned all I can in one brief life?�
-Lessing (Paraphrased)
�Without the Knowledge of these two Laws: Reincarnation and Karma, man is like a lost person in this world.�
-Goethe (Paraphrased)
�And as for you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths. No doubt I have died ten thousand times.�
-Walt Whitman
�And� he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his DEATHS.�
-Isaiah 53:9
Jesus says to His disciples (in paraphrase):
�Those of you who have followed me life after life, in the final Reincarnation � your day of Graduation, when God�s glory will be revealed in you as it is in Me, you also shall sit upon your 12 thrones of glory.�
-Matt. 19-28
The present thesis is dedication especially to those whom the Bible means much in the fervent hope that it may gain in depth.
There� is growing interest (Ref.-1-) in the old idea of Reincarnation. In schools and in lecture halls this question is discussed and people ask, is there anything true in the mystifying word �Reincarnation?�
The doubtful story of Bridey Murphy1 and especially the life work of Edgar Cayce (Ref.-2-) have greatly increased this interest. Undoubtedly, Rev. J.S. Cooper is correct in saying, �Reincarnation is destined to be the great Idea of this century even as the idea of evolution transformed the conception of the last.�
As the word itself indicates, it is the re-embodiment of an individuality, or one�s coming back into a physical body to resume the school of life on earth. Reincarnation is the doctrine of repeated lives. Man is the result of double evolution:� the evolution of the form, the body, and the evolution of consciousness, the soul. This theory holds that the individual of today has been on earth many times before and will return many more times until the purpose of life is reached. When certain forms, which are the expression of the life within have ceased to be suitable vehicles of that life, they are discarded and replaced by fresh more suitable vehicles. �Shiva, known as the Rejuvenator or the Transformer, is the one who destroys things in one form but to recall them in another more perfect form.� (H.P.B.)
Reincarnation and Karma are the two great laws operative on all planes of existence. According to the law of Karma (Causality (Ref.-4-) every action is followed by reaction. There is in this universe a strict balancing process steadily at work which deals justly with everyone �according to his works�.
These two doctrines, the doctrine of re-embodiment and that of causality, are taught in the Scriptures of all great religions. (Ref.-5-). Reincarnation and Karma appeal to the best of minds in the world even today,(Ref.-6-) because these doctrines alone provide logical explanation of the perplexing facts of life and serve as proofs of the justice and love of God. Without the knowledge of these two laws even a Christian is �like a lost person in the world�.
Today more than at any time before thinking men seek an answer to the question, what is man and has his existence any purpose at all. There have always been three possible answers to this question: the answer of the materialist, of the churchman and of the mystic.
The answer of the materialist appears to be logical. He claims that man is a chance product of nature and just as men appear on earth by chance, so also they vanish by chance. To speak therefore of a purpose in life and of a life after death is ridiculous. The span of our existence here is short and death is a certain end. Man begins life as a helpless child, his powers develop with the development of the body, and when old age approaches these forces decline and slowly disappear. How then can you expect that such an obvious wreck will rise triumphant to immortality? Death is the remorseless ruler over all�. What an answer, in face of a grand and marvellous universe!
The usual superficial answer of the churchman is rather weak and illogical. He holds that man has an immortal soul given to him by God at the conception or at the birth of the body. This evidently makes God responsible for the dreadful inequalities and injustices among men. A SPONTANEOUS creation of the soul and an ENDLESS life after death do not go together. It is a difficult view to support, for things having a beginning must have an end. The old Roman saying, Credo quia absurdum est, is a tenet quite untenable today. We cannot believe the unbelievable.
The answer of the mystic, on the other hand, is logical and sold. According to him, Reincarnation and Karma are the great natural laws giving sense and purpose to all existence. True religion, he would say, is not only a cultus: It is a philosophy of life and an interpretation of the universe. According to the mystics� conception man is not the product of chance, nor are his birth and death the beginning and the end of his being. The real man in us is the immortal spark of God which uses the mind in thinking, experiences emotions in feeling and employs the physical body as an agent, collecting material, out of which he is �to build his eternal vesture� (Goethe). Hence the importance of our repeated physical existence and the �raison d�etre� of the world of matter.
Let us look for a moment at the following. We are told in fine words of the life that begins as we cross the dark portal of death; nothing can be compared with the beauty and reality of the life beyond�And we agree with a great deal of what is said. But consider the argument. If my life BEGINS with the birth of my body, how can I accept that it continues forever after my body is �buried�. If my existence on earth is of importance to my soul � then what about the millions of those who die in infancy? If there are other spheres where these souls proceed to develop � then why is this School on Earth at all? I accept readily the possibility of higher schools on other planets, but we must first graduate from the school here. The trouble with those who write about life beyond is that they do not consider the importance of life on earth IN RELATION to the eternal existence of the soul. The soul comes repeatedly to this earth for experiences, and it is thus that it rises to conscious immortality. Heaven is not reached with one leap. If this life is a meaningless burden, full of sorrows and tribulations, perhaps we better wish with the pessimistic philosophers we had never been born. But these burdens and tribulations have a great meaning.
Our Christian religion teaches that man is created �in the image and likeness of God� � Gen. 1:26 If God � the Father of the true man � is immortal, so must also the son be. This Father �watches jealously over the spirit which He has made to dwell in us,� James 4:5, and guides us to the great goal ahead. �Birthless and deathless�remaineth the spirit forever�. Heraclitus taught �Man is a dual being: partly god and partly animal.� But the true eternal nature of man remains always divine. �Men are gods in exile; lost in the darkness of an outer world, man has become oblivious of his own divinity.�(Ref.-7-) All human beings are sparks �of the One Divine Anvil�.
Apostle Paul says, We are all God�s offspring, Acts 17:28. �Do you not realize�, he continues, �that you yourselves are temples of God, and that God�s spirit lives in you?� I Cor 3:16 More than that, we are called to demonstrate the saying: �You are gods, sons of the Most High � all of you�. Ps 82:6
We receive our eternal being from God and proceed �into the far off country� of material existence where we tarry during repeated lives, and when �Perfection� has been attained, we RETURN as conscious sons of the Light to the Source of All-Life. Or, as Dante puts it, we become conscious partakers in that �ceaseless activity we call God�. The mystics of the middle ages expressed the same thought in this manner:
����������� Ex Deo nascimur, In Jesu morimur Reviviscimus
����������� Per Spiritum Sanctum; (Ref.-8-)
Which broadly paraphrased means: The Wheel of Life leads us from God into this earthly existence; we die in Jesus and revived by the Holy Spirit return reborn to God.
It is not good enough to agree with the Roman statement that not all of man dies when the body is laid in the grave. If we are to believe in life after death, we must postulate life before birth. The real man in us being a part� of God has �neither beginning of days nor end of life� � Heb. 7:3. Solomon speaks of himself as part of God long before there was any physical life. He existed with Jehovah �in the beginning of His ways.� He claims: �I was set up from EVERLASTING, from the beginning, before earth was�When he established the heavens � I was there�. Prov. 8:22-23. Solomon � the symbol of the higher Self in us is timeless � eternal. �Dust you are and to dust you shall return� Gen.3:18. Was not said of the real man in us; it refers to the earthly appearance of man (adamah) � the first Adam. Of the true, eternal being in us (neshamah) � the second Adam, the Bible says:� �You are gods�, John 10:34. This teaching of the Bible accepted one rests upon a firm foundation.
We are urged to press on �to the high calling in Christ Jesus for the building up in us the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ� � Eph. 4:12-13. In other words, like Jesus Christ we should become perfect and conquer death. We are called to rise to conscious immortality. �Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol (death); shall I redeem them from death� (Corruption), asks the Lord � Hosea 13:14. And Jesus answers indirectly � yes, �but you must first become perfect as even your heavenly Father is perfect�. Matt. 5:48.
Obtaining the crown of life.
The purpose of our existence on earth is that we might become �sons of the Light� John 26:36 � in other words � to attain Perfection.
Our schooling here is composed of joys and sorrows. Difficulties and trials, as well as joy and happiness are the tools Providence uses to bring us to Perfection. That is why the Apostle advises: �Rejoice in your trials, for by overcoming them, you grow and become perfect� James 1:2:4. Our Master declares: �In this world you have trials and tribulations�, but press on! John 16:33. By overcoming these barriers, we grow. As He conquered, so shall we. The words of Jeremiah 31:6-16 are rendered in the vocal solo �Fear ye not, O Israel� in this manner:
�Why criest thou in thine affliction � why mournest thou in nightly watches � I have redeemed thee.�* (* The power which redeems us by guiding us along the path to perfection is the mystic Christ within our souls) God is with us in times of afflictions, why should we cry? Don�t we realize that the path to victory is the way of the cross? If Jesus had to be made perfect through suffering have we any right to rebel when sorrows come upon us? All this is necessary, if we are to attain the redemption (Freedom from rebirth) which awaits us. He has assured our victory. And the above solo concludes: �Rejoice and be glad, for I have redeemed thee!� The words of Apostle Paul support the same thought � �I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory to come, which is to be revealed In us.� Rom. 8:18. He continues: �For Christ�s sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ�that I may know him and the power of His resurrection�that if possible I may attain the resurrection (anastasis) from the dead� � the better resurrection � Phil. 3:8-11. � The rising from the dead status of the spirit to eternal life.
The Christian way is the way to endless bliss. Truly, the road home �winds uphill all the way � yes, to the very end� says Christina Rosetti, but to what GRAND END!
The high goal towards which we press has been reached by very few � Heb. 11:5. The Master told us the reason for it. �Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life (perfection) and FEW� there be that find it� � Matt. 7:14. Few, indeed, have destroyed the last enemy � death. I Cor. 15:16. Enoch did not see death for �he was ATTESTED as having pleased God�. Heb. 11:5 i.e., he had reached perfection. The large majority of us �die in the hope � not having received the promise, Heb. 11:39 � the City, whose Builder and Maker is God, but who have seen it from afar, by faith�, by Spiritual Knowledge (Gnosis) Heb. 11:13. Through patience and many days of schooling (many lives on earth) this Great Goal is to be reached. The Apostle himself, realizing the ceaseless struggle in his bosom cried out in desperation: �Who will deliver me from this body of death?� meaning, �how am I to gain freedom from the Law of Reincarnation, which sends me into corruption (death) again and again?� How am I to break the bonds of Karma and attain to the life that is never more interrupted by DEATH? And He saw victory only in the �rising to the measure of the full stature of Christ� Eph. 4:13, Christ, the Path that leads to Perfection and to Eternal Life. John 14:6. Some followers of Paul believed he had reached perfection, but the Apostle replied: �No, Brethren! Not yet! But I do expect in THIS life to rise to the stage of consciousness of Christ�s Resurrection. The One thing I do now is � I press on!� Phil. 3:11.
The doctrine of Reincarnation was generally accepted by the peoples of the East. �The East had its great civilization when the Western people lived in caves; it was decadent before Europe was civilized. The Eastern Saint no longer lives in THIS world: he dreams of Space and Peace�. This teaching was also held by the people of Palestine. The Apostles of Jesus evidently took it for granted, as we shall see. The Essenes and the Pharisees believed in it. The early learned Church Fathers taught it. Yet in the Western World this teaching was dimmed for two reasons as it seems to us. (1) High Spiritual forces � the Silent Watchers over Humanity � must have considered it necessary that stress be laid for a time upon the importance of our present life, so that people might rise to greater achievement. The belief in Reincarnation � grossly misunderstood� by the masses even today � produced almost spiritual stagnation. This had to be changed. The belief in ONE life on earth, on the other hand, while leading to a materialistic philosophy, greatly increased the tempo of exertion. It spurred on the process of evolution.
It is said that Jesus came to cover up more than to reveal. To the people he never spoke save in parables. He warned his disciples against telling unprepared people some of the things He had told them in secret (�in the house�). Jesus knew that a cycle of spiritual darkness was impending and in order to save the ancient teachings from ridicule and abuse, He remained silent regarding them and emphasized the importance of ethical living. �If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine� John 7:17. The good life will open up the inner recesses of the soul.
The situation today is different, however. Believing in only one life on earth, the young generation quite logically become materialistic: :Live today, for tomorrow you die!� Today many refuse to accept things blindly. When urged to cultivate spiritual graces� the young folks want to know first if there is a Spirit which is to be groomed in those graces. They want a religion that is logical and scientific. They want to harmonize what they have learned at Sunday School with what they are taught in the university.
The most progressive and intelligent people do not find food in the churches today: they think it childish to believe. Dr. W.A. Gifford in his book �The Seekers� states: �The historic credentials of most Christian dogmas are quite inadequate, and neither Catholic authoritarianism nor Protestant evasion avails any longer to hold enlightened minds to them.� The labouring men keep away from places of worship with rebellious hearts, for they imagine religion a cloak and hypocrisy. How little understood is the nature of true religion! These folks fail to realize that religion is the greatest need and pride of the human soul. �The Church must get back to the Gnosis and thus bring its fundamental teachings into line with our modern knowledge� says Wm. Kingsland in �The Gnosis of the Christian Scriptures.� (Ref.-9-).If the young people could reasonably accept that we are eternal beings, they would crave� for spiritual food as they do for the sustenance of their bodies. Hence the necessity of a new and sensible approach to Religion.
The second reason for the temporary disappearance in the West of the teaching of Reincarnation is to be found in the blind action of the ruling clergy of the Christian Church during the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D.17 Failing to see the importance of the allegorical teachings in the Bible and desiring to turn everything into pure history, these clergymen piously expunged parts of the Scriptures and altered the wording of passages in the New Testament. It would be wonderful when some day we shall come into possession of a truly original copy of the New Testament, unaltered by erring hands. In spite of it, the teachings of Reincarnation and Karma in the Bible remain obvious. Thus, Jesus never warned His disciples against that commonly accepted doctrine. He did not tell them it was a false idea, a teaching to be shunned. Accepting the soul of man as immortal, reincarnation was considered as the natural process of spiritual growth. Reincarnation is the ladder connecting earth with heaven and leading to eternal reality.
(The going-out and the return of the Prodigal)
Jesus is the perfect example to all aiming at conscious immortality. The Way of the Cross � of our earthly existence � is the Way to Glory. In order that man may realize himself as a spiritual, immortal unit and finally unite consciously with the source of all-being, he had to �put on coats of skin� Gen. 3:21 � to reincarnate; he had to become a �Prodigal Son� Luke 15:11-24; he had to leave his Father�s home and undertake a LONG journey. A hard struggle awaited him. The Master urged His followers to �become PERFECT EVEN AS THEIR HEAVENLY FATHER IS PERFECT� Matt. 5:48. This requires time and effort.
Jesus said to His Disciples in Matthew 19:28 the following: �Truly, I say unto you, in the new world, when the Son of Man shall sit on His glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel.�� The words en te palingenesia, translated as �in the new world� should really be translated, �in The Reincarnation�. The fact is that the noun Palingenesis long before Jesus� and in His day meant only one thing: Reincarnation. Since the word Palingenesis is preceded by the article te it evidently refers to a specific Reincarnation. The Bible speaks of Resurrection and of the better Resurrection. Since the glorification of the Soul is effected after graduating from the School of Life, en te Paiingensis, in the Reincarnation must mean in the final Reincarnation � the Day of Graduation. In that case, the verse would read: �Verily, I�say to you, in our final Reincarnation, those of you who have followed me life after life, will also sit on 12 Thrones.� � You, too, will obtain salvation. The school of life is to be attended until graduation � until the final Reincarnation. It is then that at long last the war ends� and �The glory of the Lord � latent in man�s Soul � is revealed.� Isa. 40:2-5.
The Psalmist writes: �Thou turnest man back to dust and sayest (To the souls): Turn back, O children of Men� Ps. 90:3, i.e. return to the source whence you proceeded.
The Prophet expresses the same idea by saying: �In Returning (Reincarnation) and Rest (the time between rebirths) you shall be saved� Isa. 30:15. (The time of �Rest� is needed for storing up in the eternal monad in us the essence of experiences gained during each earthly life). It is THUS we win our freedom from the wheel of Reincarnation and reach Perfection. To this GRAND END was the material universe called into being. The purpose for the existence of the universe is indeed the transmutation of matter into spirit. The whole universe is destined to be spiritualised, to pulsate with the consciousness of spirit and thus DEIFIED, the Prodigal Sons and the �whole groaning nature� return home bearing the fruit of their labours.
The words Trohos tes Geneseos James 3:6, translated as �the cycle of nature� or �the course of nature� mean rather the wheel of generation, the wheel of being. (Trohos � a whoop, was the wheel of torture, and geneseos � the genetive of genesis � means source, generation, birth, existence, being. (The first book of the Bible � Genesis � is translated as the Book of Being in the Slavic Languages ) Goethe in the introduction of Faust compares the soul of man with the water of the ocean which is taken up in vapor to the sky and, forming clouds, comes down to earth as rain REPEATEDLY. This is exactly what St. James the Apostle means by the wheel of Birth. He describes the tongue as that organ of the body which expresses the inmost nature of man. This is the FIRE that sends us into corruption. It kindles the most baleful fires and sets the wheel of Karma rolling. The wheel turns downward and the soul comes into the visible world, it turns upward and the soul ascends heavenward for repose, from whence propelled by the same wheel it returns to earth again and again. Said Anacreon: �the chariot wheel like life runs rolling around.� Tertullian in speaking of �the resurrection of the dead� � the coming back to life of those who had died � says: �the whole revolving wheel of existence (of birth and death) � trohos geneseos bears witness to the resurrection of the dead.� The resurrection as he indicates is not an event to come in the distant future, but one occurring constantly and in the present.
The process of the soul�s coming into being is somewhat as follows: The spirit of man � the Spark of God � incarnating into matter, identifies itself with it (matter) for a time � (�eats the husks that the swine do eat� � Luke 15:16,) but later on, when ripening has taken place � �coming to himself� Luke 15:17- �he realizes his TRUE being as non-matter and claims his unity with God. The Psalmist says: �After my LONG journey (many incarnations) I will return to Jaweh�s house and dwell there forever� Ps. 23:6. The faithful ones have been promised �to receive the Crown of Glory� I Peter 5:4; �to him, who overcometh will I give the Crown of Life Rev. 2:10 � conscious immortality � �and I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall not go out of it (into incarnation) anymore� Rev.3:12.
�Work out your own salvation�.Phil. 2:12.
It is in connection with the long struggle of the Soul with matter, that there arises the need for Salvation. MATTER � the opposite pole of Spirit � is the Devil (Diabolos), the one that opposes � the Distresser, and SATANAS (Shaitan) is the clever deceiver � the �anger of the Lord� I Chronicles 21:1. These two characteristics constitute the illusory nature of Matter. One of the greatest Rishis in the old Puranic literature is called Narada � surnamed the �strife-maker�. In his double role NARADA is both mischief-maker and a hero (savior, avatar). The Devil is also known as �the liar and the father of lies, who speaks according to his own nature� and therefore is �a murderer (of reality) from the beginning, having NOTHING to do with truth� � Reality John 8:44. It is in connection with these two forces in matter (both necessary to the evolution of the Soul) that man wages his long struggle in rising to conscious immortality.
It is hard to accept EVIL as a separate, independent principle apart from God. If we believe in the existence of an all-wise, all-powerful God there can be no room for a literal �Devil� as opposed to God. That is why the Prophets of Israel saw in God the only source from which both good and evil proceed. Job asks: �Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?� Job. 2:10 and accepts the comfort of his friends �for all the evil, that the Lord had brought upon him� Job. 42:11. �I am the Lord, and there is no other�, we find it recorded in Isaiah 45:6 . �I form light and create darkness; I make weal and create woe; I am the Lord who do all these things Isa. 45:7. And Jeremiah in Chapter 8:11 writes: �Now, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you�, (in other words, the Lord delivers these people to �Satan� as Apostle Paul did once I Tim. 1:20. �I am bringing such evil upon this place that the ears of every one who hears of it, will tingle Jer. 19:3. And Joshua says: �Just as all the good things God has fulfilled for you, so the Lord will bring upon you all the evil things� Joshua 23:15. �Evil has come down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem�, declares Micah 1:12. �Does evil befall a city unless the Lord has done it�, is the opinion of Amos.3:6
God has placed at the foundation of the universe laws which nobody can break with impunity. These laws are immutable; they express the Justice and the love of God. God Himself is Law. Law is God�s inherent nature; that is why Law executes perfect Justice (in Karma) and manifests infinite Love (in Reincarnation). God (the Absolute) in the Rabbinical Apothegm is equated with Universal Law: �There is nothing else that is good but the Law�. � �Good (or blessed) Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?� (Mark 10:17-31) � �Why do you call me GOOD? One there is who is GOOD (blessed, immortal) � namely God. If you would enter eternal life, (should you desire to join Him � the eternal Reality), keep the commandments�, said Jesus to the ardent, young inquirer Matt. 19:16-17. �Ho theos agathos� with the article Ho stands for the only good Godhead (perfect, immortal, absolute). There are many other GODS, written with small �g�. Thus Apostle Paul says: �As indeed there are many GODS and many LORDS, yet for us there is One God.� I. Cor. 8:5. The Psalmist claims: �In the midst of the GODS, God holds judgment.� Ps. 82:1. In the Ukrainian Bible the adjective GOOD is translated as BLESSED. Observation of the Law leads to Blessedness.
We, human beings, set certain actions in motion, and from these depend the reactions which follow. It is God (the laws which He has instituted), who rewards and God who punishes. The results of a cause are unalterable. �Thus says the Lord, behold I am bringing evil upon them, which they cannot escape, though they cry to Me, I will not listen to them� Jer. 11:11. The Law rules supreme.
Spirit alone is good. God is spirit. The opposite to good � God � agathos is poneros:� The worthless, the Devil. And yet Matter and Spirit are only the two aspects of the One God. Matter is the lowest or the opposite pole of spirit. As Dr. A. Kingsford says: �Matter is that whereby the spirit is limited, and is therein the cause of evil, for evil is the limitation of good.�(Ref.-9-) This limitation is necessary for the unfolding of the spirit of man. The disharmony between the twain (spirit and matter) must be brought into harmony. One cannot know the good without knowing the bad, or the sweet without the bitter. Before one can partake of the Tree of Life and conscious immortality he has first to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and learn to know good and evil Gen. 2:9 and 3:5. The process of development consists in the unifying of the opposites and making �One of the twain�.
The Absolute God sacrificed Himself at the beginning of time. He (It) limited Himself in manifesting Himself, and thus the visible universe appeared. In that process the One became the many. �Evil is a necessity for progress and evolution, as night is necessary for the production of day and death for the attainment of life eternal.�(Ref.-10-) The ancients defined evil as the lining of God or Good. Matter, or the devil, represents simply the reverse or the poles opposite of everything in nature, hence the Kabalistic axiom: �Demon est deus inversus.� (Ref.-11-)The Devil appears as the opposer of God, while in reality he is His servant. God makes use of what we call EVIL that from it greater good may result. The sect of the Satanians if understood is not unscriptural. Evil is the servant of the good, as evil and punishment are the agents of Karma. �Sin is a blundering search for good. In all of us there is a soul-centre where the eternal idea of good or God resides and which will finally attain its full expression so that soul-wandering may end and we return to peace and joy in the bosom of God�. (Ref.-12-) To quote Dr. A. Kingsford again: �By no lesser contrast can God be fully manifested. The darkness of God�s shadow must correspond in intensity with the brightness of God�s light. And only through the full knowledge of the one, can the other be duly apprehended and appreciated. He only can thoroughly appreciate good, who has ample knowledge of evil. It is a profound truth, that the greater the sinner, the greater the saint. �I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much�. Luke. 7:47. That exquisite epitome of the soul�s history, the parable of the Prodigal Son, is based upon the same text. Only they, who have gone out from God, returning, know God.� (Ref.-13-)
Evil in itself does not exist: It is only the shadow of light, without which light could have no existence.
Evil is SEEMINGLY real, it is destructive, temporal.
GOOD is TRULY real, constructive, eternal.
Evil then is that hypnotic power in matter which often retards the Spirit from �coming to itself�. Salvation presupposes the possibility of one�s going into the wrong direction, or becoming static in his process of evolution, becoming perhaps a slave to matter. Yet, without the possibility of falling victim to matter, there would be no free ( will. It is by our daily making of choices as free agents that our will develops and we finally win freedom. Automatic perfection would be no perfection at all. It does not exist. Weaknesses, hereditary or otherwise, which make us feel as though we are not free agents, are limitations which we ourselves have created in past lives. It is then from the possibility of being chained by matter that man is to be �saved� � to be awakened. The request in the Lord�s Prayer� �Deliver us from evil� (poneros � the wicked one � illusion, the useless, the unnecessary thing) means: �Be Thou with us in times of trials and save us from experiencing again and again that which is useless; deliver us from the power of the Devil � the one from whom all deception (illusion, maya) originates.�
At a certain point of the involution of the Spirit into matter, the latter acts upon the young soul as a powerful opiate. (The Prodigal Son joins the herd). To pass beyond that point is to enter into the land of persistent illusion. In the story of Wagner�s opera �Parsifal� two characters illustrate this point; Kundry and Klingsor.
Kundry � a girl of two natures � (representing the twofold character of man�s soul) is in reality a servitor of the Holy Grail, but at the same time she has become the unwilling slave of the magician Klingsor. Kundry appears in the first act clothed in a robe of snake skins � symbolizing Reincarnation. When the Knights saw her coming to them galloping on a WILD steed (indicating that she was not spiritually advanced) � they demonstrated their distrust of her. The oldest Knight (Gurnemanz) explained to them how, due to past misdeeds, she is at present a slave to the black Magician, but through repeated acts of service to them, she will gain her freedom. He said:
����������� �Under a curse (Karma) she well may be
����������� From some past life, we do not see,
����������� Seeking from sin to loose, the fetter
����������� By deeds for which we fare the better.
����������� Surely �tis good she follows thus,
����������� Helping herself while serving us.�
Klingsor, out of spite for not being admitted to the number of the Grail Knights, to avenge himself, built a castle and a magic garden next to Mount Salvat. Here he planted life-like flower-maidens of charming beauty, thus ensnaring the Knights to break their vows of chastity. In order to go to Mount Slavat it was necessary for the Knights to pass through this garden. Many of them fell victims of the Magician. Tarrying in the garden of Maya is a dangerous thing. The necessity of the rousing trumpet-call, Awake, O Sleeper! becomes quite evident. The Prodigal Son is expected to awaken up, to �come to himself� � to realize his high-estate and calling. �While it is time, awake from the hypnotic slumber imposed by matter upon you, and the God-spark (the Christ within you) will give you light� Eph.5:4
This trumpet-call should be sounded clearly and steadily. Recently the Rector of the University of Montreal, Mgr. I. Lussier, in addressing the Canadian Club of Montreal, said: �Man destroys himself when he becomes interested in matter exclusively. Each step forward in the cult of matter will be a step lower in the death-pit of our insignificance.�
From what has been said above, Evil could be looked upon as a relative term. If the Prodigal, when awake, refuses� to rise and go back to his Father, he takes the wrong road, he submits to the power of Evil. He, who has been in grade one long enough, would be doing �Evil in the sight of God� should he not strive hard to enter grade two. For him, to turn over and keep on slumbering is evil (useless). �We can save only him, who constantly presses on� sing the angels in Goethe�s Faust. Tarrying in the land of husks is dangerous: It means refusing to grow, it means missing the calling, it means leading a life of Sin. Even more than that: PERSISTING in that kind of life � committing � The unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit� by turning your back against all holy influences � you run the risk of spiritual self-extinction. Therefore, Awake, my Soul! You have slept long enough. Arise, and play the Man!
In the descent into matter the eternal Self puts on sheet upon sheet of materiality which it has to discard in its ascent. In the process of this dismantling the Self emerges to conscious immortality. The heart of every Prodigal Son yearns for freedom and the hour of his awakening and �coming to himself� strikes. The true cause of the restlessness in all of us is this yearning of �the many for the One� � the deep rooted unconscious urge of the Prodigal to return home.
The �Fall� of man is God�s plan. The descent of the Soul into Matter is the way to conscious immortality. As Mr. E.C. Wilson asks: �Why should God have made a wonderful world of conquest beyond the Garden of Eden unless He intended Man to become the conqueror and in the conquest TO FIND HIMSELF.�
The Pool: The Fiery Furnace
The Soul of man needs cleansing. During his lives� journeys a lot of unnecessary dirt accumulates which covers up the windows of his temple, and man is in darkness. Indeed, �our mind needs the gentle breezes of Soul-wisdom to brush away the dust of our illusions� (The Voice of Silence).
There is a Great Pool like the Pool of Siloam John 9:10 where cleansing takes place and the blind receive their sight. THE EARTH IS THAT GREAT POOL AND REINCARNATION IS THE PATH OF CLEANSING. Purgatory is chiefly here on earth. The Soul returns to this Pool repeatedly for purification and the collecting of wisdom. The earth is the FIERY FURNACE wherein the souls of men are purified.
The Greek classical word for �Reincarnation� used in the mystery Schools even before Christ is �Palingenesis� � to be born again � renewed rising up. In the Gospel of Matthew 19:28, Jesus speaks of the New Order, the New World, when �the Son of Man � those attaining perfection � shall sit on His glorious Throne*(*After a Pompeian wall painting, Dionysos- the Sun-God- sits upon His Throne of Glory surrounded by the 12 signs of the Zodiac (Ref-23-) (will not go out into reincarnation any longer), and He states, that �ALSO YOU, WHO HAVE FOLLOWED ME� (life after life) and thus through sufferings and joys have been made perfect, in your last Reincarnation: upon graduation, shall sit on twelve thrones�. (The expression �Twelve Thrones� refers to the complete powers of the Soul).
In the Epistle to Titus 3:5 the Apostle speaks of a great Bathtub (Boiler) � �THE BATHTUB OF REINCARNATION, THROUGH WHICH WE ARE SAVED� (dia loutrou palingensias).The Latin Vulgate�s translation reads: �We are saved by the laver of regeneration�. The R.S.V. Translation reads: �We are saved by the washing of regeneration�. But the noun �Loutron� does mot mean �Washing�, it means the PLACE where the bathing is done. The old Ukrainian translation has it: �We are saved by the Bathtub (Boiler) or In the Washtub of RENEWED BIRTH�, (to Loutron means bathing place, tub; Ho Loutron� - bath house.)
In the epistle to the Ephesians 5:26 the Apostle, speaking of the Church of Christ (His true followers), says that Christ �in order to make them holy (without blemish � perfect ) cleansed them �in the Washtub of water with the Word� (Old Ukrainian Translation); the R.S.V reads: �cleansed them by the Washing of Water with the Word�, and the Vulgate reads: �cleansed them by the laver of water in the WORD OF LIFE.� It seems to us that neither �laver�nor the �Washing of water� convey the idea of the word �Loutron� � the Place where Souls of men are BATHED AND REGENERATED. The washing of our robes (bodies) takes place here on earth.�� We are sent here to �eat of the tree of good and evil� and thus win the right to partake of �the Tree of Life� and �enter the city by the gates: Rev. 22:4.
Dante speaks in his Divine Comedy of the �Mountain of Purgatory� very much like �the Washtub of Reincarnation�. Here beneath the Sun and the Stars in the glory of sunrise and of sunset man purges away the dross of the world until he recovers his primal blessedness � his moral and intellectual liberty� says Ed. G. Gardner. It is a long and thorny road. This road of Purgatory indicates the START of the Soul�s Return. Tortures and pain are borne here by the repentants patiently,� even with joy, for they realize that cleansing is obtained only through suffering. The Bulgarian poet and mystic N. Raynoff describes this part of the Soul�s journey as follows: �Along the lonely road travelled by Man there are bends and corners and abysses. Here and there is seen a monument standing erect pointing to the heights, where crippled hand with bleeding fingers has scratched in the attempt of one�s fastening himself upon the Rock. Everyone travels this same long Road; everyone scratches with his hands the cruel cliffs and presses toward the Top � whether he wills or not. Sin tortures many, indeed all of us; it seduces our souls, it hypnotizes them and keeps them captive�But the reign of Night is not long; the Sun will arise for everyone� He continues: �Man is not attractive either when fallen, nor when proudly erect. He is attractive in his rising (Purgatory). Of all the footprints along the Path, I like the steps that blunder���The people here are dressed in tatters. They keep on moving tired, hungry and exhausted. Upon the sand one traces deep marks of footprints in blood. Here a song resounds seldom, but when it is heard, it is beautiful�.
In the passage of Mark 12:8-27 the Sadducees � the materialists of Jesus� time � desiring to emphasize the unreasonableness of a belief in life after death, questioned Jesus regarding the seven brothers who in succession (after the law of Moses) had the same woman for a wife; they asked, to whom of the seven in the world to come this woman would belong. A clever question. Jesus answered them in this fashion:� You do not reason properly. Your judgment is wrong, for you know neither the Scriptures, nor do you perceive God�s power to �resurrect� the Soul again and again, for He is God of the living; He is �the ever-burning Bush� (the eternal self� in the human being) always living, who appears now as Abraham, reincarnates as Isaac and again as Jacob until after many RESURRECTIONS perfection is reached. This is what is meant by THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD � �the coming of the Soul into corruption� repeatedly until it �puts on incorruption� and the power of death is destroyed. This latter is the BETTER or the FINAL RESURRECTION OF THE SPIRIT � anastatis � (Mk. 9:10, I Peter 1:13, Acts 23:6) � the complete loosening � aniemi � of all the ties that bind the Soul to this earthly panorama � the salvation FOREVER Heb. 7:25. In This �Resurrection� they neither marry nor are they given in marriage, (the sex-life operates only on the physical plane) for they enter a higher stage of existence along the endless ladder of evolution: they become like the angels. (Observe the verbs used in Mk. 12 verses 25 (anastosin-rise) and verse 26 (egeirontai-raise). Verse 25 refers to the FINAL Resurrection of the Spirit, while verse 26 deals with the repeated Resurrection (Reincarnation) of the Soul.
In Orphism the Master speaks of his present state and of his certain glory saying: �I am a child of earth and of starry heaven, but my race is divine.� The Orphic initiate claimed perfect freedom; he said: �I have come off the Sorrowful Wheel, I am free from the law of sense and rebirth.� The Egyptian initiate joins the company of the �holy dead� in the fields of Bliss, in the Aalu, where he receives the rayed crown of the Sun-god and is proclaimed as no longer man, but one with Osiris. MUKSHA is the Indian name for the idea of �the better Resurrection�, when complete freedom from the law of rebirth is won. The whole energy of the oriental saint is directed toward Muksha (Liberation). Apostle Paul says (in paraphrase): � I press on in the hope that I may attain to Christ�s resurrection now, in THIS life; �not that I have already attained that resurrection or am already perfect, but I press on toward the goal Phil. 12:13. Christ in us is the power which destroys the fetters of Rebirth and leads us to the PRIZE � perfect freedom. This is the SACRED MARRIAGE, the union of the God-in-us with the lower personality which is to be saved; this is the conscious �rising of the son and going to his Father�, when the Christ consciousness �makes one of the twain�. This is when �Heaven and Earth are united� by Christ�s power and the Union of Man and God is accomplished (At-one-ment). It is in this light that we understand the words of Jesus when He said, �Lose yourself in order to find yourself.� One must DIE to the personal self in order to rise to one�s larger and true, immortal self. This is the great passing through death to life. �I was dead but lo! I live forever more�. Rev. 1:18.
There are two types of Resurrection mentioned in the Bible � the RESURRECTION TO JUDGMENT and THE RESURRECTION TO LIFE. The first is the RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH in which Souls resurrect (reincarnate) in order to pay their debts John. 5:29, and the second is the Resurrection of the Spirit in which the Souls resurrect (reincarnate) to life, to immortality, to be FREED from the law of reincarnation Acts. 24:15.
Apostle Paul says: �I am on trial with respect to THE HOPE AND (the teaching of) the resurrection of the dead� Acts. 23:6-8. THE HOPE of which Apostle Paul speaks refers to the FINAL goal before us when, like Jesus Christ we shall attain PERFECTION � and be �Lords over death and life�. And by �the resurrection of the dead� is meant (as we hope to show) the RAISING of the souls back to life repeatedly � reincarnation in order that they may attain the HOPE. Here we have the two Resurrections � the Resurrection of the flesh and the Resurrection of the spirit � the BETTER Resurrection Heb. 11:25. To rise to that BETTER Resurrection and to the BETTER HOPE of GLORY � Heb. 7:19 is our great callings.
All of us are called to reach to that Glory, when the Warrior shall become the Victor. God � the Absolute � the Father of all � is also the Sustainer and the Gloryfier of all. This HOPE of GLORY was fully realized and demonstrated in the life of Jesus. The power of God was fully revealed in Jesus� glorious resurrection. �Father, glorify Thou me with thine own Self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was� John. 17:5.
�Jesus abolished death and brought immortality to light� II Tim. 1:10. Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 1:17:20: �May God � the Father of Glory � give you the Spirit of Wisdom � having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is THE HOPE to which HE HAS CALLED YOU and what is the immeasurable� GREATNESS OF HIS POWER IN US, which He accomplished (revealed) or perfected in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead (status) and made Him sit at His right Hand in the heavenly places� (to go out into reincarnation no more).
These two types of Resurrection are contained also in the Christian Creed. There we read: �I believe in the Resurrection (Reincarnation) of the body� � epithumia � sarx � the Soul, the desire body AND �in life everlasting� � the eternal existence of the Spirit.
The same idea must have been in the mind of the Psalmist when he said: �The Lord preserve thy going out (reincarnation) and thy coming in (returning to the spirit world) from this time forth (from this embodiment) and forever more (to the end of the cycle of rebirths) Ps. 121:8.
Jesus Himself speaks of the two kinds of Resurrections as follows: �As the Father raises the DEAD (egeirei, brings them into reincarnation) and gives them life (spiritual self-consciousness), so also the son gives life to whom he will� John. 5:21-30. �Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, HAS eternal life (he has attained to that self-consciousness which is not interrupted by death); he does not come into JUDGEMENT (he is free from the law of Karma), but has passed from death to life� John. 5:24. In other words, he has attained perfection, he has learned all earth-life can teach him, and now fully conscious of his true being enters into reality (life); DEATH (the law of reincarnation) has lost its power over him.
�Truly, truly, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and NOW IS, when the dead (spiritually) will hear the voice of the Son of God (the inner Christ in us) and those who hear will live (they will rise to �the better Resurrection� of the Spirit). �Do not marvel at this�, continues Jesus, �for the hour is COMING when ALL who are in the TOMBS (about to reincarnate) will hear his VOICE and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life (the better Resurrection) bringing victory and finding joy, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment� (to the resurrection of the FLESH) so as to �repay even the last penny� they owe Matt. 5:26.
The dogma of ETERNAL DAMNATION originates possibly from a simple mistranslation of a word. Thus John. 5:29 reads, �they that have done evil (shall be raised) UNTO THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION.� The word for damnation is wrongly translated. It should read �UNTO THE RESURRECTION OF JUDGMENT� they shall reincarnate for the purpose of paying off their debts, while the righteous ones will ARISE TO LIFE ETERNAL � life �not prevented by death� any longer. Had even the world PERDITION or DAMNATION been used (apoleia), the word would refer to the unspiritualized part of man after death thrown into the Gehenna (the common Reservoir) and not to the immortal Soul.
IN HARMONY WITH THE TWO RESURRECTIONS WE HAVE ALSO TWO BIRTHS. Jesus tells Nicodemus (John. 3:3) that he has to be born AGAIN or from ABOVE. The ordinary man ADAM functions chiefly on the physical plane � he is earthy. For him to enter into the KINGDOM a second birth is necessary. Jesus says, �you must be born from ABOVE of WATER and of Spirit.� This refers to the higher nature of man, to the Second Adam, the Mystical Christ in us. The path of development is from Adam to the life-giving spirit. Christ.
The first RESURRECTION stands for the Old Covenant (Contract) in the Bible, which states: �Replenish the Earth�, i.e. keep the wheel of re-embodiment going. The better RESURRECTION stands for the NEW COVENANT which speaks of the GRACE of God in giving us LIFE, freeing us from the Law of Reincarnation. This leads to the Ascension of the spirit back to God from whom it proceeded.
THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH (the desire body which leads to reincarnation and �death� � corruption, (James. 1:14-15) means the RAISING of the Soul, or the coming of the Soul again to reside in a physical body.
THE RESURRECTION OF THE SPIRIT (the better resurrection) means the RISING of the Soul to perfection, when freedom from the wheel of rebirth is attained � this is �the saving FOREVER�, Heb. 7:25 referring to the �Sons of the Final Resurrection� who cannot die anymore (do not reincarnate any more Luke. 20:36).
THE PERFECT ONES, over whom death has no power, are able to renew their physical bodies at will. When on earth, they come not because of the Law of necessity, but because of their devotion to service. �I lay down my life� No one taketh it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord,� says Jesus John. 1:17-18.
There seem to be two distinct verbs usually employed, although not consistently, denoting these two types of Resurrection : the transitive verb EGEIREIN, exegeirein � to arouse, to RAISE someone from sleep, to awake someone, to cause someone to STAND UP, to resurrect (God working from WITHOUT) which concerns the first Adam (nephesh � the desire body) AND the intransitive verb ANASTENIA � TO RISE UP, to resurrect one�s self (God working from WITHIN), which verb concerned the second Adam (neshamah) � the life giving Spirit. The words awakened, raised, refer to the RAISING UP of the desire body, the FLESH (sarx), not �cadaver�, the material body of flesh and blood. This phrase has been usually mistranslated as the �resurrection of the body� and is responsible for the impossible doctrine of the final BODILY resurrection of all beings. This AWAKENING or RAISING UP means simply that a certain entity from �the world beyond� has entered again into the School of Life � has reincarnated. The SECOND TYPE, THE BETTER OR FINAL RESURRECTION, Heb. 11:35, speaks of THE RESURRECTION of man�s individuality from the DEAD STATUS of the Spirit to Perfection when the Christ-principle in us �makes one of the twain�Eph.2:15 � uniting the higher and the lower man. In that Resurrection, the Christ within (the Father) bestows power to the triumphing Warrior and gives him the MORNING STAR (Rev. 2:28) and an OPEN DOOR (Rev.3:8) � i.e. he emerges into conscious immortality and received the ability to see beyond the physical plane. He is like Balaam of old, �whose eye is OPENED� and who �Hears the words of God�, the man with UNCOVERED EYES Numb.24:15-16. Such a Soul becomes as stable as a pillar, who ceases �to go out into corruption (reincarnation)*, Rev.3:13.(* The German word for Corruption (Unwesenheit) means unreality � Maya-Illusion) The one who has tasted of the second Resurrection can indeed say: �I died � to the earthly personality � and behold I am alive for ever more, and I have the keys of death and of hades�, Rev.1:18, also �they keys of the realms of the skies�, Rev. 2:17. He is no more subject to the law of Reincarnation. That is why Solomon � symbolic of the higher self � says to Shimei: �Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell there, and do not go forth from there to any place whatever, for if you cross the brook Kidron (Lethe � the river of forgetfulness) know for certain that you shall die� � you will reincarnate I Kings. 2:36. Only the righteous ones by their own righteousness �shall be saved� from the cycle of rebirth � Ezekiel 14:14. . Yea, even the Prophets, great as they were, did not belong to that group (the group of Melchisedek). �Do the prophets live forever?� asks Zachariah 1:5. Only the KINGS (the Sons of God) live forever. They have attained �ETERNAL SALVATION� Heb. 5:19 and obtained the ETERNAL INHERITANCE Heb.9:15.
In the letter to the Hebrews 11:35 the noun �anastasis� used twice, means the better Resurrection, the one which loosens the bonds of the flesh and releases fully from the LAW compelling one to reincarnate. We read there: �Some women received their dead raised to life again; and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance (a temporary respite) that they might obtain a BETTER RESURRECTION� (not as translated a better life). In Phil. 3:11 Apostle Paul speaks of his earnest endeavour to obtain that kind of �better Resurrection from AMONG the dead� � spiritually dead. RAISING the dead (egeirein) and RISING (anastanai) from the dead indicate two different types of Resurrection. The first type refers to the resurrection �of the flesh�, to reincarnation, the second type refers to those who have attained perfection and do not have to reincarnate. In that case the Souls have first �to be accounted WORTHY� to obtain that world (state of consciousness) and the resurrection from the dead� Luke. 20:35. These were known as the Sons of God � Sons of the Resurrection Luke.20:36. The dead are RAISED (egeirein), the WORTHY ones ARISE (anastenai) to life and to conscious immortality. Thus Jesus speaking of those who are worthy to RISE to immortality says �I will raise him up (anasteso) at the LAST day� John. 6:44 � i.e. when he has reached the day of graduation. These ATTESTED Souls like Enoch (Heb.11:5) have reached true liberation and possess Cosmic Consciousness.(Ref.-18-) It is to that �HOPE that we are urged on by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.� I Peter. 1:3.
The Souls, free from the wheel of Rebirth, are really the deathless ones. They have graduated and have crossed over to the Isle of the Immortals; they have obtained possession of their full Consciousness. The Roman Catholic Church acknowledges the possibility of this in the act of BEATIFICATION. Those who have finished their complete course on earth are beatified and called MAKARIOI � immortal, BLESSED. Parsifal, in Wagner�s Opera is said one day by chance to have entered �The Castle of the Grail�. When asked how he got there, he answered, I know not. He had had only a brief glimpse of the Holy Place and was not ready to remain in Mount Salvat; he was therefore obliged to return to the school of life. Many years later � weary and worn � Parsifal comes back to the same place. When asked again, how did you come here, his answer was, �through search and suffering�. A conscious entrance into heaven. The perfect ones are those who have attained perfect peace, wisdom and goodness; they proceed to the �Pure Land� where there is no idea of self or others, no strife, no envy, for �they all shine by the light of wisdom, more brightly than the sun� (Dante).
Just as there are two types of Resurrection, so there are two RESTITUTIONS OF THINGS: The Cyclic Restitution (the balancing of debts and credits) and the FINAL RESTITUTION OF THINGS (Apokatastasis).
Jesus came to earth as a Saviour, out of love for humanity; He came of his own free choice. The rest of us come here compelled by a Law of Justice and of Love. With the coming of Jesus the Christ as a Saviour humanity experienced the greatest spiritual transfusion. Jesus came here at the moment He was needed the most. His presence changed the spiritual atmosphere of mankind. He came to awaken the higher Self in man and to make it easier for us all to start on the return journey. It is by following in Jesus� footsteps that the mystical Christ in us rises to power and effects our salvation.
Jesus was said to be of the ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK, to which belong only those who have attained �an indestructible life� Heb.7:16 �seq; they are �men made perfect� Heb.12:23 � men who have become �priests forever� (not subject to rebirth). Who are self-born (monogenes) � self begotten, �having neither Father or Mother�; they are born of the Spirit and are in their existence �NOT PREVENTED by death but continue forever� Heb. 7:23 and Ps. 61:6-7. For such beings the hours of time have ceased to strike � they are consciously eternal, they have conquered the last enemy � death . This is �the Hope and the Resurrection� for which Apostle Paul was persecuted Acts. 23:6. It is interesting to note that the verb �anastenai� is used in connection with the �Rising� (reincarnating) of a �PRIEST� of the Order of Melchizedek � the coming into life of a spiritually high personage, Heb. 7:11, of ONE, WHO COMES TO SERVE.19
Life on earth consists in give and take. We are both creditors and debtors at the same time. When we perform a good act we place in the Bank of Life an entry of credit to our name. When we perpetrate an evil deed we place an entry of debit. All these credits and debits have to be balanced here on earth. That is why our Master says: �Truly I say to you, you will never get out of prison (the body) till you have paid the last penny� Matt. 5:26. The cyclic restitution of things is the repetition in our next earth-life of conditions similar to those as exist in the present. Of course this repetition takes place on a higher level where the balancing of credit and debit would more justly take place. It is thus that we meet again here on earth those loved ones, �whom we had lost a while.� This is how nations even up their scores, in the �Repetition of History�. This restitution of things continues until final balancing and harmony are restored.
The stages of growth appear endless.
(Apokatastasis Panton) Acts. 3:21
The Final Restitution of things takes place when the least and the last of our brethren have reached the goal of ( existence. We will be ready to proceed to a higher status of being only �after all shall have been taught of God� John. 6:44. Another human wave will enter on the stage of evolution to take our place: �The groaning creation waiting to be set free from its bondage of decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God� Rom.8:21. Jesus did not use merely a figure of speech when He said, Do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our Father, for I tell you God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.� Matt. 3:9. As also the Apostle tells us: �All these heroes of the faith, though well attested did not receive what was promised � (what they really deserved) � since God has foreseen something better for us, that apart from us (who are behind in the race) they should not be made perfect� Heb. 11:39. They stayed behind to wait for us, or came back as teachers to assist mankind in the struggle of evolution, so that finally we should all together proceed on the road to bliss.
In the end � at the final restitution of things, the Son, the Cosmic Christ, will hand over the fruit of our evolution to the Father, and �God will be all and in all� I Cor. 15:28. In truth, �world without end�.
�Lord, Thou hast been OUR DWELLING PLACE in all generations,� Ps. 90:1 (in all OUR incarnations).* (*The verse as quoted is ambiguous. It would make more sense if it read: �Lord Thou hast been the dwelling place to every generation.� But since we hope to show that generation really means reincarnation, the best reading would be: �Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all our reincarnations.�)
As it was stated the ancient teaching of Reincarnation is to be found in all religions. It also is taught in the Christian Bible. Due chiefly to different translation of certain words in the scriptures this teaching has escaped the attention of the readers.
The meaning of GENERATION.
In most places of the OLD TESTAMENT the word DOR has been translated as GENERATION. In discussing some of these verses with the highest authority on ancient Hebrew in our city, I was told that the word GENERATION as a word does not appear in the original. This is also indicated in Ex.20:5 of King James translation. The meaning of the word DOR translated as Generation suggests a process of change and could be rendered just as well by re-genesis, rebirth, permutation, reincarnation.
The context of certain passages, as for example in Isa. 53:8 and Acts. 8:33 indicate plainly that the word generation does not stand for a group of contemporaries; that it refers to one and the same individual. Other considerations will tell us perhaps that in some cases the apparent meaning of the verse is not the correct one. Thus the second commandment in Ex.20:5,as usually translated, raises questions compelling us to search for the real meaning of the passage. The commandment reads: �I, the Lord God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the FATHERS upon the CHILDREN unto the third and fourth GENERATION of them that hate me.� This is certainly not to be taken literally. The passage needs explanation. It would be preposterous if God would punish innocent children for the sins of their parents of great-grandparents. The Prophets of the day rose against this misunderstood verse, and in defence of God�s morality (the inviolability of the Law) declared: �What mean ye, saying, the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children�s teeth are set on edge?� That certainly would be unjust. And the prophet concludes: �The soul that sinneth, it shall die� Ezekiel 18:4. The possible misunderstanding of the second commandment was corrected by the statement in Deuteromy 24:16 � The Fathers shall not be put to death for the children nor shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.� See also Ezekiel 18:20. Prophet Jeremiah in 31:29 repeats: �Every man that eateth the sour grapes, His teeth shall be set on edge. � The explanation usually given, referring to heredity and to the children�s plight of syphelitic parents does not explain the morality of God. Ibsen, in his drama the �Ghosts� revolts against such an immoral ORDER in life. We would not accept as just such a treatment meted out even by an earthly judge. To understand this and similar passages one should bear in mind that usually wherever the expression FATHERS and CHILDREN is used, these two relate to one and the same individuality. Under FATHERS here is meant the individualities, the same selves, who have acted unwisely in their previous lives (�eaten the sour grapes�) and in their PRESENT existence as CHILDREN only reap the consequences of their own misdeeds, (�their teeth are set on edge�). The FATHERS in one incarnation appear as the CHILDREN � as new personalities � in the next. We are the result (the children) of our past incarnations. For whatever sins we commit in our present lives as the Fathers of our actions we shall pay in our afterlives as our own CHILDREN. And this evening-up of past causes is not completed in one life-time. To change and fully remodel one�s deeply ingrained characteristics may take three or four lives (reincarnations). Indeed the Bible speaks of some type of people who need more than ten reincarnations. �A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord even unto his TENTH generation� (reincarnation) Deut. 23:2. We set certain causes in motion during one life and we must reap the effects of them in another. Justice demands it.
That is exactly what Jesus meant, when one day He drew the attention of the Scribes and the Pharisees to the nature of their actions. (Many of them believed in Reincarnation). In paraphrased form, He addressed them something like this Matt. 23:29-36.
You Generation of Vipers, do not think of yourselves as being better people now than you were before as your FOREFATHERS. You really continue to live in the same old way as you did in your former lives when you persecuted and killed the prophets. You do the same thing now, really, only more effectively. Instead of killing the prophets physically, you build them monuments and thus forbid them to influence you and change your lives. You, hypocrites! Your Fathers (your former selves) work now through you as their children, for you PROCEED to live in the same way as of old, �completing the measure of your former deeds�. You serpents! You are indeed the offspring (generation) of vipers. How can you evade the damnation of hell � the dreadful recompense for your deeds awaiting you here on earth.* (*The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 A.D., Is perhaps the Karmic fulfillment of the words of Jesus.) You heap upon yourselves an enormous Karma from the consequences of which you shall not escape. Murderers! Upon you (in THIS incarnation) shall come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zachariah, son of Barashias, whom Ye slew between the temple and the Alter.� (Evidently they had committed these crimes in past lives and must pay for them in this life). Wake up, you hypocrites, and CHANGE.
It is important to note that the place where JUDGEMENT is executed is here on earth. It is here that we commit our debts and it is here that we must remain until we have paid the last penny (Matt.5:26) � met our UTTERMOST former obligation.
The most striking symbol of evil and evildoers is AMALEK. Of him we read �The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation (incarnation) to generation: I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven�, said the Lord Ex.17:14, 16. If this suggests that some may meet the death of utter annihilation, their number must be very small. Even they may come back with the following round of evolution and find salvation. In Isa.64:6 we read the promise: �And they (the persistent type of sinners � the stragglers) shall build the old waste�, they shall raise up the former desolations�the desolations of many GENERATIONS (of their incarnations) and they shall be names the Priests of the Lord.� The wasted lives are the WASTES they shall resurrect; they shall REINCARNATE and shall lead better lives, thus becoming even �Priests of the Lord�.
Ex 20:5 speaks also of the DESTINY OF EVIL. Sorrow and evil play an important role in the scheme of evolution. The evil we combat in our ascent is after all only temporary. It has no permanence in itself. EVIL is only a phase in the process of the building up of the Cosmos. As the scaffolding of a finished building is removed, so when the cosmic structure is completed, evil will disappear. It is present only during the period of BECOMING. Our weaknesses will be consumed in the FIRE of earthly existence (hell) and shall be transmuted into virtues. It is in the great WASHTUB of existence and reincarnation that our Souls are cleansed and ripened. �God will turn the CURSE (�in sorrow shalt thou eat of it � of the ground � all the days of thy life�) into a blessing� Deut. 23:5. �The rough ways shall be made smooth, and ALL FLESH (souls) shall see salvation of the lord� Luke 3:5-6. GOOD (Bliss), on the other hand, being the nature of the Universe (God), shall continue to grow AD INFINITUM. Ex.20:6 reveals to us this truth. Mistranslation here again obscures the real meaning. The verse should read: �God shows mercy to the THOUSANDTH (incarnation) of those, who keep God�s commandments. It means His blessing shall follow them eternally � to the Nth INCARNATION. In Deut. 5:10 and 7:9 we read: �God is a faithful God, who keepeth covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to the THOUSANDTH GENERATION (reincarnation). The passage in Exodus. 34:7 expresses the above more plainly: �The Lord a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy to THE THOUSANDTH (incarnation), forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children�to the third and fourth GENERATION (incarnation)�, until the iniquity is conquered.
Who Can Declare His Generation � His Lineage Acts.8:33
The above passage speaks of the genealogy of Jesus, Matt. 1:1-16 and Luke. 3:23-38.
In the Old Testament we find genealogies � lists containing the Tree-stories of famous men (Ishmael, Gen.25:12; Isaac, Gen.25:19, Jacob, Gen.37:2.) These genealogies refer to the incarnations of the individualities and not to they physical ancestry. The Bible is interested in the evolution of the spirit, of the eternal individuum.
Mr. G.M. Lamsa in his Modern New Testament translated from original Aramic sources uses a very apt expression for the word GENERATION. In Luke 3:7 and Mati 3:7 he calls the Jewish people �OFFSPRING (offshoot of scorpions.� The same translator renders the question in Acts 8:33 as �Who can tell His struggle?� � who can reveal whose struggle and sufferings in the past have produced this offspring. Life is a struggle. To incarnate is to continue the struggle for evolution. That is why we read:� �The pioneer of their salvation was made perfect (became Christos) through suffering� Heb 2:10. And in this verse SUFFERING does not mean the pain He may have experienced on the cross. The suffering referred to means repeated lives � the repeated crucifixion of the soul upon the cross of the human body. It is in connection with these LIVES of Jesus that we read in Isa. 53:9 (King James Version) �He made His grave with the wicked and with the rich IN HIS DEATHS�, which could only mean, he was buried in his early lives as a �wicked� soul, but later attained spiritual wealth and was buried as a rich man in his DEATHS, during the process of His attaining perfection. We find the same question in Isa. 53:8. The prophet asks: �Who shall declare His generation?� Here too it is plain that the questioner is not concerned about the contemporaries of Jesus, but about the previous contributors to Jesus� identity. He wants to know about His origin, His genesis � whose offspring is He. Who was He in His previous incarnation. The Slavonic translation renders the verse as follows: �Who can guess His line of birth, His lineage.� In other words, Acts 8:33 should read: �Who can declare whose offspring is He.?�
Always bear in mind that in Jesus� time the idea of Reincarnation was a popular belief. Jesus and His disciples thought and spoke in that atmosphere. They took Reincarnation for granted and never questioned it. In fact the disciples were often anxious to know who the people were in their previous lives. They believed Jesus � being a great teacher � knew the answers, for �He knew all men��He knew WHAT was in man� Luke 6:8. �Jesus knew the thoughts of men� Matt.12:25. Evidently Jesus knew who the people were in their previous incarnation. When John the Baptist was asked whether he was the incarnation of Elijah or of one of the prophets, he replied, he did not know. He only knew �he was a voice in the wilderness� John.1:21. But Jesus knew. He said, John the Baptist was �more than a prophet, he WAS the reincarnation of Elijah, of whom it was written, Behold, I send my messenger before Thy face,� Matt. 11:9-10.
It was in this light that Jesus asked his disciples what do the people in general think of Him � WHOSE reincarnation was He? And they answered: the people say you must be one of the great prophets, for otherwise you would not be performing the deeds of power you perform. �Some say that you are John the Baptist, some Elijah and others Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets� Matt. 16:14. To the question � who do YOU think I am, Peter answered, �thou art the Christ (the anointed), the Son of the Living God� Matt. 16:16. This was not quite good enough. It was evident that Jesus was the Christ, for He was a man of power. Nathanael�s answer in John.1:49 throws more light. He said: �Thou are the King of Israel� (David). This indicated that Jesus was the reincarnation of David. Both answers met with the approval of Jesus. Just brilliance of mind was not sufficient to enable one to perceive the identity of Jesus. To discover whose offspring He was one needed the inner, the Intuition. As Jesus observed in Matt. 16:17. �Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven�. Nathanael�s answer leads us back to David in Jesus� evolution, while Peter�s answer takes us to the real source of being (God). The genealogy of Jesus as recorded by Matthew goes further back than Nathanael�s statement. He takes us to Abraham Matt. 1:1, while St. Luke, like Peter leads us on beyond Adam, back to God Luke. 3:38.
There was a common belief among the Hebrews that Elijah was to return before the birth of the Messiah. Prophet Malachi in chapter 4:5 announces the coming reincarnation of Elijah before the appearance (Reincarnation) of the Messiah John. 3:28 and Luke.7:27. �Jesus, speaking of John the Baptist as one �arisen�, reincarnated, used the same verb (egegertai) Matt. 11:11 and 14:2 and informs his audience that John Baptist was Elijah, who was to come � if they could only see it � had their spiritual sight been opened Matt. 11:11-35. John the Baptist was to be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother�s womb Luke.1:15 and �to have the SPIRIT (the inner self) and the POWER (the driving force � the Soul � the desire body) of Elijah� Luke.1:7. He was to �gather together for the Lord those who were PREPARED� � who were ready from BEFORE their present life Luke.1:17. The Apostles accepted that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah, for they were certain that �Jesus knew what was in man� John.2:25, Matt.12:25 ;i.e. He knew the last identity of the present indweller in John the Baptist. This is what the Apostles readily understood Jesus to say, when He replied to their question �What does the raising from the dead mean Mk:9:9-14, 12:25 and why do the Scribes say that �first Elijah must come� Matt. 17:10-13. These questions put so closely together indicate that the Apostles had in mind the Reincarnation of Elijah. What an opportunity for Jesus to correct His disciples and warn them against such a pagan, oriental idea as the re-incarnating of one of the Prophets of Old�Instead Jesus replied: �ELIJAH DID come, but THEY do not know him�, and the passage concludes: �the disciples UNDERSTOOD that Jesus was speaking of John the Baptist Matt. 17:13.
COMPARE ELIJAH WITH JOHN THE BAPTIST in their dress, character and roughness of manner. The similarity will surely amaze you II Kings.1:8, Matt.3:4, and Luke.1:17. Further, due to the Law of Cause and Effect, John the Baptist failed to �seize the realm of the skies� John.10:41, i.e. he lacked in spiritual power, and for causes in the past, his seership was obscured. When asked by what authority he was preaching and baptizing � was he the reincarnation of Elijah, of the great prophet Isaiah, or perhaps was He the Anointed One Himself � John the Baptist answered: �No! I am none of these, I am SENT to be Voice in the spiritual wilderness of life�:John.1:19-23. Jesus knew better who John the Baptist was and why his vision in this life was darkened. �John the Baptist is more than a Prophet: he is a hero�, said Jesus. �He is the greatest man born of woman, but when we consider him from the higher stages of evolution, John the Baptist is still far behind, for �even the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he� Luke 7:24-28. John the Baptist met his nemesis in such a tragic manner at the hands of Herodias, perhaps because he has beheaded 450 priests in Baal in his previous life I Kings.18:40.
From the above it is evident that it was known of John the Baptist what kind of a man he was to be even BEFORE he was born. He knew that himself. He claims, �I was sent�. Of Prophet Jeremiah we read that long BEFORE he was conceived �he had been CHOSEN to be a prophet� Jer.1:5*,(*�Before I formed you in the womb of our mother I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you and ordained you a prophet unto the nations.�) Which means that in time long before his birth (in previous incarnations)he had prepared himself for the task. In the Book of Wisdom we read 9:15: �Being good, I came into a body undefiled�. It is only in this light that we can understand the saying �Although the children of Isaac were NOT YET BORN and had done nothing either good or bad (as YET, in their PRESENT life) God loved Jacob and hated Esau� Rom.9:11-13. (God �loving� or �hating� a person must certainly depend upon the actions of that person). Yet the love and the power of God had planned in the beginning of things to raise to a glorious life both types of men: Jacob�s and Esau�s type. For we read in the same passage and quotation: �And it shall be that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are NOT my people, there shall they be called sons of the living God.� Rom. 9:26. And of Pharoah of old we read: �For this very purpose did I RAISE thee up (caused you to reincarnate) that I might show in thee my power��Rom.9:17 � that Pharoah may come to know the true God, to reveal the divine that is in him.
We meet practically with the same situation in the case of the man born blind John. 9:1-4. The disciples asked Jesus, who sinned in their past lives � he or his parents, that as a result this man was born blind? � No! said Jesus, looking into the past lives of men is not important. Look rather into yourselves! Your conception of guilt and punishment is confused. You consider the present plight of this man and his parents as an act of God�s vengeance. The law of Karma is not meant to punish people, but rather to place them in accordance with justice, into the best possible situations for the further development and growth of their souls. I say to you, this man was born blind not as a punishment for sins, but that the glory of God, hidden within his soul, might shine forth � that �God�s workings in him may be manifested.� The Apostle tells us �God disciplines him, whom He loves� Heb.12:6. By the path of Karma, which often appears to us hard, God leads us to His eternal glory. He leads us into the wilderness of life, in order to disclose to us His best treasures. Dr. A. Besant observes as follows: �Out of knowledge grows strength, and out of understanding grows peace; for the real pain in life grows not out of that which comes to us from without, but from the inner rebellion, which refuses to understand and accept what Karma means. If we understood that KARMA is the expression of the divine nature in us � seeking to unify all that is worthy with the divine law, with the divine Will � we will welcome pain, which offers the possibility of Union, and rejoice in the very fires of our agony, for they shall purify us and give us gold, and melt away the dross�.
�Karma removes the friction (Evil), which the human will has created between God and Man and produces harmony.�
�Your sins will find you out� � Numb. 32:23.
�For He will repay Everyman for what he has done � Matt. 16:27.
�Cast your bread upon the waters and you will find it after many days� � Eccl. 11:1.
�I have not done without cause all the evil in Jerusalem, says the Lord God� � Ezekiel. 14:22-23.
Next in importance to the law of Reincarnation is the law of Karma or Repayment, i.e. the old Lex talionis of Moses, �a tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye�. �Back of every effect is a cause, and that cause in itself is the effect of a finer cause that preceded it� � states Emerson. If we accept this, the logical necessity of both Reincarnation and Karma become obvious. Whatever happens to us � good or bad � has its root and origin somewhere in the past. The law of cause and effect is absolute and immutable. It is just, universal and inescapable. It is governed by wisdom and by love. Ours is a Universe of Justice. Every act received its just reward in due season. We earn what we get or we get ONLY what we have earned. There are no favourites in the eyes of that law. The Law of Karma is like the sun � shining alike upon the evil and upon the good, on the just and on the unjust. If we don�t like our fortune what we ought to do is waken up and begin to put our house in order. �The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether� Ps.19:9. Dr. E. Crutcher says� �Everyman is his own inheritor; we inherit our own virtues and pine under our own iniquities. When a man is born the unresolved karma of past lives awaits him on the threshold of his new life.�
It is the Law of Karma which places us in pleasant or difficult situations in our life-time. Verse four in the Letter of Jude speaks of �certain men who crept secretly� into the Christian group and who �did that in order to carry out a certain plan for which they were before of old ordained�. This verse tells us two things: 1. that the men mentioned must have existed many years previously, �of old� and 2. that they were Predestined to perform a certain act. The word PROGEGRAMENOI � pre-ordained means that these men had made themselves able and fit to perform that undesirable deed. More than that: they compelled THEMSELVES to do it. Like prophet Jeremiah had prepared himself to be a prophet long before his mother conceived him. Jer.1:5, in past lives, so these men prepared themselves to do this evil thing. It would be dreadful to assume that God whimsically ordains some to be crooks and criminals, and others to be prophets and saints. In other words, what we are is the sum total of our efforts in past lives. We are the Masters of our souls. �Each man is his own absolute law-giver, the dispenser of glory or gloom to himself�. (Idyll of the White Lotus). It is only the act of mercy that makes us see ourselves as we are and begin to grow. �Those who cannot remember the past, i.e. who have not learned their lessons, are condemned to repeat it�.
The Old Testament warns us: �Let not arrogance come from your mouth, for the Lord is a God of all Knowledge. He weighs the actions of every one � I Sam.2:3. �The Lord is the weigher of Spirits�, Prov. 16:2. Apostle Paul states the same law with absolute finality: �Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh (the desire body) will from the flesh reap corruption (will be led to reincarnation and death); but he who sows to the Spirit (the higher Self) will from the Spirit reap everlasting life (attain to that consciousness, which is uninterrupted by death Gal. 6:7-8).
�I will punish you according to the fruit of your doing� is announced in the Book of Jeremiah, Jer. 21:14. �According to the works of a man He will requite him, and according to his ways He will make to befall him� is the wisdom of Job, Job. 34:11. Without the teaching of Reincarnation and Karma the book of Job is indeed baffling. The verse just quoted is meaningless. The aim of Job�s story is certainty to prove the justice of God in His dealings with men, and not to describe His whims. The punishment in man�s life is �the fruit of his doings� � in this or in previous lives. God would be unjust in allowing Job to suffer such endless ills unless we assume that he deserved them. Job must have set causes in motion sometime previously � in other lives � and in THIS life he simply reaps the consequences thereof. His story compels us to see the truth of Reincarnation and Karma. He who digs a pit will fall into it, Eccl.10:8. Cause and effect follow each other inevitably. �They that sow iniquity shall reap the same� Job.4:8. �To him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward� Hos. 10:12. �Thou renderest to every man according to his work�. Ps.62:12. �With the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and the measure you give. Clearly, Karma is the law of strict balancing of all accounts.
Predestination or Fate is in our own hands. The conditions of life in which we find ourselves now ere �predestined� by our own actions in past lives. The kind of �fate� we may meet tomorrow is in our hands today. Thus the question of DETERMINISM and of Free Will (of man being a Free Agent) appears in a new light. We are who do the determining. It is important to realize however that the causes operating in our PRESENT circumstances can not be fully removed in one life, and until better causes are set in motion, the effects of the previous causes continue into the third and fourth reincarnation (not �generation� Ex.20:5). Release comes after hard struggling.
Since the disciples of Jesus and the people of that day accepted the idea of Reincarnation and Karma, it should not surprise us to find that they were always seeking for the causes behind the facts of every-day life. They were not satisfied to live only in the world of results � the physical world; they wished to penetrate into the world of causes. They were anxious to see the world WITHIN the world. They asked themselves constantly, why do the �innocent� suffer. Jesus, on the other hand, aimed at impressing upon them the fact, that PRESENT ACTIONS were of paramount importance, and that the deeds of the day determine what the future might have in store for them. In the 13th chapter of Luke, for example, it is clear that the disciples implied the question, �Were the Galileans, who were killed� in the sanctuary by Pilate�s soldiers such dreadful sinners in their past lives, that this thing had to happen to them?� Luke.13:1-4. Jesus replied to them in some such fashion: �No! This is not the question with which you should concern yourselves. Leave alone the probable causes of the past and search not for them until your spiritual vision ripens. The lesson you have to learn from what you see around you is to discern how the law of retribution might affect you. I assure you: Unless you repent and lead new lives, you too will perish in a similar manner!�
Mr. E. C. Wilson says: �Where we are is more important than the route by which we travelled; and the direction we are travelling is even more important than where we are. The use we make of present opportunities is most important of all.� Inspired right action TODAY augments past worthy efforts and helps to wipe out past errors�and prepare the way for a future serene and happy� Fate is cruel and inevitable, but it only seems inevitable. Stronger than fate is the WILL of man. �I shall arise and go back to my Father� is a determination that leads to final Bliss at home, and that depends all upon the action one takes in the present.
Jesus � the prototype of the human race, �the FIRST among His many brethren� � Rom. 8:9, �the FIRST fruit of those who have RISEN� to conscious immortality � I Cor.15:20, �the FIRST begotten from the dead� Rev. 1:5 � is said to have been �MADE PERFECT through suffering� � Heb.4:10. This does not refer to Jesus� suffering on the cross, it refers to His experiences gathered during many incarnations. We read in Isa.53:9 � �He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his DEATHS� � i.e. he died at a time as a poor man and was buried with the poor, and at another time he died as a rich man, and was buried with the rich. The people of Jesus� time wondered as to whose son He was, who might have been His Father, i.e., who was Jesus in his previous incarnation. They were not interested in His physical Father, they knew who he was. They wondered whether Jesus was not the reincarnation of one of the prophets of old, Matt.16:17. Since He performed such �acts of power� it was natural for them to suppose that Jesus had acquired this power in His previous incarnation. That is why guilty Herod suspected that He must be John the Baptist �returned to life� for like John, Jesus was a man of power.
We discern three phases of Christ in the Bible. There is in the first place JESUS CHRESTOS � the Historic Christ. �Chrestos� means good patient. Clemens Alexandrinus, 22 of the second century, calls the early Christians CHRESTIANOT � Chrestians. In some Slavic countries the stolid peasant folk, carrying their burdens of life silently, are called Krestiany. The Historic Jesus, the man of sorrows � the Suffering Servant, the Burden-bearer is called Jesus CHRESTOS. The second phase of Christ is the MYSTIC CHRIST. St. Paul�s message was chiefly of the Mystic Christ. When Jesus reached perfection and became conscious of His high state of achievement, He became CHRISTOS (from hrio � to rub) � the anointed, the Radiant one. This was expressed in His words from the cross: �Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani� Mk.15:34, i.e., �My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me�. Some commentators think the verb SABACHTHANI was mistakenly used by the transcriber instead of AZABUTHANI, i.e., glorified me.� The verse then would read: �My God, my God, how thou hast glorified me! How thou has poured thy radiance upon me! The Eastern Text from the Aramaic reads �SHABACHTHANI instead of SABACHTANI which translated says: �My God, my God, FOR THIS I was kept�. This latter reading seems to us to be closer to truth. Jesus spoke of his approaching hour of glorification. �The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified�. John.12:23. It was for THIS HOUR of Glorification that Jesus had come. As a Cross-bearer Jesus was CHRESTOS; as one upon the cross, He became Jesus CHRISTOS � the Anointed � the One who had become King over death and life. Jesus on the cross, it seems to us, looked upon the glory of his true nature (�the glory which I had with Thee before the world was� John.17:5) � the glory of the Mystic Christ. The Mystic Christ is the Divine Logos slumbering in the heart of every human being. The GREAT hour for the Resurrection of this latent, buried Christ will strike for all. The Mystic Christ reveals Himself to those only �who are accounted WORTHY to attain to that other world (to the new state of consciousness) and to the resurrection from the dead� status of spirit � Luke. 20:35-37, �who are worthy of the Kingdom,� II Thess.1:5. For �they cannot die again� they are Sons of God: Sons of the resurrection� Luke 20:36. And the third phase of the Christ is the COSMIC CHRIST. Apostle Paul speaks of Him as the one power �which holds all (good) things together� � the Logos of St.John �without Whom was not anything made that was made� John.1:3.
Jesus was the final result of the human wave of evolution � our Pride: the Son of Man. He became �the Son of the Highest�, the first fruit of the Sons of the resurrection. The Cosmic Christ on the other hand, is a Being of a different origin�Here is holy ground�He is not of the earth. The Cosmic Christ would be the Supreme Ruler of our Solar System. On occasions He used the highest agent earth has produced in order to convey His Royal Message to the world and by His holy Presence to regenerate humanity. Look at the difference between the Historic Jesus Christ and the Cosmic Christ. Jesus � the Historic Christ knows pain, perplexity, disappointment, deepest sorrow. He prays �Let this cup pass from me�. The Cosmic Christ utters only Royal declarations with the dignity and finality of a King. In any language His words burn like fire � with the FIRE� He brought from above.
Whose Son was Jesus � the Historic Christ? That was the question the people asked themselves.
Addressing His disciples one day, Jesus said to them: �Who do men say that the Son of man is?� The answer given implies that Jesus wanted to know whose reincarnation they thought He was. The disciples answered: �Some say you are (the reincarnation of) John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or One of the prophets.� Jesus said to them, But who do You say that I am�. Simon Peter replied: �You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God�. And Jesus answered him: �Blessed are you, Simon, Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.� Matt:16:13-17.� Nathanael, astonished at Jesus having known him even before Philip called to him to come and meet Jesus, exclaimed: �You are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel� John. 1:47-50. This simply means: You are the reincarnation of David. That Jesus was the Christ � was evident from his words and acts. But that he was David reincarnated was a revelation. We have further references in support of Nathanael�s statement. In Rev.5:5 and 22:16 Jesus is described as the son of David (not of Joseph), as David�s offspring (reincarnation) and the root and the throne (the inner self) of David. Speaking of the promise God had given �to the fathers fulfilled to their children by raising Jesus�, the writer indicates that Jesus was �the holy and sure blessings of David� Acts. 13:34. Prophet Amos (9:11) had foretold that God was to restore the tabernacle (the inner self) of David��When the King (Messiah) comes up from the living his name shall be David, and when he comes up from the dead, also David� according to an old Jewish saying. We read in Rev.3:7 � �Jesus has the Key (the self) of David�. Jesus said �Before Abraham, I AM� (John 8:58) � pointing to the real origin of His immortal self � God Himself. In Matthew 1:1 we are told that Jesus � was the son of David, the Son of Abraham�. Mark.1:1 leads us back of Abraham in the genealogy of Jesus, to His real origin, and says: �He is the Son of God�. The Spirit of God is that primary spiritual substance (Urgrund) out of which all life proceeds and to which all life returns.
Jesus called Simon Peter � Bar-Jonah, indicating to him that he was Jonah in his previous incarnation. It is plain Peter could not have been the PHYSICAL son of Jonah. The physical relationships were of no interest to the people of the time.
In thinking about the beautiful relationship of David and Jonathan and comparing it with the relationship of Jesus and John the Apostle �whom Jesus loved�, does not the question arise whether John was not the reincarnation of Jonathan, and that perhaps he should be called John Bar-Jonathan?
Returning to the Historic Jesus, we read that He had reached Perfection through the final Resurrection of the Spirit. He was raised by God from the DEAD STATUS OF BEING �no more to return to corruption� (reincarnation) Acts.2:27-36 for �the Sons of the Resurrection cannot die anymore� Luke.20.36. God set Jesus on His Throne �as King and Priest FOREVER�. �I was DEAD, but lo, I live forever more� Rev.1:18.
Thus, the words of Job were vindicated: �He places Kings (perfected men) on the throne forever� Job.36:7. �The slave (the one UNDER the law of rebirth) does not continue in the house (in God�s Temple) forever: he must return, reincarnate, while the Son (he, who has achieved final victory) continues forever� John. 8:33.
The Prophets as a group had not reached the stage of those who belonged to the Order of Melchizedek and therefore were still subject to the law of Reincarnation. Christ being raised from the DEAD will never die again (reincarnate) Rom. 6:9. DEATH no longer has dominion over Him.
In Jesus Christ we see God�s great Plan for all humanity fulfilled � demonstrated. �The whole creation itself �, says the Apostle �is anxiously waiting in turn to be set free from the bondage of Decay (Reincarnation) and to obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God� Rom. 8:21.
Jesus assured His disciples that they are to do even greater works than those He did John.14:12. So long as they walk in His footsteps faithfully, life after life (in palingenesia) Matt.19:28. Man has to eat first of the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Good and Evil (Gen.2:9) � life on earth � before he can partake of the Tree of Life � �Immortality� � which is in the paradise of God. Rev.9:7.
Life is a journey and an expansion of horizons. Experience is our Teacher. Let the lifeboat sail on and on piloted by the Higher Self and let the horizons ever widen till at last we return to the source whence we set forth.
It is to this Eternal Glory � Bliss that all men are called to rise. �For no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love him� I Cor.2:9. We are all to become Second Adams � beings from heaven � life giving spirits I Cor. 15:45. To quote Mr. Wilson again: �With each degree of dawning spiritual consciousness we are coming closer and closer to that great ULTIMATE, the Incarnation of Christ. Our human incarnations are STEPS along the way to that great incarnation�21 � the rising to the Christ consciousness in us (to the mystic Christ in the Soul).
Our Soul�s journey leads from Adam to Christ, from death and corruption to life and conscious immortality. The battle-scarred Warrior returning home puts on �the first robe of glory� John.17:5 and is welcome as the Victor � arrived from the land of trials and tribulations. By putting on the garment of the mystic Christ (by becoming conscious of the Christ in us) � we shall rise to perfect freedom and self-conscious immortality. Then we shall be able to exclaim: �O Death, where is thy victory, O grave, where is thy sting?� I Cor. 15:55. That is why Jesus said to His disciples (in paraphrase):
����������� Those of you, who have followed me (life after life),
����������� in the final reincarnation (En te palingenesia) i.e., on
����������� your graduation from the School of Life � when the
����������� glory of God will be fully revealed to you as it is in
����������� Me � you also shall sit upon your Thrones of glory.
����������� Matt. 19:28.
Jesus showed us how to conquer death and thus attain eternal life.
Through �death� of the Soul � in reincarnation � to life immortal � in the final resurrection of the Spirit.
Blessed is he who not only has partaken of the Tree of Knowledge, but who also has obtained the right to the Tree of Life �whose leaves are for the healing of the nations� Rev.22:2.
Here for him PAST and FUTURE recede, and the eternal PRESENT emerges. Here at long last, the restless pilgrim finds peace and attains perfection.
|
The Two Halves of the Circle |
||
| 1 | The Old Covenant (Slaves) Gen.3,7-17 | The New Covenant (Free men) Jer. 31; 31 |
| 2 | Under the Law (Adam) | Under Grace (Christ |
| 3 | The Going out of the Soul, or the Law of Necessity |
The Coming Home of the Soul, or the Law of Grace |
| 4 | The Fall of Man (Incarnation) |
The Ascension of the Soul |
| 5 | Involution (Descent) or Birth (Genesis) |
Evolution (Ascension) or Second Birth- Regeneration |
| 6 | World of Maya - Illusion | World of Reality- Truth |
| 7 | Egypt- Hope of the physical body | Canaan- home of the spirit |
| 8 | Broad way of the Flesh to death | Narrow Path to eternal life |
| 9 | Crucifixion of the Spirit- (earth-life) | Putting on Christ- Glorification of Spirit |
| 10 | "All short of glory" | Christ- the hope of Glory |
| 11 | Hades- earth life, Shades | Heaven- home of the living Ones |
| 12 | Dead- reflections of spirit | Alive- Coming to true Self |
| 13 | The Tree of Good and Evil - Gen. 2; 9 | The Tree of Life- Conscious Immortality Rev. 22:14 |
| 14 | Washing their robbers | Gaining the RIGHT to Tree of Life |
References
1.������������������The Search for Bridey Murphy � M. Bernstein, Pocket Books. N.Y.
2.������������������Edgar Cayce (There is a River) � T.Surgue. Dell Books
3.������������������Reincarnation for Everyone � Shaw Desmond, Rider Co. London.
4.������������������Karma, Lecture Notes, Vol.1 � Geoffrey Hodson, Adyar. Chennai.
5.������������������Essential Unity of� all Religions � Bhagavan Das, Benares. 1939.
6.������������������Reincarnation (Quotations of many writers � A. E. D. Walker.
7.������������������Dramatic History of Christian Faith, p.98 � D.J.S Van der Leeuw, Chennai.
8.������������������Lotus Bluehten � Theosophic Monthly, 1897, Berlin. Germany
9.�����������������The Perfect Way. p.40 � Dr. A.Kingsford �Fr. L. Lowell, N.Y.
10.�������������� The Secret Doctrine,Vol.11, page.406 � H.P.Blavatsky,
London
11.�������������� The Secret Doctrine,Vol.11, page 99 � H.P. Blavatsky,
London.
12.�������������� The Wheel of Life �Rev.A. Henderson,Vicar of St.John�s, Norwich. England.
13.�������������� The Perfect Way, p.40 � Dr. A. Kingsford, Tr. F. Lovell, N.Y.
14.�������������� Mysteries of the Great Operas, p.55 � M. Heindel. London.
15.�������������� Reincarnation and the Cycle of Necessity � N.P.Hall.
16.�������������� The Gnosis of the Christian Scriptures,p.85 � Wm Kingsland.
17.�������������� The Crisis of the Third Century � Dr. A.B.Kuhn, Quinn & Boden, Rahway, N.J.
18.�������������� Cosmic Consciousness �Dr.R.D. NM.Burke, E.E. Dutton Co., N.Y.
19.�������������� Word Studies in the New Testament � Vincent IV.
20.�������������� My Creed � John. Masefield.
21.�������������� Have we lived before � E.C. Wilson.
22.�������������� The Esoteric Character of the Gospel � H.P. Blavatsky.
23.�������������� The Restored New Testament � James. M. Pryse.
Quotations taken from the following Bible Translations:
Holy Bible � from the Latin Vulgate; O.T., translated 1609; N.T. � translated 1582.
The Holy Bible � Authorized St. James Translation
New Testament (in Greek) H. Kainh Diathkh, Text with critical apparatus, 1904 Holy Bible,
- Revised Standard Version, 1952
Letters to the Young Churches � Phillips (From N.T., Translation in modern English).
Ukrainian N.T. (Old translation � reprint 1920).
Modern New Testament from Aramic Sources � G.M. Lamsa. �������
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