Free Write: Wondering About Reincarnation

Source: http://www.kaz-photography.com/

I am beginning to wonder at the concept of reincarnation, especially given my recent revelation that I did not fully understand or believe in the idea of an immortal soul or spirit.

Many believe that at death, the soul becomes free of the physical body, as though our skin and bones and sinew were all simply a clever prison for a smaller, sentient being, a robot to control.  And once free, it either leaves to some other world that lay either under or above our feet, to be judged or to be prepped for a life in a new physical body, a new "meat prison".

But underlying these theories of the afterlife is the idea that we manage to maintain the identities and memories and experiences we often during our lives, that we are - totally the same person, same species, same type of being.

But perhaps when I die, all of my memories of opening presents at Christmas parties, my first kiss, or the impossible beauty of the night sky fall away and my self - in its entirety - is absorbed by a fungi.  That my remains nurture the soil, and the ashes of my hair color the sky as they drift along, each particle distinctly and uniquely grey...

    But what of this "soul" thing?
    Perhaps there is something like it.

I have never seen one with absolute certainty, yet still I am here and I - a select, billions-large group of primates, miniscule and precious among the unimaginable expanse of abiotic matter, have the ability to experience.  To be fully aware of myself as a self.  I would not - like an insect might - self-cannibalize at the smell of a wound to my stomach simply because instinct tells me that fresh food is near, without understanding that it is my blood made my mouth water.

     Perhaps indeed it is a soul that has given me that mental safeguard.
     Plus, I do believe in things like energy, auras, some psychic abilities...
     So perhaps.

But this immortality part is the kicker for me.  I have never seen immortal consciousness or immortal life.  Never tasted it or touched it or heard it speak to me - its voice.  It's not something that I may say with absolutely certainty, that I have observed and documented it.  Irrefutable evidence eludes me.  Thus I am unqualified to say.

Imagine for a moment though, that upon death we are completely liberated, even from ourselves.  No more memories which plague us in our sleep, or which we retain, selfishly, within ourselves.  That we are given fully - mind, body and, yes even soul - back to the unconscious, explosive, and treacherous cosmos, finding peace.  Then, by some miracle of natural, undiscovered law, our memories permeate and impress themselves upon others in the collective consciousness of our species.  Our past life would become that of another who - though strange and far from us - would be so moved, so strongly empathetic, as to believe that they and us were one.

That even in the face of complete annihilation of self, our memories would become the dreams of those that follow us, as we feed the soil of their garden.

Would that not be beautiful as well?