“What Do You Think About Reincarnation?” (Quora)
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think about reincarnation?“
There are two ways we can think about reincarnation: in relation to the soul’s development, i.e., the ascent from this world to the spiritual world, and also as the succession of generations in this world.
In terms of the latter, reincarnation is the passing down of genetic, material, perceptual and sensory information from one generation to the next.
For instance, the current generation’s children contain information accumulated by their previous generations. This is why children in each generation can quickly work out how to use the technology and tools of their generation.
Humanity’s development thus unfolds as a succession of generations, where we transfer material progress in science, technology, art and culture, as well as psychological advancements and an inner human message, to each successive generation.
In terms of our ascent from this world to the spiritual world, reincarnation starts from when we feel the awakening of a spiritual desire.
Such a desire is expressed as questions about the meaning and purpose of life.
Kabbalah describes this desire as the seed of our soul, and calls it a “point in the heart.”
Depending on how much we feel such a desire, it urges us to seek through various teachers and environments until we find one that we feel can guide us to attain our spiritual root.
Attaining our spiritual root, according to Kabbalah, is our life’s purpose.
By attaining our spiritual root, we receive clear answers to questions about the meaning and purpose of life—clear because they become expressed in us as sensations of attainment of the spiritual world, where our perception opens up to the complete fulfillment and knowledge that exists above the level of our current world, in our soul.
The journey of developing our spiritual desire and reaching the attainment of our spiritual root is by undergoing a series of spiritual reincarnations, until we reach our final destination from where we emerged.
By doing so, we complete our reincarnation cycle.
Kabbalists explain how such a process can take many lifetimes. Thus, if we discontinue this journey, we will return to it in future lives until we eventually attain the root of our soul.
Until we become granted with a spiritual desire, we accumulate suffering via the formerly-mentioned process of reincarnation at the level of this world.
The more we suffer in our development, the more it leads us to ask existential questions, differentiating our spiritual desire from our other desires, and adding to our yearning to rise above this world and attain our spiritual root.
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