Perspectives on why we incarnate (reincarnation?).
Why do we have physical, human lives? What’s the purpose of human existence? These are questions many ask.
Many say our physical life is a school. Many times this seems to be associated with morality, learning the difference between right and wrong, or learning about duality in general. Also, this view is usually presented within a hierarchical view of reality. But, surely incarnating is more than just schooling from preschool to advanced degrees in living a human life and being a good boy or girl.
Being Aware That You Are Aware
We all dream, whether we remember them or not. I’m curious – not if you remember your dreams, but rather – are you aware that you are dreaming in your dreams? Does your awareness of the knowing of you extend into the dreaming? Are you present in the dreaming?
Unincarnated souls exist in the flow of true nature like us in the dreaming, perhaps without individual awareness of knowing the dreaming. When you are born, you are the embodiment of essence – all five boundless dimensions with all the richness and treasure of true nature – without “knowing” it.
Newborns’ awareness of their environment is absent self-reflection and cognition. We float more in the dreaming of true nature than the external reflected reality of this world.
Discovering, Developing, and Knowing Your Spiritual Nature
For those of you who are runners, do you stretch before you run? For pianists and violinists, how many years of study and practice to develop your capacities? You get the idea: life and skills require development and practice.
Consider this….
Perhaps developing one’s awareness, individual consciousness, the soul, and one’s ability to wake up from the dream of the external world is part of why we incarnate. Perhaps this human existence, or something similar on some other planet, is exactly what is needed to develop our individual capacity for knowing.
Another element may be developing the capacity for remaining conscious so that when the body dies, we remain conscious “on the other side.” Otherwise, we might return to and get lost in “the dreaming” on the other side and need to “reincarnate” to continue the soul’s development.
Four Gains from Ego Development
A. H. Almaas, founder of the Diamond Approach®, speaks about four gains from ego development.
Cognitive Development
At some point in the development of our capacity to discern, the cognitive capacity can take itself to its own limits. And that is really what the inner work is about: taking the discerning capacity to its ultimate limit, where reality itself is beyond cognition. Our cognitive capacity knows and knows and knows, until it begins to approach a reality that it cannot know. And the reason it cannot know it is not because our cognitive capacity is not developed, or because there is something wrong with it, or even because there is an obscuration, but because the reality it is now encountering has nothing to do with knowing—it is beyond knowing. When the mind recognizes that to be the case, it basically bows down and bows out. – The Unfolding Now, ch. 16
Embodiment of the Soul
The understanding that is arising here is that ego development is part of the process of embodiment of Being. It is part of the process of Being finally learning to manifest and live in embodied existence. At birth the infant lives as Being, in a state of undifferentiation that is not linked to the body. A process then starts, of consciousness gradually cathecting the body and physical reality. This process of embodiment of Being is a process of personalization, of Being finally emerging as a person, a Human Being. – The Pearl Beyond Price, ch. 37
Capacity for Self-reflection
Self-reflection is necessary for the development of ego structures, and becomes a factor in the soul’s self-conscious awkwardness and neurotic self-criticism. It also tends to dissociate the soul from her ground, for by reflecting back on herself, the soul takes the position of a subject that observes an object. Thus self-reflection develops into the dualistic mode of experiencing oneself. Yet it is necessary as a stage in the development and maturation of the soul toward self-realization. In the total self-realization of true nature, the soul is not self-reflective, for true nature does not look at itself. It recognizes itself by being itself. This capacity for discrimination is not present in early infancy. – The Inner Journey Home, ch. 12
Sense of Individuation
Individuation is the primary achievement of ego development. We can say that the soul who is at the beginning an organism of consciousness becomes through ego development a person. The soul develops into an individual with unique characteristics and skills, a human being able to relate to others as autonomous human beings with their own characteristics and skills. This unfolds many of the potentials of the soul, but also makes it possible for her to individuate further, on deeper levels. – The Inner Journey Home, ch. 12