Nov 22, 2015

Death is the Greatest Blessing (7)

“We are born to make manifest

The glory of God that is within you.”

                           Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech

Life Before Life

One of the more intriguing concept that has arisen is that we choose our parents; we choose the atmosphere we are born into; we choose all that we will become from a spiritual side; and we choose our purpose in life; all before we are born. Collections of stories have come forth that seem to illustrate that concept, and perhaps the most powerful of those is the book “Memories of Heaven”, by Dr. Wayne Dyer and Dee Garnes. (This book was just published on November 10, after Wayne’s transition.) This book is a vast listing of stories from around the world about the astounding utterances of young children, mostly under the age of 5, sometimes under 2, of tossing off what appear to be memories of time before birth, of being in heaven and choosing that ‘mommy’ and entering into her belly.

I will quote one short story out of hundreds in the book:

“My husband and I had lost our first daughter, Beth, due to heart problems when she was almost three years old. Our third daughter, Amy, born five years after this, had not been told about Beth. When she was about three and a half, we pulled out a video of Beth, and Amy said, ‘That’s my sister Beth! I knew her in heaven before I was born.”

                                                                                    Paula Conroy

The stories are very moving, and paint a picture as seen from the eyes of children, some as young as 18 months and just beginning to speak. Usually they forget about these stories as they grow older, and some are from families that were not into religion of any type and had never spoke of God before that utterance of their child.

We know next to nothing about this phase of life; but it makes sense if we understand that Life has a meaning; that each life has a purpose; that there is a universal and overriding Force that some of us call God that sets the tone of the universe; and we are part of the active living out of that purpose, as differentiated from the non-sentient life of all other life on this planet of ours.

We Choose; We Choose

Too be honest, the ability to chose our parents time and time again, the ability to chose our life’s situation time and time again, the ability to understand through living experiences of all kinds of life, from the starving person/child in Africa to the richest kid on the block, is the only way that a God of Love, and only Love, could operate. Why should I have the advantage of a good home, good parents, opportunities in life, while others are born to a single mom who is addicted, growing up in the gangs of a city and killed in a gang fight, and yet be judged on equal footing? Is that a God of Love, of fairness, of Goodness? Or is that a capricious god of tossing one against another, gleefully throwing two thirds of humanity away, just to see those squirm who are neglected unable to live up to “the rules”?

No, the only thing that makes sense is that we have all eternity to chose over and over, to experience all forms of life, to be able to understand compassion from having lived it.

Then we have the God of Life, the God who is Love, only Love.

Questions to Ponder

What is your thought about the concept that we chose our life, time and time again?

Even though we have been told that this is the only life and we make it or not by this life, how do we justify that thought with all the differences that various souls encounter when they enter this world?

What would a God of Love do in your opinion?

Meditation

Oh God of Wisdom, our God who is Love personified, who is Life Itself, help us to see and somehow understand the fullness of life that You give each of us. We bow to Your Wisdom in this universe of ours, You who see all at once in your time of no-time, and know each of us better than we know ourselves. Continue to give us the tools and insights that take our breath away; insights into the wondrous physical world we are in and the wondrous spiritual world we come from and go to, around our limited sight of this world of physicality. We thank You, and bow in gratitude for this opportunity to see You more clearly, even though we still see through a glass darkly.

 

Next we will look at the thought that Death, like Life, is an illusion