- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I’m going to have a hard time explaining this, so please try to bear with me. Today I was driving home and there was a car in the other lane that had a trash bag stuck to the underside of the car, tangled making a terrible noise and flapping out behind the car. It struck a chord with me because on my first trip down that section of road the exact same thing happened to me. Then I thought, what if that
is me? Have you ever seen the movie
Groundhog Day? A man lives the same day over and over until he gets it right. As determined by apparently the same power that repeats the day. He learns to play the piano, learns to appreciate people and things that he ignored before, and makes meaningful connections with the people around him. What if that is what we are actually doing? But instead repeating one day, we are repeating a lifetime. Like Groundhog Day, but one day he is the reporter, the next day his partner, then the hotel manager etc. So if I am a repeating a lifetime as different people that leads to the question, how many actual different beings are there? Say in the total history of the earth there are 10 billion people. Could that be a billion beings who live 10 different lives each? Or 10 beings living a billion lives each? Or one. Just one.
What if we aren’t all individuals after all, but one being repeating billions of different lifetimes to learn and experience all that one would need to?
Has anyone ever heard of an idea or had an idea like this before? I really would like to explore this idea more, if there is a belief system that discusses it, or someone has thought of it before.
I am open to the idea of reincarnation, especially since Mormon eternal progression shares strong elements of stage-development until we finally reach a state of completion and wholeness, but the husband-of-my-split-apart part of me doesn’t want to accept it fully. I absolutely believe we have FAR more time and “stages of eternal progression” to reach our ultimate “destination / condition” than most members believe. Great topic.
Was just discussing this with my middle way HT family Sunday. She has been reading a lot about hinduism and their concept of oneness….it is interesting
I find myself going back to the concept that we live multiple times. It seems strange to me that one 75 year stint here determines eternity. Now think of a baby who dies … what did it learn?
To me we would need several trips through with a review afterwards where we reflect and internalize the experience…once grasped…back in you go! This would be the path to Godhood…learning through experience….this is why I think judging others is considered so evil….as is anything that interrupts anothers journey. I find great comfort in this and it makes much more sense to me than the classic LDS dogma.
I think this also explains how a person can be spiritual and yet not be perfect.
Hi rebeccad, I haven’t had your idea occur to me, but I’ve had somewhat similar ideas. I’ve toyed a long time with consciousness after death on this earth, and I vacillate between this life is it and our consciousness somehow lives on. It seems improbable that life will continue as many TBMs envision it.
For decades before the movie Matrix came out, I wondered if we aren’t all “brains in a jar.” In fact when I was dating my wife she playfully mocked me for that idea and when Matrix came out, I said – see I’m not the only one. It seems that it would be easier for a God to test us by creating a simulator (e.g. brain in a jar) than by creating a whole universe.
No you’re not the first but then again I may be everywhere (scary thought) and I am you and you are me. My dad is a big believer in reincarnation…strange since he’s mostly TBM in every other way. I can see the possibility and certainly advantage of such being the case, especially when one looks as the purpose of life to be all about experiencing things. One lifetime doesn’t give us the possibility to experience that much, all things considered. But I don’t know if I’d go so far as to believe that we were here at the same time in different bodies… :crazy: I’m unfamiliar with specifics of reincarnation, just casually familiar with it. Where can I read more about different beliefs involving it?
I really am interested in the idea that reincarnation may involve a non-linear time. (living different lives at the same ‘time’)
Wikipedia of course! It is full of truthyness! This idea has always made a lot of sense to me. Obviously one cannot learn everything they need to become an advanced spiritual being in one go ’round. I’ve often wondered if I am not my own forefather. My wife thinks this is a nutty idea, but personally, I just don’t see there being 100,000,000,000 souls (estimated total people to ever live) in the kingdom of heaven, or whatever.
Roadrunner wrote:It seems that it would be easier for a God to test us by creating a simulator (e.g. brain in a jar) than by creating a whole universe.
Or we might be actually plugging into a simulator while never leaving wherever it is the “preexistence” actually is located.
Another theory I supposed was that perhaps only a few percent of the earth are actual “spirits” and could be considered real, while the rest are simulated. I mean how many people will you really talk to and experience on a personal level. Certainly not more than a 1,000. I bet it’s only around 100 for me. The brief interactions we have with most people could easily be a script or program.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.