We pass through hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of existences. In each lifetime, we're exploring another part of our own self, which is eternity.
That's why their realization is not integrated and complete, and they must go through many, many lifetimes very often before that acceptance will take place.
Buddha indicated that the self, that part of you that incarnates from lifetime to lifetime was causal.
In this lifetime you can lose everything. Everything passes here.
This is just one little lifetime in a succession of lifetimes.
Reincarnation is a hopeful understanding of life. It is an accurate understanding of life. In each lifetime we grow, develop and evolve.
There are future lives. It is not necessary to cram everything into this lifetime. You can enjoy this lifetime, go with the flow, and know it will lead you to a better life in your next incarnation.
What you gain in internal knowledge goes from one lifetime to another. It is not wasted. Unlike those stone edifices that will fade, your internal knowledge will stay with you from one incarnation to another.
At the moment of birth you are the product of everything that has occurred in every lifetime you've had.
I have not in this lifetime yet met one person who earnestly seeks enlightenment in the West. Not one person.
The average individual spends many, many lifetimes meditating and seeking and chewing bubblegum and doing things like that to attain the experience of samadhi.
People have power and it is very important to respect that. Everybody's had thousands of lifetimes, and who knows what anyone has learned in a lifetime ... respect not fear.
As incarnations go by, the atom gets more complex. That is, your being, the part of you that reincarnates from lifetime to lifetime, the aggregate, grows thicker and denser.
The universe is always ecstasy and it's always perfect, but we don't perceive it that well. If we keep doing our yoga in every lifetime, we perceive it more correctly.
You are no different in this lifetime than you were in your last lifetime. This lifetime is simply a continuation of your last lifetime.
There are physical karmas. They are reactions and results from actions. But those are bound to a particular lifetime.
Happiness is something that comes from creating good karma. The monk who feels that what they are doing is unpleasant is not really creating any good karma and will not have a better lifetime.
A better lifetime comes from not some karmic scale but from inner knowledge. Inner knowledge makes you happy. In other words, it is not as if someone is checking!
One who practices jnana yoga has practiced the other yogas for many, many lifetimes.
Beyond the subtle physical body, is the causal body, the part of your being that lives from one lifetime to another.
