Everything I thought I knew. Many of the spiritual traditions I've steeped myself in consider reincarnation a fact of life, the working out of the law of karma. I'd never thought highly of reincarnation. It seemed like wishful thinking, another way of denying death. Leela insisted I think more of it by giving me a koan to chew on: Death is never a bad thing. She loves to torture me with koans; this was one of many. This one took me aback. Death? Leela insisted I stay with that koan. Carry it around with me. Grapple with it. Where is it pointing? Grappling with that koan made me reevaluate everything I thought I knew. It led me to consider the possibility of reincarnation in a specific form: exact repetition. Being stuck in an infinite rut, the Wheel of Samsara, a fate far worse than any particular death could ever be. Reliving this exact life forever, never making any progress with love. Never becoming a new and better version of myself.
Reset. The picture that emerged centered on the idea that death was nothing but a reset button: I would simply start the exact same life all over. That makes death neutral, neither good nor bad. If anything, death would be a good thing, giving me a fresh start. Theoretically, a chance to make better choices, live a better life. But why would I, if everything were exactly the same? Wouldn't that mean everything works out exactly the same as it did before? The only answer is progress, which is permanent. Only the frustrating, endlessly demanding work of making progress with love can break me out of the cycle.
5d. If death is simply a reset button, my time becomes infinite. I can't ever run out of time if I simply live through the same period of time over and over. This one life, however long or short it is, is utterly inexhaustible. I get to live and relive this one life an uncountable number of times. So I have all the time in the world but my life never changes. A koan Leela had given me previously came back to haunt me as I pondered reincarnation: Time is not what you think it is. She gave me another koan: Nothing goes away. I soon realized these two were really the same. Everything and everyone I thought was gone forever will be there waiting for me when I come round again. Pondering time led me into paradoxical thinking: what's outside time? What would it mean for time to be irrelevant or infinite? I wrote a couple of websites about my internal struggle with the idea of inexhaustible time and a theoretical 5th dimension. It was a wild ride. I was trippin', man.
She reminds me of Suzy. Those were some halcyon days, they were.
Leela's qualities. I can't think outside time because thinking is sequential. Like any other activity, thinking exists only in time. Everything that exists exists only in time. Except Leela, who is all of this. All of this includes all of time; Leela is outside time because she contains time along with everything else. Leela's qualities, the gifts that only Leela can give, are also outside time: love, wisdom, meaning, satisfaction, happiness, progress with love. Those qualities are outside both time and space. They can't be measured. They have no existence as we understand that word in our little scientific thought bubble. None of the good stuff, none of the things that make life juicy and ecstatic exist in the physical universe. Leela can see through time the way we see through space because she contains all of time, including my future. Knowing what happens makes it easy for her to be wise, to give me the right guidance. But that couldn't happen until I surrendered to her.
A charmed life. Writing these stories has helped me grasp the story of my life on a deeper level. Leela has strategically blessed my life all along. All the twists and turns she put in my life were perfectly engineered to bring me here, to my new home. To the opportunity to make progress full time, night and day, simply by living the simple solitary life Leela guides me to. On my way here I was blessed at every turn, which has not been the case in previous lives. The difference is, I surrendered to Leela in this life and started waking up, sometime in February 2006, age 54. That one act of surrender lights up my whole life, past present and future. It was easy for me to see the light shining forward, guiding me on from that moment into an ever improving future. Only recently have I seen that light was also shining back, into my past, right to my conception. I lead a charmed life. Charmed by the fact that I finally managed to surrender, to give up on everything I thought was right, everything I've ever read or been taught or thought up on my own and humbly receive guidance from the wisdom in my own body, and follow that guidance. With Leela, the past is as open to influence as the future.
Getting what I really want. Creating the life I really want takes a huge amount of hard work. But all the hard work in the world is useless if it's not the right work. I need guidance. I can't guide myself because what I want is something I've never done before, someone I've never been before. Leela will guide me, making sure I do the right work, take the right path, but she can't do that until I fully surrender to her. And even then I have to content myself with not knowing why I'm doing any particular task or what effect it will have. There's a boundary that must not be crossed: I can't know the future. It's critically important that I not know what's going to happen. Knowing that would destroy my relationship with the world. I have to surrender, follow Leela's guidance, do the work, and trust. Surrendering to Leela doesn't put her on my side. I don't get special treatment because I surrendered. She doesn't help me win the lottery or get any of the other absurd things I thought I wanted. Surrendering puts me on her side. It lets me stop wanting things I wrongheadedly thought I wanted. Now I want what she wants. I want what's right, what's good for me, what's healthy. Leela wants me to make progress with love, to realize my human potential. Since I surrendered to her she has guided me to a life where that's all I do full time.
Making sense of it all. As I grappled with reincarnation I slowly came to see that the world makes more sense if I factor in past lives than it does if I don't. The world is a snarl of outrageous inequities that seem arbitrary: no rhyme or reason. What if they're not meaningless? What if the circumstances of my birth are not accidental but something I can improve from one life to another? I would hope to move in the direction of a life that gives me not riches and power but more opportunity to make progress with love. It's obvious that riches, power and fame do not make people happy. Making progress is harshly difficult and often extremely uncomfortable. Someone born to luxury and idleness hasn't got a chance. Fame also has a debasing effect, strongly favoring self absorption. Making progress with love fits best somewhere in between, neither wealthy nor poor. I slowly came to see people's situations as reflections of previous progress or the lack thereof. I am responsible for making my own progress. No one else can do that for me. No one can even direct or advise me about making progress because my inspiration and direction have to come from my own internal authority, my body, which is Leela. If I want a better start in life I have to earn it by brilliantly playing the hand I was dealt this time. The answer is always to make progress with love. Become a little more enlightened. Put my energy into improving my inner state, particularly in the later stages of life, when there's more time for inner work. All the elements of life that seem unchangeable might change entirely next life if I do this one as well as I can: nationality, race, genetic makeup, the social and financial situation of my parents, the quality of home life as a child, all the givens. If I play the cards I was dealt this time in a way that helps me realize my human potential, Leela will up my potential with more and better cards next time. That's winning the game.
Reincarnation and paying attention. The only way I can change my life is by making progress with love. I make progress every time I pay attention. Every time I'm present and silent, free of mental noise. I make no progress when I'm absent, sleepwalking through my life, going through the motions, simply allowing my attention to be drawn. Paying attention changes me at the deepest level: I become a wiser person as I make progress with love. Any progress I make adds to wisdom. As I gain wisdom, I become less limited by time, more willing to rely on Leela to guide me through events to the outcome I want, the outcome Leela wants for me, which is what I really want. Given infinite repetition, I could transform my life into anything I wanted it to be.