[ Setting: Under a Bodhi tree. ]
AMIDA: Thank you for the Bodhi tree, I take it you know its significance for me. This environment helps put me at ease – but I am confused. Even though I did hear you say there is no reincarnation, I always thought I would continue again back on Earth. I also heard you say we would retain our memories. I always believed I would lose mine, yet I remember I had a good life and even some of the details. Is this the way I am supposed to be feeling?
ALLEGENTIA: This is real and everything is fine. There is nothing to be concerned about. A certain amount of confusion is normal; after all, you have just made a very momentous transition. What you are feeling is a collision of concepts – what you thought would happen in opposition to the way things actually work.
It is your soul’s memory of your life you are accessing. Only the strongest and most valuable memories are specific during this special transit time. That qualitative feeling of the general nature of the life you lived is typical of soul memory. Much of your previous life will be hazy until you are reintegrated on the other side.
The myth of reincarnation back to Earth is just one way of saying growth is a long process. This is correct, but the rest of the story is much more interesting than simply returning to your original planet and remembering little or none of your accomplishments.
AMIDA: All my life I believed I would go back and finish what I started, or, if I was an old soul and my struggle was complete, I would attain Nirvana. Since I still feel incomplete, I must not have attained perfect wisdom.
ALLEGENTIA: Humans naturally feel a gap between who they have become and who they can become. But let me assure you, you will have every opportunity to continue your quest for perfection.
When you arrive on Progress World number one and your identity is renewed, you will have access to your life – what you did, what you chose, the results of those choices – in other words, who you are now. Your identity is a combination of your body, soul, mind, Spirit, and personality.
AMIDA: Please explain what you mean by those terms.
ALLEGENTIA: I will define them briefly.
Your new body will be semi-physical and semi-spiritual. How much of each depends on how much of a transition you have made to a cosmically spiritual state.
Your valuable choices are preserved in your soul. Your memories are preserved partly in your soul and partly by your indwelling Spirit. Every value you have worked to perfect is part of you and value itself is part of the indestructible fabric of the universe. Your connection with this fabric is the cloth of consciousness which you have been weaving. No gain in soul-consciousness is ever lost. Everything of relevant value you have incorporated into your being is part of you forever. And not only everything of actual value but also everything of latent or potential value is safeguarded. Your good motives, positive intentions, and sincere desires will be available for you to pick up when you begin again. Even those incomplete or interrupted thoughts you wanted to pursue will be waiting for you.
Your mind (the interface between finite material reality and spirit reality) will be essentially the same, only expanded.
In the mind of each person is a fragment of God. Humans have long known God dwells within. Different cultures have called this piece of God the Ka, the Atman, the Yin (the Yang being the soul), the still small voice, the divine Self within, the Holy Spirit, and others. I refer to it simply as the Spirit.
Your personality (the essence of your being as a person) is much more than a collection of your behavioral and emotional character traits. It is an exclusive and unique gift of the Father of personalities.
AMIDA: Thank you, that is clear enough. I will pursue further instruction when I get to our destination. Since I anticipated losing all of my memories it is an unexpected bonus to learn I have not and will not lose anything important. Can I expect anything else?
ALLEGENTIA: What you have not already gained you will not possess. Only that which you have earned, learned, or experienced can be a part of you. But anything and everything essential to your universe career is forever yours. You are now experiencing the fact of your continued existence beyond the demise of your physical body. Any true experience will forever be part of you as you go forward, but nothing magical will be given to you; no special insights will automatically be implanted in your mind. Perfection is still yours for the making. The joy of growth will forever be your reward.
Much of material experience was important but only as serviceable scaffolding to bridge you over to the other side. Those parts of your first life with no spiritual meaning or value died with your material brain. Consider the nature of typical memory. You would hardly recall those tedious, mundane, or unimportant times even though you lived through them just as you did the more valuable moments. Nonetheless, the human brain did contain some basic genetic memory.
All learning is done in the mind, so when you are reintegrated with your new mind you will notice a marked improvement in your mind-memory. Many earthly memory problems were due to brain circuitry and chemistry. This will no longer be the case. Your brain/soul/mind connection will be attuned to function properly. This will certainly feel new.
One of the best features of your refreshed mind (and the angelic teaching process) is how it expands your depth perception. Your mental vision on Earth was almost entirely one dimensional. As you begin to use your spirit mind, cosmic mind, and personality discrimination in concert you will gain innovative perspectives. You will have a clarity of focus capable of piercing the depths of mysteries you never knew existed.
AMIDA: Wow, when will all of this kick in?
ALLEGENTIA: You will not, at first, experience your new mind activity being any different than your old mind. Your new mind will be impressed with your personal thought profile – how you designed thought itself to take place – the way you habitually conducted your thinking. This is a unifying feature of your soul and your mind called the mind-matrix. This matrix is the habit of how you think and it will continue to behave just as you created it until you change your way of thinking.
Even though you will have an enhanced mind, its expanded capacity is largely for use later. How soon you begin to exercise these extraordinary abilities is up to you. It was popular on Earth to use the iceberg metaphor to explain the normal use of the mind. It was generally true, only one to ten percent of a human’s mind power and range were ever really accessed – the rest was potential. Your new mind will expand these possibilities a thousandfold, but you will still only be using a small fraction of its capabilities – at first. But you will have a very long time to get it working for you, and we will help.
AMIDA: Well, that sounds pretty good. My expectations are certainly getting an upgrade. So I will essentially be the same person I knew with all of my memories?
ALLEGENTIA: Each person has a unique way of storing and accessing memories. You would not be you if you did not experience the retrieval of your memories in the way you have habituated. Your active memory will include, first and foremost, who you are: your character, your self-consciousness, and your identity. All meanings and values are, and always will be, with you.
Your spiritual memories are going to be immediately available. Everything you did and thought was shared by your Spirit Center, the Divine part of your identity. If you choose to follow its lead, it will greatly enhance your ability to know God. Your earthly mind transcripts and memory patterns are in their ‘spiritized’ form with this Spirit Guide.
Of course, just as it was back on Earth, you will not remember everything all of the time. When a particular situation requires a detailed memory from your past you will faithfully and accurately find it in your new mind. But if you do not clearly remember saying or doing a particular thing, there are several sources you will have available to sharpen your focus.
AMIDA: And what will those be?
ALLEGENTIA: First of all, your guardian angels will be available at all times. Humans have postulated and believed in these guardians for ages but your vision will be extended and these valuable friends will be by your side to guide you. They will always tell you the truth and they can accurately reveal what they know transpired.
Secondly, direct contact with a person from your past will trigger your soul’s recognition response. Not all experiences were spiritually valuable for you, but they may have been for a friend. When they share their memories with you it will all come back to you as it happened. Every relationship is intrinsically valuable, therefore shared experiences are preserved. In a very real way, you are the product of every relationship you had.
AMIDA: So my body is new, my mind is enhanced, and my memories will be retrievable. What else is available?
ALLEGENTIA: Every basic need at any given phase of your entire universe career will be provided. Everything else you will attain for yourself. You will always have the resources you need: a planet to stand on, a mind to use, people and angels to associate with, complexities to discover, meanings to decipher, and spiritual reality to acquire and connect to.
AMIDA: I am glad to hear my quest for perfection continues but will I eventually reach Nirvana?
ALLEGENTIA: What were you told about Nirvana?
AMIDA: I was told the perfect soul would lose all ego and thus would be united in perfect harmony with the Oneness of Being.
ALLEGENTIA: And did you understand this to mean a loss of self? Would you personally enjoy this harmonious union?
AMIDA: I believed I would cease to be separate from the totality of reality, which seemed like a noble goal to me.
ALLEGENTIA: Pretty close to what Gautama Buddha taught, yet he put it a little differently. If one followed the eightfold path they could be “detached from illusion.” The illusion he spoke of was any incomplete or erroneous subjective reality. He was teaching a way to know objective reality directly. Simply shift the meaning of “cease to be separate from … reality” to alignment and integration of the self with reality and you will have his original teaching. The dissolution of ego is a way of leaving selfishness below and ascending to the higher life of right mindfulness, with no loss of identity.
Since Nirvana could theoretically be experienced while on Earth, it was not necessary for you to give up your self to follow the Buddha’s example. Your philosophy had a good foundation in seeking a union with cosmic reality. Therefore you will readily acquiesce to an expanded view of reality. One simple addition is the fact of God as a person.
Your personality is not only unique; it is absolute. It cannot be destroyed or dissolved. It is a generous gift from God the Father. He knows you as a person and you can know Him, for every person can know every other person. There is a plan for you to continue as you had hoped. And, you will be glad to know, you have left death behind.
AMIDA: I might be able to do that if the Buddha’s teaching was as you say, but what you are describing is very different than what I was taught.
ALLEGENTIA: You might remember there were several sects of Buddhism, each with a different understanding and interpretation. Gautama did know God as a person. It was only his later followers who made the philosophic leap to believe in an impersonal divinity over the personal deity. Their mistake was not allowing for both. Yet one branch of Buddhism has returned to the understanding of a Personal, All-merciful God. Simply put, since mercy is manifest as a personal trait, God must also be a person. They see the truth of it.
AMIDA: I would like to talk with some of them when I get there. Can that be arranged? I have a few questions for them. It seems I have a few things to learn.
ALLEGENTIA: They are anxiously awaiting your arrival.