Recently, I received the following question from a DM reader:
Have you given any thought to whether the idea of “one shot at life is all anybody ever gets, and then your soul goes to heaven or hell,” especially when compared to the alternative that our souls reincarnate many times? I don’t think this gets talked about, nearly as much as it should be. Among other things, a wider acceptance of reincarnation would help explain why some people are LGBTQ+ — and in their present incarnation, they’re supposed to be. Especially if they’ve just completed a series of lifetimes as the one gender, and now it’s time to experience another gender.
I have written about versions of immortality, resurrection and reincarnation in my book, One River Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths. There I collect 18 themes that I find common to all religions, from the sacredness of Creation, to Light, Names for God, Meditation, Holy Imagination, Joy, Suffering, Service and Compassion, Spiritual Warriorhood, etc. And certainly “Dying, Resurrection and Reincarnation” is among such themes common to all religions.
That chapter begins with a poem by Sufi poet Hafiz called “God’s Bucket.” I remember sharing it at a memorial service for our beloved and intellectually sassy “Art As Meditation” teacher, M.C. Richards:
Your existence, my dear, O love my dear,
has been sealed and marked
“Too sacred,” “too sacred,” by the Beloved—
to ever end!
Indeed, God has written a thousand promises
all over your heart
that say,
Life, life, life
is far to sacred to
ever end.
I think we all respond to a message like that, and feel its truth about the sacredness of our existence. This is one reason why all religions teach about life after death. Meister Eckhart puts it this way: “Life dies, but being goes on.”
The quest for some kind of immortality goes way back, as we know from ancient burial places we dig up from tens of thousands of years ago. An old Mesoamerican poem puts it this way:
Where do we go? oh! Where do we go?
Are we dead beyond, or do we yet live?
Will there be existence again?
Will the joy of the Giver of Life be there again?
Do flowers go to the region of the dead?
In the Beyond, are we dead or do we still live?
Where is the source of light, since that which gives life hides itself?
To be continued.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, One River Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, pp. 335, 338.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.
Banner Image: A man’s soul takes flight. Image by Ara_a from Pixabay.
Queries for Contemplation
Do these two poems speak to you? How or how not? Why do you think all religions speak to the questions of life beyond this one?
Recommended Reading
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
6 thoughts on “What About Resurrection and Reincarnation?”
Based on my nine-week hospital stay for Covid – Pneumonia in the fall of 2023.
I was intubated in the ICU for 8 days. My emaciated body was not capable of doing much without assistance. In the eyes of my medical team, and family, my condition was ‘grave’. But I held firm to a consciousness that rose up within me that said, “We, you, are going nowhere, because our somewhere has already arrived.” So I was ‘all-in’ with that grace of faith. The ‘body’ does not keep us alive, rather ‘the Spirit that lives within is the source of all-Life’. And that is who we are, and that is who I am, and that is why we are all here. And being ‘all in’ to that experiential revelation becomes our resilience, no matter what the mountain we are given to climb. And with that, those around and supporting me were ‘all-in’ as well, despite all the struggles and unknowns still to endure.
Being ‘all-in’ comes from our consciousness, soulfulness, and Spirit within. We do not live by the body nor die by the body, but we continue to spend an inordinate amount of debilitating time in fear of death, while missing out on a richer life. My journey on the path of resilience has taken me from emaciated and physically helpless to being emancipated in glorious, simple and humble ways. When we go ‘all-in’, the ‘all-in’ of the universe recognizes its own and comes to draw us in as ‘one all-together’. – BB 06 18 24.
Thank you Matthew for covering in today’s DM and in upcoming ones the universal human spiritual theme of death and Resurrection/Reincarnation that is dealt with in most of our genuine past and present genuine spiritual traditions. The immortality of our souls, like Meister Eckhart expressed it, “Life (earthly – D.M.) dies, but being goes on”, is eternal and probably in many forms that we do understand fully except for experiences reported by people who have had near death experiences and channelers/psychics (research and resources available on websites like eternea.org, noetic.org, and agreaterreality.com).
Awareness/consciousness of our immortal souls also increases our appreciation and understanding of the Presence of Our Unique Divine Souls in our hearts in this earthly incarnation on Our daily compassionate spiritual journeys with one another, as part of Our LOVING Evolving Diverse WHOLENESS~ONENESS with Sacred Beautiful Mother Earth and All the Cosmos~Omniverse…
While I was working on my play “Discovery,” I spent several hours over a few days with Marvin Meyer, one of the translators of The Gospel of Judas, on which my play is based. Marvin was an expert on Gnosticism and early Christian texts. A phrase I learned from him was “in the beginning, there were many”—meaning that in the first century C.E., there were many interpretations of Jesus’s life and teachings. One day, I asked him about reincarnation and he said that in the early days lots of Christians believed in reincarnation. He also pointed out scripture verses easily interpreted as supporting reincarnation. In John 1:19-28, for example, Jewish leaders ask John the Baptist, “Who are you?” When John says he is not the Messiah, the Jewish authorities continue. “Are you Elijah? … Are you the Prophet?” Perhaps these verses can be interpreted in some other way, and I have no idea if we reincarnate or not, but Marvin’s conviction is worth keeping in mind: “In the beginning, there were many.”
The poems are beautiful and inspiring to me. As far as the universal hope for life after the body dies, there could be several explanations, but the simplest is to have some relief from the sufferings of this world to look forward to—maybe it is just wishful thinking. But it is more profoundly the understanding that life is a force or power or process that cannot be destroyed. Even if one does not believe in a heaven, there is a kind of resurrection or reincarnation in the returning of the elements of the body to nature, to continue to exist in some form. On the other hand, Desmond Tutu once said in answer to what his concept of heaven might be: that it is where we are fully who God meant us to be, whole and complete. What a lovely and hopeful concept.
“Life is a dream that the ego is having; the ego is a dream that the soul is having; the soul is a dream that the Spirit is having; and Spirit is a dream that Source is having. So, everything that exists in the phenomenal realms is simply… God in drag.”
“When you identify with the physical body, then resurrection looks like a miracle, but when you identify with the soul, then resurrection is about reincarnation.
And when you realize you are a holographic fractal of God, then the final resurrection is union with Source.”
– Fr. Sean O’Laoire, PhD
In my late forties I did several past life Meditations within a guided group. These very intense experiences gave me new insights into my life helping me heal present day wounds and shifted the perspective point of my existence backn my late forties I did
past life Meditations within a guided group. These very intense experiences gave me new insights into my life helping me heal present day wounds and shifted the perspective point of my existence backn my late forties I did several past life Meditations within a guided group. These very i
experiences gave me new insights into my life helping me heal present day wounds and shifted the perspective point of my existence back to late eleventh century France. Thirty flights later, france factors large in my life.
I feel there are many of us on the planet living our present lives within the resonance of the high middle ages and yearning for a divine centered humanity-culture.