MISCONCEPTIONS IN THE WAY OF ENLIGHTENMENT
“Remembrance” within New Age circles is in deed thrilling, I know, I’ve been there, and it feels exciting because it offers you an opportunity to adopt a new intriguing identity, perhaps even being a reincarnation of an accomplished being or remembering yourself as a star being, as was my case, before realising what is beyond even that.
However, to remember or become who you really are, is not becoming a new identity, such as who you were in Lemuria, Atlantis, Egypt, in the fairy realm, another planet, star system or previous life. It is not done in a past timeline at all.
Remembering essentially means being parts of yourself you haven’t been aware of, animating life into uninhabited regions of your body-mind. And becoming implies the subsequent realisation of your essential nature as unbound undivided Awareness.
Self-realisation, enlightenment, brings about dissolution of the sense of being someone, in stark contrast to the application of new identities and ideas about yourself as a certain someone.
“Ego is the complete identification with form. Physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms.”
Eckhart Tolle
Visions and flashbacks of previous lifetimes is a very common phenomenon during Kundalini activity and awakened state. It enables one to download experiences of other ascended ones & release old karma. It can be related to one personally or to the collective and is a sign that the person is within the process of metamorphosis and developing astrally.
One is recommended to remain indifferent and detached to such visions, but this is a challenge for many and dwelling in the past timelines, memories and insights, is a known pitfall on the spiritual journey. Often enactment of the past persona, which is usually a famous being, becomes a tool for the ego to aggrandise itself, believing it is a reincarnation of the one in their visions.
“Reincarnation implies a reincarnating self. There is no such thing. The bundle of memories and hopes, called the “I”, imagines itself existing everlastingly and creates time to accommodate its false eternity. To be, I need no past or future. All experience is born of imagination; I do not imagine, so no birth or death happens to me. Only those who think themselves born can think themselves re-born. All exists in awareness, and awareness neither dies nor is re-born. It is the changeless reality itself.”
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The only real truth is happening NOW. The nondual Self is beyond the impressions and experiences accumulated in the subtle field. THAT is never born and never dies, and thus reincarnation of the unmanifest is a contradiction. YOU are THAT. And you CAN recognise that as your true essence of being.
“Your duty is to be, not to be this or that. ‘I am that I am’ sums up the whole truth. The method is summed up in the words ‘Be still’. What does stillness mean? It means destroy yourself. Because any form or shape is the cause for trouble. Give up the notion that ‘I am so and so’. All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that?”
Ramana Maharshi