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A few days ago, we received a letter from a longtime friend of TZF asking about reincarnation. Specifically, she wondered, “Do you believe we've had past lives, and if so, do we bring negative karma as well as positive karma into this life time?”.

My response was no surprise to her, and would have been familiar to frequent TZF visitors, essentially to ask, if God is all there is, as must be True if God is Infinite, then who is it that is alive in “this life time”, is having “past lives”, and generating “negative & positive karma”? As it happens, the writer is a healer, and so I suggested that if the concept of reincarnation and karma serve the healing process, then by all means use them, but all the while it behooves us as seekers to Remember Who Is What.

Not long ago, I came across this line by Vivekananda (and I may have already posted it here somewhere): “God is the Doer and you are the occasion”. For my own use of it, I have made this slight change: “God is the Doer and this is the occasion”. I take that to mean that what I call “Stefan”, “me”, and “Stefan’s life” are all one and the same thing: “the occasion” of “God’s Doing”.

Thus, there is no such thing as the person “Stefan” thinking of himself as "me" living “Stefan’s life”. Rather, there is the occasion of “Stefan’s life” and it is all being done by God. It is a “doing” or a “happening”. It is not personal, it is most assuredly not mine, and it is not in any way generated, shaped, controlled, directed, or whatever by me … not the least of which because there is no me. There is only the occasion.

What does any of that have to do with reincarnation and karma? Well, the concepts of reincarnation and karma --- the beliefs in them or the rejection of them, are part of “this occasion”. Thus, their Source is God, the Doer. So, presumably we are right to offer them the same acceptance, enthusiasm, imagination, questioning, and so on, which we apply to every other aspect of the occasion which each of us calls “my life” (at least until we realize there is no me to have my life).

Anyway, just a thought.

Anna and I have just returned from an extended visit with her very aged bodily parents. Over tea this morning, we observed the difference in the sense of time-and-space between where we are now, at home, and where we have just been, visiting them.

In ways neither of us could fully articulate, time-and-space seem much less “real”, much less “a reality”, much less “a phenomenon”, here than there. Time-and-space do not seem to be a factor here in the same way they were there.

That led to this thought: Time and space, of course, are concepts. “We” – whoever or whatever that pronoun points to – create them in order to differentiate one thing from another thing. That is, without time-and-space, there is only One. Time-and-space create the appearance of many, of "me here now as opposed to you there then". Time-and-space, then, are the product of the creation of and (good and evil, me and you, up and down, tall and short) which, as I write in In The Beginning, I am convinced is what the so-called Fall is all about: the creation of self-consciousness leading to Self-Consciousness.

Anyway, as the sense of divisiveness or separativeness (“I am me, and you aren’t me”) evaporates, so does time-and-space. Its purpose served, it moves on.

And that led to this thought: As time-and-space dissolves, the whole idea of decision-making disappears. We realize that no decisions need to be made. How does ACIM put it? “Today I will make no decisions.” Indeed, no decisions can be made. Without time-and-space (without and), there is no when and no where in which to make them, not to mention no who to make them! Life simply unfolds.

And yet, Stefan, did this thread "And The Beat Goes On" exist somewhere in the non-space-time continuum prior to your starting it? And would it have appeared here had not "Stefan" taken the time to compose it?

Could Infinity expierence Itself without becomming "you" and "i," and everything else with borders? And won't we continue "to be" as long as Infinity continues to "Stefanate," and "Ihavesaysoize?"

Perhaps God's asleep and dreaming, and we, and all else that "seems to be," only exist as elements of His dream? I wonder how much of it He will remember upon awakening? And if you and I are not among the dream characters He remembers, will it be as if we never were?

Or, if and when He awakes, will He remember we are "Him?"

Could Infinity experience Itself without becomming "you" and "i," and everything else with borders?

That's the point, isn't it? I don't see how it is possible for Infinity to experience itself. It cannot see itself in a mirror, because being infinite, its self extends into the mirror and the image therein, thereby making a distinction impossible between "me" and "the mirror" (the glass) or "the image in the glass". That explains the Creation of you and me ... and all the rest. That's our function, isn't it? To be the One unaware of Its Infinity-ness so that we can know ourselves as selves, albeit as many selves (not One Self).

... if and when He awakes, will He remember we are "Him"?

Is not "His awakening" our "Self-Realizing"? Remember, God put Adam to sleep in Genesis. But nowhere is there mention of Adam's awakening from that Divinely induced sleep. I am convinced that's not a typo or an oversight. I am convinced that the story of Jesus is precisely that: The story of our (Adam's) Awakening (from the sleep reported in Genesis and virtually every other scripture)!

So, our undertaking the spiritual process is no accident, no coincidence, not really even a "decision"; it is part of Creation, fully intended all along. As Adam-asleep, we seem to ourselves to be many, and living in that perspective, we become aware of being alive, of being ourselves. Then, in time (on time?), we undertake the spiritual process, and eventually, at Self-Realization, our self-awareness transforms into Self-Awareness. We know that we are, and we know what we are.

In that instant, God Becomes Self-Aware. Creation is complete. It is accomplished (John 19.30).

"It is finished," then becomes the true "salvation," awakening to the knowledge of what we have always been - not being freed from the wrath of an angry God by the shedding of his "Son's" blood! (How barbaric!)

The late Neville Goddard, a Christian Mystic, said in his lectures and writings, that the Bible story of Jesus' passion is the foretelling of what each of us goes through as part of our "awakening." So, your observation, that no mention is made elsewhere in the Bible, of Adam awaking from his God induced "sleep" in Genesis, is not only correct; but also a very astute!