Responsibility Reincarnated

Met a reincarnated person? Me neither. Nor can I definitely relate to any past life. So therefore it doesn’t exist. Simple. It doesn’t exist! After all, as an awakening child my own fertile imagination was most likely provoked by the image of an Arthurian knight, or that of a full-sailed pirate ship, or that of an Egyptian pyramid, or what of that opening sword fight in Romeo and Juliet? De ja vu! Such excitability to my sentiments is proof perhaps that I once was someone in the past, perhaps a soul in several pasts? Then again, that concept of reincarnation is surely just that, conceptual. I mean, there are arguments we never descended from baboons, and hairy as I am, it is no proof that my genetics are from their lineage! Nor that of caterpillars, gazelles or worms! And just because someone has feminine traits, or a female is overtly masculine, for that matter, it does not mean he or she is a carry-over from a past life-time! What rubbish! Reincarnation, like Alice in Wonderland, is a fig-a-ment of the imagination! Why, if I were to... And so it goes.

Thing is, unless one specifically can relate, can identify with, can feel for, can be sure of, there is much dismissal of concepts at the expense of those who believe, or who’ve ‘been there, done that.’ Some argue having a 'soul'. Yet there certainly are sufficient proponents of reincarnation enough to fill out books and tracts and orders and religious gatherings on the subject. 'I want what’s right for me,' is the ubiquitous category. Indeed, we are so concerned with the ‘me’.

My soul. My spirit. My body. My life. My lives. My likes. Wants. Fears. Feelings. Loves. Me, mine, and I. And don’t you cross me. Don’t invade my space. Don’t you try to change, influence, persuade, preach or proselytize; I am me and I will believe as it suits me. Predominantly. Sometimes I shift gears and am swayed by the momentum of my family, my friends, my society, my governors, my God. It is my prerogative! It is my right! I am a soul on a journey, or not. I know some say I am just here for just this lifetime and then gone, dust to dust. All of me? Well...

Iconoclasm is the instinct of the cynical, the existential, the distinctly left-brained. Its break-down and examination of improvable constructs keeps a check (and balance?) of the status quo. After all, between theory and fact lie many a discussion, many a contention, many an argument, and many an opinion. An individual is so very paramount; so very iconic; so distinctly significant; so completely important! Or not. Depends if that individual is ‘me’, or not.

Me and I drive sensibility. My belief will dictate my life-style, dominate my desires, depict for me my choices. And to let go of my sense of me, once I die, seems unfathomable. Surely I will go to heaven, I will evolve to the next level, I will be held accountable, I will be free from suffering, I will go on... won’t I? What’s more, I will meet my maker. I will reunite with my family. And when the jury is in, I will...

Met someone who’s been to Heaven? Hell? And not the ones we make or find ourselves in down here, but up there, in the afterlife? Certainly, there are reams aplenty about that too.

Thing is, my own conceptualization of the molecular dispersal of ME into the Whole is but an idea. It may discard Future Ego, leaven MY past, free me of MY future, attempt awareness of my present, and be fancifully osmotic in the extreme. It may discount mirrored continuity, it may discount my owning an integral cellular antiquity, but it does not disavow a responsibility to the health of the whole. Ha! It is my, me, I, and mine idea. And I can live with that inadequacy. You?