Who Do You Think You Are?
Apr. 25th, 2015 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWho do I think I am?
Well, I'm a sort of a Buddhist. I believe in reincarnation. I think this no longer very active body is the latest of many I've knocked about in- which means my so-called ancestors are only related to me for the duration of this particular short life. When I shuck this body off I'll lose them as well. My real lineage has nothing to do with my family tree but consists of all the random, genetically-unrelated people I've been. So if I were to discover that my blood ancestors were slave owners and slave traders I wouldn't be greatly bothered. Those guys ain't me
Silly Ben Affleck.
(As it happens, the ancestors I know most about were Quakers, which means they'd have been abolitionists as a matter of course. Those are my mother's people. My father's lot were shopkeepers on one side and unknowable on the other. I think (can't prove but have reason to believe) that my grandfather was illegitimate. His mother had a lodging house in Erith and his father was what- some passing sailor? My grandfather was very swarthy- which makes me speculate (indeed hope) that his father may not have been English. All this is quite good fun- but I can't take it seriously.)
The soul's journey from incarnation to incarnation is a story of checks and balances. You go badly wrong in one life, you get back on track in the next. I'm sure, on the law of averages, I must have been some pretty awful shits in my time. Never mind. That was yesterday. We're here to explore the potential of life in human form on this planet- to have experiences- and we'd be doing a lousy job if we only kept to the straight forthright and never veered off into the bush.
Well, I'm a sort of a Buddhist. I believe in reincarnation. I think this no longer very active body is the latest of many I've knocked about in- which means my so-called ancestors are only related to me for the duration of this particular short life. When I shuck this body off I'll lose them as well. My real lineage has nothing to do with my family tree but consists of all the random, genetically-unrelated people I've been. So if I were to discover that my blood ancestors were slave owners and slave traders I wouldn't be greatly bothered. Those guys ain't me
Silly Ben Affleck.
(As it happens, the ancestors I know most about were Quakers, which means they'd have been abolitionists as a matter of course. Those are my mother's people. My father's lot were shopkeepers on one side and unknowable on the other. I think (can't prove but have reason to believe) that my grandfather was illegitimate. His mother had a lodging house in Erith and his father was what- some passing sailor? My grandfather was very swarthy- which makes me speculate (indeed hope) that his father may not have been English. All this is quite good fun- but I can't take it seriously.)
The soul's journey from incarnation to incarnation is a story of checks and balances. You go badly wrong in one life, you get back on track in the next. I'm sure, on the law of averages, I must have been some pretty awful shits in my time. Never mind. That was yesterday. We're here to explore the potential of life in human form on this planet- to have experiences- and we'd be doing a lousy job if we only kept to the straight forthright and never veered off into the bush.
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Date: 2015-04-26 05:09 pm (UTC)My daughter went for hypnotic regression and remembered three wonderfully unglamorous lives- as an American business woman, a French nun working with babies and an Indian merchant. Would these be lives that anyone would come up with if they were just imagining things?
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Date: 2015-04-27 10:49 am (UTC)The results of hypnotic regression are indeed fascinating. I remain somewhat agnostic about what it's telling us, though, in part because I'd rather just close my eyes, exhale one last time, and be done with it.