Reincarnation... How does it work?

Somehow... I don't see how "consciousness" is part of nature. That would actually be the only thing that is not part of nature. If it was... it would prevent us from destroying nature. Nature has no power on our thinking. It can only punish us after we have hurt nature.

that's where most of people are wrong. your consciousness is part of the nature's big consciousness. imagine it like this, if every single cells in your body has consciousness would they be aware of the higher consciousness that is you? and if that is true many people still have cancer. so what's the difference between us and cancer? i mean we are the cancer that's killing the earth. also we all are made from different thing, atoms, they react in a certain way. now if you accept the fact that your consciousness is merely a chain of chemical reactions then wouldnt you be a a part of a bigger chemical reaction? because you cannot exist alone in this universe, therefore there's a link between chain A and chain B, chain B and chain C, etc. and those chains belong in a bigger set of chain that makes up this universe.

what makes you think that you think? isnt thinking also a chemical reaction? so by that token you can say that you are chemical reaction. and since the earth is also going through chemical reaction, who are you to say that the earth, or even the universe, doesnt have a consciousness? how do you know that you actually make the decision and able to think when everything you do and think is based on chemical reaction that is completely predictable, although complex? so where is your consciousness? is it based on the fact that you can make choice although the choice itself is completely predictable if you look at the brain chemistry?

That is all very well... and I'll accept your point of view... But I can see the same contradiction developing amongst answers... 1) While we are in the spirit world... we know who we are... who we have been in the past... and can choose who we will be next. 2) "I must have been drunk to choose the life I've had" Indeed! Why would we do such a thing? You don't have to be poor to learn about poverty. You only need to be enlightned. Bill Gates understand about poverty and has donated vast amount of money to Africa. 3) If we know everything we need to know while we are in the spirit world... why do we need to comeback? The biggest contradiction is the "Choose who you want to be when you comeback". It implies that you already know... So maybe... despite knowing... you want to experience it... That make sense... But... if you forget everything once you comeback... What is there to prevent you making the same mistakes again? Nothing! And let's not forget this... Children becomes what their parents are... They have no control over this... I saw it so many times... Children hating their parents... By the time they turn 40 or 50... they are their parents. It is what we have learned in the past which make us able to go on and become smarter. If you forget everything you have learned... coming back defeat the purpose. Finally... a great piece of logic... If the purpose of coming back is to make us better human beings through learning... The world would not be what it is today... We would have a world full of smart people doing the right thing. And if you tell me that we do all this to simply be perfect in the spirit world... I'll have to ask... For what purpose? To move to Paradise? What's in Paradise? Just another type of life again? Such a Paradise would have to be outside our physical Universe... Do you realise the enormity of it all? I think humans have a vivid imagination... beyond the realms of the sense.

Okay let me pick things apart here...Okay as for the comment I made, "I must have been drunk to choose the life I've had" Granted my life so far (and thinking positve about this as who knows, my life COULD turn out the way I've hoped for) still there must have been a reason, some lesson to learn and I HAD to experience what I've been through to be a better person...each life does have some lesson to learn..granted we may not understand it, especially when we are going through hellish times, but there is some reason for it...Look at it this way...if everything in our lives was handed to us on a silver platter and we got everything we desired or wanted without some turmoil in our lives, I think it's be a rather boring life...that's why so many people who are born to real, extreme wealth tend to be, well, screwballs and spoiled bratty attitudes..uh, Paris Hilton for example? As for "forgetting everything once you comeback"--would you really want to remember your past life? Realize we probably at one time or another didn't have glorious past lives...what in a past life we were a murderer...a Marquis deSade type...would you really want to remember? Heck, what if you were Hitler in a past life...although I bet he is getting some kind of restitution in an incarnated life... Some people when they incarnate may never have learned the lesson of their former life which maybe is why some may have to repeat a similar life to learn in their incarnation next time round --for instance if a person is downright close and narrow minded and not open to other ideas then it may take several lifetimes to "get it"

Well Aussie, I would have to say that I have wondered over this perspective of reincarnation as it was a bit different from my perspective. But I think I finally got some answers too. I hope you would be able to understand some of my views here. I have combined my ideas with pyewacket's and I think what I have come to believe will make some sense. 1)Choosing who we want to be when we come back To explain this I have to state my beliefs too which are as follows. We have to experience the fruits of our actions - good and bad (I am talking about the law of karma. I hope you believe in karma or else this is going to take a long time to explain.) So, in the spirit world you actually know what karmas you need to experience. So, you choose what karmas you want to experience in the next birth where it will be that you are getting the fruits of your actions which you have to expeirience in one birth or another + you are learning your lessons too. 2)Forgetting everything when we come back I agree with you that if you forget for what you are here, the basic point of learning the lesson itself is lost. But according to my beliefs, while the experience itself will not be remembered(It is much better this way because of all the hassles emotions make), the lesson learnt is quite alive and refreshing in the subconscious mind. I can be sure of this because even though there are a lot of things that people whom we respect ask us to believe unquestioningly, our sense of logic and justice intervenes if we don't get a just answer, which is actually our lesson learnt in our subconscious in action. 3)If the purpose of our coming back is learning lessons, the world would be such a perfect place... Yes, you are right. But this is not so because of several reasons. a) We have comparitively new souls coming in also. b) Not everyone learn their lessons properly and they need to redo some of their old lessons too :-) c) The ones who have passed the various stages have reached a stage where they no longer need reincarnate and we are just left out with the bad ones (we one amongst them). d) There are a few of such perfect ones here in this world too who stand as the inspiration for us and an ideal to emulate. 4) We do all this to be perfect in the spirit world.. to what purpose? This is a very difficult question to answer. To become perfect is to know what we are in essence. I believe even when we are spirits, we do not know the Divine nature of our self. It is to attain this knowledge in experience that we undergo all the other experiences in life. When we become Divine, all ego and pain is lost and we become one with the Supreme Underlying Principle. All of us want to be happy as long as we can. But we find that it does not last forever. Everyone goes through happy and painful stages in life. What we do in this life is actually a pursuit of happiness. So, if the output of all this perfection is never ending happiness, who wouldn't want it?

Thank you for your reply... You bring up similar answers than pyewacket. See my answer to her below. Thank you.