How did we choose our life? We were born from it. Sort of like the creation myths of world religions, we are literally the avatars or embodiments of those intents.
Our souls choose when they want to come back to physical existence? Yes, but there is a method we use while in spirit to select the patterns for each incarnation. Have you heard of the practice of writing variants of a song? Well, if the soul could be likened to a song, then every variant or iteration has been and will be expressed. The ugly to the profound, the loud to the soft, but it’s all still you. The universe does nothing by halves.
We’re writing all those variants? Yes, like Edison’s 100 attempts at the light bulb, they are all intended to be done. Even if you feel this life is not to your liking, it’s a part of your greater soul, but like cells in your body they aren’t static.
Filling a need to learn? Yes. So this one life can grow and evolve even from its initial patterns, and you do have the power to choose. We’ve got a way to change it as we are all creators of our own lives. We have free will. Upgrade options. Every life is a chance. Arguably the unity some speak of seeking could be compared to all those variants of your life synchronizing, becoming one harmonious symphony. When all those songs are one song then it can be likened to nirvana.
But is nirvana another song to create? Yes, basically, and even in Buddhism the Buddhas that are in nirvana aren’t disconnected. Their order of being and function has changed, but they are still with us. They just don’t return to incarnation.
What is nirvana? Translated poorly but directly into English, it means “no wind”. Nirvana basically meaning no disturbance. Being at odds with nothing.
So ultimate peace? Basically, yes. Some equate it with loss of the part that makes us who we are, but that’s not really supported in teaching. The returning Buddha is capable of returning because they never lost what they were. It was more of a maturation, and they can act with an awareness and power that outstrips most imagining.
Like a choice for them to help others? Yes, they can and do choose.
Do we ever really lose anything that makes us, us? No, you don’t. To loose any part of yourself is sort of antithetical to the unity that people speak of.
I don’t think heaven or nirvana is about peace? Nirvana isn’t heaven. In the great wheel of Buddhism there is a heaven, and it’s just another working out of karma. It isn’t nirvana.
As described, nirvana is like what one can get from booze or drugs? Actually, no. Because nirvana is only arrived at by full awareness. Being fully alert and present. It’s resistance to awareness that makes one seek intoxicants.
Peace and bliss = death? What is death that anything can be equal to it? I don’t know of any death as people describe it. Death is only life of one form or another. Einstein once said that you can’t solve a problem in the same state of mind that you become aware of it in. So any place in the Buddhist great wheel is such a state. Nirvana is a state that knows that there is no problems. That everything is whole and perfectly as it is. There is no division between heaven or hell, life or death. Basically it’s when the great wheel is seen as a grain of sand, as one thing.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~