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Reincarnation, Part 2 – Why We Incarnate in a Physical Body

This post is the second part of our response to two thought-provoking questions on reincarnation and past lives (one from Bari and one from Rachael) and an inspired second question (from Bari),  about the impact our thoughts and feelings can have on other people’s experience.

In our most recent post, Reincarnation, Part 1: All Past Lives are Present Lives, we write about The Council’s response to Bari’s question on past life experiences and on the impact they have on our current lifetime. Here’s one of the more interesting things The Council had to say about the subject while answering Bari’s question:

“All of your lives are present lives. They are all going on at the same time. And you may wonder: how is this possible?

–The Council (similarly formatted text below indicates quotations from The Council)

A large portion of the Part 1 post is devoted to additional comments from The Council on this point. The information on reincarnation in Part 1 can also help with understanding the material that follows in this post.

Why Are We Here?

Rachael wants to know why we, as souls, repeatedly return to Earth, and specifically why she is here…again. She wants to know, “What is the purpose of being here?” And she wonders if learning lessons has anything to do with this purpose. The Council began answering Rachel’s questions with the following comments.

For Love and Expansion

“First of all, you would never be here if it was not your choice. So even though perhaps at the present moment you feel you don’t want to be here, we have to really tell you: yes you do. Otherwise this would not be going on. So it was your choice to come here.

“Why do you come here? It’s not so much to learn lessons, so to speak. And it’s not so much to have a certain goal, but it’s just to experience.

“And why we want these experiences [is] because when you are in the non-physical you know that every experience you have is felt by everyone in the non-physical. And everything you experience helps everyone in the non-physical expand.

“And so it is through love – the feeling of love – that you jump in. And we all jump saying, ‘We’re gonna have fun. We’re going to go in there and we’re going to do whatever we want to do. And everything I experience is going to help me and everyone else.’ And we constantly, constantly expand.

“And so the reason why we jump in is because we all love each other and we love ourselves. Is that understood?”

The Council says no matter how it feels as a human being, the reason we choose to come into physical reality is our love, as a spiritual being, for all other spiritual beings and our understanding that everything we experience here will contribute to the joyous spiritual expansion of all non-physical beings.

This now feels like the best explanation we’ve heard yet from The Council on why, as spirit, we come into physical reality, but it took some time to really appreciate it. We look forward to publishing a post in the near future that helps readers better understand what The Council is saying about the importance of spiritual expansion and how our experiences in a physical reality contribute to this expansion.

Spiritual Teamwork – Looking for Ways to Help Each Other

After answering the question of why we’re here in physical reality, The Council elaborated on the idea that, as spiritual beings, we look for ways to help each other in our physical experience.

“And sometimes it is teamwork: ‘Let’s jump in together,’ or ‘Let’s meet and let’s have some experiences, and you work with me and I’ll work with you, and we’re helping us and we’re helping everyone else.’

“And so, as one of the authors – we believe his name is Robert Schwartz – what he writes is true. Many of the times we set up experiences that we want for one reason or another and we talk to the souls in spirit and say, ‘Will you help me with this and I’ll help you with that, and let’s see how we work our way through it?’

“And then there are other souls that just jump in and say, ‘Well let’s just see what happens. Let me get down there and kick it up and have some fun.’

“And there are other souls that say, ‘Well, I’m sitting this one out. Let me see how I can help from back here. Let me see, can I be some sort of a guiding force to some of the souls that have jumped in.’

“So whether you are in physical or non-physical we are always helping each other.”

Robert Schwartz has written two books on how specific people chose, before they were born, to experience a difficult challenge like illness, deafness, blindness, or addictions in their physical life, and how other spiritual beings agree to participate in these difficulties to help the spiritual being have the experience and expansion they desire.

In the last part of our session (on Bari’s question about how our thoughts and feelings influence the life experience of other people), The Council goes further into this topic of how we agree, as spiritual beings, to help each other in our physical lives. This information will be in our next post, Part 3 of this series, about The Council’s answer to this question from Bari.

All Physical Experience, Particularly Feelings, Helps with Spiritual Expansion

Often, if our physical life seems difficult, it’s easy to imagine it will also seem difficult from our perspective as a spiritual being, but The Council says this is far from the case.

“And many times when some people will go through a difficult life, a difficult journey, when they come back into non-physical (what we call home), when [they] return there is no weeping and crying.

“It’s usually, ‘Wow, that was something!’ and ‘Let me look at this again and see how I handle this.’

“There is joy in every situation that is experienced because the information, the knowledge, the feelings (and we do want you to underline that on your blog), the feelings that we have in our lifetime – what we experience – is very important. And that helps us with expansion.”

Bringing Spirit More Powerfully into Our Physical Experience

The Council’s previous comments got me [Bob] thinking that after a difficult physical lifetime, who we are as a spiritual being might feel like choosing to live another similarly difficult physical lifetime to see how we can handle the situation differently and experience more spiritual expansion as a result. When I asked The Council if this is common, they replied:

“That is common, but what we are seeing and what many of us are teaching is that no matter what experience you are having in the physical body, as you learn more and more of who you truly are and how you learn you can change – no matter what the experience is – you have the power to change it with your thoughts, with your feelings, with your focus. That leads to the expansion because you are getting in touch more and more with who you truly are.

“And so we are trying to bring spirit more powerfully, more acceptably into the physical world. And that is a very strong point that we hope you will expand upon in your blog.”

Feeling You are Spirit in a Physical Body

At this point I said to The Council that, “It sounds like you’re saying we don’t need to wait until we leave the physical and get into the non-physical to look at our lives and make a decision or a choice, and then go back into another physical body.”

“Exactly,” said The Council.

And then I said, “It sounds like you’re saying we have the ability to connect with who we are as spirit and make the choices while we’re still in the physical body.”

“Exactly,” they repeated, and continued:

“And we know that many people – as they read what you write or what we continue to say (and many of the other spirits say), because it is the basics that you are spirit in a physical body – people will begin to say, ‘Yeh, yeh, yeh; blah, blah, blah; again, again; we know it, we know it.

“You are beginning to know it. You are beginning to understand it. But when you feel it and you take your thoughts – and we always say to raise your vibration think loving positive thoughts, good thoughts – and no matter what situation, your vibration will change and you will begin to feel who you really are.

“And no matter what challenge, whatever it is you face…or anything you want to experience, you will understand that the outcome of whatever it is, you have 100% control of what happens. There is nothing – no force, no person, no God – out there that will punish [you], or change it, or not reward you.”

Addendum: Why Rachael Chose This Incarnation

During the writing of this post we realized Rachael’s specific question, “Why am I here…again?” wasn’t addressed during our session with The Council. A few weeks later during a different session with The Council, I (Bob) asked if they remembered Rachael’s question about why we are here, and if they could say something specific about her intentions in choosing her current incarnation. They replied:

“Yes. This is the one who believed she didn’t want to be here, and yes she does.

“As she was planning this incarnation it was her great desire to come in – perhaps shy, perhaps quiet [and lonely, in the beginning of this life] – and as her life progressed, to realize…to recognize the strength that she has in her; to see that there were many souls she agreed with before this incarnation who would enter her life (at one point or another) and have tremendous difficulties (whether it be health or relationships or self-esteem) and she would (with great, great patience) hold them together [and] show them the way.

“And at one point (when all of this is happening) she would then be aware of a great appreciation for who she is. And that was her purpose: to find out who she is so she can expand, [and] the people around her [can expand]. She is already holding the light for other people (and of course having difficulty at times).

For clarification I asked if The Council was saying Rachael chose to experience shyness and loneliness early in this lifetime so she could then have the experience of what it is like to expand beyond that.

“Yes, and to find the strengths within her that she has. And so it was her lesson (so to speak) that she wanted to connect with who she really is by helping the others around her also find [out] who they are.”

Bob: “So by helping people around her, she feels more connected to who she is and that helps her to expand beyond the…”

“She will then have a great appreciation for herself. And this (we feel) she has not accomplished yet, but she’s on her way.

In Conclusion

This ends the part of our session with The Council on Rachael’s inspiring question about why we are here in this physical reality. This information feels to us like an expansion of our understanding of who we are and we thank Rachael for her part in bringing this information to us.

Stay Tuned for Part 3 in this Series of Posts

In our next post we’ll write about The Council’s answer to Bari’s second question, which is about the influence our thoughts and feelings can have on the experience of other people, particularly someone we are in a close relationship with. Here’s something The Council said in the last part of the session that will be elaborated on in our next post:

“When you have positive thoughts or negative [thoughts] about someone, in your experience that’s how you will experience them.”

Let Us Know What You Think

We hope you’ve benefited from the information in this post and we’d love to know what you think of this material. Look for a Comment box or a Comment link below this post and feel free to let us know if you have questions about ideas mentioned in this post, ideas in other posts, or topics we haven’t written about yet. We look forward to hearing from you.

April 30, 2012 - Posted by | Beliefs, Expansion, Feelings, Love, Questions & Answers, Reincarnation, Relationships, You Create Your Reality | , , , , , , ,

12 Comments »

  1. I am a woman in my 50’s. Up till March 2015 I was active and in good health. However several months ago I was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer and my world turned upside down. I have been in and out of hospital with bowel blockages caused by tumours requiring emergency surgery and now have a colostomy bag. I’m onto my 2nd cycle of chemo and get a week or longer of nausea and fatigue with each dose of chemo. I have more surgery scheduled to remove tumors followed by more cycles of chemo.

    I am sick and tired of being sick and wonder is there a way I can get my ‘higher self’ to work with and through me to cure myself of this cancer? I am learning some valuable life lessons via being sick, but overall my quality of life is not good and the relentless nausea and fatigue make moving forward and achieving the goals I’d like to be achieving impossible.

    I have lost half of this year to fighting this disease and still have another 5 months of treatment to go with no guarantee of remission due to the low 5 year survival rated for advanced ovarian cancer, as there is a high recurrence of tumors post treatment with ovarian cancer.

    Similar to the comment posted by an earlier respondent …. I find the idea that my ‘higher self’ thinks experiencing an aggressive cancer is a great way to gain a new knowledge to take back to the spiritual realm. Depressing as it’s the feeling, human ‘me’ that has to go through all the physical pain and illness …. not my spiritual self. How does one ‘renegotiate’ a life plan that seems to suck, and rewrite or edit it to remove the suffering, and attract health and a happier and more full filling life. Ongoing suffering may be a great learning experience for spirit, but for the human being who is living it….it can really suck!

    Liked by 1 person

    Comment by Katie | June 22, 2015

  2. Hi, Bari. We recently realized your questions for The Council back in April 2012 about why it’s so easy for human beings to feel the lower end of the vibrational spectrum, and why it feels like there’s cellular resistance to raising your vibration, had not been presented to The Council. A couple weeks ago we did a session with The Council to ask these questions. Here are the highlights.

    1. The reason it’s so easy for human beings to feel the lower end of the vibrational spectrum is because this is your intention as a spiritual being. As spirit it’s your intention to expand the love you are into physical reality. As the human part of you experiences lower vibration and desires something better feeling, the spiritual part of you immediately responds to that desire by expanding the vibration of love and offering it to the human part of you so you can raise the physical reality vibration.
    2. The cells of your physical body have a pattern of vibration that sometimes resists a sudden and dramatic increase in vibration. Consistently focusing on better feeling thoughts will gradually raise the vibration of your physical body. In time this practice will help you feel like it’s against your cellular nature to lower your vibration.
    3. If you want to feel more higher vibration, focus your attention on things that allow you feel this higher vibration. Look for things to appreciate in your reality and you will experience more things to appreciate. Think about things that happen to you and others that help you feel a happier, more joyous vibration.
    4. Your awareness of lower vibration is only possible because of its contrast with higher vibration that you are aware of. Lower vibration is an opportunity for you to do what you came to physical reality to do: experience the expansion of the love you are into that reality.

    We hope you find this information helpful. Our apologies for taking so long to make it available. Thank you, Bari, for your questions. We’re inspired by The Council’s guidance and we look forward to writing a full post on it in the future. Love Bob & Cynthia.

    Like

    Comment by Cynthia & Bob | May 14, 2014

  3. Hi Tee,
    Good questions. Until we have time to ask The Council, and publish a post describing their response, perhaps our current understanding of their teachings on the subject of reincarnation will be of some help.

    You seem to assume that spirit “can experience pretty much everything in the spirit world” without incarnating into a physical reality. It’s our understanding that spirit joyously chooses to extend (incarnate) parts of itself into human/physical realities to experience the joy of expanding the vibration of love that’s in spirit, into a physical reality. We imagine that this experience is less available to spirit if it doesn’t incarnate part of itself into physical reality.

    People who believe in reincarnation sometimes think that when their spirit incarnates into a human body, all of who they are as a spiritual being comes into their physical body, and when their physical body stops living, all of who they are as spirit returns to a spiritual reality. It’s our understanding that only a small part of who you are as a spiritual being incarnates into your human body, and the much larger spiritual part of who you are is doing pretty much exactly what you seem to be suggesting: having lots of mini-experiences in the spirit world by perceiving what you (a part of spirit in a human body) are experiencing in a physical reality.

    The Council has repeatedly stated in many sessions that when it incarnates part of itself into a physical reality, this is a conscious and deliberate choice. They also say it is a joyous choice because spirit knows its experience of physical reality will contribute to the joyous expansion of all spirit, even if the physical reality experience is an unpleasant one from a human point of view.

    We look forward to hearing what The Council has to say about whether there is ever an end to reincarnation. If you define reincarnation as incarnating in similar realities more than one time, it’s our understanding that spirit has the choice whether to do this, or to incarnate into realities it’s never incarnated into before, or to not incarnate into non-spiritual realities if spirit chooses.

    We hope this has been of some help. Thank you for these interesting questions for The Council. We are confident that many readers will benefit from their response to your questions.

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    Comment by Cynthia & Bob | September 29, 2013

  4. Why do we bother to incarnate at all if we can experience pretty much everything in the spirit world?
    The world can be a horrible place….. Why would we choose a lesser option (Physical)?

    Why wouldn’t we just have lots of mini-experiences in the spirit world or use our power of perception to perceive what others in the physical are experiencing all the while maintaining our spiritual status?

    Is there ever an end to reincarnation?

    Do we really have choice of incarnating?

    Like

    Comment by Tee | September 28, 2013

  5. HI Cynthia and Bob, Thankyou so much for taking the time to reply! I think Ive figured out how the two mesh together now so I feel much happier! ( :

    Liked by 1 person

    Comment by Bekah | January 14, 2013

  6. Hi Bekah,
    Thank you for your comment and your excellent question about the influence that spiritual pre-birth planning might have on your post-birth life experience.

    Your comment states that you read an article on one of Robert Schwartz’s books, but you don’t mention whether you read either of these books. We’ve read Robert’s first book (originally published as Courageous Souls and republished as Your Soul’s Plan) and while we can understand how you might get the impression his book says that spiritual beings want humans to suffer because it promotes spiritual expansion, we believe this point of view doesn’t adequately represent the message Robert is trying to deliver in this book.

    But even if the author wants readers to believe that spirit does pre-plan human suffering to experience desired expansion, have you considered why you let this idea take precedence over your experience that love isn’t learned though hardship, and your belief that your purpose is joy?

    Do you think that if you read something in a book, an article, or a blog that it has more validity than your own experience and beliefs? The Council emphasizes the importance of developing confidence in your inner guidance and cautions against substituting the guidance of others. This is particularly important when someone else’s point of view feels uncomfortable to you, even if the other person (or people) seem to represent an authority.

    Robert Schwartz’s first book gave us the impression that most spirits who choose to incarnate into a physical body go through pre-birth planning sessions similar to those described in his book. But The Council says it’s quite common for spirit to choose a relatively unscripted human experience where we make plans as we go along. And when spirit does have a specific pre-birth plan, The Council says that in any post-birth moment you have the free will, the power, and all the spiritual support you need to choose another direction, and another, and another. . .

    Hope this helps. Thanks again.

    Like

    Comment by Cynthia & Bob | January 13, 2013

  7. Sorry, I forgot to add this part and Im not sure how to edit the previous post. I was wondering if whether if for example, I decided that in my pre birth session it would be wonderfully fun and fulfilling to be a drug addict in this life. Then I come here and learn about the law of attraction and about feeling good, would I still attract that destructive situation that would make me feel so awful? It just doesnt make any sense that I would-how could I if I was feeling positive and full of love and light?

    Like

    Comment by Bekah | January 11, 2013

  8. “Robert Schwartz has written two books on how specific people chose, before they were born, to experience a difficult challenge like illness, deafness, blindness, or addictions in their physical life, and how other spiritual beings agree to participate in these difficulties to help the spiritual being have the experience and expansion they desire.”
    I was very happily learning how to use the law of attraction until I read an article about the above book. Then all the hope drained out of me as I realised that instead of being able to create a wonderful life of abundance and joy which then spills over to everyone else, I am doomed to a life of suffering because my all knowing spirit guides think its a good idea that I get to experience the joy that suffering brings. In my experience we dont learn to love by going through hardship. That just wears people down and makes them attract even more bad things into their life so they are trapped in a vicious cycle.
    before I knew about the law of attraction i was miserable and self centered because I was always focused on me and my problems. Since using the law of attraction I have found that I am much more loving than I ever was when I was miserable. I have learned nothing from the bad things in my life except how wonderful the opposite of them is.
    But now I am depressed and terrified that I have set up all sorts of awful situations for myself that I wont be able to change.
    I thought that our purpose was joy, now I find that its all about being miserable and not being able to change it.

    Like

    Comment by Bekah | January 11, 2013

  9. We agree.

    Like

    Comment by Cynthia & Bob | June 4, 2012

  10. Your physical experience in your physical body and your psychological experience of your personality is a small part of the totality of who you truly are.

    Like

    Comment by silver price | June 1, 2012

  11. Bari,
    Thank you for your feedback on The Council’s answer to Rachael’s question. Like you, I found myself going over and over the material from this session and sitting with the ideas. Your marinate analogy seems fitting. It’s nice to here you’re feeling inspired to do this. It seems like a good way to let the feeling of what The Council is saying come to us.

    No need to apologize for asking follow-up questions, particularly when their answers might help others experience the feeling of expansion The Council is telling us about. In the same way that bodybuilders use the resistance of weights and elastic bands, etc. to strengthen their physical muscles, maybe we choose, as spiritual beings, to incarnate into a physical reality because it’s slower vibration provides resistance that strengthens our spiritual muscles. If focusing on your “cellular nature” isn’t tuning your vibration the way you want, perhaps you can find better-feeling aspects of your being to focus on. If you’re feeling alone in your physical experience and your desire to raise your vibration, perhaps it will help to contemplate what The Council is saying in this post about how all spiritual beings are helping each other expand.

    Thanks again for your questions and comments.

    Bob

    Like

    Comment by Cynthia & Bob | April 30, 2012

  12. Once, again, thank you, Council, Bob and Cynthia for this amazing insight.
    I find myself reading and re-reading portions of the Council’s reply so that I can sit with the ideas for awhile and let them ‘marinate’, if you will. As Council stated, people that read this blog, myself included, think we already know that we are Spirit in physical form, but…the key (and what I personally find difficult to achieve) seems to be to “feel” it…more specifically to feel it in a higher vibrational bracket. I don’t know about you, but I can intellectualize with the best of them so reading what the Council has to say is right up my alley. However, now I’m learning that it’s on me not only to change my thoughts, but my feelings as well, to their most positive form. Why is it so damn easy (when in physical form) to feel the lower end of the vibrational spectrum? Why does it seem at times almost against my cellular nature to “up” my vibration!? Am I alone in this? Sorry, don’t mean to be asking yet another question, but I really believe and want to work on the positive “feeling” part that the Council highlights because it seems to be the “silver bullet” to changing the direction of my experiences and getting every closer to what I want to experience this time around.
    Thank you so very much for all the work that’s put into this wonderful site (and “insight”!)
    Bari

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    Comment by Anonymous | April 30, 2012


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