How are we to understand the tragedies that strike our own lives, or the lives of those closest to us? If I develop cancer, did I somehow cause it? When someone dies in an accident, is it truly an “accident”, or is it God’s will? When the devastating Japanese tsunami took so many lives yet left others miraculously alive, was that mere random chance, fate, or karma at work? Can we point to something or someone as the real “cause” behind the major events of our lives?
In the previous blog we explored the View, the two choices and where each of them leads.
The first choice:
It makes no sense; there is no steady rhyme or reason behind life’s events. To be sure, the planning and effort we put in does shape what happens to us to some degree. In many areas of life we can see cause and effect at work, linking what we do with what follows later.
But then, can accidents be purely accidental? Is there no "cause" behind an accident? Can a person’s life be turned upside down by sheer accident? Does that make sense? Is it fair? Is it just? Could I just as easily have been diagnosed with cancer as the person beside me? Can major life events occur as an exception to the rule of cause and effect?
And what if that were so? Such a notion leads fairly logically to the person feeling like a rather hapless victim of their circumstances. It is easy to picture someone in that position growing quite depressed about life and their place in it.
If we are powerless before random fate, are we not best described as victims? If cancer can come simply through “bad luck”, what does that say about our chances of recovering? Is recovery basically a matter of luck as well?
For me, this is exactly why the fatalistic View is so unhelpful. It feeds the powerless victim mentality. It is also why I have argued so strongly against describing people as cancer “victims”. Happily, that label is used far less than it was in the early days of my work back in the early eighties.
The Second Choice:
For me, feeling empowered — being empowered — is the better choice, and in my experience it leads to significantly better outcomes.
So how do we make sense of the big events in our lives? Where is the rhyme and the reason? Let us go “Out on a Limb” and consider the two concepts that many people around the world believe hold the answers: reincarnation and karma.
When searching for meaning, one of the first questions concerns timeframe.
When all my troubles came upon me at twelve years of age, I could make no sense of them within the span of this one life. There seemed no justice in one young boy being struck by three such major traumas. People often say something similar to me when they are faced with cancer in young children — what did the child do to deserve that?
And the very word “deserve” plunges us deeper into questions of blame and guilt. What do you mean by “deserve”? Did anyone deserve to get cancer? To be killed in an accident or a tsunami?
Not necessarily, in my View. But perhaps there is a relationship between what happened in the past and what is happening now. If someone smokes these days, they know the risks. Do they deserve to get cancer? A tough question; but you would have to agree there is a very strong link between the smoking and the cancer.
But what of the children who face big problems so early in life? And what of someone like Mozart and his prodigious talent? Perhaps we need a larger timeframe to understand all of this.
Most of the world’s population do believe in reincarnation — the notion that our human experience is not confined to just this one life. They hold the View that a part of us, the more essential part of our being, survives the death of the body we now inhabit and then returns in a new one. And this process repeats over and over.
For many Hindus and Buddhists, reincarnation is as much a fact of life as the sun setting each day, passing into night and rising again each new morning. Some scholars hold that reincarnation was an integral part of the early Christian belief system too, only to be removed from Church doctrine at the Council of Nicaea in AD325. Esoteric Christian groups such as the Anthroposophists (who are involved in the Steiner schools and Anthroposophical medicine) still hold the belief to this day.
Many Buddhists say reincarnation can be grasped intellectually — that it is a logical premise, not simply a belief or an article of faith.
What I found helpful as I learned more about reincarnation was that it made sense of many of the apparent mysteries and inequalities I observed in life. For example, how was it that at such an early age Mozart simply knew how a piano “worked” and had written his first symphony by the age of eight? How is it that some children are born into such apparently tough circumstances while others have it so easy? Again, is it all ultimately random chance? Just good or bad luck?
If we live in the world of the loving God of the Christians, how do we make sense of these apparent inequities? Where is the justice?
If we live in the logical world of the Buddhists, how can we make sense of all of life’s events within just one lifetime? Certainly we can observe cause and effect operating behind many of the things we do and see. Much of what we plan for and work for does come to fruition in a predictable way. But what of those events in life where the cause is not so obvious? Are they simply exceptions, or do we need a longer timeframe to find the answers?
How is it that some people seem to do so many “bad” things and appear to get away with it in this lifetime? And how is it that, often enough, bad things do seem to happen to good people?
Perhaps reincarnation is part of the answer and worth taking into account. Perhaps it warrants reflection? Perhaps you have a comment, or want to share these ideas with someone else?
Next week: what about karma? Who or what is responsible for what happens to us and to those we love?
RESOURCES
BOOKS
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: Sogyal Rinpoche. Excellent elaboration of reincarnation and karma.
The Dragon’s Blessing: Guy Allenby. My biography that recounts how my own View emerged and developed, how it informed the tough times and the bountiful ones.
You Can Conquer Cancer: Ian Gawler. For the chapters on death and dying and philosophy.
Coping With Grief: Mal McKissock. Very useful and succinct manual on grief. A must read as a life skill.
CD
Understanding Death, Helping the Dying: Ian Gawler. Good to listen to with those you are really close to and use as a focus for discussion.
Counselling and Groups
NALAG National Association for Loss and Grief
Many years ago when I was suffering from losing access to my 3 children due to not having any money to afford a solicitor, I also found out the children had been emotionally destroyed by the actions of their father and stepmother. I spoke to a dear friend of mine and he said very gently, "you must realize that we come into this life with lessons we need to learn for our own spiritual development, and this experience of your children is part of that". This gave me the strength to carry on and no longer carry guilt and unhappiness. This is part of the cause and effect that is what so much of our life is about.
ReplyDeleteI do hope this helps others who have suffered as I did, and gives them a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Hi Ian,
ReplyDeleteI come from a background on being a non-believer in reincarnation. I have regarded it as being a clever ploy by the richer and more priveleged classes in a society to keep the poor and underpriveleged suppressed and less likely to try to be assertive.
However, some of my own experiences have made me question reincarnation. I was in an emotionally abusive marriage for 25 years. For about the last 5 years,I would keep getting a thought/message which said "it is really important that you leave your husband IN THIS LIFETIME'. I used to question where that came from- it was not the way I would word something, and so I knew it was not a self-generated thought. I finally left my husband after 25 years. Then, 7 months after leaving him, I was diagnosed with a very aggressive sarcoma. When I reflect on this, I wonder whether reincarnation is a possibility- that perhaps there was a lesson I needed to learn in my present life - that I was to learn to be courageous and stand up for myself in this life journey. I am still unsure about reincarnation, but I am much more "open" to its possibility now.
Mary P
Hi Ian I used to think everything that happened in a big way around me was just a matter of luck. But then I noticed how many coincidences seemed to be going on and it seemed too much to be random. The idea that something or someone is keeping tabs on all this now makes really good sense to me. Thanks for this week and I look forward to the next one.
ReplyDeleteJust an example: A good friend of mine since childhood has been occupying herself with this very topic since her early teens. We grew up together in Germany. She now lives near Seattle and works as a school psychologist. During a recent phone conversation with her she told me that she was able to remember her birth and that we were friends in our previous life but living in France. Perhaps that solves the mystery of my dreaming in fluent effortless french but can barely put a sentence together when conscious. Cause and effect is all around us... on a small scale and a big scale and an enormous scale. It's everywhere and everything. Very much looking forward to the next Blog and seeing you in Brissy soon, kindest regards and well whishes, Christel.
ReplyDeleteHi Ian, your blogs seem to be hitting the mark for me lately. I was brought up in the "one life and your done" catholic church. It took a bout of cancer to get me out of that. I opened to the possibility of reincarnation and a couple of years later ran into a health therapist who seemed to have insights into my life that I couldn't reconcile. When I questioned her about this she admitted, somewhat reluctantly, that while treating her patients pictures of their past lives would run through her mind. I was fascinated. What did she see in me? Over a period of time stories of my past lives, past relationships unfolded. What was more remarkable was that these stories explained much of what had happened in this life.
ReplyDeleteI now have no doubt that the essential part of my being carries on past "death" and returns for more experiences.