Rebirth, Born again and what Tom had to say about it

Lord, let me live until I die.

Will Rogers

Soul recycling center
(Don't worry, you won't remember a thing)

Unity of East and West

I don't have an opinion about what happens after we die. I have my own ideas but no one knows. Forrest Church said that " Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die".  When I was in SRF we were told that no compassionate God would give us one life and then judge us based on what we did with it. I would counter that no compassionate God would tie us to a revolving door and then give it a big push, spinning us into millions of cycles of life and death until we dissolve into infinity, either.

Glued to the Earth for millions of lifetimes with no recollection of what went wrong last time or how to fix it this time.

 I think they may both be wrong but I know they can't both be right. 

 I plan to just live a good life, be close to God and let the chips fall where they may.
Lots of Possibilities

This entry is about what I learned about tying completely different Eastern philosophy to Western philosophy and coming up with a hybrid religion full of cockeyed stuff.

Katie-doo is no Scholar-roo

 As you probably have already surmised, I am no Religious history scholar, but I have a casual acquaintance (Tom) who is. He is fluent in several ancient languages including Latin and Greek. He also dabbles in Sanskrit and Hebrew. I don't know him well but I found myself chatting with him about Yoganandas Biblical and Vedic references a while back. That is how I came to learn how idiotic Yoganandas stuff is. I probably shouldn't even be going into this, considering how much I KNOW (NOT!) personally about the subject, but I thought it was interesting and maybe someone else will also.

What Tom had to say


In relation to this entry, one of the most interesting things Tom had to say was that the old Greek Biblical scriptures appear to have no real differences (beyond spelling and grammar errors) from the Bible Christians use today. He did suggest people not use the King James version since people do not speak old English and it makes it difficult to translate the translation.

Tom can actually read this thing 

There is controversy concerning the  Second council of Constantinople 
and Origen. 
I don't know anything about them  personally but there is lots of info on line for anyone who is interested. All I am saying is that the SUPER OLD STUFF doesn't seem to have changed over time.

There seems to be evidence that some of the early Christians believed in reincarnation (mostly among the pagan converts, the same folks who brought us Easter eggs and Christmas trees) but it is not well understood. It also does not seem to be tied to anything they did in life and appears to be optional not compulsory. Jesus was Jewish and the idea of the afterlife is more vague in the Jewish religion. While reincarnation is part of Jewish tradition, there appears to be no evidence that Jesus taught reincarnation (or yoga either for that matter) although some of the pagan converts may have believed in it.

Early Christians

Jewish afterlife

Jewish Reincarnation

I have tried reading most of the Upanishads as translated into English by Muller (1879) and also much of the Yoga sutras of Patanjoli.


I have been reading some of Gandhi's translation of the Bhagavad Gita. This is an old poem about a family war in Kurukshetra. Arjuna doesn't want to fight his family and Krishna doesn't want to take sides. It is considered a religious metaphor for spiritual life. I do not know who wrote the original poem. It may have been written by Vyasa:

here

Here is a picture of Vyasa giving the Vedas to the Elephant God Ganesha who then wrote them down (I think).

Vyasa is saying "Oh Guide of the Ganesh be the writer of the Bharata which I have formed in my imagination" and the four armed  Elephant replies that he will write as long as his pen doesn't stop writing.

I also have been reading some of the contemporary translations of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. An added bonus is that the originators name is actually in the title of the book so we have some idea where it actually came from.

They all contain some interesting stuff but there is no parallel between the two religions. They are distinctly different. The Gita story does not contain the personal loving quality that the Christian story does, It is more about inner conflict, outer conflict and duty. The Christian story has no references to things like pranayama or Dhyana, real or implied. Patanjali and Jesus were both good teachers but they were not teaching the same thing.

People like Yogananda think they have found stuff in the Translated Bible to prove Reincarnation but,  according to Tom, you could just as easily turn the table. You could say that the ancient Vedas, Japaji and Bible definitively do not support reincarnation but instead a judgement and then cherry pick little snippets to prove it.

Like this:
 plunge the wicked in the depth, yea, cast them into darkness that hath no support.
Rig Veda 

Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.

Hebrews
By their karams and deeds will they be judged.
Japji 34 


See? When you take it out of context it can mean whatever you say it means. So we are back to the 'no one knows, pick whatever you want and run with it' thingy, but why try to combine them?

History of goofy translations

Another interesting thing I learned from Tom is that Tara Matas grandfather (Orson Pratt) was involved in the Joseph Smith BOOK OF ABRAHAM translation fiasco.

Book Of Abraham  

If you don't want to take the time to read the link above, here it is in a nutshell:

Joseph Smith "translated" some old Egyptian burial scrolls into what he said were Abraham's vision of the cosmos. They weren't.

I don't know if this story is true, but according to Kriyananda, Tara Mata translated Yoganandas book into Hindi and it was gibberish. They caught it just before it went to print.

Do you really want people like this translating "TRUTH" from ancient texts for you?

A REALLY GOOD SCRIPTURE

There is one totally awesome thing from the Bible that Tom directed me to which I want to share because I didn't even know this existed.  Eat, drink and be merry. The same destiny awaits us all. The dead have nothing more to do with anything that happens on Earth. No tramp souls. No reincarnation. It is now that God favors what you do...
I am totally on that page!
Ecclesiastes 8
 ¹⁶ When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man's labor on earth—his eyes not seeing sleep day or night- ¹⁷ then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.
Ecclesiastes 9
 ¹ So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. ² All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad,  the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.
       As it is with the good man,
       so with the sinner;
       as it is with those who take oaths,
       so with those who are afraid to take them.
 ³ This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. ⁴ Anyone who is among the living has hope —even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!
 ⁵ For the living know that they will die,
       but the dead know nothing;
       they have no further reward,
       and even the memory of them is forgotten.
 ⁶ Their love, their hate
       and their jealousy have long since vanished;
       never again will they have a part
       in anything that happens under the sun.
 ⁷ Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. ⁸ Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. ⁹ Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. ¹⁰ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave,  where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

Ecclesiastes


Be Well and Happy!

Peace and Warm wishes,
Katie-doo