Is the thought of reincarnation truly consoling?

In Spiritism you’ll usually hear how the knowledge of reincarnation is so mind-settling, inspiring, and consoling.  Well, here’s the thing. We live in a crazy world. Who wouldn’t agree that that it’s far from perfect? OK, I know; it’s more like those living in it are far from perfect. But you know what I mean. As a consequence of its inhabitants, the world itself is likewise still significantly backward. So there’s a lot about life on our planet, or even just material life at this stage of the game, that is not fun, not pleasant. In fact, the truth is that life can be really hard sometimes, truly painful, and often both.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a totally legit evaluation of that to think, “Hey, I really just don’t want to come back and have to live here or do this all over again!” I’ve actually heard people express that before, and I can’t blame them. After all, on the surface, who on Earth (pun intended) would want to sign up for a return if you’ve had a really difficult life and endured significant suffering? Even if you’ve had a great life, albeit with difficult moments (no one's life is all great all the time), you still may feel that once is enough for you.

Yep. I totally get that. However, I invite you to look at it another way, because I also know there’s more to it. For example, what if you grew up in a dysfunctional family and even though you always dreamed of someday having the perfect family of your own, domestic trouble somehow always followed you, and later in life you felt that you would give anything to come back and experience that blessing of a united, loving home and family? What if you longed to pursue a particular career but some kind of unavoidable limitation kept you from doing so and you still wish you could live out that dream? What if there are so many places in the world you want desperately to see or experiences you want to try out, but you don’t have the time or resources to do that? What if you wanted to be a parent but life never gave you that chance?

In spite of all that is imperfect, there’s also a lot that’s really beautiful and wonderful about our world! As such, life here offers so many opportunities that what any one person can experience “from cradle to grave”, no matter what position her or she is in, is just a tiny fraction of all those possibilities. 

Unfortunately, if one truly believes that “you only live once”, it becomes possible to feel pressured to do or accomplish as much as possible or to feel remorse, maybe even resentment, for that which one simply cannot do or have. So if you instead consider that, given reincarnation, we journey through multiple material lifetimes, you can relax somewhat and let this knowledge take a load off.  There will always be other opportunities for everything that this lifetime doesn’t allow for. Take a moment to let that thought sink in a bit, and take a deep breath.

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I’m guessing that for some that’s still not convincing. Well then, what if you leave this world with your soul in unrest, your emotions unsettled, your mind tormented – whether occasionally or continuously – by disturbing thoughts or memories? What if you end this life here or resume life in the spirit world with regrets over your choices, decisions, or behaviors and their consequences?  And what if the only way to resolve such circumstances and truly find peace was to come back and give life on Earth (or a different material world) another try? From both teachings and testimonials obtained through communication with spirits, we know that this is the situation in which countless souls find themselves. At any given time, there are multitudes waiting anxiously for their chance to reincarnate.Those of us who study Spiritism and consider ourselves Spiritists do not believe in reincarnation because it is consoling or inspirational or even because it’s logical and offers a sound explanation for many of life’s otherwise inexplicable phenomena, at least not for those factors alone. In reality, reincarnation is all the above and it is supported, illustrated, by what we believe to be reasonable evidence for its existence, alongside that for the existence of life-after-death and the communicability of spirits - spirits from whom we have actually learned a great deal about spirit life and reincarnation.  I mention this because the next thing I want to say stems from the starting point of this belief.

If natural law were such that we could actually go on to experience true and full happiness upon leaving this world no matter what “lot” we each received in this lifetime and regardless of what we did throughout our stay here on Earth, then, I have to say, I’d probably be quite tempted myself to say that I too would rather just go straight to the state of enjoying eternal happiness and peace. Why not? However, according to the Spiritist teachings, disclosures, and illustrations taken from serious study of both the spirits and their communications, this just isn’t the case and that’s not how it works. 

Our spirits go on living beyond physical death, but they upon leaving the physical body they return to the discarnate state as the very same beings. Therefore, there will be relationships to heal, virtues yet to attain or strengthen, knowledge to acquire, and dreams to accomplish. The vehicle for all of that is reincarnation. This is the reality, as Spiritists believe, of our evolving spirits.

My own opinion, given the above, is that yes, reincarnation is truly consoling, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to study it in the context of Spiritism. It comforting to me to know that we have endless opportunities to achieve, experience, amend, grow, and evolve. So that’s how I feel. What’s your take on all of this What’s your verdict? I’d love to hear from you! Thank you for reading! Blessings to all, today and always Heather