Spiritual Genealogy Reincarnation and Life Beyond Death from a Genealogical Perspective by Susie Harrison
I like to present here a new perspective on genealogy, one that is not so at odds with science, but which also affirms the experience of former existences. Although I have explored traditional ideas of reincarnation I have not been convinced, and have instead been developing my own ideas, which is that these lives of the past, which some people appear to have a memory of, are really the experiences of the ancestors. A multi dimensional thread is passing through families, by which there also is passed, potentially, a type of eternal life. To recall ancestral experiences is enabled because, in a sense, we were there in the past, experiencing this. There is no separation, once personal ego is disregarded, between those that were in our family lines and those that will be. All that we ever are and ever were is in constant flow and it is family lineages which are a vehicle for this. Eternal life, therefore, is not a religious survival beyond death as is usually conceived, but is that which passes along families.
There is considerable multi dimensionalism to this theory, a vast spiritual one, and it is this: that all life is the exploration of our primal oneness, a journey of the original spirit in trillions of evolving multi dimensional forms. Life constantly fragments and re-merges, in the joining up and diverging always of different family lines. It is through this journeying that we evolve, embracing new identities along the way while being also all that we ever have been. Such a flowing life force is a gift from the ancestors, which we too may pass on.
Beyond the oneness, each life form, along the way, takes on a unique and individual expression of our shared life essence. Each new born person receives, while in the womb, a blast of spirit identity in a totally fresh and unique way, while on a grander dimension all we have been in the past is with us too.
Scientifically we see hereditary flow in families by our understandings of what is DNA, of this ancient passing on of our matriarchal DNA and other DNA threads too. This in itself is a visible transmission by which we see there is a continuing presence of the ancestors. We are all a journey in the many of the one, as one may refer to this phenomenon in spiritual terms. The multi fragmented oneness travels onwards, evolving as it does so. So it can be see that all life connects in this way. That is how it is said by wise souls that all is one. And we are not only born of life forms but are of the earth and the elements and the sun, spirit and matter seemingly separate, and yet all is interlinked. On this fascinating journey of life our humanity evolves, embracing new identities along the way, while being also all that we ever have been. And it can be seen that our own enrichment of this evolutionary essence is family related. We are handed that baton of life and pass it on, until such a line stops, which is until someone for whatever reason has no children. Elsewhere life continues to flow onwards, but not through the person who ends a line.
If I or anyone else envisions an ancestral experience, a family memory, it is because this too was something we knew and has remained in every cell of our being. Each individual in a family will have different awakened ancestral imprints and considerably more dormant ones. If all were activated this would be impossible to bear and would result in madness. So unless someone has activated more of that which had lain dormant, maybe through tantric development, powerful drugs or even by total emotional and mental overload (though a lot can be born of later life activation if one is spiritually developed), then some traces of past existence will be realised in but some people only and some in others. Inevitably some memories are shared, which is how it can be that more than one person experiences themselves to have been the same past famed character. One example I look to personally, is of how in my choral days of singing world music, those Georgian songs I sang resonated such an ecstatic magic in me long before I discovered that my matriarchal DNA originated from that part of the world. All that we were I am. And I live onwards in my children.
It should be considered that as we look at what is our recorded genealogy, some of those named people are rather of different lineal outreaches, and yet this may be unknown to us because of cheating, adoptions and always covered family skeletons. For this reason, genealogical charts, though they in some way guide us, are not to be relied on totally. And yet internally we carry all. Such charts also have such small time spans and even known history has it's limits. And yet further back all that has been remains in us. Ancient and tribal peoples had more of an understanding of the sacredness of family, hence they engaged in ancestral worship, which energises remaining trace energies of individual spirits which have passed away, through an honouring of and appreciation by the descendants.
So it has been presented that past lives align with genealogy, reaching back into personal family journeys, which is of the past, and yet is also of the present. Not only we, but our children too, are of this oneness, in newly expressed forms, with a whole burst of unique individual identity. This is a shared journey, and as example, that which is my own journey, my children, bless them, may continue 'our', 'my' and 'their' journey long after my physical body has perished and my own individual expression has evaporated.
The 'one and the many' perspective has its own spiritual recognition in Indian philosophy, a noble effort of the Hindu's in their striving to understand the divine. And so it is that this is what we all are. We are all of the divine. In every lineage will be found the many miraculous experiences of the One through the Many. Along with original essence is always to be added the new, in an evolution of both spirit and matter. As a simple example, where milk evolves into yoghurt, it is henceforth never any the less. Likewise, the elements have taken on this extraordinary phenomenon of life and have embellished what once was.
There is a fragility here, reaching out always in newer ways, in our adventurous steps into the unknown. But much is achieved ultimately. We are so much more than what was, we are the same while also the new, both the essence and the developing flavours. So it is that I take onwards all that has been of my ancestors and my descendants carry this on from me.
All that is passed on is there on so many levels and dimensions, not in simply observed DNA. There is mind with it's memories and imprints, and there is spirit which is the life force.
We all link back to an original black mother, Kali as I am content to call her, rather than Eve. Kali means, in India, the Black One. This more expresses the black origins we all share, having sprung from in the heart of Africa. She may smile on us all as her children, all us humans, expressions of herself in so many varied and complex ways, as we play our part in this always finding of ways to embody the new and unique. Beauty manifests, ideas arise and creation flowers, amazing feats are accomplished. We are she plus more.
And before Kali, the mother of all humans, was the originator of all life and all creatures, that incredible manifestation which appeared in the simplest most basic of material forms. All comes from the essence.
In all this, it is apparent that spiritually, as the Indians have explored, one does have to ultimately drop ego, at least in the end (in death), ie. our individual unique expression of existence, which is what we comprehend as our identity and separateness, but all will not be as some then say a void. Nor is there heaven or hell. Rather there is an eternal life, of sorts, which continues beyond that which we are and carries on through ones descendants. And that in itself is but a smaller fragmented, though continually converging, expression of a oneness that we always were and always will be.