Of course, if we're talking about reincarnating in the same lifetime, we're already taking it for granted that reincarnation in the "usual" way, by dying and coming back into physical form through birth again, is a given. For clarity's sake, let's also accept that the purpose of reincarnation is to sort of reset the soul's journey through the venue of physical existence in a time continuum in order to accomplish a particular task by living a life, then dying, then being born again.
Make no mistake, the process of "regular" reincarnation is no day at the beach. Dying, but even moreso being born can be a real drag! Why? Because no matter what level of development you were at when you died, you still have to be reborn in physical existence as a helpless baby, in a state of complete ignorance, with amnesia about all that came before. And if it's not bad enough that you can't remember all the work you did in other lifetimes, even worse is the reality that you have to have parents again! Noooo!!!
On the other hand, reincarnating in the same lifetime is also quite a challenge. To accomplish it, you must do whatever it takes in terms of self-work to fulfill what you came here to do. That means no true inner desire in you is ignored and no blocks are left undealt with. Every inner belief is confronted, all supressed feelings are released, and the ego and childish self-will are surrendered to the adult and higher self. Believe me, I have literally known more than a few people who have said, when faced with that level of work, that they would rather die. And they have.
However, for those of you who relate to this, who feel that you are at a turning point in your life where you can hunker down and spiral down and out through your final years of life, or you can choose to turn everything upside down and start over again in a whole new way, this lecture is for you.
Okay, here's a marvelous section of a Pathwork Guide lecture on this subject, spelled out much more eloquently by Eva Brich and the "Guide:"
"A person who is truly on a path of accelerated development can, and frequently does, literally reincarnate in the same lifetime. As I have explained, you plan a life task for yourself before incarnation. With the aid of spiritual advisers, you plan a certain environment and certain conditions, and set certain goals of fulfillment as a task for yourself. Many, many human beings barely fulfill this task; many leave physical existence with the task unfulfilled and must return in a new embodiment to try again, perhaps under different conditions. This you know. This I have discussed. But another, quite different phenomenon is possible. And that is when a human being fulfills the task and is ready to take on a further task that would ordinarily await a new embodiment, after the person has spent some so-called time not in the body. On an accelerated path, a new incarnation can be undertaken without leaving the old body behind and creating a new incarnation.
"Thus, a laborious change and break in consciousness (normal death) can be bypassed if the personality is truly devoted to give all of itself to its own expansion and to fulfilling a seedplan that ordinarily would be activated only in a new incarnation. It can be done within the same life span. The life that would have been terminated earlier can be extended, and the new seedplan can be 'taken out' and become the task within this life span. Or, a life that might have continued in certain circumstances -- according to the old seedplan -- completely changes in feelings, expressions, experiences, environment, and task.New talents may manifest, and old ones maybe expressed differently."
Whew! What does this look like? It looks like a lot of endings first. Relationships, careers, habits - suddenly none of the old things you've held onto so dearly work for you anymore. You have to let go of almost everything that constituted your life as you've know it. This is hard and scary, and a lot of stalling and hesitation occurs when a person reaches this point. But I have to say, I've had the pleasure of witnessing a handful of people arrive to that border and perservere in crossing it.
Here's the Guide again:
"A path such as this one you have chosen is indeed a very rare and intense one. Some of you may already connect intuitively with a complete change in your life experience, so that other potentialities that would have remained dormant in the incarnation you were born into can now come to the fore. With less development, these potentialities would remain to be expressed only in a future lifetime.
"This change is a wonderful occurrence. It is an acceleration of the organic movement. And in this extended period of energetic influx of the Christ consciousness, there are more individuals opening themselves to this change. When you do not shrink from it, when you trust it and go with it, you can indeed bring forth a second incarnation within one embodiment.
"I suggest that you practice active meditation and visualization in which you trust change as the most desirable, positive, brilliant, and joyful phenomenon, which you want to go with and not stem against. A further suggestion has to do with the familiar. You feel safe in a familiar territory, even though this territory may actually be less safe than the unfamiliar one. So you frequently remain in a constricted and confined circumference to avoid the imagined danger of the unfamiliar."
Yes, this is the librarian in "The "Shawshank Redemption." Remember him? He was in prison for so long that in spite of the confinement, when his time was up, he became deathly afraid of freedom. The prison walls became embued with feelings of familiarity and safety for him, while the open expanse of a free life was the threatening unknown. Tim Robbins character, on the other hand, in a metaphor for the whatever-it-takes energy, chipped through the stone wall for years, broke through that, then had to wade through "five hundred yards of shit" to finally get to freedom. Morgan Freeman's character is us at the turning point. He's done his hard time, and now has to choose: go back to the known element of prison again or follow Tim Robbins to freedom and the great unknown.
Here's the Guide:
"Living a full life always means stepping beyond the old fences and making new territory your own familiar ground, in which you soon feel as comfortable as in the old. Realizing yourself means feeling comfortable in a new self-expression. That is the task. And only the first few whiffs of the new experience are unfamiliar. Soon the new becomes the familiar, and you expand your circumference; you expand the territory for your psychic 'at homeness' until finally all the universe and all states of consciousness are truly your own, intensely familiar. Then you are one with the universe."
Amen!
Interesting, huh?
