I believe that your memory is correct based on my experience with one of my 6 children. When she was born, she came out with eyes open and seemingly assessing the new situation she was in. For a few months my wife and I thought that we had some kind of genius on our hands as her ability to learn was way beyond anything we had ever experinneced before. She was our third child.

However, after a couple years she was much more ordinary. Still pretty smart. She is about to get her PhD for an Ivy League school. But not a genius.

That experience reinforced my belief in reincarnation. Like she was conscious of her previous life and death at birth, but then lost that memory as she adjusted to her new life over the period of a few months.



Regarding heaven, the best description I have ever read is in Swedenborg's little book on angels. He claims that we are all angels after death but otherwise our social life is not so different from what it is on earth. He even describes the rebirth process as the act of god in selecting those to be reborn on a periodic basis. Seems that the occupants of heaven try to hide in order not to be reborn. He even decribes how one can enjoy sex in heaven. That is only in one of his books. All the others are so abstract as to be unintelligible, at least for me.

A much more abstract description of heaven can be found in the writings of Theosophy.

My experience suggests that if you make it to heaven permanently, it is because there is a job there that you can perform. So in that regard, heaven is not so different from earth. Right now I am in heaven on earth because for the rest of my life I do not have to earn money. It will just be given to me, at least enough to live on. But then like in Swedengorg's heaven, I am watching out for and trying to avoid the day when god will come along and take me away.

Regards,

Richard

• didn't mean re-incarnation - dolphin - March 30, 2002 - 07:05 UTC
  • I do believe in reincarnation - yanniru - March 30, 2002 - 17:17 UTC
    • Yanniru knows little of neuroscience or history - spazcon - March 30, 2002 - 21:03 UTC