Gnosis in a Hundred PagesPage 63 of 100 · Part IV

Part IV · The other half of life

The same life, again

The books teach that a life comes back: the same dramas, the same meetings, at much the same ages. It goes on until something in you changes.

Read to me

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The same scenes, coming around again, until the one who plays them changes.

On page 34 you saw that some scenes repeat within one life: the same argument, the same ending, the same disappointment. The books carry this much further.

They teach that the soul returns to new lives, again and again. They call it the law of return. With it comes the law of recurrence: in each life, the same dramas are lived again. The same kinds of people are met, at much the same ages, along with the consequences of what was done before.

The reason is the selves. They repeat what they want, mechanically, life after life. When a self wants a certain fight, it finds someone who wants the same fight. When two people once married at a certain age, they find each other again at that age. The scene seems to come from outside. It comes from within.

Whether or not you accept this teaching, you can test a smaller version of it in your own life. Look at what keeps coming back.

The way out is not to avoid the people or the places. They return in other forms. The way out is to change the one who meets them. When the self that plays the scene is seen, understood and let go, the scene loses its actor. The wheel slows, and turns differently.

Try this

  1. Name one scene in your life that keeps returning. Write it in one line.
  2. Ask: Which self in me plays the leading part in it?
  3. The next time the scene begins, catch that self in the act, as on page 21.
  4. Tonight, review the last time it happened, slowly, as on page 32.

Words on this page

Return
The soul’s coming back into a new life. Recurrence — the same scenes repeating within those lives, driven by the selves.

In the old words

“This is a vicious circle, repetition of dramas, scenes, romances, reencounters with the same people”

Beyond DeathSamael Aun Weor
On the next pageIf lives return, can they be remembered? There is a way to begin.64. Remembering earlier lives