The idea of an eternal return is an ancient one that has been around since classical times. It says that the souls of humans reincarnate forever. In the old Greek myth, when people died, they drank from the waters of forgetfulness, and forgot the suffering they endured in their past incarnations on earth. They went back to earth in what the Eastern traditions call the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth. So, we see that in both East and West, this belief in reincarnation is deeply engrained.
Yet this idea of an eternal return assumes that the expansion of awareness is not infinite. It assumes a closed, finite system in which the amount of psychic material which constitutes consciousness is limited and conserved.
If consciousness is infinite expansion, then there is no reason for an endlessly cyclical cosmos to which every psyche must inexorably return forever. If energy is infinite, then there’s no need to recycle our ‘soul material.’ Either this is our only life on earth, or we reincorporate only into as many bodies and lives as is necessary for awareness to re-attain its pure and total state. We stay only until we learn what we’ve come here to learn. If the physical universe is endless and eternal, perhaps it’s repopulated by newly generated psychic material which eventually adds to the infinity of awareness.
I don’t believe in an eternal return. I believe in an infinite awareness in which we all participate.
© 2022 by Michael C. Just
Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.
You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23
Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002
Two of his short stories have recently been published online. The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW
I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October