Reincarnation, Brain Evolution, and Kundalini in Myth
The first time I “remembered” a past life, it came in the form of a visual flashback to my death as a small child in India who had fallen into a raging river off a wooden raft, as my mother screamed in panic. Another life ended by being stabbed in the back (where there is now a birth mark) as I raised my hands upwards to bless a large group. Re-membering past lives is like waking from a dream, the last scene lingering in your mind.
Personal stories of past lives, in all probability were the basis for the doctrine of reincarnation and subsequently the immortal soul. Whether or not you believe in reincarnation or the immortal soul, one must admit that the ancient philosophers in Greece, Egypt, India and Persia were obsessed with the idea. The relationship between reincarnation and the Kundalini–enlightenment transformative process is essential to understanding the allegorical nature of mythology and most importantly all the world’s religions.
Reincarnation is the religious or philosophical concept that the soul or spirit, after biological death, will begin life again in a new body. This doctrine is a central tenet of the Indian religions. Many of the greatest philosophers of the western world, such as Plato and Pythagoras, believed in reincarnation or “metempsychosis”, as they called it.
Reincarnation, in this context, is nearly identical to biological evolution: an organism, over the period of many lives, is transformed into something entirely new through an intrinsic property of its inner growth. The only difference between this notion of reincarnation and the modern concept of evolution is that reincarnation implies the existence of an immortal soul overseeing the entire process, on its journey to enlightenment.
Enlightenment is that permanent state of higher consciousness developed after the soul individuates through its many earthly incarnations, while Kundalini is the intelligent power that transforms the body into a suitable physical expression of one’s consciousness.
Some traditional Buddhist and Hindu beliefs state that the process of reincarnation is an endless cycle of births and deaths, and that freedom is attained by escaping into nirvana or heaven. But the real goal of reincarnation, and thus evolution, is to spiritualize the human body, elevating the mind to a state of consciousness where it becomes aware of its own immortal nature.
Brain Evolution and the 12 Signs of the Zodiac
The Sun’s movement through the Zodiac became an allegory of the soul’s reincarnation in a sequential path through the twelve signs of the zodiac. As an example, the twelve apostles of Christianity are personifications of the twelve houses of the zodiac or twelve personalities, and which is similar astrological symbols surrounding the sun god Mithras. Following with this line of thought-Hercules had twelve labors to accomplish before he was reaccepted as an Olympian God. The Sun Gods, their miracles and savior status is an allegory of the Souls enlightenment. This cycle of twelve has been woven into the fabric of fairy tales, with the 13 being unlucky because of its association with death and transformation, as in the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty.
Since ancient times, the Zodiac motif has symbolized the unique characteristics that the soul developed during its many incarnations. The implication is that reincarnation involves the evolution of the human personality, with its roots in the biological organ of the brain. In other words, Kundalini and the symbolic Zodiac are both connected to brain evolution. Hellenic civilization taught that the soul descends from the stars into bodily form and eventually returned to the heavenly fixed stars, a belief that was symbolically encoded into mythology and religion by parables and allegory. Plato states in the text Laws:
The soul of man is immortal. At one time it comes to an end – that which is called death – and at another is born again, but is never finally exterminated. On these grounds a man must live all his days as righteously as possible. Thus the soul, since it immortal and has been born many times, and has seen all things both here and in the other world, has already learned everything there is.
Philosophically, the ancient’s universe was more akin to a giant hologram with each microcosmic part replicating the information of the macrocosm, as the ancient maxim “as above so below” so aptly implied. From this holistic viewpoint the Sun; because of its life giving light and warmth, was the most appropriate choice of symbols to be deified as “God” and worshipped as the intelligence behind the universe.
It is precisely these types of inferences that will serve to inform empirical research on Kundalini. In order to do this, a person must move away from a literalist interpretation of the ancient myths and religion. Reincarnation is but one of the symbols contained in ancient mythology that helps to decipher the mysterious biological and psychological processes that occur upon the awakening of Kundalini.
Literal vs. Allegorical Interpretations
A disagreement between the literalist and allegorical interpretation of the ancient myths has always existed. Even in ancient Greece, the philosopher Socrates was given hemlock because of his denigration of the traditional Greek Gods.
Knowing how often reincarnation and similar motifs are found in the world’s myths, the literal interpretation of religion as a historical record becomes untenable. Today, there exists a great valley of separation between the common views of religion as history, and the ancient philosophical belief in religion and myth as symbolic allegory.
Much of the iconography in world mythos is used to embody functions within the human body. The theory of biological evolution controlled by Kundalini would help to explain the globally recognized “Virgin Birth” symbolism, as the word “Virgin” symbolizes the inward circulation of sexual energy and its sublimation. The “tree” which so many Gods and saviors are killed or crucified upon is a reference to the cerebrospinal system and denotes the major physiological transformation which occurs after Kundalini ascends upward from the base of the spine to the brain. Kundalini itself is symbolized by the serpent or snake and is the most widespread of all images encountered in mythology, as it denotes both creation and destruction utilizing the spiral path of prana.
A desire for spiritual experience must be the deep-seated impulse in human consciousness, affecting the biological structure of the brain as it drives the human psyche on its spiritual journey toward higher state of consciousness – a state that is entirely different from knowledge of any other type, philosophical or otherwise. This search for enlightenment was so important that it was inscribed on the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo using the aphorism “Know Thyself.” According to Plato:
The ultimate design of the Mysteries […] was to lead us back to the principles from which we descended […] a perfect enjoyment of intellectual [spiritual] good.[1]
Western culture has a jaundiced view of ancient spiritual beliefs; there is little mention of the immortal soul, reincarnation, enlightenment, and Kundalini in the many modern interpretations of mythology, despite these doctrines being widespread in ancient times.
References
[1] Taylor, Thomas. Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries. Lighting Source Publishers, 1997. p. 49.
