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“If your mind can exist without the body, then where was the mind before you were born? And what happens to the mind after the body dies? Life is like a dream where being born is like falling asleep and dying is like waking up again. In between, your mind thinks, feels, and lives through a temporary character just as you might in a dream. Being born is similar to how an actor takes on a temporary role for a movie. The same actor plays different roles in different movies, and likewise, the mind is born into different bodies in different lifetimes. When a person dies, his spirit eventually returns to the non-physical dimension it came from.* There the spirit gets to ponder the life just lived and after making some goals for what to do next time, find the right body at the right time and be born again. This is called reincarnation. It’s like going to an arcade; you walk around, find the right machine, play for a bit, then when game is over you look for a different game to play. But even while playing, you are still there outside the game, it’s just a part of your mind that is for the moment absorbed in controlling the game character. Likewise, even though we are here in this physical dimension, there is a greater part of ourselves still up in that higher dimension dipping only a small part of itself into your body. That small part is what you think and feel with right now. Let’s call this greater part the higher self and the smaller part the lower self. The higher self is who you are when fully awake outside this dream called life. The lower self is who you are within the dream. So it would be more correct to say that reincarnation is simply the higher self extending parts of itself into different bodies at different times through birth, and pulling those parts back through death. We are like finger puppets—the puppet is who we are to others in this life, the finger in the puppet is our lower self, and the hand is our higher self. Why do people choose to be born into this world? There are as many answers as there are people. Some people come here to do something, to experience something, to learn things they cannot outside this world. It is the same reason people play games or watch movies—they get to experience things they couldn’t otherwise. Being alive on earth in a physical body can be difficult. Life is like an obstacle course, weight training program, or crash course in a tough subject. Besides the fun and joy in being alive, there is also anger, fear, and suffering. But the negative stuff is what makes the game challenging and unique. Life is bodybuilding for the soul, and the challenges we face in life are the weights that build up our spiritual muscles if we have the strength to handle them. Another reason someone might come here is to help others wake up. Think of a college student who goes back to high school to help other students learn things he has already mastered. The problem is that being born wipes your memories of where you came from and who you truly are, as though the college student joins high school having forgotten he already graduated. The subjects might seem strangely familiar and easy to him, and in this way he can still help others. But should he get sucked up into the distractions that come with being a high school student, he might forget even what he learned in college, maybe even flunk out. That is the risk these helper souls face when incarnating on earth. They might get so distracted in life that they never discover the higher knowledge within them, failing to do what they came here to do, which is use that knowledge to help others. Maybe you are a helper soul. If you enjoy figuring things out, pondering the mysteries of the universe, and feel happy when other people find ways to improve their lives and themselves, then most likely you are a helper soul. If so, it is very important that you devote some time thinking, reading, learning about higher truths in order to familiarize yourself with who you really are and what you really know. At the core, you already know these truths but have forgotten them. Remembering is difficult because compared to your higher self the lower self is incredibly asleep and distracted, so recovering what you know deep inside is similar to learning it for the first time. The difference is that if some truth is already within you, learning it again will come more quickly and with an exciting sense of recognition. You will feel something special when you finally understand what you already know deep down. It carries the ring of truth. Instead of going “…okay, uhuh…” as with learning some- thing mundane, you might instead go “Huh! That really makes sense! Amazing!” or “Ohhhh! Now I get it!” That is how you can recognize truth—not only will it make sense, but it will feel right. When both the head and heart agree with an idea, pay attention.” – Tom Montalk, Fringe Knowledge for Beginners, pg. 11, 2007