Can Christians believe in reincarnation?

Reincarnation, as defined by Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, is the rebirth of the soul in another body, the doctrine that the soul reappears after death in another and different bodily form. In Buddhism and Hinduism, "karma" is the totality of a person's actions in one of the successive states of his existence, thought of as determining his fate in the next; hence, loosely -- karma is fate or destiny (Webster). In other words, karma is the law of cause and effect (what you reap is what you sow). Through successive lives, or reincarnations, it is commonly thought, one is supposed to work out his/her karma; that is, work toward oneness with the supreme spirit or reach "nirvana" -- the state of perfect blessedness achieved by the extinction of individual existence and by the absorption of the soul into the supreme spirit, or by the extinction of all desires and passions.

That, at least, is how most people today assume reincarnation works, but it is a view I believe to be horribly, tragically incorrect. This view of reincarnation is largely a product of today's deeply confused "New Age" culture, and not only does it not reflect what I believe to be the tragic truth about reincarnation, neither does it reflect the actual perspective of Hinduism (or, for that matter, that of original Christianity, which did accept reincarnation as a valid doctrine, according to both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi scriptures).

My research into the Binary Soul Doctrine puts all the above modern assumptions about reincarnation into question :

(1) Is one likely to achieve progress, leading to "salvation" or "enlightenment" or "perfection" through reincarnation alone? No. Without Christ, DivisionTheory indicates, it is just not possible. Reincarnation, with its memory-loss between lives, is the problem, not the solution. Christ is the solution to this problem.

(2) Should one's goal be the extinction of personal existence, as many interpret Buddhism to say? No. "Suicide of the self" is no more the answer than "suicide of the body". Christ came to save us, not to insure or hasten our destruction. Our proper goal, DivisionTheory suggests, is the development and completion and perfection of the individual personality, not its extinguishment; only by "making ourselves into the very best unique selves we can be" can we hope to honor our Creator Who designed our potentials. (It is worth noting that this same goal, "the development and completion and perfection of the individual self", as opposed to its annihilation, is the goal as described by Edgar Cayce, the goal of the ancient Egyptian religion, and even, surprisingly enough, the goal according to Ken Wilber, one of today's most prominent advocates of Buddhism.)

(3) Should we try to achieve spiritual progress by extinguishing our desires, feelings, and emotion, as some interpret Buddhism to teach ? Of course not. Denying, rejecting, and ignoring our feelings and emotions is the problem, not the answer. The feelings and emotions we feel rising up within us in life are gifts from God, signposts He sets in front of us. To deny them is to deny He who designed them. The goal is not to live without emotion, but to live in harmony with them.

These are radically different conclusions than what the "New Age" voice seems to be screaming today, so let's explore these perspectives. The evidence shows (we will get back to WHAT evidence in a bit) that, yes, we ARE reincarnating, but the vast majority of us are not progressing as we do so, but just spinning our wheels, getting nowhere.

Why is this? Simple - those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Hindu tradition reports the same thing : the ages of history in Hindu tradition grow ever more corrupt and spiritually stunted as time moves forward. We are now, after untold ages of human history have come and gone, in the Age of Kali, according to Hindu doctrine, the most spiritually immature and corrupt age of all. This of course is not what one would expect if reincarnation was an active force successfully promoting humanity's spiritual progress, but it is what is suggested by the reports of modern research into Past-Life Regression. Again and again, we find regression subjects reporting being stuck in the same negative, destructive behavior patterns life after life. So long as memory loss remains a part of reincarnation, it cannot be a force for progress, but only for lack of progress.

This concept is NOT alien to the original form of Christianity, despite the protests of today's church. We know that some early Christian sects, such as the Gnostics, included reincarnation among their beliefs, and their long-lost Gospel of Philip shows us that they viewed reincarnation as a problem, not a solution:

An ass which turns a millstone did a hundred miles walking. When it was loosed it found that it was still in the same place. There are men who make many journeys [lifetimes], but make no progress towards a destination. When evening [death] came upon them, they saw neither city nor village, neither creation nor nature, power nor angel [they were in the isolation of the soul's afterlife]. In vain have the poor wretches labored.

- The Gospel of Philip 63:11-21

Reincarnation sounds good to many, but it is held to be totally incompatible with Christian beliefs, a denial of Christ, and this seems to be a correct analysis to me. Reincarnation, at least as most people today think of it, WOULD BE a denial of Christ. Outside of the context of DivisionTheory, reincarnation and Christianity are utterly irreconcilable.

This poses a great problem for Christianity, because the scientific evidence supporting reincarnation is starting to seriously pile up. It's starting to become very clear that, within no more than a single generation, reincarnation will as widely accepted as the idea that the earth revolves around the sun. The church has waged a war against the doctrine of reincarnation since its very inception, and that war, it seems, is about to be lost. The church has painted itself into a corner; without DivisionTheory, it is lost.

The argument against reincarnation says that if we can reach perfection on our own, then we don't need Christ. His death on the Cross becomes meaningless. The truth, Christianity insists, is that is: Jesus died for our sins (the one and only perfect sacrifice), has paid the price, and set us free from the LAW -- the law of Moses, the law of karma or any law that can be imagined. Even if we lived a million lives, Christianity insists, we could not reach perfection through our own efforts (we will always fall short of the glory of God). God does want us to be holy and to reach perfection (otherwise how can we come into his presence) but it can only be by accepting God's gift of salvation, and not through any process of reincarnation.

This is all classic Christian doctrine, and I couldn't agree more. Yet it does not refute the reality of reincarnation, nor does it deny that Christianity and reincarnation can both be equally true and compatible, at least within the context of DivisionTheory. But it does raise a number of questions:

1. What did Jesus save us from?

2. What specifically did He save, and why was it in danger in the first place?

3. How did WHAT He did make a difference?

4. How can we take advantage of this opportunity? How can we accept God's gift of salvation?

These are all questions I address more completely in my book, but we can review them here. Let's take these one at a time.

The 1^st question, "WHAT DID JESUS SAVE US FROM?" is a good place to start, and it shows right off why the church has historically been opposed to the doctrine of reincarnation.

The traditional answer is this - Jesus saved us from death. Jesus' supreme achievement was in rising from the dead. If Jesus had not risen, there would be no Christian church today. His Resurrection is the original foundation and glorious promise of the Church; in His Resurrection, the promise is seen that all men may one day be resurrected from the dead as well. By "breaking the doors of death", the church believes, Christ made it possible for all others to also eventually be resurrected, an event which is believed to be scheduled to occur at "the end of time", during the Judgment Day scenario.

What's this got to do with reincarnation? The church is firmly convinced that if reincarnation is correct, then everything, EVERYTHING, the Christian church believes in must be completely wrong. A fantasy. A mistake. If people naturally raise back up from death all by themselves through reincarnation, then what need have they for any concept of a "General Resurrection", or for that matter, any Savior who guarantees that resurrection?

"If reincarnation is correct", Christianity has been mistakenly taught, "then we ALREADY survive death, and so there is no need for Jesus' noble sacrifice". The church believes that if reincarnation is proven correct, then Jesus' whole life is transformed, in one fell swoop, into a joke, saving those who had no need of being saved.

In short, the public acceptance of reincarnation could kill Christianity as it currently stands. "If reincarnation is true", it is thought, "then whatever it really was that Jesus did, He didn't save us from death."

Unfortunately for those who assume the above to be a correct analysis of the situation, the evidence supporting reincarnation is piling up, and the church is getting more and more nervous. Many are getting more and more uncertain; many within the church already doubt many of its most basic tenets, but see themselves as stewards devoted to their vessels, intending to go down with the ship they are already fully expecting to sink.

Christianity is in a dire predicament, and is losing courage fast. Reincarnation research is ongoing in universities around the world, and thousands of people everywhere are experimenting with Past-Life Regression. Within a generation, the battle of "reincarnation vs. the church" will be fought and over, and virtually everyone expects Christianity to lose.

But it need not lose. In fact, this battle need not occur at all.

The entire conflict is based on a mistaken assumption, the result of our culture's having forgotten that Christianity was originally based on the Binary Soul Doctrine. Christianity can be saved. This battle need not occur. Christianity is Truth, every bit as True as is reincarnation ; the two only seem incompatible because of a mistaken assumption about the nature of the soul. As soon as one plugs the Binary Soul Doctrine into the picture, one instantly sees how reincarnation and resurrection can both be true at the same time - one half of us, the spirit, reincarnates again and again, while the other half of us, the soul, does not generally arise again until it is resurrected.

Today we stand at a critical threshold, during which the destiny of Christianity will be decided forever. Either Christianity finds a way to incorporate our new discoveries about the validity of reincarnation, or it will perish. To my knowledge, there is no other avenue available for Christianity to integrate reincarnation into its resurrection-based faith except that of the Binary Soul Doctrine. That of DivisionTheory.

But this still leaves us asking, if reincarnation is true, then what DID Jesus save us from? And the answer DivisionTheory gives is - Jesus DID save our souls from death. Our souls, not our spirits. He didn't save the spirit from death, for the spirit never dies, but instead reincarnates again and again into new lives. But Jesus DID save the soul from death, the soul which lives but one life and then is discarded into heaven or hell. The forgotten distinction between the soul and the spirit solves the whole conflict (and if the Church had not forgotten this crucial point, it would have saved itself, and us, a lot of trouble).

The 2^nd question: WHAT SPECIFICALLY NEEDED TO BE SAVED, AND WHY WAS IT IN ANY DANGER IN THE FIRST PLACE?

The traditional declaration "Jesus came to save us from our sins" raises a lot of questions. For instance, WHY did we need to be saved from our sins? WHAT were these "sins" in the first place that they could represent danger to us? What "effect" or consequence could they do to us if we weren't saved from them? And of course, HOW would Jesus' death have had any sort of impact on our sins? How would Jesus' death have in any way prevented those sins from producing that effect or consequence ?

DivisionTheory, as it turns out, produces interesting and consistent answers to these questions.

DivisionTheory reminds us that the human mind is differentiated into two spheres. Like the US constitution, a check-and-balance-like "division of labor" arrangement has been instituted, such that each half of the mind possesses certain abilities and lacks certain others.

The conscious mind can think rationally and make free will choices and decisions, while the unconscious mind cannot. But the unconscious mind holds the memory, the emotions, and the moral sense of right and wrong, which the conscious mind does not have.

Now, these two are like dancers, embracing tightly together, locked in step. Whenever the conscious mind makes a move of any kind, the unconscious mind matches it step for step. The conscious mind is active, the unconscious reactive, so whenever the conscious mind makes a choice or decision, the unconscious reacts by generating feelings, emotions, or insights, which are then shot back into the conscious mind for it to become aware of. Since the unconscious mind has the moral sense, these reactions are often morally-based; when the conscious mind chooses a choice that the unconscious judges to be wrong, it responds automatically by generating negative feelings, such as guilt or sadness or anxiety or depression.

In this scenario, the negative choices made by the conscious mind can be identified with the ancient label "sin", and the negative reactions generated by the unconscious mind can be identified with the label "consequence of sin".

Now, what makes this all interesting is that the conscious mind has free will and the unconscious does not. That gives the conscious mind an advantage - it can CHOOSE to repress, ignore, and deny the negative input of the unconscious. It can make negative or evil decisions and then choose to ignore the unpleasant feelings its unconscious responds with.

What happens then with all these negative feelings if they are not allowed to break through to consciousness? Well, they don't just disappear. When stuff is stuck inside the unconscious, or soul, it just stays there, unchanged, in a sort of suspended animation, waiting patiently for the day it can finally break through to consciousness. Modern psychology has demonstrated again and again that feelings decades old can come forth just as fresh and overwhelming as if the event they were reacting to had just occurred moments before.

We can repress our feelings. In short, that's the problem. That's what Jesus had to come to save us from. Doesn't seem like much to worry about? Read on.

Women know only too well how healthy and refreshing it is to release their own repressed, stored-up emotions. They crave this release, and use all sorts of methods, including tear-jerker movies, to aid in producing such releases.

But if a person spends his whole life ignoring, denying, and repressing the input and reactions of his unconscious soul, that pile of repressed feelings inside his unconscious just keeps building up ever higher, like a churning ocean of repressed soul-pain locked behind a wall, behind the dam that separates the conscious and unconscious. Pretty soon a person gets to depending on that wall being there, and does all he can to reinforce it. Like a hoodlum who finds himself "in deep" with a loan shark, pretty soon a person has simply accumulated just too much debt looming over him to ever be able to risk confronting it head-on. So he just hides from it, while continuing to add to the pile of debt.

If reincarnation is true, and a person spends many hundred of lifetimes following this same behavior-pattern, imagine the gargantuan ocean of unacknowledged soul-debt and soul-pain he would have accumulated, all of it waiting silently to be released into his conscious awareness. By this time a person totally depends on that wall being there. His whole existence, his whole sense of self, depends on it. The wall has become the foundation upon which he has built his whole identity.

But that wall can fall. In fact, it is inevitable that the wall WILL fall, sooner or later. Just as Glenn Close insisted (in the movie "Fatal Attraction") "I won't be ignored", neither will the messages from one's own soul allow themselves to be unacknowledged forever.

This, DivisionTheory suggests, is what threatens us. This, in the final analysis, is what Jesus came to save us from. From ourselves. From our sins. From our own unacknowledged, unconscious reactions to our own sins, that loom threateningly over us without our knowledge or understanding.

(Now, it might seem that this soul-pain IS released and expressed, being experienced by the individual soul after death. Many souls in the Realm of Bewildered Spirits (that's the label given to hell by NDE researchers) do seem to be swallowed up in their own oceans of emotional soul-pain. But I don't think that's the end of that story, because when it was first generated, that soul-pain was meant to be released into consciousness, to be consciously experienced and registered and dealt with.

"What you can feel you can heal" a wise man said, and that seems to be the whole purpose of this emotional pain generated by the soul - to teach us and guide us and heal us, and it can't accomplish its mission until it is experienced on a conscious level. The miserable souls that NDErs have described seeing in the Realm of Bewildered Spirits are consumed by it, submerged within it, but they don't seem to have the intellectual capacity to LEARN from it [being cut off from their own conscious minds after death], and so its mission remains unfulfilled, it charge, undiminished.

Until that debt is paid, until that built-up emotional discharge is actually released into consciousness, its "charge" is not diminished. Thus, those souls in the "Realm of Bewildered Spirits", although they are caught up in this soul-pain, they are not experiencing it consciously, but only unconsciously, since they are themselves only unconscious souls devoid of any conscious intellect.)

So all that pain still awaits to be released consciously, to be experienced consciously. The debt we owe ourselves still remains unpaid. Even while the individual soul is in hell, immediately after dying but before the Judgment Day Resurrection, those repressed feelings are not felt consciously, but only by the unconscious, in these dreams the "cut-off" unconscious has while it waits for the Judgment Day Resurrection, when it will finally reunite with its conscious half.

DivisionTheory suggests that the fabled "Judgment Day" scenario is when this final release of all this repressed emotional content would occur, when all the unconscious souls of all our past lives would finally re-emerge out of their deep unconscious dream-prisons. And when that happens, all the entire ocean of soul-pain that was trapped within them would suddenly be released into our conscious awareness simultaneously, in an inconceivably huge flash of light and pain.

"The end will come like a flood."

-Daniel 9:26

This is what Jesus came to save us from.

The East tells us nothing of this. The East's Hinduism and Buddhism never anticipated that mankind's number of reincarnational opportunities to "get it right" were numbered, and that a day would come when all outstanding debts would come due. The East knew nothing of this, and that's partially what makes the Biblical tradition so valuable.

(So then we can see that DivisionTheory also explains another question many have asked - why there seem to be two distinct "Judgment" scenarios in the Bible. The Bible says that immediately after death, we are judged and then enter a heaven or hell. But then at the end of time we are brought forth from those places and judged again, and only then do we receive our final and full reward or punishment. DivisionTheory would seem to describe an identical version of events, with two distinct after-death judgments. And Jesus, it seems, meant to save us from both of them.)

OK. That's the 3rd question, the 64 thousand dollar question, right? HOW DID HE SAVE US? HOW DID *WHAT* HE DID MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE? How did Jesus' death and resurrection have any impact on this state of affairs? Why would His death have made any difference in the unfolding of these cause-and-effect relationships?

Without going into all the details (I address them more completely on the website and in the book), the mechanics of the psyche suggest that Jesus' resurrection would have had a universe-transforming effect - spreading His soul across the entire universe, just as it is written:

He who descended [into the world of the dead]

is the very one who [later] ascended higher

than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.

- Ephesians 4:10

If Jesus' soul indeed had been strewn throughout the universe, the `universe' it filled would have been (or at least would have included) the universe of the unconscious, the universe of the Soul; and in order to fill that universe, Jesus' soul would have had to have been forcibly injected into the unconscious psyche of every person past, present, and future by the forces released during his Resurrection.

Of course, if such a marvelous and incredible event had actually once happened, it could reasonably be expected that now, throughout the entire realm of the human unconscious, in and behind and next to every mind in existence, Jesus' own soul would still be sitting and waiting, like an unconscious `ghost', ready to guide and teach that same path that Jesus himself originally followed. And all anyone would need to do to find this out for themselves would be to make the attempt to align their own conscious minds to become aware of this already existing unconscious presence, to `knock on the door', to `step on the threshold', to contact it and allow its effects to occur automatically.

Now, if Jesus HAD melded His soul with those of all other men by the forces of His resurrection, that would mean that He would be able to feel what WE feel. He would even be able to feel what we didn't LET ourselves feel. He would have unlimited access to all humanity's buried soul-pain, and would be in a position of power, in a tremendously powerful bargaining position. He could, if He chose to do so, allow that soul-pain to be finally released into consciousness, into HIS OWN consciousness ("paying our debts", just as the Bible says), thus defusing its energy and absorbing the flood of soul-pain before it was able to be released en mass during the Judgment Day scenario.

Of course, if He allowed all humanity's accumulated soul-pain to flood into Him all at once, it would overwhelm Him just as surely as our little portion of the whole would overwhelm each of us. So He's taking His time, I think. It makes sense that it would take some time to process all that input. Apparently at least 2000 years.

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

[...] he took up our infirmities and carried our

sorrows [...] he was pierced for our

transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,

and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like

sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to

his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the

iniquity of us all. [...] Yet it was the LORD's

will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and

though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,

[...] After the suffering of his soul, he will see the

light [of life] and be satisfied ; by his knowledge

my righteous servant will justify many, and he

will bear their iniquities. [...] he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.

- Isaiah 53:3-12

Ok, we are ready to address the last question : HOW CAN WE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OPPORTUNITY? HOW CAN WE ACCEPT GOD'S SALVATION?

There are two "schools of thought" in Christian Theology about the relationship between Jesus and those outside the Christian faith. One is this : if you are over the age of reason and do not know Jesus, no matter if you are good and loving, no matter if you sought God all your life, when you die, too bad for you, down the chute you go to hell. Salvation in this scenario is ultimately just a matter of luck, depending on being lucky enough to be born in the right place and time, to have the right parents, and because of this to be able to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Such ideas are generally backed up by a few quotes from the N.T., while ignoring others.

Until only very recently, it had been hard to argue against this theological tenet without denying the validity of the NT. But DivisionTheory puts a new twist on this "prerequisite for salvation" ("Knowing Jesus") - showing how it could indeed remain valid, WITHOUT making salvation a matter of pure luck. One needs to be lucky neither in location of birth, nor in quality of IQ, to receive salvation, according to DivisionTheory. If fact, one needs not have ever even heard the name of Jesus Christ, nor to have ever associated His name with goodness and truth, to receive

salvation, according to DivisionTheory (sounds rather like the reports of NDErs, doesn't it?) How so?

To know the name is not necessarily to know the Person.

The psychological dynamics of DivisionTheory suggest that, at Jesus' Resurrection, a historically unprecedented development took place - something occurred to His soul which had never before ever occurred to any other person's soul in all of history. His soul expanded, exploded, becoming strewn across the universe, causing it to blend into and meld with all other souls throughout all time and space. The Bible refers to this event as Jesus "filling the whole universe" (Ephesians 4:10)

If so, then Jesus' soul, or a part of it, sits in the back of each of our psyches, and is, as it were, a voice in the backs of our minds, pointing us constantly towards goodness and truth through the input of our own unconscious minds.

If so, then when we listen and accept and follow the guidance of that inner Voice speaking from within our unconscious, we are establishing contact with Jesus on a very personal and intimate level that goes utterly beyond any mere name or mythic symbol (which is all that most formal Christian religions follow, I fear). And the more we listen for and honor that Voice within, the more we reinforce that relationship - the more we truly "know" Jesus, instead of merely knowing "of" Him through the limited avenues available to us through our own particular form of cultural immersion.

Thus, according to DivisionTheory, the salvation effected for humanity by Jesus Christ was a perfect salvation, for it at no time requires any external social conditions to facilitate one's relationship with Jesus. Neither does it require that one be of "sufficient" intellect to be able

to successfully figure out which of the world's many different religions is "THE" right one. Instead, all it requires is that one be "true to himself", true to one's own inner Voice, one's own inner sense of right and wrong. Jesus' resurrection made it possible for salvation to again

require precisely what it did in the beginning, before the "Fall" - simple integrity.

One need not have ever even heard the name of Jesus Christ, nor to have ever associated His name with goodness and truth, to receive salvation. Why know His name, when one can know the man Himself ? Why worship a mere name when you can worship and honor the Living Voice of Christ Himself?

The second "school of thought", which has developed over the centuries, states "God wills the salvation of all men". It holds that the grace of Christ outweighs the damage done by Adam, and is also based on solid scriptural evidence. Yet for millennia, these two schools of thought seemed entirely mutually exclusive. Only one or the other could be correct, it was thought; both could not be. Either one had to "Know Jesus" to be saved, or all men could be saved.

But the rediscovery of the Binary Soul Doctrine has changed all that, and shown that these early Christian scriptures were correct after all - that it could be possible that men could indeed be saved only by "knowing" Jesus Christ, and yet this salvation could be immediately available to all

people, to every man, woman, and child or every age, era, nation, and culture. Jesus' success was not partial, DivisionTheory insists; it was NOT inadequate. The salvation He made available was not in any way dependent on one's place in time and history, one's place in culture or geography, or one's intellectual prowess. Salvation was truly made available to all - just the sort of quality repair-job one would expect from a Supreme Being.

Tying "salvation" to sociological matters outside the control of the individual makes "salvation" not a matter of free will choice, but of pure luck. Neither would it be worthy of God to construct the system so that only the smartest among us would be able to figure out which, if any, of humanity's various belief systems was "the right one". Virtually all mankind's religions make the ludicrous claim that people are given this huge variety of religious options to choose from, and only one of them will lead to salvation, and all the rest to destruction. This "game show" idea (is your salvation behind Door #1, Door #2, or Door #3?) is absurd and in all likelihood rather .embarrassing to God A system like this would make intelligence (and therefore once again pure dumb luck) a prerequisite for salvation, and thus take the whole matter out of the hands of the individual's free will, because no one determines their own level of intelligence.

But if, on the other hand, the Word of God lives "a priori" inside the hearts and souls of all people as soon as they are born (as DivisionTheory claims), then all people do have immediate access to hear and accept the Word of God, and do not need to rely on any sociological circumstances for their spiritual salvation. If the Word of God already lives inside their own hearts, then the only thing required of them is a life of integrity, in which they listen to and honor the Voice of Wisdom

and Love that emerges unbidden from within the depths of their own psyches.

WHAT DID JESUS DO? WHAT DID HE ACCOMPLISH? WHAT DID HE CHANGE?

He made two claims:

"I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in me will live,

even though he dies, and

whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

These are two separate and distinct claims, a claim about resurrection, one claim about rising up from the dead after one has died, and a second, quite different claim about finding a permanent source of life, about NEVER dying at all.

The first refers, I feel, to the change He effected, a new condition, a never-before-existing state of affairs that he brought about; the second refers to a condition, a state of affairs, an opportunity, that has ALWAYS existed, and about which, religion after religion on this planet has addressed. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, even the ancient religion of Pharaoic Egypt, all made roughly the same declaration - that eternal life WAS within the realm of possibility.

Prior to Jesus' life, the only way to acquire eternal life (meaning perpetual continuation of one's own identity and self-aware personality) was to "enter the Kingdom of Heaven", which in other cultures has been called "Enlightenment" or "finding Nirvana" or "living in the Tao". This is "The Heros' Journey" that Joseph Campbell spent his life discussing. This is the path, one assumes, that Enoch and Elijah successfully walked, making it possible for them to be accepted into heaven at the end of their lives, long before the coming of the Savior. This first path - "living in Christ" (or "living in God") - has always existed as a way to achieve eternal life, and always will:

"I am the life", Jesus said,

"whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

But this path alone wasn't enough. Most people never could "get it right", but just kept reincarnating again and again, trapped in a downward spiral of forgetfulness, discarding soul after soul into the blackness of the unconscious after each life, before going on to reincarnate anew, their memories and identities erased all over again. As time went on, the numbers of souls trapped in the Netherworld realm of the unconscious just kept growing.

But due to Jesus' efforts, a second, additional, and, many would say, easier option - faith (some would say harder) - also became available, and for this He rightly deserves the title of "Savior of the World". For the first time since the foundation of the planet, thanks to Jesus, we no longer had to successfully walk the whole journey all the way to the end, to the "promised land" of the Kingdom (or "Enlightenment" or "Nirvana" or whatever word you wish to use), in order to insure our continued survival ( in other words, in order to insure the preservation of our memories and identities), but now we had only to believe and trust in Jesus, who had not only reached the destination we ourselves desired to reach - the Kingdom (an accomplishment which others in history had also achieved), but somehow, He also simultaneously made it possible for all the rest of us to benefit from that achievement of His as well (which was something that no one else in history had accomplished - not Buddha, not Lao Tse, not Mohammed, not anyone ).

This second path was not as fast as the first; in the first path, we would instantly achieve "the Kingdom of Heaven" (providing us with instant eternal life with an identity that would never be taken away from us again), while in the second path, we would die in the familiar way, having our souls cut off from our spirits and abandoned in the unconscious after our deaths, but come Judgment Day, those souls would be raised back up again and reunited with our conscious spirits, becoming whole again.

In the first path, there might be no further incarnations (or if there were, we would retain full memory of our past lives and past selves from incarnation to incarnation, as some Eastern Holy Men have done) ; in the second path, our conscious spirit would continue to incarnate again and again, ignorant of its previous lives and identities, while our past-life unconscious souls would lie in sleep, dreaming their dreams of being in heaven or hell, until they were finally reawakened again at Judgment Day:

"I am the resurrection ...

He who believes in me will live,

even though he dies"

The only difference between the two paths? On the first, better path, one not only believes in Christ, but also LIVES in Him, and so NEVER dies, as evidenced by Elijah and Enoch, and promised by Christ. On the second path, one only believes in Christ, but does not fully "LIVE" in Him, and so this person does experience death, but is raised up again at the "End of Days".

Many people who assume themselves to be Christian insist that only ONE road leads to God,

and that is through acknowledging and inviting the Lord Jesus Christ into your life. And this is true, but there are two roads to do this - that of believing in Christ vs. LIVING in Him. One does not have to know anything about the man or legend of Jesus Christ, but only accept Him Who is already inside their own hearts and minds, and make the commitment within themselves to honor that voice and guidance within. The word for this is INTEGRITY. The Bible says "Everyone who loves knows God because God is love" (1 John 4:7). If we live in love, God lives in us (1 John 4:16). By walking in love as Christ did, heaven comes within to us. By living in Love, we live in Christ, and so are, I believe, walking on the first path.

By merely believing in Christ, on the other hand, we are walking the second path. It will still get us to the same destination in the end, but the route will take much longer.