Dr. GURU speaks,
This question leads merely to a 'cul-de-sac' of theological avenues...
If there is re-birth of the Soul in different physical form, then for what purpose? If you seek Heaven, Nirvana, or eternal bliss...does your attainment make any lasting effect on the world? With the exception of land-mark figures in history, the influences we make would soon be drowned in the journals of Time.
So is re-incarnation purely for ‘self’-enlightenment? Gods’ intention for the path of each Soul? Where, at “Judgement Day”, God would sentence “community service” until you lived a life so Holy that it begged to qualify?
If the Soul stays uniform from one re-incarnation to another, then what of the Souls that contribute towards surplus-population? What is their role in the re-birth cycle? Is there an infinite number of people that can reach ‘Heaven’ or ‘Nirvana’? If so, then your personal attainment of Nirvana, to sit by God’s side, makes little difference to the ‘Infinity’...apart from to yourself and your God. This leads us back to where we are in life...you can spend all your life as a winner or a loser, or you can make a change. Your concept of re-incarnation should make little influence on your need to make positive changes to your life today.
The idea of “re-incarnation” to me has no purpose, no drive, and acts only as a mis-guided method of self-conditioning which raises more questions than it answers.
And for those who may believe in each Soul eventually conglomerating to give re-birth to God again, or any other climatic purpose...each story must have a beginning, middle and an end. What will you write in these pages?...as some pages are kept, so are others discarded.
The GURU must now sleep.
technomist
I can't say what 'nirvana' is, or imagine your idea of it would be the same as mine even if we decided to share the same vocabulary to discuss the topic. I do have some thoughts though..
The premise that each story must have a beginning, middle and an end could be questioned, as could your idea that there is some sort of deity who is to be joined when or if someone got to 'nirvana', or that 'nirvana' has to have a purpose beyond itself.
As for some landmark people having influences and others not, as Chow En Lai said about the impact of the French Revolution, it may be too early to tell. I wonder what Lucy, if capable of thinking of the future, thought her influence on the future mankind would be, and if she would be able to comprehend what it actually has been since her remains were found in 1974.