I and I: A Perennialist Theory of Reincarnation and Cyclical Time

Essay, e-book (sharable PDF file) -- 143 pages, apx 35,100 words

"Dream interpretation? Statement of faith? Visionary insight? Nugget of truth from the collective subconscious? Jungian symbolism? Wishful thinking fantasy? I suspect it involves a little of all these..."

Noesta's most ambitious non-fiction project to date takes a deep dive into the possibilities of transmigration of the self -- a potential that arises from a simple twist in the metaphysics of time.

"Think of [time] like a roller coaster. You board the coaster in one location, and it takes you on a long looping ride that will be terrifying and exhilarating and filled with experiences you would never have been able to comprehend if you hadn’t taken the ride. Then the ride ends, bringing you back to the place where you started, not somewhere else several miles away. This is a simple model of cyclical time, if we grasp that the starting and ending point of the ride is the same because it is outside of time — which is the actual meaning of eternity, not indefinite linear time — rather than [a specific moment in time]. Cyclical time is necessary to account for both the subjective experience of duration and the grounding of that experience in eternity."

After explaining his disenchantment with the Neo-Advaita approach to non-dual thought, Noesta makes an invigorated case for the soul and the spirit, not merely as the essential self of each human or animal, but of everything that exists, from Particle Man to Universe Man. Using Nagarjuna's "Two Truths" principle, existence is shown as a concordance of relative subjectivity and the divine absolute, and far from unwilling exiles trapped in samsara, we are among the fortunate beings given the autonomy to explore and experience the full spectrum of selfhood. All we need to do is trust that this cyclical path we are on through subjectivity is taking us home.

This is not your dead German philosopher's cyclical time, in other words, and you will probably never see reincarnation quite the same again either.