Thursday, August 6, 2009

Mould of the Impressions

Mold (Brit: mould)
Ever wonder why gangsters look like gangsters? Or why your lawyer looks like a lawyer? Meher Baba says that the body is moulded from the impressions you bring into this life to exhaust. In other words the impressions gathered in your previous life act as a kind of matrix to produce the media or form that is perfectly suitable for the expression of those impressions. Following are quotes from God Speaks by Meher Baba.

"In fact, the next-most human-form is nothing but the consolidated mould of the past impressions retained of the previous body or form that dissociated from the soul." (GS PDF v. p. 33)

"Thus the gross consciousness of the soul, after experiencing either hell or heaven, associates with the next human-form (takes another birth) to experience and exhaust the residual opposite impressions of the last birth. As has already been said, this next human - form of the soul is nothing but the consolidated mould of the residual opposite impressions of the last form." (GS PDF v. p. 34)

"It is but natural that the predominant qualities manifested now by this human soul will be in accordance with the predominant opposite impressions, of which this new human-form is but the mould." (GS PDF v. p. 37)


Below are some moulded impressions:


Avant garde filmmaker, Jim Jarmusch

Personal Injury Lawyer

Hollywood Actress, Marylin Monroe








               





















Update: 4/9/2012

There was some question in the comments that seemed to need clarification of what Baba means by the body or form being a mold of the consolidated impressions (sanskaras) left over from the previous life. So I thought that this quote from God Speaks, p. 10 (online and 1997 edition) would be of some help.
"As the impressions are, so are the experiences of impressions and so must be the media to experience the impressions. That is, the impressions give rise to experiences, and to experience the impressions the use of appropriate media is necessitated."
This same principle applies to the sequence of forms taken through evolution. The process of finding appropriate media for the exhaustion of impressions gained through a previous form is actually what drives evolution forward in the first place – up until the human form which is the most perfect form according to Baba and the end goal of evolution, at which point evolution stops and reincarnation and involution (the inner path) begin.

4 comments:

  1. Wht is the meaning of opposite impression. Please clarify this.
    Thanking You
    Chandar Meher from India
    Chandar30@gmail.com

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  2. I assume you are responding to Baba's words quoted above from his book God Speaks: "Thus the gross consciousness of the soul...takes another birth... to experience and exhaust the residual opposite impressions of the last birth." What I understand is that the law of karma (action and reaction or cause and effect) is such that each action necessitates its opposite, like a pendulum, and that this causes rebirth. More precisely it's the reverse impressions that cause the new birth.

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    Replies
    1. Just when the impressions are about to become balanced, in the after death state, then the soul reincarnates--so it it the reverse impressions that cause it?

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  3. I have never been regulation breaststroke/ I have the eye of the tiger/always. I'VE LIVED IN PRIMITIVE situations/without running water/electricity/no phone/no conveniences/ in the wqilds of Quebec/rural Georgia/ We have six children and have supported ourselves on the feckless earnings of independent art. This shows in my appearance

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