PureInsight | January 27, 2003
One of the most famous Chinese stories is the story of "High Mountains and Flowing Water." It relates to the legendary Zhou Dynasty qin player Bo Ya and a humble woodcutter, Zhong Ziqi. [A qin is an extremely simple instrument with immense tonal capacities. The qin, along with poetry and calligraphy represent literate China.] The story goes as follows: Bo Ya was assigned to work during the spring and autumn in Chu. After Bo Ya reached the Hanyang River's inlet to the sea he stopped due to a heavy storm. He moored the boat under a cliff. The rain stopped during the mid-autumn night and the sky became clear again. The bright moon could be seen in the sky. Bo Ya played the qin to express his feelings.
At the same time, Zhong Ziqi, a woodsman had also stopped under the cliff to avoid the storm. Zhong Ziqi heard the music and understood what Bo Ya wanted to say through his music. Bo Ya couldn't quite believe that Zhong Ziqi understood the meaning of his music and thus decided to test him. Bo Ya asked Ziqi, "Can you hear in my music what is in my heart?" Ziqi was willing to give it a try. After some thought, Bo Ya thought of a high mountain. He put this thought into his music. The woodsman blurted out, "It's really beautiful. You are thinking of a high mountain!" Bo Ya remained silent, contemplated and came up with another theme, flowing water. The woodsman again listened to Bo Ya playing the qin. He said, "Beautiful! It is about flowing water." The woodsman could truly hear what was on Bo Ya's mind. Bo Ya was very amazed. He put the qin aside and got up. He and Ziqi became great friends. Such "bonds between the heart and feelings" are inexplicable. Therefore, the Chinese people still sing the praise of such bonds today. A Chinese proverb says, "Ten thousand grams of gold is easy to get but it is very difficult to find a true friend." People also asked themselves: How could two strangers from different social backgrounds meet by chance and achieve such a harmonic bond? How can two strangers achieve such a bond through the qin music? This bond appeared to be stronger than one between old friends.
These questions can be easily understood if one believes in reincarnation. It is found in Western reincarnation studies that the human body is no more than a vessel that houses a soul/spirit (Primordial Spirit) that is eternal. The human world is the stage where a drama is being played out and the human body is like clothing for the soul. Life's experiences are ever-repeating performances that are exciting. Everyone plays a different role. The character in the play changes, but more likely than not, the soul in the body is the same as in the prior life. The same soul may play the dominant part more than once. People in this life perhaps were our relatives and good friends in our previous lives. Only our roles have changed. The soul is still the same soul as in the previous life. All people live in a maze, but they do not know this. Yet, in reality, predestined relationships exist. We may meet again and again as either enemy or friend. Our predestined relationship may make us true friends, enemies, or lovers. We can find a story of reunited soul mates in the book, Only Love Is Real [1] by Dr. Weiss. Two strangers, a man and a woman met in Dr. Weiss's clinic. They were both patients in Dr. Weiss's Past Life Regression Therapy (PLRT) program. Dr. Weiss found during PLRT that they were father and daughter who had lived in Jerusalem about two thousands years ago. The father had been tortured cruelly by Roman soldiers and had died in his daughter's arms. The two people only saw each other at his office once and then went on their separate ways. They ran into each other again on an airplane flight. They talked to each other, fell in love and got married.
What power arranged for father and daughter to meet again after two thousand years? Who pulled the threads of this predestined relationship? One may find some indication of how such predestined relationships may happen in Life between Life[2] by Dr. Whitton and Joe Fisher, published in 1986. It discusses what occurs between lives and focuses on reincarnations. Life as a human is arranged by higher-level beings. All beings reincarnate in groups. Most of the time a life from the same group will reincarnate into the same family. Thus, they repay kindness and enmity from a prior life. They also gain experiences and learn lessons about love and enmity in the human world.
Along with the development of modern biology, people can cultivate cells in vitro (test tube/artificial environment). Man may even be able to clone human beings with modern medical technologies and thus be able to produce human bodies in large quantities. Findings through reincarnation studies and attempts to clone the human body have again raised the philosophical question: Where is the origin of life? What is the nature of life? What is the meaning of life? We have found through reincarnation studies that human lives are arranged by higher-level beings. Philosophically, life is so much more than the mortal body we see and touch. The original life is immortal and will not cease to exist when the mortal body dies. Should people reject the arrangements of high-level beings and manufacture human bodies through cloning, the relationships of husband and wife, parenthood, brotherhood and sisterhood in human society would cease to exist. The high-level beings will not arrange for a Primordial Spirit to reincarnate into such a degenerate society. Then what Primordial Spirit will enter and control the cloned body? What is the purpose of getting a human body?
Mileripa, a master of Tibetan Buddhism said that the human body is a priceless boat for those with virtue and fortune. This priceless boat can be used as a raft to cross the river of life and death and to reach immortality. But for evil and degenerated people, it is the tool for tempting evil interests.
Reference:
1.Brian Weiss, M.D. Only Love Is Real: A Story of Soulmates Reunited. Warner Books, Incorporated, February 1997.
2. Joel L. Whitton, M.D. Ph.D. and Joe Fisher, Life Between Life: Scientific Explorations into the Void Separating One Incarnation from the Next. Doubleday & Company, Incorporated, October 1986.
Translated from
http://zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2003/1/7/19919.html
