# Chain: Reincarnation Progression > *Reincarnation is not real; the soul progresses through the spirit planes instead* **The argument it traces:** Reincarnation belief explained and corrected → the soul incarnates once → it progresses through many planes after death → Divine Love accelerates that journey to the Celestial Heavens **4** messages · **1** supporting · main statement not yet chosen --- ## Foundation ### 2015-10-26 - [[2015-10-26 The First Father Talks about Reincarnation and the Progression of Life|The First Father Talks about Reincarnation and the Progression of Life]] Aman answers a woman in the circle who believes in reincarnation, and grounds the answer in standing rather than argument: he is the first parent, has "lived for many thousands of years in spirit," and has "spawned the many generations upon generations that followed our beginnings in this world." The claim itself is stated as testimony, and he is careful about its limits: "I have never observed a spirit returning to this Earth in the flesh. And, though I do not know all of my children, for there are many billions of them who have followed in our footsteps, yet I have been witness to many, many spirits and mortals." Then the positive doctrine that replaces reincarnation. Souls pre-exist, and the one incarnation exists to individuate them: "The earth plane is but one plane of existence. Its function, primarily, is to give a soul identity for there is a pre-existence of souls. It is necessary for that soul to incarnate into the flesh to bring about a flowering and manifestation of its true self." Once that is done the life has served its purpose, however long or short it was, "it may be accomplished in a very short life or a very long life," and growth continues through the planes of spirit instead: "there are many more lives to live in spirit as you pass from one plane to another." The finality is stated plainly: "never more will you dwell in the flesh once you walk upon this Path Divine." ## Elaboration ### 2016-03-29 - [[2016-03-29 The Gift of Life|The Gift of Life]] Gives the positive side of the thread's incarnation doctrine without the reincarnation-correction polemic: "a soul incarnates into the world so that it may acquire identity, a sense of self, personality and expression of their soul... existing as an individuated soul," passing through this plane "very briefly" as "the first step in the flow of life that goes on and on." Same identity-acquisition purpose Aman states at the Foundation (2015-10-26, "incarnates once in the flesh to establish its identity, then continues its journey through many planes"), here framed as the gift of life rather than as a rebuttal to reincarnation. Strengthens the thread's account of why the soul takes flesh. ## Objection-removed ### 2019-01-31 - [[2019-01-31 Reincarnation and the Perception of It Proliferated by Many Yogis and Gurus of the East|Reincarnation and the Perception of It Proliferated by Many Yogis and Gurus of the East]] Clears the experience that seems to prove reincarnation by explaining where it comes from: spirits of the same belief are drawn close by the Law of Attraction, "The beliefs are reinforced because they draw to them those spirits with the same beliefs. Indeed they feel as if they have been a part of that personality that comes," and "these spirits may come so close that the mortal believes they are one and the same as that individual." Pairs with Aman's Foundation. ## Testimony ### 2018-11-22 - [[2018-11-22 Yogananda Describes His Journey Through the Spheres Towards the Celestial Heavens|Yogananda Describes His Journey Through the Spheres Towards the Celestial Heavens]] The progression the Foundation describes, told from the inside. He arrived in spirit with the ideas of the Eastern religions, "upon my passing I came to the 4th sphere and found many wonderments, experiences within that sphere that satisfied the edicts of my mind and my religious ideas," then rose through the 5th, 6th and 7th, "a sphere of the Natural Heavens. I thought I had achieved my goal of knowing heaven, but alas, it became evident quite quickly that I was merely on the doorstep to heaven," and crossed into the Celestial Kingdom once he "released my erroneous beliefs." Growth through the planes of spirit, with no return to the flesh. --- ## Also touches on this *These messages restate or echo the idea rather than carry it forward, so they sit alongside the thread rather than in it.* - **2019-04-01** [[2019-04-01 We Are Not So Different|We Are Not So Different]] (witness) - The correction from the spirit side, his guru's teaching dropped once he found that among his loved ones and the ancient teachers "NONE of them had ever had any experience of reincarnation on earth."