Ruminating with Rumi
Before the body, you have lived many times, or so it is said by those who say. Maybe for others. For me, I do not know. Life without a body is a mystery in my world of this and that as the me of the body. To have lived before seems odd to me. What is this place that comes before if there is no past or future? The moment now contains all in my book.
Do not live only to die. To die only to be born again is to exist in a perpetual dream of this and that. Maybe this is what others mean when they claim to have lived many times before. Existence can be a wheel within a wheel going on and on to no end. But you are not rooted in the illusion of separation. You are planted firmly in the ground of goodness. You can awaken into consciousness by remembering your true nature within. You are I AM. There is no other.
To wander the world of existence is to live as an object in spacetime. This is illusion, a dream of separation in consciousness. Separation cannot be real in the eternal. To know this within is to access the moment where there is no past or future. This is to touch the eternal, to be aware of your true nature, which is I AM.
Knowledge does not lie in words. To know is to live from within. Those who know release I AM to all without saying. Jesus told those who knew to tell no one. I think he meant that they should say without words. People would come to know in their presence, just as Jesus and other mystic teachers share their presence with the world without words. Words spoken are only guideposts. They are not the destination. Your presence holds more than a book or speech. To live from within is to reveal your presence. It cannot be contained in the body. It spreads beyond form. Follow the way of many who have gone before and be a presence of knowing in the world.