The Story of Our Lives and Bardo
by Debbie Peluso
“There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed.” ~ The Beatles
Prophetic words indeed!
Life is change. All is impermanent, except for the still point of eternity we refer to as our soul, the individuated expression of collective consciousness. We love, experience, cry, feel anger, pain. Thus, it is not easy to incarnate into this vehicle we call the body and feel our humanness. And, if you believe in reincarnation, why do we keep doing it?
Our Lives are Love, Each a Love Story
First of all, for each and every cause, there is an effect, even the smallest gesture of thinking the word “love” to actually typing it. Every thought (cause) has a result (effect), every word, action. We click a computer mouse (cause) and the result is a new page (effect). This is karma and is ad infinitum. It can be good…it can be bad, but our lives are a direct result of it, and like the energizer bunny, it keeps going and going and going until, as many of the masters say, we’ve exhausted our resources of illusions, or our connection to Ego.
Every incarnation we experience has its story and purpose. Unfortunately, we don’t recognize the beauty of every moment of that story. We are too caught up in the illusion. Every person we meet contributes to our understanding and growth in some manner, even if appearing negative. Every tear we cry nourishes the seed for something new. Everything about our life comes from grace and is blessed. We just have to slightly tweak our perspective to see it. Wayne Dyer once said that if you take the word “scared,” transpose the A and C, you have the word “sacred.” Just that one little switch and you have a totally different meaning and perspective.
Can the Story be a Bardo?
So how is this story written and how are the characters determined? Many belief systems suggest we are the authors of our own motion picture. Tibetan Buddhism speaks to the different “bardos” that our higher consciousness experiences. What is a bardo? An intermediate state or transitional state we pass through from one experience to the next. There are six (birth/life; dreaming; meditation; the instant of death; the nature of death; bardo of transmigration/becoming).
It is in this final bardo that we determine, based on our ingrained consciousness memory, what it is we wish/need to experience for our evolution. Buddhist masters have said we can actually envision the parents we choose making love and we gravitate towards them. Our deeper soul knowledge instinctively knows the story that will evolve on all levels and chooses to experience it for completion of its many desires since desire is what keeps us bound to the karmic wheel. What we did not complete in one incarnation is carried to the next in a different vehicle. But, along the way we accumulate more karma that we need to flush out! We create more illusions of suffering and pain. Illusions are caused by our ego attachment.
Cosmic Signs Play a Role in Our Life Story
Interestingly, if we were to examine our natal birth charts from the perspective of soul evolution, we can actually see where the illusion, the “cause,” if you will, of our pain and suffering lies. And this becomes our story.
Every planet and sign of the zodiac has a positive and negative, the light and the shadow. As an example, we may have our sun sign or ascendant in Scorpio. This is passionate, driven, powerful, resourceful, driven to the healing arts and the occult. It seeks to gain knowledge for the purposes of power and authority, which on the positive side could bring about great politicians, healers, and investment bankers.
Particular Signs, Illusion, and Relationships
However, when we incarnate into a particular sign or the influence of its planetary ruler, we are also meant to experience its shadow. It is through the integration of positive/negative that we grow and understand our soul’s lesson. Here lies the pain and suffering caused by the illusion, the attachment to the characteristics.
What would be the pain of a Scorpio? Using its power to manipulate, to gain control results in possible criminal activity. This leads to problems with the law or incarceration, being destructive in relationships due to jealousy or possessiveness caused by its intense passion. Or Libra, energy of relationships. The attachment is to relationships, and this illusion may be the cause for pain and suffering resulting in relationship challenges. When we can recognize that it is not in this movie but beyond it that lies our reality, we can profoundly change our values and story.
Our natal chart is a collection of the story we chose to tell of our soul’s evolution. Its inspiration lies within our higher consciousness which has encoded within it every memory, experience, and emotion carried from incarnation to incarnation. In conclusion, this is the greatest story we can ever tell!
About the Author
Debbie Peluso obtained her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Metaphysics in association with the University of Sedona in Arizona. She is a certified practitioner in Meditation, metaphysical/spiritual counseling. She is a working astrologer and co-owner of Zion Yoga Studio in the Washington, D.C. area. Debbie is also a facilitator of and teaches the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
