Realms of Samsara

You need to have an understanding of past lives for this podcast to make sense, so you may wish to go listen to my podcast on that topic if you are struggling with that concept. We were not humans in every past life we have ever had. We have been a variety of beings, every life form that exists multiple times over. We did not even live on this planet in every past life. We lived in different realms, in different worlds.

So what is Samsara? Samsara is the cycle of uncontrolled rebirth. It can be seen as a prison for our minds. We are trapped here in Samsara as long as we remain ignorant of the truth and do nothing to work towards escaping this prison. Now the thing is we have always been stuck in this cycle, but we will all get out. Some of us will get out sooner than others. Many have already escaped. The ones that have escaped are called Buddhas. There are countless Buddhas. This gives us hope that one day we will escape, too and become a fully enlightened Buddha. Until that time we will remain in Samsara.

Samsara is sometimes depicted a a prison that has 6 floors. Three of the floors are above ground and three of the floors are below ground. It is much more pleasant to have a cell on one of the floors above ground, as you would imagine. These floors are different realms we may find ourselves in during our various past, present and future lives. Each floor is a different realm. I have personally found that these floors or realms have different levels or areas within them.

The best floor to be on is the ground floor because that floor has the door to escape this prison. You are on that floor now. Now is the time to try to find that door and go through it to freedom. It is the very life you are living now that can get you out of the prison of Samsara. You have to decide if you want to stay in prison or escape it. It is very difficult to be born on the ground floor level. It could take you many, many lives before you find yourself back on this floor again, so please do not waste this precious life, this rare opportunity to escape.

Looking at the lower floors, the first basement level is the animal realm. The floor below that is the hungry ghost realm and the lowest floor is hell. Above ground we have the human realm on the ground floor where we are currently. The floor above us is the demi-god realm and the third floor up is the god realm. We all know the human realm exists because that is where we are right now. We know the animal realm exists because we interact with animals in our lives. I have visited some of these places doing Shamanic journeys, so I know for myself that those exist. You will need to discover these places for yourself to know they are real. If you do not experience them, you cannot know for certain they exist, which is why it is so important for you to explore your mind and work towards making spiritual progress. Sure I can tell you they exist, and you may believe me, but you cheat yourself out of finding the truth for yourself, if you do nothing to discover it.

Now remember none of these places are permanent. I am aware that some religions teach that this is the only life you have ever lived, and then when you die you will go to heaven or hell and stay there for all eternity. That is not true. How can you know it is not true? Well all of eternity means forever. If that were true then you would be there right now and would have always been there, either in heaven or hell. Since you are not there now, you cannot possibly end up in one of those places for eternity. That is impossible. So you can let go of those false notions.

Now that doesn't mean you can engage in all kinds of negative actions, since you won't be permanently stuck in hell for all eternity, because you will go there and you will stay there for what feels like an eternity. So do yourself a favour and try your best not to do negative things. It also means that doing positive things is not going to land us in heaven for all eternity either. If we don't dedicate our virtuous actions, we run the risk of losing them, so that will prevent us from taking rebirth in a higher realm. It is best for us to do positive actions so we can escape Samsara, not remain in it. Yes, we could take rebirth as a demi-god or even a god, but we will not be there permanently, eventually we will fall back down and take a lower rebirth. The thing we want to work towards is escaping this cycle of uncontrolled rebirth to become perfectly free from suffering. As long as we are trapped in Samsara, we will experience some form of suffering, even in the highest realms.

The more negative actions we engage in the more likely we will take lower rebirth in our next life and many lives after that. The more positive actions we do, the more likely we will take higher rebirth in our future life. Since most of us do a mix of both positive and negative things we travel up and down all the floors in the prison in what seems like an endless cycle. I will do more podcasts to go into detail about what each realm is like. I am not trying to put fear into you, although I fear taking lower rebirth. I am trying to help you make corrections, so that you can avoid these troubles. These are not fear based teachings, I do this because I wish for you to be truly happy and you cannot attain that if you are ignorant of Samsara. I want you to be truly free from suffering. I am trying my best to help you attain that. If you are afraid of taking lower rebirth that is not a bad thing, that is good and can help to motivate you to stop doing negative things.

As long as we do nothing to make spiritual progress in our lives, we will remain trapped here going from life to life, from realm to realm unable to prevent any harm or suffering from happening to us. We get so caught up in the deceitful appearance of our lives, that we don't even realize we are trapped in a prison. We believe we are limited beings and are ignorant of the truth that we could develop our minds to such an extent that we could free ourselves from all our suffering. Samsara is designed into tricking us into thinking that we are not in a prison. We get so busy trying to fulfill all of our worldly desires that we remain with our head buried in the sand, unable to see beyond the surface. We look for answers, happiness and peace outside of ourselves and so they are never fulfilled. Yet we keep trying to get our lives perfect somehow, thinking we need to get everything around us perfect to be happy and have peace, so it will never happen. We cannot get everything in life perfect as long as we are trapped within Samsara. It is impossible, because that is the way Samsara is designed. You are tricked into trying to get your life and everything in it perfect, so waste all of your time trying to do that, instead of just letting it go and focusing on developing your mind to escape.

We hold the key within that will unlock the door to escape from this prison. That key will only work for us. We need to find our own key. Every single living being has their own key within that will free them from Samsara. No one else can unlock the door and let you through. They can tell you the steps they took to find their own key in the hopes that it will help you find yours, but they cannot hand you their key for it does not exist for anyone but themselves. This is why I keep saying you are your own saviour. You are the one that can find your key to release your mind from this prison you find yourself in. You need to make the spiritual progress necessary to find that key, to truly free yourself from suffering.

When you find that key, you then need to find the door, put the key in the lock and unlock it, then walk through. You have to do it yourself and you can do it yourself. Find teachers that have gone through the door to help you find the way for yourself. Do not believe anyone that says they can take your hand and take you through the door, because no one else can. The moment they walk through you will be left behind. Anyone that claims that, has no idea where the door even is or they would know they cannot take anyone with them, so they won't be going through the door anyway. No one else can save you, the best they can do is teach you what they did to make progress and help you to do it for yourself. You have the ability to free yourself from this prison of Samsara. You have the ability to become a fully enlightened Buddha. You can do this in this very lifetime. This human life is your best chance to find the door and walk through it. None of the other realms in Samsara have an escape door.

The full podcast can be found here:  https://youtu.be/XuXeW-svsUQ