Reincarnation and Karma - the Evolution of Consciousness September 6-7, 2014 A Two Day Workshop at Rosewoods Meher Rest 14405 SE Ellis St., Portland OR 97236 Presentation and Interactive Discussion With Ward Parks, PhD Humanity’s search for understanding and immortality is as old as human beings. Does the spirit or the subjective experience of the personal "I," continue after the death of the physical body? Avatar Meher Baba has explained that the spirit never perishes and the Self at the root of all our individual selves is indeed eternal. This Intensive Workshop will explore Meher Baba's teachings and revelations on the subject of reincarnation, its causes, its processes, and its purpose in the achievement of the goal of life Saturday, September 6, 2014: Morning - 10 a.m. to noon. Mortality, Reincarnation, and the Divine Theme We will begin with an examination of the problem of mortality as a challenge to the possibility of meaning in human life. Secular materialism and the monotheistic religious traditions have proposed their own various answers to this challenge. Yet reincarnation explains the human predicament in terms that are deeply satisfying to the needs of the contemporary mind. Saturday Afternoon: 2 to 4 p.m. The Dramatization of Reincarnation and a Study of the Reincarnation Cycle In the film scenario "How It All Happened," Meher Baba dramatized reincarnation and the journey of the soul by means of a story of three individuals through the course of five lifetimes. After studying this narrative that presents the theory of reincarnation in a concrete and humanly intelligible way, we will turn to a review of the reincarnationary cycle of life in the body and life after death. Are "heaven and hell" realities, and what is their significance? How are we to understand memories of past lifetimes? Why do we take birth in one set of circumstances rather than another? Saturday Evening Discussion: 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Questions & Answers and Discussion with Ward and the participants Following this there will be a potluck dinner for attendees Sunday, September 7, 2014: Morning - 10 a.m. to noon. The Causes of Reincarnation: Sanskaras and Karmic Bondage If the spirit is immortal, why does one have to undergo the suffering of being born and dying again and again? Reincarnation is made inevitable by the impressioning of consciousness, which is to say, by sanskaras. Impressions or sanskaras are the tie, the causal mechanism whose playing out through the course of human life can be described through what is called the law of karma. Karmic determinism shapes all that we experience. Sunday, September 7, 2014: Afternoon - 2 to 4 p.m. The Illuminative Value of Reincarnation in an Assessment to the Human Condition An understanding of reincarnation, its causes, and its greater purpose, can be helpful in palliating the traumas of modernity and the mental confusion which many people face today. In this last session, we will consider the light, which recognition of reincarnation sheds on such perennial themes as cosmic justice, good and evil, predestination, free will, and the need for grace in the spiritual journey Ward and the participants About the presenter - Dr. Ward Parks will moderate and present the this two-day workshop. For 10 years Dr. Parks served as a professor of medieval studies, at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. In 1993 he left the academic world to become a spiritual trainee in India. There he has engaged in research in Meher Baba's life and teachings and edited books of Meher Baba's authorship. Ward is one of the editors of Infinite Intelligence by Meher Baba and a scholar of Meher Baba's writings. He first heard of Meher Baba at a lecture when he was a freshman at Harvard University in 1970. "I found what was for me an authentic spiritual Master in Meher Baba(1894-1969)." He is currently working on Meher Baba's Discourses, known as Tiffin Lectures. Workshop donation - $20.00 SPACE IS LIMITED. PLEASE BOOK VERY EARLY. Please make check to AMBGO and mail to: Jean Wilson, 1307 S. Water St #54, Silverton, OR 97381 Or register online http://www.avatarmeherbabaoregon.org/events/PortlandWorkshop.php Tea, coffee and snacks will be served on both days. Participants may bring a packed lunch or go to nearby restaurants during the two-hour lunch break .