So I've been researching egyptian hieroglyphics, in particular the book of the dead the last few days. Is it just me, or is it outlining a path to reincarnation in which an individual with positive dharma at the least retains knowledge of their past lives, and at best achieves nirvana, reintegrating with the singularity? What are your thoughts. Look at the art on the tombs of Pharos.

What makes you think so?

I don't see a lot of ancient egyptian art. And i definetely haven't read the egyptian book of the dead. I figure from watching documentaries that the book used to be sold and much sought after by each individual. But that might be modern western projection. I hope the egyptians didn't use the realm of the dead for profit..

i thought the whole emphasis was Joining up With Osiris in the land of two feilds from their perspective, After successfully proving that the soul has been honest.

Unsure if things like reincarnation are touched upon in the egyptian side of things, although i would imagine many of the passing souls aren't fully exempt from it if they havn't been as honest and phraoh-like as some of them attempted.

The whole dharma and reincarnation thing is much more commonplace in Tibetan budhhism where the high lamas and teachers supposedly control their afterlife process in order to sustain a lineage of teachings and extend and build on their own bodhichitta etc

How does one find out such things ? I am interested!

exactly , how does one find out such things ?

The Egyptian book of the dead seems more like a guide to avoiding reincarnation to me than anything else. As d-T-r noted, they never made any explicit claims for reincarnation as with the Buddhists. Here's a translation of the text for those who are interested. You can do a google image search to see some of the art. The images are quite iconic. Particularly the weighing of the heart before Ma'at scene.


Note the discrepancy of the items on the scale between these two images.

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In the first one we have the heart being weighed against a feather. The concept being that if your heart were lighter than a feather (i.e. of pure heart and soul having lived ones life with good moral choices and all that) then you would proceed to join Osiris. According to Dr. Boulter, in the subsequent patriarchal reign of the Amun-Ra priesthood, the depiction was changed from the heart being weighed against a feather, to the heart being weighed against these Pharonic Ra idols which essentially translated to that which you would have to buy from the priesthood in order to guarantee one's place in the afterlife. We have this move from the more spiritually aligned culture where your success in the afterlife was impingent on how good of a person you were to having to make money to buy your redemption....sound familiar at all?

i like the part about weighing the heart against the feather .......thats cool

anyways why should anyone hope to be reincarnated

from what i understand a better thing to do would be avoid birth and death alltogether and become immortal , i have clearly no idea what i am talking about , yet what is the harm in sharing and discussing this ,

As I understand it the Egyptians did believe in re-incarnation. As best I recall the Egyptian book of the dead is the one with the 42 negative confessions. Global has given a good outline of the "weighing of the heart ceremony" in "the chamber of judgement". The "scene" is pregnant with esoteric symbolism and if I went into detail you would think me a lunatic. I think from my own research, not just Egyptian, that it is not a case of finding a path to re-incarnation, but finding your way out of it; hence the beautiful symbolism of heart vs. feather. I can tell you now, my heart is far from being pure and feather-like. There really is so much info out there but it's not mainstream, its not the content of regular everyday discussion and it will bend your head if you pursue it. Me...I am really glad that I bent and continue to bend my head

Why else would I be hear

I feel this way because the Egyptian book of the dead's purpose was to guide one successfully through the afterlife to rejoin with the gods. This is similar to the view Hindu and Buddhist cosmology takes, in that one is reincarnated on higher or lower planes of existence dependent on one's actions throughout previous lives. I think the Egyptians were saying the same thing through their spells in the book. Their are spells for the weighing of the heart, as mentioned before, as well as spells to overcome negative forces and 42 things which must be declared to have not been committed , which could be interperperated as the necessity to live in a positive manner in order to move up in the cosmos, the ultimate goal becoming a god, or star.

According to the other book of the dead(Tibetan,not the same book i know but these kind of things always boil down to the same point regardless of cultural diversity)

reincarnation as i came to understand reading it,is what happens when you are not ready yet to dissolve into eternity you pass through each bardo testing your spirit and when you fail you reincarnate as you have more to learn yet before you can be ready as ascending is sort of when you perfected your being its a long shot since we are very flawed creatures(totally forgivable its our drive to learn)

I hope i didnt spoil it by slightly shifting the topic anyhow i hope it helps

Be well