While perusing through my old journals, I came across a couple of entries that I titled “Why it’s time to Believe in Reincarnation.” In those entries I went into a rant about how we are destroying our planet and that by believing in reincarnation we might take better care of it because we would be destined to live on it again for many lifetimes. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a home to come back to in our next life.

Aside from that rant, I found that I had somehow explained to myself how we are connected to the beginning of time as we currently define it in through science (The Big Bang) and that we will continue to be connected to the cosmos long after we die.

I’m sure there are many “holes” and assumptions in my explanation, which would make it a terrible logical argument, but this all came to me in a flash over two mornings in 2014. If you willing to set aside judgments and beliefs for a few minutes and allow your mind to go on a journey, then I invite you to read further.

Forget for a moment about whether or not you believe that you are a soul and look at yourself as simply your physical body.

If you are your body, then you are all the parts of your body. Each part of your body might not represent you as a whole, however if you exist in your body, then you would exist in each part of your body.

Each part of your body is made up of different tissues, organs, and bones, and each of those is made up of a network of cells working together. The cells have different parts, and we can continue breaking each part down until we end up getting to the very small components of the atoms which make up the elements, molecules, and compounds in your body.

Again, if you are your body and your body is made up of these parts, then you are the combination of all of these parts, and if you exist in these parts, then you exist in every part of your body down to the smallest sub-atomic particle.

If you dive deeper into scientific explanations of what all of this stuff is you might see for yourself that all of the tiniest pieces that make up the smallest parts of you are simply forms of energy.

Einstein stated that “Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another.”

Let’s jump back in time to the beginning of our understanding of energy. At the time of The Big Bang, the cosmos was mostly just space with hydrogen atoms. Over time those hydrogen atoms clumped together to form stars and through nuclear reactions formed new elements, which formed new stars. As new stars were born other stars died (exploded to become supernovas) and more elements were formed. These elements eventually formed not only stars but also more solid, planetary-like objects.

In alignment with Einstein’s quote, all of the energy that was present at the time of The Big Bang would have to still be present only in different forms. After a star dies, the energy that it gave off changes form and becomes new elements and light energy. Eventually those elements and energy came together in different ways to form all of what we know of today.

This leads me to believe that all of the parts that make up this body that I identify as ME have been around since the beginning of time as we know it.

That means YOU, the body you identify with, is made up of elements and consists of energies that have been around since the time of The Big Bang and afterwards.

YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN.

Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were correct when they sang “We are Stardust” in their song “Woodstock”. Since your body is comprised of all these minute pieces and energies that have been around since the beginning of time as we know it, you have been around since the beginning, and since energy cannot be created nor destroyed, when you “die” and your body breaks back down in to elemental pieces, those pieces will separate and continue to live on in another form.

THEREFORE, YOU WILL ALWAYS BE.

You actually never really die. You just change form and expand to become parts of other things that your atomic pieces bond with. The pieces of you that stay in the ground and bond with the rocks will become part of the Earth. You will be the Earth.

The atomic particles of you that bond with the dirt and water in the ground and get pulled into a plant for nutrients will become part of that plant. You become that plant.

If that plant produces fruit or vegetables, and is eaten by an animal or a human, you become a part of that animal or person. You become that living organism. You, in a sense, are “born again” in another living organism.

If perhaps your parts become part of a human being and develop into parts of the reproductive system, then you may actually be a part of the fertilization process and may actually form into another human being to truly be born again.

Now you wouldn’t be all of the atoms that formed into that new human. There were other atoms that all worked together from other sources and combined to form that human so that the new person is actually a group of elements that came from many different systems, plants, and animals that are working together to give form to the new baby. Each body is not an individual, but rather a team of individual parts working together to form a structured unit.

You are not you, but rather you are everything that came before you in this universe. You will also be a part of everything that comes after you die.

Your body is a team working together to survive, just as you are a part of a team on the Earth, working to survive. You are not alone. You are connected to everything more so than we currently refer to in the age of social media.

Take a moment today to sit in silence and connect to yourself, and in doing so you will be connecting to all that ever was and all that ever will be.