THE SOUL....LIFE AFTER DEATH

                                                                                                        

There are those that believe in reincarnation and others that believe that when a person dies, they go to heaven or hell and only live the one life they were given. What about seeing spirits? If someone has passed over to the other side, does their ghost or spirit come down to roam the earth or visit from time to time? If that’s true, and there is reincarnation, how can their spirit still be here among us? On the other hand, if the person has gone to heaven or hell, how can their spirit be here? There are so many questions and so much confusion.

Have you ever thought that the soul has two parts? If you think about it….it makes sense. In Vodou, it is believed that the soul does indeed have two parts, the Gwo Bon Anj and the Ti Bon Anj. Upon birth, the Magic Mirror (the reflective surface of the Waters, reveals this soul double to the individual. The reflective soul lives with us throughout our lives. It is the life force that is within our consciousness and creativity. It flows through our blood and breath and is the energy in our bodies. The Gwo Bon Anj isn’t our breath or the blood itself but it’s the life force that motivates these functions and gives our bodies the will to live. The Gwo Bon Anj is contained within our body during life.

The Ti Bon determines the moral choices made by a person and is the conscience that distinguishes between good and evil, right and wrong.  It is your personality and ego. Through your Ti Bon Anj, you experience emotional responses to your moral behavior. The Ti Bon Anj mirrors the presence of the Gwo Bon Anj into a physical manifestation of tears or laughter when you are expressing sadness or happiness. The two parts of the soul mirror each other and create harmony with one another.

Upon death, the parts of the soul separate. The Ti Bon Anj is exhaled with your last breath. It rises above the dead shell of the body. The body then returns to the earth, where it dissolves back into water and clay. It waits there to receive the will of God or Bondye, to be reanimated as a new body. The Ti Bon Anj stands before Bondye, but loses its personal individuality and it has no further influence upon the living. The Gwo Bon Anj lingers by the grave for nine days after someone’s death.  The death rites separate the soul from the body. The Gwo Bon Anj returns to the immortal Waters of Ginen where it joins the other ancestral dead. After one year and one day, reincarnation rites call the Gwo Bon Anj back into the community of the living. There, it offers help and guidance from its new body, formed of a specially made earthenware jar, called a govi jar. The Gwo Bon Anj can become a Lwa eventually or can be reincarnated in the form of succeeding family generations.

Vodou believes that death is part of the cycle of life and it is a process that leads to further rhythms and there is nothing to be afraid of. Life is magical and so is death.

My products are sold at Hex - 1219 Decatur St. in New Orleans, Hex - 246 Essex St. - Salem, Mass., and Island of Salvation Botanica at 2372 St. Claude - New Orleans, La.

WHAT IS KARMA?

What is Karma? We hear about it so much today, but do we really know what it means?

 The word Karma was first initiated in the Hindu belief.  It actually means deed or act. Karma is present in this life and in any past or future lives. The Buddhists also believe in the Karmic laws of Cause and Effect. The theory is that whatever actions we do, good or bad, go instantly to our own karma and will follow us into our next life and returned to us in some way. 

We are probably working out our old karmas now. It’s always best to think first before you act or speak. Once that thought is put into action or that word is spoken, it is automatically recorded in our auras and added to our list of karmic debts. What goes around does come around and you do reap what you sow. We should always try our very best to think and act positive so that any karma returning to us will come back positive also.

 There are many times that we hurt someone without intending to. If you have harmed someone without the intent of doing so, that is different than trying to hurt someone intentionally. Be prepared for that bad energy to come back to you. Whatever actions we do in this life to try to cause dismay, heartache or harm to another person, will follow us from this life to the next.  Everyone has their own karma. We do not take on anyone else’s, they have there own karma to work out.

 If you have ever done something to someone with a positive intention in mind, but it backfired and didn’t turn out as you had planned….no worries on that being bad karma. You didn’t intend to cause harm or hurt.  I personally don’t look as karma as a thing that we should feel guilty about all the time. You shouldn’t worry about having a “dark karma cloud” hanging over you all the time. Believe me, having come from a life where I felt guilty about things all the time, I don’t want something else to impose the feeling of guilt on me just when I am doing so much better about releasing the guilt I’ve had in my life. None of us are perfect and we all do things to others without meaning to from time to time. It is when we purposely hurt others that bad karma is produced.

  The reason I am posting this is to bring this information front and foremost in our minds. It is my hope that we will all concentrate on treating others with the utmost respect. If someone has been rude to you or lashed out at you, they are only doing it because they are upset with themselves.  Just move on…..don’t allow them to create a circumstance where you give the same response back in return. They are the ones creating bad karma for themselves. If you walk away or say or do something kind in return, you have done the right thing. Good karma will come back to you. This is easier said than done most of the time and something that each of us has to work on consistently. We are each responsible for our own actions.

 This is even more of a reason that I would never use Vodou to cause hurt to anyone. There are people that practice such things, doing hexes and spells to cause harm to people and taking matters into their own hands by using Black Magic. The internet is full of them and you can always find someone who practices this dark evil magic. Vodou, in the Hollywood version, is usually portrayed in such a manner. That is one of the things that has given Vodou a bad name and made it the most misunderstood religions in the world. Real Vodou practicioners do no believe in doing harm to anyone. We also believe in karma and that whatever good or bad we do will come back to us.

 Just remember…….if you have done something good or bad for someone, it will return to you ten fold…..either in this life or the next.

My products are sold at Hex - 1219 Decatur St. in New Orleans, Hex - 246 Essex St. - Salem, Mass., and Island of Salvation Botanica at 2372 St. Claude - New Orleans, La.

Peace and Blessings,

Gypsy V