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Are My Problems Really Caused By My Previous Life?
One of the philosophies that believes in past lives reincarnation and other births for the soul is the Hindu philosophy. The Hindu philosophy also believes in athma (soul) and karma (deeds). Hindu religious scriptures say that the soul never dies but merely changes body or form, much as one might shed old clothes for new.
This is a very different philosophy from that of Christian theory of reincarnation, which focuses on the resurrection of Christ. It is believed that the soul can take any form, whether man, woman, or animal. The deeds or karma of the human being in the present life are what determines the kind of life that person will have in the next life.
Several Hindu scriptures talk about past lives reincarnation. Most notable among these is the Bhrigu Sanhita, which supposedly held an accounting of all past and future births for souls then currently living. It's unfortunate, then, that the scripture was lost over time.
A proponent of modern rebirth has been Dr. Ian Stevenson, who has collected much information on this subject. Science in general still frowns on the concept of rebirth as valid, so it can't be said that modern science supports this collection of 'scientific information' on reincarnation theory. Nonetheless, Stevenson's work is the most famous and well documented, not least because Dr. Stevenson was a psychiatrist with a degree in medicine.
Dr. Stevenson didn't put patients under trances or into hypnotic states, however, as many modern day past life regression therapists do. Instead, he simply interviewed children who spontaneously recalled things they had experienced in past lives.
One of the most puzzling and famous of these involves a young boy just six years old. He was from a tiny village in Punjab, and he said that he had been a man named Satnam Singh. This young boy had never been to what he said was the man's home village of Chakkchela and had never lived there, even though he could describe the place with amazing.
The family tried to discourage the boy from saying these things, but he nonetheless continued to say that his name was Satnam. He even told others what the man's father's name had been. Further, the boy said that he had been killed in a motorcycle accident as he was heading home from school. This claim was investigated and it was absolutely found that there had been a man named Satnam Singh, and he had been killed precisely as the boy said he had been. The young boy also revealed intimate details about the family, and these also checked out to be accurate. The most amazing part of this was when the handwriting of the young boy and the handwriting of the deceased man were compared, and were found to be absolutely identical.
Another child Stephenson interviewed had a past lives reincarnation account about a young woman. The little girl's name was Swarnalata, and she was just three years old. Nonetheless, she claimed to have been Biya Pathak, a young woman. The child could describe the house the young woman had lived in with very significant clarity, and even took her father to the property when they were traveling back from the railway station in their town one day. She further said that if they were to go to this young woman's house, they could get a far better cup of tea then they could on the road. The 'clincher' in this case happened when the little girl recognized the young woman's brother and addressed him by a pet name, from a group of people numbering nine.
Stevenson's work records dozens of incidents like these. Stevenson further states that if one is injured in a past life, the injury can manifest in the next life as a birthmark. This was indeed found to be true for one case that involved a man from Thailand; this man said that he was in fact his own now-dead uncle (his mother's brother) and had been reincarnated. The man bore a scar on his head that matched the location where his uncle had sustained a fatal wound from a knife.
Another well-known case of Stevenson's was that of a boy who claimed to be a man called MahaRam in a past life. This man had been killed by close gunshots to the chest, and the boy carried similar scar-like birthmarks on his chest that looked like gunshot wounds.
The 'father' of modern past life regression, Dr. Brian Weiss, supports the concept of rebirth as a plausible one, and so do many other prominent authorities in the field of psychology and psychiatry. Even so, science itself remains very skeptical about the concept of past life rebirth. It's also true, however, that people who have past life regression therapy often suddenly are rid of phobias and fears they've had their entire lives.
Past Lives Reincarnation – Finding Clues to Your Present in Your Past
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