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Past Lives Reincarnation And The Start Of A New Life
Past lives reincarnation is a theory dictated by the Hindu philosophy of athma, or soul, and karma, or deeds. With this, the soul goes through past lives reincarnation and other births, because it is indestructible and cannot be destroyed. Instead, it only changes form from one life to the next, much as you might change outfits once one has outlived its usefulness.
This differs greatly from Christianity, which has as its focus Christ's resurrection. The Hindus state that the soul can take any form, whether man, woman or animal. The deeds one does in one's present life, or karma, will dictate what happens to someone in the next life.
Several Hindu scriptures talk very much about past lives reincarnation. Most notable among these is the Bhrigu Sanhita. This scripture apparently had a complete accounting of the future and past births of all souls living; it's unfortunate, then, that the scripture has been lost to the ages.
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.
Unlike today's past life regression therapists, though, Dr. Stevenson didn't put his patients into trance or hypnotize them. Instead, he interviewed children who had spontaneous recollections of the incidents they experienced in their past lives.
One of the most puzzling and well-known cases involved a young boy who was six years old, and who lived in a tiny village in Punjab. The boy claimed to have been Satnam Singh, and he claimed to have lived in a village named Chakkchela. This is of note because the young boy had never been to Chakkchela, yet could describe it with astonishing accuracy and clarity.
The family was nonplussed by this, and tried to dissuade the boy from saying such things, but the boy continued to insist that he was Satnam and even told people what the man's father's name had been. The boy described his death by saying that he had been killed in a motorcycle accident as he was coming home from school. The boy's story was investigated, and was found to be absolutely true; indeed, a man named Satnam Singh had been killed in a motorcycle accident on the way home from school. This little boy also revealed very personal details about the family, which also turned out to be true. Most amazingly, though, the handwriting of the young boy and Satnam Singh were compared, and found to be identical.
Another startling case from Stevenson's files involved that of a young girl, three years old, named Swarnalata. This child remembered that she had been a young woman named Biya Pathak, and could vividly described the house that she lived in. In fact, when she and her father were traveling one day, she led her father directly to the property and even said that she had lived in the area; further, she said that they could get a better cup of tea in that house than they could on the road. Her recollections were completely validated, however, when the little girl recognized the young woman's brother, and addressed him by a pet name the young woman had had for him, from a group of nine people.
Stevenson's files listed dozens of these types of cases. Further, Stevenson states that when injury happens in one life, it can manifest in the next as a birthmark in the same location as the injury. This was indeed borne out in one of his cases on a man from Thailand, who recalled that he was in fact his own deceased maternal uncle, reincarnated. This man had a scar on his head that matched the location where his maternal uncle had been wounded with a knife and had died as a result.
Another astonishing case was when a little boy claimed to remember a past life in which he had been a man named MahaRam, who had been shot and killed at close range in the chest. And indeed, this young boy had birthmarks on his chest that looked like scars from gunshot wounds.
Many psychiatrists, including Dr. Brian Weiss, the father of modern past life regression, as well as several other prominent authorities on psychiatry and psychology, believe there may be such a thing as rebirth; however, science is still mostly skeptical about it. It's also worth noting, however, that when people undergo past life reduction therapy, they can often get rid of life long fears and phobias after just a few sessions.
An Understanding Of Past Lives Reincarnation
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