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Past Lives Remembered
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 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.
One of the most compelling past lives reincarnation experts on rebirth is Dr. Ian Stevenson. His data is famous and compelling because he had a background in modern medicine; he held a degree in medicine, and was a psychiatrist. This is especially notable considering that modern science discounts rebirth as a legitimate claim. Therefore, it can't be stated that this is the most notable source of scientific information on reincarnation is theory, just the most famous and well documented.
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 dissuade the boy from telling people about this, but he continued to claim that he was Satnam; he also gave the name of this man's father. He also said that he had been killed in his past life as he was coming home from school in a motorcycle accident. The boy's claims were investigated and were indeed found to be true, insofar that a man by that name had indeed been killed in a motorcycle accident on the way home from school. The boy was also able to give intimate family details, and these, too, proved to be accurate. What was most notable, though, was that when the man's and the boy's handwriting samples were compared, they were found to be identical.
Stevenson's data also contains another startling case, that of little girl who was just three years old; she was named Swarnalata, but recalled being a young woman named Biya Pathak in a past life. She could minutely recall this young woman's home, and in fact showed it to her father when they were traveling one day. Further, she said that she had lived in the area and that they could get a better cup of tea in her house than they could on the road. Her recollections were completely validated when she recognized the young woman's brother, and addressed him by a pet name the young woman had called him, from a group of nine people.
Stevenson's files contain literally dozens of these cases. He also states that it can often happen that a trauma in the last birth can take form in the next life as a birthmark. One subject certainly had this happen to him. He recalled that he was his deceased maternal uncle, and a scar on his head proved to be a match to the knife wound his uncle had died from, also on his uncle's head in the same location.
Another case from Stevenson's files was very astonishing as well; with that, a little boy claimed that he was a man named MahaRam; MahaRam had been shot and killed at very close range, in the chest. What was amazing was that this young boy displayed birthmarks on his chest that looked like gunshot wound scars.
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.
Emotional Problems Are A Thing Of The Past
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