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Understanding Past Lives Reincarnation For Beginners
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.
There are several Hindu scriptures that speak very much about past lives reincarnation. Notable among these is the Bhrigu Sanhita, which apparently had a complete accounting of both past and future births for all living souls. Unfortunately, this scripture has been lost over time.
Most compellingly, Dr. Ian Stevenson was a modern day believer in past lives reincarnation; he amassed a collection of data that is the most famous and well-documented data of its kind. It can't be said that it's the most respected source of scientific information on reincarnation theory, since modern science still discounts rebirth claims, but it is nonetheless so well known because Dr. Stevenson had a degree in medicine and was a psychiatrist.
Today, most therapists who use past life regression induce trances in subjects or use hypnosis to get them to recall past lives. Dr. Stevenson did not do that, however. He simply talked to children who could spontaneously recall events from their own past lives.
Among the most well-known and puzzling cases was that of a child, a young boy, six years old, from a tiny village in Punjab. This child claimed that he had been Satnam Singh, a man from a village that the boy named as Chakkchela; the boy claimed to have lived there as Satnam Singh, even though he actually had not been there himself. Additionally, the boy could describe Chakkchela in minute detail.
The boy's family tried to dissuade him from making such statements, but he continued to claim that his name was Satnam, even going so far as to reveal the name of the man's father. As Satnam, he said that he had been killed while coming home from school on his motorcycle. This claim was investigated and was indeed found to be true, that a man named Satnam Singh had indeed been killed thusly. The boy also revealed other intimate details about the man's family that checked out to be true. The final proof was when the man's handwriting was compared to the young boy's, and they proved identical.
Stevenson also interviewed a young girl named Swarnalata, another of his famous cases. This young girl was just three years old, but she remembered her past life as a young woman named Biya Pathak. The little girl could describe the house that she lived in, and even took her father there one day when they were coming back from the railway station in their town. She further said that she and her father could get a better cup of tea in Biya Pathak's house than they could on the road. Again, the final proof turned out to be when the child recognized the young woman's brother, and addressed him by a pet name the young woman had had for him, among a group of nine people.
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 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.
Dr. Brian Weiss is considered to be the father of modern past life regression, and he and several other eminent authorities in the field of psychiatry and psychology consider that the concept of rebirth is in fact a plausible one. Nonetheless, science itself remains very skeptical about it. It's also worth noting here, however, that when people do undergo past life regression therapy, they often suddenly dispense with lifelong fears and phobias.
Past Lives Reincarnation – Remembering the Past
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