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Why Should You Understand Past Lives Reincarnation?
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.
There are several Hindu scriptures that talk about past life reincarnations. Most notably is the Bhrigu Sanhita, a scripture that supposedly held an accounting of all future and past births for current souls living. Unfortunately, this scripture no longer exists, and has been lost to 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 past life regression therapists use hypnosis or induce trance in subjects to get them to recall past lives. However, Dr. Stevenson didn't do any of these things. Instead, he simply talked to children who spontaneously recalled things that happened to them in their 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.
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 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.
Many psychiatrists and psychologists, as well as of eminent authorities, believe that past life regression is indeed plausible. Among them, Dr. Brian Weiss is considered to be the father of past life regression. Even though science remains skeptical about it, it's also worth noting that many people experience a complete disappearance of fears and phobias they've carried their entire lives after they've undergone several sessions of past life regression therapy.
A New Understanding Of Past Lives Reincarnation
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