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Your Past Lives Are Your Future
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.
Dr. Ian Stevenson has the most compelling modern day account of rebirth, as represented in the data he collected. Modern science still pooh-poohs rebirth as a legitimate claim, so it can't be stated that this is the most noted source of scientific information on past lives reincarnation as a theory. However, it's the most famous and is extremely well documented because Dr. Stevenson was a psychiatrist and had a degree in medicine.
Dr. Stevenson didn't put his patients under any kind of hypnosis or trance like state, unlike many modern day pass life regression therapist. Instead, he collected his data entirely from children who spontaneously recalled past life incidents.
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.
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 files are filled with these cases, dozens of them. Stevenson also asserted that if a physical trauma has taken place in the last life, it can show up in the next as a birthmark. Indeed, one subject said that this had happened to him. He said he was his own deceased uncle, on his mother's side; the subject had a scar on his head that matched a knife wound his uncle had had in the same location, the wound his uncle had died from.
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.
Many psychiatrists and other eminent authorities in psychology and psychiatry believe in rebirth as a legitimate concept, including Dr. Brian Weiss, who is considered to be the father of past life regression. However, science continues to be very skeptical about it. Nonetheless, it's also worth noting that when many people undergo a few sessions of past life regression therapy, they experience the sudden disappearance of phobias and fears they've had their entire lives.
Past Life Past Lives Reincarnation
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