Who Cares About Reincarnation?

Last week, a reader wrote to say, "Why would I want to waste time wondering if I lived as an Incan, or as anyone else? I have enough to do in this lifetime."

While the tone of my "Incan comment" was meant to be light-hearted, the reader had a point. The purpose of looking at past lives is not meant to distract you from your responsibilities in your current life. Nor is it to provide you with another area of study that must be mastered in order to "graduate."

You can live a perfectly happy life, filled with personal and spiritual growth, without any reflection on the subject of reincarnation. In fact, one mystic sect, Sufism, discourages it, as diverting its disciples from the ultimate goal of attaining Oneness with God.

So why does anyone care about reincarnation?

Virtually all religions point to the existence of a soul, as the aspect of you that is not physical, and agree that this soul is "everlasting." Reincarnation states that this everlasting soul incarnates many times in order to provide the depth and breath of life experiences that allow for one's spiritual evolution before moving on to higher worlds. This is a logically consistent explanation for the trials and tribulations we face on earth.

To reject the idea of reincarnation is to introduce a randomness to the universe that is inconsistent with the idea of a benevolent and fair God. For example, why should one child be born to a loving family with all physical, emotional and spiritual needs being met, while another is born to a drug addicted mother with no home nor means of support? What could possibly be fair about such an imbalance of fortune, unless the idea that this is but one of many incarnations is taken into consideration.

While it is no measure of the validity of a theory, the vast majority of the population on earth today believes in reincarnation. It was a common belief in the time of Jesus and nothing that Jesus said was inconsistent with this belief. Father Origen, one of the top theologians of the church around 200 AD, wrote frequently on the subject. It was not until 545 AD that the Fifth Ecumenical Council declared the concept heretical for political reasons.

So why care about your particular past lives?

Your past lives represent another component into what makes you tick - who you are now - how you got there - and who you might become later in this incarnation or the next. In his book, Many Lives, Many Masters, Dr. Brian Weiss was surprised to discover some of his patients would recall past life traumas that proved to the basis for their current problems. By addressing these traumas, even though they had occurred in past lives, he was able to help heal his patients.

My study of mysticism was triggered years ago by a vivid past life recall while watching a Dick Sutphen video. Prior to that moment, my interest in spiritual subjects and history was minimal, but after investigating the information that was revealed, my perspective changed. My recall of that life was entirely consistent with that time period and there was no other explanation for how I could have learned of it. Clearly, my education was incomplete.

Now, I recognize that an understanding of reincarnation is a tool that can add a depth of understanding to certain situations, especially relationships. On several occasions in this lifetime I have interacted with others in ways that would appear strange to an independent observer, but become perfectly understandable when acts from prior lifetimes are considered.

In one instance, within an hour of meeting me, a woman asked me to follow her to her home, where she inexplicably handed me two ceramic eagles and told me they were for me. I later discovered it was her way of apologizing for taking my sons away from me hundreds of years earlier. On another occasion, I was at a loss to understand why I continued to help a talented, but self-sabotaging drunk. Upon later reflection, I recognized him as having saved my life in a previous lifetime. Unconsciously, I felt obligated to return the favor, and he provided plenty of opportunities for me to do so. In both cases, these actions would have happened with or without my conscious knowledge of a prior connection, but I derived additional satisfaction from the knowledge that our interactions were complete.

Not everything is related to past lives and not every act requires such introspection. But if you find yourself experiencing a sense of "déjà vu," or wondering why you feel compelled to act outside of your normal character, you may want to reflect on it. There is the chance that a past life is involved and you may derive some valuable insights from its contemplation.

I'm looking forward to our Sacred Journey to Peru this June and hope that I get to experience that sense of déjà vu. The Incas had connections with the ancient continent of Lemuria (Mu), and possible future lives in the Pleiades constellation (the Seven Sisters of Greek Mythology). The only way to access these past or future lives is in the eternal NOW, which I hope to do in Peru.