Wednesday, August 14, 2013
More on Past Lives
Recently I mentioned seeing a program on T. V. which dealt with young children who remembered events from their past lives. I looked up the website for the bio channel and found the following:
http://www.biography.com/tv/the-ghost-inside-my-child/videos/beth-culpepper-reincarnation-is-real-39305795947 (may have one more number at end)
This site even includes some replays of past programs, including one on the date I watched the original and perhaps even some later ones.
And if you google reincarnation you will find a link for Ian Stevenson--and there you can locate a lengthy discussion of reincarnation. Stevenson dedicated his life to exploring this phenomenon, and his writings include many accounts of children who recall their past identities including their families, former spouses, etc. Most of his
information comes from India and the East, where reincarnation has been widely accepted for many years.
It was interesting that he found that a great many of these children had also suffered violent death prior to their present incarnation. I do not think that this means that everyone who has had a past life underwent such violence at death--rather that those who did so were most likely to be the ones who as young children remembered their earlier incarnations.
I think that most of us get inklings from time to time of past existences--I have had a couple of such memories and they felt quite accurate. One of these included a memory of dying when I was a monk, but it was a very gentle, easy departure. Another was of going to the Royal Procession along the Thames in early England for which Handel had composed the Water Music (I was a farmer's wife--we and our children traveled to London in a flat bed wagon for the occasion, which was in fact about the most important event of our lives).
Some believe that it is best not to remember our past lives, for such memories might interfere in some way with our present existence. They think it is best to focus on the present, not the past. They feel that too many memories might make us confused. I think that perhaps it is best to focus on the one or two which are most meaningful for our current incarnation.
