Kundalini Splendor

For many years I have been, like many others, fascinated by the notion of reincarnation, the return of a former self into a new body and a new identity.  For a very long time, this topic was considered quite esoteric and given little credence by the mainstream, at least in the Western hemisphere.  Most of the stories (that I encountered) dealt with children born in India or nearby countries where there is greater acceptance of reincarnation--sometimes these children were taken to visit their "former families" and they could often identify their parents or other family members by name, recognize their own former possessions, and such.

Last night I watched a program on the Bio channel which presented several children in this country who apparently were reincarnations of those who had lived before.  Their "former selves" had all died in sudden catastrophes in "recent" history.  The group included one who recalled his death in the attack of 911, another who was one of the children killed in the Oklahoma City bombing a few years ago, one who had been a U. S. pilot during WWII fighting against the "great red sun" (the Japanese flag), one who had been a Russian partisan, and one, a former Hollywood movie director, who was crushed by a tractor in a farm accident.

These children were all extremely young.  They began at a very young age to draw images of their "past life" memories and to relive these traumatic experiences through nightmares and phobias.  The child who had been killed in 911 drew two skyscrapers and became hysterical when he saw tall buildings.  The former  pilot drew images of planes, named the ship he was on (Natoma?), and the kind of plane he flew (Corsair).  One insisted that his mother was in fact his daughter--and when the family contacted his former "relatives," they discovered that indeed this person had had a daughter by that name.  One child (the Russian partisan), presented with the word "No" on a flashcard, insisted on calling it "Nein," (German for "no").

None of these children had had any previous access to the material they related.  They knew nothing of the events and situations that now haunted their minds and imaginations.  The parents were confused as to why their children were behaving and speaking in this way.  But in the end, they were convinced by the undeniable evidence that indeed, the ultimate source for their children's convictions was a past existence. They were also greatly concerned by the fact that often these memories produced nightmares and mental disturbances.

Westerners have been loathe to accept the notion of "past lives," but the evidence is accumulating that reincarnation is indeed a reality.  The fact that this program, with its compelling evidence, was presented on a mainstream station suggests that this subject is no longer merely an "esoteric" area, but one which is more and more accepted in the mainstream.

Even when we do not recall the specifics of our past lives, we often get clues and hints through the things we are drawn to, and the way we live our present lives.  I once seemed to remember a death in Tibet when I was a monk in a monastery.  I was surrounded by my fellow monks chanting quietly as I went into and then out of consciousness.  The experience was in no way traumatic, but rather a gentle drifting into a state of peace and quiet as I lost awareness of my surroundings and my identity.

I believe that what reincarnates is not the former self as such, but rather the "subtle body," which is, in fact, the "energy body," and it is this essence which conveys the Kundalini body into the next incarnation.  I believe this is why some have spontaneous awakenings with little prior preparation. They bring with them into this world an energy body already highly developed in the area of Kundalini experience.  And--sometimes the energy body from the past is more than the physical body of the present is equipped to deal with, and hence the difficulties that such unexpected arisings may produce as the practitioner struggles to incorporate the "new" (but old) energies into her present nervous system.