Greetings from Afar
Reincarnation, the Key to History
Bacically, “Reincarnation” is the idea, or belief that each of us live many lives on earth and that in any given life we are what we have made ourselves in former lives, or, are in some way continuing some task or goal that we have undertaken previously. Many, especially those who subscribe to the so-called “Eastern Religions”, believe this to be under the law of cause and effect otherwise known as karma. In this view, our blemishes we have indulged and made a part of our personal self, our strengths and talents we have earned and unfolded. Similarly, what happens to us in life, if we believe in an ordered universe, and not in chance, is also of our own making. In other words, we are ourselves, and from day to day and from life to life we are making ourselves into what we will one day become, in this and in future lives, or, we are already molded to a certain type of existence, for good or ill, for some very specific purpose.
There are rather telling arguments against the notion that we inherit ourselves from our parents. Souls are attracted to parents with whom they have a type of psychic connection, previous association, or a deep and intimate relationship.
Seen in this manner, incoming souls select from the gene potentials of their parents-to-be that which is necessary to express what their selves already are, modified by the cumulative experiences of past existences. There is no chance involved. Thus the ten children of a large family will be ten different people, talent-wise, character-wise: ten different souls coming to birth, each with his or her own characteristics. There may even be a wide diversity in appearance. But, all are there, within that particular family, because it is in some way relevant to their further development, or to some goal which they, most often subconsciously, seek to attain.
Likewise, spouses are sometimes drawn together across long distances, sometimes spanning continents and oceans, vast differences in culture, background and language. The same applies to groups of people, otherwise, seemingly unrelated, who come together for apparently no reason and for no discernible purpose, only to discover that there is, in fact, a purpose, and that it is a “common cause”. In many cases, through regression therapy, interpretation of dreams and wakeful visions, these causes, and the relationships of the past can be recognized for what they are, and traced through the combined efforts of all involved, through a long chain of incarnations which can extend for literally thousands of years.
This type of connection to past lives would also tend to explain why some individuals have a propensity to certain traits and characteristics, talents, trades and professions. In some three hundred case studies conducted by myself and my collegues, to date, we have discovered that this type of “patterned” behavior is true in almost eighty (80%) of those examined, with regard to profession, trade and personal behavior. We have found the pattern to be near total when dealing with spouses who are psychically connected through prior incarnations, with the propensities growing stronger in relationship to the length of association.
Two cases in point stand out immediately. In the first, the current husband and wife seem to have shared a minimum of 12 known incarnations, with the possibility of several others that are recallable in fragmentary form. In all cases, the man (unusual in this case, there has been no gender shifting noted between incarnations, as is common to around fifty (50%) percent of known cases) has always followed some form of trade or profession which centers around engineering, usually military engineering or construction, while the woman seems to have made a career of having great numbers of children, and being constantly pregnant (their average family numbers 9 offspring surviving to adulthood, from incarnation to incarnation, and has been considerably larger).
The second case that comes instantly to mind is an individual who has been married, in the current incarnation, six times, and each spouse can be readily identified with a similar spouse in a previous incarnation. The fact that this particular individual is fifty-four (54) years of age, still alive, and that none of the women in question are particularlly angry or irritated with him speaks for itself. This party has undergone regression both jointly with three of his former spouses, and each has undergone separate regression therapy sessions, substantiating this chain of events, which seems to be following exactly the same order in each incarnation. This individual is a Naval Officer by profession, and has, apparently been involved with seafaring in some respect in each of his incarnations.
As an example of the “group incarnation” theory, I and my colleges have performed regression sessions on four individuals, and taken testimony from seven others, which substantiates the existence of at least one group which has incarnated together, repeatedly, for a known and measurable period of approximately 1,800 years, involving some twelve known locations, time periods and cultures. This group is tied together by a series of interlocking relationships, rather like an extended family, and pursuant to two highly visible and definable goals. The verification of this group comes, primarily from the fact that, prior to meeting each other, in this incarnation, quite by “accident” they were literally scattered across four continents, six different countries, and six language groups. Although they have no common history or culture, they are each familiar with historical events, in great detail, in distant lands, which have been historically verified, including names, dates, places and activities with regard to the three most recent incarnations of this group… information that one member might have, in any given situation, but all members could not possibly have, in each given situation. Further, this “group” is dependent upon a proper “pairing” or “mating” system within the group, and in each case in which this order was not achieved, the incarnation self-aborted, with each member being deceased before the age of forty, and the next incarnation beginning within a period of ten years. This group seems to have “found itself” rather late in this incarnation, with several of it’s members being in their mid-forties, however, the “pairing” has, in fact, taken place, or is beginning to, with several rather unusual, but extremely successful matches as a result. It is interesting to note that each individual in this group had had several unsatisfactory liaisons prior to the current “pairing”, and had always felt that “someone was out there”. Collectively, this group still suspects “missing members”, but, as time passed, individuals are “located”, generally finding the group rather than the reverse, and always, seemingly by accident.
There is also a case to be made for the fact that certain physical characteristics, or at least the residual hints of them carry over from one incarnation to the next. It is in this manner that individuals who have known each other in the past, especially those who have known each other intimately, are able to recognize each other in the present, and to somehow “find” each other. This could be something as simple as a mannerism of habit that is readily discernible, or the tone of the voice. In some cases, it appears to be a literal physical resemblance, in a general sense. This tends to produce the effect that is commonly expressed as de ja vu when referring to physical things, but in people produces the impression that one has met the other person before, or recognizes them somehow, but has a definite knowledge that this is an impossibility, or… the incident which most have encountered… meeting a stranger on the street, and wondering, literally all day, where they have seen the person before… when… it was, in fact, in a previous incarnation.
All this presupposes that there is an enduring part that lives in each person, something that survives and gradually unfolds through repeated reimbodiments, something within… a higher self or reincarnating ego… in which is stored the wisdom of experience. Evolution, thus, is the process by which the potentials of this divine essence may unfold. We humans have unfolded that which makes us human; we are at the human stage of our evolution. The animals have unfolded that which makes them animals, and so forth.
Human races are like streams. The individuals of the race are coming and moving constantly… at a constant velocity… being born and dying. The substance of the race is coming in and going out without pause. Yet the race retains its stamp, its marked characteristics. While the race may change slowly, rise to power and sink into obscurity, it retains a certain individuality. There is no such thing as a pure race. All the world’s races are mixtures to some extent or the other. The difference lies solely in the degree of the mixture. In the last two centuries this mix has been even further augmented; in recent decades, many cultures have been altered even further. In the long ran such mixtures will constitute either our real strength or our weakness.
It is obvious that in the most distant past lives we were what we now call the ancients. When we look back these older peoples it may seem strange to us, with different customs and life-styles, yet they must have been very much as we are, and as pointed out, many very basic patterns have, in fact, carried over from one incarnation to the next. Ancient peoples had their loves and hates, their trials, responsibilities, and problems; and they did the best they could with what they had.
If, as science maintains, our evolution is genetic, from parent to son to grandson, one would think there would be a continual rise in civilization. But instead we find all cultures are born, rise to a zenith, then gradually decline, die, or are overrun by another people that may be far less civilized. Why these ups and downs of civilizations? When a civilization is born or a nation emerges, it attracts to itself those souls that have the karma and those particular abilities to express. When it is time for pioneering, those types come in: hardy souls like those in the United States who worked their way across the wilderness. The administrators come in at the appropriate time by karma — the law-givers, artisans, artists, the military — and creative efforts begin to flower. In time the nation reaches its zenith of power and influence. The citizens no longer have to struggle for their ideals and freedoms. They may suffer from a surfeit of worldly things. A new type of soul comes to birth, softer, more effete. Gradually the seeds of decline set in, and in due course the nation will ebb away and sink into obscurity.
Every stage in the unfoldment of a civilization offers opportunities for the development or expression of the souls coming into incarnation. Souls with great creativity will naturally be drawn to eras when they may express that creativity, unless karma prevents it for one reason or another. In each era people express what they are, and thus each age assumes the tone and characteristics of the people in it who are expressing what they are. If the preponderance of souls is primitive, it will be a primitive age, and so forth. An age is the people living in it, and the destinies or karma they are working out. The great souls of the Periclean Age in Greece are what made the Periclean Age.
Mankind consists of a wide variety of souls. We have those who are perhaps below the norm, even depraved… some of these may in the past have been involved in violent or otherwise traumatic experiences. There is the great run of average people, which includes most of us. Then the forerunners, who are geniuses in a variety of fields, science, literature, the arts. And above these are those developed in an all-round fashion: the Goethes, Schweitzers, von Humboldts, Einsteins and Tellers and a host more who may be said to have had a world view of human and terrestrial life. There are spiritual philosophers such as Plato, Pythagoras, and Plotinus, to name a few from our Western tradition; and others in all parts of the world whose ideas have affected their own and succeeding ages in a profound manner. Above these are the world teachers, those superb examples of human evolution: Buddhas and Christs, who represent what each of us may one day achieve in the far, far future, in the course of many incarnations of evolution… in the spirit of the words of Jesus that, “These things that I do, ye shall do also, and even greater things.” It is difficult to imagine what the fate of mankind would have been if these compassionate ones had not given of their essence for the sake of us all. There are many types of souls connected with the human race.
Reason would dictate that civilizations simply cannot continue to rise and rise, for very good reasons. Relatively large numbers of the human race may have been willingly involved in violent and cruel acts; they may have sowed seeds of violence. Now these human souls (who may have followed their cruel leaders) will reincarnate, and when they do, they bring with them the traits of their pre-existence. If civilizations continued to rise and rise, where would be the place for these types of souls with different, and sometimes violent characteristics? That, it would appear, is one of the primary reasons that the world is fragmented at times: here a high civilization, there more violent types expending themselves.
The Western classical world, for example, had its flowering first in Greece, then in Alexandria, and finally in the Roman Empire. As Rome declined the light of civilization gradually died, culminating in the onset of the so-called Dark Ages, a period which, by comparison with what had gone before, was dark indeed insofar as human achievement, education, artistry, and creativity were concerned. From civilization into abject ignorance, where is the evolution in that?
Reincarnation sheds a wonderful light on this subject, because at every stage in the development of a nation the souls come in whose destiny is such as to fulfill the destiny of the nation at that point. This applies also to its decline. In the decline of Rome some of the Caesars were actually depraved. Of course Rome was so well built that it took a long time on the way down, centuries.
Evolution from the theosophic point of view extends through repeated reimbodiments, not only for human beings, but for animals, plants, even atoms and worlds. It is not scientific heresy to describe the sun as eventually dying. The only heresy might be asserting, as we do, that the sun will in time be reborn, with its worlds visible and invisible, just as a human being has his visible and invisible parts. For this is a living universe, and we humans are living parts of it. Although there is a finite number of human souls belonging to the family of man, only a relatively small number is in incarnation at any one time. The vast majority are undergoing their after death states, which may last many, many times longer than the years spent in incarnation. From age to age the population of earth varies considerably though within certain limits. At present, souls appear to be crowding in, which may continue for a while. At other times large portions of the earth may lie fallow and mankind be reduced in numbers. Along with this, there is the regular incarnation of “new” souls… those who have not previously been incarnated, but are only now being formed into the essence which makes the “soul” a human entity.
Because of these different factors, one must be very careful not to stand in judgment upon peoples whose life-style may seem to us to be lacking in many of those comforts and other niceties which we consider necessary today. They may indeed be living in what to us might seem to be a primitive condition; but we must not fall prey to the erroneous presumption that they are somehow genetically inferior to ourselves. This is simply not true. One has only to read some of the books written by Laurens van der Post about the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert in southern Africa to realize that in spite of their primitive life-style, in all the qualities that make human life sane and beautiful — such as honesty, generosity, kindness, and a sense of humor — these people, in most cases, are wonderfully civilized, in their own way. It is not necessary to own a large home and drive frenetically to work every day in an expensive automobile to be civilized!
Mankind is very, very old indeed, many millions of years. Human civilizations stretch back into legendary times. If we would study comparatively the myths and epics of mankind and give some credence to them we would find these old accounts describing civilizations on continents now sunken. They contain many types of suggestive material that should be taken seriously; not always literally, but the spirit of them, the essence. These legends are the only memory we have of these older periods obscured by intervening catastrophes, natural and human. They have survived with all the races by oral tradition. Any written records would have been destroyed in the often violent periods that have intervened. H. P. Blavatsky held that the old myths were designed by spiritual teachers, adepts, who wove into them the teachings of the ancient wisdom. They may therefore be interpreted on many levels.
If our universe is a living being, and our sun and earth also, we then see ourselves as children of the living cosmos, blood of its blood, life of its life. If man enshrines a divine spark, we can truly believe we were present when the earth was born and the morning stars sang together, as it says in the Book of Job. We would realize that hierarchies of beings superior to us… form the inner fabric of the cosmos. Without their guiding and sustaining influence, nature would become a meaningless chaos.
Each human being is a deathless entity which, over the course of many thousands of years, has been building for itself more stately mansions — to use the imagery of the American poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes. And to quote from the English poet laureate, John Masefield, “These eyes of mine have blinked and shone / In Thebes, in Troy and Babylon.” The substance of history is the souls of mankind that appear again and again, reaping and sowing from life to life, from age to age.
Do You Really Think We Will Live Again?
Reincarnation intrigues people. It is as if their souls know something their minds don’t quite understand. But proof is a matter of individual conviction. When I first heard about reincarnation I knew it was true. It answered questions that were deeply troubling: Why are some children born to poverty or abuse while others have every advantage? Why do good and decent people have such a hard time? How can a loving God be so cruel, so unjust? I worried about death: Is it the absolute end? Are heaven and hell everlasting? Are unbelievers eternally damned?
The idea that we have lived before and will live many times ended my nightmares. The explanation that we are what we are and where we are because of our thoughts and actions in the past made sense, and convinced me that there is justice in life, and purpose. I began to realize that the situations people find themselves in are opportunities for growth, for developing understanding and improving their lives.
Henry Ford believed in reincarnation:
When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realized that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. There was time enough to plan and create.
We all retain, however faintly, memories of past lives. We frequently feel that we have witnessed a scene or lived through a moment in some previous existence. But that is not essential; it is the essence, the gist, the results of experience, that are valuable and remain with us.
These “results” become part of our spirit of which Krishna speaks in the Bhagavad-Gita (2.11-13):
Those who are wise in spiritual things grieve neither for the dead nor for the living. I myself never was not, nor thou, nor all the princes of the earth; nor shall we ever hereafter cease to be. As the lord of this mortal frame experienceth therein infancy, youth, and old age, so in future incarnations will it meet the same. Krishna here speaks as the self or spirit within each individual that uses a number of souls and bodies to express itself. Interestingly, each of these bodies, souls, and spirits is pursuing its own evolution through a process of repeated embodiments. When we examine the processes involved we become aware of various aspects of reincarnation.
Consider our bodies: these marvelously complex organisms are composed of innumerable living and evolving beings, held together, guided, and used both by a dominant soul and a spiritual overshadowing intelligence. At death, when soul and spirit withdraw, these various elements disperse and reembody in whatever organisms attract them.
As humans, our consciousness is centered in our reincarnating ego and this ego is the vehicle of expression of our divine and spiritual selves. Now the three parts of our constitution — our body, built of astral-vital-physical components; our human soul, consisting of mental and emotional elements; and our immortal spirit — work and evolve together during our sojourn on earth. This evolution consists, at this time, of unfolding and refining our thoughts and feelings so that we can better express our spiritual qualities of compassion, intelligence, imagination, and willpower. Considering this, we begin to understand how important each life is, and how the lessons we learn, the good that we do, enrich and contribute to the advancement of every part of ourselves.
I wonder if those who do not want to return have any idea what that would involve? But why don’t they want to come back? Do they dread being born again into this cold, cruel, violent world? Or is it because they feel snowed under with problems? Even a casual study of karma and reincarnation helps us understand that our problems and those of the world were created by ourselves, and can be solved only by ourselves. Immersed in our troubles, we are immersed also in their solutions, could we but see it. When an individual endeavors to take responsibility for his life, he becomes increasingly aware of the consequences of his motives and actions and feels impelled to change what is selfish and unkindly to what is for the general good.
Change is one thing we can count on: nothing stands still. Think how we change, in appearance, personality, outlook, size, and shape. After death changes continue: when we return our soul will be enlarged, transformed through the integration of our life’s experiences and our spiritual aspirations.
Of course, many of our present problems and temptations are karmic consequences of encounters left unresolved at the end of our previous life. But now, thanks to the blessing of forgetfulness, we are free from emotional involvements and better able to resolve such disturbances. Oliver Wendell Holmes caught this idea of the soul’s progression in his poem “The Chambered Nautilus”:
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul!
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
How about the people who fear coming back as somebody else? That is not possible. We are ourselves — forever. When an incarnating soul returns earthward, it is attracted to parents and family with similar traits and abilities. The embryo then draws from its parents’ gene-pool the qualities that are inherently its, whether or not they seem to be similar to those of a family member. Because of this, in our next life we will be much like what we are now, but enriched and refined by the lessons we are now learning. Refreshed by our after death experiences, we will come back ready and able to carry on where we left off, and to face challenges that will help us unfold our spiritual potential. Benjamin Franklin put this clearly in his epitaph:
The Body of B. Franklin,
Printer
Like the Cover of an Old Book,
Its Contents Torn Out
And
Stripped of its Lettering and Gilding,
Lies Here
Food for Worms,
But the Work shall not be Lost,
For it Will as He Believed
Appear Once More
In a New and more Elegant Edition
Revised and Corrected
By the Author.
This “return” into earth life occurs sooner for those who have made little psychological karma, or later for the more developed and spiritual who need time to assimilate their spiritual aspirations.
As to the concern that we will come back as an animal: that is not possible either. (For detailed information see “Like Attracts Like,” Sunrise, June/July 1985.) Once we have developed self-consciousness we cannot go backward. This idea came from taking figures of speech literally. As was the case of the American Indian: when he spoke of becoming a wolf or an eagle or a mole, he did not mean he would become that animal. He meant he would become as clever and family-oriented as a wolf, as farseeing as an eagle, or as close to the earth as a mole so as to fathom her secrets. Humans cannot revert to animals; animals cannot become humans overnight or for a long, long time.
There are, however, psychological and physical exchanges going on all the time. Our atoms, for instance, are constantly transmigrating: whenever we smell a rose, listen to music, think of a friend or caress our pets we exchange life particles and forces. Then too, our souls continually “migrate” from one state or condition of consciousness to another, from sleep dreams to waking awareness, from surface thinking to deep concentration. And this continues after death. These exchanges can be mutually beneficial or harmful, depending on the quality of the energy generated. Knowing this, the wise consider it a duty to think and live harmlessly and in the most kindly manner possible.
Another question often asked: What happens to what I loved and worked for? Will that be lost when I die? Nothing is lost. The knowledge we gain, the skills we develop will endure through our postmortem interlude and in future lives blossom in increased proficiency and power. Plato referred to this, explaining that all knowledge and wisdom are memories of former existences. And as these develop and unfold in the present, new personalities are shaped to express the characteristics and needs of our inner and outer conditions. Shakespeare said the same thing, reminding us that an actor in his time plays many parts, identifying himself with and becoming for a few nights’ performance Hamlet perhaps, and then Macbeth, King Richard, or Prospero. As the actor knows he is playing these parts, so our permanent self knows, even though it may be unable to convey this knowledge to the temporary “mask” or personality.
And the big question: If we lived before why don’t we remember? Henry Ford was sure we do retain memories of past lives, but being unfamiliar with the processes of reincarnation, we are not able to recognize them. Buddhists think character is the sum of our past. Theosophical teachings explain these ideas — telling us that memory is stored in the higher part of our nature, glimpsed on occasion, and seen clearly at the moment of death. When free of earthly entanglements we see in retrospect the causes, interrelations, the purpose and justice of all that occurred in the last life.
But how about the people who are sure they remember? Whether they are picking up scenes and events from the earth’s astral atmosphere and identifying with them, as imaginative writers often do, or whether particular incidents of a past incarnation were so indelibly impressed on their souls that they do remember, it is difficult to tell. Theosophical writings explain that when a person’s life ends in violence, or is cut off “before its time,” the soul may return soon after to reestablish its balance, retaining some memories from that too brief life.
Another type of “remembrance” is what the Tibetans call tulku when, under certain conditions, a high lama may, a few years after his death, incarnate in the body of another. The Associated Press carried the story of 5-year-old Simon Heh, of Tibetan-Chinese parents living in Victorville, California, who recognized a Tibetan monk traveling through the area as a friend from his last life. Startled, the monk, Geshe Tsepel, thinking the child could have been Lobsang Phakpa, an elderly lama he had studied under as a boy and who had died in China in the 1950s, wrote the holy leaders of his home monastery in India. Not wanting to influence their decision Geshe named five former monks who could have reincarnated as Simon. Upon examination the leaders determined that the child was indeed the reincarnation of Lobsang Phakpa. On January 3, 1993, the youngster was honored in an ancient ceremony that marked “the beginning of his spiritual journey toward becoming a lama.”
Assuredly, all living beings existed before their present appearance on earth. Origin, an early Church Father, explained that human souls pre-existed in the spiritual world within the ambiance of the divine before they incarnated on earth. Plato went further, explaining that souls not only existed in the universe of being before entering this realm of experience, but that when freed from the bonds of its limitations, they return to that former abode to rest and assimilate their earthly experiences. After a time, they sail forth again invigorated and ready to face the ordeals by which they gain knowledge of life and behold visions of heights they will one day attain.
How many lives will we live? In Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the wise gull expresses a view that may hold a seed of truth:
Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand! And then another hundred lives until we began to learn that there is such a thing as perfection, and another hundred again to get the idea that our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth. The same rule holds for us now, of course; we choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome.
©2009 by Dr. J. Lee Choron: All rights reserved unless specifically granted by the author in writing.