Karma, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Soul, Astral Body, Death

Past life regression goes hand in hand with theories of reincarnation. This is a concept that has evoked a variety of reactions in the western world, from ridicule to condemnation — essentially fear-based reactions to something unfamiliar and misunderstood. Interestingly enough, although publicly people may joke about prior lifetimes, millions of people have read books on the subject of reincarnation.

Reincarnation suggests this is not our first life on Earth and it’s most likely not our last. The Hindu perspective suggests we have been around for millions of lifetimes and that there may be millions ahead. In that sense, we are all “old souls.”

The Bhagavad Gita, the ancient text of India suggests that the soul leaves when the body dies. The type of body and psychological disposition — likes, dislikes, phobias, etc., one receives upon rebirth is dependent on the karma within that one life combined with the actions from previous lives. By some inconceivable system, all of one’s positive and negative deeds are recorded. This means, no one gets away with anything. Moreover, all positive and negative actions create within the individual a psychological disposition to continue performing that action. For example, if one starts stealing or gets in the habit of lying and doesn’t try to change these tendencies, then in the next life, one will pick up where they left off. The same goes for positive actions.

When the body reaches its demise, the mind and soul get transferred into, hopefully, another human womb. Even while in the womb, the mind remains active and is recalling events from the previous life.

Souls can decide to stay on “the other side” rather than come back for another lifetime after discarding its body, especially if they’ve worked through all of their karma during previous lifetimes which is very uncommon. Or they may decide to learn their lessons in other ways or help others on earth from the other side. But apparently, most souls are eager to return to earth to play the roles they were born to star in.

Karma literally means “deed or act,” but more broadly describes the principle of cause and effect. Simply stated, karma is the law of action and reaction which governs consciousness. In physics-the study of energy and matter-Sir Isaac Newton postulated that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Push against a wall. Its material is molecularly pushing back with a force exactly equal to yours. In metaphysics, karma is the law that states that every mental, emotional and physical act, no matter how insignificant, is projected out into the psychic mind substance and eventually returns to the individual with equal impact.

The akashic memory in our higher chakras faithfully records the soul’s impressions during its series of earthly lives, and in the astral/mental worlds in-between earth existences.

Many people believe in the principle of karma, but don’t apply its laws to their daily life or even to life’s peak experiences. There is a tendency to cry during times of personal crisis, “Why has God done this to me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?” While God is the creator and sustainer of the cosmic law of karma, He does not dispense individual karma. He does not produce cancer in one person’s body and develop Olympic athletic prowess in another’s. We create our own experiences. It is really an exercising of our soul’s powers of creation. Karma, then, is our best spiritual teacher. We spiritually learn and grow as our actions return to us to be resolved and dissolved. In this highest sense, there is no good and bad karma; there is self-created experience that presents opportunities for spiritual advancement. If we can’t draw lessons from the karma, then we resist and/or resent it, lashing out with mental, emotional or physical force. The original substance of that karmic event is spent and no longer exists, but the current reaction creates a new condition of harsh karma.

Responsibility resolving karma is among the most important reasons that a Guru is necessary in a sincere seeker’s life. The Guru helps the devotee to hold his mind in focus, to become pointedly conscious of thought, word and deed. Without the guidance and grace of the Guru, the devotee’s mind will be splintered between instinctive and intellectual forces, making it very difficult to resolve karma. Only when karma is wisely harnessed can the mind become still enough to experience its own superconscious depths.

Each soul has absolute free will Its only boundary is karma. Gods do not dictate the experiential events of our lives, nor do they test us. And there is no cosmic force that molds our life.

In our conscious mind we think and feel ourselves to be a physical body with some intangible spirit within it. Yet, right now our real identity is the soul that is sensing through its multiple bodies physical, emotional and mental experience. Recognizing this as reality, we powerfully know that life doesn’t end with the death of the biological body. The soul continues to occupy the astral body, a subtle, luminous duplicate of the physical body. This subtle body is made of higher-energy astral matter and dwells in a dimension called the astral plane. At death, the soul slowly becomes totally aware in its astral/mental bodies and it predominantly lives through those bodies in the astral dimension.

The soul functions with complete continuity in its astral/mental bodies. It is with these sensitive vehicles that we experience dream or “astral” worlds during sleep every night. The astral world is equally as solid and beautiful, as varied and comprehensive as the earth dimension-if not much more so.

Because certain seed karmas can only be resolved in earth consciousness and because the soul’s initial realisations of Absolute Reality are only achieved in a physical body, our soul joyously enters another biological body. At the right time, it is reborn into a flesh body that will best fulfil its karmic pattern. During our thousands of earth lives, a remarkable variety of life patterns are experienced.  Therefore, the Hindu knows that the belief in a single life on earth, followed by eternal joy or pain is utterly wrong and causes great anxiety, confusion and fear. Hindus know that all souls reincarnate, take one body and then another, evolving through experience over long periods of time.