Do we become more interested in reincarnation as we get older?
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Do we become more interested in reincarnation as we get older?
This has been the case for me and as I pondered on this aspect – of it becoming of greater interest to me as I got older – I could easily see how this would be the case for many ageing adults, no matter gender, nationality or skin colour.
Yes of course, as we get older, we are more conscious of the end of this particular life. And so, quite naturally we wonder what comes next. If we accept, or at least entertain, the idea of reincarnation in the sense of what is next, we can’t help but come full circle and find ourselves contemplating what might have been before this life. It’s easy to start to see life as a circular journey rather than linear.
We may not have given reincarnation much consideration prior to getting near the end of this life because earlier in life we were too busy. Too busy surviving in many cases. Too busy enjoying ourselves. Too busy getting an education, earning a living, raising a family, enjoying our youth, our physical fitness, snow skiing, water skiing, hiking in mountains, camping in the woods, playing sports, dabbling in the arts. We may have been ambitious, overly ambitious, stuck in fourth gear, drive, drive, drive, pushed on to the next achievement. There is a limitless, or so it seems, number of distractions we can draw on in order to avoid the contemplation of The Bigger Picture of Life.
Approaching the end of life, the Science of Reincarnation becomes of greater interest. I have often wondered why everyone doesn’t live with an awareness of reincarnation; why don’t we choose, at the least, to believe in reincarnation – especially after contemplating the other options:
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Considering the theory that ‘You only have one life’ feels like a gloomy cloud hanging over your days, now and in the future! You live, you pay taxes, and you die. That’s it. Really?
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Not at all any consolation is the well-worn religious theory of heaven and hell. You be a good girl or boy, and you will go to heaven and live happily ever after. But if you are a bad girl or boy, well, you will burn in hell for eternity. Really?
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Of course, there is the safety net (?) of purgatory where you hang out with all the other sinners while you somehow wait to be let through the pearly gates of heaven.
No thanks to any of those options.
So why aren’t more of us aware of or at least talking about reincarnation? One reason could be that if you are willing to explore the science of reincarnation, you quickly come to realise that there is a great deal of responsibility built into the Divine Laws of Karma and Akasha. The wheel of rebirth that is part of reincarnation brings us around again and again to deal with the imprints we leave behind.
Let’s explore from the humble position of not knowing what The Ageless Wisdom offers all of us about Karma. We can see that the teachings of The Ageless Wisdom hold much wisdom, and also give us a few basics which make sense even in the human experience!
Most people have heard the word Karma, and most people also consider this to be a negative repercussion of not doing the right thing or doing something really bad. Equally applied, karma can also bring the rewards of a kind, loving, wholesome life. So, nothing to be feared in the science of karma – as long as you accept responsibility for your actions. Karma is often summed up by ‘you reap what you sow’. Reaping is the gathering of the crop from the seeds that you planted. This is not to be used as a throwaway line but delivered with an honouring of the deep wisdom imparted in an ages-old adage. Others phrase it this way: ‘what goes around, comes around’, meaning you are eventually going to face the consequences of your actions. Karma is an energetic record of your actions.
The energetic record of our intentions is called Akasha. This is different to karma, you might say an expanded responsibility that measures the energetic integrity behind our actions that are witnessed in the temporal world, whether seen by human eyes – or not.
The ‘science’ of reincarnation is somewhat easier to understand, or we might say more digestible, once you realise that it is a loving way to hold us accountable for our actions and intentions.
We are always given another chance to make choices that are in consideration of all of us, not just the self.
Putting aside the ‘study’ of the wheel of rebirth, what most of us like to hear about is the personal stories of reincarnation and so I’ll conclude this introduction to reincarnation with a couple of my experiences.
Let me start by saying I was raised in a ‘light’ Christian environment. We were still taught about ‘heaven and hell’ but did not have confession boxes or Hail Mary punishments. My mother went to church most Sundays, my father never went to church, and I was made to go to Sunday School which I did not enjoy. By the time I was twelve, I was actively protesting about having to go to Sunday School – especially since my father didn’t go to church at all. When I was turning thirteen, I made a ‘deal’ with my mother; I would complete the current year because there was a confirmation ceremony at the end of that year, and it was somehow important to her that I was ‘confirmed’ as a Christian, or something of that nature. AND THEN, if I saw it through the confirmation ceremony, I could quit going if that was what I wanted. It was and I did.
I don’t recall any reference to reincarnation until I was in my early twenties and pregnant with our first child. My mother-in-law introduced me to the concept as she was convinced that the baby would arrive on 7th February. My due date was 26th January, so I most certainly hoped she was wrong. No woman wants to be pregnant an extra two weeks at that stage of a pregnancy. But my due date came and went. Finally, our daughter made her appearance in the world on 7th February. This was the first point of proof, according to my mother-in-law that our daughter was the reincarnation of her mother who had died suddenly three years earlier, yes, on 7th February. The date of my daughter’s birth and other events should have been, could have been, sufficient to make me more interested in the ancient concept of reincarnation. Over the years there were other incidents that provided further proof to my mother-in-law and she always shared them with me. But I was too young – and very busy living the present life. Every day was a stretch as a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, employee etc. I didn’t reject reincarnation, but I just wasn’t that interested!
Over the years, I had exposure to reincarnation, but it was more from a philosophical point of pondering the possibilities, maybe watching a television show about ‘cases’ that had been researched and ‘proven’ but it still never occurred to me to wonder specifically who I may have been in a previous life. Was it relevant? Would it help me in any way to know the specifics of a previous life? As a generalisation, I felt it didn’t really serve to know but if it would be helpful, of course, then I would want to know.
For example, many years ago, I had twisted my back in an awkward moment of trying to come out of a camel position in a yoga class on a cold winter’s morning. It was high in the thoracic area, between my right shoulder blade and the spinal column. Over the years, I had been to a number of physiotherapists hoping to get some relief from what was a fairly constant pain in that area. I occasionally got temporary relief but then some move would set it off again. Then, a few years ago (I’ll say ten years after the original injury), I was once again on a physiotherapist’s table receiving a gentle connective tissue manipulation in that problem spot. The practitioner asked me if I had any sense of a past life as a native American! A fairly random question in the middle of a session. I do have a lingering North American accent, but still random … I replied instantly that I did have a sense of being a native American warrior who was revered in protecting his people and I had received an arrow in my back, high up in the thoracic. (I didn’t even remember ever thinking this or speaking it out loud but there it was – a point of instant access during this session!) In that instance I knew that I had survived the wounding of the arrow in that lifetime but that I still had some sort of energetic scarring. The session ended, the pain was gone, and I have never had to have a session since for that specific pain. I had always blamed the pain in my right shoulder area on that twist in a yoga class, but now understanding that everything is energy and everything is because of energy, it was easy to accept that this injury had its energetic roots in a previous life. It didn’t require years of physiotherapy or psychotherapy – just an awareness and acknowledgement of it – and it was released.
Most recently, I had an experience of past life recall that came to me … because it was the time for me to have access to it … because it supported me in this life.
In the last few years, I had begun editing and proofreading. Initially I was probably asked to review a particularly delicate piece of correspondence, asking for my opinion. Then I was asked to edit blogs, resumés, job applications, a thesis, proofreading websites, etc. It came quite naturally to me. I’ve always been an avid reader. Misspelled words or incorrect punctuation always jump out at me, so I didn’t think too much about my aptitude to do this. One day a friend and I were discussing writing, I discovered he was writing his ‘first’ book and offered to have a read of it, and while doing so I couldn’t help but make edits. I sent him back a chapter with edits asking if he wanted this kind of feedback. He gladly accepted and this started me on a new path as an editor because shortly after that someone else asked me to edit a book. I loved doing it, but I had a reluctance, an insecurity, about not being ‘qualified’. But more work kept coming my way.
One day, while in a waiting room of a clinic, I saw a stack of ‘free’ books that had a sign saying Take One Home. As I reviewed the book titles, I saw a book I had read when I was a teenager. I loved that book and had never forgotten it. In fact, I read it again when I was in my thirties, loving it just as much on the second read. Here it was again, and because it had been thirty years since I had read it, I thought, “I can read it again.” As I pulled it out of the stack of books, I received a very clear communication. I don’t know that it came in words – perhaps – but perhaps it was a vibration, a feeling. “You wrote this book.”
That was it. That was the whole communication. I brought the book home and this time when I read it, I knew I had written that book. It was the voice that lives inside of me. Not necessarily the voice that I use every day. Not the current style of speaking, although still in English. This book is over 300 years old and still in print, still used as curriculum in many high schools in many countries. The author had written this book, his first novel, in his sixties.
The past life recall was given to me at a time in this life when it served me. There was no attachment to the past life, no glory. However, it did support me to accept I have way more experience in writing, editing and proofreading than I would appear to have if you looked at my current life resumé. It also was confirmation that being at the end of my sixties did not mean I couldn’t legitimately become an editor – or perhaps even write my first book.
Reincarnation is now part of my daily lived experience and often comes quite naturally into my conversations, whether I’m speaking with a six-year-old or a sixty-year-old. The past isn’t just the past days and years of this lifetime but the past lives as well.
We are the livingness of our current life and all our past lives – which we will take with us into our next life. Living purposefully until our last day, our last breath, places us in a steady flow with the eternal cycles of life.
The wheel of rebirth offers us an opportunity to build on everything that has come before, continuously growing and evolving as we enter physical life once again. What a gift to have the realisation of this before we actually come to The End.
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