Mary, yes, publish more! This is an interesting topic, and certainly one that I don’t know much about. I like how you take a balanced approach, for example by posting that link to the article criticizing Stevenson, which I’m off to read now.

This is a fascinating subject. I wasn’t really sure I believed in reincarnation until I had a very vivid dream as a teenager. That dream is very, very special to me, and I believe that it may have been memories of a previous life. I wish that I could’ve remembered as much as the girl in the story, but I don’t remember anything that specific.

When a friend of mine recently passed away, I made a conscious decision to adopt reincarnation into my belief system. Such a beautiful, vibrant soul surely must be recycled.

Mary,

I’m a Hindu. Naturally, I believe in reincarnation. I also believe that there is a natural progression of our soul through reincarnation. The more spiritual the soul, it seeks womb or a mother with higher spirituality. It’s sort of how radio works.

Shilpan

I am a Christian, so there are two options on life after death. 1) Receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior (Romans 8, 10), and spend eternity in Heaven 2) Spend eternity on Hell. You make the choice.

Many blessings to all,

Art Gonzalez
Check my Squidoo Lens at: Quantum Knights

Personally, I believe in the existence of reincarnation. If the value of life is beyond measure, then it makes good sense that humanity would have a go at it more than once. That being said, this is just my personal belief. No proof on the matter.

So interesting - I have read many, many books about past lives and I do believe in reincarnation without having any personal experiences to share in that area. Mary, I think your down-to-earthness is more about your personality and way of relating stories rather than the topic you choose. You could write about little green men and still seem quite down to earth. So to speak.

Your ego may die. By that I mean, your personal life-story does end. But awareness itself never ends. It is eternal. Never starts and never ends. A mind cannot think “I don’t exist.” Therefore, if it exists now it always has existed and forever will. Not necessarily in this universe but in some form.

I know my beliefs are pretty out there but it’s logical to me.

The Universe reuses or recycles EVERYTHING. From leaves to bodies to stars…..nothing is left unused. If leaves become dirt which in turn become grass which bears grain which becomes bread for people to eat, then why would something as valuable and precious as a soul be used only once? It seems to me a soul is so ever much more important and useful than a leaf, yet many religions blow off reincarnation as a myth. I think they may do this to shelter their own frail belief system based on fear. If you know you will live again and again, then you have nothing to truly fear. And fear is the motivating factor in some religions(see Art Gonzalez’s post for illustration of this type of belief). Reincarnation simply makes sense in the grand scheme of things.

@ Mary Jaksch: I meant in particular, human life. I think what distinguishes human life from animal life is the ability to choose. It seems to me, that animal life and its conduct is based mostly on instinct (if not all). Instinct is what drives an animals behavior. Human beings on the contrary, can rise above their instincts. Humans can choose to do what they know is right and best even if it’s not what they feel like at the time! That’s the beauty of a human being.

Yeah, I think you understand sort of what I’m talking about. Have you heard of Eckhart Tolle? He’s all about dissolving the ego while you’re still alive. If you really look hard at yourself you’ll realize that you are only the awareness of this present moment, not your life story.

Which means we arent separate from the vast mind you are talking about. I’m curious. What are your beliefs on this subject?

Hello Mary,

My Wife and I have one Son. He is now 31. When he was maybe 2 (I can’t recall his exact age), we were hiking in a park here in British Columbia.

The trail we were on was surrounded by dry grasses and Ponderosa Pines. My Wife and myself were busy taking photos.

When we looked back to where our Son was playing, we saw that he was building what looked like the start of a camp fire. Curious, we watched from a distance.

Bear in mind that we did not have TV at that time, and that we had not yet taken him on a camping trip, nor did we describe to him anything about building a camp fire.

Well, on a closer look, we found that he built this starting with some hair lichen and birch bark (good fuels for fire starting), followed by twigs placed across each other so as to allow for good air flow for the fire. On the twigs, he placed larger pieces of wood. He was totally engrossed in this.

Finally we went up to him and I asked what he was doing. He said that he was going to start a fire. I asked him where he had learned to do that. His answer was, “from before.” I asked what he meant by that. He said, “you know–from before.” I said that I didn’t know. He then said, “you know, from the TIME before.”

Though I was beginning to understand what he was implying, I asked him what he meant by the “time before.” “Before what” I said.

His answer was: “You know–the time before I was born–that time”

The above account may sound a little weird, but I can attest that it is factual. There is absolutely no possibility that our Son had any previous knowledge of what he was doing.

We totally believe that what he said was true; that he had remembered that from — the time before.

There is no other explanation.

Cheers,
John

I’m at work and instead of focusing on the task at hand I am taking some time out to read this blog and comment.

Reincarnation. I do not know if we reincarnate. I have no knowledge of a past life. And I am not sure that I care one way or the other.

For me the focus is trying to live in the now. Looking at the past or dreaming of future lives, only feeds into my desire to be other than where I am.

I also wary of how beliefs such as reincarnation - and even life after death in heaven or wherever - can be used to control and manipulate us, by either making us believe we deserve the poor conditions or injustices we face now, or by making us believe that if we accept our lot here we will be delivered in the future to a glorious comfortable life.

Now, back to my tasks.

I know that tr I am wary about placing too much emphasis on

Mary, I find this subject absolutely fascinating, and I would love to hear more about your thoughts and experienes on this. There is a lot of evidence for reincarnation, to be sure, but I wonder how my consciousness could get inside another being in-utero, and be born again. It is a mystery to me.

I like to ponder on the fact that every part of us is as old as the universe, and that we will, in some form, still be around at the end of time.

For the “death rate is lower than the birth rate” argument : Imagine 2 worlds . On one world (ours for example) population is growing . On the other one , either something apocalyptic happen , or system starts reducing population to maintain itself . They could say , “birth rate is lower than the death rate , where did all those souls go ? ” Also , you were dead before you got born , so there is logical possibility to be born again (it already happened once)

– paste of my comment on SU

cheers

@Bane
I don’t think humans are the only beings in all of existence with souls. Is that what you believe?

Mary,

You asked if our Son remembers his previous life now that he is older. No he does not. It was only when he under 3 years of age.

What struck us most about that incident was the way he was talking about it; almost like we should have known what he was referring to. As if anyone would know that. It was nothing special to him to refer to that “other time.”

As he was growing up we went on many canoe trips into wilderness areas. I must say that he was a natural at being in the mountains. And maybe predictably, he had a particular fascination for the campfire

Hi Mary I am fascinated by these children that suddenly remember some place or event that happened in a past life. One thing to keep in mind is that young kids normally don’t lie and suddenly make up things like that. I only wonder why there isn’t more interest in the work of Ian Stevenson and others like him. What are we so afraid of that we might find out?

Erics last blog post..MTV reality show for graphic designers

Eric,

You asked “What are we so afraid of that we might find out?”

I think you have hit home with that question. It sums up why we don’t explore and embrace many aspects of reality. Life is manageable when the field of the possible is narrow. Society loses grip on it and fear rises when it expands.

I have seen this phenomenon in society in general, as well as in friends and family, all my life. Whenever I have tried to be truthful about certain experiences, I feel the walls go up.

Introducing concepts that shake people’s reality conception tends to raise a primal fear. It is as if their world will be overturned and they will fall off the edge if they accepted such concepts into their book of definitions of reality.

My own childhood was filled with experiences of an unusual, frightening, awe-inspiring, and often painful nature. It taught me never to limit my conception of the possible. At the same time though, growing up like that clearly showed me that what I have experienced would be very unsettling and fearful for most people to consider — and so they don’t.

The thing is, people are not just fearful of accepting disturbing facts, but any fact or reasonable theory that would cause them to reconsider their world view.

It’s easier for them that way, and I understand.

Don’t know whether I answered anything there at all, or just talked around it
John Rocheleaus last blog post..Customer Relationship Management = Job Satisfaction

@ Jenna Smith

I like your logic Jenna, that everything physical is recycled so why not the soul (is our soul non-physical or is it energy?). That way of looking at things has not occurred to me b4. The soul, as part of the matrix of life would surely merely re-enter the pool on physical death. Is it ever a discrete entity though? Did it ever leave the pool? Has it full access to the combined knowing of all life at any time? In a physical sense are we each diamonds on the net of Indra, but on an energetic level are there perhaps no diamonds just one huge net, not unlike how Odo, in Deep Space 9 (for Science Fiction fans) must experience becoming one with the molten sea of his people, the Founders.

I have a very practical outlook on life and do like to see a few fairly solid leads indicating something to be true before I am willing to meet the possibility half way and throw in a bit of faith myself, so the jury is still out on reincarnation.

To me, it has always felt rather irrelevant to the way I lead my life in this lifetime, so I haven’t tended to dwell on it too much. Karma, in the sense of cause and effect seems a more relevant focus, as I see that what I do affects people, plants, animals and the planet all in this lifetime (and beyond) and really thats enough to be going on with!

I have a couple of Tibetan Buddhist friends for whom reincarnation is a given, and more latterly this certainty has given me reason to ponder. Given my respect for their tradition and the results that I see of their focused spiritual path, I am prodded more and more to consider the possibility of reincarnation.

So… now there is anecdotal evidence, the recyclable nature of everything and the fervent belief of a tradition I respect. I’m getting close to that point where I can throw in a bit of faith me thinks!

…however, I still don’t see that it is important in the sense of how we live and experience our lives now. For me it has curiosity value only.

I am happy in my uncertainty regarding life after death in the literal sense. When I consider the idea of little deaths, dying to attachments, then certainly there is life afterwards, a much enhanced life even.
Despite a certain ambivalence as to the facts of life after death, I have woven an idea of reincarnation into my thinking that I find inspiring. Here it is… when I die I’ll be born again at the start of my life, back in 1973, and re live the whole thing with all its joys and sorrows and in between bits, over and over again… BLEAK EH?! (-:
SO when I am caught in anxiety, this idea of reccurrence can be like a splash of cold water. I have a chance to diminish my suffering as I live to be kind to my future self.. Maurice Nichol writes beautifully about reccurrence and eternity in his book LIVING TIME.
Gassho.

The way I see it our soul is energy, a concept like prana or ki - chi - qi. Our soul is a separate entity but we are all parts of something bigger. When we grow spiritually we get access to knowledge from prior lives and also from the combined knowledge of others.

John Rocheleau tells an amazing story about his son and memories from past life. I do not think his son has forgotten as he got older, it is just that those past life memories are stored away.

There is a book titled ‘You Are a Spiritual Being Having a Human Experience’. I have not read the book but the phrase itself makes sense to me.
Namaste

Bengt - btwendels last blog post..The Power of Your Other Hand

@ Mary
Around 5 years of age is when the grownup world tells us what is real and what is not. We adapt to the outside world in order to fit in.

I do not think memories from past life get overlaid by memories from current life, they are still there but harder to recall.
Namaste

Bengts last blog post..The Power of Your Other Hand

@Mary
The lessons about what is ‘real’ and what is not limit our thinking and feeling. But those lessons can be unlearned. That does open up to many kinds of ’strange’ experiences.

Bengts last blog post..The Power of Your Other Hand

My take on this matter is, I guess, kind of based in my scientific education, drawn out with my spiritual feeling and rather excitable imagination, and held at arms length again by my critical post-catholic scepticism… That is, I have a picture in mind that I think I can describe in some depth, however I won’t hold myself to it because I guess I can’t give any real evidence for it, nor do I feel it necessary to prove or disprove…

Well I feel like sharing that picture anyway I think it resonates with what Di says about the net of Indra being diamondless actually. When I studied electromagnetics in university, I discovered my own particular take on understanding the whole physics dichotomy of classical vs quantum physics - e.g. the question is light made of particles or waves? The way I began to see it, light, just as electricity, can be seen as a field of energy, where the direction of that energy flow goes from higher potential to lower potentials, just as gravity pulls us from higher distances to smaller distances from the centre of the earth. When we look at an electric field and focus our attention, we begin to see what we call electrons, small particles moving with the flow of the field carrying charge - the basic premise of the theory of electrical current. But these electrons - or photons of light - are just that - points in the field where we can focus our attention. In this way it seems a little nicer to grasp that light can be made of waves and particles at the same time, as the waves are describing the field in terms of its journey while the particles are describing the field in terms of where we are looking…

So, if anyone is still with me, thats kind of how I see it with us too. Its as if the universe were a blanket woven of one pure substance. the blanket is unimaginably enormous (and shouldnt be imagined in more than 3 dimensions ;)), and has millions of little vibrating bumps and lumps in it. these bumps and lumps make up the things that we think of as “particles” - you, me, mountains, atoms, anything that we can discern as an object in its own right, can be viewed as a bump or conglomerate of bumps in the blanket. We can look at these bumps, and we can give them names, and its all good and useful but ultimately you know, if someone was to stretch the blanket by its ends those bumps and lumps would disappear, but the blanket would remain whole and undamaged for the loss. Ultimately, you and I and anything else may be just vibrating points of the universe’s field of energy, upon whom attention is able to be focused by ourselves and others.

All of this being the background to my ideas of reincarnation. We die, and become unseeable again - the bump in the blanket smoothes out a little, perhaps merges into other lumps around it. New lumps appear in the blanket all the time, so if a new lump appears in the blanket that overlaps some of the same position of a previous bump, wouldn’t it share some of the characteristics and memories - vibrational momentum - of that previous bump? Or be recognised (think Dalai Lamas) by other insightful bumps who focused their attention on the same spot on the blanket, despite losing the previous bump’s shape previously? Hope I haven’t overabused my blanket metaphor My point being, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘blanket’, and “my” memories which might be passed on to some other being after I die belong to the blanket and not at all to this particular bump in space and time… I think I’m saying that even if there were reincarnation, I still can’t see it as something personal!

If you believe whole-heartedly in something, then you have no reason to justify or substantiate your belief. It is only when fear, doubt and other negative vibes begin to influence your mind that you are no longer content to simply believe something as true. Now, if you sense that life is about peeling the layers of what you thought was truth in order to reveal what lies underneath, well, then you experience a memorable process of self-discovery.

I believe in past lives. I’ve “seen” quite a number of them myself in my meditation and during lucid dreaming. How do I know if it is true? Firstly, it is an inner knowing. Secondly, I also have the benefit of having a psychic friend, who confirmed every single one that I’ve come to know. In the end, it is not the past life per se but the wisdom that unfolds which is key to my living a fuller life!

Evelyn Lim | Attraction Mind Maps last blog post..How To Calm Down From Unresolved Anger Quickly

Mete’s comment (#43) dovetails beautifully in something that I wanted to add to this conversation. I know I’m coming late to the party but here goes…

For years, I’ve kicked around whether or not I believe in reincarnation. Many books have been read and I’ve given it lots of thought. Usually, I come down on the “pro” side but some days I feel skeptical and don’t want to be “duped”. Also, I come down on the “con” side when my inquisitive child-self gets hyperactive and wants to know answers that our not-fully-developed brains can’t grasp. Like… Do only humans reincarnate? Can you go from a dog (for example) to a human? (Why not?) What about an ape? Can you go from a plant to a dog? (Why not?) At what point do you *have* your first soul-experience? At this point in human evolution, ARE there any “new” souls being born? If so, where do they come from?

All of that aside, my question is “Do you think that multiple reincarnated souls can make up a single human experience?” Especially when they have overlapping bumps/lumps! And if they *do* overlap, does that create a “new” soul/energy?

Additionally, I like Mete’s analogy of the blanket. Many years ago I decided that “god” for me was the sum of all consciousness and energy of the universe combined (at the same “time”.) Everything. Our thoughts. The rays of the sun. Our electromagnetic Energy. Gravity. Wind. Mass. etc. That’s meant a lot to me over the years.

Wow, how did I circle around to defining god/religion?? It made sense in my head. I think I’ll stop while I’m behind.

Great blog. I’ll subscribe to the rss feed.

Everything is on its way to somewhere!!!
Death is only a small part of this giant thing we call life. Remember; whatever happens here on earth with you goes with you no matter where you go (Geographically)after we pass on into the new relm of life. And no matter what happens with your experiences here on Earth, you will live with eternal peace forever and ever. Nothing that you’ve done here on Earth - Good or Bad, life is only a learning experience, and some fun. In the BIG picture, nothing is your own fault. People are aloud to make mistakes, provided that you try not to fall over the same missfortunes all the time is to be the wiser of an outcome of your plight in the next life. Nothing is realy your fault. Were all in this big world together - mainly to do two basic things - and those are to take care of other people when needed, and to take care of yourself. It will all turn just fine in the end. And that is that in your plight of lifes’ itinorary, you will turn out to be just fine. You’ll be in Good Hands. Its not your fault. You dont have to do the best you can, just do what you can within reason. Don’t worry. It will all be OK

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Mary,
I am only 21 years old, and whether it’s right or wrong to think about death a lot at my age matters not, I suppose. What’s been haunting me for the longest time is the idea that there may be no afterlife. I come from a family that is entirely Christian, but I am not. I am like you…agnostic and no selected beliefs that influence my life. I wish someone could understand the fear in my mind at the thought of not living past this life. It literally strikes depression in my heart. I want to be able to have some sort of afterlife, even if that means being punished for my sins (referring to Art’s comment before). I want to know that I will go on, that I will live, because frankly…I LOVE LIVING. I suppose none of us can truly say he or she knows where we go when we die, but this blog has inspired me to see all of the different beliefs congregated into one place. I was extremely inspired by your acceptance of death (not that we can’t accept it), but your lack of fear. I want to be able to not fear death, but the truth is, it is my biggest fear…and one I think about on a regular basis, even at my age at 21…I hope someday that I can have a positive outlook on death like you someday…for my happiness’ sake. Thanks for writing this blog.

–Jake

reincarnation couldn’t be possible unless there are other planets with life. What happens when this planet comes to it’s end and everyone dies. Does reincarnation stop there? If it does then it never existed. Reincarnation means we die and than are reborn in someone else’s body. If there are no bodies to support us then what?