24. I Have Lived Before

Know, therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return . . . Forget not that I shall come back to you . . . A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me

–Kahlil Gibran

I was introduced to reincarnation and related phenomena (near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, past life regression therapy, etc.) in my psychology class in Grade 11. We would often have long discussions about eminent psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung and his theory of multiple lives, the collective unconscious and the archetypes that are used to classify behaviour and thus understand personality. As someone already interested in the paranormal, his work fascinated me and he soon became someone I admired.

Jung’s work has led to an area of study, in both the natural sciences and humanities, that is small but steadily gaining strength. There are scientific journals and research papers, TED talks by scientists and personal accounts of people corroborated by psychiatrists and physicists, all pertaining to past lives, reincarnation, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences and the like.

“There are thousands of cases recorded in the scientific literature of children speaking foreign languages to which they had never been exposed, of having birth marks at the site of previous mortal wounds, and of these same children knowing where treasured objects were hidden thousands of miles away and decades or centuries earlier,” says Dr. Brian Weiss, a pioneer of reincarnation research. Reincarnation supplements the present knowledge derived from genetics and study of environmental influences to explain hitherto unexplained phenomena.

It is not, however, a new concept. References to it occur in the Vedas and it forms an essential part of the central doctrines of Brahminism and Buddhism to this day. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Empedocles and Pythagoras spoke about reincarnation and it was an important part of Plato’s work. Modern philosophers such as Goethe, Hume, Lessing and Schopenhauer have expressed a sympathetic interest in the idea of reincarnation. However, they have merely written of it as a philosophical concept, not as a naturally occurring phenomenon with empirical evidence to support its existence.

As a naturally occurring phenomenon, Dr. Ian Stevenson explains reincarnation as a series of events that occur due to the transfer of energy. Each human being comprises a physical body and psicomponent. After the death of the physical body, the psi-component may continue an disembodied existence for some time, after which it associates itself with another body, usually during its embryonic development. The psi-component thus influences the personality of the new human being.

As a result, most of the evidence of reincarnation and related phenomena comes from children for they are they are temporally closer to their previous births than adults and have almost no behavioural training (such as the process of socialisation). Such evidence can be uncovered either through hypnosis (the process of inducing a state of consciousness in which a person loses the power of voluntary action and is highly responsive suggestion or direction. Contrary to popular belief, the subject is conscious during the process and can choose to “wake up” when he/she wishes) or a close examination of accounts of children who spontaneously recall past lives. The latter is a more reliable method as these memories can be examined through strict scientific protocols. The easiest way of verifying past life memories of children is to compare the details of their memories with the lives of the people they claim to be. While a significant number of cases turn out to be false, a large number have been verified through this process.

But while there is a fairly concrete set of evidence that reincarnation and past lives could exist, there are relatively few scientific theories explaining the role of consciousness in formation and transformation of matter. However, answers might be found in the field of quantum physics. Scientists have long known that matter (electrons and protons) give rise to certain phenomena only when observed. For example, when one shines light through two slits cut on a screen on a photographic plate placed behind the screen, the unobserved ray of light appears to have travelled through both the slits. But on closer observation it becomes clear that the particles travel through only one of the two slits. The behaviour of light does not change from one situation to the next, the only difference is that in the second situation, the ray of light is being “observed”. Max Planck, the father of quantum physics believes this provides strong proof that the physical world is influenced, even derived from the non-physical or consciousness. Consciousness, then, does not need the brain to exist. It goes beyond matter. In fact, it is an all-encompassing concept.

That brings me to why we need to understand reincarnation and past lives when we are trying to understand the rather wide concept of alternate reality. Does this really serve a purpose? An awareness of the mere possibility of multiple lives, the immortal soul and multiple chances at life does not only have great explanatory value, but also makes way for a better world. When the fear of death is gone, people are free to expand themselves to look at the bigger picture. The simple knowledge that one exists beyond this plane allows people to love. It allows for love to exist in its purest form – without an object.

Reincarnation has immense explanatory value. It adds a third dimension (other than genetics and environment) to our understanding of human personality and development and explains everything that science does not. It explains why babies, barely hours old, begin to display characteristics unique to them. In fact, each baby moves in a distinct way even inside the womb. It explains phenomena such as déjà vu (the feeling that the event being witnessed has already been experienced before), filling a lot of gaps in modern scientific knowledge.

The realm of reincarnation and past lives lies beyond what is tangible. What one experiences through past life memories and visions experienced under hypnosis are a form of alternate reality. But more importantly, knowledge of multiple lives presents the possibility of a better world . . . an alternate reality to the one we know today.

Prachi Hota

I Year