Resurrection, Reincarnation and Past Lives

Do Souls Live…?

By Anthony Kilner

Do you believe in resurrection? What about reincarnation? It’s a fascinating subject discussed in spiritual circles, religious centres, and everyday homes, where people have some animated discussions. I find this topic absolutely fascinating; however, where do these terms come from and do they have any real meaning! Could it be true that we reincarnate from one dead body to a new living body?

I’d like to invite our readers on a journey back in time, to a time before Jesus was said to have resurrected, before our Ascended Masters walked this Earth. To a time when the Gods, or the Creator, implanted the notion of a soul experiencing many lifetimes.

Reincarnation

There are many questions to discuss with reincarnation. Is this the same soul as a previous life? Is this the soul of a future life? Do we have one immortal soul, or is it a part of a soul collective – the sum of all our lives past, future and present? Is it mind energy or consciousness? Are we reborn knowing all or nothing? My other thought is, are we reborn as plants, animals, humans, or some different consciousness, a spirit being? These are big questions we’ll ponder in this article. Reincarnation is derived from the Latin word that means ‘entering the flesh again’. It’s an interesting concept when we ask what reentering the flesh means. Pythagoras is said to have coined the word Metempsychosis the Greek equivalent word to reincarnation, and is derived from meta, meaning change and empsykhoun, meaning ‘to put a soul in to’. Palingenesis is another Greek word meaning ‘being born again’ and applies to this conversation. So what is the meaning behind reincarnation? There are three common expressions used to explain the word - rē”ĭn-kär-nā shen or another name for it is Samsara. 1 - Rebirth of the soul in another human or nonhuman body. 2 - A reappearance or revitalisation in another form; a new embodiment. 3 - The act or state of being incarnated anew; a repeated incarnation; a new embodiment. Samsara means the cycle of birth and death and is said to have come to light in India around the first millennium BCE (Before Common Era). I have to get my head around changes to things like BC (Before Christ), AC (After Christ) and now BCE and CE meaning Common Era. There are references to reincarnation dating back to the Vedic Period (c.1100 – c.500 BCE) and later through other areas such as the Druids and Greek Philosophers. As

time moved on, talk of the Afterlife flowed through to what we see as modern-day reincarnation. In modern times reincarnation is also referred to as Transmigration or Rebirth – the soul passing from one body to another. Throughout history, many of the religious groups seem to have different views on reincarnation and many religions are split – some do, and some don’t. The same as many religions believe in the Afterlife yet not in reincarnation. My experiences and thoughts as a Spiritualist are that we reincarnate through many lifetimes here and on other planets (different realms possibly too). My thoughts are that we are working our way through many lives, dealing with learning and karma to reach enlightenment or Nirvana. Oneness with all things.

So, where does karma sit within all this? Many people believe that good and bad karma is accrued through life. At some point after death, we are called before the Lords of Karma to learn and understand the consequences of our actions. We then have to choose a life to learn and deal with these consequences. Of course, there is way more to this statement to consider and get the mind around, however it’s the basics we are covering. In some religions, like my understanding of Buddhism, we attract good karma and live life to attain enlightenment. Get too much bad karma, and you get returned to Earth as a bug and can only move into a human life again when an enlightened being helps you. I’ve never really come to terms with that; as with many religions, I am not into the fear factor these doctrines espouse.

“At some point after death, we are called before the Lords of Karma to learn and understand the consequences of our actions.”

Yet Buddhism has a contradictory belief that reincarnation/transmigration cannot occur due to the doctrine that refers to Anatta or Anatman – which means no soul or no self. My experience is based on living with Buddhist monks, and I love the philosophy behind Buddhism; however, this highlights how doctrine can vary within the same philosophy or religion. As a Spiritualist, our belief is to question everything and grow from that learning. I’ll talk about Past Life stuff a little further in this yarn; however, many people, especially Spiritualists, believe in reincarnation as a part of the soul’s journey to oneness. Depending on how we live each life, each life adds more to the puzzle. The construct, if you like, that allows us to keep adding pieces to the bigger picture. Once all the pieces are together – what happens then? Well, that’s yet another question to ponder! Theravada scholar Walpola Rahula In his 1959 book, What the Buddha Taught, asked a fascinating question. “If we can understand that in this life we can continue without a permanent, unchanging substance like Self or Soul, why can’t we understand that those forces themselves can continue without a Self or Soul behind them after the non-functioning of the body? “When this physical body is no more capable of functioning, energies do not die with it, but continue to take some

other shape or form, which we call another life. ... Physical and mental energies which constitute the so-called being have within themselves the power to take a new form, and grow gradually and gather force to the full.”

“…Jesus was killed on the cross and was entombed to rise again in his body three days later, it is possibly the most famous story of Resurrection in our human

Resurrection

As we are moving through the Easter period, where Jesus was killed on the cross and was entombed to rise again in his body three days later, it is possibly the most famous story of Resurrection in our human history. Resurrection is the life and soul of the deceased person coming back to life in the same body, different from reincarnation, where the soul enters a new body. According to www.etymonline.com the definition of Resurrection is as follows:

Resurrection (n.)

c. 1300, resureccioun, “the rising again of Christ after his death and burial,” also a picture or image of this and the name of a Church festival commemorating it, from Anglo-French resurrectiun, Old French resurrection. “the Resurrection of Christ” (12c.) and directly from Church Latin resurrectionem (nominative resurrectio). “a rising again from the dead,” noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin resurgere “rise again, appear again” (see resurgent). Replaced Old English æriste; in Middle English sometimes translated as again rising. There are many stories about Resurrection in history. One wonders if they have been confused with people seeing the ghost or spirit of the person supposedly resurrected and who walks among us – yet another question to ponder.

Past Lives

Understanding past lives is an interesting concept to get one’s head around. Having done many past life regressions (PLR), I feel it’s a divided community. There seem to be two main ways PLR works, hypnosis and guided meditation. Both have proven to work, and based on my experience alone, a guided PLR where the practitioner is involved in that experience and can answer questions, is the method I use and find works well. I am not saying the other doesn’t work equally as well. Some people aren’t comfortable with hypnosis and vice-versa. Over years of dealing with and understanding PLR, I have noted that many people gravitate to being a famous person instead of an ordinary person living a more regular life with a twist. What we look for in these experiences is evidence to back up what the PLR experience is – it’s no mean feat sometimes!

The idea behind a PLR is to deal with problems in this life caused or created in another life. Deal with that understanding and learn from it and heal the person in this life and that life and potential future lives.

“I don’t believe that we can be our father, mother, brother or sister in the same life – well, not at this stage. I am open to learning more about it though!”

Lives between Lives

Initially, people practising PLR only dealt with that topic. It came to light some years back, and there are many books dealing with this topic; what happens to the soul between lives? What is the soul’s journey at that point? Many people believe that the soul moves around accruing experiences to help others. They become the Spirit Guides, Angels, Lords, Devas and any other names people attribute to them to help us in our physical lives. Understanding that we are one soul on a massive journey through physical and spiritual existence makes it easier to understand lives between lives, especially on a linear timeline as we are taught to believe in. However – what if there’s more?

Concurrent Lives

Okay, another theory, and one I have spent a lot of time working with, is concurrent lives. That is, multiple lives throughout multiple time periods, all happening concurrently, not in a linear timeline. In my world, we have a Soul Collective, which is the sum of all souls living at any time and space within this collective. With the ability of many souls to help us through our various physical existences, to educate the Soul Collective, therefore creating a Super Soul Collective that can interact with other Super Souls, creating a multiverse of confluent information and experiences, where no time in space holds a soul’s learning back? What if the Guides, Lords, and Devas that appear before us are the many souls within our collective that help us remember what we are here on Earth or other planets and dimensions to learn? Have I lost you yet? If the above is the case, how do we interact with those loved ones who have passed on? Are they a part of our Soul Collective? Are we our parents, our children, friends, pets and more? In my world, I don’t believe we are. Our soul collective will have specific souls to journey with creating the Super Soul Collective. This collective can then interact with the other collectives so that we can interact with and obtain the experiences we need to live in this life. I don’t believe that we can be our father, mother, brother or sister in the same life – well, not at this stage. I am open to learning more about it though!

Books and Further Reading

There is a plethora of material on this topic, from religious to theosophical and even sceptical understandings, and I’m possibly creating more questions with this story than providing answers too. I could recommend many books, too many to mention. My suggestion is to explore this topic at length and take on board what sits with you personally, and don’t be afraid to change your thinking on the many aspects of this topic – I mean, what can one fully know in just one lifetime?

Anthony is available for Dream Interpretations, 1:1 Readings and Bridging Realms Core Issue Vibrational Healing™ sessions.

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