A Valiant Choice

CREDIT: whitewolfjourneys.com

The journey of this blog, has taken us through varied interpretations of the Soul from the Hindu Eastern ‘Atma’ to the Western and Middle Eastern Judaic versions and again to the modern fusion achieved in ‘New Age’ insights. Personally what sticks with me is the Hindu concept of Soul and Reincarnation, garnished with the New Age concept of  ‘Choice in Reincarnation’. The idea of Choice appealed greatly to me and I allowed it to help me reinterpret my Hindu beliefs. The theory of Karma and its consequences in reincarnations were logical and ancient and initially satisfying – yet it appeared to have one drawback – on the one hand it was too mechanical ( in the Gita Krishna underlines that the Lord – i.e. God – does not produce fruitful results of action – Nature does this through the law of Karma ) the law therefore appears to be unfeeling and automatic like gravity, just too mechanical (like blind justice). It also imposes judgement in observing suffering around us – a beggar, invalid, deformed, bereaved or otherwise suffering individual we encounter must have ‘earned’ his sorry state from previous misdeeds – this produces a judgmental reaction in the observer even when laced with compassion and condemns the unfortunate sufferer as suffering the consequence of his actions  – ‘as you sow so shall you reap’  /  ‘every action has an equal and opposite reaction’ – and so on. The introduction of the concept of CHOICE OF REINCARNATION   by New Age thinkers has changed this entirely giving Karma a totally new interpretation. All these old and new elements have gone into the present post in personally, restructuring the concepts of Reincarnation and Karma experienced by the Soul. The first post explains my new understanding and the second which follows, presents it as a one-act play which I composed to help comprehend and dramatically visualize the points made.  The first is therefore an Exposition of the One-Act-Play that follows it . This reinterpretation is quite radical and may not appeal to many who may be appalled by the thought that their present plight ( if unfortunate) arises from their own choice. Some people would prefer to accept the idea that ones unfortunate condition may be the result of a Karmik fate rather than one resulting from ones own  conscious choice. In both cases what it boils down to is that we are responsible for our present situation.

 

                                                                                                                                 A    VALIANT    CHOICE    ( A Play )

PART  I  –  EXPOSITION

(An imaginary Soul preparing to reincarnate)

It was very difficult to make the right choice. Nothing could be gained from pleasurable plentiful easy options alone. The handicaps, obstacles, trials were the more important choices, the fundamental experiences to improve the quality of ones being.  There was complete freedom to make the right combination of choices or to make no choices at all. There never was any compulsion here, no peer pressure, no fear, no punishment.

There was no hunger as existence was not reliant on consumption but was self-sufficient. the only hunger was for experience on the physical plane.

There was no fear of mortality. the only concern was for one’s further evolution.

There was no procreative sexuality as survival of one’s kind did not depend on reproduction – though there were attractions and appreciation of others and great affairs of love extending over eons were quite common place.

Fear did not exist. Motivation arose from creativity and a sense of duty and dedication.

Anger in grosser states was here a kind of unbending determination.

It would be meaningless to lie when the truth was known to all and no thoughts could be secret and there was no room for deception.

There was nothing to steal as possessions were beyond your reality.

Nobody could be hurt so the question of inflicting injury never arose.

There was no judgement because you were your own harsh judge, jury and executioner.

Your primal essence glowed with clarity in an ambiance of bliss and perfection. Of course, there were higher  levels and there were peers but you were left to evolve at your own pace.

There was complete harmony, equilibrium and freedom. No disturbance of any kind, nothing painful, nothing enforced in that timeless essence.

Then  from the heart of this equilibrium arose a whim,  inventing opposites as a means of comprehending equilibrium, the postulate of two notes making a  harmony, the promise of a finite time to measure infinity, the concept of mortality to define immortality better, the idea of material diversity arising from essential unity. The hallmark of  material creation  was  mortality, a  finite, diverse world under the sway of the law of opposites – . good, bad, light and shadow, water and fire, pleasure and pain, male and female.

To comprehend one’s own reality, it was desirable to materialize and experience mortality, to be in the full glare of the law of opposites. So the choice was yours – first whether you wished to materialize and then the nature of your materialization.  To materialize meant to become embodied.

The choices were unlimited and came to you in your contemplation and discussions with companions and peers. Pain and suffering were the constant accompaniment to mortality, where the experience you wished to undergo was entirely of your own choosing. Was it to be one in which towering ego had to be overcome; obsessive attachments shown to be illusory; an acquisitive nature’s ultimate realization that possessions were meaningless; restraint and control to be learnt in a life driven by lust; addictions to be remedied; language of exchange and service to be perfected; the lessons of want to be learnt in poverty; compassion to be perfected in a life of suffering through disease; frugality, temperance and charity to be learnt through a life of billionaire abundance; the appreciation of perfection learnt in a lifetime of deformity or hardship; anger to be sublimated in a lifetime of raging insanity; innumerable relationships and interaction between two personalities worked out in different situations and combinations.

It was not as if soul forces were riven with imperfections needing remedy. Soul forces were the essence of perfection and equilibrium but the need to evolve necessitated the experience of mortality, the trials and tribulations of a material existence. The choice of category of experience and level and quality of existence was its own, like one’s choice of a book from a library.

The planning for a re-entry into Earth-World  was intricate and thorough. The combinations which would sustain a  life span without allowing the incarnation to founder from excessive trials while facilitating the desired experience, had to be carefully worked out. The negative elements needed to be balanced with positive ones. Strengths were available to all in many forms ( as weapons of defence to be selected carefully) in such a way as to ensure that the desired experiment was not nullified. Much like weapons of defence available to a Roman Gladiator. Weapons such as beauty, riches, nobility, generosity, special skills and talents, genius and creativity, spouse’s love, parental love, love from progeny, people’s love or acclaim and admiration, animal loyalty, successful career, great achievements, winning nature, power and prestige, to name a few. Handicaps and obstacles were also aplenty, to be judiciously combined like heavy weights with a sound diet. The choice of most trying circumstances could include abject poverty and hunger, shame humiliation and infamy, disease deformity and physical ugliness; orphanage and loneliness; persecution and victimization; guilt and ignominy of heinous crimes; insanity derangement and depression; insatiable greed, lust and addictions; ignorance and illiteracy; dogmatism and fanaticism; consuming hate and a life time of revenge; faithlessness and cynicism; over bearing ego and compulsive need for domination; cruelty, wastefulness and destructiveness etc.

The heaviest crosses could well be borne by the worthiest souls, having chosen to carry them – not unlike the choice of the most difficult course for graduation. Better or easier circumstances therefore did not translate into presumption of superiority of the embodying soul.

Sometimes companions would incarnate together, while other companions would assist in the difficult planning and materialization process, overseeing the incarnation as Guides and Guardian souls. Peers and even Masters were available for consultation. Some companion Guides would then attach themselves as boatmen to steer the adventurer soul on its courageous journey across the ocean of matter, to ensure that the journey of life played itself out and did not come to an abrupt and ignoble end nor  was the incarnated personality so discouraged as to quit midway. The Guides provided succor, assistance and relief from extremely untenable and unpredictable situations, while the general tenor of a chosen life story unfolded along its determined course to provide material experience and help  in evolution and understanding the material aspect of the spirit. Guides had a difficult job being present as it were between two worlds simultaneously. Masters came with great transforming messages and experienced the suffering inherent in mortal existence.

Preparation for departing souls was always full of compassionate congregation and support before its descent into the grossest elements and there was constant concern to see that its courage was rewarded by a successful and complete sojourn of the chosen life-span. Souls also undertook to incarnate together as relatives, spouses, friends, enemies and numerous other relationships to help in working out an issue of common interest on the material plane – the themes were varied – love, betrayal, exploitation, sacrifice, revenge, addictions, superiority or inferiority complex, majority or minority community, differences of race, colour, caste, sex, creed etc. Often familial relationships and circle of friends and acquaintances were the same group of participants in succeeding reincarnations being switched or shuffled about. The soul assuming the role of father  might seek to experience a switch with the soul playing the role of son in the next incarnation. Friends might opt to play the enemy in the next. Masters became servants, wives husbands or an intimate relationship in one might become nothing more than an acquaintance in the next.

It is for this reason that it was ‘unethical’ during an earth life to be judgemental. Compassion became important for the same reason. This of course did not mean that the development of negativities in a life being played out was unreal or to be condoned or that sufferings were not real enough or that punishments imposed during earth life were undeserved or that crimes were not real. Each life’s circumstances contained certain compulsions and the results were not always predictable.

The physical incarnation necessarily was made oblivious of its spiritual lineage and purpose and identified totally with its physical persona acting and reacting to its environment with the totality of its physical aptitudes and shortcomings. The thick earth medium of senses and their objects quickly grasped the incarnate spirit in the flux of temporal life, thrusting forward from one challenge to another without respite, much like a the breath-taking ride on a roller-coaster. The spirit generally emerged at the end strengthened and more luminescent.

The incarnating soul force in the company of interested companions was at all times also able to observe its incarnate self-acting and reacting to the given circumstances much like one would a video of oneself and capable of beaming in some influences or corrections to improve the experiment, but the incarnation was no puppetry and could produce unpredictable results both appalling and exhilarating .  The spirit was often amazed by the behaviour of its incarnation. There was always the risk that a dismal outcome of an incarnation gone wrong might affect the resonance of the incarnating soul, diminishing the level of its clarity. Equally a successful engagement with physical trials would enhance that clarity with accompanying evolution to a higher order of Spirit. Eventually all souls felt encouraged to take the risk of material reincarnation for evolution to a higher level of being, rather than stagnating blissfully at their own level.

 

Credit: blog.richhealing.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Paradise: through the eyes of a Medium

 

Credit: wallpapre.brothersoft.com

 

In probing the ‘After-Life’, World of Spirits, we moved from Near Death Experiences to episodes of Past Life repressions by eminent psychiatrists and hypnotherapists providing glimpses of that alternative reality which many described as our real Home World. We now look at it more closely through the eyes of a renowned American psychic and medium. Sylvia Browne for the past 50 years and more has established herself as possibly the most remarkable psychic, medium, channel and clairvoyant of the New Age, whose personal experiences and hypnotic regression appear to reveal all the secrets of that mystical world where souls are at home before and after life on the physical plane.

Her findings have been steeped in controversy with allegations of fraud by none other than a former estranged husband. Many of her forecasts and predictions have been proved erroneous and eminent sceptics and atheists have challenged her claims in the public domain. Yet, police and even the FBI are believed to have quietly relied on her sixth sense to apprehend criminals with satisfaction. She claims that these challenges were indeed of her own choosing in the Theme of Life Chart of her present incarnation wherein her soul itself inserted such negativities to hone her skills and for its own evolution in overcoming them.  Frankly I don’t see why a psychic is made to indulge in the business of making forecasts. A psychic is not an astrologer or palmiest after all. There is little doubt that she has paranormal abilities which does not need to be tested in such a public manner. It is like asking a great athlete to prove himself not merely on the parallel bars but to swallow fire and pierce his cheeks with flaming rods. She is a psychic not a circus performer.

If we wander into any Barnes and Noble bookshop in NYC to the section on philosophy, mysticism, the paranormal and New Age, we would find a whole shelf dedicated to the display of her books, several of which have been on the # 1 New York Times’ bestseller list. One can also find her numerous interviews with Larry King and the Montel Williams Show and several others on the internet. She has also set up a church inspired by the Gnostics called Novus Spiritus and the Nirvana Foundation of Psychic Research. She has also studied theology and world religions and interacted with priests, yogis, Tantriks, nuns, rabbis and Zen masters.

Her psychic abilities became evident from early childhood. She claims that her family history is full of psychics for almost 300 years, including her grandmother, son and granddaughter. She began having visions and premonitions of impending events from the age of five. As she grew to adulthood and began having frequent visitations from her Spirit Guides Francine and Raheim she began to doubt her sanity believing that she now fitted perfectly the description of a schizophrenic until Francine sought to disabuse her of her fears. Francine then by pre-arrangement materialized before her sceptical parents and sister. After that she never questioned her sanity and seriously began her quest. She began to give talks and lectures, many of which were ‘delivered’ by her Spirit Guide Francine by channeling through her. She also began regressive hypnotherapy to help cure psychic conditions.

Her knowledge of the ‘Other Side’ comes from her perpetually chattering companion and Spirit Guides Francine and Raheim, her own Near Death Experience (NDE), her claims to Astral Travel together with those of her son Christopher and granddaughter  in dreams and trances ( Out of Body Experiences OBE) and her questioning of patients and clients through regressive hypnotherapy.

Sylvia Browne

The picture she paints generally matches those of persons who have undergone NDE and the reports of Regression therapies of psychiatrists and hypnotherapists we have covered earlier:  the soul moving out of the body and viewing it, the tunnel into which it is drawn, the growing light on the other side, the reception by guide Spirits, relatives and friends, recuperation, reconditioning and healing, the review of the last life, realization, acknowledgement and judgement of ones own failures in the charted mission goals that one had set, discussions with the Council of Advanced souls, the Elders, further research and threadbare examination of the course of that life, choice of reincarnation by the soul itself rather than God or Karma or anyone else, the existence of more elevated souls that do not need to incarnate, like elders, angels, teachers and Masters, the peaceful and tranquil, non judgemental environment of the Spirit world full of love and familiarity, preparation for reincarnation into the physical world at an appropriate time of the soul’s choosing, freedom to choose location, environment, parents, family and chart of a new life, including negativities and challenges and time and manner of exit, the dire need for reincarnation for soul’s evolution through experience of negativities on the physical plane and the challenge to overcome them, the presence of dedicated Spirit Guides throughout ones life time, the acceptance of all religious denominations and cultures as equally necessary and ennobling.

While all these attributes of life on the Other Side are familiar to us from previous posts, in her path breaking book ‘Life on the Other Side – A Psychics Tour of the After Life’ ( copyright @ Sylvia Browne, SIGNET 2001, New American Library, a division of Penguins Group USA) she dwells in great detail on remarkable facts about the spiritual world on the Other Side which provide fresh insight on a topic hardly explored elsewhere.

What emerges is a kind of parallel living world in an alternate dimension ( barely a few feet away) which in many ways resembles our physical world as a kind of prototype. Incredibly, the spirit world is remarkably similar to the physical one with all the continents (add Atlantis) oceans, mountains and peoples inhabiting it as spirits. A glorious perpetual dawn ( no day and night), and clement weather (no storms) however distinguish it from the volatility of the physical one. It is also ‘timeless’ and its inhabitants are all aged about 30 years in perpetuity. Thought creates instant mobility ( no need for cars or vehicles). Thought also provides instant construction of homes, ones we have always dreamed of ( no need for masons or architects). Individual personalities and preferences are the permanent  identity and stamp of each souls’ identity, some have humour, others are serious and sedate etc all with diverse abilities and ambitions. Spirits are not intangible or wispy but have bodies and even, unbelievably, organs ( heart, lungs, kidneys – the works), though there is no production of ‘waste’, no ageing, no disease. A soul can enjoy eating what it likes in the early stages of rehabilitation, though it is not necessary for survival – you may cook your favourite meal for a while till you don’t want to anymore. There is no termination of ‘life’ which is eternal. Communication is possible through language or telepathy. Every manner of entertainment is universally available.

Flora and fauna are at their resplendent best, never withering, with unmatched scenic beauty and gardens. animals and birds abound adding to the beauty of the spiritual ‘nature, though there are no insects!. Spirits specialize in all manner of activity and research. Most inventions on the physical plane are first conceived by spirits in their research centres ( they are presently working on eradicating AIDS and Cancer)! Spirits pursue careers as scientists, artists, philosophers, students, performers, teachers, thinkers, healers – you name it. Schools, libraries, research centres, areas for socializing and recreation abound. In a word, spirits are busy with their lives and have fun also. Spirits can also adopt any appearance they wish without loosing their identity or recognition.

Spirits however do not suffer from anger, hatred, envy, greed, or any other negative quality. spirits also do not engage in sex ( sorry). However when they feel deeply intimate toward one another, they ‘merge’ exquisitely, sharing in harmony all their knowledge of one another, which is more profound, intimate and satisfying than sex could ever be !  Spirits also have gender and retain the same gender throughout eternity, despite reincarnating as either male or female for evolution. The institution of marriage does not exist on the spirit side ( redundant), nor are there any families, though there are friendly groups and clusters of like-minded souls at the same level of development who are closer than any family could be.

On arrival back at the spirit world the soul observes certain important buildings. The Hall of Wisdom where scanning machines help one to review in holograms, ones past life experiences, for evaluation. Then there are the Towers, where troubled and disoriented returnees are cacooned for healing. There are also the Hall of Records and the Hall of Justice where distinguished Elders help in a detailed examination of lives on the physical plane.The Hall of Tones is for meditation and chanting while the Hall of Voices for hearing the celestial songs of angels.

In due course spirits decide to reincarnate (reluctantly) after deciding upon a chart for a new incarnation. Before departure they have the privilege of an audience with a messiah of their preference ( Christ, Buddha etc)  which is fulfilling. energizing and empowering beyond measure. The final stage is a twilight sleep and transfer to a waiting womb of ones choice.

The story of an After Life Paradise through a psychic and medium’s perspective and experience, does appear at times like an incredible fairy tale or a scene from a fantastic science fiction movie, particularly the aspects which show that the spirit world is quite as tangible and physical as our own. But this should be neither surprising nor novel. All religions after all speak of such a Paradise, a ‘land of milk and honey’. peace and plenty, eternal fulfillment and bliss, constant satisfaction. We have the Christian Paradise full of angels, the Muslim Zannah with Houris, the Hindu Swarg Lok with dancing Apsaras – if you research these concepts in the respective scriptures you will find some echoes of Sylvia’s Paradise.

Sylvia also speaks of a dark side, though it is not ‘Satanic’ in the sense of being ruled by a Satan with horns and a pitchfork. Those beings who commit irremediable crimes with no trace of remorse or repentance are souls that deny and refuse to embrace the light and are neither received by the light, at death nor find a place in ‘Paradise’ but quickly return through a dark abyss into another womb until some action eons later provides a glimmer of hope. Even they are not eternally lost though, being doomed to return age after age as dark entities without spirit guides to help them along the way, particularly because they reject help. The effort to redeem them however continues and one day they may see and accept the light. They till then dwell in a dark and lonely isolation and they may well intrude into your charted course of life uninvited as someone in your closest circle who exhibits evil traits with little hope of redemption.

Sylvia’s ‘Paradise’ appears to reflect the beliefs of several cultures and religions. Her description of buildings and monuments in the Spirit World with gothic arches and Greco-Roman architecture clearly are Western in their inspiration. On the other hand her repeated assertion that God has a male and female aspect, intellectual and emotional, combined as one, are Eastern. The ‘Mother goddess’ she speaks of with flowing hair and a staff in one hand, though robed in a classical western gown, has a lion standing beside her, clearly inspired by the popular Hindu depiction of the ‘Mother’ (Ma), epitomizing the energy of god and the universe (the concept of Shakti in Hinduism) astride a tiger or a lion. In the Hall of Tones, the chanting actually begins with the Sanskrit word Om, common to most religions of Indian origin when commencing a prayer and referring to the sound of creation. Paradise then does not neglect either Eastern or Western inspirations in becoming their prototype!

Sylvia’s Paradise though supported by scriptural analogies, is not always easy to accept no matter how comforting. It is one thing to accept that the soul is eternal and survives after death and that it reincarnates for its own evolution through experiencing the challenges and negativities of the physical plane and that it is welcomed after death into the spirit world, embraced by divine light and love – quite another to allow magnificent and thoroughly tangible scenic beauty, bodies with organs, buildings with halls and marble benches, scanning machines with holograms, records of lives being maintained in scrolls in libraries, dressing for events with just a flicker of a thought, wandering through superb gardens and a host of other physical activities  we never imagined  spirit worlds would, could or even needed to engage in.

From a metaphysical standpoint, those of us who are so inclined, would only allow a divine spirit to confine its physical activity to the human body when incarnating on the physical earthly plane rather than carrying forward a physical ‘hang-over’ to the spiritual one. All we would allow is an urge for the soul to be finally free of the physical and as pure spirit to seek to reunite blissfully with its divine source to become one again with the creative force, rather than enjoying separation. The idea of divinity within as a drop, merging back into the divinity of the grand ocean which creates the mirage (Maya) of the physical world, rather than itself becoming yet another physical albeit elevated mirage. Even if we were to allow this physical ‘Paradise’ to have any reality, it would only be another intermediate manifestation of the divine mirage or illusion (Maya). Only another physical level to be transcended.

To be fair, Sylvia does hint or address this issue when she speaks of levels of advancement for the soul. The Seventh level ( seventh heaven?) is as she says where the ‘rare’ souls lose their very identity and merge into the ‘ uncreated mass’  or the ‘ infinite, unfathomable force field from which the love and power of God emanates’. That is surely the ulterior dimension from which it never returns either as a spiritual entity or as an incarnation. Compare this with the Hindu concept of the last incarnation of an embodied soul where after it totally merges with the Absolute it  never incarnates again. She uses the same analogy as in Eastern cultures – the drop falls back into the ocean or as she puts it ‘ a cup of water spills into the Pacific Ocean’.

She however confesses that the ‘Seventh Level’ is not for her, as she would rather remain in a ‘spiritual world’  which still resembles the physical one.

In the Hindu scripture the Gita, there is a revealing passage which says:

”Worshppers of the gods go to the gods, worshippers of the ancestors go to the ancestors, worshippers of the ghosts go to the ghosts; but those who worship Me come to Me.”

Thus those who cannot overcome the need for physicality return to those realms (Paradise?), while those that have advanced merge with the pure spirit of Godhead.

Caption: wallpapersus.com

Emerging New Age Consciousness : Hale-Bopp

Credit: news.discovery.com

 

As New Age Thought on spiritualism gathered momentum at the close of the 20th century, The appearance of the comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 seemed to herald the dawning of a New Age of Consciousness. Every night I would climb to the terrace and look at the dark star-spangled night sky and search for that wonder visible to the naked eye unaided. It seemed to stir something deep within me, as stellar events inevitably do. It was after all not just a bright star, or Mars at its closest trajectory to earth. The luminous tail of the comet in the sky gave the appearance of something furiously on the move in the heavens – not a static star but a moving rocketing one. Doubtless it moved many to poetry. With me the analogy of the comet being the emerging New Age Consciousness was uppermost and so I composed a poem:

 

                     H A L E – B O P P

 

Comet in the sky,

You smite me distant traveller

With some strange nostalgia,

Far away going away

Every night for a while.

 

Comet in the sky,

Your light has tanned

My naked eye,

Touched my retina

With a new age,

Borrowing into my mind.

 

You surprise

Like a fleeting train

In the wilderness

Hurtling on its way.

 

Siberian crane,

You fill me with a strange passion

For your lonely furious pilgrimage

To another millennium.

 

Guiding us to another age,

Visitor from the future,

Your searing glorious passage,

Primordial image,

Like a messiah come

To disturb our settled equilibrium.

 

 

 

Effects of New Age Thought on our Psyche

kundalinispirit.blogspot.com

Emerging New Age concepts of the soul, ‘after-life’ and rebirth, and reports of Out of Body Experience and Near Death Experience begin to affect our conventional mind-sets slowly but surely, transforming the structure of our thoughts and beliefs.

The mind begins tentatively to accept the new concepts and inevitably they get embedded  at conscious and sub-conscious levels, shaping behaviour, attitudes, priorities, outlook and even our world-view.

Reincarnation was always reassuring for those brought up in cultures that had belief in it for millenia. For those who began to share this belief, it also had a transforming effect. The understanding that we are not here just once and that our essence would continue in time, made life more meaningful and less desperate. The aphorism ‘ eat, drink and make merry for tomorrow we die’  no longer applied. There was a sense of relief and the fatality of death was less alarming, there being no finality about it. An ‘after-life’ where we had a chance to make corrections and try again, made the end less traumatic. The thought  that our essence was in fact eternal was comforting. If we additionally accepted divinity in our essence, it became ennobling. On the other hand, if we did not, even then the evolution of a less than divine but empowered ethereal entity in our essence  was no less comforting.

The premise that there was no judgemental hell waiting for us was also less alarming, though we as entities that judged ourselves, did not do away with the need to guard against excesses and hedonistic and self-centred approaches to life. We were after all our  own hardest task-masters, for when you in clarity, sat in judgement on yourself, there was nowhere to escape.

Even in the course of the evolution of Christian theology, the acknowledgement of reincarnation was considered and upheld by many. The Gnostics, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and St. Jerome are cases in point. It was only in AD 325 that the Roman Emperor Constantine with the enthusiasm of a new convert, together with his mother Helena, erased all  references to reincarnation from the New Testament. Later at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD reincarnation was declared a heresy. This was an attempt, according to some analysts to strengthen the church which felt threatened by the possibility that through the concept of reincarnation individuals would rely on self salvation, ignoring the church. Yet several esoteric Judaic orders like the Kabbalah and the Rosicrucians continued to believe in reincarnation. 

New Age concepts of self-regulation by souls in ‘after-life’  through mutual reviews of conduct during past lives and through reviews with Councils of Elders, Masters and Guides and their reincarnation in groups as spouses, parents, progeny, relatives, friends and even as adversaries through considered choices to work out residual negative attributes, provided a novel and fresh perspective of the challenges we face in life through relationship issues. Good, bad and indifferent parents, as also good, bad and indifferent progeny, tests of friendship, sacrifices made and privations endured, sibling rivalries and jealousies and a whole range of relationship issues and challenging situations in life like being born with handicaps, were seen in the backdrop of clusters of soul comrades enacting dramas to work out and challenge their imperfections which had  carried forward from acts of omission and commission in precious lives.

The closest and warmest relationships were confronted by painful turn of events to test their metal and moral fibre. The course of life was never intended to be an uncomplicated, smooth sailing journey.The perspective that the emotionally charged atmosphere of family life and the constant confrontation between individuals was an exercise in evolution ordained by souls prior to incarnation, had a transforming effect on those who cared to believe.

Inspired by such revolutionary thought, I composed a poem on the birth of a grandson, which I wish to share with you. It shows how new ideas can begin to fundamentally transform ones belief systems:

 

    WAITING   TO   BECOME

 

From where have you come

Suddenly new face,

Smiling so fully with your gums,

First chalk on a new black board

Grandson?

 

Crawling about us with trust,

Recognizing us so instantly,

Being recognized at once,

As if you have existed always

Behind a secret door

Which has just opened.

 

Like our children

Who arrived before you in their turn

From the recesses of our minds,

Familiar from the first moment,

 

Or the wife who joined me

From the time we first met,

One by one we have become

Permanent,

 

And even if I rewind

To when there was no one else but me,

Yet they

remain in the shadows

Latent and familiar,

Waiting to become;

 

As if long ago we stood

Joining our hands together,

With the conviction

That we would come

As father, mother,

Daughter, son,

Grandson.

soul-service.tumbir.com

 

The Soul’s Homeworld: Amazing Revelations

credit: triciamccannon.co

 

Near death Experiences (NDE) provide only a glimpse into the spiritual world where our souls reside in ‘after-life’. The NDE experiences ( two previous posts) are of briefly encountering it, but having to return abruptly to the physical plane, however reluctantly, to complete the mission. The ‘deaths’ were premature and were reversed with recovery and an extension of life.

The eminent psychologists/hypnotists, in the previous posts, added to this insight in regressing their clients but their purpose or focus was by no means to explore the spirit world. they had accidentally encountered it in the course of their clinical therapies aimed at curing clients of psychological ailments. What emerged was past life experiences, giving veracity to reincarnation and rebirth. These were therefore not an exploration of the ‘after-life’ in the spiritual realms, rather a verification of previous lives on the physical plane. As one of the psychiatrists aptly put it, he was more concerned with ‘relief rather than belief’.

Michael Newton Ph.D.

On the other hand Michael Newton Ph.D., a counselling psychologist, master hypnotherapist and teacher in California for more than forty years, falls into a category entirely different. While he too began like the others as a sceptic and a thoroughly traditional psychiatrist, even resisting requests for past life regressions, his journey of exploration commenced with a client whose therapy did lead to past life regression. He then felt tempted to look into the spirit world through the mind of the hypnotized subject and several others later. While his concern was always to provide relief and cure for the ailments, he decided to research the spirit world to discover more about ‘our life as souls’, the ‘life between lives on earth’. Apart from curiosity, he realized and found that once the clients came to see their place in the spirit world, it proved more curative than merely learning about the past lives on earth.

Michael Newton’s book ‘Journey of Souls’ ( 1994 Llewllyn Publications) now in its fifth edition with thirty-two printings, encapsules three decades of research and has become a bestseller with over 300,000 copies sold. It is an extraordinary and remarkable book which peers into the mysteries of life in the spirit world. While there are numerous books recounting past life regression reports, I have not found any which expose fully the secret life of souls in the spirit world. Newton’s book is therefore  a seminal, path-breaking revelation of the spiritual realms like no other.

The clients under hypnosis reveal astonishing facts about the spiritual life of the soul after death. It begins with the, by now well-known phenomenon of, Out of Body Experience, viewing the body and those around it as the soul departs, beginning to float beyond. There is a perceived inability to communicate with the grieving, while a force pulls it away towards a tunnel with a light at the far end which grows as it advances through it. There is no fear and a total sense of well-being and euphoria. The sense of peace and familiarity grows. Emerging from the tunnel the soul is confronted by an indeterminate fog of diffused light. Thoughts of love envelop the soul adding to a sense of growing security and a feeling of having returned home. there is an accompaniment of pleasant musical sounds. Guides, soul mates, friends and deceased relatives receive the incoming soul with reassurance and affection.The personal ‘Guide’ has apparently organized the reception. The first light entity to come forward is the one for whom the soul feels the greatest warmth and intimacy, usually a deceased soul mate. Others like parents and friends follow. The purpose of the reception is to reassure and acclimatize the incoming soul to the spirit world. Souls appear to look like entities of light of varying intensity and colour, depending upon their levels of advancement. The purpose of reincarnation on the physical plane becomes clear. It is for self-improvement. At this stage of familiarization, souls greeting  the incoming soul can assume form and feature to remind it of connections it may have had in previous lives with them.

After the reception the familiar souls then scatter to their individual levels and the Guide conducts the now reassured incoming soul to its appointed placement in a group which is at its level of development. Some of the familiar souls are also likely to be there, being at the same level of development. There is a close relationship with the Guide over several life-times. The Guide is quite like a Guardian Angel dedicated to the  soul’s development both on the spiritual and physical planes. ( One is reminded of the ritual of prayer among muslims, where the worshipper at prayer turns his head to the right shoulder and the left, acknowledging two angels – Farishta – assigned to him for his protection and well-being).

Advanced souls make the transitional journey to their appointed circles without the need of reception or guides, as they are instantly familiar and acquainted with the spiritual world over numerous life-times.

Souls that fail miserably in their missions ( on account of cruelty, and unpardonable acts) meet the Teachers directly without the preamble of friendly reception and after a serious review of failings decide to reincarnate immediately to experience the suffering they caused in their previous incarnation. This is self-imposed and reflects the Law of Karma in action. There is no destruction of incorrigible souls – they are simply readjusted and remodelled during periods of isolation with the help of Guides and Teachers. This is not regarded as punishment but as  self corrective action.

All souls undergo a cleansing of acquired negativities from their  recent incarnation and emerge refreshed as after a ‘shower’. They are then assigned to their ‘groups’ or clusters where other souls at the same level of development congregate. These small groups discuss thread bare their past lives, learning from each other. Souls then present themselves before ‘Councils of Elders’, where their actions on earth are discussed in-depth. Souls in a cluster tend to incarnate together as relatives or friends.

Broadly speaking souls fall into the categories of Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced levels. Most souls on earth are in the first category. they tend to be more egotistical. As souls advance, the need for reincarnation gets minimized. With advancement, souls are assigned greater responsibilities to guide other souls that are less advanced. Advanced souls do incarnate as living guardians on the physical plane. Such souls can be identified as people with exceptional spiritual and ethical awareness. One can think of Mother Teresa, Gandhi and Martin Luther King as falling in such a category.

After the cleansing, review, and interaction with other souls in the cluster, the soul is required once again to reincarnate and experience life on the physical plane to evolve further through the challenges, pain, trials and opportunities that life on earth offers. For more advanced souls there are other options like incarnating on other planets. This is no easy decision. Leaving a world of peace, harmony, love and compassion for worlds full of fear, insecurity and aggression. Souls however do not regard life on the physical plane as purely negative and often look forward to experiencing some of the attendant pleasures of the physical plane for which there is some nostalgia. After a thorough review of their weaknesses and strengths, souls become ready to plunge again into the uncertainties of life on the physical plane to remedy past errors and take corrective measures in a new life.

The soul has to decide about the geographical location for its next reincarnation. A preview of the circumstances and scene is undertaken. A choice has to be made regarding the precise body it will inhabit, the family and the locale before taking the plunge. The return is swifter than the passage to the spirit world. The soul proceeds on its journey with a compassionate send off by fellow spirits and Guides.

In my review of the book I have barely touched on the outlines of the wealth of material it contains on a subject which arouses unlimited curiosity in like-minded people, desirous of knowing what life in the spiritual realms may be like. Michael Newton’s piercing intensive cross-examination of his clients has to be read  fully to absorb the many leads he provides to questions we may have about the nature of the soul, its appearance, its strengths, weaknesses and purpose, the environs of the spiritual world, the advancing levels to Godhead, the extraordinary ambiance of prevailing compassion and succour, the intense familiarity felt there, the total security, the beauty, perfection and purposefulness of the spiritual realms. The book provides answers to many of our unanswered questions, different for each one of us, some measure of satisfaction in his extraordinary research. For me it was simply mind-blowing and transforming in its import. He has gone on to write a sequel ” Destiny of Souls’ which has become a best seller again. There is also an institute on the web for those interested in pursuing their own life regressions.

The question remains how these extraordinary revelations affected my settled mind set, nurtured in  pristine Hindu thought millenia old about the soul, reincarnation and Godhead. Were there any surprises, deviations and readjustments to be made? Obviously it is easier for a Hindu, Buddhist or Jain (all originating from the Indian sub- continent) brought up in a culture which already accepted the concept of soul and its rebirth and a divine order in which evolution of man was inevitably towards becoming an enlightened entity, no questions asked.  The questions remaining I surely needed to address.

There was also the sceptical question whether the clients’ subconscious mind was responding to the hypnotherapy with familiar concepts, historically ingrained in the mind of man through scripture and myth – I refer to the great philosopher psychologist Carl Jung’s concept of ‘Collective unconscious’ of man where indelible and archetypal concepts and ideas remained engraved, that formed and shaped our psyche, whether we had access to any knowledge or not. Universal thought that made each human at the subconscious level bring up thought which had got embedded as an inherited fact.

There was also the difficulty of adapting the idea that the souls were indeed unequal in development and not universally divine and therefore infallible. In this interpretation it was not  divinity within us, eternal, unchanging, perfect and the mirror of the Godhead, planted in our innermost essence to develop our gross physical imperfections to its level of perfection.

Indeed much food for thought in the light of the revelations of the clients (or patients) in the clinics of the psychiatrists and hypnotherapists. My reactions I shall leave for another post (too long already), while inviting the reactions of our learned and lay readers.

The revelations are doubtless extraordinary, the reactions also I dare say, will be equally varied and numerous. After all the spirit world is not going to give up its secrets so easily and will tease by throwing  many spanners into the works and we may well begin where we started on our eternal search.

I imagine that  the clients under hypnosis experiencing the spirit world are much like the earliest foreign travellers to India describing it as a land full of monstrous exotic animals including elephants with wings! Elephants were exotic enough but to imagine them with wings must have taken a traveller with extraordinary imagination which readers back home would find totally incredible.

The question remains, how much are we intended to know and to what purpose.  Will this knowledge change anything? Will we emerge from it better off? Will it make any difference at all? If we have belief, then we surely already know that a benevolent universe intends that we overcome our shortcomings through striving towards perfection.

The Spirit World Revealed

Plato

 

Raymond Moody

Several eminent psychiatrists from the middle of the 20th century have stumbled inadvertently into the spirit world in the course of their professional activity of dealing with clients with psychological disorders. The now celebrated Raymond Moody was among the earliest and coined the phrase Near Death Experience (NDE). In his book Life After Life ( 1975) which sold over 13 million copies, he presented  the gist of his findings from 150 case studies he had the opportunity to research. His book then also inspired a movie of the same name winning an award in the New York Film Festival.  The cases invariably revealed peaceful and painless transitions after death, the phenomenon of floating up to observe the body and those surrounding it, movement through a tunnel with radiant light at the other end, beings with glowing inner light, including deceased relatives and friends receiving the incoming soul, later encountering a powerful spiritual being which they identified differently, depending on their religious background, a life review exercise, and mostly a reluctance to return to complete the unfinished mission on the physical plane on account of the peace, tranquility, love and joy experienced on the spiritual plane. Moody as a professional psychiatrist remained sceptical as his later book The Last Laugh seemed to indicate, confusing his readers, till just a few years ago when he finally conceded that he no longer had any doubt of a life beyond death. He emerges on the internet’s You Tube interviews as a dynamic, genial and exuberant personality overwhelmed by the knowledge gained from his clients NDEs. There is also a Raymond Moody Institute on the internet to share his ideas on several related subjects.

Karl Schlotterbeck

Karl Schlotterbeck, another psychiatrist was on the other hand forced to concede reincarnation when his regression therapies, taking clients to their earliest childhood, produced unexpected past-life regressions. He averred that his goal in past-life therapies was always to provide ‘relief not belief. His book ‘ Living Your Past Lives (1987) also became a bestseller.

Brian Weiss

We then come across the now famous  Brian Weiss who like the preceding two was a staunch professional psychiatrist with distinguished association with Columbia and Yale universities. However his professional amazing encounter with one Catherine in 1980, suffering from panic attacks and phobias proved conclusive in overcoming his scientific scepticism. Placed under hypnosis she informed him of the presence of his deceased father and infant son in the room as spirits, with the full background of their demise and also the several past lives she had lived. He avers that there was no way she could have had access to the information. Weiss went on to write his bestseller Many Lives Many Masters ( 1988 )  and became a celebrity interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. In addition to affirming reincarnation he also spoke of Master Spirits and their messages coming through the patient, regarding the purpose of life, planes of spiritual existence, divinity within us, the movement of spirits after death to their appropriate levels of comfort and experience, constant support by spirits for incarnated souls, growth of spirits in the spiritual realms, reincarnation in physical bodies being a critical process for spiritual growth, the body being a vehical for spiritual development.

Eben Alexander

We then come across the curious case of Eben Alexander an eminent American neurosurgeon who taught at Duke university, Havard medical School, University of Massachusetts and Virginia with impressive record of activity in the field. Alexander developed meningitis-induced coma in 2008 and survived against all odds to report his NDE during coma – the splendour beyond the grave with angel like beings. departed relatives, splendid scenic beauty, souls cavorting in the sky and souls dancing below with butterflies and waterfalls. Alexander before the coma was a thoroughly sceptical individual with no spiritual beliefs. He miraculously recovered when all had given up. What induced him to return was the intense love of his 10 -year-old son. After his recovery he was a totally transformed man. He now intends to spend the rest of his life investigating the nature of consciousness and communicating the results of his research to scientists and people at large. His book, just released, ‘Proof of Heaven’ has been on the New York Times’ bestseller list now for 35 weeks and he has a unique website on the internet devoted to his experience with video talks. Alexander has among others been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and Larry King ( easily available on the internet for those interested).

All the persons mentioned above have met not only with criticism from the scientific establishment but ridicule for their ‘alarmingly unscientific’ approach to the subject as professional scientists.

The numerous NDE and Past life Regression cases researched by these psychiatrists take us, way beyond scriptural pronouncements, philosophical assumptions and scientific theorizing and hypothesis by some scientists ( branded as pseudo-scientists), in showing that a purposeful universe is attended by a realm of the spirit which is finally seeking, with caution, to reveal itself through the medium of Near Death Experiences and Past Life Regression.

One is also reminded by the furious media interest and millions of copies of the publications being sold, of the ever growing exponential interest among the masses all over the world on the subject, and of the prediction by James Redfield ( The Celestine Prophecy), Peter Russel (The Awakening Earth) and Lynne Mc Taggart (The Field) that a Consciousness Age and a Zero Point Age was now surely emerging in the 20th and 21st centuries moving us from an Information Age to a Consciousness Age of the spirit.

The Spirit World: Through a Near Death Experience

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We began our exploration of the spirit world with a conception about the soul and its reincarnation, through Hindu scriptures, mainly the Gita. Later we compared the concept as appearing in Christian and Judaic theology, with the emerging thought on the subject by New Age scholars and writers, particularly James Redfield and GaryZukav. New Age concepts of the soul were remarkably similar to  Hindu concepts, allowing both reincarnation and effects of the law of Karma, yet different when viewing it as less than  divine and quite fallible, though ethereal.

I also sought to link the investigations and discoveries of quantum physics and biology with metaphysical thought, showing that science and spiritualism reflected similar thinking on the theme of the basic unity of the universe and our own existence, through the writings of scientists like Fritjof Kapra, David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake and scholars like Renee Weber, Lynne McTaggart, Peter Russel and James Redfield. We also viewed the practice of meditation and visualization, particularly of pioneers like Jose De Silva to link the resulting para normal abilities they impart to practitioners, with an interlinked purposeful and benign universe.

The next step would be to probe the spiritual world itself to the extent that it allows us to unravel its closely kept secrets. Scriptural pronouncements and the theology of different religions over millenia have indeed sought to provide theories and presumptions about the nature of God and the spiritual realms and for believers and the faithful this presumably is satisfactory and sustaining. But lately over the past century ‘Near Death Experiences’, Hypnotic Regression and mediums appear more intensively to have unravelled the spiritual world’s closely guarded secrets, one can only imagine with its deliberate sanction, for a purpose. The revelations appear to be remarkably corroborative of each other and match many New Age presumptions and speculations on the subject. While there is a whole range of literature on the subject, I will only review some of  the books that have had a profound influence on me in shaping my thoughts to present a gist of their revelations of the spiritual world.

Betty J. Eadie

I would like to begin with a New York Times bestseller, ‘Embraced by the Light’ by Betty J. Eadie (Bantam Books 1992). Betty wrote of her extraordinary Near Death Experience during a major surgery. First hovering near the ceiling she saw her body below. Three stately glowing spirits who had ‘known her for an eternity’ materialized to comfort and reassure her with love before she felt as if being drawn into a great tornado which swallowed her. Then through this dark tunnel she rushed towards a glowing figure of celestial brilliance and was embraced by it in love and reassurance. She felt that the figure could be none other than Jesus.

So many questions were instantly answered. All religions upon earth were necessary because people needed what they taught. Each church fulfilled spiritual needs that possibly others could not for a particular people. All were important and precious. Very special people with important missions had been placed in all countries. Spirits in the spirit world took part in the continuous process of creation on earth. Prototypes of planets and solar systems were first created on a spiritual plane like blue prints, later being translated to reality on the physical plane. Souls incarnated on earth for a time so as to assist their spiritual growth through the earthly experience. As spirits we had a mission on earth chosen by us. Spirits of family members also bonded with us to help us complete our mission and their’s. All were valiant spirits even the least developed ones. We remained free to act in any way we pleased without any intervention by providence. We learnt important lessons both from joy and sorrow. The battle between the spirit and the body helped in developing both. Love, compassion and service of others helped the spirit grow enormously. Both positive and negative  experiences of life were chosen by us as spirits for our development. Even the cause (often painful and traumatic) and timing of our death was by choice. Difficult lessons were learned at the close of life. Our greatest challenges became our greatest teachers.

Betty’s spirit travelled to different realms of the spirit world. She encountered a library of thought for acquiring knowledge. There were areas where spirits gathered to exchange thought.

After death the spirit went to the level of development best suited for it where it would be comfortable. She met one enthusiastic spirit, brilliant and dynamic readying to incarnate as a mentally handicapped person as that would help both it and the parents spirits to grow in dealing with the trials and tribulations of dealing with the handicap. Finally she returned to earth, as her death was considered premature and she had to complete the mission she had set herself. At the moment of descent she was surrounded by cheering angels who applauded her courageous decision to return.

Betty does not claim to be a scholar, mystic or philosopher. A householder with several children and grandchildren she is now a successful businesswoman. The daughter of a Sioux-Indian mother, she was reared in Nebraska, South Dakota. After her experience she became a counselor and hypnotherapist. She has appeared on television in the USA and Japan and participated in programmes in universities on Near Death Studies. In a word she is a quite ordinary person, like you or me, who happened to have such an extraordinary experience.

Her Christian upbringing doubtless moulded her phraseology and her experiences are interpreted within a Christian frame of thought and terminology. Thus in her slim book which sold several million copies, she refers to the soul simply as spirit. Given her brief journey into the spirit world from which she was sent back to ‘complete her unfinished mission’, there is reference to incarnation but no reference to reincarnation or rebirth. Furthermore, she identified the being of effulgent light that embraced her as Jesus himself. She also speaks of the dark forces of Satan and other negative entities who create hindrances in the path of spiritual development. It is possible that the references arise from her earthly mind-set framed in traditional Christian beliefs. But if we filter these aside through rational thinking we would still be left with the essence of her experiences.

For instance the moving out of the body to view it at death, the allowance to visit her family who were unaware of her death in the transition, the tunnel through which one passes on, the light at the end of the tunnel, the glorious radiant beings full of love and reassurance receiving her, the feeling of utter peace and tranquility rather than fear, the knowledge gained in a short span of time before her return of the need for all religions on earth, the spirit’s freedom of choice of birth on the physical plane in certain particular circumstances with abilities and disabilities that would help in its evolution, the glimpse of spirits or souls at different levels of evolution in the spiritual realms, the areas of the spiritual world dedicated to creation and inspiration, angelic beings that applaud the valiant spirits that descend to incarnate for their own evolution, the immense power of prayer and its response from the spirit world, the understanding that suffering is a necessary pre-requisite for growth and development, the acknowledgement that an apparently disabled person, a destitute and poverty striken person may indeed be an advanced soul on a path of evolution, therefore the need to eschew being judgemental, the fact that we  at all times are  being helped by a compassionate providence which may appear harsh for creating necessary trials and adverse circumstances for our development, indeed that we ourselves have selected the course of our roller coaster ride on the physical plane.

This case is important because it is related first hand, not through hypnotherapy or mediums. It is a first hand report of an experience, without the trammels of sophisticated analysis, philosophical interpretations or through the lens of theology and religious dogma. It therefore has its own unique value.

Later I propose in succeeding posts to present case studies of similar experiences in the clinics of eminent psychologists, parapsychologists, hypnotists and mediums, to throw more light on the world of spirit.

I will be concluding the series with the most extraordinary presentation of case studies of ‘life between lives’ by the eminent Master Hypnotherapist and psychologist Michael Newton PhD. Newton went beyond merely inducing past life experiences of his clients and focussed on the world of the spirit. His books are seminal in providing us a glimpse of what the spirit world is like, why souls incarnate, how  they evolve, and what are the ascending order of spirit leading to God. His facts are not based on hypothesis or speculation. He relies for his facts on the recounting by clients  under hypnosis of their soul’s home world. After being regressed beyond birth the clients subconscious reveals its hidden memories of life in the spirit world. ( More on Michael Newton’s book ‘Journey of Souls’ in a subsequent post )

This last book made the greatest impact on my thinking revealing in a rationally convincing manner what I had been unable to find even in scriptures, philosophical treatises or speculations by mystics of what the spirit world could be like. I am convinced that this has only become possible because mankind is now ready and mature enough to receive the information which hitherto has been held from it. the spirit world apparently now wishes within limits to reveal some of its secrets.

Credit: thespiritscience.net

New Age Soul: Zukav

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The Hindu view of the soul is that it is a spark of divinity within. Hindu culture and civilization revolves around this presumption and fundamental premise. The personality is the material garb which it dons to experience the physical plane and in the process refines its host to the level of its own perfection. At that point of the personality’s evolution it becomes synonymous with the soul, which then becomes liberated from the need to reincarnate.

The Christian and Judaic view is that the soul is the spiritual counterpart of the personality and acts through it on the physical plane. Unlike the Hindu view, here the soul is the actor and therefore assumes full responsibility for acts of omission and commission and upon the death of the personality, on the day of judgement it becomes answerable for them and is accordingly consigned to heaven or hell for all eternity. The soul is not the Spirit or the Holy Ghost and there is nothing divine about it.

The Hindu view stems from its Monism where divinity is ubiquitous and all is one and one is all. The Christian view arises from its Dualism where God alone is divine, whereas His creation  ( including the soul) is not. The Dualist view holds that the creator and his creation are distinct, whereas the Monist view is that the creator and His creation are one. For the Dualist the drop of water is separate from the ocean, for the Monist the drop becomes the ocean when it falls into it.

The New Age view proposed by writers like Gary Zukav veers towards the Hindu view with distinctive differences. New Age metaphysical thought (Fritzof Kapra, David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake, Lynne Mc Taggart, Renee Weber and others) endorses the Monist premise ( unity of everything). New age thinking reflects the Hindu view that souls are fragments of the Godhead, as a cup of water is of the ocean.

Gary Zukav

Zukav pictures the  soul as an immensely powerful concentration of spirit outside time, directly emergent from Godhead. If we imagined an entity like our sun on the ethereal plane , it would match Zukav’s conception. This glorious entity of high resonance, vibration and clarity, for some reason develops negativities, corruption and splintering in a minute part of itself (like sun spots on the face of the sun).The New Age conception is indeed, that the soul is Spirit ( unlike the Christian concept) but not divine (unlike the Hindu concept) as it is capable of developing flaws and getting splintered. It then by choice, wanting to eradicate the mole and heal the fault, incarnates through a massive reduction of its power, on the physical plane to heal itself. The personality into which it incarnates is those parts of the soul that require healing plus some luminous parts like compassion and love that it lends to the personality to aid in the process of healing during a lifetime.

Zukav also gives a novel twist to the theory of Karma, moving away from its determinism, to freedom of soul’s choice in reincarnation. He holds that the Law of Karma has no ‘moral dynamics’ as the universe is not judgmental. Karma cures negativities and aberrations which develop and seeks to heal them by presenting challenges and opportunities which exercise and test the personality in ways which help the healing process. As we are not aware what is being healed in a beggar, those suffering pain through loss of a child, a spouse or a catastrophe, we are not to judge but merely react with compassion. The healing process he terms as ‘balancing energy’.

Zukav holds that animals have group souls – cat group soul, horse group soul etc. Only humans have individual souls. Their combined activity contributes to the evolution of the group soul. Beyond the souls incarnating on the earthly plane are the ‘advanced levels of light’: Teacher and Guide souls are from these levels, as are Angels – all unblemished and therefore not affected by the law of Karma. There are also consciousnesses that we could term as Masters after whom many religious movements have developed. Beyond are ‘realms of light’ that can be termed as God.

Souls also incarnate together to heal, in relationships of parent-child, siblings, loving partners, and even adversaries, healing themselves and one another in the process through the challenges that such relationships produce.

Temptations and addictions are tools for healing. The more a soul endeavours to heal, the greater will be the challenges it will confront. Temptation and addiction are the ‘compassionate response’ of the universe to assist the process of healing. As healing takes place there is rejoicing in the nonphysical world and the soul  moves to a higher frequency of light.

The goal of life is to align your personality with your soul, accepting the wisdom and expertise of Teachers and Guides that come through intuition and hunches. This leads to ‘authentic empowerment’ when energy is released only in love, trust, forgiveness and compassion. This enables one to have a clear understanding of the process through which souls are endeavouring to heal on the physical plane.

Zukav’s book turned him into a New Age guru of sorts, selling more than three million copies and gaining an impressive following. He then proceeded to write a sequel, ‘Soul Stories’ citing cases to illustrate his thesis. There is now a Seat of the Soul Institute on the net for those who wish to explore, learn and experience his findings in greater depth.

The book profoundly influenced my own thinking, despite my firm belief in the unquestionable divinity of the soul. The adjustment in thinking that I made was to regard his concept of the soul as the extended subtle body in Hinduism, which is still in a kind of physical plane and to regard the ‘higher resonating entities’ as divinity. But the Soul Stories and other conceptions were all relevant in many other ways, particularly the ideas about transformation in human consciousness now occurring, which resonate with Russel’s dawning of a Consciousness Age and Mc Taggart’s Zero Point Age. All in all I seemed to be getting further in my search for the soul.

Science and Spirit – The Holy Grail : Lynne Mc Taggart’s Investigative Journalism

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Our tour has covered such luminaries both intellectuals and scientists as Peter Russel, Fritjof  Kapra, Gary Zukav, James Redfield, Renee Weber, David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake and  Jose De Silva. I now propose to review the writings of the eminent journalist Lynne Mc Taggart and her painstaking investigations in her tour de force of the subject. In what I consider her path breaking book ‘The Field’ (1999 Harper Collins, New York, copyright Lynne Mc Taggart ), Mc Taggart launched on what she described as her quest to ascertain the ‘Secret Force of the Universe’.

    Her research into different disciplines focussed on detecting an underlying Field that connects us all and everything. We have already seen ( Science and Metaphysics: Bohm) that the eminent physicist David Bohm conceptualized the existence of an ‘Implicate Order’ from which the material world unfolds and into which it enfolds again as ripples in a wave. We also saw the insightful biologist Rupert Sheldrake (   Biology and Metaphysics : Sheldrake’s Morphogenetic fileds) postulate ‘Morphogenetic Fields’ to explain diversity and evolution in a purposeful Nature.

Lynne Mc Taggart

Mc Taggart’s concern was to investigate the range of observations and research by scientists to highlight the crystalization of ideas about a unifying and underlying reality which has been gaining greater acceptance despite resistance from the conservative scientific mainstream.

She presented and traced for the lay man, much like Capra and Zukav had, the movement in scientific thought from the mechanistic Newtonian world view and Darwinian theory of random evolution to the interconnected world of Quantum Physics and the dissatisfaction of some scientists with the lack of scientific interest in applying these findings to our macro level of existence. She dwelt on their efforts to investigate our connection with this apparently intentional force in the universe. Through her investigative journalism she sought to find the scientific basis for this evolving ‘revolution’ in thinking. Her concerns were however not confined to academic conjecture but appeared to be driven by a need to tap into the ‘Field’ to search for a kind of alternative medicine of psychic and spiritual healing and miraculous cures.

 At the heart of the premise was a Zero Point Field, the vibrations between particles which themselves are knots of energy. A ceaseless exchange of energy takes place sourced from this Zero Point Field and in turn replenishing this inexhaustible reservoir of energy.

We need not here go into the mysteries and complexities of Quantum phenomena, which she explains, such as ‘non-locality’ and the startling effects that the act of observation have on particles, beyond noting briefly that in the former case an electron is seen to influence another particle instantaneously over any distance without exchange of energy, implying that a connection once established is retained even after they are separated over a great distance. In the latter case the act of observation effects the particles behaviour. These curious phenomena suggest the idea of an interconnected world in which  we as observers  are active participants which produce the reality we observe  through the act of observing. This is not unlike the mystical view of the ancients that the universe exists when we look at it but disappears when we look away.

Fritz Albert Popp

Mc Taggart dwells at length on the findings of Fritz-Albert Popp a German theoretical biophysicist who studied ‘ biophoton emissions’ of living organisms and even developed a machine for the purpose. Here again it is indicative of a force from which these emissions emerge, showing that at the macro level too there is a relevance of the quantum activity which we find at the micro level.

Mc Taggart’s investigations then move through the magical portals of ESP, linking its incredible feats and as yet unrealized potential also to the Zero Point Field.

She goes on to investigate research carried out at Stanford University to show the power of the mind to influence random outcomes in a machine deviced to study such phenomena. The effects of sacred sites and global interest in events portrayed on the TV on the machines in the programmes  appeared to change random outcomes to higher degrees of order, all indicative of the phenomenon of quantum mechanics being applicable at a macro level. The experiments appear to show that an act of will can affect the outcome and that by thinking we can create greater order out of random patterns. The question then arises whether the will can be applied to heal organisms. Research had shown that the will could be applied to affect bacteria, plants and cells. The conjecture was that all this was only possible because the Field, repository of all memory was being tapped into through these processes.

Some scientists had proposed that the brain itself was communicating through quantum processes within and consciousness was a global phenomenon occuring throughout the body, not merely the brain. Biology itself was a quantum process and as in Sheldrake’s Morphogenetic Fields memory resided in the ZeroPoint Field with the brain merely retrieving the information from the Field. Creativity, insight and intuition were all representative of this phenomenon.

Intention could therefore affect the probability of events, pre-empt disease before it developed, change the course of our lives. The universe was instantly present, embracing all time and space at a point – a kind of continumm of presence. Precognition, distance viewing and the ability in some to look into the future were indicative of this (these conceptions appear to be in synch with the physicist David Bohm’s Implicate Order and and the biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s Morphogenetic Fields).

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Mc Taggart also examined experiments carried out by the Indian mystic Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi through his Transcendental Meditation (TM), mass meditation exercises to show how these affected  the graph of crime in specified areas which were the focus of participating meditators. Other phenomena observed were the affects of mass will on the environment and weather. More experiments showed the healing effects of prayer on controlled groups of patients. All these phenomena were shown as examples of tapping into the Field of benign energy, a store house of universal memory. Mc Taggart concludes that with growing interest in the phenomenon a Zero Point Age was emerging  ( much like Peter Russel’s Consciousness Age in his book  The Awakening Earth).

Mc Taggart, encouraged by the universal response to her book launched into her next book ‘The Intention Experiment’ which sought to engage enthusiastic readers in active participation on the net to affect an experiment in biology.

Her writings became an inspiration for the production of a popular documentary on quantum physics and its relationship to paranormal phenomena – ‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ with interviews with scientists which illustrated some of  the complex phenomena investigated by her. 

Again I sat back to absorb the immensity of ideas proposed and to realign my thinking of the nature of the reality that surrounds us, shaping us as we too shape it.

Creative Visualization: Jose Silva

Credit: eligiblemagazine.com

Academic knowledge of the mystical and metaphysical, whether through spiritualism and the study of scriptures or through science cannot be fully satisfying per se, except for the scholar or theologian. For everyone else it would only carry more meaning if it did something for them. While it could have an affect through changing mind-set and outlook, behaviour and relationships, the ordinary common folk would want  it to go further in changing the very circumstances of life. They would like it to put it to practice and participate through some activity that could prove beneficial. they would want the practice to help things happen in their lives not only spiritually but materially as well.

If the Upanishads speak of a grand unity of which we are an integral part, Scientists speak of Implicate Order and Morphogenetic fields, why can we not connect with this benevolent matrix which they say is full of energy, intent, creativity to improve the circumstances of our lives, alleviate some of the misery and misfortune which afflict us, is a question which occurs to the ordinary and practical person. The answer is that over the ages such practices have indeed been widely prevalent and many have benefited from them. Healers, mediums, shamans, sages, saints, yogis and swamis have all opened doors for seekers, not merely holding out enlightenment in a distant future and on another plane but also processes through which one can mend our bodies, remove negatavities and alleviate suffering, even benefit materially.

Yoga, meditation, prayer, contemplation and lately visualization, each has helped us to ‘plug in’ to the universal matrix, the field or whatever else you choose to call it. These and many other are the channels for active participation to align with  and draw from the benevolent field. But as with the analogy of the radio and TV, mobile or Internet, the equipment needs to be fine tuned, the frequencies right and sympathetic to be able to receive the healing, empowering and fulfilling transmissions.

The practice now  growing ever more popular, that of visualization is a case in point in the present day and age. Visualization is a unique method of linking with the field to fulfill ones aspirations. This is not something which has suddenly been invented. It has been there all along under different labels and practices  by esoteric groups and mystical orders like Kabbalah, Free Masons, Theosophists, Rosicrucians etc. Their secrets have now emerged and become more universal under the label Visualization.

I first came across the concept in a book ‘Wisdom of the Mystic Masters’ published in the eighties. It spoke of Rosicrucian practices in visualization – how to tap the universal energy to heal oneself, those one loves and otherwise to obtain what one wants. The book explains that Creative Visualization is a kind of prayer. and what you visualize becomes actual fact. Persistent thoughts will turn into ‘thought forms’ and those into facts. The practice teaches you the techniques of visualization involving observing ones environment carefully in every detail. This is called Mind Control. When this is perfected memory improves, observation becomes more focussed. Then follows the actual visualization which consists in imagining in great detail, colour and sound a scene in which your most cherished wish is actually being portrayed on the screen.

Jose Silva

These techniques were further refined by the Guru of visualization Jose Silva. In the late seventies he published the ‘Silva Mind control Method’ which became a bestseller. Through his techniques he sought to improve memory, speed learning, creative sleep, creative speaking, practicing ESP, developing self-confidence, improving health – but above all a form of meditation called Creative Visualization to achieve the goals of ones life. His methods were so successful that major corporations adapted them to improve the performances of their employees. Performing artists, sportsmen and universities and colleges also introduced his programmes to improve skills and confidence. Several thousand Silva work shops came up in the USA alone.

At the heart of  Mind Control was the premise that what you visualize, you can actualize. Jose was a simple person from a large family in poverty who stumbled on some truths and insights and developed them in his own way. Before long he became famous and prosperous. However, he in developing the techniques refrained from going into the metaphysics of the method beyond stating that there was a higher intelligence in the universe which was efficient, responsive and benign and that his practices did not conflict with anyones faith. He held that energy converted to matter, thus the meditation produced actuality. He never sought to device  any grand spiritual or metaphysical theory averring that he was a simple and practical fellow.

His basic technique is to visualize the problem one is confronted with through a kind of dramatic clip on an imaginary screen in the mind. Next one shifts it from ones left to the right in a sliding action so as to bury it in the past which he believed was to the right. Next one visualizes some real hopeful signs in the solution of the problem ( a bad boss who finds something good in what you have done and is surprised). this dramatic scene is then made to slide again to the right. The last dramatic scene is pure imagination ( the boss reverses all his negative impressions of you), again sliding this to the right. Then one blanks out all thought. Prior to the visualization one is required to count backward from 100 = arriving at 0 one is in a state of emitting Alpha Waves, like we experience with rapid eye movements in deep sleep. This he believes is the right frequency for connecting with the benign universal field.

This concept was further developed by Shakti Gawain in her ‘Creative Visualization’ which also became a bestseller. She introduced many more fascinating details and elements like Prosperity Programming, Healing, Opening energy Centres, Meeting Your Guide, Entering Your Inner Sanctuary etc Gawain was more forthcoming on the metaphysics of the exercises.

Finally we have the eminent Deepak Chopra who in his ‘Seven Spiritual Laws of Success’ provided a practical guide to fulfilling dreams. Chopra is of course a New Age Guru well-known for his deep understanding of spirituality and metaphysics.

I have been a practitioner of these techniques for several decades. the authors warn that when the visualizations become fact one will tend to dismiss it as a coincidence but as the coincidences multiply the truth will dawn on us. They advise that one should note the facts in a diary to monitor the speed and frequency of the actualizations. they explain that the techniques do two things: One, help to focus our confused minds. half the time we ourselves are not clear what precisely we really want and the contradictory thoughts fail to send a clear signal to the field.The techniques help in focussing our thoughts and transmitting a strong unambiguous signal, to which the field responds immediately, actualizing our wishes and aspirations.

I kept that record recommended by them. 95% of the visualizations were actualized within a short space of time, sometimes even within 24 hours, though not precisely as I had visualized but close, in a form that actually served me better! Even seemingly impossible goals were achieved. Belief in its efficacy is important. It does not work if we are sceptical. It is also necessary to imagine that what has been visualized has already taken place – affirmation. And one last thing – all the teachers aver that only positive visualization works. You cannot engage the benign field to harm anybody – that just will not work.