In last week's entry I mentioned the fact that when our friends first presented us with the "news" that we'd known each other before in several past lives, I kind of freaked out a bit. This was in 1992 and I was still pretty rooted in the conventional western, Judeo-Christian paradigm. But I was also on the verge of making some pretty big shifts in my life and having the notion of past lives put squarely in front of me only helped to widen the cracks of openness that were beginning to appear within me.

I chuckle now when I think back to my reactions at the time. It's not like I'd done a major investigation into the whole idea of past lives and found the concept lacking credibility! No, I just had vague notions of what it meant, that it had something to do with another notion called "karma" and that it was something that Hindus and Buddhists and such believed. It also seemed that lots of people who were enthralled with their past lives usually claimed to have been someone famous – or infamous! – in a past life and that always stuck me as just their personal delusions. I wasn't even really sure what the "official" verdict was from the Church's perspective. I just knew that western Christians didn't believe in past lives. It wasn't what "we" considered to be the Truth . . .

But mostly, from a personal standpoint, I was concerned about what the concept of past lives meant in relationship to the fierce belief I had – and still hold – about Free Will. Any ideas or beliefs that seemed to undermine my God-given Free Will were met with great resistance on my part. And it's not that I was one of those theologians who were into being an apologist for mainstream Christian dogma and doctrine. I've always been a questioner and challenger to so-called authority figures. Even in high school. On one occasion as a senior in our religion class on marriage and family, the priest teaching the course made some sexist comment, pronouncing it as if it were just a given, and I responded with an indirect, but very audible "Bulls___t!" My classmates were shocked! And so was the priest, who really didn't know how to respond so unexpected was my challenge to what he'd said!

So again, it's not like I was a fierce defender of Church teachings. But I had thoroughly absorbed and taken to heart the Christian assumption that "this is the only life you have so make the best of it or pay the consequences." And while I took this seriously, I was also quite troubled by it. For one thing, it created within me a pathological fear of making mistakes, of making the wrong decisions, the residual effects of which I still must consciously deal with as I live my current life. When I did allow myself to think of this idea that we have only one chance to "get it right with God" it stuck me as really unfair! Even more, it really seemed to undermine the whole point of God creating us with Free Will. It really felt like a set-up and that didn't seem right. Something in the western Judeo-Christian paradigm seemed off kilter. But what?

When the cracks in my existing mental frameworks began to widen and I began to open my mind to what the concept of past lives was really all about, I had an epiphany: this current life of mine isn't my ONLY chance to "get things right with God!" WOW!

I cannot describe the sense of release and freedom this realization created within me as someone who'd always been a very serious "student" of theology, and not just for academic purposes, but out of  deep personal desire to know and understand God and myself in relationship to God. With this epiphany, however, the crippling grip of needing to be perfect and not make mistakes broke and crumbled at my feet. And, more importantly I started to have a greater understand of who and what I TRULY was as a BEING created in the image and likeness of God.

And so, in my work with clients and students, I am very upfront about the whole past life issue. And this is the gist of what I share with them:

First and foremost, you are a Spiritual Being, a Soul – an individuated spark of God Consciousness that was birthed forth from the Source, from Mother/Father God – that is capable of taking on “form” in order to “experience" life. Our physical bodies are just one of the “vehicles” through which we can experience the many myriad realms of God's creation.

And so, sooner or later, when we start to wake up to the fullness of who we are as Spiritual Beings, we start to wake up to the FACT that as a Soul, we have had many, many different “life” experiences and at many different levels and dimensions of existence. And, for many of these experiences we have chosen to incarnate into a PHYSICAL BODY and we have done this many times and for many different reasons.

But when I’m talking about “reincarnation” I’m not talking about it as religious belief as understood say within Hinduism or Buddhism. I’m talking about it as the simple FACT that YOU are an eternal Soul that is capable of taking on human physical form, a form that has a finite duration, which we call a lifetime. And, whether you consciously remember this or not, you have incarnated or taken on a physical vehicle -- MANY, MANY, MANY times -- and not just on Planet Earth! 

If the idea of past lives and reincarnation is a challenging concept for you to get your mind around, it's likely butting up against the belief systems or world views that you’ve been taught or absorbed. But I challenge you to consider that reincarnation is not a "belief." It is a Universal Truth. It is the reality of who we are as Souls.

AND, [here's the really important part] when we are able to wake up out of the sleep that we tend to fall into when we come into a body on this Planet where the general consciousness is very low and compacted, when we are able to REMEMBER our true nature as a Soul who has had many, many lifetimes and experiences, we are then able to open up to levels of the healing and spiritual development process that are otherwise closed to us when we do not have an awareness of this Truth about our Soul’s journey.

My bottom line, then, on the whole past life issue is that by opening mentally to this Truth, we allow ourself to heal and grow and serve in deeper and more expansive ways than are available to us when we still think of ourselves in a small, one-life way. It seems like so much "existential angst" could be dissipated by opening to this greater understanding of who we are.

And while someday I may expound more on this point, let me conclude this story of my Soul's journey by saying that my heart rests a lot easier because I did finally wake up and open to the Truth of myself as an Eternal Soul created with genuine Free Will by a Loving and Great God who gives me opportunity after opportunity to freely choose on the side of Love in all that I do and who does not judge or condemn me when I fall short of what I am capable of.

On that note, I'll sign off for this week.

Namaste,
Julia

Next week's topic: Fresh Thoughts on Free Will