Understanding Life Between Lives

                                                                                              Dr. Saumitra Mohan

            As a race, the humans have always struggled to find an answer to the perennial question relating to the reason and relevance behind creation of this world. Different communities and groups of people, belonging to respective religious denominations, have attempted their own answer as influenced by their spatio-temporal and cultural perspectives. But there definitely seems to be a clear divide between the Orient and Occident when it comes to matters of birth and death of the ‘soul’.

            While Abrahamic religions believe human life to be a one-off affair, eastern religions including Hinduism and Buddhism deem it to be an iterated game thereby pointing to the phenomenon of ‘rebirth and reincarnation’.       However, slowly the two religious polarities seem to be converging on the reality of ‘reincarnation’ of a soul after one’s physical death. The consensus seem to be gradually consolidating given the stronger proofs and corroborating evidence stemming from the empirical research including past life regression therapy findings.

            Most of these narratives, findings and accounts of rebirth stories have reinforced the hoary views of a ‘soul’ having a life independent of its physical host on a physical plane.  All these studies have simultaneously confirmed the incidence of past lives of reincarnated souls, but they all stumble when it comes to the inter-life phases. Almost all the religions have their beliefs about the post-mortem period, often described in detail as done in Hinduism, Christianity or Islam.

            However, they are all scriptural accounts based on mythical stories with no contemporary confirmation of the same. There have been many celebrated stories in recent times where some individuals have claimed to have experienced life after death. They are variously termed as ‘Near Death Experiences’ (NDE), ‘Out of the Body Experience’ (OOBE) or ‘After Death Experience’ (ADE). In many such cases, brain-dead or comatose people have recounted and described the incidents, events and happenings of the period during which they were declared medically dead by the physicians.

            While on the one hand, these people have accurately described the happenings in the operation theatre or outside when they were in coma or highly sedated state, having no means of knowing the same, some of them have also claimed to have visited heaven and seen God. Dr. Eben Alexander, a neuro-surgeion, has described his personal OOBE in his best-seller book ‘The Proof of Heaven’ as has the boy named Colton who claims to have met God in another best-seller book ‘Heaven is for Real’.

            The veracity and genuineness of all these claims regarding afterlife or Spirit World remain as questionable as those made by different religionists. In fact, all these empirical findings including past life regression therapies could not go beyond confirming the reality of past lives of reincarnated individuals.     It is against this background that two recent books namely ‘Journey of Souls’ and ‘Destiny of Souls’ by Michael Newton, an American Counselling Psychologist, appear to be quite interesting if not very relevant or convincing.

            But these two books do seem to fill the void left by most of the studies and research done on the subject. The claims made in the book often appear facetious and ludicrous, as the writer claims to have authored these books based on his studies of many of the real-life stories of his cases under hypnosis over the years. All his studies and findings are predicated on ‘past life regression’ therapies which use hypnosis as a tool to take subject back or forth in life to elicit inputs and feedback on the phenomenon of past life or afterlife.

            If we are to believe Michael Newton, then the life between lives is much more organised than we may have ever thought or imagined. The period after death and before next birth is the period described in detail by his patients during the specially-conducted past life regression sessions. According to Newton, the ‘afterlife’ or the ‘Spirit World’ is a much more beautiful and well-managed world, stewarded systematically and methodically by various tiers of wise and advanced souls. Our life on earth or other physical plane may not be so haphazard and chaotic as we often think, guided as they are by a subtle plan made in the ethereal world.

            According to these books, a young and uninitiated soul (predominant majority of souls being young) after one’s death is received and escorted to the Spirit World by their assigned Spirit Guide or Guardian Angel. Such departed souls are also received and welcomed by their near and dear ones to make them comfortable in the Spirit World. While young souls, because of their immaturity and attachment to this world, hover around their physically dead body or wish to stay on in their physical surroundings to comfort their loved ones before moving on, the very mature and old souls don’t waste their time.

            Knowing their way, they move straight to their home in the Spirit World. The latter immediately leave for their afterlife destination without awaiting their Spirit Guide or reception by their spiritual sympathisers who are actually friends or relatives from past lives. All these departed souls have claimed post-death life in their astral or spiritual bodies to be more real than the life in a physical form. However, the living human beings because of their finite sensory powers, generally can’t feel or sense the presence of a departed soul.

            All such souls, on their arrival, join their purported ‘Study Group’ for review and rebirth planning after a period of relaxation and rejuvenation. The burden of a physical life on earth, said to be one of the most difficult of all the physical worlds, is also said to be tiring enough for the soul to warrant an extended period of respite and recreation before getting down to the serious business of review of the life lived and planning for the next life.      

            Newton’s subjects confirm the existence of parallel worlds or dimensions on earth as well as life on many other planets. With innumerable physical worlds existing, only a fraction of the souls are said to reincarnate on earth. A good number of these souls use inter-planetary or inter-dimensional travel as study or excursion visits for recreation, knowledge or future birth planning before zeroing in on a particular dimension or world for their reincarnation depending on their learning needs. Such travels are also undertaken under the supervision of the more advanced souls to fix some of the design problems of the physical worlds. Many of these dimensions or physical worlds, other than earth, are named and described in the books along with the kind of life lived thereon.

            Against the long-held belief of existence of a hell or a purgatory for punishment of the ‘so-called’ fallen, impious and non-virtuous souls, these books talk against any shaming of an individual soul in the Spirit World. At most, the very impossibly wicked and misguided souls are isolated and intensely counselled, but usually most of the souls are said to be assigned to different study groups of souls who are under one or the other wise Spirit Guide. The latter use multiple means to interact with the souls in their groups to drive home the right messages and lessons.

            In all these review sessions, Akashik records or what Newton’s subjects call three-dimensional ‘Life Book’ are an important and effective instrument whereby the souls could revisit their past lives or plan their future lives by toying with various alternatives and options. The proposed future life or lived past life is often created or recreated out of extant atmospheric energy particles with varying alternatives before taking a final call. Self-will of an individual soul is said to be the deciding factor rather than forcing any soul to exercise a particular choice.

            This does supposedly conflict with the Hindu Karma Theory, but as it appears, the souls usually converge to take a view of their future life which more or less converges with the Karmic accounts of Hinduism. The souls, on their own seeking, choose to punish themselves for a mistake or purported sin in their next life to experience an emotion or difficulty to learn the lessons required for their spiritual advancement.

            The rebirth of a soul is, therefore, planned and timed with the rebirth of other souls in the same cluster with whom give and take account remain to be settled. Notwithstanding there being a pre-ordained determinism about our lives on physical planes, the same remain confined to the major aspects and events of our lives. Our free will and past life amnesia still cause us to keep chopping and changing with our life plans while interacting with the real life situations and reacting to the sundry societal and natural forces.

            As told by many other studies and declamations on the afterlife, the souls in the Spirit World are usually clustered with their primary or secondary soul mates to review and plan their life. But it is possible that some of the souls, even though belonging to the same clusters, may be grouped as different study group because of less or advanced level of the spiritual advancement of a particular soul. The Spirit Guides or Advanced Souls, interacting with the souls in these study groups, confine themselves to suggestions and counselling.

            But as the Spirit World is peopled by the souls devoid of the burden of a physical body and accompanying emotions, the souls under the guidance of their Guides take the most apposite decision as may be suitable for the advancement of their individual souls. The souls also may decide not to take birth for a substantive period of time, spending more time in review, rumination and cogitation. The souls are said to have enough time and opportunity for recreation and amusement between their study periods. Many of the souls also prefer rebirth on other planets or dimensions, depending on the learning requirements.

            Against the long-held Hindu belief of a ‘soul’ being unborn and perennial, Newton’s subjects talk about the phenomenon of creation of newer souls through soul-splitting or energy restructuring who are first nurtured carefully before being sent to the different physical worlds. Even though this author does not subscribe to the same, this somehow explains the rising population on earth though Hinduism explains the same in different ways including extinction of other life forms, rebirth from other dimensions and physical worlds. Newton’s subjects also talk against the possibility of humans reincarnating as animals, the latter being very lower forms of energy as also suggested by the studies conducted by the people like Swami Abhedananda, Dr. Brian Weiss or Dr. Ian Stevenson.

            The other startling revelation in Newton’s book relate to the phenomenon of splitting of ‘soul energy’. Newton’s subjects say that most of the souls have the ability to continue to exist in multiple worlds simultaneously. Some souls also venture two simultaneous lives in parallel physical worlds to speed up their evolution, but attempting two lives in the same family or same world is said to be wastage of one’s energy. While a predominant majority of souls prefer existence in physical worlds, where there are still many who love to remain in spiritual, mental or extra- physical dimensions.

            The physical world is said to be as illusory as the spiritual world because of its ever-changing character, generally unfathomed by the living beings. The spiritual world, in fact, is said to be more real than the physical world as is the joy and fun of living in a spiritual life. The souls not only have all kinds of fun and recreation in the Spirit World, they are also able to live a life of their choice, slowly attempting to move up the ladder of spiritual evolution to get an opportunity to meet the Maker, literally.

            As the souls advance, they also get to learn the skill of creating aspects of physical life or forms of life out of energy manipulations, modifications, or restructuring under the guidance of a Spirit Guide. All the mind-boggling beauty and diversities in the physical world, thus, appear to be the handiwork of innumerable intelligence. The souls are capable of creating anything out of their energy by merely thinking about the same.

            All the communication or movement in the Spirit World is said to happen through telepathy or teleportation. The souls usually project respective customised images of themselves matching their past life relations while communicating with other souls in the Spirit World. While communication does happen freely without any inhibition or complexity in the Spirit World, the souls still retain the ability to block certain thoughts to other souls as do the Spirit Guides or the Advanced Souls to avoid being revealing the larger plan of the Supreme Being.   

            It is suggested that rarely do souls use all their ‘soul energy’ during a physical life as the physical body may not take the load and circuits of the brain may burst due to ‘energy overload’. They say that an advanced soul uses only 25% of its ‘soul energy’ during its physical life, while a young soul uses as much as up to 70% of the same. With more soul energy, the brain’s capacity to do the impossible gets enhanced as often reported for many clairvoyant and psychic individuals.

            Scientifically, it has been claimed that an ordinary human being uses only 10% of one’s brain. Many of the great scientists are said to have accessed the Cosmic Consciousness, as the humongous inter-connected database of all the soul consciousness of all the worlds in this cosmos because of which we have periodic scientific and intellectual jump in our life.

            So, depending on the lessons to be learnt and difficulties expected to be faced, a soul carries a part of its energy to its physical life, while leaving another part in the Spirit World for continuing the life there. This also explains how a newly-arrived soul in the Spirit World is received by his near and dear ones even though they may still be continuing their lives in the physical world including earth. Depending on the level of a soul, a soul while in a physical life, is also accompanied by its Guardian Angels who either take birth with them in one of the roles or who keep sending messages to the souls under their tutelage.

            This is why we always are more attached to a particular person/s in our life to whom we keep gravitating in our time of need and desperation. Many of our brainwaves, hunches or split-second escapes from disasters in our life are said to be the handiworks of these Guardian Angels or Guides in our life. As most of the souls are said to be young compared to the life of the cosmos, the problems and chaos experienced in the physical worlds are supposed to get settled and fixed as the souls mature and become wiser.

            Most of our sparring and attrition in the world today is because of the fact that most of the souls are simply not aware of their purpose of being born because of which they keep running after mythical comforts than stuffs as may add permanent values to their spiritual journey. With the number of advanced and wise souls increasing, more and more development, expansion and extension of cosmic consciousness and life could be experienced on earth and other physical worlds.

            Even though the above description and account appear apocryphal and far-fetched, at least, the same does provide an insight into something, mostly unknown thus far. This corroborates many of the already-known phenomena and beliefs of the religionists or past life researchers. In the absence of any authentic or scientific confirmation of this aspect of our life, Newton’s books do venture into an uncharted terrain, affording a glimpse of the life between lives. One only hopes that with time, more and more people would find time to delve into this facet of our life to discover and reveal the real purpose behind the creation of this humongous cosmos.