Past Life Regression

For Christmas I was given a CD meditation to induce past life regressions, something I have always wanted to do given my absolute belief in multiple lives (see Reincarnation Dilemma, 4-26-09). I was thrilled with the idea of spending a quiet evening being hypnotized by this thing and seeing who I was and where I'd been before I was the me I am right now. Thrilled, that is, until I foolishly decided to mention it to someone who burst that bubble of mine in short order with, and I hate to admit this, some very valid points.

Being hypnotized and brought back to one's past lives is a tricky thing as you never know exactly what you're going to encounter, including the possibility of reliving your death in those various incarnations, which might be a bit unsettling for some. It was suggested to me that this might not be something I'd want to undertake alone. Having a trained professional in the room with you, guiding you and bringing you out of your trance quickly and carefully if need be, is probably a very good thing. After all, who wants to relive a previous death of theirs all by their lonesome, even if it is just a mental exercise and even if the meditator has no fears about death?

Like just about everyone, I do have other fears and neuroses and I was asked, "What if you have this particular fear in this life because of a very traumatic, violent death in a another life? Are you really prepared to live through that ordeal again alone in your living room?" Hmmm. What if you have this fear as you were the one who inflicted this pain on another and your karmic debt is to suffer from the oftentimes debilitating fear of it this time around? Frankly, I'm not sure how well I would deal with the knowledge of having been someone who was violent and evil in another lifetime, a fact that however awful, is just as possible as my having been a decent person too.

And these two innocent questions were just the beginning. All sorts of "what if" scenarios popped into my overly active, highly imaginative mind. And they all boiled down to whether or not I should do this by myself and the answer is "probably not." I still desperately want to do this and I am still in love with my little gift, but maybe the first time I undertake this journey it should be done with someone who has both a sound reputation and a great deal of experience in this field. Then when I have gotten my feet wet with someone who can help me digest whatever information I might learn about myself, then and only then should I do it on my own. And when I do, I'll be sure to keep my mouth shut about it until afterwards!

Reincarnation Dilemma

When I was just shy of two years old, I wandered out of my playroom with a long dark brown colored pencil in my hand and sought out my mother. I then put the pencil in my mouth, took an imaginary puff from my “long black cigarette” and told my mother that before I had died and been reborn I used to smoke these. Naturally, my mother freaked out. She called my aunt and by the time my aunt had arrived at our house, I was no longer talking about my past life. Some people believe in reincarnation and others think it’s a big load of bunk, but just about everyone has a strong opinion about it. Not surprisingly, I personally believe very strongly in it. I only wish that I were still able to conjure up memories of my past life (or lives), but unfortunately for most people, that ability fades away very quickly the longer we remain on this earthly plane, and usually while we are still quite young.

My father passed away in 1980 when I was 16 years old and not a day has gone by that I haven’t missed him more than I could ever express in words. Through these many years I’ve had a great many visitations from him in my dreams. How do I know these were visitation dreams and not just ordinary dreams? Visitation dreams are incredibly vivid in every last detail and stay with you forever, as rich years later as they were the moment you first woke from them. Every single detail of my father’s visitations remain in my mind in super sharp focus, as opposed to just dreams about my father, the particulars of which all faded within hours of my waking. I hold the visitation dreams dearly in my heart, every last one of them.

Back in 2003, I had a very vivid and uncomfortably intense visitation dream from my father and was certain that the purpose of it was for him to say goodbye to me once again as he was preparing to reincarnate. I’ve held on to that dream in my heart and in my mind for six years now and only recently spent some time discussing it with a shaman who agrees with me that it was in fact a reincarnation dream as he was coming back to this plane in another form and he needed to say his final goodbye to me. I have had some very conflicted feelings since I first had the dream and they’ve only intensified since talking with the shaman. While I am happy that my father has moved on to the next stage of his soul’s journey, I can’t help but feel lost and abandoned all over again. I know it’s selfish of me to wish he were still watching over me, but it’s nothing if not completely honest. After all, I have lived my life for the last 29 years believing that when it’s my time to die, my father will be there (wherever “there” is) waiting for me and it’s the belief that I will see him once again that has kept me unafraid of death for nearly three decades and honestly looking forward to that time when I will be with him once more. But if he’s not there anymore because he’s back here as someone I don’t know, what will happen when I die? And when I go there, will I then be alone there too? My talk with the shaman has shattered my personal belief system and I’m now no longer sure what to think or how to feel.

This is one of the dilemmas we face with reincarnation: at some point we all need or choose to come back and where does that leave our loved ones that we yet again leave behind? It’s something that I have occasionally questioned, but without a great deal of concern until now, when someone I love so much is simply gone. Now really gone. I know when we die and when it’s our turn to return, we don’t fret over what or who we have left behind, but how do those of us who have been left behind handle the knowledge that those we have loved have begun a new life somewhere with no knowledge of us and all we shared anymore in their minds or hearts? Reincarnation, like so many other rites of passage in our lives, clearly contains within it a great deal of pain and conflict.

That’s what my heart is telling me, but my head just thinks that because my dad is gone again and really gone for good now, that this sucks more than anything. And now nothing is the same, nor will it be ever again, and I don't like it at all.