Child prodigies represent evidence of reincarnation

To me, only soul memory after being reincarnated can explain how a 5-year old asks to play the violin, and by 10, is able to play at such a high level of competence that I am reminded of Vengerev, a Russian violinist. Vengerev plays the violin in a manner which he claims reflects the intention of the composer. I found his style most impressive.

There have been so many examples of little children, normally under the age of 6 to 8, who display musical skills of a very high level, to suggest that their souls simply required expression in their current lives.

I am inclined to this view not only because of the very substantial evidence of past-life memories of children all over the world, obtained by competent researchers, but also by intimations of my past life as a Muslim warrior (confirmed by a clairvoyant spontaneously) – while I remain a metaphysical Hindu in this life. Explanation? Replace war with peaceful consultation and co-operation. I am still learning.

Here are 2 examples of past skills surfacing early in life, which I obtained from the Internet (“Are child prodigies evidence of reincarnation?”)

“ Akrit Jaswal is a Punjabi adolescent who has been hailed as a child prodigy who has gained fame in his native Punjab (India) as a physician, despite never having attended medical school.”

“Kim Ung-Yong was a guest student of physics at Hanyang University from the age of 3 until he was 6.[1]. At the age of 7 he was invited to America by NASA.[1]. He finished his university studies, eventually getting a Ph.D. in physics at Colorado State University [1] before he was 15. In 1974, during his university studies, he began his research work at NASA[1] and continued this work until his return to Korea in 1978.”
Convinced?

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POETRY FOR THE SOUL (PART 2)

Tieme Ranipiri’s uplifting spiritual poetry ‘My Law’ (refer my post of 2 May 2018) uplifts the soul, irrespective of one’s faith. My thanks to Joseph Potts and George Armstrong for their comments. The author is obviously a sensitive and spiritual person.

This poetry also resonates with my Hinduistic mind. As a metaphysical Hindu, I am aware that Hinduism is like the River Indus. Powerful tributaries of thought and insight flow into a massive river of faith. This latter river permits fresh input, as well as deviations, causing no concern to those spiritually uplifted by going with the flow.

There is no authoritative Good Book (as with the 3 ‘desert’ religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). There are no authoritarian institutions associated with my non-ritualistic faith. My path to God does not deny the value of any other path. Of course, the ethical codes of the known major religions cannot diverge one from the other – not when they all share the same Creator, and with whom they seek to commune.

The massive river of Hindu faith surely contributes to the Ocean Of Consciousness, from which we are said to have arisen; just as the River Indus contributes to the single ocean of Earth. As the latter ocean sustains life on Earth, so this former Ocean of Consciousness sustains human souls during their purification process through many Earthly lives. So mought it be!

The wonder of past-life memories

I was born into a Hindu family living among Muslim Malays. Is there significance in the environs of my birth? I believe so. I found the Malays an incredibly tolerant people, especially with their rulers under the boot of colonial British; and with a great influx of fellow Asians from China, India, and Ceylon onto their land. I felt at peace with Islam as demonstrated by our host-people. I was then not aware of my intuited link with Islam in my past life.

It was decades later, when I began to read about religion (and religions), and when the prejudice and discrimination of White Australia began to impact upon my life chances (but without conscious emotional effect), that I was strangely drawn to the red sands of Central Asia.

Islamic architecture entranced me. Their designs and colours seemed familiar. Indeed, when I was drawing up designs for my stained-glass hobby, I found myself sketching designs which, only much later, I discovered reflected the designs of mosques in Central Asia. I found this incredible.

So, this was where I had been a warrior. My clairvoyant friend, in one of her spontaneous visions, saw me on a black stallion, wearing a long white cloak, and carrying a scimitar (which she described as a long sword.)

So, I was re-born into a Hindu family but living in a Muslim environment. There was thus some continuity in my passage through Earthly lives.

How do souls retain mind and memories?

This question arises from my real experience when I began to investigate e.s.p. (extra-sensory perception), otherwise known as psychic phenomena. My initial exposure to a clairvoyant, and his extra-ordinary and quite inexplicable skills, involved the manifestation of my favourite uncle’s spirit.

Incredibly, my uncle communicated psychically with the clairvoyant, obviously heard a comment I had made to the clairvoyant (by responding to it), and displayed his memory of a relevant segment of his recent Earthly life, and referred to his knowledge of the tragedy I had experienced long after his demise.

It was obvious that this insubstantial entity, while thus lacking a brain, ears and eyes, had retained – more than 4 decades after the cremation of his body – his Earthly mind and its memories; and was able to offer advice to me about my spiritual advancement (implying an awareness of my potential future).

How could a spirit, presumably residing in what I refer to as the Afterlife, also retain capabilities normally associated with an efficiently operating human on Earth – to hear, think, speak (mentally in his situation), and probably see as well? Here is evidence that, at death, the soul of a human being continues as a spirit in another dimension, retaining both mind (with its memories) and sense-and-brain related facilities. Unthinkable!

As for our physical organs of sense – the known 5 – what is seen, heard, tasted, touched and smelt – need to be processed and stored in the brain. The mind, clearly associated with the brain, may not be resident in the brain. Indeed, I use my mind to search the brain for recorded memories.

Yet, the brain can also project information even before I begin the search. I have had this experience doing crossword puzzles. Sometimes, my brain also projects relevant information before I ask my mind to go search. Here I am proposing that my ego (my personality) is indeed separate from my mind; the latter being a facility.

Thus, does memory, associated with the brain as a storage facility, also exist outside the brain? How else could the soul of a human being take both mind and the memories contained therein into the Afterlife? (Denying the existence of souls, the Afterlife, and the capabilities of spirits is not now an option for me. Experienced reality cannot be denied by closing one’s mind.)

In this or any other context, I do not accept the concept of an Akashic Record which registers every action of every human being on Earth. What would be the objective of such a massive record of inconsequence? Confusingly, I lost the memory of quite a few faces through my heart attack. A few years later, progressively this memory was recovered.

Did changes take place in my brain enabling recovery of memory? Or, was relevant memory reinstated from outside my brain? Is this not a relevant question? While the recall of memory reportedly involves the whole brain, the impetus of such a memory search would have to be the mind. In my case, it was a conscious search for memory.

Food for thought?

(Refer my previous post “Where resides the soul?”)

Where resides my soul?

As a metaphysical Hindu (that is, one beyond rituals), I accept that the Cosmic Creator (not necessarily a physical entity), as both transcendent and immanent, may have a presence in all that is created. A fragmentary essence of this Creator could thus be within me. I have read that this presence is located in a walnut-sized space within my heart.

Is this presence my soul, the real me, that traveller through time, through repeated re-births? That cannot be. That is because each soul is said to be polished (improved morally or spiritually) through the reincarnation process, and then returned to be boundless Ocean of Consciousness (or Aether) from which it is said to have risen. A fragment or essence of the Creator will surely not need to be polished.

Rather, its role may be to remind me that, in times of travail, I need only look within me for succour and spiritual (and mental) peace. The lessons of Destiny – both personal and communal – do need to be accepted with equanimity.

My soul is clearly a unique insubstantial entity, the essential me, carrying the compound lessons acquired through a series of past lives. Does it remain a passive record keeper, uninvolved in the normal turbulence of life? Or, does it, in its own interest, influence me by allowing me intimations (on occasions) of my immediate past life?

I have become somewhat sensitised to this influence through: some instinctive responses to events; visions of a past life through auto-hypnosis; information offered by a psychic healer whose Spirit Healer can apparently read my past life traumas; and my ‘casual’ clairvoyant who saw me as I apparently appeared in my immediate past life. I await, with hope, further illumination.

Developing my ‘third-eye’ vision may enable me to become more intuitive about such matters. I doubt, however, whether the embodied I will ever know what the essential I (my soul) is doing.

What I would like to know is whether my soul resides in my body, or whether it surrounds me as an ethereal (or cloud) entity (like the Internet). When I die, will my soul gather my mind and its memories on its way, because they too exist in a ‘cloud’ around my brain?

Could I now explain how I recovered the memory which I had lost when I had a heart attack? Perhaps my memory exists at 2 levels; at a operational level, which can be damaged, and at a holistic ethereal level beyond bodily weakness.

Fascinating! Pity that I will be denied an answer. As my soul takes off to the Afterlife, it will not (I guess) be concerned by such Earth-based ruminations. The caravan must (and will) move on!

(Note: While I cannot prove the existence of a Cosmic Creator and the ways this all-pervasive, ever-existing essence may influence human existence, no sceptic can disprove such a belief. As for the reality of souls and the reincarnation process about which I have written, my experiences and reliable research findings over decades being real, cannot be denied.
Doctrinal religion does not offer needed illumination. Regrettably, some scholars cannot step out from their religion-imbued castles.)

Babies and their souls

In the sixth century A.D. the leaders of the Christian church reportedly decided to reject the existence of the human soul before birth. This decision cleverly got rid of reincarnation. This was in spite of the prevalence of beliefs (in some form or other) in many (if not most) cultures of the continuity of the human soul – such beliefs going back thousands of years.

So, on a white board, the Christian church wrote in clear black letters the rules its acolytes and other followers were to abide by. Where reincarnation implicitly permits the individual to decide his present life and thereby influence his future life, the church would now seek to control his life. This control was reinforced by a Good Book, the injunctions therein being binding in conscience.

On the other hand, the greatest exponent of reincarnation, Hinduism, claimed through their Vedas, a history going back about 7,000 years. They wrote on a black board (darkened by the dust of time) with white letters about correct conduct. Lacking a comparable Good Book, they relied on oral injunctions (later written as an epic which contained sound advice in story form). This religion is not based on inherited authority and assumed control.

Reincarnation offers freedom. You make your own bed, and lie on it (so to speak). Your deeds in each life influence your next life (remember the law of cause and effect) together with all the other contributory influences. Any accumulated learning would be registered in one’s soul as it traverses from Earthly life to Earthly life.

And if the soul is more than just a register, could it impact upon my thoughts and actions in each life? Would it not be in its own interests that I behave correctly in relation to my Creator and my fellow co-created humans? Is not the objective of reincarnation to have each soul purified morally (polished) before returning to the Source?

Of course, I (the material human) am free to ignore any guidance from my soul (the durable ‘me’). That is, I can exercise my free will. I am also free to ignore any emanations from the essence of the Creator said to be within each human being (in a walnut-sized space within the heart). After all, I did (apparently) ignore messages from my Spirit Guide; until I was pulled up by my ‘casual’ clairvoyant.

I wonder now whether new-born babies, each with an ongoing soul, can be guided by, or respond to, their respective souls. Or, does the receiving mechanism needed (a developed brain and its associated mind) have to mature – taking about 3 years to do so? Effective reception will surely require an adequate capacity for awareness or sensitivity.

I am indeed speculating that a new-born baby, necessarily without any physical or mental ailments, or past-life limitations, or a scheduled truncated personal destiny path, may dance to a beat transmitted by its own soul. That is, could I assume that my soul is not a passive passenger within me?

If I could do so, in what manner could my soul influence me as I paddle, as best I can, on my personal river of destiny, as it meshes in with that vast network of destinies reflecting life on Earth? What a fascinating conundrum!

Observing little children with joy

Little children are little people. They will grow up to be big people. In transit (as teenagers), some will become ‘know-alls’, based (presumably) on their belief they had suddenly acquired many rights and great understanding of the human condition. Some of those who attend university will claim to have solutions to everything they see wrong in society. Why not indeed?

Little children will progress (as they grow older) from asking “What’s that?” to “How does it work?” to “Why is it so?” They can’t help their enquiring minds. Some will proceed through adulthood enquiring, wondering, speculating; even prognosticating.

The adult-to-be can often be visible as the child progresses from being an observing baby (aren’t they all!) to an enquiring child.. Each such child is, of course, a complex product of Nature (essentially their genetic inheritance) and nurture (their experiences as they grow up). But, what of any memory (much of it concealed, but not completely buried) of a past life? (Professional sceptics may deny anything they do not like, but reality will prevail.) I have intimations of a past life which resonates (possibly) in my soul.

One uniformly-displayed attribute of little children intrigues me. Each child will point with a forefinger at whatever is interesting. Is this an inherited shared characteristic?
Yet, there is so much variability in their presentation of the ubiquitous startle reflex. Some will freeze; others will cry. Is this a variation of the fight-or-flee instinct? This instinct is shared with animals. Fighting or fleeing is not a realistic option for little children when a threat (real or imagined) is experienced. To freeze (to be still and quiet) seems to be the preferred option by both young and old, and both humans and animals. Crying may reflect a hopeless fear.

It has been said that anxiety is the prevailing emotional condition of all motile forms of life; and that such a state reflects the uncertainly of much of existence. Little children do display uncertainty when they expect, or are exposed to, change in their circumstances. They may subconsciously remember the terrible shock of being born.

What interests me is the variability in personality observed in little children. Of course, if often isolated, or lacking in displayed love, or brought up institutionalised (eg. long child-care hours, up to 8 hours per day each day, between age 3 and 5), any child can withdraw emotionally, or become subliminally angry. I write from personal observation here; research evidence confirms.

However, in normal circumstances, there seems to be an innate basal layer of a personality in each child. Seeking to explain an inborn proclivity would be fraught with difficulty. That is because I believe that past-life experiences are cumulative. I do know that a relaxed, co-operative child can house a concealed fighter who, in the Australian lexicon, ‘takes no shit’ from anyone. Another child in the same family can be recalcitrant or even infallible in presentation, while otherwise acculturated. Another member of that family may sail through life, cheerfully indifferent to others. Again, I write from close observation.

By and large, little children are a delight; especially if supported by a loving family. Those I see with their mothers are the most out-going, responding with a smile, or even a wide grin, to anyone who shows a clear interest in them. I have tested that response over many years, benefiting from the reciprocation of a personal interest.

The most interesting people in life are the little people.

Past-life regressions

Unlike the spontaneous, volunteered claims by very young children (usually aged between 3 and about 6) about an immediate past life, regressions under hypnosis by adults to past lives – especially multiple past lives – cannot be as easily accepted as credible; they  cannot be investigated by interrogating anyone alive for confirmation.

My personal concern is of cryptomnesia (false memory). That could be triggered by the subject’s imagination and nature. In all investigations of the paranormal, some corruption by a parent, or a certain extent of subconscious recall by adults of what had been read or heard of – and interpreted through imagination – could be expected. The human mind is extensible and thereby fallible.

The great debunker Ian Wilson (refer his ‘After Death Experience’), in asking “Is a genuine ‘past life’ coming through?” when examining past-life regressions under hypnosis, begins with the Bridey Murphy case. Lacking verifiable historical information, that case was left in limbo (so to speak). However, good ‘deep trance’ subjects have reported regressions to past lives over the years. Wilson accepts that “there is not the slightest evidence for deliberate, conscious fraud on the part of either hypnotist or the subject hypnotised.”

Yet, “… many of these run-of-the-mill regressions can show signs of the subject fantasizing, or drawing on present twentieth-century knowledge, rather than knowledge of the period appropriate to his or her ‘past life.’” As well, while ‘suggestion’ by the hypnotist can, in fairness, be ruled out, subjects may be influenced by any ‘expectations’ expressed by a hypnotist; for ex ample, that there is no ‘no rest between one life and another.’

Credibly, Ian Wilson asks “… why we retain in our minds material that we cannot get access to without the aid of a hypnotist? … ‘we’, whatever ‘we’ might be, are something of rather more permanence than our physical bodies?” This is an encouraging conclusion by one who seems to have difficulty acknowledging the existence of human souls.

Hans TenDam (refer ‘Exploring Reincarnation’) makes a sound distinction between adult recollection and past-life regression under hypnosis. “Full regression, originally a hypnotic state, brings back memories, but more intense, more like reliving than remembering … we experience the situation just as it happened at that time.” That makes the reported regressed life more credible. Since “Hypnosis is a psychotic shift in consciousness, not a loss of will” (TenDam), the hypnotist needs to be trustworthy.

Hypnosis is subject to certain fears: that the subject is open to suggestion; losing control; given instructions contrary to one’s beliefs; or psychologically damaging; but all are without foundation. Stage hypnosis can, of course, be based on ridicule; but in fun.

Strangely, hypnosis can ease or solve psychosomatic complaints. Physical trauma in a past life can apparently manifest itself in the present body. Two friends and I can attest to seers removing specific pains. In my case, the seer/healer called upon her Spirit Healer to identify a couple of my past live traumas. When I challenged her by pointing out that my past lives are surely private (within my soul memory, possibly), she said that her Healer had access to them. What could I say?

After her healing, my pains disappeared, for ever. And I had not told anyone about them. What could I then say? And I had consulted the healer only in an investigative capacity; to learn about psychic healing. My friends had comparable experiences.

TenDam concludes from his survey thus: “Apparently our soul registers every experience, conscious as well as unconscious. It stores all of our sensory impressions, all our beliefs and thoughts, all our semi-conscious and subconscious reactions.”

I am not sure that I want to delve too deeply into my past lives. Yet, the most recent one intrigues me. And I have intimations of aspects of that life, and where on the globe that occurred. I find that fascinating.

As well, I have clear evidence of life after death.

 

Why are the desert religions aggressive?

All the major religions in the world have the same God, the one and only Universal Creator of all that is. Creation may have occurred all at once or through an evolutionary path. The Creator God may be unknowable, except through a deep meditative process; or knowable, perhaps through revelation. Asking what was there before Creation, or about the origin of God, are meaningless questions. (Ask the cat which looks behind a free-standing mirror for that other cat.)

Most of us need a saviour offering succour, primarily in terms of survival in our normally harsh environments. Others may have lesser needs, but which can loom large in their lives, depending on how insecure or greedy they are. Wants may be greater than need.

A significantly powerful personal need, but which can (in an exaggerated state) threaten the very existence of other humans who are also believers in God, is the need to believe that one is on the only path to God; or that one’s path to the Celestial Abode of the Heavenly Father is the more efficient one. This Abode may offer angels, or dancing girls, or advanced spirits, or ever-lasting peace. (Or perhaps a wondrous mansion filled with gee-gaws of great value, and serviced by valets galore.)

How does such a strange need of exclusivity or superiority arise? Surely through the priesthoods. Why would priesthoods need to compete with one another? The exercise of power, or a collective ego-gratification?

Religious belief systems arose in widely dispersed regions of the world over a long period of time. Each could not have known about other belief systems unless traders from afar displayed their foreign faiths. See what happened when Hindu and (later) Buddhist traders influenced the cultures of South East Asia and the islands of the adjoining archipelago now known as the Indonesian. So many individuals there have names and even facial features which reflect this cultural infusion.

Of course, marauding armies would also have imposed a new religion here and there. Or, a ruler, by accepting a new religion, had all his people follow him.

Priesthoods would also tend to protect their reign when they control the path to eternity. As evidenced in Egypt, when Aten replaced Amon temporarily, it was allegedly the prevailing priesthood which recovered the status quo. Was this also the earliest evidence of a closed trade union?

But then, why did Christianity, which offers a loving universal god in place of a fearsome desert god, set out (through colonialism) to convert peaceful followers of the forest religions of Asia? What drove Islam, the successor to Christianity, to use the cutting edge of weaponry to convert all and sundry? Do not these religions have a record of destroying the followers of other faiths, and sects of their own religions, here and there? In my experience, these are the only 2 religions whose followers talk a great deal about their faith, whereas the others simply live their religion.

It is surely undeniable that the 3 major desert religions have been, and are, the predominant warring nations of the globe. Humans will, of course, attack one another for material gain. Our simian genetic heritage is probably responsible. But what gain is there in collecting souls? Why not take the coveted materials, and leave beliefs alone? More efficient control of the ‘other,’ using priests?

In any event, the diversity of beliefs reflects merely the diversity in approaches to the Divine. The paths do vary, thanks to differences in man-made theology and dogma – all arbitrary, and replaceable. On what basis would a priesthood claim superiority or priority?

Would not the wanton destruction of fellow-humans and their societies in the name of one’s religion affect one’s chances of finding peace in the Hereafter? Or, do the guilty deny the existence of a meaningful Afterlife?

Why not live in faith on Earth, and allow others to live with their respective faiths too? In the Afterlife (Hereafter or Heaven) all souls will surely be equal as non-entities!

On religion – It is a way of life

Every religion offers a way of life. Each religious life stands on very firm bedrock. This is a belief in a Universal Creator, named God. Each religion promulgates a moral code of conduct. The core of this code – shared by all religions – is: Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself. This code also recognises that we humans are co-created, and are thereby bonded to one another.

My feeling is that an essence of our Creator is impregnated within each of us; this is reflected in what I have observed as a reaching out by many of us towards one another, while simultaneously yearning for an ultimate fusion with our Creator. In saying this, I believe that I am reflecting my experience of some of the major religions of mankind through many, many lifetimes.

The evidence? The huge number of people active in what is known as civil society. We work for the betterment of fellow humans wherever they are, and even fight for justice, irrespective of faith, ethnicity, or whatever other identifier may apply. I instance Rotary International and the Red Cross (or its equivalents).

Were each of us to live as guided by our religion, we would behave in similar ways, obviously! We are more similar than different.

As for divisive dogma, it is useful to accept that dogma originated to bond each religious community more strongly. Power-seekers in institutionalised religion have, however, misapplied dogma, resulting in unnecessary divisiveness – leading to war in some instances. A further misuse of power is when politicians misdirect their religious affiliations to inflict (yes, inflict) tribal injunctions onto a ‘global’ arena!

While institutionalised religions may not survive (because priestly control is anathema to those who choose to think for themselves, and to decide their way of life), our innate and intuitive awareness of our Creator will sustain us through the vicissitudes of Earthly life!

Our faith will thus guide us to an appropriate way of life.