Soul Light

REINCARNATION is “one of the most important issues faced by philosophy, religion and science that have very significant implications to the understanding of human life,” says the Reincarnation Research website.

Theosophy agrees. “Reincarnation used to be a subject confined to religion. Since the 20th century, however, the inquiry has moved into the field of science.

This comes about “as a result of ground-breaking researches about people, particularly children, whose memories of previous lives have been validated by independent investigations,” the site reports.

“Many of these cases involved birthmarks or physical characteristics at birth that matched the manner of death of the claimed previous life. Some of them also could speak an unlearned language but which corresponded to the language learned in the claimed previous life.

“The concept of reincarnation, however, goes against the mainstream doctrines of a number of major religions. This has created conflicts and has led to raging debates on the pros and cons of reincarnation.”

Butterfly Girl

H. P. Blavatsky and her Adept Teachers, Founders  of the modern Theosophical Movement, were fully committed to the  prime directive of introducing Western civilization to the the twin Eastern doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma.

The importance of their directive can be seen in H. P. Blavatsky’s Letter 3 to the 4th Annual American Convention in April, 1890, where she declared:

We are outwardly creatures of but a day; within we are eternal. Learn, then, well the doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation, and teach, practice, promulgate that system of life and thought which alone can save the coming races. 

(H. P. Blavatsky, April 27-28, 1890)

The Reincarnation Recall of
Mandy Seabrook

An outstanding story of past life recall that led to evidence one wouldn’t expect to find. Mandy recalled a past life from the time she was young enough to talk. Later she would take her mother and researchers on an evidence discovery mission.

 How Rebirth Works

“There are two ways in which someone can take rebirth after death: rebirth under the sway of karma and destructive emotions and rebirth through the power of compassion and prayer. Regarding the first, due to ignorance negative and positive karma are created and their imprints remain on the consciousness. These are reactivated through craving and grasping, propelling us into the next life. We then take rebirth involuntarily in higher or lower realms. This is the way ordinary beings circle incessantly through existence like the turning of a wheel.”

Dalai Lama lecture at the Theosophical Society, Wheaton, Ill.

“In order to accept reincarnation or the reality of Tulkus, we need to accept the existence of past and future lives. Sentient beings come to this present life from their previous lives and take rebirth again after death. This kind of continuous rebirth is accepted by all the ancient Indian spiritual traditions and schools of philosophy, except the Charvakas, who were a materialist movement.  . . . Therefore, as long as you are a Buddhist, it is necessary to accept past and future rebirth.”

(Excerpts from The Dali Lama on reincarnation)

The Dalai Lama
Dharamsala
September 24, 2011

Edward Austrian: The Past Life Memory that Healed Him

“Getting back the memory of other lives is really the whole of the process, and if some people don’t understand certain things it is either because they have not got to that point in their other lives, or because no glimmer of memory has yet come.”

– William Q. Judge
(Letters That Have Helped Me, Vol. 2, Letter 5)

Spiritual Evolution

William Quan Judge was an important figure of the early theosophical movement. In 1875, at the age of 24, he was a co-founder of the Theosophical Society with H. P. Blavatsky and Henry S. Olcott.  In his article The Synthesis of Occult Science Judge noted that even theosophists wondered why Mme. Blavatsky “laid so much stress on doctrines like Karma and Reincarnation.”

Spiritual Evolution

“It is not alone because these doctrines are easily apprehended and beneficent to individuals, not only because they furnish, as they necessarily do, a solid foundation for ethics, or all human conduct,” he explained,

“but because they are the very key-notes of the higher evolution of man.”

“Without Karma and Reincarnation, evolution is but a fragment; a process whose beginnings are unknown, and whose outcome cannot be discerned — a glimpse of what might be, a hope of what should be.

Higher Evolution

“But in the light of Karma and Reincarnation evolution becomes the logic of what must be. The links in the chain of being are all filled in, and the circles of reason and of life are complete. Karma gives the eternal law of action, and Reincarnation furnishes the boundless field for its display.”

More Proofs

A Mysterious Power

– William Q. Judge

“There is a mysterious power in these doctrines of karma and reincarnation which at last forces them upon the belief of those who take them up for study.

“Each person is the concentration and result of karma, and is compelled from within to believe.”

“It is due to the fact that the soul is itself the experiencer of rebirth and karma, and has within a clear recollection of both — and rejoices, as it were, when it finds the lower mind taking them up for study.”

Compelled from within.

• W. Q. Judge, “Theosophical Study and Work”

More explanations of the chameleon-like “Manas” (Sanskrit “Mind”), the Reincarnating Ego, see H. P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy – here.

Lotus Seed Pod

Dr. Jim Tucker:
Children Who Remember Previous Lives

In this video, Dr. Jim Tucker, author of ‘Return to Life’ and ‘Life Before Life’, and director of the UVA The Division of Perceptual Studies, presents his research regarding small children who remember details of a previous life. He also offers some history about the founding of the Division of Perceptual Studies at UVA by Dr. Ian Stevenson.

♥