Someone once said, "If you don't connect with your past to fix your present, you'll have no future."

Understanding the Self

Ever asked yourself one intriguing yet simple question….Why am I the way I am? Well, it might sound a bit crazy but, honestly, I’ve tried to figure out many times, the reason for my being the way I am. I am refering not to my physical appearance but to my mental and psychological framework, my perspective, the way I handle life situations and my attitude towards life and people in general. What makes me different (in a good or bad way) from those around me? There has got to be some valid reason behind the stark dissimilarity existing between the species of the same class. What could be the most plausable explanation for siblings to be strikingly different in every possible way, despite being born of the same parents and raised in the same environment? Why does one child love his paint brush and color palette and the other, robotic machines? Truly, there’s got to be something more to it than a simple 'genetic' or 'hereditary' explanation offered by scientists.

Is it possible that we exhibit varying types of behavioral patterns simply because we all exist at different levels of awareness in this realm? Is it possible that 'we are who we are' because of our (past and present life) experiences? Is it possible that our actions are rooted in our inner



wisdom which, again, is a bye product of our past experiences?

Essence of Human Life

At this juncture, an imagery can best describe the concept of human incarnation.

I picture myself walking through a dense forest along a narrow and seemingly unending road. I see some people walking ahead of me and some following me but no one seems to be concerned about the fellow travelers. Everyone seems to be worried about finding one’s way out of the forest before dark. I suddenly see a traveler run out of breath; he struggles for a while and then drops down dead. Tears fill my eyes but, like the rest, I feel helpless. Leaving his cold and lifeless body behind, I move on. I see some people walking on the wrong path, losing their way into the dense forest. I try to dissuade them but they don’t seem to listen. Again, feeling sad and helpless, knowing their obvious outcome, I take a deep breath and move on. Suddenly I see a little boy walking beside me. I smile at him and he smiles back. A sudden realization hits me like a lightning bolt. I recognize his spirit. Good Heavens! He is the same man who died in front of my eyes a little while back. Since he had not been able to complete his journey in the old fragile body, he had abandoned it and chosen to resume his journey in a new vessel. This little boy, certainly, had a young body but he was already a wise soul for being born with accumulated wisdom of many past lives. It dawned on me that all of us, despite walking the same path, were at different levels of understanding, all rushing forward to find our way before the sun down and trying hard to stick to the right path. It’s definitely a challenge but then that’s what the purpose of being born time and again is….to fulfill life’s purpose by reaching the ‘light’ before it gets too late (death of the body).

Going back In Time

Understanding the nexus between 'who we are' and 'who we were' in our past lives can be a daunting task, primarily, for the reason that we are supposed to be born with accumulated wisdom but with no memory of the lives we might have lived on this planet before. However, some truly astonishing and groundbreaking revelations made by the pioneers in the fields of science and spirituality have helped some of us to travel back in time and relive our past lives so as to mitigate the trauma in our present lives. I’m sure most of you might have read some interesting anecdotes revealed by Past life experts like Dr. Brian Weiss in his book titled 'Many Lives Many Masters'. There have been countless reported incidents around the world where people were able to better understand the reason behind pain and suffering in their present lives, by connecting with their past. Someone once said, "If you don't connect with your past to fix your present, you'll have no future."

Root Cause

Spirituality offers credible explanation to questions like “Why a person does what he does?” or “Why does one live in insecurity and fear?” or “Why does one run after money or turn towards spirituality?” It seems that our past life experiences are responsible for our psychic impressions which in turn govern our actions in the present life. Ultimately, it comes down to being at different levels of awareness and understanding. Perhaps this could even explain bad marriages and broken relationships. It’s not uncommon to see one partner constantly struggling to raise (or bring down) the other one to his (or her) own level. When the attempts fail to yield expected results, the relationship, invariably, falls apart. It’s as simple as that. I guess all it takes to make this road trip less bumpy is to have enough spiritual maturity and inner wisdom to acknowledge, accept and celebrate our differences. This can happen only after we accept that we all exist at different levels of awareness .Instead of being intolerant towards the less evolved, we should focus on helping each other grow and reach the heightened state of consciousness while we're alive. Like it is said - "what you cannot achieve in this body, cannot be achieved when you're out of it."