10 Things Everyone Should Know About Reincarnation

By Dylan Harper

Around the world, many people—perhaps the majority overall—accept a belief in reincarnation as part of their religion.

Not many people in the West believe in it, though. In fact, many scoff at the very idea and regard it as nonsense.

This is largely because in the West we are enamored with the benefits of scientific knowledge and increasingly sceptical of the old religions—rightly so, in my view. The knowledge science provides can be systematically checked to ensure that it is valid and reliable. This is why it is of such great value.

But it is not necessarily the only source of knowledge that is valid and reliable.

Besides, what science can see is limited to that which is physical and objective. Reality itself is not necessarily so limited. If we limit our understanding of what reality can be to justwhat science can see, we are leaving ourselves half-blind.

A wealth of information is now available from a wide variety of sources which, despite their differences, give surprisingly coherent and mearningful insights into the nature of the soul and its evolution.

Thanks to a combination of channelled teachings, insights from near-death experiences, reports of hypnotic regression, transpersonal experiences induced by meditation, breath-work or psychoactive substances, after-death communications, and even scientific research into children’s spontaneous descriptions of their past lives, it is now possible to put together a very clear picture of reincarnation.

Regardless of the medium (no pun intended), the message is consistent. Whether one regards such information as factual knowledge or as loony nonsense depends upon one’s openness to non-physical sources of information.

Interestingly, in light of this accumulation of knowledge, we can now see that even within those Eastern cultures that believe in reincarnation, many people’s understanding of it is confused by all sorts of religious doctrines that are just plain wrong.

So, here are ten things about reincarnation which I think are valid and reliable and which I believe everyone—East or West—would benefit from knowing:

1. The soul exists.

• The soul isn’t just a myth or an illusion or a relic of pre-scientific superstition. All human beings are a combination of physical, mortal body and non-physical, immortal soul.
• Your soul is the absolute essence of you — the only true answer to the question, “Who am I?” It is who you always are regardless of how you feel or what you believe or how you perceive yourself.
• From the body’s perspective, the soul is the conscious, animating life force within it. From the soul’s perspective, the body is a vehicle for inhabiting the physical world and experiencing physical existence.
• The soul is pure consciousness, pure energy, pure being. It exists on a timeless, non-physical level of reality. It is a piece of Spirit or God or Source, a spark of divine light and love, a fragment of absolute perfection.

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