INTO THE UNKNOWN

 FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:

 

  

INTO THE UNKNOWN

  

Today, the norm is ‘seeing is believing.’ Of course, even what you see may not be true, a glaring example being a mirage that looks like a puddle of water on a road, especially in hot summer without any water there.

 

Nowadays children and youngsters question anything and everything including the answers, donning the hat of a wisenheimer and ‘I’m-all-right-jack’.

 

In the old days, we simply believed what the elders said, not just blindfolded, but in the fond hope and strong trust that whatever they said must be true and correct. And, as we grew through the mundane life and gained knowledge and experience, we could see for ourselves whatever they said proved to be right, one after another.

 

All the episodes and incidents narrated here are ones I had read and/or out of my information gained through hearsay (certainly not my own concocted stories or ‘tell-tale’).

 

Some believe, if one is born, lives his/her life, and dies, there ends the matter. Some others opine there will be a cycle of births and rebirths. The arguments and counter-arguments for and against will go on endlessly. 

 

Overall, the soul looks like the software and the body the hardware - two different things!

 

The Hindu spiritual philosophy suggests that one is born and reborn according to the legacy of what is called ‘Karma’ (the result of good/bad acts done). Not only that, there are instances in the spiritual texts of the same person taking rebirths, for example, SRI GURU RAGHAVENDRA (1595-1671) was said to be LORD PRAHLADA and SRI VYASATHEERTHA in his previous births.

 

Tamil Saint-Poet Thiruvalluvar says in one of his verses, “One will not be able to reach the Lotus Feet of the Lord Almighty unless and until he/she swam across the ocean and cycle of births and rebirths.

 

Hindu Saints strongly believe that one can come to know of his/her previous birth(s) by meditating so deeply in order to revisit his/her previous births.

 

A nagging question now arises as to whether reincarnation is real? The theory of incarnation is by and large accepted throughout the world with the exception of the non-believing lot. While Hinduism fully accepts and acknowledges the concept based on the theories of ‘KARMA’ and ‘CYCLE OF BIRTHS AND REBIRTHS’, 33% of Americans (mostly Christians) think it is, and some 10% of them report that one can really recall their own past lives.

 

The Dr. Oz Show hosted by Dr. Tucker as well as Dr. Eben Alexander, medical doctors, who believe in reincarnation, asserts and reiterates the theory.  There are several reality TV series on the topic of reincarnation that were aired in recent years, including 'Life, Death, and Reincarnation' (extraordinary case studies of people who recollect their past lives). The Ghost Inside My Child (children with past-life memories), and 'Who Was I: My Past Lives, (a hypnotherapist guides people through life regressions that lead towards astonishing revelations) are further examples.  These are some of the signs you may have lived a past life.

It is believed and said, the souls of those who die in mishaps or accidents before their destined longevity ends, are said to be wandering and haunting here and there until the time and day of their fated death.

 

One 9-year-old girl in Madhya Pradesh used to yell at random ‘Fire, Fire, same me’. The parents were puzzled and riddled with what to do with their daughter, as there was no obvious reason for her to cry out like that in the sense that there was no fire accident having happened either in their house or in the area they lived. There was also no chance for the girl to have witnessed any fire accident. With the spells of yelling on the increase, the parents took her to a psychiatrist, who hypnotized and took her to her distant past memory lane. The psychiatrist found out from her that she died in a fire accident in a car at her previous birth. The details about her life including her family in a previous birth, and particularly about the car fire accident were thoroughly checked and found to be surprisingly and astonishingly correct.

 

The brother of one of my office colleagues had unfortunately died in a train accident. While the bereaved family was mourning his sudden death, there came shocking news. One person brought an adolescent girl to their house (the address was in fact given by her). On entering the house, the girl lay on the lap of the mother (of the deceased) calling her, ‘Mother, Mother, I want to sleep in your lap’. Everyone was perplexed, nonplussed, and flummoxed what it was all about? When the family made further inquiries with the girl, they came to know that the soul of the accident victim (Sekhar) entered into the girl. The mother asked his son, whose soul was now in that girl, to go away from her so that she could live her life peacefully. The son’s soul replied that he once saved the girl from being molested by a couple of boys on her way back from school to home and he saved her. He (the soul) also said that he would remain with her for some more time and leave her forever. At that time, she was almost in a subconscious state. Things became alright after some time when the soul went away from the girl and the fact was also acknowledged by the girl’s family.

 

A 6-year-old boy, while on a flight, was telling all about the flight operations - say, how to take off, speed up the flight, direction changing, slowing down, precautions to be taken for landing the aircraft at its destination airport, and trouble-shooting at times of crises including emergency landing. The crew of the airplane including the pilots, the parents of the boy, and those traveling in the airbus were flabbergasted at how the little boy could say all these things. But the parents were worried as to what had happened to their boy, as he never made any flight travel before, and there was absolutely no chance of his coming to know about an airplane, how it operated, etc. When once they took him to a psychiatrist, on hypnotization, it was revealed that the boy was a pilot at his previous birth.

 

A 5-year-old girl born in North India used to fall unconscious at times. At such times, if prompted and provoked, she would fluently talk in Japanese - a language she had absolutely no chance of having learned before at that tender age. Once regained consciousness, she would not remember what had happened in the interregnum. Puzzled and shocked by her behaviour at times, when she was referred to a Child Psychiatrist, he was of the opinion that it was the effect of her being Japanese during her previous birth. After some counseling sessions, by efflux of time, and in due course, the girl absolutely forgot all about her previous birth and started living her present life with no hassles. Thereupon, the parents were happy.

 

‘MOMMY, I’AM SO HOMESICK’ - Among the University of Virginia case studies is the story of an Oklahoma boy named Ryan. A few years ago, the 4-year-old woke up screaming at two in the morning. Over the preceding months, he had been pleading with his bewildered mother, Cyndi, to take him to the house where he had “lived before.” In tears, he would beg her to return him to his glittering life in Hollywood - complete with a big house, a pool, and fast cars - that was so fabulous, he once said, “I can’t live in these conditions. My last home was much better.”

 

When Cyndi went into her son’s room that night, Ryan kept repeating the same words - "Mommy, I’m so homesick" - as she tried to comfort, soothe, and rock him to sleep. “He was like a little old man who couldn’t remember all the details of his life. He was so frustrated and sad”, Cyndi said!

 

The next morning, she went to the library, borrowed a pile of books about old Hollywood, and brought them home. With Ryan in her lap, Cyndi sifted through the volumes; she was hoping the pictures might soothe him. Instead, he became more and more excited as they looked at one particular book. When they came to a still of a scene from a 1932 movie called Night After Night, he stopped her.

 

“Mamma,” he shouted, pointing to one of the actors, who wasn’t identified. “That guy’s me! The old me!”

 

“I was shocked,” Cyndi admitted. “I never thought that we’d find the person he thought he was.” But she was equally relieved. “Ryan had talked about his other life and been so unhappy, and now we had something to go on.”

 

Although neither Cyndi nor her husband believed in reincarnation, she went back to the library the next day and checked out a book about children who possessed memories of their past lives. At the end of it was a note from the author, Professor Jim Tucker, MD, saying that he wanted to hear from the parents of kids with similar stories? Cyndi sat down to write him a letter.

 

For most scientists, reincarnation will always seem like a fantastical notion regardless of how much evidence is presented, Dr. Tucker knows. For him, success doesn’t mean persuading the naysayers to accept the existence of reincarnation but rather encouraging people to consider the meaning of consciousness and how it might survive our deaths.

 

“I believe in the possibility of reincarnation, which is different from saying that I believe in reincarnation,” he explains. “I do think these cases require an explanation that is out of the ordinary, although that certainly doesn’t mean we all reincarnate.”

 

Does Dr. Tucker believe that in the future, there will be a child who is able to recall Dr. Tucker’s own memories? “Memories of past lives are not very common, so I don’t expect that,” he says. “But I do hope there’s some continuation after death for me and for all of us.”

 

Such incidents do come to notice rarely, even though everyone wants to ignore and brush them aside. Yes, such happenings don’t stand scientific scrutiny. Many say it defies logic, reason, rationale, syllogism, dialectic, and prologism. But still, it seems to be the reality also surfacing at times, making many raise their eyebrows.

To ferret out the truth is like looking for a needle in a haystack. It's also like groping blindfold in the wild woods and dense thickets to locate a particular fly or bee. And, many avoid discussing the matter, as, according to them, it's a spooky subject.

 

Notwithstanding what one heard, believed, and/or said, it is for an individual to accept it or not, after due and discreet consideration, as, after all, it’s an endless blindfold journey into the unknown, or, maybe, a wild goose hunt, which, at the end of the day, doesn't deliver a definitive and reliable conclusion unless it is overwhelmingly supported by unassailable and clinching evidence coming to your rescue to confirm and/or bolster your opinion/claim.

 

 

(R.SAMPATH)

3/6/2023