A good case against the theory of reincarnation can be made based on the fact that few people are able to recall their former lifetimes with any certainty. Suspicion about a past life may flicker ever so slightly in someone s memory banks but then be easily dismissed and forgotten. To catch fleeting memories and make sense of them, one has to be vigilant, look to connect the dots (clues) and be willing to set aside scepticism until truth can be determined.
In actuality, we hardly remember most of the events of this lifetime, let alone past lifetimes. I suppose the simple answer as to why we don't is that all those simultaneous memories would be a bit disconcerting to say the least. Disconcerting or not, there are times when we want to remember; when we want to unravel the treads that have woven the tapestry of our current life and brought certain people into our arena.
If one dismisses reincarnation, the nature of relationships becomes a rather curious thing. Why are some people drawn to one another like opposing poles of a magnet? Likewise, why is any attempt to bridge the space between the repelling sides of two magnets futile?
My stepfather and I were in the later group, dancing around each other without ever touching. I often asked the stars in the night sky how a man could feed, clothe, school, entertain, and yet, not love me, something I desperately thought I needed.
I was well into my adult years when the answer came to me in a dream. As my body slept, I had a bird's eye view of Ireland, the Emerald Isle. I flew over the northwest coast where the rock cliffs rose to hundreds of feet above a cold and treacherous sea. I saw a small thatched-roof cottage, my once-upon-a-time home, situated close to the edge of those cliffs. I observed sheep in the distance, far too many to count, corralled in by stone walls.
With dream intuition, I knew that the too-thin, ten year old girl sitting on one of those walls was me three hundred years in the past. There was a man in the picture as well, an uncle, in the typical Irish cap of the period. He carried a twisted cane.
As I watched from above, he grabbed me off the wall in a drunken rage and whacked me at the side of my knee. My offense was having lost sight of a incorrigible, younger brother who had been left in my care. Many such beatings had eventually left me with a crippled right leg. His ofttimes cruelty, and general failure to provide for his family, scarred my tender heart and left me without any hope for the future.
My stepfather, who was of Irish descent this lifetime, was my uncle in that past life. Like many Souls with unsettled debts, we were back together again, this time in America. Had we spent other lifetimes together that had led to the life in Ireland? No doubt. But I didn't need to see them all. Replaying our history together in Ireland was the key to unlocking the current karmic dance.
In the 1940s, a military jeep overturned and badly mangled my stepfather's right knee. The injury caused much suffering for most of his adult life. It was part of what fueled his drinking problem, his anger and jealousy. Watchful of his dark moods, our family lived in a state of uncertainty knowing we were always on the verge of some terrible upset.
No doubt his mutilated knee was karmic payback for the repeated blows he inflicted on the side of my knee. (The dream offered an explanation for the wariness I had for the cane he carried from time to time in this lifetime.) Beyond the crippled leg, a result of what goes around comes around, he also did something this lifetime that he had failed to do in Ireland; he provided for his composite family as best as he knew how. He often said that he was who he was and could not do any better than he did.
In later years, I understood that his lack of love did not have so much to do with me as with his nature; one he felt he couldn't change. The reasons for that are a part of his private story. But needless to say, by providing for me in this lifetime, he paid a debt he owed. (I have my suspicions, however, that the cruelty he inflicted upon an older brother in this lifetime will cause the karmic dance to go on between the two of them. But that is none of my affairs.)
Of course, what is, or rather was, a part of my affairs, was to garner the knowledge that there are always two sides to every relationship. Before he died, gratitude and forgiveness took me to a place where I could finally love him without condition. I had learned that being loved was not so as important as being love.
The curtain of mercy that separates you from the past can be drawn back. How? By activating curiosity and putting a past life query out there to the great forming power of the universe, that's how. Then wait and watch for the revelations via dreams, visions or intuition.
But, the bottom line in all of this, as far as I'm concerned, is to live consciously, resolve our debts and not create more, and grow spiritually in the here and now. It's all about the here and now, my friend, all about the here and now.
Copyright © 2008 Jo Leonard
Jo Leonard is a spiritual adventurer. Her passion in life is to share the knowledge she has gathered after a lifetime of searching for God. The article was excerpted from her book, available in paperback The Would Be Saint or an ebook from Jo Leonard. You are most welcome to visit her website and join in the journey.
