What is a Past Life Regression?

What Past Life Regression Really Is

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To many people in our western culture, past life regression can seem far-fetched. I understand this. Growing up as a pastor’s son, we didn’t talk much about reincarnation, much less about past life regression. The purpose of this article is to explain the process in a way that makes more sense, not only for those whom the concept of reincarnation is new, but also for those who are considering doing a past life regression someday. This article is even for those who have already experienced it, because anyone who has ever gone deep into a past life regression knows that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fully describe it in words…and there’s a good reason for that. After 23 years of guiding over 4,000 clients through past life regression, I want to articulate how the process unfolds.

We are multi-dimensional. In western culture, our primary identity is a body that has a soul. Yet it would be far more accurate to think of you as a soul who is using a body. If you’ve ever witnessed a dead body that had his or her eyes open, you’d notice that something seems obviously different than when they were alive. The life, energy and consciousness is missing, the animating light called the soul is gone from their eyes. The body then appears like a shell and who and what they really are is no longer attached to their body. The part of you that lives on after you leave the body is pure energy. You can’t harm or destroy a soul because it is outside of this physical dimension. The energy particles are vibrating at a much higher frequency and consequently no longer visible to our sight, similar to a fast-moving fan blade.

So this is what you are now as you read this – a soul using a body. The ‘relatively real you’ never dies. The body is released and you transition to a higher vibrational state, and then eventually return to a different body to continue your soul’s mission (usually). Perhaps the strongest evidence of this is the multitude of cases in which people remember intricate, personal details of past lives and then later verify them. I won’t go into that here, but for those who are interested, there’s a website dedicated to many of these cases…reincarnationresearch.com, especially note Ian Stevenson’s research. Or visit victorzammit.com. Or go to youtube and type in “Children Who Remember Past Lives.” Anyway, the point is that as a soul, you are eternal, indestructible and transcendent of this dimension of time and space, and these days there’s enough evidence of that that even a logical minded skeptic can believe in reincarnation just on the sheer evidence.

What keeps you anchored in this realm of time and space? Your identification with the body, along with your full focus and attention being placed on all of the objects in this physical dimension, such as another person, a tree, a cat, etc., rather than on the life energy behind these forms or even between the space of objects. Not only that, but at a young age you begin to subtly identify with all the mind programming and conditioning from each life experience that goes along with the growing up of this body. So we take the body and the conditioning of the mind to be who and what we are, rather than the life energy force that animates the body and transcends this existence. It is why awakened sages have compared the human experience to “the greatest slight of hand card trick.”

So if you’re already this eternal being, you should be able to tune into what you already are, the part that lies beyond this realm of time and space. How? You begin by withdrawing your focus and attention from this outside, material world and turn it inward. Hypnosis is a great tool to do this, quickly creating the effect of an extremely deep meditation. To the degree that you ignore your left-brain or analytical mind, and instead focus entirely on the right-brain’s intuitive flow of information in the present moment, is to the degree you begin to tune into and resonate with this eternal part of yourself. The logical left-brain is an important tool to navigate and live in this physical dimension, but it certainly blocks you if you want to experience the higher vibrational dimension, and the soul aspect of yourself.

Past life regression is an efficient means to ‘tune into what you already are’ because it offers a slow, steady, systematic method: You first allow yourself to ‘un-identify’ with the dominant thoughts surrounding your current body. Then allow yourself to identify with a different body/mind personality that begins to form in your awareness. It is important to focus your full attention on the intuitive information that drops into your consciousness regarding this different body/mind, while simultaneously letting go of your left-brain’s analytical tendency to comment on that information. Another way to say this is to experience the information that comes to you by sensing and feeling it with your body wisdom. As you do so, a slow unraveling of information regarding that life will drop into awareness piece by piece in the form of mental pictures, emotions or intuitive insights as the journey of that life becomes increasingly clearer. The information may alternately come to you from the 3rd person or 1st person point of view. The life may take unexpected turns, but eventually you’ll get an impression of the end of that past life. This is the point where you begin to slowly identify with the lighter dimension of your soul-being that experiences a variety of lives for its own journey of growth, evolution and awakening.

As you continue to focus your full attention on the experience of tuning into and moving deeper into soul identification, you’ll notice the following: A deep sense of well-being; the continual mind chatter in the back of your mind completely stops and is replaced with a vast, expansive, calm awareness that feels like a higher version of ‘you’; information ‘drops into’ you in a very different manner than usual….the reason that words cannot describe it is because words belong to the realm of our mind, and now information comes from beyond the mind in what can best be described as a ‘telepathic download’ of simultaneously occurring pictures, sense impressions, insights and/or instantaneous intuitive ‘inner knowings’. Clients notice that words feel inadequate to describe what they’re experiencing, as if words capture merely the tip of an iceberg. As you continue to tune into and resonate increasingly more with the soul aspect of self, the above characteristics become more pronounced, and insights that drop into you are permeated with love, clarity, wisdom and selflessness because there is no more sense of self that is lacking anything. From this higher state of vibration, you have access to all the love, joy, peace, security and creativity that was ever lacking in the human experience, should you choose to place focus and attention on it. At this point, there’s a deep sense that your ‘real’ self is actually never separate from these qualities. Most clients will feel this higher dimensional aspect of themselves towards the later part of the session. And if they go even deeper during a Life-Between-Lives session, they may notice that there is very little information that they do not have access to.

Keep in mind that we are multi-dimensional beings. So past life regression is ultimately an exercise in tuning into the spiritual aspect of self that is vibrating at a faster rate, a rate that allows you to move closer in resonance with the spiritual dimension of guides and departed loved ones, as well as accessing information that will enable you to grow, evolve and awaken. From the soul’s higher vantage point, it becomes clearly evident which subconscious thoughts and beliefs are holding you back and limiting you, as well as who gave them to you and which life experiences caused them to take hold. Most importantly, you know beyond words that they don’t belong to the ‘real’ you, so they can be released. It’s an exercise in awakening to a more conscious aspect of self. Carl Jung once wrote, “Healing is about becoming conscious of that which is unconscious.” Past life regression is certainly an excellent means of shining a spotlight on any unconscious, limiting beliefs or perspectives that are holding us back in life, in addition to experiencing the freedom of what it would feel like to let them go.

When you come to the session with an intent to gain a sense of another existence that you’ve had as an eternal soul being, especially with the intent to gain insight, clarity and resolution with any sort of problematic issue, your inner guidance system will show you a life that will be precisely for your benefit to see, and it will contain one or more soul lessons that will perfectly pertain to your present life situation. However, the process will be blocked if you try to consciously direct or analyze the session, because the information can only be accessed by tuning into a different, more subtle, intuitive stream of information.

The mystic Edgar Cayce once declared, “Imagination is the gateway to the soul.” This is true for past life regression. Your imagination launches this inner journey. The past life information then starts coming to you slowly and feels like you’re making it up. However, research shows that it may be an actual past life, a metaphor, or a mixture of both. I personally believe that most of the lives that clients perceive are actual lives their soul has lived, especially if you ask for it. Yet whatever life images you see or perceive is precisely what will help you move forward in some way in your life. The degree that you focus on whatever impressions your intuitive guidance shows you without analytical mind commentary, is to the degree that you’ll move deeper into the experience. Roughly 10 minutes after the first past life images begin to come, the session kicks into a ‘higher gear’ and information begins to drop into your awareness in that ‘telepathic download’ of images coupled with ‘intuitive knowing’ described above. It later begins to feel ‘more real’ as emotions may suddenly emerge out of nowhere, followed by the reasons behind the emotions 5-30 seconds later.

Paradoxically, even though the session begins by feeling like you’re making it up, it always ends at a level of consciousness that feels much more ‘awake’ and ‘aware’ than your ordinary, everyday level of consciousness. Trying to describe this state creates a conundrum. How do you describe a state of awareness that makes your normal, everyday level of waking consciousness feel like it’s asleep? As we tune more deeply into our soul self, we become increasingly anchored in the present moment. As this happens, it becomes more apparent that our ordinary states of waking consciousness rarely consist of being completely present…we’re usually lost in the world of our minds, subtly pulled into the future or past, along with the mind’s endless commentary, which according to sages is exactly where all of the suffering resides. So when you are free and separate from all of the mind’s negative self talk, limiting beliefs, continual chatter, etc., a vast, calm clarity replaces it, along with a ‘knowing’ beyond words that you are never separate from this clear, awake, peaceful awareness. This cannot be comprehended by the mind, because it’s a state of consciousness that is best described by Eckhart Tolle as “above thought”.

Thus, past life regression ultimately helps you connect to the truth of your being, the truth of who and what you really are, which can only be experienced when limiting thoughts and beliefs from the past are no longer part of the equation and your mind is silent. This truth can only be felt, sensed and known as a direct, immediate experience in the ‘eternal’ here and now moment, as it is unknowable by the mind…words can only point to it. Past life regression is an exercise that connects and anchors you in this higher level of consciousness. Most clients experience this sense of expansion by the end of the session.

After the client emerges, I often hear: “Wow! That wasn’t what I expected.” Indeed, it is an experience that is literally beyond words. There are few experiences as sacred, profound and holy as tuning into your own wholeness and completeness.

Approximately 95% of the time, clients emerge from a past life regression with a greater understanding of themselves, their soul, and their present life experiences. The degree of positive impact ranges from subtle to profoundly life changing, depending on the essence of the person, and the ripeness and readiness for change. There is a theme to this work: As you go within, your inner guidance gives you precisely what you need, usually to the degree that you are urgently seeking answers or resolution. The reason for this was simply put by one of my client’s spirit guides: “Just as the body’s instinct is to breathe, the soul’s instinct is to grow and evolve.” Thus, you tend to see what will be most beneficial for your growth as a person and as a soul, and problems tend to dissolve into solutions when viewed from the vantage point of our higher spiritual Self.

One Way to Wake Up

The Two Parts of You

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One way of viewing ourselves is that we have two dimensions: one is based in separation and is motivated by fear and wanting, while the other dimension of ourselves knows that there is nothing to fear because it can never be harmed and it knows that it’s already connected to all the joy, love and security that the “separate” you is looking for. The human “you” looks at others as a possible threat or as something to attain something from, while the higher dimensional “you” sees one animating life force behind all things and beings, and thus feels a sense of oneness which, as you steep in this viewpoint, brings on a growing sense of compassion for all others, especially those who are unconsciously stuck in the viewpoint of separation. Compassion is a natural by-product of wisdom. So is acceptance of different viewpoints because differences are viewed as interesting flavors coming from oneness. They don’t define the deepest aspect of the person or animal, just the surface level.

Both of these dimensions of us are going on at the same time. The separate “you” is subject to time and space, and will eventually cease to exist, while the higher dimensional “you” is pure energy and can never stop existing in it’s deepest sense as pure presence/awareness/consciousness. This higher dimension can be experienced easily in a session where you inwardly focus for an extended period of time. I always ask my clients toward the end of the session if there is anything in the universe that can harm them. They always respond with various renditions of “of course not”. The other way to connect to this higher dimensional “you” is to be fully present with anything…a flower, person, an apple. In those moments, you are not pulled out of the present moment by your mind, but you can be identified with part of you that is pure effortless awareness.

The key to contentment in the human experience is all about which dimension of “you” that you primarily identify with in each moment…the separate “you” or the “you” that lives on after the separate “you” becomes a memory? What do you want that memory to be like? This moment contains the blueprint.

A Sure Antidote for Depression and Anxiety

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There is a reliable antidote for depression and anxiety, and that is wisdom, which is to understand a “truer” version of yourself, which is to spiritually wake up, which means beginning to identify more with the life energy behind the body and less with the mental and emotional programming of the body form. The biggest value of past life regression is that it essentially helps in this process of spiritually waking up because you can directly feel and experience yourself as the life that animates the form. It can’t be known by thought, but from a higher dimension of consciousness beyond thought, whereby which you experience yourself as vast eternal stillness and presence.

From the perspective on earth, the sun appears to rise each morning and set each evening. But this is only relatively true. From space, it’s known that the sun never actually rises or sets, but shines continuously. Similarly, the identification of being the human is only “relatively true”, and according to the Buddha, is the root of suffering. As you become more aware of the one sustaining life behind not only your body, but all other forms, and you identify with it more and more, the subtle beliefs behind depression and anxiety begin to fall away. You identify more as a being of pure creative potential, which in actuality is a “truer, more absolute” version of yourself. This is a truth that can be known by experience, and not merely as an intellectual concept.

Eckhart Tolle writes that the most significant thing that can ever happen to a human being is the process of becoming aware of your thoughts. As this happens, you eventually begin to identify less with the incessant mind stream of negative chatter that holds you back in life, and more with the awareness that notices a thought or a subtle unconscious, limiting belief. This is the beginning of the “waking up” process, where you see an out-dated thought or belief for what it is…just faulty mental conditioning that you believe in less and less. Again, the biggest value of past life regression is that you fully experience the separation between you and the incessant thought stream. You instead experience yourself as vast stillness, awareness, and enormous potential. From that vantage point, all negative beliefs about yourself seem erroneous and silly. In this manner, it serves to help you in the “waking up” process.

What Is Spiritual Awakening?

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Here is one description: For some, it comes quickly. For most, it is a slow, incremental, ever-growing realization like the unfolding of a flower…a knowingness begins to come into focus…that is the awareness that you are the life behind the form. Bit by bit, the identity that you automatically have in the back of your mind without thinking about it of being a man or a woman — this primary identity slowly takes a back seat and gets replaced by a primary identity that feels more real, ongoing and less fleeting — the life force/presence/awareness that uses the body of a man or woman.

In addition, you understand that ultimately, that same life is behind every other form. So when you see another person, animal or plant, in the back of your mind, you know that the same life force that gives them life and animation ultimately is the same life force behind your body. It is as if you are noticing for the first time the screen as the backdrop to a movie, or silence as the backdrop that makes a sound possible, or the space between objects. You incrementally begin to focus on, and identify more with the one life behind all forms.

Some by-products of this realization are a deep sense of well-being, a trusting in an intelligent, universal design, and thus a releasing of any inner argument with “what is”. Both global and personal challenges are seen to be the process of life’s profound built-in self-correction system, which is a movement toward evolution and growth to become more conscious and aware of itself. There’s an appreciation and acceptance of however the present moment presents itself, and more of an awakening to thoughts or subtle beliefs (ego’s clever tricks) that try to pull you out of the one and only present moment. If you are the one life behind the numerous forms, that means you are always secure and lack nothing, because there is no ‘other’. Therefore, subtle fears become replaced with a growing compassion, and there is a quiet celebration of the vastly different flavors that the Oneness has become.

There is a recognition of the historical teachers that gave expression to this truth, a teaching that is now being communicated by a growing number of current individuals. Adyashanti describes being human as “the greatest slight-of-hand card trick” and that the awakening of this “trick” begins first at an intellectual level, then drops to the level of the heart, and finally the gut.

For me, there is a humble understanding that this awakening process will become much deeper and richer as identification with what’s relatively ”more real” continues. With it comes a growing peace and desire to share it with others.

The Treatment of Others as a Reflection of Spiritual Evolution

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I would like to share an article that a client of mine found very helpful in regards to conflicts arising in her relationship. The article was written by Adyashanti, a liberated spiritual teacher who talks about awakening and enlightenment as another dimension of ourselves that we unconsciously overlook in this human experience. “Enlightened” teachers are popping up more often in this age of higher consciousness with the common message that whatever you think enlightenment is, that’s precisely what it’s not…it’s really just a radical shift in identity. Another teacher named Scott Kiloby sums it up as, “Enlightenment is not a goal to achieve or an idea to grasp. It’s the timeless presence that you already are.” You are ultimately the life that’s giving animation to your body right now, and try as you might, you cannot separate yourself from this life and the consciousness/awareness that goes with it. However, you can overlook it and identify primarily with the form that will decompose one day. This is the human experience.

I think you’ll find this article valuable.

How You Treat Others

Spiritual people often want unconditional support and understanding from their friends, family, and mates, but all too often seem blind to their own shortcomings when it comes to the amount of unconditional support and understanding that they give to others. I have seen many spiritual people become obsessed with how unspiritual others are and assume an arrogant and superior attitude while completely missing the fact that they themselves are not nearly as spiritually enlightened as they would like to think they are.

Enlightenment can be measured by how compassionately and wisely you interact with others—with all others, not just those who support you in the way that you want. How you interact with those who do not support you shows how enlightened you really are.

As long as you perceive that anyone is holding you back, you have not taken full responsibility for your own liberation. Liberation means that you stand free of making demands on others and life to make you happy. When you discover yourself to be nothing but Freedom, you stop setting up conditions and requirements that need to be satisfied in order for you to be happy.

It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that Liberation is discovered to be who and what you are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a liberating effect on others. The biggest challenge for most spiritual seekers is to surrender their self importance, and see the emptiness of their own personal story. It is your personal story that you need to awaken from in order to be free.

To give up being either ignorant or enlightened is the mark of liberation and allows you to treat others as your Self. What I am describing is the birth of true Love.

For more information about Adyashanti, visit www.adyashanti.org.

The Purpose of Relationships

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We wrongly assume that relationships are to “live happily ever after.” They actually serve a purpose for us: to raise our biggest issue, weakness, or area of improvement to the surface. Life is sort of designed that way…that which is our biggest hurdle or limitation will continually be raised to the surface for the purpose of being acknowledged, released and healed. When this happens, we can either dodge it and ignore it, and it might go away, but only for awhile. The same repeating issue will come up again in a fiercer way until you look at it and deal with the roots. That means to become awake to the subconscious limiting beliefs that hold you back and cause you stress. When you become conscious of these old mind programs that govern your life, they lose their power and you become freer. Relationships then thrive.

The soul is mostly interested in growth. Growing = living from love instead of fear. It also means becoming more awake to who and what you really are…to what is really living this life. To the degree we awaken to our truer self is to the degree that we live without fears holding us back. Life becomes our canvas to create the painting of our life. Life was meant to be lived with joy, not dread. But if dread arises, that’s because it’s part of the design…go inside the dread, or the anger, or stuck feeling. Within it holds the keys to when it began, and what false beliefs hold it in place, and then what it needs from you to let it go and become free of it.

Raising Your Consciousness

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One thing that may help to reduce stress is to try being the witness of your mind. Be the one to use your thoughts, rather than allowing your thoughts to subtly use you and well as dictate your mood. Eckhart Tolle writes, “The moment you start watching your thoughts, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated.” Here is a quote from his book “Practicing the Power of Now”:

“The single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: Learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head (from past conditioning) as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.”

Imagine yourself to be the sun, unaffected by the racing clouds of thoughts that come and go passing beneath it. Or think of yourself as the screen upon which all thoughts and opinions, etc. come and go. Throughout our life there has a continual stream of ever-changing thoughts and moods. But what is the one thing that remains the same in this world of impermanence? The part of you that can observe a passing feeling or thought. The “I” that can say, “I’m feeling sad,” while the next day say, “I’m now feeling happy.”

It’s a very subtle yet profound process, which can help one move toward a sense of freedom.

What We Are

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I often ask my clients toward the end of a session: “Is there anything in the universe that can harm you? The answer is always an immediate, definite and emphatic response, “no!” That’s a strange answer to anyone. The world is full of things that can harm us. But in that moment, they are responding from a timeless aspect of themselves that lacks nothing and has no fears, a soul dimension.

We are multi-dimensional beings. Of course we are separate individuals, who can deny that? But that’s only one relative level of truth. Another part of us is the energy, light and consciousness that animates the body. You could call that a “more real” aspect of ourselves because it’s eternal and doesn’t rot like the body. You can’t harm a soul with a knife because it’s pure energy. Probably the best evidence that we are soul beings using a body is in the fast growing cases of children remembering accurate past life information, or subjects who have done a past life regression and later verify the details obtained from it. Certain cases are solid.

But even the fact that we are different souls using a body is a relative level of truth. A ‘higher’ truth is that all souls come from the same one creator energy source, so there is oneness under the surface. We are like unique, individual waves that forgot we are also the ocean. But this forgetfulness is part of the design, and seeing through it is to awaken from any suffering that is inherent to the dream. Thich Nhat Hanh says,“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.”

This highest dimension of ourselves can be glimpsed at any moment. In fact, it’s only available here and now. When you are fully present with a flower, a latte, a person, the wind, a cat or the smell of dead leaves, in that moment you are not in the world of the mind which subtly pulls you into the future or past. Instead, you become pure presence and awareness…effortless and changeless…limitless and indefinable.

Though life experiences come and go, there is something that is unchanging – that which can be aware of any passing thoughts, moods or experiences. It’s that same sense of “me” that exists at age 5, 25, or 85. This awareness even transcends the body according to cases of near death experiences.

So who are we? It depends on which dimension of ourselves we choose to identify with. Identifying with our higher dimensions brings a natural by-product of more compassion, empathy and love. Judgment falls away because we don’t identify others with their opinions, moods or actions, but see these as a product of their ongoing programming and conditioning. At a higher level, they are what we are — changeless awareness that transcends the stories of who we are.

Little girl running on pathway in Sun moon lake, Taiwan.

One Way to Wake Up

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There’s a part of you that needs and seeks security, love and contentment, and a part of you that already is all of those characteristics. How do we access this aspect of ourselves that lacks nothing and views the world from a viewpoint of love and wisdom? Hint: it’s the timeless soul part of you that is animating your body as you read this…the part of you that you can never shake yourself loose from because you are it. For most of us, this may only be an intellectual concept that we may or may not believe, but how do we actually experience and deeply feel this aspect of ourselves? To tune into the pure energy part of us that survives beyond this space/time dimension, we have to apply our moment-to-moment focus and attention inwards. When we do this, we leave this realm of time, space and form behind (not our body, but our awareness) and start to gradually tune into the soul aspect of ourselves. The outcomes of this are a deep sense of peace, and also information comes to us in more of a “telepathic” way that feels like a combined download of snapshot images and intuitive “inner knowings”. As we continue to focus inward, the deep contentment and stillness expands, we experience a “knowing” that this is our truest nature, and thus we begin to identify with it far more than the incessant, often negative mind chatter that is part of our human experience. From this vantage point, we can become aware of any subconscious belief that limits us in our life, and we can experience what it would feel like to let it go.

What I’ve described is probably the biggest value of doing a past life regression, yet it isn’t what most people think of when they hear “past life regression”. The real value of it is that you get an experiential glimpse of a “truer” part of you that actually feels more awake, aware and wise than the conscious part of you. When you begin to live life from this aspect of yourself, you are “in the world, but not of the world,” and it is a freer way to live. Once you’ve experienced how to go within, it is possible to focus your mind and connect to this higher aspect of yourself on your own, with practice. And over time, the need to use self-hypnosis to “re-plug” into your soul aspect of self is no longer necessary and can be done anytime. It becomes a matter of which dimension of yourself you chose to identify with and interact in the world from.

New Perceptions

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This blog, this website is dedicated to growth, healing, evolvement and awakening to what we actually are, and to what life actually is. In my experience, to the degree that I continue to grow in a clearer understanding of myself and life, I become freer from my own self-imposed limitations and fears. Many times these subtle beliefs aren’t even conscious. Carl Jung said that healing occurs when that which is unconscious is brought into the light of consciousness. This is what must happen if we are to grow. We must first become aware of the emotional cause of any inward disharmonies before letting it go.

Contentment and compassion are some natural by-products as we grow in wisdom and self-realization. We become aware experientially that these qualities are at our core, sometimes lying dormant. As we become a clearer body/mind vessel, contentment and compassion tend to shine through us. Also, it becomes easier to be fully present in the here and now with whatever is before you.

We don’t necessarily pick and choose our passions, we just notice ourselves being drawn by them. About 14 years ago, I noticed that a passion for self-growth and self-realization began to slowly burn in me. As I followed this passion, I was led to some wonderful teachers and pioneers in the areas of healing and wisdom. I, in turn, feel driven to pass on what I’ve learned to others. An image dropped into my head recently of humanity being on a giant, terraced mountain, with everyone on various levels of the mountain, each individual climbing towards the goal of deep peace and happiness at the top. We help some people up, and then we turn around and get help from others to climb to the next step higher. In many ways, it’s what we’re all doing here on this planet…helping each other learn, grow and evolve, with life itself being our greatest teacher. And those that have reached the top have a jolting message to everyone: “Actually, you are already what you’re seeking. It’s a perception shift away.”