Reincarnation is the rebirth of the soul after the body dies into new bodies or forms of life. By going into the records of the past, we can uncover information about our present and future-- why we have certain fears, why we act the way we do, why we like certain things and have specific areas of interest, why we are drawn or pushed away from certain people, and what kind of goals we should aim for. Spiritualists are very knowledgable about reincarnation, as well as very good at not only seeing past lives, but also finding out that life's ties to the present, and using past life information for present benefit.

Process of Reincarnation

Reincarnation begins with a supreme energy, that grows and develops as we grow and develop. This energy is our creator, and we all begin as unconscious sparks of the supreme-consciousness and reincarnate over and over again to become fully conscious parts of this supreme-consciousness. Like a plant reaching to the sun, the soul reaches towards this enlightenment.

Reincarnation is part of the process of the evolution of consciousness. It is being born into bodies time after time, for the purpose of developing consciousness, and becoming fully enlightened beings. But in order to do this we must experiance many different aspects of life, evolving on our journey. We begin this journey as being a spark of the supreme-conscious, making it's decent to the world, where it is ready to enter life. We begin as being a part of the mineral world, a part of matter, having no will or movement of our own, just a physical awareness. As we expand beyond this, we entire the plant kingdom. Here we begin to find an emotional awareness, and are allowed movement, roots reaching into the soil and planet reaching toward the sun. Ages pass and we make another step in the evolutionary process, into the animal kingdom. As an animal we now have physical abilities and sensations, emotional abilities, and mental abilities. Our mobility has increased, and we are no longer tied to the ground. After this stage we are ready to entire the human kingdom, where all our abilities have increased, and the spirit begins. It is in this stage that we spend the most of our lives, evolving into different people and experiancing different lives. After the completion of this process, when we have developed our consciousness to enlightenment, we then move on to become a pure spirit of the creating force.

The body, or our physical form, is really just a shell for the soul in its journey towards enlightenment. Although our bodies may die, the soul is eternal, and can never die. After the death of the body, there are several different levels of the astral world where we go until we are ready for our next incarnation. Many will stay earthbound shortly to spiritually visit loved ones and allow them to know they are alright even after their physical shell is gone, and then move on to other levels. Here the soul evaluates its life, and looks back on the past's goals and areas that need balancing, or karma, and then sets goals for its next life. Although some souls will reincarnate immediately, it is best to take advantage of this period. Some souls that are farther along in the process may choose to become a guardian spirit either in the physical world or in the after-life to guide others, rather than reincarnating right away.

This process of growth through reincarnation goes very slowly. One incarnation is only a fraction in the life of the soul, no matter how we measure time. We experiance several different lives, not only on this planet but also on others, and they fall in no specific order. But the total amount of lives we will live cannot be determined-- it all depends on how quickly the person grows and how interested they are in the process. Some people can live many lifetimes in one life, and others grow very slowly.

Karma

Our main purpose in life is our development. However, in our paths we sometimes create imbalances, are not fair to others or ourselves, and thus we create what is called karma. Karma means "to balance," and throughout our lives we are trying to complete or balance our karma. The balancing of this karma helps aid us in our development toward enlightenment.

Karma deals with the principal of cause and effect. Everything we do must be balanced. If you do wrong to someone, that energy will have to be balanced, either by that person doing a similar wrong to you at some time or it may mean that you will sometime understand the consequences of your actions and decided to change your attitude and actions. When you gain understanding of your thought or action it releases some kind of karmic force. Usually by taking corrective action yourself you will change the energy enough so you are no longer under the karmic retribution.

There are many different kinds of karma that effect us. Personal Karma is the karma caused by things an individual has done or not done and, therefore, is solely responsible for it. It may have been created through many lifetimes. Relationship Karma involves interactions or non-interactions between two or more persons, which brings imbalance. Genetic Karma is the sum total of unresolved karma present in your cellular structure and put there by ancestors. Group Karma may be political, religious, racial, societal, or some other form. Actions and non-actions affect all members of these groups whether they were intimately involved or not. When you've been a member of a group that has created karma, you are connected with that group until the karma is balanced. You can work it out individually, but it is difficult to do so. Lastly there is Karma taken on others. This involves taking over someone else's responsibilities or growth that are that person's opportunities to release karma.

Karma built up over our lifetimes effects us even when we don't realize it. Many instances where this happens is in love relationships, views on equality, blocking others, exchanging energy with others, preference of your location, attitudes, choices, and ego.

Through karma, sometimes a soul can get caught in a Karmic Wheel. A karmic wheel is a "wheel" between two people that are drawn back to each other life time after life time to learn to deal with one another, until such a time as one of the persons recognizes what is going on and chooses to take away his or her energy from the wheel effect and turn it to other uses. Sometimes this wheel happens in love relationships that have not been honest or truly loving to one another. It can also happen in business or political relationships. When one person realizes what is going on and makes the necessary changes, they are released from the wheel. The other person, however, rolls their wheel around until they can connect it with someone else in a similar situation, or until they begin to learn and change.

Karmic force in all situations, whether caused by attitudes, feelings, actions, or innactions, must be played out or transmuted. If played out, it means the person will find themself pulled into situations where this energy can be balanced. It may relate to love, anger, sex, business, family, friendship, enemies or any number of ways. If a person daydreams, sometimes they will work out karma in the daydream through understanding and releasing the energy patterns. Transmuting karma means to change the karmic force inot a balanced, pure energy. This usually involves feelings of love and understanding. Sometimes spiritual beings greater than us that we pray to or worship have enough powerful energies to balance a person's negative karma through transmution when they realize their wrong, ask forgiveness, and forgive themselves.

Karmic Relationships

Souls are not brought into this world alone, and most of the people we know we have deep spiritual or karmic ties to without realizing it. Most of the people we know we have dealt with before in previous lives, and will probably again in future lives. That is why many times we create impressions of people that we do not even know that well. Through reincarnation, our soul creates many different links to other souls, and understanding them can help us to understand our relationships with others and about ourselves.

Most souls can be broken down into different kinds of groups. The most broad group is the Soul Tribe. Soul tribes consist of a number of soul families that may very from tribe to tribe. Soul tribes mainly function together in the propagation of particular abilities or talents, and are the root of relationships and dependence on others. Under our soul tribe there are Soul Groups, where participants will have an extra agenda whether it is in a leadership role, developing spiritual awareness, or some other form of group activity. Their purpose is to speed the evolution of the people on the planet. Many times these groups create incredible karma among themselves, which has to be worked out before they can truly work together as a unit. Under soul groups are our Soul Families. A soul family is made up of several thousand people. You will reincarnate over and over with these souls, sometimes in gentle supportive relationships and sometimes in very intense learning relationships. You will learn to be father, mother, sister, brother, child, as well as any other form of relationship, including lovers or spouses. The ultimate here is that you learn to relate to everyone else from all aspects of relationships. Therefore, you will find that your parents have been your children or your siblings or you may have been married to one another in previous lives.

Also, every soul has a Soul Mate. There is a lot of confusion about what a soul mate is, since most refer to your "kindred soul" as your soul mate. But the truth is they are quite different. Your soul mate is a soul on the other side that is a perfect spiritual balance to your own soul, and through this balance, they can sub-consciously help us balance karma or spiritually challenge us.

The term used for what most people think of as a soul mate is your Kindred Soul. Your kindred soul is another soul on this world that you are connected to on spiritual levels. The energy between kindred souls is very powerful and they will help one another expand to new levels. Many times kindred souls will be acquainted with one another with the sole purpose of expanding their growth through the intensity of their energies. Even when kindred souls may never meet or find each other, they still continue to try to expand each other on other spiritual levels. Most kindred souls meet on higher planes during sleep and maintain some kind of connection on those levels.

Kindred souls are usually always opposite sex, to help balance energies, although on some rare occasions they will be the same sex. Most kindred souls will remain in their relationship for many lifetimes before changing to other kindred souls, although their roles may change from lifetime to lifetime, such as exchanging gender.

Sometimes the relationship between kindred souls can become difficult. If one has developed more than the other, then the undeveloped areas of the less developed become an irritant to the more developed person. A person who has developed less of their energies will then feel over-challanged by the other. It is up to the kindred souls to help balance each other and develop each other to higher areas.

There is an energy area in our bodies behind the xiphoid process (the bony appendage at the end of the breastbone) which relates to who we really are. It is called our seed of self, of the pattern of perfect self that we are to become. When deeply relating to others, your perfect pattern of the self relating to that area in the other person brings more of a soul connection and also a sense that each is an individual soul. It usually brings more clarity to the relationship as well. When a person is around their kindred soul, this area will usually resonate, and when focusing our energies here and expanding them, we can connect to our kindred soul. When connected to our kindred soul, we can not only feel if we have met the person and who they are, but also who is ahead in spiritual growth. Then you can balance the connection and feel enlightened peace between the two souls.

There is one other common relationship between souls, and that is Twin Souls. Twin souls are very similar to one another and usually the same sex. It is from twin souls that we get the saying "there is a double of us somewhere in the world." Sometimes their astrological charts are so closely aligned that they will do the same thing at the same time. They might not even be aware of the other person for many years. If one twin develops and grows, the other twin's growth is automatically enhanced.

There is usually a strong past life connection with twin souls and they may have gone through a number of difficult situations together, thus building a trust level. When these persons meet, they immediately have a common trust and a common understanding. They most likely will have the same interests, hobbies, beliefs, and occupations, and admire the same traits in people.

For information on how to regress your past lives, please turn the page.

Sources:

Andrews, Ted. How to Uncover Your Past Lives. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1992.

Paulson, Genevieve Lewis and Stephen J. Reincarnation: Remember Past Lives. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1997.

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