Reddit reviews Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives
We found 4 Reddit comments about Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Sounds like you have a very healthy mindset.
I was an atheist for most of my adult life but then five years ago I experienced a spontaneous spiritual awakening. I have spent that time learning and reading and my views on life and death have completely transformed. I am no longer scared of death and am actually excited for when that day comes. Not that I want it to come sooner than its going to, but I know it will come and I am excited. I know you probably won't care about my opinion, but I promise you that you are going to be just fine.
You should read "Many Lives, Many Masters" by Dr. Brian Weiss, it is mind-blowing. He was a chief psychiatrist at Yale and didn't believe in any of that nonsense of reincarnation or life after death. Then he got this one client and all that changed. It's a GOOD book. And just one of literally thousands on this topic. Life doesn't end at death. This is a fact.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007EDYNAO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
This is probably one of the best books on reincarnation that I've read, because it's told by a clinical psychologist who was skeptical and wasn't searching for it, but unfolded before him through his practice with one of his patients. And since he's a clinically trained psych, he tells it in a very matter of fact, clear way, with a ton of detail and documentation.
I am based in NYC but I also travel around the country and the world to teach. Most recently, I was in Chicago, Singapore, and Malaysia. It depends on where the need is, and if there are potential students who express interest in learning in a particular city, then I'm there. The need of the time dictates where I go :)
This is the concept of pre-birth karma. It is not only responsible for people born with genetic diseases, it is responsible for situations/families that you are born in, your personal circumstances, and everything else.
In many life-after-death experiences such as in these books...
... They all share very similar stories in which you "decide" your current lives' initial conditions prior to birth. The concept is that the "soul" wishes to learn a lesson and chooses an appropriate time, place, circumstance that exercises the best suited probabilities for learning the lesson. The Buddha often talked about common karmic implications: Such as criminals often get reincarnated as animals or humans that suffer as victims of their own crimes. Nothing in the world can beat karma because essentially, it IS the LoA that you have performed on yourself prior to birth. The LoA is law.
For example, the greedy person rebirths as a person in poverty. Maybe the lesson for him is to learn the value of not being greedy. A murderer will become a murder victim. The LoA is not unfair, because essentially, it is your own "soul" which had decided for it to happen through the LoA - you just have had soul amnesia.
In Eastern divination, there is something known as the I-Ching. They believe that a person's "destiny" comprises of both a free-will component as well as a "capacity". Everyone is born with a capacity, and it is their own decisions in life that will decide how far within that capacity the person will be able to develop to.
In my opinion, prior to birth, you develop a mental-astral body that embodies these handicaps. For example, you might be deaf, blind, having a genetic malformation, etc. Then this mental-astral body (or the "soul) is attached to the physical body being developed within the womb through the "silver cord" at the Throat chakra. This is where life sparks, the soul occupies the nervous system and adapts to it. But realize that the DNA, the circumstances, the parents have already all been "selected" prior to the occupying. It is only because the "soul" has chosen for a Down syndrome life. Well, so here are the two common interpretations of the LoA with respect to reincarnation. Of course, there is a subtle difference.
In Buddhism, reincarnation is treated more like a domino-effect, rather than a "soul" travelling from one body to another. It is more like a candle lighting up another candle. The previous candle can die independently without affecting the second candle. (This might account for the eternal damnation/judgement that Christianity advocates. ) The thing is that the second candle is ALSO caused from you, so there really isn't a "soul". (A bit of a digression, I apologize.)
To answer your question more directly, well, it is the soul's own choice to be born in that way. The second thing is, it could very well be possible to improve the situation. However, due to the "capacity" mentioned when I talked about the I-Ching, it might or might not be possible. (Maybe a cure/suppression of the symptoms is invented in the era? Who knows.) What we can do, is to influence the present with our decisions and use the LoA to better ourselves right now. However, we must also realize that everything "bad" that happens is essentially just another lesson for you to learn.
Hope this helped.
I read a book many years ago that while reading, something clicked for me. I was always wise for my age. I can’t explain it very well other than it made a lot of sense to me. You should give it a read.
https://www.amazon.com/Many-Lives-Masters-Prominent-Psychiatrist-ebook/dp/B007EDYNAO/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Book+on+past+lives&qid=1551005132&s=gateway&sr=8-2