Pariprashnena — Q&A Archive

Lord krsna made a nice arrangement,so that we cant remember our past lives,which must be full of horors!
We may be living,within the same family or within Iskcon,with our worst enemies-maybe we were burnt alive as Christians or....we were the inquisitors!
I prefer to look in the future,and try my best to follow the leader,Srila Prabhupada!

govindas108:
I am just disgusted at the "just chant hare krishna" mentality preventing devotees from exploring knowledge.
start from the bottom, not the ceiling, I have seen it thousands of times: fooling yourself you are above all things except pure KC doesnt work.
even self-realized paramahamsas usually had to go through mundane knowledge before reaching the supramundane.
at least, if you are not interested in this particular area, just save your time and post elsewhere the site, where only "pure" subjects are discussed.

Mishra: It can be a valid understanding to look forward and not to the past. I have heard that past life regression actually doesnt have much success when people use it as entertainment.

Govindas: Many people are suffering from disorders stemming from emotional blockages from past lives.

If people have an interest in past lives, I think that is good and they can be encouraged to a certain extent. There is a coworker who was very interested and read the book of Brain Weiss about past lives, these kind of people are somewhat open minded and I can see them becoming devotees in future, maybe not this life.

Some past life remembrances may be pure imagination, but others have been found to be amazing accurate. People get quite profound views on reality from such practices. They may not become Krishna bhaktas, the vast majority are impersonalists or mayavadis. So it is not pure Krishna bhakti on the level of the goswamis but as Veda gave a link earlier, here is Bir Krishna Goswami doing a past life seminar with devotees:
Past Life Regression Workshop at the Serbian Camp by Certified Past Life Regression Therapist BK Goswami
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5386460925322627743

Mishra:this is a free speech forum:Im sure a good percentage of people are not interested in going back to their past,but those who wish to,why not? But is it a crime to have full faith in the Maha Mantra?I sincerely do...as well as many others,and do not wish to know my dark past!

govindas: I am not criticizing you, just making the point stand. Usually those who like to know other things they are open minded, that was my point, no offense intended.
Going back to the question, yes, for some people doing regression can and will help them in the gradual process frm ignorance to light.
Personally i have been in many of those maya territories (UFO, parapsychology, hypnosis, magic, divinatory arts, etc) and now I see that as a blessing. Not that I encourage going after that, but if comes, take advantage of it.

Like I remember people getting in this past life regression many years ago, somehow raised their "i am not the body" knowledge and that is always good, and many times an easy projection to KC.

so going back to the topic... is it easy to do a regression?
do you need an expert or can it be done by amateurs just following some instructions read on the internet?

If you know hypnosis it is easy. Actually everyone should learn hypnosis, especially devotees.

how?

Curiousity is part of our nature but there are times when this can get us into trouble. If we were meant to know who we were and what we did in our past lives then we would remember them automatically without effort. Best we spend our short time here on spiritual goals; not on finding out what wonderful people we may have been in past lives (or horrible people). It is an ego thing - Hey, check out who I was and what I did!

Move on

So next time you get sick you were meant to get sick and you should not go to a doctor. Otherwise you would get better automatically.

Yes we should spend our time on spiritual goals, and maybe doing a past life regression will help people. Unless you are following Shrila Prabhupadas instructions fully and are taking sannyasa at the next Gaura Purnima festival, then I will not suggest bothering with past life regression.

But you are qualified to tell what is beneficial and what is not for all the aspiring Vaishnavas out there?

[quote][cite] amalagaura:[/cite]So next time you get sick you were meant to get sick and you should not go to a doctor. Otherwise you would get better automatically.

Yes we should spend our time on spiritual goals, and maybe doing a past life regression will help people. Unless you are following Shrila Prabhupadas instructions fully and are taking sannyasa at the next Gaura Purnima festival, then I will not suggest bothering with past life regression.

But you are qualified to tell what is beneficial and what is not for all the aspiring Vaishnavas out there?[/quote]

Tell me exactly where Srila Prabhupada says we should spend our time trying figure out what or who we were in our past lives. I need the exact quote. Quite possibly you will find the opposite.

And you are qualified to tell us what to do? I hate that old comeback when someone says something that someone else does not agree with.

If you want to just chant hare krishna, chant and dance, please be my guest, i will join you too.

It is a common piece of Vaishnava etiquette to not give advice unless you are asked for it. You may only give advice to your disciples and other dependents. So quite frankly your opinions may be valid and I hope they are good for the people you are guiding.

The point of this thread was to ask if anyone had experiences they wanted to share, if you dont have experiences and you dont want to join then nobody is asking you to. You can start another thread with Shrila Prabhupadas instructions on past life regression. or what the official ISKCON devotee position should be on past life regression, etc.

Many people feel that such regressions do help people along in their spiritual journeys, if you dont agree, that is fine. I am not a temple devotee that I have to follow some temple or GBC doctrine.

Vegavan Prabhu in Sweden does past life regressions and has done a television show on it. Apparently it is quite well received in Sweden. But of course it is too much maya for our ISKCON devotees. That is fine.

[quote][cite] amalagaura:[/cite]
It is a common piece of Vaishnava etiquette to not give advice unless you are asked for it. You may only give advice to your disciples and other dependents. So quite frankly your opinions may be valid and I hope they are good for the people you are guiding.
[/quote]

The pot calling the kettle black. I expressed my opinion. You did not like it. So be it that is your perogative as it is mine.

I pray your journey is positive and fruitful. Hare Krishna

It is just a question of etiquette. We were discussing about past life regressions and if you come into the discussion and say
[quote]Tell me exactly where Srila Prabhupada says we should spend our time trying figure out what or who we were in our past lives. I need the exact quote. Quite possibly you will find the opposite.[/quote]
Then you are just as welcome to give us the quote where we should not do it. Otherwise your point of not getting overly interested in our past lives is well taken.[br]
I also am not interested in hearing what we may have been. These stories could just be our subconscious telling a story, that is possible, but if anyone had therapeutic benefit from it I am interested. This discussion may be quite out there but I find it interesting and we already had questions of sharing mystical experiences so I do not think it is too far fetched. Usually verifying these things are difficult. The person who taught us hypnotherapy said that he did have clients from India who, during hypnosis, told vehicle ID numbers of the car they were in an accident in Texas. They checked that number and the details of the accident were correct. [br]
But in ISKCON and our BBT publications like Coming Back it says hypnotheray induced regressions are mostly false and we have to go through 8,400,000 species. So how is it possible? Plus we have seen on shows like Dateline ABC where young boys give amazing details on being WWII fighter pilots. So how did they take birth so fast? There is a nice reincarnation television collection where there are 5-6 television shows about reincarnation. Mostly from hypnosis. But should ISKCON tell people "No way, you have to be born as a worm in stool first"
From Coming Back:[quote]
Another common fallacy with past-life regression is the inexplicable gap between the present life and the last incarnation. For example, the subject who thought she was Bridey Murphy claimed to have died in 1864 in her last life, leaving a sixty-year period before her "next incarnation" as Virginia Tighe. The book indicates that during this period the soul of Bridey Murphy lived in the "spiritual world."
[b]According to the principle of reincarnation taught in the Vedas, we learn that this is quite impossible. [/b]The actual process of reincarnation is that the soul, after leaving a material body at death, enters another womb in some species of life in this or another universe, as directed by the immutable laws of karma and arranged by material nature. [/quote]
So we can see that past life regression is quite heretical in the Hare Krishna movement. Like reincarnation to the Christians :-) In fairness to Coming Back it does say that entering the "spiritual world" is impossible because we have to take material births. That is true, but just because we dont know where people went for 30 years, we should not say the whole hypnotherapy induced regressions are false.

I should make a comment. I read more of the text in Coming Back and they do give a fair treatment where they agree that many claims are quite scientifically sound and cannot really be challenged. They just give doubt to the practice as an infallible method of finding past life memories. And that is true, our subconscious can create things as well. So in Coming Back they are just trying to show shastras as more reliable than scattered evidence from hypnosis.[br][br]

I watched in our course where a boy who was familiar with hypnosis immediately went into a past life where he had insulted his father in his past life. In this life he had issues with his father. But the boy was very repentant about it and was saying "It was so demoniac what I did" So in the state he experienced himself insulting his father and with the guidance he has could understand that he is responsible for his current situation.[br][br]

The good therapists basically stress that we are responsible for our situation and we should manifest our desires to elevate ourselves.

Hare Krsna
I have felt that some people are immersed in the bodily concept Its not going to help but hinder preaching for Prubhupadas mission (maybe its so subtle that most non-devotees may not get it) so why do it?
However some emotional problems form last life NEED to be uncovered (thats pretty much all the past life regression therapy can do) having said that i am not so expert at understanding others past lifes but one does not need some office situation to uncover the subtle points for someone, Its like Bhakti Yoga you can do this walking down the street"
Hey why stop there why not help make emotional breakthroughs by understanding someones actions based on genetic memories!!!
the problems are all based on: THE BODILY CONCEPT OF LIFE!!! they NEEDto be uncovered...
BUT!!!!!! DOVETAILING 4 KRSNA IS FUN
We have Bhakti Yoga!!