By Steve Priester
Reincarnation, soul contracts, past life regressions, and the whole topic of past lives is very intriguing and certainly worth pondering. However, there always seemed to be some confusion about reincarnation and linear time. Many spiritual texts and teachers emphasize that time is an illusion—a creation of our 3-D reality—that we utilize to function here on planet Earth.
Without some concept of time, how could we ever schedule our daily lives?
While at one level this is true, at another level nothing is ever experienced except in the “now.” Even the past, which exists only in our memory, was experienced as the “now” when it happened. And the future? Well, that will also be the “now,” if it ever occurs. So, if everything happens in the “now,” how can there be past lives along a linear timeline? I often wondered about this question, so one day I just asked Spirit to send me an explanation of how it all works. When I ask Spirit a question, I ask it only once and then await the answer. Usually I hear back within a week—sometimes I never hear back, which is an answer in itself. The answers come when my mind is quiet and my thinking is shut down—I could be meditating, pruning, or as was the case this time, I was in the middle of my run. Once I was in my “zone”—unaware of my breathing or my legs moving down the road—the following download came to me. It was both “clear channel” and instantaneous:
Imagine you are sitting in a dark theatre. On the wall in front of you are 20 large TV screens, each 40-inch HD, all in standby mode. You are holding a magic flashlight. When you turn it on, the light beam in the dark room becomes your focus, your sense of consciousness, your present moment awareness. Since you are seated in “the theatre of the human experience,” your human brain only allows you to “watch” one screen at a time—the brain actually limits the potential of viewing screens simultaneously. However, that ability is delegated to the soul.
You turn on the flashlight and aim it at one of the screens. The monitor lights up, the video and audio come on, and you realize immediately that it is your present life: You are a retiree living in Florida, the year is 2015, and the world is as you know it to be. Now you move the flashlight to a second screen. The video and audio come on again, but this time you are herding goats in Turkey—it is the 1800s. You are just as comfortable with this scene as the first, but you are no longer aware of the Florida life. You then move the flashlight to a third screen, where you find yourself in Australia, a mother with two young children, the time is approaching 2100 and weather patterns have dramatically altered the landscape. Each screen represents a different lifetime, with different genders, races, cultures, and locations.
The 20 TV screens you are viewing are all wired to the same network. This grid is integrated, holographic, and set to real time. What happens in one scene is immediately experienced in all the others. All are set for the same time—the eternal now. Therefore, if a life lesson is learned in any one scene, in any lifetime, it is learned in all. When soul consciousness rises in one scene, all scenes rise together. All your lives are being lived simultaneously in such a manner that all growth and changes, all successes and failures, are experienced as one concurrent event.
Thank you Spirit! I found such an explanation both enlightening and scary. To consider all of the possible ramifications was mind-boggling. Thoughts and more questions raced through my mind. This explanation does explain why a lesson learned need not be repeated, even if the lesson was learned in another life. It also explains déjà vu and the “bleed through” that some experience when visiting new locations—“I felt as if I had been there before.” Perhaps for that split second of déjà vu the experience bypassed the brain and went directly to consciousness, where the memory of all our thoughts, feelings and actions—from all our lifetimes—are stored. I also recalled reading Jane Roberts and how Seth described us as “multi-dimensional” beings. Is this what Seth meant, that we are in many dimensions at once?
I remember a coworker who admitted to a drinking problem telling me years ago that one day he awoke, and instantly knew that he would never drink again. There was no satori or dark night of the soul—just the realization that he was done drinking. What if, during the night, he resolved this issue in another lifetime on a different continent at a future time? The holographic nature of the grid is truly fascinating when you consider it is all set to real time—the “now.” Past life regressions could also be viewed differently. Rather than the hypnotist retrieving a past memory, they would simply be accessing a present day event that is being experienced in another dimension.
And what role does the soul play in all of this? What if the soul is our consciousness, and it is free to focus on all lifetimes concurrently because it is not restricted by the limited focus of the human brain? It is said that at the very moment of enlightenment the Buddha experienced all of his one thousand lives. The concepts of soul growth and the rising of soul consciousness can then be seen from a wider perspective. Collective consciousness could also be viewed as a reflection of the hundredth monkey effect. If all lifetimes are integrated and holographic, then once a level of consciousness is achieved by enough members of any group, then that awareness is available to all.
The underlying theme for reincarnation is that life is eternal, that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, and that when we slough this body we simply transition back to our natural state. The download from Spirit confirmed this theme and also helped explain reincarnation within the context of linear time. And finally, it confirmed the very dynamic and holographic nature of life—that everything is interconnected and evolving, and it is all happening in the only moment there is, the “now.”
Steve Priester was born in Minnesota and relocated to Florida after retirement. His spiritual journey has wound its way through A Course in Miracles, Zen, and mediumship. He facilitates a weekly ACIM discussion group in The Villages, FL, and speaks to metaphysical groups on various topics. Steve can be reached at stvpriester@yahoo.com.