Then I began my journey of spiritual awakening.  This didn’t happen overnight for me, but was a journey of many steps and paths, as I tend to be very eclectic.  Along the way, people began to tell me that they had known me before, in a past life.  Now at first I’d respond with “oh, how interesting” – which can be, as a native Minnesotan, a way we dismiss things without having to confront a person or a concept.  I’d think to myself, “Yeah, right.”  For a long time I still thought the idea of past lives was very weird.

My path eventually led me deeper and deeper into energy work: first Reiki, then Earthwork and Qigong.  One of the things I like about energy is that it communicates with me in ways that transcend the rational mind.  I sense something, feel something, have a reaction of attraction or aversion, and this provides me information that sometimes my mind can’t even make sense of.  The more I worked with energy, and the more I continued to open up energetically, I began to “see” and “know” things in ways I could not explain rationally;  at this point, certain information gets pretty hard to dismiss.  (I put quotation marks around ‘see’ and ‘know’, because all anyone can really know for sure is one’s own sense of the experience, one’s own truth.  I suggest that knowing Absolute Truth is beyond most of us in our human form.)

My wife Pam, as is usual, softly introduced me into the arena of past lives as she began exploring it for herself.  After reading Dr. Brian Weiss’ Many Lives, Many Masters, we were intrigued enough to attend a workshop of his.  Among the exercises we did there, there was one where we sat 1:1 with a total stranger and simply stared into their face for length of time… and, fascinated, I observed my partner’s face morph, changing colors and sex, and even facial hair.  This experience, along with my concurrent exploration of Buddhism (which provides strong intellectual support for the concept of reincarnation), made it harder to dismiss this past life thing.  And then I remembered how, on my first date with my now-wife, we spent a half-hour just looking each other deep in the eyes in silence… there was such recognition, such a deep knowing even then.  (By the way, this doesn’t have to mean you’ve known someone in a past life, but I usually find it does.  Of course, all of this could just be a way of spirit talking to us!)

Once I opened myself to the possibility of past lives, the flood gates opened:  all sorts of interesting experiences occurred, including the piecing together of a past-life family with two other people while I was away conducting a workshop out on the West Coast.  This experience created such energy waves in me, it woke my wife up in the middle of the night half a continent away!  She felt the power of our ‘reunion’, even though she had no idea we were even working on this.

That being said,  I’ve quickly learned that while it can be great to recognize ‘old friends’, that mostly it’s really not “special”.  Of course those of us on this path have lived many lives before, and will have interacted with each other probably many times in many configurations: parents, children, siblings, lovers, enemies, friends.   Yes, I believe in soul mates – I just have thousands of them!  So now when the awareness of a past life connection comes up for me,  I may choose to simply note it for myself, or may share it with the other person if they seem open to such information, or if they do with me.  I honor it, and then surrender it.  I do not get attached to making them or our past life connection “special” in this life time.

Occasionally I notice that there’s a disturbance in the force, or energy, between us.  (I sometimes wonder if we are reconnecting now in order to release, heal and reclaim these old energies.)  When I do become aware of this, I consciously choose to forgive and ask forgiveness.  I may keep this to myself if they don’t seem aware of our connection, or may share it aloud as appropriate.  I simply say, “Please forgive me for any pain I have caused you; and I forgive you for any pain you have ever caused me.  I release what no longer serves us, and I celebrate the love which stays with us and propels us forward.”  Then I surrender them and the relationship.  In some cases we become friends;  in most, we go back to our own lives, feeling lighter and more love.

So, other than this freeing-up of energy, how has my acceptance of the existence of past lives benefited me?  It brings me back to a sense of the soul, of this essence within each of us that transcends time and space until it returns home with wisdom and all that love.  That karma may well exist, but that it is more benevolent than we realize: it’s not for punishment, but for opportunities to experience, learn and grow.  That the skills and work we accomplished in other life times can give us a head start in this one.   It helps me realize the limitlessness of time, that all things could be existing at once – or not at all.  That all is God; we are pieces of light, all emanating the One Light.  That everyone, everyone, is this One.  That there is a lot I don’t know or understand.  And that it’s a blessing to get this opportunity to experience this life.  Thank you, God!