Past Life Regression Workshop in SBS
Past Life Regression claims that you can actually have glimpses of past lives. Read two accounts from participants of this workshop.
Ms P firmly believes that she had glimpses of her past lives and shares with you her experience in this workshop.
A Renewed Interest
I was excited when given a chance to join the Past Life Regression (PLR) Workshop conducted at Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary conducted by Dr Selina Chew. I had attended a past life regression session before in Kuala Lumpur and since then have developed an interest in PLR to learn about discordant patterns that impeded my growth and development, I really looked forward to being there.
I was born in a family where guardian angels, deities, ghosts, death, and life after death are part of our daily conversations. I used to wonder about the purpose of my rebirth into this life.
I started recalling some fragments of my past lives after a meditation retreat at the end of year 2006. It prompted me to find out more about this topic and I later learned that there are techniques of regression to access our past lives. I was really interested to know more.
On the morning of 5 January, 2008, 32 participants gathered at the SBS Multi-Purpose Hall for the two-day workshop. From the first day, I learned that all of the participants were there for different purposes - to overcome their phobias, to find out their connections with their loved ones, to seek solutions to recurring ailments, to find reasons for the attraction to certain countries or interests, and also to retrieve their talents and abilities.
Preliminaries
Instead of jumping straight into the regression, the participants began with warm-up exercises. In order to have better integration of brain and body, we did some ‘switching-on’ activities. We learnt more about our personal learning preferences whether visual, auditory or kinesthetic. We also learned to use our mind to control the pendulum and make it move by our conscious mind. Seeing the pendulum moving under the power of our mind really amazed us.
During the two-day workshop, we managed to go to three different lifetimes: the happiest, a spiritual and the immediate past life. We practised visualization using our senses and this helped us retrieve past life images more effectively.
Dr. Selina Chew directed us through a few different techniques to immerse in hypnosis to let our mind fully relax and allow past memories to emerge. Under hypnosis, our conscious mind is always aware of what we are experiencing. It can comment, criticize and censor. For some people, scenes of a past life are played out as in a movie. Our mind is always aware and observing. This is why most of the time, when we are deeply hypnotized and actively involved the memories of a past life, we are still able to respond to instructions, know the places we are seeing, and even the year, which usually flashes before our inner eyes or just appear in our minds. The hypnotized mind, puts the past life memories into context while retaining an awareness of the present.
If you are skeptical about the existence of the past lives, you are not alone. Despite hearing all these concepts since I was a child, it still took me sometime to digest and believe they were real instead of imagination. I was really impressed by some of the knowledge and concept of retrieving our past lives. I learned that I just need to let myself experience whatever comes by. I don’t have to worry whether they are imagination, fantasy, metaphor, or symbol, actual memory or some combination of all of these. Neither do I try to judge, criticize or even comment on what I am experiencing. Just be with the experience. I can criticize it afterward. I can analyze it later. Remembering my past lives made me realize that I am just a continuous stream of consciousness existing in different physical bodies playing different roles.
Lessons from the Past
During the group regression, I managed to see images of two different past lives vividly.
From those past lives I finally understood the attachment to one of my close friends. She was my mother and wife respectively in those two lifetimes. Another image I can still remember is of me a happy little girl, laughing and riding a bicycle in the misty morning surrounded by beautiful tulips. From the images, we looked very different. How do I know those people I saw are related to my current life? By just looking at their eyes, facial expression or the way their mouth moved when they spoke, I can intuitively identify them with persons in my present life.
What I really learnt from this regression is that we will meet our loved ones again and again to understand the full spectrum of lessons in life – lessons about love, compassion, charity, non-positive qualities in one life. I am convinced that each of us is just a mass of kammic energy that keeps coming back to continue learning until each is wise enough and the kamma is exhausted.
During our sharing session, some said they managed to see the past links between loved ones, others saw the reason for recurring ailments which doctors could not diagnose. Some of them finally understood the reasons for their attraction toward certain places, cuisine, sport, etc. Some had doubts about the nature of their experiences. If one is happier, able to cope better with everyday problems and gains a better understanding of themselves after undergoing PLR, does it matter if what one experiences is real or imaginary?
Acceptance of the Present
Regardless of how much the past has influenced us, or what merits or demerits we have accumulated to be born into this present life, living in the present moment is more important. Keep an open mind to accept the past lives as just memories, like any other childhood memories. We might look very different. We might have lived in different places. But they are just memories from which we draw lessons to enhance present lives. Non-attachment is now more ingrained in me than ever.
The most precious gift from this workshop is not the recall of scenes or memories. Rather, it is the lessons to help us be more accepting of certain situations in our present life.
L, a young but by no means impressionable teenager had some images suggestive of a past life.
In this workshop, Dr Selina guided us into a state of mind where we were supposed to be able to ‘see’ our past lives. However, there was also a tendency for us to fall asleep in the process. And sadly, I was one of those who drifted off to slumberland.
Luckily for me, I managed to see that may provide clues to a past life, during the second regression session.
Was I a composer, an inventor or a great conqueror?
Nope, I was just a humble ninja that became a monk but ‘disrobed’ after falling in love.
Ninja? Cool! But a ninja that became a monk? No comments.
And worst of all, ‘disrobing’ because of love? Definitely not cool!
I must say, the events that happened in my past life was a disappointment. But who’s complaining? I still have another life to be made interesting!
Anyhow PLR has really taught me to keep my mind open. You must never decide something is true or false before experiencing it.
