Lately I have been receiving increasing requests for individual past-life regressions.

Although this is a powerful and useful tool that has many benefits for individuals with puzzling personal problems (misfortunes, dead-ends in life, irresistible attraction to another individual), it is not a panacea or a cure-all.

Not all our problems are a result of a past-life event. They could have sprung from an experience in the present life. These things should be considered before undertaking regression.

Karmic debt

Are there benefits or advantages in knowing one’s past life or lives? There are many.

For example, a woman threw her husband out of their house because she could not stand his habitual womanizing. During regression, their roles were reversed. This woman found herself to be a man, and her present husband was his wife in the previous life.

In their previous life, she (as a man) was the one cheating on his wife. When she learned this, her deep-seated anger toward her husband disappeared. She realized she got only what she deserved; she was paying her karmic debt.

Regression can also help us understand or overcome certain puzzling ailments or phobias.

A woman who had a terrible fear of heights discovered the reason for her unreasonable fear. She found herself living in the forest in 17thcentury Switzerland. She traveled from place to place using vines like Jane and Tarzan.

One day, while holding on to a vine, it broke, and she saw herself plunge into a ravine. That’s how she died. When she found out that her fear of heights was a carryover of that traumatic incident, her fear of heights disappeared.

I can give several more examples of how certain diseases were traced to a past-life memory. But the above will suffice to illustrate regression’s benefits to health.

Knowing a relevant past life can also prevent a person from exacting revenge against another individual who has wronged him in this lifetime.

For example, a British businessman established a school in London and hired a professional manager to run it. The school progressed, and the businessman invested more money into it.

Then, after five years, the manager whom he had trusted ran off with all his money. In anger, he filed a legal case against his former school official to recover his investment.

While the case was pending in court, the businessman was invited by friends, a Dutch couple, to come and meet their Indian guru, Sathya Sai Baba, in Bangalore.

Followers

Sai Baba had thousands of followers in India and many more in other parts of the world. While standing outside the “Ashram” or temple together with thousands of his followers, Sai Baba walked among the crowd to collect their petitions.

When he passed in front of the businessman named John, Sai Baba said, “John, I would like you to see me after this.”

Surprised that Sai Baba knew his name although they have not been introduced, John went inside the temple and sat in front of the Indian guru.

Immediately, Sai Baba told John about a little-known incident he had with his cousin in London when he was 12 years old.

It involved a cat which his cousin gave to him, and he hated cats. Shortly afterward, his cousin died, said Sai Baba.

He was still wondering how this Indian man could have known something so personal, which happened many years ago, when Sai Baba dropped another incredible piece of information about John’s past life.

“And John,” said Sai Baba, “I want you to forget that man who owed you money in England, because in one past incarnation, you did something worse to him. In 17th-century Italy you were a warlord, and this man and his family were your vassals. During that lifetime, not only did you steal this man’s property, you even raped his wife and his daughter. So don’t get angry with him.”

When John heard this, he cried like a baby in front of Sai Baba.

When he got back to England, he asked his lawyer to drop the case he had filed against the man who stole money from him.

Although past-life hypnotic regression can unveil the mysteries of our past lives, sometimes it does not always work, because not everybody can undergo even light hypnosis. Some are too rational and critical that they can’t let go. Others cannot mentally and physically relax.

There are those who may harbor hidden fears of the unknown; and those who think they may not come back when regressed, which is not true. With a trained hypnotherapist, past-life regression is a very safe procedure.

The next “Soulmate, Karma and Reincarnation” seminar will be on March 7, 1-7 p.m.; tel. 8107245 or 0908-3537885; e-mail: [email protected]