Why is working with past lives so important? Let us look at two aspects of past life work that are crucial for everyone on the spiritual path — the effect of our active past incarnations on our present reality, and the importance of integrating their experience.
An important part of coming into full consciousness is knowing all of our past lives. This includes being aware of, and using the positive knowledge and experience of our past incarnations, as well as having healed and worked through the heaviest karma.
If we believe in past lives, we often approach them either from the perspective of entertainment, or seeking to heal and fix something that was broken and still affects our present incarnation. We want to know who we were and what we did, what made us the person we are now, why certain people or places affect us so powerfully, even though nothing in this present reality suggests that they should. On the other hand, we want to heal the issues that seem irrational or unrelated to our current experience — phobias, recurring dreams, perhaps an illness we were born with.
Activating Past Life Selves
One aspect that most people don’t realize, is that when we begin awakening spiritually, we also activate some of our past incarnations, who then remain with us as our allies, or guides. Such activation happens when we visit a place where a past incarnation had lived, when we meet a person who was very significant to that past part of us, or even when we go through a lesson that was somehow not completed in one of our past lives.
Such awakened past incarnations can affect us both positively and negatively.
On the one hand, they bring with them their own set of experience, skills and knowledge. If we consciously work with our past lives, we can begin to tap into these skills, and even ask for help in resolving current-life issues. For example, an active past incarnation who was a successful businessman, can help us in our own business. On the other hand, they are imperfect human beings, just as we are.
Think, for example, that you met someone who was very important to you in a past life. Obviously, that “you” was a completely different person, with a different personality, different lessons, beliefs and life circumstances. Yet, the old emotional charge was so strong that it left an imprint on the soul. Such karmic meeting awakens the past incarnation, who can literally “override” your this life self.
How do you recognize that a past incarnation is particularly active and is influencing you? You may start experiencing thoughts and emotions which are completely out of character for you, be drawn to places you never even thought of visiting, or act in ways that were previously unimaginable. This is not a negative influence per se, as your past self is you, from a larger perspective, and wishes you no harm whatsoever. But, as I mentioned, it is still an imperfect human being with own sets of beliefs and knowledge that may be outdated or no longer useful.
Our goal, in the final incarnation, is to know and integrate all of these different personalities into one, to reach union, thus becoming a complete human being.
Past Life Integration
As we awaken our past incarnations and get to know them, our job is not just to learn from them and accept their guidance, but also to be the captain of our own ship, and not let them override our own decisions.
The past life parts of us are separate individuals, with own personalities, experience, beliefs and life stories. Yet, on a larger scale, they belong to the same “oversoul,” or monad. You can see it as many branches, or even leaves of the same tree. A leaf may think it is separate, yet it is a part of a larger organism. Our goal, in the final incarnation, is to know and integrate all of these different personalities into one, to reach union, thus becoming a complete human being.
