[nukkad] summary about rebirth from book Into the Unknown

["Mahesh chandra Gupta" <>]

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Friends,
Here is the summary I promised.

MC Gupta
July2

Summary of chapter titled "reincarnation" in "Into the Unknown" published by
Reader's Digest in 1981

1. Shanti Devi case was a famous, well documented case of rebirth. She was
born in old Delhi in 1929. At 3 years, she told a lot of details about her
previous birth, in which she was married to Kedar Nath of Mathura. All these
were verified by an unbiased group of observers, as well as by Kedar Nath
himself.

2. Dr. Ian Stevenson, Director, Division of Parapsychology, Deptt of
Psychiatry, University of Virginia, studied 1600 cases of past life claims.
He has come to personally believe in rebirth. According to him, personality
is determined by three dimensions: genes, environment and previous lives. He
wrote a book:"Twenty cases suggestive of reincarnation".

3. One of the cases cited by him is that of an American Indian whotold his
son and daughter in law: If there is some truth in this reincarnation
business, let me tell you I will be born to you after my death. Lo and
behold, he died in August 1949 and soon afterwards was born a boy to his
son. This boy was this same person, as proven by many instances.

4.  Mrs. Dolores Jay, Greenbush, Ohio, was given hypnotherapy to relieve
back pain. One night, her husband heard her speaking a strange, alien voice.
This was later identified to be German. She began having visions of previous
life on April 21, 1970. This life was in Germany in the previous century.
Details were verified to be true.

5. Stevenson has found that interval between death and rebirth varies. It is
9 months in Turkey, 21 in sri Lanka, 45 in India, 48 in Alaska Indians. [My
note: This may be Stevenson's data. Pasricha's data, and that of other
Indian studies, reveals a shorter interval of 5-6 months to 2-3 years in
general].

6. A large number of reborn individuals had violent death in previous life.
There was a high incidence of birth marks at the same sites as the previous
life body had sustained bullet or weapon injuries.

7. Common pattern detected by Stevenson was that previous birth recall
occurs at extremely young age [2-4 years], fades around 5-8 years, and is
particularly intense in relaton to death in previous life.

8. Pythagoras and Plato believed in rebirth. Old testament has a few and New
Testament has many references to reincarnation. This is discussed by
Reverend Leslie Weatherhead , Methodist minister of the City Temple, London
during 1936-1960, in his book " the case of reincarnation". Examples are
John 1: 19-28 and John 9.

9. A widely held view is that infant prodigies reflect the high level of
skills that the person had achieved in previous life. Examples are Mozart
[composed music at 4] and Blaise Pascal [he had outlined a new geometric
system by the age 11].

10. The identification of Dalai Lama is serious and convincing business, as
evident from the rigorous tests involved. This line has continued
uninterrupted since 1391. The Dalai  Lama sometimes even leaves clues about
his next birth. The 14th Dalai Lama has described his own identification
process in his autobiography "My land and my people". The 13th died in 1933.
He was reborn before 2 years had elapsed.

11. Morris Netherton, Ph D, personally believed in reincarnation, based upon
his work, which he has detailed in his book "Past Lives Therapy". Dr. Edith
Fiore, too, was convinced that past life memories under hypnosis were not
mere fantasies.

12. Psychologist Helem Wambach of Walnut Creek, California, examined 1088
descriptions of previous lives to assess whether these were mere fantasies.
That these were not so is shown by the following findings:

A. Details given by the subjects under hypnosis about past lives were found
to be accurate;
B. The 1088 past lives, when categorized in time,  accurately represent
estimates of world population at the relevant time. They also are equally
divided between two sexes, irrespective of the sex of the respondents. They
also accurately represent the socio-economic strata at the relevant periods.

13. 60% of Wambach's subjects were able to comment upon the state between
two births. 95% of these stated that they had chosen to be reborn. They said
this was part of a process of gradual spiritual improvement. Many said
though they had not actually looked forward to rebirth, they had been helped
in choosing it by kindred spirits, friends and teachers. Some said that they
had reentered the world with a feeling of compassion for those who had no
knowledge of the other realm.

14. De'ja vu may be because a person has visited the place in a previous
life. The famous example is that of Mr. And Mrs. Bralorne from Midwest USA
who had never been out of US earlier. Mr. Bralorne recognised each and every
street and corner in Bombay and moved freely on his own there. He asked a
policeman whether there was a large house at the foot of Malabar Hill with a
banyan tree in front. The policeman said, yes, there was such a house, but
it had been torn down 90 years earlier. He remembered this because his
father was a servant in the house which belonged to the Bhan family. It was
then that the Bralornes recalled that they had named their son Bhan Bralorne
because "at the time, it seemed most fitting".



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