Psychiatry & Reincarnation

I’ve been reading a good book, titled Many Lives, Many Masters, written by Dr. Brian L Weiss, a US-based psychiatrist. The book deals with two very interesting topics, psychiatry and reincarnation. Specifically, the significance of reincarnation in psychiatric treatment.

The book details Dr. Weiss’ personal experience using hypnotic regression to treat a patient afflicted with various psychic disorders. (Hypnotic regression is the use of hypnosis to make a patient relive his past, in order to identify events or emotions that are at the root of the patient’s present symptoms.) Rather than just revisiting her childhood, the patient recalls her past births, reliving events that underlie her symptoms. For example, she recalls one of her lives as a woman in a medieval village, who died in a deluge that wiped out her village, while trying vainly to save her infant son. Simply recalling that life cures her of her present fear of water.

However, the more important aspect of this for the doctor is that his patient experiences the transitory period after death (or after each of her deaths, to be precise), where she is a spirit with no physical form, except as a spot of light, just like all theother spirits that are waiting to enter their new lives. In this state, she also acts as a medium for transmitting to the doctor spiritual messages from higher spirits, termed Master Spirits in the book. The knowledge gained by the doctor through these messages transform his own life and those of his family, for the better. He realises that we do not live our lives to the fullest simply because we fear death, that our purpose in life is to learn and evolve and to become God-like through knowledge.

The concepts of reincarnation, good karma and nirvana are fundamental to India and most Indians are familiar with them. But seen through the eyes of an American who previously had no exposure to them, these same concepts appear to have a new value. We have reduced these concepts to mere cliches, but actually understanding them will free us from the materialism and corruption that afflict our lives.

The thoughts that Dr. Weiss has tried to disseminate through this book are a sort of subset of the teachings of the Brahmakumari order, who in turn use the Bhagavad Gita as their main reference. The book’s description of the spiritual state between lives is very similar to that taught by the Brahmakumaris. Out of plain curiosity, I had once attended a few sessions at one of their Vishwavidyalayas (which is what they call their centres) but was a little sceptical. I still have a lot of unanswered questions, but the similarity of the various real-life experiences described in this book, by a man who had never been exposed to the underlying concepts, is certainly thought-provoking.

As a schoolgirl, I used to dream about becoming a psychiatrist, but life had other plans. Maybe in my next birth…:)