Programming your next life
QUESTION: Masters, many spiritual teachers, especially in Buddhism, speak of the importance of those thoughts that occupy the last days, hours, and moments of your physical life. We are told the more pure, positive, and focused one’s thoughts are, the better one’s next reincarnation will be. Information from life-between-life experiences implies that the life you choose for subsequent existences deals more with the lessons you need to learn for your spiritual evolution. How do our last thoughts change the quality or circumstances of our next life?
ANSWER: While you are reading a conflict into these two concepts they are actually part of the same principle. The soul comes to planet Earth to learn lessons, gain knowledge, and become enlightened with the wisdom thus available.
As each lesson is completed, the wisdom is not released until the entire lesson is understood. If people do not fully understand the purpose for which they chose to undertake a particular lesson, they fixate upon it and rethink the event repeatedly. If the lesson is understood, it is put aside and the soul prepares for the next step in life.
In the Buddha’s teachings he is commenting upon the soul’s not completely understanding what it has just experienced, or not being able to let go of an experience because the ego thinks it defines the importance of that lifetime. If you have learned the lesson, you can let it go and ego is held in check. You have come to know your true essence and are not trying to figure out just what it is you are supposed to know.
Spending your last conscious moments knowing you are unconditional love is to be as much in purity and light as is possible in a human form. You have achieved the wisdom you wished for and will not have to repeat the same lessons again. This makes for a better reincarnation—you move forward rather than backward.
Life-between-life work allows you to see the process of setting up for the next life experience. The soul quizzes itself: “Have you completed all of the past chosen lessons? Or do you have some phases that were incomplete and need to be revisited to fully get the benefit of them?”
The soul’s reason to return to physical form is always personal growth. For the aware soul, the evaluation process for progressing takes place during the previous experiences but is reiterated before the next journey begins. Buddha seeks to get the soul to be always cognizant of the reason for life, and yet to seek the energy of eternity.