Past Life Regression Resources
The past life regression therapy (PLRT) cases studies are from clients (names changed) who have completed three to five sessions with Mark W. Beale, Certified Past Life Regression Therapist and Clinical Hypnotherapist.
For more about past life regression and using the Past Life Regression MP3 program, download the free ebook; Past Life Regression.
Marital Reconciliation – Forgiveness & Trust
Weight Loss – Life Between Lives & Soul Mates
Illness, Grief & Karma – Resilience & Acceptance
Moving on From Divorce – Courage & Strength
Irrational Fear – Release & Self-Esteem
Soul Mates – Relaxation & Confidence
New Relationships – Detachment & Involvement
Search for the Guru – Individual & Universal
Marital Reconciliation – Forgiveness & Trust
Issue: Ayesha, a successful writer, experienced suicidal pain on discovering her husbands affair. He asked forgiveness and they reconciled, but a few months later she discovered he was continuing with the affair. When we meet, Ayesha had been apart from her husband with her teenage daughter for one year.
Ayesha’s first priority was to release her hatred and anger towards her husband and his mistress. Counseling had helped her, but though she had said ‘I forgive them’ out loud, she didn’t feel it in her heart. She still felt the poison of betrayal internally, and was frustrated by her automatic caustic emotional reactions towards her husband. On one hand she wanted to punish him heavily for his betrayal – this was the motive for her suicide attempts and continuing aggression at every opportunity in conversation. On the other hand she still wanted to live for the rest of her life with him and continue to raise their daughter together as a family.
Ayesha’s goal was to control her outbursts towards him that were counter-productive for her and her child. Ultimately she hoped to be able to forgive enough to be able to move forward calmly with her own life and career. This could mean maintaining a cordial relationship while moving on with another man, or ideally reuniting as a couple again if she could find a way to trust him.
Insight: Ayesha recalled a past life as a man enraged by his daughter’s affair with an unsuitable soldier. As that man, she had lashed out and accidentally killed her own daughter. Ayesha had wanted to punish her for disobedience, but was distraught at accidentally killing her. Ayesha recognized her daughter in that life as the mistress of her husband in this life. The unsuitable soldier in that life was her husband in this life. In that life she suffered great remorse and died young, wishing to be punished for her violent outburst.
Ayesha recalled another past life as a young woman in which she warned a friend against a relationship with a man who she knew from experience was a womanizer. Ayesha’s friend ignored her advice – and ended their own relationship over the issue. Later in that life, her friend admitted that Ayesha had been right, and that she should have listened to Ayesha when she was trying to be protective. Ayesha recognized her friend in that life as her daughter in this life. The womanizer in that life was Ayesha’s husband in this life.
Resolution: Ayesha immediately felt a strong remorse for her actions as an emotional and violent father. She now understood the karmic connection of her husband and his mistress. She felt that since she had deprived them of a relationship in that life and caused them great suffering, that it made sense that they meet again in this life. She recalled her desire to be punished for her actions in the previous life, and saw the events of this life as the karmic suffering she had actually requested then in her remorse.
Ayesha felt they had all suffered enough now, and that she was 100% ready to forgive both of them from the heart. She felt that the betrayal she experienced in this life was no longer an inexplicable and entirely unfair. Ayesha recognized the pattern of self-sabotaging destructive outbursts that hurt all parties. She choose to release those emotions of the past and deal with the present situation free of past life influences.
Ayesha’s second life gave her insights into her husbands patterns in this life. She realised that his life purpose is to overcome womanizing traits in order to get the happy life he wants. She told me that ‘he needs to learn how to be faithful, and to do so in this life I could give him another chance by learning and practicing forgiveness.’ Ayesha now also realised why she was being over-protective of her daughter – she revealed that she had been worried about having her fourteen year old daughter living with a womanizing father, but recognized that was an inappropriate fear based on circumstances in the past life which was not a rational danger in this life.
Outcome: Ayesha’s insights allowed her to get answers to the questions on why she was betrayed and how she could ever forgive. Forgiveness was no longer forced, but became an automatic consequence of understanding the bigger picture. Now that she could forgive, she was free to move forward with her career, her relationship with her daughter and, in the future, a relationship with a man, possibly with her husband.
Ayesha’s insights into her husbands issues and her ability to deeply experience forgiveness, wisdom, love and compassion allowed her to make the choice of whether to give him another chance in this life consciously. Before she was dominated by unconscious emotional and mental programming. Now she felt confident that she could live for the rest of her long life and feel empowered on her own. Or she could choose to give his soul another chance to be faithful, aware that whatever his capabilities or future actions, she would be able to deal with the consequences centered in her life-affirming, conscious compassionate wisdom.
Ayesha wrote to me later saying ‘I want to take this opportunity to thank you for helping me through the most difficult phase of my life. It has been the most wonderful experience of my life and I feel completely renewed and it feels like a rebirth, with a completely new outlook for what I went through and also the future.’
Weight Loss – Life Between Lives & Soul Mates
Issue: Sushmita had been able to lose weight in the past, but a self-sabotaging part of her seemed to take over and return her to obesity. At twenty-seven, she saw the major significance of her weight as a barrier to future relationship and marriage, and in career progression in Public Relations. She had previously been sassy and flirtatious with her voluptuous figure, but in the last few years she had ‘shut down completely’ as a sexual being and damaged her self-esteem. She was still sexually interested, but self-consciousness about her stomach a the major barrier. Pressure to marry from her parents, especially her mother with whom she had always had an antagonistic relationship, meant there was a secondary benefit in maintaining weight as an inappropriate rebellion to spite them.
Sushmita had already experienced eight sessions with a past life regressionist, but without extra step provided by a past life therapist she found those many sessions to be inconclusive and didn’t help her in the present moment or even truly satisfy her curiosity. Though she was still spiritually inclined, her stated goal for the sessions was a simple mental reprogramming to assist present moment eating patterns, though she was also open to ‘removing the weight of the past’.
Insight: Sushmita recalled a past life as the wife of an impoverished gambler. To repay debts, her husband offered her sexually to his friends. Sushmita recalled an occasion in which she was raped and beaten with repeated kicks to the lower stomach. She recalled her misery and despair from a distance, and reconnected with her thought that – ‘there must be more to life than this’ which she recognized as the being of her spiritual journey. Sushmita recognized her husband in that life as her mother in this life.
Sushmita recalled a number of other past lives relevant to eating and body image issues, but most significantly she described a plane of existence that exists between lives. Sushmita’s personal spirit guide took her to meet her Soul Group and Masters who assist in the journey of her soul. Sushmita recalled the choices she made prior to entering into her current incarnation. A Master let her know that she had an opportunity to meet her soul mate, but that with great love may come great suffering if he were to die young. The subconscious choice she had been making so far was to repel a potential partner with eating and thought patterns that would protect her from that suffering of loss, even though that experience would be optimal for her soul.
Resolution: Despite the challenging circumstances of abuse that Sushmita recalled in lives shared with her present day mother, in the in-between lives dimension she talked with her mother as a soul beyond roles. They had tears of joy in feeling the underlying love of the universe and between their souls. Sushmita recognized the cosmic paradox that her mother had been a great catalyst for her spiritual journey – in a way she was the teacher that kick-started her evolution. From this perspective they were even able to look back and laugh together. She recognized that the accumulation of fat that was most evident around her central and lower belly was a kind of protective cushion from those old kicks that was no longer needed.
Sushmita understood that in her in-between lives she had created a number of possible destinies and that she also still had the free will to make a choice for highest spiritual benefit. She described the suffering that could come with it as a powerful cleansing tool that could lighten her spiritually, and greatly increase her level of evolution as a soul because it would be a suffering chosen consciously. She was a little in awe of the responsibility and hesitant. Part of her still wanted to kept the option of hiding under a protective but regressive layer of obesity open – however, she felt empowered by the insights and confident that she would integrate the experience and make the appropriate choices as her journey progressed.
Outcome: Sushmita was delighted to have her expectations for the sessions so dramatically exceeded by going far beyond simple dietary re-enforcement. Sushmita had been able to resolve her previous frustrating past live experiences completely, access the deepest level of cause and effect that contributed to her symptoms and felt empowered to make conscious decisions in line with her core life purpose.
Sushmita began dating men for the first time in years, and her confidence and self-esteem saw her take a new job with a major increase in salary. Sushmita wrote to me later saying “the phrase ‘life-changing’ is used far too often, but in my case it was completely accurate. I went in to deal with weight issues and ended up releasing negative energies that were holding me back, visiting past lives and soul groups and reaching a much more aware and evolved state of mind and life than I ever had before.” Physical weight had simply been the catalyst to become holistically lightened.
Illness, Grief & Karma – Resilience & Acceptance
Issue: Ajay had a long list of issues. Premature physical aging had been his graying hair since his teens. At just thirty-four he was experiencing the early stages of cataracts. Work related stress as a Finance Manager and anxieties were compounded by grief at the loss of his eleven year old son Raj in a freak accident eight months earlier. Ajay also stated that his difficult childhood also weighed on him, particularly the schizophrenia of his mother that developed when he was eleven years old.
Ajay felt burdened with a huge sense of debt to be repaid materially to his parents, wife and other children – a debt he felt that was essentially insatiable, like an interest only loan. Ajay also felt torn by a spiritual yearning to renounce the family path. Compounding this inner conflict, Ajay felt a strong desire for his son to be reborn to him once again in this life, and a strong desire for total moksha (release from the cycle of birth and death) also in this life.
Insight: Ajay found himself on a hillside cliff where he saw his son Raj flying with a mischievous look on his face that was at once reassuring but surprising – everything about him was playful, even teasing. Raj reassured Ajay that he, and everything, was alright and as it should be. Ajay persisted with detailed questions, but his son simply replied with a blissful smile and dissolved.
Ajay recalled a past life as a eleven year old Brahman boy studying as part of the gurukul culture, at an ashram away from his parents. He was getting a good spiritual education, but was extremely sad and missing his mother. The boy committed suicide by jumping off a hillside cliff, but was able to realise the pain he had caused his mother and the future he missed as a well educated Brahman. His mother in that life was also his mother in this life. Ajay told me that his soul lesson or challenge in that life was resilience.
Ajay recalled another past life as a tribal hunter in Central America. Ajay tried to analyze and discount his own perception in hypnosis by rationalizing that the tribe looked like the people of North-East India, so he must be making it up; I instructed Ajay to return to awareness not analysis. We moved forward, seeing that at eighteen he was mauled by a jaguar. One of his eyes was punctured, became opaque, and prevented him from acting as a hunter. He spent the rest of that life working with the women, but unable to marry. His frustration turned into acceptance; this was his soul lesson – he succeeded in accepting the situation.
Resolution: The irrational sense of an irreparable debt eased as Ajay realised that he had already paid many karmic debts in this life. Ajay felt that his past-life suicide as a boy of eleven has caused his past-life mother a great deal of mental anguish and suffering. In this life he now suffered due to the mental illness of his mother that also began when he was eleven. And in this life he too experienced first-hand the suffering of losing a child.
Ajay decided to analyze his experience afterwards by researching the dress and appearance of the Central America tribesmen he had seen. He discovered Ecuadorian hunters who wore the exact same head-dress – and was shocked to discover that, contrary to his conscious preconception and second guessing, they did actually resemble the people he had seen in hypnosis.
Ajay now saw his eye condition as a barometer – the combination of stresses in this life had led him again to feelings of hopelessness and resignation. Though he had passed the lesson of acceptance in the previous life, his eye was reminding him of it again. Ajay had seen his sufferings and burdens as obstacles to his spiritual path instead of fundamental and requested aids to his progress. Ajay was able to decide to drop his intellectual and internally contradictory expectations and rise to the challenge of completing the lessons of resilience and acceptance.
In Ajay’s final session, he recalled a scene that actually happened when his son Raj was alive. Ajay had scolded the typically naughty Raj for speaking cheekily to his mother. Raj, just three years old, had cried at his punishment. Then, still with a tear-stained face, Raj walked up to Ajay and said with a cheeky smile ‘papa, now you can wipe away the tears.’ Ajay had been amazed at Raj’s action then, and was deeply moved by the meaningfulness of that scene now.
Outcome: Ajay’s perceptions of his challenging circumstance was transformed. The bigger picture answered a lot of questions about the karmic causes of his current conditions. He realised he was now in a position to transcend old unhelpful past life influences that were no longer relevant. He started to release old habits of over-analyzing, second guessing and undermining his inner knowing. He felt a lightening of the weight on his shoulders.
To attain the ultimate goal of release, Ajay would need to release the sufferings and the loves and desires of these lives. I still felt that Ajay desired more from his contact with Raj, but that he had already received what he needed, whether or not that was all that he wanted. The journey continues, but for now Ajay told me that he has ‘suffered enough, the universal laws can take care of themselves without my excess stress or worry. Now I can choose to be at ease with the flow of life and lives as it is, and practise acceptance and resilience.’
Moving on From Divorce – Courage & Strength
Issue: Aamir’s marriage was irrevocably breaking up. He was looking for a perspective that would make it easier to accept the inevitable, integrate the experience and move on quickly. Depression, procrastination and self-doubts were affecting his ability to feel good about the future. A fear of dogs made him feel weak in front of his son.
Aamir wasn’t interested in traditional counseling or present day hypnosis that could have benefited him. He was, however, intrigued by past life regression – even though he stated out right that he didn’t believe in reincarnation because he is a Muslim. No such belief is required – it was enough that Aamir was open-minded and happy to take any experience as a symbolic story or movie while remaining confident and secure in his Islamic faith.
Insight: Aamir recalled a past life as a veteran European soldier returning from the wars to be with a women. He died when his horse and carriage went over a ravine – the injuries sustained matching pains experienced in this life. He never married his love, and felt regret that he had neglected her in favor of the excitement of battle, comradery and travel. He recalled watching her at his own funeral and vowing to return and be with her.
In another life as a ships captain with a young family, he had a gut-feel about turning back in rough weather, but ignored his intuition. Pirates took over the ship and killed him and his crew. He felt it was a lesson not to let common knowledge overrule his inner wisdom. A long life as a subsistence farmer with a family followed, but there was little to eat and less to do. He was able to spend time with his family, but it was unsatisfying.
The final life developed into something like a world war two spy movie – he was as an allied officer escaping with a female companion through cobblestone streets and high mountain roads in Austria with shoot-outs, car chases, diversions and eventual reconciliation; they escaped and lived together – and this was the same wife from the first life that he had vowed to be with again.
Resolution: Aamir recognized that for two past lives he’d chosen personal adventure over family life. He had perhaps over-compensated by choosing a dull farming family life. He felt the last life represented something of a compromise – he had adventures and then lived with her, and though domestic life eventually become dull, they had also experienced some adventures together.
Two aspects were unusual about Aamir’s regressions – he didn’t recognise anyone from this life, and the final life was atypically movie-like. Aamir had come to the sessions with an open-mind and a background belief, yet the experiences from his subconscious were spontaneous, surprising and did not contradict his belief system yet did find a way to gave him want he needed.
Outcome: Aamir was buoyed by the recall of his previous adventurous, independent selves. The emotions he felt were meaningful – reconnecting with past qualities increased his confidence in the present. Recalling his previous enjoyment of single lives helped him balance his sense of loss with some possible gains. Instead of feeling stuck in a rut, Aamir now felt inspired to be more daring and out-going.
Seeing numerous lives open up a sense of patience and resilience as he had already overcome a lot of adversities on the long journey of the soul, and widen his perception of the many roles the future may bring. He saw life as a movie and himself as the Director with the power to make it a tragedy, a comedy, or an adventure. He made a decision not to cling on or be fearful. As he left my office that night, he saw a street dog and patted it’s head.
Irrational Fear – Release & Self-Esteem
Issue: A counselor in her mid-forties, Mallika still felt dominated by and fearful of her older sister. She saw her husband too as an authoritarian figure. She felt like a slave and puppet around both of them, was afraid to say no and was uncomfortable with herself. She had never experienced physical abuse of any kind from her father, sister or husband, yet she reacted to any aggression from them as if it there was a threat of life or death. As a child her tendency was to be a free spirit, but Mallika gradually internalized their verbal put-downs and her playfulness had given way to frequent crying and depression, unhealthy eating and low self-esteem.
Insight: Mallika recalled a life in which she was condemned to death for her uncompromising, unconventional views. She was stabbed and skewed in ceremonial fashion on a pole. The entry point on her wounds corresponded to physical pain she still experienced in this life. The tormentor was her sister in this life.
In another life as semi-nomadic warrior tribeswoman living outside of conventional society, she was killed as an outlaw. In the next life she returned as a villager, feeling oppressed and unhappy but safer. A final life saw her as a leader of a tribe in India greeting unfamiliar Portuguese sailors. Though outnumbered, the Portuguese had a mesmerizing effect – she was attracted to their leader, but due to a combination of miscommunication and defensive aggression, she was killed by him. The Portuguese sailor was Mallika’s husband in this life.
Resolution: Mallika’s fear of her sister and husband had been irrational – she described defying them as being a matter of life or death. Now this made sense to her – in the past she had paid for her defiance with her life. The progression of lives showed a continued effort to avoid social constraints or responsibilities, but also compromised to ensure physical, if not emotional, safety. In a future life progression, Mallika saw herself not in a place, but in space – as a star, surrounded by the light and warmth of wise and loving stars around her.
Outcome: The awareness of previous patterns and influences created spontaneous physical release of discomfort in her chest and ribs. Mallika began to automatically stand up for herself at work in the face of authoritarian seniors, and was rewarded for it. As Mallika’s confidence increased, she began to experiment with redefining the relationships with her sister and husband with a calm confidence appropriate for the current life circumstances. Mallika’s self-esteem also rose as her insights helped her to centre in feelings of forgiveness and compassion for others, and for herself. The broadening of Mallika’s her sense of identity to a number of other lives did not stop there – she now felt the experiential connection with her authentic core as a universal being filled with and surrounded by light.
Soul Mates – Relaxation & Confidence
Issue: Vivek described himself as an emotional guy prone to self-induced stress and health worries over the smallest things. A successful Internet Company Director in his early thirties, he interrupted our sessions to take a business trip to Italy. Vivek stated an explicit desire not to dwell on the past and to be future orientated, which he rightly thought was not contradictory to requesting past life regression. Vivek’s sessions were prompted by spiritual inclinations and curiosity, his desired outcomes were to manage stress better due to an impending promotion and birth of his first child.
Vivek wanted to phase out his anxieties particularly relating to health, and to phase in courage to display to his child and confidence to step up to the next level in his career and finances. Vivek also wanted to phase out the pills has was taking for insomnia, IBS and anxiety.
Vivek was also curious about his relationship with his godfather Dev, a man fifteen years his senior, with whom he had virtually nothing in common and had only known for the last fifteen years, but for whom he felt a tremendous sense of devotion. Vivek’s highest stresses in the last few years had related more to Dev’s illness rather than his own.
Insight: The first session featured only hazy scenes of a South-East Asian city, however the experience of hypnosis and follow up hypnosis MP3s alone was enough for Vivek to report that in the following week his insomnia and IBS improved by 90%, and that he was able to deal with challenges at work without going into ‘panic mode’.
In the second session Vivek recalled a life as a bandit in India in his forties, weary and regretful of his outlaw lifestyle, who was caught and jailed. When a popular armed uprising occurs, he wants to join the rebellion and use his fighting skills for a good cause. His jailer recognizes his changed intent, and risks his own life to free him. Vivek’s past life personality spends the rest of his life fighting for his country to atone for his outlaw past.
Vivek recalled another life – this time as a woman living a subsistence life by a river, with a good man has her husband helping to raise their children. Throughout that life they only have the barest of necessities, but enjoy a consistent supporting relationship.
In the third session Vivek recalled a life as a Buddhist monk in Tibet. He was not an academic monk but grew to specialise in teaching the younger monks a particular technique to raise inner heat and stay warm in freezing conditions by connecting with their inner light.
In a fourth and final session Vivek recalled a life as a servant girl in Italy who grew to develop a business and share the house with her former master in a caring platonic love relationship. Vivek then moved into the future, and a life he perceived as 3011, when the population was much lower, but where the earth was beautiful and everyone lives in co-operative abundance.
Resolution: Vivek recognized his godfather Dev in three of his four past lives – he was the jailer who gave him an ‘unforgettable’ hug as released him as the bandit. In both of Vivek’s lives as a women, Dev was his husband. Vivek told me he felt that this explained the complex relationship he shared with Dev, including his sense that though they share a mutual admiration, Vivek was happily more devoted to Dev.
Vivek had never heard of Tummo meditation – a Tibetan Buddhist technique that allows practioners to meditate in the cold mountains and reportedly raise enough heat to melt surrounding snow. Vivek told me that the spiritual progress he had made with that technique was actually something that he could take with him into other lives – he felt once again connected to that healthy inner warmth and light, and felt it melt away many of his anxieties, worries and fears.
Outcome: By recalling his past lives and struggles with Dev, and realizing experientially that their continuing relationship transcended not only illness but death, Vivek was better able to respond to Dev’s health scares, and became more relaxed about his own health. Vivek had discovered that soul mates take all forms, that may be romantic in some lives and significant in other ways in other lives.
Vivek continued to practise self-hypnosis, with emphasis on his inner warmth and light. With medical approval, was able to phase out much of his medication. He felt more centered in himself as an expansive, wise spiritual being, rather than a fearful, defensive individual body or ego.
Vivek’s vision of the future was the final piece in allowing him to feel completely satisfied with his insights from the past. He felt he could act calmly now, free of any unhelpful past life influences, but strengthened by the lessons he had learnt. Vivek told me he could move confidently into a future he saw as abundant, beautiful and patiently awaiting him.
New Relationships – Detachment & Involvement
Issue: At forty-five, Parvati still felt the pain of a physically abusive childhood household, led by an ‘egomaniacal’ father and an alternately passive and aggressive mother. She had left the house and soon as she could, and now had as little to do with any family members as possible. Of her two brothers, one had committed suicide seven years earlier, which she attributed to his difficulty in overcoming the trauma of their childhood. She stated outright an ongoing ‘hatred’ of her father, while also claiming to feel nothing – that her family were like strangers to her. Parvati called her strategy of dealing with the past ‘detachment’ with it’s spiritual connotations, but some avoidance was mixed in.
At work Parvati was prone to emotional outbursts if a senior raised his voice to give orders – she found herself screaming ‘it’s better to be dead than listen to this abuse’. She avoided building relationships beyond strictly professional work issues with seniors, and was now missing promotions in her Medical Administration career because of it. Parvati had avoided intimate relationships and never been married, but in the last three months she had found someone she wanted to marry, Akshay, and move overseas with. She felt patterns of resistant and negative thinking created an obstacle to her goals. Parvati was initiated into Reiki ten years ago, but the initiation had triggered a pain in her right shoulder that persisted to this day.
There was much we could do for Parvati’s issues with hypnotherapy, such as anger management, releasing emotions relating to her parents and co-workers, forgiveness and communication skills, but she was adamant that she wanted to be ‘detached’ from all that. Parvati wanted to work with her issues, but felt it would be too uncomfortable to work with this life. She was, however, enthusiastic about the benefits of seeing her present moment situation in the context of the patterns and influences of past lives, and discovering if her prospective partner was her soul mate.
Insight: During the first session Parvati found it a challenge to relax, but her right arm rose spontaneously from the shoulder and felt intense pain. She couldn’t link this to a time or place, but her subconscious mind agreed that it was appropriate to release this pain, and did so.
In the second session Parvati described in detail a city in North India or Pakistan, including mosques, worshipers and geographical land marks, all from an aerial perspective, unattached to a body. None of this had any apparent connection with her life except for one figure who looked like her partner despite being much fatter with long hair and a moustache. Another life followed as a fighter in a stadium in the Roman Empire as a male warrior with a sword and shield – but she watched from an aerial distance as his right shoulder was injured.
In the third session she found herself in pristine, peaceful but lonely natural environments, such as miles of perfectly manicured grass, and dried up river beds. She was able to choose to allow the ‘noise and inconvenience’ of the river to flow and spread life to the dusty barren land, as flowers spontaneously sprang from the now fertile ground.
Resolution: Parvati reported that almost immediately her shoulder pain had been relieved and felt as good as it did ten years ago. Reiki can trigger past life memories, consciously or subconsciously, but symptoms can persist without a therapeutic resolution. She released the majority of her pain without recalling the moment of past life injury, and when she did recall the warrior it was in her preferred ‘detached’ manner.
Parvati was puzzled by the Pakistani experience – until she described it to her partner Akshay that evening. Akshay told her the landmarks matched Lahore (now in Pakistan, formerly India), where his family is from. Akshay’s great grandfather was a large, mustachioed warrior with the viceroy in the kind of dress Parvati described. Furthermore, Akshay’s mother had always told him that he was the reincarnation of her grandfather, the man Parvati had seen. While Parvati had been puzzled and initially confused by her perceptions, Akshay was in delighted disbelief and amazement.
Outcome: Parvati was delighted by her sessions and her ability to learn to relax physically and mentally to tune into her own inner wisdom and ability to visualise which she initially stated was impossible for her. She choose her means of dealing with her issues with a clear intent, and her subconscious found a way to give her what she was looking for in a way in the most elegant manner. Her subconscious avoided her present life and, realizing it could give her the assurance of the connection with her soul mate, showed her his past life instead.
Based on the perspectives gained during the three sessions held on consecutive days, Parvati told me that she now felt very confident about her ability to deal calmly with challenging situations on their own merits. She felt that along with the physical pain she had also released layers of emotion pain that no longer need to be triggered in present life situations.
Parvati didn’t need to directly face past problems or forgive to be able to make decisions to change old patterns that are now no longer needed. She felt she could now allow relationships and work situations to flow and flower like her metaphorical affirming river of life.
Search for the Guru – Individual & Universal
Issue: Priyanka had a spiritual inclination that grew as her life developed, but she felt her progression was now impeded by the lack of a guru. In her mid-thirties, Priyanka was a gradate and had worked as a Fashion Buyer but was now ‘just a housewife’ and a mother of children approaching their teens. Her mothers cancer and her children’s growing independence encouraged spiritual search.
Reiki and pranic healing allowed her to feel a connection with the universal energy, but she also still felt bound by materialistic urges. She would combine pilgrimages to the temple of Shridi Sai Baba with shopping trips in Mumbai. She was also frustrated at her inability to meditate for more than twenty minutes.
A previous regression generated inconclusive images; without a therapeutic resolution she was left with only a speculative hypothesis that in the past she had done something to anger a guru, which would explain her current absence of a guru, who unlike Shridi, was in current human form. She thought perhaps she should feel closer to disincarnate gurus such as Shridi or teachings in books.
Insight: Priyanka quickly found herself on a mountaintop with an Aghori sadhu. She followed him along many pathways to a forest house. Inside she found a library room full of books, with another holy man dressed in yellow, sitting in a reading chair, silent but with a half teasing smile.
Another Aghori sadhu lead Priyanka from his mountain cave to the ruins of an ancient fort. As she crossed the bridge, people began to appear, and she realised she had once lived here, as a merchant and a soldier, but that commerce and war were no longer meaningful for her, that was all long ago. She returned with the sadhu to the cave, and a cliff top where she felt an urge to jump and fly higher.
Priyanka recalled a life as an Egyptian tourist in Rome with her mother in this life. She soon returned to an ancient kingdom in central India, in front of her guru from that time. In the hypnotic state Priyanka heard the guru say ‘I guide you through books.’ She asked ‘have I angered you? Can you forgive me? Did you leave me?’ The guru answered ‘A mother never abandons a child.’
In the third session, Priyanka follows an Aghori sadhu through more rising and falling of empires, to a cliff top, but this time she’s sucked upwards, flies over other-worldly mountains and is drawn towards a river of light like lava from a volcanic mountain. Inside the mountain she discovers temples, garden and her forest house – but this time the chair is empty, and there are only a few books. Priyanka then discovers an central temple with many silent sadhus, and is drawn to the innermost sanctum where she finds an intense golden god-like light.
Resolution: Priyanka’s experiences appeared to be a mix of the symbolic, metaphoric and literal that’s in keeping with the higher level perspective she requested and the unconventional nature of spiritual masters. Priyanka perceived that the Aghori’s were her day-to-day guides, leading her to the high level masters.
Priyanka felt the library scenes affirmed that the guru can exist in books, but that she would eventually go beyond the written word. The old forts let her know that she’d had many lives in many forms for millennia, and the time would come to transcend all those roles. The cliff top implied she would eventually go beyond those dramas and have the courage to jump to another level of being.
The only figure Priyanka recognized from this life was her mother, and only as a brief link to seeing her ancient guru – this seemed to emphasize his role as a spiritual mother. His simple and powerful metaphor answered her questions as a mother would a child. It’s like a loving mother letting her child to read alone with a book for a short time. The child can wonder, but there’s no question of a loving mother or guru being overcome by anger or being unforgiving. The child may not yet know in what ways that the loving mother / guru is an eternal source of unconditional love.
Outcome: Priyanka’s questions were answered in the somewhat teasing playful manner that affirmed some of her inner senses. In a way I felt she would have liked a flesh and blood guru to announce himself in hypnosis. However gurus rarely fit in with our preconceived expectations, but show us the path and are there to help us fly when we are ready to make our jump.
Priyanka found books increasingly meaningful, especially when certain pages, phrases or gifts appeared at certain synchronistic times. She noticed an improvement in the quality of her meditation following hypnosis, then an increase in the duration. She frequently found herself back at the mountain cave, the cliff top, and flying on to her temple of light.
Priyanka told me that now her definition of ‘guru’ had expanded – she saw all people, events, thoughts, books and situations as potential teachers. She felt stronger and surer in each steady step, confirming her decision to follow the path and her courage to make the leap. She felt she was moving beyond the individual into the universal. Priyanka recognized the eternity of the journey simultaneously with the light of the destination.
