Reincarnation & the Purpose of Our Lives, written by Karen Berg
I was walking down a street in Los Angeles, thinking about nothing but the beautiful weather. All of a sudden, I heard a voice speak to me. I have no idea where it came from, if it were inside my head or outside, male or female. All I know is that its message came through loud and clear: “You have been here many times before.”
Gulp. I’ve been here many times before? What did that mean? As a devout Catholic, I’d never even thought about reincarnation until The Voice made its pronouncement.
So began a decades-long journey to find out more about reincarnation and what it meant to me. My first stop was the Self-Realization Fellowship Center, a garden retreat on Sunset Blvd. founded by guru Paramahansa Yogananda, who had introduced Kriya Yoga to Westerners with his famous book Autobiography of a Yogi. I learned how to meditate and hold yoga poses and listen to people who spoke casually about things like “karma.”
Over the years, I—a scientist and a skeptic and a Catholic—accepted reincarnation as fact, and it changed my life. Reincarnation offered explanations for the flood of “strange” memories I’d had as a child, as well as my curious passions and phobias. It gave me insight into relationships both difficult and benign, and changed my code of behavior from avoiding sin to improving my karma.
My past life memories usually came in “flashes” of recognition, combined with a visual “memory” and a “knowing” that was so super-intense that it brooked no argument. I was a British sailor who drowned in the icy Atlantic, an American girl who died in childbirth alone in a log cabin, an Irish woman abandoned by my husband, knowing my children and I would starve to death, an Egyptian slave entombed with my mummified master, a lonely young monk in a dank monastery in Scotland. In this lifetime I am a dedicated religious pacifist, yet I’ve often been involved with military men—possibly because I’ve been a warrior so many times in my past that I have great sympathy for men who bear arms.
Hypnotized past-life regressions helped decipher the complexities of my fractious family. I learned my mother had been my child, my sister was my brother, one brother was my husband, another had also been my child. True? I don’t know, but the contemplation of possible previous relationships sure put a different light on who my family was today. And, as some teachers say, when you accept that you choose your parents, the whole dynamic between child and parent changes.
Travel to other countries often leads to discovering past lives. When I went to Ireland, I felt I was home for the first time in my life. Every day presented an overwhelming déjà vu experience. I knew what was around the next corner before we got there, I found the family tombstones without anyone showing me. The most intense memory took place at the ruins of a castle in Kinsale. I saw myself as a knight from France, who rode through the smoking ruins, anguished that I had not been able to rescue my lady love. Through research I learned the history of Kinsale—in about 1649 the castle had been destroyed by Oliver Cromwell, who had indeed hired French mercenaries.
Of the nearly 50 books I’ve read on reincarnation, the one I just finished is the most thought-provoking. …To Be Continued: Reincarnation & the Purpose of Our Lives, is the latest book by Karen Berg (God Wears Lipstick: Kabbalah for Women), who is the Spiritual Director of the controversial Kabbalah Center, headquartered in Los Angeles.
Reincarnation, according to the Center’s teachings, covers every aspect of our lives. It’s not enough to know we had past lives, but we must use the knowledge of past lives to discover our purpose in this life. Every person we come in contact with is a person from a past life. As Berg says, “We are part of a circle that continues to form our environment from one life time to the next…”
The purpose of our repeat incarnations, Berg says, is simple—we come from God, The Light, and we keep reincarnating until we correct our mistakes and learn the lessons we’re supposed to learn so we can return to the Light as perfect beings. Our lives are a collection of puzzle pieces and learning to fit the pieces together is how we handle life’s challenges. Adversity is what teaches us what we need to know
Some of Berg’s specific teachings on reincarnation are radically different from traditional views. For example, she indicates that we can reincarnate into animals and even rocks if doing so will serve our cosmic purpose. She cautions against woman-on-top sex because, she believes, a boy conceived during sex in this position could attract a female soul, thus resulting in a homosexual child.
Like many other people, Berg is convinced that everything happens for a reason. For example, a child might be born with a birth defect because it needs to right a wrong it did in a previous life. I do not believe everything happens for a reason, though I do believer we can give reason to everything that happens. For me, a child with birth defects is not an act of karmic debt, but an accident of nature and a chance to grow in courage and compassion
Berg writes at length about three tools that are part of the kabbalistic wisdom that can help us learn more about our purpose in life. They are the use of angels, kabbalistic astrology, and the lines in the face and palms. I’m curious to hear Ms. Berg elaborate on these unique tools in her presentation at Malaprop’s.