M.J. Rose

A speech delivered by Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, affectionately known as “Amma”, about the increasing occurrences of war, violence and natural disasters in the world today…

Thank you to Melissa Martin Ellis for answering this week’s Reincarnationist Q&A!

Author of THE EVERYTHING GHOST HUNTING BOOK, Melissa has collected photographs of unexplained and paranormal phenomenon for decades and is an avid paranormal investigator.

Q: What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?
A: I believe my obsession with books, writing and art are all a holdover from a past life in India, where I died around the age of eight, just as I was being taught to read by a teacher who came to our village. I have always been very focused on books and reading, and have always wanted to be a writer.

Q: What is your principle defect that you believe may be inherited from a previous incarnation?
A: A deep sense of insecurity, and a feeling that everything hangs by a thread and can be snatched from me at any moment. The child I mentioned was so proud to be learning to read, his grief at dying was heightened by the sense that he had almost gotten there, had almost reached his goal, only to have it cruelly snatched away.

Q: Which of your favorite heroes do you think you could have been and why?
A: I have no sense whatsoever of having been a hero or famous person in a past life. My husband, on the other hand, has always reminded me of Mark Twain, a writer and person whom I greatly admire. He has the same dry humor and ironic worldview. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a writer, too…and his name is Mark.

Q: What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?
A: I would love to have dinner with Mark Twain, Albert Einstein and Oscar Wilde—I mean, can you imagine that conversation? Twain and Wild would probably take opposing sides of the argument and Einstein would have to moderate. I’d just sit back and enjoy the show,

Q: What do you think happens when we die?
A: I think we get a life review which gets us up to speed on how we did as human beings. Did we give more than we took, did we make a difference in the world? I think that is why we are put here, to evolve and to learn. Until we do that, we just keep coming back…which isn’t a necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly isn’t the goal. As the George Harrison song says, “Give me love, give me love, give me peace on earth, give me light, give me life, keep me free from birth.” We need to learn what and who we truly are and then we’ll stop being reincarnated.

Q: When you come back next time, who (or what!) would you like to be?
A: A writer and artist, naturally—and hopefully someone who makes a difference in the world.

Melissa Martin Ellis’ Links:

Writing & Photography Website
www.mellissart.com

Everything Ghost Hunting Book
www.facebook.com/pages/Talking-About-The-Everything-Ghost-Hunting-Book/248021918686?ref=mf

FaceBook
www.facebook.com/?ref=home#/profile.php?ref=profile&id=558817663

MySpace
www.myspace.com/melissamartinellis

Twitter
www.twitter.com/Mellismart

Writer’s Group Website
www.newportroundtable.com

I want to share with you something I found online that seems like it would be incredibly interesting to reincarnationists everywhere, Jivamala: A Buddhist Practice of purification relating to reincarnation –

(From the site Many Lives.)

This site describes one person’s practice of the Jivamala, a process of purification where the individual embarks on a spiritual journey to remember past lives in order to be free of the bondage of those lives.

One of the fundamental elements of Buddhism is the doctrine of reincarnation. Human beings die and are reborn over and over again because they fail to see things clearly and wake up to the spiritual emptiness which lies behind the phenomenal world. It is this false perception of the nature of things that leads to wrong thinking and wrong behavior, which in turn causes this painful cycle of death and rebirth.

In the sixth century BCE, when prince Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) began his process of awakening, tradition has it that his first stage of meditation involved remembering his past lives.

The Jivamala practice maintains that a similar process can be revealed to and practiced by others who are on the spiritual path. This site contains detailed biographies of many lives, and documents the initiatory Jivamala practice showing how it works. It also contains descriptions of many deaths and many afterlives, where several of the past lives or personalities describe where their actions and experiences in life led them after death.

The Jivamala practice is ideally performed by renunciants (monks or nuns) initiated into a Tantric Buddhist lineage, but is sometimes also practiced by householders. The Jivamala practice should only be performed under the direction of an inner guide, a dakini, or bhairava, or bodhisattva acting as a yidam (spiritual guide or tutelary deity). In this instance, the practice of the Jivamala was revealed to a householder by a bhairava. The practice was therefore not begun in a traditional way, since it was not handed down to a disciple by a living teacher in a recognized spiritual lineage.

This is a description of a meditative practice based on the life of the earthly Buddha.

Click here for the website.