Welcome back to the Reincarnationist Blog’s series of interviews. Today’s subject is Deepak Chopra. This particular Q&A was previously published on our blog back in ’07, so the questions are slightly different that what we’ve been publishing this past month. Enjoy! (…and stay tuned for the next several months for many, many more Q&As with authors and others whose perspectives you may find very interesting!)

THE QUESTIONS:

Title of your latest book as of Sept 1, 2007 –

Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment, HarperOne, May 2007

Do you believe that reincarnation is possible?

I think consciousness outlives the death of the physical body through which it expresses itself. Also, the universe is constantly recycling itself while evolving to higher levels of creativity. Because we are a part of the universe, we too recycle ourselves and continue to evolve to higher levels of creativity. As a result, there is no such thing as a person. What we call a person is a constantly evolving confluence of memories, desires, imagination, relationships, meanings, contexts, and archetypal stories.

What books on the subject have made an impression on you or do you recommend people who are interested in the subject read?

Life Before Life by Dr. Jim B. Tucker

Life After Death: The Burden of Proof

What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?

As I mentioned, I do not think of myself as a person. We are wisps of memory, and threads of desire latching on to chunks of consciousness and participating in a cosmic dance. The only solution to all of life’s conundrums is enlightenment – to move to a domain of awareness beyond the personal self to the universal self. Any holdovers that I have from the past are part of my collective karmic inheritance. These include attachment to outcome and need for approval.

What is your principle defect that you believe might be inherited from a previous incarnation?

As I mentioned, I do not think of myself as a person so I am unable to answer the question.

Which of your favorite heroes do you think you actually could have been and why?

I believe that we all have relationships with archetypes but since we do not have a separate self, our heroes are archetypal energies that we karmically resonate with. My heroes include Jesus, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Krishna, amongst others. But I do not believe I was one of them because as I have shared before, there is no such thing as a separate self.

What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?

Jesus Christ, Buddha, Hitler not to discuss reincarnation but to understand what made them who they are.

What do you think happens when we die?

We upgrade or downgrade the illusion that we call reality as a result of the state of consciousness we are in.

When you come back next time, who would you like to be?

Don’t plan to return.

We would love to hear your responses to these questions. Please feel free to copy and paste the Questionnaire with your answers into a Comment for this post.

FOX’s new TV series Past Life is based on M.J.’s Reincarnationist novels. You can learn more about the series by clicking here to visit the Past Life Information Archive.

Also, for a limited time, people who sign up for M.J. Rose’s personal newsletter can download a free 100-page sampler – over 100 pages of excerpts from all of M.J.’s reincarnationist books.

Book about reincarnation inspires creator of ‘Past Life’

By Robert Philpot, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Dallas-bred writer-producer David Hudgins hadn’t given the idea of reincarnation much thought when The Reincarnationist, a book by M.J. Rose, crossed his desk. He says he was immediately intrigued, and saw the potential for a TV series.

Then fate sent him a message. Well, Oprah Winfrey did, anyway.

“She was doing a series on [reincarnation], with Dr. Oz and this guy named Brian Weiss, who’s probably the foremost expert in past-life regression,” Hudgins says. “And she did a couple of shows where she brought people on and regressed them, and the way people responded to it really struck me. [I thought] ‘This is absolutely fascinating. I don’t know if I believe in it or not, but there is a world here and there are a ton of stories you can tell.'”

That epiphany led to Past Life, a new Fox show about a team of past-life regression investigators who help clients such as, say, a teenage boy whose strange behavior leads to the revelation that he’s actually the reincarnation of someone who died before he was born. The team is led by Dr. Kate McGinn (the believer, played by Kelli Giddish) and former New York police detective Price Whatley (the skeptic, played by Nicholas Bishop).

Although the set-up is immediately reminiscent of Fox shows ranging from The X-Files to Bones, Fringe and Lie to Me, Hudgins says he hopes to make the show — which he calls a very loose adaptation of Rose’s book — more than just a crime-solving procedural.

“We’re going to constantly ask the question ‘What if?,'” Hudgins says. Regardless of whether you believe in reincarnation, Hudgins’ life has plenty of “pasts” in it, in the resume sense. A look at a few of his “past lives.”…

For the complete article, click here.