Past life regression is a technique that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations, though others regard them as fantasies or delusions. Past life regression is typically undertaken either in pursuit of a spiritual experience, or in a psychotherapeutic setting. Most advocates loosely adhere to beliefs about reincarnation,though religious traditions that incorporate reincarnation generally do not include the idea of repressed memories of past lives.
Osho Shivo covers interesting parts about it in this interview.
Interview
Sarvesh: Modern Day man is already entangled in his past. How is the ‘accessing’ the past through PLR different from this wandering in the past?
Shivo: You are so true. Modern man is entangled in the past. Why he is entangled? Because the past is ruling him, but he has no idea of that. He seems to believe that this is called living in present. As science of ontology (science of being) describes that the event which happened when you were 5 years old, rules your whole life. Now you don’t even remember, what happened but you remain a slave to reactive behavior you adopted in that moment. But ontology also says that once you are able to relive those moments, you gain freedom. Same is the case with PLR. Main purpose of PLR is to make you free from past, so that you can live in the present.
Sarvesh: There is a general perception that one can free oneself from one’s past by just thinking more of the present and less of the past. People feel that by ‘escaping’ the past, one can free oneself from it. But what you say is exactly opposite to this perception. How can going back to the past free one from it? Can u explain in brief the mechanism.
Shivo: You cant think of the present, unless you are free from past. Suppose someone has tendency to overeat, and he may believe that he feels hungry, have urge for eating, so he eats till the time he feels like. And he can call this a behavior of living in present. However, he doesn’t realize that this whole urge for overeating itself is coming from past. May be, in one of his past lives, he lived in a feminine struck area where food was scarce and the smartest thing to do was to eat as much as possible when you have the food. Now the same conditioning is continuing from past and he may believe that he is living in present. However, one can become free from such compulsive behavior by revisiting those life times, when that conditioning was created, as one becomes free from the reactive behavior of a 5 year old, as described by the science of ontology.
Sarvesh: So you mean to say that by mere revisiting the past lives one can FREE oneself from it? What if there are some good qualities that one has picked from the past lives and doesnt want to get rid of in this life?
Shivo: Revisiting your past lives is about gaining the mastery over them. When you live your past with consciousness, you can make the choices. So, you have the choice to let it go or accept it and build it up further. Obviously, if you get aware of certain talents in past life, you would want to cultivate them further. In my experience, just the awareness of such talents, gives you the quantum leap to your learning of those talents in current life. It is about being master of your past rather then being a slave to it.
Sarvesh: Spiritual traditions across the world say that a balanced & harmonized functioning of the CHAKRAS is the hallmark of a man who is firmly rooted in the present moment. Does PLR assist harmonizing the functioning of our chakras?
Shivo: Very good question. PLR releases the blocks from the lower three chakras and hence harmonize the energy through them. This causes the energy to flow uninterruptedly though all the seven chakras. In such case, super conscious, conscious and sub conscious gets aligned or should I say, all such divisions cease to exists and one can access the pure soul. Hence PLR is essential for those who are on the path of discovering their true self.
Sarvesh: Mystics often say that if we want ‘moksha’ ,we have certain KARMIC DEBTS which are to be re-payed from our previous lives. Most of our wandering away from the present is attributed to this karmic baggage that we carry. Can PLR help us to permanently get rid of these karmic debts? Can one achieve the final enlightenment through PLR?
Shivo: Well, PLR is not enough for attaining enlightenment, as it is more about super conscious, while PLR is about cleaning of sub conscious. Though PLR brings awareness of karmik baggage, but we still keep creating new karma. One must get aligned with super conscious and become a divine channel and then there is no karmic affliction, as one is not doing karma on his own behalf, but just being a channel for divine to accomplish what it wants to accomplish through him.
Sarvesh: So, can we say that PLR can clean the subconscious and this in turn will align our connection with the superconscious?
Shivo: Yes it does, but one must live in surrender for super conscious to flow through him.
Also being aligned with super conscious is true living in the moment, as then one can flow with the way cosmic consciousness is flowing.
Sarvesh: All your answers were really beautiful. Thank you very much.
Osho: May God bless you.
Posts by SpeakBindas Editorial Team.