I believe in reincarnation & this is only one of my many lives.
I came to believe this by being regressed to previous lives in which my journey & mission were revealed to me.
This won't be my last life, the mission is THAT huge.
I was working as an Apothecary/Secretary for a brilliant Herbalist. I was studying Traditional Chinese Medicine & Philosophy at the time, so my part-time work kept me financially solvent during the long years of study.
One morning I arrived at work to be greeted by my boss who seemed especially excited.
"Go through to the lounge!" he ordered "Listen to the tape recording in the hifi!"
I made myself a coffee & did as instructed.
The tape introduced itself with a woman's voice stating the date & time & a brief explanation that the subject, my boss, was being regressed to his previous lives.
I admit that was not quite what I was expecting!
I settled into a chair & listened as she guided my boss, who spoke in strangely changing voices, through a harrowing variety of scenarios, some of which were traumatic others more calm. She asked him standard questions like "Who are you? Where are you? What are you doing?" & encouraged him to go further back in stages.
After 6 or 7 lives he arrived at a place where he was very reluctant to speak.
He admonished the regressionist for interrupting a very important lecture.
He spoke in a whisper.
"Shhh! The Lama is speaking!" he begged.
"What is the Lama saying?" persisted the regressionist.
"The Lama is instructing us how to reincarnate in hell to lead the hellbeings out of materialism!"
He ignored her questions about where he was & at which time epoch.
The silence was awesome.
After a few moments my boss let out a small sigh of relief & said "It is finished!"
The regressionist asked an unusual question "Richard!" she said, addressing him with his name in this life. "Do you know the Lama in this life?"
"Oh yes!" he replied. "It is my assistant, Fran!" & he laughed at the absurdity or the joy, I couldn't tell which.
The regressionist brought him out of his trance.
----0----
My boss came into the lounge, grinning like a cheshire cat!
I was dumbfounded. Truly speechless.
Here I was, an East London perpetual student, fond of all things materialistic, dressed & made up like any hippy chick of the time, sitting aghast & bamboozled.
My boss laughed at me, explaining that, while she made a copy of the cassette, the regressionist had asked him if he could arrange for his assistant to come for a session with her free of charge!
He said she really wanted to hear my previous lives!
Our first client of the day was arriving & we both went about our usual routine but my mind was blown.
I could barely concentrate.
At the end of that hectic day at the clinic we shared a final coffee & Richard asked "Well? Will you come up to London & get regressed?" His wife arrived, bubbling enthusiasm & persuasion at me "Oh Fran, you must do it, you MUST!"
And so I agreed.
An appointment was arranged & a few days later we all drove up to London after work.
I was absolutely shaking in my shoes.
Did I want to know?
What else would I find out?
Could I handle this?
We filed into a lovely comfortable room & the receptionist offered us drinks. She delivered our beverages in exquisite fine bone china & I was so nervous that I barely trusted myself to hold the cup. I took one small sip. It was very hot so I put it back on its saucer & tried to compose myself.
The regressionist came in & introduced herself to me, greeting Richard & his wife with gratitude for bringing me along at such short notice. She seemed to be a very loving person & I warmed to her charming manners.
----0----
I found myself very dry in the mouth.
I reached for the fine bone china cup.
The coffee within it was stone cold.
I looked at my watch.
An hour had passed.
Richard & his wife were smiling broadly at me. I felt slightly faint, disorientated.
The regressionist excused herself to make a copy of the cassette.
"Is it done?" I gasped, astonished. "What did I say? Did she get what she wanted?"
----0----
As we drove home Richard popped the cassette into the car player & we all listened to me run back through 10 or so previous lives. All of them were loaded with drama & violence. I had been a man in every single life. A soldier in an endless sequence of bloody battles & wars ending with early & gory deaths. It seemed I had never survived past 25 or 30 years of age before!
Then the regressionist asked me to revisit my life as a Lama in Tibet.
There was a long eerie silence in which you could hear me breathing very deeply.
I began explaining that I had taken a sacred vow.
"What is this vow?" the regressionist asked gently.
"I vowed to reincarnate in hell until every last blade of grass entered heaven before me." Came the solemn whispered response.
"Where are you?"
"In my cave."
"When is this?" to which I laughed.
"This is a time of wonder. This is heaven, but there are many souls trapped in the material world & I cannot stay here while they suffer."
The regressionist did not take me back any further & began to talk to me as Fran again. That was the end of the recording.
----0----
To say that these events had a profound effect on me would be a massive understatement.
My life changed immediately.
I scoured Richard's book shelves for more information on Tibet & he lent me his precious copy of the Book of the Dead. Over the ensuing weeks I found that I knew, in advance of reading, everything written in that book.
I booked myself into the Samye Ling Tibetan Monastery in Scotland for a brief visit & so began my journey to continue my stated mission in this life & all the many lives to come.
As Bill Hicks once said..... it is just a ride.