Some opponents asserted that I use circular logic – I assume that past lives exist, after that I use this assumption to prove that they exist. But this is not how my past lives research started.
I was not born into a Buddhist or a Hinduism family, so reincarnation was not a part of my beliefs system; the idea seemed interesting but abstract to me when I encountered it.
I was an agnostic during my undergraduate years, I didn’t care much about religion and atheism, I was too busy taking day courses, working part-time at nights and dating female college students. It was my senior year when I participated in a discussion about past lives.
Eleven students, including myself, were sitting at the college cafeteria table and listening to two graduate students who were trying to convince us that reincarnation is real. One of them was a very intelligent PhD student from Thailand who happened to be a Buddhist.
The audience was skeptical, one of my peers said, “Can you prove that?”
The PhD guy told us how Buddha dealt with this topic. Some of the newcomers were atheists and followers of local religions that denied the reincarnation; one of them said, “Can you prove that real lives do exist?” Buddha said, “Did you ever have a dream of being someone else and, in your dream, speaking a foreign language that you cannot understand?” “It happened to me couple of times,” said the newcomer. “Where do you think that language came from?” said Buddha. “I invented it,” said the newcomer. “If you invented it then why you cannot understand it?” said Buddha.
“What does it all mean?” said my friend. “It means that sometimes people recall their past lives in a dream,” said the PhD guy and continued, “Would you accept reincarnation as a hypothesis?” “I would accept anything as a hypothesis if there is a way to test it,” I said. “There is a past life recall procedure, do you want to test it? If you do, I will translate it for you, “said the PhD guy. “Actually, the procedure is in the book Buddhist Scriptures,” said his friend.
One month after this conversation on the Spring break I tried the procedure on myself and it worked. I modified the procedure and Joe became my first subject. My next subject was my mother. In her case the result was inconclusive – she recalled her life in Germany and even a conversation with her parents. However, she learned German at the school, so her testimony is not a proof. I concluded my research, got a job offer from a Los Angeles company and moved to the West Coast where I met Natasha.
Moving on to the next topic – some opponents strongly hinted that I am a megalomaniac or something like that; people like me read plenty of simplistic articles on various topics and pretend they know everything, but they are glib. Well, I have couple of dozens of books on philosophy and Buddhism and I can prove that by quoting them. By the way, these books cannot be found on the Internet because of the copyrights laws.
To be honest, there is a book that I cannot understand, it is written by Godel and it contains his famous theorem on the propositions that cannot be proved. Currently I do not have enough knowledge of predicate logic to understand his book; I would have to study Volume I of Principia Matematica by Russell and Whitehead to understand Godels’ book. I have Principia Matematica but I do not have time to read it. On this optimistic note I conclude this post.
