The Wisdom of my Past Lives
The Tao beyond Doctrine
Outline
Some people are born spiritually gifted. This essay reflects on the co-arising societal consequences. I will share of my past-life memories as an Eastern mystic, emphasising a wisdom that respects the importance of not being overtly reliant on doctrine or tradition.
Tribalism and Deviation
Being born with a certain spiritual quality is a difficult position to have.
Human beings organise themselves through tribal formation. This tribal instinct seeks social stability and internal social cohesion by enforcing uniformity upon its participating members. In other words, it wants everyone to be the same. This allows for our arbitrary sense of normality and indeed our sense of culture. It is here meaningful the word cult and culture are etymologically entwined.
Any deviation from this uniformity is subconsciously registered as a threat to social cohesion, social stability, and therefore the organizability and so the survival potential of the group. The survival instinct believes a group of people should move as one collective body so as to face the challenges of this world, through enforced verisimilitude.
The moment the individual deviates, there is commotion. The deviating individual is either reintegrated or rejected (isolated) from the group, and this through the myriad forms and degrees of social-emotional and/or physical violence. The uniform collectivism is to be maintained.
Of course, cooperation is vital for human prosperity. The problem is however that this survival instinct is blind in its fear, and unduly "corrects" or persecutes deviation even when the deviation is not factually harmful. Besides Gestas and Dismas was crucified the Christ.
In its primal, phobic blindness, this primitive instinct lacks discernability. It simply seeks to establish collective cohesion through enforced uniformity. It does not want to understand you; it merely scans for uniformity compliance and draws its conclusion within a second.
This lies at the root of discrimination. When one group is confronted with a person of a different complexion, this tribal-collectivist instinct immediately responds with uniformity preservation. The same happens when it is confronted with homosexuality, deviating views, conduct and paradigms, non-normative identities, or indeed when confronted with people with a certain spiritual capacity.
The next time we experience disagreement, we may ask ourselves if we do so rationally or if we are experiencing a self-preserving primal-tribal response that is not actually interested in truth at all, but in uniformity only. Here it might be relevant to add I agree with the intentions of Wokism, but not with its methods or manifestations.
The spiritual person (here also called a mystic) adapts his conduct and identity to his deeper contact with the inner workings of reality. For this reason, deviation is inevitable and persecution ineluctable.
Remembrance and Reincarnation
Normally, when the soul reincarnates, it forgets its former lifetimes. However, when the soul has earnestly devoted itself to practices that cultivate the quality of the consciousness (yoga/meditation), the soul needs not forget as much as people do ordinarily. The process of reincarnation becomes a more conscious experience.
I remember being present at the hospital bed where I would be born. I was present in a higher dimensional body, that I here will call the "soul." We could say this body consisted out of sheer energy. Two others were with me. We discussed the upcoming lifetime.
My companions reminded me I was not forced to take this birth, and forewarned much suffering shall lay ahead, should I proceed. I however compassionately considered the mother, whose child had just been born. Apparently, were I not to accept this birth, the infant would have died (I was born early, which might be relevant). My companions promised to remain with me throughout my life.
I began communing with the chakra system of the infant. Chakras are energy centres found in the body and are important points of contact for the soul. They contain aspects of our psyche and the potential for a range of human talents and abilities.
Though the vision of the physical eyes of the infant is limited and blurry, I saw things clearly, instinctively soaking up every detail of my mother. I believe to have seen clearly, because I still had access to the sight of the soul.
My mother asked me, "what are the things you shall tell the world, little one?"
I had actually understood the question, and genuinely tried to formulate an answer. Languages spoken in former lifetimes arose in my mind, and I was actively considering the duties I had taken upon myself in previous incarnations. Then, I suddenly realised I couldn't speak. However, many years later my mother indeed confirmed she had asked that question, and mentioned the intensity with which I had observed her. I remember consciously thinking, though somehow wordless, "so, this is my new mother."
The incarnation process is very gradual. This means the soul cannot at once fully incarnate to its full capacity and requires the process of human maturation. I remember having often been present outside of the body, and during pregnancy I would only sometimes be conscious in the womb. I would speak with my mother’s subconscious mind. The soul may already pass through the zygote’s DNA and commune, adapt, and indeed appreciatively anticipate the sentient potential it will gain. As the soul moves through the DNA, it understands “ah, this aspect will become my eye.”
I would especially become present in the body when there were moments of loving contact, such as when my parents would bathe me. It seems as if it is love that invites the presence of the soul.
When I was a youth, they told me "as a baby you were so small, we could bathe you in the sink."
"I know," said I. "I remember."
Full remembrance is difficult — remembrance of former lifetimes or of who you are as soul. This is because the realm that we call the physical world has its own frequency. The myriad dimensions or realms of existence do not necessarily seamlessly resonate and commune with one-another. Therefore, when the soul connects with the physical body, the physical body cannot fully return an energy that perfectly aligns with the origin or position of the soul. This is like an adult being able to kneel down to reach for a child, but the child cannot reach up to the heights of the adult. The adult can empathically understand the child, but the child not the adult. This disallows a certain seamlessness in contact and communion, and is why when I at first began my contact with my infant body, I momentarily forgot I could not speak as a baby. You could say a certain distortion occurs — there is a certain white noise causing a forgetting.
Falling Asleep
I was now a toddler of one-and-a-half years old. We were on holiday in Chios, Greece, an island in the Aegean Sea claimed to be the (contested) birthplace of Homer, the legendary ancient Greek poet who is traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey."
I stared into the horizon as the calm sea stretched away before my eyes. My child’s mind wondered if at the end of the horizon, I in truth beheld the end of the world.
Because of my past-life endeavours as a meditating Oriental mystic, my gaze allowed me to enter concentration. Becoming concentrated, the chakras of the head became activated.
Due to the activation of these chakras, I was suddenly in contact with a higher realm. Someone spoke to me―a wordless voice that spoke through sheer information directly: You see but as far your eyes permit you to see; beyond the horizon awaits ever more land and sea. In the future, you shall cross the oceans and dwell in foreign lands beyond, and there attain deep insight into the nature of reality. For this, you shall lose your family.
To the mention of me losing my family, I turned around and looked over my shoulder. My parents looked upon me with faces of adoration, for they had noticed I had some form of special moment, in their eyes a moment of contemplation. I felt my bond with them.
Walk now, the Presence told me. It wanted me to prepare, even at that age, for the solitary position I would have in life, in the future.
Trust in life.
And so I walked. I walked a long while all alone, along the beach of Chios where might have once walked the historical Homer. Homer, a poet, like I myself would aspire to become.
The Presence continued to talk to me; it told me I am unlike others. It warned me that people will not understand me, and that I shall be ill-treated. It told me I must never allow people to tell me of who I am.
Return now to your family.
I can still go on, said I―a sudden sense of bravery arose from my soul.
The time is not yet.
I would forget this event. The child does not yet have a conditioned sense of normality, so that this experience was not deemed out of the ordinary. This moment of mediumship was as natural as the song of the sea.
I forgot, but therefore also the message: do not let people tell you of who you are.
I would grow up in Western culture. Western culture is defined by primitive notions of strength. It rewards destruction and punishes virtue. Humanity is fundamentally vulnerable and mortal. For this reason, destruction holds a place of awe in our hearts. One who shows destructive capacity receives an instinctive respect. We also respect one who can endure destruction. This is why the typical violent drugged and drunk male is venerated. With his violence, he shows he is capable of destroying his environment. With drugs and alcohol consumption, he shows he can endure destruction. This is proof of his strength. Virtue on the other hand is considered effeminate weakness, to be despised in a man.
While my contemporaries would torment and kill defenceless creatures, I wept around the age of six when I realized the meat I ate came from a slaughtered animal. I would become vegetarian. When I saw children bullying each other, I tried to explain there needs to be a proper preceding cause prior to aggressive intervention. It has to be a response to conduct and character, not anything else such as appearance. Of course, I would soon learn that this would bring negative consequences. I would be isolated and occasionally bullied. This rarely took on the form of physical violence.
Nonetheless, as the message by the Aegean Sea had been forgotten, humanity did very much teach me of who I am. I developed a negative self-image. There was something wrong with me, and I needed to do better. I too began adhering to the paradigm of destruction. My speech would be coarse; my drawings were no-longer of cars and animals or indeed sometimes of the meditating Taoist, but displayed aggression. This led to a measure of social acceptance and security. I was now becoming a good person.
Due to this strong behavioural deviation from my soul, my body/soul connection would weaken. We could say that, spiritually, I fell asleep. The true self became buried, and societal conditioning would rule the mode of my mind and conduct.
Reawakening
Though I myself did not possess great strength, during a festivity hosted by my school a defenceless young man was about to become victimised by an overwhelming aggressor. A sense of compassionate duty awoke within my heart and would overwrite the negativity I had so earnestly cultivated.
I walked up to the would-be victim, gently placed my hand on his shoulder, and pretended he was part of my social group and told him we were all waiting for him. In this way I tried to guide the victim away from harm while also giving the discouraging signal to the aggressor that the young man was actually under the protection of a group.
I did not avail in discouraging the aggressor, for now his violence was turned unto me. He had made his choice. He grabbed me by the collar and shouted: come on, fight!
I don’t want to fight, answered I rather shyly.
The aggressor threw back his head in order to slam his forehead into my face, but then my kundalini awoke.
Kundalini is a primal, evolutionary power located at the base of the spine. When it is awoken, it ascends up the spine and passes through myriad chakras, and so begins to awaken our latent human potential.
I entered a state of spiritual bliss; a divine compassion drowned out what fear I had felt. The kundalini energy guided me; my body was set in motion. With a sense of compassion and humility, I bowed to my opponent as his forehead came lurching towards me. Because I had bowed, his nose slammed into my forehead. He screamed; grabbed his face in temporary blindness and fell back. He fell back into a man even bigger and stronger than himself, who now started scuffling with my assailant. This ended the fight.
Members of the thug culture now approached me and told me they were willing to fight for me. I accepted their special handshakes (that I had difficulty imitating), but did not accept their proposal for further violence.
The kundalini had awoken a latent ability of mediumship, meaning I was at whiles contacted by higher realms, as had sometimes occurred during early childhood. I was contacted by an elderly Asian-looking man whom I came to know as Shizuka. Shizuka happened to be Japanese, a language I would love to learn but do not yet at present speak; Shizuka means stillness. He told me I see him as my subconscious remembers him from our last lifetime spent together in ancient Japan, devoted to esoteric warriorhood.
Speaking a language one has never learned is called xenoglossy and happens occasionally to those in touch with their former lifetimes. In meditation, I would see the images of a white tiger. Intuitively I spoke the word mouko. This, again, was Japanese. It means fierce tiger. The image was likely related to previous lives devoted to martial custodianship.
Concerning the path of the spiritual protector, it is perhaps meaningful I had to regain awakening by offering safety to a defenseless person.
During my contact with Shizuka, I was told meditation is a developed facet of my soul and that I should give-in to it. As I sat down, he said: How shall you attain awakening, if you cannot yet breathe? He then transmitted basic breathing methods unto me that I was to use in my meditation.
As I progressed in meditation, the bond between my body and soul increased. I began to reintegrate mystical qualities cultivated in previous lifetimes. It was very evident my soul had spent much time in Asia; once I was a Tibetan Buddhist monk named lama Je — with Je indeed being a Tibetan name. In other lifetimes I would cultivate myself through other forms of Buddhism. But it is the Taoism of ancient China, together with a forgotten culture that mastered similar principles, that became the foundation of my soul.
In this period I began to remember my earliest days on this world. Moments in the womb. The incarnation process. Spiritual experiences as a child. The former lifetimes are not necessarily remembered like we remember what we have done the previous day. Rather, knowledge and ability awakes within us while one may very strongly sense their origin lies in a very different culture. Suddenly, an energy moved through me that induced kung fu movements while I had never learned this. When I would join a Tai Chi class, I could predict the next movements in the choreographed sequence. In a child or teenager, a maturity may assert itself far beyond his or her time. These are behaviours that stem from a different place and a different era. The documentary The Case of James Leininger by ABC Primetime, freely available on YouTube, reports on a case of past-life recall in a child (James), with verifiable memories.
Beyond the Doctrine
I’m often accused of arrogance and naivete for not relying on books, traditions, and teachers. However, when I was a Taoist and a practitioner of Zen, this independency was deemed of great importance. Zen is a conflation of Taoism and Buddhism.
A Taoist seeks the Tao. The Tao is something transcendental. That means it is beyond the reach of ordinary cognition and requires mystical training before it can be perceived.
The Tao is honoured as the source of life, but especially as a connective quality. The Tao is not only the source of life, but also the universal essence of all things. Being the universal essence of all things, it connects all things. This is acts like a common thread weaving all things together. The mystic may utilise this connective quality and so enter into direct communion with the inner workings of reality. He enters into direct personal contact with the structures and laws that underlie existence. He undergoes a deep internal adaptation to these hidden principles and substrates, and so meaningfully transforms his being. He attains an inspired wisdom. His mind is silent but it understands.
I prefer to call this process transcendental empathy.
The meaning of empathy is that one is able to understand another person by being able to place oneself in his or her position. By placing oneself in the transcendental realm —that is to say the Tao—, one places oneself in the universal essence of all things and thereby attain an empathic relationship with the myriad factors and affairs of reality. This leads to intuited insight via direct communion. Image 1 demonstrates this principle.
We may also explain this via the analogy of three empty bowls (image 2). Let the first bowl represent your person. Let the second bowl represent daily, ordinary affairs like mountains, animals, trees, etc. Let the third bowl stand for things more abstract, such as the laws of nature.
When one bowl makes contact with its own emptiness, it simultaneously makes contact with the emptiness of the other two bowls. This is because their emptiness is actually the same. This emptiness therefore has a bridging effect. This means that via your actualisation of emptiness, you may enter an intuited contact with the true nature of things and the inner workings of reality.
I hold this process the origin of yoga — the source of esoteric knowledge. This is why it is vital the aspiring mystic becomes competent in transcendental empathy rather than merely relying on doctrine. Doctrine is in its nature limited. Limited in content but also in context. Its wisdom, if true at all, cannot necessarily remain relevant at all times in all situations for all people. Transcendental empathy is to study the Dharma not as it is written in a book, but as it is written in the fabric of the universe itself. This is to study the cosmic Dharma. Transcendental empathy is a direct and dynamic attunement with the harmonising laws of reality and will remain ever relevant. As an example, the venerable Falun Gong movement doctrinally preaches three virtues: truthfulness, benevolence, and forbearance. Though these virtues are beneficial, they are also limiting when a situation requires a whole different set of virtues. Such doctrinal thinking ultimately leads to spiritual stagnation. When one clings to the finite doctrine, it becomes difficult to find compliance with the infinite.
Though the Taoist and Zen practitioner aspire to direct communion, this does not mean the documented knowledge of preceding mystics is without value. The danger however is that one may utilise this knowledge and yet not yourself attain transcendental empathy. This is like reading a book of scientific conclusions, yet not know how to conduct science yourself. It instils an educated handicap that can indeed have very impressive results, such as concentration, inner power, paranormal abilities, and erudite status. But it remains the fact one but attains an esoterically empowered disunion with reality. This disallows wisdom as a living state of being. A deeper harmony with existence is hindered.
Contemporary Taoism and Zen no-longer cultivate themselves via transcendental empathy. They have become fully religious and doctrinal, and are no-longer about experiencing a direct and living attunement with reality. A ritualised existence, wrought with superstitious elements, disallows realtime compliance with the harmonising dynamics and laws of nature. One cultivates knowledge and power, but not harmony nor wisdom — wisdom as a living state of being, in realtime attunement with reality.
The aspiring mystic wants to be defined by the structures of reality, not the structures of religion or the arbitrary customs of a society. A place of practice should be a haven where the process of communion is safely facilitated, but that is no-longer the case.
I hope transcendental empathy may assist a future humanity in technological and scientific development, allowing a human evolution that does not destroy itself nor its environment for the cosmic/natural attunement permitted by transcendental empathy. Human development will be like that of the bird that builds its nest without destruction. I hope that higher levels of transcendental empathy may, for a future humanity, compete with technological cognitive augmentation such as the proposed human-AI integration, leading to a more trustworthy and harmonious alternative. This is however far beyond my own level.
This is why I communicate. I believe my soul remembers a precious human potential, now neglected and even persecuted in the halls of contemporary religion, as I have thoroughly experienced. Living by the ancient Tao is deemed blasphemy by the modern Taoist church. The present-day school of Zen will have you bow to the toilet god prior to relieving yourself, rather than being formed by your direct contact with reality, causing a harmful existential divorce. I hope, especially via poetic storytelling (inspired by former lives), to gently show the principle of human communion with the inner workings of nature. I also discuss the state of being required for transcendental empathy, which is very much a mode of conduct defined by silent mindfulness.
Stillness is necessary because in stillness the lifeforce is stabilised. Only when the lifeforce is stabilised, can it function as a signal and make contact with the Tao and life’s underlying substrates. The moment we make contact with natural law, nature will in turn increase this stillness, because it is her fundamental evolutionary trajectory to stabilise her original chaos energies, out of which we initially consist. We feel this stabilisation process as a personal development from a disorderly mind toward a silent and present mind.
Society, neither religious-spiritual nor secular, is able to offer the required stillness a peaceful or functional co-existence. This brings with it many destructive consequences. Any who will walk this path will enter the position of the black or gay person, of eighty years ago. I therefore believe that my humble message is in no way practical to the spiritual seeker. I do believe my communication contributes to meaningful socio-cultural discussion.
Journey and Hardship
On the shores of Chios my journey had been foretold, when I had been but a child barely out of his infancy. I would indeed travel beyond the ocean into horizons beyond, aged twenty-one. I wandered the East, for about seven years, though that included a few years of work in Australia and New Zealand. I wanted to emancipate my stillness and therefore my communion. Humanity socialises by continuously verbalising a restless and distracted mind, causing much unseen harm as it leads to a divorce from the inner workings of reality. Humanity does not know a social harmony that is also in harmony with the inner movements of the universe. The emancipation of stillness meant I would refrain from needless speech, while the world demanded I would forego this sacred silence. The result was constant aggression and threats of physical violence, also and especially in spiritual-religious environments. I believe the Buddha would not be welcome among Buddhist institutions.
Around the age of seventeen, I developed electrosensitivity, a condition that would gradually increase in severity. This is a modern medical condition in which the individual experiences adverse symptoms to exposure to unnatural electromagnetic frequencies caused by human technology. The Biological Effects of Weak Electromagnetic Fields (Andrew Goldsworthy, PhD., 2012) explains unnatural (non-ionising) radiation interacts with electrically charged calcium ions found in cell membranes, basically “pulling” these calcium particles from the membranes, causing cellular rupture, and internal and external cellular leakage. This leads to respective symptoms in respective tissues, and can be (as in my case) both extremely painful and life-threatening, for instance when leakage occurs in the heart organ.
My interpretation of electrosensitivity would inevitably be spiritual rather than scientific. When we are forced to behave against the qualities of our soul (for me defined by stillness and cosmically aligned conduct via transcendental empathy), the body/soul connection is diminished. The soul loses contact with the chakras, so that they become highly susceptible to external energies. In our modern day, that includes electromagnetic radiation. I needed to spend a good twenty years on evolving out of this condition.
My journey and effort of emancipation would be hindered much by this medical condition. The instant commotion and aggression with which my stillness would be met, made every step my soul would try to make on this world a violent conflict. Yet I persisted, and as that moment of higher-dimensional contact by the Aegean Sea had promised, indeed much understanding of reality followed.
When my heart nearly failed for the so-manyeth time, I returned home, and would soon be rejected by my family for both my spirituality and electrosensitivity. Just as promised in that moment of spiritual communion in Chios, when a mere child.
My post Lotus in Blood sheds a small light on the experiences that followed after my journey through the East.
I began my journey of emancipation out of compassion, wanting to contribute something meaningful to the world. The confrontation of stillness and cosmically aligned conduct versus the present socio-psychological standards of humanity, has led to a large amount of meaningful life experience that now allows me to pick up the pen aged thirty-nine, and communicate something that I hope is meaningful.
Please note that though my life is rich in spiritual experience, I claim no spiritual authority. I should not be seen as a spiritual master.
Seiji Komatsu | Author support:
𑁍 I also wrote:
Lotus in Blood: Finding mystic stillness in a violent crack pound
Elemental Pranayama: Breathing the energy of crystals
Daughter of Xiu: A poetic-prose narrative on a lady Taoist in ancient China
The Silver Path: A poetic-prose fantasy novel
The Lay of Illaeyiim: A rhyming poetic narrative on warrior mysticism
The Dimensionality of Free Will: An intuited proposal on the reality of free will
It is not by accident that I have found you. I too have had a lifetime of experiences that are seemingly unexplained, but are becoming clearer every day. I experience extreme electromagnetic pull, and I am only now (at midlife) starting to understand why things in my life have happened. Why I know certain things, and why things happened in my presence that are unexplainable.
I dove deep into my Yogic studies and studied at length in Bali a year ago, finding a Shaman who immediately saw something powerful in my abilities that I did not yet understand. He urged me to continue to work on my spiritual growth, but warned me not to rush the process. It is now, a year later, and there are strong signs of change happening all around me. Recognizing that there was something powerfully spiritual changing within me, I began to ponder what I should do next. Today I asked out loud for some kind of sign or guide about how to progress forward on my spiritual journey, and within the hour I got your post.