Do We Have Past and Future Lives?

You may think past lives don't exist because you have no recollection of living in ancient Egypt or during the medieval times. But my guest on this next episode of Get Real, Dena Merriam, has very clear memories about her past lives and wrote several bestselling books about it, such as My Journey Through Time and The Untold Story of Sita. During her years of meditation, many vivid memories of past births began to emerge, revealing an intricate and subtle pattern of cause and effect, the law of karmic unfolding. The purpose of sharing these intimate stories is to help people see the long arch of their life, whether they retain memories or not, to help overcome fear and anxiety about death and to understand more fully the workings of cause and effect.

Here is what she wrote about remembering her past lives:

"The process of past life recall has always been the same for me. I am swept inside, as if a vacuum draws me within, and I see scenes, hear dialogues, and become an actor in an internal play. Over the years I have experienced many past life memories, so vividly that I have actually felt myself reliving those lives, experiencing again the pain and sorrow, the loss, the joys and loves, all of which can be quite depleting. It is enough to cry over the struggles in one's current life, but to mourn a loss of hundreds or thousands of years ago only adds to one's burden! Yet these experiences brought much learning and insight, and so I was grateful, accepting what came but not seeking more. When past life memories first began to arise, I was skeptical and took an investigative approach, traveling to places I had recalled, looking for signs, which always came. I was able to sequence numerous lives, which I recorded in my book My Journey through Time: A Spiritual Memoir of Life, Death and Rebirth.

"A few years ago I organized a conference in Thailand. Within a few days of arriving there, to my great surprise, a whole new series of memories emerged, ones that took me back to the Tang Empire in China in the mid-8th century, a time of great cultural flourishing. This brought more confusion. Until this point, I had had little association with Chinese cultural or spiritual traditions, as my whole orientation had been to India. As the recollections emerged, I found myself in the presence of a poet. One day I uttered his name, Li Bai, and saw myself as this poet's wife, one who has long been forgotten, a poet in her own right struggling to find her own voice. Honestly, I did not know what to make of these recollections that were emerging with such speed and force that I could not but watch and listen.

"Looking back at the early years of my current life, I recalled that I started writing poetry at the age of ten. I majored in poetry in college and graduate school, studying the Tang poets and loving the poetry of old China.

"As I mentioned, whenever memories of long ago emerge, I look for a sign, nothing dramatic, a small sign that only I might recognize. Such a sign emerged right before I left for India in January 2020. I was walking with a friend down a street by my office, passing a shop that sells modern lamp shades, a shop I have walked by thousands of times. This day as I casually glanced in the window, as I often did, an antique Chinese lamp caught my attention. There had never been anything antique or Chinese in that store, but what called to me was the jade phoenix on the base of the lamp. I stood staring at it, feeling it held some deep personal significance. I immediately went into the shop and bought the lamp. Thinking me quite impulsive, my friend laughed at me for deciding to purchase such an expensive item on first sight before even asking the price, but it was the sign for which I had been waiting. I knew it to be a gift from my long-forgotten husband of old."

Join Dena and I on Get Real this Thursday, May 20th at Noon Eastern Time (9AM PT) and open your mind to the possibility that each one of us, moment by moment, is creating the blueprint for our future.