Real Yoga

How did this theory of reincarnation begin? It is after all just a theory. It can't be proved can it?

Do you believe in it because it was taught to you by someone — or because it makes sense. Does it makes sense because you hate, even sub–consciously, to think of yourself as ending with this one life? Is it man's way of desiring his own eternity?

Other questions arise from the teachings of reincarnation also. Under hypnosis people have retraced their past lives — or so they have been led to believe. How in fact are people able to find objects back in the 18th century, hidden behind a corner stone of a fireplace in a certain village of a certain country, and explain in detail what the object is? There are many such stories which abound.

In many of the scriptures throughout the world, reincarnation is propounded. Even though the Christians do not like to profess it, still, it was one of the disciples who, when asked by Jesus, Who do ye say I am? answered with, You are Elias returned. It was an accepted fact in the early days of Christianity.

Perhaps one can never know the truth behind reincarnation, yet one can even think of it this way — when Ramana Maharshi said, You cannot remember your own birth, and you will not remember your own death — you are always HERE.

Just suppose there is no such thing as reincarnation, then where do all the past lives that people speak of come from? Perhaps there is a clue in the Hindu Scriptures. Do you remember reading about the Akashic Record? That is the book where every thought and every deed of every individual is recorded. Now rather than think of it as a book, what if there is a part of Universal Consciousness that retains, as memory, everything that has happened. Would it not be possible for me, or you to tune into a part of that Consciousness — a part that took place in the 18th century, where a young girl hid an object in a corner stone of a fireplace. Could you not tune in to the very girl's state of consciousness itself, becoming that child?

The power of the mind, you must remember, is just being discovered by our scientists today, yet Yogis, who long before the concept of reincarnation, religions or myths began, knew of the ONENESS of Mind, and by tuning in to the right station, or for that matter just willy nilly twirling the dial of their mind–receiver, could pick up the most fantastic information. This is felt to be what people are doing when they believe that it is they who in fact were the young girl hiding the object behind the brick in the fireplace.

After all, Patanjali gave a precise account of all the Siddhi Powers one was to receive as their Consciousness Unfolded into, and merged with the Great Universal Cause.

What happens when the mind unfolds in an untrained initiate? He opens into a world or worlds that he has never seen before, and the vision he beholds, whether beatific or frightening is very real to him and if, unlike the dream visions we have, sometimes cross over into our waking world, so that the hallucination is now seen to be in our room, or on a hill, or in the sky and we then link a hallucination with our objective reality and believe it to be equally as true even after it has vanished from our view.

The entire Universal Mind is filled with worlds unheard of and unthought of by man. Some of them have been thought of and experienced. The Astral Plane for instance is a plane which resides within the mind of man, yet when experienced seems to be as real as is the waking world; thus was born the Hades and the Hellfire of the Catholics. On the Astral Plane resides the bat eared, the whip tailed little monsters and all sort of sulphurous worlds.

Dante himself opened up to that Astral World in his great epic poem The Inferno. A Yogi knows that these worlds are not real and are mere hallucinations which must be passed through — and — there are more, the Planet of Sri Yuketswar's Hirinyaloka and also more refined Etheric Planes that the Great Babaji lives in, where one must be so still that in order to see him, not a breath of mental disturbance is allowed. BUT all of these worlds are inside your mind — not somewhere else.

They are all no different, in essence, than your dream state — a mere mental formation which appears to be real until you wake up to a higher state of Consciousness — this so called awake world.

The Great Siddhi Powers, which one may attain unconsciously, trap people badly enough into believing that what they see is true, but also for the developed Yogi who attains Siddhi Powers, which can actually be put to work in this waking world, must be relinquished as they are all a trap. They are the last traps set by the Greatest Illusionist of them all, Maya, before you enter the Fourth State of Consciousness — Turiya.

So where does that leave reincarnation? I think where it belongs. To those who wish to believe in it, and to those who have some experiences which make it all appear real to them — but in fact you are always here and you do not die. You only throw off the dross and when time is ripe you may take on another form, but whether you can remember what your past form was, when you can't even remember your own birth or death time seems to me of no importance.

To the Yogi, what is important is right NOW. To waste one's time looking into the past, or dreaming about the future is a waste of this moment and this is the only moment we have. Make good use of it. To the Yogi, the best use of that NOW time is to unite with the ATMAN. The rest of your life will take care of itself.

Just as a man can only work so hard, as he tires and must rest — or he feels the need for diversion, so too does the Yogi. In the beginning the, time of work spent is just a few short minutes a day, but as the awareness of SELF unfolds, more and more time is given over to it, until that Fourth State of Consciousness is attained where one resides at all times at one with the Paramatman (Satchitananda).

Articles by Swami Harinanda and Yogi Karmananda are © 2026 and are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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