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Introduction
The
journey you are about to undertake reading this book is only a small
mirror of the fascinating one I’ve had over the years as a therapist.
I’ve covered a vast waterfront of experiences that have been exciting,
enlightening, and by the very nature of the work, carries a somewhat
spiritual dimension. When you’ve guided thousands through the death
experience and seen through their eyes as they recount what it’s
like to die, leave the body, and ascend into the life after death, it
transforms your understanding profoundly. In my view, all experiences
are spiritual whether considered good, bad, painful, elevating or depressing.
They all help us to move to the next step in our quest for spiritual
freedom. Whether conscious of it or not, that’s what we’re
all seeking as soul.
I came to this realization when I was about twenty-years-old after having
my first profound conscious journey to the other side. It started one
afternoon while alone in my father’s apartment. I decided to lie
down and try an exercise I had learned through my spiritual studies.
After a brief lull, I shot quickly into a realm of inner heavenly light
and sound in full consciousness. It’s impossible to completely
describe the realm I witnessed. I found myself in what looked like a
magical landscape, enveloped by what appeared to be a physical body
composed of subtly shimmering light. The music there was the heavenly
sound of flutes, which swirled around and through me as if every atom
vibrated with this music. The clouds above glided by and were painted
with the colors of the rainbow, but much more vivid. These colors were
so vibrant and pure that they seemed alive. And no, I’ve never
had a drug induced psychedelic or hallucinogenic experience. During
this whole event, I was more conscious and alert than I’d ever
been in my life.
It was intense but blissful, and much more real than anything I’d
ever experienced in my earthly body. I was amazed and in awe as I examined
my right hand and arm of light along with the surroundings. Everything
around me literally danced with energy. This was beyond anything I’d
ever imagined. After a while, I decided it was time to return to the
body lying quietly on the sofa. When I imagined returning to my physical
body, I felt myself dropping as if through different layers of space
and time. In seconds, I was back and opened my eyes. I could hear the
flute sounds fading in the distance and the bright colors receding as
I scanned the walls in the apartment. Once I was completely back, I
realized I’d caught a glimpse of what must be heaven. It left me
with a knowingness beyond just a belief that such realms existed. It
was spiritual, religious, ecstatic, and profound all at once. I also
knew that I wanted more. This was my first glimpse behind the curtain
of appearances. Once having an occurrence such as that, I could only
hope that everyone would one day have similar realizations. No doubt
it could change the world.
My first glimpse of other worldly bliss gave me an unshakable understanding
that there are many levels of existence, and that it’s possible
to observe them even while we’re still in a physical body. A Near
Death Experience (NDE) is not necessary. When you’ve personally
had such experiences, all the logical explanations from scientists,
skeptics, and others, about abnormal brain chemistry and the like being
the cause, are simply amusing. It’s as overreaching as the onetime
belief that the world was flat, or that the earth was the center of
the solar system.
It was during that first Soul Journey that I gained the knowledge that
the soul is our true identity and exists separate from the physical
body. And, through personal and client experiences, I have been shown
that one doesn’t have a soul—they are a soul that has a body.
I’ve had many other spiritual experiences and continue to explore
the realms beyond this reality.
Our physical bodies fall away from one lifetime to the next. We, as
soul, live on as the very consciousness we recognize as ourselves, and
not some spiritual abstraction. It’s like purchasing and driving
a new car. One day after years of wear, the car gets old, and we eventually
need another new car that’s more suitable to our current needs.
Writing this book is no doubt part of my life dharma, or higher purpose.
The reason I say this is because for years I discounted the call to
write it. Yet, the impulse to get this out always remained. For a time,
I even distracted myself by training Fortune 500 executives in one of
the top training organizations in the country. Still, writing the book,
developing and facilitating Soul Journeys therapy stayed with me. Certainly
other good books have been written about past-lives, karma and a few
about between-lives, but certain key principles were always left out.
One, among them, is a realization I’ve come to as a outcome of
my work: there are no innocent victims regardless of appearances. Everything
that happens to us is the result of our own thoughts and actions, either
in this life or a previous one. To truly understand and accept this
is profoundly sobering, but also liberating. One thing it does, is to
eliminate any cause for projecting blame.
I cover a lot of ground in this book by opening a window into the experiences
of myself, and the many who’ve come through my office doors in
the years I’ve been in practice. There have been many times I’ve
wished the world could sit with me and witness the amazing experiences
and transformations I’ve seen. Many of them would challenge the
imagination and amaze the observer just by going far beyond the parameters
of traditional teachings on life, death, and the beyond.
Since I’m a psychotherapist, people most often come to me when
experiencing some emotional or physical pain that results from undesirable
conditions. The experiences in this book point mainly to those difficult
and painful challenges in life and relationships that are quite often
rooted in one’s karma.
You will read about cases of past-lives and prenatal experiences that
at times were tragic, leading to painful trauma and loss resulting in
various expressions of fear, producing fear. Fear, pain and trauma leave
reactive patterns that cause us problems. The past-lives connection
to pain or trauma, in some manner, can lead to the challenges and problems
we are facing in our relationships now. Lives lived in relative ease,
and without incident or extreme emotional pain, leave no scars. Certainly
we have lived many such lives without the drama of trauma that don’t
leave a painful residue, and so seldom are reviewed in my work with
clients.
Unlike the familiar stories about people claiming to have been great
or well known historical figures in their past-lives, I’ve not
found this to be true. When it really comes down to it, most of us were
unknown in the historical sense. Nearly all of the thousands of past-lives
I’ve seen have confirmed this.
In the pages that follow, I have strategically chosen certain stories
of some of those who have come to me. I believe these stories will illustrate
how Karmic Relationships are played out and give examples of the effect
their dynamics can have in present lifetimes. I suspect that you will
come to some realizations about the hidden dynamics and invisible wounds
influencing your own relationships.
Once you have a better understanding of the facets of Karmic Relationships,
I will then give you some exercises for your own exploration. It is
my hope that you will start to understand the forces that have brought
you together with those whom you love or those you do not. And to uncover
your deep karmic roots from past-lives, prenatal experiences, or agreements
you’ve made in the between-lives heavenly state. With new recognitions
and understandings, you can begin to make the best of all your relationships
instead of being under the unconscious influence of Karmic Wounds that
inhibit your freedom and joy.
My intention of this book is that it be experiential on two levels.
First through the stories, and secondly through the exercises presented
throughout. It is my desire that you are ultimately guided to your own
experience of discovery.
Happy reading.
Part
One—The Dynamics of Karmic Relationships
Chapter
One
Karmic Groundwork
Understanding Karma
I recall at five years old looking in a full sized mirror at my grandparents’
home and being surprised by the realization that I had brown skin in
this lifetime. It somehow seemed different from what I was used to,
but when? I recall wondering how or if this would affect my life experience.
It was a brief instant of recognition, clarity, and examination of myself.
Then as quickly as this awareness surfaced, it subsided and I resumed
playing as children do.
Without karma you and I would not be here on this planet. What this
means is that the law of cause and effect, or karma, is a universal
spiritual law and not just a law of physics. This law governs the actions
and reactions of all life and all life forms. Karma is basically energy
at vibrational frequencies much higher and subtler than we’ve developed
the means to measure. Our karmic mission is one of love, service, and
continued spiritual unfoldment here on earth. When we fully understand
and apply this law in a constructive, rather than a destructive manner,
our karmic lessons here are finished. Living life in a physical body
here on earth is such an opportunity for growth that souls are literally
clamoring for the privilege. This is witnessed by the great increase
in the world population over the centuries. It makes some wonder where
did all these “new” souls come from. When asked this, I try
to explain that our earth is not unlike a little anthill on a vacant
lot that is surrounded by countless realms of souls (ants) teaming with
activity. The influx of additional souls is just a trickle compared
to the vastness of what we can’t see or understand while trapped
in these human bodies.
Over the years, I’ve grown to understand the ways of karma and
the soul by continuing my own personal spiritual explorations. Whenever
you experience pain or trauma at the moment of death, or any other time
in your life, you go into a relative degree of trance. If it’s
trauma in the physical body, your attention narrows and fixates on the
pain. This fixation of attention causes a trance-like state, which protects
your conscious self from overloading. This is why extreme pain or loss
can cause you to lose consciousness by passing out. The soul literally
passes out of the body as the conscious mind shuts down to prevent a
meltdown of the nervous system.
Even though you’ve consciously shut down to a trance-like state,
your unconscious self continues to record all that is happening to and
around you with full sensory input of sight, sound, taste, smell, and
sensation fully uncensored. Even a light trance, which occurs with minor
pain or loss, opens the psyche to uncensored emotional imprints. These
imprints take the form of whatever you think or say or what is said
to you during pain or loss.
When you regain full consciousness or feel relief, traumatic imprints
in the psyche remain with you, locked into the subconscious. The unconscious
mind doesn’t consider the context of these imprints, but stores
them literally with all their raw sensory and emotional input.
As an example, if a woman is sexually assaulted and her attacker tells
her she deserves, wants, or has invited the attack, she may have self-doubt
and conflict about the experience afterward. Raw emotion mixed with
pain shuts down her conscious mind and suggestions pour unfiltered into
her subconscious.
If during the assault, the raped woman thought she was being soiled
for life and will be undesirable as a mate, her unconscious mind accepts
this conclusion literally. The woman’s thoughts or the words of
her attacker while going through the trauma will later act as post-hypnotic
suggestions in her future sexual encounters. Panic and fear cause what
she thinks during the rape to directly imprint on her unconscious. This
unconscious effect continues even if the woman, after the trauma, reasons
that she’s still desirable. On the surface, this effect seems irrational.
In fatal past-life trauma, full consciousness isn’t regained until
after the moment of death, when the soul is freed from the painful experience.
For this reason the trauma carries over to be dealt with in our next
life in a physical body.
Because of this, I found the most effective way to resolve trauma whether
in this life, or a past-life, is to review the experience in full consciousness.
Otherwise we find ourselves attempting to use a trance state to resolve
a trance state. This is not only less effective; it can also result
in unintended contamination by the therapist’s use of suggestion
during a trance.
In this book, I’ve included case experiences that make this understanding
abundantly clear. The dharma—the way we live our lives now—is
shaped by past-lifetimes where many of our Karmic Relationships began.
The influences during your birth and even the period before birth (prenatal),
while still in the womb, can also have a great impact on your personality
and karmic destiny. Some of these influences work to your advantage
and others to your disadvantage. If your parents had a difficult marriage,
full of conflict and emotional upheavals, this gets recorded by the
fetus through the mother’s sensory nervous system. As we mature
these prenatal episodes act like preinstalled software in a computer.
They unconsciously condition our feelings, reactions and thoughts, and
require constant effort to override them even if we somehow become aware
of their influence.
The potential advantage to this pre-programming during the prenatal
period is obvious if this was a time of comfort, love, and joy for our
parents. Additionally if your parents had special skills and talents
that were creative/artistic, athletic, scientific, etc., that engaged
them during the pregnancy, these also leave an imprint that can work
to your advantage as you mature. The most important factor, no matter
what your parents went through during this period, is how they handled
it and their love for the developing fetus. If they met challenges without
denial or repression and faced them successfully, this pattern or Gestalt
is also transferred in the womb and carries forward for you into adulthood.
For the most part, we are all born with some handicaps of negative conditioning.
This is also a form of karma, which is sometimes referred to as one’s
fate.
Yes, There is Good Karma
Many people don’t realize that karma is not all bad. Much of our
karma is also good and desirable, but we most often notice the undesirable
or painful events as karma. Any good fortune and success certainly requires
hard work to bear fruit but it also requires “good” karma.
Sometimes we say the stars are in our favor, or not. Any top Olympic
athlete knows that on any given day they may be the absolute best in
the world, or just one of the few top performers. When all is said and
done the winner is not merely the hardest working, best trained, or
most talented, but the one among the best who just happens to be in
or get in the “zone” that day when it counts most. Your ability
to get in the zone at the crucial time is determined by the graces of
your good karma. Some of us might just call this good luck or bad luck,
but understanding karma, you realize there is no such thing as luck.
How often do you take the time to be thankful for the good that comes
to you? This is karma too, and those incidents and days when lady luck
seems to be smiling down upon us are also the result of our self-created
karmic conditions. To recognize and acknowledge them is an expression
of unconditional love. Such recognition reinforces the good that comes
to us.
I’ve learned, and it must always be remembered, that desirable
karma results from the good that you do even in small ways. You move
beyond karma when you do the right thing without concern for the karma
it may bring. Actions such as these are the result of that very familiar
four-letter word called love. Unconditional love will liberate us from
“negative” karma.
Actually, karma itself, is impersonal and beyond good and bad. These
are human labels and judgments. Karma is just the energetic expression
of cause and effect that governs the actions of all life. We label it
good or bad depending on whether it makes us happy or sad, or brings
us pleasure or pain. It’s all a matter of interpretation, and even
painful karma has its value in the refinement of soul. Karma simply
means that what you do, or did, comes back to you in full and in kind.
For the caterpillar trapped in the cocoon, the struggle to emerge is
no doubt painful. If that caterpillar could speak it might say that
this is a miserable circumstance, being stuck in this cocoon. It’s
a very bad karma. But once it escapes the restriction of the cocoon
and is transformed into a beautiful butterfly the pain and struggle
is quickly forgotten. It faces a new life as it wings its way to freedom
into a bright new world drawn naturally to the beauty of nature.
Between-Lives
As part of taking this “karmic journey” with you, I’ve
also included the period between-lives. In some ways, this is the most
profound part of my work. The reason for this is that between lifetimes
the soul has a much greater awareness of itself as a spiritual Being
beyond the limitations of a physical body. Here, soul is home and feels
at home. Upon first entering this realm, one client of mine burst into
tears of joy and proclaimed that she was finally home again. This is
where you meet with loved ones, your Soul Group, review past-lives,
see the source and nature of Karmic Relationships, receive specialized
training or learn higher spiritual truths. Then comes the task of selecting
your next lifetime and preparing for your sojourn into another physical
body. This choice is based on numerous karmic factors spanning many
previous lifetimes, Karmic Relationships, expressions of love and interest.
Let’s use a car once again as a metaphor. If you’ve ever shopped
for a new car, and most of us have, you may have some idea of what it’s
like to choose a new incarnation. The brand and dealership would be
like the family and parents you choose. The make and model of car could
reflect your appearance, health and physical integrity at birth. It
could also include your primary activity in that lifetime requiring
beauty, power, intelligence, mere dependability or a combination. The
standard features are based on your previous karmic qualifications from
past-lives and might reflect intelligence, race, gender, country of
birth, handicaps, special skill and abilities. Extra options might reflect
the accumulated good karma from previous lifetimes you are willing to
spend on things, such as better health, advanced education, better cognition,
special skills, or loving parents, etc. The time of your new incarnation
would be tied to many factors involving the availability of the things
you want and the other souls you wish to incarnate within the coming
lifetime.
Once all these parameters have been determined, there will be certain
physical incarnations that will meet most or all of what you are looking
for. Among these options, you must choose one. Most likely your choice
will involve some compromise, as all on your list may not be available
exactly when and where you want to be reincarnated. You will have wise
and familiar guides and advisors to assist you in this process of selection.
Your effectiveness in your new lifetime can then be greatly enhanced
in the between-life state by spending time studying and preparing for
how to make best use of the time while in your new incarnation. I’d
call this rehearsing your ideal dharma. Like buying a new car, some
souls just accept the options readily available to them and just choose
one. Others plan, study, research, consult and negotiate their options
within predefined limits. This example is at best an approximation of
how the process unfolds on the other side.
This is a spiritually rich period full of freedom and possibilities
for many souls. Even for souls who’ve hurt and abused others, it’s
a chance to prepare for another round with the opportunity to atone
for past mistakes or poor choices.
The Evolution of Soul Journeys Therapy
Years ago, I had little choice but to eventually take my therapeutic
work in this direction because the results spoke for themselves. With
a love of people, psychology, and personal growth, my search has been
to find the most effective way to help those who come to me to resolve
their life challenges and relationship conflicts. Traditional theories
of psychology and methods of therapy all had value for me, and I have
studied and used many of them along the way.
In the beginning of my practice my personal preference was for the Jungian
model. I valued the richness of insight and understanding this form
of therapy gave me in working with my clients. However, the symbolic
metaphors and interpretations still felt one step removed from the reality
of what people on the street had to face in their every day lives. Furthermore,
it often took months or years to get any noticeable results. From my
earlier studies of metaphysics and personal Soul Journeys, I knew that
we all had lived many lives. It seemed only logical that to get any
lasting therapeutic results, I would need to go beyond the tip of the
iceberg in this lifetime, and address and resolve problems at their
source in past-lives.
The Soul Journeys process was designed to provide a glimpse in full
consciousness of the bigger picture of why we are here and how we can
more easily navigate the dharma (higher purpose) of our life and relationships.
It’s important to note that hypnosis was not to become a part of
Soul Journeys therapy. The person had to do this process in full consciousness.
While developing the fundamentals of Soul Journeys therapy, I’d
often only use more traditional methods with many of my clients. In
so doing, I’d spend months or years trying to resolve certain issues
with mixed results. With other clients, I’d use Soul Journeys therapy
and more consistently get complete resolution in just a few sessions.
It was obvious that within this form of therapy was a truth that any
in search of deep therapeutic change would eventually have to take seriously.
It even worked for those who didn’t necessarily believe in past-lives,
but were willing to try it for results.
The unique therapeutic feature of Soul Journeys therapy is that once
a core or key past-life relating to a karmic pattern has been reexperienced
and discharged, symptoms disappear and behavior changes almost instantaneously.
This occurs without the usual interpretation and processing of traditional
therapy. Clients experience a paradigm shift that may challenge belief
unless you’ve seen or experienced it. It happens so quickly and
naturally that even my own clients forget to notice at times. Often
people who hear this have difficulty understanding how or why it works
in this manner, and so they have doubt. When I recount stories of client
experiences, they wonder what else happened. They ask, “Was that
it? After the session or sessions with you they were suddenly different?”
It can be challenging to explain how such paradigm shifts occur without
delay after sessions. It may take a few days or weeks for the client
to fully recognize the extent of the changes within themselves, but
it’s not magical. We simply uncover and resolve the key past-lives
that cause problems in their present-life.
I believe the reason for this rapid shift is that suddenly nonessential
karmic residue has been removed much like getting rid of unwanted baggage
you’ve been carrying around your whole life. You don’t really
notice unless it gives you problems. It’s very much like finding
a corrupt file or files on your computer and deleting them. Once the
problem files or programs are located and deleted, the work is done
and you just reboot the computer. The reboot phase is equivalent to
getting a good night’s sleep, which I always suggest to my clients
after resolving traumatic past-lives. When your burdens are gone, suddenly
you experience a freedom of mobility and expression that you accept
as only natural. Nothing is added, but the burdens you had carried are
suddenly lifted.
Often I have to slow the course of change and transformation with sessions
focused exclusively toward more traditional processing and discussion.
This is to allow clients time to adjust to being suddenly free of previous
burdens and to understand the implications of this new freedom.
I hope by giving some initial definition and explanation to some of
the terms we will be using throughout the book, you feel a bit more
prepared to embark on this journey with me. In the following chapters
of this section, we will move toward a deeper understanding about what
Karmic Relationships are, and the dynamics that rule them.
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Charles
Lewis Richards, Ph.D. is
a psychotherapist in private practice in San Diego, California.
He specializes in Soul Journey therapy, a process he's developed which
allows people to recall and heal the invisible emotional wounds of past-life,
pre-birth, birthing and between-life traumas that are affecting their
current relationships. Since 1980, Dr. Richards has used his therapy
with over one thousand patients, many whom have come from around the
world to work with him.