QA169 QUESTION: There are some astrologers who in relation to the horoscope make references to karma and reincarnation and previous lives. This sort of thing makes me furious – mostly because I don’t understand what they’re talking about – but also because I’m very suspicious of it. I think it’s nonsense. I don’t even know what the value of it would be. Can you make some comment on this?

ANSWER: Yes. I will say this. Karma and reincarnation are facts of life, but nevertheless, you are right when you say the way this is often used by astrologers as well as by psychics or mediums or whatever, is useless and serves, at best, to confuse people and make them escape the problem that they can handle.

For as long as something remains an intellectual theory, it is useless. It would be much better to say, as you do – and I could not agree with you more – “This is a problem as I see it.” And you have in your power your own capacities to grow and unfold and look into yourself to overcome this problem, while in the theory of karma and reincarnation is implied that you have to accept an unchangeable fate.

People, although they pay lip service to this “yes, indeed, you can change it,” they nevertheless emotionally use this as the period they set. “This is my karma; this is where I have to remain.” And that is very wrong and very regrettable.

However, I will say this. When a person goes deeply enough into his own eternal real self, because he begins to overcome his problems and he has established some kind of a channel, he will occasionally – if this makes sense for the specific path of a person – have an inner experience of such a previous existence.

And that experience will not be a theory but a very deep inner reality. If it is deep and true, he will not even talk about it. He will share it with very few people, only those who are perhaps similarly open – but certainly not lightly.

For when one comes to such an inner experience, it is true and one knows it is true. But it is not conveyable in words, as all real life experiences are not conveyable in words. When such an experience unfolds itself spontaneously, it fulfills a deep purpose.

But all true spiritual experiences, they must not be sought deliberately. Anyone who goes to a psychic and hears, “Yes, you have lived here and here and that and that was the case,” is seeking it lightly and cheaply and seeking it deliberately, and in that way, it is a complete misunderstanding and it is missing the boat altogether.

Such a thing comes unbidden – if it comes at all. For most human beings, it may never come – and it does not have to come because for them this is not necessary. They go their path, they unfold without such a knowledge. But if and when such a knowledge unfolds itself, it has a deep significance and brings about a very deep change in a personality.

Such a knowledge at a certain point becomes necessary and then it must come from within. Or even if it is given on, it has an inner echo. And that is the only way it makes sense – not looking for it, not making a point of it. Take it for granted that it exists, and it will come if and when this should be, in the person’s life, an organic experience.

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