This was a very interesting interview with a very
knowledgeable therapist, by the name of Julia Assante, regarding past lives,
death, communicating with the departed, and what I’ll call the institutionality of the fear of death. I think I will find her book most interesting as well.
Julia says some things regarding karma and past and present
lives that made me think about it differently. I do believe there is such a
thing as karma, certainly within each lifetime—you get back what you put out.
However, I have read the works of those who have done past life regression
therapy, and a number of these people have expressed the clearing of fears,
guilt, anger, and discord among relations as well as within a given individual.
So there is something to be said for the idea that Assante imparts that we aren’t
necessarily stuck with karma from a previous lifetime. But in order for me to
get my mind around the idea of karma not being an issue for those who have
committed heinous crimes and deeds against others, I had to think about that in
an almost spiritual context –not religious!—and see that yes, if in a present
lifetime one could truly see the wrong of their deeds, that this would indicate
not only Jefferson’s idea that we are imbued with a sense of right and wrong,
but that indeed we were not merely another embodiment of a sociopathic
personality. I’m inclined to think this might take more than one therapy
session and maybe more than that. But this was key to my trying to understand
this perspective. The idea of karma is for instructive, not retributive,
reasons.
Ok, another point that Julia brings up is the idea that we would give up wars and the desire to compete if we lost our fear of death. Robert, the host of the show, questioned Julia on this. I was not convinced by her answers. I believe the Templars, the holy jihads, the various soldiers who gave their life on the battlefield, knowing this could be the case, may or may not have been afraid of death. Hemingway actually had an out of body experience on a battlefield. I do not see the fear of death as the end of wars so much as the understanding of the stupidity of them, and like many things this requires an understanding of the light, of the larger self, and of an awareness of all souls being interconnected, if not mere reason.
I don’t have a fear of death so much as a concern of how it comes about, but I wouldn’t readily engage in a war for the sake of some nebulous thing like it means the defense of your honor for yourself and country or the defense of your country and brethren. This comes down to reason at this point, and many will not fathom the lies their country feeds them or dismiss the platitudes of indulgence with false bravado of how they are defending/helping anything but war coffers and madmen. However, the loss of the fear of death, seems also to come about as a form of reason as well. i.e., many people are changed by a death experience in which they return to tell about this experience and also change their views of life, but there is still some sense of reason, albeit from a grander perspective. But while the fear of what happens after life may change one’s view of how to conduct themselves in their life, those with a lesser understanding of life may still reason that they will have a better afterlife if they engage in a battle of honor. Ergo, while I find Dr. Assante a most interesting thinker and undoubtedly capable therapist, I don’t see this conclusion she comes to regarding death and our elimination of some longstanding practices on planet Earth.
In the movie Billy Jack, Tom Laughlin is on the stand and talking about how everyone is in denial, and this is a denial of death, because they are so afraid to face it, and Eric Fromm wrote a book on that topic years ago as well. So, there is perhaps a denial in order to get on with our daily affairs as well as one because of fear of how it might happen as well as, for some, what will happen afterward. But I don’t see wars or competition disappearing because of a loss of fear of it.
This is a tantalizing and almost intuitive topic, yet I see there being too many other factors—pain, trauma, humility—and these point to social structures that need to change, as she pointed out in the interview. These structures indeed feed on fear—loss of credit, loss of stature, homelessness, etc.—but one may indeed almost welcome death when these things become overwhelming. So, there are other things in the mix here, but the issue of losing a fear of death, from a constructive standpoint, points to the issue of an understanding of light, of soulful evolution, and of service to others. These are the things which can change a society. These are the things that along with remembering past incarnations, remembering dreams, and understanding/honoring our creative drives that a future society will embody as well as its loss of death, something the Irish used to, if they don’t anymore, celebrate.
In spite of the difference of opinion on this issue, I found the interview fascinating, and expect that Dr. Assante's book will likely be so as well for me.
*Source: Robert Moss Radio Show
