“Have You Moved Forward or Backwards?”

“Have You Moved Forward or Backwards?”

by Kelvin Chin
Life After Life Expert

Let’s talk about past life memories.

What’s the value of having them? My experience remembering some two dozen of my past lives reaching back 6,000 years is that they have taught me several things.

To use them as learning tools to get greater insight and clarity into myself, my personality traits, my likes and dislikes, my tendencies. And most importantly, where I might benefit from changing some of those tendencies. And yes, that may mean changing some of my old, ancient beliefs that no longer serve me in my present day life. By inference, they have also taught me to live in the present. Not to dwell in the past.

To move forward. Not backwards. Not to stagnate in the experiences of the past.

I think many people who begin to resurface past life memories wrestle with this. For many the initial recovering of their memories is so mind blowing, so “oh wow, gee whiz” (as a friend of mine calls it) that they get overwhelmed, and yes enamored, by the mere fact that they are having reincarnation experiences.

That’s a risky place to be.

I’ve observed this in some of my clients who have begun to resurface their ancient memories. They have gotten so swept up by the feelings they recall, especially if they are enjoyable, powerful feelings that raise their self esteem or remind them of profound relationships they may have had, that they forget ‘that was then and this is now.’ That we are living now, in the continual present. Today is the 21st century. Not 500, 1,000 or 2,000 years ago when those old experiences may have elicited those powerful emotions.

So I’ve seen some people get stuck. Get stuck in their past. By not realizing that they are simply in “repeat mode” playing the same behavior over and over. Making the same mistakes repeatedly. Grasping onto the same beliefs that give rise to the same behavior, and yes, perhaps the same problems they encountered centuries ago in their lives today.

So my message is to watch out for that if you start resurfacing your past life memories. Remember that they are memories. That lifetime has already happened. Sure, we can learn from our healthy and unhealthy choices from that life. But we need to remember and understand that those choices can be changed. And if the old patterns of behavior no longer serve us now, then we would be better off jettisoning them and moving forward.

Instead of getting stuck in our own past.

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Kelvin H. Chin is a Meditation Teacher, Life After Life Expert, and Author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death,” “Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations On Living Life” and “After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives.” He learned to meditate at age 19, and has been teaching Turning Within Meditation and coaching others in their self-growth for 50 years. He helps people understand their life challenges through their individual belief systems, and helps them find their own solutions. His past life memories reach back many centuries, and he accesses those memories in his teaching and his coaching in the same way all coaches draw on their own available experiences for perspective and effective analogies. He can be reached at www.TurningWithin.org.

“Why is Social Status Popular?”

“Why is Social Status Popular?” 

by Kelvin Chin

Simply put — I think people like to be able to think of themselves as “better than others.” What I discuss in some of my essays as the “Importance of Being Important.”

Where does that apparent need to be seen in that way come from? Insecurity. The more insecure the person is, the more strongly they lean on making themselves appear more important to their external world. Conversely, the more self aware the person is, the more they will lean inward and seek strength from within. And consequently will become more inwardly secure and less dependent upon external societal metrics of success and social importance.

And why do so many humans seem to have such a strong need to be seen in this “way of importance?”

I think at its root is our fear of survival. And for most people that fear still runs very deep.

Think about it.

The population of humans on Earth 🌎 today is about 8 billion. In 1900, only 125 years ago, it was 1.6 billion. So in just the past 125 years the population of people on Earth has grown by five times! And remember that the Earth is about 4 billion years old and there have been humans on the planet for millions of years, mostly increasing at a very slow rate. Until the past 125 years.

Where did all these new humans come from? I think from the animal kingdom. My guess would be especially the ones who have spent the most time observing humans and then eventually desiring to be one in their next lifetime — dogs, cats, horses, squirrels, deer for example.

And what type of behavior did most of those animals share when they lived in the wild? A need to survive. To forage for food, collect more food, eat more food, worry about where their next meal will come from. To collect evermore nuts 🌰 because there’s never enough.

I think that fear still runs deep in most humans. The fear of “not enough” — to survive.

In addition, what mental state is most conducive to self reflection and self development? A relaxed state. Right?

And are you in that relaxed state when you’re in the survival mode? Obviously not. Instead, you’re in the Fight or Flight mode. Hyper vigilance. On guard.

Looking back much longer than 125 years, let’s say for a million years, what state of mind would you say best characterizes the state of mind of humanity? Relaxed and self reflective? Or hyper-vigilant?

I think it’s only been in the past few hundred years where the masses of humanity have had even extended moments of “leisure” and relaxed “me time.”

Why do I point this out?

To give us a perspective on who we are and where we are today in our world 🌎. So that we can better appreciate what we have and make better choices about where we want to go with our lives.

Ask yourself:
Given that we as a planet 🌎 of human beings now have the ability to feed everyone and house and clothe everyone, and now that more than ever before millions of people have leisure time to relax and self reflect, does it make sense for us to continue to ignore our fellow humans and continue to follow the survival principle of Importance of Being Important? To hoard and to exclude? To waste and throw away food, clothing and shelter because we want to maintain the same “haves and have nots” status quo?

Does that approach actually make us happier, both individually and collectively?

Food for thought.

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Kelvin H. Chin is a Meditation Teacher, Life After Life Expert, and Author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death,” “Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations On Living Life” and “After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives.” He learned to meditate at age 19, and has been teaching Turning Within Meditation and coaching others in their self-growth for 50 years. He helps people understand their life challenges through their individual belief systems, and helps them find their own solutions. His past life memories reach back many centuries, and he accesses those memories in his teaching and his coaching in the same way all coaches draw on their own available experiences for perspective and effective analogies. He can be reached at www.TurningWithin.org.

“If there is no Hell, then are there consequences to one’s actions?”

“If there is no Hell, then are there consequences to one’s actions?” 

by Kelvin Chin

Absolutely, yes.

All actions have consequences. But not in the mystical way that many religious and spiritual traditions would like us to believe.

Most of those traditions hold to the belief that either an entity (God or a panel of gods) somehow like Santa Claus is keeping track of who is “naughty and nice.” I think not. What a waste of any mind who might choose to take on that role in the universe. Certainly not a mind I would choose to worship, never mind even respect. A sure sign of a petty mind, in my opinion. A mind that does not believe in the Free Will of each soul.

Or sometimes, the so called non-church or temple-going “spiritual but not religious” seekers might substitute the word “karma” as an inanimate energy force “accounting system,” instead of the entity concept. But it’s the same thing — it’s still the Santa Claus cult belief cloaked in Vedic mythology.

Shankara who was Vyasa in a previous incarnation about 10,000 years ago tells us that he and others created the notion of karma (a Sanskrit word that simply means “action”) as “consequences for one’s actions” to encourage kinder behavior among humanity on Earth. They did not foresee how future generations would eventually distort the concept into today’s mess where people would actually use it as a way to avoid responsibility — where mountains of “bad” karma would cause suffering by allegedly taking millions of lifetimes to undo, or where people would use “it’s your bad karma” as a justification for why they hurt you!

Consequences are real. And they do exist for everything we do. They exist in the minds of all those we have helped…and hurt. And no one ever forgets. No one forgets our kindness nor our cruelty. And therefore, someone somewhere can always remember our past acts and can if they choose to, can deliver us a message — one way or another, accordingly. For eternity.

So I suggest that it’s in each of our best interests to choose to act more wisely. More kindly. More lovingly, meaning with acceptance in others of that which we may not espouse ourselves. Because the alternative is to create a world in which we’re always looking over our shoulders to see who might be delivering not a loving message to us, but the alternative. At some unknown, unspecified moment — for eternity.

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Kelvin H. Chin is a Meditation Teacher, Life After Life Expert, and Author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death,” “Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations On Living Life” and “After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives.” He learned to meditate at age 19, and has been teaching Turning Within Meditation and coaching others in their self-growth for 50 years. He helps people understand their life challenges through their individual belief systems, and helps them find their own solutions. His past life memories reach back many centuries, and he accesses those memories in his teaching and his coaching in the same way all coaches draw on their own available experiences for perspective and effective analogies. He can be reached at www.TurningWithin.org.

“Does Heaven Exist?”

“Does Heaven Exist?” 

by Kelvin Chin

It depends what you mean by “Heaven.”

If you mean, do you get rewarded by being a “sin-free” person and allowed to “enter the pearly gates” to a place that some religious traditions call “heaven”? My answer without hesitation is absolutely not. No such place exists. Except in the minds of some religious leaders (on this side and the Other Side) who want to scare people and therefore control their behavior through their personal or institutionalized beliefs about what their definition of “sin” is.

And so, after you biologically die, might you get fooled into thinking along those lines by such people or angelic beings? Yes. And might you then believe you either are or are not in heaven, depending on which side of the fence you think your behavior is on — sin or sin-free? Yes. But it’s a belief concocted by your own mind. It’s not a structural place depending on your behavior.

On the other hand…

If you mean does a place exist where anyone and everyone who dies biologically goes because every soul continues as a unique individual energy form, then yes. That place that I simply call “the Afterlife” exists. For everyone. I often avoid using the “Heaven” label because so many religions see it as a place of reward and not merely the energetic place where all beings exist in spirit form.

So when I hear people say, “I don’t believe in heaven or hell,” I can tell they’re rejecting the rewards and punishment notion. But they may not be rejecting the principle that the soul continues after biological death.

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Kelvin H. Chin is a Meditation Teacher, Life After Life Expert, and Author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death,” “Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations On Living Life” and “After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives.” He learned to meditate at age 19, and has been teaching Turning Within Meditation and coaching others in their self-growth for 50 years. He helps people understand their life challenges through their individual belief systems, and helps them find their own solutions. His past life memories reach back many centuries, and he accesses those memories in his teaching and his coaching in the same way all coaches draw on their own available experiences for perspective and effective analogies. He can be reached at www.TurningWithin.org.

“Jesus was not a Christian”

“Jesus was not a Christian”

by Kelvin Chin

Jesus was not a Christian. And he did not refer to himself as “Christ.”

Do you know what “Christ” means? “Christos” is Greek for “anointed one.” It’s the Greek translation of the Hebrew word for “Messiah.”

Who started calling him that? Paul did. Paul of Tarsus, the Greek speaking guy who was persecuting (killing) Jesus’s teachers after Jesus was murdered. Paul, who never met Jesus, who never heard him speak, who knew none of Jesus’s teachings. That guy.

Paul, the guy who made up the myth, the very effective “marketing myth,” that Jesus died on the cross to save all so-called believers from their sins and that they would then avoid punishment and skip to the head of the line to enter the pearly gates of heaven. That guy, Paul.

So, who is the more credible source of Jesus’s teachings? People who sat with Jesus, who walked, ate and studied with him, who were with him the day he died and saw him after his resurrection? Or Paul, who was killing Jesus’s teachers for 3-1/2 years after Jesus was murdered?

If any of this surprises you, then you need to read some of the basic history of that time period that religious scholars have agreed on for many decades. Paul started the religion known as Christianity. That religion has little relevance to the life and teachings of Jesus.

Jesus did not view himself as a savior of humanity. Or as the chosen or anointed one. He saw himself as a teacher, a spiritual teacher. He did not come to start a new religion nor to be a political rabble rouser for the Jews versus the Romans.

See my third book “After the Afterlife” for my memories of what his core teachings were.

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Kelvin H. Chin is a Meditation Teacher, Life After Life Expert, and Author of “Overcoming the Fear of Death,” “Marcus Aurelius Updated: 21st Century Meditations On Living Life” and “After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives.” He learned to meditate at age 19, and has been teaching Turning Within Meditation and coaching others in their self-growth for 50 years. He helps people understand their life challenges through their individual belief systems, and helps them find their own solutions. His past life memories reach back many centuries, and he accesses those memories in his teaching and his coaching in the same way all coaches draw on their own available experiences for perspective and effective analogies. He can be reached at www.TurningWithin.org.